Leaders in unexpected places: LA Galaxy’s Sacha Kljestan speaks out on gun violence in America during post-match interview

Sacha Kljestan/Creative Commons

Photo by Sacha Kljestan under CC BY-SA 2.0

“I’m not a politician, but I’m a human being,” LA Galaxy midfielder Sacha Kljestan said July 4 during a post-match interview after defeating CF Montreal (4-0). 

After yet another mass shooting in America, this time taking place during Highland Park’s Fourth of July parade in Illinois, seven were left dead and dozens in critical condition. Inside what must have been a tense and awkward conference room, Kljestan begins the interview by stating he would go against the status quo of what other interviews might have looked like. 

“I’m actually gonna keep this very brief and not answer any questions about the game,” Kljestan said. “I’m sick to my stomach about what happened in Illinois today … It’s a sick vicious cycle that keeps happening over and over.” 

It’s awkward, but necessary. I am sure Kljestan would have preferred to celebrate his team’s victory and answer the eager sports reporters’ questions. Instead, he hit us with today’s reality. 

He felt it was necessary to use his platform to bring further attention and society’s concern to the ever-pressing issue of gun violence in America. In the year 2022 alone, there have already been over 300 mass shootings. It’s only reasonable for people to feel outraged at the fact that legislators are not taking steps towards reducing this number in the years to come.

The professional soccer player echoed what seems to be many Americans’ thoughts and feelings on the issue at hand. During his interview, Kljestan also called out leaders of Congress and senators. This was less of an interview and more of a call for action, or a plea for help. “Congress, senators, if anyone sees this, do something,” Kljestan said.

Kljestan did not only touch on gun violence, but also spoke about the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade in response to a question posed by a member of the press pack regarding the ruling.

“It’s ridiculous that we have nine people who don’t really represent what the majority of Americans want making decisions,” Kljestan said.

A system designed to serve its people is failing to do exactly that — something Kljestan felt was worth vocalizing. It’s compelling, eye-opening and refreshing to see athletes, celebrities and other public figures speak out on important issues even though it’s not their responsibility or obligation. 

It emphasizes the fact that at the end of the day, we are all human and are all affected one way or another by the poor decisions and poor leadership that the U.S. is notoriously known for. It seems the best leaders are in places we’d least expect them. Using your voice is incredibly important — it always has been. Kljestan is a perfect example of that.

Jose Rivera is a Bear Bytes Blog writer. Contact him at jrivera@dailycal.org.

The Daily Californian

UH athletic programs will officially become members of the Big 12 on July 1, 2023. | James Mueller/The Cougar

The University had been waiting for years to pounce on the opportunity to join one of college athletics’ power conferences whenever the opportunity arose.

It appeared as if the Cougars’ chance to finally take a seat at the table as a member of one of the Power Five conferences had arrived in 2016 when the Big 12 considered expanding.

But those plans quickly fell apart and UH was left waiting once again, as it had been since the old Southwest Conference disbanded in 1996.

Now after 26 long years of waiting, the University is less than a year away from finally becoming a member of a Power Five conference after accepting an invite to join the Big 12 in September 2021.

July 1, 2023, the day UH officially joins the Big 12, will be one of the most monumental days in the school’s history. In the meantime, there are lots that need to be done, from fundraising to facility upgrades to rebranding and everything in between, to put UH in a position to succeed from day one when it joins the Big 12.

“Our mindset going into the Big 12 is we’re going to win,” said UH athletic director Chris Pezman. “This isn’t, ‘Hey we made it,’ and we get to sit back.

“This is the time we go.”

Houston Rise

Athletics fundraising has long been a problem for UH. Pezman, President Renu Khator and the head coaches across all of the University’s sports understand this and know the methods used to fundraise must change in order to raise the money necessary to put its athletics programs in the best chance to succeed in the Big 12.

“Fundraising, and the way we fundraise, has to change. Period,” said men’s basketball head coach Kelvin Sampson. “We can’t be archaic. This is 2022.”

In June, the University announced a $150 million fundraising campaign called Houston Rise with the purpose of raising funds to build new athletic facilities and upgrade current ones.

UH is well behind the other members of Power Five conferences in terms of facilities. 

It will be the only Power Five school without a football operations building when it enters the Big 12. The men’s and women’s golf programs don’t have their own locker rooms. The indoor track and field complex has trouble accommodating all its spectators during meets.

All this and more pose major problems as UH gets ready to join the Big 12, and Pezman knows it needs to be addressed immediately.

“Everybody expects to win, and to do that we need to help our coaches … and our student-athletes have the resources they need,” Pezman said. 

Much of the money raised through the campaign will go towards a $75 million football operations building, which will be located between TDECU Stadium and the indoor football practice facility. This facility, which is set to break ground in the fall, will serve as the main hub for UH football as it will contain a locker room, coaches’ offices, a players’ lounge, as well as sports medicine and strength and conditioning areas. It will also feature premium seating options, including suites and a party deck as a way to enhance the UH football gameday experience.

Click to view slideshow.

Head football coach Dana Holgorsen, who has expressed numerous times that a football operations building is vital if the Cougars are to have success in the Big 12, kickstarted the campaign by donating $1 million.

“If we’re going in wanting to compete, we got to start digging,” Holgorsen said.

Another portion of the funds raised through Houston Rise will go towards redeveloping the Athletics-Alumni Center to better suit UH’s Olympic sports programs. Pezman said the football operations building will free up around 70,000 square feet of space in the Athletics-Alumni Center, which will be repurposed for new locker rooms for the track and field program as well as increase the capacity of Yeoman Fieldhouse, the indoor track complex, to up to 5,000 people. 

