The Heights 02-17-11

BACK-TO-BACK

The Independent Student Newspaper of Boston College Established 1919

mother monster

president mubarak resigns

Sports

the scene

marketplace

The Eagles squeezed out a 76 overtime victory to defend their Beanpot crown, A10

Artist or monstrosity? The Scene discusses the magnificent and unmistakable Lady Gaga, B1

Egyptian president resigns from office after nearly three weeks of protest, B10

The Heights Thursday, February 17, 2011

Vol. XCII, No. 9

www.bcheights.com

UGBC election 2011

Campaigning from the outside

Little known duo engages in race for highest UGBC offices

By Taylour Kumpf News Editor

And Michael Caprio Editor-in-Chief

Alex Trautwig / heights editor

Phillips to head health promotions

By Anna Patrick Heights Staff

As the new director of health promotions, Elise Tofias Phillips is leading the health promotions team in a collaborative effort, along with many departments within the Division of Student Affairs, to achieve one specific goal: helping students become healthier.

A week into her new position, Phillips has been focused on discovering new approaches to working on student health issues, the first phase of which involves learning about the priorities of Boston College students and finding out where the gaps lie in current programs.

“Elise Phillips’ arrival to campus signals a new approach to our work on health issues with students,” said Patrick Rombalski, vice president for student affairs. “While we will continue to offer excellent services related to student health, we now will be able to provide a stronger approach to education, prevention, and health promotion.

One of our primary goals is to promote a healthy lifestyle for our students so that they can reach their full potential as young women and men. Second, we also desire to prepare students to be health literate and responsible in their decisions regarding their health. If we make progress in both of these areas, students will learn more while they are at Boston College and be better prepared for their life past graduation.”

One aspect of the new approach is placing emphasis on stress management programs, which include helping students balance their schedules, learn methods of time management, and formulate healthier sleeping patterns. To move forward with the development of these programs, the new Office of Health Promotions will collaborate with other departments to reach as many students as possible.

“We will bring together the programming and staff from the Women’s

See Health Promotions, A4

Coming into the UGBC presidential primary, David Lalonde and Ryan Tierney had no campaign T-shirts, few supporters, and a potty humor marketing strategy. But, with a platform that questions institutional growth, encourages student activism, and embraces sexual health movements, the unlikely duo has been raising eyebrows by breaking almost all the rules.

It all started as a reaction to the “apathy” the two juniors had witnessed among their classmates.

“We feel the elections have just become a big joke, and people don’t care about them as much as they used to,” said Lalonde, CSOM ’12. “It’s become more of a popularity contest inside the UGBC, which is a little absurd, especially because it’s so easy to run for this position.”

The numbers reflect Lalonde’s sentiments. Last year, the UGBC elections committee reported 1,924 votes (about 21 percent of the undergraduate population) cast in the primary election, a slight decrease from the 2,182 votes cast in 2009.

The duo’s swift entry into the election highlights the ease with which students can join a presidential ballot – a process requiring only the names of the presidential and vice presidential candidates and their campaign manager. Candidate teams also need to supply one contact

e-mail address.

“All we did was sign our names on the intent form and we got in,” Lalonde said.

There are about 7,000 people eligible to run, including us. Eight people ran.”

Neither Lalonde nor Tierney attended last Tuesday’s campaign meet-and-greet or Sunday’s presidential and vice presidential debate.

Lalonde said that, in retrospect, he wish he could have been there, but that he hopes to be at the following debate.

First, though, he and Tierney would have to secure a spot in the general election.

“The typical BC student isn’t really concerned with most of the things that the candidates talk about at these debates and on their platforms,” said Tierney, CSOM ’12. A focus on the “average student” is the self-proclaimed cornerstone of the Lalonde-Tierney platform.

“I think that’s really what we’re trying to do here, to make BC a better place for the students,” Tierney said. “We’re really

looking for BC to be a lot more fun for the students.”

So far, the Lalonde-Tierney campaign has broken the mold of campaign marketing – by keeping it minimal. Their marketing strategy so far, in addition to a Facebook page, includes an intentionally phony, but eye-catching campaign to institute Pottyview. A paradoy of LaundryView, the fictional program would

See Lalonde-Tierney, A4

ALEX TRAUTWIG / heights EDITOR

Ryan Tierney, CSOM ’12 (left), and David Lalonde, A&S ’12, presidential hopefuls, aim to bring this year’s UGBC elections back to the students.

MLK scholarship awardee honored

By Katherine McClurg Heights Editor

ALEX TRAUTWIG / heights EDITOR

The 29th Annual MLK Awards Banquet took place Tuesday evening.

Angela Donkor, A&S ’12, was named the 29th Martin Luther King, Jr. Scholar Tuesday night in an award ceremony in the Rat. The annual ceremony and the scholarship are sponsored by the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Committee. There were five finalists for this year’s scholarship.

The scholarship was created to acknowledge a Boston College student who is committed to emulating King’s doctrines of equality and social justice. The scholarship recipient receives full tuition coverage for their senior year and a portrait of King painted by Steven Yee, CSOM ’11. All of the finalists also received $1,000 toward the purchase of books for their senior year, courtesy of the BC Bookstore.

Following a performance from the gospel choir, Voices of Imani, and a banquet dinner, the 2010 scholarship recipient, Catherine Duarte, A&S ’11, introduced the keynote speaker and spoke about her own experience. She said that the finalists, re-

gardless of who won, should be considered mentors and examples for everyone. Duarte concluded by encouraging the finalists to “continue in the selfless struggle to make a difference, no matter how big or small.”

During her three years thus far at BC, Donkor has led a Uganda Solidarity Trip for BC students working with children who have HIV/AIDS and has served on the Executive Board of the African Student Organization. Dongkor was an admissions tour guide, writer for The Heights, tutor in the Connors Family Learning Center, served as a point guard for 48 Hours, and volunteered at the Suffolk House of Corrections with PULSE. The other finalists, Mayra Cardoso, CSOM ’12; Christina Martin, A&S ’12; Nicole Shirley, A&S ’12; and Rey Sylla, CSOM ’12, were honored by the committee for their strong leadership values, community involvement, and pursuit of King’s aspirations.

Currently studying abroad in Beijing this semester, Dongkor was unable to attend the ceremony, but a family member accepted and spoke on her behalf.

See MLK Awards, A4

Admins address alcohol use 2000 policy takes effect

State of the Heights discusses new alcohol policies

Some student tenants still frustrated

By Daniel Tonkovich Heights Editor

By Molly LaPoint Asst. News Editor

At last night’s State of the Heights panel discussion, administrators discussed alcohol use and the new helpseeking alcohol policy implemented last semester.

The new policy allows students who are actively seeking help for an alcoholrelated emergency to avoid disciplinary action. There are a variety of ways a student can get help, including calling the BCPD, seeking out an RA, or receiving treatment from Eagle EMS. Last semester, about 40 students took advantage of the policy, and about 10 to 15 more have done so this semester.

“It’s something that’s really genuine,”

alex trautwig / heights editor

New policy allows students to seek help for alcohol-related emergencies without discipline. said Justin Pike, executive director of University issues for the UGBC and A&S ’11. “If you call for help, it’s going to come and it’s going to probably be a different interaction than you’ve had with BCPD and medical professionals.”

The policy extends to both the student who has the medical emergency and anyone who calls on a sick student’s

behalf. “It is extended to the person who calls,” Ericson said. “There’s no need for you to worry if you’re intoxicated, but are more concerned about a friend.”

Students who arrive at the infirmary due to an alcohol-related illness have always received treatment confidentially,

See Alcohol Policy, A4

Two new community guidelines governing tenants of the apartments at 2000 Commonwealth Ave. take effect today.

One new guideline limits the maximum number of guests allowed in a unit at any one time to four. All guests will be required to present valid photo identification before being permitted to enter the building. Beer kegs are also now prohibited in the building.

Archstone, the Englewood, Coloradobased property manager of the apartment building owned by Boston College, exercised its contractual right to change community guidelines by giving occupants 30 days notice of the changes on Jan. 18.

The 18-story, 190-unit apartment building was purchased by BC in 2008 for $68 million. It has the capacity to house 560 residents, but only houses half that

number due to an agreement between the city of Boston and the University. All the residents are BC students, faculty, or staff.

The guideline changes were implemented by Archstone. BC administrators, however, did play a role in the revised community guidelines.

“In response to numerous complaints from community members to BC and Archstone, representatives from Student Affairs and the Office of Government and Community Relations met with Archstone to discuss possible policy changes,” University Spokesperson Jack Dunn said.

Further information about BC’s meeting with Archstone was not available as of Wednesday evening.

Some residents remain skeptical about the motive for the guideline changes and frustrated four weeks after the policy

See 2000, A4

TopFive

The Heights

Thursday, February 17, 2011

things to do on campus this week

Red Cross Blood Drive

1

Hobbes vs. Spinoza

Trivia Night

Today Time: 12 p.m.

Location: Stuart Dining Hall

Be a blood donor for the American Red Cross. Appointments are available every 15 minutes from 12 p.m. to 4:45 p.m. in the snack room of Stuart Dining Hall.

2

Today Time: 9 p.m.

Location: Corcoran Commons

Bring your friends to trivia night, sponsored by Nights on the Heights. It is upstairs in Corcoran Commons and either pizza or nachos will be served.

3

University Wind Ensemble

Gospel Showcase

Friday Time: 4:30 p.m.

Location: Higgins 300

Come listen to the lecture “Hobbes vs. Spinoza on Human Nature: Political Ramifications” by Daniel Garber, a professor at Princeton University, as a part of the Albert J. Fitzgibbons Lecture Series.

featured on campus

Dean discusses fair trade

4

Friday Time: 6 p.m.

Location: Robsham Theater

Enjoy the first annual Gospel Showcase, entitled “Not Forgotten,” sponsored by the Multicultural Christian Fellowship in honor of Black History Month. Admission is $10.

5

Saturday Time: 8 p.m.

Location: Heights Room

Check out the University Wind Ensemble as they perform dance-inspired music, conducted

by Sebastian Bonaiuto. The event is sponsored by Boston College Bands.

IntheNews

Four Day Weather Forecast Today

49° Partly Cloudy 37°

Friday

52° Showers 33°

Saturday

36° Partly Cloudy and Windy

University Ohio universities accused of giving minorities an edge in admission In a report issued by the Center for Equal Opportunity, both the Ohio State University and the Miami University of Ohio are accused of giving certain minority groups and edge in the admissions process. The Center, which opposes affirmative action practices, found that they give an edge to black students, and Ohio State gives a similar edge to Hispanic students. White students applying to the universities have a lesser chance at admission, the Center claims. Both universities refuted the findings, claiming that the center looked too narrowly at their processes for admission.

19°

Sunday

32° Mostly Sunny 16°

Source: National Weather Service

A Guide to Your Newspaper The Heights Boston College – McElroy 113 140 Commonwealth Ave. Chestnut Hill, Mass. 02467 Editor-in-Chief (617) 552-2223

Local News Boston City Council takes steps to limit smoking in public parks alex trautwig / heights Editor

Dean Cycon, CEO of Dean’s Beans, spoke Tuesday about the effect of fair trade practices on coffee farmers.

By Jacob Bajada For The Heights

This past Tuesday, Real Food Boston College hosted Dean Cycon, CEO of Dean’s Beans, the company that produces the coffee available in Carney’s and Lower Dining Hall, to discuss the impact of fair trade coffee on the lives of the farmers that produce it.

Cycon, the author of Javatrekker: Dispatches from the World of Fair Trade Coffee, came up with the idea for the company in 1993 in hopes of achieving justice for undercompensated coffee farmers.

“Most of us pick it up, drink it, and that’s the end of it,” Cycon said. “We don’t fully appreciate their commodity.”

Dean’s Beans, a certified organic, fair trade, and kosher company, roasts its specialty coffees in its own beanery in Orange, Mass. To ensure proper compensation for farmers, the company adopts a strict fair trade philosophy.

“Fair Trade works with small farmers to create democratic cooperatives that ensure fair dealing, accountability, and transparency in trade transactions,” reads Dean’s Bean’s website. “In an industry where the farmer is traditionally ripped off by a host of middlemen, this is tremendously important.”

