10 30 14 entire issue lo res

Univ. Backs Cuomo’s State Consent Policy

By ZOE FERGUSON Sun Senior Writer

Cornell officials say the University is already aligned with Governor Andrew Cuomo’s (D-N Y ) recent affirmative consent policy in contrast to a “ no means no ” definition of consent for sexual activity

On Oct 2, Cuomo declared that New York State would require all 64 State University of New York schools to ensure their policies on sexual assault included a provision for affirmative consent, following the passing of a California bill requiring students to obtain consent that is “affirmative, conscious and voluntary” before engaging in sexual activity

The California bill SB-967 mandates that in order for any college in California to receive state funding, the college must adopt a policy concerning sexual assault that requires affirmative and ongoing consent that “ can be revoked at any time” from all parties involved in a sexual encounter

“It is the responsibility of each person involved in the sexual activity to ensure that he or she has the affirmative consent of the other or others to engage in the sexual activity,” states the bill, which was signed into law on Sept 28 “Lack of protest or resistance does not mean consent, nor does silence mean consent ”

Cuomo will also work to adopt affirmative consent legislation for New York’s private colleges However, Judicial Administrator

Mary Beth Grant J D ’88 says she believes Cornell already observes such a policy

“If we think about it as a continuum with ‘ no means no ’ versus a ‘ yes means yes ’ type of consent, I would say we are much closer on the continuum to ‘ yes means yes, ’ even though we ’ ve never articulated it in exactly that way, ” Grant said

According to Cornell’s current sexual assault policy, Policy 6 4, consent is defined as “words or actions that show a voluntary agreement to engage in mutually agreed-upon sexual activity ” According to Grant, this aligns with the idea that silence cannot be accepted as “ yes ”

“One of the things that I think is important to know is that when somebody is experiencing trauma, it can impact the language part of the brain,” Grant said “While the stereotype might be that somebody who’s being assaulted will fight back and scream no, it’s actually not the most common response ” Grant added that silence is particularly common in campus sexual assaults because of the relative frequency of “acquaintance

See CONSENT page 5

City Sees Boom in Hotel Projects

Three currently proposed in central downtown area

By ANNIE BUI Sun News Ed tor

In the next few years, Ithacans and visitors alike may notice some stark changes to the Ithaca skyline primarily as a result of multistory hotel projects that may crop up downtown

Marriott Hotel to Break Ground Later This Year

This week, it was announced that Binghamton-based firm

William H Lane will be the general contractor for the downtown Ithaca Marriott project, according to the construction blog Ithaca Builds The 10-story hotel will boast 160 guest rooms, a restaurant and meeting space

Final design submissions of the

construction site and hotel were presented to the City Planning and Development Board in October 2012, according to Ithaca Builds

The hotel will be located on the corner of Aurora and Green Streets

The cost of development for the hotel is projected at $32 million, according to Ithaca Builds The project is expected to break ground later this year, with an estimated completion date of spring 2017

The developer for the project is Bethesda, Maryland-based Urgo Hotels

Hotel Ithaca Expansion

May Finally Gain Traction

A planned major expansion of the Hotel Ithaca may finally gain some traction after an Ithaca agency voted to increase the maxi-

mum amount of a low-interest loan it would award the project, The Ithaca Voice reported Tuesday While the director of the Ithaca Urban Renewal Agency said the expansion has failed to transpire because of financing issues, the loan may help Hotel Ithaca put together the financing package needed to fund the project, according to The Voice Plans for the expansion announced in early 2012 when the hotel was still branded as a Holiday Inn include a 15,000 square foot conference center and a new nine-stor y tower boasting 115 guest rooms, according to Ithaca Builds

The Hotel Ithaca is owned and

C.U. Will Offer Four New MOOCs Next Spring

By NOAH RANKIN Sun City Ed tor

This spring, Cornell will embark on its second year featuring MOOCs massive open online courses by offering six free courses in collaboration with leading MOOC provider edX Four of the courses Introduction to Global Hospitality Management, Computing Technology Inside Your Smartphone, The Ethics of Eating and Civic Ecology: Reclaiming Broken Places are new to the University’s MOOC roster, while the other

two Networks and American Capitalism, A History were offered last year The courses will begin at various times in the spring

According to a University press release, the four new courses were selected from 15 submissions, a process similar to last year ’ s Though anyone can audit the courses from the edX website for free, in order to receive a “ Verified Certificate of Achievement,” one must pay a fee that varies by course, according to the edX website Without the guaranteed returns of traditional courses,

MOOCs are costly each course requires approximately $70,000 in non-faculty costs and an estimated 200-300 hours for the University to produce, The Sun previously reported However, professors in a panel last February stated that the main objective of MOOCs is not to turn a profit, but to expand educational fields and promote Cornell visibility “We are not in the business of money, ” said Joseph Burns Ph D ’66, at the February panel “We are in the business of education

See MOOCs page 4

weather FORECAST

Midday Music at Lincoln 12:30 - 1:15 p m , B20 Lincoln Hall

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Study Abroad 101 1 - 1:30 p m , 170 Roberts Hall

Student Assembly Meeting

4:45 - 6:15 p m , Willard Straight Hall Memorial Room

The Islamic State, Russia and Syria: American Foreign Policy in the 21st Century 7 - 8 p m , G10 Biotechnology Building

Once Upon a Nightmare 7 - 11 p m , Browsing Library, Willard Straight Hall

By KIMBERLY MARTINEAU ’95

Approximately 20 Ithaca residents convened in Ithaca’s City Hall last night to pore over problems and solutions to Ithaca’s growing drug problem

Council members Pam Packesey and John Johnson presided over the discussion led by landlords, concerned citizens, and various media representatives

Among the issues identified were the deterioration of Ithaca’s neighborhoods, the inability of the judicial system to deter dealers, and the fact that “police go after little fish instead of big fish handing out fines to jaywalkers and looking the other way when it comes to serious criminals,” said one citizen

Mackesey said poverty and lack of jobs in Ithaca were also significant factors contributing to Ithaca’s deterioration She explained that “kids can make a lot of money fast, without a lot of effort, [to] get out of poverty ” But another citizen disagreed: “I don’t necessarily see people getting out of poverty by selling drugs ” One landlord lamented, “ our work ethic is gone ” Chemung neighborhood legal ser vices representative Marc Freedman explained how he feels landlords could act expediently and effectively to evict tenants suspected of dealing

One landlord said it was difficult to determine what sort of activity can be defined as suspicious behavior “People come to my house for 10 to 15 minutes at a time and I’m sure not dealing drugs,” he said

O n

pitched in suggestions for a solution Cone recommended that the council contact Cornell experts on the topic: “Carl Sagan’s wife for example she’s an expert in the field ” Mackesey said that the city must determine a way to solve its problems on its own

She claimed that “the best deterrent for crime is for citizens to get out on the streets themselves ”

One landlord said it was not such an easy thing, noting that “crack users stay up all night and sleep all day ”

Another skeptic said “it’s a different culture ” Cone reminded the group, “ true, but there’s more of us than them ”

Many expressed enthusiasm for a neighborhood watch program or a patrol person on ever y block to discourage drug related activity A representative from East Hill disagreed, arguing there is too much potential for a “vigilante patrol” and that “ we [don’t] wan ’ t that ”

The final solution raised was to beautify the Ithaca’s bus station

C.U. Unveils New Administrative Portal for Students

By AIMEE CHO Sun Senior Writer

After more than a year in development, a new online student administrative portal partially funded by a gift from Liz Stuntz ’73 and Mayo Stuntz ’71 went live last week

The development of the Student Essentials site began last fall, when Susan Murphy ’73 Ph D ’94, vice president for student and academic services, Joanne DeStefano MBA ’97, vice president for finance and chief financial officer and Barbara Knuth, dean of the graduate school, envisioned a new method to deliver student services to Cornellians

“[They asked their staff to] think creatively about the way student services can be delivered at Cornell,” said Jason Kahabka, assistant dean for student services and admissions for the graduate school

Students looking to take care of administrative matters and access commonly-used University websites can now do so through this new online academic portal, Kahabka said

The site offers links to Student Center, Blackboard, library hours, academic support resources, exam schedules, transcript services and dining menus and hours

“Most offices have websites but it can be frustrating for students ... to get the information they need.”