The Guy V. Lewis Development Center, the home of the University’s men’s and women’s basketball programs, will also receive upgrades, particularly on the second floor. Plans include redeveloping the team dining space as well as adding cutting-edge technology like sleeping pods to boost player recovery.

The other aspect of Houston Rise focuses on increasing support for UH’s athletics programs through adding new members to the Cougar Pride Athletic Fund and increasing season ticket holders across all sports, with a special emphasis on football.

“Now we’ve got basically a year until we’re members of the Big 12, and this is a chance for us to really pop our chests out, straighten our back and be very prideful about what we’ve been able to accomplish in a short period of time and get excited about what’s coming,” Pezman said. “We need help. In so many ways, you can look at the institution and what it’s done to help support us to get to this point, but this is where we really start calling out and asking for assistance from those that support us in our city and support our University. This is the time we need you.”

Just getting started

The $150 million fundraising goal is not the endgame.

“We’re playing catch-up,” Sampson said. “And we’re going to be playing catch-up for a while.”

After UH raises the first $150 million, it will have to raise $100 million more after that and then another $100 million and so on because the world of college athletics is constantly evolving. Having the money to consistently upgrade facilities is a necessity for any of UH’s athletic programs to have any chance to succeed at the highest level instead of taking a backseat and just being along for the ride.

The last thing UH wants is a situation similar to Hofeinz Pavilion, which opened in 1969 and underwent very few and insignificant upgrades over the following decades before finally being renovated and renamed to Fertitta Center in 2017.

“We have to continue to invest and build these facilities because if you don’t you look up in 20 to 30 years and you’ve got a facility that you’ve got to turn around and drop tens of millions of dollars on,” Pezman said. “The idea is that we continue to do small upgrades constantly to the facilities so that way we don’t turn around and have a big albatross that we have to take into account and start over from scratch 20 to 30 years down the line. What our mindset will be is to always try to do incremental upgrades over the course of time so that way we’re not turning around and scrambling.”

The clock is ticking until UH officially becomes a Big 12 member, and ith change comes the need for new ideas.

For everyone associated with UH athletics, the time to raise money and act is now. 

“Raising money at a school like the University of Houston has to be important to our fan base,” Sampson said. “We need our fan base to be engaged with us.”

sports@thedailycougar.com

—
“UH’s preparations for move to Big 12 already under way” was originally posted on The Cougar

ALBERTO GOMEZ: Hi everyone, my name is Alberto Gomez and this… is a special episode of In The Know. Traditionally, we focus on stories relating to the University and communities within the immediate area, but today, we at In The Know wanted to create something a little different. Today, we will be departing from typical hard news, and instead, I want to express my opinion on the role that media has in the internet age and how it may be falling short in serving audiences.

Before going too far into this op-ed, let me properly introduce myself. As stated, my name is Alberto and I will enter my fourth year at the University of Minnesota this fall. I pursue a degree in journalism and cultural studies and comparative literature. I am a third generation immigrant, with a father and grandparents from Mexico. My family originally raised me in Waukegan, Illinois before moving to a predominately white suburb of Kenosha, Wisconsin.

I say these things for one reason. I hope to ensure that my audience understands my inherent biases that come with my background. These are things that no journalist can ever separate themselves from. I, much like any journalist, hold personal values derived from my identities and experiences and this does affect my reporting. I hope that audiences might gleem how my background may impact my reporting and hold me to a higher standard.

To me, a journalist’s duty is to the community that they serve. In this industry we call that philosophy “Communitarianism.” This philosophy puts the values and needs of the society over the individual. In other words, my own desires or that of friends come second to the needs of the community. Listeners can hear this type of philosophy at work in episodes 95 and 97, during sections explaining community desires rather than giving platform to a sole person or representative of the community. The goals of these pieces were to focus on what the people needed and wanted in the I-95 areas respectively.

In these pieces, reporter Sean Ericson and I chose to put more emphasis on community members rather than the desires and plans of government or university officials. By drawing a line between a person and the community’s experiences, we at In The Know attempt to reflect an overall problem rather than presenting things as an isolated incident with no recourse.

I recently spoke with Ruth DeFoster, a professor of journalism at the University of Minnesota. Much of her research has covered mass shootings and acts of terrorism. While comparing mass shooting coverage between Finland and the United States, she pointed out two things that she believes to be a major flaw in American media and journalism.

After a 2008 university shooting in Kauhajoki, Finland, DeFoster called attention that Finnish media outlets tried to keep the shooter’s direct actions and identity to a minimum usage, so as to prevent the shooter from gaining notoriety and risking copycats.

RUTH DEFOSTER: That was like an implicit rule in all of the newsroom that they wouldn’t use the, the shooter’s name. I don’t think you’d ever see that in the U.S. I think that’s considered highly newsworthy.

GOMEZ: The Finnish Broadcasting Company’s report on the shooting focused less on the actions of the shooter but instead on what police and government officials will be doing in response to the shooting. Conversely, the U.S. based New York Times’ report on the same incident instead focused on details of the shooting itself before moving onto public reactions.

DEFOSTER: It was all about framing, this sense of like communalism, like how are we as Fins or Suomi, which is what it is in Finland, how are we going to recover from this? How are we going to like come together as a nation and heal? How will this affect the way that the rest of Europe and the world sees us? And I just didn’t see any of that real communal perspective here in the U.S.

GOMEZ: In the United States, we view news as entertainment for current events. There is a reason why one of the most watched programs in the nation is Tucker Carlson Tonight, averaging about 3.5 million viewers as of this June, according to AdWeek. Even this is written with the intent to entertain while informing, hence the usual sound effects in the background to keep you, the listener, engaged or in the moment.

