About 70 students took a study break to discuss the future of artificial intelligence Wednesday evening.

Bruce Porter, computer science department chair and professor, primarily research-es artificial intelligence. He engaged students with topics such as free will in robots and videos of human and robot interactions. The talk was part of the University of Texas Libraries speaker series, “Sci-ence Study Break.”

“[Artificial intelligence] is an army of disposable data,” Porter said. “But when does it cross the line?”

Porter recalled a time when he was biking on the 51st Street when a car almost

hit him in the bike lane. He said the car turned out to be an autonomous vehicle. Porter then figured out that Google scientists determine a parameter — in this case, the minimal distance between a

vehicle to a biker.“In [the case of accidents

in] autonomous vehicles, we force the robots to [choose between hitting] the cyclist on the right, or four chil-dren on the left,” Porter said.

“Does it require emotions, or free will?”

Porter discussed the three laws of robotics cre-ated by science fiction

New recommendations about police use of force could potentially change the way officers across the nation respond to violent situations, according to a recently pub-lished report by the Police Executive Research Forum, a national research and policy organization.

The recommendations call

for a thorough re-training of officers and encourage po-lice departments to take a comprehensive approach to the guidelines rather than implementing them partially.

Chief of Staff Brian Man-ley said the Austin Police De-partment has not yet decided whether the guidelines will be implemented in Austin.

“We are aware of the re-port and are evaluating it to see if there are any changes

that need to be made for our department,” Manley said.

When approaching chal-lenging incidents, the critical decision-making model out-lined in the report provides a thought process for officers to use. This model includes collecting information, as-sessing the situation, threats and risks, considering agen-cy policy, identifying options to determine the most appro-priate course of action and

re-assessing the situation.Chas Moore, co-founder

of Austin Justice Coalition, said he believes the guide-lines have the potential to improve police behavior and their use of force in certain situations.

“The PERF guidelines seem to aim for the pres-ervation of life at all costs, which is much better that what seems to the be the standard now, which is shoot

first and ask questions later,” Moore said.

These guidelines were published about a week prior to the shooting and killing of teenager David Joseph by APD officer Geoffrey Free-man in early February. The shooting raised conversa-tions about the effective-ness of police training, spe-cifically with how officers handle force.

Some of the report

recommendations include policy changes such as up-holding the sanctity of life, practicing de-escalating techniques such as slow-ing down situations that do not pose an immediate threat and meeting the test of proportionality, which involves officers assess-ing how the general pub-lic will view the action law

Student Government ex-ecutive alliance election results were officially an-nounced Thursday night re-sulting in a runoff election set to take place between candidates Kevin Helgren and Binna Kim and fellow

candidates Kallen Dimitroff and Jesse Guadiana.

Runoff elections occur when no alliance wins a ma-jority of the vote. This elec-tion’s total vote count was 6,667, with Helgren-Kim re-ceiving 35.77 percent of the vote and Dimitroff-Guadiana receiving 28.99 percent.

Kevin Helgren, student

body presidential candidate and neuroscience and psy-chology senior, said he and Kim are excited to be moving into a runoff.

“I think it’s going to be challenging simply because we’re asking the student body to vote for a third time,” Hel-gren said. “We were also hesi-tant about this new election,

but I think we were able to harness just as much support this time around.”

Kim, student body vice presidential candidate and marketing junior, said she and Helgren spent months think-ing about their campaign.

“We worked so hard for so long, and we got to see num-bers and the outcome of our

work,” Kim said.Kallen Dimitroff, student

body presidential candidate and government and history senior, said she is proud of the work her team put into the campaign.

“I think it’s amazing that we got to the place we have,” Dimitroff said. “We have a lot of hard work in front of us,

but I think we can pull it off. I think we can work towards creating a more positive envi-ronment in this election, and people can look forward to seeing a different side of cam-paign. I think everyone will get to know me and Jesse a lot better.”

1

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Serving the University of Texas at Austin community since 1900

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SPORTS PAGE 7 LIFE&ARTS PAGE 8 COMICS PAGE 6

POLICE

APD reviews use of force following reportBy Mikaela Cannizzo

@mikaelac16

STUDENT GOVERNMENT

Dimitroff, Helgren campaigns advance to runoffBy Rachel Lew

@rachelannlew

CAMPUS

Petition against Church of Scientology goes viral.

PAGE 3

“Young Blood” art exhibit opens in FAB.

ONLINE

NEWSStudent Government remains important.

PAGE 4

Innovation is key to Aus-tin’s transportation future.

PAGE 4

OPINIONWomen’s basketball ready

for UCLA. PAGE 7

Baseball downs TCU in first game of series.

PAGE 7

SPORTSPersephone musical pre-

mieres Saturday.PAGE 8

“Batman v Superman” falls short of expectations.

PAGE 8

LIFE&ARTSWatch our Student Gov-ernment election video.

dailytexanonline.com

ONLINE REASON TO PARTY

PAGE 6

Professor talks potential dangers of AIBy Eunice Ali

@euniceali

CITY

City Council approves fair hiring ordinance

By Forrest Milburn@forrestmilburn

AI page 2

Mike McGraw, Asa Johnson | Daily Texan StaffStudent government executive alliance candidates Kallen Dimitroff, second from left, and Jesse Guadiana, left, and Kevin Helgren, second from right, and Binna Kim, right, celebrate after hearing that their alliances were advancing to a runoff election. The election will be held starting next Wednesday at 8 a.m., and will end Thursday at 5 p.m.

Executive alliance race down to two

Juan FigueroaDaily Texan Staff

Computer de-partment chair and professor

Bruce Porter discuses the

reality of artificial intelligence in

popular movies, such as “Her,” as part of the

Science Study Break series.

FORCE page 2

RUNOFF page 2

An opening for a babysit-ter was the first job Susan Parsons applied for after be-ing released from prison for multiple DWIs.

She was never hired.“I made mistakes when I

was younger and also when I was not so young,” said Par-sons, a social work graduate student. “I refuse to let those mistakes define who I am.”

Since then, she has only held a handful of positions, finding herself unable to get any calls back from potential employers, who see an appli-cant’s criminal background early on in the hiring process because of city law.

On Thursday, city council members addressed concerns with hiring practices by vot-ing 8-2 in favor of a fair chance hiring ordinance, which in-tends to remove barriers to employment for those like Parsons who have criminal backgrounds that may cause job discrimination.

