The Daily Reveille 04-11-2018

@lsureveille

The Daily Reveille Est. 1887

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

NO BAIN NO GAIN

NEWS

Senior Austin Bain utilizes multiple strengths as two-way player for LSU baseball team, page 2

SPORTS

LSU grad student receives provisional patent for drinkware, page 3 LSU Cycling Club focuses on joy of sport rather than competition, page 4

Volume 126 · No. 13

lsunow.com/daily

ENTERTAINMENT Sophomore center fielder Zach Watson uses role as lead-off hitter to light spark on offense, page 7

Student YouTuber covers women’s issues and astrology, page 13

OPINION “There is no chance for due process when you are dead. There is no chance to tell your side of the story when you are dead,” page 18

page 2

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

COVER STORY

Austin Bain a secret weapon LSU didn’t know it had

BY GLEN WEST @glenwest21 LSU senior Austin Bain is the definition of a Swiss Army knife.

Bain began his LSU career as a pitcher, earning six starts as a freshman while issuing 56 strikeouts in the 2015 season when he first made the trip to Omaha.

Bain seemed poised for a weekend starter role his sophomore season before a shoulder injury hindered his progression and never really got on track when LSU went back to Omaha his junior season.

Fast forward to the fall of his senior year and Bain was once again seen as an afterthought.

Then LSU coach Paul Mainieri walked into something that has changed the landscape of this season for the Tigers.

Mainieri was running low on viable players in the fall for the team’s intersquad games, so he stuck Bain out at second base to fill out both rosters.

“It’s refreshing to see a kid just having fun,” Mainieri said.

“I think he’s done really a tremendous job for us. Going into the year, nobody had any high expectations. Just out of necessity, you throw him in there and he’s hitting, he’s throwing, he’s

playing defense.”

Junior infielder Chris Reid has been with Bain at LSU for three seasons but has played against him since they were 8 and 9 years old in the Baton Rouge area.

Reid said Bain was always known for his hitting at a young age, so the discovery wasn’t news to him.

Reid noticed Bain had a loopy swing while working with him in the fall, but the natural talent was there for him to have success.

“He was one of the best hitters in our league at that time,” Reid said. “He’s such an avid golfer that the swing was kind of loopy like a golf swing. He got it clicking, and I’m just really proud of him as a friend and a teammate and just glad he’s on our team.”

Over winter break, Bain was in the throwing program for pitching but also hitting with freshman Daniel Cabrera, who has also done both pitching and hitting this year.

“I wanted to stay in shape because [Mainieri] told me he wanted me to hit in the scrimmages in the spring,” Bain said.

“In the fall, I was going up there swinging, but now I’m trying to keep my hands close. I live in the right center gap with most of my hits, but I feel good going opposite field.”

Inconsistent hitting from the Tigers’ squad allowed Bain the opportunity to play as a designated hitter for a short stretch before making the jump into the lineup at first base against Hawaii.

The Dutchtown High School graduate has spent time in the closing role as a pitcher while also finding a new home on the right side of the infield at both first and second base.

Bain has started 26 of 33 games so far this season, is currently third on the team in RBIs with 18 on the season and is hitting .280 on the year.

“After the ULL game, coach asked me how I would feel playing first,” Bain said. “So I went out that day and went through picks and ground balls.”

Junior second baseman Brandt Broussard suffered an injury to his thumb in March, opening a familiar door for Bain.

While signals are all pretty much the same in the infield, Bain said having that experience as pitcher has helped him at second base.

“I know what pitches are coming,” Bain said. “I know how [Alan Dunn] thinks. So I can read the signals and know what might cause a ground ball and how different hitters approach

certain pitchers.”

Coming into a game to pitch after being on the field for a whole game leaves Bain’s body tired at times, but his arm is usually ready to go.

“I feel loose, and my blood is flowing,” Bain said. “At the end of the game, I’m focused, so I feel like that has helped me. I’ve seen all the hitters, so I know what to expect.”

Mainieri compared Bain’s senior year to centerfielder Zach Watson’s freshman campaign a season ago. Nobody knew what to expect from Watson until Mainieri saw him shagging balls in the outfield and thought, “This guy could help us.”

“I shudder at the thought of where we would be without Austin Bain,” Mainieri said. “He might be the best athlete in the infield right now, and sometimes you just stumble into things.”

Bain said the only personal goal he would like to fulfill on his swan song season would be to help this team in any way he can, and hopefully this leads to some success.

“I just want to go out of the season with no regrets,” Bain said. “I don’t want to look back and regret anything this season, so I’m going to go out and play as hard as I can.”

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WHITNEY WILLISTON

CORRECTIONS & CLARIFICATIONS In an article titled “LSU alumna opens Moxi Boutique, curates personable business” on March 21, The Daily Reveille incorrectly stated that Jenee Esquivel grew up in St. Manama, Louisiana. It has been corrected online to state “St. Amant.” The Daily Reveille regrets this error.

CHRISTA MORAN / The Daily Reveille

LSU senior pitcher Austin Bain (18) runs to first base during the Tigers’ 5-1 win against Hawaii on March 10 at Alex Box Stadium.

CHRISTA MORAN / The Daily Reveille

LSU senior pitcher Austin Bain (18) celebrates a run during the Tigers’ 5-1 win against Hawaii on March 10 at Alex Box Stadium.

ABOUT THE DAILY REVEILLE The Daily Reveille (USPS 145-800) is written, edited and produced solely by students of Louisiana State University.

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News

page 3 SOPHIE GRANZOW / The Daily Reveille

BUSINESS

Grubhub comes to Baton Rouge

BY SHERIDAN WALL @slwall7

EVERY VOTE COUNTS New service promotes student involvement in democracy

BY SHERIDAN WALL @slwall7

Geaux Vote LSU, in partnership with Student Government, launched its new online voter registration service, TurboVote on April 4.

TurboVote is an application of Democracy Works, an organization dedicated to merging technology with civic engagement, according to the organization’s website. TurboVote was Democracy Works’ first project launched in 2010. TurboVote partners with several colleges, universities and

other organizations to encourage increased voter participation.

“Our vision is straightforward: make voting a simple, seamless experience for all Americans so that no one misses an election,” the organization’s website stated.

TurboVote helps streamline the voter registration process, allowing students to register regardless of in-state or out-of-state status, according to Geaux Vote president and political science senior Louis Gremillion.

see TURBOVOTE, page 6

The site will direct in-state students with a Louisiana I.D. to the secretary of state’s online voter registration portal. If students do not have a valid Louisiana I.D., they can fill out the paperwork online and either have TurboVote send them a copy ready to be mailed in or print out a copy and mail it themselves.

“Basically it’s just removing a lot of the hassle and responsibility for us to double check like in the past that created

Another food delivery service, Grubhub, will expand to Baton Rouge and Shreveport, among other cities like Little Rock, Memphis, Charleston and Jackson, according to a press release from Monday, April 2.

“These additional markets are part of our vision to connect more diners with even more of their favorite local restaurants across the country, and provide them with the widest selection of choice wherever they are,” said Stan Chia, Grubhub’s chief operating officer, in the press release.

Grubhub is “the nation’s leading online and mobile food-ordering company.” It was founded in 2004 and merged with Seamless, another food delivery service, in 2013, according to the company’s website. As part of its 2018 growth plan, Grubhub has expanded into 34 additional markets in 19 different states, according to the press release.

Grubhub already operates in 80 markets throughout the nation with 80,000 restaurants in about 1,600 U.S. cities and London, according to the company’s website.

Diners can order delivery

see GRUBHUB, page 6

BUSINESS

Graduate student receives provisional patent for insulated pint glass

BY LUKE JEANFREAU @LukeJeanfreau From the beginning of his time at LSU, mechanical engineering graduate student Sean King knew he wanted to start a business and help people. He now thinks he found a way to make that happen.

The Baton Rouge native was eating dinner with his family at The Overpass Merchant on a hot day in July 2017 when he came up with the idea for his business.

“We were drinking beer,” King said. “We noticed after about 15 minutes that the outside of the glass was full of condensation. It was too hot to really enjoy. My dad said, ‘Man, I wish someone could invent something to prevent that from happening.’

I said, ‘Wait a minute, I could actually do that.’”

Because of what King learned at the University about heat transfer, he came up with the idea for a plastic beer glass made of two layers of plastic sep-

arated by a vacuum. The vacuum between the layers both maintains the temperature of the drink in the glass and drastically reduces condensation on the outside.

King received a provisional patent for his cup, called the FLOE glass, and still needs to obtain the full utility patent.

While vacuum-insulated cups are not a new concept, King is the first to create a clear pint glass that utilizes vacuum insulation.

“No one wants to drink beer out of a Yeti,” King said.

In addition, King plans to donate 15 percent of all profits to the Flint Water Fund and the Appalachian Freshwater Initiative. King said the idea for funding clean water charities came when he was living in Claremore, Oklahoma and received a letter stating that his tap water did not meet national standards.

“That’s not something that should be happening in the U.S.,”

see FLOE, page 6

SOPHIE GRANZOW / The Daily Reveille

Floe Drinkware products by LSU mechanical engineering graduate student Sean King sit outside of Middleton Library on April 9 on LSU campus.

The Daily Reveille

page 4

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

STUDENT LIFE

Cycling Club promotes competition, healthy lifestyle

BY CALEB GREENE @cgreene_24 The idea of tigers on bikes is beyond alarming; it is downright terrifying, especially for the LSU Cycling Club’s competition.

The LSU Cycling Club is a competitive cycling organization on campus that races in regional events. Along with the competitive races across Louisiana and throughout the South, the cycling club enjoys weekly social rides around the University promoting both healthy lifestyles and developing friendships.

LSU Cycling Club President and ISDS sophomore Connor Juban joined the cycling club after years of being a runner to maintain his healthy lifestyle.

“I used to be a runner and I found out about the cycling club through a friend,” Juban said. “I was like, sure, I will buy a bike and I’ll start coming to the meetings. I went to some of the meetings and social rides and met everyone in the community. I’ve been doing it ever since then.”

The LSU Cycling Club races road bikes in three distinct types of competitions. Bikers begin their cycling club careers in the D competition group and eventually graduate through the ranks as their experience levels grow. D groups have up to 30 riders per race while the A groups have only a select few.

Cyclists compete in road races, time trials and criterium.

Every type of competition offers

its own challenges for riders. Road races focus on endurance with long distances ranging from 40 to 50 miles.

Riders in time trials start 30 seconds apart from each other to prevent drifting. These trials focus more on individual, short-term bursts of speed with races lasting between 10 and 15 minutes depending on the distance. Criterium offer cyclists intense fast corners and short laps. These races are done in various parking lots and involve constant high-pressure situations for riders.

“The lap is going to be way less than a mile,” Juban said explaining criterium. “You’re going to be going to be cornering really fast, you are going to be going really fast.

It sucks, but it is the funniest type of race.”

Some of the LSU Cycling Club’s 10 members may bike as many as five times a week independently, but the organization tries to do laid-back social rides during the week. Starting at 6 p.m. at the clock tower, the cycling club bikes around the University Lakes before heading to downtown Baton Rouge eventually making a large loop back to campus.

