the arbiter november 3, 2014
DESCRIPTION
The November 3 issue of the student-run newspaper, The ArbiterTRANSCRIPT
I n d e p e n d e n t S t u d e n t V o I c e o f B o I S e S t a t e S I n c e 1 9 3 3
november 3, 2014 Vol. 27 Issue 23
The Arbiter arbiteronline.com@arbiteronline @arbiteronline
feature ballot culture ballot sports ballot
Get informed to cast your vote Nov. 4
Otter and Balukoff in tight race, p.8
Students stay updated on news with social media, p.10
Controversy of Native American mascots comes to Boise State, p. 14
hoots & giggles
11/03/2014Pg 2
“Success isn’t owned, it’s leased. And rent is due every day.” -JJ Watt
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Lewis
FOR RELEASE NOVEMBER 3, 2014
ACROSS1 Spill the beans5 Hindu deity9 Spore-producing
plants14 Subtle emanation15 Put out16 How food is often
sautéed17 Sheepish smile18 2001 Redford/
Gandolfini film,with “The”
20 Rap session?22 Aunts in la familia23 Cut down24 Part of Q.E.D.26 Letters on a
Soviet uniform28 1990
Connery/Pfeifferspy film
34 Charged particle35 Unable or
unwilling to hear36 Barcelona’s
nación38 Frame of mind40 “The Twilight
Zone” creatorSerling
42 Sought damages43 Mercedes-Benz
model series46 More than a few49 Dr. who has co-
produced manyEminem tracks
50 2003 EddieMurphy film, with“The”
53 __ weevil54 PayPal parent
company55 Pan Am rival58 Garden nuisance60 Saw eye to eye64 Nostalgic films for
family gatherings... and what 18-,28- and 50-Across are?
67 Wrist-to-elbowbone
68 Kitchen attraction69 Brush fire op70 Garden area71 Varnish
ingredient72 Fiddle-playing
emperor73 Postage-paid
encl.
DOWN1 Airport carousel
riders2 Fish attractor3 Solo for a diva4 Welcome sign
hung over astreet, e.g.
5 Prisoner’s goal6 Doc bloc7 Waterfall
phenomenon8 1971 prison riot
site9 Debacles
10 USN rank11 Senator for whom
an IRA is named12 River of Egypt13 Did in, as a
dragon19 Secret supply21 Gunk25 Russian ruler
until 191727 Litter yippers28 Iconic news
magazine29 Liquor, in slang30 First name on a
1945 bomber31 Poker player’s
“Too rich for myblood”
32 Riyadh resident
33 Año starter37 Port in Yemen39 Apply crudely41 Stephen King’s
“Under the __”44 Frosty, notably45 Canonized fifth-
cen. pope47 Cajun condiment48 Unexpected
obstacle51 Gridiron quota52 IHOP array
55 “__ she blows!”56 Had on57 “Famous” cookie
maker59 Seedy joint61 First lady of scat,
familiarly62 Grandson of
Adam63 Dinner and a
movie, say65 Brit. record label66 Musician’s asset
Saturday’s Puzzle Solved
By David W. Cromer 11/3/14
©2014 Tribune Content Agency, LLC 11/3/14
crossword puzzleComic Strip
sudoku
ISSUEIN THIS
Distributed Mondays & Thurs-days during the academic school year. The Arbiter is the
official independent student newspaper of Boise State University and a designated public forum, where student editors make all content deci-sions and bear responsibil-ity for those decisions. The Arbiter’s budget consists of fees paid by the student body and advertising sales. The first copy is free. Additional cop-ies can be purchased for $1 apiece at The Arbiter offices.
arbiteronline.com1910 University Dr Boise, ID 83725
Phone: 208.426.6300 Fax: 888.388.7554
Contact Us
EDITOR-IN-CHIEFEmily Pehrson
editor@ arbiteronline.com
MANAGING EDITORKatie Meikle
managingeditor@ arbiteronline.com
NEWS EDITORAlx Stickel
news@ arbiteronline.com
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOREryn-Shay Johnson
& Sean Buncenews@
arbiteronline.com
SPORTS EDITORNate Lowery
ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITORBrandon Walton
CULTURE EDITORJustin Kirkham
arts@ arbiteronline.com
ASSISTANT CULTURE EDITORPatty Bowen
arts@ arbiteronline.com
PHOTO EDITORTyler Paget
photo@ arbiteronline.com
COPY EDITORSBrenna BrumfieldBriana Cornwall
design managerJovi Ramirez
GRAPHIC DESIGNERSChristian Spencer
Ted AtwellJared Lewis
BUSINESS MANAGERMacArthur Minor
business@ arbiteronline.com
NL News Director Farzan Faramarzi
8
9
Otter & Balukoff Grapple for governor
Memes: cartoons with a political slant Another round of midterms
15
X-Country Fever
News and the twittersphere
13 4
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NEWS
11/03/2014Pg 4
Midterm elections should not be overlookedSean BunceAsst. News Editor
For many students at Boise State, there may be too much going on in their daily lives to know the political issues which affect them. They may feel they’re too far behind on the issues in order to cast an educated vote or might even think their vote doesn’t matter.
