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(07/22/04 2:58am)
The United Naitons published its 2004 Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic July 6, ahead of the 15th International Conference on AIDS, which was held in Bangkok, Thailand, last week.\nThe report revealed that Asia, home to 60 percent of the world's population, has the fastest growing rate of HIV infection. An estimated 7.4 million people live with HIV in Asia, and there were an estimated 1.1 million new infections last year alone. The sharpest increases of HIV infection are in China, Indonesia and Vietnam. The report said areas of sub-Saharan Africa continue to suffer from the growing effect of the AIDS virus, with an estimated 25 million people now living with HIV. Among the hardest hit by the epidemic are women and orphans in undeveloped countries. There are an estimated 12 million orphans of parents who have died from the disease in sub-Saharan Africa.\nEric McLaughlin, a political science graduate student, said cultural norms contribute to some of the challenges women face in regard to HIV/AIDS.\n"In many places, for instance, the fact that women traditionally have very little control over sexual matters, including choices about condoms or contraception, makes the situation very bad for women," McLaughlin said. \nParticipants at the International AIDS Conference, which was held July 11-16, included scientists, community health workers and public officials, who gathered to discuss the political, socio-economic and health implications of the AIDS epidemic and ways to combat its spread.\nIn wake of the report and the conference, Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair announced Tuesday his government's intent to spend $2.4 billion on HIV-related programs. The programs will focus primarily on helping women and orphans affected by the global epidemic. \nThe conference examined the issue of limited access to antiretroviral medication and other HIV-related treatment throughout much of the world. Antiretroviral medication slows the spread of the AIDS virus within the human body but is not a cure for the disease.\nThe price of a combination antiretroviral regimen recommended by the World Health Organization to treat one HIV/AIDS patient for one year was between $10,000-$12,000 in 2000. The cost of treatment has decreased because of the increasing availability of generic drugs. The annual cost of generic combinations has fallen to $300 per person. Even though the cost of antiretroviral drugs has decreased substantially, the treatment remains unaffordable for a substantial number of people affected with HIV/AIDS globally. The cost of treatment, which includes antiretroviral medication, averages more than $1,000 per person annually in middle-income countries like Russia. \nIn South Africa the high cost of antiretroviral medicine makes the treatment available to only 2 percent of those who test positive for HIV.\nThe WHO estimates that nine out of 10 people who need HIV/AIDS-related treatment do not receive adequate health care. In sub-Saharan Africa, only 12 percent of the 4.3 million HIV/AIDS patients who need home-based personal care receive the treatment they need, while in South Asia the percentage falls to 2 percent. \nThe United Nations has encouraged world leaders to develop effective strategies and resources for combating the spread of HIV infection. According to the U.N. report, widespread discrimination against HIV-positive individuals continues to be a problem that hinders people from being tested or treated. Kathryn Brown, a health educator at the IU Health Center, said many people do not get tested for HIV because they believe they are not at risk of contracting the disease.\n"The majority of people who don't get tested fall into one of two groups: the people that don't think they are at risk and those that do think they might be at risk but are afraid of finding out that they are HIV positive," Brown said.\nStudents have two options for HIV testing in Bloomington. They can visit the IU Health Center or the Monroe County Community Health Services.\nThe Health Center offers students confidential HIV testing for $15 according to the Health Center's Web site, and results are available within a week. \nAt the Monroe County Community Health Services, students can get tested for free and have the results within 20 minutes. \nAccording to the Health Center Web site, the number of IU students infected with the virus is undeterminable because the testing is confidential. \nIn many regions, awareness of how the virus is transmitted and prevented remains low, contributing to a damaging stigmatization of people who have tested positive for the virus. The U.N. report said increased education and international coordination is central to combating the epidemic.\nWilliam Yarber, professor of applied health sciences, said there are several cultural factors that influence international perception of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.\n"Improving the situation is not simple." Yarber said. "It's also social and economic barriers that have to be overcome. These barriers are lack of resources and ideas about sexuality, challenging issues related to gender roles within a culture."\nThe U.N. report said the population of infected persons in the United States is also on the rise. An estimated 950,000 people are living with HIV in the United States, compared to 900,000 people in 2001.\nGraduate student David Mowery is a former employee of Genesis House, a Chicago non-profit organization that works in AIDS prevention among sex workers.\n"The reality of AIDS and its impact on our underclass is mind-numbing," Mowery said. "So much is needing to be done in (the United States), one of the most resource-rich countries." \n-- Contact staff writer Rynn Hagen at scrullip@indiana.edu.
