Brown shared aspirations and responded to concerns surrounding BUPD, campus sexual assault and more.

Gerald Sastra/The Cougar

One value that Americans typically hold dear in theory is the freedom of religion. This freedom supposedly comes from the fact that America separates the church and state, however Texas is unfortunately bad at keeping these two things apart. 

Recently, Texas passed a law banning abortion after six weeks based on the idea that most fetuses have a heartbeat after six weeks, thus naming it the “heartbeat bill.” The law implies that life starts after a heartbeat in the womb. 

Many will argue that science determines when life starts but science claims that things like bacteria are alive too. Being alive doesn’t necessarily mean it in the sense that anti-abortion people mean it.

The idea of when life starts for a being like a human is controversial because it’s largely philosophical. Many believe life to start at birth and that’s how it’s been for a long time. 

Much of the ideas behind why life starts at six weeks and after is philosophical and based on verses from the Book of Exodus that condemns men who cause miscarriage with violence. Now everyone in Texas is subject to the beliefs of Christians whether they follow that religion or not. 

This is not okay. The United States has often prided itself on its separation of church and state. Many of the early settlers in North America were fleeing religious persecution. Because of this, the First Amendment says that Congress will not make a law prohibiting a religion or favoring a religion. 

However, this Texas abortion law and all other laws restricting abortion in this country are based in Christian religious beliefs.

Abortion availability isn’t the only thing that is litigated by religious beliefs in Texas. The ability to buy liquor is too. Liquor cannot be purchased at all on Sundays and on certain holidays as well. Recently, Texas legalized the sale of all alcoholic beverages before noon on Sunday, but before that it wasn’t allowed.

The reason Texas has these strict liquor laws is that in response to prohibition being repealed, Texas then created the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code as a blue law, which are laws that don’t allow the sale of certain items on Sundays as a means for everyone to rest during the Sabbath. Once again, Texas has laws based in religious beliefs that no one else should have to follow.

It’s also interesting to note that the Texas Capitol has a Ten Commandments Monument on government property, a clear symbol of Christianity. 

Texas has a pattern of letting Christianity trickle into the government and this isn’t okay. As the Republican party goes more right, more conservatives boldly say they believe America is a Christian nation.

This is dangerous as America is diverse, with tons of different religions. If America, or even Texas, puts Christianity first, that leaves millions of people as second class citizens due to their religion. 

The presence of religion, specifically Christianity, in Texas laws is worrying. In order to stop this, it’s important to vote against any proposition that is written with the goal of prioritizing one religion’s practices over others. Research your representatives and if they support religion in government, vote them out. 

Religion has no place in the government. Federal, state or otherwise. 

Anna Baker is an English senior who can be reached at opinion@thedailycougar.com

—
“Texas should keep the church and state separate” was originally posted on The Cougar

The 24th head football coach in Colorado State University history has been officially welcomed to the team. Coach Jay Norvell, previously a conference rival head coach of the University of Nevada, Reno Wolf Pack, held a press conference in front of a standing room-only crowd with media, alumni, students and staff at the Iris and Michael Smith Alumni Center in Canvas Stadium.

Previous head coach Steve Addazio was fired less than a week ago, marking a quick turnaround in the search for a new leader. Despite the speedy turnover, CSU hopes they have made a decision for the good of the team’s future, and Norvell may just be the answer.

“I’m not afraid to say it: We want to be in a big bowl game. … I don’t want to get up and be average”- CSU head coach Jay Norvell

Norvell made quick work of turning the Wolf Pack’s program from a bottom-of-the-pack team into bowl winners. His first season with Nevada in 2017 ended with a 3-9 record, but just one year later, the team won the Nova Home Loans Arizona Bowl over Arkansas State University and finished 8-5.

The Rams could use some of that magic from the offensive-minded Norvell after CSU’s previous coaches have struggled. 

“I think of myself as a football man,” Norvell said. He said he plans to achieve great things through the aerial attack, centered around a strong, intelligent quarterback and tall long receivers that “look like a basketball team.”

Norvell is relatively new to being a head coach for a college football team, with only the last five years of his 35-year coaching career dedicated to that role. However, he believes those five years will be a difference maker for the Rams.

“I just think that five years of trial and error and really centering on the things that are most important will allow us to get to the answers very quickly,” Norvell said.

Norvell was not shy about his expectations and even brought up the word “championship” when discussing his goals for the program.

“We expect to win,” Norvell said. “I’m not afraid to say it: We want to be in a big bowl game. … I don’t want to get up and be average.”