There’s no longer an ex-cuse to stay home instead of voting.
“Growing up, my dad was a political science teacher, so it was implanted in my brain that the only way to really be involved in politics without being in politics is voting,” said Ashley Peterson, junior multi-ethnic studies major. “I’m not (voting) because I haven’t caught up with things going on. I’ve been really busy. I should have been pay-ing attention but I don’t even
really know what’s going on.”This midterm election,
Idaho voters aren’t included in the list of states which will decide the majority in the House of Representatives or the Senate. Voters are still capable of making changes at their state and local levels on issues such as education.
According to Campus Vote Project, there are six main reasons students should get out and vote. This includes the fact that adults ages 18 to 29 will make up approxi-mately 24 percent of the voter population this midterm election.
Still, there is a lack of young voter turnout dur-ing midterm elections. Jac-lyn Kettler, political science professor, believes this is be-cause of a lack of interest or information.
“I think with presidential elections, people get pretty excited or there’s a lot of in-
formation. People are just more interested,” Kettler said. “The candidates may be more engaging or often the candi-dates are selling themselves.”
In recent years, she feels midterm elections have been too negative with campaign advertisements which may also turn people off from voting.
“I think (negativity) turns some people off and some people just really don’t pay any attention,” Kettler said.
To her, midterm elections give young people a bet-ter chance to focus on state issues.
“One thing I’ve read (and) what’s kind of crazy about this midterm election is that the people deciding whether the Republicans will be the majority in the U.S. Senate or not is an incredibly small number,” she said. “One per-cent of the U.S. population could flip the U.S. Senate. It’s
just kind of crazy how a small portion of the population can change that, which is good to know in the future for really trying to encourage higher turn out.”
Austin Fricke, senior con-struction management major, thinks students should vote because it gives a good rep-resentation of who and what America is going to stand for as a nation.
According to Campus Vote Project, younger vot-ers with a college degree saw the greatest decline in voting rates in 2010, compared to those with less than a college education; turnout dropped four points from 41.0 percent in 2006 to 37.4 percent.
Fricke feels this shouldn’t be the case.
“It’s a little bit apathy on our part as a people,” he said. “I think we should be more involved in our election and voting.”
Idaho students can vote in three easy stepsKate WhiteStaff Writer
Deciding who to vote for can be difficult—but regis-tering to vote can be done in three steps:1. Go to your designated
voting location on Elec-tion Day with proof of address like mail with your name and address and a photo I.D.
2. Fill out the voting regis-tration form
3. Vote!Students wondering where
to go to register can visit ida-hovotes.gov—there they can input their address and their
designated polling place will be provided. Students living on campus are assigned to vote in the Student Union Building.
If students would rather register to vote prior to Elec-tion Day they are invited to access and fill out the elec-tronic registration form and mail it to their county clerk.
This address is available on the website. Mailed-in registrations must be post marked at least 25 days prior to Election Day.
Students who have reg-istered to vote in previous years do not need to re-regis-ter if they have voted at least once every four years in a primary or general election.
Students who have changed their address or changed their name are re-quired to re-register.
It is important that stu-dents take photo I.D. with them when voting—a driv-er’s license or passport is sufficient. Several other ac-cepted identification cards are listed on the website.
Students don’t need to worry about sticking to their political party affiliations if they don’t want to vote for the candidate in that party.
According to Idaho Votes, “All voters receive exactly the same ballot and may vote for any candidate whose name
appears on it, without regard to the political party affilia-tion of the candidate or the voter.”
Students unable to vote on Election Day can vote before Election Day using
an in-person absentee bal-lot or by submitting an ab-sentee ballot to their county clerk by mail. The ballot and locations for absentee vot-ing is available on idahovo-tes.gov.
Additional InfoRegistration predicts turnoutEighty-seven percent of college students (18-24 years old) that regis-tered to vote in 2008 actually did.
Apathy is not the only answer Less than 13 percent of college stu-dents said they did not vote in the 2010 midterm election because they were not interested.
History repeats itself Eighty-five percent of young adults who voted in the 2010 midterms voted in 2008 as well.
Campus Vote Project
A man fulfills his civic duty.““—idahovotes.gov
All voters receive exactly the same ballot and may vote for any candidate whose name appears on it, without regard to the political party affiliation of the candidate or the voter.
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11/03/2014 Pg 5
NEWS
UNIVERSITY PULSE
Electric Voodoo
Lounge
Airs Friday
6-8 p.m.
with David Christy .
Man Cave
Good Music
The Study Break
Airs Tues. & Thurs.
11-12 p.m.with Michael Tetro & Anna Silver
with Earl Moore & Sam Matthews
with Rene Saldana Rodriguez
Raised onRock
Airs Tuesday
2-3 p.m.
