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(04/30/14 8:10pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>This is my last column, and there’s been a trend through the years that seniors get to write a sappy, self-serving little piece and pretend it fits within the realm of journalism. I’m doing just that.I’ve never been good at writing thank you notes.My handwriting looks as if I learned the alphabet from a barnyard hen, and I never want to put the money toward stamps because email exists, and that’s free.But I recognize their value, and because I’ve been given this platform, I’d like to write a thank you note.My first huge thanks goes out to IU — the institution, the departments and the professors.I know I was hard on you — on this platform specifically — but it was never out of malice. You never failed to stimulate my thinking.And to all of you who have ever felt you are better than this University, you know it’s not true because you’re hungry for more knowledge and more experience, and you wouldn’t be feeling these things if you weren’t aroused.Thank you to the Indiana Daily Student for giving me this platform for three years, and thank you to all of the student groups I’ve been a part of throughout the years.The fact that IU is able to trust so many student organizations to be independent is pretty remarkable — not every university does that.The drive I have seen in students creating, producing and distributing their own work with pride and grace has perhaps been the constant, most formative virtue I’ve experienced on this campus.It’s often forgotten, but thank you to all the teachers who got me here.You can’t get through college without some sort of foundation, and I would never be where I am today without your original instillation of both educational style and sass.I would be remiss without thanking all the friends I’ve made here.You’ve been the best group of asshats around. You have also been a testament to this University and how talented students can be — you have all amazed me countless times.Finally, thank you to my family. Of course I mean my immediate family that continues to be my sticking place, but also the almost 10 other mothers and supporters I have back in Western Springs, Ill.It’s easy to become self-centered and lost in academics in college, but I’ve never forgotten all the help and joy you’ve given me.So, what can you actually get from this? Very little.Or maybe the takeaway is realizing that this University isn’t so bad, your parents aren’t so strict, and you’ve got a pretty damn good life here at IU.Spend some time thanking others before graduation, and then you won’t need one big column to do it.Goodbye, Bloomington. And thank you.sjostrow@indiana.edu@ostrowski_s_j
(04/23/14 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>I like to be bougie every once in a while. And with that comes a casual acquaintance with opera. Coming to IU-Bloomington, it seemed pretty blasphemous I had never seen an opera. I quickly amended that and took advantage of the IU Opera and Ballet Theater.Upon watching my fifth IU Opera production this past weekend, I realized while it’s fun to live in an upper-class world for the evening with the opera, our society has really let the art form fester as a class-based, white-centric expression of creativity.Let’s be honest. For most, the opera is an expensive ticket for white people to go watch a story about rich white people of the past falling in their social standing and possibly dying — usually with intermittent naps.The favorites, or the ones that sell the most tickets, are works that everyone knows, and they have become household names — “La Boheme,” “The Marriage of Figaro,” “La Traviata” or any other famous work by a dead white man.Though modern opera might be trying to break the illusion that it’s all a white man’s world telling white man’s tales, we still fall short.This past season, IU Opera and Ballet Theater produced “The Tale of Lady Thi Kinh,” a new opera based on the classic Vietnamese theater hát chèo and the culture’s folklore. It seemed like a great effort.But we realized once the production was set into motion that we’re at IU, in the Midwest. The classic Vietnamese tale featured a nearly all-white cast.IU Opera and Ballet Theater’s new season is titled “Go Boldly,” but what do we constitute as bold in opera anymore? Bold simply seems to mean taking on more of the classics as the season includes, “The Magic Flute,” “La Boheme” and even “South Pacific,” one of the more racially problematic American musicals.They are works guaranteed to sell tickets. They’ll get upper-middle-class white people into some seats.Breaking the mold next season seems to mean going so far as producing “The Last Savage,” a campy little opera that was basically shut down during its American premiere run at the Metropolitan Opera in 1964 because supporters of the civil-rights movement found it too insensitive. That doesn’t bode well.We’re stuck perpetuating this notion that opera is only for white people. Even in an educational environment where we could hope to see some sort of push against the system, we have to succumb to ticket sales.And what will sell? More white people onstage in anguish taking an entire 30-minute act to finally die.sjostrow@indiana.edu@ostrowski_s_j
(04/16/14 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>A couple of days ago, a Dutch teen did something harmless — she tweeted. Only it wasn’t seen as so harmless.The 14-year-old Twitter user, who goes by Sarah, was arrested Monday after tweeting to American Airlines, “@AmericanAir hello my name’s Ibrahim and I’m from Afghanistan. I’m part of Al Qaida and on June 1st I’m gonna do something really big bye.”American Airlines promptly responded with: “@QueenDemetriax Sarah, we take these threats very seriously. Your IP address and details will be forwarded to security and the FBI.” This prompted a veritable guilt-storm from Sarah, who began backtracking, saying she was “only a girl” and “I’m so sorry I’m scared now.” While some see the incident as maybe coming down far too hard on a 14-year-old Dutch girl, American Airlines is sticking to their guns and affirming that this all was out of concern for their passengers and staff. Pretty fair.This is an extreme case in a series of debates that I’ve had with peers about sarcasm and joking over social media. What’s appropriate, who gets to joke around, how should we handle it and when do we need to lighten up?Surprisingly enough, I don’t think any type of social media sarcasm or joking should be