When I travel home I always bring a plethora of video game systems with me. Security at LAX becomes a hassle when I have to be “that guy” who has to use two separatebins – one for the PS3 and one for the laptop – when going through security. It is a pain, but it allows me to properly game back home. And game I did.
Now that we are back on campus, some people have asked me what games I played over break. Here are some of the newer titles that kept me busy over the cold, long break:
“Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds” Nintendo 3DS/2DS MSRP: $39.99
Princess Zelda and the other sages have been sealed into living paintings by the evil wizard Yuga, and it is up to Link to save them and the world of Hyrule from evil.
Nintendo brings the best of the old “Zelda” formula, mixes it with some new ideas and turns it into a masterpiece. As the first original “Zelda” game for the Nintendo 3DS and a spiritual sequel to “A Link to the Past” Nintendo had some big shoes to fill, but it did so brilliantly. “A Link Between Worlds” is often played in a top-down perspective, but “A Link Between Worlds” features a Link who has the power to turn into a painting and move along the walls adding a whole new dimension to the puzzle-like gameplay.
New features include detailed orchestral renditions of old music from “A Link to the Past” along with some new tracks. The controls are the tightest they have ever been in the series, and the ability to rent all the items at the start of the game allows for unparalleled freedom that has never been felt before in a Zelda game. It is one of the best Legend of Zelda games yet, a necessity for any 3DS/2DS owner.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas iOS iPad/iPod Touch/ iPhone(reviewed) MSRP: $6.99
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (GTASA) has come to iOS. GTASA is one of my favorite games that I grew up with. Playing the entire game on an iPhone is nothing short of amazing, compared to what was once an old Xbox/PS2 game.
The port has made some necessary changes that adapt it for the audience of today. In addition to an obvious texture update, GTASA has added checkpoints in missions. This makes the game far less frustrating than it needs to be;a necessary change when playing on your phone. Playing on a phone can be tough, but (developer) Rockstar has updated the controls significantly from their previous iOS adaptations and features gamepad support.
GTA San Andreas for iOS still makes my jaw drop, and now I get to stop by Grove Street, San Fierro, Las Venturas and (most importantly) Los Santos wherever and whenever I want. Other games that took up my time include lots of “Halo 4” multiplayer, “Super Smash Bros. Brawl” and the incredible “The Last of Us” multiplayer.
What did you play over break? What are you playing now? Send me a tweet @WeeklyWest.
“Dirty Blue Velvets” might just tear this school apart. For those who have sampled this bizarre amalgam of coffee and tea, these three words represent a surprisingly tasty way to get that much-needed caffeine fix. For baristas in the Green Bean, however, “Dirty Blue Velvet” induces a mixture of repulsion and annoyance.
“To date, the Dirty [Blue Velvet], which is earl grey tea with shots of espresso, is the most blasphemous drink I’ve ever had ordered,” Diplomacy and World Affairs major and Green Bean barista Ian Mariani (senior) said in an email.
According to psychology and spanish studies double major and Green Bean supervisor Emma Kraft (senior), Dirty Blue Velvets slow down the natural flow of drink preparation behind the counter. Between steeping the tea, steaming the milk and adding the espresso and syrup, the Dirty Blue Velvet is a dirty drink indeed.
For diehard coffee lovers, mixing tea and coffee is unconscionable. Biology major and Green Bean barista Tina Tran (senior) put it more bluntly.
“I mean, live and let live, but honestly I don’t think Dirty Blue Velvets or dirty apple ciders should have ever become a thing,” Tran said in an email. “I feel like we’re abusing espresso shots to get a caffeine fix while simultaneously ruining the integrity of the original drink.”
At this point it should be obvious that Dirty Blue Velvets are the last drink to consider ordering. For Green Bean aficionados looking to spice up their routines, though, or for wary newcomers, here’s a guide to the good, the bad and the ugly of the Green Bean.
Flavored-iced coffee drinkers, whom Kraft encounters on the daily, might consider experimenting with different syrups and the amount of pumps as an easy way to branch out. If customers prefer less-sweet drinks, Kraft usually gets an iced Americano with one pump of caramel. Some customers, meanwhile, have their orders down to a science. One regular customer who Kraft often serves orders green tea with precise levels of lemonade and raspberry.
“I don’t mind when customers are really specific because when I make a drink, I want them to like what they’re getting,” Kraft said. “Since the Green Bean has 57 employees it can be hard to get a consistent drink every time you go in. When people figure out what they like, they can make it really specific.”
Pro tips include avoiding the demand for no foam in a drink that is intentionally foamy, according to Urban and Environmental Policy (UEP) major and Green Bean barista Grace Hancock (sophomore). Specifically, one should avoid ordering a cappuccino with almond milk, which does not foam well. In blended drinks, avoid asking for two percent milk, since the Green Bean does not carry two percent and since only the smallest splash of milk imaginable (think eyedropper size) goes into blended drinks. The worst offenders are most often customers who are not affiliated with Occidental and who do not know what the Green Bean offers, biochemistry major Lexie Filkins (sophomore) said. Hancock estimates that roughly one out of every 20 customers on a given day at the Green Bean are not Occidental students or faculty.
“Every barista will agree with me when I say that people are creatures of habit,” Tran said. “Generally, I can spot a ‘medium-roast-drip-no-room’ as soon as they enter the door. I say the most common order would be drip coffee, nonfat chai or nonfat vanilla lattes in the daytime and hot chocolate or peppermint tea in the nighttime.”
