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February 19–25, 2015 — Volume 32, Issue 17www.umasstorch.comServing the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

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On February 7, 2015, the College Now/ START Program here at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth welcomed back their returning students for the class of 2014. The Share the Dream Banquet was held at Whites of Westport. The room was filled with special guests, staff, family, friends and well-wishers.

Master of Ceremonies Erick-son Ramos, an electrical engi-neering student here at UMass Dartmouth, welcomed everyone in attendance. He kept the au-

dience entertained with jokes throughout the night.

Following the welcome by Mr. Ramos, there was the alumni welcome by Jennifer Granger, the President of the alumni as-sociation. Then there was there was the university welcome from our chancellor, Dr. Divina Grossman. Dr. Grossman shared how proud she was of all the stu-dents who completed the pro-gram.

There was then the welcome from the Director of the Col-lege Now/START Program, Mr. Michael Ortiz. “Tonight, we are given an opportunity to witness firsthand the hard work of our

students. We need to understand that our students would not be here and their success would not be demonstrated without the university’s commitment to inclusion, equality and ensuring opportunity.”

“Therefore,” Ortiz continued, “we need to work just as hard as the students to ensure that we build a learning community that is committed to our students, as we want them to be committed to this amazing University.”

“This year, we brought in 131 students. 77% (102) of them have completed the program success-fully, and we are working with another 15% during this spring semester. This leaves us with the potential of completing this academic year with a 92% suc-cess rate. As the students may say, ‘nailed it.’”

There was also the freshman address by Ernestina Agyemang, Edward Collins and Tiba Faraj. Although they each have differ-ent backgrounds, they all had one thing in common. They all could agree that the College Now/START Program gave them hope for the future.

Continued on Pg.2

Local business and political leaders, UMass Dartmouth pro-fessors, students, and alumni attended an open forum last Wednesday in the Library Grand Reading Room to voice their thoughts on Chancellor Gross-man’s job performance over the past three years.

The open forum is a part of an ongoing review of Chancellor Grossman by the University of Massachusetts Board Of Trust-ees. Normally, the board re-views the performance of every chancellor of the UMass system every five years, but new chan-cellors are evaluated after three years on the job.

“The board policy is to do a more involved review at the 3 year mark when we have a new chancellor,” said UMass Trustee and evaluation committee chair Margaret Xifaras.

The six-member Chancellor Grossman Evaluation Commit-tee also includes UMass Trustee Richard Campbell and UMass Dartmouth Student Trustee Ja-cob Miller, UMass Dartmouth alum and Vice President of Bris-tol County Savings Bank Joan Medeiros, and former Universi-ty of Maine Chancellor Terrence MacTaggart.

The committee is soliciting comments, concerns, and rec-ommendations from a wide ar-ray of UMass Dartmouth stake-holders, from local community

and business leaders to profes-sors, students, and alumni. Once all the comments have been re-ceived, the committee will pre-pare a final report which will be delivered to UMass President Robert Caret for his final rec-ommendation.

“We’re kind of [Caret’s] eyes and ears,” said Xifaras.

During the open forum, sev-eral UMass Dartmouth Law School professors, students, and practicing lawyers offered praise for Chancellor Grossman’s work with the law school. Its Justice Bridge program, which helps to connect recent UMass Law graduates who have passed the bar exam and are ready to practice law to clients in need of legal representation, was fre-quently mentioned as one of the law school’s greatest strengths.

“[The Justice Bridge program] is transformative in the legal world,” said attorney Elizabeth Duffy, who spoke at the open forum. “It’s going to put the law school further on the map.”

UMass Dartmouth Depart-ment of Public Safety officials applauded Chancellor Gross-man for her handling of the Bos-ton Marathon bombing and in-vestigation. The university was placed in the national spotlight in April 2013 when a suspect al-leged to have been involved in the Boston Marathon bombing was identified as UMass Dart-mouth student Dzhokhar Tsar-naev, triggering a weekend-long evacuation of the campus as state, local, and federal officials

descended on the campus to conduct their investigation.

“The world was focused upon this institution,” said Captain Timothy Sheehan of the Depart-ment of Public Safety. “No chan-cellor has ever had to deal with geopolitical terrorism in her backyard.”

Department of Public Safety chief Colonel Emil Fioravanti noted that Chancellor Grossman is very involved in public safety issues.

“She is very interested in the overarching concepts of public

safety,” said Colonel Fioravanti. “On the public safety side she gets it.”

UMass Dartmouth student and Endeavor Scholar Dorothy Mahoney-Pacheco spoke about Chancellor Grossman’s ability to communicate with students and faculty.

“She’s not someone who sits behind closed doors,” said Ma-honey-Pacheco.

Peter McCarthy, Executive Director of the Fall River Boys and Girls Club, highlighted UMass Dartmouth students who

volunteer at his organization. He noted that Chancellor Grossman attends events and volunteers at the club, and will be there this week to help serve lunch.

“I can’t thank Grossman enough for taking interest in our organization,” said McCarthy.

UMass Dartmouth students, faculty, and the general public who were not able to attend the open forum can submit their reviews and feedback of Chan-cellor Grossman’s performance to [email protected].

MONSANTO HERO BETTER CALL SAUL NFL FREE AGENCYPAGE 4 PAGE 7 PAGE 11

Public forum hosted to review Chancellor Grossman

PHOTO COURTESY // PHOTOGRAPHICSNew chancellors are reviewed three years after starting, and then every five years.

PHOTO COURTESY // PHOTOGRAPHICS

By DOUGLAS [email protected]

Staff Writer

College Now/START program officiallywelcomes high school Class of 2014

By DANAILE [email protected]

Staff Writer

On Saturday, February 14, 2015, two men were killed and five police officers were wounded in Copenhagen, Denmark. In a 24 hour period, the shooter had claimed the lives of Danish filmmaker Finn Nørgaard and Dan Uzan, a security guard at Copenhagen’s main Jewish syn-agogue.

The identity of the shooter was reported by Danish media outlets to be Omar El-Hussein, who had been released from jail two weeks prior. Authorities say that El-Hussein had a history of assault and weapons offences. Andrew Higgins and Melissa Eddy of The New York Times wrote that El-Hussein “was born in the country he sought to ter-rorize, into a Muslim immigrant family.”

The Local reports that the first shooting occurred at 3:30 p.m. during a seminar at the Krudttønden cultural center. The seminar, “Art, Blasphemy and Freedom of Expression,” and was attended by notaries such as French ambassador to Denmark

François Zimeray. Shortly after the El-Hussein

left the scene, Zimeray took to Twitter to confirm that he was alright. “Still alive in the room,” he wrote.

Also in attendance was the controversial artist Lars Vilks, a Swedish artist who is known for his 2007 drawing of the Proph-et Muhammad as a dog. He re-ceived several death threats af-ter the publication of his work – in 2009, two independent plans to assassinate Vilks failed.

Vilks believed he was the tar-get of the Copenhagen attacks, telling Joe Scarborough of MSN-BC that the attack was the most sophisticated attempt on his life to date. He also claimed that the Danish police were totally un-prepared and underequipped.

El-Hussein did not go far from Krudttønden. Just over a mile north of the cultural center, he abandoned his car at a train station. Around midnight he crossed the synagogue where a bar mitzvah was taking place. The Local reports that El-Hues-sein opened fire on Uzan with-out warning before running away on foot.

Continued on Pg.2

Terror attacks in Copenhagen take two

By MATTHEW [email protected]

News Editor

If you are a first year student you are probably used to being called a first year student since you had orientation here at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. If you’re not famil-iar with the term you are behind a few years and are probably calling the residents of the quad freshmen. STOP! In the ‘90s the word freshmen was revised to first year student to eliminate the sexism behind the term freshmen.

How can a word be sexist? Well, let’s look at the word and its history. When schools were first established all of the stu-dents were male, and women were oppressed and denied an education (amongst other things). The term freshmen lit-erally means fresh-man, new male student, or first year male student.

Taking that into consider-ation, he term was fine and po-litically correct before women were allowed in schools because they were indeed all men. So freshmen makes sense, right?

Wrong. Times have changed, and now 49% of us here at UMa-ss Dartmouth are not males. For us to have been called or to be

called a freshman in our first year of college is politically in-correct and a little offensive to be honest.

For women to be able to ful-ly exercise their human rights, gender perspectives have to be mainstreamed in all-inclusive urban policies. Instead use the term first year student, or just first year – it is a gender-neutral term that does not offend any-one’s sex and gets to the point.

While I have your attention we can define gender as well. Gender is the complex interrela-tionship between an individual’s sex (gender biology), one’s inter-nal sense of self as male, female, both or neither (gender identity), as well as one’s outward presen-tations and behaviors (gender expression) related to that per-ception, including their gender role.

Together, the intersection of these three dimensions produc-es one’s authentic sense of gen-der, both in how people experi-ence their own gender as well as how others perceive it. Are you starting to get it?

No? Well, let’s take a look at some of our policies. Here at UMass Dartmouth we have a Statement on Gender Discrimi-nation that can be found under our policy page on the universi-ty website, and it goes like this:

The University of Massachu-setts Dartmouth is committed to ensuring equality and avoiding gender discrimination; there-fore, it is the university policy to avoid in all university publica-tions and communications, the use of language that perpetuates gender bias. University employ-ees are encouraged to use gen-der-neutral language. In select-ing textbooks and readings of the very highest quality, faculty are urged to select those that are free of gender bias.

We are not alone in this com-mitment to being more gen-der-neutral. Other universities practice inclusion, as well as states! Washington, Florida, North Carolina, Illinois, Cali-fornia, Hawaii, Maryland, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Utah are trying to be gender inclusive as well.

Now, how could you know this in 2015 when you’re still re-ceiving surveys and e-mails ref-erencing first year students as freshmen? Well, speak up!

It is our job as members of this community to keep each other on our toes. Education is power, and now you are empow-ered. Stop using the F word, get others to stop and continue to make UMass Dartmouth an in-clusive environment.

Agyemang said: “I joined Bot-tom Line, which is a nonprofit organization that helps students apply to college. They told me about the College Now Program. I applied to the program with the hope of pursuing a nursing degree. College Now offered me an opportunity to pursue my dream of becoming a nurse. The decision to attend UMass Dart-mouth College Now Program is one of the best decisions I made about college”.

According to Edward Col-lins, he applied to two schools, Bridgewater State University and the College Now Program at UMass Dartmouth. He then decided to attend UMASS Dart-mouth after talking with both schools.

He later stated that, “I re-member making phone calls with Michael Ortiz and Anne Boisvert, while still deployed, trying to get the ball rolling on my application along with scheduling test dates and inter-view times. I want to personally thank them for all of their help

because without their patience and understanding I would not be standing in front of you to-night”.

“This program has provided me with a unique opportunity of pursing an education in the nursing field. I am grateful be-cause my high school grades and SAT scores would not have met the Nursing School’s standards through direct application.”

“In my short time here at UMass Dartmouth,” Edwards continued, “I have come to the realization that the staff of Col-lege Now really does care about the success of their students. And because of that I am proud to be a part of the College Now family.”

The banquet was filled with laughter and applause as the College Now/START Program presented the students with their certificate of completion. For fall 2015, the department has received over 600 applications for 125 seats.

Tiba later said that, “I am glad to be a member of the College Now Program”. In the words of fellow College Now/START Program senior, Jordan Mc-Donald, “Once a College Now student, always a College Now student”.

The University of Massachu-setts in Amherst has decided to ban Iranian graduate students from studying in certain science and engineering subjects at their school.

The policy was put into place in a document on the UMass Amherst website on February 6 in regard to the 2012 United States government mandate, the “Iran Threat Reduction and Syr-ia Human Rights Act of 2012.” This mandate prevents Iranian students from studying in Amer-ica if they would like to study in nuclear fields, which would prevent the Iranian government from developing nuclear weap-ons.

According to UMass’s afore-mentioned document, though, “the University has determined that these sanctions pose a sig-nificant challenge to our ability to provide a full program of ed-ucation and research for Iranian students in certain disciplines and programs.”

The Department of Homeland Security investigates claims for visas, so potentially risky stu-dents are generally weeded out by the government.

Oklahoma legislation has vot-ed to ban Advanced Placement United States History cours-es. Representative Dan Fisher suggests that AP U.S. history courses teach “what is bad about America.”

Oklahoma legislators also vot-ed down Common Core in Au-gust and were punished by the U.S. Department of Education by having their funding from No Child Left Behind taken away.

College Board, the private company responsible for AP tests, has also been under fire for the AP U.S. history course from other states, including Texas and Georgia. Oklahoma legislators are saying that if Col-lege Board does not change the curriculum, they will pull their funding of the test.

Judge Andrew S. Hanen from Texas ruled to challenge Pres-ident Obama’s immigration ex-ecutive actions just a day before “hundreds of thousands of un-documented immigrants were to begin applying for work permits and legal protection,” according

to the New York Times. The president had taken his

right of executive action due to a refusal of the largely Republican Congress to allow his bill to be funded. Democrats also will not back down, saying that they will continue to push for funding the Department of Homeland Secu-rity.