The Rams finished this year’s campaign with a 3-9 record and will soon begin winter practices ahead of next season, according to Norvell.

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Reach Braidon Nourse at sports@collegian.com or on Twitter @BraidonNourse.

Roaring waters

Every night, I fall asleep and I run. My dreams are a series of evasions, chaotic images of me sprinting away from every skeleton lurking in my closet. Most mornings, I wake up in a panic. 

Some nights, an ex is hunting me down. Other nights, my father screams for me from the top floor of a skyscraper. Sometimes, it’s a faceless man forcing me to do things I don’t want to, it’s having sex only to look up and see my abusers, it’s lurking tigers and trapped doors. I’ve dreamed of being in glass rooms, and water rushing in from all sides. I have dreams about being in hotels with endless floors and nightmares on every level. 

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been running. What I realize now is that these dreams are not self-contained, they are a reflection of a life spent avoiding the massive wave behind me, just waiting to swallow me whole. 

I’ve lived life with water nipping at my ankles, and sometimes, I’ve allowed myself to be submerged. I’ve hurled forward and into the seafloor and against the sand and the kelp, wondering if this might be the end of it all, catching a breath before being quickly thrown down again. 

When I allow myself to examine my memories, they are like those breaths — quick and sharp and fleeting — and all the rest is just crashing, roaring water; my dreams feel a bit like this, too. In fact, for as long as I can remember I’ve been swimming as fast as I can, trying to make it out of some wave, some dream, some nightmare.

The water is the murkiest and the dreams are the most terrifying when I think of sex and sexuality. Whether it be in childhood, when I contended with my own father’s abuse and fought desperately to be seen, whether it was as a teenager dating men who mistreated and took advantage of my pain or whether it be in adulthood, as I contend with these past demons and try my damndest to forge a life despite the constant feeling that these terrors are lurking just outside my front door. 

There are memories that I choose not to swim through, appearing to me only when I close my eyes and surrender to the thoughts I otherwise ignore. These memories are the most painful, the water rushes in, and I’m left to reconcile a life of violent tides and even more violent neglect. 

I was never taught to see myself as a child and was instead forced to manage the needs of everyone around me. I come from addicts, from fiends, from people who’ve lived life untethered like some unhinged trolly car careening down a hillside. In all of that, I never found the space for myself. As I grew older, I became more and more afraid to look in the mirror, to find that space. If I was real, if I was actualized, then all of the hurt and anguish was real too. 

I gave myself to men who reinforced my belief that I was nothing, I gave myself to friends who didn’t care about my well-being and I did this so that I could continue to feel less than. Never wanting to look into my reflection, perhaps not knowing how, I allowed my personhood to rest in the hands of others.

In maybe the ultimate act of self-effacement, sex became the way to escape my own body and ignore my needs. The worse the sex was, the more I could shun the parts of me that wanted to be cared for and justify the abuse I couldn’t reckon with. 

With this, came hurricanes. I’ve lived a lot of life, too much of it in between bed sheets and against creaking headboards and smothered against wrinkled pillowcases. Because I didn’t know how to see myself, I looked into the reflections of eyes attached to faces with mouths that said: “You like that shit? Tell me how good it feels, bitch.” 

I denied my sexuality, my past and my present. I swept everything under rugs and into dustpans. I was terrified to look back and see myself in the reflection of the waves rushing toward me. I moved forward without ever stopping, afraid of what would happen if I did. 

Lately, life has been more peaceful. Since coming to Berkeley, I’ve had some distance from the ebbing tide. It’s been here that for the first time I’ve felt brave enough to peer into the water, and glance at my reflection. As my life grows larger, and I gain more distance from the relationships and mindsets that I once used to deny my personhood, the ocean becomes a lake becomes a pond. 

My dreams may still bring me underwater, but when I wake up I am always mercifully ashore. Now, I’m next to the girl of my dreams in our studio on Telegraph, where I know that the water will always be waiting when I want it, for me to look into and see the wonder of myself.

Cassandra Branch writes the Tuesday column on sex. Contact the opinion desk at sex@dailycal.org or follow us on Twitter @dailycalopinion.

The Daily Californian

Senators three new cabinet directors and approved a proposal to hold a winter formal in February 2022.

A USC student  has tested positive for the Omicron coronavirus variant — the third confirmed case in Los Angeles County and one of only a few dozen in the United States, Chief Health Officer Dr. Sarah Van Orman said in a student media briefing Monday afternoon. 