The fair chance hiring or-dinance includes a “ban the box” initiative, which removes the section of job applications where applicants are required to check whether they have ever been convicted of a felony, a practice fair chance support-ers say discriminates against those who have attempted to rehabilitate themselves after

HIRING page 3

2

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2 NEWSFriday, March 25, 2016

Mike McGraw | Daily Texan StaffGerman and studio art senior Erica Ndubeze develops a photo in the dark room of the Art Building.

FRAMES featured photo thedailytexan

Permanent StaffEditor-in-Chief . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Claire SmithAssociate Editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alexander Chase, Davis Clark, Mary Dolan, Mohammad SyedManaging Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 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AIcontinues from page 1

FORCEcontinues from page 1

RUNOFFcontinues from page 1

Stephanie Tacy | Daily Texan StaffPolice tackle protesters at a Black Lives Matter Rally on September 19, 2015.

@thedailytexanFollow us for news, updates and more.

enforcement takes.In addition, the report

includes training and tactic reform, use of new equip-ment and resolution of information issues.

According to the recom-mendations, the Forum aims to provide scenario-based training that is a realistic

representation of what offi-cers are likely to encounter. This aims to reduce uncer-tainty in situations, which could lead to a potentially unjustified response.

The guiding principles also encourage training in less-lethal defensive mechanisms to prevent unnecessary use of firearms. Another sugges-tion is for officers to utilize personal protection shields

when an attacker has a weapon other than a gun.

Susan Schorn, a writer, self defense advocate and Austin resident, said even though APD requirements meet or exceed the state’s standards, she believes in-service train-ing can be enhanced through adding scenario training that will aid officers in compen-sating for any unconscious racial biases.

“While it’s true that there are a few bad apples causing a lot of police violence, the problem is more accurately described as a failure of leadership,” Schorn said. “There are proven, state-of-the-art training methods that can significantly reduce not just police violence against innocent civilians, but also the risk and stress experienced by the officers who serve our community.”

author Isaac Asimov. The first law is that a robot should not hurt a human or, by failing to take an ac-tion, let a human gets hurt. A robot should follow a hu-man’s orders except in situ-ations that conflict with the first law; also, a robot should protect itself except in situa-tions where its own protec-tion conflicts with the first or the second laws.

Computer science senior Alexandra Gibner, who was at

the event, said when the UT robot soccer team was teaching robotic dogs how to walk, the team did not tell the dogs ex-actly how to step forward. The dogs independently figured out that when they shuffed on their knees, they became more stable and efficient. This surprised the team, she said.

Plant biology senior Ka-tia Hougaard, who was also at the event, said when an AI starts having desires indepen-dent from its programmer — which Porter cited as free will — it quickly became pos-sible that the AI would destroy

its programmer.“I think what might happen

if we gave robots the ability to desire, is that we would end up with a class of robot criminals,” Hougaard said. “I’m not saying that all independent desires are bad, but desire by its very nature is selfish. I think some-how building a moral code into an artificial intelligence would be the way around this.”

Porter said concern about robot free will not become a pressing issue until 15-20 years from now, but cautioned that it will be difficult to pre-dict. He said AI scientists

certainly had not foretold that a computer would even-tually be able to play Go, a board game similar to chess, yet Google’s DeepMind com-puter program recently beat the human Go champion, Lee Sedol.

“[Elon Musk and Ste-phen Hawking’s] concern is that if an AI is able to learn [how] to read and [how] to learn, it could quickly outpace any human in its intelligence and problem solving abilities, and then we become obsolete,” Por-ter said. “That’s what they’re

predicting — I’m not.”While there are safety regu-

lations on other technolo-gies, such as cloning, Porter said there are currently no regulations when it comes to engineering AI.

“Hal computer in 2001 — a fictional character in Ar-thur Clarke’s Odyssey series — didn’t have free will, but followed its own logic and de-cided that humans must die,” Porter said. “As an engineer of AI system, I don’t know where the line is. I need better, con-crete guidelines where to draw that line.”

Public relations sophomore Kasey French said she thinks SG can learn from this year’s election process.

“I think a lot of us were expecting a runoff,” French said. “It really should be fighting a clean fight, and I hope candidates in the future can take this in stride and

say, ‘Look — we’re all aim-ing to make this university better together.’”

Daniel James Chapman, for-mer student body presidential candidate and economics and mathematics senior, said he is disappointed by the results, but is happy with the work he and his running mate Austin James Robinson put into rein-venting their campaign.

After the original election

results were nullified, Chap-man and Robinson changed their platform to include the idea of abolishing SG if it does not experience culture change within the next year. Chapman said the change in their cam-paign was a result of looking at the history of SG as a whole within the past 10 years.

“Although the culture has improved, I think there needs to be a conversation about the

effectiveness and usefulness of SG,” Chapman said.

Voting for the runoff election will take place at

utexasvote.com Wednesday and Thursday. Results will be announced in front of the tower at 6:30 p.m. Thursday.

Although the culture has improved, I think there needs to be a conversation about the effectiveness and usefulness of SG.

—Daniel James Chapman, Former student body presidential candidate

A petition to President Barack Obama to replace the Church of Scientology on Guadalupe with a HEB has gone viral on social media.

Electrical and computer en-gineering freshman Abhishek Deb started the petition for a government class.

“The assignment was to create a petition that got at least 20 signatures, and write two paragraphs about it for class,” Deb said. “I didn’t ex-pect it to go viral and get this many signatures.”

Deb said the petition was designed to be satirical and didn’t have any real inten-tion of trying to replace the Church of Scientology with a HEB.

“The petition addresses Barack Obama, who does not have any power in the issue,” Deb said. “It seems like com-mon sense to me you can’t just uproot establishments like that.”

Computer science and linguistics freshman Simon Zeng says it is easy to relate to the sentiments of the petition, which address the “large, mys-terious, imposing Scientology building so close to campus and the struggle of having to add a 30-minute round trip bus every time you want to go grocery shopping,” which is why it is so popular.

“I think the way the peti-tion presents itself just adds to the mystique of the con-tent that is essential in its viral spread,” Zeng said. “It’s not a good petition per se, it’s just good viral content and that’s what counts.”

Deb said that he origi-nally had no intention of following through with the petition’s demands.

“I’ll look into other means, but as of right now I don’t have any real goal with this other than just completing my assignment.”

Deb said he didn’t intend to offend anyone, and he did not expect his class assignment to

become so public.“It’s a joke. I think its hate

speech too, frankly,” Cathy Norman, director of special affairs for the Church of Scien-tology of Austin, said. “It’s not something you do by petition. The United States Government can’t cause the Church of Sci-entology to move, or HEB to open a store. But it’s just a joke, just not in very good taste.”

Norman said the Church

of Scientology isn’t moving anywhere and has owned the property since 1979.