Hanen’s injunction brought the bill to a standstill on Mon-day, saying that the president did not give the states enough notice.

According to Yahoo News, a law professor at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas, Michael Kagan, commented, “It’s a very procedural point – that he did this too quickly.”

Despite the cease-fire signed by Ukrainian forces and militant rebel forces in Minsk, Belarus last week, intense fighting has been continuing in Debalseve, a transportation hub strategic for either side.

Ukrainian forces, command-ed by President Petro Poroshen-ko, retreated from the town yes-terday, losing an important asset but keeping the separatists from gaining prisoners for bargaining chips.

Netherlands’ Mars One, whose mission is to send people up to the red planet by 2024, has narrowed its hundreds of thou-sands of candidates down to just a hundred.

The hundred will be pared down to the first four people that will go up to Mars in only a couple years – and will never come back to Earth. The list of 100 includes people interested in the science aspects of living on Mars as well as adventurers who would like to be remembered.

Testing with isolation and team-building will occur in the next few years, and then Mars One will choose 24 people: six teams of four. Every two years, Mars One plans to send up one more team.

Dawn, a spacecraft heading into the asteroid belt, has taken the clearest images yet of Ce-res, a dwarf planet in the aster-oid belt. The image may display huge patches of ice on the small, cold planet, and scientists hope to find clues about the solar system’s early beginnings when Dawn begins orbiting Ceres.

EDITOR: MATT [email protected]

PAGE 2V. 32, ISSUE 17NEWS

World news brief

SGA Update: Stop using the F-Word

College Now/START

Continued from Pg. 1

Police spent the rest of the night staking out in the Nørre-bro neighborhood, according to The Local. El-Hussein arrived at the police trap around 5 a.m. He died after opening fire on the police, who shot back. An article by four BuzzFeed News reporters says that the five offi-cers injured in the operation are expected to recover.

The attack came just over a month after those in Par-is, where a police officer and 11 journalists and artists from the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo were killed by Chérif and Saïd Kouachi. The attack, an act of rebellion against the journal’s publishing of depictions of the Prophet Muhammad, resulted in one of France’s largest political

rallies in history.Parallel to the Charlie Hebdo

attack was a hostage situation in a kosher supermarket in Paris’s 20th arrondissement. Amedy Coulibay, who had befriended the Kouachi brothers in prison, killed four of his nineteen Jew-ish hostages before being killed by police in a raid.

The people of Copenhagen have not seen such acts of terror in decades. Higgins and Eddy of The New York Times recount-ed the history of terror in Den-mark, noting that there has not been an attack like this since the ‘80s, “when left-wing extrem-ists killed a police officer in the capital and still-unidentified ex-tremists planted bombs near a Copenhagen synagogue and the offices of an American airline.”

World leaders have expressed

their sympathy and support of Denmark. On Monday night the White House National Security Twitter account (@NSCPress) posted messages expressing President Obama’s solidarity with Denmark. Obama plans on holding a summit on Counter-ing Violent Extremism with Danish Prime Minister Thorn-ing-Schmidt.

Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu has called the Jew-ish people of Denmark and Eu-rope on the whole to immigrate to Israel. A spokesperson for the Jewish Community in Denmark, Jeppe Juhl, responded to Net-anyahu’s offer in a statement to Agence France-Presse, saying “we understand his concern for our well-being, and we value his concern but we are Danish and we’re staying in Denmark. If we move to Israel it’s for other rea-sons.”

Terror Attack in DenmarkContinued from Pg. 1

PHOTO COURTESY // SWEETHOMEPOLITICS.COM

PHOTO COURTESY // PHOTOGRAPHICS

PHOTO COURTESY // WIKIMEDIA

Flowers placed outside Krudttønden in memory of the victims.

By MABEL TEJADA

[email protected] Writer

By AMANDA BUTCHER

[email protected]

V. 32, ISSUE 17NEWS

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Amanda Butcher

MANAGING EDITOR Molly Hillis

HEAD DESIGN EDITOR Joseph Tavares

NEWS EDITOR Matt Litchfield

OPINIONS EDITOR Pamela Garnett

A&E EDITOR T.J. Sprague

SPORTS EDITOR Mark Ogle

STAFF WRITERS Mackenzie Benjamin

Danaile S. Bennett Steve Ciotti

Jacob Condo Kassandra Edouard

Justin McKinney Brett McLeod

Douglas McCulloch Leah O’Keefe Alyssa Steen

ASSISTANT DESIGN EDITORS

Honey Apale Liana DePillo

James Ferguson

ADVERTISING MANAGER Kevin Cutler

DISTRIBUTION MANAGER Nicholas Leverone

DISTRIBUTION ASSISTANTS Saulo Gomes

Deasia Gresham Jessica Flowers

Kaylie Leite Eduard Trirog

ADVISOR Chris Laib

The UMass Dartmouth Torch is the student-run university newspaper. The Torch is published every Thursday during the academic year.

The Torch’s Editorial Board is comprised of the Editor-in-Chief, Managing Editor, News Editor, Opinion Editor, A&E Editor, Sports Editor and the Design and Business staffs.

The Editorial Board is responsible for all content except for the Opinion section pieces and “Letters to the Editor.”

The opinion pieces are defined as editorials written by any member or group of the university or community.

“Letters to the Editor” are defined as letters written by any member or group of the university or surrounding community. “Letters to the Editor” do not express any views held by The Torch staff and are strictly those of their authors.

Any articles printed under the “Editorial” header are edited by the Opinion section editor, Pamela Garnett. Both pieces from the Opinion section and “Letters to the Editor” are subject to editing for space and clarity. The Torch is not obligated to print any of the Opinion section pieces or “Letters to the Editor.”

No Torch article may be reprinted without the written consent of the Editor-in-Chief.

The Torch office is located in Room 204 on the second floor of the Campus Center. Any member of the Editorial Board may be reached at x8158 or at [email protected] or their appropriate section e-mail.

Advertising depicted in the paper does not necessarily express the views of The Torch and its staff.

The Torch Staff About The Torch

EDITOR: MATT [email protected]

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BE IN DEMAND.

According to CNN.com on Mon-day, February 16th the Egyptian military carried out a bombing raid against an ISIS branch in Libya.

The raid was in response to a video released Sunday which showed ISIS terrorists behead-ing handcuffed Egyptian Chris-tians. There were 21 hostages in total and all are believed to be dead, even though the vid-eo only showed about a dozen of their deaths. The hostages were kidnapped on two separate occasions, one in December and the other in January.

The video includes an En-glish-speaking jihadi who threat-ens both Europe and Egypt. According to CNN.com he states, “The sea you have hidden Sheikh Osama bin Laden’s body in, we sear to Allah, we will mix it with your blood.”

Egypt’s bombing target was an ISIS stronghold located in Derna, a port city on the eastern coast of Libya with a population of over 100,000.

According to CNN.com Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi stated his country “re-

serves the right of retaliation and with the methods and tim-ing it sees fit for retribution for those murderers and criminals who are without the slightest humanity.”

However, according to The New York Times, Egypt is cur-rently vulnerable to a counter attack due to the nation’s wide desert-covered borders which is shared with Libya.

Washington Institute re-searcher Aaron Y. Zelin spoke with The New York Times about the bombings. He explained if any citizens were harmed in the bombings than they may be more likely to fight against Egypt. Zelin says the attacks might be an opportunity for ISIS and Libyan citizens to unite under a common enemy.

“They see it as proof that God is on their side, that even as all these forces arrayed against us, we are ‘remaining and expand-ing,’ as their saying goes,” Zelin added. “This is red meat for their base of supporters.”

The ISIS supporters cur-rently hold control over Derna. “There’s been a real radical Islamist presence in Libya for some time,” said Lt. Col. Rick Francona of the U.S. Air Force to CNN.com. “What’s worrying

is now they are self-identifying with ISIS.”

A group affiliated with ISIS and Egypt’s military were fight-ing throughout the month of January in the Sinai Peninsula. At least 36 people were injured in the attacks from last month, including some civilians.

The New York Times stat-ed the United States and allies attempt to negotiate with many Libyan factions to bring govern-ment to the nation. However, on Wednesday, February 11th Pres-ident Obama formally made a request to Congress to authorize military force against ISIS.

“Now, make no mistake, this is a difficult mission and it will remain difficult for some,” said Obama in a press conference according to CNN.com. “Our coalition is on the offensive, ISIL is on the defensive and ISIL is going to lose.”

However this does not mean that troops will be deployed to Libya.

“I am convinced that the U.S. should not get back into another ground war in the Middle East – it’s not in our national security interest and not necessary for us to defeat ISIL,” said the Presi-dent.

Egyptian military carries out bombing raid

By T.J. [email protected]

A&E Editor

PHOTO COURTESY // NEWSWEEK

A couple nights ago, I was watching TLC with my roommates, trying to figure out what I wanted to write about this week, and a commercial came on.

It was a cute commercial with families and food. There was a glimpse of a little boy surrounded by his family, blowing out a bunch of birthday candles, a family dinner, and then a picnic outside (I was glaring jealously at the green grass.) Someone was chomping on a red pepper, there were a lot of colorful, organic-looking vegetables.

And then I saw the sponsor of the advertisement: Monsanto.

Let me tell you a little bit about Monsanto. Their website says, “Monsanto is a sustainable agriculture company. We deliver agricultural products that support farmers all around the world.”

“Sustainable agriculture company” is a link, so I clicked it. I wanted to see what Monsanto said before making my own conclusions.

Under the header “Seeds,” “We use plant breeding and biotechnology to create seeds that grow into stronger, more resilient crops that require fewer resources.”

There were other headers, but the most interesting statement to me was “Vegetables:” “We combine traditional plant breeding with modern techniques to produce vegetable seeds that help farmers better withstand nature’s challenges.”

It’s not much information to go by, but a history of Monsanto goes back to 1901, when John Francis Queeny founded the company to produce food additives. It’s a biotech company: biotechnology means that they use biological systems to solve problems and create products.

The company started manufacturing DDT in 1944, a product that was banned in the United States in 1972. It used to be a pesticide, but it probably causes cancer, damages the liver and reproductive system, and it may damage the nervous system for a short time, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA.)

They also produced Agent Orange for use against Vietnam. They produced some of the first LED lights, and they were the first scientists to create genetically engineered crops. Now, they are one of the largest seed companies.

These foods are not organic. They are genetically engineered. That is only my first problem with Monsanto.

Now, why would I have a problem with Monsanto?

Okay, maybe that’s a little strong. I don’t have a problem with Monsanto, per se. I just have a problem with the lack of information provided to the public.

One of the crops that Monsanto is arguably best known for today is “Roundup Ready” corn. To explain that, I’ll need a little more time.

Roundup is a pesticide used to kill and prevent weeds – a pesticide made with glyphosate by Monsanto. According to the EPA, glyphosate is one of the most widely used pesticides, and if ingested, may cause lung congestion and an increased breathing rate at low levels, as well as kidney damage and reproductive damage at higher levels.

Glyphosate is biodegradable, so that’s pretty good compared to other herbicides.

Roundup Ready corn is corn that resists glyphosate: this corn crop can be doused in Roundup, and it will not die. All the weeds around it will die, but the corn will not, allowing for supposedly higher yields.

In a recently finished forty-year study, though, by an independent research group, the herbicide resistant group did just as well. Non-genetically manufactured (GM) crops produced a yield just as good as the Roundup Ready crops in forty years.

The other thing that these Roundup Ready crops have caused is a new species of weeds that can also resist Roundup. These superweeds are very difficult to kill, and they’re really strong.

That’s not where the story ends. Monsanto has a patent on these seeds as well, which means that if you use Monsanto seeds, you’re stuck using Monsanto seeds all the time. You can’t save the seeds from this year’s crop:

you have to buy a new set of seeds every year.

What happens to biodiversity, then? Broccoli was made by mistake when kale pollinated with some cauliflower ancestor, and ever since farming existed, farmers have been taking the best plants and breeding them together to make even better crops for next year.

Not for people that buy Monsanto. They have to use the same seeds every year. We are eating the same corn as they’ve been producing for years. It’s not changing, not getting better or worse, but there’s no biodiversity.

Let me put it this way: the cheetah population has declined so much that they are technically all breeding with their family. This causes less genetic diversity, which means that if one cheetah is susceptible to a disease, it’s probable that the rest are as well. They are genetically similar. They get sick easier; weird mutations happen.

This was the same problem with nobility in earlier centuries. They would marry and have children with cousins, which caused genetic similarity and weird diseases.

Now think of corn that way. It’s all genetically similar because any mutations that could have happened in a few generations are stopped because farmers have to buy the same exact seeds every year.

Oh, but that isn’t the only problem. When farmers that don’t use the GM seeds, they have to be careful that their crops don’t pollinate with neighboring farmers’ GM crops.

According to MIT, there was a case of a farmer that grew his own canola but was sued by Monsanto because his seeds had been contaminated with some Roundup Ready genes of a neighboring farmer’s crops. Contamination has become a problem because of patent laws.

