By Roshni Ray editor
In response to recent antisemitic rhetoric in pop culture such as commentary from rapper Kanye West, now known as “Ye,” Brandeis students responded in an interview with CBS Local News Boston. e interviewees were Meshulum Ungar ’24, Maya Stiefel ’24, Michael Schwartz ’23 and Oona Wood ’23.
See HATE SPEECH , page 3
is past weekend, Brandeis Department of eater Arts began their production of “Spring Awakening” with shows on Friday Nov. 11 at 8 p.m., Saturday Nov. 12 at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. and Sunday Nov. 13 at 2 p.m. “Spring Awakening” is a musical set in late 19th century Germany written by Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik and based on the original 1891 play by Frank Wedekind. e play tackles the timeless topics of sexuality, shame,
PHOTO BY CBS NEWS
See THEATER, page 3
On Sunday, Nov. 6 at the weekly Senate meeting, the Student Union heard the proceedings for a motion to impeach Senator Zachary
Moskovits ’26. e articles of impeachment were put forward by Nicholas Kanan ’23, a er an incident that occurred with three students and Moskovits on Oct. 26.
Kanan highlighted four violations of the Student
Union Code of Conduct in subsections of Article XI, Section 1 of the Student Union Bylaws, during the opening argument. According to Kanan, the allegations made of Moskovits questioned “the
integrity of the student union.”
On the night of Oct. 26, Moskovits and Ryan Gaughan—who had been running for a position in the special elections—were reported to have approached the three complainants re-
garding voting in the Student Union election near the benches outside the upper entrance of Sherman Dining Hall. e complainants described Moskovits as “pushy
See IMPEACHMENT, page 4
ByThomas Pickering and editors
On June 24, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a historic landmark case that made abortion a protected right. Overturning this case means that it is up to the states to decide if people have the right to a safe abortion. e discrepancies between states and their protected rights has made abortion a hot-button topic across the nation.
On Nov. 16, the Brandeis
Journalism Program hosted “Abortion: Past, Present, and Future,” an event that explored the topic and how journalists approach it. e event featured Joshua Prager, author of “ e Family Roe,” an informational book on the history of the Roe behind Roe v. Wade, and Margaret Talbot, longtime sta writer for e New Yorker who has written many articles on this very topic, including a recent pro le of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.
Prior to the event, e Brandeis Hoot had the opportunity to meet with both Prager and Talbot to ask them about the importance of journalism, particularly when it comes to writing about divisive topics. Prager and Talbot began the interview by describing what got them into journalism and their interests speci cally. Talbot began by talking about how she rst got involved in campus journalism at the University of California Berkeley’s e
Daily Californian, and in 2003 became a sta writer at e New Yorker where she began her career as a longform narrative journalist. Prager mentioned that his introduction to journalism began with his desire to expose Columbia University’s lack of accessibility. But as Prager developed through his professional career his rst job which showed him his interest was a story he wrote about “Margaret Wise Brown, who had bequeathed the royalties from her book
to a little boy who lived next door.” No one had known about the location and identity of the little boy since the publishing of “Good Night Moon” and Prager’s discovery of the little boy proved that he was interested in “writing about historical secrets … that were connected to big historical things.”
Prager and Talbot then re ected on how public opinion and political interests impact journalism. Prager began by saying “I’m not sure how the change in
Brandeis University Mock Trial Association (BUMTA)— the o cial student-run mock trial organization of the university— hosted the 17th annual Justice Louis D. Brandeis Tournament on Nov. 12-13. e tournament featured 12 teams, from 10 colleges and universities across the east coast and Tennessee.
“ is was our rst time hosting an in-person tournament on the Brandeis campus since 2019. is posed a variety of challenges, as only the few people who have been in the club for four years, have BUMTA run an in-person tournament,” wrote Zachary Miller ’25 and Zachary Mayer ’25— tournament directors— to the Brandeis Hoot.
e tournament began on Saturday, Nov. 12 at 9:00 a.m. with the opening ceremonies. Follow-
ing the opening ceremonies was the start of Round 1 with captains’ meetings at 10:30 a.m. in Golding 101. e rst round of trials followed from 11:00 a.m. to 2 p.m.
ere was a brief intermission before the tournament moved on to Round 2 which started at 3:30 p.m. with another captain’s meeting. e second round of the tournament ran from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. is marked the end of the rst day of the tournament with teams returning the next day to continue with two more rounds.
On Sunday, Nov. 13, the rst captains’ meeting of the day for Round 3 of the tournament began at 9:30 a.m. e trials were then held from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Another short break was taken before resuming the tournament with the fourth and nal round. e captain’s meeting for round 4 started at 2:30 p.m., with the trial following from 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.
“Overall, we think it was a suc-
cessful tournament for everyone involved. We ended up with schools from all over the country, with schools coming from as far away as Pennsylvania and Tennessee, or as close as Wellesley,” wrote Miller and Mayer.
Groups were chosen for the event by Miller, the pair explained to e Hoot. A lot of universities apply for admission but they have to limit the amount of schools admitted. “We were fortunate enough to have been in charge of the longest-running annual tournament in Massachusetts that weekend as the Justice Louis D. Brandeis Invitational celebrated its 17th year this weekend,” wrote Miller and Mayor.
“ e process of determining which schools would attend required constantly ensuring that we had an even number of teams competing, and we began putting in requests for the rooms we wanted to use as courtrooms, the Judge’s Lobby, Captains
Meetings Room, and the Tabulation Room around the same time,” wrote Miller and Mayer. e tournament followed the protocol of the American Mock Trial Association (AMTA) rulebook. For each trial, each side had 25 minutes for Directs, 25 minutes for Crosses and 14 minutes total for their Opening and Closing Statements which could be divided as the team sees t. All-Loss was set at 3 hours, also according to the AMTA protocol. Before each round began, the BUMTA broadcasted All-Loss times in each courtroom, as well as in the Captains GroupMe. Each team was allowed to determine how they would like to communicate the time remaining in the round itself.
Following the nal trial, the BUMTA hosted a closing ceremony, to announce individual and team winners of the tournament. Among the universities in attendance include: Alvernia Universi-
ty, Boston University, Colby College, College of the Holy Cross, Lasell University, Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU), Northeastern University, Stonehill College and Wellesley College.
“Mock Trial is all inclusive! Everyone is welcome to join, including those who have never competed before or have no interest in becoming a lawyer. Spring semester is a little di erent because teams are largely based on fall semester performance, but that does not mean you cannot join,” wrote Miller and Mayor.
Looking ahead the club has more events planned for the Spring semester. “ e club is looking to put on a variety of events in the spring, ranging from public speaking workshops to “mock mocks”. All are welcome to attend, even if they have no interest in joining the actual club.” e tournament was not held in 2020 due to COVID-19 restrictions .
On Nov. 7, the Brandeis Le ist Union (BLU) held an event with the purpose of “looking back to look forward” on the early days and the future of the socialist revolution, according to iers for the event. According to a post on the BLU’s Instagram, the event was held “to educate community members on the history of the Russian Revolution and connect that history to local organizing e orts going on today.”
e Brandeis Le ist Union was joined by Mass Struggle, Warm Up Boston, Food Not Bombs Waltham, Allston Brighton Tenants United, Brandeis Grad Students Union, local Starbucks Workers United organizers and e Party for Reclamation and Survival. Attendees were taught the history of the October Revolution, and guest speakers spoke about the in uence and relationship that the revolution has on modern day
organizations and movements.
To provide historical background, a presentation was given by members of the BLU. e presentation explained the historical context that led to the October Revolution, noting the political structure of early 20th century Russia, discussing its “mixed and uneven development,” “semi-feudal class structure” and “autocratic monarchy.”
e presentation touched on the formation of the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, the “190 Dress Rehearsal,” World War I, the February Revolution and the April eses before moving to the October Revolution. A er attendees had learned the history of the October Revolution, guest speakers took to the stage. ey spoke about their organizations and key takeaways from the October Revolution.
M, from Warm Up Boston, spoke on the importance of community in politics, the need for a society that is free of class and exploitation, how we as a community should connect with others as equals and respect
every individual’s right of self.
Lauren and Miranda, representatives for the Brandeis Grad Students Union, spoke about the way that graduate students are “trained and treated not to be there for each other,” and proved the power of community by being the rst to organize a child care subsidy successfully.
Aoife introduced the Party for Reclamation and Survival and highlighted how the Russian Communist Party knew the importance of criticism of government policies. She also spoke on the need for uni ed support for policies that are settled on, and how said support is necessary to hold things together.
Chris Gamble, a representative of Food Not Bombs Waltham, spoke about the organization’s origins, which consisted of giving out soup across from a weapons center in Cambridge. Food Not Bombs then expanded into handing out vegan meals and radical literature. Gamble spoke on the need for general strikes, which he mentioned have been
considered since the 1800s.
Representing Allston Brighton Tenants United, Bert spoke on the need for protection for housing tenants, the way that class ultimately plays into housing (and how a class war is being fought in the housing industry) and how housing issues that Americans face now re ect on those of early 20th century Russia. e issues that arose in Russia were solved by government programs which placed people into the palaces previously owned by the rich, Bert added.
One member of the BLU mentioned that the group’s focus is inspired by the Bolsheviks and the achievements and struggles of global le ists, particularly the Black Panther Party. e BLU’s goals, according to one of their members, are to provide labor solidarity, food distribution and protest training while facilitating communication between on-campus and o -campus groups with similar goals.
Roslyn, speaking on behalf of Brandeis’ local Starbucks Work-
ers United, said that her group’s biggest demand has been higher pay, as low pay leads to a higher turnover rate. She added that her group’s relationship to the October Revolution comes through organizing the shop, as it serves as practice on a smaller scale format. Sabine, a speaker from Mass Struggle, lamented the fact that there is no vanguard communist party in the U.S. today. She also mentioned that “insurrection relies on [an] upsurge of people,” and that her organization hopes to provide ideological weapons to ght “class enemies.”
To bring an end to the meeting, a question and answer session was held with the various speakers, allowing for audience members to pose questions to the guests. is opportunity brought out questions such as the history of the term “social-democratic,” the personal experiences that led to the various speakers starting their political journey and the importance of empathy.
Ginelle Lang, Director of Campus Planning, and Carol Fierke, Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic A airs, spoke to e Brandeis Hoot regarding the construction and plans for the new science complex. New details about the science complex project—known as Science 2A— were announced in October 2022.
“ e addition of Phase 2A to the science complex will help the university achieve several goals including: increasing recruitment and retention of top faculty, undergraduate, and graduate students; leveraging and strengthening the impact and Brandeis’ leadership in de ning scienti c advances; and enhancing interdisciplinary connections across campus,” Lang wrote to e Hoot.
According to Lang, the project will be overseen by the Project Sponsor Group (PSG), and is co-chaired by the Provost and Executive Vice President (EVP) for Finance and Administration. ey will be responsible for overseeing the design and progress for the new science building with assistance from members including the Dean of Arts and Sciences; Vice Provost for Research; Senior Vice President, Institutional Advancement; Chief Financial O cer; Chief Information Ofcer; Vice President, Campus Planning and Operations and Head of the Division of Science.
To assess the needs of the community and inform the design team, PSG has collaborated with a Stakeholder Representative Group. ey will be responsible for getting the opinions of various disciplines in the Division of Science on campus including sta and student thoughts.
When asked about what the leaders of this project recognize as needs for sciences at the university, Fierke responded that “the goals of the new building are to increase recruitment and retention of top faculty and students, strengthen the impact and leadership of Brandeis in scienti c advances and enhance interdisciplinary connections across campus.”
To meet these needs, the building will be designed to be equipped to handle the “demand for education in the Sciences at Brandeis,” according to Fierke. is will include providing research laboratories and interdisciplinary spaces in the areas of physical and biological sciences. Fierke noted there would be a “particular focus on chemical sciences.”
“ e new building will also enhance the undergraduate experience by providing space for undergraduate research, exible project labs and classrooms, collabora-
tion areas and study spaces and Maker lab space,” wrote Fierke.
Lang shared with e Hoot that the university is still in the early phases of the design process so the exact considerations made for the design of the building have yet to be decided on. Elements meant to promote collaboration, productivity and natural lighting have yet to be decided by renderings and will be shared with the community as they become updated. e models of the building shared so far, according to Lang, were “based upon an extensive planning study.”
According to Lang, “this planning study set up goals for the project and space use guidelines that include criteria related to collaboration, daylight, and productivity, and also highlight the need for shared, exible, e cient spaces with systems that help enable our campus’s sustainability goals.”
Fierke also discussed with e
Hoot the implications the new building would have for the engineering major which was approved last academic year. “ e exible project labs and classrooms and Maker lab space in the building will also support the development of this program,” according to Fierke. Another goal of the new building is that it will provide a space for interdisciplinary research that will attract new faculty. e hope is that the newly acquired faculty would be involved in launching the Engineering Sciences program.
Construction on the Science 2a project is projected to begin in late 2023, according to a previous Hoot article. e project is expected to take two to three years to complete, according to the article.
e panel addressed questions regarding the persistence of antisemitism over time and their personal experiences with antisemitism. Schwartz re ected that antisemitism “is a millenia-old problem,” but what was most striking to him was that “it took a really famous celebrity to say something for people to nally pay attention.” Stiefel described her frustration with how antisemitism is “an endless cycle” with transient spikes in media attention depending on the person or event propagating hate. Wood shared that despite living in an overall progressive community in Los Angeles, she witnessed antisemitism through a banner reading, “Kanye is right”
from a bridge on Interstate 405. e students concluded the interview by emphasizing that antisemitism persists in many di erent facets, regardless of whether or not it is being captured by the media due to high pro le gures. Actively learning about the diversity, history and cultural practices of Jewish people is one way to mitigate Jewish hate and instead amplify support for the Jewish community, the students recommended. Ungar asserted, “If I could speak directly to Kanye West, I would say that the American Jewish community is ready and willing to engage with you and to explain what makes Jewish culture and history so vibrant, and why your comments are so o ensive to us.”
In an interview with e Brandeis Hoot, Stiefel re ected on her experience talking with
CBS News, saying, “I am so lucky I had the opportunity to speak about antisemitism to such a public forum. Fighting antisemitism is something I am really passionate about, and if there is one thing I hope people will learn is that this is not about Ye. is is a much bigger problem that has been ongoing for centuries, and this media cycle has just brought it to light. We need to continue the ght and not allow hate to take power in our lives.”
Professor of American Jewish History Jonathan Sarna spoke with e Hoot about the context of recent antisemitism and how antisemitism has changed over time. Sarna explained how there was a dramatic decline in antisemitism in the 20 years a er World War II. In fact, there were publications documenting the perceived decline in antisemitism from this
time period, such as the book “An End to Antisemitism,” written by Yochanan Altman in 1960. Moving forward, the antisemitic terrorist attack of a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018 caused so much shock not only due to the magnitude of the hate crime but also in relation to the perceived decline of antisemitism in the late 20th century. Sarna recalled, “I remember students were shocked. is was not something that they ever expected would happen in America.”
Sarna credited the resurgence of widespread antisemitism to the digital revolution. Technology has facilitated the communication between antisemitic terrorist groups and has brought together once distanced antisemites. Sarna explained, “It is a mistake to view antisemitism in linear terms. I think we need to
appreciate the ups and downs.”
Additionally, the digital era and trends in popular and celebrity culture cause antisemitism to manifest in new ways. Sarna described that today “what worries [him] is that we’ve seen a credible legitimation of hate speech in a way that we’ve scarcely seen in this country since the decades prior to World War II.” In other words, antisemitic hate speech that was once seen on the periphery is now moving to the mainstream, which Sarna asserted is “deeply disturbing.”
Brandeis is a university that is unique in its rich preservation and championship of Jewish history. e Brandeis community has demonstrated opposition towards Ye’s antisemetic sentiments and continues to upli the Jewish community through the scholarship of Judaism and Jewish history.
e Brandeis South Asian Students Association (SASA) recently hosted their 25th annual cultural show Mela, featuring speeches, dancing, singing, food and more to celebrate South Asian culture.
e theme for this year was Yatra, a Malayalam word that means journey. SASA described their
goals for this show, saying, “Our hope is that this theme beautifully illustrates how our shared journeys have allowed us to share community and culture in a space that is representative of our ranging South Asian roots,” according to the program description.
e program started with a speech delivered by Dean of Students Monique Pillow Gnanaratnam. During the rst half of the show, students performed clas-
By Cooper Gottfriededitor
A powerful neuroscience technique, patch-seq electrophysiology, is coming “back in vogue.”
Christine Grienberger’s (BIOL) lab’s patch-seq work was featured in a Nov. 3 “Nature” technology feature titled “Patch-seq takes neuroscience to a multimodal place.”
is powerful neuroscience
technique “links patch clamping to single-cell transcriptomics approaches,” and allows scientists to “acquire an electrophysiological readout with patch-clamp recording, obtain morphological data a er infusing dye into the neuron and later using immunohistochemistry, and get a transcriptomic signature from single-cell RNA sequencing.”
Patch-seq lets researchers “assess how similar or dissimilar individual cells are to neighbors
sical South Asian dances, read poetry and sang contemporary South Asian songs. e rst-year members of the organization and the sophomores each performed their class dance. Following these performances, Brandeis’ Bollywood fusion group Chak De performed. Chak De utilizes many dance forms and cultures, such as Bollywood, Bhangra, classical Indian dance, hip-hop and contemporary forms, according
to their club description. is year’s Mela also raised money to support people struggling during the economic crisis in Sri Lanka.
e second half of the show featured a speech from SASA presidents Vishni Samaraweera ‘23, Jigar Gohel ‘23 and Asanya Wawlagala ‘23. Additionally, students celebrated South Asian clothing by partaking in a fashion show. Brandeis also hosted the Harvard College Bhangra team,
in terms of their transcriptome, electrical activity and shape.” is technique may be the next big thing because it allows many di erent sects of neuroscientists to communicate with each other, bringing together “anatomists, physiologists, molecular biologists and computational neuroscientists.”
e article also explores Grienberger’s use of Patch-seq for in vivo recordings, but adds that “interpreting the RNA-seq re-
sults was too challenging. e culprit was likely contamination.”
Grienberger has “put these experiments on hold for the moment until she and her team nd a way to do [patch-seq] well.”
On the university’s campus, Grienberger’s research uses “various techniques, including two-photon Ca2+ imaging, whole-cell patch-clamp recordings, and optogenetic perturbation of neuronal activity, to investigate the single-cell and
which is Harvard University’s leading competitive undergraduate Bhangra team. e junior and senior classes also performed their class dance, and the Nepali community at Brandeis also performed a traditional dance. e show featured a nal singing act and concluded with closing remarks. e Brandeis community celebrated Mela through catered South Asian cuisine a erward.
population activity from hippocampal regions of mice actively engaged in a spatial memory paradigm.” On her lab’s website, Grienberger mentions that “answering the fundamental questions in neuroscience requires bridging multiple scienti c disciplines, so we welcome people with di erent backgrounds and skills, from neuroscience, psychology, and physics to math, engineering, and computer science.”
religion, suicide and more while in a historical setting. e play features scenes of Latin schooling in between songs such as “ e Bitch of Living” and “Totally Fucked.” According to the synopsis on the eater Arts Department website, “Spring Awakening” explores the journey from adolescence to adulthood with a poignancy and passion that is illuminating and unforgettable.” It is “a landmark musical” utilizing an “electrifying fusion of morality, sexuality and rock and roll that is exhilarating audiences across the nation like no other musical in years.” “Spring Awakening” has won eight Tony awards including the Tony for Best Musical in 2007.
Choreography by director Pascale Florestal and assistant choreographer Kieran Whitney
’23 mixes modern dancing with older styles to compliment the weaving of sexual themes with shame throughout the show.
e cast consists of 13 Brandeis undergraduate students, ve of which mentioned in their cast bios that “Spring Awakening” is their rst eater Arts production at Brandeis.
Noemi ‘Nico’ Miller ’24 plays the role of Wendla, a young woman grappling with topics of love, sexuality and shame. Nico’s role, which was originated on Broadway by Lea Michele, begins the production with the opening number “Mama Who Bore Me.”
is is Nico’s rst leading role at Brandeis University, which they are “absolutely delighted” to play, according to their cast biography.
Gianni Storti ’26 plays Melchior, a radical rebel student who is more knowledgable than his peers about human sexuality
and its consequences, a role originated by Jonathan Gro . Nicholas Kanan ’23 plays the role of Moritz, originated on Broadway by John Gallagher Jr. Kanan’s character is a quirky, deeply troubled young man whose mainly rock ’n’ roll vocals are featured on numerous upbeat songs despite his turmoil.
LaNiyah S.K. Grovell ’26 plays the role of Martha, a young woman struggling with abuse. Grovell’s vocals are highlighted in her duet with the character Ilse, played by Jessica Umano ’23 entitled “ e Dark I Know Well.” Umano ’s character, Ilse, is characterized as a free spirit, who no longer lives in the safety of her family due to her free-spirited nature.
Liam Delaney ’25 plays Hanschen, a con dent student who takes advantage of the repressive system rather than letting it take advantage of him. Hanschen
has a romance with another young man, Ernst, played by Reese Miller ’25. Ernst is a far less con dent young man who sings about the struggle of being attracted to other men in “ e Bitch of Living.”
Cam Steinberg ’26 plays the role of Georg, a comical character known for his sexual feelings towards his piano teacher. Laya Fridman ’25 plays Anna and Anika Hahn ’25 plays the role of Otto, two other young students struggling with similar issues to the other characters.
Brooks Bellinger ’24 and Cierra Boutin ’24 play Adult Man and Adult Woman respectively, playing the roles of parents and teachers who uphold the standards of the oppressive religious and educational systems.
“Spring Awakening’s” second weekend of showings is coming up, with showings on Nov. 18 at 8 p.m., Nov. 19 at 2
p.m. and 8 p.m. and Nov. 20 at 2 p.m. On Saturday, Nov. 19 there is a pre-show talk for students with Wellesley College professor Anjeana K. Hans in the lobby of Spingold eater. e talk is going to be discussing the life of playwright Frank Wedekind.
Students can pick up one free ticket to “Spring Awakening” per Brandeis ID at the SCC Box O ce, Monday through Friday between noon and 5 p.m. at the Usdan Game Room and at the Spingold Box O ce 30 minutes before each showing. For students who purchase tickets without their Brandeis ID, each ticket is $5. For nonBrandeis students, tickets are $20.