Airs Monday
9-11 a.m.
Airs Mon., Wed., Fri.
8-9 a.m. with Megan HermansenStudent organizations
prepare for Election DayBenton SmithStaff Writer
Students have always been told of the importance of carrying out their civic duty by voting, yet efforts to educate students on voting and the candidates can seem few and far between. There are, however, clubs at Boise State that help to educate the student body on impor-tant political issues.
Daniel Tellez, vice chair-man of the Boise State Col-lege Republicans explained how his club tries to engage students and the public by hosting events.
“Last primary, we had a forum to discuss the candi-dates,” Tellez said. “And on election night, we will be together at the Riverside Hotel.”
Boise State College Re-publicans gives students the chance to see the ground-work of political campaigns while also providing a fo-rum to explore the candi-dates’ policies. The club’s goal is to try and encour-
age political participation amongst students.
“Educating students is what we want. We try to get them involved,” Tellez said.
The need for these types of events is something that students have taken notice of. Barry Newell, president of the Political Science As-sociation, described the po-litical scene on campus.
“I don’t think there is enough on campus to push the importance of voting and having a strong knowl-edge of politics whether state, local or national,” Newell said.
An idea for promoting the importance of vot-ing became clear Sept. 23 when ASBSU, Idaho Civic Engagement, Political Sci-ence Association and Boise Women’s Voting League combined in a joint effort put up voting registration booths around campus.
“It was surprising that so many students passed us up and said they didn’t want to vote,” Newell said. “Though, there were some who were
truly interested and said, ‘I didn’t know how to vote, you’re the first person to ever approach me about it’.’’
In an effort to help stu-dents interested in learning more about Election Day issues, the Political Science Association teamed up with the Department of Politi-cal Science and the Idaho Civic Engagement Project to host Boise State’s first Lunch with the Candidates series. Candidates from races across Idaho came to discuss their policies and to answer questions from students throughout the se-mester.
“Students asked certain questions that I think are relevant to a student’s life here on campus and I think the candidates really like it because it gives them a chance to see a face they normally don’t at public fo-rums,” Newell said.
Those interested in po-litical resources can look up these clubs through Face-book or Orgsync.
Otter Speaks at Lunch with the Candidates.
alx stickel/the arbiter
NEWS
11/03/2014Pg 6Reserve your University Pulse DJ at Bsupulse.com
TurboVote enables students to complete last minute voter registrationsAlx StickelNews Editor
ASBSU and Idaho Civic Engagement Project have teamed up with TurboVote to provide students an-other voting resource on Election Day.
ASBSU provided $1,000 of funding from the secretary of external affairs account for 4,000 students to utilize Tur-boVote for free. If more than 4,000 students want to use TurboVote, ASBSU will look into providing funds to make that happen.
TurboVote is an online service designed by Democ-racy Works. Once individu-als sign up, TurboVote keeps track of individuals’ state and federal elections. TurboVote sends texts and emails to re-mind users to vote, provides forms to register to vote and gives answers to voter questions.
Executive Council Bill FY2015-#03, also known as the TurboVote bill, states that the aim of partnering with TurboVote during mid-term elections is to hopefully engage more students in fulfilling their civic respon-sibilities.
According to the bill, “AS-BSU is also convinced that having more students voting will grant ASBSU greater po-litical leverage in fighting for and defending the interests of Boise State University stu-dents.”
Secretary of external af-fairs Angel Hernandez spear-headed the project back in
August. Hernandez said he hopes that TurboVote will inform students on where they can vote as well as pro-vide other relevant informa-tion during the election sea-son.
While Election Day is Nov. 4, same-day registration is an option. TurboVote can help with that.
“One of the reasons we don’t vote is it slips our minds,” Hernandez said. “It’s very important to be aware of the process and the place (students) are supposed to vote.”
One thing TurboVote does not do, however, is inform students on the candidate platforms.
“Students have to educate themselves on that,” said Emily Walton, Boise State alumna and executive direc-tor of the Idaho Civic En-gagement Project.
Walton provided informa-tion stating that less than 40 percent of citizens under 25 years old are registered to vote in Idaho. That translates to approximately 78,000 people under 25 years of age are unregistered to vote.
According to Walton, there is a common miscon-ception that students can just go online to register to vote. While in some states that is possible, that is not the case for Idaho. Students must go in-person to both register and vote or register early by mail.
“Voting in local elections makes an enormous differ-ence in Idaho. We’re a small
state and an election can be decided by 100 votes,” Wal-ton said.
TurboVote will email or text reminders of where to go to vote. Hernandez said students who are residents of other states can use Turbo-Vote for information on how to vote in their state midterm elections.
For both Hernandez and Walton, the goal of providing resources like TurboVote to students is to encourage stu-dents to exercise their voice as citizens.
Walton said if students are not engaged in the political process, their voice will go unheard because politicians don’t feel the need to ad-dress the issues that matter to them.