“Like many of the other churches and religious or-ganizations in this area, we have some people who are part of the UT com-munity and some who are not,” Norman said. “We love this neighbor-hood, and we love the UT environment.”

Until about 60 million years ago, penguins soared above the ocean. When they lost the ability to fly, their brains took a while to catch up.

UT geological sciences graduate student James Proffitt compared 3-D models of the inside of the earliest-known flightless penguin skull fossil to the brain shapes of modern penguins. This fossil is about 60 million years old — this penguin was probably alive soon after all penguins stopped flying.

He expected to find that flightlessness soon affected the ancient penguin’s brain structure, making it similar to modern penguins. How-ever, this ancient penguin brain was significantly dif-ferent from those of mod-ern penguins, even though they were both flightless. These differences suggest modern penguin brains may not have evolved until relatively recently, according to Proffitt.

“It seems like ancient penguins have a lot more in common with other close diving relatives than they do with modern penguins,” Proffitt said. “When flight-lessness evolved, the chang-es in the brain that you see in modern penguins don’t show up until much later.”

Even though it couldn’t fly, this 60-million-year-old penguin’s skull is more simi-lar to those of present-day birds that can both dive and fly than to modern flight-less penguins. Penguin

neurology took a long time to catch up to flightless behavior, according to Paul Scofield, the senior curator of natu-ral history at the Canterbury Museum in New Zealand and co-author of the paper.

“I think this result clarifies that the evolution of penguins was rapid and that not all el-ements of the body suddenly became perfectly adapted to diving,” Scofield said. “Other studies have shown that the brain’s development lags

behind the evolution of the body and this is certainly the case in this species.”

The evolution of bird brains is easier to study than other types of animals be-cause bird skulls are closely fitted to the brain. Proffitt’s work used x-ray computed tomography, or CT scan-ning, to look inside the fos-silized skull and observe the shape of the brain.

Chris Torres, an ecology, evolution and be-

havior graduate student cur-rently in Antarctica study-ing bird evolution, also uses this CT scanning method to learn about other types of bird brains from fossils.

“Odd as it may sound, we don’t need brains to study brains anymore,” Torres said. “This has profound implications for what we can learn from fossil re-cord, which preserves hard structures like skulls but not soft tissues like brains.

CT has revolutionized the way we study how bird brains evolve.”

Proffit is interested in studying penguin evolution because, according to him, they came from a larger group of birds that both fly and swim, but have since evolved flightlessness.

“They make a really great group to examine this broader evolutionary idea of how animals respond to such a big change in ecology

and what happens to the rest of their body,” he said.

There is still a lot of re-search that scientists need to do to understand the re-lationship between behavior and brain structure, accord-ing to Proffitt.

“I think it’s a complicated question to try and disentan-gle how locomotion effects neurology,” he said. “That’s more of a nuanced scientific story that isn’t as appealing as a firm answer.”

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NEWS Friday, March 25, 2016 3

RESEARCH

Study: Penguin brain evolution led to loss of flightBy Julianne Hodges

@JayHodges2018

Illustration by Connor Murphy| Daily Texan Staff

CAMPUS

Joke Scientology petition garners supportBy Jasleen Shokar

@jasleenshokar

Fridays at 5 p.m.Listen to The Daily Texan newscast

Mary Pistorius | Daily Texan StaffFair Chance proponents gather to show support at Austin City Hall for a city council meeting on Thursday evening.

HIRINGcontinues from page 1

utexasvote.com Wednesday and Thursday. Results will be announced in front of the tower at 6:30 p.m. Thursday.

Although the culture has improved, I think there needs to be a conversation about the effectiveness and usefulness of SG.

—Daniel James Chapman, Former student body presidential candidate

being incarcerated.“These people honestly pay

their dues, they do their time and [they] often recognize that what they did was a mis-take, but then they have to pay for it for the rest of their lives,” said Alex Cogan, a social work graduate student who supported the ordinance in a silent demonstration. “It just isn’t fair.”

According to the National Employment Law Project, more than 100 cities and counties around the coun-try have implemented simi-lar hiring policies. Once the ordinance goes into effect in 10 days, Austin will become the first city in the state to enact a fair chance hiring

ordinance that affects private sector employers with a staff of 15 or more.

The ordinance, which was originally proposed by coun-cil member Greg Casar, also gives job applicants 90 days to make a complaint once they believe their employer has violated the ordinance, with violators facing a $500 if charged.

Goodwill representative Roberta Schwartz said the company is opposed to the ordinance because it does not address concerns with how the ordinance disallows employers from conducting background checks and asking applicants criminal background ques-tions until they have already received a job offer.

“You want somebody to get in the door, you want them to

be able to have a fair chance to be seen,” Schwartz said.

Goodwill is already practic-ing fair chance hiring without any governmental mandates, according to Schwartz.

Council member Don Zim-merman, who voted against the ordinance, agreed with business concerns and argued the ordinance would allow employees more opportunities to bring claims of violations against their employers.

After the council decided in her favor, Parsons went and hugged her fellow supporters.

“I had numerous DWIs, and we never think that we’re going to be the one’s who get pulled over,” Parson said. “I made connections being hon-est about what happened to me, but that doesn’t happen to everybody.”

SXSW is renowned for being the center of creating change through inviting some of the nation’s top innovators and thinkers. The film festival thrives and expands every year because of its community-based ap-proach and focus on diverse groups. SXSW organizers said they believe that the most in-teresting sessions are the ones that encour-age a variety of perspectives. Based on this, organizers focus on inviting speakers from various backgrounds.

However, this reputation so embedded in the forum was tarnished when U.S. Olym-pian and SXSW speaker Ibtihaj Mohammed was asked to remove her headscarf for her ID photo during registration at SXSW.

Unfortunately, this type of discrimination is far from isolated. Just last month, there were two incidents involving airport security asking two Sikh men, Youtuber Jasmeet Singh

(JusReign) and actor Waris Ahluwalia, to re-move their turbans. Mohammed’s encoun-ter with the SXSW volunteer is just another example of the typical narrative of people in charge not being educated about how to react to others’ religious practices.

It may be difficult for those who don’t wear extra religious clothing to understand its sig-nificance. But, to both Muslim women and Sikh men, their respective head-dresses are an integral part of their appearance and represent much more than just a cloth on their heads.

The turban and headscarf both represent their devotion to their respective religions. A turban is of huge cultural importance for Sikhs and represents dignity and courage, while a hijab, or headscarf, represents mod-esty, not only in appearance but in the way a Muslim woman speaks and carries herself.

