Chicano Caucus criticized for photos

Vol. CXXXVIII—No. 25
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
columbiaspectator.com
Chicano Caucus
criticized for photos
Club releases second statement
in response to photo backlash
BY ELIZABETH SEDRAN
Spectator Senior Staff Writer
JUSTIN CHAN / SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
PIPELINE PROTEST
|
Michael Greenberg and Iliana Salazar-Dodge, both CC ’16, will protest the Keystone XL pipeline this weekend.
Students to protest oil pipeline in Washington
BY LUKE BARNES
Spectator Senior Staff Writer
Two Columbia students are
planning to travel to Washington,
D.C. this weekend to protest
against the Keystone XL pipeline.
The students will participate
in the XL DISSENT event, organized by students from 49 colleges
and universities, on March 2 to call
upon President Barack Obama,
CC ’83, to reject the northern leg
of the Keystone XL pipeline, an oil
pipeline that runs from Western
Canada to the United States.
The protest will begin at
Georgetown’s campus and end
with a sit-in outside the White
House on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Michael Greenberg, CC ’16,
started organizing Columbia’s
contingent for the march last
year after working for the environmental action group 350.org,
a nonprofit that looks to reduce
the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere.
Greenberg said that his work
for 350.org enabled him to connect with environmental activists at other colleges and universities to help organize the
XL DISSENT event and build a
network of DISSENT activists on
Columbia’s campus.
“We’re starting at Georgetown
because that’s where Obama’s
[June 2013] climate speech was
held,” Greenberg said. “We want
to hold him accountable to protect future generations.”
The march is intended to end
at the White House for a sit-in.
D.C. municipal law, however,
prohibits protests in front of the
White House. Greenberg said
that anyone participating in the
event risks arrest as well as a fine.
“They have a range of charges
they can bring, such as disobeying an officer,” Greenberg said.
“Initially, it looked like it was going to be arrest and a $100 fine,
but now it looks more like $50.”
“My parents weren’t thrilled,
but they accepted that they
weren’t changing my mind,”
Greenberg added.
Iliana Salazar-Dodge, CC ’16,
will travel to D.C. along with
Greenberg for the protest.
“We were both at the [January
2013] Hybrid rally when Obama
was playing golf with oil executives,” Salazar-Dodge said. “He
has no choice but to pay attention this time.”
Both Greenberg and SalazarDodge passionately emphasized
the importance of addressing climate change, and said that doing
so wouldn’t come at the expense
of short-term energy security.
“I believe sincerely that climate change is probably the most
pressing issue that humanity is
facing,” Salazar-Dodge said. “It
Locals worried rock salt harmful to dogs
BY CHANNING PREND AND
EVA KALIKOFF
Spectator Senior Staff Writer
Puppy paws on the Upper West
Side may have a little extra protection next winter.
According to pet owners, the
rock salt used by the city and residents to help melt snow on the
sidewalk poses problems for the
dogs’ health.
Now, Community Board 7 is
looking to potentially have brownstones and small businesses use a
healthier alternative to rock salt on
city sidewalks.
“They dump massive amounts
of salt and then just leave it there,”
Annie Gross, who was walking her
pup on Riverside Park on Monday,
said. “The dogs’ paws get dry
and cracked and it can cause an
infection.”
The biggest problem, according to locals, is the amount of salt
crystals used and their uneven distribution on the sidewalks.
“The park especially does a
bad job of distributing the crystals evenly, and the disposal is erratic,” Liz Irwin, a dog owner and
Columbia professor of classics,
said. “I get it though. They only
want to do it once, and they don’t
want to be liable if someone falls.”
Elizabeth Caputo, president
of CB7, first introduced the issue
at the transportation committee meeting on Feb. 11. She told
Spectator on Monday that the issue goes beyond just dogs’ paws.
“It’s less about the dog issue. It’s
more about the environmental issues going on in Riverside Park,”
Caputo said. “A lot of the salt definitely damages the pavement.”
Caputo added that she has been
doing informal research at pet
SEE PUPPIES, page 2
YUE BEN / SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
PAWS OFF
|
Locals said that the rock salt used on the sidewalks could be harmful to their dogs.
even encompasses racial issues,
generational issues, and one
generation is benefitting at the
future’s expense.”
“It’s a false dichotomy between relying on Middle Eastern
oil and taking our own national
lands and drilling on them,”
Greenberg said. “The amount of
potential that renewable energy
has is enormous, and it’s perfectly
possible to have both energy independence and clean energy.”
Salazar-Dodge also emphasized that next week’s march
had been planned well in advance, and that they were willing to take the risks that the sit-in
would bring.
“People are going to think
that we’re college students with
too much time on our hands,
but that’s not the case,” SalazarDodge noted. “I’ve thought about
SEE DIVEST, page 2
After the Chicano Caucus released a statement criticizing
Kappa Alpha Theta sisters for
dressing up as other nationalities
at an Olympics-themed mixer
this weekend, Bwog published
photos on Monday that showed
students posing with stereotypically Mexican-themed cutouts at
a Chicano Caucus station at Glass
House Rocks.
The photos, which were posted on the Chicano Caucus’ public Facebook page, show students
holding up posters with face cutouts painted with images of a man
wearing a sombrero and a woman
with a flower in her hair. The students posing with the male cutout
also wore mustaches.
The Bwog post read, “While
the actions aren’t equivalent and
the group has the right to do whatever it wants with its culture, we
can’t help but think that Chicano
Caucus may have been perpetuating ‘the stereotype of the sombrero-wearing Mexican-American
migrant worker’ with this one.”
Many comments on the Bwog
post expressed similar sentiments as the post, calling Chicano
Caucus hypocritical.