“You love it more than you think,” Juban said. “Once you get into it, you cannot get out. You want to be racing and beating other people. It’s really competitive.

I’m not a competitive person, but when I race, you have to get after it and win.”

courtesy of LSU CYCLING CLUB

LSU Cycling Club compeats at the Texas A&M Road Race (bottom left) and Tulane Collegiate Race (top and bottom right).

STUDENT LIFE

Score a Friend Club of LSU helps create Unified Friendships

BY CALEB GREENE @cgreene_24 In 2012, 13-year-old Coloradoan Sarah Greichen started the Score a Friend organization that focused on finding her autistic twin brother a friend.

Six years later, there is only one college campus in America with an active Score a Friend chapter: LSU. The mission of Score a Friend is to promote and provide opportunities for Unified Friendships through school and community-based sports and activities. Unified Friendships are friendships between children that do and do not have disabilities. The organization also strives to teach respect, kindness and love, instilling in children of all types empathy.

“The whole point of Sarah starting the club was to find her brother a friend,” said general business senior Eliana Wackerman.

“From that, she saw the lack of all-inclusive education and all-inclusive extracurriculars.”

Wackerman and her roommate Melissa Morgan saw this lack of education at the University and established a Score a

We said we would bring Score a Friend to LSU because we saw all-inclusiveness lacking ELIANA WACKERMAN

Score a Friend club of LSU Founder Friend chapter. Now seniors, Wackerman and Morgan prepare to leave behind the club they started as freshmen.

“We started with a conversation,” Wackerman said. “At 1 a.m., we said we would bring Score a Friend to LSU because we saw allinclusiveness lacking and the educational aspects not being there.”

The 60-member organization does not have formal meetings but participates in a wide array of activities. In January, the Score a Friend club worked in conjunction with the UREC to form the Unified Basketball Team made of special-Olympic athletes and collegiate students at LSU. Many of the Score

a Friend Club events are put on with other local community organizations.

“It needs to be an open conversation,” Wackerman said. “I think people are scared to talk about it. They are scared of either insulting someone or they just don’t know because they haven’t had that experience.”

The Score a Friend club’s next event is their “R-Word Campaign” in Free Speech Plaza during the last two weeks of April. Working with Special Olympics, the campaign looks to promote awareness and allows students to sign a poster pledging to never use the “R-word” again and learn more about Score a Friend.

“It is a great thing to be a

courtesy of ELIANA WACKERMAN

Score a Friend club members participate in their R-word campaign outside the LSU Student Union. part of,” Wackerman said. “I think it is a great way to impact obviously LSU, but the greater Baton Rouge community. In the ‘R-Word Campaign’, so many people don’t think of the effect

they can have with the words they choose, things they say or how they act towards someone else. It’s a great way to not only educate yourself, but to have a large impact on others.”

The Daily Reveille

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

page 5

ACADEMICS

Revolutionary researcher, student becomes Goldwater scholar

BY RACHEL MIPRO @remroc15 When Corey Matyas was 7, he taught himself how to code using a book he bought with birthday money. He thought it was a normal thing for kids his age. When Matyas was 13, he knew how to use power drills and lock picking sets. By the time he was in high school, he had nearly burned down the school’s chemistry lab by accident when boiling sulfuric acid. And college definitely hasn’t slowed him down.

Matyas, now a physics and math sophomore at the University, has spent the year making a revolutionary computer software program for testing all sorts of quantum optical projects—a feat that made him LSU’s 32nd Goldwater Scholar on March 30.

Matyas is now one of just 211 Goldwater Scholars for 2018, which had around 1,280 student nominations. The selective award is one of the highest available honors for undergraduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Recipients of the award get funding of around $7,500

for research in the fields of natural science, mathematics or engineering.

“I kind of had the idea, what if we could get the computer to try out a bunch of different materials then figure out the thicknesses and see which one worked best,” Matyas said.

“And so, using supercomputers and a bunch of code, that’s more or less what I did.”

Making the program took him about 10 weeks—around eight hours a day, often working through dinner. He fine-tuned it for research in nanophotonics, to test the best types of materials and the best thicknesses of these materials for work in multilayer photonic structure, helped by his mentor Georgios Veronis, associate professor in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the Center for Computation and Technology.

The program, as Matyas described it, takes random materials and then passes on the most suitable materials in a testing pattern that mimics genetic evolution. Matyas said the program might even be helpful in discovering some sort of larger pattern.

“I guess kind of the significant thing is you don’t

normally expect trying random stuff to work. But it did,” Matyas said. “Which really kind of gives us some insight, like maybe designing these things isn’t quite as mysterious as we thought it might be, maybe there’s some patterns in here. And so, this gives us the option going forward of, ‘Well, what if we can look for those patterns, what if we can figure what materials work well together.’”

As impressive as the program is, Matyas didn’t really expect to get the Goldwater Scholarship because of it, and he’s still finding it hard to believe that he won, saying that the news was still settling in.

He waited anxiously the entire day results were announced, only to find out that he’d won from social media.

Matyas said, “I found out from Twitter before I found out from my email, honestly. Because my email only refreshes every 15 minutes, so I just missed it.”

Matyas hopes to use his funding for travel grants, to go to conferences, but hasn’t made solid plans yet. He does know that he’s going to keep doing more research, and plans to represent his findings at

thank you

several conferences in fall.

Right now, his software is only being used by around four graduate students. Matyas plans on eventually open-sourcing it, so it’s available for more widespread use.

In his two years left as an undergraduate, Matyas wants to finish up the requirements for his majors, so he can go to graduate school and get his Ph.D. in physics. Matyas gives credit to the Rodger Hadfield Ogden Honors College and the University as significant factors in his success so far.

“I was able to get right into lab freshmen year, doing real work,” Matyas said. “I’m the second author on one paper, did a poster presentation, got a first author coming up soon. These are things that some people don’t do [until] graduate school and I’m able to do them here at LSU.” Some of that encouragement comes in the form of office space. Matyas has his own cubicle in Nicholson Hall, decorated with a globe and a whiteboard that’s usually filled with quantum physics equations, but he doesn’t really depend on location or time for his best

ALYSSA BERRY / The Daily Reveille

LSU physics sophomore and Goldwater Scholar Corey Matyas stands outside of the French House on Monday. research ideas, sometimes working late into the night.

“When I say my lab is a laptop and pad of paper, I’m serious,” Matyas said. “I’m not sure that I could work in a lab with machines, because I get my best work done at four in the morning. They don’t like giving undergrads keys to get in at four in the morning to work with expensive equipment.”

The Daily Reveille

page 6 GRUBHUB, from page 3 and takeout from restaurant menus offered through Grubhub’s website, or they can download the app.

Among restaurants offering delivery on the site near the University are Pita Pit, Barcadia, Yogurtland, The Halal Guys, Hungry Howie’s, Cupcake Allie, Crawfish On The Geaux , Gatti’s Pizza, Frankie’s Dawg House, Pastime, Sake Sushi and Popology.

Some Baton Rouge restaurants featured on Grubhub offering free delivery include Pita Pit, Barcadia, The Halal Guys, Cupcake Allie, Crawfish On The Geaux, Gatti’s Pizza, Roly Poly, Popology and Sake Sushi.

Some restaurants featured have a delivery minimum and those not listed above have a delivery fee.

In 2016, Business Insider ranked seven food delivery services including Grubhub,

Amazon, Eat24, UberEats, Postmates, Caviar and DoorDash, according to the article. Grubhub finished fourth in their ranking, citing the $5 delivery fee on their order as “average” and the $10 delivery minimum as “bearable.”

“A solid fourth-place finish,” according to the article.

Finance senior Matthew Tynes said he usually doesn’t use food delivery services because, as a finance major especially, he doesn’t like food delivery services like Waitr that charge significant delivery fees.

“If a new place could come in and offer cheaper prices, that would incentivize at least me for sure,” Tynes said.

Political communication junior Schlea Thomas said she’s familiar with using Grubhub from her hometown, Houston, and has good experiences using the service.

“It’s always nice to have more options for food delivery,” Thomas said.

courtesy of FLICKR

Grubhub, another food delivery service, will be coming to Baton Rouge.

DAY APRIL 19, 2018 10:30AM – 2:00PM VOLUNTEER TO PLANT AND GREEN THE CAMPUS

T-SHIRT AND LUN C PROVID H ED!

PLEASE VISIT WWW.LSU.EDU/SUSTAINABILITY TO REGISTER

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

TURBOVOTE, from page 3 trouble for us,” Gremillion said.

Once a student registers on the site, the student can sign up for email or text election day reminders, as well as sign up to receive absentee ballots, Gremillion said. TurboVote is mobile-friendly.

“This is a student led initiative,” Gremillion said. “Students pushing other students to register and participate is the way to be influential for our generation to have its voice heard.”

Before TurboVote, Geaux Vote helped students register to vote by directing them to one of two forms or the Louisiana online voter registration portal, Gremillion said.

In-state and out-of-state students would have two completely different forms to fill out. Geaux Vote had to assist students in filling out the forms correctly and were responsible for turning those forms into the Secretary of State’s office.

“We have to double check to make sure the student has registered and filled out the forms correctly because if those forms were filled out incorrectly, then it’s invalid and we have no way to reach out to a student,” Gremillion said.

Gremillion said the process was inefficient and most students didn’t want to take the time to do it. The search for a new platform started after he and Geaux Vote vice president Rachel Campbell attended a conference for civic engagement at Harvard University last year.

Students can register to vote using their on-campus address.

Gremillion said students can still choose to have their mail and absentee ballots sent to their home addresses even if they register with their on campus address.

According to Gremillion, students registering with their oncampus address is the first step to getting a polling precinct on campus, which is a major goal of the organization.

Campbell said an existing bill calls for the consolidation of the University’s two polling places, one at University Laboratory School and an off-campus elementary school, into one central location on campus. However, the legislature hasn’t been able to justify the relocation.

Instead of the Secretary of State’s office or the Metro Council conducting a study,

FLOE, from page 3 King said in a press release. “If you look under the Appalachian Freshwater Initiative, over 50 percent of the 5,000 water systems serve 500 people or less.

That’s something I wanted to give a voice to.”

King said he hopes to practice what he calls “responsible capitalism.”

“I have always wanted to start a company that practices what I call responsible capitalism, where you are not only trying to benefit yourself,” King said in a press release. “If you

SOPHIE GRANZOW / The Daily Reveille

LSU political science senior and Geaux Vote LSU member Louis Gremillion is helping start TurboVote, a new application that will make voting easier for students.

TurboVote will allow the University to collect the data on campus voter registration to justify a polling place on campus, Campbell said.

“We’re showing them we do have the numbers, that we do have the student support on this campus to justify having a polling place at LSU,” Campbell said. “Young leaders are going to be the future of this nation and the things we’re voting on now, the elected officials we’re putting in office directly affects our future.”

Gremillion said they’re hoping to add a feature to the site that allows students to select their residence hall when registering and have the address automatically entered.