When it is hot outside, Hancock added, customers tend to order iced coffees and green tea lemonades. Drinks normally served hot can be a pain to make cold, though, so the baristas implore us to think twice before ordering iced tea lattes, iced Blue Velvets and iced mochas.
Filkins, who has worked at the Green Bean for two years, noticed a change in drinks ordered from the fall to spring semesters. At the beginning of the year, students order a lot of blended beverages, but by the second semester, baristas get more orders for nonfat lattes and sugar-free vanilla coffee.
“I don’t know if it’s the freshman 15 or what it is, but by the spring we get a lot less orders for blended drinks,” Filkins said.
For latte lovers, Filkins suggests stepping out of the box by trying a cappuccino with chocolate drizzle and cinnamon on top. Hancock added that while few people order cappuccinos, a nice frothy cappuccino will certainly hit the spot for foam enthusiasts. Alternatively, go for a tea latte and experience a whole new world.
“Everyone should try a different tea at least once in their time going to the Green Bean,” Mariani said. “People can get so caught up in their preferences that they won’t branch out and try something new. Oolong and Chinese Flower get lonely too.”
Feel free to enter a dialogue with the barista to play around with flavors. Since the Green Bean has expanded its tea selection, Filkins and Hancock also advocate for customers to diversify their palettes. All Green Bean baristas, including Kraft, gladly assist adventurous patrons in discovering the perfect taste.
“People [in the Green Bean] are pretty friendly and everyone’s happy to talk with you and find a drink that you’ll like,” Kraft said.
The dialogue usually plays out with the barista asking whether the customer wants their beverage blended, iced or hot, coffee or tea, caffeinated or decaffeinated and what, if any, syrup flavors. But if customers have no idea what to try or are stuck in an iced medium roast rut, the baristas in the Green Bean have plenty of ideas, including the drink of the month. In honor of Valentine’s Day, February’s drink is a Red Velvet, which is essentially a Blue Velvet with African Autumn tea.
Tran also recommends variations of tea lattes. She enjoys cinnamon spice tea lattes with soy milk and one pump of pumpkin sauce. Mariani goes for the pumpkin as well and recommends trying a pumpkin mocha.
“Any espresso based drink with whole milk has the potential to be a beautiful and delicious concoction,” Mariani said.
Hancock recommends trying berry lemonade made with green tea instead of water, as well as adding Irish cream to coffee beverages. Filkins goes for tea lattes, especially peaches and ginger tea lattes with honey. Other alluring options Filkins has seen made are chai with pumpkin syrup and green tea with chai and nonfat milk.
Hancock and Filkins also encourage students to order what they want and experiment with new flavors, while also remembering that baristas are students who share the same stress about school. Filkins also asks that when ordering, students speak loudly, and be careful not to take the wrong drink from the counter. Kraft said that at least several times a day baristas have to remake drinks as a result of customers taking someone else’s order.
Lastly, never leave Marketplace utensils or plates in the Green Bean. That’s just plain rude.
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, regarded as the newest old master and the first modern master, comes to life in The Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. The exhibition, going on now, hosts a great number of rare etchings, prints and charcoal drawings of exceptional skill. They present an intimate picture of the inner machinations of Goya’s maddening mind and a window into his tumultuous era of wartime Spain.
Four print series are on display: “Los Caprichos,” “The Disasters of War,” “La Tauromaquila,” and “Los Proverbios.” The works were mostly put on display after Goya’s death in 1828 at the age of82. The Spain of Goya’s lifetime was an oppressive, fundamentalist Catholic empire of waning wealth and absolute monarchy, so it is interesting to note the profane and subversive quality of his works. While court painter to the Royal Crown of Spain, Goya produced religious and aristocratic subjects standard to other contemporary painters such as Thomas Gainsborough, Jacques Louis Davide, or Franz Hals.
Outwardly conservative, Goya painted beautiful, yet boring works. However, the danger of losing his lucrative royal commission if his other works in the Norton Simon were released during his lifetime was very real, considering that the Spanish Inquisition ended in 1834.
Romantic and rapturous, gory and graphically violent, the diverse prints speak of the real Spain, which hosted horrors and hardships the aristocrats did not want to acknowledge. The “Los Caprichos” series depicts imaginative scenes of the Spanish underworld juxtaposed with crazy phantasms. “There They Go, Plucked” features prostitutes chasing away little chicken-bat men, former clients, away with brooms while more bats are shown flying in from overhead.“The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters” is one of the most famous works of art from the era. While its prestige is great, it does not dominate the gallery since it is tame compared to the bullfights of “La Tauromaquila“ and the ghastly violence of the “The Disasters of War.”
The full color portrait of “Don Pedro, Duque de Osuna“ hangs in a neighboring gallery next to Goya’s more mainstream published paintings. These truly resplendent paintings are on loan from the Frick Collection in New York. Don Pedro was one of Goya’s most generous patrons, but the painting of him lacks any flattery. Goya’s portrait depicts Don Pedro as stout, too plump for his small waistcoat. He smiles placidly, looking off to the viewer’s right with a beady-eyed gaze.
“There is very little hint of extravagance,” the painting’s description reads.
The portrait evokes a sense of peace and stability.
Meanwhile, the “Disasters of War” series depicts naked men being sawed in half by French hussars, and dismembered corpses crucified to olive trees. It’s quite metal.