(07/15/04 1:58am)
An alleged al-Qaida chief, Khaled bin Ouda al-Harby, turned himself into Saudi Arabian authorities Tuesday as part of an amnesty program the country implemented last month.\nSaudi officials in mid-June devised a one-month amnesty program to commute the sentences of militants who turned themselves in to the government.\nThe Saudi government has come under intense domestic and international pressure to combat an increasingly violent militant movement in the country. \nOne month ago, a Saudi militant group beheaded Paul Johnson, a 49-year-old American contractor who worked in Saudi Arabia. The beheading drew wide-spread condemnation internationally and within Saudi Arabia.\nMisfer Al-Salouli, a graduate math student and Saudi citizen, said Saudis were repulsed by the murder.\n"The media here do not ask the Saudi people themselves," he said. "Not just the people, but also the Islamic scholars are against killing any innocent person."\nAl-Salouli said the response of the Saudi people was particularly strong and many people called on Johnson's captors to release him before his death.\nJohnson's murder, which was filmed and posted on the Internet by a group that calls itself al-Qaida in Saudi Arabia, was the most graphic in a recent series of attacks on Westerners in the Kingdom. \nHours after Paul Johnson's murder Abdulaziz al-Moqrin, the alleged leader of al-Qaida in Saudi Arabia, was killed in a gun battle with Saudi security forces.\nA few days prior to Johnson murder two other Americans, Kenneth Scroggs and Robert Jacobs were shot dead in targeted attacks in Saudi Arabia. \nIn May armed militants killed 22 people in an attack on a residential compound housing expatriate workers in the country's oil industry.\nDespite the simmering tension in Saudi Arabia political science professor Jeffery Hart doubts the militant groups will achieve their stated agenda through violent means.\n"I don't think this particular tactic will have that much of an affect on Saudi Arabia," Hart said. "It's kind of a desperate tactic, and in the long run, I think it hurts (the militants') political legitimacy more than it gains them in the short term."\nThe Web site of the U.S. embassy in Saudi Arabia warns U.S. citizens in the country to "continue to exercise caution in matters concerning personal security. Americans should try to maintain a low profile, vary routes and times for travel." \nScaring foreigners out of Saudi Arabia is one of the goals of Saudi militant groups. Statements on militant Islamist websites have also called for revenge against the occupation of Iraq and the overthrow of Saudi Arabia's ruling House of Saud royal family.\nDina Spechler, an associate professor of political science said the militants do not have a wide support base among the Saudi Arabian population.\n"The terrorists are gradually alienating more people than they are winning over," she said. "Time is against them."\nSpechler said the insecurity in the country may cause some Westerners to leave in the immediate future, but added that it is very unlikely to harm to the stability of the Saudi government. \n"This won't ultimately bring down the monarchy," she said. \nProfessor Hart said there are deeper questions at hand.\n"The underlying issue is whether the Saudi government is really going to put the squeeze on the Wahhabi extremists," he said.\nThe Saudi government has pledged to vigorously track down militants who do not surrender themselves when the amnesty period ends.\nDespite some recent arrests, Hart said the monarchy has had an uneasy history of appeasing militants.\nAl-Salouli, however, said the Saudi population has lost patience with the militants.\n"People are cooperating with the government," he said. "Every person is working as a policeman because you don't know if you may be one of the victims."\n-- Contact staff writer Seraphim Danckaert at sdanckar@indiana.edu. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
(07/12/04 1:22am)
JERUSALEM -- Israelis and Palestinians were lining up support for a showdown at the United Nations over Israel's planned security barrier in the West Bank, while violence erupted in the Gaza Strip and four Palestinians were killed.\nPalestinians and the Arab world were elated by a nonbinding world court ruling Friday that declared the barrier illegal and said it should be dismantled.\nThe Palestinians have said they'll seek the support of the world body's members in the General Assembly, then go to the 15-nation Security Council, which can order action.\nIsrael said the International Court of Justice in The Hague had no right to make such a decision and it planned to continue building the 425-mile barrier of high concrete walls, razor-wire fences, trenches and watchtowers.\nIsraeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said he asked U.S. officials to prevent the adoption of any U.N. resolution aimed at enforcing the court's ruling.\nIn the Gaza Strip, an explosion Saturday killed four Palestinians in what Palestinian officials said was an Israeli tank attack on a car in al-Zahra, on the outskirts of Gaza City.\nThe army, which had helicopters and tanks in the general area of the blast, said it had not fired at any vehicles and that its soldiers were not in the immediate area of the explosion. Earlier, intense clashes broke out in the nearby Jewish settlement of Netzarim.\nPalestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia told European Union envoy Marc Otte Saturday that he hoped the Americans would not "sabotage our efforts" at the United Nations, meeting participants said.\n"It is the responsibility of the international community, it is the responsibility of the U.N., to put (in place) a mechanism to commit Israel to this decision," Qureia told reporters later.\nOtte made no commitment, though he noted past EU objections to the barrier, which dips deep into the West Bank in some areas, and has disrupted the lives of thousands of Palestinians.\nAbout a quarter of the barrier has been completed.\nWashington, which often has used its veto in the 15-nation Security Council to block resolutions critical of Israel, disagreed with the world court on the issue and said it believed no further U.N. action is necessary.\nShalom's spokesman Moshe Devi confirmed that the foreign minister had approached Washington in the matter last week, but said he also had asked the 25 EU nations for backing.\n"We hope that the Americans will help us, of course. But we are not counting on just the Americans," Devi said.\nIsrael and the United States were sticking to their positions -- that the world court should not interfere because the issue is political, not legal, and could disrupt Mideast peace efforts.\nIsrael says the barrier has prevented suicide bombings, pointing to a sharp drop in the number of casualties since construction began. Palestinians say the complex of fences, trenches and razor wire is a land grab.\nAlthough many in the Arab world welcomed the court ruling, some were skeptical about the possibility of U.N. action.\n"Americans will be waiting there with a ready veto," Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah guerrillas, said in Lebanon.\nIsraeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his government planned to meet Sunday with the attorney general to discuss implications of the court's advisory opinion.\nPalestinian leader Yasser Arafat, in a speech congratulating graduates of a security training program, called the decision a decision by "the world it is standing beside the Palestinian people against the apartheid wall."\nAhmed Qabah, a Palestinian farmer from the West Bank village of Turah al-Rabia, said Israel confiscated a quarter-acre of his land to build the fence.\n"I believe that the high court decision has exceeded all of the Palestinians expectations," Qabah, 40, said, but added that "Israel and the U.S. will not commit to the court's decision."\nIn the Gaza Strip, Palestinian residents said Israel has tightened its security crackdown -- now in its 12th day, leaving them short of water, milk and other essentials. The army operation, aimed at stopping rocket attacks, began after a June 28 strike near a nursery in the Israeli town of Sderot killed two people, including a 3-year-old.\nIn other violence Saturday, Palestinian residents and medical workers reported a 16-year-old girl was shot dead near the border with Egypt. The army said it had no information on the death of a teenager in Rafah.\nThree Palestinian women also were injured in Beit Hanoun, target of the Israeli siege aimed at ending rocket attacks.