S t u d e n t Essentials also provides students “quickviews of their data in real time,” according to University bursar Peter Olcott

“Students can easily view their bursar, Cornell Card, meal plan, City Bucks and laundry balances right in the portal If they need more information they can follow the link for details,” Olcott said

Kahabka added that when first-year or transfer students

arrive on campus, they can “struggle to find all the information they need to enroll in courses, pay their bills, verify their financial aid and get acclimated to Cornell ”

“Cornell is a large, complex university with many different administrative services available to students,” Kahabka said “Most offices have websites, but it can be frustrating for students to visit many different sites to get the information they need ”

Liz and Mayo Stunz partially funded the site because they “specifically wanted to help incoming students connect with the wealth of resources available on campus, ” according to University Registrar Cassie Dembosky

The offices of the University Registrar, Bursar, Financial Aid and the Graduate School helped with the design of the website, according to Kahabka They got feedback from several different student groups, including the Student Assembly and Graduate and Professional Student Assembly

Olcott added that during the 2013-14 academic year, the freshman Meinig Family Cornell National Scholars researched how peer schools present information, what portal designs are easiest to use and what information students use most frequently

“The Meinig Scholars invested hundreds of hours into this project and the success of this effort is in large part due to the excellent feedback and creative ideas they provided,” Olcott said

The new website elicited positive reactions from students, who commented on its usability and aesthetic design

“It’s more intuitive,” said Nicole Edelstein ’15 “If I were to try and look for something, I feel like it would be easier to find ”

Jessica Reuter ’17 added that she likes the “colorful design” of the new site

The new website is also designed to integrate with the new course catalog website that was also just unveiled, according to Dembosky

“We heard loud and clear that searching for and enrolling in courses was not easy, ” Dembosky said “I’m really excited about the vastly improved class roster and we ’ re already hearing great feedback from students in advance of pre-enrollment ”

New Tea Shop Opens on Ithaca Commons

By ASHLEY COLLIS-BURGESS

Sun Staff Writer

T h e ow n e r o f a n e w i n t e r n a t i o n a l t e a

s h o p t h a t o p e n e d o n t h e It h a c a C o m m o n s l a s t m o n t h s a i d h e h o p e s t o p rov i d e a n “ a u t h e n t i c ” e x p e r i e n c e t o C o r n e l l s t u d e n t s

a n d It h a c a n s a l i k e C a r a va n Se r a i , l o c a t e d a t 1 2 4 E a s t St a t e St , p rov i d e s a n i n t e r n a t i o n a l va r i e t y o f h i g h - q u a l i t y o r g a n i c t e a , t e a a c c e s s o r i e s a n d b a k e d g o o d s , a c c o r d i n g t o o w n e r

a b l e p r i c e s a n d t o i m p rove t h e l i ve s o f t h e

w o rk e r s t h e re

“ In No r t h e r n T h a i l a n d t e a f a r m s , t h e

p e o p l e w h o o p e r a t e a n d w o rk t h e re a re

i m m i g r a n t s w h o a re ve r y p o o r l y t re a t e d

a n d u n d e rc o m p e n s a t e d , ” h e s a i d “ So we

f i g u re d i t w o u l d b e a g o o d p l a c e t o s t a r t

b e c a u s e i t w o u l d b e n e f i t t h e p e o p l e a ro u n d

t h e re a n d u s ” Ju n p i n g Sh a o g r a d s a i d h e b e l i e ve s t h e

s h o p w i l l p rov i d e a n “ a n s we r ” t o t h e s h o r ta g e o f t e a s e l l e r s i n c o m p a r i s o n t o c o f f e e

Tr a d e Pl a n t a t i o n i n T h a i l a n d i n o rd e r t o h a ve h i g h q u a l i t y t e a i m p o r t e d a t a f f o rd -

C h r i s t o p h e r B o n n e B o n n e , a Sy r a c u s e n a t i v e , s a i d h i s t r a ve l s a r o u n d t h e w o r l d i n c l u d i n g t i m e s p e n t l i v i n g i n T h a i l a n d i n s p i re d h i m t o o p e n a s h o p w i t h “ a u t h e n t i c ” t e a t h a t re p l i c a t e s t h e k i n d f o u n d i n i t s o r i g i n a l l o c a t i o n s “ We t r y t o m a k e o u r t e a a s a u t h e n t i c a s p o s s i b l e s o w h a t yo u w i l l g e t ove r i n t h a t c o u n t r y, yo u c a n g e t h e re , ” B o n n e s a i d “ Mo s t o f t h e p l a c e s t h a t yo u s e e o n t h e m e n u a re p l a c e s t h a t I ’ ve b e e n ” W i t h r e g a r d s t h e t e a s h o p ’ s f u t u r e , B o n n e s a i d t h a t h e h o p e s t o c re a t e a Fa i r

c a f e s “ I w a s re a l l y d e l i g h t e d t o s e e t h e c l a s s i c

b u t u n d e r a p p re c i a t e d C e y l o n t e a o n t h e

m e n u a n d o f c o u r s e t h e re ’ s t h e Ti b e t a n

b u t t e r t e a , ” h e s a i d “ T h e Un i t e d St a t e s i s a ‘ c o f f e e c o u n t r y, ’ b u t I ' m g l a d It h a c a h a s f o u n d a g o o d a n s we r t o t h a t ” Ry a n K r u s e ’ 1 5 s a i d t h a t a l t h o u g h h e h o p e s t h e t e a s h o p w i l l s u c c e e d , h e i s s k e pt i c a l o f i t s s u c c e s s i n a p l a c e t h a t h a s h a d s o m a n y b u s i n e s s e s e n t e r a n d l e a ve t h e m a rk e t “ Te a s h o p s a re n o t a g o o d m a r k e t i n A m e r i c a , a n d i t w i l l b e d i f f i c u l t t o c o mp e t e w i t h a m o re c o n v e n t i o n a l b e v e r a g e s h o p l i k e St a r b u c k s o r Du n k i n Do n u t s , ” h e s a i d Howe ve r, Ja c q u e l y n n Jo n e s ’ 1 6 s a i d s h e b e l i e ve s t h e t e a

Hotel Ithaca Receives Higher Loan for Planned Expansion

HOTELS

Continued from page 1

operated by Buffalo-based Hart Hotels, according to Ithaca Builds It officially rebranded from the Holiday Inn to its current name in January, and within the past year interior renovations to the existing tower have been made

Proposed Canopy by Hilton on East State Street

The City Planning and Development Board progressed with plans for a seven-story Canopy by Hilton hotel, whose projected site is on the 300 block of East State St , The Sun previously reported

Ithaca may be one of the first cities to welcome a hotel in the company ’ s new Canopy line Other cities where Hilton plans to expand its Canopy line include Portland, Oregon; San Diego; Indianapolis and London

The proposed site of the hotel currently exists as two ground-level parking lots, which prompted some concerns regarding traffic and parking at the Tuesday board meeting

However, board members decided to update the hotel’s project description and pass a resolution to the Common Council, advising it to approve the sale of the city-owned part of one of the parking lots to a local agency, which will then sell it to the developer

Ithaca-based Whitham Planning and Design is a member of the development team for the project

If plans for the Canopy by Hilton come to fruition, this will be the second Hilton hotel in the downtown area, according to The Ithaca Journal The Hilton Garden Inn, located at the corner of Seneca and Tioga streets, is only a couple of blocks away

New MOOC Will Focus On Service Learning

MOOCs

Continued from page 1

and this is education ”

This notion of educational expansion is exemplified by one of the new MOOCs, Civic Ecology: Reclaiming Broken Places, which will be taught by Prof Marianne Krasny, natural resources, beginning on April 10 According to Krasny, Civic Ecology is “the first service learning MOOC ”

“We are working on incorporating some of the successful practices from our other online courses including students sharing ideas and completing course projects,” Krasny said “For the

MOOC, [this will involve] developing a multi-media story of the student’s civic ecology ser vice learning experience ” Krasny, who has been involved with other online courses, said they carry several advantages “The fun part is getting to ‘know’ students of all ages and interests from all over the country, ” she said “In our online courses we do a lot of sharing through a social networking site so students learn from each other in addition to learning from the instructor and materials ”

Noah Rankin can be reached at nrankin@cornellsun com

Cornell Of cials Af rm

Governor’s Consent Policy

CONSENT

Continued from page 1

r a p e s ” i n c o m p a r i s o n t o “ stranger rapes ”

“ There are a lot of other reasons, but that is one of the things that we see frequently, where there is a freezing rather than a fighting back,” Grant said “I think that it’s one of the philosophical reasons why this makes sense ”

Cornell’s official definition of consent also includes a note that says a person may not “ presume consent ” because of situational context Grant emphasized the importance of ensuring continuing consent in all cases

“ We’ve had many situations where somebody might be naked in bed with someone, willing to do something, but not willing to do something different,” Grant said “ We get many, many cases where there is consent for one act and not for another act You really have to make sure that there’s communication ”

