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(11/17/06 4:45am)
This is the tale of two gunslingers. Each man represents his respective home in the state of Indiana; each man has a dying deed for the other. Though they have faced off before, they have never done so under these circumstances. Boiler, the man from West Lafayette, has lassoed a long-lost friend of Hoosier, Boiler's adversary to the South. He has taken Hoosier's friend captive. That friend is Bowl Berth -- but his friends just call him Bowl. Right now Bowl is in a Bucket. \nThus, in the name of football -- in the state of Indiana -- and in the final stages of fall, these two foes face one final hurdle: each other. Saturday, in Boiler's backyard, the two gunslingers of Indiana will meet at High Noon outside the Tippecanoe County Courthouse. The two gunslingers will fight for honor with their hearts. They will fight for glory with their guns. They will fight for their lives. They will fight...for a Bucket? \nThey will not fight at the O.K. Corral; instead, the High Noon heat will hit the streets at the OaKen Corral. Since 1925, the Old Oaken Bucket has been the prize possessed by the winner of the IU-Purdue game. This is a bucket that is so old...(How old is it?)...that it has the word "Old" in its name (cue the drum-beat). Come Saturday, our friend Bowl is in that Bucket, and the only way to Bowl is to blow away Boiler. \nThe stage is set Saturday for football. Its conclusion rests in the players' response to one question: Do you want it bad enough? \n"I didn't sleep at all last night," senior offensive lineman Justin Frye said Tuesday. "I've played football since the third grade, and I have always been a football player. This is it." \nThis is it, Justin. This is the re-birth of a rivalry. This is High Noon at the OaKen Corral, and you've got four feats to finish before you get the hell out of Dodge. \nBeat Boiler, win a bowl berth, bring the bucket. Oh, and get the girl.
(11/17/06 3:48am)
My column is due soon. For the last few hours, I've been sitting in a dark room in front of a glowing TV screen mashing buttons. I just opened Firefox to compulsively check my Facebook profile, but in the process I ran across an interesting Nov. 14 article, "Workshop helps students overcome procrastination habit," on idsnews.com. The main point: People procrastinate, citing the Internet as the No. 1 source of distraction. The article also introduces the idea that by not procrastinating, you can get more work done. I wholeheartedly disagree. Procrastination has been an integral part of my creative process since the fifth grade. Everybody does it. It's not a bad thing at all. It makes the final minutes before any given deadline infinitely more productive than they would be otherwise. \nThe aforementioned article portrays procrastination in a decidedly negative light, implying that it is a bad habit that all students should try to get rid of by taking the class Managing Resources for Learning. Throughout the article, students make testimonials about how tired they are and how they get lured into watching TV or sitting in front of the computer for hours on end instead of doing homework. I say, good for them! Keep it up! This article is sending the wrong message to students. Without procrastination, nothing would ever get done. That's right, nothing. Procrastination is a vital step in the process of doing just about anything. \nHere's how it works: First, you receive an assignment, due some time in the unforeseeable future; let's say two weeks. There's no reason to worry about it now. Aliens (or the Iranian government) could blow up the world by then, so you should enjoy your last days and not waste them finishing a project that won't even be relevant in a post-apocalyptic world. Let's say a week and six days pass, and you don't get anything done. Good job! While this does not qualify as procrastination, you're on the right track. You've waited the standard period of time that everyone waits before starting anything. Now the day before it's due is when the real procrastination starts. If you spend your day watching Montel, doing countless Sudoku puzzles, then you're a true procrastinator and a true American. Then, hours before the deadline, you gulp down some Starbucks and prepare to work. After a long day of procrastination, you need to get your project done in the most efficient way possible. Procrastination breeds efficiency and productivity. Without it, you might work a little bit each day, taking a slow, steady approach to the assignment. But with it, you get a great result in no time at all. \nAs you can see, without step three, there is no step four. Without procrastination, there is no final project. I just wish that people would stop giving procrastinating such a bad rap. It's a time-honored tradition that makes the world go round. Without it, we'd be lost.
(11/17/06 3:47am)
Do you ever wish in the middle of a fight, the experience of a bad attitude or seeing various harmful or downright mean things done around campus, that everyone would just stop, take a look around, get over themselves and smile? It seems like a perfectly plausible solution that will bring a little more peace to our everyday lives: Just shut up and smile. It reads like that old cliche: "Can't we all just get along?" And why not? What would it take for IU students to drop their old disputes and just be happy?\nBowling for Soup says that "All we need is love and beer, and old-school metal and holiday cheer, to be happy." Old-school metal needs no explanation, and holiday cheer generally has a euphoric sense associated with it. And, of course, beer is a necessary component. It is not uncommon down on Kirkwood Avenue to see a group of complete strangers sitting around laughing until they cry because they have spent their evening throwing back a few. It definitely seems to be a happiness instigator. Beer is not only beneficial to those who consume it. Where would the rest of the world be without the glorious Budweiser commercials released throughout the year? Whether it be images of a football game played by horses being interrupted by a streaking sheep or the agreement of a pretty girl to let a guy date both her and her roommate, the laughter that is produced by Budweiser is beneficial to good moodmaking. It seems that the rock band is right. Those things are all we need to be happy.\nSo why be happy? Why laugh whenever possible? Besides the obvious benefits that are hard to argue with (it just makes people feel better), there are wonderful results of laughter that many might not consider. According to the Web site of self-proclaimed "humor therapist" and "internet comic," Neil Baxter (www.freewebs.com/laughtertherapy/), through studies of laughter and practice of "humor therapy" -- "the therapeutic process which claims beneficial effects from the use of positive emotions associated with laughter" -- science has found that laughter can lower blood pressure, reduce stress hormones, release endorphins and boost the immune system. Not only is being in a good mood fun and generally better than hatred, it's also very healthy for these reasons. Also, Kathy Overman's 2004 book "Laugh It Off! Weight Loss for the Fun of It" shows how, after deciding to attempt to use laughter as a means of weight loss, she lost 35 pounds by laughing it off. A great way to have fun and stay in shape. According to William Fry, an associate professor emeritus of clinical psychiatry at Stanford University, "Laughing 100 to 200 times per day is the cardiovascular equivalent of rowing for 10 minutes." That's a pretty good workout!\nSo the next time you see someone down in the dumps or fighting, take Bowling for Soup's advice: "Tell all the haters that they should just shut up and smile"