(06/28/04 1:01am)
Within the cordoned fence that rings the construction site of Simon Hall near Third Street, construction workers can be seen and heard excavating in preparation for laying the foundation for the new building. In nearby classrooms, instructors and students have expressed concern at the level of noise eminating from the site. \nYamina Mermer, an Arabic language instructor, teaches a class on the first floor of Ballantine Hall, which is adjacent to the construction site. She said noise from construction equipment can be heard in the classroom while she is teaching.\n"I have to really shout all the time because I can see the students can't hear everything, especially when you are teaching a foreign language," she said.\nJames Koryta, an IU Physical Plant electrical engineer who works at the site, said the noise is caused by heavy machinery that is used to pulsate a large drill above the rocks in order to break them into smaller pieces.\nRynn Hagen, a junior in Mermer's class, said she found the noise from the construction site distracting.\n"It keeps you from hearing the teacher but becomes part of the background noise after a while," she said.\nHagen said the noise bothered her most during her final exams at the end of the first summer session two weeks ago.\nRock drilling is the largest contributor to noise from the site. When construction on the building structure begins less noise is expected.\nThe blueprints for Simon Hall show a two-floor basement, which will require excavation of 31 feet below the ground. Engineers have to work around the topography of the construction site, which consists of mostly rock and little topsoil. Koryta said the surface topsoil varied in depth between two to six feet, followed by mostly rock.\nIn order to construct the building's basement and foundation, the rock has to be broken into smaller pieces and cleared away.\nIn 1962, the geology building was constructed and was the last science building built on campus dedicated solely to scientific research and learning. Forty-two years later, construction of Simon Hall, which will serve as a multidisciplinary science building.\nConstruction began on June 3 and is scheduled to be completed by November 2006.\nSeveral related IU graduates from the Simon family, who run Simon Property Group Inc., donated $9 million toward the building project, which is being named in their honor.\nThe proposed 140,000-square-foot building is being constructed between Myers Hall and the wooded area south of the Chemistry building.\n-- Contact nation & world editor Rami Chami at rchami@indiana.edu.
(06/24/04 1:54am)
While the campaigns for the White House are heating up, local elections have more important implications for IU students. \nGubernatorial candidates (incumbent Democratic governor) Joe Kernan and Republican candidate Mitch Daniels both say education is one of the more important issues for getting elected.\n"Education is one of the cornerstones to economic revitalization of Indiana," said Marc Lotter, press secretary for Mitch Daniels. "We want Indiana to have good-paying jobs matching the skills acquired by a college education so that our students do not leave the state."\nKernan and Daniels have similar ideas on higher education.\n"Gov. Kernan has worked hard to convince statewide universities to keep tuition increases to a maximum of 4 percent," said Terry Burns, communications director for the Indiana State Democratic Party. "He has a limited ability to affect tuition rates, but he has expressed his ideas to the General Assembly who decide higher education funding."\nGov. Kernan has been successful at limiting tuition increases. The IU board of trustees approved a 4 percent tuition increase for all resident students returning to IU next year. By barely meeting Kernan's suggestions, many students will be pinching pennies in order to continue their college education. Many students are not able to solely rely on their parents to pay for tuition and other college necessities like food and rent.\n"Some of my friends may have to drop out and come back because their loans will be too high," senior Sarah O'Brien said.\nInternational students attending IU will also be affected. \n"Tuition increases may not affect wealthy Americans very much, but they are hard for international and (lower-class) citizens," said international student and sophomore Francisco Scifres.\nThe hardship on Indiana's economy due to graduating students leaving to other states is apparent at IU. It is important for businesses to have available young workers, but it is just as important for new graduates to have a place to start their careers.\n"Where I find a job, it really depends on the market," said graduate student Jose Najar, who is working toward his Ph.D. in history.\nBoth candidates have visions for lower education, with specific similarities such as trying to offer full-day kindergarten. Besides education, both Kernan and Daniels find Indiana jobs a need to reform state government. The Democratic platform is broad, including issues like civil rights and diversity, transportation and infrastructure and Opportunity Indiana -- where the state government works to support local companies by purchasing products and services from them. \nThe Republican platform focuses on the three common issues, which include efforts to combat government fraud and corruption, health care that focuses on obesity and exercise and cheap medicine for the poor and elderly.\n-- Contact staff writer Benjames Derrick at bderrick@indiana.edu .
(06/03/04 2:26am)
The Kelley School of Business will hold a two-day conference beginning today to discuss how the United States can meet national security needs while enhancing economic prosperity.\nThis conference is being held to garner interest in the Group of Eight Nations summit to be held at Sea Island, Ga., next week. The G8 is an annual meeting of the heads of state of France, Russia, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Italy, Canada and the United States to address major economic and political issues facing their domestic societies and the international community as a whole.\nConference co-chair Alan Rugman said scholars and policy makers at IU's conference "will examine how best the United States, with its G8 partners, can meet its vital security needs in ways that enhance the prosperity that America and its partners need and promote the values of freedom and democracy that they cherish." Discussions will center on how America's G8 partners can best align their policies and interests.\nJeffrey Hart, professor of political science at IU, who will be presenting a paper Friday, said this conference allows the academic world to give its opinions on the issues the G8 summit is addressing.\nDavid Audretsch, director of the Institute for Development Strategies and the Ameritech Chair of Economic Development at IU, said he thinks the conference is a place to present opinions. \n"This conference offers a unique opportunity to inject new ideas and approaches to re-think policy approaches to foster peace and economic prosperity," Audretsch said in an e-mail. "The window of the G-8 is open for creative thinking, and I am delighted to be able to contribute to this process."\nAudretsch will be presenting a paper that discusses the economic consequences of the Patriot and Homeland Security Acts.\n"The 2001 Patriot and Homeland Security Act is not only impeding international business, but it has created barriers to one of the key sources of economic growth -- the mobility of knowledge workers," Audretsch said.\nHart said the task of the G8 is to minimize the economic damage caused by the restrictive policies of the acts. He said he thinks the conference will focus on the Middle East because of the costs the war on terrorism has incurred. \n"The Bush Administration has rediscovered multilateralism and is pushing its discussion in relation to the Middle East," Hart said.\nUnlike the conference at IU, the G8 summit is not open to the public since it has become the target of antiglobalization protesters in recent years. At a G8 summit in Evian, France, hundreds of protesters were removed from around the building where the summit was held.\nThe conference begins at 9:45 a.m. today and ends at 5:30 p.m. Friday. All presentations will be in the Kelley School's Graduate and Executive Education Center, Room 1008. Anyone can attend the presentations, however registration is required. \nIn order to register the event, contact Paula Schershcel at 855-1716 or pshcersc@indiana.edu.\n-- Contact staff writer Karen Yancey at kaeyance@indiana.edu.
(05/27/04 4:00am)
Like most young people, Roddy Chiong dreamt about the perfect job when he was a kid. He envisioned himself either being a zoologist or a guitar player in a rock band. Through hard work, persistence and a strong faith in God, Chiong has been able to earn something close to one of his dream jobs. With his never-ending passion and drive for success, he would have made an excellent zoologist, but an amazing entertainer emerged instead.\nChiong isn't playing guitar in a rock band, but is currently on tour as a musician and vocalist with arguably the most popular female country singer, Shania Twain. The IU alum recently spoke with Weekend in a face-to-face interview.