tolerated, and we should have this sort of strictness whenever this comes about — I say “surprisingly” because I’ve tweeted some pretty lewd things in the past.This topic is one that hits close to home for many journalists, but especially the Indiana Daily Student as last year a columnist was arrested for a sarcastic tweet about IU on Strike via Twitter. It’s a situation that we don’t necessarily enjoy talking about, but it demonstrates just how we can all fall victim to the idea that we’re invincible online. Apparently, even those that want to make nuanced commentary can get the idea that their words will never be held against them.There are moments on social media that are dripping with mockery and farce, but the thing is that you can’t tell tone in 140 characters. Most people can hardly distinguish a joking tone in 500-word columns, so we can’t trust them with a tweet.And we shouldn’t have to trust them. We should just cut it out.The problem is, though, the Internet’s not going away. And I don’t think social media is necessarily planning on backing out either. So where do we go from here? How do we instill what’s ethical and what’s within the range of commentary or even social change on social media websites?This isn’t rhetorical questioning. I legitimately don’t know.But when 14-year-olds are managing to post jokes about Al Qaida, the issue needs to be brought up and demands more attention than we’ve originally given it.For now though, remember what your parents told you back in the third grade — “the Internet’s written in pen” — remember what happened to @QueenDemetriax_.sjostrow@indiana.edu@ostrowski_s_j
(04/09/14 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>A column written by an anonymous source went live on the Harvard Crimson’s website March 31. And it’s changing how we talk about sexual assault on college campuses.“Dear Harvard: You Win” is an extremely powerful first-person account of woman’s experience through the long and excessively difficult process after being sexually assaulted. The crux of the letter written to the university is the idea that, due to Harvard’s inefficiency, the student will be dropping out in order to save her life. She claims that the university’s inactivity has caused her to develop a mental illness.She went to the proper outlets and told her story, but nobody truly listened. All of the appropriate people were in place by the university — the house master, the administrative board, sexual assault and harassment tutors — yet the woman was still never really helped.And something tells me that this case isn’t solely limited to Harvard University, although the idea of it happening at such a prestigious university does help level the playing field for the larger issue at hand.We suppress sex and are so overwhelmingly sex-negative that we end up always thinking about sex. Ever since philosopher Michel Foucault pointed it out, it seems that we can’t get away from the idea. But I feel that rape and sexual assault are the opposite. We spend so much time talking about sexual assault and generally knowing it’s out there that we don’t actually delve into the topic.True, talking about the issue is better than not talking about it at all. But more and more, I’ve realized that we expose these sexual assault stories to no real avail.This Monday, the Indiana Daily Student reported about a rape. As I walk past newsstands, I saw the article on the front cover, thought about how it was sad and moved on with my day. True, part of this is my flaw. But we’re so inundated with these tales and half-followed reports that end up going nowhere that sexual assault seems to become nonchalant, a topic brought up in a recent column by Jordan Riley. Everyone’s talking, but no one is really saying anything.It’s hard to see who we are actually helping. We need to be more thorough with sexual assault training at IU.I don’t actively seek out information about rape and sexual assault. What I see around campus is nothing more than blanket statements about consensual sex, but I already learned that during the Welcome to College musical at orientation.We could all do more to start real conversations about sexual assault. Let’s stop creating after-school specials and delve into meaningful, nuanced conversation more often.I fear that we, like Harvard, have all the cards in place, but we won’t know what to do when we actually need to play them.sjostrow@indiana.edu@ostrowski_s_j
(04/02/14 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Somewhere along the line, we made college the most defining years of our collective experience. We imbued it with a pressure that makes everything seem like possibly the end of existence if we screw up. And that’s just not right.This may seem like it’s coming out of left field, but we’re nearing the end of second semester, which means that it’s internship season for most undergraduates and the most stressing part of the job hunt for graduating seniors.I think we could all use a reminder that it’s going to work out.True, there will be some people who will head off to New York for their internship at Goldman Sachs or what have you. But for every one of those people, realize that there are probably thirty more who are returning home to work a smaller-scale internship or even stay in Bloomington for the summer.And that’s great.I’ll be graduating this May, and if I get an internship back in Chicago, I’ll be moving home to live with my parents for a bit. If I don’t get any type of internship, I’ll probably live out the rest of my lease here in Bloomington.So yes, this column is self-affirmation that I’ll be fine, but it’s also to show you that we often get blinded by this idea that we have to move away from home and make bank right this minute or we’ll never do it.There are realities that we have to face, now more than ever, that were mostly brought up in Eduardo Salas’s piece on internships in yesterday’s edition of the Indiana Daily Student. We’re all gunning for internships that aren’t paid, that have a low chance of employment and may not even offer a truly educational experience.Quite frankly, this is stupid.When you look at the facts plainly, we’re in an idiotic spiral. I don’t want to have to go through this internship process, but then I’m not finding any entry-level work at any valuable companies, so I have to go through the process to gain experience. We’re stuck in the machine.So maybe you don’t need to throw yourself into the machine so quickly.Professors and professionals take sabbatical all the time. After many of us have gone to school for seventeen years without a break, I think we deserve a little bit of time to reconvene and think about the future.And yes, some people will try to shame you for that — the gap year seems to have completely fallen out of existence for fear of laziness. But there’s no reason you should feel bad for pausing in order to gain momentum.It’s fine to take a step back and be rational about your choices.Some people will thrive on making irrational choices and powering through unhappiness or being poor. I can’t do that, and I refuse to feel bad for it any longer.And you shouldn’t either.Good luck with the hunt, Hoosiers.sjostrow@indiana.edu