(11/17/06 3:43am)
If I must admit it, I actually do enjoy watching the occasional Fox News clip or Bill O'Reilly video. And, though it's not something that I have ever considered publicly owning up to before, I have watched my fair share. Once a month, once a week, maybe even once a day.\nSometimes we all just need a good laugh, and I've found that I can always rely on not only the Fox network's actual "news" to provide a good chuckle, but that even more heartwarming are its assorted political commentators. The spectrum of sweeping opinions expressed by these icons bring quality humor that only Fox can provide. More times than not, when I turn on "The O'Reilly Factor," it's so hilarious to hear a crotchety old man spew nonsensical verse laden with self-coined terms like "secular progressive agenda" and "San Francisco values" that it's very easy to just kick back and have a good guffaw. With this being said, as the midterm election season came to a close, there was one thing that I had anticipated nearly as much as the results of the elections themselves: I just couldn't wait to hear O'Reilly's reaction. Glorious would be the day that he writhed in self-defeat in front of that huge percentage of the nation that makes up his loyal audience. \nSo I waited and waited and finally, there it was -- an update of the "Talking Points" videos in the Fox Web site's Opinion section. I eagerly clicked play and sat on the edge of my seat until ... until I realized that he didn't seem the least bit defeated or dismayed, and he wasn't even very funny. I decided to listen to the rest of it anyway. After throwing around all the expected topics -- Donald Rumsfeld, no visible progress in Iraq -- he said something I never saw coming, something so terribly unexpected I jumped up to replay the track. Bill O'Reilly said something that I agreed with. After looking out my window to confirm that the world had not actually ended, I played the video several times more.\nDirectly after O'Reilly accused the Democrats of "seeking to create a scandal" in the ways they might use their congressional majority to investigate the Bush administration, he actually made a valid point by explaining that these partisan inquiries could "backfire on the Democrats." Unfortunately when it comes to those four words, I completely agree with him. The Democrats, who cannot afford to follow O'Reilly's example by completely shutting out any opposing view points, must be ready to compromise. If the Democrats have established anything of their party identity, the one unifying intent seems to be their call for a change, and with this change must come a shift in the congressional partisan attitude. The Democrats are being given a chance to prove they can run a Congress that works and, unlike O'Reilly, cannot afford to squander their position by blaming the other side -- and that includes probing into the Bush administration.
(11/17/06 3:42am)
This is a plea. We're down on our knees, begging that our point be seen. Purdue: It would be in your interest to let the IU football team beat you Saturday. \n"That bucket is ours, you damn Hoosiers!" you might reply. But before making such a hasty claim, please hear us out.\nPurdue's football team has a record of 7-4 and is most likely bowl-bound this postseason. Admittedly, this is no reason to let an archrival win. But with IU at 5-6, Purdue might consider the financial implications of letting us take home the Old Oaken Bucket and becoming bowl-eligible. \nThe Big Ten Conference operates on a shared revenue basis -- the bowl revenue earned by each team goes directly to the Big Ten Conference. Each bowl team is allotted a budget for which to pay for trip expenses, including airline tickets, lodging and other necessities. Going over the budget entails that additional expenses be covered by the individual university. The rest of the revenue is distributed among the 11 institutions that make up the Big Ten Conference and the league itself. \nWe think you can see where we're going with this. Last season, the Big Ten pulled in an unprecedented $35 million dollars in revenue, which, after expenses, amounted to about $3 million to each of the conference's schools. If bowls began today, the Big Ten would most likely receive six bowl bids (Michigan, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Penn State, Purdue and Iowa, in order of best record), including two of 10 Bowl Championship Series teams (Michigan and Ohio State) that receive higher payouts for their prestigious games. This would bring the conference a pretty penny.\nBut consider if IU wins on Saturday. Previously, the NCAA mandated that each team be paid a minimum of $750,000 per bowl but now allows conferences to negotiate payouts with bowls individually. And the Big Ten is pretty good at negotiating. Last season, the lowest amount the Big Ten conference received for any of its bowl games was for the Music City Bowl, in which Minnesota pulled in $780,000. If IU receives a bowl bid, that's almost a guaranteed $750,000 for the conference, and the conference's seventh bowl-eligible team. If Minnesota can somehow beat Iowa on Saturday, rendering both teams an overall record of 6-6, that would give the conference eight bowl-eligible teams. \nDo you hear that? Cha-ching! The Big Ten would be rolling in dough with each extra bowl team. We know that Purdue is smart with its money. Purdue's Krannert School of Management graduate program is ranked by U.S. News and World Report as the nation's No. 21 business school (two spots above IU's Kelley School of Business). So, Purdue, use that business sense we know you have. Put winning and pride behind you. Screw tradition, and do the smart thing: Take the money and run. Then everyone is happy. We'll even let you keep the bucket. We're not used to having it anyway.