This type of coverage difference lies at the center of why In The Know tends to focus stories on community actions and persons, rather than a single issue or occurrence. I believe that focusing on stories of healing and experiences creates a community focused narrative while avoiding sensationalization.

But, I consume news as entertainment too. I listen to podcasts and news pundits or commentators everyday. But the problem is that news as entertainment tries to entertain first. Going back to the Tucker Carlson Tonight example, his comments are portrayed as news, not commentary. After all, he appears on the Fox News channel. Of course, the same applies to left-leaning commentary, such as Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Due to their entertaining nature these programs grab audiences attention more easily than something like print journalism or even reports on The Minnesota Daily website. These shows tend to use provocative language or propose an agenda while commenting on current events. This is not unbiased and fair journalism.

I will not comment on how I perceive these two shows, it’s not relevant here. What’s more important is acknowledging that these shows present themselves as news sources, despite neither of them being explicit journalism, just commentary according to the U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil. But these shows are easily consumed and spread. They’re successful at disseminating information, yes, but it is not unbiased journalism. If anything, they are more akin to an op-ed.

Noor Adwan works as the opinion’s desk editor at the MN Daily. She is a fourth year Palestinian-American journalism student. In April of 2021, Adwan submitted her first op-ed piece to the Minnesota Daily, detailing her arrest during a protest in Brooklyn Center. Since then, Adwan has continued her work as a columnist and opinion writer for the Daily.

NOOR ADWAN: I was really more drawn to the personality that you can put into an op-ed. And I feel like I’ve been someone who’s been doing a lot of like advocacy work throughout my life. So op-eds just kind of felt like a more natural decision for me.

GOMEZ: The Daily puts a restriction on opinion writers like Adwan, she cannot transfer to a hard news desk nor cover hard news stories because of her pre-expressed opinion writings. Ergo, everything she writes comes from her own perspectives and interpretations of facts and news, much like a talk show host putting their own “spin” on a topic. With this platform she puts effort into advocacy work, a matter that she doesn’t believe hard news can achieve as well as op-eds.

ADWAN: You can definitely accomplish advocacy through hard news. But I feel like it’s more direct with op-eds. You can directly tell people, this is what I think. Um, you don’t have to agree, but this is what I think, this is my take. So while it is possible to accomplish advocacy through hard news, I think that soft news, the soft news approach, the op-eds approach is a lot more direct.

GOMEZ: There is an importance to Adwan’s separation from hard news. The Daily does not want to risk the muddying or misinterpretation of opinions for news. So rather than feigning an objective perspective, Adwan advocates for total transparency in her writing.

ADWAN: So I think that transparency coupled with ethical, responsible journalism and being very transparent about your practices saying, “Hey, I am not an objective source.” No one is, but, but I thoroughly research, you know, everything that I write, I fact check everything. This is a really, you know, an arduous process, making sure that what I’m saying is while it’s not, you know, objective is useful information to have,

GOMEZ: To Adwan, one of the most important aspects of disseminating information is to remain earnest. When Adwan includes her perspectives and experiences in her pieces, she leaves audiences to agree or disagree with her ideas. DeFoster, though, states that journalists should remain as objective and fair as possible in their reporting. Though commentary has risen in popularity, journalists still have a duty to present good and well researched information without attempting to skew audiences.

Currently, DeFoster is working on a book that covers perceptions of terrorism. While conducting her research, she surveyed Gen Z adults to get an idea of where young people get their news.

DEFOSTER: Close to a hundred percent. It was like 98% said “social media.” We think that we’re getting our news from a much more, you know, um, diverse landscape of, of sources, but in reality, especially young people, they’re really just getting it from social media. Like, that’s where they’re encountering new information.

GOMEZ: But, there’s a problem with that. Audiences want to know as much information as possible with the least amount of effort put forward. This means less digging for good information and more clicking on whatever pops up on a user’s feed.

Open Democracy wrote in 2018 that Cambridge Analytica, a data gathering company under the supervision of former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, “obtained data collected from Facebook” to “train its microtargeting algorithms to nudge scores of already-angry voters towards electing Donald Trump and leaving the European Union.” The goal of these algorithms was to keep people clicking on easily accessible and eye-catching information.

DEFOSTER: But that’s where we are! And that’s how TikTok works. That’s how Instagram works. That’s how Twitter works. The goal is to keep you clicking and what keeps people clicking the most? What, what really engages people? It doesn’t make them happy, but it’s outrage.

GOMEZ: According to Open Democracy, social media platforms try to provide information that a user will engage with, that would mean information that aligns with a user’s world views and perceptions. For example, a lover of content like Tucker Carlson will likely not engage nor watch content similar to that of CNN’s Anderson Cooper, so social media algorithms will not bring it up on a user’s feed. This creates an echo chamber effect, where users continue to engage with content that confirms preconceived notions.

This isn’t that different from receiving news on talk shows, news commentary, or casual podcasts. Curated content like these shows aim to engage and entertain first, the legitimacy of information is secondary. Some shows will of course provide more honest information, but it still remains entertainment first.

And now we come to the conundrum that journalists face. How do we get audiences to listen? Audiences don’t engage with genuine news content in the same way they may engage with Instagram or Facebook infographics or Fox News. What we write is not nearly as flashy and fun.

Honestly, the news is boring. That’s coming from someone who reads news articles for about an hour everyday. I am paid to do that and I still get bored. But my duty as a journalist asks me to remain informed and disseminate information for listeners.

