The Dartmouth 02/08/16

VOL. CLXXIII NO.25

PM SNOW HIGH 27 LOW 18

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2016

HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE

No snow sculpture this year

DBI panel presents new findings

By AMANDA ZHOU

The Dartmouth Staff

built one of the first snow sculptures — a snow castle in the middle of the Green.

Since then, students have created sculptures ranging from a fire-breathing dragon to the Cat in the Hat. Hall said that warm weather has presented problems with previous sculptures, leading to one case of a sculpture collapsing. Hall was referencing the 1997 sculpture, which was

At a presentation last Thursday afternoon, the Dartmouth Bystander Initiative team reported results from their new pre-recruitment workshop. The event was advertised to Greek presidents, and nearly all of the Greek Leadership council was present.

Since May 2014, the GLC has required all students intending to join Greek life to attend a DBI workshop.

At Thursday’s presentation, DBI manager Benjamin Bradley presented findings from a Summer 2015 focus group study of the redesigned DBI workshop, which identified the three significant barriers to intervention.

Bradley said that they learned that feelings of, “This is not my house or social space, I don’t want to keep anyone from having a good time, and I am a new member,” were the main reasons people felt uncomfortable stepping into a situation.

Bradley also explained the group’s process for developing the new workshop. In the spring of 2015, they set goals for the creation of a new DBI workshop. The goals were to make members feel as if they were supported, to identify common barriers to action and to increase understanding of sexual violence and comfort in intervening.

During the summer, using three focus groups of affiliated and unaffiliated students, Bradley said they formed the “foundation of [the] workshop.” They ran the demo workshop for 25 unaffiliated students. Using explicit student feedback, Bradley said they turned their “okay”

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With the Green showing more green than usual, the snow sculpture will not be built for carnival this year.

By DANIEL KIM The Dartmouth Staff

A College tradition since 1925, the snow sculpture will not return to the Green for this year’s Winter Carnival, director of the Collis Center, which oversees the Winter Carnival committee, Anna Hall said.

The decision was reached right after the winter interim. She added that events such as the dogsled race and polar bear plunge are dependent on next

week’s weather.

Other events such as music performances and the ice sculpture contest will proceed as planned.

“The main factor obviously was weather — the Green is greener now, there’s not really any snow,” chair of the Winter Carnival Council Harrison Perkins ’18 said. “The second factor was a lack of student support in building the actual sculpture in the past few years.”

H. Pennington Haile ’24

Q&A with CNN correspondent Jake Tapper ’91

By ALEXA GREEN The Dartmouth

Jake Tapper ’91, a CNN correspondent, broadcast his show “The Lead” from the Green last Friday afternoon, focusing on student voices in the election and in particular, Tuesday’s upcoming New Hampshire primary. The program, which airs every day at 4 p.m. on CNN, covers top news stories ranging from politics, money, sports and popular culture. The Dartmouth sat down with Tapper before his broadcast to talk about

his reporting the role of the media.

Who will you be interviewing on campus Friday?

JT: I’m not going to be interviewing anybody major on campus Friday; most of the interviews will be remote. I am going to be interviewing a couple of women Democratic senators who are in New Hampshire today getting out the vote for Hilary Clinton, but they are in Manchester at the time that I will be doing the interview.

I will have a couple panelists: former [Michigan] Governor Jennifer

Granholm will be with me and Republican consultant Phil Musser will both be on set, but everyone else will be spread out around New Hampshire.

I know Hanover feels like the center of the universe, but it’s not the center of New Hampshire. There are a lot more candidates in Manchester than there are in Hanover, and I will be doing my show on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday from Manchester. The only reason I’m here is because I went here and I love it here. Hanover is not conducive to great bookings.

When you hosted the second

Republican debate, you tried to make the candidates engage with each other. How do you think your experience as a moderator has influenced your reporting?

JT: I think it underlined the fact that the stakes are so high. That was the highest rated show in the history of CNN. So the fact that I moderated it and 24 million people watched it reiterates the fact that people are really engaged this year and the pressure is on for not just the candidates, but the media as well.

SEE TAPPER PAGE 5

THE DARTMOUTH NEWS

PAGE 2

DAILYDEBRIEFING A new study co-authored by sociology professor Jason Houle shows that the type of debt parents have might affect their children’s behavior, U.S. News reported. For example, mortgages are positively linked with children’s well-being, while credit card debt is correlated with increased incidence of behavioral problems in children. Houle and his team analyzed data from two studies tracking a total of over 9,000 mothers and their children between 1986 and 2008. Parents with more overall debt were found to have children with more behavioral problems.

In particular, children of parents with “unsecured” debts, such as credit card or medical bills, were significantly more likely to exhibit behavioral problems. Houle and his team hypothesized that unsecured debt may cause parental stress, which can then negatively affect a child’s environment and development.

According to a study conducted by researchers at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, people with depression often face a disconnect between the information they want about treating their condition and the information their clinicians are giving them. Published by BMJ Open, the study surveyed nearly 1,000 Americans who have sought treatment for depression as well as 250 United States clinicians who have recently treated patients for depression. TDI professor and lead author Paul Barr said that one of the findings was that patients placed a high value on cost and insurance information, which they did not always receive satisfactorily from their doctors. His team is currently working to close the information gap between consumers and clinicians by working on decision support intervention tools.

A direct connection between the vestibular system’s horizontal canals and the way humans sense the environment was definitively established for the first time by Dartmouth researchers, the Science Codex reports. The vestibular system consists of organs and cells in the ear that help humans balance and sense their spatial orientation. While previous studies proved that the vestibular was necessary for directing head movements, this study — lead by psychology professor Jeffrey Taube — was the first to show a link between horizontal canals and head movement direction. This link was proven using mice with a knock-out gene for horizontal canals, where the mutant mice did not have the ability to signal head directions.

