July 2, 2014

Vol. 105 Issue 11

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Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Pennsylvania and Asia come together in Pittsburgh Sarah Police Staff Writer

What do chicken bites, bubble tea and green tea cake have in common?

All of these Asian-American foods can be found in Pittsburgh and appear on the home page of PennsylvAsia, a website that highlights the relationship of Asian culture in Pennsylvania with a focus on Pittsburgh.

Brian Deutsch, a linguistics professor at Pitt, founded PennsylvAsia in 2011 and this month used the website to promote Chick’n Bubbly, a new Korean-style restaurant opening soon at 117 Oakland Ave., and green tea Pittsburgh caught World Cup fever on Tuesday as crowds filed in to watch the U.S. cake from Sumi’s Cakery, a Korean bakery on Murray Avenue.

Men’s soccer team play Belgium in Market Square. Christine Lim | Staff Photographer

For better or worse: Pittsburgh makes top 10 lists Lauren Rosenblatt Staff Writer Pittsburgh may not be the largest city but it’s the city that has been cropping up on many “most likely” and “best of” lists.

Forbes data shows that since 2009, Pittsburgh’s population has steadily increased, and the median age of residents has decreased from 35 to 33, a trend that usually signals a city becoming more livable by young professionals. A younger city means mentions in trendy articles — as “listicles” have become a popular form of journalism, Pittsburgh nearly always manages to be named.

Pittnews.com

Asia

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Pitt has highest in-state tuition of a public university in U.S.

According to lists from recent years, Pittsburghers are loyal — to sports teams and schools, not spouses. Rankings also name Pittsburgh for having the worst air quality and being one of the best travel destinations in the country.

In 2013, the Huffington Post listed Pittsburgh as the fourth highest “cheating city” among married couples, with Washington, D.C., Houston, Texas, and Miami, Fla., holding higher percentages.

The data was compiled by Ashleymadison.com, a website that connects people

Pittsburgh

A couple of years ago, he began to notice “intersections” between Pittsburgh and Asia, including “Korean food fairs at churches, University lectures, an anime movie screening [and even] Hines Ward,” a former Pittsburgh Steelers player whose mother is from South Korea, and he wanted to share them with the Internet.

PennsylvAsia primarily focuses on the Pittsburgh area because Deutsch said the state was too large of a region to cover, but he liked the name.

His site averages about 100 views every day and provides information related to Asian-

Pitt has the highest in-state tuition in the nation at $16,590 for the upcoming school year.

Highest in-state tuition at public universities in neighboring states:

WEST VIRGINIA: MARSHALL UNIVERSITY - $16,018 VIRGINIA: COLLEGE OF WILLIAM AND MARY - $15,140

NEW JERSEY: NEW JERSEY INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY - $14,940

NEW YORK: STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK - $6,919

OHIO: MIAMI UNIVERSITY - $13,222

National average for in-state public school tuition: $7,400

Pitt is closely followed by Pennsylvania State University ($16,444), which ranks second for highest tuition in the United States.

2 Figures from the U.S. Department of Education and the universities’ websites.

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ASIA

Americans in Pittsburgh. For example, on June 22, Deutsch posted about the Invention and New Product Exposition where Taiwanese inventors took home 76 medals for their inventions. A post from June 20 lists the Chinese and Korean short films that were present at the Pittsburgh Independant Film Festival. Deutsch updates his site almost daily — any time news happens in the community.

There is also a “learn” page where users can access links to Chinese, Japanese and Korean language programs and other educational content.

While there are many opportunities to learn about Asian culture in the area, Deutsch said he is constantly searching for new information to share on his blog.

“I frequently check foreign-language news FROM PAGE 1

PITTSBURGH looking for affairs.

To determine which cities made the “most likely to cheat” list, Ashleymadison. com derived a ratio of members on its site to total population from each neighborhood, according to Ashley Carr, public relations coordinator for Ashleymadison.com.

In Pittsburgh, the Brighton Heights and Franklin Park neighborhoods held the highest percentages, with Shadyside not far behind.

According to Carr, areas that are “financially well-off ” are more likely to be ranked on the list.

“Those with discretionary income and freedom to travel are even more likely to stray [from their spouses],” Carr said in an email.

July 2, 2014 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

sites for news and information related to Pittsburgh from a different side, such as Chancellor Nordenberg’s visit to Korea,” Deutsch said.

He said that Asia as a place has a different definition to different people and that he believes American news does not accurately represent Asian culture. PennsylvAsia does have a comments feature but Deutsch said his goal is primarily to spread news and information.

“In addition to the prejudices that reduce Japanese [people] to perverts and Chinese [people] to conformist drones in our outlets, coverage is biased and attitudes are informed by old stereotypes that still show today,” Deutsch said.

Other Pitt and Oakland community members work to raise awareness about Asian culture.

