UA-ASU RIVALRY STUDENTS DESERVE PITS BROTHER HONESTY FROM AGAINST BROTHER AMBASSADORS SPORTS — 6
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SERVING THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA SINCE 1899
Student visits home after war’s end Undergraduate with Libyan roots sees country for the first time upon Gadhafi’s overthrow By Amer Taleb FOR
THE
DAILY WILDCAT
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verybody in the tiny office with David Shellouff had a gun — except for him. As he sat in the middle of them, without a weapon and exhausted from his 20-hour van ride from Egypt to the Libyan border, he knew that unless he did something incredible — or crazy — it was unlikely that the Libyan checkpoint soldiers who were questioning him would let an American cross into their country. So he took a risk. “I rolled up my sleeve, showed them my ‘Free Libya’ bracelet and said Libya Alhurra (Libya the free). They went nuts,” Shellouff said, smiling as he thumbed through the 600 photos he took on the trip. “The major came around, hugged me and said ‘Welcome home my son. Welcome to your country.’” Shellouff, a Libyan-American and history senior, had never set foot in his father’s homeland before traveling there last winter break. Safety concerns delayed his trip for decades. After his grandfather died a few years ago, Shellouff said he promised himself that if the opportunity to visit the land of his ancestors ever presented itself, he’d jump on it. The toppling of Moammar Gadhafi’s government last September provided him with just that opportunity. “People were telling me I was crazy. I guess I didn’t care that there had just been a revolution,” he said. “I’m an American, but Libya is home, too. And I refused to be scared of home.” He took a plane to Egypt and a shuttle to neighboring Libya. The shuttle, Shellouff said, looked like a Dodge Caravan and was packed
PHOTO COURTESY OF DAVID SHELLOUFF
History senior David Shellouff sits in front of a stage at Freedom Square in downtown Benghazi, Libya. The stage is decorated with symbols of the Libyan Revolution.
like a can of sardines. Shortly after they left, the van broke down, adding six more hours to his trip. “Me and the other people just sat on the side of the road for hours,” he said. “I spoke
my terrible Arabic, I listened to their terrible English, and we had a great time.” After the soldiers let him into Libya, Shellouff’s uncle picked him up and they headed toward the city of Benghazi, where his
family is from. They took a detour and visited a set of Greek and Roman ruins. As he wandered through the remnants of the ancient empires, dressed in “American clothes” and sporting a Detroit Tigers baseball cap, he said he felt connected to the antiquated civilizations. “I’m a history major so I’m totally digging all this stuff,” he said. “There was no gate or entrance. People just live among this beautiful untouched part of history. It’s amazing. You want to have a picnic in the middle of Apollo’s temple? Go right ahead.” Assuming Libya’s new leaders keep their promise to expunge the old authoritarian style of government and replace it with one that grants citizens and tourists more freedoms, they could convert their Hellenic history into future financial profits, he said. The ancient ruins scattered across the country coupled with its Mediterranean coast would enable Libya to become a tourist hub and energize its battered economy. “Instead of relying on oil and all the other crap, show the world what Libya could be,” he said. “It can be such beautiful place.” Shellouff’s adventure was split between visiting relatives and seeing the country. He said visiting the katiba military compound, where rebels and Gadhafi loyalists fought for control of Benghazi, is one of the more powerful memories of his trip, for reasons both uplifting and tragic. For years, the katiba compound housed torture machines that terrorized political prisoners.
Poison control center retains license
GO WITH THE FLOW
By Robert J. Boumis DAILY WILDCAT
mind interprets patterns in such a way that it pulls out the image of something familiar, according to Alfred McEwen, a planetary sciences professor and the principal investigator for HiRISE. The same psychological mechanism was responsible for several popular images on Mars, including the famous “Face on Mars” that was photographed by Viking 1 in the Cydonia region of Mars and the “happy-faced”
Despite facing extreme budget cuts, the College of Pharmacy’s Arizona Poison and Drug Information Center has earned recertification for the next five years. Certification aims to ensure each poison center in the country adheres to the same quality standards. This includes taking calls 24 hours per day and ensuring that staff members get continuing education on poison and drug-related issues. The college’s center answers more than 150 calls per day from citizens and health care professionals seeking advice from UA experts about poisons, drugs and venomous creatures, according to Keith Boesen, director of the center. “Recertification is vital to us,” Boesen said in a press release from the center. “Our certification ensures our callers get the high level of care they deserve.” The recertification came after the center’s budget was cut significantly. State cuts in 2008 and federal cuts in 2011 slashed operating funds for all of the nation’s 57 poison control centers. Government sources and private donors fund about 50 percent of the Arizona Poison and Drug Information Center’s operating costs, though the College of Pharmacy can pick up roughly 50 percent of its funding if
PHOTO, 3
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PHOTO COURTESY OF NASA / JPL / UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
The UA’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera took this photo of a dried lava flow, which created a spitting image of an elephant’s head. The photo, taken on the surface of Mars, has since gone viral on the Internet.
Mars lava flow image inflames space lovers By Robert J. Boumis DAILY WILDCAT
An image taken by the UA’s HiRISE camera has gone viral. The image, which resembles an elephant’s head, was taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment and has appeared on news sites like Discovery News, MSN.com, and Yahoo! News. The “elephant’s head” is actually the edge of a vast lava flow in Elysium Planitia, a plain on the surface of Mars. In addition to shaping the
elephant’s trunk and eye, it also shows what could be the animal’s forehead and ear. The lava flow happened over years or decades, relatively quickly in geological time. The image is also upside down relative to most earthly mapping conventions, as the image is “north side down.” It shows an area about 5 kilometers across and 300 kilometers above the surface. The natural formation is an example of “pareiodlia,” a situation where the human
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QUOTE TO
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I want to get back at ASU a little bit. It’s fun to play against a brother — it’s a nice, little friendly rival.”
SPORTS — 6
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WORTH
NOTING This day in history
>> 1937: Daffy Duck made his debut in “Porky’s Duck Hunt.” >> 1964: Geraldine Mock became the first woman to fly solo around the world. >> 1970: The Apollo 13 astronauts safely splashed down after their near-disastrous flight.
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Benghazi, Libya 84 / 54 Elephant Castle, U.K. 56 / 43 Poisson, France 57 / 35