Cycon’s company strives to accomplish this by working

directly with the farmers. In the profit is given back to the discussing his vision for the cooperative of farmers to help company, he asked the audi- fund their local community ence, “What would it look projects. like if the [coffee] companies Dean’s Beans founded the really engaged in the lives of People Centered Development the workers?”

(PCD) to help these endeavors.

To do this, Cycon spoke This program engages personabout his company’s three ally with these communities points of emphasis: the envi- to assess what necessities are ronment, the economy, and the lacking and from here addresses community. how to reach a solution. “What Cycon only works with we do is go in and ask, ‘What is farmers who have undergone a holding you back from reachthree-year, oring your goals?’” ganic-certified Cycon said. program that Current proj“fair trade works educates them ects include forwith small farmers est restoration in water conservation and to create democratic in Peru and the pesticide use. cooperatives that establishment a certified ora radio-talk ensure fair dealing, of ganic processor, program called Dean’s Beans accountability, and “Coffee-Talk” has committed transparency in trade in Guatemala, to keeping an which provides transactions.” audit trail of weekly segments every item used to educate during coffee farmers about —Dean Cycon, production to the current cofCEO, Dean’s Beans show that only fee market and organic raw materials are various farming techniques. used.

Some of the people in attenTo guarantee that farmers dance found the presentation are fairly compensated, Dean’s to be eye-opening. Lindsey Beans promises to never pay Holder, LSOE ’14, said she was less than a rate of $1.60 per moved by the company’s philpound of coffee regardless of anthropic mindset. “[It] really the market situation. inspired me to do something “We always pay more than for someone else,” she said. fair trade minimum,” Cycon “It also definitely changed said. my opinion when it comes For every pound of coffee to choosing which coffee to sold, a small percentage of drink.” n

The Boston City Council began taking steps to ban smoking in public parks on Monday. District City Councilor Salvatore LaMattina and Felix G. Arroyo, city councilor at-large, introduced the proposed hearings that will limit smoking in these areas. LaMattina said he hopes to provide Boston citizens with a safe and healthy environment in public places without the hazard of second-hand smoke inhilation. Four hundred municipalities, including New York City, have already placed bans on smoking in public parks, according to Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights.

On Campus Senior granted $30,000 fellowship to support master’s study at LSOE Nathan Kono, A&S ’11, has been named one of 25 recipients of the Woodrow Wilson-Rockefeller Brothers Fund Fellowship for Aspiring Teachers of Color. The fellowship will support his master’s degree study at the Lynch School of Education (LSOE), after which he hopes to be a high school mathematics teacher in urban schools. LSOE’s graduate program is one of 29 programs qualified to nominate fellows for the Woodrow Wilson-Rockefeller Brothers Fund Fellowship, which comes with a $30,000 stipend.

National Arizona man admitted to hospital after five nights in the desert PHOENIX (AP) - Henry Morello, a diabetic 84-yearold Phoenix resident who spent five nights stuck in the desert, was admitted Saturday to John C. Lincoln Hospital in good condition despite drinking windshield wiper fluid to stay hydrated. He will remain there for a few days while he is treated for kidney damage.

Morello said he made a wrong turn while driving home on Feb. 7 and ended up stuck in the desert north of Phoenix. A search team had been looking for him since Wednesday, though a pack of hikers not affiliated with the search team found him Saturday morning.

Editorial General (617) 552-2221 Managing Editor (617) 552-4286 News Desk (617) 552-0172 Sports Desk (617) 552-0189 Marketplace Desk (617) 552-3548 Features Desk (617) 552-3548 Arts Desk (617) 552-0515 Photo (617) 552-1022 Fax (617) 552-4823 Business and Operations General Manager (617) 552-0169 Advertising (617) 552-2220 Business and Circulation (617) 552-0547 Classifieds and Collections (617) 552-0364 Fax (617) 552-1753 EDITORIAL RESOURCES News Tips Have a news tip or a good idea for a story? Call Taylour Kumpf, News Editor, at (617) 552-0172, or e-mail news@bcheights.com. For future events, e-mail, fax, or mail a detailed description of the event and contact information to the News Desk.

Sports Scores Want to report the results of a game? Call Paul Sulzer, Sports Editor, at (617) 552-0189, or e-mail sports@bcheights.com.

Arts Events The Heights covers a multitude of events both on and off campus – including concerts, movies, theatrical performances, and more. Call Darren Ranck, Arts and Review Editor, at (617) 552-0515, or e-mail arts@ bcheights.com. For future events, e-mail, fax, or mail a detailed description of the event and contact information to the Arts Desk.

Clarifications / Corrections The Heights strives to provide its readers with complete, accurate, and balanced information. If you believe we have made a reporting error, have information that requires a clarification or correction, or questions about The Heights standards and practices, you may contact Michael Caprio, Editor-in-Chief, at (617) 552-2223, or e-mail editor@ bcheights.com.

CUSTOMER SERVICE

Police Blotter 2/11/11 – 2/13/11 Friday, Feb. 11

Sunday, Feb. 13

3:03 p.m. – A report was filed regarding a fire alarm in the New Law Library. Officers responded along with the Newton Fire Department. The cause of the alarm was determined to be a faulty sprinkler alarm.

12:40 a.m. – A report was filed regarding the identification of several students in an area in which the odor of a controlled substance was located. Three parties were issued written trespass warnings and escorted off Boston College property. No drugs or contraband were located. A report will be forwarded to ODSD for review.

4:11 p.m. – A report was filed regarding a student who reported that he had been physically assaulted off campus by a male who he believes to also be a Boston College student. Boston Police responded and are investigating.

6:53 p.m. – A report was filed regarding a subject that had been verbally trespassed and was again observed in O’Neill Library last week. A detective is investigating.

11:50 p.m. – A report was filed regarding two underage intoxicated students in the Mods who were transported to separate medical facilities. One party was transported via Armstrong ambulance and the other by Police cruiser.

Saturday, Feb. 12 5:35 p.m. – A report was filed regarding a past dispute between a delivery driver and customer. It was determined to be a misunderstanding and the customer later paid the driver.

Voices from the Dustbowl “What food would you most like to see at the dining halls?”

“Lobster.”

—Margaret Stratton, A&S ’14

2:08 a.m. – A report was filed regarding the identification of several students in an area in which the odor of a controlled substance was located. Neither drugs nor contraband were located. A report will be forwarded to ODSD for review.

3:36 a.m. – A report was filed regarding a breaking and entering in the Mods, a disorderly person, and threats to commit a crime.

The suspect was placed into custody.

“Tacos.”

—Bradley Noss, CSOM ’14

9:13 a.m. – A report was filed regarding a 9-1-1 hang up call. Upon arrival, officers determined everything to be in order.

5:38 p.m. – A report was filed regarding a fire alarm. The cause was determined to be a blow dryer that activated a heat detector.

There was no actual fire.

—Source: The Boston College Police Department

“Enchiladas.”

—Emily Morton,

A&S ’12

Delivery To have The Heights delivered to your home each week or to report distribution problems on campus, contact Dan Ottaunick, General Manager at (617) 552-0547.

Advertising The Heights is one of the most effective ways to reach the BC community. To submit a classified, display, or online advertisement, call our advertising office at (617) 552-2220 Monday through Friday.

The Heights is produced by BC undergraduates and is published on Mondays and Thursdays during the academic year by The Heights, Inc. (c) 2011. All rights reserved.

CORRECTIONS - In the article titled “Election season in full swing” in the Feb. 14 edition, it was incorrectly reported that there is no resource center for AHANA students.

There is a resource center for AHANA students, the Thea Bowman AHANA Center. It was also incorrectly quoted that 90 percent of AHANA students said they would not enroll at BC again if given the chance, the correct number is 25.5 percent.

The Heights

Thursday, February 17, 2011

A3

Organizations work to raise cancer awareness

By Michael Shippie For The Heights

The week of Feb. 14 marks Boston College Fights Cancer week, a culmination of yearlong efforts to raise awareness about cancer and fund the research of the American Cancer Society.

Various student and administrative organizations throughout campus, including the UGBC, the Office of Residential Life, and Relay for Life, have organized events for the week.

Alicia Johnson, director of women’s issues for the UGBC and A&S ’11, has worked to dedicate today’s women’s basketball game against Miami to the cancer cause. The game is part of the Pink Zone campaign, which both raises awareness and encourages students to attend women’s basketball games.

“We hope that making next week’s game part of the Pink Zone Campaign, as well as coordinating a BC Fights Cancer week, will raise awareness about cancer funding at the same time that we bring students together to support our student athletes,” Johnson said.

“The Pink Zone game is part of a national campaign to raise awareness about breast cancer

and BC Athletics will be hosting a raffle at the $140,000 this year, said Katie Kearsey, co-chair game where proceeds will go to supporting cancer of the event and A&S ’11. The event already has research,” said Robyn Priest, assistant dean for registered over 1,000 participants. alcohol and drug education in the Office of the Dean “This marks the fourth year BC has held the anfor Student Development (ODSD). nual Relay for Life,” Kearsey said. “We eventually Admission to the game decided to break away will be free for students. The and hold our own Relay UGBC is also offering free “We eventually decided to break because we felt that BC pink “Superfan” T-shirts already had such a high to the first 100 students at away and hold our own Relay be- level of involvement, and the game. Concessions is cause we felt that BC already had we knew we could achieve offering a free soda to each even more if we planned student, and the BC Book- such a high level of involvement, and held the event here store will be offering a 10 and we knew we could achieve on campus.” percent discount on apparel year’s openeven more if we planned and held ingThis at the McElroy Commons speaker will be Ann the event here on campus.” store when students show Marie Morse, mother their ticket from the game of Michelle Morse, a on Friday. student at Plymouth —Katie Kearsey, BC Fights Cancer Week’s State University in New Relay for Life Co-Chair other main event is the anHampshire who passed nual Relay for Life, which away from cancer in and A&S ’11 will take place Friday from 2005 and the inspiration 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. Saturday at the Plex. “In the past for Michelle’s Law, which enables college students three years, Relay for Life has raised over $430,000 to keep their medical insurance and take a leave for the American Cancer Society, and hopes to raise from school during medical crises. “Michelle was

Allston-Brighton Crime Reports 2/07/11 – 2/12/11

Vandalism ensues after heated cigar purchase On Friday, Feb. 11 at 1:49 a.m., officers responded to a call regarding vandalism at the Econo Gas station on Commonwealth Ave. in Brighton. The victim, a night clerk, reported that two males walked up to the service window and one asked to purchase a $1.75 cigar, but offered to pay $1.00 for it. The clerk said no and the man handed him another dollar. After the purchase was made, he punched the window and stated, “I’m going to slap you.” He then made his way to a gas pump, removed the nozzle, and swung it at the pump. The victim stated that he would find out if the nozzle was broken when a customer tried to purchase gas. Both males walked away. Police searched the area to no avail.

Youth hockey coach’s car stolen At 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 12, a victim reported that his 2008 Volvo was stolen from an ice rink in Brighton. Between the hours of 10:15 a.m. and 11:50 a.m., the victim’s car was stolen from the parking lot. The victim, a youth hockey coach, told police that he placed his keys in his equipment bag in the locker room at about 10:30 a.m. and then proceeded to the ice rink. When he returned at about 11:45 a.m., he went to the parking lot and noticed that his car was not there.

Afterwards, he stated that he was approached by some of the youth hockey players who said that they noticed a “disheveled” white male enter the locker room and immediately exit the rink. The victim was informed that there is video surveillance located in the rink’s lobby or parking lot. The report was sent to the Boston Police Stolen Vehicle Unit.

Suspect vandalizes bar, slips on ice At about 1:15 a.m. on Feb. 7, officers responded to a call regarding vandalism at a bar in Brighton. Officers were told that the suspect had fled the scene after vandalizing the front glass door of the bar and had fallen on ice on the street outside. Officers observed the suspect lying on the sidewalk, and several witnesses stated that they had observed that suspect throwing chairs inside the bar, after getting in a fight with a female friend. One of the chairs shattered the glass door.