(03/26/14 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Jennifer Garner, Condoleezza Rice and Beyoncé have all teamed up to support a campaign, so we should probably listen. The unlikely team got together in order to show support for Sheryl Sandberg’s new project, which follows closely on the heels of her Lean In female empowerment campaign. Sandberg is the current COO of Facebook, served as Chief of Staff at the United States Treasury Department, and was Vice President of Global Online Sales and Operations at Google.Ban Bossy’s website claims “When a little boy asserts himself, he’s called a ‘leader.’ Yet when a little girl does the same, she risks being branded ‘bossy.’ Words like bossy send a message: don’t raise your hand or speak up.”The new project is hoping to ban the word “bossy” — again, with a focus on empowering girls and young women. But that is easier said than done, and plenty of people, both male and female, are chiming in to let Sandberg know that she’s bossy for demanding an entire word be banned from our collective vocabulary. Deep down, the campaign is good. I’ll stand behind anything that empowers girls, and I’ll certainly follow whatever Beyoncé and Rice have to say, but Sandberg’s new endeavor is inherently flawed.The first flaw is that Ban Bossy doesn’t go far enough. It’s been years since I’ve heard someone called “bossy”, because we’re no longer that nice — and in the age of the Internet, kids aren’t getting any nicer.Today, when a girl starts to assert herself, she gets called a “bitch” or even worse. We have words loaded with sexism that get thrown around on a daily basis, but they aren’t as tame as “bossy.”And this is an aspect the naysayers are latching onto. Claiming that “bossy” isn’t that bad is a fairly valid argument. When young girls just as easily get called “bitch,” banning bossy seems to be the least of our worries.We should call a spade a spade and rename the campaign Ban Bitch. Would the Girl Scouts be so readily able to get behind the campaign as they did with Ban Bossy? Probably not, but the message would be more apropos of our time.Secondly, Ban Bossy is flawed in the fact that it’s too specific. The campaign is too bogged down in semantics.What made Lean In so compelling is the fact that it was “focused on encouraging women to pursue their ambitions and changing the conversation from what we can’t do to what we can do.” It’s about so much more than one word.And Ban Bossy is about more than one word too, but the general public isn’t seeing that because of the misattributed focus.If we want to inspire young girls, it shouldn’t be by banning “bossy.” Perhaps we should start a reclamation process. After all, that’s what the campaign’s main video is doing. When Beyoncé claims that she’s not bossy, she’s the boss, we listen. But isn’t that the same thing? Women need to have a sense of bossiness, of rising above the competition.We shouldn’t focus on banning words. We should focus on girls breaking through those labels and not stopping because of juvenile discourse.sjostrow@indiana.edu@ostrowski_s_j
(03/12/14 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>It’s getting tougher and tougher to find jobs. Believe me, I’m going through the search right now.And it’s not even a job search. It’s an internship search that I’m hoping will lead to some sort of full-time employment. So, freshmen, live it up.But the real point of this isn’t to moan about my lack of employment. It’s to highlight the fact that with plans like the “Finish in Four” initiative, we’re trying to reverse where we’ve been and get more people to graduate and graduate on time.It’s great, and it has landed IU in a prominent spot on many “great deal” studies throughout the nation, including the Washington Monthly’s “Best Bang for the Buck” rankings.Graduating is good. We want students to graduate. But it does mean more competition in the job market. Luckily, IU is also taking steps to get students to grow and prove themselves worthy of the job through proposed interdisciplinary majors.Interim Vice Provost for Education Dennis Groth said he recognizes the amount of students who have multiple majors and enhance their degrees with certificates and minors, and he is “looking at ways that we can investigate the paths that our students have already taken.” This would essentially put a focus on making more programs within the Media School, which has generated some buzz throughout campus in the past year.Overall, focusing on more programs like this can be highly beneficial from a student perspective.Interdisciplinary majors will help people focus their multiple interests and buffer their degree with minors and certificates. It will give institutional backing with trained advisers who can confidently answer questions about the varying aspects of the degree — not guessing how the other department functions.It will also give more students more enticing and realistic opportunities.Being an English and theatre and drama major, I’m basically in the hurricane of high-risk degrees paired with typical big-dreamers. We’re not all going to be actors on Broadway or writing the next great American novel — statistically, it’s impossible.I see people in my daily life who are solely graduating with a degree in English, focusing on creative writing. There’s nothing wrong with this as long as you don’t lose track of the reality of the job market. You’ll most likely work for a publishing house or literary agent before you can be John Steinbeck.Interdisciplinary majors will help provide this reality check and facilitate students working toward becoming truly desirable parts of the workforce.Finally, interdisciplinary majors would help break down large, useless institutions the University loves to buy into, like the College of Arts and Sciences — something many of you know I’m passionate about. While most of us normally complain about the University on this page, this week I say “Good job, IU.”I’m tempted to fail some of my classes so I can stick around and see what unfolds.sjostrow@indiana.edu
