“It’s unlike any other sport I have played but it’s a combination of so many sports that you’re used to playing,” said SU Quidditch Player Ryan Govoni

The rules of Muggle Quidditch, or human Quidditch, are very similar to those outlined by J.K. Rowling in the Harry Potter series,

“You have to adopt it for land use. You have to run with the broom in between your legs. You have to stay on your broom at all times. If you take the broom out from in between your legs you technically fall off your broom so you have to start back at your goal post,” said Govoni.

There are three chasers on each team who take the Quaffle and try to score it through the hoops. The two beaters play defense while seekers have to chase around the snitch.

The game broken down a little more:

Chasers must pass the Quaffle (white ball) and scoring points by throwing it through one of the opponent’s goals at each end. Three chasers play on a team. When a Chaser is hit by a Bludger while holding the Quaffle, he or she must drop the ball and run back to his or her own goalpost before rejoining the game.

Keepers are the goalies and block the attempts to score. One keeper plays on a team. Depending on the version of Quidditch played, Keepers can be invulnerable from being hit by the balls but in others, the keeper must freeze for a few seconds.

Beaters play defense by hitting opposing players with Bludgers, red balls. There are two Beaters on a team.

Seekers try to catch the Golden Snitch, who is a person dressed in yellow that runs around the field.

“I like to call it a combination of soccer and basketball with even a little dodge ball thrown in there. I guess a glorified game of tag in some aspect,” said Drew Shields, creator of the Syracuse University Quidditch Team.

Magic may have been crucial in the Harry Potter books but no fancy equipment is involved in Muggle Quidditch.

“I think we had to hit up the dollar store to get the brooms and home depot for the PVC stands and what not and then we just kinda grabbed a bunch of hula hoops and through them on top. It’s pretty bootleg,” said Shields.

Some players, including Chelsea Sigmond of the Syracuse University Team, love Harry Potter.

“I am a huge potter nerd,” aid Sigmond.

But others, including the creator of Quidditch at Syracuse University, started playing only after a friend started the game over summer break to impress his girlfriend.
“I didn’t really read the books I, didn’t really care about the movies but we came down there and played the game and it was pretty fun so we decided to start teams at our respective colleges the next year and its kinda turned into something that has grown and blossomed I guess,” said Shields.

Quidditch was invented at Middlebury College in Vermont and has grown internationally ever since. Here in Central New York there are teams recognized by the International Quidditch Association at Fayettville-Manlius High School, Cornell, Ithaca, SUNY-Geneseo, and here at Syracuse University.

“I got here the fall of my freshmen year which was last year and from what I understand it started about a year before that so I mean we’ve been getting a lot of new people every year so the team’s just kinda growing,” said Sigmond.

The SU teams plays at the Women’s Building Field every Sunday…

“We just usually play like pickup games it’s just a way to kill an afternoon especially on a lazy Sunday and it’s just kinda grown into a nice thing. It’s nice to see the same faces. We’ve gotten a lot of friends over the years from doing this. It’s just kinda a nice thing especially for kids their freshmen year don’t really know anybody it’s just kinda nice to get people together,” said Shields.

Ithaca and Cornell also practice on Sundays while SUNY Geneseo practices Saturday afternoons. Players say it’s more about having a good time than the rivalries between teams but that doesn’t mean things can’t get a little rough…

“Its full contact, there’s no tackling to the ground normally, you can do that if you want but there’s nothing that says you can’t grab somebody and strip them from the balls as hard as you want,” said Govoni.

The World Cup Quidditch Tournament was held in New York City this year, a big step up from the previous host city of Middlebury, Vermont. Although Syracuse was the only team from Central New York that attended and lost in the first round, they say Quidditch is more about having fun than actually winning.

“Ya know we are just a bunch of kids who come out here on a Sunday and just shoot the shit so we’re just going to go down there to see our friends that we’ve made over the years,” said Shields.

Some schools hope to make Quidditch a NCAA sport. But the Syracuse team has its doubts after the hoops they have had to go through trying to form a club team.

“I mean there’s a lot of red tape involved with trying to start something like this. We’ve always thought about becoming a club sport but there’s so much red tape and you have to sign this form/that form and you have to reserve fields. I think it’s actually too late in the year to reserve a field as a club so we realized it’s better to just come down here unofficially but i mean there’s a lot of red tape like that,” said Shields.