The Chicano Caucus executive
board released a statement early
Tuesday morning apologizing for
any offense the cutouts may have
caused but reiterating its earlier
call for further discussion on cultural appropriation.
“It is regrettable that only one
of the many aspects we sought to
share was singled out, neglecting
the overarching theme. However,
our event at Glass House Rocks
was far from a trivial representation of our Mexican heritage; it
was a means through which we
paid tribute to one of the many
cultures within Mexico, combating the very issue of cultural
unawareness. We attempted to
Students concerned over
changes to credit policies
BY EMMA BOGLER
Spectator Senior Staff Writer
Though students in Columbia
College, the School of Engineering
and Applied Science, and the
School of General Studies will no
longer be able to receive registration credit for internships, Kathryn
Yatrakis, dean of academic affairs
for Columbia College, said that
she doesn’t think it will affect
students’ opportunities to secure
internships.
Columbia Student Advising
announced the change on Friday,
along with another policy change
that will now allow students in
Columbia College to withdraw
from a non-Core course until the
11th week of the semester.
In the email announcing the
change, Yatrakis said that the new
policy regarding registration credit for internships “is one adopted
by many of our peer institutions
and also is in accordance with the
Fair Labor Standards Act and NY
State’s Minimum Wage Act and
Wage Orders.”
“There is no doubt that internships can be valuable experiences
for students seeking an introduction to a range of careers and professional cultures,” Yatrakis said.
“However, we expect companies
to appropriately compensate students for work performed during
internships.”
“As far as I know, the reasoning behind the decision was that
students performing work should
be provided with appropriate compensation for that work,” Nora
Habboosh, CC ’14 and CCSC academic affairs representative.
“Columbia is taking a stand for students, and it’s not as though there
isn’t a precedent.”
Neither Yale, Princeton,
Dartmouth, or the University of
Pennsylvania provide academic
credit for internships.
“I think the reason causing anxiety for students right now is that
they feel companies won’t accept
them for unpaid internships anymore,” said Habboosh. “Students
are anxious that companies simply won’t hire them and that they’ll
lose out on valuable opportunities.”
Still, Yatrakis said in an email
to Spectator on Monday that she
didn’t expect the change in r-credit
to affect students’ ability to secure
and complete internships.
“The assumption here is that
students will not be participating in internships because of this
change,” Yatrakis said. “We do not
think this assumption is correct.”
“Only a few students use the
notation of R for internships in
which they participate and many
students engage in internships,”
Yatrakis said. “We don’t think that
fewer students will be obtaining internships because of this change in
grading policy.”
Nevertheless, students interviewed this weekend had varying
views about the changes.
SEE GRADING, page 2
address the stereotypes imposed
upon us by showcasing their underlying truths: the places and
peoples they actually pertain to.
It is very easy to release certain
images without context, and we
feel that this is only taking away
from the real issue at hand,” the
statement said.
The statement added that
Chicano Caucus will be hosting
an open meeting to discuss the
topic on Feb. 27 at 9 p.m.
Monday afternoon, before
Chicano Caucus released its
statement, a Bwog comment attributed to Martin Perez Colon,
SEAS ’17 and co-education chair
of the Chicano Caucus, responded
to the other comments directed at
the group.
“There is a huge difference
between when a group tries to
reclaim its stereotypes and use
them in a positive manner and
when someone else just reaches
for them because they’re easily accessible,” read the comment.
Colon later confirmed to The
Lion that he did post it.
“So instead of looking at this
as a hypocrisy, look at the context
of both instances. There’s a reason people feel insulted, and our
campus’s reaction shouldn’t be
rushing to take sides, but instead
trying to understand why it is that
a group feels hurt,” Colon wrote.
“I’m in the Chicano Caucus, and
I’m not yelling back at anyone. I’m
not even calling for the sorority
to get in trouble. I’m just asking
that people don’t be so thoughtless when reaching for potentially
offensive stereotypes to represent
a group. Because it hurts.”
In a statement released to
Spectator yesterday, the Chicano
Caucus criticized the costumes
worn by Kappa Alpha Theta
members.
“While we understand that the
actions taken by these members
SEE CHICANO, page 2
Cathedral
Gardens
hoping for
settlement
BY EVA KALIKOFF
Spectator Senior Staff Writer
Residents of the pioneering
multi-use Cathedral Gardens
condominiums are hoping to
soon wrap up a four-year legal
battle with developer Artimus
Construction over facilities and
structural problems that they say
have been ongoing since they
moved in.
Belina Anderson, the president of the condo board, said
that after several inspections,
the residents and litigation team
should receive an estimate on
the cost of the damage soon and
will then push for a settlement
with Artimus.
“We are alleging construction defects so we needed to
have an architect and engineers
inspect the building,” Anderson
said. “The two defendants [from
Artimus Construction] inspected the building as well. We have
the inspections complete and we
are awaiting a final result. We are
waiting to see what the total cost
will be.”
Artimus Construction declined to comment.
The building, on Manhattan
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NEWS
PAGE 2
Dean says credit change
won’t affect internships
GRADING from front page
YUE BEN / SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
DOGS IN WINTER Community Board 7 is looking for
alternatives to replace rock salt, which could be harmful to dogs.
|
CB7 looking for
alternatives to rock salt
PUPPIES from front page
stores to learn about alternatives
for keeping streets and sidewalks
from becoming slippery, while also
keeping pets healthy.
She indicated that the board
will eventually pass a resolution
intended to address both of these
problems.
Caputo mentioned that a substitute to the rock salt currently used
is calcium chloride, which may be
slightly safer for dogs, though more
harmful to the environment.
“It may be possible that what’s
better for pets may be worse for the
environment,” Caputo said.