I love staying informed, I enjoy news media, I have fun researching information and telling stories to people. But I have dyslexia making reading difficult. I, too, get bored of constantly reading article after article. So, what can journalists do for people in a similar boat as me?

I believe that news media should attempt to entertain and reach audiences in the middle of fun and newsworthy. Journalists need to make content that people want to engage with while still making it accessible.

I don’t think that it is enough to consume news from pundits or commentators, and I don’t think all news media must adopt that style of dissemination to remain relevant. Yes, some information is better than total obliviousness,but there comes the risk of consuming extremely skewed information if someone only listens to news commentary. Televised programs focus on keeping watchers watching, their profit comes from advertising afterall.

Journalists like myself worry that good information doesn’t reach the vast audiences that it needs to. Take for example the New York Times, one of the most read newspapers in the United States. According to a 2021 annual report, the Times has seen a slow and steady print circulation decline.

And yet, the Times hasn’t folded. I’ll admit, the previous paragraph was a partial lie. The Times does reach audiences, as a matter of fact. Online, the Times reaches 70 million unique readers every month, according to the Times’ annual report.

But the Times is an exception, not the rule. Forbes reports that 2,000 of 3,143 U.S counties do not have a daily newspaper, and 200 of those counties lack a weekly local newspaper.

As print media has begun to decline in popularity, journalism needs to adapt and find alternative ways of reaching audiences. The Times has chosen to put more efforts in publishing easy to engage content, things like podcasts and shareable Instagram infographics. While I don’t believe infographics can replace thorough journalism, at the very least it is accessible information.

As information migrates more and more to an online medium, journalism can’t sustain itself on its traditional formats. News content needs to evolve in the present moment, it must find a way to entertain and keep audiences engaged.

MPR’s News With Angela Davis is an excellent example of mixing talk show energy with newsworthy dissemination. Davis keeps her perspective and opinions to a minimum while keeping her interpretations to nothing more than explanatory. Her personality still shines through, much like a podcast episode from the likes of Joe Rogan, but she does so by not explicitly trying to interpret or guide for her audience.

When DeFoster moved to an online format to teach her classes at the University of Minnesota, she found it difficult to get students to participate in class and watch pre-recorded lectures. Unsure of what to do, DeFoster turned to her teenage son.

DEFOSTER: And he’s “like, mom, you gotta make it like YouTube. You have to, like, you gotta tell ’em a story you gotta,” and that’s what I did. And it worked. Honestly. Where I’d be in my pop culture class. I’m like, okay, I’m gonna tell you the story of Millie Vanilli and how they blew up and how they failed. And then we’re gonna get into the content. And, and it would like, you know, emulating that kind of delivery. That’s more fun. And it worked really well. I got, I got close to a hundred percent of the students watching the whole lecture.

GOMEZ: But I do worry about the intersection of entertainment and news. It might get difficult for audiences to differentiate between what’s news and what’s entertainment. Going back to the John Oliver and Tucker Carlson examples, legally both of these shows distinguish themselves as entertainment talk shows, while still covering news content. While Oliver does concede and admit to personal biases and opinions, not every content creator will do that. Nor will every reader or audience member be able to automatically distinguish between news and opinionated content. There was a reason why this episode opened very distinctly with me explaining my background and that what you are listening to is an opinion. Like Adwan explained, journalism must present itself in full transparency.

While I believe that many journalists attempt to be honest, that does not mean that every article written is not without flaw. Even this podcast has been notified of reporting errors in the past.

The duty of a journalist is to hold our institutions accountable, but who will hold us accountable? While I know it isn’t flashy, it’s up to our audiences just as much as ourselves. When we embed links in our articles, double check, inquire further into the information you receive. Learn a little background on the writer and the platforms that they write for. If you can, try to learn their sponsors to determine what possible conflicts of interests they might have. Make sure that the information they give you is being honest, earnest, fair, and balanced.

I know most listeners won’t do that, but it’s the thought that counts. Much like a journalist spends hours gathering info, audiences need to inquire too.

That doesn’t mean grow paranoid and check for moles in the media, it just means to know who speaks and what expertise a journalist has. If a journalist has a background in, say, mass shooting coverage or violent crime coverage like DeFoster, odds are they know what they are talking about to an extent. If a journalist is a Palestinian or Mexican American individual, no doubt they will share some sympathy or personal thoughts on related topics. But, this does not and should not instantly discredit or credit them. Generally speaking, most journalists want to share information earnestly; Our job is to seek the truth and report it. That’s one of our key pillars in our Code of Ethics, as described by the Society of Professional Journalists: to seek the truth and report it.

There isn’t anything wrong with listening to news pundits or commentators, but it’s important to rationalize and understand that they speak for themselves and for their opinions. In Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, Atticus Finch tells his daughter Scout to remove the adjectives and you’ll get the facts. While the world isn’t that simple, that’s a place to start.

The Daily would like to thank all of our listeners for tuning in to this special episode. We’ll see you next time. And don’t forget to like and rate In The Know wherever you enjoy your podcasts. My name is Alberto Gomez and this is In The Know.

On Sunday, June 27, on a patio near Lake Nokomis, Morgan Jaros, founder of Kava Bar Mpls, is the embodiment of calm as she rises to greet me in a flowing tunic dress. We’re here to talk about kava, the beverage behind her business.

Kava originated in the South Pacific centuries ago. Derived from the root of a pepper plant, kava is usually consumed once ground down to a fine powder, strained and mixed with water. Unsurprisingly, kava tastes peppery but that pepperiness can vary based on both the variety and age of the plant.

When consumed, it has a numbing, slightly tingling effect on the mouth, similar to that of alcohol, but without the intoxication element. While available medical research regarding kava’s impact on mood disorders, like general anxiety disorder, is slim, a 2019 Australian clinical trial found a significant reduction in anxiety symptoms when participants consumed kava.