One of the bartenders, who ran toward the suspect, was injured by the door and had a laceration under his right eye, but declined medical treatment. The suspect was transported to the hospital for medical treatment.

Man arrested for narcotics possession On Tuesday Feb. 8, at about 12:30 p.m., officers observed two males walk on Brighton Ave. and continue down the street to have a conversation with another male. Officers observed one of the first males shake hands with the third male, however one of the males refused to let go. Officers began following the first two suspects in their police car, and upon the suspects’ recognition of police presence, they began walking away in a hurried manner. At that time, one of the officers stopped and questioned the suspects, asking them about the male they had encountered before.

The suspect stated that they were friends, but he did not know his name. The male was asked for his identification, but refused to give it to the officer and proceeded to make a scene. After approximately two minutes of yelling, the suspect eventually gave his identification to the officer.

The officer questioned the suspect about an “AIDS Walk” sign-up sheet that the suspect had, and the officer asked if he had been soliciting money. The officer searched the suspect and found narcotics, at which point he advised him that he was being placed under arrest for possession of a class A substance with intent to distribute, possession of a class C substance with intent to distribute, and larceny by false pretenses.

Robber steals TV and Blu-ray player At about 5:15 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 7, officers responded to a call regarding a breaking and entering. Upon the arrival of an officer, the victim stated that, while she was at work, her apartment had been broken into. She stated that when she arrived home, her door to her apartment was unlocked and her television and Blu-ray player were missing. There was no sign of forced entry, but the victim did state that the dog walking company that she used for five years had sent a different dog walker than usual.

- Courtesy of the Boston Police Department, District 14 Compiled by Adriana Mariella, Assoc. News Editor

a college student who was diagnosed with cancer and forced to choose between taking a year off to recover and losing her medical insurance, and staying in school to keep it,” Kearsey said.

Morse graduated after choosing the latter, against medical recommendations, but the physical strain proved too much and she passed away shortly thereafter.

Music and dance groups will be performing throughout the evening, and there will be several games and activities.

“Although we’ve teamed up with the Women’s Basketball Team to create the first BC Fights Cancer Week on campus, Relay for Life and the many students involved in the committee for the event have really committed themselves to a BC Fights Cancer year-long campaign,” said Dani Rosato, Relay for Life co-chair and A&S ’11. BC student members of Colleges against Cancer (CAC) chose a particular type of cancer to dedicate an event to each month.

Events in the fall semester included awareness for breast cancer and lung cancer.

“CAC will continue to put on events throughout the spring semester to better inform the student body about cancer and ways to prevent it,” Rosato said. n

Government releases 2012 education budget

By Molly LaPoint Asst. News Editor

President Barack Obama released his administration’s proposed 2012 education budget at a Baltimore public school Monday.

Cuts and increases in efficiency in several programs will help fund new educational investments to keep American students competitive, according to a statement by the U.S. Department of Education.

“We are cutting where we can to invest where we must,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a statement. “These are challenging times, but we can’t delay investments securing our future. We must educate our way to a better economy by investing responsibly, advancing reform and demanding results.”

Among programs receiving new funding are early learning, college completion, and competitive K-12

programs. The administration’s The administration eliminated 2012 budget request is $48.8 bil- 13 programs that will save $147 lion not including Pell Grants, million, and $256 million in career an increase of $2 billion over the and technical education grants will 2011 budget. The demand for Pell also be cut.

Grants is expected to reach 9.6 mil“Career education is vitally lion students in 2012, important to America’s up from 6 million in future but we need to 2008. Recently, the “ and reform We are cutting strengthen maximum grant was our programs before exincreased to $5,550, where we can to panding them,” Duncan and, to sustain the invest where we said. program, the adminOther agendas inmust.” istration proposes clude a new district-level eliminating subsidies Race to the Top program, for graduate students —Arne Duncan, supporting teacher and with loans, and elimiprincipal effectiveness, U.S. Education and providing support to nating a provision Secretary that enables some low-performing schools. students to receive “ Th e s e ta rge te d two Pell Grants in a year. funding increases reflect the ad“These are very tough choices, ministration’s competitiveness but with rising demand, we have agenda and our commitment to to stretch our dollars as far as protect students most at risk while possible and do more with less,” supporting reform at the state and Duncan said. local level,” Duncan said. n

The Heights

A4

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Lalonde-Tierney intend to rally student body Lalonde-Tierney, from A1

allow users to check availabilities of stalls in Boston College campus bathrooms.

“We used that to drag people in and maybe look at our platform,” Lalonde said. “At first, people kind of were like, ‘Is this a joke?’ and thought we were making a mockery out of the election. But now that people are understanding what we’re trying to talk about, we’re getting a lot more support.”

Although Lalonde and Tierney said they felt other candidate teams were skeptical of them at first, they now feel like they are in the running.

Ben Hall, member of the UGBC elections committee and LGSOE ’12, said that, regarding the LalondeTierney campaign, the committee has been steadfast in working toward an unbiased election.

“We are here to provide support for the teams and ensure that the elections are fair and conducted with integrity,” he said in an e-mail.

“At first, we really didn’t see ourselves in the contention,” Tierney said. “But now that we feel a lot more in the race, we’ve said that, if we win, we will definitely do it, and we’ll represent the student body.”

“The only true qualification for running for UGBC president and vice president is to represent the student body, so we feel qualified to take the position,” Lalonde said.

Despite Lalonde and Tierney’s optimism, Lalonde said that he recognizes they are not adequately prepared to run the UGBC itself, but, he says, this is not the biggest requirement of the president.

“When it comes down to it, the president and vice president should be representatives of the students, not representatives of the UGBC. I think anybody who can represent the student body well can run for president and vice president.”

“As we keep on going, we keep on getting more serious because we feel like we have to if people support us and believe in us,” he said. “If it was just us, we could take it a little more light-heartedly, but once you’re representing people, you have to be more serious.”

Some of Lalonde and Tierney’s more specific campaign platform points address topics like student involvement on campus and sexual health.

But most issues, Lalonde says, can be traced back to student pride in the University and general satisfaction with the undergraduate experience it offers.

“I think there are ... problems with students just loving being here,” he said. “I think that, if you love the school you’re at, people will develop their own stuff.

Not that the ideas on the table aren’t great ... but take sexual health for example, we’ve highlighted that on our campaign. I think that’s a big deal that just disappeared since the last election, and we’re the only ones talking about it now. Basically, we just want to shake it up with new issues or even old issues that have disappeared.”

“We’re concentrating more on student independence,” Tierney said. “That’s a big issue for us. There have been issues in the past year or two that students have hated, and I think students would have been able to do something about it, but no one really cares enough, so nothing’s going to be done about it. I think UGBC is the place to get that done.”

Lalonde said that his campaign’s slogan, “Vote Against Growth,” was adopted as an attention grabber.

“In terms of what we’re fighting for, it definitely goes with it.” Tierney said. “We’re not really happy with the way we see BC headed right now.”

“The idea behind ‘Vote Against Growth’ is that not all growth is good growth,” Lalonde said. “BC

is trying to make us grow into the this Ivy League school that we don’t necessary want to be. We don’t want to be really strict academically. We’re so much more than that. We can be that fun, academically strong school where people can see still see activism.”

“I haven’t seen much activism since I’ve been here,” he said. “Bringing activism back, seeing the student body act together would be amazing. The student body has the power to accomplish so much, they just need to work together toward a common goal. Right now, I think BC is really divided along the lines of clubs, but students are never working together.”

Lalonde said he believes the president and vice president of the UGBC should act as a rallying point for students. “If the president and vice president [of the UGBC] were more vocal and were seen as a tool fighting for the student body, I think so many more people would get involved,” he said. “I see the president and vice president accomplishing a lot for the school, but I don’t see them fighting for the student body. They could really be a rallying point for the entire school.” n

University encourages students to call for friends Alcohol Policy, from A1

said Nancy Baker, associate director of University health services. “We have always had a confidential policy for students in our department asking for help on their own,” she said.

The number of students coming in for treatment was deemed low when compared with the number of students likely engaged in high-risk drinking behavior, and it was suggested that students may be more likely to seek help if they were less concerned about getting in trouble, Baker said.

Some students might have difficulty knowing when a situation has escalated to the point of a medical emergency, said Robyn Priest, assistant dean of alcohol and drug education. To combat this, magnets and wallet cards describing the signs and symptoms of alcohol poisoning have been distributed to students. “Half the struggle is getting students educated,” she said.

“If you think one of your friends needs help, make the call,” BCPD Chief John King said. “Don’t second guess yourself. Everyone here is concerned with your safety.”

Usually, when students make this decision, it is the right one, Ericson said. “I can’t think of a single case where a student was taken in for medical treatment when it wasn’t necessary,” he said. “When in doubt, call.”

Ericson dislikes the term “amnesty policy,” he said.

“Amnesty suggests that it’s a free pass, and that’s not specifically the case. We will meet with a student, but it won’t be considered a conduct meeting. It will be a meeting to follow up on health and wellness.”

These meetings involve alcohol education, and may lead to appointments with University Counseling Services. “In the future, we’d hope a student would choose differently,” Ericson said. “We want students to learn.” n

Students are encouraged to use the service as many times as necessary, though the follow-up appointments will differ. If it happens enough times, a student may be encouraged to take a medical leave of absence.

“The response will be ratcheted up,” Ericson said. “If you’re hospitalized for alcohol abuse that many times, there’s probably an underlying medical issue.”

Because the policy was implemented in September, it was not complete for freshmen orientation and therefore was not advertised, but students have received e-mails about it, and many have received the wallet cards, Ericson said. The text of the policy is available online, and, in the future, incoming freshmen will be educated about the policy.

“It really came together at the end of the summer, but it has been out there,” Pike said.

Freshmen and sophomores have utilized the policy most, Ericson said, though students over 21 have also used the service.

The panel also discussed how BC measures up to other schools in regards to alcohol use. BC’s numbers may come out differently because of the way administrators handle alcohol use, Baker said.

Because the University tries to be proactive in handling alcohol use, and deals with alcohol-related issues at health services, it may seem on the surface that there are more problems. “I don’t think from a medical standpoint [we have a bigger problem],” she said. “Our numbers are higher because we intervene

at a lower level.”

At Tufts University, where King was employed prior to coming to BC at the beginning of the academic year, policies are similar, he said. “They take the same approach as far as this program,” King said. “They have an EMS system there similar to Eagle EMS. A lot of schools are doing similar programs. They are realizing that when students are reluctant to call for help, someone is going to get hurt.”

King noted the difference between on-campus and off-campus sanctions. The city of Boston, he said, has a zero-tolerance policy for underage drinking.

“Different rules apply once you cross the line onto campus,” he said. “You won’t have the same kind of resources when you’re off campus.”

Currently, demographic data about students who utilized the help-seeking policy first semester is being analyzed, and more information about those students is being gathered. “That way, we’ll have better information so if there are changes, it will be based on empirical data,” Ericson said.

Baker would like to see the campus culture surrounding alcohol use change, she said. This would be difficult, she acknowledges, though it is possible that stress-reducing programs might reduce the amount of drinking. “I would like to see a change in the culture, and I’m not sure how that takes place except for when a majority of students start behaving in a particular way.” n

Donkor recipient of award MLK Awards, from A1

alex trautwig / heights editor

Students express concern about new guidelines 2000, from A1

changes were first communicated.

“Not even all of the apartments are filled,” said Michael Nardella, a current tenant and A&S ’13. “It does not get that loud here, even on weekends. I find it hard to believe that those in buildings nearby are complaining about noise here.”

For Anthony Russo, a new resident of the apartments and CSOM ’13, the policy changes would have prevented him from leasing with Archstone in January.

“The guideline changes were made mid-lease for many,” Russo said. “Archstone knew the rule they made would deter people from signing leases here.

If the changes were reasonable, it would not affect people’s decisions. This change is just way too big.”

Nardella articulated a similar sentiment.

“Having moved here from College Road mid-year, I expected more freedom being off campus,” he said.

“That is not the case.”

Tenants also expressed dissatisfaction with the philosophy of the policy.