-COMPILED BY SARA MCGAHAN AND PRIYA RAMAIAH

CORRECTIONS We welcome corrections. If you believe there is a factual error in a story, please email editor@thedartmouth.com.

Correction: In the Feb. 5 article “Alumni petition for Asian-American studies department,” Huan He was incorrectly identified as a Tuck ’11 and his name was misspelled as “Huang He.” In fact, He is a ’13.

Correctino: In the Feb. 5 article “No Winter Carnival sculpture to be built,” published online, it was stated that no sculpture was built in 1989. In fact, the theme of the sculpture was “Break out of hibernation.”

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2016

DBI reports survey response numbers FROM DBI PAGE 1

demo workshop into “something where I felt like it was really positive and student centered.” He said he wanted it to be “not just a top down initiative.”Assessment and program evaluation coordinator Mary Nyhan said they strived to make DBI as student-centered as possible.

“Our goal is never about checking a box and saying we’ve done

“Our goal is to make the workshops meaningful. So, seeing the student turnout here gives us a sense that we’re on the right track.”

-MARY NYHAN, DBI ASSESSMENT AND PROGRAM EVALUATION COORDINATOR something,” she said. “Our goal is to make the workshops meaningful so seeing the student turnout here gives us a sense that we’re on the right track.”

In the fall of 2015, 20 DBI workshops were run over the course of two weeks. In total, 744 students participated, with fellow students as workshop co-facilitators.

Pre- and post- surveys consisting of several scenarios written by students were given to workshop participants. Students participating in the workshops were asked how likely they were to feel concerned, whether they thought the student in the scenario required assistance and how likely they were to intervene. For all the scenarios, the percentage of participants who said they would feel concerned and intervene was higher in the post- workshop surveys.

Nyhan reported that while 740 pre-surveys were conducted, only 450 post-surveys were conducted since the surveys were sent out during the busier end of the term. Twentyfour percent of the respondents reported intervening since the DBI workshop and 82 percent of those who intervened said participating in DBI helped them prepare to take action.

GLC accountability chair Taylor Watson ’16, who works with DBI, said that he was pleased with the turnout at the presentation.

“It’s so good to know that when we are able to find something to act on there’s so much support from different areas of campus and there are a good number of students who understand the role this has on improving campus,” Watson said.

Bradley and Nyhan said they were similarly pleased.

Nyhan said that the 2015 Association of American Universities sexual assault climate survey reported that Dartmouth had one of the highest rates of bystander interventions among all the universities.

Bradley said administrative support inspired the team. DBI had overwhelming support from all parts of campus, from the College president all the way down which was “absolutely fantastic,” Bradley said.

Bradley added that they had support from athletics and the Dartmouth Outing Club and they had done a demo for the graduate

student council.

“We’re trying to build a coalition of people who care about this initiative across campus,” he said.

Nyhan said they want to conduct more surveys and analyze the data, as well as continue their partnership with GLC and listen to the student body.

“We’re really committed to finding out are we changing behavior,” she said. “I think understanding changes in knowledge and attitudes are really important.”

Bradley said that immediate next steps include continuing their workshop for athletes, titled “Gameplan 2.0,” and running workshops for students during the summer term.

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MONDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2016

PAGE 3

Warmer weather melts prospects of snow sculpture this year FROM SNOW PAGE 1

originally designed to represent a knight on a horse. Warm weather caused the sculpture to collapse — it was subsequently transformed into a knight’s funeral.

Past snow sculpture chair and chief architect Benjamin Meigs ’10 said that the lack of snow has been an issue in the past, but could be compensated with snow from outside sources.

“The lack of snow was always a concern, but we always had a plan to deal with it,” he said. “There was never a year where we built the sculpture with 100 percent natural snow.”

Meigs said that he observed a trend of increasing difficulty in finding volunteers for the snow sculpture.

“There has been a fundamental shift in student organizations and what students like to do on campus,” he said. “College has gotten more about pre-professional prep — more about building the resume and less about finding unique experiences.

Building something out of snow in middle of campus won’t stick well on your resume.”

Last year’s snow sculpture chair Ben Nelson ’17 said that it was very

difficult for him to find people to help him build the sculpture. He said that although organizations like sports teams or P.E. classes contributed to the work, individuals would rarely step up for the job. He said that he spent approximately 80 hours on the project, with a total of about 40 students who helped.

“The majority of campus did not come out to help for the sculpture last year,” he said. “The sculpture is not important enough for the students.

Everyone loves seeing it. People loved sliding down it. People love taking pictures of it. People don’t really seem to love building it.”

Nelson said that funding may have been another obstacle, because the snow sculpture was one of the largest expenditures of Winter Carnival.

He added that in the past few years, snow from the skiway was used to build the sculpture, but doing so was expensive.

“This year people decided not to spend so much money on something that people are not interested in,” he said.

Nelson said that without a student thrust for the sculpture, the tradition cannot be maintained.

“It’s a week before Winter Carnival and this is the first time anyone

approached me to report on the issue,” he said. “It doesn’t seem like anyone noticed that no one was on the Green building the sculpture, when it is usually a continual process over weeks of active work. It wasn’t on people’s mind.”

Meigs said that he is disappointed by the absence of a snow sculpture and hoped that the administration would take a stronger lead in preserving it.