(05/26/04 9:49pm)
Like most young people, Roddy Chiong dreamt about the perfect job when he was a kid. He envisioned himself either being a zoologist or a guitar player in a rock band. Through hard work, persistence and a strong faith in God, Chiong has been able to earn something close to one of his dream jobs. With his never-ending passion and drive for success, he would have made an excellent zoologist, but an amazing entertainer emerged instead.\nChiong isn't playing guitar in a rock band, but is currently on tour as a musician and vocalist with arguably the most popular female country singer, Shania Twain. The IU alum recently spoke with Weekend in a face-to-face interview.
(05/20/04 1:29am)
Books about bond trading aren't usually the books one has trouble putting down -- but "Liar's Poker," a memoir penned by Michael Lewis, is not your average book about bond trading. Lewis chronicles his career with Salomon Brothers in the heady 1980s, when the excesses of Wall Street were quite possibly at their most ostentatious. Devilishly funny, Lewis describes his rise from a "geek" to a "big swinging dick" with panache and a large dose of humor. "Liar's Poker" should be required reading for any person considering a career in investment banking.\nAs a graduate from the London School of Economics with no job offers, Lewis attends a royal fundraising dinner at Buckingham where he has the extraordinary luck to sit in between the wives of two senior managers at Salomon Brothers. After unsuccessfully applying to be an investment banker after graduating from Princeton three years earlier -- investment banks weren't interested in an art history major -- he was offered the opportunity to work with Salomon Brothers. He entered the Salomon Brothers trainee class and began his education in what made the traders tick.\nWhat Lewis learned is that trading at Salomon Brothers -- the most desirable placement within the firm -- was not a place for the weak at heart. His trainee class, all 120 of them, wanted to be placed as close to the bond trading action as possible. Bonds were where the action was, and equities were for wimps. Instead of a civilized environment, the jungle mentality pervaded the trainee class, and the respected members were the ones who heckled the lecturers and harassed their colleagues. Lewis got lucky at the end of his five-month training program; he was accepted as a bond salesman in the London office of Salomon. \nHowever, the ridicule and low-level hazing that characterized the training program didn't stop once he got there; new salesmen were referred to as "geeks," not yet worthy of being called men. Lewis was given inconsequential clients and proceeded to make gaff after gaff, losing his customers' money -- or in Salomon terminology, "blowing them up." After a series of missteps, he manages to move over $86 million in bonds in one day. Suddenly Lewis was no longer a "geek," but a "big swinging dick," a term afforded to only the best of the best in the company. He was paid lavishly, even after Salomon began its decline in the late '80s. Despite the compensation, Lewis left the job at the firm because, as he said, "I didn't need it any longer."\n"Liar's Poker" is a raucously funny book about the collective greed that consumed Wall Street in the in the 1980s. Lewis carefully crafts his co-workers -- whom he gives clever nicknames like "the Human Piranha" -- to avoid turning them into blatant caricatures of Wall Street stereotypes, even though some come close. His first-hand account of the bond-dealing brouhaha rips the lid off of the obsessed, closed world of Wall Street. Breaking through the wall of gray suits, he honestly portrays the absurdity of it all without sounding like a pariah. As the bond traders would say, this book is a definite buy.\n"Liar's Poker," by Michael Lewis, is published by Penguin Books and has a list price of $14. It is available at www.amazon.com.
(05/03/04 5:16am)
Adrianne Dunlap - Freshman
(04/19/04 6:15am)
The U.S. Department of Education recently awarded the IU-Bloomington chemistry department with a $207,555 grant for low-income and minority graduate students. The endowment was announced Thursday by U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh.\nBayh said the grant will be essential to students with limited options, according to a statement. \n"This money means more opportunities for students in Indiana who otherwise might not have been able to afford a graduate degree," Bayh said. "This funding will help bridge the gap between the educational haves and have-nots and help train students in high-tech fields where additional workers are needed."\nThe grant was appropriated via the Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need Program. According to a government Web site, the program was established to assist low-income students majoring in "areas of national need," including biology, chemistry, computer and information science, engineering, geological science, mathematics and physics.\nIU Director of Graduate Studies Jeff Zaleski said those departments are designated as areas of national need because of the importance and scarcity of the professions pursued by those students.\n"There are fewer students choosing to go into those areas of science," Zaleski said. "Obviously, our country needs hard scientists, and this grant helps us keep those students."\nZaleski said graduate students in the chemistry department receive a stipend each year of roughly $20,000, which must be accounted for by the University. \nThe GAANN grant will be used toward the stipends of five graduate students during a period of three years, Zaleski said, which means more than two-thirds of those students' stipends will be covered by the new funding. \nZaleski said he was optimistic the money would serve the GAANN Program's goals of enhanced diversity and talent within the IU chemistry department.\n"Naturally, it's going to increase our graduate enrollment, and it will increase our diversity," Zaleski said. "I also believe it will help us in the future recruit students from under-represented backgrounds and generate Ph.D's in an area of national need."\nJunior Ashish Thaker, a chemistry major, said the additional funding will be beneficial to diversity among chemistry students.\n"There's definitely a need for more qualified and intelligent students going into chemistry," Thaker said. "I think these grants will increase diversity within the chemistry department because the grants will offer minorities and students from financially-dependent families another option."\nZaleski said a small portion of the IU grant will be sent to faculty members from other undergraduate institutions in order to recruit graduate students for IU.\nThe U.S. Department of Education also allocated more than $166,000 in GAANN grants to Purdue University for engineering graduate students, according to a press release.\nThaker said he believes the grants will help IU's chemistry department compete with others around the U.S.\n"I think other universities have better funded, better developed chemistry programs," he said. "But I think this funding will allow IU to compete with the bigger departments."\n-- Contact staff writer Rick Newkirk at renewkir@indiana.edu.
