Issuu

THE HIGHLANDER

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, RIVERSIDE

est. 1954

FOR THE WEEK OF TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2018

VOL. 66, ISSUE 16

ASUCR: Chief of staff nominee accused of sexual misconduct MYLES ANDREWS-DUVE Senior Staff Writer

whereas in the current space, there is around 80 seats. The faculty and staff dining will be located adjacent to The Barn. According to the plans that Henry provided to The Highlander, there will be a small ﬁnishing and storage kitchen for guests seated inside. Henry explained that, generally, the interior will be primarily crafted with wood to maintain the overall culture of The Barn as well as a more relaxed atmosphere with a large ﬂoor-to-ceiling window looking out into the courtyard. The area, which will open with a different name, will primarily be used for buffet-style dining options with small appetizers served later in the day. The space is projected to hold around 60 seats.

Sammie Ayoub, a third-year political science and international affairs major, was at the center of a highly contentious discussion at the ASUCR senate meeting last Wednesday evening, when two students used public forum to make the senate aware of Ayoub’s alleged sexual misconduct during his time at Riverside City College (RCC). Ayoub, who enrolled in UC Riverside in winter 2018, was set to be appointed as chief of staff under the office of ASUCR Vice President of Internal Affairs Semi Cole, if the senate voted in his favor. Though, prior to the vote, students Hawie Mekbib and Jose Venegas used public forum to denounce Ayoub’s candidacy due to what the two later described as repeated sexual misconduct during his time at RCC. Ayoub’s appointment, which was presented by CHASS Senator Carolyn Chang in Cole’s absence due to a class conflict, was not approved with a vote of 5-6-1. “I know two friends who he hurt very badly,” said Mekbib in his statement to the senate, “I do not think Sammie is someone who should represent student government or students in general.” Venegas, a fourth-year anthropology major who transferred from RCC in fall of 2016, seconded Mekbib’s sentiment, saying, “I don’t feel like someone like (this) should be in office … it shows a lot about his character and I don’t think that is someone who should represent anyone (sitting) here.”

► SEE BARN, PAGE 4

► SEE ASUCR, PAGE 4

COURTESY OF UCR DINING, HOSPITALITY, & RETAIL SERVICES

“Getting back to the culture”: Dining optimistic about Barn expansion

Dining Executive Director David Henry reveals details on future of UCR’s storied restaurant EVAN ISMAIL Senior Staff Writer

During an ASUCR meeting in May 2017, David Henry, executive director of Dining, Hospitality and Retail Services (Dining) announced a full renovation for The Barn restaurant. The timeline of this project, which is being undertaken by Berkeley, California-based Fernau and Hartman Architects, calls for the closing of The Barn in June 2018 shortly after ﬁnals week, a soft opening planned December of 2019 and a full reopening slated for January 2020. The Barn is the oldest building at UCR, ﬁrst constructed in 1916 as a collection of horse stables, a carpenter shop, hay barn and wagon shed. The

stables were converted into a cafeteria in 1954 upon UCR’s opening year. The current Barn is not the original as it burnt down in December of 1970 and had to be completely rebuilt. With all of these changes comes another: A full renovation and expansion of the current premises to include a brand new Barn Theater, outdoor patio with a permanent stage and a 50 to 60 seat faculty and staff dining area with a bar. In an interview with The Highlander, Henry described the entire plan. Starting with the current restaurant, Henry explained they were adding an entirely new kitchen and larger loading dock to accommodate an expanded operation. Inside the restaurant, the plan calls for booth seating on the side, absorbing the wooden beams which Henry said could be

somewhat dangerous. On the opposite side of the booths, the beams will come down into a large high-top barstyle long table, similar to what exists in the HUB dining area currently, with moveable tables and chairs in the center. Additionally, the architects will be removing the stage which, according to Henry, “always felt ... very dark and cave-like ... unless you’re doing entertainment, it feels like an entertainment venue, but when you’re not, it feels like it’s turned off, it’s dark, it’s not very inviting.” In lieu of the stage, they will be building a “very-sizable” window to let more natural light into the building. There will be a moveable barn door to cover the window in the event that there will be small-scale entertainment in the restaurant itself. There will be an estimated 95 seats

The Highlander speaks with Assemblyman Jose Medina The Assemblyman reflects on his career, discusses student financial issues and labor rights

ANDREAS RAUCH Senior Staff Writer

The Highlander spoke with Assemblyman Jose Medina this week about a variety of issues pertaining to the Inland Empire and university students in California. Medina, a Democrat, represents the 61st district which covers parts of Riverside, including UCR, and is serving his third term in the California State Legislature, having been elected to this post for the first time in 2012. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Andreas Rauch: Did you always aspire to represent the Inland Empire in politics? Jose Medina: I was elected to the assembly five years ago, I’m in my third term. Before running for the assembly, I was a school board member in the Jurupa Unified School District and after that I was elected to the RCC (Riverside City College) Board of Trustees, where I served for 13 years. I wouldn’t say that I always aspired to represent the Inland Empire in the Assembly, but I did run two times previous to winning my election. I ran for

the Assembly first in the year 2000 and then again in 2010. I won in my third attempt in 2012. I’ve been interested and active in politics in the Inland Empire for a long time, going back to the time I was a student at UCR. How did your background shape your views and your goals for improving people’s lives in the Inland Empire? I think going back to my time in college at UCR, I was active in MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx de Aztlan, a Chicano student nationalist organization), with United Farm

Workers, with Cesar Chavez. I participated in the Grape Boycott … also my own involvement against the war in Vietnam as a college student. All those things got me involved in politics early in my life. Were there certain issues you felt or feel need attention which you thought you in particular could help? Do you see progress on these issues? I’ve been involved in politics in our area for a long time. One of those would be basic representation for all groups. I think that in the time I’ve been active in politics

we’ve seen a specific Latino representation improving, at all levels, whether it be the local level, school boards, the county board of supervisors, which got its first Latino supervisor with Manuel Perez in 100 years. There had never been a Latino with the Riverside County Board of Supervisors. There’s still a need for better representation by women, Latinos and AfricanAmericans. You know, in this area I think it’s improving, but there’s still lots of room for improvement. ► SEE JOSE MEDINA , PAGE 5

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UPCOMING EVENTS: WEEK 6

MAHSA SHALCHY, PSYCHOLOGY, SECOND-YEAR

Developing a New Recycled Water Source in the Inland Empire 12:00 p.m.– 1:00 p.m. Orbach Library (Science Library), 240

NASA Astrobiology: Celebrating 20 Years 6:00 p.m.- 8:00 p.m. Palm Desert Center 75080 Frank Sinatra Dr, Palm Desert, CA 92211

Wednesday

Hot off the Presses: Sarita See 3:00 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. College Building South, 114

Valentine’s Day Partner Yoga 6:30 p.m.-8:00 p.m. Student Recreation Center (SRC), MPR E

Test Kitchen - Course Redesign 1:00 p.m.-3:00 p.m. Rivera Library, A0101A

Teacher Education Programs Info Session 3:30 p.m.-4:30 p.m. Sproul Hall, 1215

Food Evolution 4:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m. Barn

Rear Window 7:00 p.m. ARTSblock 3824 Main St, Riverside, CA 92501

Adopt-a-Street Cleanup 9:00 a.m.-11:00 a.m. Lot 33, Downtown Riverside Riverside, CA, 92501 Lot 33 located next to Riverside Convention Center

Big Bear Snowboarding Weekend 2:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m. Student Recreation Center (SRC), Student Rec Center

Tuesday

COMPILED BY MARTIN LOPEZ

Thursday

“When I first moved here I was hoping to see lots of tall buildings with lots

Friday

of lights, I was hoping to see lots of people in the streets, so at first I didn’t like how empty it was but now when I go to crowded places I can’t handle it. I think I’m too used to the calm and tranquillity.”

Saturday

Softball vs Stanford 12:00 p.m. Cathedral City, CA

Tai Chi Beginning/Continued Session II 11:10 a.m.-12:00 p.m. Student Recreation Center (SRC), MPR C

Sunday

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ASUCR: Chief of staff nominee accused of sexual misconduct ► FROM ASUCR, PAGE 1

“I don’t know how Semi could be so foolish as to appoint someone who he knows nothing about … without asking anything about his history (or) without asking anybody that may have known Sammie,” added Mekbib, a fourth-year political science major who transferred to UCR from RCC in fall of 2016. In his statement, Venegas noted that charges of sexual misconduct levied against Ayoub during his time at RCC spurred a Title IX investigation that began in September of 2016, but did not elaborate on account of uncertainty about Title IX policy. Cole, who was notified of the ongoing discussion surrounding Ayoub by a senator who he declined to name, arrived shortly after Mekbib and Venegas spoke. In a statement to the senate, Cole defended his appointment. “Did anyone present proof today?” asked Cole. “We vote off proof and evidence, right? We’re student government, we’re here to make the best decisions for the public and to evaluate what the public gives us.” “I hope that when you make a decision like this, you’re making it based off of facts,” continued Cole. “I hope you’re basing it off of what is true and what is purely slander.” In a later interview, Mekbib and Venegas expanded on the 2016 investigation, which, they say, stemmed from a fall 2016 incident in which Ayoub was speaking with a girl on the balcony of RCC’s Honors lounge and asked her out on a date. The girl declined and “kept refusing his advances,” claimed Venegas. This led Ayoub to forcibly grab her by the arms and ask why she wouldn’t go out with him, according to Venegas and another source close to the situation. Following the incident, the girl filed a misconduct case against Ayoub with RCC’s Title IX office and Mekbib and Venegas allege that this led up to seven women to bring forward accusations of sexual misconduct against Ayoub as well. On the afternoon of Jan. 12, Ayoub and Venegas were engaged in a verbal altercation outside of Costo Hall’s Middle Eastern Student Center. In the days following, Ayoub filed a case against Venegas with student conduct and, on Friday, Feb. 9, Venegas received a notice to appear for an administrative meeting to address the incident. “I cannot sit here and let someone tarnish my name who doesn’t even know me,” said Ayoub in response to Mekbib and Venegas’ statements made Wednesday evening. Though, Mekbib and Venegas attest that they were close friends with Ayoub during his time at RCC. Mekbib and Venegas met

Ayoub through their involvement in RCC’s Model United Nations (MUN), of which Ayoub became a member in fall of 2015. Venegas claimed he and Ayoub developed a close friendship starting in winter quarter of 2016, when, as Mekbib recalls, the club members would spend up to six hours a day together in preparation for an upcoming trip to New York in the spring. It was the summer following that trip, sources say, that many in the club became vocally concerned about Ayoub’s behavior with women. That September, Venegas hosted a party at his house for all of the club members. According to Mekbib, Venegas and an email recounting the night sent from the MUN officer to the club advisor on Jan. 3, 2017, after about three hours into the party a girl rushed out of one of the bedrooms crying, telling her friend that Ayoub cornered and forced himself on her. This, according to the email, led her friend to “break down hysterically” and reveal that Ayoub also “forced himself on her when she first joined” MUN. That friend, according to a former officer in MUN who spoke anonymously due to fear of retaliation, experienced an incident with Ayoub a couple semesters prior. After giving Ayoub a ride home, the two were sitting in the car out front of his house when, the officer says, Ayoub groped and made advances on her. The girl allegedly rejected the advances and no sexual contact was made. According to the email, Ayoub denied these allegations when confronted about them by the club members shortly after the party, one of whom expressed. Ayoub was removed from the club and Mekbib and Venegas allege that he was banned from the RCC campus for a year starting in spring of 2017 while the investigation was still ongoing after numerous accusations were levied against him. Ayoub denies that he was suspended, and academic transcripts provided to the Highlander show that he completed classes at RCC through the summer of 2017. Ayoub was adamant on Wednesday that the investigation found him not guilty and suggested Saturday that the allegations made by Mekbib and Venegas were an effort to slander his name. “The claims were false … I believe personally it’s because of my political beliefs,” said Ayoub, who identifies as a conservative and is a member of UCR’s College Republicans. “... I just really feel like they’re going after me because of what I believe in as a conservative person.” Ayoub denied wrongdoing in these cases, and expressed trust “in the due process of the school.” When asked specifically about why he believes women would make false claims against him, Ayoub declined comment on ac-

