Issue 21, Spring 2012

As Mills College seniors and second-year graduate students prepare to enter the grueling job market, they may want to consider their online habits. Turns out job re-cruiters and employers not only run background checks, they also take a look at Facebook and Twitter for information on their potential hires.

Career advisors, including Christina Hernandez, Networking and Opportunities Coordinator at Mills Career Services, also recom-mend those on the job hunt run a Google search of themselves to see what prospective employers might see.

“You need to know what’s out there about you,” Hernandez said. “Employers are looking at this stuff. Even after you’re hired, they’re still looking.”

Everyday, we willfully give away personal information with-out realizing it. Advertisers gather information about individuals each time they log into a site or interact with it when logged into a social media profile, according to The At-lantic article “I’m Being Followed: How Google—and 104 Other Companies—Are Tracking Me on the Web.” Companies use this in-

formation to tailor the ads a person sees to ones they are most likely to click, and store the information for later use.

Even the Library of Congress is taking an interest in social media content, having recently announced that it will permanently store the archive of public Twitter posts since 2006.

But for college students, per-haps the most important social me-dia perusers are job recruiters and potential employers. The New York Times reported in 2009 that 75 percent of recruiters and human re-source professionals say their com-panies require them to do online re-search about potential employees.

While some former and current Mills students expressed concern about being searched on the Inter-net by potential employers, Mills alumna Amanda Jeanette sees it as simply a sign of the times.

“I don’t think that there is a way of stopping a hiring manager or recruiter from trying to find information about you on the In-ternet,” she wrote to the Campa-nil on Facebook. “You are better off working around the assump-tion that they will. Work with the change in hiring culture and get a Linkedin account.”

Alumna Lola Olson had similar sentiments.

“I don’t see employers Googling you as a privacy viola-tion in and of itself,” she wrote on

Facebook. “I see it as problematic, especially since people are on the Internet younger and younger, doing things that could possibly incriminate them.”

Facebook recently released a document detailing their demo-graphics, which reports that 18 percent of U.S. Facebook users are between the ages of 13 and 19, and 34 percent are between 20 and 29 – ages where getting a job or attend-ing college is becoming a reality.

And job recruiters are not the only ones looking. According to a study from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research, 95 per-cent of college admissions offices check a student’s social network-ing sites in the admissions process. Mills, though, has not jumped on the bandwagon.

“Occasionally a student will friend us on Facebook and we will see something inappropriate,” said Joan Jaffe, assistant dean of admission. “But we do not seek them out.”

Such inappropriate content in-cludes bad language in wall posts and pictures cataloging unbecom-ing behavior, but nothing serious enough for the admissions depart-ment to step in.

“It’s nothing we want to hold against students,” Jaffe said, “but they should really be more careful.”

Especially since these days much of the content on the web is

there permanently, even if users think they’ve deleted it.

Pictures are of particular con-cern when trying to remove content from the internet. A 2009 Cam-bridge University study tested 16 photo sharing sites to see if an im-age remained online after it was de-leted and found that seven of those sites, including Facebook, did not pass the test.

Photos remain online after de-letion because sites like Facebook store their main content on one server and things like photos on a range of others. This makes it dif-ficult to know exactly where in-formation is at a given moment, and makes it easy for future em-ployers to find that compromising spring break picture you thought you deleted.

And that employer might not take the information they find light-ly. The New York Times reported in 2009 that 70 percent of U.S. employers have not hired job can-didates based on information they found online.

Sophomore Emily Dixon said she also saw internet background checks as a sign of the times, but wasn’t pleased with it.

“I believe that social media should stay social for a person’s private use, and not be used as an excuse to deny someone a job,” she said. “Background check? Fine. Facebook check? Not so much.”

But regardless of opinions on

the matter, Internet background checks don’t seem to be going away. In fact, more and more com-panies that do the dirt digging for recruiters and schools are popping up on the web. Social Intelligence Corporation is one such company.

“Social Intelligence provides powerful tools to employers to mitigate workplace risks,” the or-ganization’s website said, “and to many other organizations to ben-efit from the valuable information that can be attained through social media research.”

Social Intelligence touts its abil-ity to effectively provide an orga-nized list of an individual’s social media tidbits “while reducing the legal exposure of conducting so-cial media searches internally.” This means Social Intelligence will gather subjects’ information discreetly, and hand it over to the potential employer. Not only that, but once they find compromising information, they will store it for seven years even if it has been de-leted. However, while this informa-tion is stored, it is not reused each time a new employer runs an inter-net background check.