(11/17/06 3:40am)
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraq's higher education minister said Thursday that as many as 80 victims from a mass kidnapping earlier this week remain in captivity and that some of the 70 who have been freed were tortured.\nOn Tuesday, gunmen disguised in the blue camouflage uniforms of police commandos raided the Higher Education Ministry in Karradah, a primarily Shiite area of downtown Baghdad, handcuffed scores of people and took them away in about 20 pickup trucks.\nGovernment officials have given varying numbers on how many people were abducted, ranging from a high of about 150 to a low of 40 to 50. They also have conflicted on how many captives have been freed, raising skepticism about the scope of the abduction as well as how the victims were treated.\nHigher Education Minister Abed Theyab said 70 of 150 hostages were released, reaffirming a figure given Wednesday and saying those freed "were tortured and suffered a lot."\nBut National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie issued a statement that contradicted Theyab and claimed only 50 people total were kidnapped, all were released and nobody was killed.\nThe assault was widely believed to have been the work of the Mahdi Army, the heavily armed militia of anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and it raised questions about Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's commitment to wipe out the Shiite militias of his prime political backers: the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and al-Sadr's Sadrist Movement.\nThe mass abduction was seen as retaliation for the recent kidnapping of 50 Shiites south of Baghdad. Most, if not all of the latest victims who were not immediately released were Sunnis, the Higher Education Ministry spokesman said.\nTheyab -- a Sunni Muslim said on state television that his decision to suspend his membership in the Shiite-controlled Cabinet until the crisis was resolved was not driven by politics. He nevertheless issued a sharp attack on the country's security apparatus.\n"Those in charge of security should be responsible for security," he said of the Shiite-dominated Interior Ministry, which runs the police and security agencies.\nHe labeled "a farce" the lack of security that has allowed the widespread kidnappings and killings of people such as college students and professors in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities.\nEarlier, Theyab spokesman Basil al-Khatib said some of those freed after the mass kidnapping told officials that some victims had been killed by their abductors, believed to be Shiite militiamen.\n"Some of the hostages were tortured and killed, according to eyewitnesses from among the captives who were released," al-Khatib told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. He said he didn't know how many hostages had fallen victim to such abuse.\nDeadly attacks continued in the capital, with suspected insurgents and militias using guns, bombs and mortar shells to kill 18 Iraqis. Four U.S. soldiers also were reported killed during combat missions.\nU.S. forces said they killed nine suspected al-Qaida insurgents -- including several who were later found to be wearing suicide bomb vests -- during a raid in Youssifiyah, a rural area south of Baghdad. Nine other suspected insurgents were detained in the raid, the military said.\nThe military also said that more than 1,000 Iraqi soldiers began conducting a military operation on Wednesday aimed at clearing villages of suspected insurgents and their weapons caches near Iraq's northern city of Kirkuk.\nThe cordon and search operation, relying on the support of U.S. air and artillery from a nearby military base, was taking place in the Zytoon and Rashad valleys, about 25 miles south of Kirkuk.\nIraqi soldiers planned to remain in the area after the operation to protect civilians and to deny insurgents sanctuary in the area, the military said.\nIn the Iraq war, a main U.S. goal is to train Iraqi forces to take control of some areas of the country so that American forces can withdraw to their bases or send more soldiers to hard-hit areas such as \nBaghdad.
(11/16/06 5:17am)
RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- The suspect in a massive arson wildfire that killed five firefighters told prosecutors he drove to a spot near where it started on the night it was set to watch the flames, according to a police report obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press.\nRaymond Lee Oyler, 36, denied having anything to do with the crime when he spoke to investigators Oct. 27, the day after the fire began. He told investigators he had been gambling at the Morongo Indian Casino & Spa and then stopped at a Shell gas station before "traveling toward the Esperanza fire to watch it," according to the document that summarizes Oyler's interviews with police.\nThe affidavit said Oyler took an exit onto surface streets that would have placed him close to the spot where the fire started but does not exactly specify where he stopped.\nInvestigators pulled surveillance video from the casino and the gas station and did not find images of Oyler at either location during the times he said he was there, according to the affidavit, which was given to the AP by a person close to the investigation. The person insisted on anonymity because all documents in the case have been sealed.\nThe fire charred more than 60 square miles about 90 miles east of Los Angeles. The firefighters died when they were overrun by flames as they tried to protect a house in Twin Pines.\nOyler was charged Nov. 2 with multiple counts of murder and arson and could face the death penalty. He also is charged with starting 10 other fires in the same area since early June.
(11/16/06 5:08am)
Facing a penalty kick in the first half of IU's first-round NCAA Tournament game Wednesday night, IU sophomore goalkeeper Chay Cain was shivering in the box, but not because of the pressure.\nCain shrugged off the bone-chilling cold on a rain-soaked field, which made for less-than-ideal playing conditions, to make a sliding save of Northern Illinois University forward Marcus McCarty's penalty shot, deflecting the ball off his toe. Little did McCarty know, Cain already had an idea of where McCarty might shoot.\n"We try to get a (penalty kick) read on one of the opponent's shooters (each game). This time it was McCarty. (IU coach Mike Freitag) told me where he likes to go, so I had an idea," Cain said. "Luckily, I was able to get a foot on it, and the defense was there to knock the ball out."\nThe save, one of several by the keeper on the night, helped preserve IU's fourth shutout in a row, and, considering IU's limited offense this season, shutouts are a must for this team if the Hoosiers are to make a run at the NCAA College Cup.\nCain credited his defensive backs -- freshman Ofori Sarkodie, senior Julian Dieterle and junior Charley Traylor -- for keeping the close calls to a minimum.\n"They play well out there. They fight for each other," Cain said. "Honestly, they don't give me much to do."\nAgainst a big, physical Huskies team on a sloppy playing field, IU got on the board early and, as Freitag said, "fought tooth and nail" for the win. The Hoosiers were able to overcome field conditions that favored the defense-minded Huskies and effectively adjusted their playing style to the slow field conditions. The weather conditions were so bad that watching the path of the ball was like watching the fall of a Plinko chip on "The Price is Right."\nThe game sure wasn't pretty with numerous fouls on both sides, but this year's squad does pretty about as well as Bobby Knight does subtle.\nSophomore Brian Ackley's goal in the middle of the first half off an assist from midfielder John Mellencamp proved the difference and exhibited once again that this team knows how to defend a one-goal advantage.\n"This team finds a way to win," Freitag said. "It's been his refrain all season."\nCain praised the tenacity of his teammates when crammed near the goal saying, "It's a lot about our fight, our heart."\nFor at least one more round, that heart beats on.
