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(02/20/13 5:08pm)
Romania joined the European Union on Jan. 1, 2007. Despite adhering three years after the majority of Eastern European countries, the country is still considered to be part of the fifth wave of expansion. The delay was due to widespread concern surrounding Romania’s high-level of organized crime and corruption. That pre-existing conception was the first example from a long-list of instances of state hate.
The European Union’s big shots did not trust that Romania was ready in 2004, yet now, six years after it joined them as an equal member state, Romania is nevertheless still picked upon and is the subject of extreme mistrust. Three years ago a lot of noise was made over Nicolas Sarkozy’s plan to remove the “social burden” represented by the Roma (an ethnic minority from Romania, commonly known as travelers or gypsies). The Roma had arrived in France from Romania by taking full advantage of the European freedom of circulation. Sarkozy, then President of France, went about their extradition by offering the unwanted settlers a cash payment in order to persuade them to get on “specially chartered” flights back to Romania. Some members of the European hierarchy identified the move as part of a frightening “resurgence of xenophobia,” comparing it to events “not seen since the second World War.” Despite that crude but just attack, nothing concrete happened. The French police were unashamedly allowed to target and deport Roma settlers.
“Why don’t you come over?”
Earlier this year some scare-mongering appeared in the British press over the fact that the British government’s ban on job-seeking migrants from Romania will expire next year. In retaliation a Romanian news-site released an advertisement taunting the British with a “Why don’t you come over?” slogan, bragging that half of their women looked like Princess Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, whilst the other half looked like her much adored, and nigh on sex symbol sister Pippa. Despite the crude means, the argument was valid. The European Union allows the free movement of persons across its borders. Any move by governments to counteract such essential principles can only ever be short-term and thus wholly ineffective. All it can do is raise tensions and give legal grounding for future xenophobia.
So hungry I could eat a horse.
Another European story recently brought Romania into the media spotlight — that of the horse-meat scandal. Over the last few weeks dozens of products have been taken off supermarket shelves across Europe after it was discovered that many foods supposedly containing beef actually had traces of horse-meat in them. In some cases, it was much more than traces, with 100 percent horse-meat found in some Findus products and 60 percent in the extremely popular tesco beef lasagne. All kinds of frozen beef burgers were found to contain elements of equine DNA and were also removed from supermarkets. Distributors in both France and England promptly pointed the blame at Romanian distributors. Unfortunately and foolishly, this accusation was made without clear proof or contacting those distributors. Romanian politicians were rightly offended and expressed deep outrage.
Is this all scape-goating, with the most developed and well-establish members of the European club finding easy pickings in the form of the Union’s newest member? Or does it represent a much deeper fear of others, with especially the Romanians and their gypsies taking the full brunt of the blame? It is possible that since the previous 2004 wave of migrant workers many countries have realized that some aspects of the European plan do not actually benefit them. Although the European ideal of free movement across borders sought to equalize the power dynamic across Europe, in recent years it has in fact accentuated the divide between the richer and poorer states. The most ambitious workmen leave their native countries to pick up menial but better playing jobs in western Europe. Any mass influx of foreign workers would in theory cause massive pressure on local employment and wage levels. Native populations have grown increasingly hostile towards those who come and “take their jobs” per se, and this has led to a notable rise in far-right votes. Thus, Romania has unfortunately become a political punching-bag. Instead of the actual migrants being subjected to localized discrimination, it is the entire population, the entire state.
(02/13/13 11:28pm)
I’ve played a lot of video games in my time, and I know that plenty of games are able to tell stories of love, such as Shadow of the Colossus. This game centers on a man named Wander, who must kill legendary colossi to resuscitate a dead girl named Mono. There are also the games where romance manifests itself in one of the female characters, who are usually very busty and not very well dressed for whatever occasion is going on.
Despite all this, very few games explore what it means to be in an actual relationship. Sure, I guess you could turned to the terrifying, niche genre of the “dating simulator” which essentially just boils down to you, the player, saying what the girl wants to hear, then being “rewarded” with a sex scene.
Moving away from these obscure games, we enter the Bioware role-playing games, specifically the Dragon Age and Mass Effect games. Both of these games offer various romantic partners that the player can choose to woo and/or sleep with. Mass Effect did this much better than the high-fantasy Dragon Age because the relationship was able to build over time, thanks to the ability to import your save files, and therefore your in-game decisions, into each of the sequels.
Dragon Age seems to trip over their own feet when it came to the “romance characters,” as the relationships often boiled down to a shallow system of giving them presents, or making in-game decisions that coincide with their predictable political opinions (sort of like managing and maintaining followers on a Tumblr blog).
But even with these games, something felt missing. The relationship felt like just another side quest. It boiled down to knowing what to say, when to say it and the successful completion of that characters optional side quest.
Despite flowing naturally with the rest of the game, it ultimately felt like another chore in the game.
However, there does exist one game where a relationship is not only an important factor to the plot, but it also establishes the entire context of the gameplay.
That game is Catherine. I’ve reviewed this game before, but want to revisit it, as I do believe it is one of the more important games to be released this generation.
Catherine tells the story of Vincent, a 20-something software programmer who lives by himself.
Vincent isn’t a fan of change and enjoys his current life: drinking with his friends at the local watering hole and spending time with his five-year girlfriend Katherine (with a “K”). Katherine puts the pressure on him to make the next big move (marriage), but Vincent is secretly terrified of this.
To deal with his anxieties he retreats to binge drinking, where he meets Catherine, a beautiful blonde with a bubbly, fun personality.
One thing leads to another, and next thing you know Vincent finds himself not only in bed with her, but having reoccurring nightmares where he must climb a puzzle block tower, or face death at the hands of the things he fears most.
While the gameplay is fun, incredibly stylized and very hectic, the story is where it shines.
When you’re not in the dream world, you control Vincent in the bar where you are allowed to do a multitude of things.
One of these things is, much like real life, texting. As the night progresses you will be texted by both K/Catherines and the way you choose to reply to them affects your standing with each woman, which in turn affects the story which then measures up to one of five different endings of the game.
The reason why I always bring this up is because of how real the simulation feels.
The text messages accurately portray certain aspects of each girl’s personality; sometimes it reaches the levels of hyperbole (such as when Catherine sends you half-naked costumed pictures for little to no reason).
You’re a man under a lot of stress as you try to balance two relationships at once.
Eventually the game transforms into a story of forgiveness, making decisions and taking change head on. But even Catherine fell flat on its face in one crucial aspect: the inclusions of a “morality bar.”
Sticking with Katherine netted you points on the “law” side while staying faithful to your new lover, Catherine, netted you points on the “chaos” side.
This bar would come up whenever you sent a text message or answered one of the games many polling questions.
The inclusion of this bar takes away all ambiguity and turns it too much into a video game.
By removing this ambiguity, there would have been additional stress added on the player because, much like reality, one could not have been sure of whether or not what you were doing was “the right thing” in the relationship.
While it pains me to see that no other games have explored such a distinctive aspect of the romantic relationship, I hope it is something that can be explored beyond easily-predictable decisions and character pandering.
(02/13/13 10:30pm)
Remember Valentine’s Day in elementary school? You’d come home off the bus beaming, with a shoebox full of cardboard rectangles sporting Disney characters, comic book heroes or cuddly cats, and — hopefully — a handful of Hershey’s kisses and heart-shaped lollipops. Everyone brought in a bumblebee “will you BEE my valentine?” card for each and every classmate and so, by the end of the school day you had 20-some-odd valentines to call your own.
But somewhere along the line, as we graduated into those god-awful middle school years, our valentine celebrations and traditions changed. Bringing in a card for everyone suddenly becomes geek status. It’s not necessary to dress up in pink dresses and heart-print socks. And unless you’re a Mormon or John Tucker, you can only have one valentine.
In fifth grade, it’s no big deal. If you happened to get asked out at lunch period on Feb 12, maybe you’ll buy your beau a candy bar and call it a holiday. But other than that, Feb 14 is really just another day of the week with a good excuse to eat sweets.