“We store the information to maintain a verifiable chain-of-cus-tody in case the information is ever needed for legal reasons,” Geoffrey Andrews, COO of Social Intel-ligence, told Forbes in 2011. “We are not however building a ‘data-base’ on individuals that will be

VOLUME 97 ISSUE 21 www.thecampanil.com Tuesday | April 3, 2012

Find more stories, photos, videos and live updates at www.thecampanil.com

Employers check Facebook, Twitter

Tessa LoveAsst. News editor

See PRIVACY page 3

Senior Art Show

See Page 5

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY BRIDGET STAGNITTO

Seventy-five percent of American recruiters and human resource professionals say their companies require them to do online research about potential em-ployees. The New York Times reported that in 2009, 70 percent of employers chose not to hire job candidates based on incriminating information online.

2 News


Lauren-Marie SliterEditor in Chief

[email protected]

5000 MacArthur Blvd.Oakland, CA 94613510.430.2246 phone

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Mills mourns the loss of progressive poet and activist

SOURCE: THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESSRich in 1975, a year after winning the Nation-al Book Award for “Diving into the Wreck.”

Webmaster Ching Yu

Opinions Editor Michele Collender

Correction: In our March 13 issue, we incorrectly quoted Judene Small in the Question of the Week. Her quote should have read: “Party with Prince and with both Chris Browns the professor at Mills and the artist.”

Adrienne Rich, the powerfully influential poet and feminist whose work became the paramount voice for women’s liberation and lesbianism for the better half of a century, died on March 27 at her Santa Cruz home. She was 82.

Considered one of the best-known American in-tellectuals, the award-winning poet and essayist pub-lished over two-dozen books of poetry and more than a half dozen works of nonfiction in her 60 year long career. In a 1984 speech, Rich said that what she has fought for was simply “the creation of a society with-out domination.”

Rich’s work has had a long-standing influence over the Mills community and her death has brought a rush of sentiment from students, alumnae and faculty.

It is strange to be so many women,

Eating and drinking at the same table,

those who bathed their children in the same basin

Who kept their secrets from each other

Walked the floors of their lives in separate rooms

And flow into history now as the woman of their time

Living in the prime of life

As in a city where nothing is forbidden

And nothing permanent. — from “After Twenty Years”

“Adrienne Rich meant the world to me. She was

the voice for so many of us, the voice of our generation, even. I would go to her for

solace and for help. The moment you’re in need, she’s there.”

— Cynthia Scheinberg, Chair of English Department

Tessa LoveAsst. News editor

“She supported us in word and deed during the strike. We

lost a very cool woman but she leaves us better off for her

being a part of our world.”

– Alexa Pagonas, Mills Alumna “She was a fascinating per-

son. She began for me a tradition of memorizing my

favorite poems.”

– Kim Magowan, visiting Assistant Professor

and student of Rich, Stanford, 1987

“Poetryisn’t revolution but a way of knowing

why it must come”

– from “Dreamwood”

“I choose to love this time for once with all my intelligence.”

– from “Splittings”

April 3, 2012

New Zoo Board MembersThe East Bay Zoological Society (EBZS) added five new board members: Pat-rick Sherwood, Jim Wun-derman, Kirsten Vital, Mer-edith Burke and Marianne Laouri, Ph.D. “I am thrilled to have this group of suc-cessful individuals join the Oakland Zoo Board,” said Dr. Joel Parrott, President and CEO of Oakland Zoo.

Boxing Club FightsThe East Oakland Boxing Association (on 98th Street, four miles from Mills) gets some city and county fund-ing, but not enough to keep the operation running without donations. Mean-while, the center fills a vast void in a neighborhood where kids have few after-school options and crime is high.

Oakland’s Trayvon MartinsWhile the nation’s captivat-ed by Trayvon Martin’s case, Oakland mothers wonder why their own sons’ deaths don’t gain more attention. The truth is that there is no difference between Martin’s death and those of Oak-land residents, said Marilyn Washington Harris, found-er of a nonprofit that aids homicide victims’ families.

Great American CleanupEach year, Keep Oakland Beautiful participates in the Great American Cleanup, a national event promot-ing community beautifica-tion. Volunteers are needed April 28 to clean the Ban-croft Median and work to beautify East Oakland Pride Elementary. For de-tails, contact Keep Oakland Beautiful at (510) 434-5126.

Museum on Social ChangeAs of Friday, right in the middle of the Presidential primary political season and the current increase in social change and political activism, the Oakland Mu-seum of California opened two new exhibitions: The 1968 Exhibit and All of Us or None: Social Justice Posters of the San Francisco Bay Area.