I’m not saying I don’t like genetic engineering. I love genetic engineering. It’s so cool that scientists might be able to save Florida oranges from certain death from a virus spread by little bugs by inserting spinach genes into the orange trees.

But when you’re making people think your food is organic, eliminating biodiversity, and suing farmers…that’s where I have my problem.

EDITOR: PAM [email protected]

PAGE 4V. 32, ISSUE 17OPINIONS & EDITORIALS

A wise man once said that a heroin addict has no friends or family, just an addiction.

It’s become common knowledge in recent years that addiction to heroin is by far the most crippling type of substance abuse and yet we see rising numbers in the use of the drug in Eastern Massachusetts.

It seems to me that everywhere you look this drug is popping up. I grew up in the small town of Pembroke, MA. Its total population is only 22,000 with a median income of $88,000.

It’s the stereotypical small American town that most people dream of moving to. However, in less than three months over the summer the town saw six lethal overdoses and countless non-lethal ones.

It’s not just my small town either as I have said it’s a state-wide issue, in the first four months of 2014 Massachusetts saw 185 deaths from heroin over-doses.

In the most recent figures on year-long opiate related deaths it showed 642 deaths in 2011. This figure has almost doubled from the year 2000. It’s also worth noting that the number shown, 642, includes prescription opiate overdoses.

That number also brings us to what I believe is the leading cause to this rampant heroin problem: the medical industry and their handing out of highly addicting opiate pain-killers like candy.

These pills contain opiates, which are the ingredient in heroin that gets the user high and addicted. The problem is once these people run out of prescription refills on their pain-killers they go looking for them on the streets and find that the prices of these pills are astronomical.

Most cannot afford them. That is why we see people turning to heroin, it contains the opiate which the users are very addicted to and it’s cheaper. The problem though, is that heroin is far more dangerous and far more addictive.

I find this entire sequence

of events to be disgusting, the medical industry is feeding people pills that they know are very addictive and can often lead to heroin use.

I have seen it first-hand, after I had knee surgery last winter I refused any type of pain killers as I wanted no part in opiate based pills; however my doctor hounded me saying I needed them and I eventually just gave in and said fine.

I was prescribed 30 OxyContin with one refill and I didn’t touch a single pill, my knee hurt a little but not enough to risk drug dependency. The point I am making with this story is that the medical industry is pushing these pills.

I was seventeen when I got that prescription, and that’s probably the worst part this story, a doctor wanted to give a minor some of the most intense pain-killers in the world even after the minor refused. Frankly, this is a system set to get people addicted to drugs, I could have used 60 opiate pills if I had chosen to, and 60 pills is more than enough to get addicted.

The only solution to this

problem is to take the use of opiate pain killers out of the medical industry. Obviously it will take time and money to find an appropriate solution, but it seems very much worth it.

Heroin destroys lives and the medical industries handing out of opiate drugs seems to be the likely cause of this. I realize for the time in between finding a replacement drug and when these opiates are taken off the shelf will leave many people without a potent form of painkiller, however it seems to me that being in pain for a short time is well worth doing away with the lifetime of pain that can be cause by heroin addiction.

Along with the removal of OxyContin and other opiates as legal painkillers. Drug education needs to be a staple in schools state-wide. I don’t care if taxes are increased to support this movement, it’s worth it to keep people safe from the horrors of addiction.

If people know what can happen if you do drugs, they will not turn to them. If you show a person from a young age what happens to drug users,

specifically heroin, they won’t ever try it. My grandfather was a Massachusetts State Police Officer and from a young age he showed me what drugs can do to and how they can turn normal people into anything but a normal person, from how they look to how they conduct themselves.

After seeing and hearing about the effects of drugs such as heroin it made me not want to do them as I knew how damaging they are. A little knowledge goes a long way and that little bit of knowledge that kids take away from drug education courses could be the bit of knowledge that causes a person to say no in the future.

Something needs to be done swiftly to counteract this heroin problem in Massachusetts. It’s ruining thousands of lives and it’s a problem that with effort can combated and stopped. If people wake up and realize that we can work together to fight these medical companies and further educate children and teens on the horrors of drug use, we will see a rapid drop in the use of heroin and opiates.

Heroin has cast a shadow

over Massachusetts

By JUSTIN McKINNEY


With Valentine’s Day recently past and couples getting last minute gifts for their significant other, I couldn’t help but feel the love in the air.

However, on the other hand I sometimes wonder why it may take the killing of a person by a once dearly loved spouse to realize that intimate partner violence does exist and there are multiple steps that we as individuals can take to help prevent this.

Intimate partner violence can be described as sexual, physical or psychological harm by a current or former spouse. It occurs when one partner turns his or her anger out on the other one. Intimate partner violence is sometimes manifested in emotional abuse such as name calling, yelling, swearing or verbal insults.

It may also show up in the form of physical abuse such as choking, kicking, slapping or pushing. Another form of this behavior is sometimes sexual such as forcing sexual relations or other sexual activity.

According to the Assault Survivors Advocacy Program (ASAP), there may be early warning signs of a potential abusive personality such as jealousy, controlling behavior, isolation, verbal abuse and cruelty to animals or children.

On the afternoon of February 18, 2009 Barbara Sheehan shot her husband, Ray Sheehan eleven times killing him on the bathroom floor in the house that they both shared with their two grown children. Barbara was a victim of Intimate Partner Violence and instead of her seeking help when the abusing side of her then husband started emerging, she stuck around and ended up killing him when the fear of her husband killing her became too unreal to live with.

I believe that the cycle of this abusive behavior in a person like this will never change and one should seek help as soon as signs of abuse starts to get permanent.

I believe that some part of us tries to make a bad relationship work because we do not see a way out or because we do not want to upset our partner by trying to leave. Truth is, once these abusive patterns start to

surface they will probably never ever go away and one spouse may end up hurting the other, or even worse, killing them.

Once a person is dead, there may be no use in claiming self-defense because the other person can no longer speak their side of the story and you might end up going to prison because you chose to save your life over your lover.

Women ages 20 to 24 are at greatest risk of becoming victims of domestic violence. More than four million women experience physical assault and rape by their partners and one in three female homicide victims are murdered by their current or former partner every year.

More than three million children witness domestic violence in their homes every year. Children who live in homes where there is domestic violence also suffer abuse or neglect at high rates (30% to 60%). Children exposed to domestic violence at home are more likely to have health problems, including becoming sick more often, having frequent headaches or stomachaches, and being more tired and lethargic.

Children are more likely to intervene when they witness severe violence against a parent – which can place a child at great risk for injury or even death according to the safe horizon.org page which talks about general statistics and domestic violence.

Without help, girls who witness domestic violence are more vulnerable to abuse as teens and adults. Boys who witness domestic violence are far more likely to become abusers of their partners and/or children as adults, thus continuing the cycle of violence in the next generation.

Intimate partner or domestic violence also has effects on the economy. Domestic violence costs more than $37 billion a year in law enforcement involvement, legal work, and medical and mental health treatment.

With all that said, there are simple ways to speak out and put a stop to intimate partner or domestic violence. When there is sign that may be parallel with this type of behavior one should seek help before it gets too serious. Speak up, speak out, get the law enforcement involved and leave the situation before it is too late.

When love turns into

violenceBy DANAILE S. BENNETT

[email protected] Writer By AMANDA BUTCHER

[email protected]

Organic or not?

I am so sick of snow.Not only am I sick of

snow, I’m sick of people being total jerks about the fact that mother nature is being well, kind of a jerk.

Conditions are dangerous, patience is low and some local cities (looking in New Bedford’s general direction) aren’t doing a terribly good job with disaster management. I get it, everyone’s wicked pissed.

That said, there’s just no need to steal parking spaces you didn’t shovel out, cut people off on slippery roads and otherwise be rude. We are all suffering. We are all tired of running noses, leaking roofs and cancellations. If I hear the phrase “parking ban” one more time, I’m going to collapse into hysterics.

The key to surviving this horrendous, record-breaking winter is to be good to your fellow frozen, miserable citizen. Now is not the time to turn on one another, because we very likely might see more feet of snow and frankly, I can’t bear the thought of what that is going to do to the general public’s psyche!

Some people are doing miserable winter right.

The New Bedford Guide has been sharing as many positive stories as they can find on Facebook, from an entire street banding together to “plow” their street when city plows never showed up to countless caring souls shoveling out elderly and disable neighbors. Most neighborhoods are clearing snow from their fire hydrants.

What if we all made a collective effort to give a little back to our community during these trying months? One New Bedford family built a snowman holding a “we surrender!” sign and I’ll be that half an hour of play brought smiles to hundreds of faces over the last week or so. Things like that really matter.

Another great way to treat yourself and help your community is by patronizing some local businesses affected by the parking bans and unending snowfall. If you’ve yet to really savor the shopping and dining in downtown New Bedford, you are truly missing out.

The food at No Problemo, Destination Soups, The Green Bean and Brick are all incredible. The beer offerings, for those of us over 21, at The Pour Farm are so plentiful you may

want to plan to take a taxi home ahead of time.

Gallery X is having an all-ages show this Saturday featuring Eaten (grindcore from Worcester, MA), War Emblem from PA, and local legends, Gaskill for an $8.00 cover at 5:00pm. If you’re over 21 you can walk down the street to No Problemo after that and catch Blind Mice and Holy Hands for $5.00.

Wicked Weezy hosts karaoke shows around Fairhaven and New Bedford and has had to cancel her shows for weeks. Sing some songs to your stir-crazy friends on Friday nights at the Fairhaven American Legion on Main Street after 9:00pm.

If you really want a good karma boost, volunteer some time clearing snow or at a local emergency shelter. New Bedford’s emergency shelters are always seeking donations and volunteers on nights when the temperature drops.

I know everything outside really sucks right now. This winter has been like something out of a Game of Thrones episode, and we are all longing for better days. Those days will come, until then, shovel your neighbor’s walk and spread a little metaphorical sunshine.

See you later, RadioShack. We won’t miss you.

It has been reported that RadioShack has filed for bankruptcy and plans to close 2,100 of its approximated 4,000 stores, according to the Wall Street Journal.

When tasked with writing about Radioshack, I tried to think back to the last time I went to one of its locations. I remember perusing its electronic-laden walls back when it was in the barren Swansea Mall.

Those were times when hanging out at the mall was for the cool kids, or those who wanted to be.

I’d mess around with the radio-controlled toys, look around at different video games, always overpriced, and mess around with the electronic instruments.

I don’t think that I ever bought anything from RadioShack. I never found a need for the store, honestly, and I think that may have been their core problem.

Everything they offered, including batteries, wires, cell phones, radio-controlled toys, video games, and other odds and ends could be bought virtually anywhere else for a much cheaper price.

Target and Walmart are right down the road, Best Buy is a couple miles away, and Amazon is in our

pockets. The problem with RadioShack is that there’s just no need for it. It has no place in our established shopping experiences.

I don’t know if this is certain, but I have a feeling a lot of RadioShack’s clientele were loyal to them. My father swore to buy batteries only from there. Why? I cannot answer that, because I have no idea. Maybe they had more of the elusive “juice” in them.

Maybe it’s that the people who worked there were more certified to do their job. I know if I walk into Best Buy, there’s a damn good chance I will not find anyone who knows what they’re talking about. It goes double for Walmart and Target, where I’m fairly certain they hire based upon which department needs help the most.

I did an online search of “why do people shop at RadioShack?” and was greeted by an opinion piece from June 2014 on MarketWatch.com. Philip van Doorn claims that the personalized customer service was what brought him back to the dying store.

But we’re in an age where speaking with humans is a faux pas. Part of the allure of online shopping is that not only are we able to stay in our pajamas and shop at 3 a.m., but we’re also able to forgo the entire experience of dealing with another human being, all while getting the best

prices available.It’s impossible to

compete with online shopping. The best deals, the best comfort, and the best customer service experience are what I’d call the perfect trio of a satisfying shopping experience. Why would anyone even bother getting in their car?

Part of what gets me out to stores is the sales. When Best Buy puts on exclusive holiday sales, such as Black Friday deals, it’s usually tough to get the deals online.

Instead of competing with 20-30 people in lines at midnight, there’s thousands, or hundreds of thousands of people waiting online.

Websites get jammed up, broken, glitched, and shopping carts go from full to empty, or double charging, and who knows what else.

It’s an unreliable experience, looking for the best deal online. If the deal’s good enough, it could be gone in seconds.

In stores, we get to see firsthand what you want, and you hold it in your hand.

With the departure of RadioShack also departs part of the customer experience.

Though stores like Best Buy and Target keep the real life shopping experience alive, part of it has died along with RadioShack.



By BRETT McLEOD

[email protected] A&E Editor

Thousands of people, including world leaders gathered in Paris last month to stand up to terror and demonstrate their solidarity with the French people, we stand together with them and mourn the loss of all those who were murdered in cold blood by the terrorists.

Our thoughts and prayers especially go out to the families of Yoav Hattab, Yohan Cohen, Philippe Braham, and Francois-Michel Saada, viciously killed in the Hyper Cacher supermarket in an act of anti-Semitic violence. May their memories be a blessing.