“What we’re trying to do is get
the most environmentally-friendly type of salt used throughout the
city. It’s my understanding from
talking to the parks people that
the rock salt is most readily available and is the most cost-effective,”
Caputo said.
Also, she has heard from community members that the salt can
impact small children as well, who
play with snow that is saturated in
salt and end up getting crystals on
their hands.
Many pet owners said they are
taking their own steps to curtail the
problem, like making their dog’s
wear booties on their paws to protect them from the salt.
“I’ve tried booties,” Leon
Maleson, a local dog owner, said
on Monday. “But dogs really hate
to wear them.”
“They cut off your dog’s circulation,” Gross said about the booties. “And they fall off so easily too,
so you pay a fortune and then they
end up getting lost.”
Some people use pet protection
waxes, while others simply resort
to carrying their pets across particularly rough patches.
“I’ve tried the Musher’s wax on
her feet, which seems to work pretty well,” Maleson said of his dog.
“She’s pretty small, so I usually
just pick her up and carry her,”
Irwin said of her dog. “It’s especially bad on the stairs because
they just dump huge piles of the
stuff instead of shoveling.”
Caputo said that local residents
will present ways to improve the
situation at upcoming meetings
and work with CB7 to protect the
dogs’s health and keep the pavements intact.
“We’re trying to get our hands
around it to try to make the neighborhood a little less toxic,” Caputo
said.
news@columbiaspectator.com
“I think it’s definitely a step
in the right direction in terms of
dealing with the issues of unpaid
internships, but on the other hand
it’s also problematic in its abruptness,” said Carly Jackson, CC ’15.
“It’s probably upsetting for some
people,”
“I can’t do internships that
aren’t paid—I just don’t have that
privilege,” Tanika Lynch, CC ’15,
said. “I think Columbia gets that
internships should be paid, I just
don’t think they’re going about it
the right way.”
“If someone offers an internship for credit and we say our university doesn’t give credit, they’re
not going to suddenly offer to pay
us,” Lynch added. “That’s just not
going to be an internship we’re going to get.”
The other change is that
Columbia College students can
now withdraw from any nonCore class between the fifth and
11th week of the semester without
having to petition their academic
advisor. The dropped course will
remain on the transcript with a
mark of W.
“Previously, the W mark was
only granted in extreme circumstances,” Habboosh said. “Now
you don’t have to go through the
long, drawn-out process of writing
a petition letter and having it read
by a committee and so on. If you
want a W, you just get a signature
on a form and hand it in.”
“From my experiences talking
to students who experienced the
process of using the W previous to
change, it seemed like it was very
stressful, caused a lot of anxiety,”
Habboosh added.
Habboosh said that Columbia
College Student Council was heavily involved in the decision about
withdrawing from a course, she
was careful to differentiate between that and the extension of the
add-drop deadline, a process on
which the council is still working.
Over the course of this semester, CCSC subcommittees will
reach out to faculty and students
to determine how moving the
drop deadline back might impact
student life.
“In the end, I think it’s great
that this change gives students
more agency to make decisions for
themselves,” Habboosh said.
“I think it will go a long way towards reducing anxiety and helping students balance academics
with Columbia life in general,” she
said. “Because that’s what academic policy is all about, really.”
Maia Bix and Yasemin
Akcaguner contributed reporting.
emma.bogler
@columbiaspectator.com
KIERA WOOD / SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
IT’S ACADEMIC | Nora Habboosh, CC ’14 and CCSC academic
affairs representative, said that she understood student concerns.
FEBRUARY 25, 2014
Students collaborate with
other schools for march
DIVEST from front page
this long and hard and it’s an action I want to take.”
This isn’t the first time
Columbia students have rallied
against the Keystone XL pipeline. Last February, students in
Barnard-Columbia Divest, which
also called upon Columbia to divest from the fossil fuel industry, went to D.C. to demonstrate
against the pipeline at a rally
organized by 350.org, the Sierra
Club, and the Hip Hop Caucus.
Though Greenberg has been
in touch with Barnard Columbia
Divest, he also said the two
groups are separate.
“I’m so excited people are
each willing to incur the risk in
exchange for contributing to the
movement. It’s beautiful to see,”
Greenberg said.
luke.barnes
@columbiaspectator.com
Photos show Chicano
Caucus in Mexican garb
CHICANO from front page
may not have intended to be harmful, they were in fact offensive,”
the statement said. “Stereotypes
are used to oppress marginalized
communities. These pictures
caricaturize Mexican culture and
should not be overlooked. The attire trivializes an entire nation’s
history, its peoples, and its cultures, reducing them to a mere
mustache and sombrero.”
“The term ‘cultural appropriation’ is not one that is discussed
often at Columbia, and it is not
one that is easy to define. We
hope that these photos promote
campus-wide discussions as to
what ‘cultural appropriation’ entails and why it is a controversial
topic to groups who are often
the subjects of such actions,” the
statement said.
Columbia’s Inter-Greek council released a statement early
Tuesday morning that said the
group was “working on campuswide initiatives that will improve
upon the current dialogue surrounding social awareness issues
at our University.”
“We are committed to addressing the issues at hand and will be
sure to further communicate with
the greater community regarding
our efforts,” the statement.
The photos of the Kappa
Alpha Theta sisters showed
them dressed up as different nationalities, including a Mexican
team that wore sombreros,
mustaches, and T-shirts with a
Mexican flag with the coat of
arms replaced with the Greek
letter theta, a Japanese team
that wore pigtails, chopsticks,
and high socks, and an individual dressed up as Ireland, holding a sign that said ‘Kiss me, I’m
a famined potato.”