But then: braces are disappearing, zits are clearing up and girls are making their first trips to Victoria’s Secret Pink to buy lime-green-leopard-print 32As. Pin the tail on the donkey is replaced with spin the bottle. Everyone’s getting slapped in the face with a bunch of hormones and the opposite sex’s “cooties” are suddenly kind of attractive.
So what does this mean for Valentine’s Day? Well for many, it means one thing. Pressure.
Yes, the carefree grade school holiday is now more stressful than the PSATs. And, unfortunately, as we get older the pressure only seems to get worse. On Feb 14, there are two kinds of people: those who have dates, and those who do not.
I have this theory that everyone spends Valentine’s Day in bed: either romping in the sheets with your sweetheart or eating a box of chocolates from your mom and watching The Vow.
But I don’t like this stratification. Why can’t some remnant of that elementary school mindset stay with us as we grow up? Why can’t Valentine’s Day be more like Halloween? Halloween is a communal celebration, a social holiday. So why can’t Valentine’s Day be like that too?
No, I’m not suggesting an orgy. And I’m also not trying to belittle what Valentine’s Day currently represents: a celebration of romance. It’s a day to remember why you love your significant other and then to show them just how much you do. And how could a hopeless romantic say no to that?
So of course I have a sweet spot for this love-centered holiday. But why so much pressure to have someone to celebrate with? Why does V-day have to be limited to strictly date night, and why is it that we feel somehow lesser if we’re flying solo? Why can’t we observe this holiday more broadly?
At the risk of sounding horrifyingly cheesy, and also quoting the Gap’s holiday campaign, love comes in all shades. So this Valentine’s day, I challenge us all not to focus on the kinds of love we may be missing, but to remember all the kinds of love we have. Friends, parents, siblings, pets. Just because you don’t make out with them doesn’t mean they don’t deserve some appreciation for their love too. Plus, you don’t have to blow any money on new lingerie to celebrate with them, and they could make a great shoulder to cry on when The Vow has you sobbing.
Be a glutton for Valentine’s this year. Even if you do have a traditional valentine, don’t stop there. Embrace your inner second-grader and spread holiday cheer everywhere. Who knows – maybe today, a day devoted to love, is the best day to find new love. Maybe Cupid is feeling generous; after all, it is his special day.
And if you’re still not satisfied, and a lack of a valentine has still got you feeling down, which is of course understandable and valid, remember this: all the chocolate and candy will be on half-off sale tomorrow. And nothing, not even Cupid, is more powerful than chocolate.
(02/13/13 3:50pm)
Today is Valentine’s Day. No matter how you feel about this “holiday” — whether you love it, hate it or try to forget about it — Feb. 14 usually makes us think about love. And, even though the two are not necessarily or always related, love often makes us think about sex.
Most college students, however, do not confine their sex-related thoughts to this single day in February. Sex is a part of college — whether you’re having it or not. You may be waiting until marriage, but your roommate may not even wait until you leave the room. Sex is an inevitable part of our four years here.
It is important, therefore, that we are conscious of and educated about not just sex, but our sexual health in general. A recent survey on the topic of student life conducted by the SGA found that 58.3 percent of respondents had never thought about getting tested for STIs. Testing is available at Parton Health Center, but only 5.64 percent of respondents had taken advantage of this option.
There are various explanations for these somewhat jarring statistics. Some students may not be aware of the resources that Parton has to offer or may be dissatisfied with care they have received at Parton in the past. Other students may find the idea of getting tested embarrassing. Some students are also concerned about cost of the tests themselves, which range from just $6 to test for syphilis to $25 to test for gonorrhea and chlamydia.
Yet another possible explanation may be the “Middlebury Bubble.” Middlebury allows its students the opportunity to pursue intellectual enlightenment with little distraction of the problems of the “outside” world. We read about catastrophes and violence in the news, but at Middlebury, it can sometimes feel like these problems do not affect us — that we are invincible.
Unfortunately, that is not the case. Middlebury students are not invincible. And as a campus charged with sexually active 18 to 22 year olds, Middlebury is especially not invincible to STIs.
Middlebury is not invulnerable to violence, either. While the fact that 89 percent of respondents to the SGA’s survey claimed to “feel very safe on campus and never think about safety as a problem,” can be construed as a positive indicator of life at the College, it also may demonstrate a lack of awareness of certain aspects of campus life.
For example, the above statistic may overshadow the harsh fact that sexual assaults do occur on our campus. While most students here feel very safe, this is not the case for all students. Given this situation, it is alarming that 35 percent of survey respondents had little knowledge of the on-campus resources available to victims of sexual assault. As a community, it is important that we remain aware of and sensitive to the issues — both physical and mental — that are a reality for some of our friends and peers, if not for ourselves. As students on a campus where sexual assault exists, we are all responsible for educating ourselves.
Clearly, we are primarily responsible for our own sexual health. Part of that responsibility includes taking advantage of the resources the College has to offer beyond just the health center. Educate yourself on the newly enhanced Sexual Assault policy, which expands the definitions of consent and substantial impairment. Reflect on the message of yesterday’s One Billion Rising event. Talk to members of the Student Wellness Committee about initiatives you would like to see on campus. Pay attention to the “It Happens Here” display in the Davis Family Library.
While it is important that students take advantage of these resources in order to be accountable for their own sexual health, we also urge the College to place greater importance on this issue. It has been a year and a half since the resignation of Jyoti Daniere, and we are still without a director of health and wellness. Forums and lectures on the topic of safe sex and sexual assault are largely nonexistent or reach limited audiences past first-year orientation. What kind of message is the College communicating in terms of valuing the sexual health of its students?
Our sexuality is inseparable from our whole being. Therefore, our sexual health cannot be ignored. STIs and sexual assault exist on campus. Increased sexual health programming, along with greater student accountability and responsibility, will ensure that the College and its students give sexual health the attention it deserves.
(02/13/13 3:45pm)
Society creates numerous barriers to become self-aware — mainly that it creates so-called “acceptable” models of behavior that cannot possibly match each person’s set of ethics and beliefs. But higher education compels us to move past the childhood world of social mimicry and to question what we ourselves hold true. Love and sex should not be exempt from an evolved consideration.
Valentine’s Day has historically been a celebration of love, but I’d like to see it as a day of liberation. Whether we seek emotional or physical intimacy, to get what we want, first we must know what we want. Therefore, while the heart is the organ du jour, it is really the brain that rules the day.
Many of us do not fully reflect on what we what out of our personal lives. We settle for what we have, pine for what we think we should want and oftentimes simply fumble our way through our relationships, hoping trial-and-error will point us in the right direction. Feelings propel us to act, and understanding those feelings can only allow us to make the best and most appropriate decisions for ourselves, society-be-damned. “Getting in touch” with ones emotions may seem detestable to some, but, wandering in the dark, you may hit a love gold mine, but you may just walk off an emotional cliff.
On Valentine’s Day, we are all given the opportunity to vocalize our feelings towards the subject of our interest, to in effect ask for what we desire. Why only on this day are we free to express ourselves? While it may just be the spirit of celebration that encourages us to throw away our inhibitions and profess our feelings of desire, the truly liberated know that each day offers an opportunity to shape one’s personal beliefs regarding love and lust and to pursue them whole-heartedly. As a result, only these people will be able to enjoy all that Valentine’s Day has to offer.
For many, Valentine’s Day is the bane of their existence, the single day of the year they wish they could blot off the calendar, and yet its perpetual reoccurrences invokes the desire to jump off the nearest bridge, or — less dramatically — curl up into the fetal position until the morning of Feb. 15. This tragic response is unwarranted, unless you are entirely and irrevocably without love in your life. What is this value we place on romance? Love itself is an over-generalized concept. Each romance is entirely different from all others, just as romantic love differs from familial or platonic love. It is unfortunate that we find the need to self-deprecate based on our incapacity to perfectly fit into the commercial Valentine’s Day package — especially when even couples find it difficult to live up to the expectations.
This does not mean we must reject Valentine’s Day entirely. I see the day at its best when we release our love unconditionally, when we say it without necessitating a response, expressing our feelings and desires without expectation, simply for the reason that we will never get what we want unless we ask for it.