We also take to heart the incredible outpouring of support — from world leaders as well as millions of ordinary Parisians — who are determined to fight for a robust, tolerant, multi-ethnic, democratic, and free Europe.

The reality is that today’s Europe is home to hundreds of thousands of Jews.

Background information on the Jewish Community in France

With about 500,000 Jews, France has the second largest Diaspora community in the world, after the United States. The majority (some 350,000) live in Paris, with 70,000 in Marseilles, and the rest in smaller communities around the country. Around 60% of the community are Jews of Sefardi descent, who came to France in the 1960s from North Africa.

The French Jewish community is large and well established. In Paris alone there are more

kosher restaurants (almost 300) than in New York City. The French community boasts some 48 JCCs and 286 Jewish day schools, (that serve over 32,000 Jewish students).

Anti-Semitism

France has a proud

history of tolerance, beginning with the emancipation of the Jews following the French revolution. The revolution’s famous concepts of Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, were also extended to Jews in a landmark European reformation.

Nonetheless, in recent years French Jews have felt themselves under significant threat from two sides; from both “right wing” extremists, and from “left wing” Islamists and their supporters.

Marine Le Pen’s rightist anti-immigration National Front Party, feared by many Jews, finished first in the 2014 European Parliament election with 25% of the vote, and seems to be gaining in popularity.

At the same time France now has about 5 million Muslim residents, many of who have been radicalized in recent years.

Both of these groups are viewed by the local Jewish community as threats. In recent years the community has experienced tens of anti-Semitic incidents, as well as several horrific attacks including the tragic shooting at the Jewish day school in Toulouse, riots outside French synagogues and a woman who was told that she is being raped “because she is Jewish.” As a result, most Jews in France choose

to remove any public displays of their identity, such as wearing kippot and Jewish institutions have heightened security protocols.

Concerns have clearly escalated dramatically with last month’s hostage taking and murders at a kosher supermarket in Paris.

Aliyah (Moving to Israel)

As a result of the hostile

environment, combined with a depressed French economy in a traditionally Zionistic community, the year 2014 saw a dramatic increase in aliyah from France with 7,000 moving to Israel - more than double the 3,400 who moved in 2013 and triple the 1,900 who immigrated in 2012.

More than 1% of the entire community immigrated to Israel over the course of 2014, which saw the arrival of the largest number of French immigrants in Israel's history and was the first time more immigrants came from France than from any other country. Even before last month’s attacks, Jewish Agency officials had predicted that the increase in French aliyah would continue and that the number of immigrants from France would reach 10,000 in 2015.

Thank you to the rabbinic cabinet of Jewish Federation for the above information.

L’Shalom,Rabbi Jacqueline Romm

Satlow, DirectorCenter for Religious

and Spiritual LifeJewish Culture

Coordinator

The situation in France

Soul Sightings

Radioshack is dead...

but who cares?

“Be kind. Always if you have a choice, be kind” – Anne Rice

Deep down, each one of us is hungry for love and a shoulder to rest our heads upon. Or, in the digital world, a kind soul with an eye-catching screenname, a good Internet connection, and knowledge of a language you’re comfortable speaking in.

I came across the news item on 7 Cups of Tea app in The Torch as an anonymous way to look for support and counselling from a trained listener for any problem you might be facing as a student or an individual.

Being interested in psychology, I decided to give the app a try and see what it really has to offer.

The website has given the word compassion a new definition, dimension and accessibility.

What is even more important to realize here is that several individuals or ‘listeners’ on the website are donating their time voluntarily to hear a distressed mind and helping someone find their way or even just giving a push in the right direction to jump start their self-esteem.

Of course, the news item in The Torch (Jan 29, 2015) deals with security and privacy issues in detail; however, the website also

warns users to not give out any personal information, social media handles or financial information.

The website is designed to help you vent anonymously and provide a support group which in no way should involve you dishing out your confidential information.

Individuals using the forums should exercise some discretion on their part by considering the forum or one on one conversation with someone possibly several miles away as a ‘guide’ or ‘temporary esteem booster’ and motivator rather than completely relying on it as an alternative to professional help.

Coming to my personal experience with one of the listeners, I must say it was excellent. The listener broke the ice by introducing him/herself! I don’t even know their gender, but that didn’t seem to matter in the least.

The listener was a newbie, however, again, she (or he?) was very compassionate and open to hearing my ‘story’ even if it was about an unfaithful husband! (Which of course, it was not!)

One lesson I took from my brief online encounter with the listener was that even though it is great to just be able to log-on and share your most random and ridiculous views without being validated, if you’re going to change anything in your life, you must be ready to dare. You

must be willing to take action in the real world instead of only relying on talking because that’s where the real fulfillment will come from.

Aside from offering the option of one-on-anonymous conversations, the website also offers group chats on various issues such as depression and loneliness. Contrary to their 911 sounding names, the chat rooms are filled with people who talk about everyday issues in our lives, lighten the mood with some jokes, support each other with personal experience and advice and are eagerly looking forward to summer & dance! (Seriously, who wouldn’t after three winter storms in three weeks?)

So if you are looking to share that ridiculous idea that you think might be laughed about or just plain need some advice to step up to a personal challenge, you can definitely turn to 7 Cups of Tea for a fresh perspective.

I started this post with a quote about kindness. This shouldn’t be limited to only forums or ‘special groups / people.’ As Anne’s quote reminds us, we always have a choice in our lives to be kind or just walk away.

So, let us be kind to ourselves, our neighbors, our classmates, and the guy who serves us in Birch Grill even if it is just with a radiant, beautiful smile! It has the power to change someone’s day.

Review: 7 cups of tea

By RABEYA ROPANI


By PAM GARNETT

[email protected] Editor

Surviving the snow: We are in this together

With websites such as Run Warren Run, promoted by liberal Moveon.org and Democracy for America which enlisted more than 250,000 supporters, Ready for Warren, and a signed letter from over three hundred Obama Campaign Supporters requesting for Senantor Elizabeth Warren to run for president in 2016, you would expect to see Warren going up and down the street canvassing for votes and kissing babies on the heads: but she isn’t.

In fact, in an interview with Steve Inskeep on NPR, Senator Warren publicly denied any attempts to run in the 2016 campaign. These campaigns are not an effort for Elizabeth Warren to win the presidency; they are an effort to draft Senator Elizabeth Warren to at least run for it.

In politics drafting is a method where the people try to encourage and even overwhelm a favored person or poilitican, in this case Elizabeth Warren, into joining a political race.

So when Elizabeth Warren does not have any interest in partaking in the presidential race, it begs the question of why her supporters are trying to convince her otherwise.

The main motivation stems from the fact that Warren is loved by a majority of Democrats for her born and bred working class roots, her attacks on Wall Street, and her liberal democratic fighter personality that the Democrats want and need.

The New Yorker’s John Cassidy points to three instances where this persona stemmed

from: her attacks against Bill Dudley and the New York banks for playing easy on Wall Street, when she called out the Obama Administration for trying to hire the infamous tax cheating Antonio Weiss as Secretary for Domestic Finance, and her fight against the degrading of the Dodd- Frank finacial-reform act.

John Cassidy explains these seperated her from most Democrats not only as a fighter but as a potential spotlight competitor: “Strictly speaking her efforts were unsuccessful… But Warren won the political argument… and raised her national profile,” he said in the article “Why Isn’t Elizabeth Warren Running for President.”

It also helps that over time the Clintons, particularly the rumored-to-run Hillary Clinton, have left a bad taste in democratic mouths.

In “Democrats suffering from Clinton fatigue say they’re ready for Warren” by Robert Costa of The Washington Post, it is said that Democrats are “tired of the Clintons,” and even labeled Hilary as “one of those people who has lost the sense of why they are in politics.”

For the younger generation, she represents a fighting persona that democratic liberal millenials, like twenty three year old Allyson Bowers, believe is needed in this fast changing generation.

In a public interview in the same Washington Post article, Bowers points out that the Democratic Party in general needs “much more energy, espceialy with [this] generation.”

For a time where the youth of America is trying to simultaneaoulsy put an end to

racism, sexism, homophobia, as well as help the environment and fix the gap between the rich and the poor, the youth want to look to someone who will listen and make that change.

Since Elizabeth Warren is known for legally requiring business to hire women and minorites, for expanding Obamacare, for placing higher taxes on the wealthy, for prioritzing green energy, is pro-choice, approves same- sex marriage, and wants to find ways to grant illegal immigrants citizenship, many liberal millennials find her as a voice for them. This admiration from both the older and the younger generation is what drives them.

Despite what Elizabeth Warren explicitly told the public, and the fact that according to The Huffington Post Warren has not even hired any key staff members for this supposed campaign, these supporters still believe that it is possible that Elizabeth Warren will run.

Some theorists like John Cassidy believe that Warren is testing the waters to see if Hilary Clinton sinks or swims. If Hilary and Warren both run for presidency as Democrats, then the Democrat party may be torn in half and both would be under fire from a single fully supported Republican represenative.

If Hilary runs, then Warren may throw her support to Hilary so a Democrat may win. If Hilary is not a success, Warren could enter the race as the lead Democratic choice and win.

Another group of theorists, mentioned in The Huffington Post’s “The New York Families Party Calls On Elizabeth Warren To Run For President” by Igor

Bobic, hold that Warren just simply needs to be encouraged enough to run and that she is not the type of person to “get ahead of things.”

These theorists have claimed to see this before, because in 2011 Elizabeth Warren ran for senate because she was drafted by the people. These theorists are hoping that this is a repeat of that 2011 situation.

But whether Warren is secretly planning her presidency or not, there is some question as to whether drafting is a reliable method in the case of presidential elections in general.

One could see it as an example of ideal American democracy, as the lone local hero of the people trudges her way to the President’s Oval Office. To the people, this must sound like a homegrown voice of the people finally in the postion it needs to be. It can also seem harmless, as in the end it is the choosen one’s descicion.

What some of these people may not factor in, due to their high admiration for Warren, are the daunting responsibilities that are expected of the president and that the canidate must be personally ready for.

One of the many differences between the president and any politician is that the president is the face of the government. Because the president is commnonly believed to be the most powerful politician, when something goes wrong the people look to their leader for a response or for a face to blame.

Ironically enough, it is Barack Obama, the man who Elizabeth Warren would replace if she were to run and win in 2016, that best exemplifies this blame game.

Many of Warren’s supporters are disappointed by Obama’s, according to Costa’s Washington Post article, “lackluster attempts to champion economic populism.”

What they may not see, was that Obama was working with one of the least productive Congresses in American history and he was not allowed to override those conflicting parties to make the descicions he promised or at least wanted to see executed.

Similar to Obama, Warren may not be able to fullfill her full democratic potential especially since the Republicans won majority in the Senate and the House of Represenatives in the 2014 election. She will just be the face of the government still at war with itself.

This task, more like a democratic nightmare, would be both exceptionally hard and demanding, and to succeed she would need the personal assurance that she can take it on. If Warren feels that she is not one for the task and that her talents are best suited along with the people rather than away from them, then that is her choice.

If anything, that may be more commendable. Maybe it is better that someone like that is with her supporters on a local level than far away on a higher level by herself and uncertain.

But in the end, whether the older generation gathers more supporters, or more of the younger voters start to endorse her, or if Hilary Clinton runs or not: it is Warren’s choice.

Whether drafted or left alone, the choice will be hers and it is her supporters’ duty to abide by that descion.



By ELIZABETH O’[email protected]

Contributing Writer

People say yea, Warren says nay

Fragments of our history are believed to be true.

In the minds of many, there is no way our government or teachers would ever lie to us. Fear is what brings about the omission of the whole truth, fear of what would be done if the real knowledge or the full extent of it was out there.

In eighth grade history, I encountered a teacher that would not sugar-coat anything for my peers. Everything we learned before her class we were to throw out because she would be telling us the truth. When the subject of slavery came around, I shouted out my love for Abraham Lincoln because he freed the slaves, a man that did not have to but felt it was right to.

She looked at me and said, “Wrong.”

He did not do it for the slaves, he did it because the country was in discord and it could no longer go on that way. It did not scar me for life, but it definitely broke down my foundation of what I believed to be true.

I did not question why I was lied to; I questioned why the teachers condoned the tale of two countries.

Leonard Pitts Jr of The Columbus Dispatch said, “Teachers are further told to emphasize ‘positive aspects’ of US heritage and to avoid lessons that ‘encourage or condone civil disorder, social strife, or disregard the law.’”

Students are told how courageous our founding fathers were, every great thing any president has done starting from George Washington.

We are taught the “good” stuff; it is engrained into our minds so badly that it does not give anyone any time to doubt it, to just think for a second that everything being fed to us was too perfect.

One aspect of revisionist American history that is never touched on is black history. Every year, people gather together whether it be in their homes or at school to preach (for only that ONE month) about the good of our black historical figures.

There is nothing wrong with praising people for their achievements and for standing up when there was a case of injustice but there is something disgusting in the fact that I am not told who they really are and what their actions have done for the worse.