In a statement to Spectator on
Monday, Columbia Japan Society
President Moeko Nakada, BC ’15,
said, “I’m sure that the sisters of
Kappa Alpha Theta had no ill intentions to hurt the members of
the Japanese community but it
is still truly regretful and hurtful
that they chose to perceive and interpret our country through such
behavior.”
“I hope that this incident can
provide an opportunity for the
sisters of Kappa Alpha Theta to
deeply reflect upon their actions,”
Nakada said.
In a statement on Monday,
Interim Dean of Student Affairs
Terry Martinez said she was
“saddened and disappointed to
learn of students in our community participating in costume
caricatures of several different
nationalities.”
“While the intention may have
been harmless, the actions taken
have had an impact that may have
not been intended,” Martinez
added.
elizabeth.sedran
@columbiaspectator.com
FEBRUARY 25, 2014
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FEBRUARY 25, 2014
Cultural sensitivity and PC-ness substitute for examining real injustice
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Yesterday, I read Christian Zhang’s piece (“Facebook
photos show Kappa Alpha Theta members dressed like
Mexicans, other nationalities,” Feb. 23) in Spectator about
a group of sorority girls who dressed up as Mexicans and
other nationalities for an Olympics-themed mixer.
Students who saw the article immediately pounced on
the way the “Mexican team” had represented its chosen
national group. Donning large sombreros and fake mustaches (with a couple of maracas), they wore the stereotypical traditional garb of Mexicans of yore.
It is a costume 100 years out of date, and one that
many take offense to. The sun-yellowed straw and plain
white shirt evoke the Mexican countryside as much as
they evoke abject poverty. It is the garb of the Mexican
peasant, the proletariat, and the unwashed, voiceless
masses whose assumed backwardness and simplicity set
them up for easy ridicule. The image is understood as a
hindrance to many Latinos, Mexican or not, who strive
to better themselves and struggle to be taken seriously.
It is also a piece of Mexican history, one that is not
wholly—or for many, even partially—disowned by the
Mexican populace. Vicente Fernández, nicknamed “el
Rey de la Canción Ranchera,” still wears a highly decorated version of this garb to his shows: a black hat and
suit with red or gold adornments. Mexico’s sole participant at the Sochi Olympics, Hubertus von Hohenlohe,
wore a skiing suit that resembled a traditional mariachi
outfit, too. He may have crashed out of the event, but
his choice of outfit—however loud—was selected with
affection, love, and pride.
This is why when I, a born and raised Mexican from
Monterrey, Nuevo León, saw those sorority girls wearing
sombreros and mustaches—however casually—I failed to
be offended. Instead, I got angry about something else
and directed my energy toward a different group.
I’m unsure what to call them as a group: the “culturally sensitive,” the American social left, or as Ryan Elivo
termed them in his op-ed on Monday (“Reflexive PC-ness
is problem for Theta, Chad Washington,” Feb. 24), the
Political Correctness Police. Take your pick.
From my perspective, disowning the
costume is disowning my history—a
form of self-hate.
Columbians are part of a generation that is thankfully not nearly as racist, essentialist, and nationalist as
the ones that came before it. We tend to err on the side
of what in America is understood as the leftist position
on social matters. We try to make sure that we don’t
tear apart the tenuous fabric of what is a diverse society. However, this sensitivity can often become a form
of condescending behavior.
Consider, for a moment, what may run through my
mind when I see people all up in arms about a costume
that I am capable of looking at with some degree of affection. Am I meant to be embarrassed by a sombrero? From
my perspective, disowning the costume is disowning my
history—a form of self-hate. To have a trove of (mostly)
Americans insist the costume is fundamentally offensive
seems to me a hilariously ignorant intrusion.
However, I do not speak for all Mexicans. So I’ll skip
through the rest of my opinions on the costume itself
and get to what’s not merely bothersome but truly dangerous about Columbians’ affectations when it comes to
cultural sensitivity: They often become a farce, a way to
tell ourselves we’re good people when there are forms of
social injustice that are far more insidious than reductive
costumes that persist.
An obvious, belabored example: the Mexican drug
war. Most of the people I know here have habitually
smoked or tried marijuana. Sure, not all of it comes
from Mexico, but I’d be particularly impressed if you
knew how your bud got here in the same way you track
UPS shipments. What about the coke some take during
finals week or I-banking internships to stay awake?
They indirectly feed a machine that makes it that much
more probable that someone in my family, still living
in Mexico, will be skinned alive tomorrow, cut up into
itty-bitty pieces, and thrown on the side of the road.
Maybe by accident. Sometimes they kidnap the wrong
people who just kind of look like the person who didn’t
pay up whatever he needed to pay up. It is common to
the point where I am completely comfortable being
crass about it.
But most Columbians are not concerned with this.
Instead, our set of priorities dictate that we zero in on a
small group of sorority girls.
I see people far more concerned with how they see
themselves than what good or ill they inflict on the world.
A lack of cultural sensitivity is understood, on the face
of it, as a human problem, but in practice, it seems as
though it’s internalized as merely an aesthetic asymmetry waiting to be corrected, satisfied. When I see people
up in arms about costumes, I know I’m not a person to
any of them.
But hey, we’re still good people. Right?
The author is a Columbia College senior majoring in
mathematics and economics.
Valuing brand names
over experience
I
like to think about death. Not in a
desirous way—it’s never something I
wish upon myself or anyone else. I find
comfort in the thought because it helps
me remember what’s important in life,
almost like a framing tool that guides my
values and decisions. It brings urgency to SARINA
appreciating life, as a suggestion that one BHANDARI
day I won’t have the opportunity to enjoy
the experiences I have today. But lately,
Balancthe thought has been making me uneasy
instead of bringing the wave of gratitude ing with
I have come to expect. In the setting of
Bhandari
the University, when I think about death,
I can’t help but wonder—am I holding onto values that
won’t matter in the grand scheme? Am I manufacturing
my life into something that on my death day I will regret?