The organizers apologized profusely and confirmed that the volunteer’s way of dealing with Mohammed’s ID photo and registration was inappropriate and not within SXSW’s registration policy.

“It is not our policy that a hijab or any re-ligious head covering be removed in order to pick up a SXSW badge,” organizers said in a statement to the Chicago Tribune. “This was one volunteer who made an insensitive request and that person has been removed for the du-ration of the event. We are embarrassed by this and have apologized to Ibtihaj in person, and sincerely regret this incident.”

The aforementioned incidents gained pub-licity because Mohammed, JusReign and Ah-luwalia all are famous. This type of incident may happen a lot more often than expected, but doesn’t gain as much publicity because most people lack a huge fanbase.

The lack of religious education present in our country, which was founded to embrace the very principles of diversity, is appalling.

No one should forfeit their religious beliefs for the sake of an ID photo. Not only was this embarrassing on the SXSW’s organizers end, but it was also embarrassing to the country.

Mohammed represents America as an Olympian but ended up being stopped by

registration volunteers just because she looks different than others. Olympian or not, Mus-lim women and people of faith who dress dif-ferently because of their religion should not have to deal with the lack of religious educa-tion. They should be treated like any other person in the registration line. Volunteers at forums such as SXSW and authorities should undergo mandatory training to be educated about diversity and what faith means to dif-ferent people around the world.

Saifullah is a neuroscience sophomore from Richardson.

Austin’s heavy traffic problems are hardly addressed well. To ease traffic for President Obama’s visit at the start of South By South-west, non-essential City employees were al-lowed to leave work early, and Austin In-dependent School District cut the school day short. However, we cannot keep people off the roads forever in the fastest growing city in the United States. But Austin has potential. Current proposals to integrate technology into the city’s transportation infrastructure offer a promising solution to Austin’s chronic traffic troubles.

Austin was named a finalist for the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Smart City Challenge at the same festival that caused so much traffic in Austin. The program pledges up to $40 million to one city with the potential to integrate technology into its transportation network. Some of Austin’s proposals include integrating self-driving cars, increasing the number of electric ve-hicles and implementing more transporta-tion options for commuters.

These proposals are a positive break from past policies. Despite constant ap-proval from voters, pouring money into ambiguous road projects will not address the city’s central traffic problems. Past projects have devoted millions to “im-provements,” but there’s only so much

room for roads to expand as the city’s pop-ulation continues to grow. Even if more roads are built, studies show this would only increase the number of drivers on the roads. Road repairs are necessary, but de-voting money to roads alone will not sud-denly solve traffic problems.

Utilizing technology, however, is Aus-tin’s strength. In February, Austin was ranked the top city for high-tech transpor-tation options such as bike- and car-shar-ing systems and apps for tracking public transit. Austin recently partnered with Rocky Mountain Institute to create inno-vative traffic solutions. In August, Google selected Austin as a location to test its new self-driving cars. In a public statement, Austin Mayor Steve Adler said he believes in the importance of combining new tech-nologies with current roadways.

“We really need to find the new technol-ogies that are going to enable us to use our existing infrastructure smarter, in more

innovative ways,” Adler said. History freshman Daja Martinez said she

is optimistic about implementing technol-ogy with Austin’s road infrastructure.

“I believe that technology that improves safety features or allows people to avoid accident-prone areas would definitely help the flow of traffic, especially in the techno-logical age we are living in,” Martinez said.

In their current situation, Austin’s road-ways are a red light for growth. Accidents

cost the city half a billion dollars every year. Poor roadway conditions and traffic amount to about $1,655 a year for drivers in Austin. If road projects have not ad-dressed Austin’s traffic for years, it’s time to develop another solution. Whether Austin wins the Smart City Challenge, im-plementing technological solutions is the road we should be driving down.

Dam is a linguistics and Spanish freshman from Dallas.

“Through this one-and-a-half-month-supposed-to-be-two-weeks election pro-cess, I have seen leaders in the student body align themselves with some unethi-cal decisions,” vice presidential candidate Austin James Robinson said. “I have seen the student body speak out against said decisions, and I have seen the possibility for an actual culture change within the governing organization of the University of Texas at Austin.”

This “actual culture change” has become the central issue of this year’s executive alli-ance campaign — the focus has completely moved away from a comparison of policy points to a contest of “who is best suited to turn around Student Government culture.” We begin to believe that the entirety of Stu-dent Government is a corrupt, no-good or-ganization that everyone should dislike. We ought to stop generalizing the legislative organization, which serves many crucial purposes, and begin focusing on solvable policy issues.

The Helgren-Kim campaign received the Daily Texan Editorial Board endorsement because of “the culture change they aspire to create within Student Government.” It is clear that the campaign did not stick with this message. Helgren-Kim campaign members filed three complaints against the Dimitroff-Guadiana campaign in the span of 24 hours, without any attempt to resolve their concerns in a more diplomatic way.

Several of the campaigns utilized the

Election Supervisory Board as a weapon to eliminate the opposition rather than a check on abuse of fairness. Of the three complaints filed, only one complaint held up in the ESB hearing. Dimitroff-Guadiana failed to disclose complete finances when required, and accepted the imposed fine without com-plaint. Had the campaigns communicated, the complaint that actually was an issue would have been the only complaint filed.

The candidates’ quick devolution of princi-ple has the student body riled up. This anger may seem good for the democratic process, since more students are passionate about the process and motivated to be involved, but our anger blinds us to the original issues at hand. We are so wrapped around this so called need for “culture change,” we forget it is not the entirety of Student Government that acts negatively; it is a select few candi-dates that we tend to focus on.

Presidential candidate Kallen Dimitroff commented on the effects of anger in the student body.

“People creating an environment of anger towards SG is dangerous and only undermines students’ ability to advocate

for ourselves,” Dimitroff said. “Frankly, the way the narrative has been skewed is irresponsible, had we had more notice of this election from DoS we could’ve more holistically addressed this. The goal of our campaign was to regain the trust of the student body so that SG can be a source of change — if elected we will make that hap-pen without misguided divisive measures.”

Student resentment gave rise to an abolish-ment movement, led by the Chapman-Rob-inson campaign. Although well intended, it will likely result in a hostile environment for next year’s SG leaders. The next executive al-

liance will constantly fear any missteps lead-ing to the abolishment of SG by an unpre-dictable and fed-up student body.

No tangible recommendation on how to change SG culture has manifested from any of the candidates. The student body simply wants something new, something not “establishment.” This anger is mis-guided and harmful to the democratic process. We ought to focus on the real is-sues that have real solutions, not the se-lect campaigns ruining the image of our legislative organization.

Kumar is a PACE freshman from Sugarland.