The teams say they have had their share of being made fun of.

“There are people who think we are nerds just running around trying to fly in our childhoods and there are other kids who just think this is the coolest thing ever so if we can help kids live out their childhood fantasies it’s just kinda nice thing to do,” said Shields.

But the bottom line of the SU Quidditch team, much like that of the Harry Potter books, is having fun.

“At the end of the day you’re playing a game where you’re running around on brooms based on a fictional sport so you can never take yourself too seriously no matter how aggressive you get, you have to kinda take a step back and realize I’m just doing this for fun,” said Shields.

Jessica Palombo, CONNECT Commentator tells us why she recycles.

I am not a tree-hugging hippy. I don’t drive a hybrid car, and the imported fish and vegetables I buy travel thousands of miles over land and sea to reach my plate.

But, there is one daily act I do whenever possible… because my generation grew up just knowing it was the right thing to do. So why do I see so many of my peers not doing it?
To me, recycling doesn’t even seem like a choice. It’s like brushing my teeth or wearing clothes. It’s what I was taught to do, and it just makes sense.

Think through a day in your life. Try adding up each time you throw something in the trash. Dental floss. Gum wrapper. Sandwich paper. Soda cup. Spoiled yogurt. According to the Public Broadcasting Company, all of these little things add up to an average of 4.4 pounds of garbage per person per day. Now multiply that by 7 billion people who live on earth, and you get almost 31 Billion pounds of trash generated every day on earth.

So with all that waste building up every day, people like to say, “I’m just one person. My soda bottles won’t change the future of the planet.” They’re right. But if everyone recycled even half the time, the EPA tells us that that we could vastly reduce the pollution from manufacturing, save energy, decrease greenhouse gases, conserve natural resources and help sustain the environment for our kids and grandkids. Plus, recycling creates jobs for Americans and helps reduce our dependence on foreign oil sources.
Syracuse is actually a really great place for recycling. The university and the county programs are out there. In your face.
I went to a neighborhood festival, and the Onondaga County recycling people, OCCRA, were there handing out blue bins and helpful lists to tell you what gets recycled and what doesn’t.
Walking around Syracuse University’s campus, I see recycle bins next to virtually every trash can. The people in charge make it easy to recycle.

That’s why it bothers me so much when the people around me don’t do it.

For example, in the Newhouse School, we have triple-purpose receptacles with three slots in the top: One for trash, one for paper, and one for other recyclables. This is exactly the setup I imagined might be possible at my old college, where the nearest recycle bin was usually on a different floor of the building.

But, even with the three options so clearly labeled, people still put their water bottles in the trash hole. Sometimes I think people don’t recycle when it’s not super convenient for them. But does it get any more convenient than being attached to the trash can? It’s almost like they are going out of their way to not recycle.
So even if you don’t believe in global climate change, or you think all recycling trucks secretly just go to straight to the city dump, there’s one big incentive for us poor college students…and everyone else… to recycle.
That’s why I bring my recyclables to the grocery store, get that deposit, and turn that trash into ice cream.

Why I Recycle from Jessica Palombo on Vimeo.

SYRACUSE, NY

Alyssa Raymond:  You say the modeling business is not so glamorous.  Why not?

Ann Marie Stonecypher

Ann Marie Stonecypher:  Ummm….because its really just like any other business. Its a marketing business.  And what I am doing is I am just marketing people.  Somebody calls and they want a model and I send a model.  Its just like ordering pizza or ordering anything else except its people.  So its not really glamy glamy and its Upstate New York so its not runway shows and things like that.  It might just be an ad for a little business to business flyer that no one is going to see but some industrial clients.

Raymond:  When people think of modeling…you usually think of high fashion and extremely skinny and tall females…this is not what your agency is about…why not?  And why might this be a good thing for Central New York?

Stonecypher:  Well to the question why not.  Umm because it is Upstate and we tailor our business to our clients that are here.  And because there’s no Victoria’s Secret or Calvin Klein here we tailor our business to the clients that are here.  The furniture stores.  The industrial clients.  And clients like that so they’re not going to higher long legged 16-year-old girls to be in their ad.  They’re going to hire a 35-year-old that might look like a doctor or a nurse or something like that.  So those are the type of people that I have to have in my business so thats really nice because those people have the opportunity to model.  And its just sideline.  Its not anything they’re going to make their daily bread from.  But its just a nice little extra bit of money.  I call it their shoe shopping, Turning Stone money not their pay their electric bill money.