(04/12/04 2:19pm)
I work as a line cook at a restaurant here in Bloomington, and when I told my two co-workers about my upcoming graduation, one of them asked me what I had studied. \n"English and history," I told her, with a certain amount of pride. (And why not?) The other asked me how many years I had spent in college, and I showed him four fingers, still holding my head high. \n"You went to college for four years and all you got to show for it is a degree in English?" Bear in mind, this is coming from someone who was kicked out of the Navy.\nI know what's coming -- the "t" word. Before he has the chance to ask, the other co-worker, who hails from Mexico, answers the question. "You must teach," she says, as if the matter were closed to discussion. This is perhaps the 30,000th time I've had this conversation. "What? You're an English major who doesn't want to teach? I don't get it."\nTeaching is an extremely noble profession -- probably the noblest -- and part of me actually wouldn't mind doing it if it didn't mean working with kids. The truth is, it just isn't for me. And for a long time, I didn't have an answer to the question of what I really did want to do. At various points in the last few years, my answer has changed from freelance magazine writer to Great American Novelist to screenwriter before finally landing on my current answer, which explains why I work as a line cook.\nThat's right, I want to be a chef! This occurred to me as I prepared one of my first meals from scratch two years ago in which the outside of a chicken thigh was burnt almost beyond recognition while the inside was miraculously and disappointingly raw. The meal was totally inedible but preparing it was life-altering. Flash forward two years and an entire shelf of cookbooks later and here I am, still thoroughly convinced this man's place is in the kitchen. \nPart of the beauty of cooking, for me, is the confluence of art and science. For example, if you bite into a raw onion, you'll wish you hadn't. But if you cut it up and put it into a hot pan with some melted butter, over 100 chemical processes turn it into something so sweet and delicious you can't pile it high enough on a burger. \nIn his book, "Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly," Anthony Bourdain likens working in a restaurant kitchen to being a hand on a pirate ship -- unrefined people (society's outcasts, even) working in a frenzied environment surrounded by knives. In my limited experience, I have found his observation to be absolutely true, but I mean that in a good way. I'm willing to bet there's more camaraderie and laughter in our kitchen than in most break rooms. At the end of the day, I'm happy to be on board.\nThe gap between English major and pirate/cook seems like a significant one, but that's not necessarily so. Interestingly, my boss at the restaurant, the executive chef, graduated from IU. What is his degree in? English. Bourdain and others could tell you there's plenty of money to be made writing books about food that don't contain a single recipe.\n Take heart, English majors. Perhaps some of you will go on to be teachers, but for those who want a different course, remember Steven Spielberg, Clarence Thomas and Paul Simon were English majors who probably had to explain they had something in mind other than the classroom. An English degree might not teach you how to make hors d'oeuvres, but it'll make you more amusing at the cocktail party where you eat them.
(04/06/04 4:59am)
Represent both sides in resolution
While I applaud the IU Student Association's efforts to formally denounce terrorism and other forms of violence in Israel and Palestine, it should be recognized that resolution 04-09-03 falls short of this goal.
(04/02/04 4:41am)
FALLUJAH, Iraq -- A roadside bomb injured three American troops Thursday near Fallujah, Iraq, a day after the grisly killing and mutilation of four American contract workers in the city. The top U.S. administrator in Iraq said the deaths would not go unpunished.\nIn Ramadi, Iraq, west of Fallujah, six Iraqi civilians died and four were wounded Wednesday evening in a car bombing at a market, said Lt. Col. Steve Murray, a coalition spokesman.\nIraqi police had not determined whether it was detonated by remote control or whether there was a suicide bomber within the car, Murray said.\nInsurgents struck a U.S. convoy with a bomb just outside Fallujah Thursday, wounding three Americans, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said. They were flown to a combat support hospital.\nAlso Thursday, two explosions near a U.S.-escorted fuel convoy in northern Baghdad, Iraq, wounded at least one Iraqi.\nThe attacks followed the ambush of the four American contractors in Fallujah Wednesday. Frenzied mobs dragged the burned, mutilated bodies of the Americans through the streets and strung two of them up from a bridge.\nFive U.S. soldiers of the 1st Infantry Division also died Wednesday when a bomb exploded under their M-113 armored personnel carrier in Malahma, Iraq, northwest of Fallujah, making it the bloodiest day for Americans in Iraq since Jan. 8.\nPolice retrieved the remains of the four contractors Wednesday night, wrapped them in blankets and gave them to U.S. forces, said Iraqi police officer Lt. Salah Abdullah.\n"We were shocked because our Islamic beliefs reject such behavior," he said.\n"We will pacify that city," Kimmitt said. "We will be back in Fallujah. It will be at the time and place of our choosing."\n"The event happened very, very rapidly, and by the accounts of the Iraqi police, by the time they got there, the situation was pretty well complete at that point," Kimmitt said.\nSecretary of State Colin Powell, speaking to Germany's ZDF television, said the United States is "not going to withdraw, we're not going to be run out" of Iraq.\n"America has the ability to stay, fight an enemy and defeat an enemy," he said. "We wish no soldier, no civilian, had been killed in this conflict. We also know sometimes to achieve a noble purpose, it does take the loss of life."\nPowell said he believed there would be a new U.N. resolution on Iraq "as we move closer to the first of July."\nThe top U.S. administrator in Iraq, Lt. Paul Bremer, condemned the killings, as well as the combat deaths of five American soldiers on the same day, and said their deaths would not go unpunished.\n"Yesterday's events in Fallujah are dramatic examples of the ongoing struggle between human dignity and barbarism," he said at a graduation ceremony for police cadets. "The acts we have seen were despicable and inexcusable. ... They violate the tenets of all religions, including Islam, as one of the foundations of civilized society."\nIraqi police manned roadside checkpoints in and around Fallujah Thursday, but no U.S. troops could be seen in the city. Shops and schools were open.\n"We will not let any foreigner enter Fallujah," said resident Sameer Sami. "Yesterday's attack is proof of how much we hate the Americans"
(03/24/04 5:41am)