Students should be aware of the topics of sexual assault, abuse, suicide and other potentially troubling themes present in the musical prior to attending performances.
“Patch-seq”
JOURNALISM, from page 1
politics would a ect how I would report on this. ere is a great quote by Laurence Tribe, a famous constitutional scholar who wrote a book called ‘Clash of Absolutes’ about abortion in America, wrote it 30 years ago. And he says that the only way America will ever … emerge from its sort of civil war over abortion is by giving voice to the human reality on each side of the verses. at’s something that I believe strongly in: humanizing both sides, writing with empathy about both sides and letting the truth emerge.” Talbot agreed, adding, “I think the same tools and approaches that I used before we entered such a frightening and divisive time [are still e ective]. I still use [them] because I still believe in them. Meeting people and listening to them tell their stories in a way that, even if they don’t agree with me completely, they will recognize themselves in.” e interview with Prager and Talbot served as an opener to the Journalism Program’s event. Noting this, Prager said “I think we’ll be talking about that a lot [the overturning of Roe v. Wade] at our event. So I probably won’t give too much away [in this interview].” A week later, at the Nov. 16 event moderated by journalism professors Neil Swidey and
IMPEACHMENT, from page 1
and mean” making them feel “and mean” making them feel “uncomfortable and intimidated.” According to the complaint report, Moskovits pressured the students to vote in the Student Union election and went so far as to take the complainants’ phones and vote on their behalf.
e three complaints all agreed with con dence that Moskovits tapped on the phone while they were voting. Kanan described this act as Moskovits not maintaining respect for the students and making them vote under supervision.
By doing this, Kanan argued that Moskovits expressed a “reckless disregard for [Student Union] ethical conduct.” Remaining silent about these allegations, Kanan said, would mean the Student Union was complicit in the events that occurred. Kanan ended his opening statement by saying Moskovits’ “ends do not justify the means.”
Moskovits was then able to give his statement in response in front of the senators. He asked that before he share his side of the sto-
Ann Silvio, Prager and Talbot elded questions from the moderators and from the audience about abortion, the real life Roe and how this all a ects society.
With the midterm elections in the rst half of the week on Tuesday, Nov. 15, this was the rst topic brought up at the event as one of the largest issues on the ballot was abortion. Talbot noticed this connection as she remarked, “One of the surprises this election was that abortion was an issue people voted on.” She brought up a New York Times article that observed people not seeing it as a hot-button issue anymore, but the election outcomes proved otherwise. She introduced how voters in California, Vermont and Michigan voted to protect abortion rights and how this proved the importance of this issue. Prager also noted the connection and talked about how he was not surprised by this and that this was a topic on the minds of politicians.
“Politicians have little conviction and will conform to their constituents. ey saw what the people wanted, and this led to it being an important topic on election day.”
Shi ing from how the elections impacted reproductive rights, Prager and Talbot branched out to discuss the struggles of ghting for the rights for abortion, and the importance of their jobs as journalists. “It’s hard to think of something so common and safe that is so stigmatized,” Tal-
bot expressed, demonstrating the di culties of ghting for the right to safe abortions. As a journalist, Talbot mentioned how she tries to spread awareness so that people make well-informed choices. One of the ways Talbot felt was best to promote this issue, and Prager agreed as his book “ e Family Roe” centers around this very topic, was to bring up personal stories. To bring these personal stories to light can help people connect to the issue on a deeper level. Talbot mentioned how, since the Dobbs decision, more of these personal stories have been shared. Prager added to this, saying, “When you are exposed to somebody or some group, you are less likely to be prejudiced against them.” is is what is leading to all of these personal stories over the past couple of months. People want their voices to be heard in order to ght against this injustice in this country. Prager continued by saying, “Abortion is rooted in secrecy, and the way to combat secrecy is exposure.” is event continued with conversations centering around Prager’s book, “ e Family Roe.” e book follows the life of Norma McCorvey, who was given the name Jane Roe for her privacy during the trial, and Shelley Lynn ornton, Norma’s daughter, the baby that McCorvey fought to abort. Prager mentioned how this event was actually a full circle moment, as an article that Tal-
bot wrote in 2008 which brie y mentioned that McCorvey never got an abortion was what inspired Prager to write this book. While Prager himself is for abortion rights, he approached this book with the goal of objectively stating the facts. “I wrote this book not as an activist, but as a journalist,” said Prager. “McCorvey is a complicated gure. She gave up the child she fought to abort for adoption, as well as two previous children.” Prager continued, mentioning that McCorvey had a girlfriend for many decades and was out and proud, until she became a born-again Christian, switching from believing in abortion rights to being anti-abortion. Prager found this to be a fascinating story that should be shared, adding that “Norma was a perfect character for me because she embodied the conict and divide of this country.”
Prager added another layer to the topic of the divide around abortion by discussing abortion as a conversation about class.
Prager remarked that Norma was not a well-o or particularly presentable woman, and it was hard for her to get involved in the abortion rights movement, leading to her anti-abortion stage of life.
Prager wanted to make his opinions clear about this connection of class and abortion. “ ere is a problem today with pro-choice leaders and it is that they are elitist. Access to abortion is about
the nancial welfare of women.”
Talbot supported this sentiment, saying that “Abortion is an issue about poverty and access,” demonstrating that the two agreed on this matter’s importance. At the conclusion of the event, Prager and Talbot spoke to all of the students in the room about how this issue relates to them.
Prager acknowledged that since Roe v. Wade was passed in 1973, the students in the room did not know life without it. “You have only known abortion as a right,” Prager stated that “we shouldn’t take our rights for granted.” Both Prager and Talbot wanted to make it clear to the audience of potential journalists that they have a lot of power and they are involved in this ght. ey added that the overturning of Roe v. Wade led to a lot of anger in this country, and that in order to protect the right to abortion, the speakers explained how they wanted voices to be heard. As this was an event hosted by the journalism department with two journalists speaking, the importance of journalism and reporting was emphasized. “I think we should all be engaged and pay attention,” Prager expressed, “ e future journalists in this room need to ght and to research.”
ry that all senators remain open minded and let the constitution guide the vote, not their opinion of him. “Let your minds be guided by the lights of reason,” Moskovits advised his peers, apparently in reference to Louis D. Brandeis.
e main argument Moskovits made was that the complaint was not written by the three students whom he had encountered. Rather the complaint was dra ed by Vincent Calia-Bogan who wrote on behalf of the complainants and then signed o on what he had written. Moskovits claimed the report was “hearsay by an unrelated author.”
In his account of the interaction, Moskovits described the interaction as “light chit-chat” not campaigning. From his judgement, he believed the students were willing to engage since he gave them multiple opportunities to tell him to “fuck o .” Moskovits noted that his enthusiasm could have been misconstrued as overpowering, but he never swayed the students away from reading the candidate bios before making the decision to vote. Moskovits also made note that he never explicitly told the students who to vote for, but rather just encour-
aged them to vote in the election. Moskovits was not running in that special round of elections, but his companion who was also present at the event—Gaughan— was running and would bene t if the students were to vote for him.
Gaughan provided a witness testimony during the meeting that contradicted the complainants’ claims that Moskovits was “rude” or “pushy.” Gaughan noted that from his recollection they provided a space where the students could remove themselves from the situation and that they “continued to present a feigned interest” in the conversation.
“He did not attempt any form of ‘coercion,’ hostility or general ‘push[iness],’” according to Gaughan’s statement.
It should be noted that in the complainant report, it notes that the students thought Gaughan was “pretty nice” and did not equate him to having the same attitude as Moskovits in the interaction.
A er both parties gave their side of the situation, the senators were allowed to then question both parties on their interpretations. One senator asked Kanan how Moskovits misrepresented the truth in the interaction. Kanan
responded saying that by taking agency away from the students in voting it misrepresented the truth of a free and fair election. Kanan went on to say that Moskovits had another interest in getting the students to vote due to his personal connection to Gaughan and wanting to see him win.
One senator raised the question of impact versus intent and whether Moskovits’ intent had varied from his impact on the students he interacted with. Kanan stated during the questioning that this was not the rst instance that caused concern. Other concerns had occurred earlier in the semester but had not been serious enough to warrant a push for impeachment. Kanan mentioned “unprofessional conduct” and lacking communication during Moskovits’ conversations with the Department of Community Living (DCL) when trying to reopen Shapiro Lounge for students. Moskovits responded saying he was sorry for not looping other members of the Senate in on his communications with DCL but the department did thank him for his way of handling the situation.
Kanan brought up in his closing statement that he did not
take this action lightly. He believes that Moskovits does good work but this instance was a “violation of [the Student Union’s] constitution” and could therefore not be ignored.
In his closing argument, Moskovits asked his peers whether the incident was worth motioning for the most severe action that could be taken on him. Moskovits also argued that by going through the motions for impeachment it took away from time where they could be doing productive work.
e student union voted by roll call with 15 voting yes for impeachment, one voting no and two voting to abstain. Tako Mikhelashvili ’26 voted against impeachment and Tyler Hupart ’26 and Zev Carlyle ’24 both abstained from the vote. Moskovits’ impeachment trial will now proceed forward past the Senate and to the larger Student Union body. .
Editor’s Note: Vincent Calia-Bogan did not contribute to the writing or editing of this article.
On Nov. 17, the Brandeis Le ist Union (BLU) held an “emergency action to support dining workers,” according to a post on their Instagram. e protest was held because, according to the BLU, dining workers are not being given their vacation time fair and square.
e BLU added that if workers want to take their vacations, “they must wait a year to take them!”
e delegation started at 2:30 p.m. in Upper Usdan, near Louis’ Deli, and moved by the entrance to Usdan Kitchen in Lower Usdan. e delegation included BLU members, dining workers and interested students. Clayton Hargrove and several other Harvest Table administrators were also in attendance. Protesters chanted their demands, saying
“What do we want? Vacation!
When do we want it? Now,” and “If we don’t get it? Shut it down!”
According to one anonymous onlooker, “You could tell the Harvest Table guy [Clayton Hargrove] was nervous.”
One BLU member mentioned that, to attend the delegation, workers had to use their break time for the day. Members of the delegation mentioned that if they didn’t receive an update on their vacation time by the end
of the day today, the delegation would return again tomorrow.
According to a post on the BLU’s Instagram from a er the protest, “Harvest Table, despite having a WEEK to respond, said that they would give a response later today.
is is both disrespectful and calculated and is clearly an attempt to avoid the demands of workers.”
ey added that “If the demands of the dining workers for vacation time are not responded to by the deadline at 8pm tonight we
will be joining workers again TOMORROW at 2:30pm in Usdan once again to confront Harvest Table and demand that they give workers the vacation time that they have earned and deserve!”
Editor’s note: Due to our publication cycle, if there is another delegation on Friday, Nov. 18, it will not receive coverage in The Hoot until Friday, Dec. 2.
By Justin Leung editor
In the last game of the regular season, the Brandeis women’s soccer team faced o against New York University (NYU) on Nov. 5. e game was the Judges’ Senior Day, so they honored senior goalie Jessica Murawksy ’23, forward Juliette Carreiro ’23, forward Makenna Hunt ’23, mid elder Jess Herman ’23, mid elder Morgan Clark ’23, back Meaghan McDonough ’23, mid elder Sabrina Salov ’23, mid elder Caroline Swan ’23 and back Ruby Siegel ’23 as well as forward Bailey Cullen (GRAD). When the two teams matched up last year, the Judges came out on top 2-1. Carreiro got the Judges started on o ense with the rst shot on goal in the eighth minute. Her shot was saved and was followed by a heavy attack from NYU. A er a few shots that were saved or blocked, NYU took a 1-0 lead in the 16th minute. e Judges had a few opportunities to tie the game, as Swan and Hunt each had a few shots but could not nd the back of the net. Brandeis nally tied the game in the 34th minute. It was a remarkable goal from Swan, which saw her score
directly from a corner kick. e goal was her third goal of the season. Hunt gave Brandeis the lead with a header on target, but it was saved by the NYU goalie.
At hal ime, the game was tied 1-1. e shots re ected this as Brandeis had seven and NYU had six. Swan got the second half started with another shot on goal, but it was saved by the NYU goalie. e Judges ended up taking the lead shortly a er in the 58th minute on a goal from Carreiro.
Swan attempted a penalty kick but was denied by the NYU goalie before Carreiro was in the right position for the rebound allowing her to score the go-ahead goal. It was Carreiro’s ninth goal of the season, as Swan earned her sixth assist of the season. It didn’t take long for NYU to respond, as they went right back on the attack and scored the game tying goal in the 65th minute. NYU used that momentum to score the go-ahead goal in the 73rd minute. Carreiro nearly answered two minutes later, but her shot was saved by the NYU goalie. e Judges would get only one more shot attempt for the rest of the half, but the shot from sophomore Dominique Paglia ’25 went high over the net. In the nal game of their
regular season, the Judges fell 2-3. Although the two teams were mostly even o ensive in the rst half, NYU had more opportunities in the second half. NYU had 12 shots compared to Brandeis’ six in the second half, giving them an 18-13 edge overall. e Judges led NYU in corner kicks 4-3 and had less fouls than NYU 10-13. Sophomore goalie Hannah Bassan ’25 had ve saves in the game.
e Judges nished the regular season 7-8-2 overall and 0-6-1 in conference games. ey had 1.94 goals per game and allowed 1.70 goals per game. Carreiro led the team in goals for the season with nine and was followed by Cullen and junior forward Sydney Lenhart ’24 with ve each. Swan and Carreiro tied for the lead in assists with six each. Bassan led the team in saves with 39, giving her a .709
percent save percentage for the season. ere were four players on the second-team All-UAA. is included seniors Carreiro and Swan, as well as junior mid elder Sydney Lenhart ’24 and sophomore Ali Karafotias ’25. Next comes the o season where the team will have to work to replace their top four scorers of the season
e rst weekend in November has passed, meaning that for the University Athletic Association (UAA) the fall sports season has come to an end. But with that comes the start of the new winter 2022-2023 season! e men’s basketball team here at Brandeis University has started their season in a commanding fashion in their rst four games.
On Nov. 7 the team hit the road for their rst game against the University of New Hampshire (UNH). is game saw the judges take on the Division I Wildcats in an exhibition game. While this game doesn’t count for the Judges’ season record, it does for the Wildcats. To begin the game, Brandeis started out strong taking the lead 7 to 4. But come half-time, the Judges were down 14 points with the score being 39 to 25. Unfortunately, the Judges could not come back from the Wildcats’ lead.
Brandeis was able to reduce the Wildcats’ lead to 24 from 32 with an impressive 3-point shot coming from sophomore Toby Harris ’25. But a er that the University of New Hampshire could not be stopped as they scored 18 points without any coming from the Judges to make the game score 63-32. UNH dominated the game as at one point they had a 35-point lead, but at the end of the game the nal score was Brandeis 47 and the University of New Hampshire 79.
Harris was the Judges’ leading scorer with 16 points in the game. He successfully hit two of six 3-pointers and seven of eight shots from the eld. He was also the Judges’ leader in rebounds with ve. Junior Ryan Power ’24 was not far behind with 12 points for the team, successfully scoring three of ve from the oor and six out of seven from the line. is game was the rst time Brandeis had played the University of New Hampshire since 1975 when
Brandeis won 78 to 75. is was also the rst time Brandeis had played a Division I school since their 2010 match against the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Fortunately, this match does not count towards the Judges’ record this season and serves Brandeis merely as an exhibition match.
e Judges then began their regular season on Wednesday, Nov. 9 with a game against Salem State University at home. In a game that ended with Brandeis winning 77 to Salem State’s 58, this season opener set the team on the right foot. roughout the entire game, Brandeis was never behind Salem State. Harris hit the rst two buckets of the game to score a total of six points. is game would go on to be a career-high for Harris as he ended up scoring 30 points throughout the entire game. With 11 minutes and 19 seconds on the clock, Brandeis had a commanding 19-3 lead against Salem State. It took a while for the Vikings to gure out their game plan but come hal ime the Judges were rmly leading the game with the score being 44 to 27. Twenty- ve of Harris’ points came from the rst half.
e judges did not slow down as rst-year guard Ethan Edwards ’26 came o the bench to score 10 points in his rst collegiate game. When the nal whistle blew 10 of the 12 Judges’ players who were on the court made it into the scoring column with none of them, unfortunately, having rebounds. Brandeis ended their rst regular-season game in the right direction with a commanding win over Salem State University.
e Judges carried their momentum from the win of their rst game into their second regular-season game against Rhode Island College at Brandeis. Rhode Island College started the game strong against the Judges tying them twice in the rst half at 8-all and 13-all. But a er the game was tied at 13-all the Judges went on a 12-3 run which put them rmly in
the lead of the game and Brandeis never let it go. e Judges had an impressive shooting percentage compared to the Anchormen, with 53% of shots completed from the eld and 55% completed from the 3-point range; this compared to Rhode Island College who had 35% in the eld and 20% from the 3-point line.
is drastic di erence in shot percentage allowed Brandeis to rmly take the lead at halftime ending at 42 to 26.
e second half saw an incredibly similar structure to the rst in which Brandeis was able to outscore Rhode Island College and every way with the exception of rebounds. is is what propelled the judges to their commanding win over Rhode Island College of 90 to 62.
For senior Sam Adusei ’23 and Edwards, this was a huge game as both were able to earn career highs in scoring with both getting to double-digits in the game.
e Judges continued a very impressive beginning to the regular season with two wins and zero losses. Playing their fourth game and third season game at Emmanuel College, the Judges were able to keep their winning streak, but only by the skin of their teeth!
e rst half of the game was entirely dominated by Brandeis who never trailed in regulation time. In the rst half, Brandeis led by as many as 14 points and due to the impressive work by senior Dylan Lien ’23, who hit a 3-pointer with one minute and 28 seconds le in the rst half, was able to keep it at an 11-point contest. is was before Emmanuel was able to get back two points before the rst half closed out.
e Judges were leading at the end of the rst half of the game 44 to 35. Power was able to lead the judges in the rst half with 14 points, a career-high for him in the rst 20 minutes of the game.
In the early part of the second half, Brandeis was able to keep Emmanuel College away with
a comfortable lead of anywhere from ve to 12 points. But with seven minutes and 43 seconds to go in the second half, Emmanuel College, who were 10 points behind, were able to keep Brandeis scoreless for the next four minutes. With this shocking defense coming from the Saints they were able to tie up the game 69-69 with four minutes and 37 seconds le in the second half.
e teams traded back and forth who had the two-point lead over the other end with one minute and 42 seconds to go; Edwards hit a 3-pointer, giving Brandeis the lead 74-71.
Brandeis believed this would be enough to take the game home but with a fouled two-point shot from Emmanuel and a completed free throw, Emmanuel College was able to tie up the game in the nal seconds 74-74. Sending the game into overtime the two teams only had a few minutes to pull away from each other. Adusei was able to score the opening point in
overtime but Emmanuel College answered that shot with a 3-pointer. is gave Emmanuel College a one-point lead with three minutes and 11 seconds to go in overtime.
Emmanuel College then scored two points giving them a 79-76 lead with two minutes and 20 seconds remaining.
Brandeis did their best to come back, scoring one layup but in a moment that de ned the game with Brandeis down by one and only 3.1 seconds le on the clock the Judges worked the ball around the outside where Edwards found Harris!
Harris was able to drain a 3-point shot with moments le in the game. at shot cemented Brandeis’ win over Emmanuel College 81 to 79.
Brandeis now takes a rm lead in the regular season as they have three wins on their record. ey hope to continue this stride at their next game on Saturday as they hit the road to play nearby rival Lasell College.
By Justin Leung editor
To end the season, the Brandeis volleyball team traveled to New York University (NYU) to participate in the University Athletic Association (UAA) tournament. Day one of the tournament was on Nov. 4, with their rst match against NYU. e Judges faced NYU earlier in the season and lost 0-3. But that was nearly two months ago, so it was a completely new situation. In set one, the Judges stayed close for the most part. Towards the middle of the set, NYU went on a 3-0 run that gave them a 10-15 lead. However, the Judges answered and eventually evened the score at 19-19, with big kills coming from sophomore Lara Verstovsek ’25. NYU went on a short 2-0 run, as it looked like they were going to close out the set. But Sydney Bent (GRAD) had a kill to stop that momentum. Unfortunately, it didn’t stop NYU for long, as they went on a 4-0 run to win the set 25-20. Set two saw the Judges lead through the rst 11 points of the game, 6-5. NYU then went on a 6-0 run and held the lead for the rest of the set. Kills from Verstovsek and Bent kept them competitive throughout the set but another huge run at the end of the set gave NYU the set victory 25-17. Set three did not start o strong for the Judges as NYU started with a 6-2 run. A couple of attacking errors and kills from senior Emerson White ’23 later, the Judges brought the score even at 8-8. e two teams traded points for a little bit before NYU went on a 7-0 run to take a 17-10 lead. NYU slowly inched towards victory and eventually got the score to 24-20. Brandeis nearly made a comeback a er getting three consecutive kills, but NYU nally got that last point and won 25-23 to stop Brandeis’ comeback. NYU won the match 3-0. Bent led the team in kills with 13 and was followed by Vervstovsek with 11. Junior Ines Grom-Mansencal ’24 led the team in assists with 28. Bent also led the team in digs with 20, while Stephanie Borr (GRAD) was not far behind her with 15. e team proceeded to play Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) later that day. Brandeis also previously played CWRU this season and lost 0-3 during the UAA Round Robin 2. Set one saw the Judges start o really well. Although CWRU was keeping the set close, Brandeis
held the lead for most of the set. ey were led by kills from White and rst-year Anna Ertischek ’26. Brandeis got to 20 points rst as they had a 20-16 lead over CWRU. But CWRU then went on a 6-0 run to retake the lead. e Judges nally got a point to stop the momentum and make the score 21-22, but CWRU closed the set with a 3-0 run to win set one. Set two was another competitive one.
ere were six total lead changes throughout the set. Every time one team would take the lead, the other would respond with a short run to tie the set. Bent and
Ertischek led the team towards a close nish as the two teams were tied at 19-19. Although Brandeis was close for the entire set, CWRU closed the set with a 6-1 run to take set two. Set three was de ned by two runs. Early in the set, CWRU went on a 8-0 run to take a 13-4 lead. e Judges quickly responded with a 7-0 run of their own to cut the de cit to two. Although Brandeis mostly kept up with CWRU for the rest of the set, they could not take the lead. CWRU ended the game with a 6-1 run to take set three. CWRU ended up winning the match 3-0.
