Volume 67 Issue 11

THE HIGHLANDER

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, RIVERSIDE

est. 1954

FOR THE WEEK OF TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2018

VOL. 67, ISSUE 11

WINTER ISSUE N E WS

“ASUCR discusses electronic voting, housing assistance for students” “CALPIRG begins “Affordable Textbook” campaign”

this week in OPINIONS:

pg. 4-6

“Facebook must change its course or lose all user trust” pg. 7 “Grappling with gun violence: an unclear prescription for a painful diagnosis” pg. 8 “The Blue Wave was real. Let’s examine the facts.” pg. 9

“What the left’s surge means for the Democrats in 2020” pg. 9

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NEWS 6

OPINIONS 9

FEATURES 12

RADAR 13

SPORTS 16

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HUMANS OF UCR

UPCOMING EVENTS: WEEK 10

GERMAN SALAS, PSYCHOLOGY, SECOND-YEAR

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Cookie Break 3:30pm to 4:30pm Rivera Library

Movie Screening - The Stanford Prison Experiment 6:00pm CHASS Interdisciplinary South, INTS 2132

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Wednesday

Therapy Fluffies 11:00am to 1:00pm Rivera & Orbach Libraries

FBI Information Session 12:00pm to 1:30pm HUB (Highlander Union Building), 355

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Public Service Career Fair 5:00pm to 7:00pm Alumni & Visitors Center

An Evening of Micro-Operas: A Workshop Performance 8:00pm to 9:30pm Arts Building, Performance Lab, ARTS 166

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Surprise Snack Giveaway Time TBD Rivera & Orbach Libraries

Ugly Holiday Sweater Party 2:00pm to 4:00pm Student Recreation Center (SRC), Classroom Kitchen

Show & Prove 2018 Hip Hop Studies Conference 5:00pm to 8:30pm UCR ARTS, Culver Center of the Arts

If You Give a Brain a Brownie...

3:00pm Orbach Library (Science Library)

R’Finals Study Jam 4:00pm to 8:00pm Orbach Library (Science Library)

Late Night Snacks 9:00pm Orbach Library (Science Library)

MESC’s Little Helpers 8:00am to 12:00am Orbach and Rivera Libraries

Chicken Soup for the Soul 2:00pm Orbach Library (Science Library)

Tuesday

COMPILED BY JIMMY LAI

Thursday

“I work at the Kearny Mesa Juvenile Detention Hall. Because of my

Friday

major, I want to be a child psychologist when I grow up. I think that in order to fix people, we need to help them when they are kids. Growing up they will take that drama and internalize it and end up doing crazy things. You know, people go and get dentist check ups all the time; they go to the doctors because they need to check their physical health.

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People need to check and evaluate their mental health just as much.”

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ASUCR

ASUCR discusses electronic voting, housing assistance for students

MICHELLE RAMIREZ Contributing Writer

The second to last ASUCR meeting of the quarter was held Wednesday, Nov. 28 in HUB 221 at 6:30 p.m. and focused on plans for next quarter including the election coming up which will be digital.

The Senate discussed moving from paper voting to digital voting. Digital voting is being offered as an incentive for students to go out and vote.

Concerns over the safety of online voting were addressed by ASUCR President Semi Cole who stated, “In years past, the ASUCR was criticized in terms of elections the vulnerability of information to information; online voting is a big thing.” He continued, “There’s basically a two-step process.

You log into your R’web or iLearn and you’ll have an app on your phone that can ensure a safety measure that protects your student data.” One of the attendees, UCR alumnus Kevin Dawson, a stated that before he had been one of the people that had advocated against voting online because there was no paper trail.

During the session CHASS Senator Julian Gonzalez, a third-year political science major, gave an update on the

Ozzi vending machines and stated that he is currently in search of other corporations that may also want to participate in providing free access for reusable food containers on campus.

Bees” campaign this quarter, but next quarter the group will focus on “the average college student in America [which] spends about $1,200 a year on textbooks and school supplies.”

THOMAS HOLGUIN / HIGHLANDER

During public forum Miguel Ramirez, third-year anthropology major and Chapter Chair of California Public Interest Research Group CALPIRG, spoke about his group’s plans for next quarter, which includes making textbook information more accessible. CALPIRG had been allocating its resources to the “Save the

During the meeting, Ramirez stated,“There’s two sides to this problem: one is the cost of the actual textbook, which is really expensive, and also it’s the fact that many faculty members are requiring students to buy access codes, which you have to buy – otherwise you won’t be able to have access to your homework, or your

quizzes.”

Dawson addressed the situation of 52,000 people that are homeless because of the fires that happened recently. He stated, “about 14,000 homes were lost in the Camp fire, 84 dead, 605 individuals still missing; there were 52,000 people displaced by this fire, that’s about twice the enrollment of our campus, that’s how many people are homeless.”

His solution to this was offering the north district on UCR’s campus, which includes 268 houses that have been vacant for about a year and a half; this solution would be viewed as temporary.

By offering this solution some people would not have to worry about being evicted from living in tents by Walmart.

Andy Plumley, assistant vice chancellor of auxiliary affairs and TAPS’ committee chair, addressed the UC’s Housing Assistance Initiative and spoke about the $3.3 million received to use as a continuous source of revenue through the increase of solar energy use.

According to Assistant Vice Chancellor there have been many students that are excited to help the environment through more solar energy.

The last ASUCR meeting of the quarter will be held Wednesday, Dec. 5 ■H in the senate chambers, HUB 221.

UCR School Of Public Policy seminar discusses new Science to Policy Program

PREETI JUTURU Contributing Writer

On Nov. 29, the UCR School of Public Policy (SPP) held a seminar titled “2018 Midterms: What Did Science Win and Lose at the Ballot Box.” The seminar was hosted by Susan Hackwood, director of the Science to Policy (S2P) program, a new program with the intention to get more STEM students involved with government affairs The seminar was also hosted by Doug Brown, the associate program director for S2P. “According to the election results, many strong advocates for science such as Rep. Barbara Comstock have been ousted from Congress, making it a ‘significant loss’,” stated Hackwood. “(The future is) tentative about science policy and how it may end up. We hope that our S2P program can help bring progress into the legislative realm,” she continued.

According to Hackwood, who was also the founding dean of the Bourns College of Engineering, S2P is “a brand new program with the goal to bring policy issues related to STEM to the forefront.” Brown stated that “the program trains students in the STEM disciplines to be involved with legislative processes and act as a liaison between scientists and policy makers.” Though the program is currently focused on helping graduate STEM and public policy students, Hackwood said “we hope

to offer potential opportunities to undergraduate students as well.”

According to Anil Deolalikar, the founding dean of SPP, “students see an importance in STEM policy, especially after seeing some pushbacks in D.C. Our S2P program will offer workshops, lectures, and seminars for students at UCR, and I believe that we should offer it to more than just graduate students.”

but also because it is highly student led,” he stated. “Scientists should be involved with politics, because science is political and should be political,” Sommerkorn said.

In regards to helping STEM students get a better grasp on tackling policy issues, S2P “(sends) students to a training program in Sacramento. The training is a fellowship, which acts as a

RYAN POON / HIGHLANDER

Hackwood emphasized why it is important to focus on science policy. “Just because you have facts, doesn’t mean people always listen to you. Our long term goal is to eventually be the ‘go to’ for local officials when they need information,” Hackwood continued.

Benjamin Sommerkorn, a fifthyear Ph.D. candidate in Mechanical Engineering, is a part of the S2P Student Advisors team. “The S2P program is unique because of its opportunities for STEM students,

distilled version of the prestigious AAAS fellowship and is brought to the campus,” stated Brown.

The fellowship program, known as the California Council on Science and Technology (CCST) Science Fellowship, aims to recruit STEM Ph.D. students. According to the CCST website, the program gives students the opportunity to “work as legislative staff within the State Senate or State Assembly.”

According to Brown, “In our trainings and in the program, we try

to convey STEM research through writing and develop communication skills. Tangible outcomes of the program include creating policy memos and op-eds submitted for publications.” Though the program is new, the alumni of S2P have already gotten involved in the public policy field. “Seventy-five percent of STEM students in the S2P program stay in public policy, and alumni end up getting jobs in government agencies, Washington D.C., and are even hired directly by the state legislature,” stated Brown.

Hackwood explained, “Currently we have students involved with the STEM Solutions in Public Policy Award Competition (SPPAC), formulating proposals relating to water problems, environmental DNA, and citrus agriculture. All three of these topics are what Riverside is known for, so their research is relevant.” According to the competition website, the STEM SPPAC recognizes proposals for new California state legislation from University of California graduate students in STEM fields. Winners receive a $750 research stipend and their ideas can potentially translate into concrete legislation.

More information on the S2P program can be found on the S2P website. “If students have ideas they wish to suggest, feel free to let us know because we are always open to expanding the program,” Sommerkorn said.

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NEWS

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2018

UCR researchers uncover new hacking methods to steal personal information

JAKEB TIVEY Staff Writer

This October, UCR computer science researchers successfully accomplished side channel GPU attacks using direct and cross computational stacks, or in layman’s terms, indirectly used computer graphics systems to attack multiple programs at once. Three experimental attacks demonstrated that computer graphics cards could be manipulated to steal victim information such as passwords, web history and even corporate cloud neural network structure.

The team was led by doctoral student Hoda Naghibijouybari, post-doctoral researcher Ajaya Neupane, computer science and engineering professor Nael Abu-Ghazaleh and Associate Professor of Computer science and Engineering Zhiyun Qian. In an interview with the Highlander, Abu-Ghazaleh explained the science behind this discovery, how research can be used to curb malicious attacks in the future and what UCR students can do to improve their own cybersecurity.

Presented at the ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security last October, the research paper titled “Rendered Insecure: GPU Side Channel Attacks are Practical” explains how graphics processors could be used to launch unconventionally complex attacks on users. Explaining the terms for nonspecialists, Abu-Ghazaleh stated that computational stacks are “software that is used by a certain type of program. To manage complexity, a lot of software systems consist of different ‘stacked’ layers, such as the operating system at the lowest level, libraries and run-time software, and then the application.”