“It is more about the principle than the number, though four guests at a time is ridiculous,” Russo said. “Archstone should consider us as the adults that we are. They would not do this to a family. We were told we could have a larger group than four approved beforehand as long as it was not on a weekend evening. It is as though I need my lifestyle approved

by Archstone. I do not think that is fair.”

“I find it ironic that the paper that accompanied my lease said, ‘Welcome home,’” Russo said. “If this was your home, would you want to be regulated like Archstone does with us? I don’t feel at home now.

They lied.”

Erin Fronrath, community manager of the apartments at 2000 Comm. Ave., declined to comment.

Corporate officials from Archstone’s headquarters also declined requests for an interview. n

She had a speech prepared, in which she said she was humbled and grateful for the award because she “had seen the hard work and commitment of the other finalists, and hopes [she] can inspire others as [her] fellow finalists as they’d inspired [her].”

The keynote speaker, Rev. Evan Charles Hines, BC ’90, emphasized the power of thought. Explaining how prejudice is furthered because we don’t give it a second thought. Hines concluded by challenging the audience to establish their own thoughts on themselves, each other, the world, and to act in an according manner. n

alex trautwig / heights editor

Phillips to improve health Health Promotions, from A1

Resource Center, Alcohol and Drug Education, Nutrition Education, and Nutrition Counseling to be the core group of the Office of Health Promotions, and then as we learn more about student health, we will build programming around the needs of students, such as helping students to manage stress and time, sleep better, and to create balance in their lives. We will do this by offering health campaigns and programs and building on existing programming,” Phillips said.

Outside of these programs, Phillips said the Office of Health Promotion seeks to provide students with health information that is more accessible and easier to understand, reiterating the initiatives of the new programs directed at helping students individually, thus building a healthier community as a whole.

“We will offer health education in many areas, resources, and referrals for student health needs,” Phillips said. “We will be offering existing programming and creating a menu of new initiatives as well.”

Among the office’s new goals is the goal to work directly with students on topics that affect the BC community closely, like stress management. Phillips, who previously worked at Simmons College as the Director of Health Education and Student Support Services before coming to BC, said she loves working with students on managing stress and encourages students to take advantage of current programs.

With undergraduate and graduate degrees in health education, Phillips said her emphasis is making health information more creative and more available to students. In addition to her work at

Simmons College, she also previously worked at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where she developed a health program and managed the health management center.

“I love the field of health promotion and education,” Phillips said. “I love taking health information and making it easy to understand, accessible, and creative so that students can use the information to make healthy decisions and choices in their lives.”

Through collaborations across departments in the division of Student Affairs, Phillips said the new Office of Health Promotions plans to work closely with health education services across campus to build a healthier BC community, which she is quickly settling into.

During her first week, she met with students and faculty and got acclimated to campus, and gaining a sense of the campus culture. “I am learning so much and love the environment here,” Philips said.

“I am thrilled to be at Boston College. It’s such a top academic institution with a clear and strong mission,” Phillips said. “It has world-class faculty and staff and a gifted population of students.

Boston College develops and supports students in so many ways. As a student health professional, I have always thought it would be a wonderful community to be part of and enhance student health.

When this position came up, I applied for it, and I was so thrilled when I was hired.”

Outside of her work on campus, Phillips stays healthy by running, biking, swimming, and skiing.

She is also an avid baker and cook, specializing in desserts and Panko chicken dishes that she enjoys with her family and her golden retriever, Baxter. n

CLASSIFIEDS

A5

The Heights

Thursday, February 17, 2010

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Each row, column and 3x3 box should contain the numbers 1 to 9. You must follow these rules: · Number can appear only once in each row · Number can appear only once in each column · Number can appear only once in each 3x3 box · The number should appear only once on row, column or area.

A6

The Heights

Editorials

STATISTICALLY SPEAKING:Breaking down Borders

Jump on the Superfan wagon

Thursday, February 17, 2011

“Borders is filing for bankruptcy protection and will shutter about 30% of its stores—or about 200 locations— over the next few weeks. The 40-year-old company, which has struggled in the face of competition from Amazon, the Kindle, and deep-discounters Walmart and Target, will receive $505 million in so-called debtorin-possession financing from GE Capital and others to help it reorganize.”

Source: “Borders Closing 30% of Stores,” by Kate Schwartz, Feb. 16, 2011

The momentum created by the men’s hockey team’s back-to-back Beanpot wins should be carried through all season The Eagles are now back-to-back Beanpot Champions and it is undeniable that the Superfans have been out in full force this season; a notably robust student crowd filled the stands during the recent championship game.

Whether this is due to the talent of the men’s and women’s hockey teams, or just the excitement surrounding the Beanpot, the fact remains that the teams are drawing increasingly more fans. Boston College is now leading the Hockey East in the average number of attendees per home game. Since the 2007-2008 season, previous attendance had been on the decline. Records show that Conte Forum was No. 4 in home attendance in the Hockey East last season with around 1,000 fewer fans per home game than this season, on average.

Fans should take this positive trend and run with it. The pride the BC community has for the hockey team should be cel-

ebrated by encouraging even more people to go to the games. We believe that this is the perfect opportunity to turn attending athletic events into a tradition. Students should embrace the rare chance to cheer on a men’s hockey team vying for backto-back national championships.

But the support for BC athletics should not stop there. The men’s basketball team is currently next-to-last in the ACC in home game attendance. The excitement surrounding the hockey team could be contagious and spread to even more sports and teams.

If students start going to games not just for the love of watching the sport, but also because it’s an integral part of the BC culture, game attendance will transcend the success of any one team at any one time. It will cease to be a function of the teams’ standings and become a worthy social event in the best of times and in the worst of times.

Moving beyond the monologue

Matt Laud / Heights Illustration

‘The Vagina Monologues’ is still a marginal event where it should find an engaged audience — a college campus Fifteen years after the The Vagina Monologues were written by Eve Ensler, the performance, which is hosted at colleges and universities around the country, remains a polarizing force on campus. For the eight years that The Vagina Monologues have been hosted on campus, the organizers have operated at a distance from the University, seeking funding from the student government and adhering to numerous administrative restrictions. While the distance between the performance and the University is understandable given the production’s content (some of which deals with same-sex relations), it is easy to confuse quiet acceptance on the part of Boston College community members with quiet animosity. We think that it’s time to view the Monologues as a springboard to discuss not only feminism and women’s issues, but also more BC-specific topics like feminism and sexuality in the Catholic Church, which would only be appropriate given the setting of the performance.

In past years, the University itself

has received criticism for its allowance of The Vagina Monologues on campus.

In 2004, the Cardinal Newman Society ran a full-page ad in USA Today listing Catholic universities (including BC) that allowed the performance. Yet, The Vagina Monologues remain a perennial event. We praise the University and its administrators for their commitment to academic freedom. But the campus needs to take it a step further. It will be at institutions like BC that the Church in the United States will define its place in the 21st century.

Here at BC, there are at least some students interested in talking about sexuality, feminism, and morality. This is manifested in The Vagina Monologues and the post-performance discussions held every year. That interest is the fuel on which these conversations about the Church’s place in society will run. No matter what their thoughts are on the presentation of The Vagina Monologues, administrators, faculty, and Jesuits should acknowledge the presence of this student interest and engage it off of the stage, but always in the spirit of open dialogue.

Not merely a matter of formality An expansion of formal programming would not only foster community and class, but fill a social void that students face

During football season, when the campus comes alive under the communal spirit of football, particular attention has recently been given to the Notre Dame game because, in the spirit of collegiate rivalry, the Fighting Irish is the team Boston College students love to hate. Though we brag about BC having the superior football team, we feels that in terms of campus traditions, our student body could take some advice from our South Bend-based foes.

When choosing to attend a Jesuit school, BC students willingly forfeit the potential to engage in Greek life during their undergraduate experience. With this in mind, it is disappointing that few clubs or student organizations takes up the challenge of providing the kinds of large-scale campus events that are typical of schools within unifying Hellenic institutions.

For an event to gain the type of status that would solidify it as a tradition, there are a few factors we feel would need to be considered. The type of events that would be most successful are those that every-

one on campus could attend. The reason football is such an engaging activity is due largely to the fact that everyone – Superfans past, present, and future – can join in. Fair and ample ticket sales, as well a sensible sales methods, are of critical importance to an event’s success. One thing that many students have noticed is that the ticket office in Robsham Theater is manned by one or two employees on most days when event tickets are sold.

It would make much more sense to sell tickets in the regulation-sized windows at Conte Forum.

With programming as a major platform point during this year’s UGBC presidential election, we would like to suggest that candidates seek to unite groups on campus—a process that could lead to larger-scale activities whose reputations would arouse anticipation in students from freshman year onward. We hope to see this year’s candidates adopt this spirit so as to work to unite a student body and engage in the deeper sense of what it means to be part of the BC community.

The Heights The Independent Student Newspaper of Boston College Established 1919 Michael Caprio, Editor-in-Chief Daniel Ottaunick, General Manager Hilary Chassé, Managing Editor

Contributors: Maggie Burdge

Letters to the Editor Consider a Men’s Resource Center During this time of year, students are being hounded for their vote in the upcoming UGBC elections, as four teams compete based on their “experience, ideas, and energy.” But this is also the time of year where students should demand action from those they elect, so that those student leaders direct attention where the student body needs assistance.

One of the most visible and effective university programs on campus is the Women’s Resource Center (WRC), located in McElroy. The WRC offers support for women within the BC community, and emergency services such as the sexual assault hotline. But our community includes two genders, and the concerns facing male students are no less worthy of attention from the administration and student leaders. Compared to the excellent administration, funding, and resources provided by the WRC, malefocused resources are noticeably lacking, and there are few

outlets for underclass male students to find support and mentorship within our large community.

To this point, I expect our candidates for student body president and vice president to support the development of male students on campus, through UGBC policy and in conjunction with the administration. Student formation has become a source of constant discussion within the administration, and I believe it is time for UGBC to demand resources for male students, with the end goal of a Men’s Resource Center. The candidates who fight for this goal may not gain a large number of votes, but they will improve the Boston College community for thousands of future students, and fulfill their roles as leaders of the whole student body.

Peter Brown A&S ’12

Expansion of merit aid is key The Presidential Scholars Program appropriately addresses the pre-college achievements of a (regrettably) small group of students; however, granting merit aid to students only for their achievements in high school is fundamentally contrary to the purpose of a college education.

A scholarship program that does not recognize students for achievement during their college years fails to encourage personal and academic growth. While some students have been able to attend prestigious high schools, study abroad, and do other things worthy to note on their college applications, others simply have not had these opportunities. College gives these students their first chance to reach their potential, so they should

be encouraged to do so.

The problems regarding Boston College’s scholarship programs are, unfortunately, not limited to financial aid.

The resources available to the Presidential Scholars and other merit aid recipients should be made available to worthy undergraduates as well.

The purpose of a college education is not to celebrate past achievements but to nurture future ones. Expanding merit aid to undergraduates is just the first in many steps that BC must take to preserve this notion.

Kaitlyn Quaranta A&S ’14

Pairing ‘The Vagina Monologues’ and Rand As a feminist who has taught both The Vagina Monologues and Atlas Shrugged, I thank The Heights for its two enjoyable pieces on these works in Monday’s edition.

One might think The Heights, or myself for that matter, might be looking for “balance” in spotlighting both the Progressive playwright Eve Ensler and the Conservative novelist Ayn Rand, but there are interesting similarities in these works too. Both of them take on “the world” as the artist believes it unfortunately is, and project an alternative vision of how the world could be: The Vagina Monologues uses comic exaggeration as well as pathos to achieve this dystopian-utopian mix, and Atlas Shrugged projects the same mix in its blend of realist fiction and fable. The play goes for the emotional solar plexus in under two hours; the novel, thousand pages or not, also carries a world-changing emotional impact for many.

Yes, you can read the text of Eve Ensler’s play with profit, but the heart of the matter is its living presence – that’s one of the many reasons why the Women’s and Gender Studies Program supports the 20 or so students who every year for eight years have gathered to do it, and facilitates all the assenting and dissenting “Dialogues on the Monologues” that goes on. Yes, like your columnist Taylor Cavallo, I will eagerly go to see the film “Atlas Shrugged Part One” (and would have even had it starred Angelina Jolie), but even if it’s good I’ll want to keep teaching the novel, and facilitating all the assenting and dissenting dialogues it sparks.