“(Student) concerns are basically entirely being ig-nored by politicians today,” Walton said. “(Students) are not perceived as powerful. Politicians tend not to target them.”
Additional Info
More than 1/4 of college students failed to vote in 2010 because they did not know where or how to register or missed the deadline.
Campus Vote Project
11/03/2014 Pg 7
NEWS
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As a new donor, you canearn up to $80 this week.
Independent candidates and voters fight two-party systemSean BunceAsst. News Editor
In the last presidential election senior geoscience major Nick Ferronato voted for Gary Johnson, a third party Libertarian presiden-tial candidate.
He did this with the knowledge that Johnson had no chance of winning the election, but with the hope that one day a third party candidate could stand a chance against Democrats and Republicans.
Ferronato is the leader of a political group at Boise State, Young Americans for Liberty, which works to get students involved and pas-sionate about politics.
“The way the electoral college works, Idaho’s elec-toral points would go to Mitt Romney. Period. End of sto-ry,” Ferronato said. “That’s how Idaho votes, so I wanted to assist in giving votes to Gary Johnson.”
If Johnson were to gain 5 percent of the popular vote, it would allow the Libertar-ian party equal ballot access and funding in the 2016 election.
According to Jaclyn Ket-
tler, political science profes-sor, third parties don’t usual-ly stand a chance of winning local or state elections. This is because laws allow-ing third party candidates on ballots vary depending on the state. They may not have the resources or the organizational capacity that Republicans and Democrats possess.
Kettler said it’s rare to see a competitive third party candidate. If a third party is able to make it on a ballot, however, there is a poten-tial for them to impact the race at the national, state or local level.
“Usually how we see it impacting a race is by taking votes away from one candi-date,” Kettler said. “Some-times we’ll see the race ac-tually become competitive between the two major par-ties because that third party candidate is taking away some votes.”
However, there are instances where third party candidates can be competitive.
Kettler referred to the cur-rent U.S. Senate race in Kan-sas where the Democratic candidate withdrew and the
independent candidate now has a chance of winning.
“When we see those third party candidates be competi-tive it’s often when there isn’t strong competition between the other two candidates,” Kettler said.
Third parties can be suc-cessful in one district but it’s difficult to be success-ful nationally, according to Kettler.
One of the reasons why she thinks this is because of the polarity of the political environment.
Kettler said citizens use parties as a voting short cut. By sticking with a party affili-ation, citizens think the can-didate will at least partially support at least one major issue important to them.
“With those divisions we kind of put ourselves in one camp or the other, even if we don’t support them in every single issue,” Kettler said.
She believes party iden-tity is ingrained in so many people this may not ever change.
“It’s hard to get people out of that emotional or psy-chological identity,” Kettler said. “It would be very dif-
ficult, which is unfortunate because with two parties you have limited issues that get brought up or there’s not as many choices, which is defi-
nitely an unfortunate part of the system.”
Even so, Ferronato be-lieves students should be-come more aware of political
party issues.“I believe voting on princi-
pal. I hate the idea of voting for the lesser of two evils,” he said.
Rep. Butch Otter Steve Panhey
Marvin Thomas Richardson
Dem. A.J. Balukoff
LibertarianJohn T. Bujak Jill Humble
““—Jaclyn Kettler
Usually how we see it impacting a race is by taking votes away from one candidate. Sometimes
we’ll see the race actually become competitive be-tween the two major parties because that third party candidate is taking away some votes.
design by christian spencer/the arbiter
feature
11/03/2014Pg 8
Otter and Balukoff race for governor
Alx StickelNews Editor
The governor race is, what some would call, surprisingly close. According to publicpol-icypolling.com incumbent C. L. “Butch” Otter is leading with 39 percent of potential votes. Democratic candidate A. J. Balukoff has 35 percent.
Why so close in a red state? Public Policy Polling said it’s due to Otter’s unpopularity.
Two of the hottest topics in the debates have been public education and the economy and job market.
Otter and Balukoff came to Boise State to speak about their campaigns for the Lunch with the Candidates series, put on by the Politi-cal Science Association and the Idaho Civic Engagement Project.
Both candidates spoke about public education, the economy and other issues our state is presently facing.Balukoff key points:
1. Our public schools are on the wrong track
“We have a constitutional mandate that says we are re-sponsible for providing and maintaining a general, uni-form and thorough system of public schools,” Balukoff said.
Due to budget cuts:• Supplemental levies have
been passed in 94 districts to compensate the schools’ fi-nances.
• About 40 districts that can’t pass supplemental levies have gone to four-day school weeks.
• Art and music programs have been cut in various dis-tricts.
• Districts are charging for participation in athletics and other extracurricular activi-ties.
“We don’t have that uni-form and thorough system of public schools. I got into this race to get our state back on track,” Balukoff said.
2. Problems of the econo-my and job include:
• Idaho is 50 out of 51 states and the District of Co-lumbia in per capita income.
• Idaho is number two in percentage of minimum wage jobs.
• Half of workers in Idaho earn less than $11.15 an hour.