One of the most interesting features of the gallery is that all the explanatory text on the walls is only in English. Patriotic Francisco Goya was always the ardent Spaniard, so it seems inappropriate that no Spanish descriptions appear paired with the English. In Los Angeles, such a lack of partnership is inexcusable. With the formidably large staff of the Norton Simon Museum, it is disappointing that at least one intern from the uniformed legion wasn’t tasked to transliterate a bilingual exhibit description.
Sexual assault, a volatile issue on Occidental’s campus for the past year, made headlines when President Barack Obama created a national sexual assault task force in January. Occidental also made national press when the school’s anonymous sexual assault report form was spammed with fake reports. In a continuing effort to address this issue, the college has hired an outside public relations firm and has also applied for a grant from the Department of Justice (DOJ) to combat sexual assault on campus.
On Campus
During winter break, Occidental’s anonymous sexual assault report forum was spammed with over 400 reports from an outside source, some claiming to be men’s rights advocates, according to Director of Communications Jim Tranquada and The L.A. Times. Newspapers and websites across the country covered the influx.
To handle the increase in media attention as a result of this issue, Occidental hired public relations firm G.F. Bunting & Co. to work on media relations, according to Tranquada.
“The level of media interest in the issue of sexual misconduct is such that our small staff needs help to ensure our regular work of promoting the college, including the work of faculty and students, doesn’t suffer,” Tranquada said. “The college often hires consultants in a variety of areas when the need arises, given that most offices have lean staffs.”
Lawyers Gina Smith and Leslie Gomez were hired last April to report on Occidental’s sexual misconduct policy and put an interim policy in place. The final report has yet to come out because they have been focused on putting an interim policy in place, according to Tranquada.
“We asked them last summer to create our interim policy that could be in place before school and to provide training for faculty and staff,” Tranquada said. “That just didn’t give them enough time to work on the report.”
Smith and Gomez’s work involved reviewing thousands of documents, including reports from the past two years. They also interacted with over 100 community members through interviews and online feedback. Smith and Gomez plan to talk with more of the campus community in order to gain a broader perspective before issuing their report.
“In synthesizing the information learned to date […] we felt that we were still missing some voices in the conversation,” Smith and Gomez said in an email statement. “Before completing our final report, we are taking an additional opportunity to invite Occidental community members to participate in our review.”
As Smith and Gomez finalize their review, the national Office of Civil Rights (OCR) and Department of Education (overseer of the Clery Act) are also reviewing the Occidental administration’s response to sexual misconduct.
The OCR investigates Title IX complaints. and its report will detail areas in which the school is non-compliant with Title IX rules. The office enters into an agreement with the school to fix those areas but does not fine schools for non-compliance. Tranquada said that the OCR report is the first of three reports the administration is expecting.
The Department of Education’s Clery Act relates to how quickly the school notifies students of potential danger in events like school shootings, inclement weather or other threatening situations. This department has the power to give fines. The earliest this report would be given to the school is next fall, according to Tranquada.
Despite the current investigations, Occidental applied for and received a $300,000 grant from the DOJ to tackle issues related to sexual assault on campus. Occidental is one of 38 schools to receive the grant.
“Grantees are required to use grant funds to create a Coordinated Community Response Team to support the coordination of response services among internal and external partners to reduce sexual assault,” Assistant Dean for Intercultural Affairs Paula Crisostomo, who helped author the grant proposal, said in an email.
Occidental’s external partners are Peace Over Violence, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center. Members of Project S.A.F.E., Emmons, Residential Education, Intercultural Affairs, faculty members and Title IX Coordinator Ruth Jones will serve on this response team. The response team will provide prevention and educational programming, similar to that in first-year orientation, to all campus community members. Students will also be given printed material on sexual assault.
Grant money will also enhance Campus Safety training.
“All Campus Safety officers will receive training on how to appropriately and sensitively take survivor statements, understand psychological reactions to trauma, how and when to refer to other resources, etc.,” Crisostomo said.
Crisostomo hopes to see the grant money go toward helping every member of Occidental become more educated and safe.
“My hope is that this grant will help the entire Oxy community focus on prioritizing safety and prevention,” Crisostomo said in an email. “While $300,000 is not nearly enough money to eliminate [this issue], it is a start to work towards reducing sexual assault, intimate partner violence, dating violence and stalking on our campus.”
During a community meeting on Feb. 4, President Jonathan Veitch acknowledged the effect that the conversation around sexual misconduct has had on the entire campus.
“I know the campus climate has been challenging for many of you. We care about these issues. We need to find ways to talk to each other, and we will. And we need to bridge the gap, or perceived gap, between faculty and staff, and we will do that, too,” Veitch said.
Veitch said that fundraising “has been less” in the last year “for obvious reasons” without detailing what the obvious reasons may be. He did not respond to an email asking for clarification.
Veitch also mentioned a number of measures the school has taken to address sexual assault on campus. At orientation, first-years are given four hours of sexual assault education – an increase from previous years – and many of Oxy Sexual Assault Coalition’s (OSAC) demands were incorporated into the new policy. Additionally, available resources have been enhanced with the addition of a sexual assault survivor advocate, Naddia Palacios, and the Title IX coordinator, Jones.
In California
Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D-Los Angeles) introduced a bill on Jan. 6 that would change standards for colleges and universities in reporting violent crimes. The bill was largely a response to reports that schools, including Occidental and University of Southern California (USC), did not accurately report on-campus sexual assaults as required by federal law. The bill would require schools to report crimes to local law enforcement agencies for investigation unless the survivor elects not to report.
