Daily Bruin – Page 127

Risk of alcohol-related incidents outweighs potential benefits of proposed bill

This post was updated April 22 at 4:31 p.m.

Another round of drinks and a few more hours of partying can’t hurt anybody, right?

But as little as two hours can make a big difference.

State Senate Bill 58 aims to push last call at bars and stores from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. Citing boons to the state’s tourism centers and entertainment legacy, SB 58 aims to be a socio-economic benefit. This is the third time this type of bill will be voted on, after being dismantled by opposition and vetoed by former Gov. Jerry Brown.

At face value, this has economic and possible social benefits. With extended hours, people can enjoy the nightlife longer and establishments can turn a larger profit. However, multiple groups have brought up concerns of how SB 58 can increase drunk driving and associated risks to communities.

And they’re rightly concerned.

Theoretically, a couple of hours at a bar or stopping by Ralphs to pick up a late-night drink is benign. But across multiple studies in different cities, those mere two hours do in fact make a difference – and they’d be coming to Westwood if the bill passes.

In those two hours, there is a greater window for alcohol-related incidents to occur. DUIs, accidents and assault have been shown to increase. Even if it doesn’t directly change last call in all of LA, the bill would diffuse its risks throughout the greater area.

SB 58 attempts to boost business and nightlife and provide some logistic help but is too nearsighted. The benefits it espouses are not worth the public health risk it poses.

Socio-economic changes are undeniably the main motivator of this bill. With longer hours, customers would be free to purchase and drink alcohol late into the night. The bill cites this as helping support a well-planned nightlife and entertainment industry. But there’s a reason the first and second iterations of this bill were not approved.

Theoretically, if businesses make more money and people can stay out later, everyone should be happy. But alcohol-related incidents still remain a widespread problem that marginal profit cannot resolve.

The peak hours for incidents like drunk driving range from midnight to 3 a.m., according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. These hours are often the most important to watch out for on the road, and cities have to employ greater patrol hours to combat crashes and DUIs.

And according to a study conducted by Jonathan Fielding, a distinguished professor of health policy and management at UCLA, these extra hours can be correlated to a rise in accidents and alcohol-related incidents – something that would inevitably increase the demand on the police force and spread resources thinner.

More incidents mean more costs, according to a U.S. Community Preventive Services Task Force statement made in a resolution against the bill. This is also the exact reason it has strongly recommended against passing the bill.

Letting businesses operate for longer hours generally allows people more flexibility to space out when they come and leave, thus avoiding an increase in traffic. However, congestion on the streets is the last thing lawmakers should be worried about.

“There’s no question that it will increase deaths and harms related to drinking and driving with the extension,” said Sarah Blanch, director of the Westside Impact Project.

Blanch said the group is worried about the effects of having a 4 a.m. barbell and that metadata already shows a rise in crime and related harms because of an increase in bar timings.

The bill describes the extension as a “pilot program” starting off in select cities and spreading out over time. As the initiative is adopted in more cities, nearby communities would also experience a diffusion of alcohol-related or traffic incidents coming from those areas. This could be the case, for example, for someone coming from a West Hollywood bar to Westwood. A drunk driver or agitated individual could bring the risks of the pilot program with them into a city that hasn’t extended last-call hours yet.

Los Angeles Councilmember Paul Koretz, who represents Westwood and the nearby areas, said he is worried of the impact the bill would have on the population.

“I am fearful of it passing, as it is reasonable that we will let it pass and then repeal it in a few years,” Koretz said. “In those few years, we’ll find some statistics full of accidents and DUIs.”

Of course, these concerns might seem like an effort to stamp out a bill that could improve entertainment and profits – something sorely lacking in Westwood.

Michael Skiles, president of the North Westwood Neighborhood Council, said he thinks SB 58 is a benefit to both bars and people, and that ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft have helped bring down the number of drunk driving incidents. The extra two hours, he argues, would further incentivize people to get a ride home from the bars.

“For law enforcement, taxes on the sales could go back to make up for the increased demand,” Skiles said.

The bill would certainly result in increased profits and increased taxes. But it’s hard to argue that money justifies an increased risk of DUIs, assault and other alcohol-related incidents.