The Carnegie Library in Oakland offers weekly language lessons in Chinese, Japanese and Korean. Pitt’s Asian Student Alliance meets during the academic year to promote

Asian culture by hosting speakers and advertising cultural events on campus.

ASA guests usually speak about their respective positions and careers as AsianAmericans. In the past they have discussed political issues including education, identity and political action. Past speakers include Norman Mineta, the secretary of transportation under President George W. Bush, and Curtis Chin, an award-winning author and AsianAmerican activist.

Ja-Way Wang, an ASA member, said speakers can often educate Pitt students on issues they wouldn’t hear about in class. Wang, a sophomore majoring in biology, said ASA typically invites prominent figures in the United States’ Asian community, such as politicians, journalists, authors, activists and celebrities.

Wang said select members from ASA attend the East Coast Asian American Student Union, a yearly conference where students from the Asian community congregate.

This year’s conference took place at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., in February.

Wang said attending the conference gives ASA members more tools to bring the traditions and ideas of the Asian community to Pitt.

Though Wang had not heard about PennsylvAsia in the past, he said he would look into using it in the future for news updates.

Deutsch also said he thinks it’s important to demonstrate the interesting connections found in Pittsburgh.

“One thing that maybe makes them seem interesting is how unexpected [the connections] may be in a city that’s traditionally got its immigrants from Europe,” Deutsch said.

“But with a few Asian bakeries, a bunch of free language classes, a large Asian film festival and a big and growing Asian population at the universities, we do pretty well for a mid-sized mid-Atlantic city.”

Read the rest online at Pittnews.com.

Contrasting with marital trends, Pittsburghers remain dedicated to their sports teams, according to ESPN. In 2008, ESPN named Steelers fans the best in the NFL and, in 2012, Forbes.com crowned Penguins fans the most “diehard.”

Josh Hinnebusch, a junior electrical engineering major and Pittsburgh sports fanboy, said the sporting events and teams in Pittsburgh are hard to miss.

“We have some of the most diehard fans, I think,” Hinnebusch said. “A lot of it can be attributed to past successes of the [teams] but it’s really cool that all of the teams have reached some sort of success in the past decade or so, which keeps people interested and helps to gain new fans.”

Chris “August” Guirguis, a junior neuroscience major and seven-year resident of Washington, D.C., before coming to Pittsburgh, said he noticed a big step up in sports

loyalty when he compared Washington, D.C., Nationals fans with Pittsburgh Pirates fans.

“The Nats are a big fad when you get to high school but you see people of all ages wearing Pirates gear [in Pittsburgh],” Guirguis said.

The Travel Channel also caught on to Pittsburgh natives’ love of their city and named it one of “Travel’s Best All-American Vacation” locations in 2014.

The list included destinations such as Black Hills, S.D., home to Mount Rushmore, Crater Lake National Park in Oregon, the Finger Lakes of New York and the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C. Because Guirguis has now lived in two of the Travel Channel’s best “All-American Vacation” locations, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C., he was able to provide insight on the differences between the two.

“Pittsburgh is very welcoming, whereas

D.C. is much more fast-paced and colder toward tourists,” Guirguis said. “[In Pittsburgh] you feel like the city is focused around the locals but there are still opportunities for the tourists to join in the fun and become a part of the community.”

Hinnebusch agreed that there is a lot to do on a Pittsburgh vacation, but didn’t think Pittsburgh holds up to the larger cities and historical sites on the list.

It’s viewed as a great travel spot but for residents of Pittsburgh, the air quality may be a problem.

According to the American Lung Association’s annual “State of the Air Assessment,” Pittsburgh was ranked No. 6 for annual particle pollution out of 277 metropolitan areas in 2014. This year, it was also ranked number 21 for high ozone days and No. 6 for 24-hour particle pollution.

Read the rest online at Pittnews.com.

July 2, 2014 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

EDITORIAL

OPINIONS

SCOTUS favors ʻcorporate rightsʼ over the individual

The Supreme Court decided in favor of the “rights” for a subset of the population over that of a much larger majority in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby on Monday.

The majority, in this case, are women and the subset of the population winning “rights” are corporations.

The latest interpretation of corporate personhood — the legal concept that asserts corporations be treated as “people” under the law — allows corporations to express their beliefs via company policy, even if it interferes with people who are much more mortal.

The court ruled 5-4 that for-profit employers with religious objections can opt out of providing contraception coverage under Obamacare.

“The purpose of extending rights to corporations is to protect the rights of people associated with the corporations, including shareholders, officers and employees,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority decision in the Hobby Lobby case.

Alito is referring to religious freedom and, by his logic, the religious beliefs of everyone “associated with the corporation” are uniform.

That is inherently untrue. Under various federal and state laws, businesses cannot discriminate against employees or potential employees based on religion. Considering our highly diverse nation, a large business consisting of people with only one type of religious affiliation is highly unlikely.