Ertischek tied the team lead in kills of seven with Bent. Grom-Mansencal led the team in assists with 15 while also adding two kills and eight digs. Borr led the team in digs with 17.
Next was the nal game of the season against the University of Rochester. In their previous matchup this year, they faced o in the UAA Round Robin 3, and Rochester won 3-0.
At rst it looked like Rochester might repeat that outcome. In set one, the Judges nearly made a sixpoint comeback, but the YellowJackets took the lead and didn’t give it up. Rochester won set one 25-20. Set two saw the Judges take the lead and command it for most of the set. ey built a lead when they were up 18-9, as they doubled Rochester’s score. But Rochester then began getting chunks of points at a time. All of the sudden, the game was 23-22 in favor of Brandeis. at lead evaporated in no time. Rochester ended up closing out the set with a 4-1 run to steal the set away from the Judges. Every set moving forward could be the Judges’ last. In set three, the Judges took the lead and made sure to hold on to it. e team was led by big kills from junior Ella Pereira ’24 and sophomore Tatianna Wainer ’25. Brandeis ended up taking set three 25-20. e comeback was o cially on. Set
four was controlled by the Judges the entire time. Brandeis used 4-0 and 6-0 runs to build up their lead. e team got consecutive kills from Bent and White that helped lead the team to the set win. Pereira capped o the strong set with a kill to even the match at 2-2, a er the Judges won set four 25-16. en came set ve. It was the rst and only match that reached ve sets the entire season.
e Judges set the tone early with a 6-1 start that ended with a big kill from White. Brandeis continued to build that lead and all of a sudden there was nothing that Rochester could do to stop them. Everyone was playing well. ere were kills from Grom-Mansen-
cal, Wainer, White and Bent as they got the score to 14-7. en, just like in the previous set, Pereira ended the set with a kill. e Judges had done it. ey completed the reverse sweep to win the match against Rochester 3-2.
Bent led the team in kills with 17, with White and Pereira right behind her.
Grom-Mansencal had an allaround strong game with 37 assists, 15 digs and a kill. Borr led the team in digs with 28 and was followed by Bent with 21 and Pereira with 18. e Judges ended their season with a seventh-place match win.
Overall, the Judges were 1315 and 0-7 in conference games.
Verstovsek led the team in kills with 275. is total helped get her an All-UAA honorable mention as an outside hitter. Bent was right behind her with 253 kills. She was second on the team in kills and rst on the team in digs with 357. is led her to a rst team All-Association selection, which was Brandeis’ rst since 1990. Grom-Mansencal led the team in assists with 763. Next year, the team will be without Bent, Borr, White, Amelia Oppenheimer ’23 and Talia Freund ’23, however they will still have Verstovsek and Grom-Mansencal. at ends the 2022 volleyball season, and the team begins to prepare for next year.
e Brandeis University fencing team earned four medals, including two golds, a silver, and a bronze in their 2022-23 season opener. Additionally, the Judges placed seven in the quarternals of the New England Intercollegiate Fencing Conference (NEIFC) Fall Championships which was held at Smith College.
e women’s fencing squad was led by senior Maggie Shealy ’23 who swept her competition in pool play, 6-0; she had a +25-indicator allowing her to earn the joint second seed in the elimination table. Shealy defended her title proudly, allowing none of her matches to be within six touches; that was until Shealy
faced MIT in the nals, where she defeated her opponent by one touch, 15-14, earning the gold in the women’s sabre. First year teammate Hannah Du ’26 took h place in the women’s foil after earning the joint-third seed, but unfortunately was upset, 1512, in the quarter nals. Senior teammate Monia Aponte ’23 placed eighth in the elimination tournament but was able to nish in seventh in the quarter nals.
e Brandeis men’s fencing squad was also successful, as rst year Lev BenAvram ’ 26 captured the Judge’s second gold medal of the day in men’s sabre competition; BenAvram was the second seed, behind teammate Tony Escueta ’25. BenAvram, Escueta and teammate Berwyn Lu ’24 had identical undefeated records in pool play, 6-0. Escue-
ta nished with a +26 indicator, BenVram with +22 and Lu with +21. While Lev BenAvram faced little adversity throughout the tournament, Escueta was unfortunately upset in the quarternals, 15-10, by Northeastern.
e remaining two medals were earned in the men’s epee competition, where Tal Kronrod ’25 earned silver and Josh Shuster ’23 earned bronze. Kronrod was seeded 17th, but he defeated higher seeds in the round of 32, 16, quarter nals and even the semi nals, before falling to the 10th seeded opponent from Sacred Heart University who earned the gold in the men’s epee competition. Additionally, the Brandeis men’s fencing squad earned three quarter nals in the foil competition, with veteran Elliott Siegel ’23 and rst year Michael Yer-
okhin ’26 tying for sixth; Luke Ritchie ’24 earned eight place to cap o a successful tournament for the Brandeis Judges.
Following their victorious opening conference, the Judges traveled to Boston College where they competed in the Beanpot Tournament against the home squad, Boston College, Harvard University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). e men’s team was led by BenAvram, as he swept MIT and Boston College each 3-0, while also defeating Harvard 2-1 in the men’s sabre competition. Escueta also found success against MIT and Harvard, with the same 3-0, 2-1 results, respectively, but Escueta was unable to defeat the Boston College Eagles in two matches. Overall, the men’s team went 0-3 at the Beanpot Tournament a er falling
13-14 against MIT, 10-17 against Boston College and 9-18 against Harvard. e women’s team was led by Shealy with a record of 5-4. She went 2-1 against MIT and 3-0 against Boston College. Senior Sammy Shortall ’23 also found success, a er going 2-1 against MIT and getting a point against Harvard. Overall the team went 0-3 at the Beanpot Tournament a er falling to MIT 12-15, Boston College 11-16 and Harvard 2-25.
e Brandeis Judges look to continue their success in the rst Northeast Fencing Conference of the season which will be held on Sunday, November 20th at 10 a.m. Both the Brandeis men and women will face opponents from Sacred Heart University, University of Massachusetts, University of New Hampshire, Boston University and Brown University.
Last weekend on Nov. 13 the 21st race in the 2022 Formula 1 circuit got underway—the Brazilian grand prix! e circuit is located in the Sao Paulo suburb of Interlagos. It is commonly referred to as the circuit of Sao Paulo even though the circuit was renamed “Autodromo José Carlos Pace” in honor of Carlos Pace, a Sao Paulo local who won his only F1 race at the circuit in 1975. Being a race later in the season, the Brazilian grand prix is usually free from drama but the 2022 season has proved to be di erent from the rest. Before the Brazilian grand prix can be looked into, there is going to need to be a short recap of what has happened since the last Formula 1 recap in e Brandeis Hoot. Since Formula 1 was last reported on in e Hoot, a new world champion has been crowned. On Oct. 30, Max Verstappen of Red Bull came in rst place in the Mexican grand prix; followed by Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes in second and Sergio Perez of Red Bull in third. Perez was able to achieve a podium position at his home grand prix and celebrate that his teammate, Verstappen, became the world driver’s champion in Formula 1; Verstappen’s second in his career.
Verstappen’s achievement of the world driver’s championship this season now means that the eyes of the Formula 1 world have all turned from “Will Verstappen win it again?” to “Who is going to come in second?” At the end of the Mexican grand prix the points of the three leaders were as follows: Max Verstappen (Red Bull) 416, Sergio Perez (Red Bull) 280 and Charles Leclerc (Ferarri) 275. ere was no longer any competition for rst place but the ght for second was far from over. is meant that, going into the Brazilian grand prix, it was incumbent upon Verstappen and the entire Red Bull team to help Sergio Perez as much as possible to increase his lead on Leclerc. Not only would taking second place be a major point of impor-
tance for Perez in his career as a Formula 1 driver but it also aids the team’s funding. Teams receive cash prizes from the FIA, the governing body of Formula 1, for their performance in the driver’s championship. In 2015, Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton won the World Driver’s Championship and the team was able to win $63 million in prizes from that placement alone. So if Red Bull was able to secure both rst and second places in the driver’s championship, it would all amount to a massive amount of funds being piped right into their team for engine development and testing.
So bearing all of that in mind, the drivers and Formula 1 world moved south from Mexico to Brazil for the penultimate race of the 2022 season. e drivers all began the lead up to the race as usual with the leading anticipating to begin the Brazilian grand prix in the rst few spots a er qualifying races. However, Haas (the American owned team) had something to say about that last weekend.
Haas F1 Team drivers Kevin Magnussen and Mick Schumacher quali ed rst and 20th respectively for Saturday’s 24-lap Sprint race—the result of which will then determine the grid for the 71-lap grand prix the following day. For those who do not know, a Sprint race is done as an extra step because while most races go from qualifying to the starting grid of the race, some go from qualifying to a Sprint race which will determine the grid for the grand prix. But Danish driver Kevin Magnussen de ed all odds by attaining his rst ever and the Haas team’s rst ever pole position in a race. e sprint on Saturday concluded and then the starting grid for Sunday was set.
On pole for the grand prix was George Russel of Mercedes, followed by his teammate Lewis Hamilton in the second starting spot. Sitting in third and fourth were the Red Bulls with Verstappen in the third spot and Perez in the fourth. But right behind Perez, in h position, looking to overtake him as swi ly as possible, was Charles Leclerc of Ferarri. With only a ve-point lead on Leclerc, everyone was
watching to see how the two would race against each other and if Charles could hold on in the ght for second or if Perez would shut that dream down with the checkered ag in Brazil. When the lights went out in Brazil, all bets were o . Drivers Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo of McLaren, as well as Haas golden boy Kevin Magnussen, all did not nish the race due to crashes or technical issues with their cars. But the real heat came at the very end of the race between Verstappan and Perez. Perez had fresher tires than Verstappen, meaning his car had more speed due to better grip, but the team strategists asked Perez to allow Max to pass him. is team order is not uncommon as Perez is a very defensive driver and Verstappen a very aggressive one. ey were trying to see if
Verstappen could pass Fernando Alonso, a driver for Alpine, who was in h place. But come the last lap Verstappen was never able to; so the team reversed their earlier order and asked Verstappen to give back the position to Perez so that he could gain more points and hold his lead against Leclerc.
Verstappen disobeyed the team orders and did not let Perez through who was eagerly awaiting to take back sixth place which he so kindly gave to Verstappen earlier in the race. Over Verstappen’s radio, when asked why he did not let Perez pass he told his team, “I told you already last summer. You guys don’t ask that again to me. Okay? Are we clear about that? I gave my reasons and I stand by it.”
With those words Verstappen clearly told the team that “he calls the shots around here.” Despite the fact that his inaction in
letting Perez through caused him and Leclerc to tie in points for the season. Russell nished in rst, his rst ever win in a Formula 1 race, Verstappen nished in sixth, Perez in seventh and Leclerc in fourth. Meaning that Leclerc and Perez both sit evenly at 290 points. It is now up to Red Bull to decide how they go into Abu Dhabi, the nal grand prix, as a team. Will they support Verstappen’s endless quest for his own points and glory? Or will they support Perez, the man who has given everything to the team and his teammate Max? For if it was not for Perez, Max would not have any championships to boast about. e nal race of the year will be the most decisive for the conhesivness of Red Bull as a team and most importantly for the driver who will come in second place this season.
As the cross-country season enters its nal stages, the Brandeis men’s and women’s cross-country teams traveled to Bowdoin College on Nov. 12 for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Regional Championships. Last year, the women’s team nished in third and the men’s team nished in 11th. e rst race of the day was the women’s 6-kilometer. Junior Lizzy Reynolds ’24 was the rst runner for the Judges to nish. She nished in 18th with a time of 23:06.3 which was 15 seconds faster than her previous best 6k time. Just behind her was her classmate, junior Juliette Intrieri ’24. Intrieri nished 22nd with a time of 23:09.2. Shortly a er her was senior Bridget Pickard ’23 in 24th with a time of 23:14.5. Pickard set a new personal record for the 6k, by decreasing her previous best time by two seconds. ese three runners nished in the top 35 and therefore earned All-region status. It was Pickard and Reynold’s
rst time earning All-region status, and Intrieri’s second time after she nished 23rd last year. e next Judge to nish was freshman Ella Warkentine ’26 in 36th, who just narrowly missed out on earning All-region status in her rst year. She nished the race with a time of 23:32.0, which was 10 seconds faster than her previous best 6k time. Sophomore Zada Forde ’25 was next in 42nd with a time of 23:41.4. Rounding out the team were freshman Katriona Briggs ’26 and junior Katie Lyon ’24. Briggs nished in 60th with a time of 24:16.0 and Lyon nished in 65th with a time of 24:26.9. Overall, the team nished third with 142 points, just barely ahead of Tu s University who were projected to outperform the Judges prior to the meet.
e men’s cross-country team saw sophomore Lucas Dia ’25 nish the 8 kilometers rst for the team. He nished 42nd overall in 27:15.7. Next for the Judges was rst-year TJ Carleo ’26 in 62nd with a time of 27:47.3 for his rst Regional Championship. Sophomore Dashiell Janicki ’25 was
not far behind him in 75th. His time of 28:16.3 was a new personal best by 34 seconds. Junior Samuel Kim ’24 was next to nish for Brandeis, as he placed 94th in 28:47.8. Just behind him was junior Henry Nguyen ’24 in 99th place. He set a new personal best in the 8k with a time of 28:52.6,
which was 12 seconds faster than his previous best. Closing out the team were junior Willem Go ’24 and senior Matthew Driben ’23 in 105th and 148th respectively. Go nished in 29:01.0 and Driben nished in 30:25.8. Overall, the team nished 11th with 367 points, just in front of the Uni-
versity of Maine Farmington. Both teams now look forward to the indoor track season. e rst meet of that season is on Dec. 3.
Editor’s Note: Editor-in-Cheif Victoria Morrongiello ’23 is one of the women’s cross country co-captains and did not contribute towards this article.
By Cooper Gottfried editor
e Brandeis women’s basketball team started their season earlier this month, and have a 50% win rate so far. e team has played four games this season, facing o with Bridgewater State University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Maine Maritime Academy and Emerson College. In their rst game of the season, the Judges fell to the Bridgewater State Bears in a 69-70 loss. At the start of the fourth quarter, the Judges trailed by 30 points, but managed to tie the game at 67 with 1:17 on the clock. A free throw put the Bears up by one, and they managed to cling to a one point lead and close out the game. e Judges’ top scorer was Emma Reavis ’23 with 16 points.
e Judges won their second game of the season against the RPI Engineers 80-73 in overtime. e Judges’ win in this game advanced them to the nals of the Brandeis
Judges Invitational. e game was tied at 65 before the extra period, but the Judges outscored the Engineers 15-8 to take the win. e Judges’ top scorer once again was Reavis, with 19 points.
In their third game of the season, and the Brandeis Judges Invitational Finals, the Judges lost 59-67 to the Maine Maritime Academy Mariners. e Mariners were up by 10 points at the end of the rst quarter, and didn’t let go of their lead for the rest of the game. Brandeis guard Francesca Marchese ’23 scored her 95th career 3-pointer during the game. e waiting now begins for Marchese to hit just ve more threes, which will make her the ninth Brandesian to ever make 100 3-pointers in their career.
e Judges’ top scorer was Caitlin Gresko ’25, with 13 points.
In their fourth and most recent game, the Judges faced the Emerson Lions and won 93-51.
e Judges outscored the Lions in every quarter, and outscored them 28-6 in the third quarter
before securing a victory with a strong fourth quarter. e Judges’ top scorer was Shannon Smally (GRAD) with 19 points. e Judges’ next game is at home against Tu s University,
where they’ll hope to push their win rate above .500. e season has just begun and the Judges have 21 more games to play in the regular season, 13 of which are within the National Collegiate
Athletic Association (NCAA).
Editor’s Note: Sta writer Francesca Marchese is a captain on the women’s basketball team and did not contribute to the writing or editing of this article.
On Nov. 4, the Brandeis men’s and women’s swim and dive teams traveled to Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) for a meet. e men’s team competed against Babson College, e United States Coast Guard Academy (USCGA) and Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), while the women’s team competed against Babson College, the USCGA, WPI and Smith College.
e men’s team lost all three of their matches and the women’s team won two out of their four matches. e men’s team scores
were 137-153 against WPI, 89201 against the USGCA and 127163 against Babson. e women’s team scores were 178-107 against Smith, 99-184 against the USCGA, 170-100 against Babson and 145-147 against WPI. e women’s team triumphed over Smith College and Babson College, but lost to WPI and the USCGA. e men’s team’s top performers were Sam Dienstag ’24 and Benjamin Lee ’26. Dienstag won the 1000-yard freestyle with a time of 9:28.23 and won the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 4:37.87.
He also placed second in the 100yard free with a time of 48.23.
Lee’s time of 1:46.08 was good for second in the 200-yard freestyle,
while his time of 4:57.04 earned him third place in the 500-yard freestyle. Lee also competed in the 400-yard freestyle relay, earning third place with a time of 3:16.17.
e women’s team’s top performers were Bailey Gold ’23 and Audrey Teo ’26. Gold won the 200-yard butter y with a time of 2:09.40 and the 100-yard butter y with a time of 59.27. Teo placed fourth in both the 100yard breaststroke and the 200yard breaststroke, with times of 1:11.86 and 2:36.03 respectively.
e men’s and women’s swim and dive teams also took a short journey to Bentley University for another meet on Oct. 11. Both teams lost, with the men’s team’s
score being 181-114 and the women’s team’s score being 170-123.
e women’s team’s top performers were Gold and Chloe Gonzalez ’25. Gold won the 200yard butter y and set a meet record time of 59.23 in the 100-yard butter y, while also competing in the 200-yard medley at the meet. Gonzalez won the 100-yard freestyle race, setting a meet record time of 54.32, and also took third place in the 50-yard freestyle.
e men’s team’s top performers were Dienstag and Andrew Ngo ’25. Dienstag won the 1000-yard freestyle with a time of 9:29.59 and the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 4:38.33, setting meet and pool records in both races. He
also competed in the 200-yard medley relay, earning second place with a time of 1:37.93. Ngo took rst in his 100-yard breaststroke race with a time of 1:00.12, and also won 200-yard individual medley with a time of 2:01.41. e Brandeis men’s swim and dive team has a record of 1-4, and placed rst of seven teams at the Hartwick Relays earlier this semester. e women’s swim and dive team has a record of 2-4, and also placed rst of seven teams at the Hartwick Relays earlier this semester. Both the men’s team and women’s team now turn their eyes to their next meet on Nov. 19, when the USCGA comes to Brandeis for another meet.
In their nal game of the season, the Brandeis men’s soccer team faced New York University (NYU) on Nov. 5. e game was at home for the team’s Senior Day. Before the start of the game, they honored senior goalie Max Blacker ’23, goalie Aiden Guthro ’23, back Isaac Mukala ’23, forward Josh Gans ’23, back Forrest Shimazu ’23, forward Khalil Winder ’23 and forward Sammy Guttell ’23. e last time the two teams faced o , the Judges came out on top 1-0. Just two minutes into the game, the Judges almost took an early lead from a shot by Guttell. His shot went just wide le . Winder also had an early shot, but it went over the goal. Guthro made his rst save of the game in the 19th minute and was followed with a shot on the opposite end of the eld by Gans. Unfortunately, his shot also went over the goal. e two teams traded shots for most of the rst half, but NYU started to take control towards the end of the half. is resulted in the rst goal of the game in the 43rd minute from NYU to give them a 1-0 lead. Senior forward Sancho Maroto Tobias ’23 got one more shot o before the end of the rst half, but it went over the net. e
Judges had four shots in the rst half but none of them were on target. NYU on the other hand had nine shots with four of them being on target. e momentum was clearly on NYU’s side. ey proceeded to extend their lead to 2-0 just four minutes into the second half. First-year mid elder Rainer Osselmann-Chai ’26 got the Judges’ rst shot on target in the 50th minute but it was saved. Brandeis had a few more shots in the half but couldn’t get anything on target. NYU put the game out of reach in the 83rd minute with their third goal of the game. Brandeis ended up losing their last game of the season 0-3.
NYU outshot Brandeis 14-10 and had seven shots on target compared to Brandeis’ one. e
Judges had three corner kicks to give them two more than NYU. However, Brandeis also had 13 fouls, which was over double the number NYU had. Guthro nished the game with four saves. e team nished 6-8-2 overall and 1-6 in the conference.
ey were 3-4-2 at home and 3-4 away while scoring 1.19 goals per game and allowing 1.56 goals per game. Maroto Tobias led the team in goals with seven in 14 games played. Four players followed with two goals each. is included rst-year mid elder
Nico Beninda ’26, sophomoreback
Andres Gonzalez ’25, ju-nior forward Max Horowitz ’24 and Osselmann-Chai. Osselmann-Chai also led the team in assists with ve and was followed by Horowitz with three. Guthro nished the season with 81 total saves and ve shutouts. His overall save percentage was .779. Osselmann-Chai won Co-Rookie
of the Year in the University Athletic Association (UAA). He also earned an All-UAA honorable mention in his rst season. Maroto Tobias made the All-UAA second team in his rst year with Brandeis a er transferring from the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Finally, there’s Mukala,
who earned an honorable mention All-UAA status in his nal season for the Judges. Even though the team is graduating a few key players, they still have some of their top players going into next year, including Osselmann-Chai and Beninda. ey are now getting ready to improve for next year.
It’s Jan. 9, 2021, and the Washington Football Team is set to face o against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. e Football Team was the higher seed because they won the division, but they were 100% the underdogs of the game. en, a couple hours before the game, it was announced that the starting quarterback Alex Smith for the Football Team was inactive for the game. Instead, journeyman quarterback Taylor Heinicke would start. As a Washington fan, my expectations were extremely low. ere was no way Heinicke, an undra ed player out of Old Dominion University (ODU), was about to beat Tom Brady. Little did I know that game was the start of a legendary story for Heinicke. e odds were stacked against him, but that didn’t matter at all to him. Heinicke played his absolute heart out. at day, I saw a player with less talent but more heart. Was he particularly good in the game? Not really. He threw for 306 yards and a touchdown and also added 46 rushing yards and a touchdown on the ground. But he also had a passer rating of 78.4 and an interception. However, if you watched that game, you probably don’t remember that interception. You remember the crazy diving pylon play that apparently separated his AC joint. He played on and kept the game competitive for sure. But in the end, Washington lost 23-31. Still, he put the world on notice. Heinicke had arguably the best game from a quarterback against the Bucs throughout the entire postseason. In the Super Bowl, the Kansas City Chiefs offense, led by former Most Valuable Player Patrick Mahomes, scored just nine points against the Bucs. A er one crazy game, what came next for Heinicke?