“What helps those victims is the crime actually being investigated by a competent law enforcement agency,” Gatto said in an L.A. Times article.
Jones said that the bill does not change much about the current policy in place at Occidental.
“On its face, the bill just adds another reporting facet to current policy,” she said. “What we need to figure out is how it would be in practice. The question is, when in the process would it be reported to law enforcement?”
Also under discussion is bill AB 1498, by Assemblywoman Nora Campos (D-San Jose). The bill gives judges the ability to grant restraining orders to survivors of sex crimes, without the necessitating that the survivor give testimony.
In the United States
Obama announced the creation of a federal task force to review college sexual assault and policy in January. Many sexual assault activists are excited to see this issue brought to a national stage.
There were 30 Title IX complaints regarding sexual violence in 2013, according to The L.A. Times. Obama credited such “student-led activism” with bringing the issue to the forefront of conversation. In the speech, Obama also said to survivors: “We have your back.”
Politics Department Chair and sexual assault activist Caroline Heldman helped students file a lawsuit against Occidental last semester. OSAC, of which Heldman is a founding member, has openly criticized the Occidental administration’s handling of the sexual assault cases on campus.
“For the first time in the history of the long anti-rape struggle, President Obama has made the prevention of campus sexual assault a national policy priority,” Heldman said in an email. “With this task force and the force of his office, the President changed the course of sexual violence on campus. Much work remains to be done to see best practices developed and implemented, but the good news is that this issue can no longer be denied, ignored or deceptively spun by campus administrators.”
As Valentine’s Day approaches, many Occidental students are looking to social media for potential dates. Whether students are looking for love this Friday, or simply to get lucky, one app in particular may facilitate the stars’ alignment.
Using data from Facebook, mobile application Tinder presents users with a stream of profile pictures. The user then decides whether the candidate on his or her screen deserves a green heart of attraction, also known as a “swipe right,” or a red “x” of rejection, a “swipe left.” When two users “heart” each other, the app kindly subsumes the burden of making the first move by immediately creating a private chat room in which the two can get acquainted.
An anonymous female student said that although she created her Tinder account on a whim, it turned out to be a surprisingly convenient way to meet people with similar interests without having to sort through all of the strangers in bars.
“It’s not like I’m not meeting people. It’s just that it’s nice to meet someone and immediately be able to be like, ‘We have a lot in common, we should hang out,’ as opposed to just going to a bar where maybe guys are creepy,” the student said.
Unlike on Omegle, a site that anonymously places two random strangers in a chat room, the people encountered on Tinder are either physically nearby or friends of friends on Facebook.
“Since you see pictures, that puts a face to who you’re talking to. You know you’re talking to a real person,” physics major Sweddy Perez* (first-year) said. “It’s harder to fake a Tinder profile, whereas on Omegle, a chick who says she’s eighteen and from L.A.could very well be… a 60-year-old dude in India.”
The anonymous female student, who went on a date with a Tinder match for the first time last Saturday night, enjoyed her experience despite initial nervousness.
“We’d been talking for like a week and a half before we went out. I had checked him out on Facebook, trying to make sure he was who he said he was – a Ph.D student at UCLA. So it wasn’t a totally blind thing,” the student said.
Tinder profiles consist of a user’s name, age, location, a few photos and liked pages on Facebook. Public access to that basic information holds users more accountable for their messages.
Objectives for casual chatting range from flattery to entertainment to procrastination.
“I jokingly once did get paired up with a 60-year-old man from Orange County and he messaged me soon after we got paired asking me if I wanted to spend the weekend with him in his beach house,” sociology major Koryeh Cobb (sophomore) said. “But that conversation quickly ended due to the overall absurdity of it.”
Not all of Cobb’s matches have been so unusual.
“If you weed the creepy conversations out then you can actually talk to some really cool people,” Cobb said. “I had a great conversation with someone who had just finished the Peace Corps, and due to my interest in that, I had an insane amount of questions for him. We never met up or anything, but it was still fun talking to him.”
Though the app requires personal information, no system of verification besides opting to connect through Facebook exists. Other online dating sites require comprehensive profiles of their members and entail the expectation of an in-person date, two features which mark a clear distinction betweenTinder and sites like OkCupid or eHarmony.
Tinder also appeals to a larger population than singles looking for dates; many users sign on primarily to rate their neighbors. OkCupid, offers a similar feature, but it serves as more of a supplementary activity, or to strike up flirty convos for fun. The combination of interests gives the app more of a casual, hook-up feel.
“It’s kind of like they figured out a way to advertise eHarmonyto kids – except almost solely for sex,” undeclared Charles Pollnow (first-year) said. “They advertise it as being more little creeks merging into your stream of sexual experiences, the goal being to have the biggest stream possible. I was like, well that’s one way to think about it.”
Many students reported theywould never even consider meeting up with a Tinder match in person.
“I would never meet up with anyone [who I met] on there,” Perez said. “Tinder at 25 is more of a one-night stand kind of thing. My friend’s gotten a lot of girls through Tinder. He talks to girls other ways; Tinder’s just like an extra thing. Think about it, he can be at a bar talking to a girl and be on Tinder, doing this with one hand, talking to a girl with the other. Boom. Cost-benefit analysis. The opportunity cost is that second girl you’re dropping by not being on Tinder.”
Some studentson Tinder do end up going on real, genuine dates – even the users who initially downloaded the app just for kicks.