Local news bites

3News April 3, 2012

evaluated each time they apply for a job and potentially could be used adversely even if they have cleaned up their profiles.”

Other companies like this in-clude Sterling Social Media, Social Media Intel and Radian6, which have programs aimed specifically at secondary education institutions.

While many argue that these so-cial media background checks are an invasion of privacy, the prob-lems surrounding the searches can be largely avoided.

Though it would take 76 work-days, according to Atlantic Month-ly, for the average American to read each and every privacy policy agreement in a year, this is a good place to start.

Knowing what information you are willfully giving away when you create an online profile is key to maintaining privacy. And once you agree to a policy, set your privacy settings high.

Facebook’s standard privacy settings are fairly low, allowing most people to see the content on your profile without adding you as a friend first, but the settings are easily customizable. When chang-ing the privacy settings, there are

three options: public, friends and custom. Click through all the cat-egories of privacy that Facebook provides you within each of these settings. If any of them leave you feeling out of control of the content appearing on your page, customize.

It is also possible to custom-ize who sees photos and statuses as they are posted to Facebook. If someone friended their boss but are dying to tell all their friends how bored they are at work, they can eliminate him or her from the list of people who get to see the post. But it’s still probably not a good idea.

“My rule is that nothing goes on the Internet that I wouldn’t want my mom and/or a client to see,” alumna Elizabeth Clayton wrote on Facebook. “Journals are for pri-vacy. The Internet is not, and never has been.”

But some people need a little help when it comes to knowing what is appropriate for an online post. For those people, there are applications and other technologies being created to provide friendly nudges in the right direction.

Internet Shame Insurance is a simple application that gives you simple reminders each time you post to Facebook, Twitter or hit

“Reply All” on your Gmail ac-count. For instance, when you press share on Facebook, an information bubble will pop up that reads, “Ev-eryone can read this. This means your grandma, your priest, and your thought-controlling government.”

Acquisti is a similar applica-tion. Gmail, too, has created a fea-ture called Mail Goggles, which prompts you to solve a simple math problem before sending a mes-sage to protect you from sending a drunken email you may later regret.

Other technologies include a hu-man-looking character that lingers beside your cursor and shoots you stern looks before you hit the send or post button.

According to a study by M. Ryan Calo of the consumer-privacy project at Stanford Law School, studies have shown that Internet users in the presence of this hu-man-like character are less likely to disclose personal information than those without the character.

But the most important protec-tive measure you can take is to think twice before posting inap-propriate or compromising content to your social media profile. And remember that your grandmother, priest and government can see this.


from PRIVACY page 1

Companies capitalize on internet ba ckground checks

A message from HMDSHousing costs for 2012–13 will increase by 2%. BUT there are discounts!Undergraduate students enrolled at Mills for 3 - 4 semesters … 10% off

Undergraduate students enrolled at Mills for 5+ semesters … 15% off

Graduate students … $500 off per semesterThis is for all students regardless of whether they’ve lived on or off campus in past years.

LYNN TOWNSEND WHITE HALL will also be available for students beginning Fall 2012.This building will offer suites with two single bedrooms and shared living areas, including a kitchenette and bathroom. White Hall B-Wing will also be a co-educational space.

Beginning Monday, April 2, our housing application is online! For details on the now com-pletely online room draw process, check your email or go to www.mills.edu/apply-housing

If you have any questions please feel free to call510-430-2127,

to email [email protected],or to stop by the Housing Management and Dining Services (HMDS)

Office inSage Hall 138.

PAID ADVERTISEMENT

PAID ADVERTISEMENT

4 Arts & FeaturesApril 3, 2012

Top: A print by Leia Reedijk, entitled “Reflection,” is fea-tured on the walls of the Pocket Gallery. Right: As part of the Intro to Book Arts student exhibition called Recipes For Experience, a card details a recipe on how to get mugged.

ALL PHOTOS BY JEN RAMOS


Students of the Intro to Book Arts class at Mills College have their projects featured on display in the Book Art Pocket Gallery, located in the CPM building.

The Book Art Pocket Gallery held its first opening on March 29. The combined exhi-bition featured works by Intro to Book Art and Printmaking students. The Intro to Book Arts students showcased their letterpress works in an exhibition entitled Recipes For Experience. Printmaking students’ exhibi-tion displayed Linocut Prints. The Book Art Pocket Gallery is located in CPM 121.