“I have always been interested in food and nutrition and the idea of healing my body with food rather than medicine — taking away versus adding,” Jaros said of her personal interest in the wellness industry. “When I found kava, it all sort of clicked for me.”

Jaros first discovered kava on a trip to Jacksonville, Florida in June 2021 while visiting a friend. At the beginning of Jaros’ trip, her friend invited her to a bar in town. Jaros, who is sober, was initially hesitant to accept the invitation. After some convincing, she accepted the invite and ended up stepping foot into the place that would ignite her passion for kava — Wildcrafters, a booze-free bar serving tea and kava.

“I was blown away. It was such a magical moment. It was very lively with jazz music, people, beautiful drinks and glassware,” Jaros described the night. “This felt like an environment that I’d been missing for a long time.”

She spent the next two weeks of her trip driving around Florida in pursuit of other kava bars, the state being home to over 75 of them. Upon returning home, Jaros dedicated her free time to researching and learning as much as possible about kava.

Her next brush with kava was at the Suwannee Hulaween music festival in Florida, a couple of months after that first encounter. At the festival, Jaros worked alongside Wildcrafters’ Yhang Quintero to serve thousands of people the beverage out of coolers and tents.

Upon returning home, Jaros got to work on Kava Bar Mpls — the first and only kava bar in Minnesota. While her background is rooted in finance, an industry that occupies her typical 9-5, Kava Bar Mpls is her passion project.

For now, find Kava Bar Mpls at the Plant Based Pop-Up Market at Puris Foods on the second and fourth Sunday of every month. Jaros serves kava from her tent on a pay-what-you-can basis, a method she hopes will allow for greater accessibility when it comes to sharing the beverage with those who haven’t tried before.

Jaros has to import kava from outside sources because a wide amount of the varieties are found in the South Pacific. In order to offset the import process, Jaros conjures up one uniquely crafted drink per event using locally sourced ingredients. Past varieties have included the “Kava Greenie” (inspired by the famous Tony Jaros beverage, to whom she is distantly related), and her most recent creation, the “Calendula Kava” (calendula, hibiscus, lemon with locally sourced cherries and maple syrup).

“What’s such a treat about Morgan’s kava is that it’s so well-balanced and different every time,” Liz McAllister, a fellow vendor at the pop-up market, said. “Kava is this heady mixture of a buzz and a bit of mellowness — sort of like if CBD and caffeine had a baby, but better.”

Jaros ended up serving at the Plant Based Pop-Up Market by way of Heather Klein, owner of Root to Rise Kitchen.

“I was working with kava myself, and then someone told me about Morgan. She fit really well,” Klein said. Klein and Jaros are currently working on other projects together that could combine their respective passions into something beyond the pop-up markets.

“In this particular community, people are really open, enthusiastic and looking for new things that might be an alternative to the traditional way of being,” Jaros said regarding the plant-based community in the Twin Cities.

While kava fits well enough where she’s currently at, Jaros hopes kava will catch on in the community as an alcohol alternative.

“Throughout my life, I’ve had all of these creative projects that I’ve mostly joined in on. Helping a friend with the beginnings of a movie script in San Francisco, started a company — there’s been many times I’ve fallen in love with something and not done it,” Jaros said.

This time around is different, as she feels kava is not only good for her own recovery process but necessary to share with the community. And while a a brick-and-mortar location may be on the horizon in the near future, Jaros is determined to stay focused on the driving force behind her business — her passion for the plant.

Mengirim uang secara internasional selalu lebih sulit daripada mengirimnya ke dalam negeri. Ada banyak faktor yang perlu dipertimbangkan dan setiap negara memiliki masalah sendiri. Meskipun demikian, ini akan mencakup lima kerepotan paling umum yang dialami orang saat mengirim uang ke luar negeri dan bagaimana Anda dapat mengatasi masalah ini.

Konversi Uang
Salah satu aspek tersulit dalam mengirim uang ke negara lain adalah konversi uang. Misalnya, jika Anda mengirim $50 kepada seseorang di negara lain, maka Anda mengharapkan mereka mendapatkan $50.

Ini jarang sesederhana itu. Jika Anda mengirim mata uang domestik, maka seringkali jumlahnya akan ditukar di ujung yang lain. Ini biasanya menghasilkan biaya dan nilai tukar sering kali menghasilkan lebih sedikit uang secara keseluruhan daripada yang Anda maksudkan.

Anda dapat mengatasinya dengan mengkonversi uang sebelum mengirimnya. Ini akan memastikan bahwa penerima mendapatkan jumlah uang yang Anda maksudkan untuk dikirim.

Penundaan
Jika Anda ingin mentransfer uang secara internasional, maka Anda harus siap dengan penundaan. Hampir setiap negara mengalami penundaan karena satu dan lain alasan. Dalam kasus terbaik, itu hanya karena permintaan transfer membutuhkan waktu lebih lama untuk diproses.

Dalam kasus terburuk, negara ini memerangi pencucian uang atau memberlakukan undang-undang baru tentang pengiriman uang. Ini berarti bahwa semua permintaan transfer akan memakan waktu lebih lama secara signifikan.

Meskipun Anda tidak selalu dapat mengatasi penundaan, Anda dapat melakukan yang terbaik dengan memeriksa layanan transfer Anda dan melihat apakah ada undang-undang atau peraturan baru tentang pengiriman uang. Mencoba bekerja dengan aturan baru sering kali akan menghasilkan transfer yang lebih cepat.