“It’s going to open the doors to continue making LSU a voterfriendly campus,” Gremillion said.

Manship student senator Frederick Bell said Geaux Vote brought the TurboVote initiative to SG to request a partnership for funding and promotion.

Bell said he drafted the legislation and presented it to his fellow senators and it “passed with near unanimous vote.”

“I thought it was a great idea,” Bell said. “This is something we have to support.”

The service costs $5,000, and SG will fund the service with existing student fee money, according to Bell.

“If we’re going to spend $5,000 of student fees, it should be something like this, own a company, you’re going to make enough money. But if you help other people, that’s more important in the long run.”

King said the glasses will be manufactured by a Noble Plastics Inc, a company founded by an LSU graduate. The glasses will be manufactured using injection molding and will cost around $2.50. King said he is focusing on selling the cups in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, as well as southern California.

King hopes his company can expand to make other drinkware like wine glasses in the future.

TurboVote,” Bell said.

Geaux Vote and SG will be participating in an extensive campaign to encourage students to register with TurboVote, Bell said. A link to the TurboVote website will also be featured on SG’s webpage.

Geaux Vote is part of a national organization, The Andrew Goodman Foundation, Gremillion said.

“We participate in this national organization that encourages universities to register students to vote and encourages students to take strides to expand electoral reforms on college campuses,” Gremillion said.

Geaux Vote is a non-partisan organization that focuses on getting students involved in politics, Campbell said.

“Politics affects every single thing in the world around us,” Campbell said. “Getting registered to vote puts students and puts any person in the middle of that process, gives you a voice and gives you a say.”

Past Geaux Vote initiatives include changes to the University student I.D. to make it compliant with voter identification laws in Louisiana, Gremillion said. Students can currently go to the Student Union and get a student I.D. to use as voter identification.

Editor’s Note: Frederick Bell is a former columnist for The Daily Reveille.

SOPHIE GRANZOW / The Daily Reveille

Mechanical engineering graduate student Sean King created FLOE drinkware.

Sports

page 7

BRINGING THE HEAT

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

Jackson, Neubert transferring from LSU

BY JBRIAAN JOHNSON @JBriaan_Johnson

Zach Watson’s impressive bat brings life to Tiger lineup

BY BRANDON DECAREAUX @ BrandonDec77

PHOTO BY ISABELLA ALLEN

Just like Zach Watson’s walk-up

song, the sophomore center fielder brings the thunder when he steps in the batter’s box.

Watson has been one of LSU’s best players this season (20-13, 6-6 Southeastern Conference) despite missing nine games with a strained oblique muscle.

In Watson’s first at-bat in nearly three weeks, the sophomore doubled down the left field line against Southern, finishing the game going 3-of-5 adding two singles and scoring twice.

The Tigers’ terrific lead off

hitter was back in the lineup and was already making his presence known to opposing pitchers.

Since coming back from an injury in early March, Watson has been fantastic for the Tigers.

Watson has a .330 batting average out of the leadoff spot and is tied for the team high in home runs with five.

Watson’s ability to mix speed and power is what makes him one of the Tigers’ hardest outs in the lineup. He eads the team with a .580 slugging percentage, but is also third on the team in steals with seven.

The impact that Watson has made since his injury has been remarkable for the Tigers, and LSU coach Paul Mainieri believes Watson has provided a much needed boost to the team.

“His bat is lightning going through the hitting zone,” Mainieri said. “He’s a really good ballplayer.

He’s the key to our team, there is no doubt about that.”

Watson’s ability to target fastballs early in the count is something that he says he looks for when he leads off the game for the Tigers.

“First pitch, usually I’m

see WATSON, page 9

going up there looking for a fastball, and most of the time it is a fastball but sometimes it’s not, and I’m just swinging through it,” Watson said. “First pitch is usually good, and that’s why I usually swing at it.”

Watson’s approach at the plate is something he says he did throughout his high school career as lead off man for West Ouachita. Watson mastered the art of hunting fastballs in high school, hitting over .400 in all four years as a starter.

Two years removed from a spectacular high school career, Watson still has the same

LSU junior guard Chloe Jackson and junior forward Tatum Neubert will be transferring from LSU for their senior seasons after the program granted their release, the program announced on Tuesday.

Jackson started every game of her career at LSU and led the Lady Tigers in scoring last season with 18.1 points per game. To go along with her point production, she recorded 137 rebounds, 67 assists and 59 steals. Jackson was also named as one of the 10 candidates for the Ann Meyers Drysdale Award last season.

Jackson transferred to LSU after her freshman year at North Carolina State University.

Neubert played in 39 games during her career, averaging 2.7 points and 0.9 rebounds a game. She announced via Twitter that she will be playing at Colorado State University for the 2018-19 season.

Neubert entered this season after suffering a knee injury last season and played in 18 games, averaging six minutes in those games.

“LSU women’s basketball players Chloe Jackson and Tatum Neubert will be transferring for their senior season,” coach Nikki Fargas said in a news release. “LSU thanks both student-athletes for their contributions to the program and wishes all the best as they enter new chapters in their lives.”

With Jackson transferring and the graduation of Raigyne Louis, the Tigers have lost their top

see TRANSFER, page 9

SOFTBALL

Howard Dobson provides big hits for the LSU softball program

BY TREASURE WASHINGTON @Twashington490 LSU coach Howard Dobson was born to be a Tiger.

The Sulphur, Louisiana, native moved from place to place in his 23-year coaching career, but he was always meant to end up in Baton Rouge.

He started as assistant coach at his alma mater, McNeese State University, and then moved on to Southeastern Louisiana University and University of Houston.

Soon after, Dobson settled in as an assistant coach for the University of Oklahoma for five seasons

starting in 2003.

Dobson helped lead the Sooners to two Women’s College World Series appearances, four Super Regional tournaments and fivestraight Regionals during his tenure. The Sooners also led the Big 12 Conference in runs in all of those seasons, and Dobson coached seven All-Americans and 20 All-Big 12 honorees.

Dobson then left Oklahoma to become head coach at the Unviersity of Southern Mississippi. Under Dobson’s tutelage, four-time All-Conference USA performer Megan Hill set school records with 205 hits, 151 RBIs, 148 runs

scored and 48 home runs.

But his next stop after Southern Miss, he said, is a dream come true.

Dobson joined the LSU softball staff in 2012 as coach Beth Torina took helm of the program. He serves as the program’s hitting coach and assists with recruiting.

“This is the place [my wife and I] wanted to be,” Dobson said. “For us, it was like winning the lottery.”

Dobson and Torina were already familiar with one another.

see DOBSON, page 9

DIANNA ROXAS / The Daily Reveille

LSU softball coach Howard Dobson speaks to the media during softball media day on April 5 at Tiger Park.

The Daily Reveille

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Wednesday, April 11, 2018

OPINION

Nick Saban has edge against Lebron James in legal court CAL’D UP CHRIS CALDARERA @caldarera11 It’s like a game of Russian roulette.

I walk up the creaky wooden steps of the small two-room establishment with no expectations. Upon entering, I’m greeted with a mix of familiar smiles and beady-eyed, judgmental stares.

I grab a newspaper, take a seat and begin listening to the ongoing discussion as I wait for my turn. I have arrived at my local barbershop, and I’m about to get a haircut.

Sometimes the haircut is decent. Sometimes I find myself wearing a baseball cap for two weeks. There’s really no telling how the haircut is going to turn out after I say, “cut it like usual.”

I’m perfectly fine with this lack of consistency because I don’t go there for the haircut. I go there for the lively debates.

My barber and his patrons are an older crowd that love to discuss a wide range of topics that include everything from the local rumor mill to politics and sports. It’s one of the most entertaining environments I’ve ever seen, and the atmosphere is worth every penny regardless of the haircut I receive.

If you’ve ever witnessed

elderly men come to blows about protected by copyright laws. the different ways to smoke a pig, Interview-based television shows you’d probably agree with me. are a dime a dozen, and as I’ve Barbershop discussions are already mentioned, barbershop not specific to my hometown banter is ingrained in American though. In fact, one could argue culture. that barbershop debates are a Movies like “Coming to ubiquitous occurrence in Ameri- America” and “Barbershop” can culture, and various movies are famous for their barbershop and television shows have used scenes and the television classic barbershops as a setting for such “The Andy Griffith Show” used conversation.

Floyd’s barbershop as a hub for However, just like Al Gore social activity in the town of claims to have invented the in- Mayberry. ternet, Lebron Without getJames has reting too technicently claimed cal, a barbershop intellectual prop- What sort of logo would would fall under erty rights on you expect from a show the scènes à faire the barbershop based out of an industry distinction in lediscussion. gal jargon. This that cuts hair?

James and his means that commedia company mon settings and UNINTERRUPTcultural referED recently sent Nick Saban ences are important to society and the University of Alabama and should not be included in the a notice of copyright infringe- scope of copyright protection. ment because Saban’s new web Many interpret the scènes à series “Shop Talk” is too similar faire principle to include places to James’ web series “The Shop.” like coffee shops, park benches A James versus Saban battle and barbershops. is a matchup sports fans never Some might argue that the knew they wanted, so I’d like execution of the web series as to send a big thank you to the well as the logo and title of SaUnited States judicial system for ban’s show are too similar to making that possible.

James’, but it appears that the Unfortunately for fans of law leans in Saban’s favor once James, there’s not much of a case again. to be made in his favor.

James’ “The Shop” and There is nothing proprietary Saban’s “Shop Talk” both about James’ web series to be utilize scissors in the logo, but it’s

courtesy of WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Lebron James and his media company UNINTERRUPTED sent Nick Saban and the University of Alabama a notice of copyright infringement due to similarities in their web series. a barbershop for crying out loud.

What sort of logo would you expect from a show based out of an industry that cuts hair?

As far as the title goes, Alabama has since renamed the show “Bama Cuts” as a possible path to appeasing James and ending this dispute despite the fact that the university could have probably left the original name without facing legal repercussions.

Winning a trademark claim would require proof that a

typical consumer would have trouble distinguishing one show from the other, but that’s unlikely since the shows are in different barber shops, the logos are similar but noticeably different and James and Saban aren’t exactly mirror images of one another.

There’s no doubt the 6-foot-8 James could dunk on the 5-foot-6 Saban on a basketball court, but most legal analysts would agree Saban has the edge in a legal court.

SOFTBALL

Hoover, Walljasper continue dominance in final season at LSU

BY EGAN VALLIANT @EganValliant Through the final stretch of the regular season, the LSU softball team can rely on two important facets of the team: senior pitchers Carley Hoover and Allie Walljasper.

Since the duo became Tigers, the team’s identity shifted from an offensive powerhouse to a force to be reckoned with on the defensive side.

Hoover and Walljasper have been as dominant as ever in their final season at LSU. Walljasper (11-3) currently sits at a staggering 0.74 ERA, and has thrown 94 strikeouts in 113.1 innings pitched. Walljasper recently set an LSU and SEC record for innings pitched in a game with 19 against the University of Mississippi. In those 19 innings, Walljasper gave up 0 earned runs.

“She has been phenomenal,” said LSU coach Beth Torina.