Speaking on communication

“I

think students feel like having an affirmative consent is somehow going to be awkward It doesn’t have to be ”

throughout sex, Grant expressed sentiments similar to those outlined in SB-967 As the bill says that consent must be ongoing throughout a sexual encounter, Grant pointed out that “ consent can be withdrawn at any time ”

roles

“It’s the stereotype that men always want sex and they are

partner is,” Grant said “[In reality], of course they care about the partner Of course they want to be able to choose ”

Both Grant and Weiss said they were inspired by the recent increase in national attention to issues of sexual violence

“

whack with one another,” Weiss

s

nation, the conversation is really moving on sexual violence and around consent ” Weiss said she thinks Cornell will continue to address issues of sexual assault

“I think that universities as a whole need to keep up, ” she said “I would think that as the conversation evolves, policies will need to evolve to keep up with that too, and my hope would be that there will be a process for that at Cornell ” Gr

thinks there will be more consent-related discussion on campus, both among students and faculty

“I think it’s really good that t h e r

i n y because it gives the institution the ability to really look carefully at practices and policies,” Grant said “As the whole nation goes through and examines what are the best practices, I think we will continue to keep up with the best practices and trends and tr y to figure out what makes sense for our campus ”

M a r y B e t h G r a n t Zoe Ferguson can be reached at zferguson@cornellsun com

“Someone can initially be fine with it and for whatever reason change his or her mind,” Grant said “ The other person has to listen to that ”

Grant addressed the per vasive fear that obtaining a “ yes ” may make a sexual situation unnecessarily uncomfortable, saying she thinks affirmative consent “just makes sense ”

“It just makes sense to make sure that ever ybody is clear and good with what’s going on, ” she said “I think students feel like having an affirmative consent is somehow going to be awkward It doesn’t have to be ”

Laura Weiss, director of the Women’s Resource Center, said she thinks affirmative consent is not anything new, and should be viewed as the normal definition of consent

“If it’s not affirmative and enthusiastic, then what is it reluctant and coerced?” Weiss said “I think affirmative consent is consent I feel like it’s parsing things out really closely to think that there’s some kind of difference between those things We don’t have retroactive consent ”

Grant also said it is “hugely important” to acknowledge that consent is not something only to b e o b t a i n e d b y m e n f r o m women, but a mutual agreement from all parties involved She said the earlier assumption feeds

Independent Since 1880

EDITORIAL BOARD

HALEY VELASCO ’15

in Chief

CATHERINE CHEN ’15

Business Manager

CAROLINE FLAX ’15

Associate Editor

NICK DE TULLIO 15 Web Editor

RACHEL ELLICOTT 15 Blogs Editor

ELIZABETH SOWERS 15 Design Editor

CONNOR ARCHARD 15 Sports Photography Editor

ANNIE BUI ’16 News Editor

KAITLYN TIFFANY ’15

Arts & Entertainment Editor

KATHLEEN BITTER 15

Editor

CHARDAE VARLACK 15 Associate Multimedia Editor

EMILY BERMAN 16

NICOLE HAMILTON 16

EMMA LICHTENSTEIN ’16 Marketing Manager

LUISE YANG ’15

ARIELLE CRUZ ’15

MICHELLE FELDMAN ’15

WORKING ON TODAY’S SUN PHOTO EDITORS Connor Archard ’15 Michaela Brew ’18

EDITOR Kaitlyn Tiffany ’15

DESKERS Annie Bui 16

ALICEA ’16

’15

“

Siri, how do I get home?”

“ You need a loan?”

“No Home ”

“Cones? There are no cones within the area, Pay-o-la”

Losing My Accento

MEHROTRA ’16

“HOME ”

“Sorr y, I do not understand ” “Forget it ” “Love you too, Pay-o-la”

Aside from the fact that Siri can only understand ’Murican, she (or whatever pronoun Siri identifies with) isn’t the only one who has had trouble deciphering my s p e e c h O v e r t h e y e a r s , h o w e v e r, m y

’15

accent has degenerated, along with the m e m o r i e s a t t a c h e d t o t h e m O n l y a residue of what once was my native tongue still coats my own

My name is Paola, like “pahh” and then “hola” Not Pay-o-la, not Paula, not Pie-ola (my all time favorite) just, Paola My last name is Muñoz, not Moo-no-oz or MUno just, Muñoz During my prime, I w o u l d a l w a y s i n c l u d e “ t h e s q u i g g l y, ” known as a diacritical tilde, on top of the “ n ” for my last name Matter of fact, it was m y Z o r r o ( o r

H a n c o c k , i f y o u will) It defined my signature, or whatever a signature is supposed to look like for a five year old In the Spanish language, the nasally consonant “ñ” is pronounced as “ enye ” It is its own letter within its alphabet

more American as well Not to disclose my entire government name on the Internet, but the middle name given to me by my parents is really “American ” I was fed up with Siri mispronouncing my name for the 1 0 0 t h t i m e , I w a s t i r e d o f b e i n g Dominican like ever ybody else and their mothers on my block and I was so done being Latina if it meant having bestowed upon the same fate that has plagued my family for generations pover ty I pushed down the tilde from its mighty throne, and stuck in my middle name instead Call me Pa y - o - l a (

) Munoz

Along with the deterioration of my name, essentially my identity ever ything else that’s cradled me since day one began to lose its accent as well The more that cancer took out of Mami, the less I saw of her The less I saw of her, the less we talked The less we talked, the more I began to forget She was no longer “Mami ” Just, Mom She lost her accent all together and she lost herself She could no longer speak W h e n s h e w a s taken out of the equation altogether, so was m y s p e e c h I h a d nothing more to say V i s i t i n g t h e Do m i n i c a n Re p u

I began to write, when words would fail me, and when I wrote, I found power in myself power in being able to represent myself as the person that I truly am; I am not quiet. Because through paper, I could speak.

The following year, I was chosen to a n n o u n c e t h e P l e d g e o f A l l e g i a n c e Because my first grade home room teacher would always address me as “Pay-o-la,” the c r i n g e - i n d u c i n g h u m i l i a t i o n t h a t o n c e used to mark that foreign name, barely phased me Matter of fact, it became me “ G o o d m o r n i n g , m y n a m e i s Pa y o l a Muñoz, and I will be saying the Pledge of Allegiance ” Dang, I’m nice I memorized the whole thing, reciting it without a second s hesitation I even thre w in a little shout-out for my class As I walked myself back to the classroom, my ar t teacher marched up to me, anger glazed clearly across her dark eyes, cheeks as crimson as the lipstick she wore With two small hands locked onto her large hips, she kneeled down to my level and said, “Paola! Tu conoces quien eres, no? Pues di, ‘Paola’, con mucha confianza! Jamas hagas eso Tu eres Paola ” In other words, “Paola! You know who you are, right? So say, ‘Paola,’ with a lot of confidence! Don’t ever do that again You are Paola ” What’s her deal?

Standardized exams made it so that writing a tilde on my last name might invalidate my exam scores misinterpreting the tilde as a stray mark What a pesky tilde, I thought Maybe I just don’t need it Losing pride in my Dominican heritage made it so that removing the tilde from my last name could, perhaps, make not only my name more American, but make me

t the same, and it never will be How could I have a stor y, when I couldn’t even communicate it to my familia anymore? How could I possibly speak, when I had no one to speak to?

Ne w Years were silent, and bir thdays were forgotten My younger sister was left just as baffled, too We spoke amongst ourselves now, in the language that has rendered us speechless: English

The great paradox: Through this fore i g n l a

c

l l s m e Payola, the one that has humiliated my family “ go back to your countr y ” they would say the one that has housed my father s perpetual lack of income, making us incapable of sustaining our mother, through this ver y same language, I have found myself I began to write, when words would fail me, and when I wrote, I found power in myself power in being able to represent myself as the person that I t r u l y a m ; I a

through paper, I could speak

No w t h

v e f o u n d Spanish, waiting for me right where I left her She’s different now, but still as beautiful as I remember My hair is a tangled frizzy mess, and my English is stained And if I could ever find my ar t teacher again, I would march right on up to her, hold both of her hands, look her square in the eyes and tell her: “ Yo soy Paola Muñoz I am Paola Muñoz

Paola Muñoz is a sophomore in the College of Human Ecology She can be reached at pmunoz@cornellsun com Midas’ Crumbs appears alternate Thursdays this semester

Eric Pesner | Dems Discuss

The Farce of Proposal One

As someone completely obsessed with p o l i t i c s , t h e f e w d a y s re m a i n i n g before Election Day will be filled with both extreme stress and excitement