Nevertheless, the majority decision has the possibility to undermine the clarity of this very basic freedom our country’s workforce has become so accustomed to.

Alito emphasized that the ruling possesses a limited scope, writing that it only applies to “the religious liberty of the humans who own and control

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(corporations).” But it doesn’t — those who own and control corporations play a fairly large role in the lives of the private citizens who work under them, providing wages, healthcare and other essential benefits.

No, the interpretation of corporate personhood has many more implications that go well beyond the rights of business owners.

“The court’s expansive notion of corporate personhood,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in her dissenting opinion, “invites for-profit entities to seek religion-based exemptions from regulations they deem offensive to their faiths.”

Ginsburg questioned what the ruling would mean for worker health coverage under employers who could now potentially deny them a plethora of coverage for their own religiously grounded reasons.

“Would the exemption ... extend to employers with religiously grounded objections to blood transfusions ( Jehovah’s Witnesses); antidepressants (Scientologists) ... and vaccinations (Christian Scientists, among others)?”

Ginsburg wrote in her opinion.

The answer to Ginsburg’s question is, unfortunately, now a lot less straightforward.

The majority opinion’s interpretation of corporate personhood has the potential to redraw the line between the workplace and the home — it gives the employer more power to decide how the employee can handle his or her own health care. Not to mention, it implies that the corporation itself is just an extension of the owner’s own personal religious beliefs.

By imposing the beliefs of a few on the lives of many, the ruling in the Hobby Lobby case has shattered the privacy that has been so long associated with religious freedom.

COLUMN

Religious freedom and freedom from religion Natalie Russell Columnist

Imagine what the United States might look like if 35 million women didn’t use any form of birth control.

It would probably look something like Sub-Saharan Africa, where 1,006 women out of 100,000 die during childbirth. We would see disturbingly high rates of infant mortality, rampant poverty and significant public health deterioration.

This hypothetical dystopia could be expected if every Catholic woman in the country truly believed and practiced the religion’s official stance on contraception.

Why don’t we actually see this?

It is because nearly all women who identify as Catholic — including those who consider themselves “deeply religious” — don’t see contraception as contradictory to their beliefs — not to mention that 99 percent of all sexually active women, including Protestants, Catholics and Muslims, have used a contraception method other than family planning at least once in their lives Although stances on reproductive rights aren’t as clearly canonized in other religions practiced in the United States, organizations from a variety of faiths — like the American Life League, Pro-Life Action League and Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission — have condemned the use of contraception and abortion on the basis of their religious beliefs. But according to the statistics, there is no way that the majority of their faith’s followers are actually heeding this condemnation.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled, 5-4, on June 30 that for-profit companies with religious objections can avoid paying for contraception coverage required under Obamacare in a case brought forth by the Evangelical Christian leaders of Hobby Lobby, a national craft store chain, and the Mennonite owners of Conestoga Wood Specialties in Lancaster County, PA. Now, Hobby Lobby founder David Green can

impose a religious belief on his employees that many of his own fellow believers don’t practice.

The decision to grant Hobby Lobby and other closely held businesses their religious freedom is only a culmination of our subtler cultural reflexes to cater to organized religions that, quite frankly, don’t deserve it. As long as you promote sexism, violence, self-hatred and sexual repression under the banner of a god or some form of access to the unknown, you can expect little backlash in America.

My main criticism is aimed at those who have at least proven themselves capable of critical thinking: the ones who reject these immoral beliefs, like limiting reproductive rights for women while still identifying with the same faith as the people they disagree with.

Don’t get me wrong — I think it’s a major positive step when religious people have the courage to stand up to their leaders and defend what they believe is right. But why keep the title? Why continue to read the same texts, attend the same services and practice the same traditions that lend credibility to such bad ideas?

For example, active members of the Mormon church have recently formed an organization called Affirmation, which supports LGBT Mormons, families and friends.

It’s commendable that the organization offers support and community to this oftenostracized group but if these members pay their tithing — which is expected from all members age eight and older — they are indirectly paying for campaigns against LGBT rights, see: Proposition 8.

A common argument is that the extremists and violence-prone zealots are simply misinterpreting the inherent goodness of the religious text. To be fair, most religious texts are blatantly contradictory — there are several sections of religious texts that cannot be dismissed as a problem of inter-

Russell

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July 2, 2014 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

FROM PAGE 3

ishment to anyone who disagrees with it?

Of course, many religious people simply ignore or justify these more problematic passages but why identify with an entire religion when you only accept a portion of its tenets? When you call yourself a Christian or a Democrat or some other identification based on dogma, you not only discourage yourself from challenging views that don’t sit as well but you also empower those views — like the ones that have given the Hobby Lobby case “moral” clout.

Although I think all ideological identities should be approached with extreme caution, what makes a religious identity distinct from any other is that it claims infallibility. This is not to mention that

RUSSELL pretation, nor redeemed by God allegedly changing his mind a few chapters later.