(03/06/14 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Pharrell spends the first 25 seconds of his sophomore album with a classical string orchestra before he breaks in by announcing “different,” dropping an 808 beat and getting you to dance. It’s a nice metaphor for the album at large — Williams doesn’t need to try so hard to create a masterpiece, he just has to get us to move.And he does so wonderfully.Further on in “Marilyn Monroe,” a voice with British accent offered an invocation: “In honor of the groove, and all who surrender to it, we say thank you — and take it back.” Williams gets us to surrender to the groove effortlessly.This feeling of effortlessness comes about because of Williams’s devotion to simplicity. He’s bringing back a minimalism that Stevie Wonder brought to contemporary pop music but infuses it with a modern soul and elements that show he has collaborated with artists like Britney Spears, Shakira, Jennifer Lopez and Beyoncé.Quite frankly, the highlight of the album is single “Happy” — a chart-topping, soul-clapping favorite. But we get other joys throughout the album in the tribal-humming and flat-out goofing around vibe of “Lost Queen.”“Brand New” features vocals by Justin Timberlake and “Know Who You Are” includes Alicia Keys, making both tracks pretty irresistible solely because these two timeless pop artists sound so goddamned soulful.The 10-track album knows what it is and knows the people can’t dance forever. I actually appreciate the devotion to a “shorter” album — compared to most current pop albums — because it demonstrates Williams’s hyper-awareness of his time in the producing world and knowing what the people want.True, the album leaves much to be desired in the lyrics. Pharrell doesn’t get this grade for his poetics — it’s for his infusion of soul, R&B, funk and disco into pop music that hasn’t been seen so successfully since Michael Jackson.But as the album progresses and you spend more time with it, you begin to wonder if we like Williams for being a producer and collaborator or if he can only accomplish the genre blending in his own work.Regardless, Pharrell is the artist we didn’t know we needed. But now that we know, we should never let him go.Luckily it looks like he’ll be around for quite a while — both with his booming career and the fact that it appears he found the Fountain of Youth.
(03/05/14 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>This week in asinine news, the Indiana House passed a controversial bill allowing people to carry guns onto school grounds as long as they are locked and out of sight in parked cars. The National Rifle Association and the other proponents of the bill rejoiced. They claim this is a step in the right direction. They believe all those parents might inadvertently have guns in their cars as they go to pick up their kids from school deserve these protections.First of all, you should never inadvertently have a gun with you. If you are carrying a firearm on your body, or even in your car, it should always be on your mind. A gun is a deadly weapon. We can’t afford flippancy when guns are involved.Second, I have to admit I side with Rep. Vernon Smith, D-14th District, who claimed, “When people are emotional, that’s when they do their worst job of critical thinking. They don’t think. They just act.” I don’t know about you, but trying to pick a kid up from school is up there with public speaking on the list of recipes for instant anxiety. There’s intense traffic, you’re tired from the day you’ve had, children are running all around the cars and you just want to get home to dinner. So let’s approve adding a gun to that mix. I say all of this only slightly tongue-in-cheek.Road rage and gun violence, unfortunately, can go hand in hand.In September 2013, Matthew Webster shot Anna Alger six times and killed her after Alger confronted Webster for running a red light and nearly hitting her car. The incident left many people talking about the effects of guns and road rage.It’s an extreme case, yes. But there’s no reason why we should trust human emotion and temper when there are documented cases like that to prove our fallibility. Rep. Jim Lucas, R-69th District, thinks the current state of the law is out of hand. The law, as it exists right now, makes it a Class D felony to leave a gun unattended in a school parking lot. And I think this is fair. The risk is just too high, and there are far too many scenarios where things can go wrong. Even if it’s not the parent, no one can absolutely say that the student being picked up from school won’t accidentally find the gun while a parent is talking to a teacher? There are far too many what ifs Indiana has failed to recognize because we’re too blinded by the flash of silver. It would be surprising to see the bill actually signed into law, but it’s disheartening it passed the House in the first place.sjostrow@indiana.edu
(02/27/14 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>“About a Boy” is NBC’s newest exercise in laziness.The new show is based on the 2002 film of the same name, starring Hugh Grant. It’s based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Nick Hornby. The pilot episode stuck to the standard plot exactly — to a fault.Will (David Walton) finds a woman he wants to have sex with, lies and tells her he’s a single father to win her over, then uses his new neighbor’s son, Marcus (Benjamin Stockman), to play his son. Will teaches Marcus how to be cool, eat meat and stand up to bullies. Marcus goes along for the ride and pretends to be Will’s son so Will continues to get laid.This is brave, considering the movie and book delve into beautiful observations about depression, growing up and how family can support you in different way.Jamming all of this into 22 minutes leaves us with blanket statements about Marcus’s mother (Minnie Driver) being sad and near-comically crying over dinner. Will is just painted as a general douchebag.Character development is out the window, and the show depends on stock sitcom devices to get through its pilot.Cramming the entire plot of the movie into the sitcom is a bold move. It could have been a sweep of bravado to acknowledge the source material, get it out of the way and continue on with a new style.There might be time to save the show, but with their work on the pilot I say don’t waste your time when you could be watching basically any other show.