Upcoming Book Art Pocket Gallery Openings

April 9Zines

The Pocket Gallery will be opening an exhibit that is an interactive show-case of Zines made by members of

the Mills Community.

April 30Gallery in a Box

The Pocket Gallery is the first loca-tion for a traveling exhibit by 2nd year Book Art and Creative Writing

MFA students.

All openings are at 5 p.m. Refreshments will be provided.

5Arts & Features April 3, 2012

Matter of Opinion

Top: Detail of Mona Ram’s “Pure Solitude,” 2011. Top Right: Installation of Adrienne Suzio’s work dedicated to Francesca Woodman. Middle Left: Maria Epstein’s “Untitled,” 2012. Mid-dle Right: Morgan Johnson’s “Thank You,” 2011. Bottom: Camila Pérez’s “Figure 2.” Left: Detail of Morgan Johnson’s installation.

ALL PHOTOS BY JOANN PAK


review and highlight of the art studio senior class exhibition

Walking into Matter of Opinion, one can literally smell the blood, sweat and tears of the undergradu-ate art students that amalgam-ated to create the art exhibition.

The undergraduate senior ex-hibition is held every year to show-case the culminated works of the art students, with all the pieces exhib-ited in the show being some of the artists’ most recent and strongest works throughout the past year.

This year, the Mills College Art Museum (MCAM) exhibited 12 un-dergraduate art studio seniors, who will be graduating this semester.

The diverse body of work not only illustrates each artist’s con-centration, but essentially their ar-tistic ethos as they graduate from the Mills Studio Arts program with their Bachelor of Fine Arts.

Entering the heavy wooden doors of MCAM, one is immediate-ly greeted with Morgan Johnson’s bright red freestanding sculpture that almost obstructs the pres-

ence of the museum attendants. With more careful examination, the sculpture is constructed of red plastic bags stacked on top of each other that ultimately towers over anyone who isn’t over six feet. Clev-erly titled “Thank You,” the piece is something that seemingly brings a lot of attention and conversation.

Molly Hart, a Mills senior and the museum attendant dur-ing my visit, was one of the many people enraptured by the sculpture.

“There’s an aesthetic urge,” Hart explained. “These bags make me want to interact with the art even though I’m not suppose to.”

Johnson’s work as a whole is nuanced. She conceptually investi-gates the correlation of a common item and purports a user-specific narrative for her body of work, and it is obvious in another site-specific installation piece that in-corporates video and sculpture lo-cated near the end of the exhibition.

Another artist shaping narra-tive and identity within the exhibi-tion is Adrienne Suzio. Inspired by the late and great artist, Francesca Woodman, Suzio showcases a mag-

netic installation utilizing strong foundations within visual poetry, exemplified in “The Letter to Fran-cesca Woodman.” Suzio creates an atmosphere where the viewer is welcomed into the delicate process of a young artist’s musings. The Let-ter fills the entirety of the white wall with 291 sheets of paper with mes-sages pinned while “Reflection on F.W.” creates an interesting portrai-ture of Woodman. Seemingly apro-pos to her senior thesis, the philo-sophical exploration of “the artist” is endearing and has one of the strongest installation presences as her two walls dedicated to Wood-man creates the walkway to view the rest of the work of her peers.

Other highlights of the show include Camila Pérez’s “Figure 2,” which illustrates a dynamic installa-tion through the soft pink and nude values of fabric stretched out and weighed down with pinto beans.

Matter of Opinion features work by Carolyn Benedict, Larissa Can-ney, Maria Epstein, Rosita Favela, Morgan Johnson, Mathilda Moore, Kristen Parkinson, Camila Pérez, Mona Ram and Adrienne Suzio.

Matter of Opinion at

Mills College Art Museum

showing until April 15, 2012

Hours: Tuesday-Sunday

11 am - 4 p.m.Wednesday

11 am - 7:30 p.m.

THE LAST SHOW ON EARTH

2012 MFA Thesis Exhibition

April 28 - May 27

Opening ReceptionApril 28

6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.

Joann PakArts & FeAtures editor

6 April 3, 2012


Opinions & Editorial

Justice may be blind but the media is notSTAFF EDITORIAL

With Pokemon songs being sung at rallies and candidates boost-ing the sales of Etch-A-Sketches, this year’s GOP nominee race is sure to go down in history as one of the most bizarre. Things only get stranger once candidates them-selves make the ad.

On March 23 Rick Santorum re-leased the most unconventional ad by far in order to show voters why Obama shouldn’t be re-elected. For those of you who haven’t watched the video yet, here is a quick run down:

The ad begins with an opening shot of crows taking flight. Then it cuts to a small town named Obam-aville two years in the future that has fallen on hard times.