Taking action requires a certain emotional elasticity. But in the end what do we have to lose by being true to ourselves? Rejection is fleeting, and I think we are all too realistic to believe it’s better to live in denial, in ignorant bliss, than face the difficult truth and give ourselves a new opportunity to pursue real happiness.
Love may not be on your radar. It may be lust or some of life’s many other pursuits. If you could care less and Valentine’s Day holds no meaning for you, than that is a form of liberation in itself. But if you’re professed hatred for chocolate hearts and flowers is based off of a dissatisfaction with your personal life, an inability to give love for fear of the possibility that it may be unrequited, then take them time to know what it is you want and use Valentine’s Day to make it happen.
(02/13/13 3:37pm)
Dear first-year Febs,
I’m just a guy in his last semester that wants to welcome those in their first. I want to be an example of one of the many friendly (and weird) members of your college community. In the process, I would like to share a little about what I’ve learned and what treasures I’ve found while at Midd.
After 18-ish trips around the Sun, congratulations on finding your way to Middlebury College. That’s over 10 billion miles! Never mind 18 trips: the ingredients of you actually took about 14 billion years and traveled billions of light-years to form you and your arrival to college. Take a deep breath. Here you are. Again, congratulations.
Your body made it here, but where will your mind go? I recommend some consideration of this cosmos. Courses in astronomy are offered in the physics department, and PHYS0101 (designed for the “non-science student”) covers some of the most fundamental aspects of nature. In particular, Carl Sagan and Richard Feynman (both dead, but my best teachers) might help the universe and science enter your soul.
No, that’s not a banana, it’s a harmonica in my pocket — but I’m also happy to see you. I take lessons from Mark LaVoie at the CFA. Music lessons at the CFA are half-price if you join a choir. LaVoie occasionally performs in the Gamut Room and at 51 Main — both cool places to check out. He has the biggest tone that you’ll ever hear from a harmonica; we’re lucky to have him teaching and performing on campus.
Meet (and perhaps befriend) Butch Varno. The connection between Varno and the College (see ESPN features) is a tradition that has lasted over 50 years, probably because he is so charming, funny and loving. Varno has cerebral palsy and lives in the Helen Porter nursing home. Roger Ralph ’63 says Varno “makes you feel like a million bucks.”
If you want a free bike, and if you want to learn how to build it and maintain it, check out the Bike Shop underneath the Adirondack House.
Partner dancing, in general, is good exercise. It is also intimate, soulful and an important life skill. Kind of like sex, except that having multiple partners in the same night and in the same room isn’t called an orgy: it’s called Swing Dance Club.
Check out the greenhouse on the sixth floor of BiHall. Plants are great friends, especially the Queen of the Night, whose flower is the most beautiful in sight and scent that I’ve ever encountered. That it blooms at night for only one night significantly adds to its allure. It blooms in the summer (yes, spend a summer here), and you might catch it in September.
Intend to go abroad? I didn’t study abroad, but I spent a summer in Puerto Jiménez, Costa Rica, a place that I now consider home. If you’re interested in extreme biodiversity and the rest of the “pura vida” culture, talk to me and/or check out livetheosa.com.
Miscellaneous words. I don’t like the word advice; you have to figure things out for yourself. However, here’s some perspective I can offer for your college experience: (1) Don’t pursue the practical over the passion — I learned the hard way. (2) Embrace community (e.g., get to know staff members, be an FYC [but only if you have the time and heart]). (3) You can learn more from your peers than from your professors. We’re limited to the number of classes we can take but not to the number of conversations we can have.
I hope to have many conversations with many of you.
Clear skies,
J. Putko
“[Astronomy] underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another — and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.” – Carl Sagen
Written by JOSEPH PUTKO '13 of The Big Bang
(01/23/13 7:11pm)
As human beings, we desire privacy in our sex lives. Originally an evolutionary imperative, this drive persists in modern society. We lock doors. We close shades. We turn up the music. As college students, however, communal living often thwarts this need. Dorms are shared spaces in which we temporarily reserve small, sterile rooms, and this situation results in the compulsory sharing of intimate moments. That cute girl down the hall will inevitably hear you poop. The sweet guy who lives next door will eventually see you in your pajamas. Sex, however, serves as the most intimate experience we share inadvertently with our dorm mates. Three issues epitomize sexual conundrums facing dorm-dwellers: the practice of sexile, coital noise and shower sex.
My freshman year, I lived in a diminutive double in Battell. Luckily, my roommate and I became fast friends. We shared everything: academic woes, social discomfort, Proctor crushes, et cetera. No matter how close we became, however, when it came to sex, neither of us wanted to share the experience completely. As a result, we practiced sexile, as most roommates do. Despite its ubiquity, the practice of sexile made me feel guilty.
Ultimately, the decision to place my sexual pleasure over her desire to return home seemed selfish. When living in a shared space, no one has the right to monopolize the room. However, as humans, most of us desire sex, and sexile becomes necessary. The key is to act courteously. In the end, jeopardizing a roommate relationship yields far worse consequences than missing an opportunity for hanky panky.
Another sexual obstacle in communal living is sound. Whether you’re a heavy breather, a bed squeaker or a screamer, the sound of your sexcapades has most likely leaked at some point. In the moment, those breathy moans are sexy and exhilarating. After the fact, however, when the embarrassment that your neighbors listened in begins, they seem less wise. Or, perhaps, you’re never the perpetrator, but only the punished. Nothing quite beats lying awake at night, listening to the girl next door enjoy herself. Perhaps it turns you on, or perhaps it reminds you that you aren’t getting any. Either way, the noise is just another way we dorm-dwellers share in sex, and it can only be avoided through muffling your moans or plugging your ears. Some noise, like bed squeaking, is inevitable. Like the practice of sexile, however, shaking the rafters with your sexual prowess is rude. My advice: keep the volume down and have fun trying to contain your screams.
Shower sex serves as my final coital conundrum in dorm life. Personally, I think pleasurable shower sex is a total myth. Slippery surfaces plus running water yield a fatal combination: a dearth of leverage and an absence of natural lubrication. Even if these challenges are surmounted, when using a shared bathroom, shower sex still poses serious difficulties. The opportunity for privacy is negligible to nil. You should feel lucky to find a curtain that closes fully, let alone a door that locks. Plus, the dual wet walk down the hallway with your partner serves as the ultimate walk of shame. If you can find real privacy (Forrest handicap bathrooms), then go for it. Otherwise, you might want to choose a different sexual enterprise.
Sex in dorms proves challenging, but I by no means want to discourage a good romp. Hopefully these hints prove helpful in your pursuit of fornication. Good luck living and loving.
(01/17/13 6:49am)
On Monday, Jan. 14, a solo performance titled MYethiOPIA ran in the Kevin P. Mahaney ’84 Center for the Arts. The performance was written and performed by Burlington-born David Schein.
It was based on his experiences forming and directing the Awassa AIDS Education Circus (now called One Love HIV/AIDS Awareness Theater) with a troupe of street kids in Southern Ethiopia.
These children use gymnastics to deliver messages about HIV/AIDS awareness, and promote the idea of safe sex and information about how HIV/AIDS spreads. MYethiOPIA revolved around the events leading up to Schein’s meeting the troupe as well as a “condom riot” that threatens the company.
Schein started out by singing a song about children begging for money in Ethiopia.
As part of the song, the children noted that the cost of his safari boots could buy three months of food. Schein would later bookend his performance with a reprise of this song.
Afterward, Schein painted a picture of one of his circus performances. He was trying to hold off an audience riot when one of his partners threw a handful of condoms into the crowd, causing even more chaos. Schein imagined the horrors of Ethiopian jail should he be convicted of inciting the riot.
In order to give some backstory to the riot, Schein then launched into his story of how he arrived in Ethiopia in the first place.
A theater teacher in the Chicago projects, Schein was offered the Ethiopia gig in 2002 through a circuitous series of events. On his way to Ethiopia, he met up with an old friend in Frankfurt, Germany.
Schein described an odd, almost dreamlike experience where they went to a whorehouse, but nothing came of it.
They then go to Nuremberg and visit the old stadium where Hitler gave his famous speech. Finally, after all this travel, Schein and his German friend head off to Ethiopia.
