Issue No. 37 | University College Roosevelt’s Student Newspaper | February 2013 Also inside: MIDDELBURG Interview with Marijke “She serves delicious coffee, but she also has a controversial sign on the shop’s window which has kept some students from having a cup of coffee or tea inside.” Find out more about Marijke! >> Page 4 >> Page 6 >> Page 8 >> Page 10 >> Page 5 UCR A Day in the Life of a Sociology Student “You look at this person, and you are probably thinking: “You silly twat”.” To read more about the every-day life perspectives of a sociology student, go to the Universit College Roosevelt section! OPINIONATED UCR versus RA “‘A change is gonna come...’. Only two weeks ago, the announcement was made that we would undergo an extreme makeover: Roosevelt Acad- emy would become University College Roosevelt.” Can you get used to it already? Read more to see one of our opinions! CAMPUS LIFE It All Started with a Bet “How else can stripping be made so- cially acceptable to those who fear the spreading of pictures and videos over social media, dreading for their future career or family?” Did you go to the Koestraat party? GLOCALIZING UCR THE CUNNING OF LOCAL-SOCIAL TIES
Transcript
Tabula RaSaFebRuaRy 2013univeRSiTy College RooSevelT
Issue No. 37 | University College Roosevelt’s Student Newspaper | February 2013
Also inside:
MIDDELBURG
Interview with Marijke“She serves delicious coffee, but she also has a controversial sign on the shop’s window which has kept some students from having a cup of coffee or tea inside.”
Find out more about Marijke!
>> Page 4 >> Page 6 >> Page 8 >> Page 10
>> Page 5
UCR
A Day in the Life of a Sociology Student“You look at this person, and you are probably thinking: “You silly twat”.”
To read more about the every-day life perspectives of a sociology student, go to the Universit College Roosevelt section!
OPINIONATED
UCR versus RA“‘A change is gonna come...’. Only two weeks ago, the announcement was made that we would undergo an extreme makeover: Roosevelt Acad-emy would become University College Roosevelt.”
Can you get used to it already? Read more to see one of our opinions!
CAMPUS LIFE
It All Started with a Bet“How else can stripping be made so-cially acceptable to those who fear the spreading of pictures and videos over social media, dreading for their future career or family?”
Did you go to the Koestraat party?
GLOCALIZING UCR THE CUNNING OF LOCAL-SOCIAL TIES
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Current AffairsDaily BoardChair Matthias MalthaSecretary Sabina WeistraTreasurer Charlotte BerendsDesign Manager Matthijs Geuze
Section EditorsEditor in Chief Matthias MalthaArts & Culture Sabina WeistraCampus Life Mara Braslava Tara EleyCurrent AffairsTrevor MaloneyEntertainmentJochem GerritsenOpinionated Caroline HamakerUCRSven KooimanScience Dorothée GreversSports Charlotte BerendsMiddelburgCharlotte Berends
Writers &ContributorsWillem van den BergIbtissam BenaliNick KhouryWouter de WitJochem GerritsenPetty VasilevEva JoussetLana de HoopLonneke de KlerkIngmar HinzPaul van der BasDouwe van den BergLisanne CheizooYvette LantingHanna van LeentGuido MaschhauptEmma OvermaatLisa RückwardtJalida ScheuermanPeter Williamson
DesignersDesign ManagerMatthijs GeuzeDesignersJochem GerritsenSven KooimanTrevor MaloneyTom-Martijn Seinen
Contact InfoUniversity College RooseveltLange Noordstraat 14331 CB [email protected]
Disclaimer: Tabula RASA is edited, written, and published entirely by Roosevelt Academy students. It may not reflect or express the offi-cial views and opinions of Roosevelt Academy. Any and all mistakes are the responsibility of the Editors. Complaints, comments, and other issues should be e-mailed to the Editorial Team at [email protected], including your full name and link to the university college (ex: student, instructor, etc.). All rea-sonable e-mails will be dealt with and, so far as space allows, printed.
We proudly present to you the first issue of the Spring Semes-ter 2013. In my opinion, what the student newspaper should always endeavor to reflect is the full fledged diversity and col-orfulness of our student body. Trying to capture what students currently think about and the feelings they experience, you inevitably start including ar-ticles that consider the advan-tages and disadvantages of our name change, the absurdity of a world on steroids, the pos-sible obstacles the French gov-ernment might run into after the intervention in Mali, criti-cal thoughts on the volunteer-ing discourse, twenty six freaky ways to die, how to throw a mind blowing and brain cell de-molishing party, and more im-portantly, what is missing in the Elsevier article.
As one of our perceptive fel-low students has pointed out in one of those Facebook-frenzies that took issue with the Elsevier article, “even the Tabula Rasa writes better articles than this!”. Most certainly, we do. This very issue is a testimony to that.
Cheers,
Matthias Maltha
MALI INTERVENTION France’s Afghanistan?
By Willem van den BergWriter
The recent French military in-tervention in Mali reads like a fairy tale. The Malian presi-dent requests support from the French to fight rebels who have taken over Northern Mali and are imposing harsh Islamic law, the French agree, and within a few weeks all of the important cities have been retaken with-out significant losses. Many similar interventions are often undertaken with more dubi-ous motives, and frequently end with foreign forces meeting much more resistance than they had anticipated. The French intervention in contrast seems straight from the textbook: le-gitimate and effective. The strik-ing success of the intervention
“The French intervention deserves the label of a moderate success...”
By Matthias MalthaTabula RASA
has temporarily boosted the popularity of President Fran-cois Hollande, and has given the French contingent, still suffer-ing from imperial nostalgia, a reason to be cheerful again. Not everyone is equally optimistic though: The Economist has run an article claiming Mali could become France’s Afghanistan, and allegations of neo-colonial-ism are never far away. As with every international conflict, it is imperative to understand the background in order to make sense of the current situation.
The French conquered Mali in the middle of the 19th century and held onto it as a colony un-til 1960. Modern day Mali has a population of 14 million with a GDP per capita of roughly $1,100, and the economy largely depends on agriculture and gold mining. Around 90% of Malians are Muslim, mostly Sunni and Sufi, and around 90% of the population lives in the south of the country. In the 1990s, the Tuareg tribe in Northern Mali started an insurgency against the central government, in the hope of attaining independence for the region of Azawad (a re-gion several times larger than the Netherlands). The Tuareg rebellion intensified after an influx of weapons as a result of the 2011 Libyan Civil War. On March 22nd, 2012, the Ma-lian president was ousted in a military coup d’état because of his poor handling of the Tu-areg rebellion. After the coup, the Islamist group Ansar Dine joined in fighting the govern-ment, with the goal of imposing Islamic law. Due to the political turmoil in the capital, the three largest cities in the north, Kidal, Gao, and Timbuktu fell to the
rebels in quick succession. On April 6th, the leaders of the coup agreed to step down and a transitional government led by parliament speaker Traoré took power. On January 10th, 2013, the rebels moved south and seized the central Malian town of Konna. Traoré then request-ed French military assistance from President Hollande, who vowed that the operation would last “as long as necessary”. Since then, around 4,000 French troops have been involved in a very successful operation that has seen them assist the Malian government in reclaiming con-trol of most of Northern Mali. The fighting continues however, and on February 8th, the first suicide bombing took place. The Malian forces are currently unprepared to take over, and in January they were even accused of certain human rights abuses,
necessarily mean the request for and subsequent French mil-itary support was illegitimate, but it does complicate matters. Secondly, the rebels are not a unified group. Although the Tu-areg rebels have worked togeth-er with the Islamist group Ansar Dine, they have also started to fight each other. Additionally, the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (an offshoot of Al-Qaeda) has also been active in the fighting. Tu-areg nationalists and Tuareg Islamists have conflicting views of how Azawad should be run, and grouping them together as “rebels” is an oversimplification of reality. Thirdly, although the French have been met with suc-cess so far, the conflict is not over, and it is likely that French troops will still be in Mali come 2014. Modern armies have proven to be very adept at over-running rebel cities and strong-holds, but rather poor at estab-lishing stability and peace. That being said, any comparison to U.S. involvement in Afghani-stan is misconceived. Unlike the U.S., the French intervened at the request of the govern-
such as summarily executing suspected rebels.
