LoYo your way to a lower weight

28 Sep 2011, Posted by Dylan Peterson in Digging into Durham, News, 0 Comments

Jisoo Yoon/The Chronicle

This is the first post in our new series called Digging into Durham. In this series, we will highlight restaurants and stores restaurants that are popular among Duke students, and also some that we think Dukies should know about. This blog post features Local Yogurt, and the next will feature Devines, a popular sports bar on 9th street.

Who says you can’t have your cake and lose weight too?

Durham’s first independently-owned frozen yogurt shop, Local Yogurt, offers this fantastical dichotomy to all who enter the shop. Staying thin and eating dessert are no longer enemies.

Described on their website as “The Happiest Place in Durham,” LoYo offers delicious frozen yogurt at 25 calories per ounce for all flavors and all yogurts are either nonfat or lowfat, said Jenny Paul, manager of the Erwin and University Drive locations.

“Our yogurts are all natural,” Paul said. “Yogurt is healthier than ice cream around the board, and you’re getting good bacteria for your digestive system.”

Calorie-wise, a person weighing 150 pounds who walks from the bus stop on West Campus to the Local Yogurt on Erwin and back will burn more calories than consumed in a small frozen yogurt—and will burn all but 60 calories if consuming a medium froyo. Besides leaving LoYo losing weight, you will also save money on a taxi that could cost anywhere from $3 to $7 each way.

Local Yogurt always has plain and chocolate yogurt on the tap ready to serve and has 2 additional flavors that are switched either weekly or bi-weekly depending on the month or season. This fall, for example, they will be serving their homemade pumpkin yogurt that historically has sold really well, Jenny Paul said. Flavors range from thin mint and peanut butter to dolce de leche and red velvet.

In addition, toppings include fruit, cereal, candy, chocolate, coconut, sprinkles, peanut butter and the traditional ice cream shop toppings. Like their specialty yogurts, LoYo offers specialty toppings like homemade organic brownies and chocolate chip cookies. They also work with local organic bakeries and farms.

“You can splurge on the toppings with froyo because it is so low calorie and low fat,” Paul said.

Besides pleasing your taste buds and losing weight, LoYo has employees that are health conscious and genuinely happy to be there. Paul offered me free samples, suggested her favorite healthy and unhealthy options and the decorations around the shop are bright and cheerful, as the website suggests.

Especially with the looming threat of the freshman 15, it is relieving and delightful to know that LoYo not only offers a mouthwatering and healthier alternative, but also may help you lose weight if you walk there.

A musical organ(ism)

28 Sep 2011, Posted by Jamie Moon in Backpages, 0 Comments

Sophia Palenberg/The Chronicle

Duke Chapel organist David Arcus calls his audience an almost “cultish” following.

Arcus’s music has gained international acclaim—featured on national radio broadcasts and can be found on his CD Organs of Duke Chapel. Not only does regularly play in the Chapel and for Duke Chapel Organ Recital Series, but he has also traveled across the world to places like Great Britain, Germany and France as a solo recitalist.

His next performance is to be held this Friday at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Illinois at 7:30 p.m.

“There is definitely an enthusiastic following of not necessarily me, but the organ,” Arcus said. “I think it may be the mystery and appeal of the organ itself.”

Invited through the American Guild of Organists, a professional organization for organists and choral musicians, Arcus plans to play pieces by Schumann, Dupré and Bach at the Cathedral. In addition to these classical pieces, he plans to play two of his original compositions written in 1987 and 2005, respectively.

“I try to tailor the program to this history of the place, link the composers to my performance,” he said.

Although the organ is often associated with a spiritual connotation, Arcus’ audiences show that the organ is more than just a church choir accompaniment. People of all ages, backgrounds and faiths can be found at his recitals. The allure of the organ is in its art form—the variety, tone, depth and colors that are difficult to find in any other instrument, he said

Arcus began his organ studies when he was 13, after studying the piano, a conventional practice for many organists. After getting his M.Mus. and D.M.A. degrees at the Yale University School of Music, he arrived at Duke in 1984. Starting out as the Chapel organist and staff associate in the music department, Arcus gradually built his career as a recitalist and composer.

He describes the Chapel as more than just a university building but an aggregate with a bigger community and profile. The Duke Chapel is also well-known in the organist circle for its reputable concert organs.

“In spite of the fact that I’ve traveled in very spectacular places, it’s always a pleasure to come back to Duke and call the Chapel my home base,” Arcus said. “It’s a real honor.”

A matter of life and death

27 Sep 2011, Posted by Andrew Karim in Backpages, 0 Comments

The Sept. 21 execution of Troy Davis sparked an international outcry.

Special to The Chronicle

Just moments before he was put to death, Davis spoke his last words.

“I am innocent,” he said. “I did not have a gun.”

Davis, 42 years old, was charged with the murder of policeman Mark MacPhail in 1989. With virtually no evidence and shaky witness testimonies at best, the case has resulted in a movement that questions not only the verdict itself, but also the universal ethics of the death penalty and prison system.

The Center for Race Relations at Duke hosted a discussion Sept. 26 titled Too Much Doubt: Troy Davis & What Lies Ahead. Senior Alex Alston, co-director of the CRR dialogues committee, voiced his concern regarding Davis’ death.

“I think the case of Troy Davis, as well as those who have and will suffer similar fates, should serve as constant reminders that even as Barack Obama sits in the Oval Office, the performance and the perception of blackness are still criminal in the popular imagination,” he said. “The implications are dark, angering, and frightening. I hope our generation will use this mismanagement of justice as a catalyst to begin taking responsibility for the evils we have inherited.”