Judith Wilt

Professor, English Department

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The Heights

Thursday, February 17, 2011

A7

Opinions

Thumbs Up Snack Machine – The first floor of O’Neill is becoming more like a nightclub every day, a sentiment solidified further by the recent installment of a new and f lashy digitized vending machine.

It lights up, it twists your bag of M&M’s like Chubby Checker’s breathing down its back, and makes learning fun again!

Beanpot Champs – It’s our year for setting records. For the first time since 1965, the men’s hockey team is bringing home the Beanpot twice in a row. Also, this year marks the first time BC has brought home the trophy for both the men’s and women’s teams in the same year. This is a feat that can be attributed to the teams’ superior skill and coaching and which has been celebrated by the fantastic turnout of Superfans at hockey events. Wins like these make it that much harder to see so many members of the hockey team sign with professional teams this year. But though winning trumps all, did you really need to keep us biting our nails and fearing for our sanity into overtime yet again, Eagles?

Museum of Science – Last year this museum underwent major renovation and finally unveiled its brand new space theater this past Sunday. In the new “space,” patrons can recline under a digitized sky that exhibits more than 9,000 stars and their movement over the past 10,000 years and simulates space travel and hotly debated phenomenon that is climate change. Perfect for those looking to release their inner-Trekkie or those looking for a cheap thrill, as its only $10.

Apple Subscriptions – Apple is now making it possible for media companies to offer subscriptions to its magazines, newspapers, music, and video content to be viewed on the iPad and other devices, as opposed to making users pay full price and buy content a la carte. The only downside?

Part of the deal Apple cut was that it also gets ownership of subscriber data, including names and email addresses—meaning one more source out there in the world is going to know that you’re 22 and still subscribe to Seventeen.

Thumbs Down

Midterms beginning – The beginning of the semester has definitely passed. We have hit the point of no return, the breaking point: the start of midterms season. Say goodbye to those carefree four-day weekends and using O’Neill merely as a place to warm up (or grab an ultra modern snack). Bring on the stress. Bring on the coffee. Bring on watching the sunrise through the stained glass windows of Gargan Hall.

Robsham Seating – “You get what you pay for,” has taken a new significance at BC’s Robsham Theater, where patrons of culture shows, theater productions, and concerts are now restricted by a new assigned seating policy. This means, if you’d like to ensure sitting with friends, you must mobilize and buy tickets in a mass.

We can only assume this move was prompted by rowdy audiences—probably the hooligans at last year’s free Ryan Cabrera concert.

Emerging environmentalists Katya Rucker The other night, I was the only customer browsing through a meager array of wines in a tiny liquor store in Newton. Just as I was deciding to give up and grab a six-pack from the token beer fridge, the manager commented on the excessive snow and joked that he wanted to move to Florida before the next blizzard. He’s a stout, graying man of middle age with wide eyes and a thick Russian accent.

“Well,” I say, “I guess that’s what we sign up for living in New England, right?” I wasn’t sure if he heard me, as he was still shaking his head at the glass window overlooking a dirty snow bank. He had coated the sidewalk in front of his store with a two-inch layer of industrial salt—perhaps a courtesy to the many passers-by.

“You know global warming?” he finally says. “It’s a conspiracy created by zee British. Al Gore should give back his Oscar he got from zat movie… vat is it? Zee Unfortunate Truth?”

I couldn’t help but give him an incredulous look. I tell him there is no conspiracy. At least, no conspiracy about the fact that arctic glaciers are melting, CO2 levels are rising, 2010 was the warmest year on record, and hundreds of millions of people are facing increasing, extreme water scarcity.

An inconvenient truth.

For a second, I think his mental wheels are turning. All he says, though, is that this winter has been colder than the last. How can the earth be warming if he has to pay higher energy bills to heat his store this year?

For those of us who brave the long, merciless winters of New England, “global warming” can be pushed out

of sight, out of mind. We aren’t facing prolonged droughts, desertification, or temperatures high enough to cause a heat stroke. Rising sea levels are only a distant threat for the next generation to worry about. They certainly don’t merit attention by current political leaders. We are facing increasing precipitation (in the form of snow), but it’s hard for many people to realize its connection with global warming.

It’s the system as a whole that faces a warming trend, and regional ramifications will vary toward extremes.

Right now, the Republicans in Congress are not willing to face any inconvenient climate change truths (because climate change is a partisan issue in this country). In fact, they are seeking to make scientific truths invalid through a democratic, simplemajority vote. They are promoting a bill that will greatly diminish the viability of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean Air Act. They are calling it the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011. This bill would, among other things, repeal an EPA finding that greenhouse gases are a threat to human health and welfare (even though they are). It would declare that greenhouse gases are not air pollutants (even though they are).

This bold new initiative reminds me of Mike McGlone from the Geico rhetorical question ads. “Do humans really cause significant climate change?”

“Was Isaac Newton wrong about gravity?”

Numerous of scientific studies have assured us that it is about as likely that humans are contributing significantly to global warming (and threatening their own welfare in doing so) as it is that suspending an object above the ground and releasing it will cause that object to fall.

All across the world, countries are calling for dramatic action to reduce carbon emissions and expand clean, sustainable infrastructure. The U.S. has been avoiding binding emission-

reduction standards since the Kyoto days. But this latest bill would mean that the U.S. would be taking a drastic step backwards. The Clean Air Act has been an effective and hugely necessary piece of legislature for over 40 years.

The dangers we face now come with sticking to business as usual. Many people don’t realize that the pollution produced in our backyard can negatively affect communities on the other side of the planet. International conflicts over diminishing water resources in the Middle East are predicted to escalate. Melting ice in the Arctic has Russia claiming economic and territorial rights over open water that used to be our earth’s best form of sunscreen (the North Pole ice cap). It is important to remember that this is all happening now - and U.S. policymakers are willing to overlook the harsh realities in favor of tax breaks for industrial polluters and Range Rover manufacturers.

Dramatic irony, in literature, occurs when the reader knows something that the characters don’t. When it comes to climate change, I experience dramatic irony with every person who has the mindset of that liquor store manager. My fear is that there are too many characters in this world who will be caught completely unaware when the realization finally hits them. Let’s just hope that the U.S. won’t be the country blindly leading the world to that point of no return.

Students in universities across the country are capable of rewriting the human story. They are the new generation of environmentalists—the generation that is armed with the knowledge and capability to force a paradigm shift. We can start right here, with the misconceptions in our surrounding neighborhoods, and create a ripple effect that eventually reaches the talking heads in Congress.

Katya Rucker is a staff columnist for The Heights. She welcomes comments at opinions@bcheights.com.

Budget for the future

Hayley Trahan-Liptak What can $5,000 buy? If you’re a business, the money could buy you just over a month of work by a trained college graduate. If you’re a student, about a month’s worth of a college education. But for the federal government, $5,000 is just pocket change in comparison to the $3.7 trillion budget proposed by the president this week.

That is, of course, unless you’re referring to the $5,000 stipends granted to AmeriCorp Volunteers. When put toward AmeriCorp, $5,000 represents hundreds of hours of hard work to make our communities better. Yet, the days when $5,000 could capture so much are limited.

Former President Bill Clinton created AmeriCorp in 1993 as part of the National and Community Service Trust Act. Although today’s conservative leaders decry the program as wasteful liberal spending, a bipartisan initiative headed by President George W. Bush doubled the group’s financial support and is largely responsible for the 75,000 opportunities available in the organization today. For the cost of an approximately $5,000 education grant, health care, and a basic living allowance, the government receives a dedicated, willing, and passionate employee ready to make a difference in communities around the country. Common programs that rely on AmeriCorp include Teach for America, City Year, and Jumpstart, as well as hundreds of other, smaller positions around the United States.

Today, Republican leaders are taking aim at the program in an effort to reduce the federal budget.

Party Time

BY BEN VADNAL

Claiming Obama’s budget does not do enough to eliminate the growing deficit, House leaders proposed their own budget that cuts 14 percent of government expenditures, including many of the programs that comprise the so-called “social safety net” as well as the entirety of the AmeriCorp program. Leaders say the House budget sends a message to the president that Republicans are serious about closing the budget gap by eliminating billions of dollars of spending.

However, attempting to eliminate the AmeriCorp program shows a miscalculation on behalf of House leaders. If opposition leaders truly want to release a counter budget to the President, they need to recognize that there is more to the government budget then percentage points and dollar signs. What the government invests money in represents food, jobs, services, and protection whether you are unemployed, a member of the armed forces, a government employee, or just a citizen who likes to drive on paved roads. The budget represents life, cutting it in order to send a message, is like blowing up the moon with a bomb just to show power. The results can have drastic repercussions and there are many safer and smarter alternatives.

That is not to say the federal budget should remain stagnant. Trimming excesses is vital for a country that is falling deeper and deeper into the red. Yet abolishing programs like AmeriCorp is counterintuitive.

From community activism to tutoring students and building homes for Habitat for Humanity, programs like AmeriCorp provide essential services to organizations that would otherwise be unable to provide assistance to those who need it. With AmeriCorp

volunteers in the classrooms tutoring faltering students, the federal government avoids hiring more expensive tutors for the same positions. The same is true for AmeriCorp work with gang prevention, community development, and conservation efforts.

Investment through AmeriCorps members pays out in dividends.

Many argue that AmeriCorp and programs like it are full of faults and problems. These critics are correct. AmeriCorp is not perfect and members are essentially paid volunteers. While unpaid volunteers would be inexpensive, running the program with no money is not feasible in today’s world. Without small stipends and basic living expenses, AmeriCorp members would be without food, shelter, or resources and would likely need to rely on the very safety net of programs House leaders are currently looking to cut. Like any program, AmeriCorp has many hotly contested faults, yet the concept behind the Corp as a whole should be indisputable. A little bit of investment goes a long way.

As Congress looks at the federal budget in the next few weeks, it needs to see more than dollars and cents.

Each dollar in the budget represents people and lives, but many dollars also represent sweat and determination, hard work and ingenuity.

Programs like AmeriCorp are just the kind of programs our leaders should be looking for. With just a little investment, $5,000 can buy new homes, better schools, and stronger communities.

Hayley Trahan-Liptak is a staff columnist for The Heights. She welcomes comments at opinions@bcheights.com.

Strict, not detached

Pooja Shah Growing up can be tough. Scraped knees, bloody noses, wrecked toys, and “cooties” are just a few of the wide range of things that plague a young child’s life.

Now add tyrannical parenting to that equation and imagine the additional difficulties that arise. The Internet is currently booming with controversy over Amy Chua, a professor at Yale Law School, whose memoir, “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” evokes debate over the validity of her argument about the superiority of Chinese mothers over to Western mothers. For those unfamiliar with her memoir, Chua assumes the role of a “tiger mom” as she narrates the way she raises her two daughters, Sophia and Louisa in an “Eastern way.” Chua portrays how the Chinese way of parenting, one that she is accustomed to from her own personal childhood, is the best way to breed successful, intelligent, well-mannered children. She reveals her extreme methods which include forbidding her daughters from “attending sleepovers, having play dates, being in a school play, watching TV or playing computer games” among many things. She forced them to spend hours playing the piano or violin and making sure their report cards only display straight As. My immediate response to reading this article was jaw-dropping, eye-widening shock (followed by a phone call to my mother expressing my undying love to her). Relating it back to my personal upbringing and what I have seen around me, it appalled me how stringent certain parenting methods can be, and surprisingly how successful. Although Chua’s tactics stereotypically portray Asian mothers, specifically, as “scheming, callous, and indifferent to their kid’s true interests.”

She does pinpoint many crucial elements of proper rearing.