Despite the anxiety about finding out which party will control the Senate for the final two years of Barack Obama’s presidency, we all get to make our voices heard in the most fundamental way When we go to the polls on Tuesday, we’ll not only be able to select our choice for Congressional Representative and Governor, but we’ll get to vote directly on changing the laws of New York

There are three propositions on the ballot this year in New York While propositions about the government reducing paper use and funding technology in schools might not seem to be ver y interesting, there is still one measure on the ballot this year that has attracted controversy Proposal One aims to eliminate gerr ymandering by establishing a commission that would draw the lines for congressional and legislative districts ever y 10 years during redistricting Right now, the responsibility for redistricting lies with the state legislature, and this ballot measure would take that power out of its hands

Gerr ymandering is a large problem for the governance of the United States When one party can draw the lines of the districts, they can effectively reduce the voting power of the other party ’ s voters In 2012, we saw

its effect when Democratic House candidates won the majority of the votes nationally, but the Republicans came away with a large majority of seats in the House Because the Republicans got to control the development of new lines in a bunch of large swing states, they drew themselves maps that enabled them to get a majority of the seats without having to convince a majority of Americans to vote for them It’s undemocratic and reduces the power of the individual voter to decide elections

Na

have independent commissions to draw the new maps

deal-making In this system, one party usually gets the upper hand and passes the map they want, like the Republicans did in New Jersey and the Democrats did in Arizona during the last redistricting Proposition One in New York would establish the second kind of panel to handle redistricting Instead of pursuing a purely independent commission, the state legislature wants a body whose members are

by

This proposition would simply hrine the current corrupt system the state’s constitution and give it the shine of independence and bipartisanship

California and Iowa have a completely independent body selected by government officials who are not political actors These panels are banned from coordinating with politicians or parties and cannot consider

However, states like New Jersey have a commission that is selected by politicians and party officials In systems like this, the fate of redistricting is basically tied to the political process and can be affected by political

sentation on the panel and

responsive to the party leaders in the two houses of the state legislature instead of to the people

State political leaders are spinning this idea as a brilliant act of reform that would dramatically alter the way in which the lines would be drawn In fact, this proposition is nothing but a farce The Democrats and Republicans have historically colluded to maintain safe seats for incumbents and draw the maps that reaffirm their own power This proposition would simply enshrine the current corrupt system in the state ’ s consti-

THROWDOWN

THURSDAYS

Race

Wtution and give it the shine of independence and bipartisanship

Even the process of getting this measure to the ballot has been fraught with misinformation and corruption The language that the legislature wrote to put on the ballot was overturned in court because it called the commission “independent ” The courts refused to allow the legislature to lie about the reality of the panel, since they found that there is nothing independent about it

Because of all of this, not a single newspaper in the state has endorsed the measure In its editorial, the New York Times called it a “phony reform ” In fact, the only people who support the measure are the politicians whose power it protects And they hope they can get it passed if the people of this state jump at the opportunity for “reform” without taking more than a cursor y glance at the measure itself

It’s not often that the people of New York get to directly influence the law like this But when we go to the polls on Tuesday, we should all vote no on Proposition One We need to end gerr ymandering, but this just won ’ t do it

Eric Pesner is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences He may be reached at erp55@cornell edu Dems Discuss appears alternate Thursdays this semester

Julius Kairey | Always Right

and Justice in Ferguson

e are finally getting a better picture of what happened the day of the tragic shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri Recent witnesses and an autopsy report back up Officer Darren Wilson’s account of events: that Michael Brown was charging at the officer when he was shot, after an altercation in which Brown tried to grab the officer’s weapon Brown’s gunshot wounds seem inconsistent with the theory that he was running away from the officer or had his hands up when shot This new evidence gives us every reason to wait for the grand jury’s deliberations to finish, and for all the information to come out, before reaching a conclusion

Unfor tunately, some are determined to do the exact opposite From day one, those with a racial agenda declared with absolute cer tainty that the police murdered Michael Brown because of the color of his skin To date, there is not one iota of actual evidence demonstrating that race had anything to do with the killing of Michael Brown But since the shooting involved a white police officer and a black citizen, we have been exhor ted to assume a racial motivation Now that cer tain commentators have insisted upon this interpretation of the case, they will spin the facts as much as necessar y to justify their original conclusions

Protesters have taken to the streets of major cities to call for the punishment of Officer Wilson, who has been thoroughly vilified as a racist and a cold-blooded killer They have rightly called for justice to be done in the case The problem, though, is that many Ferguson protesters define “justice” as the attainment of a pre-determined result: the conviction of Officer Wilson They do not think they need actual evidence about what happened in this particular case, or that there is another side of the story that deserves due consideration

We should not allow the meaning of justice to be perverted in this way True justice refers to a process that ensures everyone is treated fairly under the law This means that

indictments and convictions must occur independent of political pressure, not because of it If the evidence exists to show beyond a reasonable doubt that Darren Wilson committed murder, then he should be punished accordingly But there is nothing “just” about being declared innocent or guilty based on the results of a referendum in the local community, or by who can shout the loudest at a protest rally The accused should be brought to trial and face a process that is designed to elicit truth through an adversarial process that gives each party the ability to present its side of the story A protest mob has neither the will nor the capacity to do that

It seems that too many have failed to learn the lessons of

We should not allow the meaning of j to be perverted in this way True justi refers to a process that ensures every is treated fairly under the law.

the George Zimmerman trial After getting his day in court, Zimmerman provided the jury with reasonable doubt of his guilt by presenting his case: that Trayvon Martin had leapt on top of Zimmerman and pounded his head into the pavement, forcing him to shoot in self-defense We saw the same rush to judgment in that case as well, where George Zimmerman, a Hispanic, was made into a symbol of white racism to fit the existing racial narratives The protesters decried the “assassination” of Trayvon Martin, but after hear-

Zimmerman not guilty

And let’s not forget about the Ferguson rioters, who claimed that getting “justice” for Michael Brown entitled

Unfortunately, some political analysts and commentators

even chose to condone these acts of violence as some sort of understandable rebellion against an unjust status quo This has all happened before

In 1992, following the acquittal of police officers involved in the beating of Rodney King, parts of Los Angeles were turned upside-down by the same rioting and looting we saw in Ferguson Communities were torn apart and set ablaze, and dozens were killed in some of the worst racial violence we have seen in decades Korean-owned businesses were specifically targeted There, too, some tried to make sense of the senseless Representative Maxine Waters called the rioting “the voice of the unheard,” a result of the “righteous anger ” in her district To those who saw their livelihoods go up in flames, however, there was nothing righteous about it So long as we think about cases like the shooting of Michael Brown in purely racial terms, we preserve a pernicious mindset that will inevitably lead to the further stratification of American society, or even to more racial violence

The Los Angeles riots were an extreme example of the principle

Many of the issues raised in the aftermath of the shooting, including those about police brutality and racism, are perfectly legitimate Yet, conversations about these issues should not come at the expense of justice for all parties involved in the shooting We have an obligation to put the pursuit of truth over both politics and ideology The political activists who have exploited this shooting seem to want racial bias to cloud people’s judgment and obscure the facts, making it impossible to take a fair and honest look at what actually happened If we are ever going to progress beyond racial divisions, we have to challenge the voices of those who would exploit the death of a teenager just to make a point about racism in America

Julius Kairey is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences He may be reached at jkairey@cornellsun com Always Right appears alternate Thursdays this semester

Dining Guide

Your source for good food

By ELIZABETH YOUNG Sun Staff Writer

WThe Top Five Drinks To Warm You Up This Fall

hile I’m usually someone who prefers to eat

c a l o r i e s r a t h e r t h a n drink them, there’s something

a b o u t t h a t m i d d l e - o f - a u t u m n

t i m e o f y e a r t h a t m a k e s indulging in a hot, comfor ting beverage much more enticing While Ithaca rides out the last of its unusually temperate weather and you take advantage of these final moments to wear shor ts and go jacketless, here are my top five picks for beverages to help warm you up when you have to don those jackets once again

I had been waiting some what impatiently for CTB to change its seasonal drinks menu from refreshing summer quenchers to

cozy autumn warmers So when I spotted the Chapple among the ne w chalkings on the blackboard, I kne w I had to tr y it And it did not disappoint With a c i n n

g enveloped into a chai latte, this fragrant drink tastes exactly like the per fect October desser t plenty of sweetness tempered by the warm trifecta kick of cinnamon, cardamom and black pepper