When looking at this more de-tailed account, a few things become apparent. Firstly, the current Malian government was not democratically elected, and within Mali there is no consen-sus on the French intervention. While the coup d’état goes un-noticed in most of the Western media, the question of whether the movement for Azawad inde-pendence might actually have a legitimate claim also seems to be ignored. These facts do not
ment, did not attempt to topple the regime, and are not inter-ested in nation building or the democratization of the country. The 4,000 troops the French have deployed to Mali also pale in comparison to the roughly 100,000 troops the U.S. had stationed in Afghanistan during the Afghan surge.
Like any modern intervention, the French military intervention in Mali is open to criticism, es-pecially that of the legitimacy of the current Malian government. With some caution however, the French intervention deserves the label of a moderate success because the French had a clear and limited goal when going in, and that goal has mostly been achieved. True success however depends on whether the Ma-lian government will be able to establish peace and the rule of law in the region without the support of the French. Two de-cades of rebellion in Northern Mali and recent examples from the Middle East suggest this will be very difficult, and President Hollande may be committing troops to Mali far longer than he had hoped.
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Current Affairs
By Paul van der BasTabula RASA
The results of the Israeli leg-islative elections on 22 Janu-ary 2013 were surprising. All analysts abroad and in Israel itself had expected that prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be able to maintain his right-wing governing coalition. Amidst growing tensions with Iran, and the latest war with the Gaza-based Hamas, it was assumed that the Israeli voters would take a sharp turn to the political right. The surge in the polls of the religious-Zionist Jewish Home party seemed to affirm this expectation.
However, the election results showed that parties in Israel’s
ISRAELI ELECTIONS 2013: THE CENTER WINSpolitical center won, and the right-wing bloc only managed to maintain a very narrow ma-jority of 61 out of 120 seats in the Knesset (Israeli parlia-ment).
Netanyahu’s Likud-Beitenu party remained the biggest party in the Israeli parliament with 31 seats, but lost 11 seats compared to the previous elec-tions. The loss is a setback to Netanyahu, as it means that he will have to compromise more in an eventual deal for a coali-tion government.
The religious right-wing Jewish Home party doubled its number of seats in the Knesset, taking 12 seats. Even though this party is a religious one, it supports the separation of re-ligion and state, and advocates
that the ultra-orthodox should lose their special privileges, and serve in the army, as is compulsory upon all eligible Is-raelis. With regard to the Israe-li-Palestinian conflict, the Jew-ish Home party is adamantly opposed to the establishment of a Palestinian state.
By Eva JoussetTabula RASA
An ongoing “polémique”, or subject for debate has recently resurfaced in France: the legal-ization of gay marriage. So far, France has gotten to the stage of civil union (PACS) but in the past few months, the subject of same-sex marriage has been on the table. Although same-sex couples are unified through PACS, they do not have the right to adopt children, as mar-ried couples do. This is where the debate lies, and where the line is being drawn between civil union and marriage for same sex couples. The bill will be taken to the Assemblée Na-tionale on 12 February 2013
ON GAY MARRIAGE IN FRANCEand will then be taken to the Senate for further examina-tion. It would allow same-sex couples to get married, which is necessary in terms of adop-tion rights. As far as the gener-al debate goes, the French have described it as a marathon.
The recent debate at the As-semblée Nationale was called a ‘soap opera’ due to its comic “back and forth” nature. Com-ments on the French newspa-per website leFigaro.fr range from “pitiful debate for a ri-diculous cause on the part of-President- Hollande” to “ it’s so much easier to be het-erosexual”. Throughout this animated debate, many have kept the faith. During a gather-ing on the Champs Elysées last week, signs reading ‘le Mar-
state solution in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as improving the condition of the middle class. Moreover, just like the Jewish Home party, it wants to integrate the ultra-orthodox Jews into Israeli soci-ety by taking away their special privileges.
States and the international community.
Netanyahu is currently en-gaged in negotiations with the leaders of Yesh Atid and the Jewish Home to form a govern-ment together. A government of Likud-Beitenu, The Jewish Home and Yesh Atid would have a majority in the Knes-set, and such a coalition would do justice to the latter party’s victory in the elections. If Ne-tanyahu manages to establish this coalition, it will be the first coalition in years without an ultra-orthodox Jewish party. Together, the coalition could take a firm stand against reli-gious influence in politics and one in favor of the separation of religion and state.
riage pour Tous’ (marriage for all) as well as Lady Gaga im-personators were to be seen. The subject has even made it to Chanel fashion shows and the cover of Elle France. For a country in which change is te-diously accepted, this type of debate constitutes a massive step towards tolerance.
As of 12 February 2013, the Senate will give the decisive YES or NO. Will the closeted masses of the French nation ever get passed the compro-mise that is civil union? These things take time, and, such is the French way when it comes to matters of change. So keep your eyes open and your rain-bow flags afloat to see whether France will take a step forward in the realm of gay rights.
“Yesh Atid is opposed to an Israeli strike on Iran...”By far the biggest surprise
was the success of Yesh Atid, a new secular centrist party, which came in second place with 19 seats. Yair Lapid, a popular talkshow host whose dad was also a successful politi-cian, founded Yesh Atid a year ago. Yesh Atid advocates a two-
With regards to foreign af-fairs, Yesh Atid is opposed to an Israeli strike on Iran and be-lieves that the USA should take the lead in possible military ac-tions. It is likely that an Israeli government with Yesh Atid will take a more conciliatory approach towards the United
BLEU, BLANC, ARC-EN-CIEL
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Middelburg
By Lisa Rückwardt & Emma Overmaat
Writers
By Lisanne Cheizoo Writer
Every UCR student knows his or her way around Middelburg. How to get to the Albert Heijn, how to get to the Mug, how to get to Honeypie’s and how to get to the various campus locations. However, not many students realise how lucky we are to be living in this wonderful monu-mental city. If you dare to stray from your normal every-day roads, you might end up facing some historic building that you had never even seen before!
For instance, instead of stop-ping for breakfast at HEMA in the Lange Delftstraat, why do you not continue to walk on this street? If you continue walking until the end of the street (and even further), you will end up in a very old neighbourhood of Middelburg: the harbour. In this area there are lots of old houses
dating back to The Netherlands’ Golden Age (the 17th century) and several houses which have gained a monumental status. If you keep on walking, you will eventually see a small alley at your right side. Go into this al-ley and you have reached one of Middelburg’s secret gems: the Kuiperspoort.
The Kuiperspoort was named after the guild that resided there. This guild, called ‘Kuipe-rsgilde’ (‘Barrelguild’) bought some of the warehouses,, which were conveniently located near the harbour, in the early 17th century. By residing here, the guild members could easily roll the barrels they had made towards the ships that loaded them.
Nowadays, this usage of the al-ley is still visible by the narrow band of stone in the middle of the road, where the members of the guild used to roll the barrels towards the harbour. The oldest
building in the Kuiperspoort is the old gatehouse itself: it dates back to 1586!
Nowadays this beautiful little alley is home to Middelburg’s art academy ‘Stichting Kunsted-ucatie Walcheren’, which offers various courses in music, draw-ing and theatre. Furthermore, it is a very popular place to visit during the summer among tourists. Many of the old build-ings are part of Dutch cultural heritage and they are definitely worth to go see as a citizen of Middelburg. It is only a five-minute bike from Eleanor, so why not go and see this amazing place?
Noticing the small café Ko- D’oooooooor daily on the way to and from lectures, we were wondering who the friendly woman behind the counter is. She serves delicious coffee, but she also has a controversial sign on the shop’s window which has kept some students from having a cup of coffee or tea inside. We were curious and requested an interview.