When my brother and I were younger, we often referred to my mother as SheWho-Must-Be-Feared, in light of the Harry Potter series we grew up reading. In any case, my mother did not roar or growl if my report card was tainted by a single B or if I wanted to participate in a dance show like Tiger Amy Chua would, but my mom did have her moments. Yet, while reading the excerpt, I almost felt myself wishing I had a stricter, more plannedout childhood. Maybe if my parents had regulated my behavior differently, 19 years later I would be playing the piano or violin at Carnegie Hall rather than listening to it on repeat while studying for organic chemistry. As much as I appreciate the relative amount of freedom and liberty I received, I do believe that adequate amount of discipline is necessary to properly raise children. Although Amy Chua might have exaggerated the extent to which she believes Chinese parenting, or even the immigrant way of parenting (as many have denoted it as) is superior, her underlying message seems to say that compassion, caring, and interest in one’s child’s life is necessary to help them maximize their potential.

The fuss over Chua’s demands also stems from the fact that her ideas seem overly domineering and wild. For example, Chua confessed to one of her friends that she had called her daughter, Sophia, “garbage” for being disrespectful toward her. In the Western eye, the idea of publicly degrading your child is absurd and questionable to how happy her daughters actually are. Besides the fact that one of her daughters has already responded to the outrage behind her mother’s excerpt with gratitude, how can they be unhappy with something they never had? Since they were infants, Sophia and Louisa have been brought up with this inflexible method of living, that they aren’t familiar with other forms of happiness. Therefore, how can they be unhappy with their lives if they haven’t experienced what’s better?

Additionally, their mother has obviously instilled in them great work ethic, moral values, artistic and academic skills, and dedication to concentrate on whatever they do. Naturally, they might feel as if their lives do not parallel those of their peers, but at least their mother serves as a person who is not uninterested or uninvolved with their academic and social lives. In fact, just as Chua says, “Chinese parents would give up anything for their children—it’s just an entirely different parenting model.” While Amy Chua might not win the Mother of the Year Award, she does employ certain notable elements of parenting that proved to be successful in her daughter’s futures.

Who knows which future mothers will follow suit.

Pooja Shah is a staff columnist for The Heights. She welcomes comments at opinions@bcheights.com.

The Heights

A8

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Eagles claim both Beanpots for first time

nick rellas / heights staff

alex trautwig / heights editor

Steven Whitney beat Chris Rawlings glove side for a goal in the second period of BC’s 7-6 win over Northeastern.

Back-To-Back, from A10 could do about Hayes’.

“We all looked up and we knew,” Kreider said. “It was a special moment.”

He paused, reflecting on the meaning of goal, before grinning at the mention of the frenzied celebration.

“I’ve got to remember not to be the first one on the pile,” he said, laughing. “I almost got crushed.”

Dog piles were the last thing on the minds of the players at the end of regulation though. Northeastern senior Wade MacLeod forced overtime with just 1:46 left when his blistering one-timer beat John Muse glove side to knot the game at six. The Huskies gave the Eagles a couple more scares before the end of a period BC barely escaped.

“Guys were positive,” Hayes said of the mood in the locker room after regulation. “Coach is calm, so it kind of rubs off on us. We went in there with the attitude that we could win the game.”

“Guys were a little somber at first, but everyone picked each other up,” Kreider said. “That’s why we’ve been successful up to this point. It was a mellow environment at first. Before you knew it, guys were cracking smiles and saying, ‘Hey, we can win this.’ We carried that confidence onto the ice.”

The Eagles had plenty of reasons to feel confident before MacLeod tested their resolve. They came back from a deficit three times, including once in the third after Brodie Reid gave Northeastern a 5-4 lead at 8:44. Arnold responded within two minutes with a pretty backhanded flip over Rawlings’ right shoulder at 10:12. Then Kreider outskated two defenders and nudged the puck into the net as he slashed through the crease 1:32 later.

“Chris’ goal tonight was what we like to call a Run to Daylight,” York said. “He comes across in front of the net and it’s hard to stop him.”

The defenses had a hard enough time stopping anybody on either side. BC had several uncharacteristic special teams breakdowns, including a shorthanded goal and two power-play goals. The

Huskies stopped the Eagles’ streak of consecutive penalties killed at 23 when Luke Eibler scored at 17:04 in the first. Reid added one of his own on a man advantage 1:08 later, giving the Huskies a 2-1 edge at the end of the first.

Those goals were sandwiched between a Cross score at 9:12 that took a deflection of a defenseman’s skate and a Mullane tap-in off a rebound from a long shot by Cross at 0:53 in the second.

Less than a minute later, Northeastern’s Robbie Vrolyk was whistled for holding, giving the Eagles a chance to seize control. The Huskies were the ones who capitalized on special teams, though, when Rob Dongara skated past Philip Samuelsson and slotted the puck past Muse glove side to put NU up 3-2.

On the next power play, the Eagles exploited the man advantage with some beautiful passing to set up a Kreider score. Whitney gave the Eagles the lead at 12:07 by curling a Cross rebound around Rawlings glove side even though he was skating in the opposite direction. Tyler McNeely scored a similar goal to tie the game up again just over a minute later when he poked a second-chance shot past Muse on the stick side.

“It’s a playoff atmosphere,” Kreider said.

“There’s definitely more pressure on the forecheck.

Guys are coming back a little harder on the backcheck. That was fueling the pace of play. It’s a little bit different – a little more up-tempo – but certainly good hockey.”

Rawlings made 39 stops to capture the Eberly Trophy, which goes to the goaltender with the highest save percentage in the two games. Muse recorded 21 saves to finish his Beanpot career with three titles and a seven wins in eight games.

The Eagles held the attempts on target, 46-27.

It was the final shot, though, that mattered most.

“I’m not sure where it ranks,” Hayes said. “I was just more excited to celebrate with my team. We set goals at the beginning of the year. This was one of them.

“It just happened that I scored the goal.” n

Molly Schaus won the Bertanga Goaltending Award by stopping 31 of Harvard’s 32 shots in Tuesday’s Beanpot win.

BC-Harvard, from A10 and to be able to have a championship in the middle of the season is extra special. I think our kids did a really good job of getting up for it and being ready to play when its time for the Beanpot.”

The Eagles’ Caitlin Walsh was the first to place the puck between the pipes with 2:57 left in the first period.

Walsh received a pass from Ashley Motherwell and went one-on-one with the Crimson goaltender Laura Bellamy, whom she beat glove side with pressure from Harvard’s Jillian Dempsey and Leanna Coskren trailing close behind.

Within the minute, the Crimson reestablished their position in the game, when Harvard’s Katharine Chute juked past Jessica Martino and fired a well placed puck over the shoulder of Schaus at 17:39 to tie the game at one.

“That’s something our team’s been doing all year,” Crimson head coach Katey Stone said about scoring quickly after being scored on, “and, actually, I was hoping it would happen again when they got the second goal.”

The second period brought eight shots on either end, eight saves from both goaltenders, and some incredibly close calls.

At 11:01, Eagles’ Danielle Welch’s shot hit straight off the crossbar and deflected straight down, though it did not cross the line. Just minutes later, defender Blake Bolden ripped a powerful, one-time slap shot, which was caught by the glove of Bellamy.

The Eagles took the lead at 6:52 in the third period on an unassisted goal from Mary Restuccia, who was named the MVP of the tournament, beating Bellamy stick side for the winning goal.

“They were trying to get the puck out of the zone, and I just tried to forecheck and get my body in front of her stick,” Restuccia said. “Luckily, she shot it right into me and I was able to get past her, deke the goalie and go backhand, and she gave me the net.”

At 16:42, Restuccia found Stack, who took the puck, skated up to the net, and buried the security goal, to give the Eagles the two-goal lead with less that four

minutes left in the contest.

“We were sort of planning for the end of the game, and all of a sudden the seas parted,” Stone said. “[Stack’s] the last player you want to have the puck going in on the goaltender. So, hats off to BC, they certainly played really well, but I think there’s a few plays we’d like back.”

At the end of the day, Harvard outshot the Eagles 32-29. Schaus came up with 31 saves and was awarded the Bertanga Goaltending Award. The victory also marked her second Beanpot title earned on Kelley Rink.

“It’s a perfect ending for me,” Schaus said. “I have one home game left. We were the only team in the country that had the chance to win a championship on home ice in February and we took advantage of it.

I was fortunate enough to be here freshman year and win on home ice, so to get to do that twice is pretty memorable.”

The win was a refreshing victory for the No. 7 Eagles, who came into the Beanpot championship game following a difficult weekend, tying and losing to the last-place team in the Hockey East, the Maine Black Bears.

“I think our kids did a great job realizing the importance of this game,” King said. “We have to be able to take one game at a time, after the weekend, and we were able to put that behind us and move forward tonight.

I’m really proud of the way they played and happy with the way they came back after the weekend.”

While the 2011 Beanpot marks the fourth BC win, and second in the last three years, it also serves as the final Beanpot appearance for senior captains and U.S. Olympians Schaus and Stack, who have allowed the Eagles to soar to new heights during their four years on the ice.

“Kelli and Molly have really changed our program,” King said. “For them to be able to end their Beanpot senior year with a win is awesome. They worked extremely hard for their four years that they’ve been here, and I’m really proud of them and proud of what they brought to our program. I know they have some good things left in them for the rest of the season.” n

Local players just New scoring line unstoppable living the dream

By Chris Marino Heights Editor

Living The Dream, from A10

stories, but instead shifted the conversation to how much they wanted to get their hands on the Beanpot trophy.

When the first reporter asked Hayes about his game-winning goal, he was quick to credit Pat Mullane and Kreider, who set up the opportunity for the junior.

Typical response right? Athletes, especially ones here at BC, seem to be trained in crediting others for their individual success.

Clearly, the reporters weren’t satisfied with Hayes’ cookie-cutter response, so he was asked where the moment ranked in his career, personally. He responded candidly, “I’m not sure where it ranks.” Not surprisingly, the next thing out of his mouth was again about the team: “I was just more excited to celebrate with my team.” But from the look on his face, you knew it was genuine. The kid who grew up in Dorchester only cared about one thing. He just wanted to win the Beanpot.

After leaving the press conference room, we walked down a hallway to find the MVP being targeted by one reporter for an improptu interview. Despite the different environment for the interview, Kreider still gave responses similar to his teammate.

When asked about the excitement of playing in overtime, Kreider left out his first-hand insight of setting up the winning goal, but instead gave the only answer that a 19-year-old who grew up watching the Beanpot could. “It’s nuts. I’ve got to remember not to be the first one on the pile. I

almost got crushed.” The pure emotion that Kreider was feeling after the game could be heard in his voice, and was written all over his face. He didn’t feel like talking about how he set up the game-winner, or his two goals.

He wanted to talk about the more important stuff, proper etiquette for post-game celebrations.

Kreider was then asked about winning the MVP. No offense to the Beanpot committee, but at that moment, winning the award was more of a hassle than an honor for Kreider. Receiving the trophy was delaying him from getting his hands on the one trophy that he really cared about, the Beanpot itself. Candidly, Kreider told us that he actually almost dropped the MVP trophy, because he was trying to put it down so he could get back to his teammates to get a look at the more important trophy.

Without a doubt, Jimmy Hayes and Chris Kreider both grew up watching the Beanpot, hoping one day that would be them skating on the ice.

Ask any kid, who’s waking up at 6 a.m. on Saturday mornings to go play in their Pee Wee or Squirts hockey game, what they dream about at night. A lot of them will tell you playing in the NHL, or even winning the Stanley Cup. But those kids don’t live in Massachusetts. The ones who do would tell you they dream about winning the Beanpot.

Greg Joyce is the Assistant Sports Editor of The Heights.

He can be reached at sports@ bcheights.com.

The Boston College men’s hockey team has been excellent offensively this season. The scoring line of Joe Whitney, Brian Gibbons and Cam Atkinson has played particularly well. Another line, however, stood out when it counted most in Monday night’s 7-6 victory in the Beanpot title game over Northeastern.

Tournament MVP Chris Kreider, Pat Mullane, and Jimmy Hayes accounted for four critical scores, including Hayes’ game winner in OT, to lead the Eagles to their second consecutive Beanpot title. Kreider, who scored twice, also assisted on the deciding tally.

“That line has become a dominant line for us,” head coach Jerry York said of the trio.

“They were a catalyst for us winning tonight.”