Whenever I go out for bubble t e a , I

branch out and tr y something different, but somehow, I always end up with my go-to: taro milk bubble tea However, during a r

m

, when my friends pointed out to me that there was a hot version of my favorite I was floored And then promptly felt like a bad Asian for not discovering it sooner Teatime’s warm interpre-

t a t i o n e n h a n c e d t h e s w e e t starchiness of the taro root and is a drink that I would order again, t h o u g h I r e c o m m e n d t a k i n g advantage of choosing a different sweetness level The 100 percent sweetness level will give you quite the sugar r ush and subsequent crash G I N G

With so many different waffles and sandwiches to choose from at Waffle Frolic, it’s ver y easy to miss out on the drinks that the restaurant has to offer

Although you’d find many of its drinks at any standard coffee s h o p, Wa f f l e Fr o l i c ’ s s e a s o n a l gingerbread latte was a welcome d i s c ov e r y T h e s m o o t h n e

the latte made me feel like I was drinking the liquid equivalent of

milky coffee, rather And the

n t reminded me so much of the impending winter holiday season that I had to remind myself that we haven’t even celebrated Halloween yet

Much like CTB, Stella’s Cafe has a menu filled with beverages of unusual, sophisticated flavor c

q u a l l y unusual names I thought it was rather fitting that my two selections the Milky Way and the C

e “Freshman” and the “Graduate”

c a t e g o r i e s , r e s p e c t

u mming up the

s T h e Milky Way, a

vanilla syr up, tasted like a liquid candy bar The three flavors balanced one another out per fectly, without any one of them over whelming the others The Milky Way could be a desser t in itself, and

it’s probably a good thing that I didn’t discover it until now The Cardigan a cappuccin o i n f u s e d w i t h c a r d a

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

BY SHAY COLLINS Sun Contributor

Pr o f El i s a b e t h Me y e r ’ s , a r t , e x h i b i t Pr i n t Te x t Language, explores an oft-neglected world of books: the artistic significance of books as books The exhibit’s statement states that its premise “is largely to reexamine artists’ books as conceptual projects where structure is the lesser identifier and unusual formats are emphasized ”

The books in Print Text Language are not necessarily readable, nor rectangular, nor ser ving as a vessel for information Rather, the books themselves are the information

Simr yn Gill’s “9 Volumes from Collected Works of M K Ghandi,” illustrates the divide between text and readability Nine rough-edged spheres compose Gill’s “9 Volumes,” which are reformations of volumes from The Collected Works of Mahatma Ghandi The artist statement, from Sharjah Art Foundation, states, “Her transformation of these books communicators of knowledge into unreadable aesthetic objects relates to the legacy of museums as institutions of colonization ” Gill’s textual spheres therefore illuminate the divide between readability and communication

An excerpt of Bijustsukai, published by Yamada Unsodo between 1896 and 1911 also evidence the communicative power of books as entire objects Bijutsukai, is an example of the zuancho, or “book of design ideas,” which according to an excerpt from w w w m i t s u i f i n e a r t s c o m t h a t a c c o m p a n i e d t h e piece, “ were used in Kyoto’s textile industr y around 1890 to 1940 ” Primarily, the books ser ved as a communicative medium between craftsmen creati n g c u s t o m k i m o n o s How

a c c o m p a n y i n g t h e z u a n c

a t e s , “ T h e b o o k s themselves were made by skilled artisans who handcar ved designs onto woodblocks and hand-printed the pages ” Lucas Samaras’ 1968 artwork “Book” further pushes the definition of what qualifies as a book The pages of Samaras’ “Book” are about one half of a centimeter thick and display portions of text within brightly dotted pages Samaras’ insertion of rectangular segments of text within larger, irregularly shaped pages also provokes the viewer to consider what counts as a page

Print Text Language

asterisk

The familiar line markings, furthermore, seem to intersperse two different sets of text, as if read at the margin of two pages The numbers 28, 39 , 97 and 153 all appear towards the top of the text, yet with no clues as to what each number signifies Magid presents an artwork that certainly contains language and numbers without declaring the composition to be a readable text Print Text Language, presents “ The Deed,” next to “Fiction,” another work from Jill Magid’s 2011 exhibit Closet Drama, at the

merely displays six symbols, evidencing the totality of Bing’s project

Similar to his 1988 exhibition, “A Book from the Sky,” which contained Chinese characters completely lacking in any semiotic content, Bing intends “Book from the Ground,” to “ treat all readers all equally ” Between the extremes of Bing’s meaning-focused project and Gill’s reformation of texts, Print Text Language c o n t a i n s b e a u t i f u l s c u l p t u re s , w o o d e n g r a v i n g s , a n d engravings, all of them different permutations of “books ” Josiah McElheny’s 2011 “Eternity through the stars, ” consists of a “suite of six photogravures which colophon ” McElheny’s photogravures, a form of intaglio printing using copper plates to copy film positives, combine with excerpts of a treatise of Louis Auguste Blanqui to form haunting, melancholic works The text of one of McElheny’s prints reads, “ The universe is eternal, but its stars are perishable ” Ann Sperr y ’ s rendering of Marguerite Duras’ synopsis of Hiroshima Mon Amour, in the simply titled “Hiroshima Mon Amour, Synopsis,” evidences the detailed, complex background of combining text and book Sperr y not only formatted the text on the rose-colored pages, but also made the pages herself by hand Furthermore, Sperr y did not bind the pages to form a “book,” but rather folded them I also noted the combination of text and imagebased art in Philip Zimmerman’s 2009 “Sanctus Sonorensis,” which translates to “Holy Sonora ” Zimmerman’s artist statement states that the book contains, “border ‘beatitudes ’” Zimmerman filled both the cover which displays a Biblical, golden font, and the inside pages of the book with meaning “ The interior pages show the progression of a typical high desert sky above an immigrant during a day’s desert passage, and accompanied by a single line of text on each two-page spread,” according to the artist statement

Berkeley Art Museum

On the other end of the spectrum, and the galler y, Xu Bing’s 2013 “Book from the Ground,” promotes commun

Jill Magid’s 2011 silkscreen print “ The Deed,” also considers the relations and interrelations between a work’s text, readability, and employment of language “ The Deed” presents a page, or perhaps multiple pages from Goethe’s Faust’s Study (I) The image contains overlaid lines of text, marked also with circular writings and an

entirely of symbols (including, yes, emojis), Bing sought to “ express the ideal of a single, universally understood language, and my sense of the direction of contemporar y c o m

“Book from the Ground,” subjugates the archetypical book by mimicking it almost completely Bing formats his content in what appears to be sentences, paragraphs, and chapters The cover of “Book from the Ground,” however,

Through her inclusion of provocative and distinctive sculptures and prints, Professor Meyer throws into question the definition of “books” and “ texts ” Meyer’s investigation, however, applies not just to the art world After viewing Print Text Language, I wanted to look again at “normal,” books, and see them again as three-dimensional works of art in and of themselves To quote Shannon Ebner’s “ The Sun as Error” artist statement: “I am fond of the asterisk because it indicates that there is always more information elsewhere ”

Print Text Language will be on display in the Bibliowicz Family Galler y in Milstein Hall until November 28

Shay Collins is a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences He can be reached at scollins@cornell edu

Mulaney: A Show T hat Is Actuall y About Nothing

BY RADHI PARIKH Sun Contributor

John Mulaney, Emmy-winning comedian and former Saturday Night Live writer, is a funny guy, so it stands to reason that I would eagerly anticipate the potential of his new sitcom, Mulaney, to become my new favorite comedy

It's a multi-cam production, which means it’s taped in front of a live studio audience and there is usually an accompanying laugh track Multi-cam productions are on the decline, with CBS as the only network successfully pulling it off, currently (Two and a Half Men, Big Bang Theory) Mulaney is based on John Mulaney’s early days as a budding comedian, and is an “old-fashioned” comedy at its core; it relies on the worn-out method of setups and punchlines It also splices in segments of Mulaney performing standup in front of a live audience in between act breaks

Feeling some déjà vu? That’s because Mulaney is essentially a modern “re-telling” of Seinfeld At one point, the star, namesake and creator of Mulaney even makes the cheap and obvious joke of calling himself a “Seinfeld rip-off ” It was also a poor idea because if the audience didn’t already notice the difference between this dull FX series and astute observational comedies, such as Seinfeld, it pointed the disparity out Past the aforementioned Seinfeld-like framing device opening with stand-up selections and a group of narcissistic friends the show is incredibly one-dimensional, scattered with few jokes and some absurdity Seinfeld may have advertised itself as a “show about nothing,” but Mulaney is actually a show about nothing, with no substance for the cast to work with