The team used these layers in GPUs

to initiate side channel attacks which, as Abu-Ghazaleh explains, are indirect acquisitions of data. Abu-Ghazaleh explained, “To give you an analogy, prisoners in a prison are isolated and are not supposed to be able to talk to each other, but they may find that they can communicate by banging on pipes. In a computer … there are a lot of shared resources that are the equivalent of pipes.”

The team used these pipes to launch three attacks targeting different computer functions. Abu-Ghazaleh explained that the first attack was able to track web history because every “page has a set of objects (text boxes, images, other items) that have to be rendered on the screen. As the browser uses the GPU to render them, it asks for memory for each.” He added that “the attacker monitors the available memory on the GPU repeatedly” and since “each page has a unique layout and set of objects … [the] sequence can be used to identify the websites that the attacker is accessing (with the help of some machine learning magic).”

The other two attacks are similar, AbuGhazaleh said, with the second method tracking passwords by “observing the times of the allocations … when the user presses a key” before using “different inter-keystroke timing for different key pairs” to calculate likely combinations.

The final attack targeted cloud networks because GPUs give users performance counters to optimize their experience: “By observing the performance counters, the attacker observes the pattern of contention between itself and the victim, which discloses sensitive information about the victim application. In this case, we recover the structure of a neural network, often a sensitive secret of companies.”

Regarding whether or not user’s would

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MARTIN LOPEZ / HIGHLANDER

see these types of malicious attacks in the future, Abu-Ghazaleh says, “side channel attacks are a very hot research topic, but the attacks are sometimes complicated.

However, they are very difficult to defend against. This is why it is of large concern to computing system companies.” He goes on to say that big companies such as “Intel and Microsoft have a bug bounty program that pays several hundred thousand dollars for a newly discovered side channel vulnerability.”

Concerning if UCR students are at risk for malicious attacks, Abu-Ghazaleh says “the short answer is yes. Computer programs (and even hardware) are really complex systems ... offering attackers opportunities to compromise them.”

These compromises are often presented through “attacks such as phishing or social engineering when a user opens a malicious attachment or downloads an untrusted app can open the door to malicious software.”

Abu-Ghazaleh says students can keep their information secure by “keeping software updated; using strong passwords and changing them periodically; being careful about browsing to untrusted sites and learning to identify phishing attacks and malicious emails.” He affirms that “increasingly there are tools that help with some of these steps” and that by taking these steps students can do their part to improve personal and campus cybersecurity.

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UCR holds first annual Computational Neuroimaging and Neuroengineering Symposium

OBAID KHAN Contributing Writer

On Friday, Nov. 30, the first annual Computational Neuroimaging and Neuroengineering Symposium (CNNS) was hosted at the UCR Alumni and Visitors Center by Megan Peters, assistant professor of bioengineering. The event aimed to bring together computational neuroscientists, cognitive psychologists, bioengineers, electrical engineers and computer scientists to share their research and findings.

Peters stated, “The discovery of how our brains work to encode and process information, and the anatomical structures underlying these abilities, by definition requires constant input from all these diverse disciplines.”

JIMMY LAI / HIGHLANDER

The symposium featured various keynote speakers, including Chancellor’s Professor of Psychology from UC Berkeley Jack Gallant, Associate Professor of Cognitive Science from UC San Diego Angela Yu, and computational neuroscientist from UCSC Laurent Itti.

Gallant, the first keynote speaker of the symposium, began his speech proposing a solution to a common problem researchers face in the field of computational neuroscience.

He said, “I like to do naturalistic experiments because I want to build a model that describes how the brain operates under naturalistic conditions.

I am concerned that if I use simple conditions to build that model then the model won’t generalize and won’t predict responses under natural conditions. The

problem is that natural conditions are really complicated and scientists hate working under natural conditions because there are contaminating variables leading to error.”

Gallant approached this obstacle with a presentation on his current research, in which his lab team mapped semantics to specific regions of the brain to study how it represents different meanings of words.

He and his team collected data using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Gallant stated that “we spent a long time developing a machine learning algorithm that basically learns the relationship between the functional areas in the individual brains and the anatomy in the individual brains.”

Through his research, he and his team at UC Berkeley’s Gallant Lab hope to extend their knowledge on the way that the mammalian brain receives and processes external information.

Peters said in a statement to the Highlander that the fMRI techniques have potential implications in the area of exposure therapy. “If you have a phobia of spiders, the best way to treat that fear is by asking you to look at spiders, approach spiders, or even hold spiders.

But what if I could make you ‘look at’ those spiders unconsciously by making your brain unconsciously represent ‘spider patterns’? Maybe I could treat your phobia more effectively and it wouldn’t be so unpleasant for you. A real-time neurofeedback approach using neuroimaging (fMRI) might be able to do this.”

In a talking session held after Gallant’s presentation, Luis Colon-Perez, assistant researcher at the UC Irvine Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, revealed his study concerning changes in neural

connectivity in the brain due to aging by comparing results in young and old rats.

He also said, “as healthcare in United States increases, we are having a lot of older people that we did not have before and there are many social issues; societal issues like dementia and cognitive decline due to normal aging. In this collaboration, we wanted to study how normal aging is affecting brain activity.”

Lastly masters and Ph.D. students presented research in cognitive neuroscience at a poster session.

Interacting with students and faculty from different scientific disciplines allowed for a steady exchange of new ideas and knowledge.

Tamara Tang, a third-year bioengineering major, assisted Peters in reaching out to researchers from different universities interested in presenting at the symposium. Tang said in a statement to the Highlander, “It would be wonderful if we could get a different line-up of speakers from a broader range of universities to provide their own input and latest research on neurocomputational imaging, as well as more submissions from grad students and undergraduates who would want to present their research.”

The CNNS provided an opportunity for students and faculty to learn about the nature of neuroengineering. Peters provides advice to those interested in keeping up with the trends in research, saying, “Follow professors who run exciting labs on Twitter. A lot of interesting discoveries are also posted on bioRxiv before they are published in peerreviewed journals, so that’s also a way to keep up with the cutting edge of these fields.They’re all very exciting, and every technique is constantly being refined and improved.”

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TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2018

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CALPIRG begins “Affordable Textbook” campaign

MARTIN LOPEZ / HIGHLANDER

ESTELA GONZALEZ Contributing Writer

On Thursday, Nov. 29, The California Public Interest Research Group (CALPIRG) at UCR launched their Affordable Textbooks Campaign. The campaign calls for increased affordability and accessibility of course materials.

According to Noe Torres, campaign coordinator for affordable textbooks, “the price of textbooks is increasing at three times the rate of inflation. On average, students spend $1,200 a year and about 65 percent of students report skipping out on buying textbooks simply because they’re too expensive.”

With the implementation of access codes, which give temporary access to course materials to those who purchase them, CALPIRG states that the affordability issue is growing. Torres continued, “access codes are essentially pay walls between students and their required quizzes, homeworks – they’re sold along with textbooks which not only make it more difficult for students to find cheaper alternative versions, but it also makes it more difficult when it comes time to resell those books and try to make some money back off of what you paid on them.”

On Thursday, Nov. 29, CALPIRG tabled to bring awareness to the Affordable Textbooks Campaign.

Torres states, “we spoke to over 40 students about their experiences with the high cost of textbooks and how it’s difficult for them in order to get the student narrative on what’s going on – just for the sake of not only spreading the word to the campus but to our students, our faculty, and just raising awareness overall.”

Miguel Ramirez, Chapter Chair of CALPIRG, states that the solution is implementing Open Educational Resources (OER), which are resources that are peer reviewed and written by “some of

the best faculty members in some of the best universities in the nation.” OERs do not only consist of textbooks, but include a platform for quizzes, homework assignments and tests, and are customizable to professors and their course requirements. Since OERs are published under open licenses, they are free. Ramirez states, “basically everything an access code offers is also offered through Open Educational Resources.”

Torres describes CALPIRG’s involvement with professors and faculty members stating that, “we know that this is an issue that they deeply care about. A lot of the professors express the difficulty they face when they have to buy their textbooks, so they can relate to a lot of the students and experiences that they’re (the students) going through.”

An ongoing issue is that of food insecurity.

Ramirez explains that professors are very aware of the food insecurity problem at UCR, stating, “62.5 percent of UCR students are food insecure, and professors have done a lot to make their course materials cheaper, and that’s why I think that this is such a great campaign because we have the support of a lot of faculty members that understand the problem and are already actively doing something to address it.”

Ramirez adds that faculty support is important to the campaign, stating, “we know that if it is just a bunch of students fighting against publishing companies, we might not be very suc cessful” and further describes how campaign success relies on the professors decisions to implement OER’s instead of “expensiv e textbooks with expensive access codes.”

To r r e s s a i d t h a t a n o b s t a c l e t h a t they face is that, without textbooks and access codes, professors oftentimes feel as if they are unable to access high quality versions of the materials that they need o r t h a t O E R ’s w i l l h i n d e r t h e i r e s t a b l i s h e d c u r r i c u l u m . H o w e v e r, To r r e s c l a i m s t h a t w i t h s u ff i c i e n t grant funding, professors would receive aid to do everything from

self publishing to accessing better materials for their classrooms.

He states that “the grants provide just a way to make it more easy to t r a n s i t i o n t o O E R ’s . ” To r r e s c r e d i t s t h e A ff o r d a b l e Course Materials Initiative ( A C M I ) o rg a n i z e d b y t h e l i b r a r y, which “provides professors and students themselves with the information they need to implement a n d u s e t h e s e r e s o u r c e s . I t ’s w h a t we’re trying to connect professors and faculty with.”

“One thing I want to highlight,” To r r e s s a i d , “ ( i s t h a t ) t h e e n d g o a l o f o u r c a m p a i g n i s n ’t j u s t t o m a k e t e x t b o o k s m o r e a ff o r d a b l e , i t ’s m o r e t o m a k e c o l l e g e m o r e accessible and available to e v e r y b o d y.