In the early portion of the season, the bulk of the scoring could be contributed to the Whitney-Gibbons-Atkinson line. On this night, though, the team relied on the physical play of its biggest line to put points on the board.

“I think all of us are just trying to play as hard as we can,” Hayes said of his line’s recent success. “We’re three of the bigger guys on the team and we try to bring energy to the game every night.”

They certainly did last night, with no play more important than the final score in overtime.

The Kreider-Mullane-Hayes line put pressure on the Huskies, as the Eagles took the only six shots of the whole overtime period.

Brian Dumoulin was able to pass the puck across to Kre-

Alex trautwig / heights editor

Chris Kreider (top) and Jimmy Hayes (bottom) were dynamic in both games. ider, who took the shot against Northeastern’s Chris Rawlings.

Rawlings made the stop, but Hayes was positioned perfectly in front of the net and tipped the rebound in for the final score.

When asked of how this accomplishment ranks, Hayes was quick to focus on the most important aspect of the night – the team win.

“I’m not sure where it ranks,’’ Hayes said. “I was just more excited to celebrate with my team. We set goals at the beginning of the year. This was one of them.’’

Kreider shared his teammate’s sentiment. Upon be-

ing given his MVP trophy, the sophomore was quick to place it on his team’s bench. Asked to explain the reasons for his line’s recent impressive play, Kreider acknowledged that it had a lot to do with recognizing the unit’s strengths.

“We see all these small skill guys on our team, zooming around, making tape-to-tape passes and we want to do that,” he said. “But at the same time we kind of have to acknowledge that we’re big bodies and our job, if we want to help the team, is to get it low and kind of wear down the other team.”

Kreider’s two scores came

at pivotal points in the game.

Amid a number of penalties and power-play opportunities, the Eagles found themselves down by one goal in the middle of the second period. On the power play, Kreider tied it up at the 5:25 mark with a wrist shot in front of the net. Mullane, who finished the night with one goal of his own within the first minute of the second period, was given an assist on the play.

The MVP’s second goal of the night came at the 11:33 mark of the third period. On another power play, Kreider put his team ahead, 6-5, although the Huskies responded with an even-strength goal by Wade MacLeod. Kreider’s performance was crucial to BC keeping up with the quick scoring of Northeastern, and he was rewarded for his tremendous effort.

While the offensive unit played well as a whole, as seen by the 7-6 final score, the Mullane-Kreider-Hayes line proved its worth. They all scored in crucial moments, and, more importantly, they played well off each other.

“I think our line is just clicking right now, and we’ve had some opportunities and we’re cashing in,” Hayes said.

The line is rounding into form at the ideal time for a lateseason Hockey East title push.

The Eagles are deadlocked with New Hampshire atop the league standings at 32 points with six games left.

R ega rd l e ss o f wh a t h a s brought about this new scoring line, the three are maintaining a humble approach.

“I think we’re kind of starting to figure it out,” Kreider said. “We’re trying to keep it simple.” n

The Heights

Editors’ Picks

Thursday, February 17, 2011 The Week Ahead Women’s basketball has a must-win at home against Miami, while the men’s team heads to UNC. Men’s ice hockey has a home and home against Northeastern. Baseball begins their season with three games in South Carolina.

And the NBA All-Star game is in L.A.

Standings

A9

Recap from Last Week

Greg Joyce

16-4

Paul Sulzer

15-5

DJ Adams

15-5

Heights staff

14-6

Game of the Week

Jackson dropped 31 to beat Maryland. Women’s basketball lost a tough game at Duke. For the first time in school history, both the men and women’s hockey teams won the Beanpot. And Villanova was unable to pull off the upset at home vs. Pitt.

Men’s Basketball

Guest Editor: Brennan Carley

North Carolina

Assoc. Arts & Review Editor “The only things I know about sports I learned from Nicki Minaj.”

This Week’s Games Women’s Basketball: BC vs. Miami

Paul Sulzer Sports Editor

DJ Adams Assoc. Sports Editor

Greg Joyce Asst. Sports Editor

Assoc. Arts & Review

Miami

Miami

Miami

UNC

UNC

UNC

UNC

Men’s Ice Hockey: BC vs. Northeastern (series)

BC

BC

Split

BC

Baseball: Number of wins in Caravelle Resort Tourney

1

2

2

1

East

East

East

East

Men’s Basketball: BC at UNC

NBA All-Star Game: East vs. West

Eagles travel to Chapel Hill with hopes of redemption

By Joe DeMaio For The Heights

The last time the Boston College Eagles (16-9, 6-5 ACC) met the North Carolina Tar Heels (19-6, 9-2) on Feb. 1, the Tar Heels rolled the Eagles 10674, and it was even less of a competition than the score indicates. The Eagles get their chance for revenge on Saturday in Chapel Hill.

In the game earlier this month, the Tar Heels shot lights out from the floor, led by freshman Reggie Bullock, whose four first-half 3-pointers put the game out of reach for the Eagles early. Combined with shoddy defense, BC looked hapless to stop UNC. Since that date, however, the Eagles are 2-1, and playing much better on the defensive end, holding Virginia Tech to 56 points and Maryland to 72. If the Eagles want to have a shot at victory on Saturday, it is going to have to come on the defensive end.

UNC, on the other hand, is 3-1 since their thrashing of BC, with wins over tourney hopefuls Florida State and Clemson. Combined with a six-point loss to No. 5 Duke, the Tar Heels have continued their winning ways. Their loss to Duke is the only blemish on their schedule since Jan. 16, a stretch of 7-1.

The Heels haven’t been winning pretty, however.

Their loss to Duke came after never trailing in the first half. The Blue Devils seized control with a 131 run. UNC nearly repeated that collapse against Clemson, as the Tar Heels had a 41-29 lead going into the second half, only to find that whittled all the way down before finally regrouping for the win.

And in their most recent game against Wake Forest, UNC shot a mere 36.6 percent from the floor and 18.5 percent from behind the arc.

UNC is going to look to capitalize on poor BC defense to get its offense back in stride. Tyler Zeller and Harrison Barnes, who are averaging 14.3 and 13.4 points per game, respectively, lead the Tar Heels offense. Point guard Kendall Marshall is the lynchpin of the offense. The freshman had a season-high 16 assists in UNC’s win against Florida State. If the Heels can get hot from behind the arc again (they shot 52 percent from behind the arc against the Eagles on Feb. 1), BC will be hard pressed to win.

Even if the Eagles defense is up to the challenge, the offense is going to have to play well, too.

Reggie Jackson is fresh off of a 31-point game last Saturday against Maryland and a 27-point performance against Clemson. The junior is averaging 18.5 points a game this season. Joe Trapani, on the other hand, is averaging 17.8 points a game in the last four games, including 25 against UNC earlier this month and 22 against Clemson.

In addition, the Eagles are going to need production from someone other than Jackson or Trapani.

Corey Raji and Biko Paris are both averaging over 10 points a game, and Josh Southern has had three 16-point games and an 18-point game this season.

Either Raji or Southern is going to have to establish himself as a legitimate post threat in order to free up the BC shooters to fire away from behind the arc.

While not a must-win game quite yet, the Eagles need quality wins in order to boost their resume to get an invite to the Big Dance come March. A win Saturday against UNC could be just the thing to shore up their resume and keep the Eagles in position for a first-round bye in the ACC tournament next month and help position BC for a spot in the NCAA tournament. n

Spaziani ends month-long search for new coordinator

By DJ Adams

Assoc. Sports Editor Boston College head football coach Frank Spaziani named Kevin Rogers, the quarterbacks coach of the Minnesota Vikings for the past five seasons, offensive coordinator on Monday. Rogers replaces Gary Tranquil, who in late January, announced his retirement from the Eagles coaching staff.

“We are very pleased to make this announcement,” Spaziani said in a statement. “Kevin Rogers will bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to this position. He is an accomplished tactician, and more importantly, a man of great integrity and leadership skills. We are excited to have him join the Eagle family, and I know our student-athletes and fans will be as well.”

Rogers completed his fifth season as quarterbacks coach of the Vikings in 2010, his 36th year overall in the coaching profession, 28 of which were spent at the collegiate level. His most recent accomplishment was acquainting veteran Brett Favre with the Vikings offensive scheme after he was signed in mid-August of 2009. Despite the late arrival, Favre went on to post one of his best statistical seasons of his Hallof-Fame career.

Before joining Minnesota, Rogers spent the 2002-05 seasons at Virginia Tech, where he guided Hokies quarterbacks Bryan Randall and Marcus Vick to impressive collegiate careers. Randall was the 2004 ACC Player of the Year. In 2005, Rogers coached Vick through his debut season as a starter for the Hokies. Vick led the ACC in pass efficiency and Virginia Tech led the conference in scoring offense, amassing an impressive 33.8 points per game along with a league-best 51 touchdowns.

Prior to his stint with BC’s conference foe, Rogers spent the 1999-2001 seasons with another Eagle rival, Notre Dame, as the offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach on Bob Davie’s staff. He played a part in the 2000 Irish squad that finished 9-3 and went to the Fiesta Bowl.

Rogers has also coached at Syracuse University, where he spent the 1991-98 seasons, helping the team to two outright Big East titles and a shared third.

He also instructed star pupil Donovan McNabb, who left Syracuse with the majority of the school’s passing records and was selected No. 2 overall by the

Philadelphia Eagles in the 1999 NFL Draft.

Rogers spent 1983-90 on the staff at Navy, working with the offense, and also spent time instructing running backs at his alma mater, William & Mary, from 1980-82. He started his coaching career at Virginia Beach’s Bayside High (1974-76) before serving as a graduate assistant at Ohio State under the legendary Woody Hayes from 1977-78.

Rogers is a 1974 graduate from William & Mary, where he also played linebacker. He received his master’s degree from Ohio State in 1978. Rogers and his wife, Betty, have three children: Kevin, Megan, and Ryan.

Football Announces 2011 Schedule Monday also featured the announcement of the Eagles’ football schedule for the 2011 season, which includes home games against Northwestern, Duke, Massachusetts, Wake Forest, North Carolina State, and a Thursday night nationally televised battle against Florida State. Nine of BC’s 12 opponents played in postseason bowl games last year and five (No. 16 Virginia Tech, No. 17 FSU, No. 21 Central Florida, No. 23 Maryland, and No. 25 NC State) finished the 2010 campaign ranked in the Associated Press Top 25.

The Eagles will open the 2011 season on Sept. 3 in a home game versus Big Ten opponent Northwestern.

The Wildcats finished with a 7-6 record last season and made an appearance in the Ticketcity Bowl.

Parents’ Weekend is slotted for the Wake Forest game on Oct. 1, which will be the third straight home game for BC (Duke, UMass) after heading to Orlando on Sept. 10 to face the UCF Knights, an 11-3 surprise squad in 2010 that capped off their impressive season with a 10-6 win over Georgia in the AutoZone Liberty Bowl.

Following an away tilt with the Clemson Tigers Oct. 8, and an open date on Oct. 15, the Eagles face back-to-back ACC road games against formidable opponents Virginia Tech and Maryland. Then BC will return home for the highlight of the schedule, a nationally televised (ESPN) Thursday night game against Florida State on Nov. 3.

BC will finish its home slate with a Nov. 12 match-up versus NC State. The regular season then concludes with back-to-back road games at Notre Dame (Nov. 19) and Miami (Nov. 26). n

Boston College

The Eagles will travel to the Dean Dome, trying to redeem themselves after the 32-point shellacking the Tar Heels handed them two weeks ago at Conte Forum. Reggie Jackson has broken out of his shooting slump, scoring 58 points over the last two games. He will need some help from his teammates to get the win, in addition to a revamped defensive effort, which was nowhere to be seen in the 106-74 loss. If BC can steal this one, it would go a long way toward solidifying the team’s hopes for an atlarge bid in the NCAA tournament.

Brennan Carley

Miami

vs.

“The ACC is brutal every year. In a bad year, you’ll get six teams in the NCAA tournament. In a good year, you’ll get eight or nine. It has a chance to be a really balanced year. It’s a really tough league, and I think it’s the best league in the country.”

