Category: Opinion

By Gopika Nair, Editor-in-Chief

A woman who wants to make it in the film industry is expected to schmooze by letting men have their way with them.

Then, they have to remain silent because speaking out against prominent Hollywood figures would be detrimental to their careers. That’s just Hollywood, babe.

Except it’s time to denounce that attitude. It’s time to wholly obliterate the very idea that those who want to make a name of themselves, in Hollywood or otherwise, have to put up with a sleazy man or two.

Harvey Weinstein is a Hollywood mogul. Regardless of whether you’re a frequent moviegoer or not, you’ve heard of his movies, perhaps even loved them. They range from cult favorites such as “Pulp Fiction” and “Sing Street” to Academy favorites such as “The King’s Speech” and “Silver Linings Playbook.”

Nearly 50 actresses and others who work in the film industry have made sexual assault allegations against Weinstein so far, from A-listers such as Angelina Jolie and Gwyneth Paltrow to international stars such as Asia Argento and Léa Seydoux.

Because of Weinstein’s alleged actions, lesser-known women intent on pursuing a career in the film industry gave it up altogether, according to Vanity Fair.

It’s no wonder these sexual assault allegations only just came to light, even though their occurrences allegedly spanned decades.

These actresses were expected to remain silent. Because Weinstein had the power to essentially make or break these women’s careers, they had no choice. Because it’s Hollywood, babe.

But as demonstrated by the #MeToo campaign that came to fruition in the aftermath of these allegations, most of us know a Weinstein and most of us aren’t looking to make it big in Hollywood or seeking an Academy win.

Our clothes aren’t custom-made for us by Chanel and we probably don’t have a shot of being featured on The Ellen Show or The Tonight Show. We’re people who live private, low-profile lives no one follows, but we’re still plagued by Weinsteins.

Sure, maybe it’s not a facsimile; maybe it’s just fragments of a Weinstein-like character. Maybe we know them through the fortunate shield of someone else’s experience; maybe we know them because of our own bad luck.

Seeing as people like Weinstein aren’t a rarity in the world, it’s baffling that “no means no” still isn’t a universally acknowledged concept. It’s horrifying that people’s bodies are being violated against their will, by people in power, by authoritative figures, by neighbors, friends,  significant others and perhaps worst of all, by family members.

But how and where does all this end?

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ 54-member board decided to expel Weinstein from the academy, according to Vogue. Following the allegations, Weinstein’s studio fired him.

There might be more repercussions, but none of them are going to undo his actions. But at the very least, with the number of prominent figures who have condemned Weinstein and his actions since the allegations against him came to light, some semblance of hope remains that this situation has at least proven that silence is no longer the only option, that speaking out can actually achieve some good and some justice in the grand scheme of things.

By Kienan O’Doherty, A&E Editor

Riots have occurred in major cities around the globe, and the one thing that unites all people is safely staying away from the confrontations.

Sports unite almost everybody, from basketball to baseball to rugby, and especially the world’s most popular sport, soccer.

With many issues being demonstrated by protests and riots nowadays, sports teams are opting to play behind closed doors. Or in other words, not let a single fan into the stadium.

Some sporting events have faced criticism for doing this.

Most recently, FC Barcelona decided to play UD Las Palmas in a league game behind closed doors at their stadium, the Camp Nou. The reasoning for this was because of the violence in Catalonia due to the 2017 Catalan independence referendum.

Another example is the Baltimore Orioles, who played the first ever crowd-less game in the history of Major League Baseball.

Officials decided to play the games behind closed doors because of a wave of looting and rioting around Camden Yards that broke out amid tensions between residents and police. The turmoil, prompting a citywide curfew, came hours after the funeral of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who sustained a fatal spinal cord injury while in police custody.

Now I understand that a sporting event is one of the most popular things to watch. But for the players’ safety, as well as the fans’, cautionary measures have to be taken.

For example, a soccer game in Europe can even cause more riots than subdue them, as fan behavior has become a big factor postgame. Even after a victory.

According to CBC News, a riot that occurred in Montreal in 1993 after a victory, saw “ rioters burnt or smashed 16 police cars as well as other vehicles.”

After the Vancouver Canucks lost the Stanley Cup to the Boston Bruins in 2011, riots cost the city “Just over $3.7 million. There were 112 businesses and 122 vehicles damaged, and 52 assaults were reported against civilians, police and emergency personnel, according to Global News.

If a team decides to play behind closed doors, it is to look out for their safety, as well as the stadium’s and make sure they aren’t a part of the outside confrontations.

By Kienan O’Doherty, A&E Editor 

So many disasters in so little time; the question remains, “Are we to blame?”

Scientists have stated such, with evidence proving that the gases we emit from our production are destroying our atmosphere.

Weather is hotter, ice is melting at an alarming rate, flowers are blooming sooner and water levels are rising at a rapid pace. It’s also believable that global temperatures will continue to rise in the coming years.

The worst part about all of this is, natural disasters are getting worse.

Eric Holthaus, a writer for the website grist.org, wrote in his Sept. 11 article, stating that the most recent hurricanes, Harvey and Irma, weren’t normal hurricanes.