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MARTIN LOPEZ / HIGHLANDER

OPINIONS

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OPINIONS

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2018

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HIGHLANDER EDITORIAL

Facebook must change its course or lose all user trust

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n this year alone, Facebook has not been able to catch a break. 2018 has brought allegations of data mismanagement, security breaches and cooptation in hate speech aimed at the social media giant. As Facebook gains increasing power and influence, its response to this storm of serious allegations has been both lackluster and alarming. Rescuing its image and trustworthiness in the public eye requires an honest review of the company’s shortcomings and responsibilities.

In February, it came to public knowledge that thirteen Russians and three companies were indicted for using Facebook to steal the identities of American citizens and pose as political activists in order to spread pro-Trump advertisements throughout the website. In their messages, they zeroed in specifically on the cleavages in American politics today, including religion, immigration and race, hoping to contribute to the tension of the current political climate and further the division across ideologies.

In addition to posting these ads, the Russians even created Facebook groups in order to ensure that their messages would be seen and perhaps mobilize people who held similar beliefs. Facebook was caught at the center of all this, mainly because Facebook and Instagram (which is owned by Facebook) were the primary means of spreading these messages. Both Facebook and Instagram were mentioned a total of 41 times in a 37-page indictment detailing how Russians attempted to manipulate the outcome of the 2016 election.

After the story of the indictment broke, speculation started as to why the world’s biggest social media company didn’t catch the Russian activity, or if they did, why they didn’t attempt to stop it, in addition to questions about Facebook’s ability to effectively reducing these kinds of interferences.

Rob Goldman, Facebook’s vice president of advertisement, issued a series of tweets that conceded that Russia did try to incite division in America by exploiting its institutions of free speech, but asserted that their goal was not to sway the election in any direction.

Just a month after Special Counsel Robert Mueller charged the Russians and firms with election meddling, the infamous Cambridge Analytica story broke. Cambridge Analytica, a political data firm, was hired by Trump’s 2016 election campaign and used to gain access to the personal information of more than 50 million Facebook users.

After having acquired information including people’s friend networks,

their “likes” and identities, Cambridge Analytica was tasked with analyzing the behavior of the accounts to inform targeted messaging and advertising for both the Trump campaign and external actors. Dr. Aleksandr Kogan, a Russian-American psychology professor at Cambridge University, developed this data-harvesting technology through an app that surveyed users. Through this app, he provided the information for the 50 million profiles, but only about 270,000 of these 50 million users consented to having their data used, and the ones that consented were told the information was being used for academic purposes.

In addition to the misinforming Cambridge Analytica its users, the firm has also been largely funded

by Robert Mercer, a wealthy right-wing donor, and Stephen K. Bannon, the former advisor to president Donald Trump. Amid all this, Facebook insisted that this was not a data breach. In a statement given by Paul Grewal, the Vice President and Deputy General Counsel at Facebook, researchers are commonly granted access to user data for academic purposes, and the users consent to this when they create an account. However, Facebook prohibits this acquired data to be sold or transferred “to any ad network, data broker, or other advertising or monetizationrelated service,” and that’s what Dr. Kogan did when he relayed all the information he collected to Cambridge Analytica.

The outcome of the Cambridge Analytica scandal ultimately resulted in the company shutting down completely, and the data that was collected is now supposedly scrapped. Facebook responded to the scandal by claiming they hired a digital forensics firm “to determine the accuracy of the claims that the Facebook data in question still exists.” However, it’s been over half a year since the story broke, and though Facebook has banned the personality quiz that was gathering all the data without proper consent, they also haven’t provided a clear update on whether or not the harvested information has truly been properly disposed of. It also already might be too late to try and do damage control – millions of Facebook users still had their identities shared unknowingly.

Having just barely recovered from this fallout, Facebook emerged in the news cycle again just three months ago, stating that a cyber attack on their site had compromised the personal information of nearly 50 million users, the largest security breach in the company’s 14-year history.

Contrary to their previous denial of Cambridge Analytica’s information harvesting qualifying

as a breach in security, Facebook is now actually facing an unidentified threat to the information of their users’ accounts, such as their name, sex and hometown. As of today, company officials still don’t know the origins of the attackers, nor do they know if there was a specific target in this breach.

Facebook is not only facing staggering amounts of criticism aimed at their inability to locate and prevent security breaches from occurring, but they’re also facing difficulties with how their platform is used: just last year, Facebook’s live video feature broadcasted a man in Thailand murdering his daughter, and the website also was once a marketplace for guns up until 2016, when they banned sales following the realization that guns could be bought without having to undergo background checks or registrations. In a recent statement from Facebook, a spokesman acknowledged Facebook’s delayed efforts to combat “bad actors” within their online community.

The question of whether or not Facebook will follow through with their wishes to create a better social environment however, is doubtful due given continuing trends we’ve seen with Facebook – not addressing any of its own faults until it they come to public attention.

With a social media platform as big as Facebook (2.2 billion active users and counting), it’s hard to say that moderating the content that gets posted will be a quick and easy effort. However, with the growing distrust between the consumer and Facebook given the past year surrounding the nowpublic awareness that personal information may have been sold without users’ consent, attempting to reform their site to be more efficient at blocking cyber attacks is the first step Facebook should take in cleaning up the mess .

First, it’s important to note that there are many places in the world that are more susceptible to the propaganda that ends up on Facebook. In places with limited to no free press, people rely on whatever network available they have to access their news. This is currently playing out right now in Myanmar: an ethnic cleansing is happening to this day against Rohingya Muslims, and members of the dominant Burmese military are using Facebook as a tool of mobilization against the religious minority group.

After long delays, Facebook has ultimately been successful in taking down the official accounts of senior Burmese military leaders, but a large chunk of the propaganda campaign against Muslims still remains untouched.

We’ve witnessed something

“WE SHOULDN’T HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL ANTITRUST LAWSUITS GET FILED BY THE GOVERNMENT IN ORDER TO REALIZE THAT FACEBOOK NEEDS TO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE AMOUNT OF SLIP-UPS THEY’VE FACED – FROM INFORMATION LEAKING TO ATTEMPTING TO DOWNPLAY THE SERIOUSNESS OF SEVERAL BREACHES.”

similar in the past: an area of limited proper press coverage that makes people more vulnerable to believing whatever information they can get their hands on. The radio was an essential tool to mobilizing support in the Rwandan genocide of the Tutsi population, fostered by the Hutus out of anxiety that Tutsis would gain governmental power and establish discrimination against the Hutu.

Given the ubiquity of Facebook, it has shown a troubling capacity to amplify these threats when it is insufficiently moderated.

Facebook is most definitely not the sole cause of this violence.

Ethnic conflicts have largely defined the country long before Facebook came around, and there have been ways people targeted mass killings of a certain group without the use of the website.

What is undeniable is that the platform has served as powerful fuel to a long-burning flame.

In addition, because Facebook generates most of their revenue from advertising, it seems they are essentially profiting off of hate speech and propaganda.

Contrary to the company’s own narrative of providing a platform for free speech, Facebook often exercises its ability to censor content when deemed necessary.

However, such efforts to censor hate speech have been met with increasing controversy. Civil rights groups have expressed their anger at Facebook for taking down their posts detailing the stories of minorities being called racial slurs.

At the same time, this particular effort Facebook took in trying to create a more moderated public forum seemed lackluster on their part, as moderators have claimed to struggle between deciphering when a slur was being used as an derogatory attack or when it was being used in an anecdote about someone’s experience with racism.

Facebook’s late reactions in capturing and removing things like hate speech and propaganda don’t necessarily pose as a threat to countries such as the U.S. and those in Western Europe because most people won’t easily be manipulated by an ad on Facebook. This sense of rationality amongst most citizens stems from our access to free press and other resources.

Facebook should also become more aware of the influence they have in such countries where people are more prone to falling for the propaganda ads on their site.

This also brings up the question of whether or not Facebook even checks the ads before publishing them.

Facebook does formally require approval from their site on ads to make sure paid content lines up with their guidelines, allotting about a 24-hour waiting period while the ad gets reviewed.

However, individual posts and status updates aren’t easily as regulated unless they get reported or violate primary community guidelines. This insufficient effort shows a definite disconnect in the supposed regulations they have and the mounting ignorance Facebook is starting to show in the increasing hate speech being posted on its platform.

With all the bad publicity it is catching, Facebook has gone on the offensive, trying to deflect accountability and lobbying to limit the kinds of questions Sheryl

Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook, would have to answer in hearings. Facebook successfully managed to ensure that Sandberg would not have to address questions facing pressing topics such as Cambridge Analytica and censorship issues.

The dodge-and-weave method being employed by Facebook right now is possibly out of their knowledge that to install stricter methods of regulations will be not only extremely complicated, but also more expensive with the risk of failing to achieve the goals of a more moderated public forum.

In terms of Facebook itself becoming a threat due to the magnitude of personal information it carries, we’ve witnessed firsthand the way it became abused and equipped against us. In light of all these scandals surrounding Facebook, calling on them to create an environment of more transparency between its users is a must. When Facebook sought to try and turn the anger toward rival companies, it was a relatively unwise move, seeing as Facebook certainly displays monopolistic tendencies and therefore does not have many competitors, buying companies that had the potential to rival their company, such as WhatsApp and Instagram.

Microsoft faced an antitrust case in 2001 in which the lawsuit itself was centered around monopolistic behavior, something that Facebook has displayed in the past, but it’s only a portion of the issues Facebook is currently dealing with. United States v. Microsoft Corporation is worth noting for its settlement, which mirrors a possible resolution for Facebook in terms of trying to no longer keep its users in the dark about how their information is being handled: Microsoft was required to “share its application programming services with third-party companies and appoint a panel of three people who would have full access to Microsoft’s systems, records, and source code…” With the amount of distrust between Facebook and its users, publishing their ad revenue data and similar records isn’t too far-fetched of a first step.