Marijke Verstraeten-Smulders (54) was born in Tilburg but moved to Vlissingen when she was six. She opened her own second hand clothing shop in Middelburg already at the age of eighteen. However, she for-feited the business to take care of her twin children - “I might have managed one”. When the time came her children started going to school, instead of wait-
ing for them to come home she studied to become a teacher.. The field of education was not her calling: she had to teach silly little spelling rules instead of all the beautiful things about language. It also became too intensive for her to balance it, havingfour children. Neverthe-less, she still continues to teach Dutch as a second language to a Swiss and an Italian. Mean-while, her husband opened a Gallery, which did not work out, so they sold it.
Five years ago, they opened Ko D’oooooooor, which started again with art. For Marijke, sitting around in a fancy dress and heels managing the gallery was not enough, so she decided to combine it with a café, mak-ing people come in for a drink while they admire the art. Al-though hidden, once found, Ko D’oooooooor makes many people come back because they enjoy the atmosphere. Marijke, too, enjoys meeting people from different places and [listening to] the conversations they have.
“To her, all people deserve to be happy, whether they are a professor, or a street sweeper.”
Having a son who went to UCU and living together with us in a small city, she has experience with the life of University Col-lege students. She finds that students are often only able to scratch on the surface on a topic, knowing how to write pa-pers, but without any idea what they actually want to do in life.
To her, all people deserve to be happy, whether they are a pro-fessor, or a street sweeper. Af-ter all, you work to live, and if you also like your job you have found the perfect balance.
Even though Marijke enjoys the presence of students in Mid-delburg, her opinion on the Common House is very reso-lute: it is good for students to
have somewhere to go to, but she does not approve of the bar. The Common House, in her opinion, should be a place for students to come together, study together or engage in cre-ative and cultural activities; not a place where students have to drink lots of beers because the rent of the building has to be
paid. Besides this, she does not understand why the municipal-ity gave the permit for the Com-mon House in the first place. A residential area like the Lange Noordstraat is not the place for bars that cause nuisance.Therefore, an orange sign is up on Ko D’oooooooor’s window as well, which was not appre-ciated by some students. Of course, Marijke is aware of the
boycotting of Ko D’ooooooor by UCR students, but it did no bother her much. In the same week the boycott happened, Ko D’oooooooor also received very high ratings when it comes to the quality of their coffee from Dutch newspaper AD. “The same time the students stayed away, the people of Middel-burg came”. However, Marijke would like it if all neighbours collectively got rid of the signs.
Their statement has not changed, but the time of the signs is over. Marijke feels that the neighbours are trying to be open to discuss the possibilities put forward by the Common House, but also notes that the communication between them and the Common House board has not been ideal. She does, however, understand the stu-dents; she did not listen to old people when she was young. She doubts if the Common House will ever happen, though she would be happy to see us have our own place to study and hang out.
INTERVIEW WITH MARIJKE VERSTRAETEN Ko D’ooo-
ooooooor
HIDDEN GEMS OF MIDDELBURG
PART ONE
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UCR
Hitherto, Roosevelt has repeat-edly surpassed all preliminary expectation through its high-quality education system, and has, as such, acquired a promi-nent position within the Dutch UC-framework. However, with (new) competition lurking around the corner, the college is currently facing a multi-front
By Ingmar Hinz Alumni
GLOCALIZINGTHE CUNNING OF LOCAL-SOCIAL TIES
local people’s perception of the Elliott endeavor, there is more to consider than the enunci-ated concerns regarding UCR’s global appearance. The fol-lowing should not be read as a statement posed to negate the importance of efforts made to establish more social facilities, nor should it be viewed as an account aimed at nullifying the significance of improving UCR’s current image. What will be ar-gued, however, is precisely that mediating the cunning of local-
conduct, thereby not contribut-ing to the Middelburg context. As obscene as its appearance might be, the article does pro-vide the reader with at least one comment of genuine intelli-gence. Namely, the enunciation of the lingering dilemma “Us versus Them”. While the latter only concerns a small number of locals, its very incidence is nonetheless a truly bothersome phenomenon, for any such di-vide – regardless of “real” or “magnitude” – is spiteful. It
war – not atypical for its mul-tidisciplinary philosophy. The latter could be subtracted from the recently published ‘Keuze-gids Universiteiten 2013’, which reports that – while UCR pro-vides an excellent, stimulating and coherent curriculum – the college ranks 5th (out of 7) in the Netherlands. A consequence of the high workload and gen-eral lack of (social) facilities. Presently, UCR’s management is attempting to counter the course of this predicament, ex-emplified by, for instance, the implementation of a 17-week-semester and the intervention in the scramble for Elliott. Thus, it is to be assumed that UCR will endure to rock ‘n roll in “Luctor et Emergo” style, resulting in the repositioning of the college amongst the country’s finest – in every aspect. Nonetheless, subsequent to El-sevier’s recent publication on
social ties will be increasingly decisive in terms of Roosevelt’s future success.
Elsevier’s aforementioned ac-count on the ‘clash of civiliza-tions’ in Middelburg depicts the apparent local discontent with both project Elliott and the students’ alternative status quo: the result of a tense dis-course of cunning local-social ties. It designates the student, paradoxically, as Middelburg’s significant, yet powerful other – as if we have moved from a fan-tasmatic, submissive position (act in accordance with the local status quo, as a guest) towards that of a real, pervasive and dis-obedient alien (reinvent and act in accordance with our own sta-tus quo, as a guest). A process through which we have come to embody our current hosts’ biggest fear: the uncanny guest who discards the local rules of
is therefore quite unfortunate that, by opting for obscenity, Elsevier mystifies the opportu-nity for a radical interpretation of our current predicament. Instead of touching upon the dynamic core (the latent) of the quandary, the scope of the article prefers an affective de-tour, an introduction to Laca-nian jouissance – the discourse concerning enjoyment, envy, “the other” and desire – which, as a true manifest, attempts to diverge our attention away from the topic. It briefly succeeded – perceive our current frenzy.Nonetheless, to comply with this frenzy would mean to abol-ish the royal path towards the latent category – hence, the ac-tual cause of the current peril giving way to the emergence of jouissance disputes – which might very well be the super-ficially mentioned fashion through which UCR was initial-
ly embedded in the Middelburg framework. A quick and perva-sive invasion that resulted in the constitution of a 600 people student body within a larger, more conservative framework. To a certain proportion of the locals, the average UCR student is perhaps indeed an alien sight. We study, have an occasional night out, and march up and down the city center. A process which generally partakes in ab-sence of nuisance, but a phe-nomenon which nonetheless
Hence, our current task should not be to take immediate lo-cal action/repercussions – although it is of significant importance to rectify the mis-conceptions that are currently present in the public space, and to continue the formal negotia-tions regarding Elliott. What is perhaps more pressing is a pro-cess of reflection on the fashion through which UCR and its stu-dents are embedded in the Mid-delburg framework. The com-munities may indeed live next
“The ingredients for an Us-Them divide have lingered from the start.”
causes locals to know only little about our everyday reality and vice versa. We cause them no harm, but neither do we create a common ground via which we learn to enjoy each other’s pres-ence. As such, the ingredients for an Us-Them divide have lin-gered from the start. Hence, as the observer is now aware that we come close to finding some form of jouissance, the latter divide is brought to the surface, allowing for the current course of events to occur. Therefore, it is of importance to look beyond the brightly colored posters and irrational arguments, for these are only attempts to raise aware-ness on a much more pressing issue. In sum, both could be in-terpreted as a fetish to cloud the latent category, which is the su-perfluous social embedment of UCR in Middelburg’s mundane community to begin with.
to each other, not with each other. Therefore, it is of impor-tance to take the enunciation of divide seriously and not treat it with disavowal. The strength of UCR is its small-scale family model. A family whose presence should be celebrated by Middel-burg in order to not only expand our social facilities, but also to increase the students’ sense of local belonging. The latter is perhaps one of the principle characteristics of the college, though currently under threat of the cunning of local-social ties: of which project Elliott is a self-explanatory instance. Thus, in order to recover UCR’s position in the UC-framework glocaliza-tion of our institution should be the primary objective. This, be-cause the “other”, the neighbor, through the current course of events, is requesting it.