The strongest aspect of the pilot is Mulaney's stand-up, which is unsurprising to anyone who has seen his comedy album The Top Part or his Standup Special New in Town The premiere opens with Mulaney doing a fantastic bit on his inability to see himself as a threat to women because he still considers himself a boy at heart By opening the show with this, self-deprecation is automatically built into Mulaney’s character In the first scene, Mulaney goes to the doctor hoping to score a Xanax prescription for his job interview In order to get the prescription, he tells the doctor he’s peeing 11 times a day His lie ends up concerning the doctor into giving

him a prostate exam On paper, that's funny In fact, it was really funny when Mulaney performed it as a segment in one of his standup shows a few years ago The problem is that Mulaney, ironically, isn’t able to step into a character based on himself His inability to become this character takes his iconic joke and makes it into a mediocre plot On the show, Mulaney talks to his friends and acquaintances like he's still on a stage telling jokes, doing a standup routine He’s not really acting he’s stiff physically and when he speaks Seaton Smith and Nasim Pedrad play Mulaney’s roommates on the show Pedrad’s work on SNL was great and her acting skills are more believable than Mulaney’s, but she isn’t given good material to work with Her character, Jane, spends the premiere acting “ crazy, ” hacking her ex-boyfriend’s email and ultimately stealing flowers from his apartment The “ crazy ex-girlfriend” has been done such an obscene number of times (notably and recently in Fox’s New Girl pilot) that, even with Pedrad’s acting skills, it’s extremely difficult to bring something authentic and interesting to this trope The same can be said of Martin Short, who plays an established comedy icon in the form of a game show host and Mulaney’s boss Short’s known for his energy He brings it to the screen, but he, like Pedrad, is just working with poor material To Short’s credit, he’s giving the show everything he’s got he’s jazzing up his lines, but the substance isn’t there

of acting abilities when he isn’t telling jokes Oscar attempts to give Mulaney advice about his life and career; the conversation between the two is incredibly forced

Then there’s Oscar (Elliott Gould), Mulaney's eccentric neighbor From the pilot, it appears that he’s supposed to be Mulaney’s bizarre, but good-natured and wise mentor Unfortunately, Mulaney's rapport and chemistry with Oscar is almost nonexistent Their one scene in the pilot is perhaps the weakest because it very clearly showcases Mulaney’s lack

The show is much like Motif ’ s (Seaton Smith) “Problem Bitch!” joke there’s no laughs, but he’s already selling merchandise I'm a huge John Mulaney fan I like his stand-up and love his writing on SNL But his comedy and sense of humor falls flat when he’s on a television sitcom with other actors That being said, John Mulaney has enough street cred that I feel that he should be given a full season to work through growing pains The show does boast a very talented cast, and great writers FOX has already cut the episode order from 16 to 13 giving Mulaney very little time to improve Hopefully he won ’ t need that long to hook us

Mulaney airs on Sunday nights at 9:30 p m on FOX

Radhi Parikh is a junior in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations She can be reached at rp459@cornell edu

Ironic Times: In Defense of Silly Hats & Mustaches

Recently, a friend of mine acquired a bright red trucker cap with the words “ Mi l w a u k e e Tr a c t o r Eq u i p m e n t ” emblazoned on the front The first time I saw him wearing it, I immediately complimented him, saying something along the lines of “ha, that’s a great fucking hat ” I later paused momentarily to consider why exactly I thought it was in fact, such a great hat; why this piece of kitsch amused me

I remembered that it was funny because it was ironic Except the irony of the situation was so chronically standard that it didn ’ t actually need to be acknowledged in order to be funny

This felt slightly creepy to me And also relevant to a wider cultural sensation has irony become so mundane that it’s just a banal default mode of communication and interaction? Irony kind of is everywhere, after all I’m hard-pressed to find a sphere of culture around me that is uninhabited by irony People speak and act in constant irony: Flaunt ironic hair-cuts and facial hair, wear ironic clothing, adore ironic humor, make ironic jokes and mannerisms, post ironically on social media, listen to ironic music and either watch movies and television shows saturated with irony or watch unironic TV and movies, ironically Irony is not only fashionable, entertaining, a e s t h e t i c , i n t e l l e c t u a l a n d v i r t u a l l y inescapable in pop culture but it’s selfaffirming, because nobody wants to be the person who doesn’t get it

I should probably resolve what I mean when I say irony, because the cultural tendency im thinking of warrants a pretty imprecise definition For my purposes, by irony, I’m talking about a loose accumulation of cynicism, sarcasm, self-deprecation and self-referential absurdity a general sense of detachment from sincerity, earnest-

ness and conviction It’s more easily pointed t o i n a n e p i s o d e o f 3 0 Ro c k o r Community, in texts I’ve received like “ wow so many feels rn, ” a Facebook post like “lyke, who do u even think u r, ” in Macklemore’s “And We Danced,” in the rhymes of Das Racist or Yung Lean, or on a hipster’s ugly sweater or graphic t-shirt showing a wildlife scene of a wolf than articulated, and it’s more of a vague form sensibility than a neat and tidy property of culture, but maybe as a consumer of and participant in pop (and other) culture, you recognize this sensation of lurking and constant irony, everywhere you go

In 1994, David Foster Wallace published a paper called “E Unibus Plurum: Television and U S Fiction” in which he

describes watching irony envelop first television, and then all pop culture, highbrow and low, and ultimately condemns it He wrote, “Irony and ridicule are entertaining and effective [but] at the same time they are agents of a great despair and stasis ” Basically, Wallace believed irony to be a cultural dead end, for the reason that it produces lazy, cheap art and rhetoric that will ultimately be meaningless, because this environment does not require the ironist to believe in anything or hold actual convictions

A more recent, “kids-these-days”-style skeptic (ha) on the subject is Christy

Wampole, who, in one of the most interesting pieces of hipster-bashing I’ve ever read, a 2012 New York Times op-ed, “How To Live Without Irony,” posits that irony is the ethos of the Millennial generation She i n vo k e s t h e i m a g e o f t h e m o u s t a c h e d “urban harlequin,” toting a record player around on a fixed gear bicycle who cultivates quirk, “feigns indifference” and likes things only for their absurdity She says, “If life has become merely a clutter of kitsch objects, an endless series of sarcastic jokes and pop references, a competition to see who can care the least it seems we ’ ve made a collective misstep Could this be the cause of our emptiness and existential malaise?”

Both of these pieces seem to diagnose and incriminate the creepiness of the irony of my friend’s dumbass hat But the thing is, I adore irony and indulge in all a f o re m e n t i o n e d i ro n i c p a stimes and actually don’t feel overcome by an “existential malaise ” I c a n ’ t a r g u e w i t h t h e experts that there is an excess of sloppy, useless irony in our culture (the entire enterprise of reality television, perhaps), and that irony has, indeed, lost some of its edge And maybe the trucker caps and jelly sandals fit into this grade of bland, perfunctory irony: Self-important cheap laughs and worn quips The endless repetition of such statements and images can create a sort of a surface level fog of irony, which is, I think, what Wampole, rather melodramatically, refers to as a “cultural numbness ” But the depth of her claim and the gravity with which she makes it relies a simplification and a stereotype of the person in the trucker cap Even the most misanthrop-

ic hipster in the skinniest jeans does not suffer from irony all the time No, he loves his parents, he watches How I Met Your Mother (and likes it), he got dumped by his high school girlfriend who knows? Maybe he even believes in God

Irony and cynicism are dangerous to the point where people and culture become averse to and afraid of, reverence and emotion Both Wallace and Wampole reference a so-called New Sincerity movement as perhaps having the capacity to save our culture and lifestyles, of candid and sincere works like the films of Wes Anderson or Charlie Kaufman and the music of Cat Power or Vampire Weekend Isn’t the popularity of these works proof that there is earnestness in our culture, that irony and sincerity can coexist quite peaceably, discrediting the slippery slope, doomsday scare-tactics of those who think like Wampole?