“What makes the College so great is a combination of individuals and traditions that have driven activity and the culture,” he said. “The loss of tradition and dilution of the Dartmouth experience is unfortunate and I hope that we can turn things around and bring back the College that people love.”

Hall also said the snow sculpture situation is disappointing, but that it does not take away from Winter Carnival as a whole.

“I think that the most important parts of Winter Carnival traditions still remain, and that’s embracing winter, and having Winter Carnival planned by students,” Hall said.

“The snow sculpture’s just one part of it, and there’s still a whole schedule of events that the Winter Carnival council’s really excited about.”

RAY LU/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

The 2015 snow sculpture faced a number of challenges in construction.

THE DARTMOUTH OPINION

PAGE 4

GUEST COLUMNIST BEN PACKER ’17

The Great Coalition of 2016 We could be on the path to productive party realignment.

When discussing the polarization of American politics, pundits often act as if the categories Democrat and Republican reflect deep ideological divides, and that the truth lies somewhere in the center.

To examine this premise, let us briefly consider the distribution of public opinion in the United States. Because this column is short, please allow me to somewhat sloppily divide politics into social and economic issues. The demographic distribution of opinions on social issues — including abortion, gay rights, racial equality and gun control — largely fall along rural versus urban and northern versus southern divides. These disagreements have their roots in cultural differences between the rural, religious south and the urban, secular north, and the important but different role slavery played in both their economies. These geographical distributions are largely the historical basis for modern party affiliation.

Opinion on economic issues clusters less neatly, but tends to fall along class lines. Certain issues such as support for recent trade agreements, revisions to corporate tax policy and disregard for the decline of American manufacturing are supported by the business-oriented, moderate sections of each party and opposed by each party’s working class segments. Consider, for example, the North and Central American Free Trade agreements and the upcoming Trans-Pacific Partnership, each of these bills received both bipartisan support and bipartisan opposition.

Each was quickly shoved through Congress by each party’s establishment while being opposed by the working class members of the party.

Examination of these trends reveals a phenomena so successful and clever that it is difficult to avoid calling it a business class strategy. Due to the fact that party divisions are drawn along disagreements over social issues — boundaries which have their roots in Nixon’s “Southern strategy” — the working class segments of each party cannot coordinate with each other. Furthermore, and most nefariously, persistent calls for compromise, moderation and bipartisanship have the consistent result of disempowering each party’s anti-corporate wings to meet in the middle at the business-controlled center.

But, party realignments happen periodically in American politics and this particular moment looks ripe. The anti-establishment wings of each party have grown powerful. Increasingly large swaths of each party are angry with their party’s power brokers. Each party’s center, and closely related party-agnostic centrists like former New

York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, would call this the degradation of the American political system and seek to re-exert control over their respective bases.

However, this sentiment will not simply burn out. A Donald Trump supporter will not easily support a Bush the next election, just as a Sanders supporter will not easily support another Clinton.

Sure, they may vote for their party’s candidate in the general election, but there will still be a ripple effect of contested primaries across the country. Now that these constituencies exist and are self-aware, they expect candidates on both sides to cater to them.

The productive resolution of our current political predicament, therefore, cannot be the center reclaiming control of the edges — which would be equivalent to kicking the populist can down the road — but must be a party realignment based on a broad coalition of working class and young citizens across geographical and social boundaries. Such a coalition would need to be organized by a presidential candidate with a laser-like focus on economic inequality and political corruption.

It may not surprise you that I believe Sanders is this candidate. When asked if I think Sanders can win a general election or accomplish any of the things he’d like to as president, I give the following response. If we can assemble this coalition — and we must — it will contain more than 70 percent of the population; an unstoppable political force. This coalition is also the only way to stop the current rise of the far right.

Sanders knows this and views it as an essential component of his general election strategy.

There are three pieces of evidence in particular that suggest this: First, his call for a competitive Democratic campaign in all 50 states; second, a speech he gave at the notoriously conservative Liberty University, demonstrating an ability to reach across culture lines; and third, the way he addresses the Trump phenomena. He often speaks directly to his supporters, expressing sympathy for their economic position while emphasizing that the demagogue style response is a common outcome of a declining middle class.

Obviously I don’t support Trump, who is continues to fit more and more of the fascist archetype. However, his supporters are real people who have been heavily propagandized, and we should to talk to them and address their concerns so that this does not become a permanent feature of American politics. More than that, they have real problems and deserve to be viewed as a constituency.

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MONDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2016

STAFF COLUMNIST MICHELLE GIL ’16

A Modern Greek Tragedy The College’s administration needs a reality check.

Welcome to the newest installment of, “How much further can the administrators drive Dartmouth into the ground?” In the past two weeks, the College derecognized one fraternity, and suspended a sorority and gender-inclusive house. It is quite apparent that the administrators have an anti-Greek agenda.

I never thought I’d say this, but I’m so happy that I am a ’16. My class year is riding out on the very last tendrils of “Dartmouth” as I have come to know and treasure it. As much as I love Dartmouth and still believe the experience here is incredibly special, I think the administration seems to be doing everything in its power to destroy all that endears so many students and alumni to this institution.

It’s not even the slow but sure destruction of Greek system itself that I, and many others, find so abhorrent. There’s more to the Greek system than drinking and partying. In fact, I rarely drink alcohol and I still enjoy being in a sorority and attending fraternity parties to hang out with my friends. We are not merely hedonists trying to grasp tightly to a debauched system of drinking and socializing. Rather, it is what the Greek system stands for. The Greek system is a student-run, student-driven community, where students feel they can create their own social spaces.