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UCR & Entertainment
By Jochem GerritsenTabula RASA
By Ibtissam BenaliWriter
Forget the usual Oortjes, or wherever you might go in the weekend… Have you ever been to Schuttershof’s Latin Night? It is a night filled with Latin music such as Latin house, Reg-
WHO SAID GOING OUT IN MIDDELBURG CAN’T BE FUN?
By Ibtissam BenaliWriter
athlete, or a world-famous sing-er. Now, apparently anyone can cheat their way into stardom! What is next? Will Stephen Hawking finally admit that he his intelligence comes from his on-board voice computer? Or what happens when Steve Jobs’ will is found, which states that he actually stole all his ideas… from Bill Gates! But an even more important question is: what can you do with this information? Well, it surely is a great contingency plan. For all you third years out there who still do not know what to do yet after UCR, I have one advice: become a celebrity! It is easier than ever! No mas-ter’s education needed, no in-ternship or voluntary work, no zero-hour (and zero-euro) con-tract job which requires you to
Of course, I am not talking about something as puny as the human rights violations in Guantanamo Bay , and I think everyone agrees when I say that what I am talking about is of much more importance. Indeed, what have Armstrong and Beyoncé wrought upon humanity? Armstrong admit-ted that he had used steroids, while Beyoncé confirmed that she lip-synced her way through the Presidential inauguration. Armstrong and Beyoncé are two of the most celebrated celebri-ties of our time! Who doesn’t have posters of them hanging above their beds? What has
the world turned into? Why are we victims of a system? Why isn’t anybody doing anything?
These questions show that ‘a change has come’. In the past, only those with ‘talent’ and ‘mo-tivation’ could rise to the top and enjoy fame as a professional
get coffee for the ex-assistant to the undersecretary of that guy that went to kindergarten with Ban Ki-Moon. None of it. When you walk off campus with your undergraduate diploma, just start using those steroids and start moving them lips: stardom is just a small step away!
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A
By Matthias Maltha Tabula RASA
Before I say anything conclu-sive, let me start off with a sto-ry. You’re sitting in a classroom, piously listening to what your professor has to teach you to-day. He is talking about terror-ism, something which almost everybody agrees on being a ‘bad’ thing. Moreover, the pro-fessor keeps formulating his arguments in terms of nation-states, which has been the main political model of organization in Europe since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. Then, some person at the back starts going into this postmodern frenzy of critiquing its ontological terms, thereby condemning both ter-rorism and nation-states to be ‘Eurocentric social constructs’ rather than universal empirical objects of reference. You look at
this person, and you are prob-ably thinking: “You silly twat”. That ‘silly twat’, who in the story seems to be condemned to the margins of the social-academic hierarchy in this par-ticular classroom, has probably been vilifying ‘Truth’ and ‘His-tory’ ever since he/she’s been reading Marx, Foucault and
Sociology Student
“... there is not one Truth. There are truths.”
not listened to) instead of just being a mere word. Foucault, for example, turns into a source for self-therapy as he makes you understand the technologies of power relations in your rela-tionship (e.g. putting down the toilet seat). It is also very likely that almost every single eco-nomics student in the computer
Mignolo. Arguably, there is not a social arena left, which is safe from this person’s Marxist/postmodern/postcolonial/de-colonial bitching and moaning.
In effect, the word ‘normal‘ starts to become a contentious field of struggle for acknowl-edgement by those who are sub-alternized (i.e. the ones who are
lab has been subjected to bore-dom at least once until the point of drooling over his/her desk by attempts of these ‘social think-ers’ to enlighten them about the neoliberal farce, which forces the non-European majority of the world not only into be-coming ‘bare life’, but also to suffer through the ‘epistemic violence’ imposed by White, Western, Male top executives at the IMF and the World Bank.
In the spirit of Spivak, I remain wary of the fact whether the ‘sub-altern can really speak’ through representation by others, which is why my unified typologies of course will not do justice to the ‘pluriversal’ character of my fellow silly twats. Nonetheless, arguably, what unifies them, as Foucault would put it, is living by an ‘ethics of discomfort’. Fi-nally, subjecting the jargon to a taste of its own postmodern medicine, what I argue is that whether they are sitting in their postmodern ivory tower or are grounded through their embod-ied knowledges, they have been granted the skills to carry out one of the most beautiful tasks in this world: annoying the shit out of people. Every single day. By reminding them there is not one Truth. There are truths.
DID YOU KNOW THAT
The World on Steroids:CREATIVE CELEBS
“... stating that he [Steve Jobs] stole all his ideas... from Bill Gates!”
gaeton, Dancehall, Bubbling music and amazing dancers! It takes place every third Friday of the month. Check out their website for more information: www.schut-tershof.nl.
Hungry afterwards? Visit pizza Amore down the street for an amazing calzone! Have fun!
- in the American state Ala-bama, it is legal to drive down a one-way street in the opposite direction if you have a lantern attached to the front of your au-tomobile?
- there is a laser surgery being developed that can turn brown eyes blue?
- in the American state Texas, when two trains meet each oth-er at a railroad crossing, each has to come to a full stop, and neither should proceed until the other has?
- since the 1800s, it is illegal for Parisian ladies to wear jeans or trousers in public?
- when your face blushes, so does your stomach lining?- the bones of a pigeon weigh less than its feathers?
- the word ‘testify‘ originates from a time when men were required to swear on their tes-ticles?
- an ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain?
- ‘stewardesses’ is the longest English word that is typed with the left hand only?
- by eating celery you burn more calories than it actually con-tains?
- a piece of paper, for example, a page from the Tabula RASA, cannot be folded more than 7x?
Tabula RaSaFebRuaRy 2013univeRSiTy College RooSevelT
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Ent. & OpinionatedThe Curious Incident of the Mattress in the Nighttime
By Douwe van den BergWriter
confused, but he didn’t steal anything so they let him go. In the meantime, we found out that he did not have a car, so my backup plan would have failed miserably anyway. The only thing left to do was to continue the search for the mat-tress. My neighbour (Jitse Ame-link, the former CURA chair) was not home, but we found out his mattresses were not in his room either. Who had been hoarding all these mattresses? Hanna van Leent was our main suspect, because she had been seen stealing a bed from some-one’s room. We knocked on her door and suspiciously enough she was still awake. She denied that she had stolen the mattress, but instead said that she had seen some CURA people walk-ing around at night through the Roggeveen hallways. We called Lieneke to check whether Han-na was speaking the truth, but
I will tell you of one of the most remarkable things I ex-perienced during my time at UCR. Although it might be hard to believe: it is entirely true. It was a Saturday in the last weeks of the long winter break. I had been in Barcelona for a week and had to catch an early plane back. Fascinated by the snow and sleep deprived, I ar-rived in my room somewhere in the afternoon, and had a short meeting with my bed. That evening I went for drinks with friends and I talked with them for a while in one of their rooms. Around three AM, I re-turned to my room and after a while I noticed that something essential was missing. My mat-tress was gone!
My laptop was still in my room, so I suspected the persons that took my mattress not to be your average Middelburglars. I had a special hiding place for the key of my room and quite some friends know this place. In the break, many of them were gone, but some of them had not left: Hanna van Leent, board member of cooking so-ciety; Remco Zwetsloot, the AAC chair; and some people from the CURA board. I went back to my friends and we be-gan to look for the mattress. Before we could continue our search, we met a man who was trying to get into Roggeveen. No one knew him, he had a strong odour of alcohol around him and his English was not great. He told us he was a stu-dent and that he lived “in room number 142, 143 or something like that”. When we asked him with whom he had had his in-terview and where and what he was studying, he replied that he had never done an interview with one of the faculty mem-bers and was studying at “HZ or the Roosevelt Academy, I don’t know”. Nonetheless, he was still friendly enough to offer me a place to sleep in his bus in case I would not retrieve the mat-tress. Because I was hoping that we had found the Middelbur-glar, we called the police. They noticed that he was drunk and
she did not pick up her phone.AARGH! Who stole my mat-tress?
Was it the CURA people? Was it Hannah? Was it the drunkard that studied somewhere between Vlissingen and Middelburg and supposedly took up residence in 142 or 143? Or was it perhaps the always suspicious-looking AAC chair Remco Zwetsloot?