Upon meeting his troupe, Schein immediately hits it off with the kids, who range in age from five to 18 years old.
They create a show to promote AIDS awareness, complete with karate and flips and a giant puppet called Mr. AIDS.
The children defeat Mr. AIDS by throwing condoms at him, representative of how safe sex and access to testing can help prevent the spread of the disease.
After a couple weeks of rehearsals, the troupe sets off for a large marketplace where they will perform three shows.
The first show turns into the riot mentioned at the beginning of the performance. But after a fortuitous stroke of inspiration, Schein is able to save the show and calm down the audience.
The troupe then moves on to perform the other two shows, and Schein returns to America a few days later. Ever since, Schein has been tied to his troupe and stills stays in communication.
He has seen it undergo changes as old members leave and new members join.
Schein’s performance was earnest and unique. The one-man show combined song, prose and Schein’s own personality.
Though Schein didn’t act out every little detail, it was this vagueness that allowed the imagination to roam. It was easy to imagine Schein holding back rioting audience members, and he made it so easy to visualize his troupe flipping and punching and vanquishing Mr. AIDS.
Schein has performed MYethiOPIA in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Minnesota, Vermont and Chicago. His performance at the College was sponsored by the Department of Theater.
(01/17/13 6:41am)
Imagine an acting technique so extreme that it took all those who used it to an entirely new level, a technique designed to inject even the smallest role with a dose of sex, violence and death. Such a technique exists, and is known as “The Approach.” It was created by acting instructor Stella Burden, and combines “risk-based rituals” as well as various western acting methods. “The Approach,” known among some circles as “the most dangerous acting technique in the world,” is also the subject the upcoming theatrical performance of The Method Gun.
The Method Gun will be performed at College by an acting troupe known as The Rude Mechanicals (or The Rude Mechs, for short) at 8 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 18 and 19, at the Seeler Studio Theatre in the Kevin P. Mahaney ’84 Center for the Arts.
Tickets will be $20 for Middlebury ID holders and $6 for students.
The Rude Mechs are an Austin, Texas-based 28-person acting company that according to that has been dubbed by the New York Times as one of theater companies in the United States “making theater that matters.”
The Rude Mechs has been the recipient of over 180 combined nominations and awards for their various works and has been given two off-Broadway premieres and have performed in various well-known national venues such as the Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis, the Wexner Center in Ohio and Woolly Mammoth in Washington, D.C.
The play will be based on various journals and texts of Burden’s acting company of the past. The Method Gun will be exploring the last months of Burden’s acting company rehearsing an enactment of Tennessee’s Williams’ classic drama A Streetcar Named Desire, this rehearsal was the culmination of nine years of production time.
According to the Rude Mechs’ press release, the “diaries and letters from actors in the company express a sense of desperation, inadequacy and frustration inherent to the process of creating meaningful work for the stage and in everyday life.”
In addition to their performances of The Method Gun the Rude Mechs will also participate in a week-long residency of workshops which will be available to students.
(12/05/12 10:53pm)
University of Virginia Student Dies During Semester at Sea (The Huffington Post)
Casey Schulman, 22, of the University of Virginia (UVA), died tragically on Saturday, Dec. 1 in a tragic boating accident while studying with the “Semester at Sea” program. Schulman and some friends were snorkeling off of a boat near the island of Dominica in the Caribbean when the driver of the boat backed over Schulman. She sustained fatal injuries and was declared dead at a local hospital.
The MV Explorer, the ship Schulman was aboard during her semester at sea, held a memorial service on Sunday, Dec. 2. A close friend, Katie Dorset, spoke about her friend saying she was “the only person I’ve ever known whose smile could actually light up an entire room.”
UVA’s Vice President and Chief Student Affairs Officer Patricia Lampkin released a statement from the university saying, “Casey Schulman’s death is a cause of much sadness at the University. She was an exceptionally bright light — both in and outside the classroom — and she will long be remembered as a vibrant member of our community.”
Hip-hop Icon Names Visiting Scholar at Cornell University (The Huffington Post)
Cornell University has invited DJ Africa Bambaataa to serve as a visiting scholar at the prestigious Ivy League institution for a three-year term. Baambatta, a renowned social activist, electronic music pioneer and influential DJ will join the ranks of prominent hip hop artists who have taken time away from their musical careers to teach at prominent institutions of higher education. This year, New York University asked ?uestlove to teach a two-credit music course, and Swizz Beatz to serve as the school’s producer in residence for the Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music at the Tisch School of the Arts. Though many are pleased to see the inclusion of such prominent hip-hop artists amongst the faculty of many of the United State’s top institutions, others have wondered about the accessibility of these classes for those with lower economic status.
Harvard Approves Student Group Supporting Kinky Sex (The Harvard Crimson)
On Nov. 30, Harvard University approved an on-campus student organization for students with a shared affinity for kinky sex, called Harvard College Munch. The group’s mission statement characterizes itself as a “forum for students interested in alternative sexualities to explore their identities and develop a community with their peers.” Formal recognition by the university allows the group to receive grants, post campus notices and use campus meeting spaces. The group, which already counts 30 student members, acknowledges that kink is often associated with bondage, dominance and submission, but does not seek to define kinky sexual behavior and “accepts students with any kinky interest,” according to the group’s constitution. One club member explained that many students feel uncomfortable discussing their sexual practices with some people for fear of being judged, and that the group provides students with the help they need from people who are educated about the kink community.
(11/29/12 1:57am)
My first kiss almost caused mutual, spontaneous combustion. The pent of desire coursing through my veins bubbled to the surface and I completely lost control. Suddenly, everything was wet and hot and desperate. My desperation occurred due to sexting. My first boyfriend and I narrated our sexual exploration via our flip phones constantly. Long before laying our lips against each other’s mouths, we had meticulously discussed our sexual fantasies. I offered him titillating details of my shower activities. He told me what he wanted to do to me after school in the band room. We exchanged innumerable descriptions of our bodies and our desires, building insurmountable tension and feverish need.
I broke up with that boyfriend long ago, but my practice of sexting persists. A victim of multiple long-distance relationships, sometimes using technology to express desire proved necessary. Other times, sending naughty texts and messages was just fun. The forbidden condition of the activity and its quality of instant gratification fuels my fantasies and adds another layer of excitement to my sex life. However, I find the larger movement to which sexting belongs – that of instantaneous communication – worrisome.
Generation Z, often called the Facebook generation, communicates more than any other age group. We text, email, message, call, Snap Chat, BBM, iMessage, FaceTime, IM, Skype. The mediums are endless. Our multilayered, technologically-charged communication extends into our sex lives. Even when I’m living in the same building as my significant other, I text him three or four times a day, not to mention email, Facebook and phone calls. Most of this communication barely moves past content as shallow as “Hey, how are you?” Other texts might get steamy, even though I could just as easily go say the content of my messages and get a physical rather than textual response. Technology proves even more powerful at the beginning of relationships. A thorough Facebook stalk is the first step for any flirtation, even before the relationship matures past Proctor crush status. Next commences the dangerous dance of the textual courtship. The endless exchanges tapped on a keyboard replace first-date conversations. Perhaps once a relationship has progressed into the sexual arena, sexting can launch and titillate both parties while they attempt to do their homework.
Our dependence on technology to communicate our love and lust stems from the fact that virtual communication feels safer than speaking to someone in person. It’s easy to type out and send the reasons why you love his body or where you want her lips, or how you want it from behind. Contrastingly, in the bedroom, in the nude, a real person in front of whom you are vulnerable, might judge you. Whether that person is a crush, a new boyfriend, or the love of your life, that vulnerability exists and is terrifying. Snap Chat, sexting, and IM circumvent that vulnerability, providing the illusion of safety behind a screen.
Failing to accept vulnerability in our love and sex lives sacrifices a huge opportunity. Vulnerability is the bread and butter of exploration. Surmounting it generates confidence and creates closeness between two people. Every email with an invitation for dinner this weekend, every Facebook message suggesting a future date, every text asking if I like it dirty avoids vulnerability. These modes of communication substitute virtual communication for genuine communion. Sexting is fun. I’m not going to stop doing it. But I recognize its dearth of power in comparison to real-life, in-person sexual experience. At best, sexting and virtual communication functions as a supplement, at worst, it’s a crutch. Avoid the protective screen. Explore your sexuality in the flesh.