(11/16/06 5:06am)
INDIANAPOLIS -- NCAA President Myles Brand aggressively defended the organization's tax-exempt status in a 25-page letter to Congress, arguing the primary goal of the NCAA is education.\nBrand pointed to recent academic reforms that increased eligibility standards and studies showing the average SAT scores of athletes are higher than those of the general student body as examples that the NCAA is committed first to educating athletes.\nThe response was sent Monday to Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif., the outgoing chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. It was released publicly Wednesday on the NCAA's Web site.\n"The lessons learned on the football field or men's basketball court are no less in value or importance to those student-athletes than the ones learned on the hockey rink or softball diamond -- nor, for that matter, than those learned in theater, dance, music, journalism or other non-classroom environments," Brand wrote.\nA spokesman for the committee said lawmakers did not plan to comment Wednesday on the NCAA's response.\nLast month, Thomas questioned whether the NCAA should retain its tax-exempt status given the amount of money it receives from TV contracts and championship events. He also questioned whether the federal government should subsidize college athletics when money helps pay for escalating coaching salaries, some of which reach seven figures.\nThomas told the NCAA to respond by late October, then extended the deadline to Monday.\nBrand argued that coaches' pay is commensurate with other highly recruited faculty members and said the NCAA should not be penalized because television networks are willing to pay millions or billions of dollars to air games since it does not change the NCAA's \nprimary purpose.\n"If the educational purpose of college basketball could be preserved only by denying the right to telecast the events, students, university faculty and staff, alumni, the institutions of higher education themselves and even the American taxpayer would ultimately lose," Brand wrote. "The scale of popularity and the media attention given to football and men's basketball do not forfeit for those two sports the educational purpose for which \nthey exist."\nBrand, the first ex-president of a university to lead the NCAA, has made academic reform his top priority since taking over in 2003.\nUnder his leadership, the NCAA has increased freshman eligibility standards, created stronger requirements to retain eligibility and enacted its own formula for determining graduation rates.\nMore recently, Brand has attempted to take on the growing expenses in college sports.\nHe has criticized high-priced coaches' salaries, and he has expressed growing concern over what he describes as the college "arms race" -- money being spent to upgrade or build new facilities so a school can remain \ncompetitive.\nIn the letter, Brand cited building expenses as an imperative reason for the NCAA to retain its tax exemption even as he said the organization is limited in how it can limit the costs.\n"Athletics facilities, state-of-the-art or otherwise, are necessary for the support of the activity for which there is a tax exemption," Brand wrote. "These facilities, often paid for through bonds or charitable contributions, also generate revenue that offsets the operational cost of athletics that might not otherwise be provided through institutional funds."\nIt's unclear how the committee's investigation might proceed since last week's midterm elections means committee chairmanships will change hands, with Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., in line to run Ways and Means.
(11/16/06 5:02am)
BALTIMORE -- When Gustave Courbet painted "The Stream of the Puits Noir," or black well, he emphasized the noir.\nThe picture is drenched in black to the point of near-abstraction. It offers a primordial view of nature, yet it's more seductive than foreboding.\n"Courbet and the Modern Landscape," an exhibition on display at the Walters Art Museum, makes the case for Courbet (1819-1877) as a radical. Best known for his realist, figural pictures such as "Burial at Ornans," Courbet churned out countless landscapes in his late career, but many of them were painted by assistants with only a brief touchup by the master.\nThe show brings together landscapes painted entirely by Courbet and spotlights his idiosyncratic vision and technique. His work anticipated the innovations of impressionism and influenced Manet, Cezanne and Gauguin.\nEik Kahng, curator of 18th- and 19th-century art at the Walters, said black is not a pigment associated with the impressionists, but is "one that Courbet uses masterfully. He actually has 'blackgrounds' -- black, dark pigment as a ground layer, over which he lays more and more paint and sometimes scrapes away to allow the black to peep through."\nThe technique allowed Courbet to depict the dark recesses of caves, the shade created by a canopy of trees and flecks of rock and dirt emerging from melting snow. He also wasn't shy about leaving marks from his palette knife or even his fingers, lending his pictures an intensely physical quality.\nCourbet's method "was totally bizarre, and really kind of brutal in its effect sometimes," Kahng said.\nThe show at the Walters, which originated at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, is arranged according to seasons.\nThe curators studied color psychology in an attempt to match the lighting design and the paint on the walls with the moods of the seasons. Ambient music composed by students at the nearby Peabody Conservatory is piped in softly. The touches are meant to get visitors in a contemplative mood and heighten their awareness of the beauty of the paintings, Kahng said.\nIt would all be window dressing, of course, if Courbet weren't such a knockout painter.\n"He doesn't need any help," Kahng said. "He's one of the greatest landscape painters, greatest painters, really, of all time."\nVisitors need look no further than "The Gust of Wind" (c. 1865) for proof of that. Courbet uses delicate brush strokes to render the tranquil hills in the background, but the wind-swept foreground, with an ominous black cloud overhead, is painted "in bold, sweeping gestures of the knife and brush, the sheer dynamism of which grips the viewer standing at close range," according to the exhibition catalog.\nSuch sweeping vistas, however, were relatively rare for Courbet. He preferred less overtly spectacular scenery, much of it from his hometown of Ornans, in a region of eastern France known as the Franche-Comte. There he found ancient caves, streams and cliffs that evoked the timelessness of nature.\n"Grotto of Sarrazine Near Nans-sous-Sainte-Anne" (c. 1864) draws the viewer's eye to the entrance of a cave. In a strategy he used frequently, Courbet crops the picture closely, refusing to take the longer view that may offer prettier scenery.\n"These aren't necessarily 'picturesque' scenes," Kahng said. Instead, they have what she called a "moody quality."\n"They are frequently desolate," Kahng said. "It's almost as if you are there for the first time. You possess the landscape as though seeing it for the first time before any kind of domestication or civilization."\nIn his seascapes, Courbet again anticipated impressionist painters such as Monet, pushing the images into near-abstraction. In some, boats or rocks in the distance are suggested with little more than a black glob of paint, and in others, like "Seacoast" (1865), Courbet shows nothing but churning waters and gray skies. Monet would approve.