Luckily, not long later I received a call from Lieneke, who sound-ed very sleepy. She told me the following: “We have your mat-tress, if you want to see it again, come to the central hallway of Roggeveen at 5 AM sharp and bring cookies!”. Well, perhaps she did not say these exact same words, but how could they have betrayed me? The CURA board! Sleep deprived by the people I trusted the most! But their simple response to my discovery was: “You could have slept on your couch!” This made me cry on the in-side and I felt like putting Exo-dus 22:2-3 into practice (“If a thief is found breaking in and is struck so that he dies, there shall be no bloodguilt for him”), but I overcame my-self. I decided to show them forgiveness and I went to bed. The next morning, I found out that CURA was still following
the scripture. There were two mattresses lying in front of my door. “If anyone gives a neigh-bour silver or goods for safe-keeping and they are stolen from the neighbour’s house, the thief, if caught, must pay back double.” It was an interesting night.
“This made me cry on the inside,
and I felt like putting Exodus 22:2-3 into practice”
Brain Teaser:• 15 ml amaretto almond
liqueur • 15 ml peach liqueur • 30 ml cream Shake everything with ice and pour into glass with a couple of ice cubes.
Beachcomber:• 45 ml Light Rum• 8 ml Lemon Juice• 1/2 tsp Maraschino Liqueur• 1/2 tsp Cherry Brandy• SugarFrost the rim of a cocktail glass with sugar. Combine the rest of the ingredients in a shaker with ice, shake well and strain into the glass.
Special UCR Cocktail:• 15 ml Vodka• 10 ml Passoã• 15 ml Cranberry Juice• 5 ml WhiskyMix them all in a shaker and serve with ice. Make sure it is red!
THE HOLIDAYS ARE ONLY 14 WEEKS
AWAY!Cooking Society’s Cocktail Recipes
FREEDOM OF SPEECHIN THE U.S.Turning Into a Farce?
By Peter WilliamsonWriter
At the basic level, freedom of speech can be defined as “the right to speak without censor-ship or restraint by the govern-ment”. In the US, the concept of freedom of speech was in-stitutionalized by the leaders of the young USA, in the First Amendment which states that ‘’Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”.
However, in the United States of today, freedom of speech is seemingly not a given right anymore. The US government’s reaction to the “Occupy” move-ment and the Tea party is argu-ably an example of people ask-ing the government to change things, just from opposite ends of the political spectrum. What is interesting is the way in which the government handles these two groups. On Youtube, there are dozens of videos of policemen simply charging into a peaceful crowd of Occupy pro-testers, pepper spraying and arresting at whim [visit http://alturl.com/vmq5w and alturl.com/e4m3i]. Many of the ar-rested were let go without a charge after a day or two, but it does paint a grim picture of whose right to free speech is being protected. This was al-most the daily norm on protests across the country, be it at na-tional monuments or university campuses. The police did not hesitate to mace at will.
Contrastingly, a lot of the grow-ing extreme right-wing in Amer-ica have been using this amend-ment to spread their hateful and discriminating view and propaganda. Often, the govern-ment does very little about this. In contrast to the Occupy Move-ment, the Tea party and the Re-publican far-right, on the other hand, seem to be protected by the First Amendment to the ex-tent that they can get away with what amounts to ‘hate-speech’, given the many cases of high-
level Tea-party leaders making blatantly racist remarks. This should be cause for far more outrage than it was at the height of the “Occupy”-crackdown. No matter on which side of the spectrum you are, there is something wrong when a gov-ernment massively acts against a group calling for a fairer solu-tion to the banking crisis, and seeing that same government standing passively as another group makes racial slurs against the President of the United states at public rallies.
In my opinion, a growing trend is occurring. Not just in the US, but also in the whole ‘Western World’ -which prides itself with democracy and citizens rights-to make sure that the current state affairs is not questioned, and that any form of organized dissent is either dismissed, or will have massive consequences for the protesters. I think that especially in this time of crisis, where the flaws in the system have been laid bare and it is up to the politicians to act, we have to be very wary of all their ac-tions. It is too easy to simply dismiss ‘Occupy’ as the bunch of hooligan hippies that they were portrayed as in most of the media, as a curious phenom-enon at best, a pest at worst. The thing that struck me the most is the international ratio of bankers and hedge-fund traders that were incarcerated for their crimes to the number of pro-testers who were arrested and detained without any reason. I think that many more people should be aware of the fact that those who want the real culprits charged are silenced, while the ones who caused the global eco-nomic meltdown have escaped largely unscathed and simply chuckle at our seemingly futile attempt to demand justice.
In the end, we can only change the current situation by voicing our anger and exercising our democratic rights of free speech to protest against the unfair way in which the fallout from the global financial meltdown is affecting our lives. Take that away, and what do you have left?
By Lana de Hoop& Hanna van Leent
Cooking Society
Tabula RaSaFebRuaRy 2013
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Opinionated
Soon after beginning my stud-ies at UCR, I was struck by the number of posters around campus encouraging people to volunteer their time, mon-ey, knowledge and so in a way their “humanity”, to help those “poor” people living in those “underdeveloped” countries far away. I felt as though they im-plied that the way we were and lived in Kenya or other “poor” countries was not fully human and we had to be taught the ways of life that would allow us to reach our full potential so as to be what we were always meant to be….modern and de-veloped. All we needed was to be wrapped in the quilt of Civi-lization and everything would fall into place. With poverty just melting away. Perversely,
the quilt merely concealed be-hind bewitching patterns of an “American dream” the fact that it bred the very thing it pro-fessed to fight. What all these calls to volunteer and help sug-gest is that you, as a person volunteering, have the agency to save the “needy world” from drowning in its own misery…To
dents at UCR have ever both-ered to talk to the woman, man or youngster often standing or at times playing the accordion in front of the Albert Heijn. Do students know they are a family? That they come from Romania? That they all live in a cramped apartment near Driewegenhof? That they are struggling to sur-
It is strange to me that people have these ideas of changing the world and fighting for the marginalized to the point that it angers me. Soon, I came to meet other Diasporans who shared the same sentiment and it was my friend Hashim from Pakistan who pointed out how funny it is that all these people want to save the world or oc-cupy Wall Street or fight for the poor yet these are the same people who tell you that they only see their parents or sib-lings twice a year or that they do not get along with their family or that their friends or acquain-tances are more important to them than their family. Where I come from, the way we relate to family is dynamic, mutual, co-operative and binding. We are all part of a web of connections in which everyone plays an im-portant role and it is with this network in mind that we relate to the rest of the world. It is of-
ten the case in Kenya than when you introduce yourself you say your name along with the fact that you are the daughter or son of so and so or that you are from family Z.
For this reason, I do not find it odd that someone from Kenya has never come to The Nether-lands to “help” or “volunteer” since we acknowledge the fact that we are not defined by our individual actions nor that we are more important or knowl-edgeable than others. So, for a volunteer who is bringing knowledge and means to better “poor” people’s lives, I believe that there is much to be learned at home itself. I myself cannot deny that it would be easy for me to fall into the similar trap of telling you how it must be and that is why when I say ‘there is a need to humble oneself’ I ask it of myself but propose it to you.
to stand out when it came to the Dutch University Colleges. By deviating from the standard name for this type of school, RA distinguished herself. It almost gave RA an elitist connotation, which for many people was not a positive effect. By calling our-selves University College Roos-evelt, people will have a better idea of who and what we are, and we will seem more easily accessible for any future stu-dent.
In general, I think most stu-dents positive about our new name. We understand that UCR is simply more advantageous when it comes to promoting ourselves to the wide world and even though we all started here as RA students, we will leave proudly as UCR graduates. And RASA can always become Roo-sevelt Awesome Students Asso-ciation.
Volunteering: A Kenyan Diasporan’s Perspective
‘A change is gonna come...’. Only two weeks ago, the an-nouncement was made that we would undergo an extreme makeover: Roosevelt Academy would become University Col-lege Roosevelt. Since then, ev-eryone has been working hard to integrate UCR into our sys-tem and say goodbye to our beloved RA. However, was this change really necessary? Will it have as much advantages as promised? And of course, what do the UCR students think of this identity change?