Informasi Akun Salah
Masalah lain yang mungkin Anda temui jika Anda ingin mentransfer uang secara internasional adalah bagaimana informasi akun Anda dimasukkan. Setiap negara memiliki cara yang berbeda untuk menampilkan dan memproses informasi bank.

Misalnya, perutean dan nomor akun Anda mungkin dialihkan atau memiliki tanda hubung di negara lain. Gagal mempertimbangkan hal ini dapat menyebabkan penundaan atau masalah lainnya.

Tidak hanya itu, transfer internasional seringkali membutuhkan lebih banyak informasi baik dari pengirim maupun penerima. Pastikan Anda dan penerima benar tentang semua informasi yang dimasukkan pada formulir yang berlaku.

Lebih Banyak Kesalahan Manusia
Pengiriman uang relatif sederhana. Karena itu, kesalahan manusia selalu menemukan cara untuk mengacaukan segalanya. Jika suatu proses membutuhkan lebih banyak orang, maka kemungkinan terjadinya kesalahan manusia lebih tinggi. Itulah tepatnya yang mungkin terjadi selama transfer uang internasional.

Mentransfer uang di dalam negeri seringkali hanya membutuhkan beberapa karyawan yang semuanya akrab dengan bahasa domestik. Mengirim uang secara internasional membutuhkan lebih banyak orang dan ada kemungkinan masalah terjemahan.

Tidak perlu banyak bagi petugas untuk menekan tombol yang salah atau memasukkan informasi dengan salah, tetapi ini dapat mengakibatkan penundaan selama berminggu-minggu atau uang Anda hilang. Ini mungkin sulit untuk diatasi, tetapi Anda dapat meningkatkan tingkat keberhasilan Anda dengan membuat semua informasi sejelas mungkin.

Biaya Tinggi
Mengirim uang ke luar negeri seringkali membawa beberapa biaya yang harus Anda waspadai. Kebanyakan orang yang mentransfer uang sudah familiar dengan biaya tetap untuk layanan transfer itu sendiri. Transfer uang internasional juga cenderung memiliki biaya persentase berdasarkan jumlah yang Anda kirim, biaya konversi untuk mengonversi mata uang, dan biaya lainnya.

Menyadari biaya memungkinkan Anda untuk memilih layanan pengiriman uang terbaik sementara juga memungkinkan Anda untuk mengurangi beberapa biaya. Misalnya, jika Anda mengonversi uang sebelum mengirimnya, maka tidak akan ada biaya untuk itu.

Kesimpulan
Mengirim uang ke negara lain bisa merepotkan, tetapi mengetahui rintangan umum ini akan memastikan bahwa Anda siap. Ada cara untuk menghindari atau mengurangi kesulitan mengirim uang ke luar negeri, jadi bekali diri Anda dengan pengetahuan dan Anda akan dapat mentransfer uang dengan cepat dan dengan biaya serendah mungkin.

The post 5 Kerumitan Transfer Uang Internasional Dan Cara Mengatasinya first appeared on Mustang Daily – Berita di Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

Shows that got me through my first year at UC Berkeley

Armaan Mumtaz/File

When I first arrived at UC Berkeley as a transfer student, I often felt overwhelmed by the drastic change college life introduced me to. I was away from the routine I was so used to back home and met with the culture that is university life. What I found comforted my roommates and me the most was sitting on our couch after a long day at school and indulging in alternate worlds behind our television screen.

With that being said, these are the shows I found provided me the most comfort throughout my first year at UC Berkeley — and I hope they could do the same for anyone seeking similar solace.

“The Great British Bake Off” (Netflix)

Every night after a heavy day of lectures and studies, my roommate would come home and dedicate a few minutes of her time to “The Great British Baking Show.” Every so often, I would join her on the coziness of our couch and watch the competition unfold before me. It was a wholesome few minutes of our day — a moment to relax and unwind to a light and calming show after a typically fast-paced day at UC Berkeley. 

Not only did the show subside anxieties and stresses, but it also provided a sense of bonding between my roommate and me as we would sit together and comment on the pastries the bakers would make. Overall, I owe a lot to this gentle little baking show.

“Gilmore Girls” (Netflix)

“Gilmore Girls” was the perfect comfort for me in college. Watching one of the main characters, Rory, grow up and go to college provided me with a narrative I could relate to. Especially with how much I missed my mom during my time away at UC Berkeley, I found that the mother-daughter portrayal in the show reminded me so much of her. It filled the slight emptiness I felt being without her, and she actually began watching the show along with me as well.

It connected my mother and me while I was away, making my first year at college a bit easier.

“The Sex Lives of College Girls” (HBO Max) 

What I found about “The Sex Live of College Girls” is that it was possibly the most relatable I felt with a show about — well — the sex lives of college girls. Although the show had its fair share of “millennial creator trying to appeal to Gen Z” moments, I still found it quite relatable. It was nice to watch a comedic reflection of what I was experiencing during my first year in college.

The show was more than just a funny showcase of college girls; it also expressed multiple themes about sexuality, relationships and traumas of new young adulthood. It was a great show that perfectly demonstrated this chapter in my life, and it’s fun to watch with friends going through the same thing.

“Girls” (HBO Max)

As opposed to “The Sex Lives of College Girls,” “Girls” gave me a window into what life after college could look like. It normalized things such as struggling with finding a career after graduating and scrambling to adapt to true adulthood. “Girls” showed me that not having my stuff together after college is okay and that most people don’t know what they’re doing even into adulthood. 

As a junior already anticipating graduation, I felt I had to have everything prepared and aligned for life after college. This show was a great way to ease those anxieties during my first year and was another great show my roommate and I would watch together during our free time, further bonding us.