For instance, how can the Quran’s “slay the idolaters wherever you find them” (9:5) be taken out of context? Was God being metaphorical when he condoned beating slaves to just before the point of death (Exodus 21:20-21)? What about the gratuitous descriptions of eternal damnationin the New Testament, where most apologists draw their favorite quotes from? Can we really take seriously the moral worth of a text that threatens violent, unending pun-

THE PITT NEWS

E S T A B L I S HE D 1 9 1 0

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the very nature of religious faith asks that you believe without reason — the very antithesis of law and order.

We sacrifice our intellect and autonomy for the sense of belonging to a certain culture, the peace of mind brought on by rituals and the comfort of being given answers that no one else has about life and death.

These benefits certainly are not trivial but if Hobby Lobby has taught us anything, it is that anyone honestly invested in morality has to ask themselves this question: Is it worth the risk of validating the beliefs and behaviors of the people who aren’t as willing or able to skip over the less palatable parts of the text?

Write to Natalie at ncr11@pitt.edu

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ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT Neko Case brings big voice, laughs to Byham Theater Shawn Cooke A&E Editor

Case proved to be genre-proof, moving through her varied catalogue with ease.

Nearly all conversations about Neko Case revolve around her voice — it’s a powerful, cutting weapon of an instrument.

After Monday night’s show at the Byham Theater, Case likely sparked several new conversations about her superhuman gift, as she confirmed to fans that, yes, it’s for real.

Still touring almost a year after the release of 2013’s excellent The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You, she’s hardly gotten a break and that’s not about to change — Case sets out on the road again with The New Pornographers after her current tour wraps up. Yet she rarely showed any signs of fatigue onstage, partly because mobility was limited to a roughly four-by-four-foot square at center stage.

Surrounded by her five-piece touring band, featuring an upright bass player, drummer, a half dozen guitars and a trombonist, Case anchored herself behind the mic for most of the night, letting her arms hang down next to her kooky skeleton-print pants. She didn’t have to move around much to get across that her entire physical being was in use for the big notes. But when she did step back from the mic on more uptempo numbers like “City Swan” and “Man,” Case danced around with reserved bursts of energy, cluing us in to the fact that she might not be interested in the whole “rockstar” thing.

She leaned heavily on material from The Worse Things Get Monday night but ultimately settled on a 50/50 split between the new and old. Watching Case jump between albums in a live setting reaffirms just how genre-proof her voice is. Even though she’s almost twang-free in 2014, Case can still revisit the steel guitar country western days of “Margaret Vs. Pauline” and “Hold On, Hold On” with aplomb. Few singers can so fluidly play chameleon between rock, folk, pop and country.

But a variety in genre doesn’t necessarily make for a variety in performance —

the show’s midsection sagged from time to time with midtempo tracks, such as “The Pharaohs” and “Night Still Comes,” which were almost always pleasing and true to the studio renditions but a bit too tame for the commanding voice at their center. With most of her tracks hovering around a three-minute length, the show sometimes found trouble attaining and keeping momentum.

Some of the more upbeat songs seized their quick, snappy runtime to give Case’s badass persona a tinge of danger. There’s a naturally sharp edge to her voice, so it was relieving when the live arrangements of “Bracing For Sunday” and her impassioned manifesto “Man” could match the aggression that’s begging to be liberated.

Another standout, “Nearly Midnight, Honolulu,” scaled things in the opposite direction for an a cappella duet with Case and her hilarious sidekick, Kelly Hogan. It’s a chilling cut from The Worse Things Get, recalling a true story from outside a Honolulu airport where Case overheard a mother yelling at her young child, “Get the f*ck away from me/ Why don’t you ever shut up?” Either some audience members hadn’t heard the backstory, hadn’t heard the song before or were simply charmed by the jarring profanity, because audible laughter could be heard all around my section despite the sobering subject matter.

It may have been difficult to distinguish the fun from the dead-serious throughout the show, given Case’s charming back-andforth exchanges with Hogan in between songs. Hogan’s singing voice can be just as big and assured as Case’s and she often took the wheel during stage banter, zipping through comedic bits about her grandmother’s fascination with Wine.com, introducing the band and assigning names to the guitars (Scratchy, Fuzzy, Jon Ben Jovi, Randy).

The pair behaves like a duo onstage, instead of a backup singer supporting a solo artist. Perhaps instead of “Neko Case & Her Boyfriends” or simply “Neko Case,” you get the sense that this current iteration should be known as “Neko Case & Her Best Friend.”

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July 2, 2014 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

TPN talks to Jeremy Ruzumna of Fitz and the Tantrums Shawn Cooke A&E Editor

It’d be tough to find a more successful year than Fitz and the Tantrums’ last 12 months.