In a recent sociology class, I watched a clip from
Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times. The silent film mocks
the industrial process, showing the ridiculous effects of
trying to quickly manufacture a perfect product or experience. I took some vague notes on the film, but didn’t think
much of it until a few weeks later, when I was sitting in a
business class with a guest lecture about branding by a top
marketing executive. The speaker told a brief anecdote
on how he tries to name drop his University of Chicago
affiliation and partnership at McKinsey to ensure that his
clients have faith in his credentials. We were on the topic
of personal branding, and his anecdote underscored the
importance of manufacturing and publicizing your identity in a way that boasts branded affiliations. I thought about
my own Columbia branding and the company names on
my résumé, and I felt like a product on the conveyor belt in
Modern Times, getting fixed up with bells and whistles as I
went down an assembly line.
In many ways, my time at Columbia has formally been
about manufacturing a personal identity that looks good
on paper, with the idea that this paper—my résumé—will
help me reach new places in life that will further add to
the paper. The day I die, I’m not sure whether I will earnestly or exasperatedly think of this paper and say, “This!
This is what it was all for!” I suppose my true hope is that
I won’t think of the paper at all, and that on my death day I
will have much more satisfying experiences to recall than
a list of my brand-name affiliations.
Forgive me for the melodrama. I know that Columbia—
for me and many others—has been far more than a stamp
on the résumé. It’s a place where I’ve made lifelong friends
and explored new depths of my beliefs and identity. But
it’s also an institution that imparts values on its members,
and one of the strongest ones I’ve learned to accept is the
importance of personal branding. That’s why there’s such
a strongly perceived difference between, for example,
being a Rhodes Scholar and getting a full but unnamed
scholarship for a Ph.D. at Oxford. This is not natural. This
is the product of valuing a name over an experience. It’s
the result of a values system perpetuated by an institution
whose importance lies in the weight of its name, be it the
White House or Columbia.
I’m conflicted. I know that in many slush piles of résumés, mine gets a second look because I have Columbia
and The New Yorker tied to me by ink under my name. I
understand the benefits that come with strong personal
branding, and I am grateful for my experiences at these
brand-name institutions. What I’m not sure I appreciate
is the emphasis that I’ve learned to place on the value of
personal branding. I don’t want to orient the trajectory of
my life according to the objective of picking up fancy titles
and affiliations like they’re the only things that matter
until the day I die. But I can’t shake the feeling that those
fancy titles really are important—that it might not be such
a terrible idea to keep aiming for the next one.
When I think about death, I’m reminded about the
value of enjoying experiences in life. When I think about
the values I’ve picked up at Columbia, I’m reminded that
how things sound—on paper, to others, even to yourself—
might be more important than how my experiences feel.
Is there really a contradiction here? Does the pursuit of
quality experiences conflict with the pursuit of a quality
personal brand?
Sometimes when I think about this too much, I feel
nervous. It’s not comfortable to wonder whether I have to
sacrifice one of my core values for another. But when the
day comes that I do have to pick one over another, I want
to choose the value that’s consistent with how I feel when
I think about death.
Sarina Bhandari is a Columbia College senior majoring
in sociology. Balancing with Bhandari runs alternate
Tuesdays.
illustration by jake goldwasser
On the woes of going bald as a 20-something
C
ontemporary Civilization prepared
me for many things, but male pattern baldness was not one of them. In all
of Plato’s wisdom for the ages, he never
once weighed in on the pros and cons
of Propecia. And while Aristotle may
have founded empiricism, he left us with
JAKE
virtually no clinical research on effecGOLDWAStive hair regrowth treatments. In such
SER
a furry-headed world, a young me was
forced to bottle up my baldness and try
Thinking
to fit in as best I could with the woolier
echelons of society.
Twice
Indeed, hairlessness is a taboo in our
society. Several studies show that children unwittingly
discriminate against naked mole rats when choosing pets,
favoring fuzzier creatures like cats or dogs. I think the research speaks for itself. So, naturally I was a little worried to
talk to my parents about my condition after they noticed the
signs: the widow’s peak, the increasingly exposed scalp, the
bottles of Rogaine strewn around the house. Thankfully, my
father rocks the “Blue Man Group,” completely shaven look,
so he was understanding. But I did have to change my primary role model from Bob Marley to Walter White, which
took a lot of psychological adjustment.
Then, of course, there’s the external pressure to always
sport some kind of trendy coiffure, and because of this,
baldness makes it very difficult to meet women. (Granted,
dying alone seems hardly that bad when you consider how
much the average person spends every year on shampoo.)
But that doesn’t mean that hair loss is all fun and games.
Sophomore year at Columbia, my peers began to tease me,
calling me “cueball” and pelting me with coonskin caps
whenever they had the chance. I once woke up with a live
possum on my head, which was apparently hilarious to my
suitemates who didn’t understand, evidently, the emotions
that come with male pattern baldness: the embarrassment,
the anger, the hopelessness. My hair will never flutter
in the wind. I will never have a mohawk. I will never be
cast as the leading role in my synagogue’s production of
Samson and Delilah, should they choose to have one. These
are realities that I have to accept.
And if that’s not painful enough, I am now deprived of
the experience of the barbershop, an institution that has a
special place in the male psyche. “The barber is where the
concept of maleness itself is constructed,” as Judith Butler
used to never say. It’s part of the architecture of our lives.