The main motive the manage-ment had for the name change is very clear. The new UCR website states that “our name, University College Roosevelt, encapsulates the core features of our identity”, which is also
the reason why many students have a positive attitude towards the change. Who has not expe-rienced the burden of having to explain what Roosevelt Acad-emy was? The ‘Academy’ part made it difficult for many to see that we are a university. An anonymous first year student confirms: “I used to spend ages explaining what RA is, while the name UCR speaks for itself”. Even UCR students admit hav-ing been confused themselves about the level of education before they applied. Having a name that conforms to simi-lar universities which are quite well-known in the Netherlands like University College Utrecht and University College Amster-dam will certainly help to pro-mote UCR.
Not only in the Netherlands will this new name have an im-pact. Depending on the coun-try, an academy is associated
with many different types of schools. It is often used loosely for commercial training schools for arts, military trainings and in Scotland an academy is very likely to be a secondary school. Even if international students are not familiar with the term university college as it is used in the Netherlands, it is still clear
integrated in our community. It’s a matter of ‘old habits die hard’. And then there’s the committee-complex: what to do with RASA? Will it become the highly unpronounceable UCRSA? And all the other com-mittees that are named after our Academy? The clear advantages UCR has for outsiders seem to
A CHANGE HAS COME: UCR VS. RA
“It’s a matter of ‘old habits die hard’.”
that UCR is a university, grant-ing bachelor’s degrees that give immediate entry to a master’s program (unlike many acad-emies).
Even though most students agree that the name UCR is simply more convenient, not everyone likes this change. The most prominent reason there-fore is that RA is completely
be absent when it comes to our community. Of course, change always brings along some diffi-culties and we will get them out of the way, but the fact that RA is much easier to use in puns than UCR will never change.
Personally, I think changing our name to UCR was a very smart move. In my opinion, Roos-evelt Academy always seemed
By Jalida ScheuermanWriter
By Lonneke de KlerkWriter
“Seriously, who the f**k do you think we are?”
which I would reply “Na Kwani sisi ni nani?” which loosely translated would be “Seriously who the f**k do you think we are?”
Volunteers to me are like those people who drop money into street musicians’ cases without stopping to listen to the music. I have often wondered if stu-
vive but it is hard since they do not speak Dutch that well? Indeed, it is easy to travel to a place like Kenya for a couple of months as you come to the aid of all those poverty-stricken people, but can anyone claim unequivocally that they come from a society without inequal-ity and injustice?
Tabula RaSaFebRuaRy 2013univeRSiTy College RooSevelT
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Arts & Culture
“26 directors, 26 ways to die”. This is what the poster of the ABCs of Death (2012) tells us. This title refers to a recent an-thology film, as these types of things in the movie business are called (anthology being a feature length film that is com-posed of many short ones). At first glance, or at the sight of the poster, the ABCs of Death looks like yet another B-movie that found its way out of the rear end of Hollywood. Little did I know, it was nothing of the sort. After a short journey through Youtube, I discovered to my surprise that I had unearthed a masterpiece in its genre.
The concept is that each direc-tor is given a letter from the alphabet and artistic freedom. It is then up to them to create a short film with a theme that starts with the letter they have. The result is: twenty six short movies with titles such as D for Dogfight, N for Nuptials and H for Hydro-Electric Diffusion. So
began my journey through the fields of horror and bad taste. Being an adept of short stories and outrageous deaths, this made my day (or night). A little bonus point is that most of these films are not English-spoken which gives them the “privilege” of being foreign films. These short movies, directed by a wide range of international film folk, including the directors of Hobo With a Shotgun and Tokyo Gore Police, bounce from tacky to funny, from fetishist to psyche-delic, from straight up scary as f*** (pardon my French) and back again.
This is a cinematic Surf and Turf and a great treat for those of you who are searching for an up and coming horror movie (or plan-ning a murder). I recommend this to all of those who enjoy a good narrative and cinematic diversity, or to individuals who eat sardines and whipped cream for breakfast. This is a definite no-no for those who do not know the alphabet. A friendly disclaimer: to be viewed sober, in good health and not before bed. From A to Z, you’ll be shak-en, not stirred.
By Eva Jousset Writer
No class? You are free on Wednesdays? Or just bored during the weekends? Get on the train and visit some of the most awesome places in the Netherlands! A good place to start is the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam which has one of the finest collections of modern art in the Netherlands. Ranging from drawings and paintings to design and furniture, the muse-um houses an extremely exten-sive collection. They also organ-ise English lectures about art in its broadest sense, sometimes even relating it to the sciences! The new building of Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam itself is also a piece of art, so anyone who loves architecture should definitely pay it a visit.
For those of you that are more interested in film, I would rec-ommend visiting Eye, the film museum in Amsterdam. What is really great about this place is that you have free access to the basement, which not only consists of a small exhibition, but more importantly, also of-fers you the possibility to watch films for free. Eye’s archives are extensive and many people just take a seat and watch movies. If you and you friends are the
competitive types, you can also take part in the film quiz and try to figure out who knows more about the international film scene!
Moving on to the music scene: have you ever heard of Pink-Pop? PinkPop is a three-day music festival in Landgraaf – near the borders of Belgium
and Germany – with an amaz-ing line up for the coming year: Green Day, Triggerfinger, The Script, Passenger, Kensington, and Ben Howard, just to name a few artists. This popular festi-val will take place on June 14th, 15th and 16th, and tickets will be sold from February 23rd on-wards. So, you better buy your tickets soon before they are sold out! Closer to home, Zee-land also has its own festival: Concert at Sea. As the name of the festival already implies, all the concerts will take place on the shore. Although the line up for this festival is slightly
more Dutch-oriented, the at-mosphere is terrific. Organised by the band that has its roots in Middelburg, BlØF will open and close the festival. I would say that there is no better way to spend your summer other than listening to great music and enjoying a beautiful sunrise, which is what you are bound to get at Concert at Sea.
Having read about these great places and events to visit, I hope that you gained some inspira-tion on doing things outside of UCR life!
By Yvette Lanting Writer
I Seent It: The ABCs of Death
CULTURALLY ENGAGED!
“... with an amazing line up for the coming year: Green Day, Triggerfinger, The Script, Passenger...”
Tabula RaSaFebRuaRy 2013
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Campus Life
By Nick Khoury& Wouter de Wit
Writers
IT ALL STARTED WITH A BET
Have you ever made a bet with someone and regretted it af-ter? Well, this story basically started in that typical way. Only we decided to make some slight amendments around the bet which would eventually turn regret into shamelessness.
The date was November 14th 2012. Holland is about to host Germany in a long-awaited (not so) friendly soccer match. Right as the guys get together for some pre-match drinking, we find out that there is somebody amongst us who is German. The foot-ball jokes start as usual and we begin to talk about bets seeing that national pride kicked in.
Nothing too serious at first, un-til the suggestion is made that those of us supporting the losing team will have to strip at the next Koestraat party. Moments later, a bunch of the “Dutchies” to ev-eryone’s surprise decide to side with Germany in order to avoid further humiliation, despite the fact that the rest probably saw the lack of trust in “Oranje” as an even more demeaning act. In any case, in our minds, Holland was bound to victory. How could this go wrong?
The match kicks off, accom-panied by the sounds of our Bavaria cans being opened. Reassuringly, the Dutch look particularly strong in the be-ginning, up until the Germans regain possession of the ball increasingly. Meanwhile, every
time Kenneth Vermeer is forced to save the goal, one after the other, those who are supporting the Dutch team manage at sur-viving several mild heart attacks.
At every fast break from the Dutch, hope is spurted our way: “Come on, come on, goal!?”. Nope, no goals this time, which means that the teams tied at 0-0. As if being deprived of any goal scoring and seeing all the missed chances again on a massive beamer screen was not enough, we now had a serious dispute. We placed a bet, and the outcome did not point out a clear winner, so, what then? Maybe let those strip who de-cided to side with ‘the enemy’? We decided that the only thing acceptable to our male egos was to accept it as a loss (with hon-or). We would all have to strip at the next Koestraat party.