“She is the player every coach dreams of coaching. She is all that she is cracked up to be.”

Hoover (14-3) boasts a 0.97 ERA and has thrown for an astonishing 140 strikeouts in 108.1 innings.

“The fact that we have two as talented as them, it is tough for any school to say that they

ALYSSA BERRY / The Daily Reveille

AURIANNA CORDERO / The Daily Reveille

LSU senior pitcher Carley Hoover (21) pitches during the Tigers’ 3-1 loss against Ole Miss on April 8 at Tiger Park.

LSU senior pitcher Allie Walljasper (25) prepares to pitch the ball during the Tigers’ 7-3 win over WKU on March 13 at Tiger Park.

have one equal to what those guys are,” Torina said. “The fact that we have two arms like that is just an amazing thing for this program.”

With their experience, Hoover and Walljasper are able to help their team in more ways than just in the circle. For the younger players, Hoover and Walljasper have been mentors off the field as well.

“They have so much valuable experience,” Torina said. “I think it’s cool to see

the day, not a win or loss.”

No. 14 LSU has entered the most competitive stretch of its regular season schedule in Southeastern Conference play.

The SEC is consistently noted for its dominance in the softball world. All 11 teams made the 2017 postseason and currently 10 SEC teams rank in the Top 25.

In the past month, LSU has faced Auburn University, the University of Kentucky, the University of Missouri and Ole Miss.

someone like Shelbi Sunseri turning to Carley Hoover and asking her what she’s thinking at what her mentality is on the mound. Those conversations are happening all the time. [The younger players] have some great role-models.”

“Frustration and failure in this game is always there,” Hoover said. “So just have fun through it, and have fun with each other in the moment through it. That’s what’s going to be more important at the end of

Over the next month, LSU will play No. 10 University of Tennessee, No. 9 Texas A&M University, No. 6 University of Florida and No. 19 University of Arkansas.

The Tigers have appeared in three straight Women’s College World Series, but have come up short in all three trips.

“Every year I’ve been ticked off when we head back from Oklahoma City,” Hoover said.

“But this year is the last year to get it done. I think there’s a little more fire in us.”

The Daily Reveille

Wednesday, April 11, 2018 WATSON, from page 7 aggressive mentality out of the leadoff spot.

“That’s just where I come from, that’s what I’ve done my whole life,” Watson said. “In high school, I lead off and so I would always look first pitch fastball and try to hit it over early.”

The Tigers have a pivotal week ahead of them with home games against a red hot Louisiana Tech and a three game series with Tennessee. The No. 19 ranked Tigers

lost last week’s series to Texas A&M and are on the verge of falling out of a Top-25 poll for the first time since the beginning of the 2012 season.

If the Tigers hope to win this week, they will need a strong performance from its powerful leadoff hitter in Watson.

With only three more SEC series at home, it is pivotal that Watson and the Tigers can start the game fast and begin to pressure for a regular season SEC title as the season comes to a close.

TRANSFER, from page 7 scorers.

Jackson and Louis have guided the program in the upward direction for the past couple of seasons.

In 2016-17, the duo led the Lady Tigers to a 20-12 record (8-8 in Southeastern Conference) and 1910 (11-5 in SEC) last season.

Last season, LSU entered the SEC tournament as a No. 4 seed

DIANNA ROXAS / The Daily Reveille

page 9 and made its second consecutive NCAA tournament appearance.

With Jackson now gone, the leadership role falls squarely on the shoulders of Ayana Mitchell.

Mitchell will be returning with the most experience next season on a team that will be relying heavily on underclassmen.

The Lady Tigers have lost critical pieces to their team over the past couple of seasons. Prior to

this blow, former LSU guard Jenna Deemer stepped away from the program due to health reasons.

The program has also lost its former assistant coach and Hall of Fame inductee coach Mickie DeMoss after she stepped down from her position on April 5.

After being involved with basketball for 41 years, DeMoss says she will be likely remain involved with basketball in some way.

ALYSSA BERRY / The Daily Reveille

ISABELLA ALLEN / The Daily Reveille

The LSU team celebrates during the Tigers’ 10-4 win against Tulane on March 21 at Alex Box Stadium.

DIANNA ROXAS / The Daily Reveille

LSU junior guard Chloe Jackson (0) and junior forward Tatum Neubert (44) are transferring from the LSU women’s basketball program, the school announced April 10.

DOBSON, from page 7 Soon after Dobson left Houston for Oklahoma, Torina served as an assistant coach for the Cougars. As Dobson was the head coach at Southern Miss, Torina became the head coach for Florida International University.

When former LSU coach Yvette Girouard retired from the program after 10 years, Torina took over, and Dobson left Southern Miss to join her.

“We buy houses together,” Dobson joked. “It seems like every time I get a job, she gets a job.”

Dobson returned to the Women’s College World Series in his first season with the Tigers, and the team had a 65-point improvement in batting average between 2012 and 2013. Five former Tigers batted averages over .300 in 2013, including center fielder A.J. Andrews, shortstop Bianka Bell and left fielder Jacee Blades.

The Tigers had three hitters with averages over .300 through the 2017 season, and former right fielder Bailey Landry helped lead the way with a .402 batting average and 21 extra base hits. Her 92 hits throughout the season also led the Southeastern Conference.

“We had some really good hitters come through here and did some really good things,” Dobson

said. “We’re really fortunate to have the athletes that we had.”

Players like sophomore first baseman Amanda Doyle and sophomore left fielder Aliyah Andrews are making their own marks with the program this season. The biggest change for Doyle from her freshman and sophomore season has been maturing and becoming mentally stronger to face the talented pitchers in the SEC. “She was trying to back up and protect Sahvanna [Jaquish], and she had some big shoes to fill [last season],” Dobson said. “Now she’s the one that gets to swing big and people are protecting her. Even one at-bat didn’t define her season, it was the next at-bats coming. She built on those things and flushed that one at-bat that wasn’t her best at-bat and moved on to a better one.”

Dobson looks to the batters in the top of the lineup, like Andrews and senior center fielder Emily Griggs, and how they have found ways to improve as the season progressed. As the top two people in the batting lineup, they both have the two of the higher batting averages of the team.

“Aliyah has been hot for us all season long, and Emily is just as steady as they come,” Dobson said. “So as long as those kids keep doing what they are doing,

we should be a pretty decent spot.”

Dobson is also known as one of the best recruiters in college softball. Not only does he help provide depth and consistency to the plate, but he also finds dominance in the circle. Both of his senior pitchers, Carley Hoover and Allie Walljasper, have been decorated with All-American and All-SEC honors throughout their collegiate careers.

“Coach Dobson is just a great guy,” Walljasper said. “He always has new information for us. It’s great to have all of the resources that [he and coach Lindsay Leftwich] give to us.”

Torina praises Dobson for the work he’s done assisting her as she continues to grow the program.

“He’s really special with the offense,” Torina said. “He just knows the game and knows hitting and is able to communicate it clearly to our team.”

According to Dobson, LSU is not quite yet a hitting school, but he helps motivate his team every day for it to become that way.

“You see our kids progress,” Dobson said. “They come in here and do some good things, and every year they come and do a little bit better. They might have some steps back here and there, but we continue to grow and keep getting better.”

page 10

The Daily Reveille

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

The Daily Reveille

page 11

Singer-songwriter Justin Garner performs at the Baton Rouge Riverfront on April 7, at the Ebb & Flow festival.

The Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge celebrates and raises awareness for Brazilian culture at the Ebb & Flow Festival in Baton Rouge.

PHOTOS BY SOPHIE GRANZOW

The Daily Reveille

page 12

Announcements

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Red Zeppelin Pizza now accepting applications for trained waitresses and pizza makers. Apply at RZP

It has always been a dream of Mr. Dope’s to open a place where people could relax to an evening of delicious food, drinks and fun. His passion for cooking for friends inspired Mr. Dope to, after 15 years, leave the corporate tech world, and open his first bar and restaurant in Baton Rouge, LA. This is HOW WE ROLL believes in using fresh ingredients in a simple way to bring out their natural essences. Loving foods from all over the world, Mr. Dope combines Japanese flare with a simple and healthy menu inspired by his love of eating.

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Entertainment

page 13 FILM

Film festival to premiere “Do U Want It?”

BY KELLY SWIFT @kellbell237

her makeup or getting ready and said that it inspired her to do the same.

“My biggest inspiration is my mom,” LaSalle said. “She inspires me to do what I do.”

LaSalle said her mom supports her to run the channel and encourages her on her journey of

Sam Radutzky and Josh Freund met at Northwestern University and formed a special bond over their love for video production. This led them to create the Louisiana Feature, Audience Award-winning film, “Do U Want It?” “Do U Want It?” will be screening in the Louisiana International Film Festival on Sunday, April 22. The film will be screened at Cinemark in Perkins Rowe at 4 p.m. Prospective viewers can find out more information at www.lifilmfest. org.

Co-directors, Radutzky and Freund, moved to New Orleans in 2012 after graduating college. They quickly pursued their dreams and started their own video production company, ABIS Productions, which focuses on creating features on musicians and bands. As they were starting their company, they quickly became regulars at the Maple Leaf Bar in Uptown New Orleans.

There, they were formally introduced to “Papa Grows Funk,” a popular jazz/funk band that performed at the Maple Leaf every Monday night.

They were already fans of “Papa Grows Funk,” but after experiencing them week after week in any jazz band’s dream location, The Maple Leaf Bar, they fell in love with the band’s energy and funky rhythms.

“We moved to New Orleans for the tight-knit musical

see HAIVYN, page 17

see FILM, page 17

Astrological courtesy of HAIVYN LASALLE

LSU student curates YouTube brand with horoscopes, women’s issues

BY CASSIDY MARTZ @cassemartz From astrology horoscopes to unanswered questions all women wonder about, mass communication freshman Haivyn LaSalle’s YouTube channel has it all.

LaSalle owns and runs a YouTube channel under the name “Ava Haiva.” The channel consists of a range of topics from relatable girl topics to astrology horoscopes.

With her most popular

video ranking in at just over 96,000 views, LaSalle said she receives sponsors to film some of her videos. LaSalle is just like any other freshman, except she loves to voice her opinions on topics many women find too taboo to talk about.

LaSalle grew up in Gonzales, Louisiana, and said watching her mom on TV and hearing her on the radio helped her gain the confidence to start her YouTube channel. LaSalle’s mother is a published author, and growing

up, LaSalle would watch her mother appear as a “...just love yourself guest speakand stay strong, er talking about her because I promise it various works. does get better.”

Her mother also had a radio show and HAIVYN LASALLE interviewed on the news. She used to watch her mom practice talking and acting in the mirror while doing

LIFESTYLE

LSU student joins management for coffee shop opening summer 2018

BY KELLY SWIFT @kellbell237 Coffee, blogs and veganism all have one thing in common: Liz Courville.

Courville is a full-time nutrition and food sciences junior who started the University organization “Plant-Based Society.” Courville is also the assistant manager of the new Baton Rouge location of Rêve Coffee Roasters, which will open early summer 2018 in White Star Market on Government Street.