“We need to do things smarter that creates better paying jobs, that doesn’t re-quire families to work more than one job to be supported. That won’t happen until we get our education system back on track and getting graduates that the companies that pay high wages want to hire.”
3. There is need to restore transparency and inclusive-ness in our state government
• Over 20 years of a one party monopoly has not served Idaho well.
“We need balance in the
legislature. We need the dia-logue that a democracy an-ticipates as we pass laws,” Ba-lukoff said. “That discussion, that respectful, civic dialogue will allow the best ideas to rise to the top and not just the ideas of a few or a majority party that does not listen to the citizens.”Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter key points:
1. Kindergarten through career education is a top pri-ority
“I think Idaho is probably one of the two states that has part of its constitution a direc-tive that says the state of Idaho shall provide for a system for free uniform and thorough common public free schools,” Otter said.
• Education does not just end at bachelor’s degree, it can continue
• Education is the num-ber one budget issue, and 48 percent of the budget goes to K-12; factoring in higher education puts it to 62-63 percent of the state’s $2.9 bil-lion budget
• The state is working to meet constitutional require-ments.
• Otter’s five-year, 20-point plan is working to meet needs.
• The most important ed-ucational tool in classrooms is a good teacher.
“What a lot of folks don’t realize is if you take educa-tion, K-Career, and health
and welfare, and correc-tions, where we lock peo-ple up for not being able to obey the law, that’s 94 per-cent of the entire $2.9 bil-lion budget. All the rest of government operates on that 6 percent with the exception of a few agencies like the high-way department,” Otter said.
2. The economy needs better education
“Without a well-educated workforce, without a highly motivated workforce that our economic opportunities are going to be drastically lim-ited,” Otter said.
• The number one thing employers want is creative employees who think outside the box.
• Idaho is the second best state to start a new business.
• Idaho made it out of the recession faster than most other states. Idaho relied on genius of people and staying the course of standing behind tough budget cut decisions and setting priorities
“I’m proud of the storm we had to weather in Idaho. I’m proud of the collaborative leadership that I built with the state legislature. Am I proud of the cuts I had to make? Not so much. But they had to be made. I’m used to having to make those tough decisions as I’ve had to make them in business and in my own per-sonal life,” Otter said.
Balukoff
DeMOCrAts Vs. rePuBLICAns
Otter
design by ted atwell/the arbiter
Culture
11/03/2014 Pg 9
Political memes twist issues into one-sided jokesJustin KirkhamCulture Editor
White-faced, black-stroked text in tow, memes populate, overcrowd and dominate social media. Usually used as humorous replies and posts, these col-lections of reoccurring im-ages and tailored captions are seen as funny, enter-taining pictures, but some have the tendency to cause more harm than good.
Political memes simplify governmental discussion into humorous, often one-sided and negative jokes. They strip complex issues into pictures of George W. Bush waving to those who miss him. Thanks Obama.
“I take (political memes) with a grain of salt,” said Briana Maria, graduate stu-dent in communication. “I know there’s always two sides to the debate.”
Maria explained that those who are more in-formed in political dis-cussions are able to sift through memes, finding topics for further research, understanding the view-points that individuals stand behind and getting rid of the “junk” memes that solely cause intention-al contention.
These negative “junk” memes, according to Ma-ria, are posted by those with firm, cemented be-liefs. They consider one viewpoint in a particular realm and attack its opposi-tion. For example, conser-vative individuals may post an image of a citizen hold-ing their rifle and a caption stating that this citizen has the right to protect his fam-
ily and that “those liberals” can’t stop him.
While this viewpoint isn’t necessarily correct or incorrect, memes express-ing its message, or those similar to it, fail to ac-knowledge the background information behind its claim or other opposing claims.
“You can have an Obama meme and essentially headlines that are bashing Obama,” Maria said. “And just because you’re conser-vative, you go with the flow and get on the bandwagon without doing the research to figure it out.”
The same thing can be seen in liberal memes that use images of unhealthy individuals in need of uni-versal medical care without also exploring the costs of such a governmental im-plementation.
Political science profes-sor Justin Vaughn believes that these memes are so one-sided because they are made expressly to humor targeted audience mem-bers.
“I am mostly inclined to think if they do make an impact, it would be very marginal,” Vaughn said. “Mostly because memes are typically consumed as entertainment that only appeal to those who al-ready agree with a particu-lar position.
Freshman theatre arts major at Westminster Col-lege, Steve Allyn, agrees with this sentiment.
“I think they’re more car-icatures,” Allyn said. “They certainly can get people thinking, but they seem more exaggerated and fun-
ny than anything.”Allyn explained that me-
dia consumers generally flock to memes because they are stripped down to bare essentials and easier to understand. But, in spite of this, he also believes that these memes can offer chances for further explo-ration of ideas.
“I think they definitely can offer something worth thinking about, but it ulti-mately depends on who is making the meme,” Allyn said.