count of “not trying to go into those details of my life … I’m moving on and moving forward.” In an interview, the former MUN officer suggested that Ayoub’s misconduct was wellknown both within the club and the Associated Students of RCC. As Ayoub became increasingly involved in student government, earning the appointment of the Riverside Community College District student trustee for the 201617 academic year, Ayoub often made sexually suggestive comments about female student representatives, according to a source close to the situation. “It was one of those things you would always hear rumors about but nobody would ever tell you about it,” said the officer. In Ayoub’s five weeks of attending UCR thus far, female workers in ASUCR have spoken privately about their discomfort around him, according to sources within the office, many referring to him as “touchy.” This sentiment is reflected in an email sent from a witness to investigators on May 11, 2016, which said Ayoub’s “natural setting was to hit on people. That’s carried over, and he’s remained a very touchy person.” The sender, whose identity was not disclosed due to fear of retaliation, went on to acknowledge a change in Ayoub’s behavior. “I’ve been by him as he expressed that he wanted to settle down and stop,” it reads. “ … I like to think that people can change, and I think that Sammie has.” Though, in an interview Friday, Cole noted that, since Wednesday’s meeting, “People in the (ASUCR) office have said that he’s (Ayoub’s) been a little bit aggressive as well as said remarks that they don’t appreciate.” Cole is insistent that he had no knowledge of the alleged incidents at RCC prior to Wednesday’s meeting. “There was nothing that was found online, there was nothing that was found on Facebook or anything like that,” said Cole, acknowledging that a background check on Ayoub would not have revealed these allegations, considering that misconduct cases are sealed by the university for sake of the victims. Cole said that he initially nominated Ayoub for chief of staff due to his political involvement both at RCC and during his short time at UCR thus far. “He was someone who would go to a lot of meetings, who would ask a lot of questions, he would take the extra step to find out information,” said Cole. Ayoub also became directly involved in the internal affairs office at an informal capacity this quarter, helping Cole oversee other officers and stepping in “when my chief of staff was neglecting her duties,” according to Cole. Cole’s former chief of staff stepped down early last week which spurred his decision to appoint Ayoub on Wednesday. Still, Cole said that he would not have put Ayoub up for nomination

if he had known of the allegations prior to Wednesday. “I want to thank the senators for putting down the decision because it gave us more time to reflect about the truth,” said Cole in an interview Friday. Currently, it is unclear who will assume the chief of staff position under the vice president of internal affairs office, though Cole says he is actively looking elsewhere. In an interview Saturday, Ayoub acknowledged he no longer plans to be involved in ASUCR. “I was interested just because I wanted to help and see what it was like,” he said, “but at this current moment, no, I’m not interested in wanting to do anything with ASUCR.” Mekbib and Venegas remain adamant in their belief that Ayoub should not be representing students and has not shown remorse for his alleged behavior. “I don’t think he’s even close to understanding what he has done,” said Mekbib. “He has called the victims liars, he doesn’t acknowledge that he has done it, he is in complete denial.” ASRCC and RCC’s Title IX office could not be reached for comment. Highlights: CHASS Senator Marco Ornelas followed up with HUB Director Brendan O’Brien who said the campus provides feminine hygiene products in HUB bathrooms. Ornelas said, after speaking with multiple students who use the women’s bathroom in the HUB, they attested that no such products exist. When reporting this to O’Brien, Ornelas claimed the director got frustrated that girls were not telling him this directly. Ornelas is still working to provide these products in the HUB bathrooms before his term is completed. • CHASS Senator Valeria Orosco announced they are working on finalizing the second annual CNAS Research Expo and announced the date as set for Monday, Apr. 9. • President Aram Ayra informed the senate that the campus was holding a vigil at 8 p.m. that evening in front of the Bell Tower in memory of Lucille Lu, a UCR student who passed away the weekend prior in a fatal car accident. A few student representatives, including CHASS Senator Nakaoka and VPIA Cole and administrators such as interim Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Thomas Smith, joined around 50 other students who were in attendance at Wednesday’s vigil. •

ASUCR will be holding their next meeting this Wednesday, Feb. 14 beginning at 6:30 p.m. in the senate chambers (HUB 221). The meeting is open to the public. ■H

Full renovation planned for UCR’s Barn restaurant Dining Executive Director David Henry reveals details on future of UCR’s storied restaurant

► FROM BARN, PAGE 1

The new courtyard, which will be partially covered, will be between the restaurant and the faculty and staff dining area and consist of a permanent and raised stage with outdoor speakers as well as a light system with the goal of hosting more entertainment. Henry explained that, ideally, there will be an independent booking agent that will garner a “large-scale entertainer” twice a month, “mediumsized entertainer” around four times a month and smaller scale performances around 10 times a month. Whether the performances will be an everyday occurrence, Henry said, has not been determined. Included in this space will be another bar that will serve beer and wine. The operator of the bar, including the bar inside the faculty and staff dining, will be a third-party vendor which will provide the staff. Henry explained that the reason for this is because, since UCR is under the auspices of the state of California, it is not allowed to hold its own liquor license. The vendor may have a similar arrangement with the campus as the HUB restaurants do, with a small cut of the profit coming back to the

campus. The current Barn Theater will be totally razed and rebuilt, because according to Henry, the space needs a considerable amount of work and was found to be cheaper to conduct a “scrape-and-rebuild” rather than a renovation. The building will be pushed slightly back from its current location to allow a more open and free-flowing area in addition to more green space. There will be a slidingbarn door also to allow a more open space for guests. The plans also call for new public restrooms connected to the theater open for use at any time. Henry also highlighted a planned “ticket tower” to be located in the front of the complex. The tower will be used as a ticket booth for ticketed entertainment events but also host a large illuminated sign reading “The Barn.” According to Henry, “there was a lot of discussion over this socalled ‘ticket tower.’ At one point in time, it was intended to just be a ticket window on The Barn itself, but we couldn’t figure out how to get you into the ticket window without closing off the patio.” Described by Henry as originally planned to be a ticket booth to keep the patio open, the architectural firm suggested a “pinnacle or icon of the whole thing, ‘it needs to

be a ticket tower,’” explained Henry. Though Henry said he was originally unsure about the idea, after a suggestion to light the sign, Henry explained that it makes The Barn more of “a destination focal point.” The ticket tower, however, may not survive the event of a budget problem, Henry said, “if there’s a budget issue somewhere along the way, that might be the first thing to be manipulated.” The entire project, which is not connected to the North Campus expansion plan, is expected to cost around $18-20 million and is covered by a loan. Auxiliary Services is responsible for overseeing the debt accumulated by the project. Henry explained that the budget “looks pretty good” and is insistent that the cost does not exceed the budgeted amount. A primary concern for this project is keeping the original culture of The Barn intact. The architecture will be similar in order to maintain the image of a barn with metal-like roofs and an exterior similar to the original barn. Henry highlighted the use of wood in several instances for the exterior and interior designs to make the facilities more “timeless ... you might change the art, you might change the tables but the rest of it could last the test of

time.” Henry believes that by remodeling the space, the Barn’s original character will be emphasized, something that was originally an entertainment and community area for years. “Our intent is to bring that back. We want to try and keep a little bit of the old, obviously build new and hopefully we don’t feel like we have lost the roots along the way,” said Henry. The staff will increase, according to Henry, with an estimated 10-12 cooks and several more staff to maintain and wait the premises, possibly increasing the staff by a factor of four. Most of the employees will be students. Additionally, there will be no layoffs. Instead, current staff will be transferred to other locations in Dining. Other dining locations in the meantime will include a buffet-style option in the Alumni and Visitor’s Center two days a week, a food truck patio constructed near Sproul expected to be completed by the beginning of fall 2018, and a newly renovated Ivan’s at Hinderaker which will expand into the lobby on the left side of the building. This will host two cash registers, espresso machines, capacities for blended drinks, a soup urn and an open-air refrigerator for sandwiches. Henry also hopes to bring more

meaning to the location by informing people about who the namesake of the cafe is, Ivan Hinderaker, a celebrated former chancellor of UCR from 1964 to 1979. One of the planned methods of doing so will be a narrative plaque on Hinderaker above the condiment counter. Dining’s other projects, aside from the proposed Ivan’s renovation, will be a new cafe in between the Materials Science and Engineering building and the new research building, MRB1, behind it. The cafe will offer coffee, hot sandwiches, soups and other dining options to serve that area. Also slated is the new Glasgow dining facility behind the Aberdeen and Inverness Residence Hall featuring an exhibition bakery and expanded dining hall. The timeline for this construction is currently unknown as the planning for the project is in the very early stages. Throughout 2018 and 2019, Dining plans to conduct research and development on the menu and bar items with beer and wine panels and food tastings. Henry indicated that they are trying to source local beer varieties for the bar which will feature 12 tap handles. The Barn will close starting in the summer of 2018 and is expected to reopen in January of 2020. ■H

NEWS

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TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2018

The Highlander speaks with Assemblyman Jose Medina The Assemblyman reflects on his career, discusses student financial issues and labor rights

► FROM JOSE MEDINA, PAGE 1

You’re the chairman of the Assembly Committee on Higher Education, so you’re in a unique place to address several concerns facing students in California and the Inland Empire in particular. What do you see as your priorities and what do you think can realistically be done to improve the lives of students? Well, I see lots of challenges for students today. I hear from college students here in Sacramento and locally that students are having to work more hours, sometimes having to take more than one job to make ends meet. And still, students have a hard time. I know students at UCR organized a pantry because there are students who face not having enough food or sometimes cannot afford a place to live. I know that it is becoming harder to become a college student, whether a community college student, a CSU student, or a UC student. Tuition is a challenge, and I hear about students having to decide between paying for books and paying for food. I know those are challenges students face. Student debt is a challenge, students coming out of college with a lot of student debt, making it more difficult for students when they want to buy a home. Those are all challenges students are meeting. I’m hearing from students throughout the state that it’s stressful to be a student, so there is a higher demand on campus at all three levels for mental health services and that there’s probably not enough mental health services at any of these segments. That’s something we’ve been working on since I’ve been here in the legislature. So those are some of the challenges that I’m aware of that students face. Besides the particular challenges that students face, I think the community colleges, CSU and UC have lots of challenges as well. And some of these challenges are just being able to serve all the students that are graduating from California high schools, for example CSU turns away 30,000 qualified students a year. So not having a place, not having room for as many students who would benefit from higher education, is a challenge. For UCR in particular, I know the chancellor wants to grow the campus. I know that in the last couple of years as enrollment grew at UC Riverside there were challenges for space whether it was classroom space or office space for professors — UCR faces lack of space. Some of these tie into financial challenges, not enough state support, and I don’t think the state of California supports higher education enough financially, and it is something that I have been working on in the time that I have been chair of the Higher Education Committee. We’ve learned recently that the UC system wants to raise tuition by about $300. In a time of increasing costs in education and seemingly diminishing returns for those who are out of college in terms of employment opportunities, what do you hope or think will happen in the future? Do you think spending thousands of dollars, tens of thousands of dollars possibly for an education that may not even get someone a job?