(11/29/12 1:56am)
“Celebrity is more than just fluff,” as Assistant Professor of Sociology and Athropology Rebecca Tiger put it. In fact, Tiger explained, “celebrity is an important identity in contemporary society; not a person or a thing, but a symbolic system we interact around.” Her class, aptly titled “Celebrity,” explores the definition and influence of celebrity in the U.S.
Students in Tiger’s class, which was taught last spring, were tasked with choosing a particular celebrity to follow throughout the term. Jordie Ricigliano ’12.5 picked Lana Del Rey; she followed the artist’s official Twitter and regularly checked relevant gossip blogs.
“By the end of the semester, I felt oddly close to Lizzy. I even called her by her real name, Elizabeth Grant.” Ricigliano confessed, “I found that over the course of the semester, I too was becoming obsessed.” Other students followed famous athletes or politicians; one chose a YouTube star.
This “celebrity stalking” helped students participate in as well as understand the phenomenon of celebrity surveillance and the importance of celebrity in American society. “All of us are affected by celebrity culture even when we say we don’t pay attention to it,” said Tiger, “It matters and is worthy of analytical and theoretical scrutiny.”
Tiger first discovered the power of celebrity when she studied drug-use in school celebrity gossip sites were her diversion. On blogs she visited, Tiger began to notice discussions of drugs and addiction — topics relevant to many young stars like Amy Winehouse and Lindsay Lohan.
“What happens is that [using these sites], people start to construct ideas about drugs and addiction that are different from what scientists give us,” explained Tiger, “If you just see celebrity as a matter of pop culture you’ll miss a lot of more important social issues.”
The class explored topics like the evolution of celebrity, and its debatable transformation into a quasi-religion. It is a common language that builds community. Students brought magazines into class and dissected them, looking for themes. They learned about creation of the “micro-celebrity” and discussed whether YouTube allowed for democratization of celebrity. The class skyped with a writer for Sports Illustrated who had covered the Tiger Woods sex scandal.
“I can never read People Magazine the same way again, nor watch a reality show without thinking, ‘am I watching this in order to feel collective effervescence within an alienated capitalistic hegemony?’” Ricigliano said. “It was one of those classes that you find yourself talking about over the dinner table with your friends and on the phone with family — one of those classes you just keep revisiting in other times in your life, probably because it is so relevant to your life.”
(11/28/12 11:55pm)
As an enthusiastic blog-following liberal feminist, I welcome new theories that challenge traditional assumptions about men and women’s sexual “natures.” I’m naturally drawn to critiques of the stereotypical view that women seek meaningful relationships while men look only for sexual pleasure. I was therefore intrigued when Hanna Rosin provocatively questioned the tired tropes about the American college “hookup culture” as bad for women in her September Atlantic article “Boys on the Side,” instead claiming that we should understand the hookup culture as an “engine of female progress” — one that empowers women sexually and socially. I was eager to believe her argument that the hookup culture is “bound up with everything that’s fabulous about being a young woman in 2012 — the freedom, the confidence, the knowledge that you can always depend on yourself.” I celebrated Jezebel’s headline that “Finally, Someone Says It: Hookup Culture Is Good for Women.” And I was thrilled by the idea that today’s college women have ushered in a new age of independence and control, a radical shift from the male-dominated social scene of generations before.
As much as I wanted to wholeheartedly subscribe to Rosin’s claims, however, I’m afraid I cannot. After sifting through the Middlebury College archives in preparation for the Women’s and Gender Studies (WAGS) program’s 21st anniversary, I discovered that, in reality, our campus has not seen a radical change in its social scene in the past quarter century — aside from the important shift from fraternities to social houses. Instead, there continues to be an alarming disconnect between how women are treated on weekday mornings in the classroom and on weekend nights in the basements of social houses.
In my search through the Status of Women at Middlebury reports, I found numerous comments like this one, from 1990: “Academically, the status of women is good. They are taken seriously by faculty and equal to men. Socially, though, women are still second class citizens.” Almost two decades later, in a 2008 report, students echoed this same sentiment: “Women are treated equally by the school in terms of athletics and academics. It is more the social experiences where women are being discriminated against,” one student observed. In 2008, numerous students commented on the “wholly unhealthy and disgustingly unsafe” party scene and the “aggressive, violent and very dangerous” sexual atmosphere. Another revealed the pressure she felt to have sex with a man “simply because he took what I was wearing, and my attempts to be polite, to mean that I wanted to hook up with him. I was made to feel like I had been lying, or acting deceitful, and leading him on when I said no.”
While I recognize that Middlebury’s hookup culture is nuanced and evolving — and certainly contains some elements of female sexual control — as a campus, we cannot applaud it uncritically as a triumph of “feminist progress.” True progress, I think, would look different.
If, as Rosin seems to argue, the current hookup culture is so reasonable for women, why is alcohol such a central part of it? As a junior on this campus who has spent numerous weekend nights at social houses and other parties, I know how differently people — including me — act after a few drinks. Alcohol blurs the lines between desire, agency and consent, and we must acknowledge this. Perhaps Rosin’s female empowerment argument would be more convincing in a sober environment, when women and men are fully in control of their choices and actions. It doesn’t resonate as well in a setting that so heavily depends on alcohol as part of its social scene.
Can we really understand — as Cody Gohl ’13 asked in his widely read Middblog post last month titled “Sluts, Whores, Hoes, OH MY!” — the “drunk 18 year-old girl in a bra screaming at the top of her lungs that she’s a whore” as empowerment? Yes, women and men at Middlebury exert agency in dressing and behaving in certain ways, but is this what “liberation” really looks like? I don’t think so.
My larger problem with Rosin’s hookup-culture-as-empowering thesis is her overstatement of how much the larger sexual culture has changed. Even at a relatively enlightened institution like Middlebury, both men and women suggest that a woman’s behavior and dress somehow invites sexual assault. Last year, I overheard one guy say to his friend of a drunken woman in a short skirt, “Man, that girl is gonna get raped tonight.” And just last week, I heard one girl say to another about a third drunken woman, “Geez, is she trying to get raped?”
Indeed, our hookup culture does not grant absolute “freedom” to those involved, but instead continues to foster an often unhealthy and sometimes dangerous environment. Accepting this status quo in the name of “feminist progress” is neither correct nor constructive.
Ultimately, women have made great strides at colleges like Middlebury in the academic and athletic spheres, but we still have a long way to go in the social realm. We’ve moved beyond the simplistic notion that men by nature want sex and women want relationships, but in today’s hookup culture, people still assign sexual behavior to how one dresses and falsely accuse girls of “asking for it” simply due to the length of their skirts. To me, that’s not true empowerment.
(11/14/12 11:26pm)
Alfred Hitchcock and randomized clinical trials seem like two entirely separate topics. The former is considered to be one of the greatest directors of all time, and the latter is necessary to make sure a certain medical treatment is safe and effective. It may seem preposterous to compare the two, but on Friday, Nov. 9, Dr. Richard Legro ’79 gave a lecture on how similar they actually are.
Legro has an illustrious academic and medical history: he went to medical school in Germany, got his clinical degree at Mt. Sinai, did a residency at the University of Pittsburgh and had a fellowship at the University of Southern California. However, during his time at the College, Legro was an English major and did not take any of the pre-med requirements.
Rather, he was fascinated by literature and film.
Legro opened the lecture by asking the audience if they knew who Alfred Hitchcock was. After the laughter died down, Legro explained that his talk would describe why randomized clinical trials are important and what Hitchcock can teach us about clinical trials.
Before diving into the meat of the lecture, Legro first touched upon the misconception that “great art and science are the work of individual geniuses working in solitude.” He noted that we tend to over-romanticize medicine, providing examples of “solo” scientists such as Alexander Fleming, who discovered penicillin. However, no one person achieved these breakthroughs alone — for instance, once penicillin’s use was discovered, there were hundreds of people mass-producing the penicillin mold to extract the antibiotic.