Is it so unbelievable to imagine that students might want to be involved with a community they have created and fostered rather than one forced upon them by a paternalistic administration?

The Greek system also offers opportunities for philanthropy, a close-knit, supportive community and ready-made forums to facilitate conversations on important campus and generation-wide issues including sexual assault and mental illness. But beyond that, what is so abhorrent about the fact that parties do take place within the Greek system? I don’t think it’s unreasonable for many college-aged kids to want to attend parties. And in a rural town like Hanover, the relative dearth of clubs and bars nearby make Greek organizations the most ideal locations for such forms of entertainment. The only other alternative is for students in dorm rooms or off-campus sports houses to host such events, which would only make them more exclusive as well as more susceptible to certain unavoidable risks.

Amidst this, administrators have been doing everything in their power to persuade students that alternative, college-sponsored social spaces are the only acceptable options for us. There are movies and theater productions at the Hopkins Center for the Arts, Friday Night Rock and other musical events in Sarner Underground, discussions and meetings in One Wheelock, not to mention 8-Ball Hall and BarHop. There are certainly a number of students who take advantage of these options, but they are not the majority. As adults with the functional capacity to make our own decisions, we vote with our feet here at Dartmouth. Time after time, the vast majority of Dartmouth students willingly choose to go socialize at Greek houses, whether fraternities, sororities or gender-inclusive organizations.

Therefore it is not, in fact, a lack of alternative social spaces that is the problem, as those

opposed to the Greek system often claim.

But rather, it is that, despite the existence of these alternative social spaces, they are not well-attended because they are not heavily desired. Despite this obvious truth, I find it utterly baffling that the College’s administrators so ignore the voices and concerns of the majority of the population they are entrusted to serve. Instead, they see fit to try and force us to abandon the Greek system.

A thriving Greek system and viable alternative social spaces are not mutually exclusive.

As has been increasingly the case in recent years, it is possible for both to exist. And should the reality remain that more students choose to go to fraternity parties than to other social events, the answer isn’t to force the hand of the students by shutting down Greek organizations so that the only remaining option is elsewhere. The answer is to keep having College-sponsored events but to respect the perfectly adequate decision-making skills of the adult students who may choose the Greek scene instead. And most importantly, the answer is not to try to force-feed us the new residential system as an alternative to Greek life.

A housing system which, by the way, sounds nearly identical to the cluster system we’ve already have had in place for years.

This new residential community system just gives it a new name, makes it more restrictive and mandatory and will seemingly become the only option left for socialization after the administrators pick off every last Greek organization one by one. The residential college systems upon which our new system appears to be modeled — such as those found at Harvard University or Yale University— involve separate libraries, dining halls, classrooms and other such facilities specific to the multiple residential groups. Without these extensive separate facilities, Dartmouth’s proposed residential living system is literally nothing more than a restrictive housing guideline.

Even though the administrators have cited a supposed lack of inclusivity within the Greek system as a reason necessitating its reform (and apparently its demise, as well), Dartmouth has for some time now had one of the most inclusive Greek systems in the nation. At Dartmouth, any student is allowed into any fraternity party. At almost every other school in the country this is not the case. Unfortunately, the Greek crackdown of the last few years has actually served to slowly but surely destroy our inclusivity. Fraternities are becoming more exclusive with who they allow into their basements, and more and more parties are moving into dorm rooms and off-campus houses. Why? Because, shockingly to almost no one, some college-aged students enjoy partying and drinking alcohol. This has been a universal truth for over a hundred years. I do not understand how administrators can delude themselves into believing that they can stop an activity that no institution or government in history has successfully been able to prevent.

How much further can this institution fall?

How many more students’ and alumni voices have to be ignored before the administrators wake up and realize that the Greek system is not a monster to be slain?

THE DARTMOUTH NEWS

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2016

PAGE 5

Tapper talks social media, journalism and reporting abroad FROM TAPPER PAGE 1

Do you think there comes a point where everyone is so focused on politics and the race that other news is left by the wayside? Such as recently looking at the Flint water crisis?

JT: That happens with all sorts of news events, whether it’s a presidential election or any other big story, other things going on that are important sometimes fall by the wayside, unfortunately. I think the water crisis in Flint is an example of that, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t cover it. We were just late to covering it and we have an obligation to continue covering it. We have and we will. It happens and it’s like everything else I do.

It’s something to learn from and be better for in the future.

2013?

JT: Twitter has been the big development. Figuring out how to use Twitter, how to make sense of all the noise and all the feedback, has been part of media’s evolution. One of the things I think is important is to listen to viewers and tweeters, but then ultimately you cannot be at the whim of social media. You listen to what they have to say, but sometimes they are wrong. Sometimes social media can create an opportunity for a mob mentality. That is something important to keep in mind as well.

Considering the idea of commercial media and how it is fueling the news cycle, do you think that the audience has a role to play as well? Does the viewer have a sort of responsibility?

JT: Viewers do not have a responHow does your news team sibility, but [the media has] the bring forward the pieces you responsibility. But the viewer has present? How is news picked a role. The viewer that is engaged to report on? and intelligent, who rewards the JT: My senior team has a phone call media and journalism that they and meets everyday at 7:15 a.m. like, can be a powerful force. You I talk to my executive producer see that when stories become viral, at about 8:30 and then there are especially when the important meetings throughout the morn- stories become viral. So, there is ing. We have a big staff meeting a role, but it is not an obligation. at 12:30. We If a viewer or a have a team of consumer “Social media is a way news 20 or so people wants to play a and everyone to get at the journalism. role, they can, is encouraged would play Social media is not the and to bring ideas, a very imporbring thoughts journalism, rather a tant role. and make sure means to communicate we’re covering The media what we need to with it.” can play a vacover in the way riety of roles, we need to covacting as a er it. I’m con- -JAKE TAPPER ’91, CNN watchdog enstantly on social CORRESPONDENT tity in some media looking cases and as a for stories that gover nment we should be corresponcovering. And dent in othhopefully, doing it that way is the ers. You share information best way to bring news to the viewer with the people — how do at four o’clock. you think your shows play that role?