Well, I was a high school teacher in the Riverside area for 34 years. And as I mentioned I’m a UC Riverside graduate. So I understand students’ frustration about not being able to find a job, perhaps right out of college, or having to take jobs that don’t require a college education, so having to work at restaurants, jobs like that. I recently met a UCR graduate, she was driving an Uber as a second job. So I understand this frustration. But, to answer your question, I think a college education especially in the long run, does benefit those who graduate financially over their lives, and I think that’s demonstrated. Besides the financial reward of having the college degree, I think that there are a lot of other rewards, personal rewards, that come from a college education, like better quality of life. As you know there was a protest here on the UCR campus last Thursday, a labor protest. One of the concerns raised by the protesters was that campus is expanding, lots of money is being spent on administrative positions, but not enough money is being spent on service workers, on professional workers, the people who keep UCR running day-to-day. What is your proposal to help remedy these issues? Well I have always supported all the different collective bargaining units at the different segments of education: I did it when I was a trustee at RCC, I continue to do it here in the Assembly. I have respected picket lines, I have joined the picket line at UCR, I have met with cafeteria workers, I have met with maintenance workers, I have met and walked the halls of the dormitories with the people who clean the dorms. I know that we couldn’t have the universities without them, the services they provide are important to the students, whether they be the clerks or maintenance staff, like I mentioned. They all deserve the best wages that we can provide and so I have always supported them, I have picked up the phone and made phone calls to President Napolitano — I remember when I first met President Napolitano, maybe five years ago, she asked me what could she do to make my job easier as a legislator, in regards to the UC. I told her to make sure that labor disputes are handled well and that we can end them as quickly as possible. You mentioned that it was on your third try that you were elected, what were some significant challenges you faced in the election process? Obviously I faced obstacles, having lost the first two attempts. Some of that had to do with the way the district boundaries were created. These were created by the legislature before, and the legislature created boundaries that would protect incumbents; not necessarily boundary lines that made the most sense, but drawing lines that would protect the people that were already up here in Sacramento. So I think that was the biggest obstacle to me, because the district that I represent, the 61st, had a very much Republican-leaning registration. We were represented by Republicans for 20 years prior to my election. When the voters changed the way the lines were

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drawn and took the process out of the hands of the legislature, they put it in the hands of a nonpartisan committee. The lines that were drawn made a lot more sense–the district got a little bit smaller, I think the Democratic registration was higher, and it no longer went to the desert. Before, the lines had Moreno Valley with Rancho Mirage, when I ran. I could not see what Moreno Valley, the residents of Moreno Valley, had in common with the residents of Rancho Mirage, one being of low socioeconomic status and the other being affluent. I think that the lines that were drawn after the last census by the nonpartisan commission gave me and now-Congressman Takano and (State) Senator Roth an even playing field, and we were able to be elected. What challenges do you face in implementing your goals for your constituents? I think that historically the Inland Empire area has not received the resources from the state that it deserves. A lot of the formulas that are used are

detrimental to our area of the state of California — whether it be the formulas that are used to allocate judges, they don’t help, they hurt the Inland Empire. The formula used to fund the UC was detrimental to UC Riverside. UCR had in the past gotten much less from the state of California in perstudent funding than other campuses like UCLA or UC Berkeley, and we’ve been trying to improve those formulas. That way the Inland Empire gets the resources from the state which it deserves. Is there anything else you would like to add? Let me just add that I’m proud to be a UCR alum and that I work closely with our Chancellor, Kim Wilcox, and many other alums and that I enjoy hearing from students; as a matter of fact I had a group of UCLA students in my office today. My office is five minutes away from the UCR campus, in the University Village. I’m very happy always to visit campus and to have students visit me. ■H

UCPD opens criminal investigation into @NextGenCandids account holder VASKEN NAJARIAN Contributing Writer

Earlier this month, several UC Riverside students discovered that there were various social media accounts under the handle @ NextGenCandids that were posting suggestive videos and photos of female students around campus without their consent. These accounts, which were on Twitter, Tumblr and iFunny, have been suspended from their respective social media platforms, and UCPD has begun a criminal investigation into the matter.

UC Riverside Police Lieutenant Jason Day discussed the the unique nature of this situation in an interview with The Highlander. “There have been other cases of illegal photography or filming, but this one is unique in its intersection of a public space and personal expectations of privacy,” said Day. That is what makes this different from the last case at UCR which was in 2015 when a freshman at the Lothian Residence Hall arrested and expelled for secretly videotaping female hallmates in the shower. He explained that taping people without their knowledge for sug-

gestive purposes, as the @NextGenCandids account holder did, is in violation of Section 647(j)(2) of the California Penal Code. “Basically, if someone uses a camera in a manner that violates a reasonable expectation of privacy in order to see under or through someone’s clothes, with the intent to ‘arouse, appeal to, or gratify the lust, passions, or sexual desires of that person’ it is a misdemeanor in the State of California,” wrote Day. Lieutenant Day also maintained that a case will be filed as soon as UCPD secures more information, and must wait for the courts to have

concurred that there is a reasonable expectation of privacy with what they found is unreasonable in a public place. “We are currently conducting a criminal investigation into this incident and will file the case with the Riverside District Attorney if we believe we have a crime that fits these elements and can name a suspect,” said Day. He also urged students to avoid falling victim to such crimes to exercise situational awareness as that is a large part of crime prevention. He suggested that as students go out in public, they must pay attention to what is going on around them, and

who is walking near them. “If you get an odd feeling about a person or a situation, trust that feeling. Go another way, use a different path, turn around or head to a campus phone and call UCPD.” A statement released to the UCR student body on Feb. 1 stated, “The UCR Title IX Office is reviewing this matter and working closely with Student Conduct and Academic Integrity programs to ensure a safe campus environment in which campus principles and policies are respected.” UCR Student Conduct declined to comment. ■H

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2018

NEWS

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UCR bioengineer earns research grant toward bioinspired molecular electrets development MARK BERTUMEN Contributing Writer

On Wednesday, Jan. 31, it was released that UCR bioengineering Professor Valentine Vullev received a grant from Fulbright, an American scholarship program, to conduct research on charge transfer at the Brazilian University of Sao Paulo for the 2018-19 academic year. Charge transfer refers to the movement of electric charge between molecules, such as when electrons move along a wire to generate electricity. The goal of this research is to improve understanding of Vullev’s own “bioinspired molecular electrets” and to apply new findings to charge transfer. An electret is an artificial magnet, created when an electric charge is contained within an insulating material. Historically, electrets only hold charges, not transferring them, but Vullev has broken ground by engineering his own “bioinspired” electret, which defies that inheritance and allows charges to pass in and out through openings in the surface. But they are still not conductors, and are more like a molecular capacitor, as Vullev notes. “If I put a charge

in something that is an insulator, and that charge has sites to move along, it’s not really a conductor, per se, it doesn’t necessarily have to have a lot of free charge carriers. I know it’s a little confusing,” says Vullev. Vullev thought of the idea after observing biological cell activity. A cell’s membrane is an insulator, but body cells use the charge of ions in the bloodstream and the cytoplasm to create pulses that control our movement, thinking and inner body functions. Ions enter and leave the cells through proteins on the cell membrane known as ion channels, and upon entering or leaving, the cell membrane retains charges. These observations are what led to Vullev’s creation. “All the things (biological cell structures) are insulators, and still, biology shows a lot of examples of long range charge transfer,” Vullev comments. “We know that life exists because those processes occur, so borrowing this idea, you can go around what the physics prevents us to do.” Vullev is confident that his research on electrets, and other related research, will find its way into widespread use.

“If you establish fundamental principles, you can take them to new fields,” says Vullev. “Even start new fields of science and engineering, and that’s the whole idea of academic research: it’s to change the way people think about things. If the research doesn’t do that, that means that you’re just improving things, but you’re not really pushing the limits.” Ultimately, Vullev does not only aim for his research to improve current scientific creations, such as solar power cells and other energy conversion methods, but for the results to be applied in many different areas. But Vullev observes that research into his electrets is very young, having only begun with a theoretical paper posted in 2009, and makes a point that finding applications can be difficult. “We are looking at things to bring an understanding of energy conversion and from there, hopefully, applications,” says Vullev. “But the ideas are so new that they don’t have exact applications. It takes time to mature and do testing and so forth.” Vullev’s new research intends to find such “exact applications” and his research’s

second goal is to expand the application of his electrets to cell biology. He notes that the electrets he observed were photo-driven; this means that light could be used to “push” charges in and out of the electrets. As such, cells could be manipulated in the same way, suggesting that cell function can be medically maintained. This can be useful for treat-

ing many conditions, like arrhythmia, which comes from excessive potassium, or hypertension, which comes from excessive sodium. “A photoinduced charge transfer (can occur with the electrets),” states Vullev, “so if you can use those to move charges across cell membranes, then you can actually control it (the charge within the cell).” ■H

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UCR researcher takes a closer look at autism ATENAS ODRIOZOLA Contributing Writer

Published in the Molecular Autism journal on Jan. 30 by UC Riverside Assistant Professor of Special Education and assistant director to Support Education Advocacy Resources Community Hope (SEARCH) Family Autism Research Center Katherine Stavropoulos and UC San Diego Psychology Professor Leslie Carver, the research paper titled “Oscillatory rhythm of reward: anticipation and processing of rewards in children with and without autism” analyzes how children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are less likely to be socially communicative. ASD, more commonly known as autism, “refers to a range of conditions characterized by challenges with social skills,

repetitive behaviors, speech and nonverbal communication.” Two prominent theories examined in this research explain why children with ASD are less communicative: The social motivation hypothesis and sensory over-responsivity hypothesis. The social motivation hypothesis suggests that children with ASD have a lack in the reward center of the brain and therefore are not motivated to be sociable. The sensory over-responsivity theory concludes that children with ASD are less socially engaged or socially involved due to their heightened stimuli. However, this recent research tries to explore the possibility of these two theories working hand in hand. The experiment tested children between the ages of six to eight years-old with typical development (TD), a term used

to “describe children who are not in receipt of special education services,” and children with ASD. Each child played a guessing game with two different blocks and 80 trials within each block. In the social feedback block, the children were shown faces. If the child guessed “right,” they were shown a happy face and if they were “wrong,” a sad face. In the nonsocial block, the children were shown an arrow pointing up instead of a happy face and an arrow pointing down instead of a sad face. The answers were randomized and did not have a correct answer. Instead, the computer program made 50 percent of the children’s answers right and 50 percent wrong with no more than three consecutive answers of the same result. As they played the game, the children

wore a cap with 33 electrodes to record their reward anticipation and reward processing. As the children waited to see if their answer was right or wrong, also known as the reward anticipation, the results showed the TD children anticipated being socially rewarded while the children with ASD expected the reward less. Children with severe ASD were more likely to expect the nonsocial reward. When the children found out whether they were right or wrong (also known as reward processing), the TD children’s brain showed more activity within in the reward-related centers of the brain compared to the children with ASD who had more activity in the attention-related section of the brain. Jan Blacher, director of SEARCH, an active lab associated with UCR Graduate School

of Education that provides free autism screening and resources for families with children with autism, believes that Dr. Stavropoulos and other works on autism will be “providing information for better understanding on the autism zone and also how well kids can do well in school and how well their families deal with it.” Dr. Stavropoulos will continue exploring the effects of ASD and her future work will try to expand on the variety of subjects examined in autism research. “We kind of have a bias of sampling high SES (socioeconomic status) type families and is usually not that diverse as a result, ” responded Dr. Stavropoulos. Her future research will try to gather participants from diverse backgrounds, so that “whatever we find in science would speak to the broader population.” ■H

UCR grad student curates exhibition on Mesoamerican culture AMANI MAHMOUD Contributing Writer

On Friday evening, Feb. 2, the exhibition, “Uncovering Ancient Mexico: The Mystery of Tlatilco,” opened at the Riverside Art Museum. The exhibition was curated by Catharina E. Santasillia, a UCR Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Anthropology, in collaboration with the Riverside Metropolitan Museum. The exhibition is filled with ceramic figurines and other artifacts from the ancient community of Tlatilco, today located underneath Mexico City. Tlatilco is one of the earliest complex societies of Central Mexico that flourished about 3,000 years ago contemporaneous with the Olmec in the Gulf of Mexico. In an interview with The Highlander, Santasilia said she is relieved and excited now that the exhibition is finally open. A conference, titled “The Rise of Civilization in Mesoamerica,” was hosted on Feb. 3. Researchers from the United States, Canada, Mexico and Belize all spoke at the conference and presented their research. This

conference was held in conjunction with the opening of the exhibition. According to Santasilia, this conference went spectacularly. Santasilia stated, “This conference really helped put this exhibition on the map and it really promoted it. I am so grateful for all of the speakers who came to speak and shared their knowledge with us.” The figurines on display at the exhibition all vary in shape and size and Santasilia stated that this could be due to the fact that that none of the figurines are believed to have been molded or mass produced. These factors, according to Santasilia, are the most probable reason for the variety and distinction in the figurines. Some of the figurines have two faces which Santasilia notes is very important. Santasilia explained that these double faces could potentially represent the doubling of corn, which is when two corn ears grow on one stem. The Tlatilco people potentially placed large significance on duality, according to Santasilia. Santasilia noted that one of the reasons she considers this exhibition “so incredible” is because of the amount of people who helped

her put it together. The exhibition includes an animation that was put together by Night Fire Films, a film production company based in Los Angeles. This animation illustrates 214 Tlatilco figurines. Santasilia claims that this animation is important because of the amount of figurines it animates and how it allows visitors get to experience ancient cultures. The exhibit features 55 physical figurines, not including the 214 that are illustrated on the animation. Santasilia stated, “Not many exhibits illustrate so many objects, so I am really grateful to Night Fire Films because their animation made the exhibit that much more special.” While they are not on display at the exhibit, large panels at the exhibition explained how many burial sites of the Tlatilco were discovered and how many held vast amounts of grave goods. These burial sites, as well as the figurines, were “rediscovered” by Miguel Covarrubias, a Mexican painter, caricaturist, ethnologist and art historian. Santasilia stated that Covarrubias essentially rediscovered the “importance” of Tlatilco.