“One of my friends convinced me [to download Tinder]. It was over winter break and I was really bored,” the anonymous female student said. “I wasn’t even looking for anything; it sort of just happened. I think things have changed so much that it doesn’t seem lame to me anymore.”
Other Occidental users report success finding dates on Tinder despite initial hesitation.
“I did meet up with one of the Tinder people. The first time we talked on the phone before meeting… the first thing I said was, ‘Please don’t kill me,'” Cobb said. “Having seen a couple episodes of catfish on MTV, I was worried that the whole night would go terribly wrong. He was super, super sweet, and we actually still hang out to this day!”
The app can also be a source of bonding. Whereas online daters tend to be more shy about their memberships, Tinder owes much of its rapidly growing popularity to its suitability for parties as a conversation-starter or even a communal activity.Friends confidently exchange funny Tinder encounters and even swipe through the app together, all without a sense of embarrassment.
“Over winter break I was at a party and my friend was going through Tinder hitting a bunch of girls with the ‘Hey :)’ and I was like, ‘Damn that looks good. I gotta download that,’” Perezsaid. “We were going through it together, hitting girls with the ‘Hey :).’ It was nice to see my friend and it was a nice joke we had.”
Students also say the app can be a fun and exciting way to see who’s into you.
“Sometimes it’s just nice to know that someone swiped you to the right. It’s like a little ego boost on your way to class. Especially if they’re pretty,” an anonymous male student said.
Tinder can be a great way to branch out and meet new people, which isn’t always easy on smaller college campuses where social scenes can get claustrophobic.
“It works out for a place like Oxy, where most people tend to avoid getting involved with other students because of how small and connected everyone is,” the anonymous male student said.
Occidental students tend to have mixed opinions about getting matched with someone they actually know, especially other students on campus.
“I did end up deleting my account because I kept seeing people from Occidental and for some reason that weirded me out,” Cobb said.
Others are more optimistic about using the app to find love on campus.
“One time I matched with a girl from Occidental,” Perez said. “I saw her in the Marketplace a few days ago actually. She didn’t respond to my ‘Hey :).’ Girl from Oxy, what is good with that?”
A recent change in campus policy means that off-campus residents could be receiving more visits from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), as after a first call and warning from Campus Safety, further complaints from neighbors are handled by the LAPD. A Jan. 28 email from Dean of Students Barbara Avery informed off-campus residents of this new protocol.
According to the LAPD website, any noise that is “excessive, unnecessary and/or annoying” is subject to regulation. For most noise violations, citations from the LAPD only occur if the noise “disturbs the peace, quiet and comfort of neighboring residents” and is clearly audible from over 150 feet away from the property. Additionally, the LAPD notes that they consider the time, location and nature of the noise when enforcing violations.
Creating the policy for addressing complaints about off-campus houses was a combined effort by Campus Safety and the Office of Student Affairs. Chief of Campus Safety Sean Kennedy worked closely with the Eagle Rock community and the LAPD to ensure all parties understand response protocol for complaints.
“We let [Eagle Rock residents and Occidental students] know that Campus Safety would go out to the house for the first call as a warning, then after that concerns would go to the LAPD,” Kennedy said. “This change was decided upon by working with best practices that are used through the country. We related those policies to our specific campus and with our Campus Safety structure.”
School officials implemented the new policy as a way to foster harmonious living between students and neighbors, according to Avery’s email.
“You are living among neighbors who typically have a different lifestyle and set of priorities than most students,” Avery wrote.
Avery’s email further explained that the new policy would hold students accountable to both the Occidental Code of Student Conduct policies and laws enforced by the State of California.
Students who live off-campus have encountered minimal challenges working with the new policy and respecting their neighbors.
“We’ve always tried to keep the noise down past midnight, so we generally don’t get noise complaints,” off-campus resident and politics major Alice Ottoson-McKeen (senior) said.
Politics major Mackenzie Tucker (senior) generally has positive experiences with Campus Safety and her neighbors. She noted that Campus Safety has been helpful in the past in removing students who were loitering in the streets.
“I do think that [Campus Safety] does a really great job of responding to noise complaints when they receive them. Every time that Campus Safety has come to my house, they are really respectful and just kindly ask us to keep the noise level down,” Tucker said.
Tucker has also had experience with the LAPD.
“[On one occasion] our neighbors called LAPD after Campus Safety dealt with the initial noise complaint at our house because our neighbors felt as though further action needed to be taken. LAPD arrived and told me that the gathering we were having did not need to be broken up because we were not violating L.A. noise violations,” Tucker said.
For Kennedy, the new policy is only the first step in a trend of greater community cooperation.
“I want to organize a town hall type meeting between students, businesses and neighbors. The onus is on students to help each other and work with us,” Kennedy said.
Facilities Management increased its sustainability efforts following the reinstitution of Occidental’s sustainability committee last semester. With projects that range from solar panel experiments to water and energy conservation, the committee is working closely with Sustainability Coordinator Emma Sorrell ’13 and Facilities Management to oversee all of the college’s sustainability plans.
According to Sorrell, one of the sustainability committee’s most ambitious projects currently underway involves renovating the campus’s entire plumbing system to reduce overall water consumption. The plan comes at a time when water conservation is becoming an increasingly important issue for the state of California.
On Jan. 17, California Gov. Jerry Brown declared a drought emergency for the state. Professor of economics Bevin Ashenmiller hopes Brown’s declaration will spur action on water conservation.