4 OPINION

4CLAIRE SMITH, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF | @TexanEditorialFriday, March 25, 2016

LEGALESE | Opinions expressed in The Daily Texan are those of the editor, the Editorial Board or the writer of the article. They are not necessarily those of the UT administration, the Board of Regents or the Texas Student Media Board of Operating Trustees.

SUBMIT A FIRING LINE | E-mail your Firing Lines to editor@dailytexanonline.com. Letters must be more than 100 and fewer than 300 words. The Texan reserves the right to edit all submissions for brevity, clarity and liability.

RECYCLE | Please recycle this copy of The Daily Texan. Place the paper in one of the recycling bins on campus or back in the burnt-orange newsstand where you found it.EDITORIAL TWITTER | Follow The Daily Texan Editorial Board on Twitter (@TexanEditorial) and receive updates on our latest editorials and columns.

COLUMN

Students should keep faith in Student GovernmentBy Abinav KumarDaily Texan Columnist

@ImAbiKumar

COLUMN

By David DamDaily Texan Columnist

@daviddamwrite

Future of Austin transportation speeds toward innovation

Poor Roadway Conditions cost Austin drivers $1,655 annually

Poor roadway conditions force Austin drivers into 44 hours of traffic annually

Accidents cost the city of Austin half a billion dollars a year

Sammy Jarrar | Daily Texan Staff

By Khadija SaifullahDaily Texan Senior Columnist

@coolstorysunao

SXSW must educate its volunteers on religous sensitivityCOLUMN

People creating an environment of anger towards SG is dangerous and only undermines students’ ability to advocate for ourselves.

— Kallen Dimitroff, Student Government presidential candidate

We really need to find the new tech-nologies that are going to enable us to use our existing infrastructure smarter, in more innovative ways.

— Steve Adler, Mayor of Austin

Mohammed represents America as an Olympian but ended up being stopped by registration volunteers because she looks dif-ferent than others.

Rachel Zein | Daily Texan StaffThe four executive alliance teams pose for their campaign portraits.

Name: CLASSIFIDES; Width: 60p0; Depth: 10 in; Color: Black, CLASSIFIDES; Ad Number: -

CLASS 5

LIFE&ARTS Friday, March 25, 2016 5

“Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” is one lousy cage match. Directed by Zack Snyder, this bloat-ed picture single-mindedly breezes through its plot points and often forgets to breathe, rendering the showdown between two DC Comics titans uneven.

The bombastic sequel picks up 18 months after “Man of Steel,” and we catch up with Superman (Henry Cavill) operating around the world, stopping natural and man-made disasters. His alter ego, Clark Kent, now holds a steady job report-ing for The Daily Planet and shares an apartment with Lois Lane (Amy Adams).

Cavill doesn’t get much dialogue, but he carries him-self with dignity and fills the red and blue suit well. Super-man isn’t the embodiment of Truth, Justice and the American way quite yet — he’s still unsure of his place in the world, and much of it still fears him. On paper, this sounds gripping, but he has to share space with Batman (Ben Affleck), giving him less screen time to be devel-oped. This leaves Superman disconnected from viewers as they head into the finale, which means his big moment of heroism rings hollow.

Batman is more fleshed out. Nearly driven to mad-ness by two decades of crime-fighting in Gotham and the loss of his closest allies, this version of Bat-man brands, and some-times slaughters, his en-emies. As Bruce Wayne, he was present during Su-perman’s destructive battle against General Zod in Me-tropolis, and now he con-spires to destroy him in a misguided but understand-

able effort to save Earth. Affleck proves a worthy Batman: his performance is brooding, charismatic and phenomenal.

Both heroes don’t realize they are being manipulated by Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisen-berg), a wealthy young in-dustrialist who wants Super-man dead as well. Eisenberg is an inspired choice for a lead villain, and he plays Lu-thor as a neurotic creep with an inferiority complex.

The film’s narrative failure can be attributed to Snyder and writers Chris Terrio and David S. Goyer trying too hard to impress. They over-stuff it with big themes, such as the theological implica-tions of Superman’s exis-tence and Batman’s anxieties reflecting those of post-9/11 America. Because there’s so much, Snyder struggles to cover all his bases, and we are haphazardly swept from scene to scene, given the bare minimum of character and thematic exploration in each one.

“Batman v Superman” strives to establish the larger DC Universe and advertises the “Justice League” movie. It spends about a total of ten minutes doing so, with most of the set up coming from a vision of a future Earth ruled

by extraterrestrial baddies. This sequence is tastelessly shoved into the movie.

At least the film occasion-ally entertains on a primal level. It’s much easier to in-dulge in Snyder’s apocalyptic vision of super-powered war-fare this time around. Super-man has learned to take his battles away from populated areas, so buildings crumble and fires raze without too much consequence when he, Batman and Gal Gadot’s crowd-pleasing Wonder Woman face off against Lu-thor’s monster in the last bat-tle. Snyder’s handle on the ac-tion is firm, his eye for visual punch sustained throughout, and he’s supported by Hans Zimmer’s perfect score.

“Batman v Superman” des-perately wants to be a grand, emotionally-resonant tale of mythological heroes. It cer-tainly gets the grand part, and you’d be hard-pressed to call it boring. But for all its efforts to humanize its characters and address a multitude of geopolitical and philosophical ideas, there’s too much plot for all the ele-ments to properly come into focus. In the end, “Batman v Superman” only coalesces into a hodgepodge of well-acted moments that feels like a trailer for a better movie.

issues could make for more open-mindedness about the values of the other ideology.

“I do think that hav-ing different opinions is healthy to an extent,” Ekland-Olson said. “You can see a side of an issue that someone else may not

be able to see.”Ultimately, when it

comes to how a couple can function with opposing political beliefs, especially with the upcoming presi-dential election, Thomas said it’s important to con-tinue to respect the other person and their opinion.

“The most important thing for me, with regards to politics in relationships,

is that my partner re-spects and accepts my opinions, even if we dis-agree,” Thomas said. “The most important thing in politics as well as rela-tionships is compromise. Instead of trying to make the other person agree with you, appreciate that they have their own mind, and learn what you can from their perspective.”

symphony of reunion.Shults excels in depict-

ing the emotional turmoil that plagues Krisha and her loved ones, alternating be-tween sweeping shots and substantive dialogue with the fluidity of an experienced director. Combined with its fast-paced editing and bro-ken score, “Krisha” success-fully situates viewers in the emotionally tense household, observing the gathering from an omniscient perspective that evolves to become the protagonist’s perspective. Whereas most directors use external elements to contrib-ute to a character’s develop-ment, Shults uses them to develop the family dynamics and dictate the events that transpire, indicating a cre-ative excellence that only the

best of directors possess.Within the frame itself

stands one of the best perfor-mances to have graced an in-dependent film — that of Kri-sha Fairchild, whose first-time cinematic endeavor is as re-fined as that of an experienced actress. Krisha’s vulnerability and distress manifest with ab-solute finesse, confirming that Fairchild, inexperienced as she may be, is an on-screen force to be reckoned with. A character as complex as Kri-sha’s requires distinct nuances and stages of emotion to be given an appropriate portray-al. On all fronts, Fairchild does justice to the character she embodies, tugging at viewers’ hearts with her well-portrayed meltdowns and moments of frustration and pain.