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Santasilia noted that the presence of grave goods could potentially suggest that the Tlatilco people had a belief system. The grave goods, according to Santasilia, suggest a belief in life after death. Santasillia also stated that since maize was so important to this community, there is strong evidence that the Tlatilco people believed in a maize god. These burial sites also allow archaeologists to draw conclusions about the way the Tlatilco lived

their life. Santasilia stated that the Tlatilco people tended to have osteoarthritis, a type of arthritis that occurs when flexible tissue at the ends of bones wears down, at a very young age. This suggests that these people lived a very difficult and physically taxing life. Santasilia stated, “My extensive network made this entire thing possible and I am so grateful. Without it, this would not have happened. I’m just so honored at the support I have received.” ■H

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2018

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Opinions

HIGHLANDER EDITORIAL

California should follow San Francisco’s lead in weeding out marijuana convictions

n Wednesday, Jan. 31, San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon announced that the city would revisit marijuana-related convictions dating as far back as 1975, due to Proposition 64 legalizing marijuana usage when it was passed in 2016. A little over 3,000 misdemeanor convictions will be simply dismissed, whereas just over 4,900 felony convictions will undergo a review process to determine if they can be cut down to misdemeanors instead. San Francisco’s move will further modernize California’s approach of addressing marijuana use by moving the state away from its antiquated criminalization of the drug. Other cities in California, therefore, ought to consider carefully following San Francisco’s lead. In California, it’s already possible to petition a court to get a marijuanarelated conviction reduced in severity or even expunged from your record. This is thanks to a provision in Proposition 64, which is well-known for legalizing the possession of no more than an ounce of marijuana and the ownership of six plants for personal use. However, the petitioning process has been criticized for being too expensive, difficult and poorly publicized, all of which make it harder for people to access the petition. With these difficulties in mind, it seems logical for the city to take the next few steps and

drop the minor offenses on their own rather than wait for people to go to the trouble of filling out the petition. The sooner that marijuana-related convictions are scrubbed from your record or reduced in severity, the sooner you are able to resume living your life without having to worry about the everyday obstacles that having a criminal record brings. Notable disadvantages include how difficult it is to get a job or housing once you have a record, and both of these issues continue to be big concerns in California. Although California’s unemployment rate has been steadily dropping in recent years — it was at about 4.3 percent as of December 2017, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, far better than the 12 percent it hovered around back in 2010 — marijuana convictions are still a hurdle to basic living even after you’ve received your punishment for the crime. The majority of California’s voters agreed in 2016 that recreational marijuana use (within certain limits) was not something worth punishing anymore, so it’s reasonable for San Francisco to take the initiative in helping people get rid of old convictions. This move underlines the absurdity of putting someone in jail for an ounce of marijuana in the first place, and the importance of allowing those who have committed these small offenses a chance to integrate back into society. It would obviously be a very large un-

dertaking for all of California to retroactively apply Prop. 64’s provisions to see if any marijuana convictions can be reduced or dismissed. However, it would still help many people who qualify but are unaware that their convictions can be changed. Adjusting these old convictions to be more consistent with current state law will help many people move on from the stigmas and lingering consequences of having a misdemeanor charge for something now considered permissible under the law. Thus, the rest of California should consider taking the initiative and revisiting old convictions to see if they can be adjusted or expunged. If not that, then they ought to at least make the existing options for petitioning more accessible and well-known. As proponents of the move have argued, San Francisco’s initiative will also, to a degree, help combat racial disparities in drug convictions, caused at least in part by the so-called “War on Drugs.” This is a sentiment echoed in Seattle, where Mayor Jenny Durkan and City Attorney Pete Holmes announced on Thursday, Feb. 8 that they would request that the courts “vacate all misdemeanor marijuana possession charges that were prosecuted before it was legalized in Washington state in 2012,” according to NPR. According to the LA Times, despite similar usage rates of marijuana among African-Americans, Latinos

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and whites, African-Americans are overrepresented in prison populations for marijuana-related offenses. San Francisco’s district attorney office also cited how “African American and Latino communities interact with the criminal justice system … at a rate far higher than their Caucasian counterparts.” Addressing these racial disparities in drug convictions is long overdue. It would of course be naive to imagine that San Francisco’s move will be enough to fix these long-standing injustices in drug criminalization, but it is still a step forward in undoing these problems. We can hope that San Francisco’s approach will be mirrored elsewhere in California so that people can enjoy the full benefits of Proposition 64. Adjusting old convictions to be more in line with the current laws will help people move on from the long-lasting consequences of past crimes and help them to fully integrate back into society. If the rest of California takes up at least some of San Francisco’s initiative, we can hope that it will help undo some of the damage done by the old and needlessly harsh criminalization of marijuana. ■H Highlander editorials reflect the majority view of the Highlander Editorial Board. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Associated Students of UCR or the University of California system.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2018

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SITUATIONS THAT COULD BE IMPROVED WITH ONE OF ELON MUSK’S

MYLES ANDREWS-DUVE, JON HAMMOND AND CHRISTIAN MONROY | SENIOR STAFF WRITERS As you may have heard already, Elon Musk’s far-from-aptly-named Boring Company recently and very quickly sold all 20,000 of the flamethrowers that it was selling — each flamethrower a fabulous deal at only $500 apiece. Regrettably, we were not any of the lucky new owners of these devices, despite their many practical uses for both home and business. So instead, we sat down to brainstorm situations that would be immensely improved with access to a flamethrower. 1. WHEN IT’S RAINING OUTSIDE: Living in Southern California makes it really easy to forget that rain actually exists, so when those cold, wet mornings bite at you while you’re walking around outside, they bite hard. Maybe you were caught off guard in your shorts and t-shirt because you expected to see sunshine courtesy of all that global warming, not icy rain and frigid winds that keep trying to eat your umbrella. You might consider buying a sweater or a raincoat, but why bother wasting money on a sensible investment like that when you can have a flamethrower? If you think about it, it’s a portable campfire! You can toast up s’mores wherever you want, just watch your fingers. 2. WHEN YOU WANT TO LIGHT UP BUT NOBODY HAS A LIGHTER ON HAND: Bumping a lighter off someone in a public setting can be difficult for two reasons. One, watching people judge you for smoking can be uncomfortable and two, nobody ever seems to have one when you need it. This is prime reason to always keep a flamethrower nearby. Just imagine being the one in your group who saves the day by lighting 10 cigarettes at once with one Elon Musk-provided flame, and also the new friends you’ll attract along the way. Lighting up has never been easier (especially with Prop. 64 on your side). 3. INSTANT NOODLES BECOME EVEN MORE INSTANT: Nobody can question the economic efficiency of subsisting on cheap noodles, but it’s fair to say that they’re not really “instant” if you have to boil water and actually cook the noodles on a real stove or in a microwave. After all, cooking takes a whole couple of minutes! We are all busy people, we have things to do and places to be; each nanosecond of your time is liquid gold, and you’re wasting it while you wait for your noodles. Why let it keep going to waste? Cup of water, noodles, flamethrower. Bam. Instant noodles? More like even-more-instant noodles. 4. MELTING SNOW IN YOUR DRIVEWAY INSTEAD OF SHOVELING IT: Snow is usually pretty fun, except when you have to shovel it out of a driveway. Nothing about that is fun. But someone has to do it, so why not make it less of a pain? You could quickly and efficiently melt it all away with your flamethrower, easy-peasy. Why not have fun with it? You could even sculpt the snow with the fire into shapes or snowmen too! Then you could walk away from your driveway and look back on all your creations with pride. This, people, is why Prometheus stole flamethrowers from the gods. 5. DRYING YOUR CLOTHES WHEN YOU’RE IN A HURRY AND HAVE NOTHING TO WEAR: I know there are plenty of students who have woken up five, 10, maybe 50 minutes late for class, it happens. But nothing is worse than sleeping through a dozen alarms for your 8 a.m. only to realize you have nothing to wear because your laundry isn’t done. Of course, you don’t have time to put them in the dryer because that takes way too long and you can’t be bothered to put up the quarters, so what do you do? You fire up ol’ reliable and dry the whole load in five minutes, for free! Wrinkles will be a thing of the past, and who doesn’t love how cozy you feel when you put on freshly dried clothes? People who don’t have flamethrowers, that’s who. 6. IF THERE’S A BUG STUCK IN YOUR HOUSE: Maybe you haven’t been on top of keeping your apartment or house clean, and you occasionally run across the odd colony of spiders and roaches who share a room with you. Or maybe you

just left the door open a half-second too long and a fly — or, God forbid, a wasp — wandered inside. Why bother moving around all your furniture or risk breaking all your antique vases trying to swat the insects with a rolled-up newspaper (not to mention the mess of bug guts that leaves)? While we’d be flattered if you used your copy of The Highlander to swat bugs, you could sit back and enjoy the week’s articles instead if you simply burned the bugs with a flamethrower. 7. HAVE A BARBECUE WHENEVER AND WHEREVER YOU WANT: I’m sure we have all been in this position before: You and your friends are hanging out, chilling out, maxing, relaxing all cool when you all decide that you’re hungry. One of your friends then says, “Hey why don’t we grill some burgers?” The only problem is you don’t have a grill. But worry not, because The Boring Company’s flamethrower lets you hit the grill no matter the situation. Walking to the gym? Pull over for a quick burger. Taking a bathroom break? Flame grill some crisp vegetables. Sad because the bookstore just robbed you blind? Sear yourself some juicy steaks. And the best part is you will never have to to worry about lugging your grill and charcoal around again. 8. KEEP WARM IN THE WINTER IF YOUR LANDLORD CUTS OFF YOUR ELECTRICITY BECAUSE YOU HAVEN’T PAID YOUR BILLS BECAUSE YOU’RE A COLLEGE STUDENT AND MADE POOR CHOICES WITH YOUR MONEY/LIFE: As you may or may not know, running the heater costs money, which is a rare commodity amongst college kids. Adding yet another bill to your financial burden is ridiculous, I mean where is the extra money coming going to come from? Buy less beer or recreational drugs? No way. Spend less on video games? Fat chance. Stop spending ungodly amounts of money on a children’s card game? I told you I don’t have a problem mom, I can stop when I want. Of course, with a flamethrower you could keep yourself warm at no extra cost by burning your trash or your beer boxes or your 10 foot pile of common trading cards. 9. GIVE YOUR CAR A SPEED BOOST ON THE FREEWAY: Our Managing Editor and resident engineer had to step in for this one. “Does the thrust from the flamethrower justify the additional mass of fuel and flamethrower for overall velocity?” he asked. We have no idea, but racing games often use fire coming out of a tailpipe as a visual representation of speed boosts and going fast in general, so it appears that the science is settled on this one. Video games haven’t lied to us yet. 10. IT’S DARK AND YOU DON’T WANT TO WASTE YOUR PHONE BATTERY ON THE FLASHLIGHT: We have all been here. You dropped something outside after a party, or dropped something in the middle of a crowd or dropped the ball on paying your electric bill (see: Number 8) and now you need to crouch down to find it. In the olden days, folks would use candles, today, we use iPhones, but going forward we would be much better served to use a trusty flamethrower. Imagine if they had The Boring Company during the witch hunts or the cavemen era; not only would Ben Franklin be obsolete but it would be remarkably easier to get the job done. Fast forward to today, when our iPhone flashlights depend on batteries and batteries depend on an available charger. Now, next time you drop your keys in a mosh pit, you can preserve that remaining five percent and whip out your fiery friend, which requires nothing more than the sheer force of an index finger. ■H

OPINIONS

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TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2018

OPINION POLL Compiled by Bri Chew, Staff Photographer

“What’s your favorite book?”

Chinsa Agu Biology Second-year

Rebecca Dejenie Biology Fourth-year

Maya Otoum Engineering Fourth-year

Jessy Rosales Media and Cultural Fourth-year

Olivier Drilleau-Craft Undeclared First-year

Kenneth Treasure Economics First-year

“I don’t have a favorite book right now because I have not read any books in a while.”

“’The New Jim Crow’ because it’s an eyeopening book and tells you about things that you didn’t really realize were actually true. It shows you a lot more about American society.”

“’The Things They Carried’ by Tim O’Brien because it changed my view point on a lot of things.”