The streets are void of life; the only sounds are wind and creaking metal. Completing the eerie ghost town effect is a single child’s shoe left in the grass at the park.

Suddenly, the shot is bombarded with several images in quick suc-cession before hearing: “Shhh.” These images include a family standing on their porch, an elderly couple sitting at a table, an eye, and a baby.

“Small businesses are strug-gling, and families are worried about their jobs and their future,” the narrator proclaims.

What is most disturbing here isn’t the closing down sign in front of a struggling business or the cou-ple staring solemnly at the camera. It’s a disheveled little girl sitting on a bench, dressed in a gray out-fit. Behind the girl, a white washed wall and a photograph of another little girl from the early 1900s. Never once does the little girl look at the camera. She simply stares at her feet in despair.

Next we are told how long the wait is to see the doctor despite the fact that we are shown an empty hospital bed, and an empty hospital for that matter.

When turning to the issue of gas prices, viewers see a man with a gas nozzle pressed up against his head. Although logic says this man will not die if he pulls the trigger, the message is clear. Gas prices are so high that consumers consider death rather than take public transit.

In 2014, when this film takes place, the freedom of religion is under attack. This terrible reli-gious war that Obama is waging is symbolized by someone blowing out a candle. Apparently, religion is so fragile it can be snuffed out with one breath.

As if things weren’t bad enough

for this town, citizens in Obam-aville are also forced to come to terms with the fact that a world na-tion and sworn enemy to America is now a nuclear threat. This great American enemy isn’t named in the ad, but the images displayed point directly to Iran.

At the end of the ad viewers are once again hit with a barrage of im-ages. The ominous narrator leaves with these parting words:

“Welcome to Obamaville. More than a town, a cautionary tale. Com-ing soon to RickSantorum.com”

He might as well have said “Coming to a theater near you.” This over the top ad has more in common with a trailer for a Holly-wood horror film than your typical “vote for me because the other guy is an idiot” commercial.

Of course, playing on viewers emotions is Santorum’s point. If we vote Obama back into office, America will become one giant ghost town.

Watching the ad certainly put me on edge. Yet, it hasn’t changed the way that I feel about Santorum, because instead of spending money to make this artistically terrifying portrayal of the future, Santorum could have gone to an Obamaville that currently exists.

Since roughly 2009 actual Obamaville’s have been popping up all over the country. Here, in the

real world, Obamavilles are tent cities created by middle class citi-zens who have lost both their job’s and their homes.

There are Obamaville’s across the country, and one of the larg-est is in Sacramento which boasted over 1,500 people in January 2011. Homeless shelters are filled to ca-pacity across the country. Middle class Americans literally have no were else to go, and that is a chill-ing fact. Santorum could have even sent people to film one of the many ghost towns that the troubled econ-omy has created.

But many candidates would not go out of their way to meet real Americans in trouble when they can hire actors. Especially in to-day’s world where the shock value is more important than the truth. We have all become so passive that the only way to grab our at-tention is to create fictional towns in fictional danger.

With Santorum getting feed-back, both positive and negative, concerning his latest political move, it is only a matter of time before Romney and Gingrich join the fray.

Who knows, maybe the Dem-ocrats will try this new artistic scare tactic as well. And that is a big problem.

It’s bad enough that voters have to navigate their way through cur-

rent campaign ads and decipher truth from fiction. Adding a whole new layer of frightening imagery will only make things worse when it is time to cast the last ballot this election season because, in a world filled with uncertainty, people react emotionally, not logically.

And Santorum isn’t the only one exploiting this weakness. For-mer GOP nominee Herman Cain is making commercials that are de-signed to shock people into siding with him on economic issues. First by torturing a poor, innocent gold-fish, and then by flinging a shriek-ing digital rabbit into the air before blasting it with a rifle.

This year, as future leaders, we need to be responsible citizens and research each politician carefully before we enter that voting booth. We need to be accountable for who we select to represent us. Everyone is tired of the political shenanigans, and there is only one way to set government right.

We need to listen to each and every single word that comes out of a candidates mouth. We cannot be swayed by the images we see on TV. Will it be a lot of work? Yes. But we cannot blindly vote people into office anymore.

As candidates change how they win us over, we need to change the way we vote. Otherwise we really are in trouble.