It’s especially true in historical movies that there is so much fairytale; the actual truth is never depicted. But Selma did something I did not expect. It was a movie that focused on the march in Selma, Alabama but by stripping off the layers of the man who was Martin Luther King, Jr., we got to see a man that felt so real.

He was a cheater which was not common knowledge, even when the last woman that was around him before his death was not his wife. He doubted himself. The marriage between Coretta and himself was not picture-perfect.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to make sure that history stays positive. It is that positivity that will make way for a better generation that feel that they can do the same as the historical figures before them. Shielding the whole truth will not deter that positivity either, it will just enlighten the students being fed that mistakes happen but it will not stop you from being a good person.

History is not meant to be tampered with. It is a narrative that once written down in books should not be touched.

History does not make a past and it does not set anything in stone, it just starts the beginning of what will never end.

BY KASSANDRA [email protected]

Staff Writer

The missing pieces of history

It began with a solution concocted by activists in Madison, Wisconsin and is slowly beginning to branch out nationwide.

The Tiny House initiative is working its way into various cities, giving homeless families a new home.

In 2013, Occupy Madison activists decided to develop a non-profit organization called Occupy Madison Inc., after realizing that the homeless population had increased by seven percent. Working together, they came up with a solution called Tiny Homes – a plan to construct a village where homeless families could live safely, each of them owning their own small home.

The first Tiny Village was opened in November 2014, and it included nine small homes, a day resource center, gardening space, and other basic needs. Since then, six other cities have adopted the Tiny Homes initiative and are making progress in helping those in need.

This is a brilliant, and not to mention completely selfless idea to help those who need it the most. How many of us have gone into Boston and have seen the homeless shivering in the cold, holding out a Styrofoam cup in hopes of gathering some money?

Or when you’re driving, how heart-breaking is it to have someone come up to your car at a red light and begin washing your windows, helping you so that they can make some change?

And the feeling you get when you drive off; feeling helpless in knowing that something should be done to help them out.

Recently in Boston, the Long Island Bridge was closed down. This may not mean much to some of us, but to those living on the streets it meant everything.

The bridge was the only connection to the island, which house many homeless shelters. Those who relied on those shelters were now forced to go elsewhere, which was almost impossible considering that most shelters are always full.

Consequently, makeshift shelters were crafted, bringing

a greater sense of danger and unsafety to their lives, rather than a sense of unity and working together. Women needed escorts just to go to the bathroom, items were constantly stolen from different residents, and it was a constant struggle to claim one of the cots for the night – many people had to run or shove to get one.

Though some are able to find space in these homemade shelters, countless others are forced to remain on the streets, attempting to fight off winter’s bitter winds – the ones that we are always complaining about.

It may be difficult within a city like Boston, but I think it would be a great movement to band together and jump on the Tiny House initiative. Even if only a few families were helped at first,

it would still be more people being removed from the streets and placed into a community where they can own their own home, be in a safe environment, and live a happier life.

It would be a shame to resist such a positive movement, especially when others are trying so hard to create measures that are anti-homeless.

In an online article called “Top Ten Anti-Homeless Measures Used in the United States,” writer Gina Luttrell mentions one creation that has become known as “homeless spikes.”

Luttrell says, “In London, Property Partners decided to install studs on the ground outside its building and a supermarket in an attempt, the store said, to discourage ‘anti-social’ behavior…” Customers felt the need for this security measure, because they felt unsafe and intimidated by the

“anti-social people.”This kind of measure taken

against homeless individuals is cruel and unjust; they make it seem like the “anti-social people” want to linger around stores and ask strangers for money.

This is not, and never is the case. They have no choice, and yet the absolute minimum is being done in order to help them.

For there to be a positive change in the way the homeless are being helped, more options need to be created, and the Tiny House initiative sounds like a good first step to take.

Will it definitely make a difference? We do not know for sure, but there is no harm in trying.

By LEAH O’[email protected]

Staff Writer

Activists hope to diminishhomelessness with the

construction of tiny homes

Though some are able to find space in these homemade shelters, countless others are

forced to remain on the streets. ][

“You don’t want a criminal law-yer, you want a criminal law-yer,” as Jessie Pinkman put it in Breaking Bad.

From the moment Saul Good-man was introduced into the cast of Breaking Bad his character proved to be a hit. He served as the criminal lawyer and advisor to drug kingpin Walter White, offering advice on everything from how to launder money to buying a new identity. Known for providing comic relief yet re-maining important to the story, Saul Goodman was one of the most admired characters of the show.

On February 8th, the first two episodes of the highly anticipat-ed Breaking Bad spin-off Better Call Saul premiered on AMC. It is set prior to Saul Goodman’s first meeting with drug kingpin Walter White in season two of Breaking Bad. In fact, Saul Good-man does not even exist – as the show begins in 2002, Goodman uses his original name: Jimmy McGill.

Jimmy doesn’t have his own law firm or his signature Cadil-lac yet – he drives an ancient, beat-up bright yellow sedan, and his “law office” is located in the boiler room of a crowded beauty salon. He’s barely able to support himself on the $700 per client he makes as a public defender for the city of Albuquerque.

He lives with his mentally ill brother, who resigned his posi-

tion at a high-profile law firm be-cause of his mental health prob-lems. Now the duo live without electricity, or cell phones, or any other electronics – they cause Jimmy’s brother enormous dis-comfort.

Despite being dirt poor and at the bottom of the legal rungs, Jimmy confides that he is the greatest lawyer in Albuquerque, projecting the image of a cocky high-paid attorney. He rehears-es his wild signature openings, closings, and hand gestures in the men’s room before entering the courtroom. He dramatiz-es his courtroom speeches as though he’s watched too many courtroom dramas on TV.

But at the same time his per-formance in the courtroom is less than ideal. He botches his attempt to acquit his three teen-age clients from charges that they broke into a funeral home and had sex with a dismembered head.

While Jimmy might be a crim-inal lawyer, he is not a criminal at the beginning of the series. He’s just a broke public defender struggling to get by. But by the end of the second episode, it’s easy to see the show intends to explore Jimmy’s beginnings as the criminal lawyer of Breaking Bad.

After Craig Kettleman, a county treasurer, is accused of embezzling over a million dol-lars from his employer rejects Jimmy’s offer to represent him, Jimmy hatches a convoluted plan to win him over.

Unfortunately for Jimmy, the

scam doesn’t go as planned af-ter his hired con artists – two teenage skateboarders – target the wrong car. Jimmy ends up facing down the barrel of a gun and caught up in the business of none other than Tuco Sala-manca, a major antagonist from Breaking Bad.

Initially, Tuco is scared that Jimmy is a law enforcement offi-cial investigating him. He drives Jimmy and the two skateboard-ers out to the desert and inter-rogates Jimmy, who is able to convince Tuco he’s really just

a lawyer. Tuco decides to spare Jimmy’s life, but since the two teenagers insulted his mother, he reasons they have to go – that is, until Jimmy’s less-than-per-fect lawyering only leaves the skateboarders with one broken leg each.

It’s a successful negotiation in Jimmy’s mind: he successful-ly got a death sentence reduced to six months of probation, after all.

What Better Call Saul does best is balance the se-rious subject matter with

dashes of humor. The humor is a key reason Saul Goodman’s character in Breaking Bad was well liked. The ending of the second episode set the stage for what could be Jimmy’s first ven-ture into crime: one of Tuco’s as-sociates tells Jimmy he plans to rob Craig of his embezzled mon-ey, and asks Jimmy for help.

With the same old Saul Break-ing Bad fans grew to love, and plenty of homage to the original show, Better Call Saul is shaping up to be a worthy successor to the critically acclaimed show.

Along with the film release of Fifty Shades of Grey on February 13th, 2015 came 50 different ar-guments about the morality and messages portrayed in both the movie and the book.

E.L James, the author of Fifty Shades of Grey, has every head-line in the entertainment indus-try locked on her. She released this first book of his trilogy in June of 2011 and sold over 100 mil-lion copies worldwide within the next two years.

The book has been translated into 52 different languages, so that people all around the world can read of the physical, sexual, and violent relationship between college student Anastasia Steele and multi-millionaire business-man Christian Grey.

As told to ABC News, Dawn Hawkins, an executive director at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation argued, “When you strip away the glitz, glamour, the power, the fancy suits, the fancy soundtrack of the film, this is re-ally just a movie about domestic violence and abuse against wom-en.”

Organizations like Hawkins’ are taking to social media where they know voices will be heard. Her organization has made the hash tag #FiftyShadesIsAbuse while another has popularized #50DollarsNot50Shades. The purpose of the second hashtag is to get people to take their mon-ey that would be spent on movie tickets and donate it to women’s shelters instead.

The main idea within the book is that Anastasia and Christian Grey meet and fall in love all too quickly. Anastasia discovers a secret of Grey’s: he has an obses-sion with BDSM—a take on sex in which one is submissive to their partner, with Anastasia being obedient to Christian in the book.

Anastasia wants everything about him except for his violent ways, but she cannot bring her-self away from him. He wants her but needs the violence in their relationship. His idea of sex often pushes Anastasia to the point of pain and fear, but she refuses to tell him that she does not want to

do anything he wants to because she is afraid of the reaction it will bring out in Christian.

This movie has about 20 min-utes of sex on screen and is still only rated R. According to The Atlantic, “The problem is that Fif-ty Shades casually associates hot sex with violence…sometimes, Ana says yes to sex she’s uncom-fortable with because she’s too shy to speak her mind, or because she’s afraid of losing Christian.”

What message does this give off to both readers and movie-goers? It is relating abuse and sex, making the two topics seem rather normal together. It shows Christian Grey having sex with Ana without her consent.

This is not a respectable thing to be communicating to the audi-ence. That is rape; there are no feelings or love behind that. The only underlying reason that he had sex with Ana at some points in this movie—especially when she was drunk—was all for his own pleasure of getting his vi-olent and sexual feelings out of him.

Taking control of a partner, manipulating a partner, and be-ing possessive of a partner are not things that should be put into the entertainment’s spot-light. Since Fifty Shades of Grey has become so popular, people of all ages have taken an interest in the book and have been exposed to some graphic material. Many are getting ahead of their years in reading the book and now seeing the movie.

Student Tanya Zepeda, who read the first book in the series enjoyed it but commented on the message being sent out, “Oh, it is definitely a bad message. It is all about abuse. He was playing psy-chological mind tricks with [An-astasia] because he in the eyes of Ana was a god-like figure and she never wanted to feel that she was inadequate and when she saw her inadequacy she would break-down and cry.”

Respect, openness, and trust are key ingredients to any rela-tionship. How about in the next movie that reels in $28.6 million in two days according to Holly-wood Reporter, we show audienc-es what a real relationship ought to look like?

According to The Wall Street Journal, Netflix will be hosting a live action television show based on The Legend of Zelda video game series.

I was shocked to hear this. I’m not sure if Nintendo is trying to boost the sales of the upcoming Zelda title for the Wii U, which comes out later this year, or if they’ve just gone crazy. But I hate the idea.

The games basically has no real plot. A hero, named Link, saves a princess, named Zelda. There are some offshoots, such as Majora’s Mask having Link save the world from the plum-meting moon, or A Link Between Worlds allowing Link to traverse the lands of Hyrule and Lorule, saving both simultaneously.

The continuity of Zelda is a convoluted mess. There are mul-tiple incarnations of Link span-ning over multiple games, and different timelines based upon different circumstances in cer-tain games. It’s just confusing.

The amount of effort you would need to put into learning the plot of the series would not payoff. I guess Netflix and Nin-tendo feel differently.

This isn’t Link’s first televi-

sion incarnation. Back in 1989, The Legend of Zelda was an an-imated TV series based around Link and Zelda saving Hyrule from Ganon. Essentially, the most vanilla Zelda story experi-ence you could get.

The show was a hilarious critical failure, spawning such memes as: “Excuuuuse me, Prin-cess!” To have a voiceless pro-tagonist become this hedonistic pig who wanted a kiss from Zel-da every time he did a good deed is ridiculous. We can only hope that isn’t the direction Netflix goes in.

Is this show going to be some-thing that is successful? Who knows? Yesterday you could tell me that Netflix could turn a show from water to wine and I would believe you. I respect Netflix not just as a content cu-rator, but a content creator.

They’ve expressed their abili-ty to create amazing shows with Orange is the New Black and House of Cards. Two amazing shows, all lauded with critical and mass praise.

I can’t think of the way other video game interpretations have been handled. Alongside the old Zelda cartoon was The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!, which was corny and awful. The ev-er-popular Uwe Boll has made countless films based upon vid-

eo games, all pretty well known as awful.

I imagine Zelda will be a dif-ficult project to handle. Like I said, it’s a convoluted mess as a source material, but I also have faith in Netflix. Maybe they’ll make something really special.

I think the best they can do comes down to two options.

One option would be to create an original work, not based off of any of the already established plots, but a completely new story loosely based off of the original timeline. That way, the source material is still intact while maintaining a focus on quality work.