A couple months later, Heinicke signed a two-year deal worth up to $8.75 million. is was fairly impressive considering what he was doing just a few months earlier. I mentioned that Heinicke was a journeyman through the National Football League (NFL). He was undraed out of ODU a er setting the school record for total passing yards at 14,959 and plenty of other school passing records. No one is particularly close to catching his records. Yet he went undra ed. A er that, he bounced around the league. From 2015-2016 he was with the Minnesota Vikings but didn’t get any play time. However, he did meet Scott Turner in Minnesota, who later became the offensive coordinator for the Washington Commanders. Heinicke then spent some time with the New England Patriots, Houston Texans, Carolina Panthers and even went to the XFL to play with the St. Louis BattleHawks. His stint in the XFL was short-lived a er the COVID-19 pandemic shut the league down. It seemed like maybe his time playing football was over. en in early December of 2020, he got a call from Washington to come play. At the time he was nishing online nal exams at ODU, as he was trying to nish his engineering degree. He got the call because he knew Turner’s playbook, so it would be easy for him to transition into a backup quarterback role. A few weeks a er that, he was starting in the Wild Card game against the Bucs. Heinicke went from living on his sister’s couch trying to get an engineering degree to facing o against one of the greatest
players of all time in the playo s. For the 2021 season, Washington signed quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick to a one-year worth $10 million. So once again, Heinicke was set to be the backup. at position didn’t last long a er Fitzpatrick got injured early in the rst game of the season. His rst regular season start for Washington came a week later against the New York Giants. With less than two minutes le in the game, Heinicke led the team down eld to set up a 43-yard eld goal. Kicker Dustin Hopkins converted the kick and Heinicke got his rst win with Washington. Heinicke started for the rest of the season and was not the greatest quarterback ever. He did get his revenge on the Bucs with a 29-19 win against them in Week 10, but overall, he was relatively mediocre. He threw for a total of 3419 passing yards and 20 touchdowns. However, he also threw 15 interceptions and had a passer rating of just 71.5. It was clear that he wasn’t the true answer for Washington at quarterback. He lacked the arm strength to make big throws. Even with all of this, everyone still loved him. His teammates praised him every week with his ability to extend plays with his legs. At the end of the season, Heinicke proved that he is probably the best backup quarterback in the NFL, but he wasn’t good enough to start consistently.
In the following oseason, Washington traded for quarterback Carson Wentz from the Indianapolis Colts. I personally did not like the trade because Wentz had built a recent reputation of not being good. However, Wentz had something Heinicke didn’t. Wentz had a cannon of an
arm. He could get the ball down the eld like Heinicke couldn’t. When asked about whether or not he was going to compete with Wentz for the starting job he said, “You look at the NFL and at the end of the day, it’s kind of a business. If you’re paying someone $30 million and you’re paying someone else $2 million—you’re paying this guy $30 million to play, you know?” Heinicke was a true professional. He was honest and understood what he was there to do. “Carson’s a great quarterback and you see it through OTAs and minicamp. And I hope he goes out there and succeeds. And again, my job is just to back him up. Hopefully, he’s on his deal, help him out in whatever way I can, and if for some reason he goes down, I’m ready to go play.” said Heinicke. Wentz was good in the rst week, but his play slowly declined in the next few weeks. en in a game against the Chicago Bears, Wentz fractured his nger. All of a sudden, it was Heinicke’s time again. Washington was on a downward trend at the time. When Heinicke took over, the team was 2-4 and overall, the team was a mess. ey couldn’t score any points and the defense couldn’t stop anyone. But something changed when Heinicke took the reins. Heinicke once again showed how his heart could convert to something on the eld. He used this to beat the Green Bay Packers in his rst start of the season. In an interview a er the game, he said, “I go out there and play like it’s my last game …. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad, but that’s just how I play. I think that’s when I do my best.”
All of his teammates continued to give him that praise. Washington wide receiver Terry McLaurin had
this to say about how Heinicke
a ects the team: “I think it’s a lot of what he’s been through in his career as a player and as a person. He plays like it’s his last game every single time. I think that energy spreads throughout this team.”
ere is just something about the guy that is so di cult to explain, but I think teammate Jonathan Allen puts it best: “He’s just a guy you want to play hard for … When people talk about the ‘it’ factor, it’s kind of hard to explain to someone who’s not really involved in sports. But you look at Taylor, he has ‘it.’ He’s not the biggest, not the strongest, not the most athletic, but he just has ‘it,’ whatever ‘it’ is. He’s just a football player.” A er the game, Heinicke talked about how he buys a new pair of Jordan sneakers a er every team he beats. His collection was building a er that win against Green Bay.
So, the legend continued. In the next week he led a gutsy game-winning drive against the Colts a er being down 10-16 with only 2:36 le to play. Again, he wasn’t perfect. He de nitely made some bad decisions, but somehow kept nding a way to win. e team in general was playing better around him, especially the defense, as they continued to improve as the season progressed. In the next week, Heinicke threw a bad interception that led to a Vikings comeback and caused Washington to lose its winning streak. Some people began to once again doubt if Heinicke could actually lead the team to victory. Was the Heinicke legend about to end? Week 10 would determine that. e game was against the undefeated Philadelphia Eagles. Everyone predicted Washington would lose
the game in what was possibly Heinicke’s last start. Wentz was able to come o the injury reserve the next week and possibly make his return. It was Monday night, and all the pressure was on Heinicke, so what did he do? All Heinicke did was lead Washington to be the rst team to beat the Eagles all season. It wasn’t all on Heinicke. e whole team played very well to beat the Eagles, but Heinicke was at the center. My favorite part of the game was when he intentionally took a knee and got hit by two Eagles defenders. Heinicke instantly jumped up and celebrated because he knew what came next. e refs called an unnecessary roughness penalty on the Eagles and that pretty much sealed the victory for Washington. Two days later, Rivera announced that Heinicke would start the next game against the Texans. Heinicke also announced that he not only bought Jordans for himself this week, but also for his entire offensive line as he said, “ ey’ve been busting their a– all year so they need to be compensated for that. So, I ordered some Js for the starting o ensive line this week.” For now, his legend continues. As a Washington fan, I know he isn’t the long-term answer at quarterback. But I do know that he plays with a swagger that I have never seen before, and the team loves to play for him. Will he ever emerge as a top quarterback in the NFL? Probably not. A part of me doesn’t care because all I know is that he’s here now and every week he’s going to do everything he can to stay there and help the team win. For now, I think that’s enough for most Washington fans.
is week on Nov. 13 marked the 166th birthday of our university’s namesake Justice Louis D. Brandeis. Many students may not know the impact of the man whose statue they put orange cones on top of, so to celebrate the big 1-6-6 we want to honor the life and legacy of our namesake.
Brandeis—the person, not the university—is arguably most famous for having been the rst Jewish person elected to the Supreme Court. In a history-making appointment, Brandeis continued his trailblazing in a number of court decisions. But Brandeis’ legacy and impact began earlier than his career sitting on the Supreme Court.
He had attended Harvard Law School, where he not only graduated at the top of his class but with record-breaking marks. After graduating, Brandeis took up many court cases representing small companies against larger corporations. He also took an interest in ghting for minimum wage for workers in larger corporations who were being denied fair pay for their labor. Brandeis also received acclaim for an essay he published with his practice partner Samuel Warren. Together the two outlined the “right to privacy” in a 1890 Harvard Law Review article.
e essay published by Brandeis and Warren is considered “one of the most in uential essays in the history of American law.” e essay describes the fundamental idea that “the individual shall have full protection in person and in property.” Essentially the article puts forward the idea that the concept of property—and consequently one’s own right to it—is not just in regards to tangible items but also in reference to intangible ones as well. In doing so, Brandeis and Warren delved into the legal protections around libel and slander and what protections people are entitled to.
At this point in his career, Brandeis had managed to become involved in many public interest cases causing him to be dubbed the name “the people’s lawyer.” A huge win in his career came from his case Muller v. Oregon (1908)
that went before the Supreme Court, where Brandeis had been asked to represent the state of Oregon as the defendant in error.
e case had been raised by Muller who had been ned for making a female worker work more than 10 hours in one day. At this time, the legislature of Oregon passed an act that said, “ at no female (shall) be employed in any mechanical establishment, or factory, or laundry in this state more than ten hours during any one day.” Muller was in violation of this legislature but fought the violation by saying it broke the 14th Amendment because it did not allow women to have agency over whether they would like to work more than 10 hours a week.
e plainti argued that, “It is the law of Oregon that women, whether married or single, have equal contractual and personal rights with men.” By limiting the hours a woman can choose to work it is in direct violation of granting women equal status to their male counterparts. e defense’s argument was that the legislation was designed to protect women on account of their sex.
ere are a lot of problems with the language of this court case, regarding gender and women’s roles. When reading through the document it is a bit discouraging to think that Brandeis supported this argument that blatantly makes women out to be inferior to their male counterparts, though, I think it is important to take note of the time period this is set in. But it is disheartening to read that Brandeis won the argument on the basis that “women needed ‘special protection’ by virtue of their physical di erences from men.”
While this case was won on the terms that women needed protecting on account of their sex to maintain their “unique qualities and societal role,” it also set a precedent which helped pass many labor laws including worker pay, work hours and work conditions. is case also played a large role in eventually making overtime pay into law. Eventually the laws would be expanded to not just protect women but men as well, but it takes time for the world to catch up on their societal expectations on the basis of sex. e case was a huge win for Brandeis; the overall takeaway
from the court win was that the decision would protect the health and welfare of women. However, it did also have some detrimental consequences because it did lead to inequality in the workplace for years to come because of the assumption that women are lesser than men established in this ruling. is case also has other important takeaways because it was the rst time there was the use of what is now known as a “Brandeis Brief.”
A “Brandeis Brief” is a legal court ling still used to this
day, that relies more heavily on the compilation of scienti c information and social science in comparison to legal citations. For this case, Brandeis outlined a 113page brief that outlined “quasiscienti c data on the negative e ects of long working hours for both men and women.” It is important to note here that Brandeis found long working hours had detrimental e ects on both men and women but women needed the extra protection because of their “biological reproductive roles.”
Again, not a great argument to win on, but this case set an important precedent for the future of worker rights in the U.S. It wasn’t until 1916 that Brandeis received his nomination to the Supreme Court by then president Woodrow Wilson. He received the nomination on Jan. 28, 1916 and he was the rst nominee to not be con rmed on the day of their nomination. Brandeis’ appointment to the Supreme Court was the rst to be brought to a public hearing in the Senate. It wound up taking four months of Senate Judiciary Committee hearings to bring the nomination to a vote in the Senate. e Senate was in support of Brandeis’ nomination 47-22 and he was o cially con rmed to the position on June 1, 1916.
ere was controversy over Brandeis assuming the position because of his career of opposing monopolies, criticizing investment banks and advocating for workers’ rights. His ideas made people view him as a radical and therefore caused concern that he may lack “ju-
dicial temperament.” In addition to these radical ideas and values, there was an underlying issue taken with his religion. Brandeis believed there was hesitation regarding his appointment because of his religion and antisemitic beliefs in the Senate.
As a justice on the Supreme Court, Brandeis continued supporting what were considered “radical ideas.” Notably in Gilbert v. Minnesota (1920) Brandeis wrote a dissenting opinion a er the Supreme Court ruled in favor of upholding the conviction of Joseph Gilbert for criticizing U.S. participation in World War I. Gilbert had been arrested for anti-conscription speech, and Brandeis dissented with the argument “that the Minnesota law outlawed beliefs, not just actions, and that it would invade the private security of the family if it prevented a father from advising his son not to join the army for reasons of conscience or religion. He added that the statute deprived persons of rights guaranteed by the Constitution.”
Brandeis had a record of protecting freedom of speech rights during his time on the Supreme Court. Was the man perfect? No. But are any of us truly perfect? At the end of the day, Brandeis did a lot to protect the rights of people and as a social justice school we could only hope to uphold the same values that he did to ght for social justice and leave the world in a better place than we received it.
What is your rst impression when you hear the phrase “pole dancing?” No matter if you chuckle or start to get excited, do not get overwhelmed by it. Pole dancing is a full-body tness that requires the participant’s overall strength and exibility. Parker Skutt ’25 and Sarah Shi man ’25 are thinking about bringing this seemingly far-away activity onto the Brandeis campus. Being the Treasurer and the Media Outreach Coordinator of Brandeis Pole Dance and Fitness Club, they worked hard to cultivate new pole dancers at Brandeis.
Skutt developed an interest in pole dancing when she was in high school a er watching a YouTuber that does pole dancing; she remembered thinking “this is just so badass and awesome.” When she started college in a big city, she started to explore this sport by herself by nding places with instructions. She took her rst class last summer and fell in love with it. “So then I just kept taking classes and I really, really love it,” Skutt said.
Shi man started aerial arts and pole dancing at a younger age. She grew up around people who pole dance and was comfortable in the space. She has been actively watching it and started her own exploration of aerial arts in middle school. “And then, this summer I went back to my aerial studio and I was kind of bored with silks and stu , so I decided to try pole. And it just clicked,” Shiman commented. She highlighted that people would be able to nd community in pole dancing: “You
can learn from each other and there’s always gonna be someone who knows something and the other person doesn’t and vice versa … [You] can kind of tailor [it to] yourself and however you feel best.”
Skutt and Shi man both expressed their strong desire to make pole dancing a presence on campus. Skutt wanted to make pole a thing at Brandeis since she took her rst class in the studio. As they found the previous pole dance club, Brandeis Firecrackers, had died out, they contacted the old club members and managed to let it come back under a new name: Brandeis Pole Dance and Fitness. e Firecrackers members have been very helpful with the restarting of the club by giving them their old constitutions and helping them set up the poles, according to Skutt and Shi man. e biggest thing that the club is currently working with is the teaching part. None of the club leaders are certi ed trainers, so they will have to use DVDs and other online resources for training. More importantly, they wanted to cultivate an environment where people can learn from friends instead of teachers. However, they were thinking of bringing in experts for future club events if possible. e club leaders are currently working on re-establishing the club to apply for future funding. ey are also thinking about getting new poles and other necessary supplies.
Aside from funding, the biggest challenge that the club faces is the stigma around pole dancing. For them the appeal of pole dancing is that everyone can do it and it can be tweaked into whatever one wants it to. “So it’s how do you make a space where people feel
comfortable,” Skutt said, “ rst of all, try it in front of your friends, like doing it with friends and then doing it however they wanna do it or pursue it … It takes a lot of muscles and a lot of strength, and I think highlighting how much of a tness activity this can be for people, and you’ll feel really condent and good, but it also doesn’t require that strength coming into it.”
Targeting this stigma, the club leaders wanted people to be open about the sport. “[It’s] not like, ‘oh, don’t tell people I pole dance.’
You can post it on Instagram. You can talk about it. It’s like I will mention it to people and they’ll be like, ‘I would be interested, but I have no upper body strength.’
And I’m like, You don’t need that right now. You can get that,” Shiman said.
“Exactly. We’re de nitely very conscious of the line between, you know, respecting people, especially with posting on the internet.”
Skutt added.
e club is currently at the word-of-mouth phase. Skutt thought the visibility of the club
and letting people know what to expect were the biggest things. “For my rst class, I had no idea what to expect. I’d never done any type of activity like that. I was Googling on the Internet and I was trying so hard to gure out exactly what was going to happen. And so I think being very transparent about this—what you should wear, what you should expect … that type of thing is gonna be really big for us.”
Do you know that students can create their own majors at Brandeis with their own courses planned out? If you have never heard of it, this article will help you have a better understanding. e Brandeis Hoot had the opportunity to speak with Sara Goldstein ’23, an Undergraduate Departmental Representative (UDR) of the Independent Interdisciplinary Major (IIM), to participate in an interview. Goldstein gave an introduction about the curriculum of an IIM, and the advantages students can take from it.
Since IIM is not a traditional major, many new students at Brandeis haven’t heard much about it. Goldstein said to e
Hoot, “I think the title says a lot about [the major]. So independent means it’s not part of a department, and students can design their elds of study.” All students can design their curriculum based on their interests, Goldstein explained.
Goldstein added: “It’s not like a new major. You are taking di erent opportunities from di erent departments and fusing them to create your interdisciplinary nature of Brandeis.” us, the idea of having an interdisciplinary major is familiar.
Students who want to take an IIM require three advisors from three di erent departments, and the advisors can help students to create curriculums. Goldstein explained, “For example, my major encompasses tons of departments. But I have advisors from sociology, economics and legal studies.” Students can also take
courses through various departments and take advantage of all Brandeis o ers by taking the best of each.
IIM students are not taking classes within a single department or major but taking all meaningful courses that will help them learn the most from every department.
Goldstein demonstrated: “So, I’m taking a lot of economics classes, but I’m also taking a class called ‘ eater for Social Change’ because my majors are about social change. So there’s a theater course that’s related, and that counts [toward] my major.”
ough students have opportunities to build their own course plans, their plans need to be approved by the advisor. Students are also required to submit documents to apply for the IMM major, including a proposal, a curriculum and an explanation of all
the classes to be taken and their relevance to the major.
One of the cardinal issues that students may encounter when making their IMM is how to make their own curriculum. In general, each person has their own story.
Goldstein suggested that students could take a look at other universities’ course o erings and consult professors at Brandeis.
For Goldstein, she was really interested in inequalities, but there were no majors speci cally focused on inequalities at Brandeis according to Goldstein, and that is why she decided to choose IIM as her major. Goldstein said, “Social policy is a major in some schools and inequalities in some schools, so I looked at them to see what type of classes those o ered, and then they provided me with previous curriculums of other students who studied similar things in IIM, and I looked at
those classes.”
Goldstein recommended that students interested in pursuing Independent Interdisciplinary Majors talk with one of the UDRs for advice. Goldstein explained that this would be a great rst step in getting started with the major. According to Goldstein, if students are interested in media communications, they should reach out to Maddy DuLong ’23, the other UDR of IIM. If students are interested in math-related subjects or inequalities, it is better to speak with Goldstein. e next step in declaring the major is to submit the proposal and other documents mentioned before. en, students need to join a committee meeting that meets every semester. e committee will look through all the majors and ask students questions during the session regarding their major choice.
Brandeis’ campus can, to the untrained and uninterested eye, seem to have a random assortment of sculptures and art spread throughout. From our philosophical boy laying outside the library, to the somewhat random sticks placed into the ground in between the Shapiro Student Center and the O ce of Admissions, Brandeis’ art on campus can appear forced. In fact, the only sculpture which seems reasonable on our campus is the statue of Louis Brandeis adjacent to Fellows Garden.
But on upper campus, just outside of the Usdan Student Center, stands a sculpture most of us probably walk by without even seeing. ere rests a gray marble obelisk which blends into the pine trees to the south of it and blends into the monotony of the brutalist brick to the north of it. is sculpture does not have any plaque associated with it and is almost begging for something more, such as a water feature, around it to emphasize its presence.
With only a quick glance you would be sure to miss it and with a longer look one may think that when you tilt your head a certain way that it seems almost phallic. But, as you come closer to the smooth marble which stands before you one can see that it almost appears to be fountain-like, as if the rock was propelled out of the earth like the water at the Bellagio fountain in Las Vegas. is fountain has nothing immediately around it to suggest its reason for being there and is almost entirely void of any signature or artistic recognition at all.
But on the side of the fountain which faces the Schwartz lecture hall there is a single word: “Hexter.”
As it turns out, this word is all one needs to know to learn the origins of this sculpture and more impressively, the man behind it. Maurice Beck Hexter was the sculptor responsible for the gray marble monument. He donated it to Brandeis University in 1970 despite only starting his career in sculpting in 1951, as recorded by art website Alamy.
But Hexter’s life was not de ned, nor did it center around sculpting at rst! As recorded by the Jew-
ish American Archives, Hexter was born in Cincinnati in 1891 to two German immigrants. For the early part of his life, Hexter did not leave the Cincinnati area. He worked for a local newspaper distributing papers throughout the city and even graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1912.
Unsure of where to begin his career due to di ering opinions based on his faith and education, Hexter began a life of social work and advancement of social justice through his faith. His involvement with such started as Hexter tought English at the Jewish Settlement House. From there, his desire to work in Jewish charities blossomed because in 1913, Hexter began work in the o ce of the United Jewish Charities of Cincinnati. However, a er only one year of working in Cincinnati he transferred to become the director of the Federation of Jewish Charities in Milwaukee.
But Hexter returned home a er two years to re-join the United Jewish Charities of Cincinnati as superintendent. If history is any help when predicting the future, it is clear looking upon Hexter’s short time in social work that he was already moving around a lot while also moving up in his positions at each charity organization. is continued in 1919 when Hexter was given the opportunity to travel east and move to Boston where he would become the Executive Director of the Federation of Jewish Charities.
During his time in Boston, Hexter did not just simply work for the Federation of Jewish Charities, he also attended Harvard University where he received a doctorate in social ethics in 1924. However, Hexter’s ambitions did not end with the attainment of his doctorate either. Hexter also became a professor at Harvard University and Simmons College where he tought social ethics to students until 1929 when he moved to Jerusalem.
Hexter’s social work and philanthropy followed him around the globe as he began work in Israel. He was drawn there because from 1927 to 1929 he worked as the secretary of the Joint Palestine Survey Committee, growing his interest in the con ict and nding resolutions. But his move to Israel was primarily twofold: he was appointed as a non-Zionist member of the Council of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and was also there to direct the Pales-
tine Emergency Fund. Under his purview, Hexter was able to collect $2.5 million worldwide with the Palestine Emergency Fund to rebuild homes destroyed during rioting between Arabs and Jews. is placed Hexter in a very important role not only in social work and philanthropy but also in politics as between 1930 and 1931 he spent a considerable amount of time negotiating with the British Cabinet on the Palestine con ict. Until his return to the United States in 1938, Hexter continued to increase his work as in 1935 he was promoted within the Jewish Agency for Palestine to lead the agency’s colonization project.
When he returned to the United States, Hexter moved to New York City to join the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies and three years later was made an executive vice president of the federation, a position he held until he retired in 1967. His work in New York City was beyond that of what he had previously accomplished. Hexter was responsible for the allocation of nearly $500 million, made mostly as contributions, to support the federation’s network of health and welfare agencies. And it was under his leadership that the federation was successful in expanding communal planning, services and in leading the federation’s expansion into foster-child care, medical sta ng in hospitals and improved services for the elderly.