Time goes by as the ideas for the next party pile up. We had some get-togethers with the potential organizers during which we de-cide to throw a blowout party. Nothing average, but our actual last house party we would or-ganize ourselves before gradu-ation, I mean, this thing has to be big, out of control, DIFFER-ENT! My “colleagues” were very smart in the selection of the theme. How else can stripping be made socially acceptable to those who fear the spreading of pictures and videos over social media, dreading for their future career or family? By making the theme revolve around stripping.
We started brainstorming with the rest including a few first years (who have definitely proven to be adequate suc-cessors of ours). What kind
of party will attract as many people as possible? Well, con-sidering that we were going to strip: a bachelor/bachelorette party. We also decided to make the most out of our resources!
Two floors: one with a view, a lounge, a dance-floor, plenty of alcohol (which eventually was even underestimated), and most importantly, eager and helpful people who are crazy enough to promote intoxication. More importantly, how could we get people to come and make our efforts worthwhile? Through the establishment of common interest, common rings a bell, common house? YES, let’s raise money for Elliott collectively!
The day of enlightenment has finally arrived; I am sure that by now you are eager to know the real recipe to a successful mind-blowing house party with an attendance that highly ex-ceeded the expected turnout of 250 people (bracelets were sold out after only one hour, after which we had to use stamps!).
So here is The Recipe:
• 26x24 beers, 5 bottles of Jaeger, 15 bottles of wine (do not underestimate the female desire for this beverage), 8 bottles of tequila, 10 bottles of vodka, a secret amount of energy drinks to keep the party going, lots of coke, 5 bottles of rum, 2 bottles of Sambuca, and our secret blend of “Pharmacy”.
• A highly motivated staff, pref-erably team-oriented, sexy, and sober-ish.
• An incredible venue/location.
• For stripping: workout, and professional training (special thanks to Blaine),• Girls HAVE TO be involved in the promotion, although a regular social media invite does the trick as well (clearly dem-onstrated by Project X).
• Selling alcohol is highly il-legal, so make sure to have a safety net, such as asking for “suggested donations”.
• An aim. This can range from casual drinking to semi-de-structive post-liver-cirrhosis self-destruction.
• One or two surprises that people will look forward to. It needs to be good, and will leave people wanting more.
• Motivation and spectacular people.
All-in-all, we are happy with the result, even though the cleaning afterwards is always a big bur-den in the midst of a hangover. We would like to thank you all for coming and donating, and we wish Elliott good luck for the future. May the money that was raised help in creating a venue for even more equally large parties! And from those who are graduating, we will defi-nitely come back to check it out!
PS. We officially challenge all other campus locations on throwing an even bigger party, and making us proud.
By Ibtissam BenaliWriter
Together with a new name for our university, University Col-lege Roosevelt, a new com-mittee has been established: the Financial Business Society Middelburg (FBSM). The com-mittee that perfectly meets the extracurricular demands of eco-nomics students, and anyone else interested in finance and business!
FBSM started out as a merge between FSM (Financial Society Middelburg) and BECRA (Busi-ness Entrepreneur Club Roo-
sevelt Academy). With a fresh start and a new board, consist-ing of Hanna Lie-Piang (chair), Yannick Danielsson (secretary) and Tessa Stehouwer (treasur-er), new life will be blown into the finance and business inter-ests of UCR students.
WHAT DO UCR, FINANCE, AND A PINT OF BEER HAVE TO DO WITH EACH OTHER?
The aim of FBSM is to develop a framework for students’ ca-reers and to create meaningful relations with corporations in order to help students foster necessary skills, gain entrepre-neurial knowledge and realize essential job opportunities and
internships for its members. It operates by means of four pil-lars: to offer information, to help students develop skills, to provide network opportunities and to create publicity. More specifically, by joining FBSM you will improve your odds at getting into internships, enjoy good career development, be able to join fun and educational workshops, and get the chance to visit some of the largest lead-ing companies.
A lot of events have been planned already for coming se-mester. Would you like to en-joy a Heineken beer, but from a much more business oriented point of view? Ever wondered how things work at Unilever, one of the biggest producers of various food brands and house-
“Would you like to enjoy a Heineken beer, but from a more business oriented point of view?”
hold items, such as Unox, Lip-ton and Andrélon? For your convenience, FBSM is organiz-ing interesting and educational trips to these corporations this semester. Besides the trips, various workshops will be held throughout the semester and FBSM will also participate in career events and meet with ex-perts!
As you can see, FBSM’s sched-ule is bound to keep you busy this semester! Interested? Sign up via [email protected].
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Campus Life
By Guido MaschhauptChair Elliott
What Makes a Good COMMON HOUSE BOARD MEMBER
GOOD QUESTION
As Mark Kamphuis shouted ‘September’, the pending open-ing date of our Common House-to-be, the church erupted in cheer and applause. Never have I seen such an intense and spontaneous outburst of joy. It filled my heart with a burning kind of energy; one that I was sure would carry us through the starting process in no time. But like all good stories, it did not quite happen as we thought it would. Now, a little less than a
year later we find ourselves still without a Common House and almost ready to elect the new board.
We sincerely hope that they will have the task of setting up the actual physical Common House, but as experience has taught us, unexpected things happen in such processes. So the question I am addressing here is: what kind of person are we looking for to be part of the next Com-mon House Board? It appears to be an impossible task to ex-plain, therefore I will use some illustrations. Here are some snippets of our year that I hope will provide a good impression for possible candidates.
Being part of the Common House board has been, more than anything else, an adven-ture. When you are inexperi-enced, unexpected events do not necessarily stop you, but they most certainly slow you down. The largest of these has been the fierce resistance of the neighbours. We had expected to start a nice conversation with them and perhaps negotiate a few terms regarding the pos-sible nuisance we would create by opening the Common House , yet none of us could have pre-dicted what followed after.
Ever since the establishment of UCR, the neighbours have, experienced nuisance from the students, which meant that we were going into the cause with an already damaged reputa-tion. Our job then was to prove ourselves and show that the Common House will be a posi-tive addition to the street, not a negative one. Many long discus-sions were held. Meanwhile, the board had to face difficult deci-sions. How do we work together with the neighbors as well as possible? On which points could and should we make compro-mises? Should we proceed with the project if it will affect the well-being of our neighbours negatively? Over the last seven
months, opposition to our plan from the neighborhood com-mittee (not the whole neigh-borhood) has not decreased. To say it has been frustrating is an understatement, but it has been quite a learning experience.
We were surprised by the num-ber of legal documents that were required— some of which we had never heard of before, nor knew how to deal with. We filed for our permits and dealt with various contracts. Then in November, the local court de-clared that our permit would be suspended due to the con-flict with our neighbours. How were we to continue from here? After working so hard to submit this permit, having it suspended proved to be another blow to the head. However, despite the set-backs we realized we we could not give up on our project. It did mean that certain compromises had to be put on paper, such as being open only twice a week until 2 AM and for the rest of the nights until midnight. These compromises we were willing to make. They address the neigh-borhood’s concerns and it got us one step closer to getting our Common House.
These are but a few of the chal-lenges we have dealt with these
last seven months. If anything, they have strengthened our be-lief in our Common House. The process has never been boring, and the learning experience in-valuable. We look forward to preparing the new generation for this challenge.
So in conclusion, what kind of person should you be for a CH board position? It is hard to say. Although we think the new board will get the job done that we thought we would be doing, namely setting up the physical Common House, it might hap-pen that there will be an unex-pected turn of events and then they too must learn to adapt to the situation. Is this bad? Cer-tainly not, because as we have learned, even the most unex-pected events can teach you something valuable. We feel that with our help, they will be better prepared than we ever were. Of course, qualities such as being interested in business, having social skills, and being organized are useful, but they are not the most important. More than anything, you need to love the project and love the adventure. You will encounter problems and you will make mistakes, but you need to love the fact you get to solve them. That is most important.