She does all of this while running a blog on her website, lizcourville.com, where she writes more than once every month.

Before Courville began her college experience and “PlantBased Society,” she was a regular at Rêve Coffee Roasters” in Lafayette. She and her mom were among Rêve’s first consistent customers. They went weekly and enjoyed vegan treats and coffee. After four years as a loyal customer and time as an employee, Courville was offered a management position at Rêve’s newest location in Baton Rouge. “‘Rêve’ has always been a special place for me. It feels like family,” Courville said.

“The people behind the bar and the amazing coffee are what keep me going. Rêve employees always care about the entire

process of the coffee experience.”

Courville has been family friends with Giovanni Roberts, one of Rêve’s first workers, for years. So when he asked her to join him and become the assistant manager at Rêve in Baton Rouge, she jumped at the opportunity. She and Roberts have been working on Rêve’s new location in Baton Rouge for months now, getting ready for the opening. Courville will also be managing Rêve’s Instagram, @Rêvestick.

Courville has had a passion for health and plant-based, vegan food since before she moved from Lafayette to attend the University in 2015. When she

got to the University for orientation, she didn’t see any specific vegan organizations on campus.

“I remember hearing, ‘If you don’t see the organization you’d like to join, start it!’ I decided that LSU needed a veganfocused organization, so I started one,” Courville said.

She wanted an organization that would bring like-minded people together, and now, “PlantBased Society” has 70 official members. They meet around three to four times a month and hold vegan potlucks, volunteer at animal shelters and listen to guest speakers. Each month the club has a specific topic or theme, and this month is focused on animals shelters. On April 15,

they will be going to a local animal shelter, Companion Animal Alliance.

“I knew that there was a vegan population at LSU, and I’m so happy that they have a place to come together now,” Courville said.

On her Instagram account, @Lizcourville, she posts about lifestyle and wellness. She shares her travel adventures, vegan and minimalist lifestyle and personal growth stories.

Her blog helps her express herself completely. She focuses on the quality of her posts, rather than the quantity.

Courville seems to do it all,

see PLANT-BASED, page 17

The Daily Reveille

page 14

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

LITERATURE

Delta Mouth Literary Festival shows diversity in writing, poetry

BY ASHLEI GOSHA @yungjemisin

The Delta Mouth Literary Festival opened in the University’s Art & Design Building with several readings. Each reader presented their own work – some subdued, some spirited and others inspiring the audience to snap, laugh and reflect.

Master of Fine Arts students Raquel Thorne and Jason Christian co-directed the annual three-day Delta Mouth Literary Festival, which took place April 6-8. The festival is an annual event that started in 2009. For Thorne and Christian, it was not only a learning opportunity to help guide them in the future, but an opportunity to experience literature in a more direct manner.

“There’s a performative aspect that you can’t necessarily access on the page and every one of the readers performed,” Christian said. “There’s intonations, there’s tones, there are a lot of things that are maybe implied on the page but you really get to see that fully formed when it’s performed.”

Thorne and Christian had to directly engage with the Baton Rouge community to make the festival possible, as it was not funded by the University.

“It’s been a really good way

for us to get to know the community better because neither one of us are from Baton Rouge, so doing all the fundraising that we’ve done and the networking has – I feel like I know Baton Rouge a lot better this year than I did last year just because we’re getting out in the community so much,” Thorne said.

Thorne and Christian said they wanted the festival to be as accessible as possible and wished they could have taped and live streamed the readings for members of the community who could not attend for a variety of reasons. Thorne and Christian said they also strive to invite a diverse cast of guests in the spirit of representing the community.

“We’ve got people that are coming in from academia, people that are coming in not from academia, and so there was definitely some discussion of making sure we were really doing a good job representing the community because it is a national festival as well,” Thorne said.

The youth spoken word group WordCrew originated within the Baton Rouge community itself. Four members of the group read two pieces each on the first night of the festival.

“WordCrew is just a really great place for kids who are looking for ways to express

themselves, who don’t feel like they belong,” member Kalvin Marquiz said. “Kids who are marginalized, so black, people of color, queer, gender non-conforming. It’s a great place to not only express that through writing but find what those things mean to you through writing.”

The members of WordCrew were told about the opportunity by their mentors, Desiree Dallagiacomo and Donney Rose.

Their pieces involved themes such as sexuality, racism and other personal struggles faced by the performers.

WordCrew member Blaire Bailey said the organization gives them the opportunity to speak unapologetically. She said when they perform, their main goal is to make the audience feel what they felt when they wrote it.

WordCrew is not the only group to speak during the festival. Another reader, author Anne Gisleson, received her Master of Fine Arts in fiction at the University and said it was strange to be back now that she’s had more success in nonfiction. Gisleson read an excerpt from “The Futilitarians” on the first day of the festival.

She chose the excerpt to match the occasion.

“The piece is about having a good time and getting lost in

LAUREN WATSON / The Daily Reveille

Audience members listen to a panel at the Delta Mouth literary festival on April 7 in the Women’s Center on LSU’s campus. the good time and then having to pay for it the next morning,” Gisleson said. “So this idea of the hangover, the metaphysical hangover, I thought that might be a fun thing to read on a Friday night.”

Thorne and Christian said that though putting the event together was a challenge it was worth it. They both anticipate

the experience helping them in their future careers.

“For me it’s been really wonderful to see the nuts and bolts of how something like this happens from the other side, and it’s been a learning experience for me and it’s been a great opportunity to meet writers who I’ve kept track of for a while,” Christian said.

LIFESTYLE

LSU student promotes nerd culture through cosplay

BY ASHLEI GOSHA @yungjemisin

Not so long ago, in a children’s museum not so far away, mass communication freshman Kaylee Walleser needed to bring something creative on Halloween. She brought a thrifted “Star Wars” Rey costume, and she was hooked.

Walleser is a cosplayer and a beater on the University’s quidditch team. Walleser said her interest into all things nerdy sparked when she was reading the “Harry Potter” series while on a trip in Iowa as a preteen.

She hasn’t turned back since.

“I’m one of those people where I take things to the extreme,” Walleser said. “If I love a character — that’s what got me into cosplay, too — I wanted to not only read the story, but live it. I thought the closest way I could do that was through quidditch.”

Walleser said quidditch is an intense game that requires focus. She said though she is not athletic, her team supports her and pushes her to be a better player.

“It’s a lot more technique than one would think, especially as a beater, but it’s a lot of fun and the people make it amazing,” Walleser said.

Since her first cosplay as Rey, she has cosplayed many characters from different

courtesy of KAYLEE WALLESER

Mass communication freshman Kaylee Walleser said her favorite cosplay is her version of Belle from “Beauty and the Beast.” media, such as “Game of Thrones” and “Overwatch.”

She has also dressed as Elsa and Anna from “Frozen” for her former job as a character performer for parties.

Walleser is active in online cosplay communities that meet up at conventions and hold contests she participates in. She is most active with the group Cosplayers de Louisiane and has

gained close friends through said. “I think that [quidditch] is a her hobbies. little smaller than As it becomes more “If we were cosplay is. I think back in 1999 or socially acceptable, more cosplay’s a little early 2000s, and people feel free to engage bit bigger, but you were like ‘I there’s still people with one another in a cosplay,’ people manner that would have from all over that would look at you once been considered play quidditch. crazy, but now And a lot of people strange. there’s thousands love ‘Harry Potter.’ It’s one of the of people internationally that do it,” Walleser biggest book series of all time. It’s

definitely becoming more open than it was.”

Walleser said her favorite cosplay is her live action version of Belle from “Beauty and the Beast,” which she received as a Christmas gift. She said cosplaying as Belle was special to her because of what “Beauty and the Beast” meant to her as a child.

Walleser said she plans to participate in cosplay contests in the future. She will compete as Tracer from “Overwatch” at Baton Rouge’s LouisiANIME and Padme Amidala from “Star Wars” at Mechacon. She previously won a novice cosplay contest at Fifo Con as Daenerys from “Game of Thrones.”

“That was the first big contest I ever did at a convention,” Walleser said. “I’ve done online contests on Instagram, and I’ve won some of those. But I don’t really count those.”

Walleser emphasized the interpersonal aspect of cosplay.

As it becomes more socially acceptable, more people feel free to engage with one another in a manner that would have once been considered strange.

“It sounds stupid and not many people would get it, but once you’re in that environment, there’s a whole community of people who love the same characters as you or who love different characters,” Walleser said.

“It’s just a way to bring that nerd culture alive.”

The Daily Reveille

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

REV R ANKS SANTA CLARITA DIET

Netflix

The Netflix original centers on the Hammond family. The Hammonds are realtors living normal, everyday lives in suburbia when something rather morbid happens to wife and mother Sheila Hammond. She dies and remains undead. To survive, she can only eat, well, the living.

‘Pacific Rim Uprising’ adds youthful element to franchise more polished, and the plot had such an intellectual spin that you are no longer just watchThe sequel to the 2013 ing giant Jaegers (robots) fight fantasy/action film “Pacific Rim” Kaiju (alien monsters) — you are did not disappoint. “Pacific Rim watching a storyline play out.

Everything about this film Uprising” managed to stay true to the original film while adding exceeded expectations. With a youthful element to the plot. only knowledge of the first film to go off of, you This film is made would expect to for and about the While no one wants to sit watch another next generation.

The film through a sequel exactly film full of explofollows the child like the previous film, the sions tied togethof Idris Elba’s writers and producers er by a loose plot.

Instead, you get a character from could have made it a film with a thick the 2013 film, smoother transition. intricate plot line Stacker Pentewith appropriate cost. His son, action scenes and Jake, has lived his entire life trying to prove how room for emotional connections he is different than his father to the characters.

Of course there was the and more than just a name. Jake is played by “Star Wars” actor dreaded motivational speech thrown in at the end that soundJohn Boyega.

While the audience was led ed eerily similar to that given by to believe that the alien threat Elba’s character in the 2013 film. from the first film had been in- Still, the speech somehow felt definitely subdued, it was only like a call to action and not just for those in the film. There are the beginning.

The 2013 “Pacific Rim” few actors who can correctly movie had such a simple feel to execute the cheesy motivational it. Although overall it was a good speech without making it corny, movie, a lot of the acting seemed and Boyega is one of them. forced, and the plot came across Instead of eliciting a cringe as less than original. The writ- deep in your soul, you’ll want ers stepped up their game for to sit up a little taller in your this sequel. The actors were seat or go out and fight what’s

BY AMAYA LYNCH @maya09172

Cassidy Martz @cassemartz

JESSICA JONES

Netflix

“Jessica Jones” continues to hit the mark on all of my favorite qualities in characters – realistically flawed yet still admirable, appropriately serious yet still holding a sense of humor – while keeping up a dramatic and dynamic storyline that keeps me on the edge of my seat.

Mads Reineke @mrein39

THE NEIGHBOURHOOD

Columbia Records

The band’s new self-titled album, “The Neighbourhood,” offers a different sound that sounds nothing like its prior hits. It is a new twist on the alternative genre. Featuring more electronic sounds and slower beats, the album is less alternative and more indie pop. The album itself is all over the place musically.

page 15

oppressing you.