The media coverage about the murder of a black, teenage male, Trayvon Martin, by a neighborhood watch volunteer, George Zimmer-man, claiming self defense made national headlines with a definite angle of racial profiling. This case is one that brings up issues of me-dia coverage and bias. From their image choices to their inclusion of certain details, news sources are re-porting on this issue with obvious opinions about innocence and guilt.

Most of what has been reported is hearsay. It’s hard to figure out who is telling the truth when all quotes are alleged with no other data to back them up. For example, a Fox News article repeatedly quot-ed Zimmerman’s father. He is only a secondary source because he can only retell that which his son told him happened the night of February 28. That is not enough for substan-

tial journalism.In what seems like an effort to

follow a hot story, our news go-tos have been searching for new material wherever they can find it. We feel like this has been confus-ing and misleading. We have been overloaded with “facts”, from the mundane detail of the Skittles Mar-tin had bought to the vital descrip-tion of the black hoodie he wore, and online pictures depicting him taking part in gang culture because he was wearing a gold grill on his teeth.

How much do media images show us about who a person is and how we should judge a person? Does a suspicious person wear a black hoodie? More importantly, does wearing a black hoodie make you a suspicious person? Judging a person based on his or her appear-ance is both a practical tool and a

troubling problem. We need to be safe from dangerous people but avoid outright prejudice.

This debate also echoes con-versations about female media images and victim blaming. The argument that women in tight, re-vealing clothing are asking for rape share similarities with the argu-ment that a black boy wearing a hoodie is asking to be shot because he appears suspicious. The images of black males in the media tend to be the extremes of criminals or heroes and leave out a balanced middle ground.

The images used to show us Martin and Zimmerman have also been criticized. An article on Ya-hoo! News, “Trayvon Martin shoot-ing: Debate over photos escalates,” discusses the use of the prominent images of Martin and Zimmerman. Zimmerman’s photo is a mug shot

from a previous arrest. His orange shirt also connotes jail jumpsuits. This photo juxtaposed with a young photo of Martin has been accused of manipulating the viewer. This criticism suggests that if Martin’s photo were more recent, he would have appeared more menacing and dangerous which would somehow justify the violence inflicted on him. The use of this image may also suggest that Martin’s image is meant to be that of an innocent vic-tim. Either way, there should not be a “supposed to” in the news.

And there are smear campaigns on both sides. Accusations tar-get Zimmerman as a racist, rogue neighborhood watch volunteer.

On a positive note, there are some media outlets that have tak-en the news in a different direc-tion. Many local news outlets have shown how this story is relevant

to local communities, including Oakland. An article in the San Francisco Chronicle on March 30 entitled “What about Oakland’s Trayvon Martins?” highlighted lo-cal “Trayvon Martins”, or young black men who have been killed in violence on the streets, and lo-cal support groups for families who have lost their sons. Oakland mothers have found counseling and support through groups such as the Khadafy Washington Foundation for Non-Violence. The question they ask is “Why is their son any different than Trayvon?”

This story has brought about a conversation in America from the major news organizations down to the local communities. We hope this story will take a constructive direction and lead to change, leav-ing behind smear campaigning and irrelevant reporting.

Presidential race:

Campaign ads aim to shock voters with insane imageryElizabeth Rico

Copy Editor

Share comments and feedback with [email protected]

7April 3, 2012


Opinions & Editorial

National Fools day has come again! Just kidding. April fools! (about the second sentence). What a fool you are to have believed me on that one for even a second. On April Fools Day it’s time to bring together the fools in your life and thank them with a feast. Just kid-ding. Again. That’s that other holiday about turkeys, ya turkey.

As you can already tell, I am an expert on pranks and holiday fools jokes. So now I am going to share with you everything I know about The Day of Pranks: A Fool’s Worst Nightmare Day. After I tell you what to do, your friends will be so pranked they will open their eyes so wide they will have to get corrective surgery and they will run out of money and might lose their home or something.

Step one is to choose one doo-fus (doophus?) to pull a good prank on. One of my favorite goofs is to tie their shoe laces together. (Make sure to train for this one. Learn your knots good.) When they try to undo them it will take so long that they will be late for their dad’s fu-neral that they are going to. This prank will give them plenty of smiles and laughs on such a sad day.

The next step of the goofs you will succeed in pulling, is to leave a silly note on your friend’s car (Make sure that the note doesn’t get taken by a thief). Then when they return to their car to drive to Chili’s Bar and Grill Restaurant for a nightly dish, they will think “Wow what a prank-ster! I sure love my friend.” You can bond with that someone over all of the funny jokes you will write. (Expert tip: This one is especially helpful for a young friendship.)