By Jochem GerritsenTabula RASA
Everybody knows the feeling. You have spent too much mon-ey, leaving you with very little to eat, drink and party. You don’t feel like studying all weekend, but doing other stuff costs mon-ey. So the question is: how to get the most out of the few re-maining euros you have? Well, that’s where this article comes in: as Uncle $crooge has taught us, time is money!
The moviesGoing to the movies is an easy solution to spend your cash and time. An average film will take around 2 hours, and cost €9. But of course, you want some popcorn and a drink, which you might want to get at the Albert Heijn because otherwise it will be damn friggin’ expensive. Keep in mind that you haven’t
Getting Your Money’s Worthpaid for your transportation, because being the penny-pinch-ing student that you are, you cy-cled there. Verdict: €5.5/hour.
MidgetgolfIn Middelburg, you actually not only have ‘normal’ midgetgolf, there’s also glow in the dark mini golf! And as we all know, anything is more awesome when it’s glowing in the dark. Accord-ing to their website, a game of ‘GlowGolf’ is €7.95. If you’re a bit slow, you’ll probably take 1.5 hours. Verdict: €5.3/hour.
Drinking (out)Drinking is probably the most common pastime among stu-dents. To assess this activity, we distinguished between drink-ing in a bar or club, and staying in. Suppose a beer is on aver-age €2.10. If you’re just chilling and drinking with your friends, you’d probably drink two in an hour. This would amount up to €4.20/hour. But hey, some-
times you’re having fun, going out, and you’re spending that cash. Let’s say you drink four beers in an hour or you give a round of drinks to your buddies (who always ‘forget’ to return the favor), you will spend about €8.40/hour.
Drinking (in)Obviously, drinking at home is way cheaper than drinking out-side. Assuming that a regular Dutch brand is in the Bonus at the Albert Heijn, a crate costs 10 euros. For these 10 euros, you get 24 bottles, with which you can do quite some drink-ing. To make it more fun and less forever-alone, you better invite some buddies over, let’s say three. Including you, that’s one crate in four hours. In other words, your night just got pretty cheap, at €2.5/hour. Don’t for-get to return the crate though!
Laser TagAccording to Barney Stinson,
laser tag is awesome. But it’s also pretty darn expensive. If you want to stay in Zeeland, you have to somehow get to ‘Kamperland’ (wherever that may be), where you can play the game for €10 per 20 minutes. Unless you want to cycle for 40 minutes, getting there will also set you back at least five euro. Total: €35/hour!
Theme ParkGoing to the Efteling or Walibi promises to be an awesome day. If you order online, you spend €32 on a ticket for either park. Supposing you bring some food with you (€4), and you can get a discounted train/bus ticket (€15 for a Kruidvat train ticket, €5 for the bus), you’ll prob-ably spend about €56 in total. A day at a theme park will keep you busy for approximately six hours, equaling €9.34/hour. Do you have a Dutch student OV-card? If so, you’re lucky because your day just got a whole lot cheaper at €6/hour.
Day TripA day trip to a Dutch or Belgian city (Amsterdam, Maastricht, Brussels, etc.) can be quite fun. Just go there, check out some museums or other attractions, and make sure to get a good lunch or dinner. On average, it will provide you with around six hours of pure joy. Providing that you can get another Kru-idvat train ticket (€15), spend €10 on attractions and €20 on a good lunch and perhaps din-ner, you spend €7.5/hour, or €5/hour if you have an OV and choose not to go abroad.
The final verdict is clear. Of all these activities, drinking is by far the cheapest thing to do if you want to have fun; no won-der students drink so much. To make your choice easier, you should first decide whether you want the activity to take a whole day (day trip over theme park for sure) or just a part of it. Af-ter that, make sure to consult this article and your bank ac-count! Have fun!
Tabula RaSaFebRuaRy 2013
univeRSiTy College RooSevelT ScienceTOWARDS A NEW MENTAL HEALTH DIAGNOSTIC BIBLE
By Petty VasilevWriter
What Will the DSM-V Bring?
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is probably one of the most important books in the medical field. Covering the full spectrum of mental health, it is used by physicians, psychia-trists, biologists, epidemiolo-gists and many other profes-sions and is considered to be the ‘bible’ of psychological and psychiatric disorders. The DSM presently, in its fourth revised edition (DSM-IV-TR), is await-ing its fifth edition which is scheduled to be published in May this year. In the DSM-IV-TR, nearly everything that can be functioning wrongly in people’s minds and that we consider to be mental disor-ders, are categorized, coded and described. So, do not worry if you are screwing up your statis-tics courses, it could very well be that you are suffering from diagnosis 315.1 (mathematic disorder). The DSM-IV-TR is
a worldwide adopted classifica-tion system, which serves the goal of consensus among prac-titioners, scientists and every other professional working in the field of mental health care. In fact, it is so important that many health insurance compa-nies do not reimburse the costs of mental treatment if no DSM diagnosis is provided.
The first edition of the DSM was published in 1952 and in-cluded information about 106 different mental disorders. The most recent edition, the DSM-IV-TR, was published in 2000 and contained 374 different mental health diagnoses. For each diagnosis, there is a diag-nostic classification - including code - which is essentially the core of the DSM. Secondly, for each diagnostic classification criteria are provided to indicate what symptoms should be pres-ent - and eventually which ones should not - to establish a diag-nosis. Finally, the descriptive text provided for each disorder systematically describes im-portant features of the mental health disorder.
The DSM was created by work-ing groups of the American Psychiatric Association (APA), meaning that a group of highly renowned professionals special-ized in different fields of mental health gathered and worked on one specific topic of the DSM. Examples of topics they have worked on are mood disorders, somatic distress disorders, psy-chotic disorders and eating dis-orders. The DSM-V includes a total of thirteen of those teams. The working groups for the DSM-V started in 1999, mean-ing that the process of releasing a new DSM edition has taken up fourteen years. Despite the great amount of effort that has been put into the new edition to be published this semester, the controversy and criticism over it is probably stronger than ever before. Most criticism tar-gets the change in the diagno-sis of normal grief, which will, according to the DSM-V, be diagnosed as a Major Depres-sive Disorder (296.20-296-26). Critics argue that this could lead to medicalization of rela-tively normal emotional pro-cesses. In addition, hoarding
will no longer be solely a topic for a TLC broadcast, it will now be an official mental disorder, so you might want to reconsider your collection of shoes, purses, emptied Jäger or Martini bot-tles etcetera. Substance abuse and substance dependency - which previously were classified as separated disorders - will in the near future be combined into one disorder called Addic-tions and Related Disorders, which may lead to more vague and ambiguous diagnoses. The tendency seen throughout the whole DSM-V draft is that most thresholds of being determined as having a mental disorder are lowered, leading to an in-crease of diagnosed patients which then leads to probably more medication and treat-ment being prescribed. What goal is this serving? The well-being of the patients or the cash flow towards health insurance companies and pharmaceuti-cal industries? Let’s get back to the example of grief, in theory someone who is going through a relatively normal emotional process - that is grieving over the loss of a loved one - could
now go to a professional and get prescriptions for drugs to treat the ‘disorder’. Interestingly, no scientific evidence can be found to support the use of anti-de-pressant in grieving patients. However, by diagnosing grief as a major depressive disorder, it is likely that more drugs will be prescribed. Another example of a financial benefit is the more restricted definition of autism, in this case, if less people are di-agnosed as having autism, few-er children will be eligible for special services which often are rather expensive. Fewer diag-nosed children, leads to savings on special services without con-sidering whether these children are actually in need of these ex-tra support.
These changes are just a tip of the iceberg, and it is definitely not the case that all changes are negative, but the criticism grew so strongly that there currently is a group among the profession-als that proposes to boycott the new classification system and stick to the ‘good old’ DSM-IV-TR. Whether this boycott will actually take place, no one re-ally knows. In any case, despite the criticism, having a diagnos-tic system is in many cases - if not most cases - very important and helpful, as correct diagno-ses are vital and even life sav-ing at times. For now, the best suggestion might be to await the DSM-V publication and criti-cally analyze its contents in or-der to avoid mislabeling and/or over-diagnosing patients.