The only off-putting thing was how focused they were on making it different from the first film. While no one wants to sit through a sequel exactly like the previous film, the writers and producers could have made it a smoother transition. Throughout the film, Boyega’s character is saying that he is not like his dad and how a name is just that — a name. It felt like they were trying to force the audience to believe it was a different film when they could have just made it different. Still, it was understandable to approach it like this because Jake’s attitude is to be expected of a teenage boy who’s constantly being forced to become just like his dad. In a way, he exhibits feelings that we have all felt at one point in our lives.

No one wants to live their life in the shadows of the parents.

Overall, the film was great as far as sequels go. The effects were definitely improved, and the film was not only a continuation, but also an addition to a story that may be far from over.

There’s an added element to the film that will have you guessing until the very end, and if you’re a fan of noble sacrifice, this film may or may not be for you. You’ll just have to watch to find out.

Cassidy Martz @cassemartz

THE READ Podcast

The word “read” has many meanings. To “read,” according to RuPaul’s Drag Race Dictionary, means to “wittily expose a person’s flaws (i.e. reading them like a book), often exaggerating or elaborating on them; an advanced format of the insult.” Crissle and Kid Fury from “The Read” podcast took that idea and ran with it.

Kelly Swift @kellbell237

Read the full reviews online at lsunow.com/daily/entertainment

courtesy of UNIVERSAL PICTURES

The Daily Reveille

page 16

ACE YOUR FINALS Don’t royally flush your GPA down the toilet. If you play your cards right and follow these simple instructions, you can have a full house of good grades.

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DY BUD A H IT at DY W best a STU e h t not grab u’re alone, ou aco y If ying en ld y stud d to ho ven wh , a E t n s e fri table. r lazie lp coun e at you can he ush you’r y buddy and p ot study u r n d o o u y y p t s vate ss. B e op r moti to succe u get th togethe you lone, yo g brains as pos ing a y to brin as much exam. g tunit prepare pcomin u d e n h a for t sible

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CRE ATE STUDY S YOUR OWN YSTEM Everybod y ent way, studies in a dif ferso it’s im find the b p est strate or tant to studying gy for yo it’s thro routine. Whethe ur r u practice gh flashcards, te s ts o r make su re you’re notes, what’s doing PRI b Study in est for you.

OVE ORITIZE RR by yours a group or EL A STUDY elf, but X AT W m sure yo ake ION ING he u arou n fina about w ’re honest h to g nd, eve ls wee philosop at studying hy will h a lo o home ryone i k rolls elp you the most. you ng sem and rel s ready don must mester. H ax after have ’t get l ake s owever, at t major azy an ure you h sure e last grade s d don’t you succe minute etbacks . stud take tim ss, ma To enk y e e of w ing se to p sure l nigh aiting t ssions an your in t be o fore study stead the examthe .

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BY LYNNE BUNCH @lynnebunch11

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

The Daily Reveille

page 18

Wednesday, November 8, 2017

WHAT’S SPINNING AT @KLSURadio

KLSUradio

klsuradio.fm

klsufm

NEWMUSIC MUSIC NEW

OF PANGEA, 9-11 AM (WORLD MUSIC) REVIEW REVIEW

BY DJ DRAGONFLY

BY MR. HOST SOIRÉE HOST SATURDAYS OF THE ELECTRIC CARNIVAL, SUNDAYS 11 P.M. - 1 A.M. “Everything “The OOZ”Was Beautiful King Krule is a 23-year-old, red-headed, and violent in his language as he pushes by and KingNothing Krule Hurt”misanthropic “MereinAnarchy,” “The Waste of Suns” Moby’s 15th studio album is a long, singer-songwriter, guitarist, boundaries what is usually a clean-cut and “Like a Motherless Child,” two of poem thatfrom achieves a melancholy poet hailing London.

His indie scene.

by Moby producer, anddark tone you might recall from his past work. which were pre-released singles, the

8/108/10

newest album, “The OOZ,” shows us that “The OOZ” packs an attitude that is intensity is introduced.

The vocals and sometimes, life Recent hurts. sounds of punk electronica more sophisticated than Marshall’s previous the story begin to unravel with the are put to the side as Moby returns to King Krule is the primary creative outlet work. His sound is mature and developed.colhis relaxing, classic synth vocals and laborative writing of Mindy Jones and of the mysterious Archy Marshall, who has The songs are more polished and technically electronic piano.

However, the experiRaquel Rodriguez.

This dark precursor also released music under his real name, as impressive. The guitar sounds are cleaner leaves a heavy curiosity of this has album cannot be called well as Zoo ence Kid. Marshall a particularly and less messy, but his temperthat has continues stayed all the way to the end of the record. easy listening, nor necessarily relaxing.the same. strong and distinctive working-class English the familiar sound Moby starts approach on breaks “Everything Was In his As accent and usesThe British slang that career, King Krule hasofmaintained to slip through a dusky atmosphere, Beautiful, and Nothing Hurt” is much through heavily in his music. King Krule’s and managed a visceral blueness that never appreciation for hisand beautiful blend of darker, andblending carries aofsubtle sound is unique in its punk, intensity. jazz, goes away, singing about revisiting noise comes to the forefront.

Tiny Beginning with the three tracks hip hop, and indie musical stylings. His music emotionally sensitive subject matter. Wereferis inspired by artists like Elvis Presley, Fela absorb his moods and textures, feeling what Kuti, J Dilla, and The Penguin Café Orchestra. he feels, whether it is anger, self-loathing, His full-length debut album “6 Feet Bedisorientation, isolation, or anxiety.

In “Logos,” the sixth track from “The neath the Moon,” released in August 2013, OOZ,” Marshall sings about the torment he attracted a lot of attention and earned him a experienced in his childhood by recounting comfortable space in the indie music scene. the care of his drunken mother. He sings, His anger, grit and despair cuts through to “She draws me in and swallows whole.” the bones of listeners, but is softened by These words are paired with somber guitar beautiful jazz chords -- a contrast that works and distant keyboard sounds. in his favor. The words he yells are often proThe second track, “Dum Surfer,” evokes fane or vulgar and shock listeners; however, dark and gritty imagery from vomiting on we cling and want more. King Krule is bold

UPCOMING SHOWS FRIDAY

april

13

FRIDAY

april

13

FRIDAY

april

225 578 5578

UPCOMING SHOWS

(ELECTRO SWING)

sidewalks to screaming car crashes. In the ences line of Moby’s ambient piano, auto- Moby’s new release of tracks is solemn fourth he shouts, “Skunk and onion mixed as vocality, andpotato harmonious gravy, my brain’s mash,”hums displayingwith a clearly manifested weight. all make an appearance.

I am delighted to hear the sound his quirky, unusual wit.

Still, theLimbo” serious extends on.num-he is known for even if carefully placed “Cadet is apoem heart-dropping At certain points, like the record’s ber in which Marshall sings about B-side a woman,behind a new design. The overall harmoand tracksher likemesmerizing “The Sorrowbeauty Tree,”tothe comparing the nies are almost hypnotic and will keep songwriting picks up to a more surprisdeepness of outer space. He repeats, “Has you drawn into the revolving intensity. beat. halfhad of the itingbeen thisThe longsecond since I’ve thisalbum bond?” The heavy yet gentle complex is audibly impressive, and I ended the album enis the better half, finishing with some What these songs have in common is a strong vocal harmonies. deep-seated intensity. His songs sprout fromtranced by Moby’s mystery.

While am no expert feeling andI nothing else. on lyrical significance or inspiration for theemotionallyalbum, I For fans of: CocoRosie, Depeche Mode, “The OOZ” is a beautiful, can speak as an independent draining, nineteen-track album inlistener. which the Röyksopp ARIEL PINK, TRANCE roots of love, loss, and anger are explored.

FARMERS, BITE MARX This album is an essential listen for people interested in modern jazz and punk sounds TIPITINA’S (NOLA) and the melting together of the two. This is 9 P.M. the soundtrack to loneliness, staying inside your apartment on a Friday night, or obsessively thinking about a past lover. It is real, it is raw, and it is honest.

WEDNESDAY

08 nov

13

SATURDAY

april

For Fans of: Mount Kimbie, Cosmo Sykes, BADBADNOTGOOD

14 09 THURSDAY

NICE DOG, RIAROSA,REVIEW BY DJ LEVIATHAN MIGNON, SUNRISE PEOPLE, HOST OF THE HEAVIEST MATTER IN THE UNIVERSE, 11PM-1AM (METAL)DEADCENTERED, SCREAMING “Urn” BOYFRIEND WITHTUESDAY RARELUTH SHIPWRECKED LOUDNESS WAR UNDERWATER, ANGRY 88 Violinist and clean vocalist Tim Charles Charles’ growing role as both a vocalist and Australian outfit Ne Obliviscaris returns to

by Ne Obliviscaris MOON the album signifies a less imrole instrumentalist, the forefront of extreme metal with one of the appears to play a much more prominentSPANISH

VARSITY THEATRE MID CITY BALLROOM on this particular record. Charles’ vocals are 9 pressive most anticipated album releases of the year.

P.M. retread of “Portal of I” (2012) and 8 P.M. 9 P.M. soaring and melodic as usual, and his violin “Citadel” (2014). The compositions are exten“Urn,” the band’s third record, continues the group’s previous blending of both harsh and clean vocals. The formerly radical feature stemming from the ‘90s has now become an almost exhaustive trope within the genre.

However, Xenoyr does display some of

playing is much improved from the two previous releases. But, there are times when the album winds up bogged down by these soothing interludes and clean passages.

“Urn’s” standout tracks, the blistering

sive and given room to develop, but there isn’t anything groundbreaking to witness.

A progressive metal band that fails to “progress” inevitably betrays the very appeal of their act. Though not as intriguing as its

nov

524 STUDIOS 8 P.M. CADDYWHOMPUS, POPE, TRASH LIGHT & PARTICLE DEVOTION SPANISH MOON

The Daily Reveille

Wednesday, April 11, 2018 HAIVYN, from page 13 self-acceptance.

LaSalle started her channel on Nov. 13, 2012. After writing stories and acting them out on camera, she realized she loved being on camera and directing.

“It really brought me out of my shell and taught me to become more comfortable in my own skin,” she said.

LaSalle’s main goal for the channel is to help people. She said if one person is helped or inspired by her videos, she feels accomplished. “It’s all about helping other people and not the views.”

courtesy of HAIVYN LASALLE

Mass Communication freshman Haivyn LaSalle uses her YouTube channel, Ava Haiva, to help and inspire her viewers.

Her main audience is women 18 to 24, but she said she doesn’t have a preference about the age of her viewers, as her videos are for everyone.

Depending on views and advertisements, LaSalle doesn’t automatically receive compensation for her videos. However, she said she does not prioritize monetary gain in the her artistic process.

“It’s definitely not about the money,” LaSalle said. “That’s not why I do it.”

LaSalle, like other young women, said she struggled with self-confidence as she grew up. She said that learning to love herself was difficult and took a lot of patience, but her channel helped her to come out of her shell.