Maria believes that, across the Boise State pop-ulation, only a few students are actually invested in pol-itics. These students are the ones that might be able to find something worth thinking about within po-litical memes.
“The rest of students don’t say they are (invest-ed), aren’t as interested as they should be, or are set in their ways,” Maria said. “Some just don’t care or don’t think it directly af-fects them.”
Politics are diverse and broad, containing several sub-discussions and intri-cacies that many students don’t consider on a regu-lar basis. Maria explained that politics call for deep, intelligent discussions that often alienate students that aren’t as informed as they could be. These students turn to memes because they are easier to digest.
“They’re a fun and easy way to get information,” Maria said. “But some-times they give this infor-mation in a corrupt and one-sided way.”
political memes facebook page
Culture
11/03/2014Pg 10
Students use social media as gateway to newsPatty BowenAsst. Culture Editor
There is a turf war begin-ning on our newsfeeds and Twitter streams as Buzzfeed articles have made claims to the same ground as repu-table news sources like The New Yorker and the Idaho Statesman with the wide-spread dispersion of news.
For many students, the use of social media has be-come more prominent as a means to news. According to a recent poll of 103 Boise State students conducted by The Arbiter, 15 percent of Boise State students use Facebook as their sole source for news.
“There’s probably noth-ing wrong with getting your news from social media
sites at face value,” said Me-gan Fromm, assistant pro-fessor of communication.
Fromm feels there isn’t a problem with social media as an easy gateway to news. However, she worries that this could lead to more nar-row-minded view of current events.
“The problem is most of us tend to have social net-works that are not very di-verse and are very homog-enous in thought process or in culture ideal or things like that,” Fromm said. “Our social networking sites tend to reflect the beliefs or knowledge we already have.”
Bill Manny, local news editor for the Idaho States-man, feels that the filters that social media create on
students’ ingestion of news can cause other problems.
“If you get your news from social media, you’re letting other people decide what you read,” Manny said. “They’re relying on whatever they post to peak their curiosity.”
Manny explained that us-ing friends’ shared sources often closes off students’ ability to think freely about what they read.
Manny said that this ne-gates what most print news-papers do: provide a pleth-ora of topics that students can skim through in order to learn about issues they normally wouldn’t consider reading about.
“I think diversity really is good,” Manny said. “The one concern people ought
to have is when you can go find what you want, we tend to go find what we want. Then we aren’t introduced to things that may provoke or challenge our own ideas.”
According to Manny the struggle students face gaining interest for news outside their comfort zone could be partly the fault of the news organizations.
“There is so much infor-mation competing for peo-ple’s time now that news-papers have to do a better job of making sure that we are relevant and compel-ling enough to compete with those other sources of information,” Manny said. “Traditional news sources have always had trouble connecting to younger readers.”
The most-read news re-source by Boise State stu-dents in currently The Huff-ington Post according to the previously mentioned Arbiter survey. Although the news website used to have a very traditional, on-line newspaper feel, it has recently gained an influx of alternative article types. Fromm feels that students should monitor what au-thors they read on sites like Huffington Post where mass production of articles can lead to lax quality stan-dards.
“[The Huffington Post] relies on a really wide net-work of unpaid bloggers and the reality of it is if you’re not getting paid for your work, you might not take it as seriously as a pro-
fessional journalist would,” Fromm said.
Both Fromm and Manny suggest that students make sure to diversify their news sources for a more gener-ous global view and more accurate information. Most importantly to Manny, however, is that students do their best to keep up with what is going on no matter the source.
“[Students who don’t read the news] are going to be victims who fall for hoaxes and one-sided mes-sages,” Manny said. “Part of a well-rounded education is being well-informed and being a smart consumer of information. One way to do that is to make sure you’re reading news from a broad variety of sources.”
3% of people get
their news from Buzzfeed
6% of people
get their
news from
15% of people get their
news from Facebook
17% of people get their news from the Huffington Post
design by jared lewis/the arbiter
Culture
11/03/2014 Pg 11
Everything in the paper and MORE
arbiteronline.comvisit
Idaho superintendent election could change public educationJustin DoeringStaff Writer
As superintendent Tom Luna’s second term comes to a close, elections to replace him as Idaho’s superinten-dent will be held on Nov. 4th. The race is between Re-publican candidate Sherri Ybarra and Democratic can-didate Jana Jones.
The Idaho superinten-dent of public instruction is the head of the Department of Education that runs the state’s public school system and manages the $1.4 billion education budget.
The superintendent sets the agenda for public educa-
tion and serves on the State Board of Education, a board that constructs the guide-lines from kindergarten through college.
“If the superintendent is not an effective and in-formed voice for education in Idaho, then education suf-fers,” said John Freemuth, professor of political science. “This can lead to making Ida-ho a less desirable place for employers.”
According to WalletHub, a ranking website that exam-ined the quality of education in each state, Idaho currently ranks 27th in quality, 34th in education output and 44th in education budget.
Regardless of these findings, Idaho education is in for a change with the imminent transition in leadership.