Facebook’s dominance in the public domain, particularly in terms of data information and accessibility to billions, is an existential threat that has become “too big to fail.” Furthemore, as time passes and updates in technology continue to introduce themselves, questions about the security of our data and networks risk becoming even more serious.

We shouldn’t have to wait until antitrust lawsuits get filed by the government in order to realize that Facebook needs to be held accountable for the amount of slip-ups they’ve faced – from information leaking to attempting to downplay the seriousness of several breaches. Facebook finds itself at a crossroads, with the choice between transparency, accountability and security on the one hand, and business as usual on the other. The company needs to reform if it is to regain the trust and H respect of its billions of users. ■ Highlander editorials reflect the majority view of the Highlander Editorial Board. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Associated Students of UCR or the University of California system.

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TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2018

HIGHLANDER // highlandernews.org/opinions

OPINION POLL Compiled by Thomas Holguin Staff Photographer

“Do you use Facebook? Why or why not?”

Rubee Moreno Undeclared First-year

Rania Salem Ethnic Studies First-Year

Joseph redenius Engineering Graduate Student

Christian Mancilla Business Second-year

Nathaniel Liganor Biology First-year

Bradley pham CMDB First-year

“I only made a Facebook because my mom told me to.”

“I made a facebook in like the seventh grade because that was the thing to do. Now I only use it to hype up my aunties.”

“Sometimes I use Facebook.”

“I like to connect to my family and they are very old school.”

“I started using facebook this summer to find my roommate actually! I also use it occasionally to update myself on the clubs here.”

“I use it just for memes and club opportunities.”

Mass shootings in America

An unclear prescription for a painful diagnosis

AIDAN RUTTEN Senior Staff Writer

A man with a history of unchecked mental instability, an unassuming facade, hyperbolized aggression toward an unjust world and, of course, a gun, walks into a crowd and kills 13 people.

This narrative is so common today that it might be hard to discern who is being described. In fact, I am describing Howard Unruh, sometimes credited as the first mass murderer in American history. This man was a veteran with an unusual morbid curiosity who kept detailed notes on his killings during World War II, and came home only to find a place where he felt he did not belong. His isolation fostered the growth of his increasingly disconnected paranoia, and eventually his decision to pull the trigger.

Echoes of Unruh are easily seen in one of this country’s latest mass shootings, perpetrated by Ian David Long. At this point not much is known about Long, the man who killed those at the Borderline Grill in Thousand Oaks on Nov. 7, but we do know that he was a veteran living at home with his mother, in a purportedly contentious environment.

Anger, paranoia and isolation defined this man, much like other notable mass shooters in recent history such as Cho, Holmes, Lanza, Craig, Cruz and now Long. When reviewing the psychological conditions of mass shooters in recent history, it becomes clear that there were, and are, always warning signs. But there is no line between some relatively normal, quiet ‘weirdo’ having a bad day and some other relatively normal, quiet ‘weirdo’ plotting to murder as many people as he can. Since virtually everyone not only experiences sadness, anger and resentment to some degree in their lives but also expresses those feelings in different ways and to varying degrees, prevention through awareness cannot feasibly separate potential shooters from those experiencing a bad day.

This fact renders this approach to gun violence prevention unrealistic, if not obsolete.

I cannot deny the complexity of the human mind, and therefore neither can I deny the nuance and intricacy of every mass murderer’s intent. The similarities between so many of these mass shooters are so striking that mere coincidence exceeds reasonable doubt, but each case is different. If we can rule out identifying psychological warning signs as the best course of action in terms of policy, then another solution must be found.

In Unruh’s case, it took approximately 50 bewildered police officers surrounding his apartment complex and an intense shootout to finally down the assailant and haul

DATA FROM VOX

him in. At this time in history, there was no protocol for a mass shooting.

Since then, in the wake of cases like Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora and Sandy Hook, active shooter drills are the norm. Riverside Public Safety Agencies held one session recently for the community. So it stands to reason, and many would argue, that preparedness might be the key to solving the mass shooter issue.

If that is truly the case, then the most well-trained, well-armed individuals or groups should always overcome their poorly-trained, poorly-armed enemies.

Yet an armed guard who was a deputy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas, an armed guard who was a police officer at the Pulse nightclub, an armed sheriff at Borderline and even dozens of policemen in Unruh’s case did not, and frankly could not, prevent the deaths.

Even special forces operatives die in combat, and in those cases they are anticipating gunfire. The spontaneity of these mass shootings combined with adrenaline and natural human fear in chaotic situations creates a problem that cannot effectively be anticipated, only reacted to.

In my view, no amount of preparedness can prevent a violent gunman all of the time, let alone a satisfactory percent of the time, whatever that may be to people. The

argument that if more people were trained and armed then more people would be able to respond to these situations by shooting back makes little sense, as empirical evidence suggests armed response has been ineffective in most of the mass shooting cases of the last few decades. Moreover, it is hard to rationalize that having bigger shootouts with more people, more guns and more bullets flying around is a truly effective solution.

Adopting the ‘red flag’ approach, which could potentially catalyze beneficial mental health policy, more often serves to further stigmatize mental illness, and in the Thousand Oaks case, veterans as well. Long was not even diagnosed with PTSD, yet his veteran status and mental health are some of the first things discussed in the media.

There are many common anti-gun statistics I could bring up, such as the gun death rate in America compared to all other industrialized countries or the dramatic effect that banning guns had in Australia. But I would rather ask, if one were unable to find a gun at any store in the country, would that not at least reduce the rate of mass shootings or even gun violence as a whole? The common argument against this is that laws do not prevent criminals from committing crimes, and that these

people would obtain firearms some other way. But how? Black markets are a common answer, but those are hard to access and weapons sold there are more expensive by orders of magnitude than over-the-counter guns.

Moreover, black markets generally do not have a broad circle of trust, and it is incredibly hard to see a college student like Holmes, an American Marine Corps veteran like Long, or a socially alienated and troubled teen like Klebold browsing the black market and spending a few thousand bucks on a rifle to shoot up a high school or a movie theater. The same logic applies to connecting to black markets through the ‘dark web,’ where it is equally as difficult to see Nicholas Cruz contacting terrorists about how killing a few teens in Parkland, Fl. will really drive their point home while also being a constructive outlet for Cruz’s anger at his perceived injustices.

Guns are meant to be dangerous.

Military grade assault weaponry is designed specifically to kill and to do so efficiently. I am not in favor of banning all guns; I recognize hunting as a legitimate profession and sport, as well as target shooting and guncollecting. But restricting access to certain types of guns like assault rifles should at least be tried before being ruled out.

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OPINIONS

HIGHLANDER // highlandernews.org/opinions

SAMIR AL-ALAMI Contributing Writer

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2018

The Blue Wave was real.

Let’s examine the facts.

As far as I know, Midterm 2018 election night might not be remembered by many people due to the pace of the news cycle, but I remember it all too well. The early results were in, and they were not looking great. The Democratic Party could not flip a long-coveted seat in Kentucky-06, the infamous needle kept swinging to eventually become a 1 in 2 chance, and it looked likely that we were on the verge of allowing a Republican Senate to hold on, and even expand. But, as results kept coming in, the results kept getting better, contrary to the media, the punditry and people so rash to make a fast hot-take for the most clicks. Evidence clearly shows that this past election was in fact, yet another wave election, with more in common to 2010 and 2006, than a year like 2002 or 1998.

The first elephant in the room to discuss is that the Democratic Party picked up north of 40 seats on the Federal level. That in itself is not an insignificant number, if we take a long look at the historical trend lines and data points that can connect us to this historic achievement.

Firstly, the last midterm election for the Democratic Party with “wave” results was in 2006, fully 12 years ago, and that itself was considered a wave because they only picked up a comparatively anemic 29 seats.

In fact, according to the data,

this is the highest pickup total since 1974, the midterm after the largest modern political scandal in American history, Watergate.

Another point detractors tend to make to counter the assertion of a wave is that the Democratic Party lost ground, rather than making ground, in the U.S. Senate. That claim, while true, does not look at how historically bad this map was for the Democrats. According to the data journalist Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight, this was the single worst U.S. Senate map for the opposition party since direct elections were allotted by the 18th Amendment. Another thing that makes this claim difficult to assert is that, while four incumbent senators from the opposing party did lose, Democrats did elect two new Senators, including Kyrsten Sinema, the first Democrat from Arizona in over 30 years, as well as Jacky Rosen by a sixpoint margin in the swing state of Nevada. This indicates that it was not quite the blowout loss the punditry attempted to make it out to be.

Another important note, the Democrats had to defend ten seats in states the President carried two years earlier, and what was even more unique was that in five of them (North Dakota, West Virginia, Missouri, Montana and Indiana), the President won by more than 15 points. And yet, in West Virginia, for example, incumbent senator Joe Manchin’s election ran 45 points ahead of the last Democrat to run statewide two

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COURTESY OF THE WHITE HOUSE

years ago, resulting in a 3.2% victory. In addition, 27 of the 33 democratic candidates up for re-election in the Senate outperformed polling website FiveThirtyEight’s partisan lean trackings, an impressive achievement in itself.

A final counterpoint to lay to rest the punditry. It is true that the Democrats did end up losing in Texas, Georgia and Florida.

But we have to understand that the fact these states were competitive in the first place is an impressive achievement.

Take the Democratic posterboy,

Beto O’Rourke, a otherwise little-known El-Paso area congressman taking on incumbent Senate titan Ted Cruz.

He actually overperformed the polls, and accumulated a total of nearly 4.1 million votes, the highest for a Democrat in the history of the state, including presidential elections. And in the case of Florida, we must understand that the state, while a swing state, had a superior turnout operation in rural areas

by Republicans, in addition to a myriad of other factors, such as delayed or ineffectual outreach

on behalf of Senator Bill Nelson to Hispanic voters.

This election, by any objective standard, was indeed a wave, and a historic one indeed.