“It took a lot to become the person I am today, and I would love to help everybody love themselves,” LaSalle said.

Companies reach out to LaSalle to promote their products and services, and she said she has even gained friends from her channel. However, she said one of the most beneficial parts of her channel is getting to hear about other women’s struggles with acceptance and confidence.

“As far as any advice I could give to my viewers, I’d have to say, just love yourself and stay strong, because I promise it does get better,” LaSalle said.

FILM, from page 13 community and to find bands like ‘Papa Grows Funk,’” Radutzky said.

According to Papa Grows Funk’s website, the band’s genre is “booty shaking party music.” The band was started by John “Papa” Gros in 2000. Gros started the band by inviting a few local musicians to join him on stage to play. What started as impromptu performances led to the beginning of “Papa Grows Funk,” which had five members total: Gros, June Yamagishi, Marc Pero, Jason Mingledorff and Jeffery “JellyBean” Alexander.

The band played for 13 years total and gathered a large fan base, including Radutzky and Freund, who spent their free time at the Maple Leaf listening to the funky, jazz music.

page 17 So, when “Papa Grows Funk” announced they would be going on a farewell tour before they disbanded, Radutzky and Freund were sad, yet eager to share their love for the band. They wanted to give the band’s legacy a fitting tribute, so, with the permission of Papa Gros, they filmed the band’s final few shows. They also captured personal moments in interviews with the band members.

“We originally thought that this was going to be a short film, but once we knew how rich their story was, we knew it had to be a feature-length film,” Freund said.

The filming began in January 2013 with a small budget but a large amount of passion. The co-directors filmed everything themselves, with the help of their production company, ABIS. Since they had only been out of school and in New

Orleans for five months, their video production knowledge was fresh and they were eager to begin with their first feature film.

They chose to name the film “Do U Want It?” after the band’s hit song, but also in reference to how musicians have to love what they do to be truly successful.

The filming took about four years and had its local premiere at the 2017 New Orleans Film Festival, where it was beyond well-received and brought “Papa Grows Funk” fans together. The fans now have the joy of “Papa Grows Funk” immortalized into a feature-length film that sheds light on the magic behind the funk band.

“The movie tells the story of the band, but it’s really about universal themes that people from all over have related to,” Radutzky said. “What does it mean to be successful?”

Stephenson Information Systems “LSU’s Information Systems program enabled me to have

courtesy of CHRIS METZLER

“Do U Want It?” will be screening in the Louisiana International Film Festival on April 22 at Cinemark in Perkins Rowe at 4 p.m.

success in enterprise application support and IT project management. Learning such a comprehensive curriculum prepared me for both traditional and non-traditional roles in technology.”

Taylor Voigt ’17 ITS Administrator I Anadarko Petroleum Corporation The Woodlands, Texas

Tech Savvy + Business Mojo =

B.S. Information Systems Lead the pack in today’s information economy!

business.lsu.edu/leadthepack

PLANT-BASED, from page 13 but she couldn’t be where she is without being as open and honest as she is with herself, she said. She owes this all to her friends, family and blog, where she expresses her truest emotions and shares life tips and vegan recipes.

“My blog keeps me accountable,” Courville said. “I feel better writing my feelings, rather than talking about them.

I feel like I can say everything I want to when I write. I encourage everyone to keep track of their feelings on a regular basis.”

Her blog has vegan recipes, which she also talks about in her organization. It can be found on Instagram @plantbasedsocietylsu.

She encourages people to consider adding vegan options in their diet rather than forcing her beliefs on them. She feels that if people just adjust a few areas of their diet to vegan or plant-based options, she’s done her job.

Courville hasn’t changed her major in nutrition since she came to the University. She

LAUREN WATSON / The Daily Reveille

Nutrition and food sciences junior and blogger Liz Courville discusses her lifestyle blog on April 4 at Light House Coffee on Lee Drive in Baton Rouge. started getting into health as a sophomore in high school and has remained consistent ever since. She is also working on an undergraduate research project to enter the college of agriculture. Her life is jampacked with constant activity, but it all focuses on her love for health and service. She says her biggest accomplishment may

be her ability to express her emotions in a healthy way, through her blog, which is important for people of all ages to learn.

“Even if only one person reads my blog, I’d be happy,” Courville said. “There is always a way to release stress and express yourself — mine just happens to be blogging.”

Opinion

L VE LOCKDOWN

page 18

Asking for father’s permission before marriage an antiquated practice

SARAH SAYS SARAH GROBETY @sarah_grobety For many women, proposals and wedding days are two of the many life-changing events to look forward to. The beautiful dresses and sparkly rings straight from Pinterest are too fabulous to resist daydreaming about.

However, there is one part of the engagement and wedding tradition that I think needs to be questioned. Why do boyfriends still ask their future fiances’ fathers for their hands in marriage?

This long-standing tradition stems from when women were not independent, and their fathers were the decision-makers in their lives until they were passed on to their husbands. This was a time when, in some cultures, marriages were seen as financial transactions, and women were bought from their fathers and sold with dowries. This practice is extremely old-fashioned.

Fast forward to 2018, where women are more autonomous and independent than ever. Yet, 77 percent of men asked their future in-laws for permission before they proposed. With feminism on the rise, some women may not want their fiancés to talk to anyone in the family before

cartoon by ETHAN GILBERTI / The Daily Reveille

getting engaged. Maybe they think their approval is the only one that really matters.

Instead of secretly talking to your parents about wanting to marry you, your future spouse should be talking to you about it.

Communication is essential in any relationship. As you are thinking that they may be the one forever, talking to them and making sure they are on the same page is crucial.

While 77 percent of men ask

permission, only a little over half of bride-to-be’s know the proposal is coming. Awkward! Please make sure your girlfriend is totally onboard with this life transition before you bring it up with her family.

If you do choose to talk to her father or family beforehand, instead of starting the conversation with a “can,” make it more of a statement. “I am so excited that I am going to ask your daughter to marry me,” sounds much

more certain than “may I please.”

Having total confidence in a life decision is key.

Maybe your fiancé wants to be there with you, and the ring, to tell them you got engaged. Maybe she cares more about her mother or sibling’s approval than her father.

These are all things you should be communicating about before you think about getting engaged so you can both have the best proposal and engagement possible.

Personally, I want to tell my

family with my future fiancé about such a major life choice my fiancé and I would have made together. I love my family, and I respect their opinion. However, marriage is a personal choice, not a family one.

Ideally, my family will know my future fiancé long before a proposal is an option, and I would know if they liked him or not. My mother and I are close, so she would obviously be the first to hear if I thought there was a proposal in my near future. I would already know if my family approved, so there is no reason that my fiancé would need to formally ask them beforehand.

I am all for honoring traditions, but I think asking permission to propose is an antiquated practice. If your future fiancé wants you to get her father’s permission, do it by all means.

It should be a conversation you should have beforehand. Does this particular tradition matter to her?

Or is her approval the only “yes” you need?

I don’t think my dad’s permission is what matters. My family’s love and support and knowing that everyone, including myself, will be happy, is the most important.

Sarah Grobety is a 20-year-old mass communication junior from Atlanta, Georgia.

Second Amendment benefits white Americans, alienates minorities FRANKLY SPEAKING JUSTIN FRANKLIN @justinifranklin The execution of Stephon Clark in his grandmother’s backyard is only one of the 277 cases of individuals being shot by the police in 2018. The shooting of an unarmed black man is just the latest evidence of the disposal of black lives in American society.

Black Americans make up merely 12 percent of the population, yet they made up 33 percent of unarmed individuals gunned downed by law enforcement in 2017. In Clark’s case, the supposed presence of a gun threatened the lives of the policemen, but this “gun” was merely a cell phone.

The centrality of a gun’s perceived presence in cases like Stephon Clark, Philando Castile and Alton Sterling bring up the question of if black Americans truly even have the right to bear arms in America.

No other group of Americans, other than perhaps Native Americans, have had to work as hard

as black Americans to defend themselves from state violence in America. From the end of the Civil War through the latter half of the 20th century, black Americans have had to arm themselves for protection against white supremacy.

In a recent interview with CNN, former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice recounted her encounter of black men defending their community.

“During segregation, my father and his friends defended the community, the neighborhood, with guns against White Night Riders because you couldn’t count on the Birmingham Police to do that for you.”

Just like with most constitutional rights, as people of color began to assert gun rights, governments all over the nation began to enact laws to prevent black Americans from having them. Ironically, it is the strict gun regulation enacted to suppress black rights that the majority of gun-loving white Americans fight today.

Even today, law abiding black gun owners are subject to

discrimination. In her 2015 book “Citizen-Protectors: The Everyday Politics of Guns in an Age of Decline” sociologist Jennifer Carlson found that “law-abiding men of color are ... more likely to be harassed simply for choosing to carry a gun. They must navigate the widespread presumptions that they are criminals and that their guns are illegally possessed or carried.”

Castile was a licensed gun owner who was shot instantaneously even after alerting the policeman of his legal weapon that was stored in a compartment. Did the NRA or other pro-gun activists defend him? Not in the least.

Black lives are disposable, and the rights of black Americans are second-class because of white privilege.

Shootings like Clark’s remind us that we could be legally killed at any moment, and we have no system in place to help or defend us. Today a black man holding a gun or a cell phone or anything is punishable by death. There is no chance for due process when you are dead. There is no chance to tell your side of the story when you are dead.

courtesy of WIKIMEDIA

A mural of Alton Sterling was painted at the Triple S Food Market following the shooting death of Alton Sterling in July 2016.

Fact is, it does not matter whether a black person is armed, the color of their skin is apparently a threat to police. In the recent case of Clark, it was such a threat that six shots in the back were needed to eliminate him.

Frankly speaking, a black person, armed or unarmed, is apparently more threatening than a man who walks into a Florida

school and slaughters teenagers. A black person is more threatening than a man who walks into a South Carolina church and murders believers. The people who commit crimes like that are apparently good enough to live another day.

Justin Franklin is a 19-year-old political communication freshman from Memphis, Tennessee.

The Daily Reveille

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

page 19

Lowering voting age would increase political involvement, habit THE NIEMAN NOISE SETH NIEMAN @seth_nieman If the students from Parkland, Florida, who organized the March For Our Lives taught us anything, it’s that more young people are paying attention to our nation’s politics than we may think.

The students’ activism and informed opinions have raised a fair question: should these young people be allowed to cast ballots? The answer is yes, but only as a habit-forming opportunity in local elections. In Berkeley, California and a couple cities in Maryland, 16- and 17-year-olds have already gained the right to vote in local elections. Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador and Nicaragua each allow voting at the age of 16. The idea is less radical than it may first appear.

Lowering the voting age to 16 in local elections will allow voting to become a habit for young voters, and likely lead to greater participation in federal elections once they become 18. Studies have shown voting in one election increases the likelihood of voting in subsequent elections by 25 percent.

The reasoning for setting 18 ment has been proven untrue. as America’s voting age was Laurence Steinberg, a profesentirely based upon the age of sor of psychology at Temple military service, but the age of University, wrote “adolescents’ habit formation in voting was judgment in situations that pernever mentioned in the political mit measured decision-making and consultation with others discourse.