SB 58 would push the end of a fun night. But that shouldn’t come at a human price.

Professor’s podcast unmasks science behind superheroes and sci-fi

Thanos had to break a few laws of nature before he eradicated half of the universe with a snap.

Topics similar to the Marvel villain’s defiance of physics are addressed in “The Biology of Superheroes Podcast,” hosted by Shane Campbell-Staton, a UCLA ecology and evolutionary biology assistant professor. What originally began as a two-week course at Harvard University developed into a podcast and a full academic course at UCLA titled Ecology and Evolutionary Biology M157: “Biology of Superheroes: Exploring Limits of Form and Function.” In both his class and podcast, Campbell-Staton said he uses superheroes and their powers to examine the meeting place between biological reality and futuristic fantasy.

“All these fantastical ideas start with (a) premise that we can very easily explore in our own universe,” Campbell-Staton said. “And then from that starting point, you can say, ‘How do we go beyond (the) limitations to get to what we see on these pages?'”

Even though he was not interested in comic books as a child, Campbell-Staton said they became his guilty pleasure in graduate school after he bought his first comic, “Superman vs. Muhammad Ali.” As he read stories about heroes such as the Flash and the Hulk, he eventually began to wonder which biological theories could explain their abilities. After reaching out to longtime friend and podcast co-host Arien Darby, Campbell-Staton decided to discuss his questions and ideas on a public platform.

The podcast has covered topics such as Spider-Man’s web-slinging and The Walking Dead’s zombie apocalypse. Campbell-Staton is more responsible for the science side of things – finding research related to superpowers and reaching out to fellow scientists to guest-star. For example, Sheila Patek, an associate biology professor at Duke University, was recently featured on the podcast to discuss the biomechanics behind Iron Fist’s martial art abilities.

Meanwhile, Darby, a lifelong comic book fan, adds superhero knowledge to the podcast. Darby said he also contributes humor and pop culture commentary to balance the podcast’s more science-heavy segments. In episode 10, Darby gives a personal account of his taekwondo training and how his childhood self would envision fighting enemies alongside the Iron Fist.

“We joke with each other throughout the episode,” Darby said. “But at the same time, we really are focusing on delivering some hard-hitting science and grounding conversations that we have in the actual theory.”

As a scientist, Campbell-Staton said it is easy to be critical of the biology depicted in comics due to its fantastical nature. But once he steps out of his scientist shoes, Campbell-Staton said he views the unnatural phenomenon of superpowers as an entryway into analyzing biology that already exists in the universe. Despite his obvious inability to travel throughout the multiverse, Campbell-Staton said the notion of parallel universes with distinct characteristics raises questions regarding the roles of fate and chance in evolutionary history.

“(‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’) just came out (and) deals with those same concepts,” Campbell-Staton said. “So we can use that as a thought experiment in the same way that scientists use thought experiments all the time to approach really complex thoughts.”

While the podcast is publicly available online, its academic counterpart was only available to 80 students during winter quarter. Lisa Anderson, a fourth-year biology student, said the class combined her passion for superheroes with her course of study, as each lesson was based around one character and the biological theories related to his or her abilities. For example, as a means to understand the effects of aging on regeneration, Anderson said the class once focused on Wolverine’s rapid healing ability.

Joshua Kim, a fourth-year biology student, said Campbell-Staton would provide background of a hero’s origin and powers for students who were not familiar with the comic narratives. Kim said it is uncommon for science classes to cover topics from pop culture, so Campbell-Staton’s use of superheroes to teach biology was refreshing.

“(The class) seemed more unique than just like a normal biology class, like plants or marine bio. … Something about superheroes (doesn’t) really come across that often,” Kim said.

Campbell-Staton said his class and podcast allow him to delve into more fields of science than he typically encounters as a biologist. Investigating the stories of Cyborg and Vision required him to conduct research on the current state of artificial intelligence, while the advanced mechanisms of the Terminator encouraged him to determine the current state of the world’s cutting-edge technology. Running the podcast has broadened Campbell-Staton’s scientific knowledge, he said, but it has also helped him connect biology to the social world.