Another option is for them to go absolutely full-on fan service. Make the most Zelda show pos-sible, and make it something for the fans to watch and love for being a reminder of what they love.

If the former is what happens, it will act as the perfect fan ser-vice package, but if the latter what happens, it will still serve as a perfect tool for Zelda fans.

I’ll watch it. I’ll probably re-view it in this section of The Torch as well. Needless to say, I’m cautiously optimistic. We’ll see how it turns out.

EDITOR: [email protected]

PAGE 7V. 32, ISSUE 17ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Zelda to come to Netflix Has Fifty Shades of Grey crossed the line?

Better Call Saul brings back Breaking Bad’s most interesting character

By BRETT [email protected] Assistant A&E Editor

By MACKENZIE [email protected]

Staff Writer

By DOUGLAS [email protected]

Staff Writer

PHOTO COURTESY //DENOFGEEK.COM

PHOTO COURTESY //FORBES.COM

After the New Year brings a slew of award shows, and the most entertaining one every year is the Grammys.

Whether it is the red carpet, the actual award ceremony it-self, or after parties and back-stage interviews, the Grammys always end up a headline for some reason or another.

February 8th, 2015 made ev-eryone understand that it’s not always Queen B’s time to shine, fatherhood did not change Kanye for the better, and Sam Smith has just started his reign in the music industry. Last but not least, the Grammys further

encouraged the dislike some have for Iggy Azalea when she went home winning nothing. With that icing on the top, the Grammys were great this year.

The best segments of the night were Hozier and Annie Lennox’s medley of “Take Me to Church”/”I Put a Spell on You”, Sia’s “Chandelier” performance with Kristen Wiig and Maddie Ziegler, as well as Sam Smith winning four awards by the end of the night.

First, Annie Lennox was ex-cellent by putting Hozier in the mix, whose popular song that never fails to send shivers down my back. With a haunting melo-dy and gripping lyrics, they gave us gold.

During her performance An-

nie Lennox did her thing, sway-ing her hips and showing the world that “just because I have wrinkles does not mean I cannot take steal the show.” Annie, you stole the show, wrinkles and all.

Once again, Sia gave a great performance of her song with-out performing much. With her face to the wall, she let Kristen Wiig, a former Saturday Night Live cast member, and Maddie Ziegler, her go to gal as of late interpret the music with their bodies.

Though this is not the first time a performance from Sia like this has been seen, something about it will never get old. Sia lets the song be about the song, not about herself in the way that she shields her face and does not

do anything. She does not need to shed tears or contort her face in any manner, she uses inter-pretive dance as the backdrop for the emotion and understand-ing within her lead single.

Sam Smith seems to be our new brand of Adele since moth-erhood whisked her away. We have not had a great break-up album since 2012 with Adele’s 21, so when Sam Smith came into the world with “Stay with Me” it brought tears to my eyes.

Sam Smith won Song of the Year and Record of the Year for both “Stay with Me (Darkchild Ver.)” and “Stay with Me.” That clearly was not enough because he won Best Pop Vocal Album and Best New Artist (which was the award he wanted to win when asked by Ryan Seacrest on the red carpet).

As if the Grammys could not get any better than that, the win-ner of Album of the Year was announced creating shock not only in the room but through-out social media. Everyone be-lieved that the true competition would be between Beyonce and Sam Smith, not even considering anyone else that was nominated.

The shock came when Beck was named the winner for Morning Phase. Social media up roared with confusion, why did Beyonce lose and to really who did she lose to? Hashtags on twitter such as #JUSTICE-FORBEYONCE and #WhoisBeck started.

Kanye West did not make it any better by pulling anoth-er rendition of “Imma Let You Finish but…” To everyone in the crowd, it was funny, even Beck found it hilarious and asked

Kanye to stay on stage as he de-scended. In actuality to those who cannot stand Kanye even when he is acting out in “self-de-fense” (which is never), it was in bad taste. It another way to make it about him and the art that he speaks to.

In a backstage interview, Kanye continued to be rude by saying that Beck was undeserv-ing of the award.

Explaining that it was the voices in his head that made him rush unto the stage the way he did. Out of all the responses to Kanye West, the one I will love the best is 50 Cent’s. He said, “Beck produced the record, he wrote the record. There are 11 producers on Beyonce’s album – Kanye, being a producer and a writer should see that, but you get jaded.” He said it best.

The Grammys are a chance to see true artists get together and complement each other on their craft. Music does not just have to be a passion for those that write and sing it, it can be a passion for those that understand it and love to listen. In the end what is an artist without its audience.

When the Kanye Wests of the world want to bash another artist by deeming them undeserving for any award that they receive, I point to the Grammys. The Grammys, by winning or being nominated, says a lot about the artist and their music. It is not easy being in that room and will never be easy in the industry so watching the Grammys solidi-fies that music is not dead and gone, people with real talent are still alive and continue to be rec-ognized.

EDITOR: [email protected]

PAGE 8V. 32, ISSUE 17ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

By JACOB [email protected]

Staff Writer

By LEAH O’[email protected]

Staff Writer

PHOTO COURTESY//TINYMKV.COM

Grammy recap

Steven Universe: A kid’s show? Saturday Night Live

anniversary special celebrates comedy history

PHOTO COURTESY// BILLBOARD .COMBy KASSANDRA EDOUARD


“Live from New York, it’s Satur-day night!” Those words were first uttered in 1975, and contin-ue to bring a thrill to people’s homes after forty years.

Last Sunday, Saturday Night Live held its 40th anniversary special, digging up memorable sketches from the past and bring-ing back characters that we love, whether young or old. But what better way to start off the night than with a musical number?

Dynamic duo Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake opened the show beginning with a rap of various older sketches, in-cluding the Christopher Walk-en’s famous cowbell fever and the Blues Brothers. However, the two changed tune by dropping their rap style and switching over to Broadway, sporting top-hats and looking like a modern day Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly.

With such a theatrical opening to the show, it was hard not to get excited about what would come next. What seemed to be the big-gest questions on people’s minds, though, were: who is showing up tonight and what characters will they do?

Without disappointment, one of the first sketches of the night was Celebrity Jeopardy, with its classic host Alex Trebek played by Will Ferrell, and players Sean Connery (Darrell Hammond), Justin Bieber (Kate McKinnon), and Tony Bennett (Alec Bald-win).

If the inappropriate language of Connery wasn’t funny enough – for example, pronouncing the category “Let It Snow” as “Le Tits Now” – Kenan Thompson’s impression of Bill Cosby talking

about his choice of liquor was edgy and hilarious. This sketch set the feeling of nostalgia for the rest of the night.

Rather than doing sketch af-ter sketch with old and new cast members, the special also included elements that gave the audience a trip through the past. Various sequences were played showing noteworthy moments throughout the years in SNL’s political humor with Weekend Update segments, short films, and auditions.

Audition clips were shown from members including: Dan Akroyd, Jimmy Fallon, Andy Samberg, Dana Carvey, John Be-lushi, and Tracey Morgan – just to name a few.

One sequence, however, was particularly moving, especially for residents of New York. To the live version of Alicia Keys’ “Empire State of Mind,” pictures flashed across the screen of New York City. This tribute included a clip of Mayor Giuliani on the Studio 8H stage with Lorne Mi-chaels and a number of firemen who had fought bravely during 9/11.

The slideshow brought a great-er sense of strength and purpose to the show, not only celebrating the talent continues to grow in such an unforgiving city, but also celebrating what a strong city New York is, and how they were able to unite in times of fear and destruction.

As the special progressed, an eclectic variety of musical guests took the stage, bringing both modern and classic elements to the show. The performances in-cluded Paul McCartney, Miley Cyrus, Paul Simon, and Kanye West. West later went on to be the butt of a joke in a Wayne’s World skit, where he was told

many times to remain seated in the audience and not disrupt their time stage.

Eddie Murphy returning to the stage was the moment that many people waited for but it was short-lived and felt a little flat. This moment was a big deal, considering it had been thirty years since he had been on the SNL stage.

When comedian Chris Rock finally introduced Murphy out onto the stage, Murphy spent most of the time telling people to keep the applause going, and shortly mentioned that he appre-ciates how much people enjoy his work.

After thirty years there might not be much to say, but coming back with a bang by telling a joke or taking on one of his characters might have brought more excite-ment to the moment. However, the standing ovation that he re-ceived by the audience was well deserved, and he continues to be one of the most outstanding co-medians in SNL history.

Toward the end of the show, a tribute was made to each of the cast and crew members that had passed over time, evoking sad-ness and admiration for those who will never be forgotten, including: Phil Hartman, Gilda Radner, Chris Farley, John Be-lushi, and many more.

The Saturday Night Live 40th Anniversary Special had many memorable and surprising mo-ments, but there was one quote that stood out from the rest that rings true. When it comes to the Saturday Night Live legacy, Rob-ert De Niro said it best: “Satur-day Night Live is New York tra-dition. SNL and NYC, that’s how I like my Saturday nights. That’s the way I like my city. Anybody got a problem with that?”

Steven Universe is a show that has passed under many radars, but this show undoubtedly has light-hearted exterior with in-tense writing hidden within.

It’s been a long time since I’ve had real faith in Cartoon Network. Their cancellation of Young Justice and adoption of shows that may actually rot your brain finally drove me away, con-vinced that with the exemption of Adventure Time there would be nothing worth watching on it again.

Then a seemingly goofy lit-tle show came on that melted my heart from the first episode. Steven Universe is about an inno-cent little boy named Steven who goes on adventures big and small with his caregivers the Crystal Gems. They are otherworldly beings with magical powers that protect the earth from danger as well as raising their young ward to his full potential.

This show delves into issues of friendship, love, family, and even faith and one’s purpose in life. All of this through the eyes of Steven, who doesn’t have a mean bone in his body. Despite its sweet exterior, several ep-isodes pushed lines in subject matter towards troubling topics and imagery.

In an episode known as “Cat Fingers” Steven explodes into a disturbing-writhing mass of cat faces. Then a main character gets skewered in a sudden and violent fashion. Without a doubt some of the materials border on graphic.

That’s what makes this show so interesting. We see all of this and yet we see it through the viewpoint of a sweet child. This is what makes the underlying plot of the show so engrossing. So far we have received only brief glimpses and explanations which Steven can’t compre-hend, so they are brushed aside for whatever adventure they’re having that day. But they’re still there, hooked into every action and interaction.

We enter this story in a time of long-peace that is the aftermath of what appears to have been a civil war between the gems (physical constructs of sentient mineral-based life forms) over the fate of the Earth. Steven’s mother Rose Quarts (who gave up her physical self to create Ste-ven) and his friends Garnet and Pearl stated that they made the choice to oppose what is sug-gested to have been the subjuga-tion or harming of Earth.

This conflict which supposed-ly took place hundreds or thou-sands of years ago is talked about like parent’s trying to explain the atrocities of World War One. We know that the rowdy member of the group Amethyst was creat-ed as a result of these atrocities, which has brought contention between her and the other gems and defines her sense of self.

As you can see, the character’s in this “kid’s show” are more complicated than initially pre-sented. Every gem has their shin-ing moments and their flaws, il-lustrated by their reactions to the world around them and to each other.

Pearl who at first seems up-tight and self-righteous is actual-ly just trying to keep everybody (including herself) together.

Garnet at first seems to be made of stone (figuratively) as the badass leader and law keeper of the group. She’s silent and ex-tremely capable, and dishes out the cold-sass. But she has tender-ness for Steven. While keeping her serious demeanor she be-comes the primary protector and playmate to Steven; patiently and even happily going along with all of his childish ideas while still being the rock of the group.

Steven himself is what their world revolves around. All three of these cosmic beings have made it their mission in existing to not only to protect the Earth, but raise and nurture a boy full of wonder.

Steven Universe is a show that while catering to the wild imagi-nations of children, takes us fur-ther in understanding relation-ships and the nature of family.

V. 32, ISSUE 17

Activities Calender

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR: [email protected]

FEBRUARY 2015

THURSDAY

19FRIDAY

20SATURDAY

21SUNDAY

22MONDAY

23TUESDAY

24WEDNESDAY

25

BLACK HISTORY MONTH- AFRICAN AMERICAN READ-INLARTS ATRIUM 10:00 A.M. - 3:00 P.M.

INTRODUCTION TO LIMESURVEY LIBRARY ROOM 226 10:00 A.M. - 12:00 P.M.

BLACK HISTORY MONTH- THE NORTH STAR JOURNEY NATIONAL PARK SERVICE CORSON THEATER 2:00 - 4:00 P.M.

CATHOLIC MASS MACLEAN CAMPUS CENTER REFECTION ROOM 2331:00 P.M.- 2:00 P.M.

BLACK HISTORY MONTH- DE-STRESS YOURSELF DAYUNITY HOUSE 9:00 A.M. - 3:00 P.M.

CATHOLIC MASSMACLEAN CAMPUS CENTERBLUE AND GOLD WELCOME CENTER 5:00 - 6:00 P.M.