At the age of 18, many Amer- — what psychologists call ‘cold icans are going through several cognition’ — is just as mature as life-changing experiences like that of adults by 16.” Steinberg entering the workforce, start- states cold cognition is relevant ing college, entering adulthood to voting because “adolescents or even becoming a parent. can gather evidence, conThese experiences can lower sult with others and take time before making a decision.” voter turnout.

High schools should also A report conducted by the Center for Information and Re- begin to play their part by research on Civic Learning & En- quiring students to take a course gagement found about American that 33.5 percent government that of 18-year-olds stresses the imcited being “too Lowering the voting age to portance of civic in busy” as their 16 in local elections will engagement rationale for not allow voting to become a both local and elections. voting.

Therehabit for young voters. federal fore, voters who Another report skip voting in from CIRCLE their first elecfound a year of tion at age 18 are American govmore likely to repeat the same ernment coursework in high action in future elections by school boosts voter turnout for a decade after graduation. nature of habit.

Sixteen-year-olds are eager The main opposition to this argument would be that to join the political process as 16- and 17-year-olds lack the well, and several examples prove aptitude and intelligence they vote in higher rates than to be capable of casting 18- to 21-year-olds. The massive meaningful votes. amount of votes they could proHowever, that judge- vide in elections may be what’s

courtesy of WIKIMEDIA

A report conducted by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning & Engagement found that 33.5 percent of 18-year-olds cited being “too busy” as their rationale for not voting. making reelection-seeking politicians hesitant to give them the right.

In Takoma Park, Maryland, where the voting age in local elections was lowered to 16 in 2013, the turnout rate for 16and 17-year-olds quadrupled the overall average in that year’s election. It was the largest voting demographic in the city’s elections in both 2013 and 2015.

In elections in Austria and Norway between 2010 and 2012, 16- and 17-year-olds showed up more to the polls than those who were 18 to 21 years of age

each time.

All of these examples and studies lead to the same conclusion: 18 is a terrible voting age. Young people care about the future of their communities and country, and it’s time we open their door to the political process. They’re old enough to drive, work and pay taxes — they should at least have a voice in local government.

Seth Nieman is a 22-year-old mass communication senior from McComb, Mississippi.

Citizen’s arrest ineffective form of crime control, humorous practice WELL, SHE TRIED.

CHANTELLE BAKER @deannayukari According to the Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure, a private person may make an arrest as long as the person being arrested has committed a felony under circumstances similar to those which would allow a police officer to make an arrest. The felony can be performed outside of the presence of the person making the arrest. These laws are different from state to state, but the idea is the same. Regardless, nobody should be allowed to perform a citizen’s arrest for any reason.

The thought of someone who is more than likely untrained and under-qualified placing a person under citizen’s arrest is comical. Someone who has committed a crime will probably not cooperate with a stranger trying to detain him or her.

It is more accurate to see this

person run and be especially against staying in one place with a stranger.

Allowing citizens to arrest one another is dangerous. Nobody knows what a stranger is willing to do, especially one who may feel belittled for being arrested by a fellow citizen.

It seems like something more fit to be handled by a trained professional.

There is also the risk of superiority issues. If more people are aware of their right to arrest another citizen, some might take this right and run with it. Some may think themselves above the law because they can perform these acts, resulting in unlawful arrests and the belief that one can perform bodily harm in order to have someone detained. This would make law enforcement’s jobs even more difficult.

The concept of citizen’s arrest as a whole is a good one.

Having the community help to find and detain a criminal saves the police a lot of time and

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energy. However, it’s one that only works in a utopian world.

There isn’t a high probability of cooperation, and there is still a risk factor to both parties.

Citizen’s arrest has the potential to help people know what they can and cannot do.

If people are more aware of the possibility that a fellow resident can legally arrest them, they may be more cautious of their actions. The idea of societal norms keeping people on their best behavior would be a lot more prominent.

The understanding of citizen’s arrest may also allow for people to be more familiar with their state laws. If a person is more aware of what can and can’t get them arrested, he or she may be more inclined to find out more about what is and isn’t acceptable from law enforcement, as well.

We don’t hear many occasions of citizen’s arrest, and for good reason. States would do better by eliminating this law than expecting

cartoon by ETHAN GILBERTI / The Daily Reveille

bystanders to take action against a criminal. Detainment should be left to those who have been trained to do so.

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The Daily Reveille (USPS 145-800) is written, edited and produced solely by students of Louisiana State University. The Daily Reveille is an independent entity of the Office of Student Media within the Manship School of Mass Communication. Signed opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the editor, The Daily Reveille or the university. Letters submitted for publication should be sent via e-mail to opinion@lsureveille.com or delivered to B-39 Hodges Hall. They must be 400 words or less. Letters must provide a contact phone number for verification purposes, which will not be printed. The Daily Reveille reserves the right to edit letters and guest columns for space consideration while preserving the original intent. The Daily Reveille also reserves the right to reject any letter without notification of the author. Writers must include their full names and phone numbers. The Daily Reveille’s editor in chief, hired every semester by the LSU Student Media Board, has final authority on all editorial decisions.

Chantelle Baker is a 21-year-old communication studies senior from Waipahu, Hawaii.

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The Daily Reveille

page 20

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

Head to Head Current drinking age reasonable, necessary for caution OH, WELL NOT AGAIN! KYLE RICHOUX @KyleRichoux The tumultuous political scene of the 20th century saw alcohol abuse as a hot topic. As early as 1917, prohibition ideas were being passed around the federal government.

Although prohibition backfired, the idea of limiting and regulating the consumption of alcohol was not such an outlandish idea. The dangers of excessive alcohol consumption are many, and lowering the drinking age only expedites the negative effects.

The eighteenth Amendment, with the help of the Volstead Act, put prohibition into practice in 1920.

With the new amendment in place, anything involved with the production and sale of alcohol was banned.

This change was extreme, but it’s no different from today’s culture surrounding drug use. Regardless of its illegality, communities formed around the continued use of alcohol in clandestine forms.

Speakeasies were underground bars where folks could drink, smoke and listen to jazz music. This period brought an unprecedented acceptance of women in saloons in bars.

Proponents of prohibition championed moral superiority for the U.S., worrying alcohol would sully its judgement.

Prohibition wouldn’t last, however. In 1933, the Twenty-first Amendment passed to repeal the Eighteenth Amendment and do away with prohibition.

Following the new amendment, each state had the right to set its own minimum drinking age. During this period, many states lowered their minimum drinking age to 18.

Critics often complained about the right to vote and serve in the military without the right to consume alcohol.

The low drinking age answered the wishes of many citizens.

In the 1980s, former President Ronald Reagan was concerned with drugs and subsequently banded with groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving to tackle substance abuse.

In 1984, Reagan introduced the National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which raised the minimum drinking age to 21.

The act had its fair share of opponents crying out about infringed rights. Reagan had hoped to prevent the negative effects of alcohol.

Alcohol is dangerous for everyone.

Alcohol is known to lead to physical danger, sexual harassment, addiction and much more.

For young people, the effects are even worse. Humans are in development until around 25 years of age. When alcohol is introduced to developing teens, they are at risk of impaired brain development and increased chances of addiction and dependency.

Health risks are a huge concern, but they’re not the only thing to blame for the raised drinking age. Politics rear its head in every matter of policy.

Under the NMDAA, states were free to refuse the minimum drinking age. However, any state not participating would lose 10 percent of its funding from the Federal Aid Highway Act. The act faced its fair share of disapproval and even found its way into the national courts.

In 1987, South Dakota v. Dole dealt with the idea of the act being unconstitutional, but the NMDAA was upheld.

The act has been in place ever since.

Louisiana Sen. Eric LaFleur, D-Ville Platte, recently pushed to allow 19 and 20-year-olds the privilege to buy and consume alcohol after obtaining parents permission and an annual certificate. The federal government maintained its threat to withholding funding, pushed Sen. LaFleur set the bill aside.

Alcohol has gotten a bad rap during the entirety of history, be it in the middle ages or in the 1920s. Aside from the political manhandling, the stigma exists for a reason.

Alcohol is dangerous for the mind and body, and the effect is much worse for young people. As many scientists and health specialists say alcohol is worse than many recreational drugs, it’s not hard to see why lowering the drinking age would be a bad gamble.

Lowering drinking age practical solution to recurring problem SARAH SAYS SARAH GROBETY @sarah_grobety Louisiana Sen. Eric LaFleur, D-ville Platte pulled his proposed bill that would lower the drinking age in Louisiana. Sen. LaFleur dropped the initiative over potential federal highway funding losses and backlash from other government officials. The bill would have allowed for 19- and 20-year-olds to buy and drink alcohol after getting parental permission and a certificate of completion of a alcohol safety course. The bill was a huge first step in the right direction, but it doesn’t go far enough.

The American drinking age of 21 is ridiculous and should be lowered to 18 nationally.

Eighteen-year-olds in America are entrusted with the responsibility to vote in elections, get married, buy firearms and tobacco, fight for this country and serve on a jury, but they cannot responsibly drink a glass of wine at dinner. It is backward and illogical to think they can be an adult in every way except one. It is hard to expect someone to die for our country and not be able to drink a “thank you” beer.

The U.S. is one of the only developed countries in the world with such a high drinking age.

Most European countries have a drinking age of 18 or do not have a drinking age at all. The alcohol culture in other countries is much more open and not as taboo as in the U.S. This transparency and openness to consumption at younger ages helps teach young adults and children how to drink responsibly.

It is naive to believe a drinking age will in any way stop underage people from drinking. Seventy percent of students entering college have

already had experiences drinking alcohol. Having such an old drinking age forces underage college students to drink in private and overserve themselves before partying.

Binge drinking and pregaming for events could be somewhat eliminated with a decrease in the drinking age.

Fake IDs are another huge issue that would be solved with a lower drinking age. The use of another person’s ID or a fake one is obviously illegal but is especially prevalent in college towns.

Lowering the drinking age would decrease the number of fake IDs in circulation and keep more young adults out of trouble. Louisiana is fortunately one of the few states that allows 18 -year-olds into bars, which reduces the number of underage people using fake IDs. The drinking age was initially raised when the number of drunk drivers peaked in the 1970s.

Groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, or MADD, lobbied the federal government. The government then threatened to stop funding for highway construction, forcing all 50 states to cave and raise the age by 1995. It’s ironic LaFleur pulled his bill because of possible federal government funding threats.

History seems to repeat itself.

Drunk driving deaths did decline for young people, but binge drinking in the same age group has increased and alcohol poisoning deaths have tripled.

Bills like LaFleur’s are essential to moving forward as a society and finally treating adults like adults. The drinking age in the U.S. should be lowered to 18 once and for all.

Sarah Grobety is a 20-year-old mass communication junior from Atlanta, Georgia.

Kyle Richoux is a 20-year-old sociology sophomore from LaPlace, Louisiana.

cartoon by ETHAN GILBERTI / The Daily Reveille

cartoon by ETHAN GILBERTI/ The Daily Reveille