Raymond:  So why is that a good thing for Central New York?

Stonecypher:  Because it is just another little level of income.  Just a little extra something.  Ummm…you know its not millions of dollars but you know its helping families with a little something extra.  I had a woman for years and years and years that the money that she made with me every year was their vacation money.  Her family of four every year went to Florida and went to the theme parks on the money that she made with my company every year.  That always made me feel great.

Raymond:  The modeling industry has a reputation of causing eating disorders. What are you doing about that and how effective is it? Can you give us examples?

Stonecypher:  We have never ever told any body to lose weight for a job.  The way that someone comes to me is the way I’ve taken them.  I’ve never said well I would take you except you need to lose weight.  Because we are not a fashion market or a catalogue type of market there is no pressure that everyone has to fit a certain size.  Ummm because mostly what we are doing is business to business type of things.  Editorial type of things there’s no one set look.  Ummm…I am very much a proponent of healthy eating and healthy looking people.  I do charity work for Ophelia’s Place, which is a center that helps people with eating disorders.  And we work on their fashion show every year.  They are very good friends to AMS Models and vice versa.  but ya we have never told anyone that they needed to lose weight.  Absolutely not.  We are proponents of healthy living not skinny.  Absolutely not.

Raymond:  Why do you think the modeling industry should exist?  What do you think it brings to society?

Stonecypher:  Ummm its really just another segment of advertising.  And it definitely just helps people brand their product.  If you’re going to sell…like we have a client that has a line of pajamas and if you want to brand that line you’re gonna pick your models that kinda have a look that represents your style.  And if you can pick those models yourself and have the look that you want you’re establishing your brand.  And you’re helping promote the look that you want.  And the same with any type of company, whether its a certain widget you’re selling and you want that widget exposed to the world by certain types of people holding it.  The people looking at the ad are going to identify with the people holding it.  Its all part of advertising.  And if you use models versus stock photos you don’t have to worry about your picture or your brand being diluted and being seen in other places.  And people say, oh wow that photo looks like a photo I saw in someone else’s ad.  You get to choose the model.  You get to choose exactly the look that you want and the people you want.  And we have every ethnicity that there is and we have every age group.  So you really get to pick and choose how you want your add too look.

Raymond:  You are in your sixth year as a breast cancer survivor. What has the experience taught you?

Stonecypher:  Well umm I think that everything we are death teaches us something and if it doesn’t then we need to look at it a little harder or listen a little harder.  Umm…and its taught me that life is so precious and everyday is a gift.  And ummm…sometimes you just need to turn it around and pay it forward and I’m just so happy to be here for my children and the people I love.  Umm…and my way of paying it forward is that I have a pink ribbon circle reminder.  And I send it out to over a 100 women every month to remind them to do their self exams because its still important.  And ummm…I talk to other survivors to try to give them encouragement and tell them that they will get to the other side and this is all the treatments and how awful it is and losing your hair and all that stuff.  Its temporary and you’ll get to the other side and you’ll be back.  And you know I’m just so grateful to still be on the planet and get a second shot at being alive.  I try not to sweat the small stuff because I know I was given a second chance so it really taught me so much really.

Raymond:  Thank you so much Ann Marie

Stonecypher:  You’re welcome.

SYRACUSE, NY—
Olga Rodriguez: You started this paper with the purpose of strengthening the Hispanic and Latino community. How has this community responded to CNY Latino?

Hugo Acosta

Hugo Acosta: It has responded in a way positively.  Our population is growing, particularly in Central New York. Our population isn’t as concentric as modern metropolitan areas however it is growing so that it is not just middle class or below residents in Syracuse for example, but we also have professionals now, we have people in the political arena, business owners, people in the health industry, and different sectors that are giving a more positive image to our community.

Rodriguez:  You mentioned people in the political arena, who would you consider to be the most influential Hispanic in this community?

Acosta: We used to have an individual from Syracuse, Fernando Ortiz; he used to be the commissioner of economic development in the city. He passed away over six months ago.  He was a very strong leader.  We also had Bea Gonzalez who had different positions in SU.  She used to be the president of the common council. She also ran for the mayor of the city, a very influential, very key person also in the political arena and not just Latino.