Hexter’s work was de ned by his relentless quest to serve the world and improve it, which is why when given the opportunity he also worked to develop collegiate programs in social work, policy and justice, such as the one he developed here at Brandeis University.
But where does his career as a sculptor ever occur in his life? Why is it that the gray marble statue bears his name? Well, in 1950 Hexter’s daughter Marjorie brought home clay from a summer sculpting course and from there Hexter became deeply committed to learn how to sculpt. He began with clay and soon was able to work with a number of di erent materials as well. His sculptures were no simple hobby or eeting interest as he seriously picked up the passion in 1956 a er only ve years of experience, and in 1979 won two gold medals for his art at the National Sculpture Show.
Hexter’s life is a testament to the power of fortitude and zeal. He
was a man whose life was de ned, but not con ned, by his identity. He expressed his faith and his passion to change the world in every step he took. His life was full of work, people and places which seem from afar to be di erent and unable to join together. But it is his work which proves that those are only assumptions which can be made when we do not engage with the issues surrounding us and act to improve them. Hexter’s life is evidence of the fact that nothing is beyond repair.
So, as we here at Brandeis walk from lower campus to upper campus and vice versa, as we gaze upon the odd collection of art, infrastructure and architecture here, rather than be confused by
it we should be inspired by it. Inspired to know that there exists no world in which di erent and seemingly opposite things cannot exist in harmony together. Take a moment. Do not just look at the art on campus, but understand it and its history! Because it may not be highly visible, it may not be ashy or cohesive but it most certainly is a testament to our values. For those interested in learning more about Maurice Beck Hexter, you can read his biography, titled Life Size.
It’s another normal day on Brandeis campus, and you are eating at the dining hall with your friends, when suddenly you overhear a stranger say the most hilarious thing you could have ever imagined. You wish that this moment could be encapsulated in time forever, for future generations to hear…
Luckily, Overheard at Brandeis (@brandeis_overheard) is here to make these moments into forever memories. An Instagram account
with growing popularity, they take submissions and post anonymous quotes from Brandeis students, mirroring the style of Instagram accounts such as @overheardla or @overheardnewyork.
“I started the account a er February break last year, I’m pretty sure it was shortly a er the confessions account was banned,” said Overheard in an interview with e Brandeis Hoot. “I was bored and wanted to do something about it. Some friends gave me the idea for an overheard account. I had heard some really random shit said on this campus that I thought could make people laugh, so the account was born.”
e Overheard account was
something new for Brandeis students. “As opposed to the typical confessions or crushes accounts,” which Overheard says most o en “turn into friend groups spamming inside jokes,” Overheard describes the idea for their account as “simple and something everyone could enjoy,” a likely explanation for its popularity among students.
Overheard recounted their favorite quotes of all time, listing anything from “I’m not mentally ill, I’m just hilarious,” to “She gives the biggest Pete Buttigieg energy,” “I’ve been getting really into gaslighting lately,” and their all time favorite: “One night ago she was sitting on my face and
now she doesn’t even say hi to me at Chabad?”
Overall, the account seems to be a hit among the Brandeis student body. “It’s pretty cool to hear people talking about the account around me,” says Overheard. “Sometimes I’ll be at dinner and people are like ‘new Overheard post!’”
In some ways, Overheard at Brandeis provides insight into what it really means to be a student at Brandeis. “It’s really cool for me to see how Brandeis students interact with social media, and there’s a bit of an alumni following now too,” Overheard states. “I like being a part of something everyone can relate to and
connect over. I think it’ll be sweet to pass it on when I graduate.”
No matter how di erent they are from one another, Overheard is something that is for all Brandeis students alike. “I like being a part of something everyone can relate to and connect over. As long as people are smiling while looking at the account I feel successful.” Overheard also noted that they would “love to try to increase school spirit,” as well as spreading “social awareness.”
e next time you overhear someone say something you just can’t believe, know that Overheard at Brandeis is waiting for you!
Editors-in-Chief
Victoria Morrongiello
Thomas Pickering
Madeline Rousell
Managing Editor Mia Plante
Copy Editor Logan Ashkinazy
News Editor Roshni Ray
Arts Editors
Rachel Rosenfield Cyrenity Augustin
Opinions Editor Cooper Gottfried
Features Editor Jenny Zhao
Sports Editor Justin Leung
Deputy Sports Editor Natasha Girshin
Editor-at-large Lucy Fay
The nal push to get to anksgiving break is under way with the last full week of classes prior to the holiday wrapping up. But, among ourselves and in conversations with others, we have found a common theme running through the campus—burnout. e fall semester at Brandeis o ers a lot to students when it comes to being exible around the High Holidays. Most of our weeks in September and early October are either followed or preceded by three- or four-day weekends. is makes the beginning of the semester feel like a breeze with consistent breaks. While that model promotes student mental health by o ering long weekends—and also giving students time o for observing holy days—it pigeonholes the student body into a ve-week span with no breaks until anksgiving.
Volume 21 Issue 10 the brandeis hoot • brandeis university 415 south street • waltham ma
FOUNDED BY Leslie Pazan, Igor Pedan and Daniel Silverman
Jonathan Ayash, Soren Birnbaum, Jillian Brosofsky, Vincient Calia-Bogan, Sam Finbury, Zach Katz, Sarah Kim, Joey Kornman, Josh Lannon, Kristianna Lapierre, Max Lerner, Rafi Levi, Francesca Marchese,
As the weekly community student newspaper of Brandeis University, The Brandeis Hoot aims to provide our readers with a reliable, accurate and unbiased source of news and information. Produced entirely by students, The Hoot serves a readership of 6,000 with in-depth news, relevant commentary, sports and coverage of cultural events. Recognizing that better journalism leads to better policy, e Brandeis Hoot is dedicated to the principles of investigative reporting and news analysis. Our mission is to give every community member a voice.
The Brandeis Hoot welcomes letters to the editor on subjects that are of interest to the community. Preference is given to current or former community members and The Hoot reserves the right to edit or reject submissions. The deadline for submitting letters is Wednesday at noon. Please submit letters to letters@thebrandeishoot.com along with your contact information. Letters should not exceed 500 words. The opinions, columns, cartoons and advertisements printed in The Hoot do not necessarily represent the opinions of the editorial board.
ADVERTISE
Advertising in e Brandeis Hoot helps spread your message to our readers across the Brandeis campus, in the Waltham community and beyond through our website. All campus organizations receive a 25-percent discount o our regular prices. To reserve your space in the paper, e-mail us at ads@ thebrandeishoot.com.
GIVE A HOOT, JOIN THE HOOT!
Writers, editors, photographers and graphic artists wanted to join e Brandeis Hoot, your weekly community newspaper. To learn more, send us an e-mail at vmorrongiello@brandeis.edu, or visit our website http://brandeishoot.com/join.
We
e toll that this takes on us as students—and on faculty and sta —is considerable. Professors try to double-book midterms during this period to make up for the inconsistency of the four-day weeks in the prior months. Not to mention then professors try to play catch-up in order to make up for time lost to those lovely Brandeis days. With this rush to cram in material, it inhibits Brandeis students’ ability to give their attention to classes while also focusing on personal development through clubs, activities, jobs and internships. is leads to the phenomenon known all too well by college students across the country as “academic burnout.” Students who push themselves too hard to meet academic and professional expectations cannot be expected to contin-
ue operating at the high level that academics o en demand. Particularly on Brandeis’ campus, where nearly half of all students have more than one major (and likely have one or two minors as well), it can be a strenuous task to maintain good academic standing while continuing to work in a multitude of clubs on campus. It is so important that both professors and the academic o ces here at Brandeis know that when looking into future fall semesters to allow for breaks within the veweek stretch. is would provide students with the time they need to either catch up on work or get the sleep they are in need of. One helpful step could be creating a de ned midterm period, like the nals period Brandeis has already instituted. is period would include the same features as the nals period does: If you have three midterms within four consecutive exam periods, or two exams on the same day with extended time, you can request to reschedule. is would allow students more exibility and less stress, as having the ability to reschedule exams if needed instead of taking many exams back-to-back would relieve a lot of stress. Although scheduling these exams would be a he y administrative task, it would make life on campus much easier for the students who are su ering through midterm season. Some students are still taking midterms in November, while others nished theirs several weeks ago. A “midterm season,” modelled a er “nals season,” could be a solution to the problem of chronic work that many students face near the end of Brandeis fall semesters. ere were
also many students who faced backto-back midterm exams. Here is the inverse problem students face when midterm exams aren’t scheduled: they nd themselves overwhelmed with assignments piling up on the same day and unable to work around the schedule. Creating a dened midterm schedule certainly wouldn’t be the cure to all burnout; that’s a much deeper problem that all college students face, but it could be one small way to positively a ect Brandeis’ student population. Now imagine on top of all this cramming within students’ academic schedule, they also have to worry about their class schedule for the next semester. And of course, the university cannot stay consistent in how it allows students to choose their classes. In the past four years alone, we have seen at least four major changes to how classes are selected in terms of credit, COVID-19 and platform. Us seniors started selecting classes on Sage, then we had to switch selection methods because of COVID-19, then we switched to Workday and now we select classes in di erent blocks depending on credit amount. ere hasn’t been any consistency in choosing courses and the constant changes make an already stressful process even more stressful. All of this to say, we are excited to go home. We are excited to be with family and away from work. ough assuredly we will be bringing work home with us, even if we say we won’t check our emails. And when we get back we know the joy of nals will be waiting for us with open arms. Travel home safely and we’ll see you in a little bit.
“To acquire wisdom, one must observe.”
Halloween’s protection expired 18 days ago, freeing Ms. Carey from the ice as “All I Want for Christmas Is You” oozes into the atmosphere like the CO2 stored in the polar ice caps. Now that my favorite holiday (and birthday) has passed, it is time to tackle one of the biggest debates in the music industry: when is the appropriate time to start listening to Christmas music? is is a topic that attracts many strong emotions and opinions. us, I sent out a Google form survey through my Instagram and e Brandeis Hoot to collect a range of data regarding peers’ feelings about Christmas music; so the results presented in this article are not only from Brandeis students. (Although one may assume this article may not reach a target audience, it should be known that many famous Christmas tunes actually were written by Jewish composers— from “Silver Bells” to “Rudolph the Red-Nosed reindeer” to “Santa Baby.”)
I am no exception when it comes to having strong opinions about Christmas music, so I suppose I should preface this article with my own feelings and potential biases. My mother is Catholic and my father is Jewish, so every December the staircase
is decked out in garland, colored lights outline the house, and we decorate our 14-foot-tall tree together—oh, and sometimes we remember to take out the Menorah. As we decorate our house, Alexa sets the mood with her Christmas music station, which means the same songs repeat every couple of hours. I enjoy these times and even listen to some of my favorites on a Spotify playlist, which I have to scroll and scroll to nd each year. But you won’t catch me “Christmas Wrapping” with e Waitresses anytime soon; I still have respect for anksgiving.
A tradition in my home begins each year on anksgiving a er dinner, when my family braces the evening chill (or maybe it’ll be 70 degrees this year—depends on Mariah’s e ect on those ice caps). Someone sacri ces the view by venturing to the back of the house to the outside outlet, while the rest of us line up on the sidewalk. en, a countdown— followed by the plugging in of the Christmas lights, marking our o cial transition from anksgiving to Christmas (at least, for those of us who still acknowledge the separation). It is only a er this time that I willingly put in my AirPods and let Christmas Kelly Clarkson push Midnights Taylor Swi from my monthly Receiptify—and no sooner. I have to draw a line somewhere, and on the other side, that line is midnight on Dec. 25.
Of the 52 participants in
my survey, 21 also stop listening to Christmas music on this date, while 15 do not and the rest said it depends.
My survey consisted of ve main questions, two of which had sub-questions, and ended with an option to leave a personalized comment. To set the scene, the rst question asked: “Overall, do you enjoy Christmas music?”
67.3% of respondents said yes, 28.8% said it depends, while the small percentage remaining said no. Of the 50 people who did not say “no,” 44% said that Christmas is their favorite holiday.
Just like myself, 25 respondents assertively admitted to listening to Christmas music on their own time, speci ed as listening to it outside of the radio, public spaces and/or with friends and family. From here, I asked the most de ning question: how soon do people listen to Christmas music?
e earliest option available was June, marking the sixmonth countdown until Christmas. Although I’d included this option as a joke, one person did select it, so using the honor system we have to accept that there is at least one individual out there who sings Christmas carols during the heat of summer. Next time when I get a larger sample population, we can test the commonality of this habit.
e largest portion of respondents, 30.8%, begins to listen to Christmas music “around and/
or on anksgiving.” I was actually surprised to see that only 15.4% whip out their Christmas playlists on Nov. 1, despite all the memes about Mariah Carey defrosting that resurface each year on 11:59 p.m. of Halloween (huh, I guess the Internet is not always an accurate representation of life).
Regardless, I am only one person removed from someone who listens to Christmas music so early. One of my closest friends, Sophie Sheklin, is quoted as she sat on my dorm room oor: “[My roommate] started playing Christmas music on November 2, which made me a little mad . . . I thought I could escape that at Brandeis!” (Disclaimer: Sophie and her roommate are very close and I was assured that her roommate would laugh at this quotation.) While I was about to agree with Sophie on this point, I had to take a step back as she delivered the second part of her statement: “It was Ariana Grande Christmas music, so at least it wasn’t Mariah Carey, so that meant at least it was good Christmas music.” To each their own, but you can DM me for her dorm building and room number. (Disclaimer: “Santa Tell Me” by Grande is in my Christmas music playlist.)
ree individuals added their own responses to the same question. While they all presented their stance in di erent ways, the consensus was the same: they listen to Christmas music whenever they want, which can translate to . . . to . . . year-round. I’m tempted to expose these individuals, but alas, I intended to keep the survey anonymous.
Not everyone listens to Christmas music on their own time, so I asked a follow-up question: “At what time do you not get annoyed when you hear Christmas music in public?” All 52 respondents had something to say about that. Results here were a mixed bag. Putting aside personal preferences from the previous question, 21.2% said they did not get annoyed starting on Nov. 1, with a shocking 19.2% who said before Halloween. On the ipside, 19.2% also said that they only stop
getting annoyed a er anksgiving. Two individuals went as far to respond “never,” with a third who customized their response: “NEVER ANNOYED” (yes, in all caps). Equally, three individuals said they are always annoyed. Lastly, I will address the personalized comment box, which 16 respondents used. Some respondents simply expressed their joy for Christmas music one last time—“Christmas music slays :)”—while another expressed their frustration with this topic through excessive punctuation: “Christmas does not start before anksgiving!!!!” Others listed their favorite songs, including:
“Christmas Tree Farm” by Taylor Swi , “Carol of the Bells,” “Sleigh Ride,” “River” by Joni Mitchell and “Christmas Lights” by Coldplay (in no particular order).
Although my survey su ered from non-response bias and did not reach the widest group of respondents, I think my following conclusion is safe to put into print: one is entitled to enjoy Christmas music whenever they please, especially if it brings them joy—no matter the time of year. Although it might not have the same e ect when the trees are blossoming and everything returns to green (outside, not the stu we bring into our living rooms), Christmas music is o en a simple joy that cannot be bashed. Yes, the repeated Macy’s commercials and Christmas capitalism can hinder the experience and peace for some, but on a personal level, let Christmas music soothe the ears of whoever is willing to listen.
Despite the slight change of topic, one respondent did wish me to leave you all with a controversial opinion in the personalized comment box: “Die Hard is the greatest Christmas movie.” Maybe next week you’ll see a poll about that.
By Jamie Trope staff
At 6:05 p.m. on a Monday, I walked into Lower Usdan with one goal only: to eat dinner. Valiantly, I scoured the dining hall, scanning every nook and cranny for the sacred item for the Excalibur of cuisines: the grilled cheese. It was a simple desire—all I wanted was bread and melted cheese. But with no successful sighting, I accepted my fate and ran two pieces of bread through the toaster and acquired two very sad slices of cold, cold cheese. It was, at the risk of repeating myself, a dreadfully sad state of a airs.
But then, before all hope was lost and before I was made to consume this dreadfully sad meal, I paused and thought back to a day (two weeks ago) and I arose from my throne (one of the Lower Usdan dining booths) and made my way to the preparation station.
Would a wa e maker be a worthy stand-in as a grill master? I stalled in my tracks as I was greeted by an unfortunate sight: Someone else’s wa e was occupying the wa e maker. A grilled cheese-starved individual such as I should not have to wait for such a long period of time (two minutes and 30 seconds) just to make myself a meal.
I turned my head and my eyes landed upon the next best option: the bubble wa e machine. Was this the most preposterous idea yet? Even more so than my previous idea? Was this a level two, when I had not yet even attempted a level one? Surely, I thought, surely I shouldn’t, surely I couldn’t. Surely it would be unbecoming of such an upstanding diner such as myself. But I craved grilled cheese.
I opened the bubble wa e machine, placed upon it one slice of bread, then two more slices of cheese, and nally, the last slice of bread. With great formality and excitement, I grasped the upper
handle of the bubble wa e machine and pressed down gingerly.
I could not see my creation under the hot pressures of the machine. It was frightening. What if I took my food from the machine, only to nd it burnt? e idea startled me, scared me. But I could not risk it. I could not risk the chance that I would remove the bread and cheese from the bubble wa e machine with only warm bread slices and sweaty, half-melted cheese, and not a hope in sight for me to eat a grilled cheese as my longed-for dinner.
I stood there, tense. It was only me and the machine.
Apprehensively, I opened the wa e maker’s lid, and behold, it was complete: the fabled bubble grilled cheese. A crispy creation, with perfectly melted cheese safely contained within the crusty, crunchy bread. And, even better, the outside was marked with the telltale bubble speed bump shapes of a bubble wa e.
It was a glorious success! I can
report that it was the most fantastic grilled cheese I have ever eaten in Lower Usdan dining hall (and I can safely say that I have eaten many a Lower Usdan dining hall grilled cheese). I could never have known that the nest o ering from Lower Usdan would come not from one of the many serving
areas, but instead from the humble bubble wa e maker machine. is is all to say that one should always experiment with the cooking items available. One never knows what magni cent creation a next meal could be. 10/10 would make again.
So, the midterms are now past. Well, I shouldn’t say they’ve gone quite yet. e tallying for the elections, which occurred this past Tuesday on Nov. 8, is still ongoing.
At the time of writing, the Democrats are projected to have taken the wins in both the Arizona and Nevada Senate races, putting them over the 50 seats necessary to control the chamber (remembering that a tie-breaking vote will come from Vice President Kamala Harris).
is has placed the Democrats in a comfortable position with regards to the special runo election in Georgia, wherein either a Democratic win in the form of Rev. Raphael Warnock or a Republican in the form of Herschel Walker will not upset their control of the upper house of Congress. at special election is scheduled for Dec. 6, by the way.
e House of Representatives is another story, with the counting of mail-in ballots expected to take longer due to late-arriving mail, putting the earliest possible announcement on Nov. 15. Let me take a moment to thank those people who took on the unenviable task of actually counting up these ballots, as well as all the election o cials who took time out of their schedules to oversee and help the voting process (yes, Dad, thank you for your service).
I would also like to comment brie y on how utterly infuriating it is having to wait this long for the outcomes of an election which literally decides how the government will work for the next two years: ugh. It seems as though the infrastructure for new problems like counting the immense number of mail-in ballots still needs time to catch up, with o cials in some of California’s more rural counties reporting that they only have one ballot counting machine. Problems like this are expected to delay the nal results of some races in California, pushing the nal announcement for the House in that state back to December. Surely, it should be the rst priority to be funding our election systems so that we can ensure our citizen election volunteers have all the help they require? Are we, post2020, guaranteed to have a month
before the results for any national election are nally known? For the foreseeable future, it seems as though the answer will remain yes. In the meantime, however, there is much to discuss, including the end results of the congressional elections.
While the Senate is now conrmed to remain with the Democrats, it is essentially certain that the House will go to the Republicans (they have just one seat le to win). What does this mean going into the next two years? Even though the House of Representatives is o cially known as the lower house, they still hold a large amount of sway in determining political policy. Firstly, Kevin McCarthy will likely be sworn in as the new speaker, replacing Nancy Pelosi. Now, while the House doesn’t have as many appointment privileges as the Senate, Republicans will now have the ability to start holding investigations into the performance of the president, along with any scandals which might emerge in the next few years. Some things that I suspect we might see are congressional investigations into Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, along with investigations into Biden’s response to the pandemic as well as the U.S. military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021; all of these being issues which the GOP has promised to look into. Regardless of the veracity of these investigations, House Republicans do maintain the privilege of conducting them. Another con ict we are likely to see from a divided Congress are debates around the debt ceiling, an issue which came up last time the Congress was split in this way back in 2011. Essentially, both houses of Congress as well as the president have to agree on any raises of the debt ceiling, which is the maximum amount of money that the U.S. government can borrow. If the debt ceiling is not raised, the repercussions could be as severe as a recession or a global nancial crisis. Republicans are likely to use this as a kind of sword of Damocles over the head of the Democrats, forcing them to the negotiation table, in an attempt to levy compromises when it comes to their achieving their political platform. is could result in mass budget cuts, but again, we will have to see what lies in store. e most consequential privilege which the
Republicans now have is the power to bring articles of impeachment against the sitting president, something which famously happened to President Trump twice when Democrats held the House in 2019 and 2020. Of course, we don’t know if they will act on it, but it remains a possibility ( e GOP has already introduced over a dozen impeachment resolutions at the time of this writing!).
ese are all de nitely massive downers, fo’ sho, but I would like to take a minute to pivot away from the doom and gloom of hypothetical House shenanigans and focus on something a little more positive for progressives. Namely, that the prophesied “red wave” was a total bust.
Had you told me a week ago that we would be looking at Democrats not only maintaining, but actually increasing their majority in the Senate, I would have thought you were crazy. History would agree, as precedent shows that midterm elections, a majority of times, result in overall losses for the president’s party. We seem to have bucked the trend, however: the 2022 elections were the strongest showing for a president’s party since the elections of 2002. ese results are especially surprising considering Biden’s low approval ratings, admittedly having come up a bit from their lowest gulch in late July. Midterm elections are o en viewed as referendums on the current president, and if we are taking these results to their natural conclusions, it seems as though Biden has more tacit approval from the American people than we may have thought. I would be wary, however, to encourage the president to start patting himself on the back quite yet. Let’s talk about why the election turned out the way it did; and why I feel as though Biden himself was not the catalyst.