Randomized clinical trials (RCT) decrease biases from both investigators and subjects. The randomization aspect prevents such biases. Legro then explained another reason why RCTs are needed — to “eliminate common but ineffective, established treatments.”
He then delivered the gist of the lecture: RCTs are analogous to films such as Hitchcock’s because they are costly and time intensive, and require planning, expertise and complex interactions between stakeholders. In addition, both films and experimental results can be interpreted in many ways. Legro gave the example of silent movies, where the lines in the dialogue box could change the tone of the moving images from dramatic to satirical. The same can be done with experimental results — the “producers” can choose to show the “audience” what they feel the audience wants to see. He explained that this is not science, but rather, marketing.
Legro gave the example of a hormone treatment for menopause. It was widely advocated based on “perceived health benefits.” However, pharmaceutical companies were advertising this treatment before all of the clinical trials had been completed. Legro made a dark comment: “How could they know [the pros and cons] when the facts weren’t in yet?” Companies were advertising a product that had unknown side effects. Finally, a RCT was done, and found that there were many problems with the hormone treatment, including blood clots, heart disease, breast cancer and dementia. Expectedly, prescriptions decreased.
In addition to the “selling point” aspect, Hitchcock’s films can teach scientists about the importance of cooperation, planning and having a team of experts working in tandem to produce the best results. Legro noted that “scientists must lead trials from conception to completion by developing protocols, analyzing results, presenting and publishing data and publicizing it to colleagues and laypeople.” Also, Hitchcock chose important, captivating themes such as death, love and sex. Legro drew scientific comparisons to these themes: respectively, survival from cancer, infertility treatments and erectile dysfunction, all of which are important to either survival or quality of life. Legro also said that Hitchcock’s films were produced efficiently and swiftly because of all the meticulous planning that went into the storyboarding. By focusing on the planning stages and putting effort into a storyboard — or a scientific protocol — the filming (or experimenting) can go much smoother. Lastly, Hitchcock’s famous MacGuffins (the thing that everyone is chasing after in the movie) also make appearances in the scientific world. Researchers may think they are pursuing one goal, but could end up finding an entirely different result.
At the end of the lecture, Legro encouraged students to think independently and “turn off the internet.” He emphasized the importance of planning and preparation as the keys to realizing project goals. He also made clear that, as scientists or doctors, standing on the “shoulders of giants” is essential to scientific prowess.
Finally, Legro called attention to the success of scientists who build on other people’s work and work with others who are doing great work.
“There is no I in auteur,” he said.
(11/07/12 10:44pm)
I turn off the lights and open my laptop. I begin browsing. What will it be this time. Amateur? Three-way? Anal? It hardly matters. Women scream. Men grunt. Cum sprays across stomachs, backs and faces. Everyone looks miserable. They even cry out in semi-erotic shrieks, as if to indicate their torture.
Don’t get me wrong, the nudity and the visual impact arouse me, but my repulsion supersedes my lust. I begin to worry that the men with whom I engage in real sex watch this theatricality and believe it. Do they think it’s indicative of reality? Do they seek to emulate the techniques it presents? I hope not.
On the other hand, who am I to judge the sexual practices of others? Views to the contrary have allowed laws to prohibit sodomy and oral sex through the present day. Freedom in the bedroom leads to freedom of orientation. In fact, although many studies have attempted to prove causation between the consumption of violent porn and sex crimes, none have succeeded. Furthermore, we can’t regulate sexuality any more than we can legislate morality. Even if I don’t want to be whipped, who am I to impose my preference on another? Besides, pornography is by no means new. It began with the dawn of civilization, starting with the well-endowed Venus of Willendorf from the Stone Age. Since then, examples range from Pompeian wall graffiti to impressionism. Artistic expression is rife with sex. A major change has occurred recently, however the advent of the internet, which has increased the pervasiveness of pornography exponentially, affects our communal sexual psyche.
The genre usually features men pummeling women with oversized members, pulling apart their labial lips to show the now gaping cavity of her vagina or anus. Consistently, the male character chooses cum on the face of his partner. Most porn prioritizes the male orgasm, and often does not feature the woman climaxing. Although some videos feature cunnilingus, its presence is negligible. Fellatio, however, plays a central role in most pornographic episodes. Usually women pepper their ministrations with exclamations such as “you taste so good” or “I want you to fill my mouth” or, my personal favorite, “choke me with your cum.” Anal sex in pornography ranges from rough to abhorrently violent, complete with screaming and tears.
This imagery frightens me. If someone were to try these techniques with me, I would be out of bed, in my clothing and out the door faster than you can say three-way. Perhaps most people recognize that pornography is not indicative of reality. Even so, pornography has implanted and perpetuated new ideas in our collective consciousness. It perpetuates the degradation of women in the bedroom, prioritizing the male orgasm and subjecting women to abuse. Hairlessness in pornography has encouraged an entire industry filled with wax, creams, blades, pain and razor bumps. The popularization of breast and labia augmentation through surgery has increased rapidly in recent years, perhaps due to the comparison of real women’s genitalia to those of actresses.
Pornography is not morally abhorrent, and consenting partners should feel free to partake in whatever satisfies their desires. I am concerned, however, that as a society we are becoming more complacent with sex that moves further away from lovemaking and closer to humping with every click of the mouse. No real-life encounter can live up to the staged performance on your computer screen. Nor should it. The human sexual experience defies props and sets and demands genuine connection. Remember that pornography is not real, vulvas have hair and if a woman screams, you’re probably hurting her. Separate real sex from the fictional fantasies of porn.
(10/31/12 7:10pm)
Most people in the world who look at Middlebury College see a bastion of decency, fairness and social justice. Most people see Middlebury’s continued commitment to carbon neutrality amidst difficult economic conditions as evidence of an exceptional dedication to the future of our planet. Most people see the College’s need-blind admissions policy as both a strong statement in favor of distributive justice and as an effective effort to provide opportunities to students who otherwise would not have them.
As they are so keen on making clear to us, the “Middlebury Radicals” are not most people. Rather than being proud of Middlebury’s commitment to making the world a better place, the Radicals want us to be ashamed of our school. Their anger at Middlebury was evident last week in the falsified press release they emailed. It was evident when they heckled students looking to donate blood several weeks ago in the McCullough Student Center. The Radicals see the core of the College as evil because the institution exists in and perpetuates a political system they wish to do away with: namely Jeffersonian Republicanism. Thus, virtually anything Middlebury does is subject to the Radicals’ intolerant and egomaniacal criticism.
The protest of the American Red Cross, which purported to be about the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) discriminatory policies that prohibit men who have had sex with men (MSM) from donating blood, tells us all we need to know about this radical politics. Let’s ignore the FDA’s argument that because gay men are allegedly 2,000 times more likely to be infected with AIDS than other first-time blood donors, they should be “deferred” (a nice word for prohibited) from donating. Let’s just focus on what the Radicals decided was the appropriate response to a controversial and, due to advances in blood testing, outdated policy. The American Red Cross and its donors do more good in one year than every student group at Middlebury combined has in 213 years. Protesting the Red Cross requires thorough justification and consideration, neither of which is requisite in the Radicals’ platonic conception of “activism.”
It might be possible to justify these protests if a) the participants had made an effort to meet with President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz or Dean of the College Shirley Collado before the Red Cross came to campus and b) if the Red Cross had not announced its opposition to the FDA’s MSM policy back in 2006. But the students chose to forgo any communication with the Offices of the President and the Dean of the College (both of which sympathize with the cause) until the day of their protests, when they left buckets of fake blood in Old Chapel.
Such childish “activism” was taken to new extremes with the falsified press release emailed to the Middlebury community and various media outlets on Oct. 12. That action caused more damage than the blood drive protest. The Office of the President spent several days responding to calls from alums, board members, journalists and parents. A local Vermont news station broadcasted the story and later had to issue a retraction in embarrassment. The Radicals claimed the email was satirical. While they were laughing, many members of the Middlebury and broader Vermont community had their weekends — and more — ruined.