Does getting your news from JT: I think I am known for being a social media hinder it in a fairly tough questioner. And I think way? A hundred and forty that that is part of it. By the same characters can only commu- token, there is a balance to it. Your nicate so much. show cannot be a non-stop fact JT: We don’t get our news from check. You have to let politicians social media. Social media is a way say what they want to say and get to get at the journalism. Social me- their message out. It’s a balance, dia is not the journalism, rather a but we in the media have an obmeans to communicate with it. So, ligation to not be agnostic when it’s a link to a story in an Oklahoma it comes to facts. Facts are what newspaper or a Yemini blogger they are and we are supposed to be but it is not the whole story. We advocates for them and the truth. do our own work, too, but utilize it to find a way to hear things you Do you think that only fact normally wouldn’t hear. checking one person instead of another leads to bias?

How do you think that the JT: I think that one needs to fact media has evolved since you check fairly. And how one fact began your show in March checks is important to the cause.

PRIYA RAMAIAH/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

Jake Tapper ’91 filmed a segment focused on the election for his show, “The Lead,” on the Green on Friday afternoon.

If you only fact check one party or if you only award “Pinocchio’s” or “pants-on-fires” to one party, when and if the other party is telling untruths as well, you are undermining the credibility of fact checking. The news is supposed to be allegiant to facts and the truth.

Not to ideology.

Can you think of instances where that has occurred in the media?

JT: Yes, but I’m not going to share them with you. I try to be collegial and I have a lot of strong opinions on things, including journalism — especially journalism. I think collegiality is important and I know that a lot of people in journalism are trying to do the best they can. I don’t think I need to lend my voice to the masses shouting.

Also, I am not a particularly good media critic considering I am in the media. I have complete conflict of interest. That is why I am not going to share. But that does not mean it doesn’t exist.

How did you choose your topic when writing your book, “The Outpost” (2012)?

JT: I had been covering the war in Afghanistan from the North Lawn of the White House as a White House correspondent for CNN, but I was not covering what was going on on a day-to-day basis.

I reported on the numbers of soldiers that were on the ground, 10,000 or 20,000, but never their names. My son had been born on Oct. 2, 2009 and the next day, Oct. 3, this outpost that I had never heard of in a part of the world that I had never covered was overrun by almost 400 insurgents and eight Americans were killed. I was just sitting in the room, holding my son, and watching news reports on how eight other sons had been killed. It was a poignant moment. Everybody covered that the outpost was in this horrible place at the bottom of three steep mountains, right near the Pakistan border, but no one covered why it was there. I wanted to know why it was there and no one would answer the question. So, I set out to find out myself.

a whole 500-page book about it. It’s a little bit more complex than that.

Why was the outpost put in that position?

JT: They were trying to win over the population. They only had so many soldiers so they spread out all over the place with small groups.

In that part of Afghanistan, at the base of the Hindu Kush, you are either on a mountain or in a valley.

That’s the choice. They didn’t have enough helicopters in Afghanistan to supply the camp, only by car or truck. Therefore, the camp had to be by the road and that is why it was put at the bottom. But, I wrote

How has your Dartmouth experience influenced you today?

What made you want to be a reporter?

JT: It took me a long time to figure out that I wanted to be a reporter. I was a cartoonist at Dartmouth, but I will say that there was always very lively debate about campus issues and lots of smart professors. I was a history major so I learned to love history here. I think that all of that helped to prepare me for where I ended up going, but it took me a while to get there.

Do you see a sort of inactivity or numbness to the news in the younger generation?

JT: People have their lives. People live their lives, trying to make a dollar and provide for their family and get ahead.

Things are much more complicated in terms of trying to make a living than probably most, or many, Dartmouth students are even aware. I don’t think this generation is any different. When I was in Hanover, I wasn’t paying attention to everything going on in the world. I don’t begrudge students for focusing on their lives and not necessarily on anything outside the Dartmouth bubble. My job is to bring people the news in a compelling way so that they enjoy hearing about it and like hearing about it. This is my career.

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THE DARTMOUTH EVENTS

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2016

DARTMOUTH EVENTS TODAY 4:30 p.m.

“The Law of the Jungle: The $19 Billion Legal Battle Over Oil In the Rainforest,” Bloomberg Business journalist Paul Barrett, Haldeman 41

4:30 p.m.

“Dark Money: A Conversation Between Hendrik Hertzberg and Jane Mayer,” Oopik Auditorium, Life Sciences Center

7:00 p.m.

“The Sturgeon Queens”, (2014), discussion to follow with film director Julie Cohen, Loew Auditorium, Black Family Visual Arts Center

TOMORROW 12:30 p.m.

“Queer Cyborgs and Postcolonial Freaks,” Associate professor Laura Edmondson, Hood Museum of Art

1:00 p.m.

Career Conversation with David Uejio, Class of 1930 Room, Rockefeller Center

5:30 p.m.