Whether you’re an incoming freshman or transfer student, your first year at a new college can be overwhelming. It’s comforting to have something you can relate or relax to during this drastic change in environment. These shows provided me with the best forms of relief and community during this time, and I hope they can offer the same for other incoming students.

Contact Geneva Hopwood at ghopwood@dailycal.org.

The Daily Californian

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Gov. Tim Walz appointed Tadd Johnson to the University of Minnesota Board of Regents on Wednesday as former regent David McMillan’s replacement. Johnson is the first Native American member to serve on the board and is an enrolled member of the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa.

McMillan announced his resignation from the board on June 14, with his term expected to expire in June 2023.

McMillan represented the 8th Congressional District, which covers much of northeastern Minnesota including some tribal nations. However, a redrawing of district boundaries has led to the 8th Congressional District representing all tribal nations across the northern part of the state.

“I am proud to appoint Regent Tadd Johnson — the first Native person ever appointed to this board,” Walz said in a press release Wednesday from the governor’s office. “With a background in leadership, education and deep understanding of government on all levels, he brings a wealth of higher education expertise to this group.”

Johnson is a graduate from the University’s Law School and recently retired from the University system where he pursued many roles throughout his time. His most recent position was as the University’s first senior director of American Indian Tribal Nations Relations. He was also the director of graduate studies for the Department of American Indian Studies and a professor at the University of Minnesota-Duluth campus.

“I want to speak for the voices that are not heard often enough by the regents; the students, the educators, Native Americans, rural Minnesotans and the working class. That’s where I come from and that’s who I am,” Johnson said in the press release.

According to Dylan Young, the president of the Morris Campus Student Association and member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, the University has had strained relationships with tribal nations in the past but has taken some action to improve their relationship.

Some of the University’s actions to try to mend the relationship between tribal nations include the Native American Promise Tuition Program and the return of sacred objects in the University’s possession, Young said.

A boarding school for Native American children used to stand on the grounds of the University of Minnesota-Morris’ campus and banned these children from speaking their home language or practicing their cultures. After a Morris student’s research in 2018 led to the uncovering of death notices for children who died at the school and a federal investigation was launched into the U.S.’s once 350 boarding schools, the student group Circle of Nations Indigenous Association started a petition in July 2021 for Morris to search the school for the unmarked burial sites of the victims.

The petition states that Morris has a moral obligation to search the sites and “this is an essential action step towards fulfilling Morris’s policy of truth telling, understanding and healing in regards to our institution’s history as a former Indian boarding school.”

According to a June 29 update to the petition, Morris Chancellor Janet Schrunk Ericksen announced a non-invasive search of the unmarked gravesites would begin; Young said the search started last week.

Representatives from the Minnesota Student Association (MSA) and the Morris Campus Student Association drafted a letter on June 20 petitioning for Walz to appoint a tribal member from the 8th Congressional District to the University’s Board of Regents.

The petition was written due to the lack of student involvement in the selection process of the new regent appointed and to work toward creating a more diverse board in the future.

Sara Davis, a student representative to the board from MSA, said Morris students have been advocating for this for a while, and ongoing collaboration between leaders had been focused on making sure that everyone’s voice is heard.

Davis said leaders requested the governor to consult with tribal leaders prior to a new appointment to ensure that the regent selection process went smoothly.

The discussions about appointing a Native American regent came as the University continues to improve relationships between tribal nations. Young said he hopes that by appointing a Native American regent, the board will prioritize the needs of Native American students and faculty.

“The seat represents those people, those people should have a say in who represents them,” Young said.

Due to tribal history and recent actions taken by the University, Young believes a Native American regent will change the makeup of the board, allowing for more diversity on the board.

“We’ve never had a better time to have Native American leadership in the Board of Regents,” Young said.

A hard lesson to learn upon arriving at college is that life doesn’t care about your plans. But nothing is set in stone —  it’s ok if your plans change. As an editorial board, we have majors in political science, economics, sociology, criminology and environmental and sustainability studies. Looking at our college journey, our experiences go far beyond even the diversity of those majors. Within just this group, we’ve added and dropped majors (sometimes more than once), joined and quit extracurricular activities and changed colleges. College usually means being on our own for the first time, which pushes us to change and grow. It means changing our minds, and that is a part of the process of discovering yourself. 

Some people come into college with an idea of what they want to pursue, and some people don’t. Both paths should include the possibility of major exploration. Take, for instance, the large majority of Americans whose jobs have nothing to do with what they studied, or the 61% of American college graduates who wish they had chosen different majors. This may seem scary for most college students, who get pressured into declaring majors and mapping out their life plans almost right out of high school.

However, branching outside of a major can aid students who plan on furthering their education. Grad schools often look at the different ways students apply themselves, and by sticking to one focus, you single yourself out as unable to diversify your interests. While it may look good to have a lot of experience under one major, it’s important to explore different areas and concepts. After all, college provides us the opportunity to experiment and find new interests. By expanding interests and facets of involvement, students demonstrate their unique experiences, skills and abilities. When it comes to working with all kinds of people, having a diverse portfolio to fall back on can really make or break an application.

Extracurricular activities can help you branch outside of your field of study. Here at the Daily Utah Chronicle, we have editors and contributors from all kinds of different areas of campus. We build valuable connections, learn journalism skills and gain collaborative experience in ways that teach us skills with real-world applicability. And outside of the Chronicle, we also work in internships, volunteer work and jobs that don’t relate to our majors. All of these experiences are essential to our progress and self-discovery. 