“’The Bell Jar’ by Sylvia Plath because it really helped me create my identity post high school and navigate through the world.”

“’Between the World and Me’ by Ta-Nehisi Coates. It’s a book on racial inequality in America and it’s very relevant today in terms of what the author is talking about.”

“’The Thief’”

Lightning

Reading your horoscope is not a harmless act

QUINN MINTEN Senior Staff Writer

If you’re reading this article, take a moment to go pick up a newspaper — not The Highlander, but a daily paper of your choice. Look through the paper for things that aren’t actual news articles. Odds are, you’ll find classified ads, weather forecasts, crosswords and other word puzzles. And if I had to guess, you’d probably find a set of daily horoscopes. See the problem? In the midst of a newspaper, a document dedicated to reporting the news and providing truthful information to readers, we somehow still allow astrology to keep a foothold, despite the host of evidence that has demonstrated for years, and through a number of ways, that horoscopes are hogwash. News writing may occasionally and regrettably be wrong, ads could be false, meteorology is all too often an unreliable science (weather is an extremely complex phenomenon) and crosswords can have mistakes, but all of the above are occasional and not the norm. Astrology, though, is always wrong, and when it doesn’t seem

to be, that’s simply one’s confirmation bias acting up. The presence of horoscopes in newspapers is but one example of how we as a society allow pseudosciences and other blatant falsehoods to exist, despite the fact that we generally know better than to believe them. Antiscientific conspiracy theories run rampant, many of the more toxic ones being embraced even by the president and other civic leaders. Prominent celebrities sell snake oil cures for various diseases, often with the gall to invoke scientific organizations in the process. In an era of alternative facts, then, it is imperative that we take every opportunity to fight non-truths, so that future generations will have properly informed people take charge, not those raised in an intellectual environment poisoned by falsehoods. One way we can fight pseudosciences is to put language on our side when discussing them. For example, when talking about a certain fringe, neo-Nazi political ideology, newspapers using Associated Press (AP) style will use the phrase “so-called ‘alt-right’” instead of just

saying “alt-right,” because the former emphasizes that we question and challenge the idea of neo-Nazis rebranding themselves with a different, more innocuous name. Talking about the “alt-right” without indicating in any way that we do not accept this attempt at obscuring their true nature means that we do not see a problem with such intent, that we normalize the idea of being a neo-Nazi. In the case of pseudoscience, then, we should start using skeptical language when describing the people who believe such falsehoods, and the concepts behind them. A person who writes out horoscopes could be a “so-called ‘astrologer,’” a medicine based on homeopathy could be a “supposed homeopathic remedy,” and so on. Switching the language we use (in both newspapers and in general speech) when talking about hocum is the first step in laying fake science to rest. Likewise, it is important to stop giving any explicit or implicit support toward pseudosciences. For instance, last December, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) updated its policies toward

the labeling and marketing of supposed “homeopathic” medicines, a move that was long overdue considering the harm that can arise from consuming such untested substances. This, however, is only one step toward ridding ourselves of pseudoscience. Newspapers need to stop pretending horoscopes are for any reason worth printing; history books need to emphasize that, even as far back as ancient Greece, people have known the Earth is round (thus making any belief in a flat Earth supremely outdated); and President Donald Trump’s ban on the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) using certain words and phrasing in favor of nonsense like climate change denial (which inherently is an attack on our valid scientific knowledge), must be resisted and overturned. Such moves remove the institutional legitimacy provided to many forms of pseudoscience, and no longer allow them to persist in an age when we really should know better. This issue even has implications that trickle down to UCR, and thus provides students here an opportunity to resist the intrusion of

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pseudoscience on our dime. On Feb. 21, ASPB, among other organizations, will be hosting a so-called “astrologist,” who will be speaking about the significance of astrology or some similar mumbo-jumbo. Since these organizations are part of UCR and aren’t just clubs, the university itself is in effect opting to support pseudoscience and disseminate it to the student body. Whether or not students attend or not is irrelevant; if UCR, a research institution dedicated to finding scientific truths and expanding human knowledge, even considers importing and promoting pseudoscience on the campus, then the value of its work is negated. This makes it imperative for students who value the truth on this campus to oppose this and similar events should they come to UCR, just as vehemently as they would oppose neo-Nazis or anyone spewing other obvious garbage. A person, or a university, or a country cannot simultaneously support the truth and a falsehood; something has to give, and we would be better off on the whole if it were the latter that gave. ■H

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FEATURES

#Metoo: How UCR expands the conversation on sexual violence By: Martha Delgado Staff Writer

laudia Jimenez, a second-year political science major, first heard about the #metoo movement while watching the Ellen Show. “Ellen was going over how she had seen the movement blow up on Twitter. Initially I was shocked at the amount of women who were willing to publically share their story and demonstrate their support on social media,” recalls Jimenez. “Sadly, I was more amazed at the amount of women brave enough to show their support rather than the number of women who confessed to being sexually harassed.” The first time the phrase #metoo was used online was by activist Tarana Burke in 2006. The hashtag went viral October 2017 when actress Alyssa Milano began using the hashtag following the accusations against Harvey Weinstein. In response, Hollywood celebrities founded Time’s Up, a movement against sexual harassment, on Jan. 1, 2018. Jimenez has been volunteering at the Women’s Resource Center (WRC) since fall of 2017. Ever since the #metoo movement gained momentum, Jimenez has noticed an increase in people’s willingness to talk about sexual harassment. According to Nathaly Martinez, program coordinator for the Women’s Resource Center, attendance rates for the center’s programs has increased. Attendance for the annual Take Back the Night event doubled from 96 last year to 200 people in attendance. The amount of shirts made per day for the Clothesline Project increased from six shirts per day to 20 shirts per day. Over 200 people registered to attend the center’s first Persist conference in 2017, and the day of the conference, 300 people attended. The amount of volunteers for the WRC has also increased and requests from student organizations to facilitate programs increased. Involvement from sororities has also increased. “Before people would just ask what the programs were about but now they actually take the time to come in and talk to us and say ‘how can we help’ how can we get involved,” Martinez explains.

The CARE office on campus has also facilitated conversations around campus to increase the awareness and support for survivors. Around 15 people attended “Reading Between the Hashtags,” led by fourth-year gender and sexuality major and CARE program assistant Alana Anguren on Jan. 24. Anguren facilitated a conversation about the effect #metoo had on conversations concerning sexual violence. The program also addressed how the movement rapidly gained momentum in 2017 through Milano’s tweets but was created in 2006 by Burke. “The Me Too Movement was meant to center on the voices of WOC and LGBTQ+ folx, but it has been co-opted by white trans-exclusionary feminists,” explains Anguren in an email. Sexual harassment and sexual assault is an issue that affects many departments on campus and the WRC has recognized this through collaborating with other departments to include the voices of those in marginalized communities to be apart of the programming. For the upcoming program, “An Evening with Roxane Gay,” the WRC is collaborating with the LGBT Resource Center, African Student Programs, the WELL and the creative writing department. Denise Davis, director of the Women’s Resource Center, has noticed how students are engaging with the programming. Davis recalls when she met a student a couple of days ago who was looking at the “An Evening with Roxane Gay” event poster. Gay’s recent memoir, “Hunger,” details her life as a survivor of assault and her struggles through coping by eating. Gay also struggled with obesity, identifying as queer and living with the trauma of her assault. The student asked Davis who was Roxane Gay. After Davis explained who Gay was and the topic of “Hunger,” the student replied, “Well I can relate to a lot of those experiences.” “We are in a time in our nation where we can’t afford to go back,” states Romanie Arterberry, the student life and development specialist in the WRC. Anguren hopes that future gen-

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erations promote community accountability. “The criminal justice system is so flawed and does not recognize the nuances of sexual violence,” explains Anguren. “Therefore, it is necessary for us to address the impacts of coercion and the prevalence of ‘bad sexual experiences’ among womxn and femmes.” One of the legal resources on campus for survivors is the Title IX office. Title IX is a federal law that holds federally funded colleges and universities legally responsible for sexual harassment and sexual assault occurring under their knowledge. However, the policy has its flaws. “The Title IX policy is not as equitable towards both sides as one would like to think. Title IX has to be unbiased. It’s not as traumainformed as I think it should be,” says ASUCR executive vice president and third-year cell, molecular and developmental biology major Carisha Moore. Moore is the UCR undergraduate representative in the UC Title IX student advisory board. The board was created to address and fix the issues of malpractice within the Title IX policy. The board allows student representatives to gather feedback from students at their respective campus and together submit a process addressing the discrepancies for approval. Moore was aware about the Title IX office and the resources they provide. “I hadn’t known about the issues within Title IX until after I had applied,” she states. After talking to the CARE office and hearing the stories of survivors, Moore became aware about the problems of the Title IX policy. “Hearing was enough to know that there is a problem,” Moore says. Arterberry experienced sexual harassment when she was in her 20s and now wants to use that experience to encourage students to speak out. “I remember feeling embarrassed by it, but I never spoke out about it,” she begins. “I’m a very different person now. I would not tolerate it, and that’s the message I want to share with other students. Use your voice to speak out and to speak against it.” Davis experienced discrimination

during her time working at other institutions. “Being an openly queer woman in the workforce, there have been moments where I have felt harassed or discriminated against based on my gender or my sexual orientation.” As conversations about sexual harassment are shifting, there are ways for people to show their support for survivors. Being an ally to survivors is not just stating your support. It’s about being active in your support. Being conscious about one’s words and how they affect people is the first step to become an ally, according to Martinez. “It’s okay to go to the WRC and if we are available, then we are more than happy to answer your questions,” says Martinez. “It’s important for people to know that anyone is welcome to our spaces.” When being an ally to survivors, Davis states, “It’s important not to force people to share more than they are comfortable with.” “A lot of students go to the CARE office for support,” begins Moore, “but just a fraction of those students go for the Title IX process to seek that something is done legally. They use the resources for support but they don’t go through the Title IX process because they are scared.” Moore is using both of her positions on campus to ensure survivors receive the support they need, “Right now I’m having my EVP office work on more legal resources for survivors who want to go through the Title IX process but may not have the funds to hire a lawyer,” she explains. “To end sexual violence is to go beyond understanding the definitions of consent, sexual violence, and sexual harassment,” Anguren concludes. “How about recognizing each other’s personal boundaries and establishing relationships based on respect and accountability? How do we voice the discomfort of someone pushing those boundaries?” These questions are big, but they’re ones that Moore — who is hosting a town hall next quarter to hear concerns from students about Title IX — and members of the WRC, are working to find answers to. ■H

FEATURES

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TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2018

“On Stage with Kelvin Yu!” invites discussion on diversity and the Asian American experience BY Marcelo Garcia, Contributing Writer “Lord of the Rings,” that’s what Kelvin Yu compared to the current situation of Asian Americans, as well as children of other minorities in America today. The Asian American actor and writer, who wrote for the Emmy award-winning “Bob’s Burgers” and acted in the Golden Globe-winning “Master of None,” gave a speech on the night of Wednesday, Feb. 7 inside HUB 302 for an event hosted by UCR’s Asian Pacific Student Programs (APSP). Yu spoke to a very intimate group of about 15 attendees on his experiences as an Asian American in Hollywood and the interesting position he believes many Asian Americans find themselves in today. “Every week that you go to the box office, it’s Spiderman, it’s Superman, it’s Lord of the Rings and I feel like the underlying theme in all these movies is: How to manage unmanageable power,” Yu explained. “When I think about Asian people and when I think about young people I feel like that’s where we’re at right now.” He expressed the balance between burden and privilege managed by first and second generation children of immigrants, the privilege being the sacrifices made by their

parents in order to get to the US and the burden being the pressure of not letting those same sacrifices go in vain. Yu went on to compare this struggle to the fractured identity of many superheros, but according to him, instead of grappling with their identity as Peter Parker like Spiderman, Asian Americans struggle with honoring the past while simultaneously building a future for themselves. He went on to introduce the four difficult choices that he claims that everyone must make in their life. They were the choices between achievement and evolution, finding a function or a purpose, organizing or integrating and seizing control or freedom. All of these are seemingly similar, but very different according to Yu. He explained that what makes these choices of paths so different, and simultaneously difficult, is that one set of options is accepting the path set before you, while the other involves taking risks and changing as a person. As a producer, writer and actor in Hollywood, Yu has been very vocal about diversity and the portrayal of minorities in media, particularly based his personal experiences as an Asian