At the end of the long gravel driveway, in a building adjacent to the farmhouse, the tails of horses no longer attached to their owners twitch next to the skeletons of violins. On a shelf across from the tails rests a book titled "How to Rehair a Bow," the masters thesis of Harold Evans, southern Indiana's sole violin maker.\nEvans Violins, 77 N. Sewell Rd. -- the store run by Evans and his son Michael -- fulfills the needs of a large niche of the Bloomington music community. But in telling the story of Evans Violins, it's impossible to separate the shop from the story of the musical family that runs it.\nThe smell of sawdust hanging in the air of the shop is nothing new to Harold Evans, who spent his childhood watching the workers in his father's shop build cabinets, doors and windows.\n"I was always fascinated by woodworking," he said. "It's amazing what you can learn when you're a little kid."\nEvans, 54, started playing the violin when he was 10 years old in his Minnesota public school. But as his skill improved, he outgrew his violin.\n"There are only certain levels you can go to with your own technique if the tools aren't supporting you," he said.\nEvans decided the best way for him to get the quality instrument he wanted was to build his own, since very good violins are also very expensive.\n"I was a bit naïve," he said laughing, "but it had always been one of my dreams."\nOpus 1, Evans' first violin, took him three years to create while he was an apprentice under a master violin maker — but learning the craft was only half the battle. Evans had to amass the necessary tools and pick out the perfect wood for his dream instrument. \nScattered around the shop are Evans' tools, which look like they might have come from a Dr. Seuss illustration. His favorite part of the process of creating a violin is "bending the ribs" -- wrapping a wet piece of wood around a metal oval.\nThe European wood Evans selected for Opus 1 made his fantasy of a dream violin into a reality. He played on that instrument professionally for more than 30 years. In fact, he played it so much the varnish has worn off of certain spots.\nMichael, 23, chimes in: "Each piece of wood is different, like snowflakes. You can have two violins made using the same techniques, even wood from the same part of the tree, and have two violins that sound different."\nBoth father and son said the wood has a huge impact on the sound and tone of the instrument. \n"You're always looking for that better sound," Harold Evans said. "Everybody's striving for that sweet sound."\nMichael said the more you play an instrument, the more fine-tuned your ear becomes to different qualities of tone. To demonstrate, Michael played Opus 1 and then plays the same music on Opus 2, the second violin Evans made. The difference is so slight that it's almost unintelligible to the untrained ear.\n"It is subtle, but the violinist can hear it," Michael said. "Each violin has its own personality, like each person has its own personality."\nViolinists may be able to tell the difference between the tones of two violins but can't quite put that difference into words. The Evanses throw out words they commonly use to describe tone: Bright. Mellow. Sweet.\n"How do you describe something that's subjective?" Michael asks rhetorically.
(03/24/04 5:37am)
Mark Skiffington, a senior engineering student at Marquette University, isn't looking for work. He's going back to school. So is Cynthia Zimmerman, a Marquette senior majoring in accounting.\n"I was looking for a job in the fall, but now I have decided to get my master's degree," Zimmerman said. "Most of my friends have decided to go back, too."\nWith three months until graduation, college seniors are facing a job market that appears to be marginally better.\nThe outlook, according to two national surveys, improved over the past two years. Companies surveyed said they plan to hire 13 percent more new graduates than last year. However, after two years of declines in hiring entry-level workers, job seekers might be competing with 2003 graduates.\n"The market is still saturated with candidates from last year," said Robin Pickering, a spokesman for Manpower Professional in Milwaukee.\nThere will be more entry-level accounting, finance and computer science jobs, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, a Bethlehem, Pa., research company. There also will be more mechanical, electrical and chemical engineering openings this year, the company's survey found. And while government continues to be a big source of jobs for recent graduates, it has fewer openings this year than a year earlier, the firm said.\n"We still are not back to the high-demand days of the late 1990s, when demand far exceeded supply of available entry-level talent," said Brian Krueger, president of www.CollegeGrad.com. The Cedarburg company surveyed 500 top entry-level employers, including Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Kimberly-Clark and Fidelity Investments, and found results similar to the NACE survey.\nLike manufacturers, some banks, engineering firms and other employers are exporting jobs to China and India. Those moves will further cut down on the number of openings, said Philip Gardner, director of the Collegiate Employment Research Institute at Michigan State University. His yearly survey of 450 manufacturing and professional service employers across the country found only a 9 percent improvement in entry-level openings this year.\n"There are too many places to get employees besides the United States," Gardner said.\nWisconsin students who want to stay in the Midwest might be out of luck. More than 70 percent of employers said they wouldn't increase hiring over last year, according to the Michigan State survey.\n"We haven't seen a lot of new opportunities emerging there," Gardner said.\nNortheast employers reported a forecast similar to the Midwest's. The southern United States may prove more promising, with 40 percent of employers saying they will increase hiring over last year, NACE's survey showed. The West may be the hardest place to find work, with only 16 percent of employers expecting to increase their low-level hires.\nWith the modestly better outlook, some students are returning to class next fall or working as interns.\n"People have gotten laid off. The work still needs to get done. So they hire an intern at a fraction of the cost," said Laura Kestner, director of Marquette's Career Services Center.\nEven some students who entered a career path that seemed to guarantee a job are finding it difficult to land work.\nCheron Rayford and Monica Jones will receive their bachelor's degrees in nursing from Alverno College this May, but neither has a job yet.\n"I thought there was a (nursing) shortage, but I haven't had any luck," said Jones, who has been looking for jobs in the newspaper, applying online and calling nursing recruiters.\nBetsy Rohde, an Alverno nursing adviser, said the Milwaukee area is saturated with nursing students, which caused hospitals to over-hire last year.\n"There are too many nurses," Rohde said. She is encouraging her students to look outside the metro area.\nCollege career counselors are advising students to broaden job searches geographically and think creatively about how to use their skills.\n"Students have to think out of the box with an economy like this," said Jennifer Maney, director of career services at Carroll College in Waukesha, Wis.