“We live in Southern California—the biggest issue we need to be thinking about is water,” Ashenmiller said. “Hopefully, the drought will create incentive for us to really focus on water efficiency. If we have another bad year, it could be really catastrophic.”
Occidental has already taken steps to curb water consumption. In line with Occidental’s yearlong academic theme of water issues, Facilities staff members conducted research about the amount of water used on campus, surveying 1,778 different water fixtures around campus. The next phase of the project is retrofitting each fixture to lower flow options, which would reduce water consumption by 15 to 20 percent. Facilities had not set a hard deadline for the completion of the project at press time.
Facilities also recently upgraded the water shutoff system in response to an event last October in which a ruptured pipe caused a flood on upper campus. The upgrade makes it possible for Facilities to target more specific segments of the water system should another such issue occur, according to Director of Facilities Thomas Polansky.
To address the excessive use of water for irrigation purposes, Facilities is working with a sustainability-minded landscape architect to draft a new campus landscape master plan.
The sustainability committee is also hard at work on reducing the college’s power consumption. One way they are doing this is by putting the college through a greenhouse gas emission survey—the first of its kind in Occidental history. Results from the survey are expected to arrive in the coming weeks.
Johnson Hall will likely receive its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification this semester, a rating that indicates resource efficiency. This would make it the second LEED-certified building on campus after Swan Hall earned Gold Level certification last fall. Facilities officials hope the new building will earn at least Silver Level certification.
Facilities is not tackling all of issues single-handedly. According to Sorrell, members of the physics department are working with Facilities to increase the efficiency of Occidental’s 1-megawatt solar array.
“The research projects designed by the physics department will help Facilities determine the optimal time to clean the solar panels, therefore maximizing our clean energy production, and will explore methods for preventing dust and debris build up that reduces the array’s efficiency,” Sorrell said via email.
As Sorrell notes, the benefits of these projects extend beyond their potential economic and environmental payoffs.
“This collaboration between Facilities and academic departments enriches learning experiences by allowing students to not only learn on campus but also learn from the campus,” Sorrell said.
Besides the solar array, Facilities is working on incorporating more energy-saving technology around campus. They are replacing old light fixtures with longer-lasting LEDs in buildings across campus and have added an automatic hand dryer in Pauley Hall. Depending on student feedback, these automatic hand dryers could potentially replace all paper towel dispensers in campus residence halls.
Other sustainability projects on the horizon include the renovation of the bathrooms in Chilcott Hall, a collaboration with Information Technology Services (ITS) to reduce printing and paper waste and the attainment of LEED certification for the proposed redesign of the Academic Commons.
More information on each of these projects will be available in a forthcoming sustainability newsletter from Sorrell.
After suffering an 83-60 loss at Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (CMS) Wednesday night, the Occidental men’s basketball team (10-11 overall, 5-7 SCIAC) rebounded Saturday, rallying past Redlands, 69-66, in front of a Rush Gymnasium crowd of nearly 900.
The Tigers stayed within reach of the Stags despite defensive struggles and losing the rebounding battle. They were down 35-28 at the half before CMS pulled away with a 48-point second period. The Stags shot 62.5 percent from the field and 56.3 percent from beyond the arc, with guard Tyler Gaffaney’s (senior) 23 points, eight rebounds and eight assists leading the way.
Guard Juwan Rice (junior) scored 16 points for Occidental, but the Stags kept every other Tiger player in single digits.
“Our communication and rotation on defense needed to improve,” center Andrew Johnson (first-year) said.
Defensive and rebounding struggles continued in similar fashion for the black and orange in the first half against Redlands, and the Bulldogs went into the locker room up by 15 points, 39-24. They shot 16 of 30 from the floor while holding Occidental’s offense in check with a match-up zone that Occidental head coach Brian Newhall admitted had his team confused.
“We haven’t worked that much on zone offense because we haven’t see much zone,” Newhall said. “It made us pause.”
But everything changed in the second half.
“We had a few tantrums [during halftime],” Newhall said. “But they were looking for energy, enthusiasm and focus. And the contrast between the first half and the second half? Wow.”
Newhall attributed much of the renewed intensity and change of pace to guard Jay Miller’s (first-year) return. Seeing his first action since since suffering a concussion on Jan. 4, Miller made an immediate impact, using his quickness to finish with 10 points in only 16 minutes of floor time.
Fellow newcomers Johnson (team-high 18 points, 10 rebounds) and guard Joe Compagno (9 points, 3 of 5 from 3-point range) also contributed to the Tigers’ rally. Compagno hit a three-pointer with 4:53 minutes remaining in the game to put the black and orange up 61-60.
The Bulldogs never regained the lead after that point.
“Our [first-years] were three of our best guys tonight,” Newhall said.
Veteran forward and the team’s leading scorer Kris Montoya (senior) scored Occidental’s first basket of the night but was otherwise blanked in the first half. He found his rhythm, however, pouring in 14 points in the second half alone.
But it was his defense that ignited the comeback.
Trailing 44-37 with 13:28 minutes remaining, Montoya blocked forward Kyle Milligan’s (sophomore) driving layup, much to the enjoyment of the home crowd. Johnson came down with the defensive rebound and, on the other end, Compagno hit a step-back three to pull the Tigers within four.
With the crowd energized, Occidental kept up its aggressive pace en route to a three-point victory.
“It just showed our team’s resilience,” Montoya said.
Newhall said he has seen a large step forward from last season despite up-and-down results over the course of this year. The youthful squad has dealt with Miller’s concussion and second-leading scorer Spencer Levy’s (sophomore) ankle injury, as well as the continuous process of implementing new offensive and defensive systems.
