October 2016 – Page 11 – The Western Howl

By: Burke De Boer
Sports Editor

The NFL preseason ended and games are now serious. The trial-and-error month is forgotten. Except for one moment.

Colin Kaepernick remained seated during the national anthem. I didn’t think much of it at the time, figuring he needed as much sitting practice as he could get. The San Francisco 49ers are a mediocre-to-bad team with Blaine Gabbert their mediocre-to-bad quarterback. This left Colin to fight practice team wanderer, Christian Ponder, for the backup’s seat on the bench.
Ponder had a good preseason too.

I figured Kaepernick wouldn’t throw a pass this year and I haven’t changed my mind. However, his protest will be intrinsic to the sports annals of 2016.

We’ve had a hot summer, folks. Philando Castile was killed by police while trying to show his license and registration. Alton Sterling was pinned to the ground and shot for selling CDs. Terence Crutcher was shot while holding his hands in the air.

Protests spread, often turning violent. Five police officers were killed in Dallas.

And the Democratic Party nominated a member of the old guard, whose 1990s party ramped up the War on Drugs. This escalation disproportionately affected blacks who, today, make up 40 percent of the American prison population despite being 13 percent of the general population, according to the U.S. census.

Kaepernick has brought all this summer heat into the football stadium, using his platform to bring attention to a people he feels this country has left behind. For largely the same reasons that Johnny Cash wore black, Colin Kaepernick now sits. Other players have followed suit, raising fists and kneeling.

But football is a conservative institution. Sports generally teach conservative principles from a child’s first youth league. Across the country, kids are brought up from peewee sports to blue collar work or military service.

It is in this spirit that the military has been evoked to condemn players sitting. The flag is very personal to a lot of people who have known or served alongside men and women who died protecting what the American flag represents.

It represents a country founded on the ideals of freedom. Which especially includes the freedom to critique. It is only through free democratic discussion that a country can grow. As anyone who’s played a sport knows, it is only through critique that you improve.

Whether or not you agree with his method, and whether or not you think America is already the greatest country in the world, the fact is America can still be better. The gulf between government and black communities it’s supposed to represent is one more problem that’s going mainstream.

In the hot summer of 2016, it seemed unlikely that Colin Kaepernick as a quarterback would ever be discussed by any sports panel. And then the hot summer went pro. Would Ray Lewis and Shannon Sharpe have discussed life in African-American communities on Fox Sports 1 without Kaepernick’s controversy? Certainly not. But now that discussion has come to America’s conservative institution.

Contact the author at journalsports@wou.edu

Link to attach to “according to the U.S. census” in online publication: http://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/rates.html

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Exploring the final frontier

By: Zoe Strickland
Managing Editor

In 2024, just 55 years after the moon landing, we could be setting foot on Mars. Despite it being a mere eight years into the future, Elon Musk, CEO of aerospace manufacturer SpaceX, is convinced that he will be able to send a rocket full of passengers to Mars.

Traveling to Mars wouldn’t be an easy feat; the process would involve creating a vessel that is reusable, while also developing a way for the vessel to refuel while in orbit.

On Sept. 27, Musk spoke at the 67th International Astronautical Conference in Guadalajara, Mexico about his long-term plans for eventually colonizing the fourth closest planet to the sun.

In a video of his speech released by Bloomberg.com, Musk spoke about the logistics of how often we would be able to send new people to Mars, “The Earth-Mars rendezvous only occurs roughly every 26 months”.

If we can only send rockets to Mars every two years, how long would it take to fully colonize the planet? “If we say the minimum threshold for a self sustaining city on Mars…would be 1,000,000 people… and you can only go every two years. If you have 100 people per ship, that’s 10,000 trips…From the point at which the first ship goes to Mars, it’s probably within 20 to 50 Mars rendezvous. It’s probably somewhere between 40 to 100 years to achieve a fully self-sustaining civilization on Mars”, Musk said in his speech.

The idea of going to Mars could soon be a reality, but achieving self-sustaining life on Mars will still be a long-term work in progress.

Despite how alluring the concept of colonizing a new planet is, SpaceX, as well as other privatized companies that are looking into creating spaceships, is hitting a major roadblock when it comes to making their plans a reality: proper funding. Receiving sufficient funding for space exploration has plagued both public and private space exploration organizations for years. According to Musk, part of curbing the funding issue is to try and find a way to allow for more than 100 people to be sent in a single rocketship. By finding a way to allow more passengers, he hopes to eventually decrease the amount that one has to pay to be sent to Mars from $10 billion, to a mere $200,000.

Though SpaceX’s plans put them at the forefront of innovative space technology, they would not have made such significant strides without the work done by public aeronautical agencies, such as NASA, who have provided contracts and funding to SpaceX.

NASA’s continuous efforts to further space exploration take form in the information gathered by Spirit and Opportunity, the two Mars rovers that were sent to explore the planet. The two rovers have provided information that has been integral in deciding if Mars would be a habitable planet; the Mars rovers have discovered water, as well as gathered information regarding the atmospheric make-up of the planet.

Contact the author at journalmanaging@wou.edu.

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“Rogue One” merchandise hits shelves

By: Ashton Newton
Entertainment Editor

Disney is well aware of the massive fan base that Star Wars has. Hundreds of thousands of people from all ages adore the series and, subsequently, are fully prepared to throw their money at it. With last year’s reboot of the Star Wars franchise, Disney announced that a new Star Wars film would be released every year until 2020. One year will be a part of the trilogy; the next will be a standalone story. Disney has also started an annual tradition called Force Friday where all the upcoming film’s merchandise will be released.
Force Friday of last September, prior to “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”, was a massive success. Fans flocked to stores all over the world to get their hands on toys, clothes and more for the new film.

Disney is continuing the tradition for the newest film “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” which releases this December. This year’s Force Friday took place on Sept. 30. Stores such as Wal-Mart, Target and Toys R Us had special displays set up featuring all the new merchandise.

Toys R Us opened its doors at 12:01 a.m. for eager customers who couldn’t wait to get their hands on the new merchandise. I was one of those customers, standing in line for an hour before the opening with about 40 other people, a lot of whom brought lawn chairs and blankets and were there hours before me. Darth Vader, Chewbacca, Rey and a Scout Trooper were even there to take pictures and get people excited.

When the doors opened people went crazy grabbing items and piling them high in their carts. Employees were handing out free t-shirts and posters as well.

As for the new merchandise, Disney released a large amount of action figures for the upcoming film, as well as updated figures from previous films, such as an updated version of Kylo Ren. Due to the limited quantity, people were especially interested in the Toys R Us exclusive six inch Hovertank Pilot. I had to fight for that one. Other items available included a replica Stormtrooper helmet, new Darth Vader masks, a Bluetooth speaker that looked like BB-8 and many new Funko Pop bobble heads.

Not all of the new merchandise is from the upcoming film. The animated TV show “Star Wars: Rebels”, which just aired the premiere of its third season, received many new figures and bobble heads as well. Sphero’s remote controlled BB-8, which was released on Force Friday last year, received an upgraded wristwatch that allows users to use hand motions to control BB-8 and essentially use the force.

Lego also had a large amount of new sets for the upcoming film showcased. Five new sets are now out on Amazon and at other retailers, all brand new vehicles from “Rogue One”. Lego also released three new buildable figures.

All the new merchandise is out now at Toys R Us, Target, Wal-Mart, F.Y.E and more. “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” comes out on Dec. 16.

Contact the author at journalentertainment@wou.edu

A new kind of sit-in

Exploring the final frontier

“Rogue One” merchandise hits shelves

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