Instead of trying to assert the fastest hot-take, maybe we can all be wiser by instead taking a closer look at the data and having a more sobered, nuanced outlook. An outlook that understands that maybe the election night punditry and rush to the fastest hot-take might obscure, rather than make clear what kind of America we all woke up to.

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What the left’s surge means for the Democrats in 2020

ARCHIVE / HIGHLANDER

ROBERT GOLD Contributing Writer

Rumors have been floating quite a few Democratic National Committee (DNC) names around for the 2020 presidential elections, generating a significant level of buzz.

The list of 2020 presidential hopefuls shows that there are two wings of the Democrats still battling for supremacy of the party. Kamala Harris and Corey Booker, lead the way for the continuation of Democratic politics by the center-right Clintonites, while Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren define the far-left faction of the

Democratic party, which seeks to socialize healthcare, reform higher education and promote clean energy.

And then of course there are always going to be a few oddballs in the mix, whose lack of interest in running in the 2020 election does not seem to deter a media determined to speculate about celebrities like Joe Kennedy and Joe Biden.

2020 presidential hopefuls like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren show a significant rise in the power shifts of the DNC – from the old guard Clintonite Democrats of the center-right to the far-left democratic socialists whose Occupy Wall Street philosophies might just

take the DNC by storm in 2020.

New Jersey Sen. Corey Booker has co-written a handful of economic bills with Republicans to incentivize growth in black communities, which follows the center-right Clintonism that has for long marked the mainstream Democratic party. Recently elected California Sen. Kamala Harris, another Clintonite, has clashed with the more left-wing elements of her party. As two center-right moderate Democrats, many are speculating a BookerHarris joint ticket in 2020.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (DMA), considered to be to the left of the left wing of the Democratic party, has, on multiple occasions, said, “it’s time to leave Clintonism behind.”

She has been leading the socialist insurgency from within the party for years. Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-V.T), recently sat down for a CNN interview with Al Sharpton and summarized his democratic socialist political platform by stating, “Unemployment today is reasonably low. That’s good.

But there are tens of millions of workers today who cannot afford to take care of their families on nine, 10, 11 bucks an hour. 30 million people have no health insurance. People who can’t afford prescription drugs. People all over this country are looking at their kids and see their kids will have a lower standard of living than they did. People are worried about the potential horrors of climate change and what it will mean to this planet.”

There are three types of policy platforms which distinguish a

Clintonite from a Sandersist; foreign policy, economics and social issues. A Clintonite pursues a neo-conservative foreign policy agenda, while the Sanderists are incredibly non-interventionist.

Economically, Clintonites are moderate and center-right, supporting tax cuts for economic growth but are open to the idea of socialized healthcare, while the Sandersists want to implement social programs across the board mirroring that of Western Europe. Finally, the Clintonites have not always been socially progressive, appealing to the more independent voters and conservative Democrats, but the Sandersists have always been socially progressive, even before it was cool.

But then there are those lion personalities. Those larger-thanlife immortal superstars whose platforms don’t fall into either camp; unconventional mavericks who don’t align with the centerright or the far-left. Joe Kennedy is a 37-year-old representative of America’s most prominent political dynasty who has been making a name for himself in the House as a proponent of transgender rights and singlepayer healthcare, plus he speaks fluent Spanish. If Joe Biden, the former Vice President, were to run in 2020, this would be Biden’s third time running in a presidential election, as he previously ran in 1988 and 2008.

But Kennedy and Biden are nothing but political superstars, whose talk of candidacy is more theater than anything else as these people don’t legitimately

intend to run. But every election season we have men like these coming out of the woodwork left and right. Before Donald Trump actually ran for president in 2016, he was a candidate much in this vein. As a notorious real estate mogul he publicly toiled with the idea of running four times between 1988 and 2012, captivating media attention.

The Democratic Party chose the center-right candidate in the last presidential election, a moderate business-as-usual Democrat over the self-declared democratic socialist. The heart of the DNC shows that some of the younger representatives being elected like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez lean heavy into the Bernie Sanders camp.

In addition to the newer Democrats eclipsing the old guard Democrats in the Senate, another from the Sanders camp, Keith Ellison, the former head of the Democratic Farmer Labour Party, was just elected as deputy chair of the DNC last year.

The DNC currently finds itself locked in a power struggle between Sandersism and Clintonism. It will be a battle for the soul of the future of the Democratic party. Just as Trumpism, a blending of nationalism and populism, will forever change the policy platforms of the Republican Party. Sandersism, too, will change American politics forever if a far-left candidate rises from within pack of wolves that is the DNC primaries and claims the Democratic ■H nomination in 2020.

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Features

FEATURES

HIGHLANDER // highlandernews.org/features

‘In Unity We Stand’ b r i n g s t o g e t h e r t h e

South Asian community in the spirit of comedy

MARTHA DELGADO Senior Staff Writer PREETI JUTURU Contributing Writer

The South Asian Federation (SAF) in collaboration with Asian Pacific Student Programs hosted their first comedy show, “In Unity we Stand featuring Akaash Singh and Danish Maqbool” on Tuesday, Nov. 27.

Around 160 students, families, and community members gathered at HUB 302N to relax and enjoy Maqbool and Singh’s comedy. Maqbool is a Pakistan-American stand-up comedian from New Jersey.

Singh is an Indian-American stand-up comedian known for his roles in Netflix’s “Brown Nation,” and MTV’s “Wild N’ Out,” “Joking Off” and “Guy Code.”

The show started at 8:15 p.m. with the president of SAF, fourth-year bioengineering major Ashley Thomas, commenting on the importance of bringing Singh and Maqbool.

Historically, Pakistan and India have had political and socioeconomic tension, yet Singh and Maqbool show that unity is possible. “(Singh and Maqbool) were able to step out of their countries and do a show together is a very powerful message to state,” stated Thomas. “That is why we wanted to bring these comedians here, to show the South Asian student population at UCR that that is something

that’s possible.”

Danish Maqbool came on stage to start his comedy routine. Maqbool’s relaxed personality complimented his dry yet bold humor as he commented on Trump, prejudice within communities of color and his experience facing discrimination as a Pakistani-American.

“It’s hard looking like me in this country, but we still have to make it work,” Maqbool said.

Maqbool’s routine included making fun of the tension in the room from the issues he joked about.

Maqbool then introduced Singh and left the stage. Singh’s comedy routine was energetic and unapologetic as his jokes poked fun at relationships, dating and how people are too sensitive in this day and age.

“I’m not afraid to joke about controversial things because if you can’t laugh about painful things, there’s no other way to cope,” Singh commented.

Afterwards, Maqbool joined Singh on stage, and they both answered questions from the audience. Both playfully teased the audience on their attire and majors throughout the Q&A section. Though the two of them did not directly comment on tensions between India and Pakistan, they shared their experience in the comedy realm.

“They’re two people with two different backgrounds, but ultimately they’re part of a society,” said Vishal Kumar

Gupta, SAF’s Creative Director and fourth-year biology major.

“They show us that we all face similar circumstances, and we’re not as different as we think.”

Many students in the audience expressed similar sentiments. “As someone who is Bengali (Bangladeshi), it was a funny show and it was cool to see an Indian and Pakistani collaborating because it’s not very common,” stated Alvee Ahmed, a second-year neuroscience major. “South Asian countries should have unification because we’re all minorities and have many things in common, so I hope to see more collaborations similar to theirs.”

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ERICA HAAS / HIGHLANDER Akaash Singh has been featured on Netflix’s “Brown Nation” and MTV’s “Wild N’ Out.”

ERICA HAAS / HIGHLANDER

Danish Maqbool is a stand-up comedian from New Jersey.

“Orchids: My Intersex Adventure,” gives insight into the intersex expereince

CHRISTINE TRAN Contributing Writer

Last Wednesday from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the HUB 355, the LGBT Resource center hosted a screening for a documentary produced by Phoebe Hart called “Orchids: My Intersex Adventure.” The film revolves around her life being intersex, which for Hart means that she was born with an extra Y chromosome.

Hart describes her early childhood as being happy until she was diagnosed at the age of five. Her parents decided that it would be best to keep her condition a secret from her and everyone else as well. As a result, Hart grew up watching her friends go through puberty unable to understand why the experience alluded her.

Hart’s parents waited until Hart was a 12th grader to reveal to her the details about her condition. She was born with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS), meaning Hart has male reproductive parts. Unknown to Hart at the time, her younger sister Bonnie was also diagnosed with AIS. But since their parents kept everything a secret, both sisters struggled

alone.

Throughout the entirety of the film, Hart goes around Australia visiting other people who are also intersex.

Each one of them has faced their own struggles with their identities. For example, Hart met with a women named Aleyshia who was born with the same condition as Hart but the doctors decided to take out her uterus and have her be raised as a boy. Later on in life, Aleyshia wanted to be a woman and decided to stop taking hormones that would help her develop as a man.

At the end of the film, Hart comes to accept her condition and decides she can still live life to the fullest. We see her story come to a happy ending when she and her partner are able to adopt a baby girl and finally start a family.

Afterwards, there was a brief discussion moderated

by UCR Gender and Sexuality Studies lecturer Taylor Riley.

A recurring topic was the idea whether or not doctors should be allowed to decide the gender for an intersex baby. Along with that there were ideas of including gender studies courses as a requirement for earning a

medical degree so that future doctors could have a better understanding of how gender affects lives.

“I think that these babies should be given the opportunity to decide for themselves what they want to be and to have these doctors decide for them at such an early age seems unfair,” commented first-year education major Esmeralda Rizo from the audience.

This film was selected by Riley because she had seen it in a feminist film festival in New Delhi in 2012 and found it went deeper into a topic that she was only able to briefly cover in her classes.

“I want my students to learn how common intersex conditions are and how they really do affect all of us in terms of how we are all affected by issues of sex and gender in our everyday

lives,” she stated.