(11/16/06 4:57am)
The Fine Arts Student Association has collaborated with the IU Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Arts to hold their annual Open Studio Night on Nov. 17. \n"Open studios is a great opportunity to see what students in different departments are doing, and to get an inside look at how each department works," Anthony Bowers, the committee head for Open Studio Night said in an e-mail.\nRefreshments will be served, a live band will perform, and door prizes, including a $50 gift card to Pygmalion's Art Supplies, will be distributed. From 6 to 8 p.m. at the Fine Arts building, BFA and MFA students will display their digital art, graphic design, metals and textiles projects. A photography exhibit will be set up at McCalla Schoolhouse, and Morgan Hall will play host to a painting exhibition and live music at 7:30 p.m. From 8 to 10 p.m. at the Central Stores building, examples of student printmaking and ceramics will be on display.\n"This is a really fun event, so make it out early and stay late," Bowers said. "Every department has something interesting to offer"
(11/16/06 4:56am)
The School of Fine Arts Gallery will hold a free public discussion tonight in conjunction with its exhibit, Human Nature I: The Natural World. The forum will open with a brief discussion between artist/scientists Linda Adele Goodine and Roger Hangarter. Both artists' work has been displayed in the gallery since the exhibit opened last month.\nParticipants will then be invited to offer their opinions and questions about the works currently in the gallery and to discuss the themes raised.\n"The forum's main topics will include using scientific data in art, how to reconcile scientific research and artistic creativity, and how each presenter's beliefs about the future of man's relationship to nature and science influences the aesthetic quality of their work," public relations gallery assistant Jennifer Eberbach said.\nGoodine has three photographic color prints on display that are "eloquent descriptions of agricultural life that seek to reconcile the human-nature relationship," according to a press release from the SoFA Gallery. Hangarter is an IU biology professor who created the short film, "Brood X," which is shown on the giant screen in the first room of the gallery. It documents the life cycle of cicadas.\nThe exhibit will remain in the gallery until Saturday. The second half of the two-part series will open in February and will be titled, "Future Worlds."\nThis exhibit will focus on works that synthesize information about scientific research in the areas of genomics, medical research, biotechnology and genetic engineering, Eberbach said.\nEberbach explained that the forum "aims to draw in a diverse and multi-disciplinary crowd of artists and art educators, scientists, and members of the general public who are interested in learning more about art, scientific imaging and the natural environment."\nThe public forums will be held at 7 p.m. in the SoFA Gallery. For more information, visit www.indiana.edu/~sofa/human_nature/index.php.
(11/16/06 4:55am)
NEW YORK -- It's the Beatles as they never even imagined themselves.\nThe Beatles' "Love" album being released Tuesday is a thorough reinterpretation of their work, with familiar sounds in unfamiliar places, primarily created by the son of the man who was in the control room for virtually all of their recording sessions.\nIt's a mashup, even though Giles Martin said he hates the word. John Lennon sings "he's a real nowhere man" in the background of the instrumental track to "Blue Jay Way." The keyboard of "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite" dissolves into the plodding guitar of "I Want You (She's So Heavy)."\n"Strawberry Fields Forever" builds from Lennon's acoustic demo into a psychedelic swirl of sounds that incorporates bits of "Hello Goodbye," "Baby You're a Rich Man," "Penny Lane" and "Piggies."\nThe project was created for a collaboration with Cirque du Soleil and has the endorsement of Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and the widows of Lennon and George Harrison, Giles Martin said.\n"I had fresh ears -- if you can have fresh ears to the Beatles -- and my job was to make things different," said Giles Martin, born in 1969 as the band was breaking up.\nThe rules were simple: Beatles tracks only, no electronic distortion of what they recorded, and no newly recorded music. The single exception was a string arrangement, written by original Beatles producer George Martin, to accompany an acoustic version of Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps."\nOf course, the idea for the album itself distorts songs that fans have been familiar with for 40 years, in some cases. \n"There will be a lot of people pissed off about this," Giles Martin said, "but it was all in fun."\nCount Bob Spitz, author of "The Beatles: The Biography," among the unhappy fans.\n"I'm disappointed," Spitz said. "Not by the end product but by the fact that they are the Beatles' songs, and overdubbing them and massaging them allows other people to impose their own creative ideas on something that was so immediate and of a particular time. I thought that legacy was virtually tamper-proof, until now.\n"Once you meddle with something so fixed in the public's mind you will risk having a failure on the proportion to Twyla Tharp doing Bob Dylan," Spitz said, in a reference to the musical that is closing Sunday after less than a month on Broadway.\nSpitz said the Beatles' company, Apple, has become adept over the past 15 years in putting new twists on the band's catalogue for projects like "Love," which pointedly arrives in stores at the beginning of the holiday shopping season.\nAt the very least, it's a grand guessing game. Where is that instrumental passage from? What will come next?