(02/26/14 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>As things are winding down for me at IU, I took the “Your View. Your IU.” Student Experience at the Research University survey and reflected on my education.Many of you might not know this because you only know me by my little black and white mugshot and the byline next to it, but I’m a double major in English and theater and drama — which you don’t know because the Indiana Daily Student will let us have only one major in the byline.Though both of these majors are within the College of Arts and Sciences, they’ve provided me with different enough experiences to have distinct thoughts when I’m asked to “compare” the two like the SERU survey asks.Both have been strong educations, but I found myself more readily thinking about my theater and drama education whenever there was a question about student life or relationships with professors.And then I realized, it’s because the Department of Theatre, Drama and Contemporary Dance is very much on its own. All of those classes are in one building. I can see professors in their offices on the third floor. All graduate students have cubicles in the building and classmates and peers are more centrally located within the building.All in all, it’s a wonderful sense of community.And it’s that sense of community because everything exists in one building.The Department of English is located in Ballantine, but I’ve had English courses in Sycamore Hall, Woodburn Hall, Hutton Honors College and more. I’ve visited graduate student instructors in their offices in Weatherly Hall, which does in fact exist and remains in use. And I’ve generally never felt that strong sense of community that I have with my other major.The College of Arts and Sciences has never come to the realization that it’s too large. I’ve written about this topic before, and others will write on it again. But the behemoth has taken on 70 degree-granting programs that allows for about 9,000 undergraduate majors to be enrolled in the College.It’s hard to develop a sense of community within such a large system, but even harder when the College doesn’t seems to realize its girth and how departments must sprawl out all over campus in order to survive.Especially considering Provost Lauren Robel’s recently released strategic plan, we should spend more time looking at the division of the College.In the plan, Robel pushes to “create indelible connections between our undergraduates and our campus” and aims to “support a safe, vibrant and healthy community characterized by a culture of care among and for our students.” Accomplishing these goals within the College of Arts and Sciences is as easy as making more segmented, centralized departments and making a concerted effort to keep them as such.Though Robel might be talking about mental and physical health when discussing a “culture of care,” that doesn’t need to solely come from professionals in the Health Center. It can come from having a sense of belonging and support from the peers within your major.sjostrow@indiana.edu @ostrowski_s_j
(02/20/14 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>I think we can all admit the 1980s was a great decade for film —
especially for the nerds. The science-fiction genre was developing and
evolving into a form to create real horror, amazement and social
commentary.
We got “Back to the Future,” “The Terminator,” “Aliens,” “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” and more.And
then there was “RoboCop” — an interesting and iconic piece of film that
garnered enough success to warrant two sequels, but certainly nothing
deserving of a remake. That’s where director José Padilha intervenes.
The new film follows the old storyline, only interjecting enough modern
references to make you think the filmmakers are standing for something
when they’re not.OmniCorp is making drones that are saving the
world, and they want to expand their business and safety model to the
United States. But there’s some reluctance from both the American people
and the federal government about the safety of drones walking the
streets of the U.S. without human emotion.
The president of OmniCorp (Michael Keaton) decides he needs to get a
human into one of his machines to seem relatable. Honestly, it’s a
highly unclear plot device.Enter Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman), a
Detroit policeman who gets injured during a bomb explosion in a strange
mix-up with organized crime. An OmniCorp scientist, played by Gary
Oldman, salvages Murphy’s head, esophagus, heart and lungs by putting
them in a clunky robotic suit, thus making OmniCorp happy and the movie
actually happen.
The main problem is the movie tries too hard. It fails to recognize all
it has to be is a “shoot ‘em up, blow up some bad guys” kind of action
flick to make the people happy. Instead it tries to get into nuanced
commentary about human-robot interactions — essentially, it tries to go
where the critically acclaimed “Blade Runner” went in terms of
futuristic existential critique.
But there are many issues with this, chiefly the fact that “Blade
Runner” was made in a time when that critique was highly palpable. Now,
it just seems dry and forced. “RoboCop” also fails because it
never commits to a side on the issue at hand. It seemingly tries to stay
bipartisan throughout the whole 108 minutes.
And finally, “RoboCop” still has to live up to what the trailers promised and be an action movie.In
order to get everything Padilha wanted there to be in the movie, the
plot is cramped and compromised. Action sequences are poorly plotted and
confusing, and actors literally seem like they just got off the stage
of their fifth-grade school pageant.
The only thing saving this movie from a failing grade is Gary Oldman’s impeccable effort to try and save a sinking ship.That
and the fact I got to see a “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” trailer
piggybacking on a trailer for “X-Men: Days of Future Past” before the
film started.