For students interested in learning more, the LGBT Resource Center holds weekly Tuesday Talks where they address different aspects about gender and sexuality. Week 9’s Tuesday Talk was held in Costo Hall 245 from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m., and featured an open discussion for all students to come talk about sex and sexuality.

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THOMAS HOLGUIN / HIGHLANDER

HIGHLANDER // highlandernews.org/features

FEATURES

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2018

11

roasting water is aesthetically pleasing but fails to match up to local COMPETITION JASMINE YAMANAKA Contirbuting Writer

In September 2018, when Roasting Water opened its Riverside location on Chicago Avenue (about two miles away from campus), bottles of fruitfilled and creamy-colored beverages began popping up all around UCR students’ social media feeds faster than boba being delightfully sucked up through a straw. These bottles were adorned with charming drawings of animals and natural landscapes and filled with delicious, colorful drinks — bright strawberry teas with bits of strawberry and mango, decadent white chocolate frappes with swirls of tempting caramel.

Roasting Water’s stunning collection of bottles, which feature vastly different and changing artistic styles, mirrors the shop’s diverse menu: not only does Roasting Water offer teas but also coffee, lattes, lemonades, smoothies and milkshakes.

However, what matters is what’s on the inside and not the outside, and Roasting Water’s refreshments did not taste as good as they presented themselves to be.

Seeing that their milk tea selection is still limited (black/green milk, plain black/ green, black/green almond milk, Thai, oolong, oolong fresh cream, sea salt Jasmine and green tea macchiato), their focus seems to be on satisfying a large array of palates instead of the one specialty — boba — that many other college students like

myself probably anticipated when trying out the store for the first time. Their milk teas did have a crisp tea taste, such as the classic milk tea flavor which instantly delivered a refreshing, coffee-like tang.

Unfortunately, however, these drinks fell short by being too watery and not creamy enough. On the bright side, Roasting Water’s boba was slightly smaller than that from Boba Tea House and Tim Boba, which actually made it easier to suck up and therefore achieve a more even, satisfying boba-to-tea proportion.

Roasting Water had the best avocado smoothie I have ever tasted, which alone made the trip worth it and established Roasting Water as my go-to spot for such a treat. Their Avocuddle Buddy was creamy and velvety in every way that an avocado is, but featured a flavor completely its own — resembling caramel — with a delicate touch of sweetened condensed milk.

Even though the smoothie was buttery and smooth, it still managed to not taste very rich, even less so than milk tea. The sweetness was deliberately balanced to allow the natural sugars to shine through while the condensed milk was merely there to enhance the consistency. The natural sweetness and flavor was clearly distinguishable because, as Roasting Water shares on its website, all of their drinks are made with real, organic ingredients.

This aspect of their production actually surprised

me, for aside from their avocado smoothie, many of their other fruit drinks tasted syrupy and artificial. The Royal Mango fruit tea tasted watery and bland and it had an artificial mango taste with the only thing separating its flavor from that of an energy drink being the mango bits added in there. Even if the company does not use powder or syrups, the mango flavor was still unsatisfying.

Their Pure Strawberry smoothie, which is made with soy milk, had already started separating within a few minutes and, like the strawberry smoothie I tried at Tim Boba, tasted diluted and unmemorable. That is the case with many smoothies; they contain fruit and milk that will inevitably separate and lead to disappointing, brown mush.

However, if you do enjoy that homemade, natural smoothie taste or are simply craving a smoothie, Roasting Water can fulfill that craving.

If you abide by the golden rule of food — to always make room for dessert — you will take great enjoyment in their dessert drinks. The dessert drinks, however, may only be for those who are looking to satisfy a sweet tooth, for the flavor largely depended on sweetness and the richness of the cream overwhelmed the opportunity to emphasize the individual flavors. For example, the Guilty Pleasure chocolate drink combined Ghirardelli chocolate, marshmallows and almonds. I barely tasted the almonds and didn’t even know the drink

“However, what matters is what’s on the inside and not the outside, and Roasting Water’s refreshments did not taste as good as they presented themselves to be.”

contained marshmallows until reading the description. All I tasted was the chocolate syrup and cream, making me believe it would have benefitted from just being an ice cream dish; if you’re looking for something that indulgent, you might as well just eat ice cream.

Along with having a wide variety of drinks, Roasting Water shows that it cares about the customer by also having soy and almond milk alternatives. The price range of the store is higher than that of most boba shops, with their tea drinks, for example, priced at $4.30. The higher price is justified because their gorgeous bottles, which all of their drinks come in, are at least very sturdy, do not easily spill (though I would be careful with turning it upside down because the lid is a cork) and are undeniably stunning. Roasting Water does have a discount of 10 cents off

JASMINE YAMANAKA / HIGHLANDER

for reusing the bottle for drink orders, but this deal is not yet available in their Riverside location (they also have stores in Westminster, Garden Grove, Fountain Valley, Long Beach and Huntington Beach).

Roasting Water’s cute, intricately detailed ambience, filled with Rilakkuma collectibles, potted plants and geometric terrarium wall decorations, reflect the concept of pretty and aesthetically pleasing presentation also expressed by their bottles. However, the space was impractical for social time and studying as the tables were small and the space was slightly cramped.

For the three hour duration I was at the store, no customers stayed any longer than thirty minutes, only coming and going for the beverage and the bottle, the appealing memento of a product that is otherwise hollow in quality.

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Overall Satisfaction Scale

drinks: 6/10 ambience: 6.5/10 price: $4-5 per DRINK

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FEATURES

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2018

HIGHLANDER // highlandernews.org/features

Campus Cope Making Friends or acquaintances in College By: ANTONIO VELAOCHAGA, CONTRIBUTING Writer

I think everyone can agree that making friends anywhere is relatively difficult. It’s just easier for some people to put themselves out there than others. There is a large number of students who are considered anti-social, but the truth is that they just find it harder to make friends. Rejection causes people to fall back into themselves and makes it harder to make friends. If you open up to someone, you risk the negative judgement they might bring. After experiencing rejection most people would rather stay in their rooms and listen to a sad song playlist. Instead, those seeking friends should take a different route.

on campus where you might find those that share your interests is a surefire way of meeting the right crowd.

Study your way to a friendship Being open doesn’t mean you have to reveal

Meet your neighbors The perks of being on such a big and beautiful

your deepest secrets to other people. It means being able to slightly open up to another person and interact with them. Just approaching someone nowadays is hard for many people to do.

Creating study groups with students in your class who you want to be friends with is a smart way to meet interesting individuals who motivate you to do better academically. The study groups can be just you and another person or as many people as you want that are in the class. You can go out to eat before having study sessions or do other activities.

campus as Riverside is that you can find people anywhere. This means you can make friends anywhere. If you live in the dorms, you can easily introduce yourself to the other students in your hall or just the students in dorms close to your own. If you live in the on-campus apartments, then you can introduce yourself to your neighbor and invite them over to watch TV or for a cup of coffee.

Find like-minded people Students can also join clubs in order to look

for people who they can click with. If a student isn’t interested in a club then they can go to any place on campus where they could fit in. If you are a musician or are interested in becoming one, then the arts building is a good place to go and meet musicians that are trying to hone their craft. If you like skateboarding, then you can go to the bell tower and find any number of skaters doing flips and riding around. Going to places

in lecture. If you don’t feel like you’ve clicked with this person, then find another person. You can keep doing this until you find someone you click with, and who knows, maybe you’ll hang out after class.

Discussions or labs are even better environments to approach people, as the small class size pushes you to interact with each other. Working with your lab partner or finding someone in your discussion to study with is a great way of getting to know someone.

Be Yourself

MARTIN LOPEZ / HIGHLANDER

Go to class

Classes also give you the opportunity to meet new people. Talk to someone who sits next to you

Being slightly open gives you the opportunity to make companions. To be open is to reveal the any of the things that make you who you are: activities you enjoy doing, your habits, your interests, etc. Once you get to a point where you are completely comfortable and in your element with a person, that is how you know that you’ve made a friend. The best thing to do is relax, ■H smile and just be yourself.

RADAR

HIGHLANDER // highlandernews.org/arts

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2018

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“ C r e e d I I ” d o e s n ot p u l l a n y p u n ch e s

COURTESY OF WARNER BROS. PICTURES

ERNESTO BETANCOURT II Contributing Writer

It’s back to the ring for Adonis Creed in this next installment of the Rocky franchise, “Creed II”. If you’re not aware of the Rocky franchise, then for new viewers, the Creed movies are a good place to start. These new entries follow the story of Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan), son of Apollo Creed, the most famous boxer of his time who was slain in the ring.

Now with Adonis Creed back in between the very same ropes, he must both conquer his past and commandeer his future while carrying on the Creed name.

From the start of the film, our protagonist, Adonis Creed, has gained plenty of traction since the end of the first film and has become the heavyweight champion of the world. But with his newfound success, Creed must now accept the consequences of that title,

including those that would stand against him to try and take it. In this case, the opponent is Viktor Drago, a Russian boxer who has history with the name Creed and seeks to claim his belt.

If you go into this film not knowing enough about the previous Rocky films, you’ll miss the significance of some of the characters involved in this film. Viktor Drago is the son of Ivan Drago, another Russian boxer whose name carries weight because of his actions in “Rocky IV”. In that film, he was the one to bring Apollo Creed to his untimely demise after the two went toe to toe in the ring. Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone), in an effort to avenge his friend, then went on to challenge and defeat Ivan Drago back on his home turf, subsequently ruining the Russian’s life. Ivan Drago’s defeat then drives Viktor to challenge Creed. Both Adonis

and Viktor have to live up to the names their fathers before them established in the ring, exploring the themes of legacy and expectations of the past.

The plot is fairly predictable; a rising star is taken down a peg and after this initial failure, the protagonist must overcome hurdles to become good enough to triumph in the end. Some of these struggles could easily have been solved better if this wasn’t a movie and basic communication was something people referred. For example, Balboa is against Creed fighting Drago because like Creed’s father before him and stated earlier, Creed also had to fight Drago, but in his case his lost the fight and lost his life.