(03/23/04 4:56am)
MILWAUKEE -- Whether she would walk, or even learn to talk, were in doubt, said her mother, Delphine Taft. Over the years, Kathleen needed hours of physical, occupational and speech therapy to get where she is today - a 17-year-old sophomore at Milwaukee's Arrowhead High School.\nBut despite her progress, Kathleen's parents still were surprised when she declared her intention recently to enroll in college.\n"I think, as a parent, you're concerned because when you've got a child with a learning disability, Wisconsin has been so wonderful because you kind of get baby-sat," said Delphine Taft, as she and Kathleen recently visited with college representatives who came to her high school.\n"So all of a sudden, you go to the college level, and you're scared as a parent."\nIf past experience bears out, Kathleen Taft will be one of thousands of high school students with disabilities exploring options in higher education this year. The growth in numbers of students with disabilities in colleges and universities illustrates how the nation's special education law has opened doors.\n"I think it's huge because, really, it's one of the only avenues to higher salaries and increased opportunities for any of the kids," said Mary Kampa, a special education director with Cooperative Educational Services Agency 11 in Turtle Lake, Wis. "It keeps kids off of public assistance, those kind of things."\nAccording to a recent report by the National Council on Disability, the percentage of college freshmen with disabilities more than tripled between 1978 and 1998, from 3 percent to more than 9 percent. And the proportion of high school graduates with disabilities who went into post-secondary education increased from 3 percent in 1978 to 19 percent in 1996.\nMost statistics are based on students who request services from their institutions, which commonly represent only a fraction of students with diagnosed disabilities on campus.\nTo help the students, many schools organize "transition nights." As with college fairs, social service workers who specialize in helping people with disabilities are invited.\nAt a transition night at Arrowhead High School in the Town of Merton, Wis., last week, parents and students navigated between about a dozen different tables, looking for some guidance on what they should do to prepare for college life and beyond.\nGriffin Schroeder, a 17-year-old Arrowhead junior, always had his sights set on higher education, even after being diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, a mild form of autism. He used Arrowhead's transition night to get information on admissions standards and specialty services available at different schools.\nThe degree of help that colleges provide - from note-taking and tutoring to testing accommodations - pleased Angie Pfeiffer, an Arrowhead senior who plans to attend Waukesha County Technical College next school year.\nPfeiffer has a learning disability that she says slows her reading, and she has a muscle delay that makes taking notes difficult. But she's optimistic about her future.\n"I think maybe the work's going to be overwhelming, but that's kind of how senior year is," Pfeiffer said. "I can't imagine that I'll be any more stressed out than I am now, just because making the decision of what to do and where to go, I'm really, really stressed out right now."\nOrganization and study skills can be especially tough for students with disabilities. \nSome colleges, like the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, offer summer orientation programs for disabled students to become accustomed to campuses and college life before freshman year begins.\nMany times college students don't ask for help or don't even know help is available if they have disabilities until they run into trouble, said Laurie Peterson, director of the learning disabilities program at UW-Milwaukee.\n"There are many who come from a high school program (who) want to do it on their own," said Peterson, who has seen her program grow from serving fewer than 20 students in 1987 to 253 today.\n"I think there are many who no longer want to be associated with the LD (learning disabled) room or where they might be labeled," she said. If they run into difficulties, being put on probation or failing a class, "then they may decide to come forward and declare they have disabilities"
(03/11/04 5:53am)
Almost every Hoosier student owns something bearing the IU logo, but few probably give any consideration to how these items are made. It's doubtful many are familiar with IU's licensing policies or know how much the worker who made their T-shirt was paid.\nIU's No Sweat! student activist group hopes to bring these issues to the forefront today with a campus march and protest to launch its "Open the Books!" campaign.\nNo Sweat! has aligned with other Big Ten and East Coast student groups, along with IU's Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance and Progressive Faculty Coalition, to initiate a nationwide movement for fair wages in the collegiate apparel industry. \nThe group will march through campus beginning at 3:15 p.m. at Woodburn Hall and ending at Dunn Meadow, where a large-scale account ledger will be smashed open by student activists. \nJunior No Sweat! member Brent Gutmann said the opening of the ledger is meant to symbolically represent a demand for the full disclosure of wages and working conditions.\nSpecifically, No Sweat! is demanding all apparel manufacturers licensed to print the IU logo open their ledgers and disclose what they pay their workers, Gutmann said.\nJudi Nitsch, a fourth-year graduate student in No Sweat!, said wage disclosure is a small but significant step in the fight against wage-related abuses around the world.\n"Minimum wage violations are standard practice at apparel industry sweatshops across the globe -- from El Salvador, Mexico and the United States to China, Indonesia and Bangladesh," Nitsch said.\nIU established a sweatshop advisory committee in 2000 to oversee University relations with the Workers Rights Consortium, a non-governmental organization based in Washington, D.C., that "assist[s] in the enforcement of manufacturing Codes of Conduct adopted by colleges and universities … to ensure that factories producing clothing and other goods bearing college and university names respect the basic rights of workers," according to its Web site (www.workersrights.org).\nNitsch said No Sweat! has been working with the committee for more than a year to extend IU's Code to include measures that would ensure the full disclosure of specific wage information.\n"We are asking our administration to commit to getting wage disclosure from our licensees by adding a wage disclosure clause to our codes of conduct," said No Sweat! member David Woken, a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate.\nGutmann, who has been involved with No Sweat! for more than two years, said the disclosure of wages would provide data necessary to guarantee the University is complying with fair labor practices.\n"We have no intention of making the factories change these wages," Gutmann said. "As a policy, No Sweat! doesn't take on campaigns to push for better working conditions unless the factory workers contact us to do so. Our campaigns take place strictly when the workers ask us to intervene."\nNo Sweat! was founded at IU in 1998 and is an affiliate of the United Students Against Sweatshops, a Washington, D.C.-based organization dedicated to protecting and extending workers' rights locally, nationally and internationally.\nToday's campaign will be held in conjunction with USAS members at the University of Wisconsin and the University of Michigan.\nThe three universities involved in the protest have coordinated their actions to smash the symbolic lock on the account ledgers at 3:30 p.m. and open the wage practices of the apparel industry to the world.\nThe campaign will commemorate the anniversary of a 1912 textile workers' strike in Lowell, Mass.\nGutmann said because No Sweat! has not taken a very visible role on campus in recent years, he is anxious to spread its message to the community. \n"I'm excited to be doing something public now -- to get out, speak up and yell and scream and attract attention to our cause," he said. "I really care about these issues. This is something that really makes me feel like I have the power to make a difference, and I'm actually doing something to make the world a better place."\nGutmann emphasized he wants students to realize the importance of fair labor conditions.\n"I think that people really don't encounter these issues on a day-to-day basis," he said. "We're dealing with things that seem really abstract-happening in places that are foreign to us, but there's also stuff going on right here at IU. These are things that definitely affect all our lives. The situation of labor directly impacts the welfare of us all."\n-- Contact staff writer Andrea Minarcek at aminarce@indiana.edu.