“A Simple Album: The Concertina Spine with Pamphlet Pages,” instructor Deborah Howe, Room 21, Baker Library

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THE DARTMOUTH ARTS

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2016

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Glee Club performs free winter concert at Top of the Hop

By KATHERINE SCHREIBER The Dartmouth Staff

The Hopkins Center for the Arts rang with music on Sunday afternoon as the Dartmouth Glee Club performed their “Winter Panorama” concert at the Top of the Hop. The group performed a range of songs in Spanish, English, Latin and Russian.

The concert was presented as a preview for the Glee Club’s spring concert, in which the group will perform the full “All Night Vigil” by Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff.

Written in 1915, the composition contains 15 short movements drawn from a Russian Orthodox ceremony.

The Glee Club performed the sixth, seventh and ninth movements of the composition on Sunday.

“I chose three movements from Rachmaninoff that were descriptive of what the whole piece is like,” Glee Club director Louis Burkot said.

In addition to “All Night Vigil,” the program also included a Spanish song and more traditional American compositions. Burkot said that he wanted to include songs that would

work with the range and style of “All Night Vigil,” which has a low bass part.

“I wanted to do things that would fit in with that kind of range, so I tried to pick songs that would require a low bass,” Burkot said.

He said that he also wanted to select songs that required the students to sing in divided parts. While most choral compositions have four parts, many of the songs that the club sang on Sunday had twelve to sixteen parts.

“I wanted to do all the things I’ve never done before,” Burkot said.

The concert opened with the song “Amor de Mi Alma” by composer Z. Randall Stroope. Burkot said that after the Glee Club’s December break tour in Spain, he wanted to add more Spanish songs to the group’s repertoire. Although Stroope is an American composer, the words “Amor de Mi Alma” — which translate to “Love of My Soul” — are from a 16th century Spanish poem.

The program also included the American song “Elijah Rock,” a traditional spiritual arranged by Moses

Hogan. Burkot said “Elijah Rock” was the most challenging song in the program due to its length, range and complex parts. He said that the song was originally meant for an orchestra.

“We’re singing the parts instead of the violins playing them,” Burkot said.

Glee Club soprano Ann Carpenter ’19 said that one of the biggest challenges of preparing for this performance was the limited time frame, since the singers had less than six weeks to prepare.

“Our director doesn’t like to have the performance after Winter Carnival,” Carpenter said. “So we were a little crunched for time.”

Jimmy Ragan ’16, who sings in the bass/baritone section, also said that it was difficult to learn 50 minutes of music in less than six weeks.

“The last week leading up to the concert was really rushed,” Ragan said.

Ragan said that another major challenge of this concert was learning to sing songs in another language, especially Russian.

“It’s a challenge just to actually be

able to say the Russian and speak it well,” Ragan said. “We haven’t quite done that yet. I think the biggest challenge going forward is being more true to singing in Russian.”

He added that it can be distracting when singers aren’t confident in their pronunciation and have to constantly look down at their music.

Carpenter said that the singers had been watching YouTube videos to try to learn the proper pronunciation of the Russian words. She said it was especially hard to learn Russian because Russian letters aren’t pronounced like English letters.

“It’s not intuitive,” Carpenter said.

Carpenter said that her favorite song was “Ave Maria,” the sixth movement of “All Night Vigil”, which the group also sang when they were on tour in December.

“It’s really pretty,” Carpenter said.

“It’s one of my favorites.”

The male and female singers split at the end of the concert and each group sang their own song. The female section sang “Peter Gray,” an American ballad about a young man who dies after going West in search

of his fiancée. The male section sang “Demon in My View,” a composition by Jeffery Hovarth which takes its lyrics from the Edgar Allen Poe poem “Alone.”

Regan, who introduced “Demon in My View” to Burkot, said the piece was one of his favorites.

“Those low rumbly chords sort of pierce your soul,” Ragan said of the song.

Ragan said he also liked Samuel Barber’s “Agnus Dei,” again mentioning the low chords.

“Angus Dei” is a vocal composition of Barber’s renowned “Adagio for Strings.” Its lyrics come from the “Agnus Dei,” the fifth section of the ordinary of the Catholic Mass.

At the end of the concert, Burkot asked the audience if the club could sing one more song that was not on the program. The group then broke into the American spiritual “Deep River,” and several audience members sang along quietly.

The Glee Club’s spring concert, in which they will sing the whole of Rachmaninoff’s “All Night Vigil,” will take place on Sunday, May 8.

Rezvany reviews Dartmouth Idol semi-final performances

By REBECCA REZVANY The Dartmouth

Friends, family and intrigued Dartmouth students filled Spaulding Auditorium last Friday to watch what promised to be an entertaining Dartmouth Idol Semi-final.

As we entered the hall we were given a ballot. The evening started with ten singers kicking off the first half and, after a brief intermission, ten other singers closed the show. Then the audience would vote for their top five contestants.

The six finalists that will go on to the final round of the competition are Stephanie Everett ’19, Grace Carney ’17, Sean Haughey ’17, Nikhil Arora ’16, Chelsea Lim ’16 and Jimmy Ragan ’16.

A brave Doug Phipps ’17 opened the show with Michael Buble’s “Haven’t Met You Yet.” Though out of tune, you had to give credit to his enthusiastic performance, met with woops and claps from the encouraging audience. Comments from the judges were stale and unhelpful, dodging comments about Phipp’s actual singing, with Nathaniel Graves ’13, a previous winner of the competition, saying, “You were really good at taking my advice about using the stage and performing.” We weren’t going to find any Simon Cowells on the judges’ panel, only Paulas here.

“Y’all ready for a tractor ride?”

Joshua Clark ’16 said, goading the audience. “Where my boys at?”