(02/19/14 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>It’s February. It’s cold. We haven’t had a snow day yet and there are too many days until Little 500.Those are plenty of good reasons to be salty.I know that, personally, when second semester rolls around it’s easy to get critical of nearly everything — your classes, your education, the university system at large. I fully admit that this month I’ve been complaining to anyone who will listen about how inadequate everything seems.I wish that this occasional feeling of general inadequacy was just my experience, but I know that’s not true at all. I’ve had friends complain about going through the commencement ceremony circuit because they felt the University didn’t serve them well enough.And then I truly realized how immensely selfish that is.This past weekend I had a rare opportunity. I grew up with three friends, and we were so close people referred to as the Fab Four — dressing as the Beatles for Halloween also helped with this reference. The four of us stayed pretty close until we all went separate ways in college.Fast forward to senior year and all of the moms decide that they’ll come to each boy, visit his college, take him out to lunch and spend the day with him no matter the distance of the school. This past weekend was my turn, and the women that raised me came to Bloomington to show their support.And it was this experience that got me out of my cynical rut.College is more than you. It’s bigger than your classes and your experiences.No matter what kind of background you come from, your college journey is a conglomeration of work from a myriad of different sources and supporters.For many of us, college isn’t just our accomplishment — it’s an accomplishment for mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, grandparents, aunts, mentors, teachers and more. So to complain about the university system is not only discrediting work that you’ve done to get to this point, but it’s ignoring all their work, too.I’m not saying I’ve been the poster-child for parent-son relations. I often forget to call my parents, I like to live my own life and I’ve had my fair share of bitter summers where I’ve acted like an asshat because I’m home and not interning with Vanity Fair in New York. We’ve all been there.And I’m sure I’ll be like that a few more times throughout my life.But the important thing is to remember where you came from and take a moment to recognize everyone in your past. No one is self-created, and no journey is only yours.So as the going gets boring in these dreary months, don’t blame it on IU. Instead, adjust your perception and take a moment to call your mom to tell her “thank you.”— sjostrow@indiana.edu
(02/13/14 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Everything is awesome, and “The Lego Movie” has quickly revolutionized animated film.In 1934, Lego was a bunch of wooden toys taking their company name from the Danish phrase leg godt, meaning “play well.”The new movie sticks to that original motto.The whole endeavor is a fine example of playing. It’s creative, fine-tuned, self-aware and funny as hell.Focusing on Emmet (Chris Pratt), a normal construction Lego minifigure who is happy in his Big Brother-dominated world, the movie starts off fresh and amusing as we get to explore Emmet’s daily habits of not fitting in. But it goes further and only gets better.After falling into a pit and being deemed the most extraordinary man in the Lego universe, Emmet is snatched up by Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks), Batman (Will Arnett) and Virtuvius (Morgan Freeman) to join the rest of the master-builders and save the world from President Business’ (Will Ferrell) plan to glue the universe in place.The adventure ends up being a madcap, world-hopping event that somehow seamlessly blends together storylines from pirates to Star Wars and effortlessly mashes Gandalf, Shakespeare, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Abraham Lincoln into one storyline.How does it accomplish this?Because it’s a “children’s” movie that devotes itself fully to a post-modern self-awareness in every aspect. It makes the unfamiliar the norm and never looks back.Probably the best thing about “The Lego Movie” is its groundbreaking animation. The whole movie abides by the rules of the Lego universe and never strays from that established code.Smoke, explosions, bubbles underwater and more are all created from Lego bricks. While it’d be easy to accept a classic animated explosion here and there, the film never gives into easy temptation.Toward the end of the movie, the script even gets justifiably sentimental and wonderfully explores family dynamics, in particular the relationship between fathers and sons. Pretty impressive for a film where Morgan Freeman voices a character who carries around a half-eaten lollipop for a walking stick.The film reminds all of us to always play well and never settle for the mundane. A message we don’t just need children to invest in.
(02/12/14 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Senate Bill 113 was deemed as a “bill to watch” by our very own Indiana Daily Student.The bill “Requires each school corporation and accredited nonpublic elementary school to include cursive writing in its curriculum” and “requires each school corporation and accredited nonpublic school to include reading in its curriculum.” I really can’t disagree with mandating reading in the curriculum, but I do struggle with making sure that cursive writing does, in fact, outlive our grandparents.Cursive writing just doesn’t have much of a place in society anymore. We’re done writing letters and drafting documents to free America from Britain.Why should we force cursive writing when we could be teaching keyboarding — the alternative many schools are embracing.A lot of cursive’s support comes from the argument that we need students to be able to read cursive and they obviously cannot read it without learning to first write the fancy script. The proponents fear that future historians will not be able to accurately study important documents like the Declaration of Independence and Constitution.But this won’t be the case at all.Just like any dead language or script, there will be a reserved elite who will rise up, learn the script and continue to study the original documents. It happened with Egyptian hieroglyphics and even Middle English. We pride ourselves in basing our literary tradition on foundational texts like the Canterbury Tales, but most students could never study that text in its