Because of this disagreement, Adonis Creed lashes out against Balboa and forces him out of being there to support Creed at his fight and in turn distances Balboa from his life. These

kinds of tropes will always find their way into films of this caliber, but if you have the cast to carry out these stories, then these tropes can be overlooked to just enjoy the movie.

With the star-studded cast of Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone and Tessa Thompson (who plays Bianca Taylor, love interest to Jordan’s character), the on-screen chemistry is plentiful. Jordan and Stallone really connect in this film, both when they’re working together hitting the mats and when they’re joking together, poking fun at past mistakes, fully contributing to the idea of them being family by choice. The connection between Thompson and Jordan is palpable, too.

When they struggle together, you struggle, and when they succeed, you succeed alongside them. Thompson and Stallone even click together in their limited screen time together, relishing in Jordan’s character or relating to their connection

to him in the first place.

Being a boxing movie, how the fights are done tends to be the determining factor of the film’s quality. Luckily for us, “Creed II’”s fights are done just right. Although the only fights that really hold any importance are the fights between Creed and Drago, they hold the most screen time and are produced beautifully. Although a newer director, Steven Caple Jr. artfully brings his audience into the ring, making sure every blow that is traded hits its mark. Each fall to the canvas can feel like the last, every parry is elegant in its own right, carrying with it an intensity that resonates with the audience.

The Creed movies have large gloves to fill, as what Rocky Balboa brought to the silver screen helped shape a generation. But with Sylvester Stallone still in Michael B. Jordan’s corner, Adonis Creed’s story will be able to go the distance.

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Verdict:

Newer fans of Michael B. Jordan and veteran fans of Sylvester Stallone alike will enjoy the latest addition to this series of films. Although knowledge of prior Rocky films is recommended, even casual viewers can enjoy “Creed II”’s mastery.

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HIGHLANDER // highlandernews.org/arts

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2018

HOW DOES “GILMORE GIRLS” STACK UP TO STANDARDS A DECADE LATER?

SILVIA FERRER Staff Writer

Complete with pop culture references and nods to the era of its inception, “Gilmore Girls” is the quintessential early 2000s dramedy show.

Starring mother and daughter duo Lorelai and Rory Gilmore (Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel, respectively), the show travels from Rory’s sophomore year in high school to her college graduation, detailing all the disappointments, joys and hijinks the Gilmore girls get up to in between. The show embodies the escapism that makes series like these so popular— it takes place in the real world, albeit a rosecolored “real world” where no dream is too ambitious and characters are easily forgiven.

It’s a fun, fluffy watch, regardless if one understands all of the references made or not. When Netflix released its series revival, “Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life,” it seemed like a sure hit. But the show, although highly anticipated, came under fire for a variety of reasons.

To understand what could’ve been the downfall of the revival, it’s necessary to understand why the original was so popular. “Gilmore Girls” is established on the premise of a rags-to-riches story: Lorelai Gilmore runs from her parents’ money and their stuffy, aristocratic life in Hartford for a chance at freedom and happiness in the less affluent Stars Hollow.

She works up from maid to manager of the Independence Inn, amidst the eccentric residents and her precocious daughter, Rory. The TV show is comforting to watch even now; the characters don’t deal with major problems besides boy troubles, family drama and crazy adventures. It’s a feel-good show that escapes

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reality while somewhat staying grounded in it; there’s no magic or overt action, but the actors and writers do an excellent job at keeping the audience entertained without pushing far-fetched storylines.

Lorelai and Rory are a perfect duo, without being so flawless that they come off as inauthentic. Overall, this is what is attracting about the show: it feels real. The viewer doesn’t think about the fact that Rory is privileged to go to an Ivy League university— we root for her because we come to believe she deserves

it. When she decides to forgo a relationship to pursue her dream, it doesn’t feel like a cop-out ending, but one fitting to a character whose plot mostly revolved around studying. Compare this to Rory’s character in “A Year in the Life,” and it’s extremely jarring.

Although this 2016 revival has several low points, Rory’s character is the most obvious casualty of the series. The most endearing part of the show, her strong bond with her mother, becomes increasingly strained as Rory grows up

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and starts committing a series of out-of-character missteps.

She was in love with all her boyfriends in the original series, but “A Year in the Life” paints Rory as someone who is so inconsiderate of someone’s feelings that her main running gag is her failure to remember she even has a boyfriend. The girl that was so hardworking that she got accepted into three Ivy League universities is nowhere to be seen; adult Rory expects opportunities to fall on her plate. In fact, she makes frequent professional mistakes (one of those being when she calls a potential employer and screams about how she’s too good for the job they didn’t offer her) and still retains her arrogant attitude. Overall, the revival isn’t a bad remake of the original “Gilmore Girls,” but it ends of feeling like a deconstruction of what made the original so popular. Rory isn’t as relatable and likeable as she was before, but what ends up being the final nail in the coffin is that it shines a light on the fact that the show isn’t aware of its insensitive jokes as TV shows try to be now.

With the boom of internet culture and the transition to what is considered a more “politically correct” environment, shows in 2016 are far different in subject and cast than the shows of the early 2000s. Take “Shameless,” which is similar to “Gilmore Girls” in the sense that both deal with tense situations and feature middle-class families.

Lip, a main character of “Shameless,” is as gifted in academics as Rory, but has to choose a state school over

the prestigious MIT because he didn’t have the financial or emotional support that Rory had throughout the entirety of the series. In comparison, it’s uncomfortable to watch how Rory coasts by in private school after she’s accepted to Yale.

The insensitive jokes “A Year in the Life” peppers in don’t set in well— “The Office” (2005) was able to slide by with Michael Scott’s character, but there is increasing pressure for TV creators and writers to be sensitive and aware of their diverse audience. “This is Us,” for example, is a popular drama show (starring former “Gilmore Girls” heartthrob, Milo Ventimiglia), but it tries to be inclusive in the subjects it covers and actors it casts.

These changes are not uncalled for— there have been several demands from audiences to fix the representation problem in Hollywood (remember “Oscars so white?”). “Gilmore Girls,” has a couple of underrepresented characters in its cast, but they don’t get a fulfilling storyline like other television shows are providing them now.

It’s easy to watch “Gilmore Girls” and enjoy it as a show of its time, but its humor isn’t as endearing as it was ten years ago. With shows like “The Good Place,” “This is Us” and “Stranger Things” on the air, there are enough entertaining options on television and streaming services that are up to the more conscious standards of today. “A Year in the Life” ends up feeling like another four episodes tacked on to the end of “Gilmore Girls”; not bad, but not what viewers are expecting anymore.

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HIGHLANDER // highlandernews.org/arts

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2018

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Stan Lee, A True Believer ADAM ALVERNAZ COLIN CARNEY Contributing Writer

On Nov. 12, 2018, Stanley Martin Lieber (Stan Lee) passed away in Los Angeles, California due to heart failure. Lee’s passing signifies the loss of a celebrity and the creator of Marvel Comics. His iconic status comes from his long history of working in the comic book industry and creating many different superheroes for all to enjoy.

Lee began his career as an assistant at Timely Comics, a well known pulp magazine company. Lee did very basic work such as erasing penciling after comic book pages had been inked. Following Jack Kirby’s departure from Timely for National Comics Publications seeking better pay, Lee took his place as editor.

In 1942, Lee would serve in the military as part of the Signal Corps. Every Friday, Lee would be sent letters about work that had to be done for Timely. Every Monday, he would send back a story for them to publish in the coming week.

After Lee returned in the 1950s to Timely, now Atlas Comics, DC Comics had been making progress. At the time they had redesigned The Flash and introduced their brand new superhero team, the Justice League.

In response, Atlas tasked Lee with creating a superhero team for their brand. However, at the time Lee felt that the comic book medium had become too restrictive and struggled with the decision of whether to continue with comics.

It was his wife Joan who told Stan to create this new team the way he wanted to. If his publishers hated it, he could quit knowing he wrote something he believed in. Properly motivated, Lee, alongside artist Jack Kirby, went on to write about a superhero family who fought menacing villains while dealing with problems from everyday life. This team, known as the Fantastic Four was published in

1961, becoming a huge success for Atlas, now known as Marvel Comics, and compelled Stan to stay in the medium and write the stories he wanted to tell.

Under the new name Marvel Comics, Lee created some of the most well-known comic book characters to date, including Iron Man, Hulk and Thor with Bill Everett, and Spiderman and Doctor Strange with Steve Ditko. All these heroes helped propel Marvel to becoming an iconic brand for comic books with many other hit debuts like the X-Men and Ghost Rider. This coauthoring for Marvel’s stories worked well, using Lee’s drafts to shape a whole new story. Lee moved to a publisher’s position in 1972 to better manage the inner workings of Marvel Comics. There, he would help as an overseer of the creative process while focusing on the bigger picture of the Marvel brand.

Lee usually wrote the basic concepts of the character and sent it off to the artists where the character would take form. The basic storybook would be written where then Lee would help word balloon and oversee the rest of the process. This was later dubbed the “Marvel method.” Eventually, in 1981, Lee retired from direct duties to focus on creating for fans and giving back to the community that made Lee a star.

It is almost impossible to envision what pop culture would look like today if it hadn’t been for Stan Lee’s countless contributions.

Without his characters and stories, many of the superhero blockbusters that dominate the box office today wouldn’t exist. 1961’s Fantastic Four re-energized the superhero world. For the first time in comics, superheroes weren’t perfect beings greater than any on Earth, but flawed beings with surprisingly human problems. Children and adults alike could finally relate to their heroes as they struggled with both earth shattering events and everyday life, allowing them to return to these

characters even as they grew older. Lee didn’t stop with the Fantastic Four, as he continually wrote characters who faced incredibility real problems. Spider-Man struggled with relationships and making rent meanwhile the X-Men fought against intolerance and bigotry.

Stan Lee created a template that the medium soon followed as other publishers tried to copy Marvel’s success. With the success of his characters, Lee felt that he had a duty to his readers to speak out against the injustices of his time, coinciding with one of his famous quotes: “With great power comes great responsibility.”