It keeps us in check. And once a month I used to sit in a
chair, hand someone a blade, and trust them with not only
my appearance but also my very safety. Philosophically,
the barber shop means a lot to me. Or, I guess, meant a lot
to me. That’s all in the past now. Sometimes I show up just
after closing and beg them to trim my chest hair, yearning
for that primal, fraternal feeling, that perennial camaraderie you can only attain by paying a stranger to groom you.
I’ve sat for many a winter night under the spinning red,
white, and blue of Melvin and Pat’s Barber Shop, running a
hand over my barren scalp and watching myself wither.
My hair will never flutter in the wind.
I will never have a mohawk. These are
realities that I have to accept.
Now, I understand there are some naysayers who
might challenge the gravity of my condition. But I want to
remind my readership that this is and has always been the
plight of the affluent white male, and I feel it is my journalistic obligation to complain on behalf of my people (for
whom I have come to be a representative on this campus).
I am coming to grips with the notion that in ten years I’ll
look, at best, like Mr. Clean and at worst like an uncircumcised penis—from the neck up, that is. That is the horror
I wake up to every morning, and your sympathy would be
greatly appreciated.
Jake Goldwasser is a Columbia College senior majoring in
Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African studies. Thinking
Twice runs alternate Tuesdays.
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT / NEWS
FEBRUARY 25, 2014
PAGE 5
Festival of Winds to raise
funds for music outreach
WINDS from back page
ELAINE FORBUSH FOR SPECTATOR
SERVE IT UP | Customers line up at Dig Inn on Feb. 19, when the store opened in the space previously occupied by Card-O-Mat. The
chain focuses on working with local farmers to provide fresh, healthy food options.
Dig Inn a tasty, affordable addition to MoHi food scene
BY ALEX WARRICK
Spectator Senior Staff Writer
Columbia students have long
enjoyed a panoply of off-campus culinary options for every
mood and taste in Morningside
Heights. One vital niche, however, has been heretofore unfulfilled: an eatery that offers affordable, healthy, humane, and locally
sourced food to college students.
Enter Dig Inn Seasonal Market.
Founded in 1997 under a different name, Dig Inn’s mission
statement says that it strives to
offer an alternative to the “fatfree, sodium-free, joy-free” fare
that has dominated popular conceptions of health food. On Feb.
19, the restaurant chain opened
its seventh Manhattan location
between on Broadway 112th and
113th streets, welcoming 1,500
customers at its ribbon-cutting.
First and foremost, Dig Inn
showcases its options. Whether
you’re a staunch vegan or a voracious carnivore, a kale nut or
a sucker for chocolate, a gazellelike grazer or the vacuum from
Teletubbies, Dig Inn has something for you.
The exposed brick walls, rustic wood and close-to-communal seating—which lends itself
to a cozy, farmside vibe—is built
around the major conceit of the
“market plate.” Patrons make
selections from Dig Inn’s bar of
vegetarian sides and meat- or
tofu-based main courses to create their own custom, balanced
meals for about $7 to $10 . This
model conveniently allows college students operating under
budgets or dietary constraints
to construct a meal from basic
components with their own desires in mind.
Also featured is a wall of refrigerators boasting a variety of
beverages to fit every need. For
the ascetic, there are “Serious
Green” juices containing spinach and kale, and for the indulgent there are thick peanut butter shakes on the adjacent shelf.
Look to the bracingly tart ginger mint lemonade as a cheaper alternative to Dig Inn’s cold
press juice offerings, which are
healthy but pricey at $9 a bottle.
An exciting part of Dig Inn is
that it consciously shakes up its
menu every couple of months,
based on the seasonal offerings
of the local farms it works closely with. So if you fail to find anything to your liking at the eatery, simply check back after the
snow melts. Consistent favorites
are the piquant roasted Brussels
sprouts and the crisp kale and
apple salad. The salmon bathed
in lemon and olive oil is a main
course standout, but the blustery
February weather makes Dig
Inn’s hearty braised beef a go-to.
Dig Inn, in short, has the
makings of a Morningside mainstay: It’s conveniently located,
comfortably priced, and fills a
neighborhood need. Be sure to
beat the inevitable lines in the
coming weeks to get your fix of
farm-fresh butternut squash,
broccoli, and beets, and look out
for Dig Inn’s delivery and catering systems slated to arrive this
spring.
Dig Inn is located at 1884
Broadway, between 112th and
113th streets.
alexandra.warrick
@columbiaspectator.com
that we could make a much bigger difference working with this
group.”
For Scherer, the change in
music outreach programs is part
of the nature of the group that
he’s been involved with for four
years.
“There’s a lot of change,”
Scherer said. “Every year we add
something new.”
Sanky added that even though
the group is working with another organization instead of on its
own, members of the Columbia
Wind Ensemble “hope to still be
teaching right alongside them.”
In addition to raising money for the Musical Mentors
Collaborative and collaborating
with local groups, the Festival
of Winds is bringing both NYU
and Princeton groups to Roone–
a collaboration that’s been going
on for several years.
Michael Breaux, professor of
music education and the director of bands at NYU, said that
when he first got involved with
the Festival of Winds three years
ago, he felt that “it was a great
idea to get a chance to celebrate
wind band music making, which
sort of doesn’t exist in the New
York area.”
“We’re trying to turn people
onto a different kind of music
than the standard symphony
orchestra.”
One way this is happening
is through the varied programs
from the groups. Columbia, for
example, will be playing pieces
by John Philip Sousa and Gustav
Holst alongside more contemporary pieces like “Requiem”
by David Maslanka, a Montanabased composer. Additionally,
saxophone expert Paul Cohen
will join the ensemble in a piece
that features him as a soloist.
For Breaux’s band, there
will be a piece by Leonard
Bernstein—which features
electric guitar—and a couple of
pieces of Irish music, including
“Irish Tune from County Derry”
and “Shepherd’s Hey.”