\nGiles Martin, a former jingles writer who has had production or mixing credits on Jeff Beck, Elvis Costello, INXS and Kate Bush albums, likened the project to "going through your dad's closet."\nHe did most of the work at the Abbey Road studios, where the music was originally recorded. His dad, now 80, is hard of hearing and his primary job was to interpret his knowledge of the Beatles, saying whether or not Lennon would have liked something, for instance.\nGiles Martin said he came away impressed with the Beatles' abilities as a unit. Even when cracks were appearing in their personal relationships at the end, you could still hear the chemistry and quality in the music, he said.\nPeriodically, he would invite the two Beatles and two widows to hear what he had done.\n"They didn't have any disagreements," he said. "They really didn't. Yoko was concerned about the quality of John's voice on 'Strawberry Fields Forever' because it was a demo. All they care about is whether it's good or bad."\nDuring a playback of "Come Together," McCartney leaned over to Starr and said, "I remember that. We were really good on that day."\nStarr said hearing the \nfinished product was powerful for him and that "I even heard things I'd forgotten we'd \nrecorded."\nWhen journalists were recently invited into a New York studio to hear Giles Martin play some of the songs, a security guard stood at the entrance to make sure no CDs or recordings snuck out. Beatles received the same treatment, Giles Martin said. They weren't allowed copies of the project in progress, he said.\nAs a producer, Giles Martin said the term "mashup" implies two things rammed together -- like when producer Danger Mouse, now of Gnarls Barkley fame, mixed Jay-Z's "The Black Album" and the Beatles' classic "White Album" for an underground hit. While those types of projects can be good, Giles Martin said they don't stand up to repeated listenings, which he believes is what sets "Love" apart.\nIt was a unique bonding experience for the two Martins. Giles wasn't around to experience those key moments in his father's career, and through "Love," by extension, he was.\n"Without question, it gave me enormous respect for him and them," he said. "His world was laid bare in front of me, as was their playing. We'd smile at each other and say, 'They were really good, weren't they?"
(11/16/06 4:49am)
An impressive crowd gathered at the Musical Arts Center last Friday night for the opening of the Jacobs School of Music IU Opera Theater production of Engelbert Humperdinck's beloved opera "Hansel and Gretel." The crowd was richly rewarded for its journey.\nThe cast was enjoyable from the start, with graduate students Kathryn Leemhuis and Marie Masters as Hansel and Gretel, respectively, blending with musical perfection. Graduate students Meghann Vaughn and Adonis Abuyen played the roles of their parents. Though Vaughn and Abuyen were less dynamic onstage, they gave well-rendered musical performances nonetheless. \nThe obvious show-stealer was doctoral student Michael Match as the Witch, who, after enticing Hansel and Gretel with her gingerbread house, meets her doom in her own baking oven. Match is a counter-tenor with extraordinary vocal and dramatic abilities and elicited a much-deserved extended ovation for his aria in Act II. \nGraduate students Lindsay Kerrigan as the Sandman and Caryn Kerstetter as the Dew Fairy gave lovely performances of what are in essence lamentably small roles. With any luck, their voices will receive more stage time in the not-so-distant future.\nThe opera itself, a hybrid of Grimm fairy tale and Lutheran morality play, was seen in its time as a new emblem of German opera, successfully building upon Wagner's musical tradition while at the same time preparing the way for 20th-century German opera. No doubt it found popular appeal for the enchanted, romantic world it creates.\nThese days, however, it's a bit of a challenge to accept the music and its accompanying story quite so optimistically. Perhaps it is simply the cynicism of young adulthood, but when Hansel and Gretel's mother Gertrude foolishly sends her children into the forest to collect strawberries after she loses her temper, all I see is the plight of a woman who is simply ill-equipped for the challenges of motherhood. \nShe is plagued by hunger, stretched beyond tolerance by poverty and unable to accommodate her children's need to be playful and careless. When she and her husband Peter glorify his purchase of ham, eggs and butter, some may see nobility in such humble simplicity. I see only two pitiful adults, reduced by their economic condition to celebrating even the basic necessity of food as a luxury. When Peter sings, "hunger is the poor man's curse," my heart breaks for the truth of it.\nLuckily, the children for whom this production is intended are free from such somber readings. They see only the necessary setup for Hansel and Gretel's inevitable triumph over the Witch. They understand that if their mother had not lost her temper and bid them collect berries in the woods, Hansel and Gretel would not have had the opportunity to defeat the Witch and rid the world of the terror she had for so long reeked upon its children. They revel in Hansel and Gretel's cleverness in outsmarting the Witch and can celebrate the duo's victory with enviable innocence. \nIn the end, it was the children -- not only the ones in the audience but the superbly talented on stage -- who provided the greatest satisfaction for the evening. They are, after all, the future generation of music performers and music lovers, who, being exposed to music so early in life, will carry its value and importance with them the rest of their lives. It is for their sake "Hansel and Gretel" must be performed. \nAudiences of all ages will have two more chances to enjoy "Hansel and Gretel" at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the Musical Arts Center. Tickets cost between $15 and $35 and are available at the MAC box office.