Amid the adversity, Newhall believes the team has steadily improved week after week.
“We’ve been much better in the second year of the new system,” Newhall said. “We’ve made good adjustments.”
Montoya suffered a rare four-game shooting slump in January during which the Tigers went 0-4. He broke out with a 24-point performance in an overtime win over Chapman.
Since then, the black and orange has gone 4-3 in its last seven games and continue the push to qualify for the four-team SCIAC Postseason Tournament. Occidental currently sits one game behind Chapman and La Verne in the conference standings.
“We’re optimistic,” Newhall said. “We’d like to get a few more wins. We’ve been surviving and battling.”
The Tigers return to the hardwood tonight at 7:30 p.m., hosting a Chapman team they defeated 99-94 (OT) back on Jan. 18.
I have a confession to make: I am a hater. Or at least I was, and I am trying my best to not be one now. Of all things, I have an infectiously catchy song by Pitbull and Ke$ha to thank for this new approach to analyzing popular music.
A little over a week ago, I was taking a break from the veritable mountain of reading and graduate school applications I had stacking up, and kicked back for a few precious minutes with two friends, Gary and Carol, whose names I have changed to protect everyone involved. Gary and I were discussing the merits of the latest drunken weekend anthem, “Timber.” We quickly agreed upon two things: one, that Pitbull’s lyrical ability essentially amounted to shouting a handful of random city names, some mumbled words in Spanish, and proclaiming his title as “Mister Worldwide” whenever he got the chance. We also concurred that Ke$ha’s hook was one of the most effective earworms we had heard since “Wrecking Ball” became inescapable back in August of 2013. In short, we would be whole-heartedly singing along with the tune come Saturday night.
It was then that Carol proclaimed “Timber” to be her favorite song of all time. Instinctively, I contorted my face into a disgusted expression. A generic, albeit catchy pop song about blacked out hookups, her desert island, all time favorite song? Right at that moment, it was shocking that the person who I had had extensive, intelligent conversations about music with could achieve emotional fulfillment out of the work of an artist interchangeable with fellow musical criminals Flo-Rida and Taio Cruz. My skepticism must have been immediately apparent, since Carol defiantly insisted that yes, indeed, her favorite song was performed by Mr. Worldwide himself, and claimed that I was just “being a hater.”
In hindsight, she had some valid points and was most likely trying to get a rise out of Gary and I, the unappreciated scholars of pop culture that we deludedly perceive ourselves to be. Or maybe she was being completely serious. We haven’t discussed the merits and detractions of the Billboard-topping hit since that evening, so I am not aware of her favorite song while writing this.
Another thought that struck me after the conversation was this: was it really such a crime that she loved “Timber?” My indignation terminated any chance of an actual discussion on Pitbull’s place in the pantheon of popular music, but it did get me over-thinking about the use of the word “hater” and I came to the conclusion that we as an audience that enjoys music, whether casually or obsessively, are overusing the phrase. This issue stems from and is being fed by those who actually earn the title, those who can only articulate their disdain as “it’s too popular” or “he/she doesn’t deserve success.”
“Hating” has been a symptom in pop culture for generations but has truly exploded in recent years. When you only have 140 characters to get your point across, it can be tempting to simply label someone as a hater, and gratifying as well. The satisfaction of calling out someone with an opposing take on an artist or song is hard to resist. What am I referring to when I write hater? Most interpret the term as referring to a person who cannot be happy for someone else’s success, and so the former constantly point out the latter’s flaws. In this sense, I was being a hater towards Pitbull (to an extent, as I will go into later) and I am not alone in being deserving of that label.
While “hater” gets tossed around too liberally, there are certainly those who meet the requirements. If your justification for disliking a song or artist amounts to a teenager who has just heard Led Zeppelin and goes on Justin Bieber’s Youtube channel to post “Music today is TERRIBLE you guyz, the 70s was waaaaaaaay better,” I am happy to inform you that yes, you are being a hater. Everyone is welcome to an opinion, but failing to articulate why you have that opinion does nothing to grow our understanding of music. Blindly voicing your displeasure at an artist’s success is a surefire way to not convince anyone that you have a well-developed take on their work. An informed opinion would involve comparing the vocal qualities, lyrical content or even why certain individuals or groups connect with the songs of Zeppelin and Bieber. Those types of discussions, of listening to what one listener has to share and reciprocating with respect should be what appreciators of music everywhere should regularly practice.
Herein lies my issue with so lightly calling someone a hater. Personally, I find Justin Bieber’s lyrics bland, and while puberty has helped his overall vocals tremendously, he has lost a large portion of distinctiveness in his music. The first time I heard “Beauty And A Beat,” I would not have known it was him singing unless I had used Shazam. However, I will concede that Bieber has some catchy hooks. As far as if he really deserves the success, I really couldn’t care less. Yet voicing these opinions would make the Bieliebers grab their metaphorical pitchforks and torches and march onto campus to proclaim me a hater. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how many concerts Bieber sells out, because ultimately each of us can choose what we want to listen to, and I have made the decision to not listen to his music.