(03/08/04 4:19am)
With college seniors across the nation getting ready to graduate, many will be entering a competitive job market, but competition isn't the only challenge they will need to overcome.\nFor the past two years, the economy has been recovering from a recession. Despite the recovery, however, the nation lost more than 1 million jobs last year. Nine million Americans are out of work, and about 1.25 million -- or 14.6 percent -- of the unemployed are college educated, according to the Economic Policy Institute Web site. \nPresident Bush, however, says this year looks bright. \n"We are moving in the right direction but have more to do," Bush said, in an Associated Press article. "I will not be satisfied until every American who wants a job can find one."\nStephanie Wambach, a senior majoring in business, is not so optimistic. \n"I have held internships, I have good grades but that does not guarantee any sort of security for after I graduate," she said. "It is a scary place out there." \nThere will be 2.6 million new jobs in 2004, but there are more jobseekers with college degrees than there are openings for college-level jobs, according to the EPI Web site. \nApproximately 1.37 million college-educated workers will enter the labor force this year, but there are only about 1.28 million college-level jobs available, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Web site. College level jobs include executive, administrative and managerial positions. \nThe remaining 90,000 bachelor degree holders -- 18 percent of the total number of graduates entering the labor force -- will hold jobs that do not require the skills they learned in college. \nSeniors are not the only ones who are worried about the job market. \nMarc Zaslavsky, a sophomore majoring in criminal justice and philosophy, said he plans to attend graduate school because it will improve his chances of finding a job.\n"I would be a little nervous about graduating. The competition in our world today is stronger than ever, and without a graduate degree, I feel that finding a good job might be difficult," he said. "An undergraduate degree does not mean as much as it used to. College is becoming the norm."\nAdam Jacobs, a junior majoring in telecommunications with a business minor, said he will also opt to go to graduate school.\n"I want to attend graduate school so I am more qualified than the competition and will have a better starting salary"\nMark Mittelhauser, author of "The Outlook for College Graduates, 1996-2006. Prepare Yourself," said these college graduates "will most likely work as sales representatives, first line supervisors, clerks, secretaries, service workers, farm managers, and as various production and blue-collar workers." \nOffshore outsourcing or job displacement to low-cost countries is another trend that will affect graduating students' chances of getting jobs. Hundreds of thousands of Information Technology jobs are moving overseas, especially to India. It is estimated that by 2005, almost 600,000 IT jobs for American-based companies will be performed overseas. \nDick McGarvey, director of career services for the Informatics department, believes offshore outsourcing is a minor problem for IT students. \n"(The) consensus forecast for IT work in the next ten years is very rosy, with well over a million new jobs needing to be filled," he said. "The numbers of students pursuing degrees in this field is far less than what is necessary to fill them." \nThe BLS is forecasting 150,000 new IT jobs each year with only 60,000 students getting an IT degree. \nMcGarvey also agrees much of the IT work being shipped overseas does not involve work that requires knowledge of both IT and the customers products or service. \n"A major emphasis of IT education should also include a requirement in another subject area so these students are able to "compete for jobs that we expect to stay at home," he said. \n"What is being separated out and sent to less costly workers overseas is some of the 'backroom programming' where on-site interaction with customers is not required." \nEconomists believe offshore outsourcing will benefit the U.S. \n"While outsourcing may be bad for the older generations of workers in America, it will benefit the newly-working generation by providing jobs for those who are willing to relocate," said Anant Mandelia, a senior from New Delhi, India. \nN. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said that just as U.S. consumers have enjoyed lower prices from foreign manufacturers, they will also benefit from services being offered by overseas companies that have lower labor costs, according to the USA Today Web site. \nFederal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan proposed in response that workers hurt by outsourcing "can be confident that new jobs will displace old ones as they always have," according to the CNN Web site.\nHaley Marcus, an IU senior majoring in Spanish, is pessimistic about her chances of getting a job. \n"I don't know what I am going to do," she said. "Maybe I will just get a job abroad, too" \n-- Contact staff writer Stephanie Frasco at sfrasco@indiana.edu.
(02/24/04 4:26am)
It seems so easy. You go to college, get a degree and find a job. Your degree, this magical piece of paper endorsed by your university, tells everyone you possess the skills necessary to obtain a career in your field and make money. \nI'm beginning to believe this is an urban legend concocted by parents to give their kids something to look forward to. Kind of like Santa Claus -- with a colossal price tag. Or perhaps it's a game for universities to see who can create the best programs to get students out into the "real world" of a workforce that doesn't even exist. The sheer thought of such deceitfulness is terrifying. \nA co-worker and I were discussing just this issue the other day when she told me a story about her recent experience searching for a part-time job. She went to a clothing chain in the local mall to interview for a sales position. While there, she was interviewed with another prospective employee. My friend was just looking for a little extra money. The other woman, however, had a degree in apparel merchandising and was desperately trying to land a $6-an-hour job behind a counter because there were no others to be had.\nDoes this not bother anyone else? Personally, I'm terribly disturbed. Just last semester I had a class on "planning your career," where I was basically told my bachelor's degree in psychology won't get me any further than graduation. Graduate school is a great alternative, except everyone who applies doesn't get in -- and even those who do -- don't always finish. \nSo what is a girl to do? I changed my major. Considering the fact my degree will be nothing more than something for my mom to frame and hang in the living room, I figured I might as well pick any major I want. I practically flew out the window. So I swapped my second criminal justice major and picked up religious studies. For the sake of alleviating my father's fears, I'm keeping psychology on the side, just in case my theory is wrong and some wonderful psych-major-only job falls into my lap. The way I see it, if I'm going to be paying thousands of dollars for a lousy "award" and a job in a fast food restaurant, I might as well enjoy the time I have here. \nThere are exceptions, however, to the "lack-of-future-after-college" rule that has been created to enslave us all to minimum wage jobs for the rest of our lives. Look at Kanye West. His first album, titled "College Dropout," has soared to the top of the charts in its first few weeks in stores. Now here is a role model we can all look up to. This man beat the system. He scoffed in the face of school officials and high school guidance counselors who tried to convince him he was going nowhere. He's not a college graduate, but he's going to be rolling in money for a long, long time.\nSo the moral of the story -- if you have a little rapping talent and Jay-Z's phone number, you can drop out of school tomorrow with no worries. For the rest of us, it's back to the old drawing board. How are we supposed to get jobs with four years (or more) of schooling resulting in a photo-copied document with our name penciled in? If anyone figures this out, please let me know. Until then, I might try working on my own album. I have no musical ability whatsoever, but that never stopped Britney Spears.