The Day of Fools is also a time to remember the past fools who have made so many sacrifices for us to be able to eat Pringles and stare at TV screens until our weird faces make laughs about the goo-fin’ and spoofin’ we see. Who can forget the old jokester Raymond’s Brother from the “Everyone Loves the Raymond” show? That guy was a true prankster. He would always say something like, “Hey Raymond, let’s be friends because we’re broth-ers.” Haha. Remember? What a goof. I love that guy. April Fools Raybrother! You will be missed. Too bad that show got cancelled. (Expert tip: To save this show go to Save “Everybody Loves Raymond” on your internet at home and sign the petition. It will only take a mo-ment and will mean a lot to the guy.)

Another classic spoof to pull is to buy a pair of ugly underwear and be sure to give it to your friend in pub-

lic. They will be so embarrassed that their face will turn red and you will think they are dying and try to save them by giving them CPR, which will only further the goof when oth-ers think you are giving them a hot kiss on the lips. They will be mad but everyone else will be laughing which means what you did was fine. Tell your friend they are a dumb idiot later when they try to tell you you were wrong. (Expert tip: Do this to a friend you don’t mind losing.)

My other favorite jokes are se-crets because they are such darn good spoofs that if I write them down you would not be able to read them be-fore your butt fell out of your chair because of the laughs that will be so large they will make that happen.

Another thing to remember is that people will be trying to prank you too, buddy. That means you must prepare for the day of pranks. If avoiding the pranks is the name of your game try to look in all di-rections at all times today. Open your dumb eyes and you can see a prank coming from a few feet away! Unless someone is pulling an emotional prank. Those ones are invisible and the most painful.

Finally make sure you spend April Fools with someone you care about and prank em’ to bits. Hap-py Prankin’! I wish you a merry prankin’ and a happy new year! Bye friends, thanks for listening.

How to prank your day away: a guide to April Fools

Who’s your favorite fool and how will you prank them on

April Fool’s Day?

“I don’t think that I should tell you because this person is a very gullible fool and I’m gonna spoof

them real good.”

— Jessica Knapp,sophomore

COMPILED BY MICHELE COLLENDER & BRIDGET STAGNITTO

Q U E S T I O N O F T H E W E E K

“I don’t think I can take the risk. This is a very serious tradition.”

— Monika Alem,junior

“I would do something really gross but smart: put a concoction of rotten food under a person’s bed who is really messy. They

won’t find it.”

—Sarah Renning,first-year

“I have no plans and no sense of humor.”

— Chelsea Baumgartner,junior

“My favorite fool is everyone who’s coming to see me play on April 1 at the Greek Theater for

Lydia Martin’s Napoleanna.”

— Robert Lopez,first-year graduate student

“Robert Lopez is my favorite fool.”

— Josh Marshall,first-year graduate student

Bathrooms: Gender Dialectic by Bridget Stagnitto

Singular Perspective: individual experiences as a student

Michele CollenderOpiniOns EditOr

8 Health & SportsApr 3, 2012


Above: Centers finishes the move by extending her left arm out (as if to attack) and swiping her right arm over her chest (as if to block from an attack).

BRIDGET STAGNITTO

CYCLONE OF THE WEEK

Do this, not that: tips for healthy living and feeling better

WeeklyFitness Tip:BênçãoKick

Eden SugayHealtH & SportS editor

Eden SugayHealtH & SportS editor

KURT LOEFFLER KURT LOEFFLER

Proper breathing is essential during exercise. It’s strange to imagine how easy it is to forget to breathe, since we all breathe con-stantly without hesitation through-out the day. However, it’s extremely easy to forget to inhale or exhale during physical activity, especially when muscles get sore and move-ments become more difficult.

Having a good breathing pat-tern during aerobic or cardiovas-cular exercises, such as running, ensures that your muscles continue to receive the oxygen they need to keep contracting (which allows for muscle growth and room for your strength to increase).

As you breathe, the air you in-hale is pulled into microscopic air sacs in the lungs called alveoli. This is where oxygen is delivered to red blood cells. Your blood becomes rich with oxygen and flows to your heart, which then pumps it out to the rest of your body as you exhale carbon dioxide.

The respiratory center of your brain automatically sends messages to your respiratory muscles, telling the muscles when to breathe. Since this action is automatic, you don’t have to think about it. But when you exercise, your brain notices an increase in carbon dioxide and lac-tic acid (a byproduct of exercising your muscles) in your blood. In re-sponse to this increase, your respi-ratory muscles increase the speed and depth of your breaths so you can dispose of all the extra carbon dioxide and deliver additional oxy-gen to your working muscles.