Wahneema Lubiano, professor of African and African American studies department at Duke was present at the dialogue. Lubiano noted the facts that made some attendees uneasy, to say the least, and allowed for further questioning of the role of law enforcement in the United States.

“For every 100,000 people in United States, [748 are in prison],” Lubiano said.

This number may seem low, but it is important to note the corresponding rates in other countries such as France (100), Germany (75) and Japan (60).

Excessive imprisonment also has sever financial penalties, as the cost of keeping a prisoner in jail can reach up to $50,000 per year in California—only a fraction of that amount is spent on each pupil in the state public education system. 

Statistically speaking, the United States is the most punitive country of the world. The United States remains the last western industrialized country to practice the death penalty—137 countries have abolished it.

Taking into account the numerous qualms our criminal justice system has yielded, it might be prudent to ask: Is prison the best way to handle crime? Or, on that note, what constitutes crime? Can race, socio-economic status or other minority identity factors be taken into account?

It is not often one can say that it is literally a matter of life and death.

This week in Chronicle history: Coming out week

24 Sep 2011, Posted by Patton Callaway in Backpages, Chronicle History, 0 Comments

Lauren Dietrich/The Chronicle

Changes, nine years in the making.

On September 19, 2002, The Chronicle reported on “Coming Out Week” at Duke. The Alliance of Queer Undergraduates at Duke (AQUDuke) organized events to both allow gay students to feel comfortable being themselves and to bring other students’ reactions to their peers into the spotlight.

AQUDuke transformed the East Campus bridge into a rainbow as a reminder to all of the week and its purpose. Perhaps more apparent to students than the colors, however, was the “Kiss-In” event—a picnic-style lunch hosted on the lawn of the Chapel. Here students, gay or straight, did not have to shy away from showing their affections. Although many did not sieze the opportunity to display public affection, the event attacked a major issue concerning gay couples.

“You can deal with the fact that [someone is] gay, but can you deal with seeing it?” said junior Brian Barrera, president of AQUADuke, to The Chronicle in Sept. 19, 2002.

The week also included a Coming Out Week Dinner where instead of a prominent speaker, students read other students’ coming out stories.

Jessica Rosario, chair of Coming Out Week said, “The intention is that someone very unlike you will be reading your story and that people from an outside [non-LGBT] organization will get an idea of what coming out is like.”

Many students involved with Coming Out Week also participated in the annual Pride Parade and Festival. This week marks the 27th anniversary of the Parade, hosted by the Pride Committee of North Carolina. Held right off of Duke’s own East Campus, students decorate a float every year to show support for the LGBT community.

Kelly Chong, Trinity ’06,—who was only “semi-out” before coming to Duke but then fully came out—said, “Duke is known as homophobic, so I’m hoping this will change. I know it can’t happen overnight, but maybe gradually it will.”

So just how far have students come since then?

Even now with its growing Center for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Life (LGBT), Duke has students who still face many of the same issues. Just as the organization’s name has evolved from Gothic Queers to AQUDuke to the Center for LGBT Life, the issues that gay students face continue to change.

House model: an independent’s perspective

24 Sep 2011, Posted by Ibe Alozie in Backpages, 0 Comments

Thanh-Ha Nguyen/The Chronicle

Independents are overwhelmingly disagreeing with the planned switch to a housing model with surprising unity.

Opposed or not, it is coming. The housing model will be implemented next year at Duke. After a series of student group meetings, administrative collaboration and open forums, the house model is nearly ready.

The housing model would create de facto selective living groups within houses. Intended to create a sense of community and dorm identity, the model will give all students the option of living within a certain house from their sophomore year to their senior year.

Via meetings and emails, the administration has reiterated that it hopes the new model will remove the uncertainty upperclassmen tend to have about future dorm location.

They value the close-knit comfort of East Campus and believe upperclassmen need a homely haven on West and Central campuses as well, said Joe Gonzalez, associate dean for residence life.

But independent upperclassmen have conveyed dissatisfaction with the approaching switch.

Sophomore Michael Farruggia expressed his unhappiness with the planned housing model.

He called the decision “another step back toward Ivies—factory-style student life without consulting the whole student body.”

Farruggia attributed his frustration with the new housing model to an unresponsive administration with little respect for the views of the student body in, what he called, its “unilateral” decision making.

Farrugia’s feelings echo many of the same sentiments that have been espoused by those objecting to the administration’s handling of the  housing model issue. Marginalization by a hypocritical administration that has shown an aversion toward selective living groups (yet wants a campus full of them) and disrespect from an administration that ignores public opinion.

Unaffiliated sophomore Jordan Cole also expressed uncertainty. Cole, who lives in a block with more students than would be allowed under the new guidelines, has reservations with the change to a housing model. He questioned the relative benefit of the housing model (as opposed to the current model) for independents due to the limit they impose on the amount of friends a student can choose to live with.

Continuing the negative reaction to the housing model, sophomore George Fan questioned whether a change was even necessary. Fan stated that while a form of the model works on East Campus, that “unique experience should stay on East Campus.”

Independent Joshua Stives objected to the plan on a different ground.

“[There] would be too much moving,” Stives said. “Selective living groups would have to move for the first time in years, and it would be unfair.”

He said that there had to be other options rather than a poorly communicated model.

For a portion of the unaffiliated student body, the housing model remains an enigma, and the administration hopes that the upcoming information sessions will allow students to adequately understand the looming changes. But will information sessions settle the indignant Independent body of Duke students?