Though some were thrown off by the band’s shift from Motown soul-pop to synth-heavy ‘80s revival, it brought an explosion in popularity and recognition. More Than Just A Dream peaked at No. 26 on the Billboard 200 and the hit single “The Walker” found its way into a commercial for the Oscars and the Hot 100 earlier this year.

The band returns to Pittsburgh for the fourth time in as many years this Sunday but on a significantly larger stage — Stage AE Outdoors.

The Pitt News talked to keyboardist Jeremy Ruzumna, a Grammy-nominated songwriter, about writing on an extensive touring schedule, producing with Macy Gray and being a pseudolead guitarist.

The Pitt News: As a band, you’ve avoided guitars for much of your career. In many tracks, the keys act as a stand-in for guitars and build the riffs, so does that give you an increased songwriting responsibility?

Jeremy Ruzumna: We all contribute and do all that we can but a lot of the sonic stuff goes to me. And also, keyboards on the record — Fitz played some keyboards, our producer played some keyboards. Keyboards, more than anything, define the aesthetic in the band because there are no guitars. For example, the first album was all about Fitz’s out-of-tune upright piano and giant old organ in his living room.

Those two keyboards defined the sound of the first record, whereas on this record, we decided to do whatever we want. We used everything

from old keyboards to laptops, synthesizers and everything in between. That, more than anything else, changed the sound and the feel of the record. Between me and James King, our sax player, we’re both sort of the lead guitar player.

TPN: Where did you personally start off before Fitz and how did you become part of the band?

JR: I played, wrote and recorded with Macy Gray for a long time, between the late ‘90s and early to mid 2000s. I’ve written with other artists, like Bruno Mars and Rod Stewart, so I had a whole thing before this band. Anybody knows that success in the music business comes in waves — I definitely realize that. You can be on top of the world for a few years, then you can not be on top of the world for a few years, then it comes back. That’s the thing about this band — it’s not overnight. We’ve been working for six years and we’ve been working really, really hard. I can say I’ve worked harder in this band than any other thing in my life. It feels more sweet, since I’ve been on both sides of the coin.

In terms of getting into this band, I was playing in a house band at this club in LA called Bardot and our drummer, John Wicks, was the drummer in that band. He played on some commercial recordings that Fitz had done. Then I joined the band but I initially had no idea that it was really going to reach like this. I just thought I’d have some gig doing commercial music for Fitz’s company. But it’s funny, because it turned into “Oh, can you do a week in a van?” and then two weeks here, two weeks there. And then we just all knew, as a band, that we were all putting 100 percent into it all the time.

Fitz

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July 2, 2014 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

ʻ22 Jump Streetʼ a rare sufficient comedy sequel

Hill and Tatum return for a similar, but hilarious adventure in ‘22.’ Photo Courtesy of MCT Campus

Mason Lazarcheff For The Pitt News

“22 Jump Street” Starring: Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum, Ice Cube Directed by: Phil Lord and Christopher Miller Grade: B “You boys are going to college.” Those were the last words we heard in the 2012 comedy film reboot of the serious ‘80s TV show “21 Jump Street.”

In “22 Jump Street,” Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill return for another hilarious adven-

ture as they go undercover as college students to find the source of a prominent new drug. Like in the first film, Jenko (Tatum) and Schmidt (Hill) go off on different paths to take down the drug suppliers with some bromantic fallout along the way.

Tatum proves once again that he has a funny side, with great one-liners and deliberate exaggeration, while Hill shines with a combination of humor seen in “Superbad” and “Get Him to the Greek,” providing strong responses to awkward situations and adept physical comedy to complement the well-written dialogue. Both play a huge role throughout the film but much of the credit is owed to writer-directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller.

One of the film’s major pitfalls is the repetition and over-extension of jokes, which be-

Jump Street

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FROM PAGE 6

FITZ

TPN: Did your prior production experience give you an elevated role in producing Fitz records?

JR: [With] some stuff ... there’s a song where I did a track in my house, turned it in, then that became a song. Our drummer, John Wicks, also had some production experience and he did a track. If anything, I think on this album I was allowed to — basically, the producer would give me the file for songs we were working on and I would take them to my home studio and just sit there for a few days, undisturbed by anybody

July 2, 2014 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

and just lay down a ton of keyboard parts before bringing them back to the studio. We’d sort through those and use some of them or a bunch of them on the album. So yeah, in that sense my production stuff came in handy because I was left to my own devices in some cases.

TPN: The band took a huge sonic shift from Picking Up The Pieces to More Than Just A Dream and probably expanded your fanbase to bigger than you could have imagined. Do you see yourselves exploring other time periods in music history or refining what you’ve already done?

JR: It’s sort of up in the air right now. We’re still riding the wave of this record. But the one

thing that’s consistent on both records, that we always try to do, is just to make sure we have really good, catchy songs — it’s just a matter of how you produce it. A good song is a good song, whether it’s just on an acoustic guitar in front of nobody or just with mega-production.