The American Council on Ex-ercise states you can determine the amount of effort you’re putting in to your workout by how hard you are breathing. For an exercise with a medium level of intensity, your breath shouldn’t be too heavy (you’d

still be able to carry a conversation easily). For an exercise with a high level of intensity, the speed of your breathing will increase, impeding your ability to speak cohesively.

Holding your breath while working out, especially during high intensity exercises, can potentially produce what is called the valsalva effect. The valsalva effect impedes the return of blood flow to your heart, producing a sharp rise in your blood pressure, followed by a sudden drop in blood pressure. This effect is dangerous because the sud-den increase and decrease in blood pressure has the potential to make you faint or blackout while exercis-ing. The best way to prevent any sort of injuries or negative effects on your body is to learn proper breathing techniques while exercis-ing, that will ultimately benefit the way you breathe daily.

Fitness experts at the University of California Riverside say the cor-rect breathing technique when lift-ing weights is to inhale before lift-ing the weights or do the movement and exhale during the course of the lift. Keep your face relaxed with your mouth opened, isolating the tension in your body to the muscles working while you’re exercising. Exhale while lifting the weight or when the tension or resistance in your body increases; this is called the exertion phase. Inhale deeply while you lower the weight or when the level of tension and resistance in your body is low; this is called the relaxation phase.

This pattern is easy to remember if you inhale when the movement is easiest and exhale through the difficult portions of the exercise. Achieving a full, deep breath is the main goal in practicing a good pat-tern of breathing, since it will ex-pand your lung capacity and make your exercises easier to endure. The University of New Mexico research-ers say the best way to get a full, deep breath is to breathe from the diaphragm while simultaneously expanding your chest.

Quinn Harris and Rachel Qui-mby were selected as a tennis doubles team for the Cyclone of the Week for their competitive play and positive attitudes in the team’s scrimmage against the Montclair Tennis Association (MTA) on Sat-urday, March 3rd.

They played against the highest ranked MTA teams and won a total of 10 games. Harris and Quimby are the highest scoring doubles duo on

the Mills team. Both players started out very strong and won their first set 8-4.

They faced new opponents in the second set and applied excel-lent communication and strategy to work through the challenges their new opponents brought.

The two were also very support-ive of each other.

According to Coach Loke Davis, Quinn has been a consistently ag-

gressive player, and has taken both her strategic and mental game to a new level.

Coach Stephanie Luk said that Quimby “is really making an effort to be more aggressive up at net, and is beginning to recognize what she needs to do in order to play better doubles.”

Cyclone of The Week is written by Elese Lebsack, From APER

It gets boring to go to the gym and do the same routine over and over again. A fun and challenging way to keep your work out routine from becoming repetitive and dull is to seek out exercise techniques from different cultures. One par-ticular form of exercise I’ve been intrigued by comes from Brazil.

The art of capoeira engages the body, mind and soul through the combination of dance and martial arts.

The dance aspect of this exercise was brought to Brazil by slaves from Angola. Capoeira was originally a deadly sport in which the partici-pants often had blades strapped to their ankles and later developed into a dance form. The fighters would swing their legs to attack or somersault towards their opponent. Flexibility and rapidity of move-ment are crucial to capoeira, as op-posed to having brute strength. In the modern form of the dance, the same agile and graceful movements are used, but without the intent to attack. The two people face each other, mimicking the stance of “the fight” in time with the rhythms of the berimbau, or the musical bow.

An exercise adopted from capoeria that covers aspects of de-fensive and offensive tactics, while fully engaging the abdominal is called the Bênção Kick.

Begin lying on your back. Bend your knees and place your feet on the floor, bringing your arms to your chest.

Inhale deeply as you perform a sit-up, drawing your left knee into your chest. Keep your foot flexed and your hands up, as shown.

Fully engage your core by con-tracting your abdominal muscles as you push your left leg out (lead-ing with your heel) and sweep your right arm across your chest to block. Your left arm extends left, “protect-ing” you from the left.

Return to starting position.Alternate eight on each side for

16 reps (total time: 60 seconds).

Above: Transfer student Chorel Centers begins the capoe-ria move by laying flat on her back with her arms crossed over her chest and her feet planted firmly on the ground.

Above: Centers slowly raises her body to an up-right position, keeping her arms crossed over her chest and her right foot on the ground.

Tennis Doubles Team Scores Highest at Mills

Quinn Harris, Sophomore Rachel Quimby, Freshwoman

Documents

Issue 21, Spring 2012