“(The podcast) helps me step out of my own scientific brain and step into the real world,” Campbell-Staton said. “It helps to bridge science and society.”

Dance performances explore relationship between performer, audience

Blindfolded dancers will take the floor for a portion of “this must happen before the end.”

The showcase, composed of two group dances, will take place in Glorya Kaufman Hall on Friday and Saturday. World arts and cultures/dance graduate students Kristianne Salcines and Levi Gonzalez choreographed “Afternoon Experiences” and “subpolyversadiscoteca,” respectively, for the show. The dances are meant to challenge the traditionally separate roles of audience and performer, Gonzalez said.

“When people say audience participation, I usually cringe,” he said. “So I was trying to figure out my way of doing this, of having an engagement with the audience that didn’t feel abusive, or gimmicky, or kind of putting people on the spot, but still managed to ask questions and do some thought-provoking.”

In Gonzalez’s “subpolyversadiscoteca,” seats for the audience will be scattered throughout the otherwise empty space. This arrangement, he said, is meant to highlight the dance floor’s openness. To interact with viewers, the individual dancers will share stories about their life experiences and come very close to the audience to emphasize the sense of physical proximity, he said. Audiences have a chance to learn about performers during a performance they might otherwise only watch, Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez said he wanted to make the art more accessible by adding relatable sections to his performance. A disco section of the piece, for example, is meant to elicit the audience’s memories of dancing in a club during their own lives, he said. As the music plays, the performers dance near the seated audience and make eye contact with other audience members from across the room, which adds another level of interaction, Gonzalez said. “Subpolyversadiscoteca” includes more focus on the sound of the dancers’ voices and their close contact with the audience, Gonzalez said. These interactions challenge the tendency for performances to be purely visual and expand the piece at hand to be a sensory experience, he said.

“The piece is actually about … kind of reframing the interaction between audience and performer as an active one, and a central one, and one that involves our bodies in a very clear, multisensory way,” he said.

Audience members will share their own stories to contribute to Salcines’ piece, “Afternoon Experiences.” Prior to the performance, attendees are invited to share experiences in a workshop setting, which they then translate into images, words and sentences on paper. The dancers then create a map based on the visual continuities among the stories and translate them onto the stage. “Afternoon Experiences” uses an improvised dance style within the mapped-out space, Salcines said. The performers can use the space to express both their own experiences and those of the audience members, which lessens the perceived artistic separations between the performers and attendees, Salcines said.

“The way in which I have put (the audience) in the space … feels like a comment about something around where we are standing,” they said. “We meet in the same place and stand in the same ground, and there shouldn’t be a separation between the performer and the audience.”

The maps add more spatial structure by creating a designated area that constrains the dancer’s highly improvisational performance, said Randy Reyes, a freelance choreographer who collaborated with Salcines. The audience members shape the performances’ structures – depending on the outcome of their maps and how they are translated onto the physical stage – but the performers have full agency to move how they want within that space, Reyes said.

“Oftentimes, a performance can turn into being just entertainment, and this is more about an energetic exchange, and trying to get the audience to see themselves in what’s happening with the emotions and trauma,” Reyes said.

The open style of “Afternoon Experiences” makes it vulnerable, said Diana Thielen, a movement artist who also collaborated with Salcines. The performance will display the story maps from both audience members and dancers on strings that hang from the ceiling, Thielen said. Viewers can walk around during the dance, she said, choosing to view the maps or approach the performers. The liberty that both the audience and dancers possess creates a piece that feels independent, Thielen said. She added that performers and viewers can relate to each other because of the societal experiences they share.

“(The freedom) gives me agency as a dancer, performer and as a human being to be more than only a physical entity,” Thielen said. “There are some (experiences) I carry with me every day and they might be different tomorrow than today.”

Movie review: ‘La Llorona’ proves to be just another horror movie with jump scares, simple plot

“The Curse of La Llorona” is the quintessential modern horror film: simple, frightening and tedious.

Director Michael Chaves’ first foray into a big Hollywood horror franchise gives writing teachers the umpteenth example of a formulaic horror film to teach their students story structure. In a genre that often relies on stale tropes and derivative plots, “La LLorona” is just one more data point on the graph of painfully unoriginal cinema.