The football team cheered accordingly. This was just one of the instances in which a contestant appealed to their

affiliated group — women’s rugby players cheered for Ashley Zepeda ’18 and several audience members wore SAE sweatshirts. Clark’s “Big Green Tractor” by Jason Aldean was a refreshing addition to the mix, with Clark not taking himself too seriously.

While singing the lyrics “climb up in my lap and drive if you want to,” he patted his lap and grabbed an imaginary steering wheel, painting a vivid picture for the audience.

After the performance, judge Jake Gaba ’16 commented, “That’s an incredible hat.” This was the start of Gaba’s interesting, off-topic comments. In the second half, Gaba was reduced to clicking and pointing to congratulate Ragan’s performance of “She’s Always a Woman” by Billy Joel.

Tyne Freeman ’17’s rendition of “Killing Me Softly” by the Fugees was just in time to assure the audience that this indeed was a singing competition.

Riffs and runs were cast so frequently and with such ease that even Graves pleaded “Give me your runs!” during the comments.

“There was some strumming going on in my chest,” host Aaron Cheese ’18 said.

Music’s ability to transform an individual was present in Torrance Johnson ’19’s rendition of “Jealous”

by Nick Jonas. Johnson didn’t say a word as the hosts introduced him, but as soon as the backing track went on he sang with all guns ablaze. Johnson was on his knees at one point, and singing falsetto at other times. This energetic performance was a great end to the first half.

The second half easily trumped the first half, with most of the talent to be found during this portion of the show.

Grace Carney ’17’s version of “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” by Amy Winehouse changed the tone of the evening, lulling the audience into a dreamy stupor.

Chelsea Lim ’16 upped the ante, with “Fallin’” by Alicia Keys. Lim had just the right amount of sass and had taken the time to perfect the big runs.

“What a huge voice for such a tiny person,” Gaba said.

Edom Wessenyeleh ’17 gave a stunning performance of “We Don’t Have To Take Our Clothes Off” by Ella Eyre, the softness of her voice reminiscent of Birdy.

If I were to bet my money on any person to win the competition it would definitely be Nikhil Arora ’16.

Arora had the looks of a Jonas brother, equipped with a beanie and side fringe, and the voice of an angel. Even with his eyes closed during most of the performance, he was wooing audience members with the lyrics from “I Can’t Make You Love Me” by Tank.

“I appreciated the Nick Jonas looka-like,” audience member Madeleine Kelly ’17 said after the competition.

The show ended with powerhouse Virginia Ogden ’18 who managed to pull off the technically challenging “When Loves Takes Over” by David Guetta with vocals by Kelly Rowland.

The Dartmouth Idol finals are on March 4, with only six performers returning to battle it out for the title of Dartmouth Idol. I’ll be there, (for Gaba’s comments if nothing else), will you?

TIFFANY ZHAI/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

Twenty semi-finalists competed in the Dartmouth Idol singing competi-

THE DARTMOUTH ARTS

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ARTS

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2016

World Percussion Music Ensemble showcases global music

By ELISE HIGGINS The Dartmouth

On Sunday Feb. 7, Dartmouth’s World Music Percussion Ensemble performed “Joy to the World,” a collection of songs from various cultures focused on sacredness and secularity.

World music combines elements of music from various cultures across the globe. In addition to the varying cultures of origin, the music also differed in tempo, ranging from mellow to upbeat, but it was all united by the theme of joy.

Master drummer and World Music Percussion Ensemble director Hafiz Shabazz said that “sometimes [the different styles] merge and sometimes they intersect with one another and sometimes they stand alone.”

Shabazz said that the crosscultural nature of world music makes it interesting because though cultures can be very different, they often have similar ideas and objectives. In this way, music can bring people together because it is not controversial or divisive.

In this concert, the World Music

Percussion Ensemble combined many different styles of music that were both sacred and secular.

Ska, klezmer and santeria were all incorporated and demonstrate the wide variety of cultures that the ensemble represents in its music. Ska originated in Jamaica and preceded reggae. Klezmer is a Yiddish style of music that is happy and upbeat and sometimes referred to as “Jewish jazz,” Shabazz said. Santeria originated from Afro-Cuban culture and honors Catholic saints.

Andrew Nalani ’16, a member of the World Music Percussion Ensemble, said that drumming allowed him to express his emotions in different ways, and that was certainly true of yesterday’s concert.

“All of these songs evoke a sense of celebration and joy,” Nalani said.

This theme could not only be heard in the music, but also seen in the expressions of the musicians. They were all smiling and interacting with each other while passionately playing their instruments.

The group opened with the theme from James Bond which was followed by another upbeat rock song. Shabazz said that the music was fun to dance to and the audience clearly agreed with him, since many people, children and adults, were out of their seats and dancing.

“The music connected with my soul,” audience member Rachel Collins said, “it really inspired me to move.”

A band accompanied the ensemble during each number to add body to the music; however, some songs were more clearly focused on the percussionists. In this concert, Shabazz and Nalani sang “Yemanya” and “Orisha Chango” in order to add melody to the rhythm.

After these two songs, the band rejoined the percussionists for the remainder of the show. The ensemble finished with the song “Oh Happy Day,” emphasizing the eponymous “Joy to the World” theme.

Throughout the concert, each musical piece was accompanied by a work of art created by Si Jie

Loo ’12. Loo, a studio art major and former member of the World Music Percussion Ensemble, now works as a professional artist in California. These works were meant to evoke the spirit of each piece.

“I liked [the artwork] because it gave me a better sense of the feeling of each song,” Collins said.