Ybarra is taking a leave of absence from her position as the Mountain Home school administrator.
“(I plan to) take the op-portunity that our current leader has given me to tran-sition in and spend two months closely studying (the budget and job),” she said in a televised debate.
Ybarra emphasized that she plans to study the budget closely and ensure that “ev-ery dollar has been stretched to the max” before she makes any changes in school fund-
ing, stating that “money has nothing to do with achieve-ment.”
Jones embodies a differ-ent approach, stating that “budget cuts have negatively affected the quality of our children’s education.”
“We don’t have time to wait a year for somebody to study and figure out where things are going before those decisions are made,” Jones said in response to Ybarra’s statement. “We need a su-perintendent that can get in there right now and go right to work.”
Whoever wins will be in charge of making major de-cisions that will drastically
affect Idaho’s educational system.
“I don’t know much about the candidates. I did hear about Ybarra’s gaffes,” said
Jason Raymond, junior busi-ness economics major. “I’m definitely voting for the can-didate that plans to increase school funding.”
Jones (Left) and Ybarra (right)
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18th AnnualBoise StateHealth Fair
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THE BOISE STATE MEN’S RUGBY CLUBpractices 3 days a week FROM OCT. 20
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Info Session, Scholarship Workshop, Carne-Asada Fundraiser, Study Night, & Taco Dinner
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CLUB MEETS every friday for
Erev Shabbat dinner6:00-9:00 P.M.
11/03/2014 Pg 13
Sports & rec
When politics mix with college sports
Teddy Roosevelt
1906
Title IX
1972
O’Brannon Trial
2014
Women’s
funding
men’s
funding
design by ted atwell/the arbiter
In the early 1900s, injuries in football weren’t the concern of coaches and fans: deaths were. In 1905, 18 college student-athletes were killed on the foot-ball field.
Due to the violence, many wanted the sport banned.
In 1905, former president Theodore Roosevelt encouraged coaches at Harvard, Princeton and Yale to reform the sport and create new regulations.
This laid the foundation for the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States. The IAAUS was renamed the NCAA in 1910.
Filed by former UCLA basketball play-er Ed O’Bannon Jr., O’Bannon v. NCAA challenged the NCAA for using student-athletes for commercial gains.
On Aug. 8, 2014, federal district court judge Claudia Wilken ruled in favor of O’Bannon and the dozens of other ath-letes that joined the lawsuit. The court announced they would enter a separate injunction for the specific violations.
11/03/2014Pg 14
Sports & Rec
Native American mascots cause recurring controversyKatie Meikle Managing Editor
As a former student of the University of Illinois, Robin Allen, associate professor of the School of Social Work, remembers how the student body would rally around the school’s mascot, Chief Illiniwek, during home football games.
“I just thought it was this really special moment,” Al-len said. “I didn’t get it.”
Chief Illiniwek was Uni-versity of Illinois’ mascot from 1926 to 2007. He rep-resented the Illinois Confed-eration, also known as the Illiniwek, the state’s name-sake.
In 2006, the NCAA cited 19 university teams as hav-
ing team mascots that were potentially “hostile and abu-sive” to minorities, including the Southeastern Oklahoma State University Savages, Florida State University Seminoles and the Universi-ty of Illinois’ Chief Illiniwek.
“I didn’t understand when people started protesting the Chief, because I thought he was so respected,” Al-len said. “Then, one day, I walked into a coffee shop and it was a game day. There happened to be a group of Native Americans in the cof-fee shop ... And I think I had an insight right in that mo-ment: that would be really embarrassing if I was wear-ing this character of them on my shirt ... and I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, Chief needs to
go.’”Chief Illiniwek was of-
ficially banned in 2007, but the controversy of Native American mascots in sports lives on.
This issue will come di-rectly to Boise State with the screening of “In Whose Honor?” on Nov. 6. The film and discussion event is hosted by the Foundational Studies Program, Intertribal Native Council and the Phi Alpha Honor Society and will take place in room 101 of the Multipurpose Class-room Building at 6 p.m.
According to Allen, the discussion of racism in sports has been reignited by the modern-day poster child of the controversy: the Washington Redskins.
In May 2013, Daniel Sny-der, owner of the Washing-ton Redskins, told USA To-day, “We will never change the name of the team.”
After having lost trade-mark protection earlier this year, the team has been under intensive pressure to do so.
Steven Leekity, head chair of the Intertribal Native Council at Boise State, stat-ed that the impact of a ruling on the Washington Redskins would be very significant.
“The NFL is a big thing here in the United States. If the Redskins’ name gets changed in a more hon-orable way, and more re-spected way, I believe it will make a great impact through all the great nation here,”
Leekity said.The issue of Native Ameri-
can mascots is a widespread one; according to the Mas-cotDB—which has 42,624 high school, college and pro teams in the country on file—over 2,000 team names in the country reference Na-tive Americans.
At the heart of the issue is a lack of cultural sensitiv-ity present in the deperson-alization of minority groups through the use of carica-ture-able images.