original script.Documents get passed down, translated and transcribed if they are important. The same thing has happened and will continue to happen with our important American documents.Other proponents are saying that there are more benefits to cursive writing than simply keeping old documents out of the dark. In 2006, the College Board released a statement about the SAT writing section stating, “15 percent of essays were written in cursive, while the other 85 percent were printed. Essays written in cursive received a slightly higher score.” The “slightly higher score” they refer to averages out to be around two-tenths of a point. Not anything to write home about.Others refer to cursive as a nice piece of tradition or a piece of art. They see it as boosting creativity, personal ownership of language and the artistic instinct in children.If that’s the case, we should just keep arts programs in school.The fact of the matter is that cursive is on the way out and mandating its presence in schools is a waste of valuable time for many politicians.I learned cursive and followed in my father’s footsteps of creating some kind of monstrosity that now forces me to write in block letters if I want to be taken semi-seriously.If they ever need a spokesperson for the lack of cursive’s lasting impact, they can go ahead and call me up.— sjostrowski@indiana.edu
(02/06/14 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The best thing about “That Awkward Moment” is it teaches us all a valuable lesson that can give some of us a lot of hope. No matter how awful you are at acting, directing or screenwriting, you can still get work in Hollywood.Writer and director Tom Gormican has created one of the more worthless films of the year — and it’s only February.“That Awkward Moment” — which is an awkward title that awkwardly has nothing to do with the movie, but was a nice piece of marketing to bring more tween girls to see the movie — is a movie built on the “Bro Code.”Jason, Daniel and Mikey all vow to stay single, live it up and have raucous, drunken sex in order to help Mikey get over his wife cheating on him.The only problem is the goons all fall in love with girls that are completely unbelievable, and each bro has to hide his relationship from his fellow bros.Jason (Zac Efron) has a cutesy affair with Ellie, played by Imogen Poots, who was apparently told to play up her disheveled Scarlett Johansson look while putting on a fake Zooey Deschanel quirkiness.The extremely un-put-together Daniel (Miles Teller) gets with his incredibly put-together best friend Chelsea (Mackenzie Davis). Mikey (Michael B. Jordan) goes back to his wife, Vera (Jessica Lucas).All the men do shitty, misogynistic things in order to keep their relationships secret and follow the “Bro Code.” They neglect funerals, have sex in their parents’ shower during Thanksgiving and basically do anything in their power to avoid blue balls.But after the classic rom-com truth-telling session, ensuing fight and sad montage, the ladies come flouncing back.No matter how unlikely the pairings would be in real life, Gormican also makes sure that black people fall in love with black people and white people fall in love with white people — a tired stereotype that is painfully obvious throughout the film.Perhaps the biggest sin Gormican commits isn’t that his movie is all-around offensive. It’s the fact that Zac Efron didn’t offend me enough.With a trailer in which we see Efron’s naked body horizontal on the toilet in order to combat an incident with Viagra, I was very ready to immerse myself in some eye candy. But we don’t even get that.Efron is seen shirtless a few times and mid-coitus once, but if you were expecting some truly dirty Jake Gyllenhaal in “Love & Other Drugs”-esque material, you’ll have to turn to the Internet.Disappointments all around.
(02/05/14 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Students have developed stigma around being tested for sexually transmitted infections. No one particularly enjoys the process, and many opt out entirely.But IU, home of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction, isn’t doing much to combat the stigma.With all the University does, it has somehow failed to offer free STI testing.The IU Health Center charges $37.50 for chlamydia and gonorrhea testing, $38 for HIV testing, and a whopping $98 for HPV testing.Some might say $38 for HIV testing is reasonable compared to when you get out into the real world. But the fact is, students are not in the real world. Thirty-eight dollars could mean gas money, or even groceries for some. I would be lying if I said there aren’t some months where every penny counts, as I’m living paycheck to paycheck.All of those test prices are also including the health fee, a mandatory fee that students who are enrolled in more than three credit hours must pay every term. The spring 2014 health fee was $110.22.During the standard eight semesters spent at IU, the health fee adds up to a hefty amount of money. The University, of course, justifies the fee because it includes “a reduced charge of $18 for routine medical clinic visits, two free visits (excluding psychiatry) to Counseling and Psychological Services each semester, free prescheduled appointments to the women’s clinic, and several free or discounted services available through the Health and Wellness clinic, such as fitness assessments.” It’s concise reasoning. What’s not so concise is why we can’t have free STI testing.The University is constantly tooting its own horn regarding the two free visits to CAPS per semester. This is a great service that I’ve personally known to help many students — so it’s not clear why we don’t get at least two free STI tests included in the health fee.We’re already paying a gross amount to the University, and I’m sure many of you didn’t even know you were required to pay a health fee in the first place.We shouldn’t have to pay more for a service that should be free in college. There are free testing options at IU Health’s Positive Link, but this isn’t student-oriented or necessarily student-accessible for many. Special weeks like Sexploration Week and Culture of Care often bring in free HIV testing as well, but this is only for a short amount of time.We need a constant, free source of STI testing on campus.The University is supposed to educate and advance education. It should take its students and instill good practices in them — one of those practices should be getting tested for STIs regularly. And in order to get tested regularly, the testing needs to be free.