Much of the art corresponded to the song it accompanied, such as a swirling mix of black, gray and red for the James Bond theme, and a green figure whose extended arms evoked a sense of euphoria for “The Happy Nigun.” However, not all of the artworks corresponded to the music literally. A piece whose bright colors reminiscent of flowers accompanied “Orisha Chango,” a song about the god of lightning. Despite not always matching up with the music, the artwork still added an interesting element to the performance as a whole, and it enabled the audience to experience the music visually as well as auditorily.

Although Loo has graduated, Shabazz continues to support her by using her artwork for the

ensemble’s shows. This support is an example of Shabazz’s overall approach as director, Nalani said.

“Professor Shabazz was very welcoming,” Nalani said. “He meets people where they are and works with their talent.”

Nalani said that he did not know how to drum before coming to Dartmouth, but he had tried it at camp and was inspired to continue.

“I knew there was something that brought me alive in the drum,” Nalani said.

Nalani joined the World Music Percussion ensemble because of this feeling; however, he said a large reason why he stayed with the group is the support he received from Shabazz. Nalani continues to enjoy being in the ensemble because he finds it to be a creative outlet that allows him to take a break from academics, he said.

Sunday’s show was certainly a creative outlet for all the performers, and they were visibly enjoying themselves on stage. The energy of the songs was infectious and the spirited performers made the performance an engaging visual and auditory experience.

‘Hail, Caesar!’ (2016) hails cinema in ode to the fifties

By ANDREW KINGSLEY The Dartmouth Staff

After “True Grit” (2010) and “Inside Llewyn David” (2013), the Coen brothers seemed to be becoming very serious men. But their latest “Hail, Caesar!” (2016) returns the duo to their “Big Lebowki” (1998) comedic roots, in which the riotous romp of carnivalesque characters takes over any desire to maintain a moving plot. While the film may lack the makings of a cult classic, it highlights the Coens’ almost cultish fondness for a classic period of American filmmaking.

The film follows Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), a Hollywood fixer — the repairman of the studio who ensures the tabloids stay at bay, his stars are happy and the films run on schedule — through his daily life at the fictitious Capitol Studios in the 1950s. During the filming of their year’s big epic, “Hail, Caesar!” (which centers on a Roman consul who leads the prosecution of Jesus but converts

to Christianity at the foot of the cross), Capitol’s megastar, Baird Whitlock (George Clooney), is drugged and held captive by a band of communist screenwriters.

This detective tale drives Mannix all around the studio lot, dodging scandals and job offers to escape this insanity and allows the Coens to showcase the diversity of daily cinematic madness.

The studio quickly becomes a carnival, where tabloid twins (both played by Tilda Swinton) hover like vultures, a chain smoking editor (Frances McDormand — also Joel Coen’s wife) is almost choked by her scarf and communists and homosexuals lurk in broad daylight.

If the Coen brothers paint in colorful characters, then “Hail, Caesar!” promises a rich and scintillating impasto of performers. Some highlights include a corrupt notary (Jonah Hill), a sailor-mouthed starlet in a mermaid costume (Scarlett Johannson), an urbane, closeted British director (Ralph Fiennes) and western star turned period

dramatist (Alden Ehrenreich). As the tuxedoed cowboy fails to say, “would that it were so simple” indeed. The narrative often takes a backseat and merely strings along the hilarious cameos and set pieces — stuffing a zeitgeist into a glitzy 100-minute package demands a peripheral plot.

“Hail, Caesar!” ends up feeling like a grown-up “Singin’ in the Rain” (1952) with the same elocution gags and extravagant dance numbers. But the Coens remove another veil to expose the ideological underpinnings of communism and hyper-conservatism that defined 1950s Hollywood — something Gene Kelly couldn’t really tap dance to. “Singin’ in the Nuclear Fallout” doesn’t sound as catchy, does it? Communism in Hollywood seems in vogue this season as Jay Roach’s “Trumbo” (2015) examines the life screenwriter Dalton Trumbo (“Roman Holiday” (1953) and “Spartacus” (1960)) during the paralyzing McCarthyism era. Perhaps in today’s

era of paranoiac terrorism panic and xenophobic political rhetoric, these films pertinently remind audiences that our senseless hatreds are nothing new. Fortunately, the film makes light of communists and treats them as just another band of clowns that populate cinema’s heartland rather than heinously cruel villans bent on destroying the American way of life.

Ultimately, “Hail, Caesar!” tries to convert us to the religion of film, with theatres our congregations, the films our services and Capitol Studios the almighty, invisible Creator behind it all. The film begins with a sculpture of Jesus on the cross, but by the end we are taken by the film’s passion of the Cinema.

The Coens were born in the ’50s, and infuse every frame with a reverent nostalgia for their cinematic birthplace. They pay parodic homage to each of the major genres of the time, including a hyper-acrobatic western, an overtly-homoerotic sailor musical, a Broadway adapted period drama

and a kaleidoscopic water-ballet, while leaving the film noir to structure the film itself. The ’50s were a rocky period in Hollywood, in which the new medium of television began robbing theaters of their audiences and films battled the moral stringency of the Hays Code.

Yet “Hail, Caesar!” honors the foot soldiers of the studio system who ensured the dream machine never flagged and that films were always big spectacles to sate America’s postwar thirst for the bigger and the better. While the film may feel stylistically old-fashioned or thematically trite (how many more movies about movies do we really need?), “Hail, Caesar!” pastiches the time capsule drama and seeks to spectacularize even further the spectacles that defined midcentury culture, and most importantly the Coens themselves.

Rating: 8.5/10 “Hail, Caesar!” is now playing at the Hanover Nugget at 4:20 p.m. and 7 p.m.