The Los Angeles Department of Public Health first announced the positive case in a news release Monday morning. According to the release, a college student tested positive after their travels to the east coast over the holidays. The student is “fully vaccinated, had mild symptoms, and is self-isolating,” the statement read. 

The release also stated that L.A. Department of Public Health has alerted those in close contact with the individual. Those individuals are all currently quarantining and have received testing.

According to an update on USC’s Covid-19 Resource Center website the same day, the case was identified via the University’s surveillance testing. The L.A. Department of Public Health also reached out to the University to confirm that the positive case was a USC student. Upon hearing of the case, Van Orman arranged a media briefing to share the news with the community.

“We did want to make sure that we were being transparent with our community and letting them know that this was a returning USC student,” Van Orman said. 

USC will continue to check for potential Omicron variant cases at USC by sending positive coronavirus samples to the L.A. Department of Public Health. The department’s lab shares the existence of variants with the University, but does not release the  information to the individual and, instead, uses the lab results for public health purposes. 

According to Van Orman, the predominant strain found in testing over the last several months has been the Delta variant.

USC Student Health encourages unvaccinated students to get vaccinated, eligible students to receive their booster shot and all students to continue testing for the coronavirus and to stay home when sick. 

Growing numbers of coronavirus cases pose a concern for Student Health, particularly as students plan to travel as early as this week. 

“Again, the overwhelming majority [of coronavirus cases] are still Delta,” Van Orman said “There are still parts of the country where cases are really surging, and, so, we are very concerned about travel.” 

With growing travel restrictions in a number of countries, such as Canada and Australia, Student Health urges international travelers to have a “Plan B” if they happen to test positive for the coronavirus during their travels. 

The University is evaluating the possibility of requiring a booster shot for students but lacks the data necessary to create a requirement. However, the University encourages all students to get their booster shot, Van Orman said.

Early research from a hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa suggests that the Omicron variant could cause less severe illness than previous variants, but that a prior coronavirus infection offers less immunity. However, according to Van Orman all the data surrounding the Omicron variant is very preliminary. 

“The one thing we do know about Omicron is that people who were previously infected do appear to be at higher risk of reinfection with Omicron than some of the other variants,” Van Orman said.

With the upcoming winter break, Van Orman urges students to get tested before traveling home as it is expected that the Omicron variant will spread in L.A. County over the coming days and weeks. 

“We don’t want people to leave campus and spread any COVID into the communities that they’re coming home to,” Van Orman said. “With the rapid travel for Thanksgiving, travel back and then travel for the holidays, there’s a lot of risk.” 

The post USC students tests positive for Omicron variant appeared first on Daily Trojan.

In a back and forth affair, the Gophers struggled without their veteran point guard, falling 67-70 to Nebraska in their first Big Ten game of the season.

In their first Big Ten contest of the season, the 6-4 Golden Gophers welcomed a red-hot Nebraska team that has reeled off eight consecutive wins to start the season.

Minnesota went into Monday’s conference matchup shorthanded, as starting point guard Jasmine Powell was ruled out due to an ankle injury. Gadiva Hubbard replaced Powell in the Gophers’ starting five.

The Gophers missed Powell’s leadership early. In the first quarter they shot 5-15 from the field, committed six fouls and coughed up four turnovers as a team. The slow start resulted in a 25-14 Nebraska lead after 10 minutes.

Sara Scalia and the Gophers responded in the second quarter. The junior guard had a game-high eight points in the quarter, resulting in a 7-0 into the half. The Gophers cut Nebraska’s lead to 33-31 after 20 minutes.

The third quarter continued to be tightly contested. After Nebraska went on an 11-3 run to start the quarter, the Gophers responded with an 8-0 run to close it.

Kadi Sissoko took over the game near the end of the quarter. Her game-high 11 points in the quarter brought her game total to 21 and the Gophers within one point, trailing 50-49 with only 10 minutes remaining.

The fourth quarter saw three different lead changes and two ties as the game grew older. The Gophers missed their veteran point guard Powell, ultimately coming up short 67-70.

Nebraska found great success in the paint all game, outscoring Minnesota, 42-26 in that area, while the Gophers committed 18 turnovers compared to the Cornhuskers’ 12.

Kadi Sissoko and Sara Scalia were the only two Gophers to score in double figures, scoring 25 and 20 points respectively, the lack of a third offensive option proved to be detrimental for Minnesota.

After falling short to Nebraska, Minnesota moves to 6-5 on the season and its next game will be Sunday, Dec. 12 when it travels to Ann Arbor, Michigan to take on the Wolverines at 1:00 p.m.