Irony may be one ethos of our age, but that really isn’t all that disturbing to me Ironic inquiry is an effective and useful f o r m o f d i s s e n t t h a t e x p o s e s c l i c h e s , hypocrisies and bigotry Of course, I don’t think absurdist trolling irony that gets to claim this dignity, but I also don’t think it’s as poisonous or tyrannical as Wallace or Wampole claim My most cynical, hipster scum friends, slinging all their snark and sarcasm actually don’t just wallow in their own apathy, but rather have values, care deeply about a variety of things, and are invested in their lives and relationships So, all the writers and academics trying to solve the problem of Millennials should probably keeping on researching: our irony is not their answer

Jael Goldfine is a sophomore in the College of Ar ts and Sciences She can be reached at jgoldfine@cornellsun com Ob j e c t i v i t y Bi t e s r uns alternate Thursdays this semester

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With Iles Gone, Two Goalies Battle It Out For Starting Position

M HOCKEY

Continued from page 16

seniors, chief among them goaltender Andy Iles, who was the Red’s anchor in the net for the past few seasons Sophomore Mitch Gillam and freshman Hayden Stewart are set to duel it out for the starting position Schafer said he plans to rotate goalies, at least in the short run

Ryan said the defense is adjusting to the absence of Iles, who had started 80 straight games for the Red until Gillam took over for a game last November According to Ryan, the goalie battle will be beneficial for the team

“Mitch and Hayden can both hold their own Whoever’s playing the best, I think, is going to start and if one guy ’ s not playing well, I think we ’ re all comfortable putting in the other guy ”

This weekend’s games will feature several new faces in addition to Stewart, with seven freshman in total on the roster

“I think they’ve been awesome, ” McCarron said of the new additions “A couple of them are banged up, but they’re going to be huge for us this year

The Red is at a potential disadvantage in this weekend’s game, as the Mavericks have already played four McCarron notes that there’s a potential upside to the disparity in games played, although Omaha still has a head start

“Definitely advantage for them, you know, obviously they’re been playing competitively for two more weeks than we have,” he said “But at the same time, we ’ re not as banged up maybe as they are and we ’ re a little more rested, I guess, so you could look at it both ways ”

The Mavericks currently sport a 3-1 record, with the team ’ s only loss coming in their second game against No 12 Minnesota State Omaha had a bye last week, but the team most recently took two away victories against Western Michigan

For Schafer, the weekend against Omaha marks the start of his 20th season behind the Red’s bench as head coach He is the program ’ s winningest head coach, with a record of 364-208-71 to his name

“I really enjoy what I’m doing still, go year by year, love working here with the group of student-athletes we have on campus, ” he said “It’s a great place to work for college hockey in the sense that the kids represent the truest form of a student-athlete It’s been awesome to work here for the length of time I’ve been here ”

Broncos’ Unstoppable Offense to Help Team Get Back to Superbowl

ZAKOUR

Continued from page 16

this feat, which was thought to be possible last year, have been bolstered with the signings of safety TJ Ward and Aqib Talib Talib is capable of matching up with an offense’s best receivers, and both Talib and Ward do more than just cover, helping out in run support So you get the point

The Broncos are good

In fact, the Broncos are so good, or rather seemingly so much ahead of the second best team, that it’s actually tough to see them not coming up with a Super Bowl title We have to go to the NFC to find teams that seem likely to beat them Could the Cardinals be their worst matchup?

The Cards feature a dynamic defense, anchored by a stellar secondary in Patrick Peterson, Antonio Cromartie and Tyrann Mathieu While the Cardinals offense doesn’t strike fear, it is aggressively called by Bruce Arians and managed successfully by Carson Palmer Oh, and Larry Fitzgerald and Andre Ellington are pretty good

But let’s not overlook that other NFC West team, The Seahawks Seattle is a bit of a mess right now, but things can change quickly Moreover, if Seattle doesn’t dominate the rest of the way, they likely won ’ t get their home field advantage and are much more prone to get upended on the road Peyton won ’ t have to worry about the Legion of Boom at all

But things can change quickly Beat the Pats on the road and the Broncos can stroll to home field Lose this week, and it's a bonafide race It’s hard to imagine a bigger regular season game in terms of conference supremacy This season matters a lot to the Broncos and Peyton Manning Manning’s best last chance will probably be this year, even if his production shows no sign of stopping He is 38, but may be able to pull an Elway, now his general manager, by winning it all in the last two years of his career Manning has slowly made his case for the best quarterback in history and another super bowl victory would go a long way towards it Luckily, the Broncos have given him a team that can do it this season and next

John Zakour is a senior in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences He can be contacted at jzakour@cornell edu Point Blank appears every Thursday this semester

C L A I R E M A C M A N U S

A ssistant Spor ts Editor and Ten Questions Columnist Anna Fasman ’16 caught up with senior midfielder Claire MacManus to to talk about everything from knitting to her childhood dream of working in a bowling alley

1 ) Te ll me ab o ut h ow yo u g o t yo ur s tar t i n s o c c e r

I guess I probably started when I was five It was a social thing in my town All of my friends played and we did intramural soccer together my neighbors and my school friends I just stuck with it and played for Lower Merion, my township, in their rec league Then I played for the travel team and then went on to other teams from there

2 ) Yo u are al s o on th e vars i ty l ac ro s s e te am h e re W h at is it l ike p la yin g o n tw o v ars it y

ms ? How do yo u b al a n c e tw o var s ity te a m s w ith ac adem ic s ?

I don’t know any other way It is busy in the sense that I have two seasons and obviously the teams are busy in their off seasons as well Right now, I’m missing out on lacrosse’s lifting conditioning and practices They’re working hard and I’m excited to join them once soccer ends, but in terms of balancing academics and extracurriculars, I actually think that I work better when I have a schedule When I don’t have anything, I tend to just hang out and do nothing, so it actually works out for me It’s better for my time management to be busier than not busy at all

3 ) B o th o f yo ur p are n ts we re s t u-

d en t at hl e te s as we l l Do yo u th in k th at h ad an y in f l ue n c e o n yo u an d yo ur s po r ts c are e r?

Yeah, probably Both of my parents were athletes in college and they did value

their time there, but it wasn ’ t as serious as it is now playing a varsity sport Both of my parents are super supportive It’s great They really understand my schedule and what it takes and how I’m feeling My dad and I, when I go home for breaks, work out together all the time I think he works out more than I do even My sister plays field hockey in college, so the three of us will work out together, which is always really fun Their influence, I guess, is spending our family time working out, preparing for our sports, which is nice

4 ) W h at w il l y ou b e d re s s in g up a s f or Hal l ow ee n th is we e k e n d?

I don’t know if we ’ re going to be dressing up One of my roommates ’ parents are coming in for the weekend and we planned a parents weekend, so we invited all of my roommates parents We are going to have a dinner and then have them over to our house for food the other night It will be fun but I don’t know if we ’ re actually going to dress up It seems kind of silly because it’s “ our last year to have Halloween,” but we ’ re just going to have our parents weekend and I’ll hang out with my roommates I’m looking forward to that

5 ) Id e al Sl op e Da y l in eu p ?

[The team] was actually just talking about this on the bus on the way home from Brown Hopefully, I’ll still be playing lacrosse and I won ’ t be able to go if we make the tournament My roommates make fun of me and say, “What kind of music do you like?” I like pretty much anything, more just depending on the time and the mood I don’t really have a preference I like all types of music

Have you ever been to a Slope Day?

Freshman and sophomore year it was

during the Ivy Tournament for lacrosse Last year, we were at the Ivy Tournament, but [Slope Day] was the following weekend I think our schedule was different because we had February break so it was a week later than usual, so I went last year Like I said, we were talking about it on the bus and people were hoping for maybe a country artist, but I have fun either way

6 ) Do yo u ha ve an y p re - g am e t rad itio n s , e it he r al on e or wi th th e te am ?

I’m not really superstitious but I do like to have my shoes and all my stuff feel right I always put my right shoe on before my left That’s kind of silly I always braid my friend Sydney’s hair Then for lacrosse, I don’t really have any In terms of team stuff, we usually dance in the locker room, which is fun I don’t really like to dance as much as sing along to the music since I like to be more calm and focused before the game, but my teammates dance, which is always fun to watch It’s good to loosen up before the game

7 ) Do y ou h av e an y h ob b ie s o r h idd e n tal e n t s th at a l o t o f p e op l e do n ’ t kn ow ab o ut ?

My roommate, who used to be on the lacrosse team, and I like to knit and crochet We used to do it on the bus during away trips since the rides could get kind of long It’s a mindless activity People would always make fun of us and say that we were the grandmas, but then they would always ask us to make them stuff

What’s the best thing you ’ ve knit?

I’m not that advanced, I can only really make lines I guess a scarf I wear some of the scarves that I make My roommate made a really nice one and people always ask where she bought it

8 ) W h at

?