Let’s turn to Mr. Trump. From his coveted, gaudy, gold-encrusted throne at Mar-a-Lago, the ex-president has spent the better part of two years hand-picking particular candidates whom he knew he could count on to be personally loyal to him and him alone. A er the perceived “disloyalty” of his vice president Mike Pence in certifying the votes conrming Trump had lost in 2020, the former president has been careful to suss out any wouldbe “unfaithful” GOP candidates,
leading to a rather… let’s say colorful array of nominees. Notable picks were Mehmet Oz for Pennsylvania’s Senate seat, a doctor and former TV health guru, and J.R. Majewski, his pick for Toledo’s House seat, who was present for Jan. 6 and openly regretted not entering the Capitol Building. ese of course are just two candidates, but the numerous others Trump chose to essentially represent himself all held one major issue in common; they were all just really awful. Indeed, it was reported earlier this year that the Democrats were actually funding some of these Trumpbacked candidates in the hope that they would actually be easier to defeat than more mainstream, moderate Republicans. I believe that this election has completely vindicated this theory, as a ton of Trumpists ended up having their campaigns blow away like sand in the Sahara, leaving behind a lesson in the fact that local elections are still very much local. e inability for the GOP to retrieve the Senate is also likely in large part due to the stinging reality of the three Trump-appointed judges to the Supreme Court, especially in regards to their shocking reversal of Roe V. Wade, the court case tied to the protection of abortion rights across the country. is was, and is, incredibly unpopular with a wide majority of Americans; and let me just say, that wide majority is correct. It is a horrible idea, and unethical as well, to allow state governments the right to control what a woman chooses to do with their own body. is is not the only controversial topic SCOTUS has taken on in the last year, however, with further attacks on judicial rights as well as marriage equality planned for the future. I think this really woke Americans up to the fact that, yes, what Republicans have said would happen in a conservative-controlled Supreme Court would actually happen. is realization has led the country through a very uncomfortable soul-searching, and the result was this election. Even in a year where the basic necessities people depend upon are getting harder and harder to secure, people looked past the immediacy of their frustrations and believed. Believed the future which Republicans promised, and the Democrats foretold. What a strange time we’re living in, that a politician loses because people are afraid they might actually do something!
Honestly, I think the issue comes down to the frame of mind in which the parties are operating.
Democrats are geared for the future; pursuing infrastructure upgrades, student debt relief, transitioning to clean energy. Whether you agree with these policies or not, it’s hard to deny that the Dems are the ones pushing the conversation forward: “What’s next? What do we need to tackle to make sure this country keeps working?” It’s my opinion that Republicans, under Trump, have no future. Not just in the electoral sense. What policies does the former president intend to pursue to safeguard America for the future? It doesn’t matter. What matters to Trump is the results of an election which happened over two years ago, an election he refuses to let go of, an entire party trapped in ice. What really matters to Trump is what has always mattered to him; Trump. If America wins, ne, if he wins, great! If America wins, but not Trump? It is up to the Republicans to choose. Where does this leave the Democrats? Well, with the House very likely gone, any major legislative plans the Dems had in store are going to be signi cantly harder. Not impossible, though. And control of the Senate, very importantly, opens the possibility of President Biden continuing to appoint judges to the federal courts. is is nothing to sco at, it’s a position that former president Obama would have killed for back when the GOP refused to appoint Merrick Garland in 2016.
is is a distressing moment for America, and the world. We have not healed from the pandemic, we have not bounced back, we are still sick and wretching. We have leaders who would take us backwards if they could, and leaders who refuse to be pulled forward in the face of common sense. Still, progress has been made, and continues to be made in the mess of it all. Let’s try and hang together, for if not, we will all most assuredly hang separately (John Fetterman is the type of dude to put barbecue sauce on Pringles).
On Feb. 24, you were probably busy trying to catch up on all of the work you were supposed to do on your rst week of Brandesian spring break. You de nitely weren’t expecting WWIII to start popping o . However, here we are. e war in Ukraine may seem confusing for some. You may have questions such as “Why is this happening?” “What is Putin trying to accomplish?” and “How will this all end?” You may also be wondering how this will all impact your life. Well, believe it or not, this is not the rst time that Ukraine and Russia have been involved in violent con ict.
All the way back in 1917, what we know today as Russia was known as the Russian Empire and, to put it mildly, was having a very bad go of it. ose who know a lot about World War I and the history of the 20th century would be quick to recognize this claim
as one of the biggest understatements of the year. at’s because the Russian Empire was involved in World War I, and the war was going very badly for Russia. So, for this reason, among a laundry list of other reasons that lie outside the scope of this article, a revolution happened in Russia that saw the nation lose a great deal of land amid the chaos of the revolution. One of the provinces that was under Russian control was Ukraine.
Ukraine, having a distinct culture, language and history from Russia, desired independence and was quick to take advantage of the political turmoil in Moscow to get what they wanted. As history would have it, a er four years of war, Ukraine ended up back under the control of the Russians. Except the Russian Empire was no more, for Ukraine was now under the control of the Soviet Union and the status quo would remain unchanged until the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. So, you may be wondering, why on earth
did Russia and then the Soviet Union want to have control over Ukraine so badly? Well, if you look at a map of Ukraine and Russia, both of which reside in Eastern Europe, you’ll nd that the land they lie on is very at. is at expanse of land is part of what’s known as the Great European Plain. is at expanse of land extends all the way from Russia to France. See, the thing about at land is that it’s very easy to cross as there aren’t many obstacles that can get in your way. If you were in charge of Russia, you would want to control as much of that land as humanly possible so that your enemies from the rest of continental Europe would have to ght through as much at land as possible in order to get to you.
If you could hypothetically get control over Ukraine, a large country occupying a large part of the Great European Plain, then you would be putting that much more distance between yourself and your adversaries. is is exactly the mentality of Russia’s
I have to say, I’ve never had that big of a problem with Brandeis housing. I’ve evaded the mold, avoided the ant infestations of Grad and only had nightmares of ever encountering an East bug. Truly I only had a brief problem with heating my freshman year when we walked around in winter coats because our half of the building had no heat.
It is not lost on me how lucky I have been to have almost made it through my four years without any serious housing issues. en we reached my penultimate semester.
Everything I have encountered this semester is by no means the fault of our maintenance sta who are already terribly overworked and are asked to maintain an already failing infrastructure on campus. No, no this is a larger structural issue of our university and the priority they will give to
leader Vladimir Putin, who decided that it was time to invade Ukraine in February of this year. It would appear that Putin’s aim in Ukraine is to gain control over territory that would serve as a buffer between him and the NATO countries that lie to his west. Given the sheer ferocity of the invasion and the many war crimes perpetrated against Ukrainian civilians by Russian occupying forces, it would appear that Putin is willing to do anything to get what he wants.
But, you may be wondering, what does that mean for me?
How does this all impact me?
Well, Russia is a major supplier of things like fertilizer, grain and petroleum products like oil and natural gas. Ukraine is also a major supplier of the world’s grain. Given that both countries are e ectively shut out from the world market due to the con ict, that means that the global supply chain is going to be placed under further strain, as if the e ects of the COVID-19 pandemic weren’t
disastrous enough. Ultimately, what this means is that countries in the west, east and South Asia and Latin America are going to face higher prices for basic goods such as fuel, electricity and food, while other regions of the world such as the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa are set to face famine-like conditions.
As of right now, Ukraine and its allies are dealing massive blows to the Russian military, yet Russia is still not fully defeated nor is Putin showing any signs of relenting either. It seems likely that Russia and Ukraine are going to be duking it out for a long time as neither side seems to be showing any interest in suing for peace. By all means, continue to educate yourself on this topic, because the truth matters. In the meantime, let us all hope and pray that this way con ict ends just as swi ly as it began.
remedying student housing. You see, it started with one mouse. As it usually does, and then one mouse became two and two became seven. Oh yeah, that’s right, seven.
But this problem didn’t start this semester. No, it started over the summer.
Let’s take a walk down memory lane and go back to when the university announced students staying over the summer would be lodged in the Foster Mods Residence Quad instead of in Ziv Quad where they are typically housed. at’s right, remember the outrage when the university decided to move students from an air-conditioned dorm to a dorm with zero air conditioning during the hottest months of the year?
Not the point that I’m getting at, but let’s trudge up dirt while we’re at it.
Living in mods over the summer provided students with the experience of meeting some friendly little creatures, who I was warned about in August when I
moved into my dorm which my friend had lived in over the summer. My friend recounted that the mice “tore a hole through our screen though to escape because it got too hot.” at right there is a direct quote. is is entirely amusing to me because not even the mouse could take the heat of living in Mods during the July heat wave. But seeing no evil, I wanted to believe there was no evil. Oh, how mistaken I was.
Everyone said “live in Mods,” and “Mods is so much fun,” but they clearly le out the part about there being a problem with some little friends. Earlier in the semester, we would see mice crawling into Mods adjacent to us from our common room. And we would laugh and say well at least it isn’t us. en we would hear squeaking in the walls that we were hoping we could chalk up to bad pipes. We were just listening as we heard stories from our friends, who are also in lower Mods, who were setting up traps and having mice outsmart them. And then one day they’re in your Mod too, staring at you as you stare at them.
But to give the university some credit, we did receive an email from the Department of Community Living (DCL) that read:
“Hello Mod Residents,
Due to the ongoing mice issues in the Mods, our Facilities pest contractor UltraFast will be treating all common spaces this coming ursday (November 10th) from 12-4 pm. ey will not be entering any bedrooms, they are only treating common areas”
Grand! ey’ve heard us! After having submitted work orders and led complaints going unanswered we got a response!
e pest contractor came in and plugged up some holes in our mod with steel wool. An e ective way of minimizing mice (this is not sarcasm). But the problem was bigger than patching up a few holes.
For one, they le the huge hole
under our sink open which we can only assume goes to the outdoors. ey also le a hole in our ceiling open, which literally looks like water poured through it at some point in time and made the ceiling cave in. But it’s our trash closet so we don’t really care about the state of the ceiling—again, another problem, but I digress. But things got worse a er the pest control group came. at’s when we started nding them and realized the mouse-to-human ratio in our mod was at least 1:1. We found one mouse caught in a glue trap they had le . Dead. My roommate ended up throwing it out into the dumpster. en when going to get a cheese stick I encountered ve mice chilling in our cabinet. A pretty unfortunate time and unpleasant experience. Being the exterminator professionals that we are, my roommate and I were trying to spray the mice with Raid—you know, the insect killer spray. A truly terrible idea on our part because the mice just started to eat the Raid. And one ended up getting squished between our fridge and cabinet: this brings our dead mouse total up to two.
My roommates then proceeded to trap another mouse in a green box. ey released that mouse and have since thrown out that green box. Having found their little nest in our kitchen, my roommates and I cleaned out the cabinet and removed their food sources hoping to get them to go into the human trap we had bought. is worked and we have since caught ve mice in that trap, bringing our mouse total up to seven with two being killed and ve being captured and released to a secondary location away from dorm buildings.
Overall this has been a real rollercoaster of the last 72 hours. I love being scared every time I go into my kitchen. I love being outsmarted by a mouse with three other human beings with me. It is pretty comical and a bonding
moment for sure with my roommates. All of this to say, though, that we shouldn’t have had to scrape a dead mouse o of our fridge with a plastic fork.
ere is a serious structural problem with our housing on campus and the means by which our university goes about xing them. We have fallen into this cycle where the university xes these large infrastructure issues with small cosmetic remedies. is leads to a greater problem down the road. But we never learn our lesson. We continue to put bandages on wounds that need stitches. Steel wool is great, but you’ve got a whole mouse infestation on your hands. Call it what it is. Recognize what your students are living in. Don’t tell us we are overreacting when you haven’t had to drive to Norumbega Road to release a mouse at 10 p.m. in the snow.
But what can I say, my parents have told us to reach out to facilities but what is that going to do?
We already have and there hasn’t been a change. Plus, they are already overworked and cannot intervene with a problem of this magnitude a er the university let it get out of hand.
I’d like to say this experience has built character and I’ve made perhaps the coolest article title in my Brandeis Hoot career—I’m sure my 18-month-old nephew is very proud.
Back when I was in high school, it felt as though my science teachers were always announcing how di cult organic chemistry classes were in university. In 10th grade, my teacher would regale the students with stories of the fabled organic chemistry weed-out class and how more than 40% of students would drop the class by the end of the semester. I was fascinated. What was it about this class that warranted such compelling folkloric stories? As a Brandeis student not majoring in chemistry, or any science major for that matter, I had no justi able reason to attend an orgo class—that was,
until I realized a friend was currently enrolled in an orgo class, and just like that, I had an in: I was going to attend a Brandeis organic chemistry class!
Walking into the lecture hall, the number of seats lled my vision. is was a sizable class, akin to an intro class for many disciplines, with the fun addition of periodic tables on two of the walls. My friend and I sat down in the second row, and the professor entered the room. I am currently in Culinary Chemistry, a class ful lling the science core requirement (that also does not allow students who have taken any Brandeis chemistry classes to enroll). In a surprising turn of events, my Culinary Chemistry professor was also teaching the orgo class!
A er everyone participated in an emoji poll indicating how they felt about the exam from the prior day, the new material o cially started. Nov. 16’s class focused on reactions that turn alkenes into alkynes and an introduction to addition reactions. To be brutally honest, I had no idea what was going on. I have not taken a chemistry class in close to four years, and though I remembered some of the molecule names (shoutout to my high school chemistry teacher for making us memorize ions), the molecule diagrams were (unsurprisingly) entirely foreign to me. roughout the class, as di erent examples were introduced, students would ask questions about how the reaction occurred, why a certain hydro-
gen halide was added instead of a di erent one, and what happened to molecules splitting o from the nal desired product. Despite having little knowledge of what was going on, I would still recommend attending the class. It was a fun experience, and I was able to hang out with other orgo students prior to the class starting. I am a big advocate for attending classes you are not actually registered for—doing so puts you in a low-stress environment, where you can still enjoy the lecture without the stress of needing to get a good grade.
Orgo was a little underwhelming in terms of the lore I have heard about the class. When the professor wrote something down on the board that seemed incredibly niche, I would look
around the room to see if anyone was commenting on it. Dead silence. Everyone in the class was incredibly focused on writing down the notes as fast as possible, and they most likely were already familiar with the topic. I, on the other hand, was not even familiar with the shorthand being used. Orgo was just another class, not something otherworldly as described to me in the past.
In keeping with standard lab report formatting, I have used as much passive voice in this piece as I was able to cram in (though, admittedly, personal pronouns were also used, a deviation from scienti c lab reports).
It’s no secret that the track facilities aren’t extremely up to date here. Just take a walk to the outdoor track where you can see it’s lled with small holes, uneven surfaces and two large strips where the track was ripped up.
at’s just the beginning of the massive list of necessities that include newer and more equipment, the need for regulation facilities and better access to accommodate all track athletes. All of these
problems are ongoing with not much changing throughout an average college student’s career.
Starting with the problems that date back almost a decade, the outdoor track has been one of the most prevalent issues. It has been a point of contention dating back to six years ago where it was ripped up when the soccer eld was redone. is caused an uneven surface that has some elevation gain and has led to some athletes tripping in some smaller potholes, resulting in injury. e track team is also generally fairly large, consisting of 30 to 40 athletes on just the sprints, jumps,
hurdles and throws side. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough starting blocks to accommodate everyone at one practice with everyone together. is is problematic because although sharing blocks isn’t a hard task, starting blocks di er from person to person and it can be challenging and time consuming to change blocks when practicing starts each time. Not to mention the not-so-great quality of these blocks which can lead them to slip, increasing the chance for risk of injury as well as adding to the di culty of practicing starts for competitions. Furthermore, the throws circle,
which recently broke, has been xed but adds to the growing list of problems for the throwers, as it creates a dangerous practicing environment. ey already have to travel to another college campus to practice for outdoor throws, consisting of hammer and discus, due to the lack of outdoor throwing facilities at Brandeis.
As our indoor track and eld conference meet approaches, which is being hosted here at Brandeis, and as more athletes are getting involved in advocating for better facilities, these prominent obstacles make it clear that our facilities need updating, and fast. Although we recently received new hurdles, which is a great addition and a much needed necessity, our throws cage is still not up to NCAA regulation. ere are still many other things that the team is waiting on to help us perform to the best of our abilities. is sentiment is shared by both cross country and track as student-athletes have dealt with these poor facilities that can a ect workouts, training and have even led to injuries.
It is clear to us track and eld athletes that we as a whole are not high on the athletic department’s priority list as these ongoing problems continue with no solu-
“Hey, how’s your week going?”
“Do you want to go get brunch this weekend?”
e two texts above were sent three days ago, but they were always on “read” and you never received anything back from the other side. You remembered it was a great date that you had been on, but the person just suddenly disappeared from your world when you tried to talk to them again. is can also happen in so many more scenarios. Yes, my fellow editors. You see it when it comes to that writer who promised to turn in their article by last Wednesday but never did, nor did they respond to your text asking “is everything doing ok?” Or sometimes, it’s your co-worker on your same shi who does not tell you they are quitting until the day
you realize they are gone.
Congratulations, you are ghosted. Well, I am sure that ghosting has happened to everyone, and maybe even all of you have also ghosted other people. Ghosting is not that easy. It’s far beyond simply not responding to whatever message the other person is trying to send. ere is an art behind ghosting.
First of all, the timing of ghosting should be precise. Not following up on your date when you both know it was a disastrous experience is not ghosting. Do it when you know your date was clearly enjoying it and wanting to go on a second date. Do not send them any follow-up texts when you get home. Do not respond to whatever messages they sent you.
All you need to do is to put your phone away, imagine their disappointment when their phone buzzes but it was just an irrelevant push from a random app and keep doing what you wanted
to do without caring about their feelings at all.
Next is the most important part: zombie-ing. A er leaving your date there for more than a week that they almost forget about you, now is the time to text them back.
e fun part of zombie-ing is nding an excuse that sounds as ridiculous as possible but to make it very sincere. Sample excuses could be: “I’m really sorry I just saw this because my phone was stolen by some random people” or “the wi at my house went down so I had no access to the Internet.” I know they both sound very wrong, but the truth is someone might actually buy them!
Last but not least, ghost them again, or do not reply until another ve days have passed. If until this point you are still not on part of their blacklist, congratulations! You have mastered the art of ghosting.
All in all, the key thing of ghosting is it is an extremely immature
and disrespectful behavior. In all aspects, you should respect whoever the person is that you are talking to, in terms of their time, energy and emotions. It is reasonable that ghosting is a com-
tion in sight. Despite all of these continuing issues, the track and eld team as a whole has continued to perform well throughout both seasons, yet there is an overwhelming feeling that the athletic department doesn’t prioritize us and does not listen to any of our concerns or complaints. is has been seen through the complete and utter lack of necessary practice pieces and equipment as well as a lack of recognition in other areas too, beyond material items.
Recently, it has been announced that spring sports will be getting priority registration a day early as a pilot for the spring 2023 semester to help accommodate their busy schedules and make sure they can get to practice on time.
Although this is a great and innovative idea that will bene t all sports in the future, it was soon realized that the track and eld team was the only spring sport that wasn’t included in this early registration. On top of that, a couple winter sports that go partway into the spring semester have priority as well even though they aren’t o cially spring sports.
mon phenomenon that exists in all types of communication, but realistically, both you and the person on the other side of the phone deserve a healthy and fair relationship.
At many higher education institutions across the country, students complain about how poorly their high schools prepared them for “the real world.” Students lament the lack of nancial literacy they learn, the shortage of life skills they receive, and the utter lack of climate change education (more on that in the YOCA column soon).
In my high school, American history, physics and a health class with a teacher named Mr. Polio (no joke) were all mandatory. But, students weren’t mandated to take a nancial literacy course. e only reason I know how to ll out a check is because I did have to take a FACS (Home Economics) course in middle school. Why are these skills being learned in middle school, when I couldn’t even pronounce the word abdomen, instead of in high school, when I was mature enough to understand the importance of them?
And even though I know that my high school wasn’t alone in
this, why wasn’t a course on climate change mandatory? If the logic for requiring math, history, English and more is to make me a “well-rounded student” and a good candidate for college admissions, why is educating me on one of the world’s most pressing issues not also required?
But, every time that I complain about my school’s (numerous) shortcomings, I’m reminded that I could have had it worse. At least I’m not from Florida, where “the words ‘climate change’ do not appear in the state’s middle or elementary school education standards.” Or from Texas, where there are three bullet points about climate change in a 27-page educational standard document.
In states like Florida, where climate change education is not mandated by the state, the impetus falls on individual instructors to include it in their curriculum.
But, given the fact that the vast majority of public school teachers need to pay for their own school supplies and the fact that they have limited access to support from their school’s administration for those lessons, they o en aren’t taught.
ere are more nefarious shortcomings in the public school system too. Florida’s governor, because he’s afraid of men who kiss other men, has put into e ect the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. is law “bans lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade as well as material that is not deemed age-appropriate.” is… this is a disgrace. One Florida teacher said it best: this law “others” LGBTQ+ students. e law also doesn’t specify what is age-appropriate and “establishes an enforcement mechanism that invites parents to le lawsuits against districts.” is law is evil: it’s designed to sow discord, it’s designed to in ict pain upon LGTBQ+ individuals and it’s horrifying that this will in uence 2,791,687 young people in Florida’s public schools.
ere’s also the banning of Critical Race eory (CRT) in public schools. So many people are so intolerant that they’re unwilling to admit that their ancestors made mistakes. ey’re unwilling to admit that minorities have been discriminated against and are at a disadvantage due to institution-
al racism. It’s sad how bigoted and close-minded some people in power are, but it’s even sadder that the fear that they have of people with a di erent skin color will prevent genrerations of kids from being properly educated.
To truly educate young people and allow them to develop strong moral compasses, the public school system needs to give them the right tools to dissect the world
with. ey need to understand how to read journal articles, how to iron their clothes and how to cook a few basic meals (this one is the most important, by far). To improve educational quality, and therefore quality of life, for literally every child that passes through a public school at some point in their life, what is considered mandatory learning needs to change.