(11/16/06 4:02am)
I'll confess I'm just one of the masses when it comes to the new movie "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan." I laughed at the online trailers and eagerly waited in line for a ticket. \nYes, it was shocking, hilarious and everything else it was hyped up to be. Granted there was some pretty nasty imagery -- seeing Borat and a 300-pound man naked and wrestling over a picture of Pamela Anderson was not a pretty sight! \nIt was also interesting to see the racist and misogynistic viewpoints so many people were willing to divulge when they thought it was safe to do so -- interesting, yet also quite a bit disturbing. I left the movie believing what I had heard from various people, that the man behind Borat, a British Jew named Sacha Baron Cohen, was looking for an entertaining way to expose people's anti-Semitism, racism and misogyny. \nAt the time, I didn't really question the opening and closing scenes of Borat's "hometown," which is actually the Romanian village of Glod. I assumed he adequately explained what he was doing and fairly compensated the people from the village who were depicted in his movie. \nI was wrong. I read an article today about the conditions in that particular village. The inhabitants are Roma, also known as Gypsies. Only five of them are actually employed in a nearby rock quarry and a sanatorium. The others gather fruits and vegetables or raise chickens. They have no indoor plumbing or heating systems and instead use wood stoves and drink water from wells. Horse-drawn carts are the most popular method of transportation.\nAccording to the villagers, many thought Cohen was there to help them out. But they were either not paid for their appearances in the film or were paid something in the ballpark of $3.30 to $5.50 per day. Some of the things Cohen and crew did included handing toy rifles to small children in an effort to depict a kindergarten, putting animals in people's houses, having an old woman put on silicone breasts and taping a sex toy to the stump of a villager who had lost an arm. \nGranted, these people were not forced to do any of these things, but they were in a position to be easily exploited. \n"Borat" grossed approximately $29 million at the box office in its second weekend. Cohen is effectively making millions of dollars off a film that mocks the true and abject poverty of a poor Roma village he exploited and degraded to no end. \nIt's hypocritical for Cohen to claim that his movie is doing some sort of social good by exposing the bigoted views of some members of society while cheating those Romanian villagers out of the money they should have received.\nIf he really wanted to do something to contribute to society, he would take a fraction of what he earns from this film and pay those villagers what they are entitled to. Then he might actually help the common good with his movie.
(11/16/06 3:58am)
AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France -- In America, my relatively liberal views ensure that I am called "un-American" a decent amount. It does not help that I don't "look American," a fact that French folks have mentioned to me numerous times. With my English major, political views and slanty eyes, I might as well be from Canada.\nBut truth be told, I am an American through and through. And nowhere has my patriotism been challenged and reinforced like it has in France. As you might know, the French have a teeny bit of anti-Americanism in their blood. (I'm pretty sure it's in the constitution of the Fifth Republic somewhere.) While America-bashers here assure me they only hate George W. Bush and not all Americans, it's not long before they crack out good ol' "American empire" chestnuts or use "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" as an example of American foolishness. \nI find myself on unusually defensive turf in discussions, standing up for everything from Condoleezza Rice to the merits of the Southern barbecue. I actually had to convince a few anarcho-Marxists that it was, in fact, wrong to suggest the assassination of President Bush. (I, for one, would rather have a big national dunk tank with Bush on the perch to raise money for Iraqi reconstruction.)\nIt's a little bit like being a metaphorical big brother who picks on his little brother all the time but defends him against the onslaughts of others. \nYet it's deeper than that simplistic analogy because there are few countries on earth whose citizens hold their national identity as highly as Americans. For example, in France, there are no flags. There's one hanging out in front of city hall, but that's it. In America, we stamp the flag on T-shirts, coffee mugs and tattoos because, above all else, we are Americans first. For me, at least, being American is central to being who I am, and when someone starts flinging around "America this" and "Americans that," it's hard not to take it personally.\nFor years now, the media and foreign policy experts have worked to combat the "ugly American" mentality. Yet I would like to remind people that in the 1958 book "The Ugly American," it is the physically "ugly" American abroad, engineer Homer Atkins, who listens to the locals, responds with open-mindedness and eventually defends America by example. The last thing we need is more "pretty Americans," all smiles and handshakes, who traipse the world through photo ops and promos. \nPerhaps that's what makes the overwrought anti-American sentiment most distressing is: the knowledge that at its center is a grain of truth. American foreign policy nightmares have eroded our image abroad, but it is possible to get it back. We have to dare to be "ugly" Americans who listen and try to understand foreign cultures instead of trumpeting our own and gently assure the world that we are not monsters. We are Americans.
(11/16/06 3:57am)
Which bus is this?