I ’ m i n t h

Institute, which is a group of student athletes who meet once a month and talk about leadership and following strategies and different situations and how to manage them and navigating those I’m also in Red Key, which is a group of student athletes, juniors and seniors, who are involved with community ser vice on campus I’m also an Athlete Ally, which is the athletic inclusivity group

9 ) Lo ok in g

That’s hard They’re like my family I feel like I’ve developed and grown up so much I couldn’t thank my teammates and coaches enough for being there for me and with me It’s been such a great experience I knew it was going to be a huge part of my life, but I can ’ t even describe how much it’s meant to me Just their support and everything They’re my sisters and I couldn’t ask for better teammates and coaches

1

My mom ’ s a doctor, so I’d probably say a doctor, but I remember when we were little, my brother and I always wanted to be the people who handed out the bowling shoes at the bowling alley Looking back that’s kind of funny My brother and I would always say that

Anna Fasman can be reached at afasman@cornellsun com

The Corne¬ Daily Sun

Spor ts

Icers to Host Nebraska to Start Season

By EMILY BERMAN

The men ’ s ice hockey team is back

Approximately 225 days after the icers skated off the ice after a 5-2 loss to Union in the ECAC semifinals, the No 18 Red returns to official play with a home stand at Lynah On deck for the Halloween weekend match-up is the University of Nebraska at Omaha

“I’m pretty excited, I think the whole team ’ s excited,” said senior defenseman Joakim Ryan, who was named an assistant captain for this season alongside returning assistant captain Cole Bardreau and returning captain John McCarron

“It’s been a long offseason It was fun to get going last weekend with some games against other teams, but I think everyone ’ s just really excited, looking forward to getting the season started Hopefully

Denver’s Success Rides on Patriots Shoulders T

we can come away with a couple wins ”

The Red logged some unofficial competitive ice time last weekend with a pair of exhibition games, taking down both the U S National Team Development Program’s Under-18 team and Carleton University with identical 3-2 scores

“Overall, looking back and watching the videos, I was happy with a lot of things we did,” said head coach Mike Schafer ’86 of the exhibition games “Both games, we were able to do a good job late in the third period holding onto wins that’s a skill that you have to develop that you can ’ t simulate in prac-

tice I’m disappointed with the amount of injuries but overall fairly pleased with the weekend ”

Back for the 2014-15 season are 12 of the Red’s top 14 scorers, including the three second-highest scorers from last season in McCarron, Lowry and Ryan McCarron is one of the few players in Cornell history to hold the title of captain for two years Schafer is one of the few others

Despite returning the majority of its top lineup, the Red lost many graduating

By SYDNEY ALTSCHULER

The Cornell sprint football team will conclude its season this Friday, when it plays host to Mansfield for Senior Day The Red will honor its 18 seniors who have represented the 75-year old program Included in this group are the four captains, First Team All-CSFL defensive back Chris Sitko, Second

Te a m A l l - C S F L d e f e n s i ve l i n e m a n Er

Se

o f f e n s i ve l i n e m e n Gre g

Za l e v s k y a n d Be n n e t t Winters

The Red (2-4) looks to end its season on a positive note and snap its two-game

losing skid Cornell leads the Mountaineers in the all-time s e r i e s , 1 0 - 0 In t h e i r l a s t meeting, the Red escaped with a 26-24 win after quarterback Brendan Miller conn e c t e d w i t h Mi c h a e l Cr a w f o rd o n a n i n e - y a rd scoring strike with just nine seconds left on the clock

The Red has faced the Mountaineers in 10 all-time matchups and has never lost If history repeats itself, the Re d w i l l b e 6 - 0 a l l - t i m e a g a i n s t Ma n s f i e l d o n Schoellkopf Field

The Mountaineers enter Friday’s season finale with a record of 1-5 However, the Red should beware that this re c o rd d o e s n o t re f l e c t Mansfield’s abilities The foe

lost its first three contests by a c o m b i n e d 1 6 p o i n t s Howe ve r, Ma n s f i e l d m o s t re c e n t l y s t e a m ro l l e d Princeton, 67-0, showing a stellar per formance in the second half with 53 points a n d 5 1 0 y a rd s o f t o t a l o f f e n s e Ad d i t i o n a l l y, Ma n s f i e l d’s o f f e n s e r a n k s third in the CSFL with an average of 26 5 points per g a m e Se n i o r q u a r t e r b a c k Mike Maniscalco, who leads the league with 1549 yards through the air this season, w i l l c h a l l e n g e t h e Re d’s defense

T h i s t i m e a ro u n d , Cornell will rely on sophom o re q u a r t e r b a c k Ro b Pannullo, who has shown c o n s i s t e n t i m p rove m e n t

throughout the season In his last three starts under center, he has put up big numbers f o r t h e Re d De s p i t e t h e Red’s loss to Post this past we e k e n d , Pa n n u l l o h a d a strong showing for the day He went 14-of-26 for 184 yards and had two touchdowns through the air He also added 79 yards in 19 attempts on the ground Cornell will look to capit a l i ze o n i t s o f f e n s i ve momentum that it has built over the tail end of the season The Red has racked up 99 points over its three most recent games, including 30 points against Navy, the most t h e Mi d s h i p m e n h a ve allowed since it let 32 go to Army in the final game of the 2010 season

Freshman slot receiver Ian Rawn said that the squad is determined to end the season on a positive note and make its seniors proud

“ T h i s i s d e f i n i t e l y a n important game for us to win,” he said “We also owe it to our seniors to send them off with a win ” Rawn also said that a win

a g a i n s t Ma n s f i e l d w o u l d allow the Red to start off the 2014-2015 campaign with a positive mindset

“It’s important for everyone to end the season on a high note so that there is a positive attitude going into next season, ” he said

r B ow l w a s s u p p o s e d t o b e a c l a s s i c s t re n g t h ve r s u s s t re n g t h ( a n d we a k n e s s ve rs u s we a k n e s s ) a s Ma n n i n g t r i e d t o s o l ve t h e L e g i o n o f B o o m Na t e Si l ve r, t h e 5 3 8 g u y, s a i d t h e Su p e r B ow l w a s g o i n g t o b e a t i e o n t h e C o l b e r t Re p o r t A h o t p ro p b e t i n Ve g a s w a s p i c k i n g t h e f i r s t ove r t i m e i n t h e b i g g e s t g a m e i n t h e Un i t e d St a t e s Bu t 5 - 0 w a s a s c l o s e a s t h e y g o t T h e Bro n c o s ’ g re a t s e a s o n w a s d e r a i l e d e n t i re l y by t h e Se a h a w k s d o m i n a n c e Ye t , n ow t h e Bro n c o s a re b a c k i n t h e s a m e s p o t , w i d e l y re g a rd e d a s t h e b e s t t e a m i n t h e A F C T h e Bro n c o s , 6 - 1 , ow n w i n s

ove r t h e C o l t s , C h a r g e r s a n d a t h r a s h i n g o f t h e 4 9 e r s It’s c l e a r t h a t t h e Bro n c o s a re t h e b e s t t e a m i n t h e A F C A g a i n It’s h a rd t o i m a g i n e a n y t e a m g o i n g i n t o De n ve r a n d k n o c k i n g t h e m o f f A n d u n l i k e l a s t ye a r, t h e Se a t t l e Se a h a w k s a re i n a r u t L a s t s e a s o n w a s a t w o h o r s e r a c e i n t h e N F L f o r b e s t t e a m T h e Se a h a w k s a n d Bro n c o s s e e m i n g l y we n t w i n f o r w i n , e a c h p u t t i n g u p i d e n t i c a l 1 3 - 3 re c o rd s Bu t t h i s t i m e , De n ve r c o u l d a n d s h o u l d r u n a w a y w i t h i t T h e Bro n c o s h a ve ye t t o p l a y t h e Pa t r i o t s a n d Be n g a l s , w h i c h m a y b e l o s a b l e g a m e s , b u t t h e Bro n c o s a re t h e o n l y c o nt e n d e r w i t h o u t a n y b a g g a g e T h e Be n g a l s a re t o o vo l a t i l e t o t r u s t ( g e t t i n g s h u t o u t by a C o l t s t e a m t h a t j u s t g a ve u p 5 0 d i d n ’ t h e l p ) , w h i l e t h e Pa t r i o t s h a ve l o o k e d m o r t a l a n d Br a d y c a n o n l y w o rk m i r a c l e s f o r s o l o n g If De n ve r c a n g o i n t o Fox b o ro u g h a n d i n f l i c t a l o s s o n t h e Pa t r i o t s , t h e Bro n c o s c a n c l i n c h t h e o n e s e e d p re t t y q u i c k l y T h e Bro n c o s a d d i t i o n o f De m a rc u s Wa re a n d Em m a n u e l Sa n d e r s h a s p a i d o f f d i v id e n d s Wa re h a s s h ow n t h e s a m e p a s s r u s hi n g a b i l i t y t h a t m a d e h i m a h o u s e h o l d n a m e i n Da l l a s a n d c o n t i n u e s t o re m i n d e ve r yo n e t h a t h e ’ s s t i l l a f u t u re h a l l o f f a m e p l a ye r Vo n Mi l l e r i s re a l i z i n