I don’t really think it was a conscious decision on the first record — I mean, it was sort of pegged as retro or Motown — but it’s just the way it happened. So it’s not that there’s a plan on the next record for exactly what the sound is going to be.

TPN: Since you guys are touring so much, does much of the songwriting process happen on the road or during breaks?

JR: It’s a combination. We’ve got hundreds of jams from soundcheck that we record on our iPhones — almost too much. When we were doing the second record, some of them, I think, came in handy and then, in a lot of cases, we just decided, “You know what, let’s just not sift through a bunch of stuff. Let’s just go.” One thing about this band and one thing about Fitz’s personality, which really influences the whole band, is it’s very much about going forward and just shooting first and asking questions later — just doing it. So with that in mind, the songwriting process tends to be just sifting through what we have, jam something out right now or come in with a track. That’s the thing about songwriting, too. You have to have that immediate spark or gratification, whether it’s a synthesizer sound, a drum track — something has to come immediately. That spark can be very fleeting, so when you’re sifting through recordings, it can get lost. Although sometimes you hear something and go, “Oh my god, what the hell was that thing we did two years ago in that one city that sounds amazing?”

FROM PAGE 7

JUMP STREET

comes clear in the opening sequence, which takes place on a loading dock where Hill pretends to be a Mexican drug dealer. He converses with the bad guys while trying to convince them that he isn’t a cop. Hill’s attempt goes on and on without a foreseeable end.

Later in the movie, Jenko joins a fraternity and the football team in tandem, since both groups share many of the same members. Jenko slides into the lifestyle of a football-playing frat boy with ease but soon realizes that his daily routine of working out and partying is trite and tiresome. Jenko proves to be a more notable character in the sequel as he, not Schmidt, is the one who is finding his place in a group.

That is not to suggest that Hill doesn’t keep up with Tatum, though. With the lack of strong dialogue for his character, Hill instead relies on visual gags. Most of his bigger moments were revealed in the trailer but some scenes, like a repeated morning-after “walk of shame” are satisfying showcases for Hill. Despite his status as the top-billed actor, it is hard to shake the feeling that he was relegated to the secondary lead this time around.

As a portrayal of the college experience, “22” proves to be a bit more wild and crazy than the reality of cracking the books and going to class.

As a sequel, it is just as out of the ordinary — a second installment that manages to be just as entertaining as its predecessor.

July 2, 2014 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

TRACK & FIELD

9

SPORTS

Spratling runs in a Pitt uniform for the last time Jasper Wilson Sports Editor

Brycen Spratling can’t stop running, not that he wants to.

The former Pitt sprinter and collegiate AllAmerican came in fourth in the 400 meters at the NCAA Outdoor Championships on June 13.

Over the weekend, he finished seventh in the same event at the USA Track and Field Outdoor Championships in Sacramento, Calif.

While this more recent competition involved professional runners as well as college athletes, Spratling says his approach both during the race and leading up to it didn’t change from racing in college.

“I look at every race the same way no matter who I’m racing against or what kind of meet it is,” Spratling said. “[I] just keep myself from getting overwhelmed by it.”

He’d been in Pittsburgh training with Pitt track and field coach Alonzo Webb in the in-

terim.

“To prepare, I just kept everything the same: couple normal weeks of practice. Pretty much kept my same routine to go out there and try to run fast,” he said.

From a starting field of 27 other runners, Spratling advanced from preliminary and semifinal heats to the eight-person finals where he ran a 45.90.

This year’s event — which occurred during an “off ” period in the calendar with no Olympics or World Championships qualification to offer — still held importance for runners, like Spratling, who are starting to make careers of the sport.

“It’s still important to perform at the biggest meets of the year. This is one of the biggest meets because it’s an off year. For me to go through to make it through all the rounds and get to the final was big for me and my career,” he said.

For his performance, Spratling received

$500. The person ahead of him received $750.

Winner Gil Roberts, a professional, finished 1.337 seconds ahead of the former Panther and received $7,000.

Webb and the other track and field coaches figured Spratling would compete in the event at the beginning of the year, unless he got hurt. There is a set qualifying time of 47.84 and Spratling beat it regularly this season. He also showed his capability when he competed in the same event last year, advancing to the semifinals before finishing just outside of the cut in 11th place.

“If you look at it, you see all these great athletes who are making a living at this, and the USA Championships is only eight lanes and Brycen had one of them,” Webb said. “That says a lot about his ability: from a collegian, being able to step right in and compete with the pros and hold his own.”

Spratling

He came in seventh at the USATF Cham-

10 pionships. Photo courtesy of Pitt Athletics

FEATURE

Recent graduates experience the beautiful game in Brazil Jasper Wilson Sports Editor

As he watched ESPN’s coverage of the World Cup last week from home, John Bates recalled what his life was like only a short time ago. The network’s aerial coverage of Rio de Janeiro showed Copacabana Beach, the iconic stretch of sand where the channel had its studios for the tournament.