Shults complements Fair-child’s power with a screen-play as raw as dysfunction permits. The relatively short

drama is as structured as any great film, never wasting a moment or missing a beat to extend its runtime. The dialogue that drives “Krisha” is grounded in a type of real-ism that cinephiles have long yearned for, satisfying the thirst for hard-hitting dis-cussions and incredibly raw moments. The issues that present themselves are as poi-gnant and relevant as those that haunt viewers, showcas-ing a rare genius in storytell-ing that truly transcends the silver screen.

“Krisha” is a bona fide treat that stays with viewers long after the credits roll. Its ingenious direction, emo-tional screenplay and experi-mental visuals help craft a work of art that truly exceeds expectations, marking the start of many successful en-deavors for novice director Trey Edward Shults.

By Charles Liu@CharlieInDaHaus

MOVIE REVIEW | ‘BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE’

KRISHAcontinues from page 8

DATINGcontinues from page 8‘Batman v Superman’ verdict:

viewers win by staying home

Courtesy of Warner Bros. PicturesBatman (Ben Affleck) and Superman (Henry Cavill) face off in “Batman v Superman.”

Courtesy of Hoody Boy ProductionsKrisha Fairchild stars in Trey Edward Schults’s award-winning family drama.

6 SPTS

6 Friday, March 25, 2016 COMICS

Today’s solution will appear here next issue

SUDOKUFORYOU 7 9 5 3 4 8 4 2 7 2 6 9 4 8 1 4 6 8 4 5 3 2 1 4 7 8 4 1 2 6 97 6

6 3 4 9 2 8 5 7 17 2 9 6 1 5 4 3 81 8 5 4 7 3 2 6 95 9 6 8 4 7 3 1 28 1 3 5 9 2 6 4 72 4 7 1 3 6 8 9 54 6 8 7 5 9 1 2 33 7 1 2 8 4 9 5 69 5 2 3 6 1 7 8 4

The No. 7 Longhorns will take on a trio of top-16 teams at the Power Conference Car-dinal & Gold Challenge in Los Angeles. The sprints and hurdles will be big events to watch, as most of the NCAA indoor qualifiers will debut their outdoor season after a week’s break.

“It’ll be a quick and easy trip,” head coach Mario Sat-egna said. “Now, the NCAA indoor qualifiers as well other people we’re count-ing on down the road will get another meet in prior to Texas Relays.”

Junior Byron Robin-son was a member of the NCAA 4x400 meter re-lay team that placed 4th at the indoor championships two weeks ago. He also holds the school record in the 60-yard at the Big 12 Indoor Championships.

Robinson will now de-but his specialty event, the 400-meter hurdles.

“I finally get to do what I

came out here to do, [and] it’s exciting,” Robinson said. “Once I get my opening out of the way, I’ll be more sharp for the Texas Relays.”

In addition, Robinson will also team up with se-nior Zack Bilderback and juniors Senoj-Jay Givans and AJ Bailey Jr. for the 4x100 meter relay.

“It’ll be interesting because I haven’t run a 100 since high school, but if they need me, as long as we put out a good time, I don’t care if I have to run it,” Robinson said.

Bilderback became the first Longhorn to win the indoor 400 at the NCAA Championships. This week-end he will compete in the 100, along with four team-mates, and the 200, along with three.

Texas will go up against No. 3 Florida, No. 13 Ohio State and No. 16 USC in the meet.

“It felt like indoor season took a long time,” Bilderback said. “So I’m excited to see where I’m at going into next week’s Texas Relays.”

Chase Shugart had been struggling. After blowing two leads in his past six trips to the mound, Shugart was placed in another high-pres-sure situation against No. 6 TCU on Thursday. The Horned Frogs placed runners on first and third in the sixth inning, threatening to take the lead.

But this time, Shugart came through. The freshman pitcher induced a first-pitch double play, maintaining the Longhorns’ lead. Texas would eventually win the se-ries opener 4-3.

Letting out a scream as he descended from the mound, Shugart looked to regain his confidence. He pointed to the Longhorns’ dugout while strutting off the field, chest-bumping teammates before exiting.

“I wasn’t myself for the past couple weeks and it got to me,” Shugart said. “Com-ing into the dugout was in-sane. I never felt like that in

a dugout before.” Trailing 3-2 in the fifth,

Texas took a lead it would never relinquish. Sophomore Patrick Mathis smacked a homer over the right field wall, scoring freshman Kody Clemens. The time-ly hitting was a welcome sight for Texas, who had shown little resiliency in non-conference play.

“The team itself has had a very positive attitude,” head coach Augie Gar-rido said. “They believe in who they are and what they can do. They haven’t lost their confidence.”

Starting pitcher Morgan Cooper rolled through the first three innings. Facing the preeminent offense in the Big 12, Cooper didn’t bat an eye, retiring nine consecu-tive batters. The right hander received some breathing room from the Longhorns’ offense, as pair of opportu-nistic singles gave Texas a 2-0 lead.

But the wheels fell off in the fourth. A leadoff walk followed by a single set

the stage for TCU catcher Evan Skoug, who launched a fastball over the right field fence.

Cooper exited the game after just four and two thirds innings, leaving the Long-horns bullpen to finish the contest. Five Texas pitchers appeared out of the bullpen in Thursday’s contest, al-lowing zero runs and just three hits. Against one of the nation’s best offenses, the Longhorns bullpen came through.

“I got in a little trouble in the fourth and the team picked me up big time,” Cooper said. “Every guy in the pen came in with confi-dence. It was a team win and there was no better example than tonight.”

After struggling through-out the non-conference slate, the Longhorns now believe they are back on track. Texas is far from the top of the Big 12, but a victory over TCU could be a good start.

“It’s either fight or flight now,” Shugart said. “And we don’t have wings.”

Head coach Karen Aston had her team in the Sweet 16 last year, but that season had a different feel to it than this one. Aston had Texas as one of the final 16 teams standing for the first time since 2004. They were just happy to be there.