Rodriguez: What kind of stories is CNY Latino covering that mainstream media is not?

Acosta: Well, sometimes we try to always lead community-related stories.  The local mainstream media, the big guys here, only cover those stories unless there are controversial issues, so we try to cover a lot of the local events that happen in the community.  What the famous Spanish action league is doing here.  Very often we try to cover minor community-related events, or we try to cover celebrations, sad news, like the death of Fernando Ortiz.  We cover what’s going on with social or cultural related organizations that have something to do with the Latino community here in Syracuse.

Rodriguez: What do you think are some of the biggest issues that Hispanics are dealing with right now?

Acosta: Well right now I would say job placement.  I was surprised to find out that most of the Spanish population comes here for job placement. There are more opportunities to work here than other places; at least that’s what I have been told from those coming from NYC and the east coast, New Jersey and places like that. Especially middle-grade type of jobs.  Educated-jobs type of thing.

Rodriguez: You’ve said that part of the purpose of CNY Latino was to help others learn about the Hispanic community and culture. What can somebody who is not Latino learn by reading your paper?

Acosta: So our publication is not only a communication tool for our culture but for people of other cultures. For example, American population frequently subscribes to us and may read about issues that affect us from an ethnic background.  Kidney failures and stuff like that is stronger

Latino students in the Syracuse City School District practice vocabulary with flash cards. The language barriers between them and the teachers make it difficult for them to succeed.

Written and Produced By Stephanie Claytor

This fall, Latino community leaders from Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo met at the Upstate Latino Summit. The summit– held in downtown Syracuse–  gave Latinos from all over Upstate New York the opportunity to discuss issues in their community, such as education.

Nationwide, Latinos have the highest drop-out rate. And according the latest statistics revealed on the New York State Report card, Syracuse City School District is following that trend– a concern for some local leaders.

” We all know that, based on demographics, if we do not change that drop-out rate… this country is not going to survive,” said Syracuse Common Council President Bea Gonzalez.

During the education workshop, Margarita Reyes, a representative of the Rochester City School District showcased a survey she conducted at Monroe High School in Rochester. She asked the Latino students why their peers failed to finish school. Reyes said work, absence of parental guidance, pregnancies and lack of support from faculty were the main reasons why students said their peers quit school.

And some of the students in Syracuse shared similar sentiments.

“I didn’t like the class scheduling, I didn’t like some of the teachers, they were very rude, “said Keisha Encarnacion, a 21-year old Latina who quit attending Nottingham High school in the last semester of her senior  year. “When you did need help there, it was very hard because the classes were so large.”

“There’s a lot of percent of them that drop out because they get picked on,” said April Keller, a student at Fowler High school.

Social worker Donna Lucente has assisted students at Syracuse’s Fowler High School for more than a decade. She said a lack of vision is the reason students quit school.

“A lot of students don’t have a vision for their future that they could go to college or that college could be affordable for them,” Lucente said.

The Syracuse City School District has around 20,000 students enrolled in school this year. About 1200 of them are Latinos. Fowler High School has the largest percentage of Latinos out of all of the high schools.  There, Latinos make up about a quarter of the student body.  According to the New York State Report card, which gives statistics and evaluates the performances of schools in the state, only 32 percent of the Latino students at Fowler High School in the class of 2007 graduated by August of that year. That’s about 22 Latino students out of the 68 students in the class.

Principal James Palumbo said the school’s dropout rate is “unacceptable.” He states the school’s six-year Latino graduation rate is somewhere around 50 percent. And he said he is willing to bet that if he had more Spanish speaking teachers, the graduation rate for Latino students would rise.

But, year after year, Palumbo said there aren’t any Spanish speaking certified candidates applying.  Syracuse City School Superintendent Lowengard echoed Palumbo’s concern.

“We believe in bilingual education,” Lowengard said. “But, it’s an issue for us, finding teachers that are certified and that speak Spanish. ”

**If you want to learn more about how your child’s school scored on the New York State Report card, click here.

The Westcott Theatre is located on Westcott Street, just blocks from Syracuse University

Written/Produced by Lara Bryn Greenberg

Syracuse, N.Y. – There are many different names for the same building on Westcott Street: The Westcott, The Westcott Theater, The Westcott Cinema and The Harvard Cinema. Nowadays, it’s called The Westcott or The Westcott Theater, and it’s one of the go-to concert venues in Syracuse.