UH’s Josh Carlton throws down a two-handed slam in the first half of the Cougars victory over Alcorn State on Monday night at Fertitta Center. | Steven Paultani/The Cougar

No. 14 Houston improved to 8-1 Monday night after a 77-45 blowout win over Alcorn State at Fertitta Center.

The Cougars got off to a slow start, going 2 for 10  from the field to begin the game.

UH’s sloppy play continued until around the eight minute mark of the first half, allowing Alcorn State to stay within striking distance.

Senior center Josh Carlton provided a spark off the bench with 10 first half points on a perfect 4 for 4 shooting.

A 20-7 run to end the first half gave the Cougars a 20 point advantage going into the locker room.

Junior guard Marcus Sasser had a game-high 11 first half points.

The Cougars opened up the second half with an 8-0 run, increasing the lead to 28.

UH would not let up, continuing to pile onto its lead throughout the remainder of the game.

Sophomore guard Tramon Mark led the way, scoring 13 of his 18 game-high points in the second half.

Sophomore guard Jamal Shead dished out 11 assists while committing zero turnovers to go along with his five points and five rebounds.

Sasser finished with 17 points and six steals.

sports@thedailycougar.com

—
“No. 14 UH crushes Alcorn State for fourth straight win” was originally posted on The Cougar

Christopher Brooks enters transfer portal

Senior running back Christopher Brooks announced Monday his intention to enter the transfer portal via Twitter. Around three hours before Brooks’ tweet, redshirt junior defensive end JH Tevis also announced his intention to enter the portal.

Brooks, who played in 41 games for Cal and led the team in rushing yards in 2021, will enter the portal as a graduate transfer. Tevis played in all 12 of Cal’s games this season and earned two sacks and three tackles for loss over the course of his 20 appearances for the Bears.

William Cooke covers football. Contact him at wcooke@dailycal.org.

The Daily Californian

My boyfriend got it first. Then it was me, and then it was all of my friends.

The dreaded common cold: it makes you sick enough to feel awful, but not sick enough to feel justified in calling off work or skipping class. It’s truly the worst of both worlds.

Now that classes are in-person, however, some professors are amending their syllabi, requesting that students displaying symptoms of any respiratory illness, not just COVID-19, stay home.

Two years ago, this would have been unheard of, as the American obsession with constant productivity has created a stigma surrounding illness. Those who are ill are often expected to simply “tough it out” and still show up to class or work. This is seen as virtuous, despite the fact that the presence of the sick person may put others at risk of also becoming ill.

Now, circumstances seem to have changed. The visceral, human consequences of the pandemic have made us more wary than we have been, even of illnesses that aren’t COVID-19. My friends and I have adjusted or cancelled plans to account for colds, and anyone who has been sick in the last year and a half is well acquainted with the dirty glares that even the quietest of coughs will invite. Some Americans even plan to continue wearing masks when sick in the COVID-free future, which is a practice that has long been in place in parts of Asia.

Alongside the caution factor, however, there is another piece: The devastation we’ve all witnessed firsthand has made us more understanding. We’re less likely to pass judgement on our peers or colleagues for missing out on things while they’re sick. In fact, their absence almost warrants admiration for their responsibility and consideration of others.

It is more than unfortunate that it took an entire pandemic for this cultural shift to arise, but we’re better off for it. The world moves so fast –– the least we can do is take time to rest when we’re sick, for both our wellness and that of others.

Some may be quick to dismiss this idea or other self-care talk as saccharine or indicative of a sort of weakness. However, I fail to see the virtue that so many claim is inherent to a lifestyle characterized by constantly pushing oneself.

In a world where a person’s value is defined by their productivity and everyone is expected to be running at full speed at all times, self-care becomes rebellious.

But it shouldn’t be this way. It shouldn’t be normal or expected that we force ourselves to show up to school or work sick. It should be okay to take time for ourselves when we need it.

It should be okay because we have a certain responsibility to others. Cough and sneeze into your elbow; use hand sanitizer; better yet, wash your hands. Something that should be added to this list of generally acceptable health advice is don’t be afraid to stay home! No one likes being sick and you’re doing your friends a favor by not passing on your illness.

It should also be okay for the simple reason that we’re human. We have off days. Sometimes, we get sick. Sometimes, the weight of the world is so great that even getting out of bed is a chore. And that’s okay for the simple reason that our worth extends beyond what we are capable of accomplishing or checking off of our to-do lists. There is no virtue in making yourself miserable. Take care of yourself and your body; your to-do list can wait until tomorrow.