American in Hollywood. His career started in Hollywood as an actor, with his first on-screen role being that of Freddy Gong in the television series “Popular.” Freddy Gong’s character was that of a stereotypical over-studious, socially awkward Asian teenager, and while Yu admits that the role was written very satirically, he does not believe general audiences saw it in the same light. Because he felt that no role offered to him truly fit his identity, Yu eventually leaned more toward writing, where he would eventually find success for his work on episodes of “Bob’s Burgers” as a writer and producer. After more than 5 years of writing for the show, Yu returned to acting when he was offered the role of Brian in “Master of None.” He believes that his character; as an ordinary, sexually capable, middle-aged Asian man is a remarkable step forward for both himself as an actor as well as true diversity in Hollywood. In his speech, Yu explained that true diversity affects the story being told, not just the casting choice. “When you replace Amy Adams or Ryan Reynolds with Ali Wong or John Cho, you are forcing people to live in their shoes for two

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hours, and that is nothing short of revolutionary,” Yu stated. In an interview with NBC, he explained that many roles he played were out of touch with the true Asian American experience. While he wholeheartedly believes that the writers had good intentions, he claims they cannot fully understand the experience without having lived as a minority themselves. He went on to

explain that diversity is portrayed well in shows like “Master of None” because it shows viewers the reality of being a minority, rather than another individual’s interpretations of what it might be. Following Yu’s speech, a Q&A was held and followed up by a meet-and-greet, where the small group of attendees were allowed to H receive hugs and take pictures. ■

Campus Cope

Last Minute Gift Ideas for that Special Someone this Valentine’s Day By: Marcelo Garcia, Contributing Writer It’s week six, and with midterms in full swing it can be hard to keep track of much else with all those late night studying sessions. Especially when you miss an exam review because you thought it was being held on Thursday when the TA moved it Wednesday at the last minute, but I rest my case. Valentine’s Day is around the corner, and if you don’t plan on spending the 14th drowning out your sorrows by watching “Made in Abyss” alone in your apartment instead of studying for your religious studies exam the next day, that means you have a valentine. And I know you’re probably a great, upstanding citizen that studied for all your midterms and planned for Valentine’s Day months in advance, but on the off chance that you forgot what year we were in, you’re probably sitting on a bench, reading this paper you found in a trash can by Bourns in hopes that this article helps you find a quick gift like its title suggests. Well, not to worry, the Highlander’s resident weeb is also something of a romantic and together we’ll find a gift that doesn’t leave you broke for the rest school year. The important thing to remember is that when you’re buying a gift for a guy, girl or non-binary, is that the gift itself doesn’t matter. Despite what the extremely reliable and totally not unrealistic Buzzfeed leads you to believe, Valentine’s Day isn’t about getting some crazy $30 pair of USB heated slippers (yes that is an actual suggestion from Buzzfeed and no, I don’t know why either), it’s about showing the person you care about that you’re willing to spend time, money and effort on them. So with that being said, let’s discuss what last minute gift you’re gonna give them when you go on that date you spent zero time planning.

budget: free

For those of you that don’t have any extra money to spend on a gift, it’s okay, it happens to everybody, and as mentioned earlier it’s the thought the counts. Just cross your fingers and hope the thought is enough to convince her not to leave you for your richer, more attractive friend that has a car. But seriously, there are actually a lot of really sweet and romantic things you can do even if you don’t have any money to throw around. One really nice idea is a picnic. Make some sandwiches, some iced tea, maybe some kind of fruit salad and take them to a park; hell if that’s too far take them to the Botanical Gardens on campus.

budget: $10

Another thing you can do is channel your inner CHASS student and make them something artsy, whether it’s a card, a painting or some kind of little knick knack they can put on their desk. Art stores like Michael’s and Jo-Ann’s, and even non-art stores like Wal-Mart have some good arts and crafts supplies for a reasonable price. Also stuffed animals are always cute, if you don’t know their favorite animal ask a friend of theirs.

budget: $25

Being perfectly honest, there’s a lot of stuff you can buy for $25; a lot of electronic accessories like earphones or phone cases are around this price. Amazon is your best friend, since shipping is free on items that are $25 or more with Amazon Prime, which you get a free 1-year trial and a membership discount for as a student. This is also how much a bouquet of roses will end up costing you. Your choice here will have to be determined by your valentine’s interests and things they specifically might want or need.

budget: $50

Honestly if you have this much money, one of the best things you can do is take them to a really nice restaurant for a sit-down dinner. It makes for a good date, and you can probably even afford to take them to a movie afterwards. A small piece of jewelry like earrings or a necklace is also a possibility if you can find it on sale at a mall or something. That being said, $50 is also enough to buy 200 Chicken McNuggets at McDonald’s. So you can take them to some overpriced place, buy them some metal that was pulled out of the ground or you can buy them 200 delicious morsels of all-white meat with eight different dipping sauces. I think we both know what the best course of action is.

budget: $500

Buy them an Elon Musk flamethrower. Seriously, do it. It doesn’t matter if they’re sold out already, it doesn’t matter if you have to find it on the black market. If you have $500 at your disposal it is your obligation as a member of the human race to buy a totally unnecessary fire launching device with a range of 25 feet and a fuel backpack filled with 3.5 minutes of dead dinosaur juice (Editor’s Note: Flamethrowers with a range of 10 feet or more, such as those sold by Musk, are illegal in the state of California, so we recommend you call your congressman first if you’re going with this option). You see, most people wouldn’t get their valentine a flamethrower, but that’s what’s gonna set you apart. Show them that you’re different from all the others, and buy them something they’ll never forget. ■H

Be informed.

The Highlander Newspaper is a great way to keep up with current events and news around campus. If you are interested in the newspaperâ€™s articles or pictures, we offers opportunities in writing, photography, and design. Join us every Monday at 5:15 p.m. in HUB 101 to learn more.

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R adar ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

EVENTS THIS WEEK 2/12

41st Annual Writers Week Conference @CHASS Interdisciplinary South, Screening Room 1128. 3:30pm

2/14

Festejo en sueños: The Music of Mónica Cárdenas @Arts Building, Music Rehearsal Hall, ARTS 157, 12pm

2/15

Antigone by Sophocles, Translated by E.F. Watling @Arts Building, Studio Theatre, ARTS 113, 8pm

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HIGHLANDER // highlandernews.org/arts

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2018

Radar Schedule 2:30 pm Tess Taylor 4:00 pm Hadara Bar-Nadav 1:00 pm James Luna & Nanette Deetz 2:30 pm Josh Emmons

FEBRUARY

13 FEBRUARY

4:00 pm Gina Nahai

1:00 pm John Jennings 2:30 pm Myriam Gurba

FEBRUARY

JULIAN MEDRANDA Senior Staff Writer

2:30 pm Sherwin Bitsui

UC Riverside will be hosting its 41st annual Writers Week this week, from Monday, Feb. 12 to Saturday, Feb. 17. Writers Week is the longest-running literary event in all of California and is comprised of readings, question-and-answers and presentations from 20 authors from around the world. This year’s notables include Maxine Hong Kingston, National Medal of Arts recipient and author of the acclaimed novel “The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts,” and headliner Roxane Gay, author of New York Times best-selling essay book “Bad Feminist: Essays.” Writers Week has taken place at UCR since 1977, with former speakers including Kenyan novelist Ngugi wa Thiong’o, former UC Riverside and current New York University Professor Fred Moten and Vietnamese American writer Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of 2015’s “The Sympathizer.” Free and open to the public, speakers will be located at screening room INTS 1128 and will present for one hour. The first poet to commence Writers Week will be Tess Taylor on Monday at 2:30 p.m. Wrapping up the event will be Gay on Saturday at 7 p.m. ■H

7:00 pm Charmaine Craig

16 FEBRUARY

Writers Week returns to UCR

1:00 pm Justin Torres

5:00 pm Janet Fitch Steven Minot Lecturer

5:30 pm Vickie Vertiz 11:00 am Tee Franklin

5:00 pm Micah Chatterton & Marco Maisto 6:30 pm Krys Lee

FEBRUARY

3:30 pm Chris Buckley

7:00 pm Roxane Gay

7:00 pm Maxine Hong Kingston LA Review of Books/UCR Creative Writing Lifetime Achievement Award

CUPCAKKE IN POMONA: CLUB 340’S ONE NIGHT HUGO CERVANTES Contributing Writer

Pomona nightclub 340 is the kind of club you’d see in a movie. The facade of the building is polished in a dark blue with windows covered by curtains obscuring its neon rays. This time around, its absence of grime and smut drew suspicion about the night’s promise of fun. It is a Wednesday night, and assumed students and other twenty-somethings all managed to end it here. It’s still early, only 10:30 as I wait for my friend to arrive. There is no line to get inside, only steady arrivals. The tall, thin club door holds a steady beat as it opens and closes as people entered, letting Too Short’s “Shake That Monkey,” spill over into the street, spewing its grimey raunch into the cool Pomona air. On an off-beat my friend had arrived and we slid in 340’s doors. The mouth of the club is a long, narrow hallway that opens into a larger pool of a dancefloor. The velvety hallway that trailed downstairs promised a subfloor which would reveal itself as the night went on. The go-go dancers at 340 had raised stages from which within they danced quickly and provocatively, occasionally reaching down for a dollar. The club was packed. I managed to land at the bar where a sparkling turquoise drink had captured my friend’s (and, apparently, everyone else’s) interest. It was the night’s special, “the Kylie Jenner,” a name that only affirmed that I was not consumed in the vaporous slime of an LA flower district warehouse party, or, near the campy glam of Mickey’s in West Hollywood, and even further away from Riverside’s comfortable Menagerie. I was somewhere between the three. By 11:30, the drinks began to wear off and the club’s lower-level cavern was unlocked. A man emerged wearing a “Bitch! I’m Madonna” t-shirt to announce the night’s crowning jewel, Cupcakke. This announcement was a bit historical, on account of 340’s dedication to serving a mostly working class Latinx

community which, then finalized into his own candied nostalgia of clubbing in the ‘80s — going to Madonna’s club tours. “The energy of Cupcakke is like that of Madonna’s,” he asserted. It came off as bleary and a bit self-serving, the crowd growing impatient for Cupcakke, but nonetheless an important anchoring of place, the club where many queer people congregate to form and become lifelines for one another, or to hook up, which is just as vital. It was like a forced blessing, his nostalgic spiel that called for the importance of having a space like 340, for queer people, and specifically black and Latinx queer people in the Inland Empire. It’s a place they can claim to, a claim that can refute the thirty miles east towards West Hollywood and its drapery of muscles and blue eyes. In that context or refusal is where Cupcakke’s sole club performance was thirty miles inland — in Pomona. She knows who and what her audience looks like: Young queers of color, black and brown — maybe in college, maybe not — who find sexuality to be a way to fantasize a way out of the world. She brought her world to the 340 stage in Pomona and nowhere else. Minutes later, Cupcakke emerged in the downstairs stage, wearing nothing but a black sheer shirt with black FashionNova pasties embezzled with the words, “Fuck Me.” The LED screens behind her enshrining her like a patron saint of the gays with their sharp and pointed rainbow lasers lended themselves to Cupcakke’s empathic presence. The quick five-song punch of a set ran through the hits like “LGBT,” which felt like a national anthem at 340. Cupcakke, for all of her fearlessness, played coy, testing the limits of the crowd when sliding a few fingers down her shorts. As she rapped “Duck Duck Goose,” she assumed total control. It is a control pinned down by Cupcakke’s infectious fearlessness, silly and inviting. On stage it translates into the asked question, “Who is sucking dick tonight?” Jolting and intrepid, any and all cool evaporated, already having H been morphed into something else. ■

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HIGHLANDER // highlandernews.org/arts

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2018

Seven of the Saddest and Gladdest Love Songs Louie Villanueva, contributing writer February is the shortest month of the year, full of love, flowers and heart-shaped balloons, not to mention saccharine Instagram and Twitter videos of flamboyant gifts as Valentine’s Day lands right in the middle of the month. Some people look forward to this day to show their significant others love, appreciation and (of course) the meticulous and personally curated lovey-dovey playlists. Giving someone you love a playlist of hand-picked songs with them specifically in mind has an effect that words or tangible gifts cannot express. Songs show what you feel and ultimately express the depth of your care and admiration. Whether the playlist includes happy up-tempo

love songs, or slow heart-touching ballads, playlists are a simple but a meaningful gift specifically catered to that special someone. Although the day is upon us, we sometimes spend our Valentine’s Day valentine-less. And that’s okay. We all know that uncomfortable and vulnerable feeling of not having someone on this day. Finding that special someone is a journey, but don’t let that put you down. Listening to sad or happy love songs on Valentine’s Day won’t help you in finding your soulmate but with the endless amounts of music there’s a soundtrack to love and heartbreak in which you can indulge and enjoy.