These different experiences allow us to gain skills, knowledge and experience that sets us apart from the typical student in our majors. It’s through this participation in other outlets that we stand out, and also figure out what career we want to pursue. Most of us anticipate that a college degree will amp up our credentials and improve our job prospects. While this may be true for some students, we shouldn’t treat our experience here as one-dimensional. Our main priority should be to become critical thinkers — a skill that will help us more than a degree ever could. 

It makes sense that we pivot so often. As we grow and change through participating in new experiences, we unlock new parts of ourselves. It shouldn’t seem such a scary fate to pursue new opportunities. We’d do better to have foresight now and work on developing adaptivity because we’ll never know when something might unexpectedly interest us. Venturing into unfamiliar environments will better prepare us for our futures, anyways. By engaging with people from diverse educational and personal backgrounds, we receive the opportunity to see new perspectives and evolve our worldviews. We will need more than polished resumes to succeed as fulfilled, well-rounded people — we’ll need expanded sets of values if we actually want to enact change in this world. To commit ourselves to the world we plan on entering, we need to foster and cultivate our skills and experiences. So, let’s not limit our potential by refusing to leave our comfort zones.

As we’ve reflected on how our goals and plans have changed, we’re glad that we took the time to move around and even make some mistakes. We didn’t box ourselves into one plan, group or idea of what our lives should look like while we’re here at the U. It’s certainly a mistake we’re glad we didn’t make as freshmen, brimming with ideas about how our college experience and life should look. As we’ve started to grow into ourselves as adults, we’ve given ourselves the space to pursue different interests. And you should, too.

The Daily Utah Chronicle Editorial Board is a group of senior opinion journalists who rely on research and debate to write staff editorials. Editorials represent the majority view of the editorial board and are written separately from the newsroom.

A majority of all positive coronavirus cases at the University from June 22 to June 28 were identified as the BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron variants, which have resulted in more reports of severe illness than previously dominant Omicron variants, Chief Student Health Officer Dr. Sarah Van Orman said during a briefing held Monday with the Daily Trojan. 

The prevalence of BA.4 and BA.5, Van Orman said, is consistent with the variants that the rest of the country is facing — BA.4 made up 15.7% of new cases in the United States, while BA.5 made up 36.6%, as of the week ending Saturday. From June 26 to July 2, the student and faculty positivity rates stood at 10.5% and 7.5%, with 160 students and 33 faculty members infected. 

The BA.5 variant, now the globally dominant strain of the coronavirus, was first detected alongside the BA.4 variant in January 2022. Coronavirus cases reported to the World Health Organization rose 30% in the last two weeks, according to Global News. 

“Two different variants have different properties … [such as] the severity of disease [they] cause,” Van Orman said. “The ones that are circulating now are much, much, much more infectious, meaning a smaller number of particles can cause infection.”

The University will not reinstate an indoor masking mandate, Van Orman said, unless Los Angeles County moves into the high-transmission category. L.A. County and surrounding counties have hovered in the medium-transmission category since mid-May, while New York Magazine and the L.A Times predicted that a surge would follow the recent July 4 holiday weekend. Van Orman said the University will be watching case numbers closely and will comply, if necessary, throughout all campus programs.

“We don’t anticipate that many programs will be impacted [by an indoor mask mandate],” Van Orman said. “We’re anticipating special exceptions made, for example, for people who might be playing music or singing, but we’re hoping that … [there’s] minimal disruption to activities.”

Prior infection with other Omicron variants doesn’t protect individuals from reinfection, despite early conjectures. However, Van Orman said, vaccines persistently appear effective against severe complications and hospitalizations.

“A variant that did not cause reinfection is just not going to survive because it’s going to find people who are already immune to it,” Van Orman said. “So we think about the basics of how natural selection works and evolution works. Variant strains that cause the most infections and escape the natural herd immunity we have is always going to quickly predominate in a population unless we can do something to stop it from spreading.”

With the global reemergence of monkeypox as a widespread, infectious illness, Student Health has deemed the outbreak of cases a “communicable disease of concern” that isn’t as easily transmitted as BA.4 and BA.5 variants of the coronavirus are. Monkeypox is a different kind of virus than the coronavirus, Van Orman said, because most positive monkeypox cases are sexually transmitted, making it inherently different than a respiratory or airborne virus, which can be shared through regular social contact. 

“[Monkeypox is] not something that we’ve seen being transmitted person to person outside of some very limited areas,” Van Orman said. “But we definitely are aware of it.”

Although L.A. County reports indicate 66 confirmed or probable cases of monkeypox, the University hasn’t seen a positive case on campus. Student Health providers are now developing procedures to identify and treat monkeypox upon recognition of symptoms in patients, she said.

“Monkeypox has a very characteristic set of symptoms: people develop like a flu-like illness … body aches, swollen lymph nodes, fever and then a couple of days later, they develop a very characteristic rash,” Van Orman said. “We have trained all of our providers … so that if we have a patient who presents with suspect lesions, that all of our team from our nurses to our physicians or physician assistants are aware … and we have a rapid procedure to be able to make the diagnosis, consult with public health and get the right testing done.”

When testing on an individual with a suspected rash is conducted by health providers, Student Health healthcare providers must first notify public health colleagues, Van Orman said. A set of samples collected by swabbing the patient’s lesions is sent to the public health lab and the possibly infected patient is sent into isolation.

“It’s not something that I think people need to worry about like ‘Oh, do I have monkeypox?’” Van Orman said. “It’s not a very subtle illness, it’s very characteristic and people feel quite ill and they have this very unusual rash.”

Christina Chkarboul contributed to this report.

The post Student Health reports BA.4, BA.5 variant surge appeared first on Daily Trojan.