PROTECT YOUR DATA PROTECT YOURSELFLIBRARY GRAND READING ROOM 4:00 - 5:30 P.M.

MEN’S ICE HOCKEY VS. FITCHBURG ST. 7:00 - 10:00 P.M. AWAY

PHILOSOPHY OF HOUSE OF CARDS LARTS ROOM 118 4:00 - 7:00 P.M.

PERFORMANCE JAM SERIES CVPA ROOM 104 8:00 - 9:00 P.M.

Horoscopes

MEN’S ICE HOCKEY VS. WESTFIELD ST. 7:30 - 10:30 P.M. AWAY

PAUL SULLIVAN SENIOR JAZZ GUITAR RECITAL CVPA ROOM 104 7:00 - 8:00 P.M.

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL VS. KEENE ST. 1:00 - 4:00 P.M.

ONLINE TEACHING AND LEARNING STRATEGIES ONLINE 9:00 A.M. THRU MARCH 11, 2015

You’re picking up speed. It’s four weeks into the semester, and you’ve got your groove. If you just go with the flow, the stress will just slough off. The flow will take you along with it. You can hang on for the ride.

If you’ve got a relationship you’re feeling a little iffy about it, question yourself. Write your thoughts down. Is this person poisonous to you and your goals? If the answer is yes, you’re going to want to have a serious talk with this person. They’ll understand.

Be inspired. If you’re that kind of person, start Pinteresting and look up something you would never think to look up. Get those creative juices flowing and find some really cool art or music.

Dedicate yourself to your work. I know you might not like to ignore your friends and family for work, but you might get some inspiration. Plus, depending on how hard your friends and family try to get you out of your shell, you might find out who your real friends are.

Be open to the new! Or, at least, be open to cleaning your room. They say a cluttered room signifies a cluttered mind, but I don’t know if you should agree with that. Maybe just clean your room just in case.

You’ve been itching to do something all winter, but you’ve been stranded here (thanks a lot, Juno, Linus, Neptune, and Octavia.) But this weekend might be your chance to break out! Finish your homework this week, and then you have two whole days to take adventures and make extraordinary.

You’re a dreamer. You have a lot of ideas, and you often dream of the future. Why don’t you turn those ideas into realities? Whatever you have to do, just do it! Invest in your ideas, get inspired by other people like you, and get talking about it.

These next few weeks are going to be some of the best you’ve had this year so far. You’ve been waiting for the perfect moment to do something. Consider this your perfect moment. Shine, Aries. Destroy that audition, that application, ask that girl (or guy) out.

Though everyone else might be going along with the crowd, this week is your week to stand out. Be that rock in the stream, fight to head upriver. Be yourself. It only gets harder as you get older.

New friendships are coming your way, so welcome them. You might be introverted and have only a few close friends, but this week is your week to build a bigger audience. One of those people probably needs you – and you never know, you might need them too.

Have you been worrying about a big decision you’ve gotta make? Have you been putting off that decision to give yourself a temporary peace of mind? This week, make that decision. Ask your friends for help if you need to, but you’ll feel so much better with it out of the way.

You aren’t one to like the mediocre, but you’ve been kind of thinking that your year has been sort of middle ground-y. This is the week to change that. Take risks. Take chances. Your year might start turning around this week, maybe even today.

VirgoAugust 23 – September 22

LibraSeptember 23 – October 22

ScorpioOctober 23 – November 21

SagittariusNovember 22 – December 21

CapricornDecember 22 – January 19

AquariusJanuary 20 – February 18

PiscesFebruary 19 – March 20

AriesMarch 21 – April 19

TaurusApril 20 – May 20

GeminiMay 21 – June 20

CancerJune 21 – July 22

LeoJuly 23 – August 22

POLL OF THE WEEKShould marijuana be legalized?

61%

15%

24%

Yes

No

No opinion

*62 people were surveyed

V. 32, ISSUE 17ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR: T.J.SPRAGUE

[email protected]

Humans of UMassD is a group of photographers that take portraits of campus life. It was inspired by a photographer, Brandon Stanton who takes portraits in New

York. We are human and have voices to be heard and stories to be told.

HUMANS OF UMASS DARTMOUTH TOP 10 PLAYLISTTORCH STAFF EDITION

Black SunDeath Cab for Cutie

Cupid Carries A GunMarilyn Manson

Laura PalmerBastille

Oh My Darling Don’t CryRun the Jewels

Two WeeksGrizzly Bear

ThatTinashe

Ten Twenty TenGenerationals

ValerieAmy Winehouse

Cyanide Sisters Com Truise

Drugs You Should Try ItTravi$ Scott

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

WHAT’S ON YOUR IPOD?

CORSAIR CUISINE

“‘Gravity’ by John Mayer.”

“I’m lost because I’ve had too many snow days.”

“I love it here but the stairs are just too small.

I’d skip two but then it’d be too much.”

PHOTO COURTESY // MARIA AMELL

PHOTO COURTESY // MARIA AMELL

-David Ferreira

“Title Fight, Touché Amoré, Defeater and Arrowhead.”

-Jonny Dunn

Ingredients:1-2 Graham Cracker Pie Crust1 (3.5 Ounce) Box of Vanilla

Pudding2 Cups of Cold Milk1 (6 ounce) Package of Cream

Cheese

Got a birthday or party coming up? Do you crave cheesecake or know a professor who does that you wish to butter-up? Then this is the recipe for you. In just a few hours you can say you’ve made your very own cheesecake!

This recipe makes two cheesecakes and is about 16 servings. It is not recommended that you eat the whole thing yourself, but it’s your life, and sometimes you

just need to spoil yourself.First you must prepare the

pudding as indicated on the box. It couldn’t be simpler. Once your pudding is done to your satisfaction, use an electric mixer to blend the pudding and the cream cheese until it’s smooth.

Once that’s finished, pour this mix into the pie crusts, and if you have any toppings you wish to add like strawberries or blueberries of chocolate kisses, place them gently on top. Then place your cheesecakes in the freezer.

When the mix is finally firm, take it out and serve it to your friends. Please email me with comments, questions or suggestions, and enjoy!

What's up

NEW BEDFORDBy JACOB CONDO

NO-BAKE CHEESECAKE

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By BRETT McLEOD

[email protected] Assistant A&E Editor

The Pink Floyd Experience

Tonight at 8:00 p.m., head over to the Zeiterion Performing Arts Center to witness The Pink Floyd Experience. With recreations of tons of Pink Floyd songs, both the classics and the lesser known, this “spectacular light show and full quadraphonic sound” experience will surely knock your socks off for a fun evening in New Bedford. Any Pink Floyd fan would be silly not to make it to this remarkable showing of one of the most talented bands in history. Tickets rage from $32.50 to $45.50.

Spicy Lime

Just a block away from the Zeiterion on Pleasant Street is Spicy Lime, a delicious eatery that redefines the meaning of Thai Cuisine. Break out of the old “Pad Thai take-out” groove, and get into some of the most delicious foreign cuisine you can get your hands on in this part of Massachusetts. Venture out and try some of their Vegetable Tempura, Thai Lettuce Wrap, or any of their many curry dishes, entrees, salads, duck, and more. Spicy Lime will not disappoint you, being one of the most delicious Thai cuisines this part of our bustling little town called New Bedford.

1.

JAMES CARPENTER

CHRISSY SEIBEN

With the NFL season closing out a little more than two weeks ago, so begins the first major part of the off-season: contracts.

Many excellent players are winding down on their rookie contracts and are looking to finally make it into the big money. Owners are scurrying to make deals with their own players before they get taken away by other teams.

One of the biggest free agency talks rides around the team of the Dallas Cowboys. With two

elite players that have hit the end of their contracts, they will do everything in their power to keep them around. The two players in question are Dez Bryant and DeMarco Murray.

Starting with Dez Bryant, there are rumors that the team will be looking to give him the franchise tag, which can only be given to one player per team. This entails giving the player an offer of a dollar amount equal to either an average of the top 5 salaries of players at his position in the NFL, or 120 percent of his previous years’ salary, whichever is greater.

Depending on which tag they

decide to use on Dez Bryant, which can be an exclusive or non-exclusive tag, it will determine what the outcome of the move is. If they are to use the exclusive free agent tag, only the team and not the player can negotiate with other teams.

If Bryant has a non-exclusive free agent tag, he would be allowed to negotiate with other teams himself. If another team makes him an offer, the Cowboys have the right to match the offer, or else they will lose the player. If the team does lose the player, they will receive two first-round draft picks as compensation.

With those rules in mind, it will be interesting to see if Dallas decides to add a tag to their star player. Last year, the average salary of a wide receiver was $12,312,000, so they will have to offer Bryant a large sum of cash to ensure the franchise tag. However, using the exclusive franchise tag would ensure that Dallas can keep him for another year. With 88 catches for 1,320 yards and 16 touchdowns, you can be sure that he is a guy they want to have around.

Most rumors indicate that the Cowboys might have to part ways with Murray due to salary cap constraints. Murray will hit free agency on March 10th if no extension on his current contract can be made. With his stellar season of 1,845 rush yards and 13 touchdowns, he was certainly a huge factor in the Cowboys’ offense this season.

There are currently no rumors of an extension for Murray, so it is looking like he will be headed toward free agency. While he will more than likely come with a high price tag, he should be able to find some offers with the vast amount of skill he displayed in the 2014-2015 season.

Randall Cobb of the Green Bay Packers is another huge player up for free agency in this off-season.

Last year, he made a mere $812,648 in salary, despite recording 91 receptions for 1,287 yards and 12 touchdowns. With his contract expiring, it is believed that Cobb will be asking for a deal that averages in about $9 million per year, a huge increase from last years’ salary.

A deal like that would bring Cobb’s salary just below the Packers’ main wide receiver, Jordy Nelson. With rookie Davante Adams showing that he can become a factor in the Green Bay offense, they may be able to part ways with Cobb to avoid the high price tag and still keep an explosive offense.

Looking on the Patriots’ side of the off-season, there are two huge defensive players who will become free agents if no deal is made. The two players in question are Darrelle Revis and Devin McCourty.

There is an option on Revis’ contract to keep him for another year at $20 million. That $20 million may be too much to ask for, so the Patriots can decline that deal and work with Revis in order to construct a new, cheaper deal.

While Patriots’ fans will certainly want Revis back on the roster, there is also the threat of him going to the Bills or the Jets. The Jets would like to see their former all-pro cornerback again,

and with Rex Ryan being the new head coach of the Bills, he will want to try to get him over to Buffalo.

There are talks that Revis will be able to get more than $20 million guaranteed money elsewhere. This stems from the ability for him to sign a long-term contract

elsewhere rather than spending just one more year guaranteed. Since his stock is so high, and he is approaching an old age at 29, he may be looking to sign a multi-year contract.

While the Patriots will be sure to do everything they can to get Revis back, he is a very talented player that is sure to see offers flying from multiple teams.

As far as safety Devin McCourty goes, he is looking at being one of the potential choices for a franchise tags among the eligible Patriots’ players. McCourty’s brother Jason, who plays for the Tennessee Titans, has stressed that Devin really wants to stay with the Patriots, and that it will be hard to get him out of New England. If the Patriots were to exercise the franchise tag on McCourty, it would cost them a projected $9.6 million.

On the offensive side of the Patriots’ potential free agents, running backs Shane Vereen and Stevan Ridley are raising question marks regarding their status with the team for next season.

The one issue that surrounds the fate of the two running backs is the depth that the Patriots currently have at the position. Besides Ridley and Vereen, the Patriots have LeGarette Blount, Brandon Bolden, and Jonas Gray as potential starters.

Due to Ridley’s ACL injury, it is believed that he could be signed for a low amount of money due to the risk factor. However, Vereen provides some excellent pass-catching abilities that the Patriots have been able to utilize quite heavily at times,

notably in the Super Bowl.While there hasn’t been any

comments from the Patriots regarding their plan of action for these two players, we can be sure that more will be unveiled as we approach the date of March 10th, where all teams can begin to officially sign free agents.

The 2014 season is over and the Patriots are once again the champions of the football world. However, Bill Belichick and company have little time to savor the taste of their fourth Super Bowl as it’s time to begin preparation for the NFL Draft which begins on April 30th.

Although the Patriots are world champs, there is no denying that they have some glaring issues on the team that need to be solved via draft. The offensive line has been very average and injury prone, and adding an edge rusher should be considered as well since the team does not yet know what they have in 2014’s first round draft pick Dominique Easley.

The Patriots also have some questions at safety and wide receiver that need to be dealt with. If you ask me, it’s very easy to see where Bill will look to take the team in the first two rounds. He’s either going to draft a solid edge rusher to add to his defense, or a young guard/tackle to build up the offensive line. However, do not be shocked if in the second round they grab a wide receiver.

The ideal first pick for the Patriots is Virginia OLB/DE Eli Harold. Harold is a 250-pound moose who, if nothing else, can provide a serious edge rush for the patriots. The reality of it is the Patriots do not need another linebacker that can stop the run, as they have Collins, Ayers, and

Hightower. But they need to add something on the pass rush in order to make their secondary even stronger than it was in 2014.