SADDEST:

gladdest:

“Skinny Love” by Bon Iver

“Strangers in the Night” by Frank Sinatra

Not only does this song sound like heartbreak encapsulated, but it’s a lived-in tune about an actual failed relationship. Bon Iver’s lead singer Justin Vernon’s haunting voice and acoustic ensemble make this a heartache of a tune, but its simplicity and elegance is a work of sonic mastery.

“How Can You Mend a Broken Heart” by Al Green

The title says it all. Accompanied with a beautiful string section and backup singers, the song delves into defeat, nostalgia and the inevitable heartbreak. Al’s storytelling is simple and straightforward as his voice guides us into his broken down spirit.

“Nothing Left for You” by Sam Smith

Although Sam Smith has only released two studio albums he proves to be a pop culture powerhouse with a unique voice and production. The guitars are beautifully strummed, juxtaposed to Smith’s vulnerable voice as the tune builds up to this epic choir and drum joint. Smith’s lyrics touch on unsuccessful love in which he shapes his emotions into something physical and intense.

“Hasta la Piel” by Carla Morrison

I know it’s in Spanish, but Morrison sings about a love lost. Sadness is a universal emotion that isn’t barred by distinct languages or in Morrison’s case, Spanish folk. All those in love before understand this songs melancholic tale of loss.

“The Way Life Goes (feat. Oh Wonder)” by Lil Uzi Vert

This cut finds Uzi rapping over a melancholic beat about an ex but he doesn’t forget to flex — a defense mechanism involving the use of material items to cancel out the sadness. This is a side we don’t really see from big contemporary rappers, which is a nice paradigm shift from this new wave of emo-rockstar-rappers.

“I’ll Slip Away” by Rodriguez

The elusive Rodriguez never met mainstream success but his poetic tales are impossibly honest and heartwarming. In this song we find ourselves in the never-ending theme of love lost, accompanied with beautiful guitars and simple drums. The vocals ooze with talk of loss, rejection and selfevaluation. The subtle string section is a beautiful touch to this tune; it displays how happy the violins contrast the lonely tale.

“Ivy” by Frank Ocean

Partly produced by Vampire Weekend’s Rostam, this gorgeous tune is about unexpected love sweeping you from underneath, and it ending not so well. Over the summer during his “Blonded Tour,” Ocean reached out to audiences and asked if they’d ever been through a break up in which audiences roared, booed and agreed. The song’s gorgeous instrumental is paralleled with the inevitable end to his love in which many relate.

Come on it’s Frank Sinatra, who doesn’t love this man? I’d definitely slow dance to this song if I knew how to. Sinatra eclipses the ever-so dreamt story of love at first sight. He croons to the listener with his powerful voice and grand production.

“Adore” by Prince

The ever-so-legendary Prince, may he rest in peace. In this seductive slow jam, Prince sings beautifully with frenetic over-dubs and multiple layers of instruments that mesh so well together about love and making love. At six minutes and 31 seconds, the song sounds endless in the best way possible.

“Home” by Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros

A conversation between two lovers with catchy hooks, this song’s meticulous lyrics all describe the love and admiration between a couple incapable of being seperated. Borderline cheesy, the song has a short interlude in which the two singers speak about how they fell in love but it only adds to the lovey-dovey theme, a theme which many can relate to.

“When We Get By” by D’Angelo

Driven by a groovy bass line, this jazzy R&B melting pot of a song crosses between multiple genres in a way that compromises neither jazz nor R&B. D’Angelo sings heavenly about love against the heavy bassline. His voices soars to the top of the song and all the instrumentals work in harmony to make this a memorable track.

“Room in Here (feat. The Game & Sonyae Elise)” by Anderson .Paak

Anderson .Paak is one of the newer R&B singers but make no mistake he’s not one to miss. In this cut, rapping and beats accompany Paak’s vocals about taking a chance with someone. Elise and The Game add a nice contrast to Paak’s voice and storytelling that in turn produce a great track to groove along with.

“My Cherie Amour” by Stevie Wonder

A quick Google search translates the song’s title to “my sweetheart,” it’s Stevie Wonder at his best, the song’s beautifully orchestrated production is complemented with Wonder’s tale of love. I could picture this song in the backdrop of a lovely picnic dinner.

“All I Do Is Think of You” by Jackson 5

If the soaring guitars don’t grab your attention, a young Michael Jackson will. This song reminds listeners of young love and the first time being in love. Michael Jackson is at the forefront, his naive yet recognizable voice complimenting the slow jam that is sure to evoke emotion of love. ■H

THERE IS NO CENTER: ON JOAN DIDION’S MYTH

HUGO CERVANTES Contributing Writer

You meet Joan Didion when you are ready. You have probably seen her name on lists of greatest writers or “Writers You Should Read” listicles. I met Didion at a party, in conversation where this girl gashed my conversation about Audre Lorde for Didion. It left a permanent disdain of Didion; who was she and why did her importance undermine Lorde? For years I would aggressively circumvent recommendations of Didion and her work. But Didion, and the documentary, “The Center Will Not Hold” directed by her nephew Griffin Dunne, made its way to me as a college senior hungry for a writer-success story, so I gave in and officially met Didion. The first half of the documentary is a beautiful story of a UC Berkeley student and writer who won a writing competition by Vogue. And like any star, they must make the voyage to New York City to primarily write, as well as to mingle and twirl with literary elite drinking champagne over conversations of the perils of feminism in buildings covered in ivy. Didion did, leaving California for New York’s Vogue office, where she wrote a popular column alongside working on her first novel, “Run

River.” It’s this first half of the documentary — the transition between college student into young adult — that needled on my own anxieties of graduating and making it on my own. A writer’s fairytale, to be taken like a vitamin as a healthy dosage of optimism and inspiration against the easy, cliche, but real costs of living a life to write. Today, because of the internet, those LA-to-NYC fairytales are sparse and ever so rare. Writing is a world of freelancing, where even Pulitzer Prize-winning writers like Wesley Morris slash the myth of an origin story. Morris says a lot of it just happened. Another writer, Doreen St. Felix, similarly says it just happened on Twitter, and snowballed from one writing gig into another. Now, after three years of freelancing, she is a staff writer for the New Yorker, she casually interviews people like Zadie Smith. This myth, or absence of myth, leaves me thinking of the different possibilities writers emerge as stars in the literary world — one that holds prerequisites to be portrayed as divine patron saints of writing. Others are simply not afforded the luxury of being a myth. Institutions refuse to mold writers, writers of color as patrons and saints. If they do it is only to cathedralize their own institution’s taste. So, as I watch the documentary, I lose myself in the dream

that is writing — for a career and for myself. And I allow myself to lose myself in Didion’s myth of LA armageddon and her rigorous commitment to the craft. The last half of the documentary zooms into Didion today, who looks sharper, one could even say meaner, but she is the same wise and stoic writer she was posing in that bleached white Camaro. It is not until the latter half where she unravels her losses — her husband and child died in 2003 and 2005, respectively — which is a departure from her early Californian cool youth, now transformed into an elderly wisdom, a wisdom only loss and grief can bestow. In one scene, Obama awards her with a National Medal of Arts for her writing. In that scene, I remembered to later practice her writing routine. She would wake up at an early time, early enough to get something done before midday and to not release herself from her room until midday for a cold Coca Cola and a (cliche) cigarette. A writers room and schedule that took Didion’s essays and novels — like panels of a mural of Californian eccentricities, its apocalyptic weather recalling her later life’s work of cooler shades of blue, solemn and wise — driven by a compulsion to jolt down the feeling, memory and images that can not escape one’s mind. It could only be written away. ■H

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2018

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

HIGHLANDER // highlandernews.org/arts

MOVIE REVIEW “PETER RABBIT” IS EXPECTEDLY CRASS, SURPRISINGLY FUN

COURTESY OF SONY PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT

JULIAN MEDRANDA Senior Staff Writer

COURTESY OF SONY PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT

“Peter Rabbit” is the second live-action film of 2018 about a British anthropomorphic animal in a blue jacket based on a series of children’s books — the other being “Paddington 2.” I haven’t seen “Paddington 2,” but I have seen “Peter Rabbit,” and it is easily my pick for best live-action film about a British anthropomorphic animal in a blue jacket for the year of 2018. Based on characters created by Beatrix Potter in the early 1900’s, “Peter Rabbit” is about a rabbit (James Corden) and his jacket-wearing family who live in the British countryside. When a grumpy Londoner (Domhnall Gleeson) moves in and threatens the harmony they have with their benevolent human neighbor Bea (Rose Byrne), an interspecies slapstick war ensues. It’s a simple enough premise that never loses sight of this focused story, but the ride is wild and uneven. It should go without saying that I am not the target demographic for “Peter Rabbit,” but I don’t think children are the target demographic either — it’s charming and the rabbits are cute, but might lose them with its self-referential and, often, wordy jokes. To its credit, it makes for some genuine laughs here and there when it isn’t desperately trying to be egregiously stupid for the sake of appealing to children; on that note, being a film for children is not and never has been a valid excuse for it to be bad — kids can have great movies

too (see: “Paddington”)! Some uniquely clever comedic timing and visual gags are among the ways this movie can help older audiences stomach this Sony Pictures mess which, while not a total trainwreck, is one that must be entered with an understanding that it gives absolutely zero care to what constitutes as “plausible” in this fantasy world. The best way to enjoy “Peter Rabbit” is, ultimately, by shutting your brain off. Even by popular children’s movie standards, it’s uncannily dense to the point of annoyance. The inciting incident comes in the form of elderly death. Not 10 minutes in, the elder McGregor has a heart attack and dies while wrangling Peter by his ears; this isn’t met with shock or sorrow but immediate celebration (read: Forced party scene wherein some hundreds of animals dance to nondiegetic soundtracks of artists too numerous to recall). Folks, our kids deserve better. We’re told Peter Rabbit dislikes the new McGregor not because he wants to kill him and his family — that would be too sensical — but because he sees Bea as a mother figure. “Peter Rabbit” desperately wants to be a comedy to appeal to older audiences, but unlike superior films of this ilk like “Paddington” or “Shrek,” its snideness and unwillingness to be sincere is at times insufferable. Once your brain is on low power mode, “Peter Rabbit” begins to make sense, in a really weird and likely incidental way. Gleeson (God bless) is a true artist, and maybe he thinks the movie he’s

in is a joyous take on one of Britain’s beloved blue-coated children’s characters, but it’s more probable he recognizes how dumb it is. This is great, because he pulls no punches in his performance. It’s obvious he’s enjoying himself, be it through hammy meltdowns that break his obsessively tidy facade and reveal his neurotic core or pure slapstick romp feuds with CGI bunnies. I can’t even get upset at how ridiculous it is that he lobs dynamite at Peter and his family to rid them from his garden, or that Bea, a mere 10 yards away, can’t hear the explosions (which is explained rather brilliantly or stupidly — I haven’t decided yet — by the fact that she’s listening to “Fight Song” really loudly). In another scene, Peter, his cousin Benjamin Bunny and the new McGregor have to buddy up at trek across London to return to the countryside. They travel by hand car, airplane and all manners of locomotion in a bizzare montage that throws time out the window in favor of hilarious surrealism. It’s moments like that that make the 93 minutes bearable.