“I was there like two weeks ago. Dave and I played soccer on that beach. Our apartment was a five minute walk from that beach,” Bates said he thought to himself with disbelief.

David Palm has been a friend of Bates’ since the two recent Pitt graduates both lived in Forbes Hall their freshman year. They realized two years ago that the 2014 World Cup would take place the summer they graduated but the discussion went no further.

Then, last fall, Palm — a chemistry, chemical engineering and history and philosophy of science major — studied abroad in Curtiba, Brazil, for a semester. His time there convinced him that attending the World Cup was doable.

David Palm and John Bates traveled to see the U.S. play. Photo courtesy of John Bates

Upon returning to campus this January, Palm convinced Bates to go to Brazil in 2014, despite the relative high cost of World Cup matches.

“The more I thought about it, the more I was like, ‘I really gotta do this because it’s gonna be a once in the lifetime sort of thing,’” Bates, a mechanical engineering and philosophy major, said.

Bates and Palm applied for tickets through the FIFA lottery and found out they received them a month later. They were lucky — more than 3.5 million ticket requests were made during that phase by half a million people and they only put in a request for one game: United States vs. Ghana on June 16 in Natal.

According to FIFA, Americans bought roughly 200,000 tickets — the most World

Cup tickets of any country besides the hosts.

Bates and Palm saw evidence of this throughout Brazil, where they spent about three weeks.

“It was really amazing to see. Every time we walked on the streets, we’d see someone wearing red, white and blue and you’d offer a friendly U-S-A chant to them and they’d respond.” Palm said.

While in Brazil, Palm served as the de facto tour guide since he knew Portuguese from his study abroad experience. Bates, who took Spanish in high school, could understand some of written Portuguese but was lost when people spoke it. Apart from soccer, the two saw some famous Brazilian attractions including the statue of Christ the Redeemer and Sugarloaf Mountain in Rio. Bates’ 23rd birthday fell on the day before the game. He and Palm attended a party for American fans hosted by the American Outlaws, the main group of United States supporters, in Natal. It was a good preview for the raucous atmosphere the next day, as groups

World Cup

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The Pitt News Crossword, 7/2/2014

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July 2, 2014 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com ACROSS 1 Makes wet 6 Second half of a record 11 “Alley __” 14 Praise mightily 15 Former “American Idol” judge Abdul 16 Depot: Abbr.

17 One-over-par score 18 Fun runs, often 20 Miffed state 21 The “I” in MIT: Abbr.

22 Target rival 23 1989 French Open winner Michael 25 Illinois city symbolizing mainstream America 26 Mobile phone system that introduced SMS texting 29 In the know 30 Dinghy pair 31 Spanish sun 34 1492 ship 35 Spot for a bracelet 37 Smokes, for short 38 “__ be an honor!”

39 Literature Nobelist Bellow 40 World-renowned 41 Film that requires special eyewear 44 Arrive on horseback 47 Of the ear 48 Suggestion box suggestions 49 Comfy and cozy 51 Tibetan priest 54 Youth organization with a clover emblem 56 Put on the tube 57 Inc. kin 58 Wear away slowly 59 Triangular river formation 60 Language ending 61 Knight mare?

62 Laundromat appliance

FROM PAGE 9

SPRATLING

7/14/14

By Jeff Stillman

DOWN 1 Belles at balls 2 Nerve cell transmitter 3 Potter’s stick?

4 Superabundance 5 Messy digs 6 Dish cleaner 7 Fleming and McKellen 8 Song for two 9 Yellowstone Park grazer 10 Carnival pitchmen 11 Tinseltown trophy 12 Cheri of “SNL” 13 Linguini or fettuccine 19 Wild way to run 21 Roadside shelter 24 __ of Reason 25 Seaside city 26 Twerp 27 Picturesque fabric 28 “Who __ that masked man?”

29 “Wheel of Fortune” buy 31 Likewise 32 S-shaped molding 33 It made Leary bleary

Saturday’s Puzzle Solved

(c)2014 Tribune Content Agency, LLC

35 Hypothetical time irregularity 36 Be contrite about 37 Cleveland NBA player 39 Tells to be quiet 40 Part of FWIW 41 Scotch tape target 42 Did some finger painting 43 Coffee holder 44 Hunting weapon

7/14/14

45 Objects of devotion 46 “Little __ Coupe”: Beach Boys hit 49 Gin fizz fruit 50 Naked 52 Apportion, with “out” 53 Hebrew winter month 55 Old PC monitor 56 Toss into the mix

On Saturday, Spratling will travel to Europe for two weeks for a trio of professional meets in Ireland, Belgium and Spain. He has an agent and is in the process of getting sponsored.