“They’re published together
and almost never performed
together,” Breaux said. “But
they’re so ... great that we decided to do that.”
“Having a performance opportunity
this early in the season is a little frightening, but that’s why
we do it, to get ourselves ready to play.”
—Michael Breaux,
director of bands at NYU
The NYU program will also
include a Korean folk song called
“Arirang” and a tuba player performing “From the Shores of the
Mighty Pacific.”
“We’ve got a crazy concert
program,” Breaux said. “The
guys are really excited about
performing, and having a performance opportunity this early in
the season is a little frightening,
but that’s why we do it, to get
ourselves ready to play.”
According to Breaux, events
like Festival of Winds are a good
way not only to raise money for
music outreach but also to show
college bands one another’s work.
“It’s great for all of the university bands to play for each
other,” he said. “We don’t get a
chance to play for each other and
make those connections.”
The Columbia Festival of Winds
is March 2 at noon. Admission is
$5 with a CUID and $15 for general admission. There are also VIP
tickets available for $40.
david.salazar
@columbiaspectator.com
Suit against Artimus describes problems with complex
ARTIMUS from front page
TIANYUE SUN / SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
SECRETS Eliza Callahan, CC ’17, makes up half of the duo Jack
and Eliza, who are performing this weekend in Williamsburg.
|
Student duo to open at
Music Hall of Williamsburg
ELIZA from back page
something out and we’ll be
in our own worlds and then
be like, “Oh, I like what you
just played,” and riff off that.
SR: From your Facebook page, it
seems that you and Jack are
making an effort to perform
all over the city. Are there
plans to sign with a label?
EC: We’re signed to a small, independent label called Yebo.
We were, and still are, in the
early stages, so we got really lucky. I had met with a
music executive years ago
about music I had written,
and then I happened to be
at a dinner and he was there,
and I played him one of our
demos that we had just recorded in a closet, and he
said, “I’m starting a new label.” We met with him and it
all started from there.
SR: You have two demos posted
on Bandcamp. Does Jack and
Eliza have a strong online
following?
EC: I don’t know if we have
that much of a following. It’s
been interesting, since we’re
both from New York City, a
lot of our friends have kind
of scattered across the U.S.
and beyond, so hopefully
they spread the word.
SR: What can people expect
from Jack and Eliza over the
coming months?
EC: Hopefully we’ll be on tour
opening for someone this
coming spring or summer.
We’re going to be playing a
lot of shows around the city,
maybe beyond the city. We
just finished recording an EP
over winter break with Chris
Zane, a really amazing producer at Gigantic Studios in
TriBeCa, that will hopefully
be released at the end of the
spring.
Jack and Eliza will open for
Total Slacker and Miniature
Tigers Wednesday at 8 p.m. at
the Music Hall of Williamsburg.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
sarah.roth
@columbiaspectator.com
Avenue and West 110th Street,
made headlines in 2006 when
it became one of the first buildings to be designated half to students and half to college-unaffiliated residents. It is also part
of the Cornerstone Program,
a Bloomberg-era Housing
Preservation and Development
“multifamily new construction
initiative that was designed to
facilitate the construction of
mixed income housing on cityowned land,” according to its
website. The idea was to provide
more low- and middle-income
housing at the height of the real
estate bubble.
Residents say that problems
with the apartment became clear
fairly quickly. Some of the issues
include leaks whenever it rains,
poorly assembled cabinets and
wooden floors, unsafe balconies,
and a crack on the building’s
front facade.
“The city offered the developer tax incentives to offer these
to a certain level of income,”
Fariba Nassiri, a resident who
has lived in the building since
it was built, said. “The guy did
it cheaply and there are a lot of
things that went wrong.”
Anderson said that the residents of the building—many of
whom bought units in the building before it was built—have put
so much money into fixing the
problems that the set prices they
signed on for have turned out to
be far more expensive than they
intended.
“When we were buying we
perhaps naively thought that
because the government is involved that there would be
some controls over the quality
of work, that the developer had
a good track record, otherwise
they wouldn’t have been granted
the proposal. All that is really not
the case. Once the developer gets
the project, HPD just goes away.”
Eric Bederman, a spokesperson for Housing Preservation
and Development, said in a statement that they are actively engaged with the residents and the
developer.
“Last year, at the request of
the Council member we worked
to facilitate a dialogue between
the condo owners and the developer with the hope that they
could come to an agreement that
was beneficial to both parties.
My understanding is that both
parties have put their litigation
on hold, and that the Condo
Board has done some work
that the developer is monitoring through their consultant,”
Bederman said.
Anderson said that one of the
problems with making progress
has been political changes. She
said that Christopher Gonzalez,
director of intergovernmental
relations at HPD, got shifted
from working on their building.
Also, Melissa Mark-Viverito had
just begun advocating for them
until she was suddenly redistricting, leaving them with a
freshman councilmember in
Mark Levine.
“[Mark-Viverito] got HPD to
pay attention to our building and
to circle back to the Cornerstone
Program,” Anderson said. “The
reason that we felt that public officials should be concerned was
that taxpayer funding was going
to this. Bloomberg was getting
all this credit for creating middle-income housing and nobody
looked back.”
Elaine Chen was the first person to move into the building
and previously held Anderson’s
position as the board’s president.
She mentioned the commitment
that the residents feel to making sure that this does not cause
more problems.
“If there are defects in a
building that are this severe, one
wonders if it’s possible that we
are the only building that experience it,” Chen said. “I’m concerned about my own building
and the neighborhood. I’m hoping that they will work with us
and do the right thing.”