(11/16/06 3:57am)
Ground has been broken for the Martin Luther King Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. It is a well-deserved monument but one that may further fetishize King and strip power and urgency away from his incomplete work.\nKing has been widely reduced to his happy dream of an equitable world. At the ground-breaking event Oprah Winfrey said, "I've lived the dream. ... It is because of Dr. King that I stand, that I have a voice to be heard."\nIt's wonderful that Oprah, like many other black people, has "lived the dream." But there is more to memorialize than an unrealized dream. We remember his stirring words as the "I Have a Dream" speech because it's the warm and fuzzy part that makes us feel good about ourselves and our world. But the point of his speech was not to dream, but to call direct attention to injustices that limited opportunities for black Americans and demand action to correct those injustices.\n"We have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition," King said during his famous 1963 oration. The "bank of justice" wrote a bad check to black people, and it was time to "make justice a reality for all God's children." \nYet today, we face the uncomfortable realization that the "shameful conditions" that troubled King more than 40 years ago still persist. For example, according to a report released by the Census Bureau, white household incomes were two-thirds higher than blacks' and 40 percent higher than Hispanics' in 2005. White people are also more likely to have college degrees and own homes and less likely to live in poverty, according to the report. The easy (and uninformed) justification is to attribute the disparities to differences in ability and work ethic. But these continued injustices are largely residual effects of discriminatory policies and programs that consistently placed many white Americans in a privileged position, especially financially.\nAt the ground-breaking ceremony, President George W. Bush acknowledged, "Honoring Dr. King's legacy requires more than building a monument. It requires the ongoing commitment of every American. So we will continue to work for the day when the dignity and humanity of every person is respected and the American promise is denied to no one." \nUnfortunately, not every American is committed to honoring the legacy -- like the more than 2.1 million Michigan voters who opted last week to outlaw affirmative action programs in the state. The cleverly misnamed Michigan Civil Rights Initiative ignores the injustice in judging people on "merit" when major discrepancies exist in opportunity and privilege in the first place.\nAppropriately King will be honored on the National Mall. But let's not simply offer excessive reverence to the great leader as though he magically ushered in an age of civil rights and justice. That monument should remind us that King's vision is still nothing more than a distant dream. \n"Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children"
(11/16/06 3:56am)
Last Friday, with no Bible study to attend, my friends and I decided to go drunken bowling. \nFor all you losers (or anti-winners, if you prefer) who haven't partaken in this glorious sport, you should know that there are two main differences between drunken and sober bowling.\nFirst, scores don't matter. It's a Christian miracle if you can hit the pins. In essence, bowling intoxicated is quite like living in Gary: You're damn lucky if you make it past 50.\nSecond, your fellow bowlers -- the 2 a.m. crazies -- won't stop talking to you. On one side of us, in fact, sat an extremely chatty group of obese women. Their words were eager and excited to come out, and rightfully so, since they were generally muffled by incoming hamburgers. \nOn the other side was a group of Tennesseans having a bachelor party. Captivated by our alluring fragrance of detergent and education, they began hovering, eyeing the females seductively. \nOne of the men eventually stumbled over. \n"Any of you ladies want to have a good time?" he asked, his question jumping over three bottom teeth. \nMy girlfriends shook their heads, surprisingly uninterested in such a tempting proposition. \n"What about you?" he said, turning towards me. "Do you know any other hot college girls?"\n"Sadly, no," I said. "All my other friends died in a grease fire. Why don't you just hook up with a bridesmaid? Aren't you a groomsman?"\n"Nope," he replied, releasing a repressed burp. "I'm the groom."\n"In that case," I said, "I've got the perfect person for you to call."\nI gave him my ex-boyfriend's number. \n"Her name is Bambi," I said. "And she's horny as hell."\nWhen I returned to the game, I began to reflect upon this man's disgraceful proposition. Here was a guy who, on the eve of his own wedding, was trying to shack up with random women -- mere vaginal acquaintances. In less than 24 hours, he would be taking an eternal vow of monogamous fidelity. \nAlthough I realize he's an extreme outlier -- a white-trash anomaly -- the man at the bowling alley exemplifies a general trend: the disillusionment with American matrimony. Like some bowls, many marriages now end in an unfortunate "split."\nNo one takes it seriously. For our generation, victims of the "baby-boomers' divorces," marriage is now openly mocked, considered as laughable as Clay Aiken's Christmas CD. \nThis trend is typified by Britney and K-Fed's recent split. When they publicly announced their divorce, the headlines were big, but reaction was small. Why? Because it was a completely farcical marriage, an obvious ploy for televised attention. It was all make-believe, just like the faux marriages on Facebook where two frat guys jokingly wed one another. \nHa freakin' ha. \nIt's hard to laugh wholeheartedly when millions of Americans are still left out of this constitutional gag. While committed gay couples struggle to obtain legalized partnership, straight people frolic in the antics of televised matrimony. \nMarriage is currently treated like a trivialized game, like drunken bowling itself -- which probably explains why so many of them end up in the gutter.
(11/16/06 3:54am)
Here at the IDS editorial board, we have been known to scrutinize just about every decision made on the IU campus. And over the years, the board of trustees has taken a lot of guff from us. But now hell might be freezing over as we applaud the trustees' recent decision to make $9 million of additional financial aid available to the freshman class of 2007. By allocating these funds for incoming students, the trustees have won our undying love and affection. We feel their plan is (dare we say it?) worthy of a gold star. Here's why:\nIn case you haven't noticed, money doesn't grow on trees. Don't try rifling through all the foliage in the Arboretum for deciduous money-makers because sadly, you will find none. Higher education is expensive, and those who don't have a spare $100,000 hanging around their houses often find themselves excluded from the learning opportunities that might have given them a leg up in the world. \nIU aims to spread knowledge, whether it be in the field of science, music or underwater archaeology (check the individualized major program for that one). If education is not highly accessible, it will serve only to preserve an economically biased class system. Commendably, though, much of the new aid money will go to traditionally underrepresented minority students, who, financially speaking, often find themselves at a disadvantage. \nAs it stands, those who cannot afford to bear the whole brunt of funding a college education often juggle a full work schedule and classes, a situation which, if not delicately balanced, can lead to unbearable amounts of stress. Anything that the University can do to lessen that burden should be a priority. Obviously, $9 million won't be able to pay for the educations of the entire freshman class, but if it can prevent students from still having to pay off student loans when they are 75 years old, it's all right by us. \nIn the past, the University has distributed funds to causes and organizations that have raised a few eyebrows, to say the very least. (We seem to recall a little $55 million check to IU Athletics raising a few eyebrows around campus.) Yet this $9 million budget allocation is indisputably good for IU and prospective students. By reducing monetary limitations on its student body, IU will ideally be able to recruit the best and the brightest, and money will play less of a factor in determining who is able to enroll. \nKudos to the fine folks of the administration for keeping our best interests in mind. We know we're rough on you sometimes, so enjoy your moment in the sun. Take your gold star, give yourselves a pat on the back and put a copy of your A+ proposal up on your refrigerator. There is no better way to show you're looking out for us.