“Make no mistake: These storms weren’t natural. A warmer, more violent atmosphere—heated up by our collective desire to ignore the fact that we live on a planet where such devastation is possible—juiced Harvey and Irma’s destruction,” Holthaus said.

This is not normal, there is no normal anymore. Our world is constantly changing, and it stretches far beyond the United States.

Devastating floods in both South Asia and Africa killed hundreds more than Harvey did. This has been going on for a while, as we all know.

Randy Lee Loftis, a National Geographic writer, wrote an article in 2015 about climate change and natural disasters.

“Human-caused changes in climate played a role in 14 of 28 storms, droughts and other 2014 extreme weather events investigated by global scientists,” Loftis said.

That is not a good number by any means. These storms are just going to get bigger if the world population.

It’s time to act now.

By Aleksei Pavloff, Sports Editor 

Sunday was meant to be a day for relaxing and watching one of the most popular sports in the nation, but it was overshadowed by protest and name-calling.

Everything happened this past Friday with President Donald Trump who was speaking to supporters. He seems to take issue with one thing, players kneeling for the national anthem. This controversy covered all major news outlets when former San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick decided to kneel during the national anthem.

“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” said Kaepernick, in an article written by sbnation.com.

Kaepernick added that this issue was bigger than football and that it would be “selfish on (Kaepernick’s) part to look the other way.”

“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He’s fired. He’s fired!’” said President Trump, who was quoted by the Guardian.

His Twitter account also shows his disdain for those who protest the anthem. He tweeted about how fans should stand up and take action for those who decide to kneel during the national anthem.

“If NFL fans refuse to go to games until players stop disrespecting our Flag & Country, you will see change take place fast. Fire or suspend!” President Trump said via Twitter.

Fast forward to this past Sunday and there were many instances of teams protesting the anthem in what seemed to be a response to President Trump’s comments.

If you watched any of the games, you saw players kneeling and standing while locking arms, players sitting down, and players such as Buffalo Bills running back LeSean McCoy, who stretched while the national anthem was playing. There were also some teams that chose not to go out on the field for the anthem. Both the Seattle Seahawks and Tennessee Titans.

Both head coaches Pete Carroll (Seahawks) and Mike Mularkey (Titans) told tennessean.com the players made the decision. This big topic of controversy upsets those who have served in the armed forces and those who respect our nation’s history. But is it really the most disrespectful thing we do?

I am constantly on social media because I’m either bored or I just want to see what my friends are doing. But something crossed my mind as I aimlessly read people’s opinions about the protest, do we really respect our flag?

I also came across a series of screenshots that explained all the ways we disrespect the flag. The screenshots that were posted to Facebook but originated on Twitter was posted by user @koopa_kinte and has close to 200,000 retweets and more than 250,000 likes.

This prompted me to research the rules for respecting the flag, and so I did. Scavenging the Internet, because that’s what millennials do best, I found a website titled usflag.org.

A link on the website let me to the United States code, title 36, chapter 10. Scrolling down, I was shockingly surprised.

“The flag should never be carried flat or horizontally, but always aloft and free,” according to usflag.org.

If you have ever watched an NFL game, you may remember the one moment, when they play the national anthem, that some stadiums carry an enormous flag out that is horizontal but never touches the ground.

OK, but that’s just one little slip that people make. At least it never touches the ground. Wait, there’s more. “The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery,” according to usflag.org.

This means that my flag-patterned tank top should not be on my list for weekend attire. But there are all sorts of ways we, as Americans, find an excuse to put the flag on anything. You can go on Amazon and find any number of products that use the pattern of the U.S. flag.

“The flag should never be used for advertising purposes in any manner whatsoever. It should not be embroidered on such articles as cushions or handkerchiefs and the like, printed or otherwise impressed on paper napkins or boxes or anything that is designed for temporary use and discard. Advertising signs should not be fastened to a staff or halyard from which the flag is flown,” according to usflag.org.

Say goodbye to celebrating the Fourth of July with all those cheaply made napkins and paper plates that show the U.S. flag. At the end of the day, people will not even care how they use the flag.

I have seen people who buy U.S. flags and post them up in their rooms only to find the flag laying on the ground. As a football player, I would probably never kneel for the anthem.

To me, it means more than your typical patriotic symbol. However, I love to see people using their First Amendment right to freedom of expression. And it is other people’s right to disagree with the protesters.

This is why I write and want to be a journalist. To record the moments in history where we find ourselves breaking apart rather than coming together. But this past weekend showed teammates, coaches and owners coming together and it may not stop here.

By Spencer Pauley, Copy Editor 

Are the expectations we set for ourselves too high?

Maybe not all of us will go on to do life-changing work in the future, but that doesn’t mean we won’t be successful.

I read an article by the New York Times titled, “You’ll Never Be Famous—And That’s O.K.” The article discussed that too many college students have extraordinary aspirations.

Not every student is going to become the owner of a multibillion dollar franchise, star in a movie franchise, publish a best-seller or make the next big scientific discovery, but students often set high goals like these for themselves.

With goals like that, disappointment might be inevitable. But it just seems wrong to “settle for something smaller” when it comes to my life after OWU.