“La Llorona” is yet another horror film in which a supernatural force tries to take the lives of a few oh-so-innocent bystanders who get in the way. This time, the force is based on a storied piece of folklore – La Llorona, or “The Weeping Woman.” The Spanish name belongs to the crying ghost of a woman who, after being spurned by her husband, drowns her two children in a fit of rage and then follows suit in a fit of guilt.

The common Latin American folk tale has variances that change by the demography of the storyteller, but it is typically a cautionary story used by parental figures to keep their kids from staying out late at night. As the legend goes, La Llorona is forever weeping, and children wandering in the night are vulnerable to her grasp.

It’s no mistake that the film’s protagonist is a person who not only cares for her own children, but others. Child Protective Services caseworker Anna Tate-Garcia (Linda Cardellini) is the sole guardian of her son Chris (Roman Christou) and daughter Sam (Jaynee-Lynne Kinchen) after their father is killed in the line of duty as a Los Angeles police officer. She works herself ragged, as is evidenced by her boss transferring Anna’s cases to a younger, childless case worker. The audience is blasted with the subtext: This woman is here for her kids in all the ways that the antagonist La Llorona was not.

When Anna becomes a bit too involved – she loves kids, remember? – in one of her cases, she catches the ire of a mother who failed to protect her own children from La Llorona. Suddenly, Anna’s kids start to witness the mystical figure of a rotting corpse. The ghost wears a wedding dress and her touch leaves burns on the children’s arms that conveniently resemble cigarette burns. Yet, it’s only when Anna herself is burned by the spirit does she search for help elsewhere.

She seeks help from a Catholic priest, Father Perez (Tony Amendola). In case the words “franchise alert” don’t flash in front of your face, rest assured the quick black-and-white flashback of Father Perez will provide the message. In only a few frames the audience sees Perez holding the doll from the film “Annabelle,” thus weakly establishing “La Llorona” as part of The Conjuring Universe. The Warner Brothers shared cinematic universe is chock-full of genre films in which spirits try to take life from the living, as is evident in this film. It makes sense: Horror films are reliable cash machines, which is probably why all the films in this common universe have so far grossed $1.569 billion in box office earnings.

The priest is no help to Anna, but he points her to a former man of the cloth-turned-shaman named Rafael (Raymond Cruz), a curandero, or Latin American faith healer. Rafael utilizes folk remedies aplenty in his attempt to banish La Llorona from the Tate-Garcias’ lives. He only succeeds far enough to leave the audience in suspense, until the inevitably satisfying conclusion.

“La Llorona” establishes itself with all of the tropes common to movies of this caliber: creepy, lingering shots that build anticipation, unsubtly poor character choices and striking jump scares. While the technical and storytelling aspects of the film aren’t overtly amateurish, the film’s banality discloses the fact that no one involved in the production aimed to push the cinematic envelope.

If Chaves was simply trying to cut his directing teeth on a straightforward Hollywood fright fest, he accomplished his goal. But it’s a shame to call a movie like “La Llorona” a “horror” movie, as there’s not much horrifying about it. Every single frightening situation in this movie is, in fact, nothing more than a jump scare. There is no act of inhuman violence perpetuated by a complex villain, there is no examination of a classic moral conundrum and there is no mystery that ever remains even partially unsolved.

In short, there is no reason to consider “La Llorona” a stellar example of its genre, because it does not attempt to challenge the viewers’ ideas about humanity or the human condition. It spoon-feeds scares on a silver platter, but it is far from the only film to do so.

Concert review: Despite some hiccups, BLACKPINK’s performance proves K-pop’s global appeal

BLACKPINK was in the area.

Currently on its global In Your Area tour, the female K-pop group stopped by Los Angeles, jump-starting the United States leg of shows. The group performed Wednesday at The Forum, singing and dancing to American pop songs as well as all 14 of its original singles. Though BLACKPINK made its debut only in 2016, its concert demonstrated an astute ability to energize audiences and to make K-pop music feel commonplace, even in the United States.