In August, he has a meet in Canada as a part of the U-23 United States Track and Field team in the 400 and the 4x400 relay.

Varying levels of sponsorship exist in the sport of track and field, creating a quasi-sense of the term “professional.” For example some “pros” receive performance clothes and footwear but no monetary compensation from a sponsor. Webb thinks the term isn’t exactly accurate. These runners might be competing at a high level but also need to work 40-hour weeks.

“Brycen, I think, is a little step above that.

He’ll get a shoe deal,” Webb said. “It might not be huge until he works his way up into that. But it’s also very competitive. There’s only gonna be eight lanes.”

Athletes with shoe contracts, or more monetarily beneficial contracts, receive five- or sixfigure salaries along with appearance fees and FROM PAGE 9

WORLD CUP of both Ghanaian and American fans paraded through the streets.

Both sets of fans knew what was at stake.

In the last two World Cups, Ghana beat the United States to end its chances of advancing. Winning or tying a team’s first game of the tournament also historically bodes well for a team’s performance the rest of the way.

Once inside the stadium, Bates and Palm took in the scene — players warmed up under the glow of floodlights and clusters of fans dotted the stands. Bates had never seen the national team play before. A professional game in Italy was his only previous professional soccer experience.

Bates and Palm were in for a shock. The United States kicked off and began to play forward toward where the friends were sitting, high up in a corner section, when suddenly, American forward and captain Clint Dempsey juked past a defender on the edge of the box and scored. Half a minute had passed from the first whistle — Bates and Palm witnessed the fifth-fastest goal in World Cup history.

It was so improbable, they figured there had to be a catch.

“There’s no way we scored this early. It’s gotta be offsides or there’s got to be a foul or

prize money from events, so the gap between the two ends of the pay scale is massive.

Webb said he believes Spratling will be able to maintain a career where he can focus just on running. To Webb’s knowledge, the 22-yearold, who majored in administration of justice, has no plans to do anything but.

“He has never mentioned anything about another job,” Webb said. “This is what he wants to do and good for him. This is what he wants to do and he’s gonna make it work.”

Spratling and classmate Carvin Nkanata have talked together about getting the latter type of deals and going pro for the past two years, since Nkanata transferred to Pitt from Iowa Central Community College.

“When I came to Pitt, that was the goal: to get better and to be able compete at the highest level. I’ve achieved that and I think having the chance to even get in those meets over in Europe shows that other people feel like I’m a high level right now and that I can compete with the best,” Spratling said. “To go over there means a lot to me. I’m just thankful for the opportunity to be able to do something like this, even though I’m done at Pitt, to just continue running.” something,” Bates said.

“We had to check the scoreboard when we looked back to the field of play to make sure they had actually counted a goal. It was that unbelievable,” Palm added.

There was more craziness in store for the fans. Ghana equalized in the 82nd minute after having controlled much of the game. Little time was left for the U.S. team to respond. But it did.

Substitute Graham Zusi lined up to take a corner kick at the far end of the stadium.

Everyone who was rooting for the Americans realized the importance of this set piece.

“We came to life at that point. We knew that we needed those three points. We needed another goal,” Palm said.

“Seven Nation Army” by The White Stripes began to echo around the stadium.

Zusi served the ball in and German-American defender John Anthony Brooks got his head to it, sending it bouncing off the ground and into the back of the net.

“I barely saw the celebration of our team because I was busy tackling everyone and cheering with all the American fans around, just going absolutely nuts.” Palm said.

The United States would hold on to win, 2-1.

“To be in that country, in that stadium and a game as big as that. To see it all unfold [was] one of the coolest days of my life, certainly,” Palm said.

July 2, 2014 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

North Oakland, Craig Street, Small 1 BR, Air Conditioning, Laundry, Great Location, $695+ electric, 412-271-5550 North Oakland, Craig Street. Safe, secure building. 1 bedroom, furnished.

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6 BR House. 3.5 Bath. Prime location, 300 block of Atwood Street, totally renovated. Available Aug. 15th. 412-414-9629.

House for Rent. Beautiful 3-BR house newly renovated-Allequippa Street. Close to Peterson Center & Pitt Dental School.

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Shadyside/Bloomfield, 2 bedroom, full bath, large living room, 2nd floor, carpeted, fullyequipped eat-in kitchen, coin laundry, rent $900, Call 412687-2661 or 412-4961014.

11

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July 2, 2014 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

Available August 1st.1 bedroom, large furnished 3rd-floor apartment. Near campus buslines. Large living room, kitchen and bath.

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Grad students preferred. $800+ gas & electric. CALL AFTER 2:00 PM. 808572-6699.

Looking for volunteer to coach basketball at Sacred Heart Elementary School in Shadyside. Clearances required.

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Personal, professional masseuse wanted. Permanent position.

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412-881-2948.