One might pass this sort of behavior off as silly or marginal and thus not worthy of our attention. That would be a mistake. Both the protest of the Red Cross and the falsified press release were carefully planned. The students involved are not shallow, but rather intelligent and deliberate. As such, we must assume that they were fully aware of the potential consequences of their actions. Considering that, we should be seriously concerned. Far from constructively effecting positive change, these students’ actions have hurt members of this community. They greatly upset members of the administration, who seek the same trustful relationships many of us strive to establish on campus, but also students who thought, rightly, that by donating blood they were doing good.
The Radicals’ actions have risked the meaningful progress made by the Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) club. SRI is enacting positive change by working with the Office of the President. That progress has taken time — a dimension radicals, virtually by definition, have no patience for — in part because the student members of SRI have had to prove themselves honorable and serious. By eschewing integrity and sincerity, the falsified press release risked greatly jeopardizing the relationships SRI has built.
There are serious problems in the world and at Middlebury. I, along with many other students on this campus, care deeply about solving them. It is appealing to look at the Radicals and sympathize with their politics. Many well-meaning students may feel compelled to join the cause, which is why the group’s destructive activism must not be dismissed. Because the truth about these radicals is that their priority is neither social justice nor human rights. Their priority is themselves. That unpleasant truth is evidenced by their self-aggrandizement and ruthless demonization of others. The Radicals justify their behavior by falsely suggesting that they understand something the rest of us do not. The truth these radicals — whose ideas, far from being newfound, have been debated since the French Revolution — refuse to acknowledge is that just because most students and faculty do not share their views is not evidence that we lack critical thinking or a commitment to ameliorating suffering around the world.
It is thus ironic that the Radicals should choose go/compassion as the on-campus web shortcut for their blog. Indeed, by forgoing any collaboration with the administration, by disregarding the hurt caused by their destructive conduct and by failing to recognize the potential validity of others’ opinions, the Middlebury Radicals demonstrate an outright bewilderment concerning the true nature of compassion.
Written by HARRY ZIEVE-COHEN '15 of Brooklyn, N.Y.
(10/24/12 8:51pm)
I spotted my Proctor crush across the dance floor. We had met early in the year, but had rarely spoken since. I had stared at him while he picked choice tomatoes from the salad bar and as he drank tea from a glass. Never a mug. Upon catching my eye, he walked over and slid behind me. We began swaying erotically to the music.
While the room literally fogged with the condensation of horny college student sweat, our activities also grew steamy, as I pushed him against the wall and we danced face to face. He grazed my neck with his tongue and lips, occasionally nibbling on my ear. We gyrated in unison.
I felt pleased that I had finally taken this “relationship” to the next level, transforming an acquaintance into a potential lover.
As I enjoyed the adrenaline and arousal coursing through my veins I wondered what the rest of the evening would hold, contemplating taking him back to my room. As I considered the possibility, he leaned down and whispered in my ear.
“Hey, what’s your name?”
At first, I chided him for having forgotten. I reminded him of past conversations we had enjoyed and where we had met. He looked at me blankly. Slowly, I came to the realization that he had not misplaced my name. He truly thought that we had never met.
As this epiphany dawned, I pushed him away. I felt repulsed that he had danced so erotically with someone who he perceived to be a total stranger.
My disgust grimaced my face as I left the party, and it didn’t wear off for weeks. In retrospect, however, my actions mirrored his. I remembered his name, but I hardly knew him. We had established no level of intimacy or even comfort between ourselves. In any other context, our dancing habits would have suggested sensuality, intimacy, perhaps even love. But on a college campus, we were merely dancing.
When I discovered that my Proctor-crush-turned-dance-date viewed me merely as a nameless partner in lust, I felt dismayed. That night, we both chose the security of a dark room, loud music and a crowd of strangers over the development of intimacy.
Perhaps some people view sex with strangers as evidence of liberation. I view it as a lost opportunity. Sex is fun almost any way you do it, but so much of the power and pleasure of sex comes from connection with a partner. I only truly feel comfortable asking for what I want with someone I know.
It’s hard to suggest to a stranger that he change his angle or perhaps consider using his tongue less like a battering ram. To get what you want in bed, you need to get to know your lover. When I know the guy with whom I am naked, my exposure is fun, exhilarating, not violating. Sex is the ultimate form of communication and honesty. We cannot expect to fulfill its potential with strangers.
Our campus overflows with sexual tension and one-night stands. Under the influence of crowd mentality, cheap liquor and high hormonal levels, sex often enters the public sphere and seems to exist solely as a casual pastime. Our communal decision to bring sex into public and our reluctance to pursue anything more than a single night of lust evidences our discomfort with true intimacy.
Ultimately, I hope the ideas in my column get you laid and help you have fun while you do it. By speaking openly about sex, this column can also motivate our quest for communication, honesty and intimacy.
(10/10/12 10:56pm)
Before his verse on that Justin Beiber song “Baby,” Ludacris laid down one of the hottest and most forgotten records of 2003, called simply, “Chicken-n-Beer.”
This title has stuck with me for some reason, as has the album cover, a lovely image alluding to sex, fried chicken and generic American beer — essentially a celebration of some of the chief things that make America great: faster and cheaper meat than ever before and beer that costs much less that bottled water by the ounce. If that isn’t the dream, I don’t know what is.
Unfortunately, this bounty of meat and beer comes from fossil fuels, cornfields and Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), all of which contribute to extreme environmental degradation, as well as to the general misery of the humans and animals needed to turn a mountain of corn into a much smaller mountain of McDoubles and Quarter Pounders.
For more information, I’ve had to venture outside of the rap game toward authors like Michael Pollan who understand some basic truth about everyone’s favorite foods: our meat is fed by corn, which makes the animals extremely sick, and in turn wrecks our health because corn feed alters balances of omega 3 versus omega 6, while adding more trans and saturated fats. Coors Light, and even the hipsters’ beloved PBR, is essentially water, corn alcohol and that elusive taste of hops coming together in a drinkable can, ready to take care-free first-years by surprise as those 15 pounds start developing.
While this may seem rather obvious, the effects go well beyond the remunerative fitness bars and days of rabbit-like feeding: the collective waistline of America is growing at an alarming rate, with obesity set, according to Harvard researchers, to crest 42 percent by 2050 if we keep eating and living as we do.
This might seem surprising, given that Middlebury’s obesity rate is practically non-existent, owing in large part to the wealth, education and proximity to real food that we enjoy, but this national trend towards obesity has everything to do with us.
In terms of direct economic effect, it isn’t hard to imagine the societal costs of supporting 42 percent of Americans who are chronically ill and less able to work: efficiency and production will decrease while hospital bills soar, raising healthcare costs and other revenue requirements to sustain a country full of sick, low-functioning people.
This scenario proves that combating obesity is something we should have an interest in, which includes our culpability in furthering — and not fighting — a food system driving heart attacks and diabetes through the roof. (The Center for Disease Control and Prevention predicts as many as one in three Americans will have diabetes by 2050).
While some have no one to blame but themselves for their weight problems, it is not the majority who are constrained by financial and geographic access to real food. The bottom line for millions of Americans who struggle with obesity is that they don’t have grocery stores, much less dining halls, and have to rely on some combination of Midd Express and the Grill for sustenance. I don’t think even Ludacris would choose that.
The problem is that our food system has been shaped over the last 40 years to serve the wealthy few while impoverishing those it purports to serve: the consumers. People aren’t making bad decisions with how they eat; convenient-stores and supermarkets are full of bad decisions, rigged by corn subsidies that make the unhealthy calories cheap and the healthy calories comparative luxuries.
My challenge, and one that I offer to you, is to revolutionize the way we live — starting with your own caloric consumption.
Though it’s often not popular, I want to say, “try becoming a vegetarian!” as it makes moral and economic sense. But if you aren’t willing to sacrifice taste, as I am not, simply stop eating the meat that is killing us: go local. Just because there are no golden arches doesn’t mean that a burger at Ross is all that different from a burger at McDonald’s. An animal lived a terrible life knee-deep in its own feces, eating corn its body can’t process properly, resulting in a burger more reliant on antibiotics.
These moral and physical atrocities we’ve accepted as a part of life should not be the way we run our bodies. Let’s not be the first generation to die younger than our parents. Our country is sick, and we are the ones who will either alter this trend or continue to kill and further impoverish the poor in the U.S. and around the world. Our impact can be immense.