The night began in a flurry of smoke. Illuminated by purple strobe lights, members of BLACKPINK ascended from a platform below the main stage. Without greeting, the group jumped into its song “DDU-DU DDU-DU” with synchronized pyrotechnics. Despite some coarse vocals throughout Jennie Kim’s rap portions, the flashing visuals and flawless notes from the other members easily electrified the diverse crowd.

Throughout the concert, BLACKPINK sequenced its songs in a way that balanced upbeat, high-energy performances with more melodic, calming ones. Immediately after “Forever Young,” a lively song that ended with explosions of confetti, the four members paused to introduce themselves and smoothly segue into slower, more relaxing tracks such as “WHISTLE.” Rather than performing intense choreographies, the members simply walked across the stage and encouraged audience members to sing and wave their hands, pacifying the residual energy in the wake of “DDU-DU DDU-DU.”

Because of BLACKPINK’s small repertoire, individual members also performed American songs, appropriately rooting themselves in a predominantly American audience. Emerging from a cloud of smoke, Park Chae-young, who goes by Rosé, sat on a crystallike piano and sang The Beatles’ “Let It Be” in a white dress. She started the classic song in English but seamlessly transitioned into Korean, alternating between the languages throughout the piece. The rendition, though no match for the iconic original performance, added a delightful, Korean touch.

In contrast to Young, Kim performed “SOLO,” the K-pop single she released under her artist name JENNIE. She immediately set herself apart from the black-clothed backup dancers in a bright-red dress for the performance. Again, Kim’s rap portions felt a bit strained and forceful. Los Angeles is the ninth stop in the world tour, yet she sounds almost as if she wasn’t used to large concert venues.

Videos and instrumental covers by the onstage musicians played between performances, some of which disrupted the mood of the concert. The mashup video of people dancing along to BLACKPINK songs was heartfelt. However, the instrumental performance and a prolonged advertisement of sponsor brand Kia Motors featuring BLACKPINK members detracted from the tonality of the K-pop music. Audience members quickly sat down during the instrumentals and advertisement, impatiently waiting for the next performance from BLACKPINK itself.

After the instrumentals, BLACKPINK sang “Kiss and Make Up,” a song that features Dua Lipa. Although Dua Lipa was not present, BLACKPINK still provided an enjoyable performance, with each member covering parts of the featured artist’s lyrics. Psychedelic light arrangements flashed at the base of platforms that moved the members up and down throughout the song, and boldface yellow-and-green letters beamed the word “KISS” across background screens. The addition of bright and animated visuals did far more than make up for Dua Lipa’s absence.

As the concert approached its end, BLACKPINK made sure to appeal to its fans. After singing the last song on the agenda, the entire venue went dark. No music played and despite the audience’s incessant chanting for BLACKPINK, the members failed to reappear, causing some attendees to leave. However, about 10 minutes later, they ascended from the stage for encore performances, catering to the hardcore fans who chose to stay behind.

They ended the night with the slow, melodic song “STAY.” Without performing a choreography, the members merely walked about the stage, accepting gifts from audience members, taking photos and holding out their microphones for people to sing along. As the song ended, the members waved and descended into the stage below, leaving the impression that K-pop is for everyone and has a home in America.

Throwback Thursday: UCLA’s dire parking setup has been a problem for 30 years

UCLA has a parking problem.

UCLA is one of the largest universities in the nation, with over 40,000 students attending and more than 60% of those being commuters. Despite this, many students still report difficulties getting to classes, with some spending upwards of 90 minutes in search of a single spot to park on campus.

With consternation over parking brewing, UCLA students ought to remember that the school’s always had an issue providing enough spots for its student body.

In April 1990, UCLA students focused their ire on the demolition of Lot 32 to build graduate apartments, as well as on the construction of a new branch of what would eventually become the Ronald Reagan Medical Center. An article dated at the time argued that by building the new wing and hiring new employees to staff it, the administration was ignoring the needs of commuter students and generating new competition with students for parking spaces.

One particular grievance was the car pool system, where students who carpooled together while heading to campus could park in any of a series of allotted car pool spots. The article is dismissive towards the idea, suggesting that “a large portion of all preferred parking passes given to car pooling undergraduates are obtained using fraudulent information.”