Verdict: “Peter Rabbit” is a curious adaptation of its source material. Filled to the brim with top-40 hits and flaccid jokes that might make some kids exhale out of their nose at best, it isn’t exactly a good children’s movie. Rather, its strengths come from just how dopey it is, which older audiences might appreciate a bit more. ■H

HIGHLANDER // highlandernews.org/sports

SPORTS

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2018

Curry’s 30 points help women’s basketball HOT TAKES end four-game skid before loss at Irvine A time of mixed emotions for the soccer world HIGHLANDER

JONATHAN FERNANDEZ Senior Staff Writer

JOSE FLORES Contributing Writer

Year by year, Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo and Barcelona’s Lionel Messi have proven why they are, by far, the two best players in the modern era of world soccer. This season however, Ronaldo seems to be loosening his grip on the throne. Ronaldo’s poor stats this season open up the possibility for another player to take his place. The number one candidate to take his spot? Brazil’s Neymar. After being a breakout star in Brazil and making his way into the international spotlight by signing with FC Barcelona in 2013, Neymar has slowly been making his way to become the second best player in the world. It was in Spain where Neymar learned a lot about the game under the guidance of Messi. However, after being fed up with being the number two player on Barca, Neymar left for French side PSG in 2017. There, Neymar has not disappointed. The stats? They speak for themselves; Neymar has bagged an astonishing 18 goals and given 11 assists in only 17 league games. At this pace, Neymar is scoring an average of 1.05 goals per game which is higher than Messi’s 0.95 goals per game and Ronaldo’s 0.47 goals per game this season. Through these stats we can see that age has not helped Ronaldo this year as his numbers have declined dramatically. With last Tuesday, Feb. 5 marking Cristiano Ronaldo’s 33rd birthday and Neymar’s 26th, it is evident that while one is on his way out, the other is ready to take the number two spot. It should be no surprise then, that in a couple of years, Neymar will most likely take over Messi’s spot as H the best player in the world. ■

COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

UC Riverside’s women’s basketball (7-18, 4-7) team broke their four-game losing streak with a win over UC Santa Barbara (9-14, 6-5) on Thursday, Feb. 8, 84-76. The Highlanders were also celebrating National Girls and Women in Sports Day so everyone in the arena was wearing pink UCR Adidas shirts that were handed out prior to the game and the team wore custom pink uniforms. Riverside was unable to break away from Santa Barbara on the scoreboard after the first quarter of play despite senior guard Michelle Curry’s hot start that saw her score 11 of the team’s 23 firstquarter points. In the second quarter the Highlanders started firing on all cylinders, scoring 22 points while simultaneously tightening up their defense to only allow 12 Gaucho points. In the first half UCR shot 66 percent from the field while holding UCSB to 40 percent, allowing the Highlanders to take a 4535 lead into halftime. The Highlanders started the third quarter cold and allowed the Gauchos to quickly cut the lead down. UCSB scored 10 unanswered points to tie the game at 45, but Riverside was able to hold onto the lead throughout the third quarter. UCSB was largely able to fight back into this game because of their ability to play inside and out on the offensive end, mainly funneling the ball through senior center Drew Edelman, who finished with 21 points and 10 rebounds on Thursday. The Gauchos

COURTESY OF UCR ATHLETICS Curry (above) notched a new career-high 30 points while scoring in double digits in 17 straight games.

team has a plethora of three-point shooters such as redshirt junior Sarah Porter and freshmen guard Sarah Bates, who both made four three-pointers each in this game and benefited from post players kicking the ball when the defense collapses. That balanced offensive attack helped UCSB finally capture a 60-59 lead in the fourth quarter of play off of freshman Aliceah Hernandez’s threepointer with eight minutes left to play. There were six lead changes and four ties in the fourth quarter before UCR senior guard Lauren Holt hit a jump shot that would put the Highlanders ahead for good. Michelle Curry finished

with a career-high 30 points on 10-15 shooting and was clearly the engine that pushed UCR to the victory. Curry also added nine rebounds, four assists and three steals to her statline, showcasing the unrelenting energy she brings every game. Holt was also able to keep her 17-game double-digit scoring streak alive despite a slow start, finishing with 15 points on 46 percent from the field. UCR then went on the road to face UC Irvine (16-8, 8-2) on Saturday, Feb. 10, where they suffered their seventh conference loss, 76-63. The Highlanders shot an abysmal 29 percent from the field in the first half but were still

able to keep the deficit within five because Irvine was also shooting poorly at 32 percent. Riverside was able to outscore Irvine in the third by one, but the Anteaters ran away with it in the final quarter of play, outscoring UCR by 10. Curry and Holt once again led the way for the Highlanders, scoring 20 points each. Junior Morgan Green led the way for the Anteaters with 31 points. UCR’s next game will be against Cal State Northridge (13-12, 6-5) on Thursday, Feb. 15 at the SRC Arena at 7 p.m. The Highlanders lost their first meeting against the Matadors back on Saturday, Jan. 20, 60-55. ■H

UCR softball goes 2-1 in season-opening weekend JONATHAN FERNANDEZ Senior Staff Writer

The UCR softball team (21) started off their season by splitting a doubleheader in the CSF-UCLA tournament on Friday, Feb. 9. The Highlanders dominated in their first game against Rutgers University (0-2), winning 10-0. Riverside was ahead by 10 in the sixth inning so the mercy rule stipulation came into play, ending the game. Senior pitcher Taylor Misfeldt pitched a commanding five-inning shutout, striking out nine of the 19 batters she faced. This game was Misfeldt’s 38th career win, which puts her two wins away from tying the UCR all-time record. Freshman right fielder Danielle Ortega led the game in RBI’s with three and hit a triple. Sophomore shortstop Hannah Rodriguez and sophomore designated hitter Amanda Lynch were tied for second in runs batted in with two a piece. The second game of the doubleheader against Loyola Marymount (1-2) was much more competitive and saw Riverside suffer its first defeat of the season, 2-3. The Highlanders started poorly, allowing a run to score in the first

inning off of a wild pitch from freshman starting pitcher Hayley Marschall. UCR bounced backed quickly, scoring two runs in the bottom of the first courtesy of an RBI from junior second baseman Brittney Garcia, and a wild pitch from LMU’s junior pitcher Hannah Bandimere. The Lions would ultimately come back and score a run in both the 3rd and 5th innings to earn the victory. On Saturday, Feb. 10 the Highlanders bounced back to beat Maryland University (03). Misfeldt threw her second shutout in back-to-back days, but this one came in a complete game where she only allowed one hit and struck out nine batters. The win put her one away from tying the UCR all-time record. Riverside was able to score three runs in a two out rally in the second inning thanks to an RBI triple from senior catcher Jenae Lockwood and a two-run homer from sophomore first baseman Karter Williams. The Highlanders added a run in both the sixth and seventh inning to give them the 5-0 victory. UCR’s softball team has its next game on Wednesday, Feb. 14 against San Diego State University (1-4) at the Amy S. Harrison Softball Field beginning at 1 p.m. ■H

COURTESY OF UCR ATHLETICS

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2018

HIGHLANDER // highlandernews.org/sports

SPORTS

Just keep swimming: UCR’s women’s club water polo

JARYD BONGCARAS Contributing Writer

The UC Riverside Women’s Club Water Polo team is heading into its second year as an established team, and was founded by fourth-year math major Bri Chew. Chew started the club in her sophomore year by getting a small number of girls to come out, while also coordinating games with other schools who already had an official club team. The club currently has 18 committed members and now practices at the Riverside Aquatics Complex at Riverside City College. They practice weekly on Tuesday and Thursday nights from 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m., while also holding unofficial meetups to swim or for weight training. I was able to meet up with some of the players on Wednesday, Feb. 7 to talk about the club’s progression over the years, as well as what’s to come. Second-year global studies major, Emmannuelle Aruta, is the social chair for the club team and heavily lauded Chew’s efforts in putting the team together: “She works really hard to make this team what it is, from financial stuff,

to organizing tournaments and little scrimmages with random teams, Bri has really done everything.“ And just like other club teams on campus, having prior experience isn’t required to join. “We actually have two girls right now that didn’t play prior to coming here, and they’re doing really well, they’ve improved rapidly,” Aruta stated. Palm Springs native Ellie Trinidad, a second-year business major and the club’s vice president, joined the club last year and spoke on what made her interested in it. “I joined because I played polo all throughout high school and didn’t want to end it,” Trinidad said, “I really enjoy playing it and so does the rest of the team. I think we’re solely built on the will power and passion for the sport.” Trinidad also mentioned just how much the club has grown since its inception, saying, “We’ve been able to really progress over the years, especially considering that it was just a few girls initially. Now practices are at a much bigger pool in RCC and next year we’re looking to get an official paid head coach.” She also emphasized how

Upcoming Events & Highlights MEN’S TENNIS Sun., Feb. 25 vs. Air Force Academy @ 8:00 a.m.

WOMEN’S TENNIS

Thurs., Feb. 22 vs. Nevada @ 1:30 PM

MEN’S BASKETBALL Wed., Feb. 14 vs. CSUN @ 7:00 p.m. Sat., Feb. 21 vs. Hawaii @ SRC Arena 7:30 p.m.

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

Thurs., Feb. 15 vs. CSUN @ SRC Arena 7:00 p.m.

BRI CHEW / HIGHLANDER

much it would mean to her and the rest of the team if UC Riverside were to eventually get an NCAA team for water polo, saying, “That’d be amazing. If that were to happen, we’d feel like we were able to help build that foundation. Other UCs have an official water polo team, we just didn’t get the funding for it.” Chelsie Hernandez, a firstyear global studies major, detailed what it’s like to play for the club for the first

time, saying that, “It’s a nice distraction (from school), it’s also genuinely just a lot of fun playing out there, it feels like we’re actually family.” Liz Osi, a fourth-year liberal studies major, is in her second year with the club, and also spoke on the club’s development, “Before, we had to practice with the boy’s team, and once we started getting more girls to come out we’ve been able to practice on our own and even brought out one of the players on the boy’s team

to be like a volunteer coach.” UCR’s women’s club water polo team have already played three scrimmages prior to the beginning of the season and will just be just coming off a tournament at USC on Saturday, Feb. 10 where they played against other club teams from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, UCSB and UCLA. The club looks to continue making a name for itself not only here on campus, but among it’s competing schools as well. ■H

Men’s basketball notches first conference win, then falls to Irvine ZIYAYE CHONGWE Contributing Writer

Coming off their first win in 10 games, UC Riverside’s men’s basketball team (6-18, 1-9) were pushing to get a win streak going last Saturday against UC Irvine (13-14, 8-3). The game started badly for the Highlanders, as they lost guard Alec Hickman to a shoulder injury in the first minute. The game then went UC Irvine’s way, as they took an early 10-5 lead with 15 minutes left in the first half. In that first half, the Anteaters were led by sophomore forward Tommy Rutherford, and sophomore guard Evan Leonard. The pair scored 15 of the team’s 29 points in the first, with Rutherford grabbing three offensive rebounds which helped them keep the ball away from the Highlanders for most of the half. The Highlanders then answered back, when redshirt senior Chance Murray tied the game at 11 with 13 minutes left in the first. This was followed by a quick basket to give them a 13-11 lead. But the lead was cut short, as Leonard returned with a three to put UC Irvine ahead. Down 25-20 with two minutes left, the Highlanders’ redshirt sophomore DJ Sylvester hit two free throws to cut the lead down to three. But that quickly faded when Irvine’s junior forward Johnathan Galloway was sent to the line for two, which was then followed by a steal from sophomore Eyassu Worku; this added two more points for the Anteaters, bringing the lead to 29-22.

COURTESY OF UCR ATHLETICS

With four seconds left in the half, UCR had one more opportunity to shorten the lead, but were denied it as junior guard Koh Flippin missed a layup at the buzzer. Despite having a better shooting percentage of 31.8 percent, to Irvine’s 25.8 percent, the Highlanders could not keep up as Irvine was able to out-rebound them offensively with a margin of 13 to 5. The second half did not start well for UCR, as they fell back on a 9-4 run, which raised the deﬁcit to 38-26. Led by sophomore Dikymbe Martin, who scored a team-high 11 points in the half, a seven-point push shortened the lead to 38-33. When asked about Martin’s impact in the second half, interim coach Justin Bell said, “He’s been out for awhile, so you know trying to get him back in the mix. He did a good job of knocking down some shots, you know that’s what his good at. He’s able to score efﬁciently, so he kept us in it and he did a good job and

we gotta continue to work him back in.” Also making an impact on the second half was Sylvester, as he ended the night with 10 points, second behind Martin. But that only lasted for a bit, as the Anteaters hit another three to raise their lead to eight. It was in the 12th minute when it looked like the game could be going UCR’s way. It ﬁrst started when Sylvester was fouled at the three point line, and hitting two of the three free throws he was given. After an exchange of points, the game slowed to a 44-41 Anteater lead with 10 minutes left. But it was inside six minutes that the game was put away, as the Anteaters went on another 8-3 run to bring them up 56-47 with 3:44 left to play. Unable to close the gap, the Highlander’s comeback was denied as both teams were only able to score four points in the last minute of the game. After a few misses from the three-point line, the Highlanders could not H close the gap and lost 62-52. ■