Then the author of the New York Times article, Emily Smith, said, “The most meaningful lives, I’ve learned, are often not the extraordinary ones. They’re the ordinary ones lived with dignity.”

There is more to life than how much you make, where you live and what kind of car you own. It’s about the respect you’ve earned from those you’ve met that matters more in life.

The satisfaction people have in life does not come from the material goods they obtain, but from the people around them. Whether that be family, friends, or coworkers.

Once you realize that you’re genuinely happier when you’re with the people who you love and love you back, then you know your life is full of success. So as each of us students continue our time here at OWU, understand that it’s not going to be the end of the world if you don’t reach your ultimate goal in life. Work hard and take life in stride, we’ll be all right.

By Gopika Nair, Editor-in-Chief

That flimsy, yellow square blanketing your McDonald’s burger patty? It’s supposed to be there, despite how unnatural it may look.

But everyone knows that.

The “blobs” in your bubble tea, on the other hand? A much stranger concept, at least according to a recent article published in the The New York Times’ entrepreneurship section on Aug. 16. The original headline, the one that appeared in print, read, “The Blobs in Your Tea? They’re Supposed to Be There.”

Writing headlines isn’t everyone’s forte—I get it, no judgement—but the Times’ initial headline warrants a brash question.  Did anyone in the history of ever actually wonder whether the black tapioca pearls in bubble tea were inedible?

Despite the questionable headline, the article brought attention to a much larger issue.

Frank Shyong, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, tweeted, “This NYT boba piece, despite being comically late and breathtakingly stupid, is exactly why we need diverse newsrooms.”

Backlash over the article prompted the Times to change its headline. This time, the title was, “Bubble Tea, Long a Niche Favorite, Goes Mainstream in the U.S.” An improvement on the first headline, but the revised version carries the implication that bubble tea has only just gone mainstream, which people were quick to point out.

Julia Wong, reporter for The Guardian U.S., tweeted, “Does anyone who works for the New York Times live in New York?”

For the final time, the Times changed the article’s headline, which now reads, “Bubble Tea Purveyors Continue to Grow Along With Drink’s Popularity.” But it wasn’t just the headlines that drew criticism from the readers; the original article itself described the drink in a manner that made it seem odd and exotic.

Times’ business editor Ellen Pollock addressed the criticisms the article drew, chief among the statements being, “readers thought we described the drink, which was created in Taiwan, as strange and alien, and especially took us to task for the use of the word ‘blobs.’”

One reader, Bo Hee Kim, was quoted in the editor’s note as saying, “The language used in this article, from ‘exotic’ to ‘Far East’ and the unappealing nature of the word ‘blob’ to describe a drink well-known to many Asian and Asian-Americans unintentionally alienates this population from reading this article.”

Noting readers’ complaints, the Times revised the language used in the article. Changes were made, mistakes were addressed, but the harm was done.

Whether people like it or not, the U.S. is an amalgamation of different cultures. Now more than ever, different perspectives matter, be it in the media we consume or the media we create.

The news media, especially internationally-recognized publications such as the New York Times, have to take caution not to alienate or exoticize things that aren’t American.

By Aleksei Pavloff, Sports Editor

At a young age, we are taught that school is something that you have to do to succeed, but it is not the most important part of gaining knowledge.

This past summer, I had the opportunity of working for a local television news station in Seattle. My work days started at 3 a.m. Another aspect of my internship was that I lived more than 3,000 miles from my family back in New York.

Sound fun? Well, I was not there to have fun. Last New Year’s, I told myself I needed to go out and gain experience working in a professional environment. It was a goal of mine to also gain confidence as a writer, reporter and above all, a good journalist.

Living by myself was just one aspect of the journey I took. Another was getting up in the morning and getting to work on time.

Life moves a bit faster when you start out not knowing what to do. And that’s what happened to me.

I found myself having high anxiety and had a hard time staying confident. I was scared to ask questions and get in people’s way. I was talking with people who have been in television broadcasting for years and even decades. I dealt with people who had personalities that towered over mine. It was scary to say the least, but then I remembered why I wanted an internship.

I soon became a thorn in people’s sides. I constantly asked questions, followed reporters when they went out in the field and started casual conversations.

I would always ask myself if I was doing enough. That is what made me stand out from the other interns. I wanted to get feedback and keep improving.

If I didn’t convince myself of those things, I would not have gained the experience and knowledge that could help me later in my career as a journalist. We all hope for success, but the road is filled with bumps.

During my time in Seattle, I was also fortunate enough to be on live television.

This was a moment of choice for me. I got a call in the morning on one of my days off and was asked if I was comfortable with being on live television.

It happened so quickly that I didn’t have time to make a sound decision. So I said yes. And I now know that if I had said no, that I would have regretted it. I got comfortable with being uncomfortable.

All because of this internship, I was able to learn more about myself while gaining knowledge and experience in the field I want to work in.

Internships bring more to the table for young minds. It makes people more productive while also slowly going through each aspect in a way that is productive. School does serve a purpose, but getting real-life experience and knowledge is more beneficial than simply sitting at a desk and taking notes.