In 1968, Stan Lee famously published a column of “Stan’s Soapbox” where he loudly proclaimed bigotry and racism “among the deadliest social ills plaguing the world.” He wrote those words at a time when America was reeling from the death of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and facing immense prejudice across the country. Further trying to address social injustices while also trying to create relatable heroes for his readers, Stan Lee went on to create the first African American hero in comics, Black Panther, in 1966 and followed up with Falcon in 1969. Using his platform for good, Stan was able to reach the youth of America and preach tolerance and compassion to countless readers.

For proof that Lee’s legacy lives on, one need not look any further than the longevity of his creations and impact they have on the world today. Across the globe, there are only a handful of truly iconic characters, immediately recognizable by nearly everyone.

Among these figures are Lee’s own SpiderMan and Captain America, and more recently with film success, Hulk and Iron Man. Walk through any store in America and you’ll find toys, snacks, and clothing emblazoned with the iconic Spider-Man symbol or Captain America’s mighty shield. The fact that these characters have been the subject of countless

storylines and comic series even without Stan Lee behind them is proof enough of their relevance. Additionally, Lee’s Marvel creations have given birth to perhaps the most successful and cohesive cinematic universe ever seen in the form of Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe, or MCU, that makes millions annually and breaks box office records as if they’re nothing. It was with these films that Lee’s face became known to countless movie going audiences as he appeared in almost every Marvel film in his beloved cameo. Comic fans, however, knew his face long before it hit the big screen as Lee’s smiling face was a common sight at fan conventions as he signed autographs up until a few years prior to his death. Lee always knew how much his creations meant to his fans and whenever possible, he always made it clear how much his fans meant to him when he spoke with every fan who came his way. Lee’s achievements at Marvel continue to pass the test of time as they reach new generations across the globe.

Though his death may have marked the end of an era for comic book and movie fans everywhere, Stan Lee’s immense legacy lives on in the characters he created and the stories he wrote, which broke the mold of comic books and changed the way we looked at heroes. Throughout his career, as he went from a small-time comic book writer to pop culture icon, Lee never failed to forget about the fans who supported him along the way. He never failed to make time for fans, whether at a film premier or at a convention, and always managed to sign autographs and greet people with a warm smile. Though his passing is a loss to the community he worked so hard to build, he lives on in his immense body of work. His impact will continue to be felt as long as his characters survive, his comics endure, and his fans continue to be inspired. ‘Nuff said.

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HIGHLANDER // highlandernews.org/sports

SPORTS

Highlanders lose in crosstown rivalry game against Cal Baptist JORDAN HOM Contributing Writer

In a crosstown matchup against Cal Baptist University (3-4), the UC Riverside Highlanders (2-6) suffered their sixth loss of the season. This was their first matchup since the Lancers entered Division I. With a final score of 80-70, the Highlanders lost for the first time on their home court. Although the Highlanders were able to keep pace with the Lancers early in the first half, they fell behind 37-24 by the end of it.

The Highlanders went into the second stronger as they went on a 7-2 run which brought the game to a single digit deficit.

However, they were unable to carry that momentum for the duration of the game because of their inability to earn defensive stops. The Lancers were able to convert on over 40 percent of their threes as they went 9-of-22 as a team.

The rebounding battle also went to the Lancers as the Highlanders were out rebounded 37-23. Junior guard Dikymbe Martin was able to grab 6 rebounds and freshman forward Dragan Elkaz totaled 5 rebounds. However, the team effort was not enough. They were unable to stop Lancers forward De’jon Davis from

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recording a double-double with 23 point and 14 rebounds.

“First, you have to tip your hat to CBU. They came in coming off three losses and they weren’t gonna give up four losses in a row. I thought they out physicaled us early and that hurt us

down the stretch. We couldn’t get stops and they killed us on the glass,” Head Coach David Patrick said.

Freshman guard Jordan Gilliam and Martin had solid games offensively as each recorded 18 points. The stars of the games for the Lancers were

De’jon Davis and Milan Acquaah who contributed 24 points and 5 rebounds.

Up next, the Highlanders are set to face Valparaiso on Dec. 2 on the road before returning home again to Riverside against Pepperdine on Dec. 6.

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HIGHLANDER HOT TAKE: NFL Playoff Predictions RICARDO GARCIA Contributing Writer

It certainly has been a season of surprises for the National Football League, as many teams we expected to succeed have performed poorly, and teams expected to struggle have exceeded expectations.

Here are some of the bold playoff predictions to look out for in the final five weeks of the season.

Locks to Win Division NFC South Winner: New Orleans Saints NFC West Winner: Los Angeles Rams AFC East Winner: New England Patriots AFC North Winner: Pittsburgh Steelers With massive leads in their respective divisions, the Rams and Saints are locks to not only win their division, but also secure a coveted first round bye in the NFC. They have been pushing aside the competition and seem destined to meet in the NFC Championship Game. The only question raised is where the game will be played.

Tom Brady and the Patriots are once again running away with the AFC East, and at the moment, hold a bye into the Divisional Round. They have struggled away from Gillette Stadium, which is quite uncanny for Brady and Bill Belichick. As long as they can do enough to avoid Wild Card Weekend, they should be fine.

The Steelers were on a roll, but hit a roadblock with a stunning Week 12 loss to the Denver Broncos. Once destined to earn a first round bye, they now are slotted at the fourth seed. Seeing as how every other team in the AFC North is crumbling, the Steelers should win their division.

Predictions: Saints will earn NFC top seed, Patriots will NOT earn first round bye, Steelers will recover to earn a bye.

Locks to Clinch a Playoff Spot Kansas City Chiefs: Lead AFC West Los Angeles Chargers: One game back of Kansas City, hold top wild card Houston Texans: Lead AFC South Chicago Bears: Lead NFC North The Chiefs and Chargers are locks to clinch a playoff berth. However, after the bombshell news that Kareem Hunt lied to team officials about the details from his domestic violence incident over the offseason, Kansas City released their star running back, crippling a key piece in their offensive attack. Even so, the Chiefs should still have enough to weather the storm and keep moving toward a top seed in the playoffs. The other question remains as to who

will be the team playing at home. Kansas City’s explosive offense is good enough to cover defensive flaws, however, LA is a bit more balanced overall on both sides of the ball.

The Chiefs will barely win the division, but should these teams meet in a playoff game, the Chargers will take over.

The Bears have been a nice surprise, as their elite defense has taken them to new heights, as well as a breakout year for Mitchell Trubisky. Defense wins championships, and in a new era where offensive explosions have become the new norm, the Bears should be well equipped to make a defensive stop when it matters most. Also, with a relatively easier schedule than the Vikings they should have enough to win their division.

The Houston Texans’ (0-3) start was not enough to deter their morale. With the Jaguars falling apart and the Colts and Texans far behind, it would be disappointing if they did not win their division.

Predictions: Texans win AFC South, Bears win NFC North, Chiefs win AFC West, Chargers settle for Wild Card NFC Teams On the Bubble Dallas Cowboys: Lead NFC East via tiebreaker Washington Redskins: Hold second wild card spot via tiebreakers Seattle Seahawks: Currently out of playoffs via tiebreaker, tied for second NFC wild card spot Carolina Panthers: Currently out of playoffs via tiebreaker, tied for second NFC wild card spot Minnesota Vikings: Hold first wild card Philadelphia Eagles: One game back of second wild card, two games back of Dallas in NFC East This is where things get very messy.

On first glance, I would say the Redskins miss out because of Alex Smith’s injury, defaulting the NFC East into a race between the Cowboys and Eagles. The Cowboys upset the Saints in week 13, greatly improving their odds of winning their division.

The Seahawks are riding high after recovering from a slow start, and after beating the Panthers, they may be riding their newfound momentum into a wild card spot. The Panthers haven’t recovered since their blowout loss to the Steelers, and their current losing streak may take them out of the playoffs altogether.

The Vikings are a difficult team to project. They do not have a favorable schedule, with games against the Patriots, Seahawks, Steelers and Bears mixed in around matchups against the Miami Dolphins and Detroit Lions. Any bad stretch here would cost them any shot to return to the postseason.

The Eagles’ Super Bowl hangover may be too much to overcome. Their inconsistency cost them winnable games.

To potentially clinch a playoff spot, they will need to run the table. They have games against the Cowboys, Texans, Rams and two games against the Redskins, games that they would have been heavy favorites to win last year, but leave them as underdogs this year.

Predictions: Cowboys win NFC East, Seahawks and Vikings earn wild card spots.

AFC Teams on the Bubble Baltimore Ravens: Hold second AFC wild card on tiebreaker Indianapolis Colts: Currently out of playoffs via tiebreaker, tied for second AFC wild card Miami Dolphins: Two games back of second AFC wild card Cincinnati Bengals: Two games back of second AFC wild card Denver Broncos; Two games back of second AFC wild card The AFC bubble teams are a little bit easier to project.

The Broncos, Bengals and Dolphins all disappointed following good starts, and the Colts are back in the race after a slow start.

Cincinnati’s season is all but over after losing Andy Dalton for the season due to injury, and Miami has New England and Minnesota remaining on the schedule. These factors may result in another postseason at home for these teams.

The Broncos have a fairly easy schedule, and face only one team holding a playoff spot the rest of the way.

However, they have beaten the Chargers already, so running the table isn’t a distant possibility.

The Ravens playoff hopes all hinge on their quarterback situation. Lamar Jackson had two easy wins over bad teams, and with Joe Flacco’s status in doubt, along with games against the Chargers and Chiefs remaining, the road to the postseason seems murky for Baltimore.

The Colts’ main concern is how they will fare in the coming weeks. Although Andrew Luck is on a hot streak, they still have big games against Houston and Dallas looming.

Predictions: Broncos claim final AFC Wild Card in Week 17, and Ravens fire John Harbaugh after losing grip on final playoff spot.

How It All Plays Out: Saints beat Steelers in Super Bowl ■H