This season, Texas enters Bridgeport, Connecticut, with a No. 2 seed attached to its name — a few steps up from the five seed it garnered last year.

“[We] have an opportunity to take another step, which we didn’t get to take last year, which was to the Elite 8,” As-ton said. “And we have that opportunity again.”

The opportunity brings the possibility of match-ing up against the team that knocked the Longhorns out of last year’s tournament — the Connecticut Huskies.

But before the potential Elite 8 rematch of last year’s Sweet 16 game, Texas will have to go through UCLA, the No. 3 seed in the Bridgeport re-gion, at 12:30 p.m. Saturday.

“We’ve got to play the Bru-ins,” Aston said when asked about potentially facing Con-necticut. “Our team, they will be locked in. They understand

that UCLA is really good, and [it’s] one thing at a time.”

The Longhorns played the Bruins last season in Los An-geles, where Texas came out on top, 75-65. But Aston said that UCLA is a much dif-ferent team than it was on Nov. 23, 2014.

She said UCLA is more mature now having won the WNIT last season. Maturity is a tag that Aston has stuck to her team all season.

Even the underclassman

have developed and matured under Aston. In the win over Missouri Monday night, the guard duo of freshman Lashann Higgs and sopho-more Ariel Atkins combined for 33 of its 73 points.

But it has been the seniors who have carried Texas to back-to-back Sweet 16 appear-ances, and the underclassmen know it.

“I think that our seniors, they have grown up so much,” Higgs said. “I continuously talk

about them, because [they’re] the face of this program.”

The seniors walked off the court at the Frank Erwin Center for the last time Mon-day night. Aston said that she didn’t know how they would handle the emotions of play-ing in their last game at home.

The four seniors didn’t have their best outing of the season, combining for only 18 points on 25 percent shooting. But in the win, the stats didn’t matter.

Even senior guard Brady

Sanders, who is battling a tweaked foot according to Aston, recorded two minutes of action.

“They never allowed us to get overwhelmed when we had a failure or even too high when we had success, and I would attribute all of that so the seniors,” Aston said. “It was wonderful to see them go out tonight like they did.”

The season for the seniors is not over. They still have one more step to take.

COMICS 7

7JACOB MARTELLA, SPORTS EDITOR | @texansportsFriday, March 25, 2016

SIDELINEWOMEN’S BASKETBALL

UCLA awaits Longhorns in Sweet 16By Tyler Horka

@TexasTy95

BASEBALL | TEXAS 4-3 TCU TRACK & FIELD

Texas grabs first conference victory against Horned Frogs

By Michael Shapiro@mshap2

Stephanie Tacy| Daily Texan file photoJunior Byron Robinson runs in a practice. The Longhorns travel to Los Angeles for the Power Conference Cardinal & Gold Challenge.

By Leah Vann@Vanntastic_Leah

NCAAMAGGIES

SOONERS

WILDCATS

HURRICANES

TODAY IN HISTORY

1668The first horse race in America takes place.

“A positive attitude gives you power over your circumstances

instead of your circumstances

having power over you!”

Javan Felix@JavanFelix3

TOP TWEET

Texas to face tough teams in L.A.

The Longhorns trip to southern California has no shortage of firepower, even if it’s a small meet. No. 7 Longhorns will join No. 10 Florida, No. 16 Ohio State and host No. 4 USC for the Cardinal & Gold Challenge this weekend.

Texas is coming off an impressive performance with two wins in their meet at the TCU Invitational. Freshman Asa Garcia won the triple jump with a mark of 12.91 meters which was good enough to put her in the lead for the best jump in the country and to win her first Big 12 Athlete of the Week award. Garcia’s leap ranks her sixth in school history.

Senior Morolake Akin-soun and freshman Teahna Daniels headline the field in the women’s 200m. Dan-iels became only the sec-ond freshman to ever win the 60-meter at the NCAA Indoor Championships with a time of 7.11 seconds.

Texas’ team will also compete in the 4x100 meter relay. Florida, USC and Texas had some of the quickest times in the coun-try last year.

—Spencer Solcher

SPORTS BRIEFLY

Texas’ outdoor season begins in Los Angeles

Zoe FuDaily Texan Staff

Sophomore guard Ariel Atkins protects the ball from a Mizzou defender Monday night at the Erwin Center. Atkins and the Long-horns play UCLA in the Sweet 16 Saturday.

Zoe FuDaily Texan Staff

Freshman pitcher Chase

Shugart prepares to throw

against TCU Thursday night. The Longhorns

beat the Horned Frogs 4-3.

Top-ranked Texas swept both relays and four of the six events in exhilarating fashion on the second night of the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships in Atlanta.

Sophomores Brett Ring-gold and Joseph Schooling, along with junior Jack Con-ger and senior John Murray

began the night with a Big 12 and school record-breaking finish in the 200-yard free-style relay, earning Texas’ second consecutive NCAA title in the event.

Freshman Townley Haas earned his first individual NCAA title and the team’s second straight NCAA title in the 500 freestyle with a time fast enough to become the second-fastest swim in school history and the

fifth-fastest of all-time. Junior Will Licon followed

with a nail-biting perfor-mance in the 200 individual medley. Licon fell as far as fifth place after the back-stroke leg, but catapulted his way to first, edging Califor-nia’s Josh Prenot by a tenth of a second to earn his third individual NCAA title.

The wins, along with Wednesday night’s 800 free-style win, mark the first time

the Longhorns have won the first four events of the NCAA Championship.

Murray placed sixth in the 50 individual freestyle, earning All America honors, while Ringgold took second in the consolation final.

Junior diver Mark An-derson earned his first All-America honors with a in the one meter diver, while senior Cory Bowersox won the consolation final.

By Adair Odom@adair_odom

Townley Haas

Longhorns increase lead at NCAA championships

JAZZ

THUNDER

BULLS

KNICKS

NBA

NETS

CAVALIERS

Name: Co-op; Width: 29p6; Depth: 5.5 in; Color: Process color, Co-op; Ad Number: -

8 L&A

Name: HOUSE Senior Photos; Width: 29p6; Depth: 5 in; Color: Process color, HOUSE Senior Photos; Ad Number: -

CAT CARDENAS, LIFE&ARTS EDITOR | @thedailytexan 8Friday, March 25, 2016

THEATER & DANCE

Local playwright Mick D’Arcy spent the past 15 years living with a Greek goddess.

He has written and rewrit-ten countless pages about her, crafted song lyrics and sought out musical collaborators, all in the hopes of breathing new life into the classic Greek myth of Persephone.