Harold is that something. He’s extremely quick when rushing off the outside and just as useful when working a blitz from out wide. This guy simply knows how to put the heat on quarterbacks. Harold finished number ten in UVA history with 36 tackles for a loss and number eleven in sacks all-time with 17.5. Harold would fit in nicely with the Patriots defense and could potentially be a key player as quickly as his rookie season. The big issue though, is that Harold may be picked up a bit earlier in the first round.

A dark horse pick for the Patriots in the first round may end up being UCLA DE Owamagbe Odighizuwa. Odighizuwa was fantastic for UCLA this past season, but he comes with major concerns in the injury department as he had two major hip surgeries in 2013. The stats don’t tell the story in Odighizuwa’s case as they were far from spectacular, but his game footage shows an extremely quick and capable player that can stuff the edge and rush the pass when necessary. Odighuzuwa has also been known to swat passes out of the air when rushing the edge. This, again, would help the Patriots secondary immensely as they are more than capable of capitalizing on a pressured quarterback’s mistakes.

The most likely pick for the Patriots in the first round, as Harold will most likely be off the board by pick 32, is Cameron

Erving, a guard out of Florida State. Erving struggled as a tackle for FSU this past year until a move to center where he played great. Erving is a big, hard-nosed guy with Belichickian work ethic. If this guy is on the board at pick 32 you might as well just hand him a Patriots jersey because Bill is grabbing him. He would fill a guard spot, which for the past few seasons has been inconsistently occupied by a few players. Erving has progressed well through his

collegiate career and would more likely than not do the exact same under Bill.

In the second round I see the Patriots taking a wide receiver. They could use the added help and with the depth in this draft, it would be a perfect time to pursue a premier position player like a wide receiver.

The tough call is who do you take? I say Breshad Perriman out of Central Florida. Perriman was a high caliber player at a lower end

school and I think that could hurt his draft stock, which is why he could be available in the second round. Perriman is a big wide out at 6’3 and 220 pounds, and he’s got lightning speed with a 4.5 second 40-yard dash time. Perriman has the potential to become a big time NFL player, and with Tom Brady throwing balls at him, not to mention training with guys like Rob Gronkowski and Julian Edelman, he could grow into a hell of a player in the Patriots system.

PAGE 11V. 32, ISSUE 17SPORTS EDITOR: MARK OGLE

[email protected]

NFL free agency fast approaching

“Owners are scurrying to make deals with their own players

before they get taken away by other teams.”

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By STEVE CIOTTI

[email protected]

Staff Writer

By JUSTIN McKINNEY

[email protected] Staff Writer

Potential fits for Patriots in 2015 draft

Men and women’s swimming and diving in sixth

Record-breaking All-Star weekend

The UMass Dartmouth men and women’s swimming teams have made strong headway through the 2015 New England Intercollegiate Swimming and Diving Championships’ (NEISDA) first two days at the Tootell Aquatic Center at URI.

After the first day, the men’s team scored a cumulative 118 points, landing them in sixth place for the day out of the 12 attending teams.

The women’s team scored 189 points on their side, putting them in eighth place out of the 20 attending teams.

The men’s two relay competitions proved successful for UMass Dartmouth. TJ Doucette Jr., of Middleboro, MA, Devin Farnsworth, of Leominster, MA, Kevin Curley, of Raynham, MA, and Grayham Ronan, of Millis, MA got fourth place.

Their cumulative time for the 200-yard relay race was 1:29.72. For the 400-yard medley relay, they managed sixth place with 3:48.92.

Michael Gryss, Jr., a senior from New Bedford, MA, led UMass Dartmouth with 23 points in the individual events. In the 50-yard breaststroke he attained seventh place, and eighth place in the 100-yard butterfly.

The women’s team had a great first day as well.

Kaya Flanagan, a sophomore from Fairhaven, MA reset her broken record with a 2:15.03 in the 200-yard backstroke event. She also landed 14th in the 100-yard butterfly.

In another feat of excellence, freshman Chrissy Devaux, from

North Andover, MA got fifth place in the 200-yard individual medley, with a time of 2:16.92.

The 400-yard medley relay landed a 12th place score for the Corsairs, by Flanagan, Devaux, Jeanna Leanues, from Lakeville, MA, and Yulssa Diaz, from Dorchester, MA.

Day two allowed the men’s team to put a staple in their place on the rankings, while the women’s team struggled to stay afloat.

Robert Braza, a junior from Attleboro, MA, managed to swim to fifth place in the 400-yard individual medley. He also managed to score 14 points for the Corsairs’ overall score for the day.

Finishing seventh in the 50-yard butterfly was Devin Farnsworth, a freshman from Leominster, MA.

While the women’s Corsairs had a more difficult time maintaining their place, landing them in 11th after day two, it was not without impressive performances.

Flanagan yet again made the scoreboard with a ninth place finish in the 100-yard backstroke. She was able to get a time of 1:01.76, showing a large improvement over her preliminary time, which was 1.32 seconds more.

The 800-yard freestyle team made up of Yulyssa Diaz, a sophomore from Dorchester, MA, Jillian Boyle, a freshman from Wesport, MA, Ally McCarville, a senior from Stoneham, MA, and Cara Butcher, a sophomore from East Longmeadow, MA, managed a 13th place position, with a time of 9:07.86.

Due to inclement weather, the third and final day of the NEISDA Championships has been postponed.

The conclusion of the final game before the break, between the Cavaliers and the Bulls last Thursday, in which the Bulls handled Cleveland 113-98, initiated the beginning of the NBA All-Star weekend.

The many highlights of the weekend included LeBron James, Russell Westbrook, Zach LaVine, and yet again, Westbrook. But among that, records were broken and awards were given to the best of the best in the league.

This weekend of events in New York City kicked off with the celebrity All-Star game. A special tribute was paid to Stuart Scott, an anchorman of ESPN for many years. He died at the young age of 49 after a battle with cancer and was honored at his favorite event of All-Star weekend—the celebrity game. His two daughters, Taelor and Sydni Scott were taken to center court and given a basketball autographed by each celebrity player of the night.

Some big names of the night included comedian Kevin Hart, actor Ansel Elgort of the recent movie The Fault in Our Stars, Nick Cannon, host of America’s Got Talent, and Mo’ne Davis, a Little League World Series star. Davis is the first female pitcher to pitch a shutout and win in the Little League World Series. She is also the first Little League baseball player to grace the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine.

Davis was a force to be reckoned with in the celebrity game as she spun around Kevin Hart and right into a layup for two points for the West. Kevin Hart is always about the jokes, and Chris Mullin thought so too, as he held the ball high out of reach on the court making Hart jump for it and poking fun at his 5’4” figure.

The West led 32-24 at the half as MAGIC! performed the half time show for the audience. Kevin Hart then scored the first basket of the second half to set the East off on an 11-2 run for the first six minutes. They took a short-lived lead at 35-34 before going on to lose the game to the West with a final score of 59-51.

Kevin Hart won MVP of the

game for the fourth year in a row after which he compared himself to Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan and claimed his retirement from these festivities.

Next on Friday night was the Rising Stars Challenge where Team World beat out Team USA 121-112. Andrew Wiggins, who plays for Minnesota, took home the MVP title from this game, after contributing 22 points to his team.

Saturday night’s big events

included the three-point challenge and the slam-dunk contest. Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors won the three-point contest after putting up an impressive 27 points in the championship round. He hit 13 three-point shots in a row and commented after the contest that he would watch previous competitions and gain tips from them. Kyrie Irving—the winner of this contest in 2013—Klay Thompson, and Stephen Curry were the final three to compete for the win.

In the slam-dunk contest, there were four competitors: Zach LaVine, Mason Plumlee, Victor Oladipo, and Giannis Antetokounmpo—all of whom played in the Rising Stars game on Friday night.

Oladipo and LaVine were the final two to compete in the challenge. Oladipo earned the first perfect score of 50 of the night with his jaw-dropping 360 dunk. Zach LaVine sported a Space Jam “Tune Squad” shirt while he wooed the crowd with an alley-oop pass to himself, between the legs, and reverse slam-dunk. LaVine’s final dunk was off of the back of the backboard, through the legs, and into the basket. He earned two perfect scores on the night with his final numbers being 50, 50, and 45 to make him the slam-dunk contest champion.

On Sunday night, the NBA All-Star game wrapped up a weekend of impressive dunks, and fun competition. The game was opened up with a performance from Christina Aguilera and a dance from the Rockettes to Taylor Swift’s fitting song, “Welcome to New York.” Following this was the singing of the Canadian and United States’ National Anthems sung by Grant Hill’s wife, Tamia, and Queen Latifah, respectively.

Coming out with their All-Star game debut was DeMarcus Cousins and Kyle Korver. Cousins finished with 14 points for the West and Korver had 21 for the East. The two brothers, Pau Gasol, who had a nice block on Klay Thompson to start out the first quarter, played against his brother in the West, Marc Gasol. Pau Gasol had 10 points up against his brother’s 6 points.

LeBron James shined throughout

the game, bringing the crowd to their feet with his behind the back slam-dunk from Kyle Lowry. James scored his 263rd career point of the game, bringing him to second place on the all-time scorers list in the All-Star games. He surpassed Michael Jordan in this feat and now only lies behind Kobe Bryant.

Russell Westbrook scored 27 points in the first half—an All-Star game record—and finished the game on 16-28 shooting for 41 points. He was just one point shy of tying Wilt Chamberlain’s record set back in 1962. Westbrook also had 3 steals and 5 rebounds, which helped him on his journey to being named MVP of the All-Star game. His 28 field goal attempts were a record he set that night as well.

The West led 83-82 at the half as Ariana Grande performed at halftime. By the end of the third quarter, the game was tied at an even 122. As the final score settled at a West win 163-158, more records were broken. The 163 points scored by the Western Conference was a new record as well as the combined 321 points scored by the two teams, which beat out last years record of 318. It was a show of skill, hard work, and pure talent at Madison Square Garden this past weekend; and even though no one was jumping over cars this year, this NBA All-Star weekend was definitely one for the books.

Over the weekend, the Corsairs hosted the Eastern Connecticut State Warriors on February 14th. The Warriors were coming in with a record of 18-4, while the Corsairs held a record of 12-10.

Toward the end of the first half, the Corsairs amassed a 7-2 run in the final two minutes to give them a 28-25 lead heading into intermission. The scoring run was due to a two-point shot by Wale Abraham, as well as a three-pointer and a lay-up by Jordan Rezendes.

Beginning the second half, Rezendes converted on a three-point play in order to give the Corsairs their biggest lead of the game, with a score of 31-25.

However, the lead would soon dwindle away for the Corsairs. The Warriors proceeded to go on a 19-4 scoring run, with freshman Tarchee Brown scoring 13 of the 19 points within the stretch. With 13:51 remaining in the second half, the visitors had taken a 45-35 lead.

With the game coming to a close, Eastern Connecticut held the lead with 70 points to UMass Dartmouth’s 56 points. While the Corsairs managed to score seven straight points to bring the score to 70-63 with 25 seconds remaining, the surge came too late. The Warriors would ultimately

end up winning the game with a final score of 74-65.

Leading in scoring for the Corsairs was Jordan Rezendes, who was able to accumulate 24 points, including one 3-point shot and 7 free throws. John Genkos and Wale Abraham also achieved double digit scoring by collecting 11 and 10 points, respectively. Abraham also posted a double-double by gathering a game-high 15 rebounds.

The Warriors shot at a field goal percentage of 42.6%, while the Corsairs shot only 36.2%. The Warriors only had 8 turnovers, and the Corsairs turned the ball over a total of 18 times. Eastern Connecticut capitalized with 23 points off of those turnovers.

While it is a tough loss for the Corsairs, they are still in second place within their conference. Their 8-4 conference record tied them with Rhode Island College in the Little East Conference. Eastern Connecticut leads the conference with an 11-1 conference record.

Unfortunately, the men’s basketball team could not get it going in their next game on February 17th either. Traveling to Rhode Island College, the Corsairs fell behind early and entered halftime down 32-23. The lead was already too much for them to overcome and they fell to the Anchormen by a score of 75-64.

Riding three straight losses, the men’s basketball team will host

Keene State this Saturday at 3 p.m. in the regular season finale. The last time they played Keene State, the Corsairs were visitors and fell 92-78. Hopefully home-court

advantage will help the Corsairs.Something worth noting is

that John Genkos of the UMass Dartmouth Corsairs recently took the number one spot of 3FG%

for all of NCAA Division III. With 51.7% three point shooting, he leads the next closest player by 1.3%. Genkos has made 62 three-point field goals on 120 total attempts.

PAGE 12V. 32, ISSUE 17SPORTS EDITOR: MARK OGLE

[email protected]

Men’s basketball trying to finish over .500

By MACKENZIE BENJAMIN

[email protected]

Staff Writer

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PHOTO COURTESY //CORSAIRATHLETICS.COM

By STEVE CIOTTI

[email protected]

Staff Writer

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By BRETT McLEOD

[email protected] Assistant A&E Editor

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