Who knows, maybe one day Ludacris will release “Quinoa and Kambucha.” What glorious album art that would make.
(10/10/12 10:51pm)
We are the co-chairs of the Middlebury Open Queer Alliance, each affected personally and practically by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) bans enforced at American Red Cross blood drives. The accounts below are our personal reflections.
Petr Knor ’15:
Each of us has approximately five liters of blood. I am sorry to those who don’t understand liters, but in a country where the Red Cross places Oman, Nigeria and the U.K. into the same group, nobody cares about distinction. Most of us need those five liters to wake up in the mornings. Nobody has found a substitute for this magical liquid, so we rely on blood from others.
In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration defines who can donate blood. Have you had gay sex? Or had sex with a man who did? Gotten a tattoo in the past year? Lived in the U.K. and just in London? You are too dangerous. It doesn’t matter that all blood gets screened, that only eight million Americans donate, that most are over 50 and that the demand for blood increases annually by six percent. There are big blood shortages. The FDA still follows a policy from the 1980s when HIV testing almost didn’t exist. It doesn’t matter that HIV testing is almost 99.9 percent accurate. But there is some hope. In June 2012, 64 U.S. legislators sent a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services. For me, it is not just about morals and discrimination. It’s about being rational. We need gay men to donate blood — they would bring some 89,000 donations annually. I bet you would rather live with some gay blood in your body than sleep forever. We need gay men because we fear needles.
Emma Ashby ’13:
Middlebury has a commitment to international students, as we students are many times reminded: “Sixty percent of Middlebury students study abroad;” “We are a globally-minded school;” “we have civilization requirements.” Then what are we saying to those who have lived in one of the eight Sub-Saharan countries that the Red Cross refuses blood from? We promote the on-campus activities of those who put a blanket ban on donations from those who have traveled to or are “immigrating from … areas with a risk of malaria,” as well as stepped foot into a country that has ever fried a mad-cow burger. What right does the Red Cross have to lump together England, Northern Ireland, Gibraltar, Oman, Turkey and European countries, as if they were all the same size or had the same characteristics? And, what right do we have to bring in an activity promoted as a moral responsibility of college students, but that shuns all those who took seriously Middlebury’s urging to see the world?
The call for blood does not fall under “recruitment,” and instead is put into a grey category under Middlebury’s handbook, which forbids discrimination. Certainly, no one could argue that blood donation is not a worthwhile cause. But we, as a community, need to seriously consider how the Red Cross defines “good” versus “unworthy” blood donors. Is it fair to bring onto our campus, a place we have worked so hard to make into a haven of equal opportunity, this sort of inherently hierarchical system?
An Anonymous Member of MOQA:
I am a blood donor. I am also a gay man. When I or any out gay man walks into a blood drive, all our friends, co-workers, professors and acquaintances present immediately know one of two potential truths about us: either we are lying to the American Red Cross in order to donate, or our sex lives are very … solitary. I cannot help but look around McCullough and wonder what people are thinking about me while I donate. I see students in similar positions to myself — gay men, international students from banned countries and others. What assumptions are being made about them? Thanks to the FDA ban on donations from these large swaths of the Middlebury community, the decision to donate becomes one of opting out of helping people in need or revealing your personal history to all present who know you.
In my four years at Middlebury, administrators and the Commons Councils who organize blood drives have never once to my knowledge publicly addressed the discriminatory nature of the FDA ban. While our non-discrimination statement only applies to extracurricular activities and on-campus recruiters, I challenge anyone to argue that Middlebury is not breaking with an expressed set of values every time the American Red Cross truck pulls onto campus. I am not advocating that we ban blood drives — this punishes people who need donations. But our community needs to acknowledge the decision to overrule its respect for diversity for the sake of donating blood. We owe it to every potential donor barred by the FDA.
Written by members of the MIDDLEBURY OPEN QUEER ALLIANCE
(10/10/12 10:43pm)
Last Wednesday, Atwater Commons hosted its annual American Red Cross blood drive in McCullough Social Space. While waiting to donate, I encountered a friend who was indefinitely deferred from donating blood — not because of anemia or traveling abroad — but because of his sexual behavior. His deferral is based on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s clause that excludes homosexual men who have had sexual contact with another homosexual male since the year 1977 from donating blood. The deferral sheet he received attributed the grounds for deferral to “high-risk sexual behavior.”
The FDA’s clause aimed to control the HIV/AIDS breakout, which occurred largely among gay men in the 1980’s. Prior to the 1990’s, the FDA did not screen blood donors, causing many patients who received blood transfusions to become infected with hepatitis and HIV/AIDS. To cover its own legal and medical bases, the FDA continues to use this policy.
Today, this clause is scientifically irrelevant, outdated and unfair. It implies that homosexual intercourse is somehow more risky than heterosexual intercourse, assuming that a gay man in a monogamous relationship engages in “riskier behavior” than a heterosexual woman having unprotected sex with multiple partners. This notion cannot be tolerated.
As a homosexual male who has had sexual contact with another man since 1977, I still choose to donate blood. I recognize that the clause against gay men is antiquated and inappropriate, but I still believe blood donation is important. Of the 37 percent of the population eligible to donate blood, only 10 percent chooses to do so. In addition, 4.5 million people need donated blood each year, one in seven hospital patients require blood transfusions, and each donated pint can save up to three lives, according to America’s Blood Center. Last summer was the Red Cross’s record low of blood donation, further highlighting their need to include groups such as healthy homosexual men.
While donating, I felt a little morally … jumbled. On one hand, I knew I was doing something necessary and right, but on the other, I felt uneasy about lying, the exclusion of my friend and donating to an organization that views my blood as unclean. I spoke with one of the American Red Cross employees, whom I had met last year, about the gay male clause and what happened to my friend. He was very sympathetic, and said that he too is frustrated by it; he has written letters to the FDA encouraging them to remove the clause and mentioned that some of the employees at the drive were homosexual. The most backward part, he said, was that if you are a woman who has had sexual contact with a gay male since 1977, you are only deferred from donating for one year, rather than indefinitely. “It’s the federal government, you know?” he told me. “If you want any change to happen, whether it be concerning the environment, or gender and sexuality issues, it’s going to take years before anything happens.” He further pointed out that the screening surveys are hetero-normative, providing options on sexual-preference questions such as “I am female” or “I am male,” to skip a question, effectively ignoring LGBTQ, gender-variant and transsexual people.
It is unfair for the FDA to exclude healthy and eligible donors on the basis of sexual orientation and expression. There are many avenues of action and response. I choose to lie and donate, knowing my blood will go to someone in need. Some choose to go into drives and get officially deferred, some self-defer and others, like a friend from home, shout while walking past Red Cross tables “Sorry I can’t donate … I just had really hot sex with my boyfriend this morning!” We must respect any of these avenues, but must not ignore the need to take action. I have written letters to the FDA and the Red Cross promoting homosexual eligibility to donate blood.
I must also recognize the important activism of Jay Saper ’13 and Melian Radu ’13, who staged a “Blood Dump” in which they asked students to dump fake blood deemed unfit for donation. Sam Koplinka-Loehr ’13, in solidarity with Saper and Radu, donated blood dressed in drag. These three students met with President of the College Ronald D. Leibowitz, presented the “Blood Dump” visual and encouraged him to write a letter to the FDA Commissioner expressing his disapproval for such a clause and stressing the importance of its removal. I encourage President Leibowitz to follow through with this letter in order to promote the advancement of practices that are relevant to current societal context.
As members of an institution with a policy of nondiscrimination based on “sex, sexual orientation and gender identity or expression,” we must be aware of this paradox. By labeling certain bodies as “impure”, a different group is simultaneously labeled as “pure.” This binary is dangerous — it reinforces stereotypes that are the basis for homophobia, hate-crimes and societal intolerance. The Middlebury community is known to be extremely informed, intelligent and globally minded. We must use our voices to express the need for change when an organization comes onto our campus but does not reflect the values of our community. If we seek to achieve social justice and equality in our community and beyond, we cannot be blind to this shameful injustice.
Written by DAVID YEDID ’15, from Port Washington, N.Y.