In the traditional story, Persephone, daughter of Zeus and Demeter, is ab-ducted by Hades and trans-ported to the underworld, where she must remain for part of every year after she takes a bite of a pomegran-ate. On Saturday, D’Arcy’s musical version of the centu-ries-old tale will premiere at the Vortex Theater. He said he aimed to alter the story to include messages of hope and redemption, rather than the rape for which the story is often remembered.

“People need a new ver-sion of the story,” D’Arcy said. “If we keep on telling the same version of the story as the rape of Persephone, then it’s always the rape of Persephone. I don’t like that. People deserve some-thing better than that. More progressive? I don’t know. I don’t want people to think that rape is just fine if you’re in power. That’s why I chose this story.”

According to D’Arcy, the play also includes influenc-es from his life during the 15 years he spent perfect-ing the script. During that time, D’Arcy’s life featured stints in Portland, Oregon, New Orleans and New York City, a nine-month period in which he slept in the Vortex

theater’s dressing room and breakups — first with his wife, then with a girlfriend years later. He said the latter prompted him to finish work on his script.

“I could go home and cry, but I’ve been doing that a lot already,” D’Arcy said. “Let me go ahead and work on this show that I’ve been ignoring for a long time. Instead of wallowing, let me do this. I would say that Hades is very

much a lonely guy, and that’s how I was for a long time, until my work got me past asking the stupid question of ‘Why won’t girls be with me?’ to ‘Why am I keeping myself out of relationships?”

D’Arcy’s exploration of a reimagined relationship between Hades and Perse-phone will feature a live band and score from UT alumnus Tyler Mabry, who joined the project a year ago.

By the time Mabry signed on, D’Arcy had already been writing the script for over a decade and had tried working with several other composers, each of whom had fallen through. Mabry set about parsing D’Arcy’s previous versions of lyr-ics, oftentimes reworking them or adding his own. He said the breadth of charac-ters and scenes in the play made composing the score a

unique challenge. “[D’Arcy] wanted it to have

a Shakespearian range to it, where you have some pretty serious elements and then some almost slapstick, just crazy zaniness,” Mabry said. “To try to unify that musically was interesting to me.”

Vortex artistic direc-tor Bonnie Collum said the company prefers to work with plays that are in a devel-opment process, as was the

case with “Persephone” when D’Arcy first approached her about the project.

“Being able to work with Mick over several incarna-tions and revisions of the show, I’ve been able to see it grow and deepen and really become a substantial work of musical theater,” Collum said. “We’re really leaping out there and doing a brand new thing that’s never been seen by audiences before.”

By James Rodriguez@jamie_rod

DATING MOVIE REVIEW | ‘KRISHA’

As Election Day grows closer, small talk turns into more heated political de-bates. However, bringing the ballot out of the polls and into a relationship of-ten leads to difficult prob-lems for couples.

Politics is considered a taboo subject because it can bring up strong emotions and convictions. Having the power to cause a rise in tension and arguments, political differences can be detrimental to a relation-ship. For some, inter-party dating isn’t an option.

In a recent survey by Match, 46 percent of the participants said they hadn’t changed their po-litical beliefs in the past 10 years and 95 percent hadn’t adjusted their po-litical opinions in order to fit their relationship.

The survey also re-vealed that single Repub-licans tend to look pri-marily for partners who share the same political and fiscal values. These

qualifications may be due to the innate values and morals each political par-ty holds, making it hard to separate the person from the politician.

When choosing a po-tential partner, govern-ment freshman Alexandra Thomas said it would be hard to date outside of her political affiliation.

“I think it would be dif-ficult to have a relationship with someone who holds opposite political beliefs as me, because my stances on issues are derived from the core of who I am,” Thomas said. “If I see the world in a completely different way from my partner, it could be the source of contention and argument.”

Relationships are all about compromise, but in terms of politics, people are less will-ing to budge on their beliefs for a significant other.

Whether or not political differences could be the de-mise of a relationship, sociol-ogy professr Sheldon Ekland-Olson said it is possible for a couple to work through their opposing ideologies.

“I don’t think [a couple] is doomed,” Ekland-Ol-son said. “It depends on how you express things, what you accept and don’t accept, how you work through things.”

Limiting the dat-ing pool to one political party could cause more hurt than good. It may be keeping someone from their perfect match, sim-ply because they don’t check the right box at the polls. Rhetoric and writ-ing senior Sharon Joseph said when looking for a partner, it’s important to maintain an open mind.

“I think it would be a mistake to completely dis-miss someone for their po-litical beliefs,” Joseph said. “If someone is genuinely a good person, their politi-cal beliefs shouldn’t have to play a part in how you connect with them.”

Having a partner from a different political party may even provide some ben-efits. Having a healthy de-bate about major political

By Maggie Rosenbohm@magstahhh

According to Maya Ange-lou, “the ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.” Former UT student Trey Edward Shults’s second directorial work, “Kri-sha,” puts this assertion to the test, using experimentalism and raw emotion to counter her optimistic claim.

In the award-winning dra-ma, a recovering alcoholic, Krisha (Krisha Fairchild), de-cides to visit her family for the first time in 10 years. Though hopeful about her visit, Krisha

quickly senses profound ten-sion, particularly between her and her son, Trey (Trey Ed-ward Shults). Krisha’s efforts to reconcile with loved ones, make up for lost time and move on from her dark past unfold over the course of the visit, demonstrating her search for love amid personal and do-mestic crises. Her family’s in-ability to see past her mistakes thus serves as the film’s central conflict — one that leaves Kri-sha to return to the bottle and wallow in the pain of neglect and regret.

From the start of the film, Shults affirms that “Krisha” will be an experimental and

emotional endeavor. The opening shot, in which Krisha stares at viewers with profound pain in her eyes, is immediate-ly followed by a seven-minute single take in which she re-turns to her distant family. The awkward moments that un-fold confirm the impact of her decade-long absence, indicat-ing that broken bonds and the path to redemption will persist over the remainder of her visit. The scenes that follow unfold as seamlessly — and sincerely — as those of the typical fami-ly gathering, with Krisha serv-ing as the broken chord in the

By Sebastian Sada@sseebbaasstian

Musical brings new life to Persephone myth

Elise Cardenas | Daily Texan StaffComposer Tyler Mabry, left, and playwright Mick D’Arcy will premiere the play “Persephone” this Saturday after years of writing and composing.

Illustration by Gaby Breiter | Daily Texan Staff

‘Krisha’ succeeds as raw, poignant family drama

Right, left could affect who’s right, wrong in relationships

DATING page 5

KRISHA page 5