(01/29/14 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Indiana is having education problems again.A recent article in the Indianapolis Star asserts the state’s voucher program has doubled to extend to 19,809 students — most of whom have never attended public school. Roughly 40 percent of students, or 7,800 children, received vouchers for the 2013-14 school year but were not enrolled in Indiana’s public schools, according to RTV6. The voucher program is a convoluted argument and has truly been through the wringer. At its core, I don’t think the voucher system is harmful, but it is when abused.David Dresslar, executive director of the University of Indianapolis’ Center of Excellence in Leadership of Learning, claimed the 5,225 new students added to the voucher program last year was a slippery slope. And I agree. The most disheartening aspect of this whole issue is, based on this data and extending its trends, we’re completely giving up on public schools and all of their employees.In previous legislation regarding vouchers, the Star reports students were only eligible if they completed two semesters of public school and were from families with annual incomes “at up to 150 percent of the free or reduced lunch level,” meaning about $65,000 for a family of four. At least the previous legislation was much more strict on having students attend public school for a year. With this clause gone for many, Indiana seems to be leaving public schools to die by the wayside.This oversimplifies the problem, but it comes down to the adage of how can you not like it if you’ve never tried it.Although it costs less for the state to give a student a voucher than to fund a student in public schools, continuing to hand away vouchers with no real intent or standards will reverse this.Even though the state spent $36 million on vouchers last year, it technically saved $4.9 million in the process, according to the Star. But as the system takes on more students, the savings have not had the same growth spurt.The more students we throw into the voucher system, the more we clog the machine and have the potential to lose money.Another timely argument is that the voucher system is continuing to eliminate the middle class.We’re at a point where everyone is talking about economic inequality and how President Barack Obama affects this struggle. But let’s think about the educational caste system we’re creating.As the voucher system grows, the educated middle class shrinks. There will always be students in the public school system, but now more suburban students are making their way out of public schools and into private ones.Instead of trying to meet in the middle, we’re dividing the haves from the have-nots. All this does is essentially negate what vouchers wanted to do in the first place.— sjostrow@indiana.eduFollow columnist Sam Ostrowski on Twitter @ostrowski_s_j.
(01/21/14 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>With Martin Luther King Jr. Day right behind us, the idea of pride and equality are fresh in the brain.And some people are feeling a little left out.In a conversation with friends right before MLK Day, we started talking about white pride. It was all brought on by an image floating around the Internet that says, “I’m proud to be black; said a black man. I’m proud to be Asian; said an Asian man. I’m proud to be white; said a racist.”Besides the rough rhetorical structure, the argument seems just a little backward.But delving into the topic, it’s pretty convoluted. I found myself originally agreeing with the core of the message just based on the principle that we should all be able to be proud of who we are. Then I was horrified that I just agreed with something that sounds like it came straight out of “Deliverance.”I finally came to this — white pride is a nice theory, but can never work in practice.Yes, everyone in America should feel comfortable and proud to live his or her daily life. But we can’t have white pride rallies, parades, film festivals or what have you because we have no grounds to do so, and we’ll screw it up.So, white pride exists for the idea alone.The reason that we could never demonstrate white pride — and the reason the topic is so uncomfortable in the first place — is because pride demonstrations are a reclamation and response to hate and discrimination.This may be shocking news to some, but white people really aren’t discriminated against.I’m sure the comments section below will flood with personal anecdotes about times when you felt uncomfortable being white, but that doesn’t cut it. Black, Asian, and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender pride all stem from a massive amount of people experiencing a massive amount of hate — many including a sizeable death toll.Sure, you might feel like a martyr because you were the only white kid in a black poetry course once and you felt uncomfortable.But read that sentence again and realize how those sentiments aren’t valid. Because white has always been the “norm” in America, to demonstrate and assert that white people shouldn’t have to experience hate is just incorrect.Yes, there is a double standard, and I’m advocating for it because white people haven’t earned the type of pride the ignorant quote above calls for.I’ll never feel guilty for being white. There’s really nothing I can do about that. But I’m certainly not going out to buy a white pride bumper sticker any time soon.— sjostrow@indiana.edu Follow columnist Sam Ostrowski on Twitter at @ostrowski_s_j
(01/16/14 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Now let me be frank, I’m pretty biased — I’ve got a pretty massive crush on Queen B and most of my high school years were spent driving around singing “Halo” until I was hoarse and out of gas. But this album deserves the hype.While her last studio effort “4” seemed to be the pinnacle of Knowles’s career — a sturdy conglomeration of all the Queen’s musical fortes — she continues to excel in this secret self-titled album.The “visual album,” as Knowles describes it , is nothing short of brilliance. It’s genre-bending, artistically original and a completely new agenda for the music industry.Knowles shows off her potential as a true artist — as opposed to being a pop music copycat — specifically in her subject matter. She refuses to go for the easy tracks about drinking in the club and instead dredges the depths of motherhood including everything from a therapeutic track about her miscarriage in “Heaven” to hints of postpartum depression in “Mine.” “Blow” is an original, disco-infused track that is, quite frankly, sexy as hell. She takes R&B vocals, puts them over an 808 beat and makes the whole track sound like it came straight from “Soul Train: After Dark,” but manages to keep it fresh at the same time. It’s not a tired, worn-out disco that we need to dread.“Partition” is just as explicitly sexy but does a complete 180 as Yoncé shows us how she truly came from the Dirty South. Beginning harmlessly with a sample from her “Mrs. Carter World Tour,” the track immediately erupts in an urban, bucket drumbeat that confirms she is, in fact, married to Jay-Z.Tracks like “Jealous” and “No Angel” are good and definitively Beyoncé harkening back to a similar feel established in “4,” but they’re nothing spectacular. They don’t hurt the album in any way, but if you’re looking to download select tracks, there’s no need to settle for these.Overall, the album is an incredible success and should nab best album of 2013 for its ingenuity and execution.The Queen has definitely given us more tracks to scream until we’re hoarse. I’m pleased.Deservedly Overrated Tracks: “XO,” “***Flawless”Underrated Tracks: “Pretty Hurts,” “Drunk in Love”