The theater opened as The Harvard Cinema in 1926, and for more than eighty years, it showed independent and foreign films on a single screen.  But in October, 2007, this historical building closed down. Then-owner Nat Tobin kept the theater alive for more than ten years—along with his other building, The Manlius Cinema.

“Between utilities and rent, [The Westcott Cinema] was draining the profits of both theaters, and the only way that I felt that art as a medium in Syracuse could survive is if I gave up that theater and concentrated on Manlius again,” Tobin said.

But it didn’t take long for the space to be picked up by someone else.

Dan Mastronardi is in charge of booking bands in Central New York.  He shares his company, Hollerback Productions, with his partner Sam Levey. The two completely renovated the space themselves.

“It was long and tedious. It was not as expensive as most people would think because we did all the work ourselves,” Mastronardi said. All that work included tearing out seats and installing a 36-by-16 foot stage and a bar. The venue now has a maximum capacity of seven-hundred people. They generally have one hundred to two hundred guests per show, but have sold out at least a dozen times Mastronardi said.

Venue connects S.U. campus with Syracuse community

As a concert venue, The Westcott adds to the neighborhood—providing the “Westcott Nation” with a venue that Syracuse University students and community members can enjoy.

“It’s a big step to open a venue. And they’re taking those steps and they’re still improving things as we go now a year out,” said Ulf Oesterle, owner of Aux Records and host of iROCK at WKRL in Syracuse. He praised the venue for its closeness to the community, explaining that “the fact that you can just head out and see a show just down the street that’s national acts, that’s great.”

Oesterle explained that it’s an all-age venue. Meaning that while it has a bar, most of the shows allow people under the age of eighteen to attend. He said that makes parents feel more comfortable about letting their children go to shows and mingle with students from the nearby SU campus. He said it’s a nice spot where people are “looking out for each other.”

But the theatre is also a launching pad for new talent. Though Mastronardi brings in national touring acts, he usually has local Syracuse and Central New York bands open for them. This gave him his first piece of national press coverage on the music site, Jambase, which has information about bands, concerts, and tours.

Other local venues can’t compare

Adam Gold frequents the theater to see concerts and perform with his band, Sophistafunk. He also owns his own venue called Funk N Waffles on Marshall Street near the SU hill. It’s a coffee shop and waffle restaurant that books bands to play at night. He said he would never be able to book bands like The Westcott because his café is small and simply can’t hold the national touring bands that The Westcott gets.

“I’m really glad The Westcott’s here. You know, there’s really no venue like it in this city. And I think we really need it to help build the music scene,” Gold said.

Adults and teenagers alike packed the theater in early October when Gold and his band opened for the band Soulive. The unusual, yet comforting venue brought a well-balanced combination of young and old music lovers. And that’s exactly what Mastronardi said he aims for.

Students play beer pong on Syracuse University campus. The traditional college drinking games has been linked to the spread of the H1N1 virus.

Beer Pong- Another Swine Flu Victim

By Rachel Silver

Syracuse, N.Y. – A longstanding college tradition may be a cause in the spread of swine flu.

Beer pong, a college drinking game, is popular with students on campuses across the country. In the game, players throw ping-pong balls into cups of beer to determine who drinks and continue playing until all of the cups are empty.

But while the game may seem relatively harmless, several schools have connected outbreaks of H1N1 on their campuses to the game.

At Rennsalaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, twenty-one students with confirmed cases of swine flu were said to contract the virus through beer pong, causing the university to send out a message warning students of the potential dangers of the game.

At Syracuse University, the administration took a proactive approach through an advisory sent to off-campus students regarding the health risks of beer pong.

“There is an obvious connection between people exchanging germs through contact with cups and sharing beverages,” said Carol Masiclat, associate director of communications for the Division of Student Affairs. “So obviously if you’re sharing cups and, you know, putting your mouth on common things, it’s possible you could increase you risk of getting sick.”

However, despite the university’s warnings, the majority of SU students, like Ian Chin, remain unconcerned.

“It’s part of the college culture, you know,” said Chin. “It’s fraternities and sororities like playing it, it’s a staple at college parties and, you know, college kids like to, you know, get intoxicated.”