According to Allen, even if the Florida State Semi-noles have been approved to use that symbol and the students at Florida State are respectful, other teams may continue to use the mascot in an offensive way and say
“really disgusting things” that fail to respect that the image is representative of a person.
“When you actually look somebody in the eye it is a lot harder to justify support-ing this image,” Allen said.
Allen and Leekity agreed that it is very important to encourage civil discourse on this topic.
“We’re the next genera-tion here of students,” Leek-ity said. “If we educate the students now, they could make a big difference ... That’s one way we’re trying to bring it out is to educate people about this issue here, and the cultural impact that it has and trying to debunk some stereotypical issues that have been brought up.”
2.5%
1%
Universities Alcorn State University & Mississippi College
Balcone College
Bradley University
Central Michigan University
Chowan University & University of North Carolina
Florida state University
University of Hawaii
Ottawa University
San Diego State University
University of Utah% of population that is Native American
= Schools with mascots referencingNative American culture
design by jared lewis/the arbiter
11/03/2014 Pg 15
Sports & rec
Cross country welcomes foreign exchange studentsTerra ChambersStaff Writer
Australia, England, Can-ada and New Zealand are home countries of six of the athletes on Boise State’s men cross-country team. These are members who now call Boise, Idaho home.
All of these foreign ex-change students are fresh-men and are among the younger members of the team moving up in the ranks.
Jack Curran, freshman from Gympie, Australia, has only been in the U.S. since August. He left behind his family and friends to come run cross-country on schol-arship.
Curran said that the run-ning style here is similar to that in Australia and that has helped him adjust.
Curran had been out of school for roughly 18 months prior to coming to
Boise State and feels the shift to going to school has been the biggest challenge he has faced.
“It’s been a little struggle just getting back into school and on a schedule,” Curran said.
Michael Vennard, fresh-man from Cheshire, Eng-land, also has been in the U.S. since August. Vennard said that though it’s been different, and there have been struggles, he has en-joyed his time here. The big-gest challenge that Vennard has faced is just the style of running. Vennard said that the running here is more serious and the training is more intense than back home.
“It’s quite different here; the style, the dedication and the focus but I am enjoying it,” Vennard said.
Both athletes indicated being a part of the team helps with the homesick-
ness. This has been due to the coaching staff creating a great team atmosphere.
Though they both also
said that trying to communi-cate with family and friends has been a struggle due to time changes and schedules,
they are surviving and grow-ing to be better athletes.
“With the time changes and my class schedule and
their schedule, it is hard to communicate with everyone but I am making it work,” Curran said.
Terra ChambersStaff Writer
After three years of working under coach Kev-in Burton, assistant coach Ryan Hietala felt bitter-sweet when coach Dan Potter came in to take over the program after Bur-ton’s resignation this past summer.
Although upset, he would no longer be work-ing with Burton, the tran-sition to Potter has gone smoothly.
“The transition has been
fantastic,” Hietala said.Hietala looks at Pot-
ter as a younger brother. Hietala helped Potter the first few months here in Idaho while Potter made the transition from Wash-ington to Idaho.
Hietala attributes the success of the transition to the idea that both coach-es’ passions mirror each other; both coaches want to make golf better known here at Boise State. Hietala and Potter want to make strides in the program by recruiting and fundraising.
Recruiting has been the main focus for the team as there have roughly been a half dozen trips to meet prospects already this sea-son.
“We are just going to put up our sleeves and go to work,” Hietala said.
With the help of Hi-etala the team has come to respect Potter and ac-cept him as the team’s new leader for the forseeable future.
Potter has been great with the team and Hi-etala feels he is a “player’s
coach.”The hope is that the
team continues to grow and learn with this coach-ing staff and ultimately compete at the highest level of colliegate golf.
“Working together and having fun is what is going to build this program,” Hi-etala said.
Hietala feels that if the team maintains it’s ideals of hard work and dedica-tion both of which Potter exemplifies, the future of the program looks bright under Potter.
Ryan Hietala eases transition for men’s golf
Men’s X-Country competes in Utah Open 2014.
Additional InfoGolfstat Average scores MW Men, 2014-2015 season
1. unLV - 285.832. university of nevada - 285.56 3. Colorado state university - 290.00 4. san Diego state university - 289.67 5. san Jose state - 289.836. university of new Mexico - 289.957. utah state university - 290.808. Fresno state - 291.429. university of Wyoming - 295.88 10. Boise state university - 294.67 11. Air Force Academy - 297.50
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hoots & giggles
11/03/2014Pg 16
da riddles
da riddles from last week- 1. Human 2. mushroom 3. A lobster
multiplayer dot game
3. Take off my skin - I won’t cry, but you will! What am I?
4. What two things can you never eat for breakfast?
1, What can travel around the world while staying in a corner?
2. Paul’s height is six feet, he’s an assistant at a butcher’s shop, and wears size 9 shoes. What does he weigh?