Calling someone a hater for being able to succinctly present why they enjoy or do not enjoy music is just as immature and unproductive as hating on someone purely because of their success. Just as alienating, as I found with “Timber,” is that hating someone for what they enjoy listening to is just as negative, if not more so, since it can quickly become much more personal. In my disagreement with Carol, I was hating on her and Pitbull: angry that she picked a work by an undeserving artist (in my opinion at the time) as her all-time favorite was borderline disturbing to me then. I admit that I am guilty of this on more than one occassion. Most, if not all people who have even a cursory knowledge of music, are guilty of this. Disagreeing with someone does not make either person a hater: it is how we react to differences that turns us into the lowest form of music appreciators. The hater label and hating falsely delegitimizes perceptions and unnecessarily divides us as listeners.
We, the audience, the hardcore fans who memorize every note and word, the casual listeners who shuffle their iTunes library while doing homework, have more outlets for listening to and debating music than any generation in history, and we owe it to ourselves to use those resources to be more positive about the artists we love . Nearly every song ever written is a Google-search away, and fans can be more connected to one another than ever before. If you do not like a song or artist, it is easier than ever to find ones you can enjoy and others to share in the passion. We should be proud to share why songs resonate in our ears and hearts. It might be the intricacies and layers of the instruments on Vampire Weekend’s most recent album, the nostalgia of hearing Lil’ Jon and the East Side Boys on a Friday night, and yes, even the hook off “Timber” that you’re humming on the way to class because it’s just so damn catchy. At the same time, we have to recognize the reasons why we might not become attached to other songs, be it for asinine lyrics, sloppy production or whatever makes the tune sound like nails on a chalkboard. The key is to embrace those differences. It does not matter what you are listening or not listening to, so long as you can articulate why. We as listeners can only benefit from accepting that not everyone will share their opinion, and spending hours debating the merits and detractions with good friends, preferably while listening to a good record.
Rob Fleming, the antihero of Nick Hornby’s bible on music and relationships, “High Fidelity,” builds a mixtape for his girlfriend, full of music that she loves, not what he wants her to love. I think I am starting to understand what that is like.
Except for Limp Bizkit fans. I’ll never understand the appeal of Fred Durst. I guess I still have a ways to go.
Jack Butcher is a senior history major. He can be reached at butcher@oxy.edu or on Twitter @WklyJButcher.
The Great Barrier Reef is the largest coral reef in the world. It’s so big, in fact, that you can see it from space!
Corals are the only living structure that can be seen from space. (Source: NASA)
The Great Barrier Reef stretches for over 1,600 miles along the east coast of Australia, consisting of a staggering 2,900 individual reefs and over 900 islands. This natural wonder is supported by one major living animal – the coral polyp!
Coral polyps fabricate the hardened coral structure of the reef by secreting limestone, creating the hard structure to protect them and allow them to grow into diverse shapes and sizes. A symbiotic relationship with algae allows millions of tiny polyps make up one single coral, and as an ecosystem they support the lives of millions of other marine species.
Corals have crazy processes that are continuously being explored by scientists. Dr. Pim Bongaerts of the University of Queensland recently set up a time lapse camera to show coral processes that are too slow to be observed in real time. What he found was amazing – his video shows corals extending themselves to take over different colonies, moving themselves by inflating and deflating their structures and extending their tentacles to feed.
Corals are very picky about their habitats, requiring warm, clear water that allows light to facilitate photosynthesis and growth. If too much sediment is present in the water, the corals can be suffocated by the suspended particles, blocking their mouths and preventing feeding.
Turtle chilling out on the Great Barrier Reef. (Source: Beyond Gorgeous)
This lovable reef is about to change, and for the worse.
Think of the oceans that surround the equator as a desert – there are limited life-supporting materials that allow life to survive, much like there is scarce water in a desert to support land animals. Coral reefs provide the structure for life and without them, the diverse and unique ecosystem found on reefs would not exist. Compare this ecosystem with that found off of our own coast in Southern California – there is abundant plankton in the chilly coastal waters, providing lots of nutrients to sustain marine life. If corals are suffocated or otherwise threatened, every organism that finds its home on the Great Barrier Reef will find itself in danger.
Human impacts on the coast of the Great Barrier Reef have been a threat to corals for decades – however, new legislation passed in Australia has the potential to devastate this ecosystem more than ever before. This law has approved the dredging of a deep channel through the Great Barrier Reef, creating a deep water port for coal mining exports to be transported. The sediment removed from the channel will be deposited inside of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Area.
Environmental groups have stated that a risk exists for suspended sediment to smother and kill corals. With huge ships carrying coal in and out of the newly established port, the risk of accidents including oil spills and boat collisions with the reef is highly increased.
Clownfish enjoying their home on the threatened reef (CC Source)
While the government has given the go ahead, scientists and environmental groups such as Greenpeace have remained vehemently opposed to the plan. A letter sent to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority was signed by 223 scientists urging the agency to reject the plan to dump sediment within the Marine Park before the decision was made. Greenpeace spokesperson Louise Matthiesson has related the dumping of dredge spoil in the World Heritage Site as akin to “dumping rubbish on the Grand Canyon”, stating that the approval of the plan was an “international embarrassment for the Queensland and federal governments.”
The plan to dredge the reef is yet another international example of governments ignoring scientific data in favor of economic interests. The loss of the Great Barrier Reef would be devastating to not only the organisms that call it home, but also the people who make their living on the two million tourists that visit the reef annually, contributing an astounding $2 billion AU to the Australian GDP.
To save this natural wonder, it is critical that globally conscious citizens become aware of governmental decisions that could put the reef in jeopardy.
Jill Goatcher is a senior politics major and marine biology minor. She can be reached at goatcher@oxy.edu or on Twitter @WklyJGoatcher.