Artimus has become a huge
presence around West Harlem
in the last few years, with plans
to build housing at the site of the
former BP gas station at 110th
Street and Frederick Douglass
Boulevard, and at St. Thomas the
Apostle Church on West 118th
Street and St. Nicholas Avenue.
“It’s maddening. They are just
gobbling up Harlem,” Anderson
said. “Is anyone paying attention
to whether or not these people
can even build anything to keep
out the rain?”
“The least you can do is give
us some assurance that you are
CINDY MA / SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
WILTING GARDEN | Residents said their apartments had
unsafe balconies and leaky ceilings in the suit against Artimus.
going to take this into consideration the next time you award
a contract. Take a really close
look at these developers. There’s
no information out there in the
public record about whether
they’re performing well,” she
added.
Several residents, including
Anderson, attended the January
Community Board 7 full board
meeting, where they spoke of
their specific attempts at acquiring the Cornerstone subsidy agreement. This document
would have details about the
subsidy—which Anderson says
was worth $656,000—that the
city gave Artimus for the building. They have not been able to
get a hold of it from either the
developer or HPD.
CB7 president Elizabeth
Caputo could not say much
about the case because it is
ongoing.
“There’s still a lot of negotiation and a lot of stuff going on,”
Caputo said. “I think they are
trying to work out a plan. We’re
really just trying to work with all
parties on this.”
Residents of the building
have taken their problems to the
attorney general’s office, hoping
to find wrongdoings that could
be penalized under the Martin
Act. According to Attorney
General Eric Schneiderman’s
website, “The Martin Act gives
the Attorney General broad lawenforcement powers to conduct
investigations of suspected fraud
in the offer, sale or purchase of
securities. Where appropriate,
the Attorney General may commence civil and criminal prosecutions under the Martin Act
to protect investors.”
According to Anderson, this
has not gained any traction. Still,
Anderson remains hopeful that a
settlement will be reached.
“Once we have the final figure
in hand, we can set up a date to
sit around the table and negotiate with the developer and the architect,” Anderson said. “We’re
very happy that that is coming to
a close.”
eva.kalikoff
@columbiaspectator.com
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25 • PAGE 6
Callahan, CC ’17,
talks upcoming
Williamsburg show
BY SARAH ROTH
Spectator Senior Staff Writer
For those of you thinking longingly of spring
break, look no further than the college-age duo
Jack and Eliza. Picking up on the trend of She &
Him, the New York City natives bring elements of
indie, pop, and surf to their self-described “nostalgic” sound. Eliza Callahan, CC ’17, talks about her
partner, their music, and what can be expected
from Jack and Eliza.
Sarah Roth: When did you and Jack [Staffen,
NYU ’17] begin performing together?
Eliza Callahan: We met through mutual friends,
and I played drums in a band that he sang in.
One day, we wrote a song together, and that
was that. We went to rival high schools, but
we’ve kind of circled with the same group of
people since we were 10. He’s a freshman at
NYU.
SR: How would you characterize your style of
music?
EC: We perform all of our own music ... It’s always
hard to categorize your own music, because I
think I would give you a different categorization than other people would. It’s indie, pop,
rock, surf, a little psychedelic. We’re really into
music from the ’60s, the Mamas & the Papas,
the Beach Boys. I feel like our sound is driven
by what we’ve grown up around—a more nostalgic, more retro feel.
SR: Did you have any kind of formal training in
music?
EC: I actually started playing classical guitar
when I was three, so I learned everything
by ear. I moved on to jazz when I was 10 or
so, and my love for the Beatles drove me towards that kind of music, and I started rock
and roll. I’ve been writing music since I was,
like, eight or nine. Long streams of consciousness that I would record on tape recorders or
GarageBand. There are these epic songs that
go on for like 20 minutes and they don’t have
any form.
SR: I know that you and Jack write your own
music.
EC: Yeah, we write everything that we perform,
and it’s pretty much a joint effort. It’s interesting writing music with someone else. I would
say that I write more of the lyrics, but it’s really both of us. We’ll sit in a room and strum
SEE ELIZA, page 5
DAVID SALAZAR FOR SPECTATOR
BLOW YOUR HORN | Members of the Columbia University Wind Ensemble rehearse a piece of music ahead of this weekend’s Columbia Festival of
Winds, an all-day music festival that will feature bands from Princeton and NYU, with all proceeds benefiting a music outreach program.
CU Wind Ensemble readies for Festival of Winds
BY DAVID SALAZAR
Spectator Senior Staff Writer
Lerner C555 was filled with the sounds of horns,
oboes, trumpets, and flutes Monday night as the
Columbia University Wind Ensemble rehearsed
for this weekend’s annual Columbia Festival of
Winds.
The event, which takes place on March 2, will
bring the New York University Concert Band,
the Princeton University Wind Ensemble, the
Manhattan Wind Ensemble, and a band from
Mark Twain Intermediate School 239 to perform
in Roone Arledge Auditorium.
Each of the bands will perform for about 40
minutes before all coming together at the end of
the festival’s program to perform Carmen Dragon’s
arrangement of “America the Beautiful.”
The proceeds from this year’s event will go
to benefit the Musical Mentors Collaborative, a
Columbia-based nonprofit that gives “free weekly,
private music lessons to low-income elementary
school students,” according to its website.
According to wind ensemble co-presidents
Charles Sanky, CC ’16, and Kevin Scherer, CC ’14,
proceeds from the Festival of Winds in the past
were used toward a music outreach program in
which members of the wind ensemble—composed
of undergraduates, graduate students, and community members—would teach music to students
at P.S. 125.
This year, though, Sanky said that he and
Scherer decided that their “funds and resources would be better spent on Music Mentors
Collaborative.”
“We’re still supporting music education for elementary school students,” Sanky said. ”We felt
SEE WINDS, page 5