Over Halloween weekend I had the privilege of being able to travel to Mobile, Alabama with the tennis club. It was a wonderful weekend but as I gazed out of the window of my plane I could not help but look down upon the earth below me. At rst, it was gorgeous as we departed from Boston’s Logan Airport. e scenery was covered with orange foliage and spotted with yellow trees that were assorted randomly throughout. It was a privilege to see with my own eyes and it grew ever more impressive as we passed over the Appalachian mountains in West Virginia.
But anyone who is familiar with American geography knows that once you move west of the Appalachians you are immediately met with the almost unimaginable atness of the Midwest. As if a super at Minecra render came to life, this geographically homogeneous part of the United States is only broken up by intermittent rivers, making this area a truly easy location to farm and has since earned this part of the United States the title of “America’s breadbasket.” is area, despite its seemingly endless plains, is one of the most vital agricultural regions not just to the United States but to the world. According to the Midwest Row Crop Collaborative, a group
that advocates for environmental protections which will protect farmers’ yields and ability to grow certain crops, the midwest is a key producer of major food staples. On their website they make note of the fact that, “ e U.S. produces around a third of the world’s corn and soybeans, and more than 80 percent of those corn and soybeans come from the Midwest, making the region a key node in the global food system.”
As reported by the “WorldAtlas,” in the United States the states which produce the most food are Texas, Iowa, California, Illinois and Nebraska. e only non-Midwest state on that list is California, which goes to show just how vital this region is in American farming and agriculture. However, I am not here simply to marvel at the work our farmers do (despite it being some of the most demanding work and them deserving so much more praise than they are given currently), I am here to also express my shock at one key component of the farming process—crop burning.
I suppose that in the back of my mind I was aware of crop burning and knew why it was important to agriculture. In my own lifetime, my family was o ered a deal to join a blueberry farming collective in Canada but we rejected the deal as we did not want to partake in crop burning for a number of reasons. But, I suppose I never really took the time to ponder what happens when farmers set their elds ablaze. is all changed
when I was on my ight to Mobile. As we passed over the Great Plains I looked out my window to see what I thought was originally a very low and single cloud in the sky.
But as I looked closer it was evident that it was not a u y cloud of water vapor but rather a heavy cover of smoke. While my kneejerk reaction was to wallow in sadness and disgust that we could do such a thing to the planet, I became increasingly perplexed as I thought about it more. Because environmentally it is clear to see the issue with the process: it directly adds tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. e United States Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 11% of all greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture. While this is only a small portion compared to transit and industry, it is still overwhelming to be face-to-face with. Countries such as China have reported that up to 46% of their agricultural carbon dioxide emissions come from crop burning.
It is terrifying to think about, and even see, the billowing plumes of smoke coming from farmers’ elds. As it creates cloudlike shadows over the properties of their neighbors and fellow farmers it is clear to see the negative impacts of such a practice. ese were my initial thoughts as I began to sink into my environmental depression sitting on a jet which was also greatly harming the earth. But as I thought more
and more about it, I began to think about why crop burning is done on such large-scale farms. e quick and easy description of the practice and its bene ts is that it makes replanting easier, thus allowing for the faster growth of crops and higher yields for farmers. is all equates to more food for more Americans! e more nitty-gritty details are certainly less obvious but stated very well by the University of Arkansas which wrote, “Crop residue burning is an inexpensive and e ective method to remove excess residue to facilitate timely planting and to control pests and weeds.”
When weighed against other methods of large-scale pest and weed control, such as pesticides, it becomes less obvious which method is less harmful to both the Earth and us as humans. One method releases large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and the other puts poison into the food we eat and into the water cycle which we so desperately rely on. ere are no clear answers when our desire for environmental protection becomes intertwined with our need for food security and safety.
Now I do not write this to depress any interested readers of our wonderful YOCA column. I write this article to express the nuances when it comes to environmental justice. is eld is a complicated mess of interests which makes it seemingly impossible to navigate. But what we can all agree on is that we do all want to protect our
Earth and ensure that it remains for the generations of tomorrow. However, some of our problems are not as simple as taking the train or riding your bike to work. e major issues which will really aid us in limiting and controlling climate change will be made in gray and uncomfortable areas such as this.
I do not have the answer to this question of crop burning. I am not sure where we go to ensure that farmers are able to produce all that they can, I am not sure where we go to ensure that our food is not poisoned or infested with pests and I am most certainly not sure on how to protect the world I so deeply love and admire. All I know is that if we desire to protect the beautiful sunsets which kiss our Great Plains with ery red skies, the future will require leaders with endless fortitude and limitless gumption to operate in those gray areas! So to the environmental justice advocates of today and tomorrow, do not be afraid to operate in the unknown or the uncomfortable—embrace it! at is where our most indispensable solutions to our most pressing issues are waiting to be discovered.
river.
By Katy Tanzer special to the hootSituated just behind the aptly named Charles River Apartments, the Charles is right in Brandeis’ backyard, but is likely on the periphery of our busy lives. is river, once a polluted wasteland, has undergone massive cleanup initiatives and improvements over the past few decades. It’s an environmental success story, but one that is far from nished.
As part of Our Local Waterways—a new course in the Environmental Studies Program taught by Sally Warner (ENVS)—I have been spending a great deal of time learning about the Charles River, which is about as local to Brandeis as you can get. In mid-October, our class took a trip to Watertown to learn about one of the major impediments to the health of the Charles: dams.
Our class was graciously hosted by the Charles River Watershed Association (CWRA), a non-profit organization that played a crucial role in the cleanup of the Charles. Robert Kearns and Dira Johanif greeted us as soon as we got o the BranVan—the CRWA’s Climate Resilience Specialist, and Urban Resilience Advocate, respectively. As we approached the dam, the sound of rushing water quickly intensi ed. “I always say this would be a great place to come and tell someone your secrets,” Kearns shouted over the noise.
Watertown, to our east, was the rst but not the last section of the Charles that was dammed. ese
dams were initially built for industrial purposes, taking advantage of natural changes in elevation to generate power. is was at the expense of the food sovereignty of the Massachusett and Nipmuc people, as the structures interfered with the passage of migratory sh, one of their major food sources. Now defunct and dangerous, the Watertown dam, along with the other old industrial dams on the Charles, are reminders of native dispossession, as well as the ecological impacts of altering the river’s ow.
Upstream of the Watertown dam, we could see that the water was moving at a snail’s pace, impeded by the dam. is stagnation causes warmer temperatures and pollutant accumulation, resulting in cyanobacteria blooms, a type of blue-green algae that produces harmful toxins. Downstream, the water moved quickly, creating a layer of white froth. is rushing water erodes the river’s bottom, which is bad news for the benthic macroinvertebrates (think: river bugs) that call it home.
Additionally, migratory sh still su er from the e ects of dams, despite the existence of sh ladders which are intended to serve as passageways. Investigations have shown that the Watertown sh ladder does not pass female shad, as they can’t easily jump. It is also located in a shallow edge of the river, counter to where sh would likely be drawn. e sh ladder can even get cut o entirely from the river during droughts, such as the one we have recently experienced. As climate change contributes to more extremes, we may see more frequent droughts,
exacerbating the toll on migratory sh.
Luckily, there is something that can be done to address havoc wreaked by dams: remove them.
e Charles River Watershed Association, among many of their valiant initiatives, is on this very mission. ey are currently focusing on the Watertown Dam, which is considered politically “low hanging fruit,” as its removal has been debated for several years. Geographically, it’s one of the rst dams along the Charles going upstream from Boston Harbor, so its removal would allow migratory sh to go just a little bit further than they previously could.
An important initial step in the dam removal process is to build awareness around the negative impacts of these structures so as to gain the support of community members. Dira pointed out that many people have sentimental attachments to dams; maybe it was where they got married, or something they grew up with. Robert added that a lot of people like the view, though personally, he likes the view of a naturally owing
Of course, the bureaucratic obstacles are even more daunting, as the CWRA has to convince the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) to make dam removal a priority. To a government agency responsible for various issues, dam removal may not seem like the most pressing issue at any given moment, but the longer these old dams remain in place, the more they degrade the river’s ecosystem, and the more likely they are to fail, which could be life threatening. e price tag on dam removal is also a signi cant obstacle towards putting it at the top of DCR’s agenda. Robert explained that the process unfolds over several years; it involves consulting with engineers, navigating the legal system, and ensuring that the infrastructure around the dam will be su ciently altered to withstand the changes in the river’s ow. Between all of this, dam removal is certainly an investment; yet, the recurring expenses of dam inspections when no action is taken would surpass this.
e good news is that dam removal is not an impossible pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It has happened well within our lifetimes, producing success stories that can be drawn on for future projects. For instance, the removal of the Old Mill Dam in Bellingham was initiated in 2017, and the ecosystem’s health has already seen remarkable improvements. Just a couple weeks ago, the town of Natick voted to remove a 90-year-old dam, a moment of victory in the dam removal movement.
e phrase “nature restores itself” is o en applied liberally or over-simplistically, but in the case of dam removal, there’s a signicant element of truth to it. One of the main challenges is gathering momentum toward removal. If we build awareness about the environmental degradation caused by dams, and the cascade of improvements following removal, we can move towards a healthier river, a healthier ecosystem and a healthier Massachusetts, one damn piece of concrete at a time.
As we look around local parks, around our homes and even around Brandeis’ campus, the majority of the green we see is made up of grass. But the American ideal of a manicured, uniform law is not as environmentally friendly as it appears upon rst glance. It’s green, but it’s not “green.”
For decades, a perfectly cut, even and verdant layer of grass has been symbolic of the American Dream. It has served to further the idea that “home owner-
ship and a patch of land could be within reach for every American.”
e American Dream is dead (was it ever really alive?), but the need for a awless lawn has remained deeply embedded in the collective consciousness of millions of Americans. Lawns are ecological horrors, wastes of resources and at-out ugly most of the time.
Most lawns are made of a Kentucky bluegrass monoculture. A monoculture, or an area with only one species present, provides habitats for very few other species due to a lack of diversity. Few species can survive in the ecological desert that lawns create, leading
to a marked decline in suburban biodiversity. Additionally, the chemicals that are used to maintain lawns are extremely harmful to all forms of life. e 70 million pounds of pesticides that Americans use each year are linked to cancer, neurological damage, birth defects and more. e worst part is that, due to EPA regulations, “Warnings about potential long-term or chronic health effects from the active ingredients [in pesticides] are not required.”
e chemical-heavy pest control matrix Americans use also accounts for millions of bird deaths yearly and accumulate in “lakes,
rivers and streams which are essential food and water sources for so many species.” Is having a lawn really worth all this ecological damage? Many people think so, meaning that they let their children play on lawns that have been treated with pesticides. is can adversely a ect children’s nervous, respiratory, reproductive and immune development, as they take in a higher quantity of toxins relative to adults due to their smaller size.
Lawn care takes a lot of water, too. An absurd amount, really, when the services that lawns provide to humans are weighed against their costs. To irrigate the 45.6 million acres of lawn (three times the size of New Jersey, the worst state in the union) the United States has, each American family uses about 48 gallons of water every day. is water doesn’t all go into the lawn, though. Much of it becomes runo , “wasted due to poor timing and application.”
Lawn care is also a contributor to global warming, with 5% of the America’s air pollution coming from lawnmowers. at’s not all, though: “more than 17 million gallons of fuel are spilled during the re lling of lawn and garden equipment—more than the oil that the Exxon Valdez spilled.” In one year, Americans waste more gasoline than was dumped into the Gulf of Mexico in one of the most notorious oil spills in history. It’s truly sad the environmental destruction Americans cause in our quest to have prettier things.
Although the current lawn paradigm has its problems, there is a surprisingly easy solution: Pol-
linator Pathways. is is a program dedicated to “Establishing pollinator-friendly habitats and food sources for bees, butter ies and birds.” It’s centered around planting “relevant, beautiful, diverse, important and ecologically responsible” plants in your yard instead of the Kentucky bluegrass you’re used to, and provides “pesticide-free corridors of native plants that provide nutrition and habitat for pollinating insects and birds.” is program mostly exists on the East Coast, but even creating one isolated pesticide-free native-plant- lled territory in a sea of monocultures can make a big di erence for local wildlife.
e best part is that this program doesn’t have to be a massive expense for land owners: even putting in place just a few plants on otherwise homogeneous lawn can help.
Lawns, as they are, are resource sinks and aesthetic nightmares (unless you like drab homogeneity, for some reason). ey kill wildlife, pollute the planet and are just plain ugly. ere’s a better way to cultivate plants on residential land, and the myriad bene ts to doing so are clear.
‘ e Great British Bake O ’ series 13 episode 8: Everyone is allowed to have a bad day It’s the QUARTERFINALS. And PASTRY WEEK. Leaving Pastry Week this late in the series is quite unusual (though not unheard of), and in my opinion, a bad move. Pastry is a fairly fundamental baking skill, and leaving it until the quarter nals means someone can make it quite far without having any mastery of pastry. Seemingly invincible candidates like 2018’s Dan and 2019’s Henry have been undone by pastry. And alas, that seemed to be the case this year. But we’ll get there. e remaining bakers march into the tent, all decked out in their pastel best. For the rst time in this series, there doesn’t appear to be a weak link. Prue cruelly reminds Abdul that he is the only remaining contestant who hasn’t won Star Baker, but Abdul has been remarkably consistent while the other four have been up and down. e signature challenge is that deceptively di cult 1970s classic: vol-au-vents. Bake O has done vol-au-vents before, in the 2015 showstopper (notable for being the only challenge in which the Greatest Bake O Contestant of All Time, Nadiya, really fell apart). In 2015, it was two batches of savory vol-au-vents, and this year, it’s one batch of sweet vol-auvents. In two hours (or “two minutes and one hour and 58 minutes,” per Matt). Totally reasonable. Not. roughout the challenge, it appears that Syabira is baking in a completely separate universe from her fellow bakers. Maxy is falling apart, Sandro (who is wearing leather trousers!!) seems defeated, Abdul is struggling and Janusz can’t make a creme pat (a er last week’s custard asco, I don’t know why I’m surprised). Meanwhile, Syabira is utterly relaxed, cheery and makes her delicious, beautiful and nearly perfect spiced citrus, cream cheese and pecan praline vol-au-vents without so much as breaking a sweat.
Janusz plays it a little too safe with strawberries and cream volau-vents. Abdul’s berry/chocolate/ coconut vol-au-vents have too many avors, are too small and all the butter has leaked out. Sandro was seemingly onto a winner with key lime pie vol-au-vents, one of Paul’s favorite avors. Paul, seemingly on a mission to be horrible to every baker, demands to know whether Sandro is using key limes or Persian limes. Sandro isn’t fazed. “I’m using limes,” he says. Unfortunately, Sandro forgets to turn his oven on. No, Sandro! You’re supposed to make that mistake in week one, not the quarter nal! His avors are lovely, but his pastry is underbaked and ugly. Maxy makes square volau-vents instead of round ones, and they look a mess. To add insult to injury, they’re also raw. e technical challenge is spring rolls. I guess that counts as pastry? Well, it’s better than no bread on bread week. According to Prue, there are 29 ingredients in the recipe, and once again it seems like there’s more cooking than baking. Poor Maxy seems utterly confused throughout the challenge. Her spring rolls are “dinky,” under-
lled and stodgy, and she comes last. Syabira underbakes hers, and comes in fourth. Abdul adds too much mushroom and is in third, and somehow only seven out of the required eight spring rolls make it onto Janusz’s plate (although the actual spring rolls are good), and he is in second. Sandro comes rst, basically by default.
e showstopper challenge is a 3D pie scene inspired by the baker’s favorite childhood story or nursery rhyme. Because of course it is. Once again, Syabira appears to be baking in a completely different universe. While Sandro gets lost in the pages of his recipe, Abdul and Janusz fall massively behind schedule and Maxy falls apart entirely, Syabira awlessly executes her “Jack and the Beanstalk” themed pie scene. Sandro’s is based on “ e Very Hungry Caterpillar” (I love him), while Janusz is adding a twist to the story with “ e Very Hungry Sausage Dog.” Abdul’s is inspired by “Treasure Island,” complete with a pastry octopus, and Maxy’s is inspired by “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” e highlights of the showstopper challenge are Matt trying to make a fun pirate joke while Abdul takes piracy completely seriously (“Oh no, that would be crazy. So much bloodshed”), Sandro referring to phyllo pastry as “pastry made with our and water” and making a pear that “goes pear shaped” and the fact that Janusz is making a sausage dog-shaped pie that is lled with sausage.
e lowlight of the showstopper is the judging. Paul seemed to be on a mission to tear everyone’s bakes apart, and is in thoroughly poor spirits throughout. It’s just a very bad day for him. Janusz and Maxy get the worst of it, and Maxy manages to underbake her pastry yet again. Only Syabira receives more praise than critiques.
Along with Paul, Noel was on remarkably poor form this episode, making jokes about Paul’s feet on coconut shavings, Paul’s hairy hands, egg washing a priest and Prue’s sexy music. e only conclusion I can come to is that Noel was stoned throughout the episode. Oh well. Everyone can have a bad day, as they say.
Despite attempts to make it seem close, it’s clear that Maxy is leaving the tent a er a shockingly bad signature, last place in technical and a weak showstopper. Like Dan and Henry before her, pastry was Maxy’s Achilles heel. Syabira, who produced the only signature and showstopper that the judges actually seemed to enjoy, gets a hat trick of three star bakers in a row (only the fourth to achieve this feat, a er Richard in 2014, Ian in 2015 and Steph in 2019).
Next week, we are back to tradition with the Patisserie Week semi nal. It’s bound to be a heartbreaker, as I can’t bear to watch any of the remaining four bakers leave. Can Abdul nally snatch Star Baker? Can Syabira keep her streak alive? And who will just miss out on a place in thenal? Keep reading to nd out.
‘ e Great British Bake O ’ series 13 episode 9: Vertically challenged e semi nal is always a painful episode. No matter what, you’ll be heartbroken by the elimination.
e theme for this week is patisserie, a long-standing Bake O tradition. Patisserie is a true test of baking know-how. You need
talent, nesse and a cool head under pressure. ere have been some epic collapses in Patisserie Week, including 2015’s Paul (not Hollywood) forgetting how to make a genoise sponge and 2018’s Bryony using salt instead of sugar. e music is somber as the four remaining bakers march into the tent. All are intimidated by the semi nal. Janusz describes patisserie as his “biggest weakness,” while Syabira takes a more optimistic “fake it ’till you bake it” approach. e signature is six mini-charlottes. Essentially a mousse surrounded by sponge, the trickiest thing about a charlotte is setting time. e last thing you want is a soupy mousse. Paul is expecting something that looks like it could be in a patisserie shop. Prue is practically gleeful about sending someone home just before the nal. Now that we’re in the semi nal, the edit is giving each baker their own storyline along with telling us their signature. Syabira is making peanut and fruit charlottes. e judges claim that peanut and fruit sounds unusual (have they never heard of a PB&J?). In terms of storyline, Syabira seems to be the favorite and avor queen. ose bakers either win or suffer an epic collapse in the nal. Sandro is the overachiever who always does just a little too much. His charlottes are based around his mother’s banana cake recipe, paired with peanut and caramel. Paul is equally befuddled by the combination of peanut butter and caramel, and both judges are concerned that Sandro won’t nish in time. Overachiever bakers tend not to win (with the exception of Rahul in 2018) but usually get very lucrative gigs post-Bake O Abdul is making “less is more” tiramisu charlottes, and is desperate to nish on time. As the only remaining baker who has not won Star Baker, Abdul is a shoo-in for the underdog storyline, as well as the winner of the “most improved” award. Nadiya (the Greatest and Most Successful Bake O Winner of All Time) t into this category, as did 2019’s winner David. Janusz is making chocolate
plum charlottes as a tribute to his favorite childhood candy, avors Paul and Prue seem excited about. Janusz is clearly the modest yet talented contestant who is meticulous and precise in his baking. Fan favorites like 2015’s Ian and 2021’s Jurgen t this category, as do winners Giuseppe and Sophie.
Onto judging! Sandro’s charlottes are deemed to be too rich and strong, but he gets points for a beautiful sponge (Prue even takes some to go). Janusz’s avors are good, but his chocolate mousse is underset and his sponge is tough. Syabira’s charlottes are deemed to be pretty, if a bit so , and delicious. Abdul’s tiramisu charlottes don’t have the perfect nish he wanted, but have brilliant textures and avors. e technical is a “vertical tart.” What is a vertical tart, you ask?
Me too, my friend, me too. If you Google “vertical tart,” NOTHING COMES UP (other than Prue’s recipe). is is ridiculous. All the bakers are understandably befuddled, and poor Sandro gets mixed up with assembling his tarts, which is completely fair, considering the fact that vertical tarts aren’t even a thing. We are far from the land of Misérables Slices and Gateau St. Honoré—both of which are ridiculous challenges, but are at least bakes that ACTUALLY EXIST.
Sandro’s tarts are broken and messy, and he comes last. Janusz’s pastry is underbaked, and he’s in third. Abdul’s pastry is overbaked and he comes second. Syabira has produced a perfect vertical tart (whatever that means) and she comes rst.
Coming into day two, Janusz and Sandro are in trouble. e showstopper is a Swedish kraken (pronounced krah-kon), because the smörgåstårta in Week 3 wasn’t enough Swedish baking ridiculousness for one series. A kraken is essentially a tower of almond biscuits. Why did we not do this challenge in biscuit week, you ask?
Your guess is as good as mine.
Syabira, whose day job involves analyzing the human genome, is making DNA in biscuit form. Sandro is baking an elaborate tribute to his African origins and his Brit-
ish upbringing. Janusz’s kraken is titled “Brighton Pride” (it’s gay) and Abdul is making a rocket to honor his passion for astrophysics and humanity’s achievement of getting into space. e point I’m trying to make, dear reader, is that this challenge is ridiculous. It’s a biscuit tower. We do those during biscuit week. e challenge setting this series has been questionable to say the least. During judging, Abdul’s spaceship is deemed “magni cent” and “clever,” and his biscuits are perfect. Syabira’s showstopper is declared “wonderful,” and it’s an absolutely meticulous bake. Unfortunately, her biscuits are a little overbaked. Janusz’s kraken is critiqued for being untidy, and his biscuits are all either under or overbaked. Sandro’s OTT approach seems to have paid o , despite a broken UK ag. “Africa is raspberry and pistachio” is the type of sentence you’ll only hear on Bake O . His caramel is deemed burnt, but his biscuits are spot-on.