Commuter students today may find uncomfortable parallels between the farces of 1990 and the inefficiencies of the current parking permit system, which allows students to purchase parking permits for a limited range of spaces while reserving much of the campus’s parking for faculty. These so-called “blue permit spaces” are often empty for much of the day, leaving students helpless as they’re turned away from open spaces.

It’s reached the point where some commuter students risk citation and park in the blue permit spaces anyways.

Also noteworthy are current complaints about the high costs of parking permits, many of which run at around $12 a day. As part of UCLA’s 1990 Long Range Development Plan, higher parking costs were proposed as a way of encouraging alternative methods of commuting to school. This does not appear to have helped the problem; in January of 2019, the LA Times reported record low ridership for the LA-wide Metro bus and rail services. That same month, LAX Flyaway reduced the number of hours it serviced Westwood due to low demand.

Of course, the UC Transportation administration has worked to alleviate this problem. In 2011, the Bruin Commuter Club was founded, offering discounted permits to students. UC administrators have also worked to construct more on-campus housing to help students stay close. These include developments inLot 15, the Margan Apartments and an unnamed development in the southwest part of campus.

But all of these efforts echo unsuccessful past attempts to alleviate the issue. The LRDP from 1990 specified increasing on-campus housing options as part of the proposed framework for opening up parking spaces for commuter students. Now, parking scarcity is still a problem, but the university is running out of space to build new housing.

In terms of potential solutions to the parking conundrum, the article is light on details, instead offering a vague call to action for commuters to air their concerns to the UCLA Capital Programs Department. Twenty-nine years later, an answer to the parking conundrum has yet to emerge.

Perhaps there isn’t an answer; space will always be limited in a city as cramped as LA. At the same time, in any educational institution, it’s terrible to say that students couldn’t make their classes because they were stuck trying to find a parking space.

Women’s golf comes short of another Pac-12 title, finishing sixth in championship

The Bruins were unable to maintain their reign atop the conference.

No. 13 UCLA women’s golf competed in the Pac-12 championship this week, finishing sixth with a 28-over 880. The Bruins were unable to stretch their Pac-12 title winning streak to three years after winning the tournament in 2017 and 2018.

No. 1 USC women’s golf maintained the No. 1 spot throughout the competition and ultimately finished first with a 1-under 8. UCLA ended the first two rounds tied for fourth before finishing sixth overall, three strokes behind the University of Washington.

Coach Carrie Forsyth said before the Pac-12 tournament that UCLA would be playing at full strength, something it hasn’t done since the Bruin Wave Invitational on Feb. 26.

Forsyth said how important it was for the team to be resilient in the past few tournaments.

Junior Mariel Galdiano finished tied for 13th and was the top finisher for UCLA with a 5-over 218. From playing at the Palos Verdes Golf Club often, Galdiano says her course management helped her overall performance.

“I made adjustments to my course management overall,” Galdiano said. “They moved around some tees (since the Bruin Wave Invitational) so I had to come in with the course knowledge that I already had and at the same time be flexible to changes.”

Galdiano said with the NCAA tournament left in the season, she feels like her game is improving.

“I would say I’m trending upwards, and I don’t think that I’ve been playing to my full potential lately,” Galdiano said. “So I have two more weeks to really clean up some things that I need to focus on in order to prepare for regionals.”

Sophomore Patty Tavatanakit tied for 22nd and finished with a 9-over 222. Tavatanakit recently played in her fifth major at the ANA Inspiration in Rancho Mirage, California, and finished tied for 26th with even par and earned low amateur honor.

Junior Clare Legaspi, who finished tied for 30th with a 12-over 225 said the first two rounds were tough, but she was able to pick up her game on the final day.

“The first two days were rough for me, but I was able to do a lot better today,” Legaspi said. “My ball striking today was really good because I was hitting a lot of greens and my balls ended up in (good positions) on the fairway. But one thing about this golf course is that the greens are always tough, meaning that they’re hard to read and can be slope-y at times.”

Senior Beth Wu tied for 18th with a 7-over 220 and freshman Phoebe Yue finished 40th with a 15-over 228.

The Bruins will next play at the NCAA regionals, which is to be announced.