In the judges’ pavilion, Janusz and Sandro are still in trouble, and Abdul and Syabira are up for Star Baker. Abdul’s lightsout showstopper edges Syabira’s technical win and he takes his rst Star Baker. It’s lovely to see him so thrilled, and he’s certainly peaking at the right time.
Much to the rage of social media, Janusz is sent home. However, this was probably the right decision— he’s been lagging behind the others for a few weeks, and his showstopper was by far the weakest. e semi nal elimination always hurts, and this was no exception.
Next week, it’s the nal. ere’s really only one question to ask: will it be Abdul, Sandro or Syabira who li s the legendary cake plate and claims this year’s Bake O crown?
editor
When it comes to parody music, it is hard to think of a more well known musician than “Weird Al” Yankovic. He has been in the industry for over 40 years, has sold millions of albums and even had a number one album. Like most famous musicians, it is only natural that he gets a biopic about his life. He is ready to share his fully authentic and 100% true story. However, would it really make sense for Weird Al to be truthful and serious in his movie? Of course not. e man is known for parodying songs, so it is time for him to start parodying movies.
e genre of musician biopics has been done to death, and Weird Al knows this. So he has taken the common tropes and created a comedic parody lm that is framed as a serious biopic. What started as a fake trailer for Funny or Die back in 2010 is now a feature lm that tells the “life” of everyone’s favorite accordion-playing comedy musician. is lm came out on Nov. 4 on Roku, but don’t worry about having to get a new streaming service. If you have access to the internet, just go to the Roku website and you can watch this lm for free. So you have no excuse not to go on a comedic journey about a particularly weird man.
Al Yankovic (Daniel Radcli e) has not led an easy life, and the hardships began in his childhood. His mom (Julianne Nicholson) and dad (Toby Huss) never supported his dreams. Accordions and parody music infuriated them to their core and they just wanted Yankovic to work at the factory with his dad. However, Yankovic wants to follow his dreams of coming up with new lyrics to already written songs. Once he is o at college, he explores these
passions with his roommates (Spencer Treat Clark, Jack Lancaster and Tommy O’Brien), who become his backup band. A er coming up with great hits like “My Bologna” and “I Love Rocky Road,” Yankovic nds success and is taken under the wing of popular radio host Dr. Demento (Rainn Wilson). Yankovic soon becomes the biggest musician of all time, going quadruple platinum and having every singer looking for the “Weird Al bump” by being parodied. Yankovic then meets the seductive Madonna (Evan Rachel Wood) who is just captivated by him. Yankovic soon gives into the pressures and dangers of rock and roll life. He is going to have to learn what the music is all about, and why he picked up that accordion in the rst place.
I have watched a decent amount of musician biopics in my life, so I usually know what I am going to get when I watch one. at is what makes this movie so great. I could simultaneously predict what would happen and still be totally surprised. e writing on this lm was very tight. While there were some minor details that came from Yankovic’s life, most of the movie was borrowing ideas from other movies. From the unsupportive parents trope to being laughed out of a record label to partying with celebrities and doing drugs, this lm did it all. Don’t get me wrong, I’m usually a fan of musician biopics and this lm has not changed that. However, the satirical skills were o the charts. By exaggerating a lot of these ideas and adding a lot of self aware lines, this lm had me laughing a lot. Around the second act, it felt like they made all the jokes they could and that it was going to get tiring. However, once we got to the third act, the satire was dialed up and everything went wild in the best way. at was when ev-
erything went fully unexpected.
e lm was action and laughpacked, and was able to cleverly show how Hollywood could use some new ideas. is parody lm was a new idea that was well done. Now, while I liked this lm, I did nd it to be all over the place at certain times. ere was a lot of excitement which led to some overwhelming points. Sometimes when watching a lm, you may want it to slow down so that you can take a breather. is was a movie that seemed to tell a new joke every second. I laughed at all of the jokes, but this is not for people who want their movies to be calm. Audiences should be prepared for high energy, from the humor to performances to the high stakes action. It was a little all over the place, but that should probably be expected based on the writers. is lm was written by Yankovic, who clearly knows his way around comedy writing, for the radio or for the big screen, and also likes to have a lot of fun with what he does. It was also written by Eric Appel, who directed this lm and also wrote the fake Funny or Die trailer that this was based on. Appel made his feature lm debut with this lm, but it was shot like he had been in the business for a while. His wacky Funny or Die internet sketch work translated pretty decently, if not wildly, into lm. While this lm was a rollercoaster, I would go on it again, and I hope to see more lms from these writers in the future. Playing the part of Yankovic involves some pretty big shoes to ll and a pretty big accordion to carry. Luckily, Radcli e was able to do the job justice. Radcli e was able to get that huge acting check as a child in “Harry Potter” and has spent his adult acting career doing any fun project he can, like the hit tv series “Miracle Workers” where
he played an angel saving the world and “Guns Akimbo” where he played a man with guns bolted to his hands. Radcli e is continuing the crazy train, or weird train, with the role of Weird Al, and he really gave it his all. is is a part that was really all over the place and you could tell that Radcli e was having an absolute blast. His role required him to play a bunch of hilarious moments as straight as possible, which he de nitely did. From the energy of performing to his wildness when partying to all of his action stunts, Radcli e brought a lot to the role. He did not actually sing the songs, that was all Yankovic but his passion in performing made it all believable. I also enjoyed Wood’s performance as Madonna, which was a role that unraveled as the lm went on. When she rst appears, you can tell Wood has the right comedic energy, but it is hard to see how important this role will be and where it is going. As the lm goes on and she becomes more involved, it becomes clear that this part is not simple and it is not the type of performance you would think of if you were thinking of the role of Madonna. Even though this was a very exaggerated character that does not feel very grounded, Wood does a great job with the material that she was giv-
en. Every single performance in this lm is lled with comedy and every actor was well casted. Even though this lm is a parody, every actor took their job very seriously. While this was a fairly unique lm, it is not the rst lm to be a musician biopic parody. ere was “Walk Hard: e Dewey Cox Story” and “Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping” to give two examples. However, what makes this lm unique is that it was a fake story with a real subject. It almost feels like this is what Yankovic has been working his whole career towards. “Weird: e Al Yankovic Story” is a Weird Al song come to life. is lm is a blend of many di erent genres to tell an epic life story. It was a very tongue in cheek lm that almost felt like it was constantly breaking the fourth wall. It was like you and the writers were in on an inside joke for old Weird Al fans and for people who are new to the comedy music genre. So if you are either of those people, a general Daniel Radcli e stan or you have been spending most of life living in an “Amish Paradise,” watch “Weird: e Al Yankovic Story” on Roku today.
By Cyrenity Augustin editorReturning back to the world of BlReturning back to the world of “Blue Lock,” we nally get to see our main character and the rest of the strikers in Block Z actually compete in a real match at this facility. Going up against Block X, this is also our rst introduction to the soccer players outside of the Z group, and ultimately the rest of the competitors for the title of the world’s greatest striker.
With the instructions to make a traditional soccer team, with defenders, mid elders, forwards and a goalie, Team Z and Team X meet on the eld. e rst of many matches, the two teams with the most wins at the end continue in the program, while the rest are sent home. e top scorer on the losing teams, however, will be able to continue to compete for their shot.
And with that lovely threat hanging over their heads, the game commences.
e strikers of Team Z seemed to have settled on various positions, though it is more than clear that some aren’t happy about the roles
they are assigned. is is especially made clear, however, when they immediately start to break away from their roles, making it a free for all where everyone tries to score a goal and same themselves. A rather horrible strategy really— even more so when the opposing team realizes that they are not organized in the slightest. is realization leads to Team X teaming up to support one player rather than ghting for themselves, the striker known as Shōei Barō (Junichi Suwabe). He is quickly established as the “leader” of this group, and as the team supports him, Isagi (Kazuki Ura) notices the way that his team stabilizes.
e goals keep racking up, and Isagi and Meguru Bachira (Tasuku Kaito), a growing ally in this competition, decide to fend for themselves. is leads to Isagi getting control of the ball, and a chance to land a goal before the rst match ends. Barō shows up to stop him. Two of Isagi’s teammates are approaching on either side from behind. e ball is kicked.
e rst goal for our team is made! Coming in clutch, sending the soccer ball shooting into the goal is … not the main character? Turns out that instead it’s
Rensuke Kunigami (Yūki Ono)who gets the rst and nal shot for their team in this rst match a er receiving a pass from Isagi. Personally, seeing that turn of events warmed my heart. He’s a character that has constantly talked about his desire for fairness throughout the rst few episodes, so seeing him have a moment to shine was wonderful to see.
However, this moment of celebration is short lived, with the nal game ending with Team X the winner.
In the wake of this defeat, however, Isagi shares the importance for everyone to solidify as a team, and the need to unify under one goal. Jinpachi Ego (Hiroshi Kamiya) pops in on his screen to support this theory, and a er a rousing speech about soccer and nding their own individual strengths, we move on to episode 4, where everyone shares their self-proclaimed special talent. Well, almost everyone. Isagi, poor poor Isagi, cannot for the life of him come up with one, and another player Hyōma Chigiri (Sōma Saitō) simply chooses not to share.
However, with what is given, Wataru Kuon (Masatomo Nakazawa), a striker that is quickly being established as the peacekeeper of the group, comes up
with a strategy that allows a way to compromise and have a shot at winning the next game.
A week passes before the next match, and in that time, Isagi still can’t gure out what his weapon is. At least until Kunigami stops by and interrupts his brooding. Not only do we learn more about why he is so invested in being a soccer player, but he also points out that Isagi’s weapon may be his ability to make quick decisions. Speaking of, Kunigami thanks Isagi for the decision to pass to him with half of the steak that he got for scoring the goal, and it looks like the start of a wonderful friendship. Kunigami is so sweet, and so cool, and simply because of this, I do not imagine he is going to last long in this competition. But hopefully he’ll push through!
And with that wholesome moment out of the way, the second game starts against Team Y. At rst it looks like it is all going well! Team Z is organized, and there’s a new sense of hope to this game. But then, Team Y responds in equal force. ey can’t get a goal in.
And then the introduction of Ikki Niko (Natsuki Hanae) and Hibiki Ōkawa (Yūki Shin) is coupled with a goal for Team Y, and Isagi sets his sights and worries
on Hibiki Ōkawa. e game continues, and Team Z ends up with a corner kick, the closest they’ve gotten to a goal this game. Everyone is prepped to get the ball into the net, when all of a sudden, Isagi’s intuition picks up on something. e kick is red, and the ball ends up sailing towards Niko, the hidden monster of Team Y. But due to his intuition, Isagi intercepts and winds up with the ball. is quick thinking gives him the chance he’s been waiting for, and Isagi once again shoots the ball. He misses.
But Gin Gagamaru (Shugo Nakamura) comes in clutch, sacri cing his face to get the soccer ball into the net, and tying the two teams. Gagamaru compliments his pass, and I get a sense that this is going to be a common occurrence throughout the series, but it’s one that I think I can get used to.
And just like that, the teams are tied, and the fourth episode is brought to an end.
It’s that time of year again. On Nov. 15, nominations for the 65th Grammy Awards were announced. is is a time when some of the most talented artists of the year get recognition for their hard work. e Recording Academy is made up of highly esteemed and reputable people who vote for the cream of the crop in the music industry. is year, there was a record number of 91 categories, which span across dozens of genres. ere were actually ve new categories this year: Best Alternative Music Performance, Best Americana Performance, Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games and Other Interactive Media, Best Spoken Word Poetry Album and Songwriter of the Year, Non-Classical. is all leaves room for many lucky nominees and luckier winners. Much like every year, the Grammy nominations lead to some interesting conversations. Some were positive, some were negative and others were just pointing out some fun facts. While the Grammys will not televise all 91 categories, you can catch a good chunk of them, such as Record of the Year and Album of the Year, on Feb. 5, 2023, live on CBS. So far, it seems that Beyonce is running the show. She has the most nominations out of anyone with nine nominations, including Record of the Year, Album of the Year and Song of the Year. Her album “Renaissance” proved to be a real success and no one seems to be mad about her praise. e Beyhive is a strong group. Kendrick Lamar also found success with his eight nominations a er his album “Mr Morale and e Big Steppers” was released this past year. He has proven success at the Grammys in recent years, winning best rap performance last year, and the success just keeps on coming. While a lot of modern acts are leaving their mark, there is always room for a group of old timers. is year, legendary group ABBA returned to the music scene with their rst album in forty years, “Voyage.” A er breaking up in 1982, the Eurovision sensation started working on new material
in 2017 and the recent album shows that this reunion was worth the wait. Last year they were nominated for Record of e Year for their song “I Still Have Faith In You.” ey received four nominations this year: Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Best Pop Duo/Group Performance and Best Pop Vocal Album. For the record, these have been their only nominations; they were not even nominated during their heyday in the 1970s. For shame. Luckily, they are back and they have received respect. Mamma mia, here we go again indeed. Of course, there is not room for everyone to be celebrated. While everyone knows this going into nomination day, there were some snubs that did not sit well with people. One of the most talked about snubs was Nicki Minaj. is year, Minaj released a hit new song “Super Freaky Girl” that debuted on the Billboard Hot 100, but the Academy did not give it any love. While the fans see this as a snub, there might have already been a sign that this would happen. She already vocalized her displeasure with the Recording Academy when they moved the song’s eligibility from rap to pop, which is a notoriously more di cult category. erefore, Minaj was completely shut out, but she was not the only snub. Megan ee Stallion did not receive any love for her hit new album “Traumazine” despite positive reviews and debuting at number four on the Billboard Hot 100. Sir Elton John also got nothing from the Recording Academy from his popular album “Lockdown Sessions,” which featured collaborations with artists like Brandi Carlile, Charlie Puth, Miley Cyrus and more. is is Elton John we’re talking about here, let’s be serious. Morgan Wallen was also on the snub list in the country categories for his hit, “Wasted On You.” is was a surprise for many country fans, but maybe the Recording Academy is not over his history of him yelling racist remarks. Maybe they care about whether or not nominees are problematic. Well actually, if you keep scrolling through the
nominees, that might not be true. While the Grammys are mostly known for music, it is really an award show about recordings in general. is includes the Best Comedy Album category, which is not a category of musicians, but of comedians. It was also a category that started up some conversations. First of all, some congratulations are in order for newcomer Randy Rainbow’s rst Grammy nomination for his comedy album, “A Little Brains, A Little Talent,” which is lled with the comedian’s usual political lampoons. However, most of the conversations came from people nominated that are persona non grata. Louis C.K. was nominated for his album “Sorry.” In case you have forgotten, C.K. was accused of sexual harrassment from numerous women, which included many accusations of masturbating in front of the women without their consent. Since those accusations, he has been red from many big projects. He also won Best Comedy Album last year, well a er the accusations. He is once again nominated, and people still are not happy with e Recording Academy. It seems that “canceling” someone is not that e ective when that someone is a cis straight
white male with money and power. Some more controversy came with Dave Chapelle’s nomination for “ e Closer.” Chappelle recently came under re for transphobic comments, many of which came from “ e Closer.” He’s a favorite at the Grammys, with this being his h nomination in a row and having won this category three times. Canceling attempts can be di cult when dealing with rich people in power, and that is why Grammy nomination day can be a mine eld. In more positive news, this could be a night of history. is award show could give someone new an EGOT. EGOT is a special title reserved for people who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony. If we’re counting non-competitive awards, only 21 people have an EGOT. ere is usually at least one person vying for their completion on awards night, and this year Viola Davis is looking for a Grammy to get her status. If she wins for Best Spoken Word Album for narrating her memoir, “Finding Me,” Davis has the EGOT. is would certainly be well deserved as she has worked so hard for so long. Not having an EGOT does not make anyone’s career less valid, but it is a nice re-
ward for their hard work e Best Spoken Word category is o en how actors get their EGOT, or at least the Grammy part if they cannot sing. However, that does not make it any less valid, as a Grammy is a Grammy, and an EGOT is an EGOT. Good luck Viola. e beauty of this award show is that all sorts of genres get celebrated. From Americana to reggae and everything in between, all sorts of artists get appreciated. Sure, the main categories end up being lled with pop and rap, but all of the categories should still be appreciated. Winning any of them would be an honor. A few months from now, we will see who will get to walk home with a trophy. ere could be some awards for fan favorites like Taylor Swi and Harry Styles, newcomers like Wet Leg and Molly Tuttle, or the old timers like ABBA and Bonnie Raitt. You can start making some predictions and get ready to cheer on your favorites in a few months. I know I’ll be cheering for “Six” for Best Musical eatre Album in the upcoming months. Seriously, see this show if you have the chance. e Grammys are also sure to be lled with some electrifying performances. ey have not been announced, but they will certainly be from some popular nominees. So if you want to rock out to some great performances and nd out who is the best in music, mark your calendars for Feb. 5, 2023 to tune into the 65th Grammy Awards.
I’ve been watching “ e Crown” since 2016, because every 15-year-old should be watching a drama about the British royal family. While “ e Crown” isn’t one of my favorite shows, I do enjoy using it as background noise while I’m folding laundry or doing other chores. e series has received critical acclaim, having received both Emmy and Golden Globe Awards for Best Drama. It has also contributed Emmy wins for Olivia Colman and Claire Foy, both women who have played Queen Elizabeth II during di erent seasons of the show. at being said, “ e Crown” has also received its fair share of criticism as it borders on the line between fact and ction, especially since this season was released just eight weeks a er the death of Queen Elizabeth, making the British nation still sensitive to any criticism of her reign—deserved or not. e show revolves around the British royal family, following the reign of Queen Elizabeth II starting just before she took the throne from her father King George VI. While portraying the lives of real people in a drama setting there is of course going to be some backlash over how events are portrayed. e show digs deep into the royal family and shows pivotal moments in the Windsor family history without leaving out any bit of the ugly. e show includes the marital chaos, the impacts of the family on individual’s mental health and scandals
of in delity leaked to the public. Heck, the show even refers to being in the family as being part of “ e System”—as evidenced by the title of episode 2 in season 5. at being said, while it is nice that the show doesn’t gloss over any of the unsavory parts of the royal family’s history under Queen Elizabeth’s reign, it does sometimes feel a bit strange to watch knowing this was someone’s life and it is being dramatized for people’s enjoyment. I felt similarly when “Diana: e Musical” was brought to Broadway. ese are real people who really experienced these things. On another note, these people live in the lap of luxury. ey have castles and money and never have to want for anything and all they truly are at the end of the day are gureheads. e show does make you understand the struggle of having to play a part and the cost that comes with bearing the title and the crown. But hey you get pretty dresses so… (I’m joking… for the most part.) “ e Crown” as a whole has done a great job of both humanizing the royal family to remove this facade that treats them as gods among men and also othering them by showing how their problems seem trivial in comparison to the very real problem their subjects face.
I did enjoy the rst couple of the seasons of the show—for the same reason why everyone loved “House of the Dragon” (if you know you know and you should know this is a joke). And I think I maybe liked those earlier seasons better because they felt more removed from the royal family that we know now. I mean Queen Elizabeth II took the throne in
1952, just think about how di erent the world was then compared to the present day. So I always had this inkling that I may like the show less as time progressed because it was delving into content I wasn’t interested in seeing dramatized—also I hate Charles.
is point isn’t at all relevant to this sentence, I just thought it needed to be in here somewhere.
I also didn’t know how much I would love the Diana years because of how controversial they are and I think there is a very ne line to be walked when portraying Diana’s life. It also just makes you wonder if the royal family has seen the show and what their thoughts on it are.
e show de nitely does make me respect Queen Elizabeth because Miss Ma’am really does commit to the bit—maybe I shouldn’t refer to someone’s reign as the bit. But what I mean is that she always puts duty above everything else. is is a theme that has been carried from season 1 to season 5. She chooses duty even when any other human being would understand why she wouldn’t. Is it always the best idea to choose duty? No. Does she cause harm to other people and their well being because of it? Yes. But she really does stick to her guns.
In this season most especially I think we see this turmoil and the toll that it takes on her to have to handle the responsibility of the crown while also being blamed by her children and family for their unhappiness. But Elizabeth didn’t create the system, she is simply a piece in it just like every other member of the family. It is easy as an outsider to say she could change things, but in truth what power
did she have? She was a gurehead. e entire point of a gurehead is to sit there and look pretty, it is supposed to represent an unachievable ideal. I’m not saying that this is an easy role to ll, but it is a role you must ll when you are given every other privilege in this life. Oh, also Imelda Staunton aka Dolores Umbridge is playing Elizabeth this season which is a bit trippy because you just expect her to go all wizard-y at some point which does not happen. is is the penultimate season of “ e Crown,” and we end o the season just before Diana’s death. In this season we get a glimpse into the failing marriages of the queen’s children, with a heavy focus on Charles and Diana. We also see this growing disconnect between Phillip and Elizabeth who are being characterized as these two contrasting personalities. “ e Crown” also threw in a clip of Diana in the ever so famous revenge dress, which is iconic. en we get to episode 6 and things take a turn for the dark side. “Episode 6: Ipatiev House” focuses on the royal family’s connection to the Russian czars. Now remember, royal families are innately incestuous, and in some familial relation both Elizabeth and Phillip are connected to the Russian czars by blood. e show delves into the role that British royals played in condemning the Romanov family to a horri c death by not o ering them refuge in England. Once again, things are not as plain as they seem; the rst instinct would be rage towards the British royal family for not providing aid to the last czars. But logically, when one remembers that duty to the crown comes rst,
it is clear that providing aid to the Romanovs would be asking for turmoil to come to England and risk the country’s stability. Elizabeth is the one to explain the role of duty in the decision and I think this ties back to her rm belief in duty over personal feelings. Is it heartless maybe, but they don’t give you a tiara to have a heart.
One last thought I think it was really interesting that the rst episode of season 5, “Queen Victoria Syndrome,” focused on how the queen was becoming out of touch with British society. e show uses e Britannia—a yacht gi ed to Queen Elizabeth at the start of her reign—as a metaphor throughout the season as the ship is seen in disrepair and not modern. roughout the course of the season, there is this underlying narrative of members of the royal family trying to save the yacht and get funding to repair it to a working state while other members try and move towards a new yacht model that could be put in place of e Britannia, a great metaphor for how some felt about Queen Elizabeth and her son Charles. However, the show ends on “Episode 10: Decommissioned” with e Britannia being decommissioned instead of being replaced or xed, which was very symbolic. Good background noise, would recommend while folding laundry or using the arm bike in the trainers’ room.