–Mike Gambino, Head Coach

First-year coach Gambino ready for challenges ahead Baseball, from A10

hour] the other day in the Bubble. He’s more of a quiet leader and when he says something everybody listens. People respect him.”

Gambino has a solid core of returning players, and he realizes that they will need to play a high quality of baseball to have success in the ACC. “The ACC is brutal every year. In a bad year, you’ll get six teams in the NCAA tournament. In a good year, you’ll get eight or nine. It has a chance to be a really balanced year. It’s a really tough league, and I think it’s the best league in the country.”

Gambino also emphasized the importance of a large and supportive fan base in Chestnut Hill.

“The two biggest factors to winning in college

athletics is recruiting and home-field advantage.

And those are things the student body has a direct effect over.”

The season begins with a long stretch on the road, beginning at the Caravelle Resort Tournament in South Carolina with games against Coastal Carolina, Indiana and Tennessee Tech.

This is followed by a trip down to Florida to face off against some dangerous opponents in the likes of Florida, Michigan State and Florida State, not to mention an exhibition against the Boston Red Sox. Gambino has prepared his team well, and he is fulfilling his dream.

“Ever since I left this is what I’ve been working towards,” he said, “the chance to get back here and work on this campus everyday.” n

SPORTS The Heights

Thursday, February 17, 2011

A10

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Two can play this game

alex trautwig / heights editor; nick rellas / heights staff; and mollie kolosky / heights photo illustration

The men beat Northeastern for second straight Beanpot crown

A night later, the women complete the sweep

By Paul Sulzer

By Raychel Kruper

Sports Editor

The scenario was almost identical to the game played a week earlier. The stakes, though, Boston College 7 were even highNortheastern 6 er.

The Chris Kreider-Pat MullaneJimmy Hayes line once again came through in the clutch at the TD Garden Monday, one week after the same trio was on the ice for Tommy Cross’ winner in a 4-3 triumph over Boston University in overtime. Hayes tapped a Kreider rebound into a half-empty net to propel Boston College to a 7-6 overtime win

over Northeastern, bringing the Beanpot back to Chestnut Hill for the third time in four seasons and ending a 46-year drought between consecutive titles.

“Last Monday’s game against BU was exciting,” head coach Jerry York said.

“This was almost double that level of excitement.”

The Eagles (22-6-0) have now claimed the de facto city championship in three of the past four campaigns. Kreider (two goals, one assist), Cross (one goal, two assists), and Brian Dumoulin (three assists) all registered three points. Mullane, Steven Whitney, and Bill Arnold also chipped in a goal each.

Kreider, a sophomore left winger,

won the tournament’s Most Valuable Player award.

“I almost dropped the trophy,” Kreider said. “I was trying to get back so I could get my hands on the Beanpot.”

The title was within the Eagles’ grasp throughout overtime, as they outshot Northeastern 6-0. The Huskies (10-126) couldn’t maintain possession of the puck, so most of the period was played in their zone. They were unprepared for a cross-ice pass from Dumoulin to Kreider in transition. Although goaltender Chris Rawlings was able to get a pad on Kreider’s shot, there was nothing he

See Back-To-Back, A8

Heights Staff

The members of the Boston College women’s hockey team boisterously cheered as they Boston College 3 hoisted the cov1 Harvard eted Beanpot trophy Tuesday evening, signifying their victory over the Harvard Crimson in the championship game of the tournament.

They won on home ice, 3-1.

“I was watching the men’s game last night and I said, ‘Only one school’s ever done that before,’ I forget which one, but BC never has, so I was pretty impressed,” Eagles’ goaltender Molly Schaus said

about both the men and women winning the Beanpot. “I know we’ve gone back and forth a couple years with the men and us winning, so a lot of bragging rights for Boston College.”

The win marked the first time in school history that both the men’s team and women’s team dominated their Boston rivals by bringing home the trophy. The Beanpot represents the Boston tradition of hockey excellence and provides the teams for the chance to take home a mid-season championship.

“We love the Beanpot,” head coach Katie King said. “It’s a fun event for our kids

See BC-Harvard, A8

Local Eagles live the Gambino dream in the Garden has Eagles Baseball preview

Greg Joyce It’s all they ever dreamed about growing up.

For Massachusetts natives Jimmy Hayes and Chris Kreider, Monday night’s Beanpot championship will someday rank as one of their top moments while at Boston College. Not right now, though. They are just trying to live in the moment and take it for all it’s worth.

Hayes, a Dorchester native, notched the winning tally in overtime, and Kre-

ider, who hails from Boxford, recorded two goals and was named the tournament MVP. But they will both tell you that they couldn’t care less about the personal accolades. And from seeing their faces when they said it, I know they meant it.

In the postgame interviews, both players were asked to comprehend what had just happened in the chaotic 7-6 overtime win. They had only been Beanpot champs for 20 minutes. And yet a whole horde of reporters wanted to know where the winning goal ranked in Hayes’ personal career. Another reporter wanted to know Kreider’s feelings about winning the MVP. Both players turned down any kind of personal

See Living The Dream, A8

Football reveals Schedule

alex manta / heights graphic

BC unveiled a new coordinator and 2011 schedule Monday. For more, see page A9.

i nside S ports this issue

prepared

By Chris Marino Heights Editor

Usually when a new coach takes the helm, everything about the team’s philosophy is shifted, which can create confusion and miscommunication. Fortunately, Boston College head baseball coach Mike Gambino, an alumnus of the program, intends to stay true what kept BC successful in the past.

“It’s not about me at all,” he said.

“It’s about all of us. Any success that we have on the field this year is because of everything that these kids do here now, how hard they work in everything that they do. But it’s also about everything that all of those who played here before have done to get us here.”

Gambino’s team-first approach is surely a positive first step for continuing the Eagles’ success in the competitive Atlantic Coast Conference this spring.

The former middle infielder was a member of the BC coaching staff as an assistant from 2003-05. He then spent four seasons as an assistant coach at Virginia Tech. Now he returns to his alma mater to lead the Eagles to the top of the ACC. Gambino has pegged his team’s defense as its major strength, and with good reason. The team returns shortstop Brad Zapenas, third baseman Anthony Melchionda, and second baseman Matt

New scoring line unstoppable

Chris Kreider, Pat Mullane, and Jimmy Hayes have been on a roll lately...............A8

alex trautwig / heights editor

The baseball team embarks on a 19-game road trip that begins Friday at Coastal Carolina.

Hamlet. All three players started every game last season, and will be looked upon as the catalysts for this season’s team.

“We’re going to really, really, really play defense,” Gambino said. “In terms of Melch and Zep, those two as the left side of the infield can play defense with anybody in the country. Then you throw Hamlet in there, and he can really turn a double play. I think he only made three errors last year. We’re going to really play defense. I’d say that’s probably No. 1. That’s our real strength.”

Helping to ease the first-year head coach into his position are his team captains. Selected last week, catcher Garret Smith and pitcher Geoff Oxley have made a great impact on their teammates thus far in the preseason.

“I couldn’t ask for two better leaders to help run that clubhouse for my first year as head coach,” Gambino said.

“They lead by example and they lead with what they say and the things that

Eagles look to avenge UNC loss

Last time BC played UNC, the Eagles lost by 32. Will the result be any different in Chapel Hill?.............A9

they’re able to talk to the team about.”

Smith, who originally played shortstop for the Eagles, switched to catcher upon the end of Tony Sanchez’s tenure.

This move benefited the Eagles tremendously, as they sought out someone to replace their star player.

“Garret is one of the toughest, most competitive kids I’ve ever been around.

And he’s one that, in terms of a pure baseball player, he’s one of the best I’ve been around. He’s legitimately one of the top catchers in the ACC.” Oxley faced a tremendous setback after undergoing Tommy John surgery last spring. He played in seven games early in the season before having the operation in May. “Nobody works harder than him,” Gambino said of Oxley. “He knocked three months off his Tommy John rehab.

He blew it out last year, gets cut, comes back and he’s throwing 91 [miles per

See Baseball, A9

Editors’ Picks..............................A9 Game of the Week............................A9

scene and heard

Nicki minaj goes wild

rapper’s outfit tops the latest trends page B4

album review

bright eyes alternative pop group drops new album page B5

editor’s column

arcade fire

grammys surprise win page B2

Thursday, february 17, 2011

Whether you love her or just love to hate her, Lady Gaga has gone from a tiny blip on the pop radar to a culturally unavoidable icon in just three short years. In 2009, she released her debut album The Fame to critical acclaim.

The songs spread like wildfire, from “Just Dance” to the chart-topping “Paparazzi.” Her videos went from glitzy to garish in a heartbeat, culminating with the sadomasochistic utopian epic that was the oft-dismissed “Alejandro.” Her outfits (That bubble dress! That Kermit the Frog cape!) make headlines almost weekly. Her staying power is unheard of.

Even without releasing any new music, Gaga remained a constant presence in the tabloids and blogs. Rumors of her demise (lupus, exhaustion, and drug overdose to name just a few) proved to be untrue. Oh, and lest it be forgotten, her music will not soon be forgotten.

Songs like “Poker Face” and the ubiquitous “Bad Romance” have been solidified as artifacts of our generation, whether or not you’re a fan. With a third album set to drop in May, Gaga is poised to conquer the world once again. But will the backlash be too much for her to handle this time?

See Gaga, B3

mOLLIE KOLOSKY / heights photo illustration

The Heights

B2

Thursday, February 17, 2011

+Editor’s Corner Radio singles Grammy lights an Arcade Fire

an independent frame of mind

An off-pitch Oscar song

by Katie Lee

Darren Ranck If given the choice to escort one celebrity to Mary Ann’s, I would take the lovely Nicole Kidman. A shocking choice to be sure, but did you see her at the Grammys last weekend? Mrs. Keith Urban sang along to “Teenage Dream,” joined the standing ovation in heralding the stellar and bold performance of Janelle Monae, and got her groove on to some song called “The Song Known As ‘Forget You.’” (I also think even she could put a smile on MA’s resident grumpy, rubinesque bartender.) Aside from regaining her acting cred in Rabbit Hole, Kidman proved that she does not lack taste, either. After this year, I’m starting to believe the Grammys may be on a similar track.

For anyone who reads the trade magazines, the gossip rags, or even the local paper, the general consensus believed Eminem’s album Recovery, deemed by many to be his comeback album, would garner the coveted Grammy for Album of the Year. While the album succeeds on both critical and commercial grounds, to call it the album of the year is a questionable decision. Unfortunately, in these voting situations, one of the unspoken consultations is politics.

Eminem cleaned up his act over the past few years, checking into rehab and remaining clean since check out.

His success this past year plays into his overall narrative as the prodigal son of rap returning home to celebration. Rewarding him for his excellent album completes this narrative.

What often goes overlooked in these print predictions, though, are the choices for who “deserves” to win.

Sometimes the person who will win and who deserves to win are one and the same, but often it’s a battle of the commercially successful Goliath versus the critically acclaimed David.

This year, that spot fell to critical favorite Arcade Fire’s third album, The Suburbs. Receiving unanimous raves, The Suburbs marked Arcade Fire’s foot into the door of mainstream. While the same epic alt-rock sound that characterized their first two albums remains pervasive, the new album offered more accessibility than any before. The album was ripe for rewarding, but hidden by the shadow of Slim Shady, along with Lady Gaga’s Fame Monster and Lady Antebellum’s Need You Now, it seemed like a no-go.

Four days after the Grammys, though, I still feel the aftershock and the joy of Arcade Fire’s surprise win.

While one could call it a victory for hipsters and Canadians (I representing the latter, I suppose), one could term it a possible turning point in Grammy history. Rarely does an alternative album the likes of The Suburbs win the big award. With a voting bloc of older white males, their taste skews more the way of Herbie Hancock, Ray Charles, and Taylor Swift, safe winners of the past decade. As I said before, I got a kick out of Eminem’s electric Recovery, but a win for that album rewards Eminem’s narrative more than the music itself. Did your father listen to “Love the Way You Lie” and immediately think, “Why, this is sure to be a pop hit!” Grammy voters are like your father. They believe music should follow a formula.

Lady Antebellum’s hit “Need You Now” fits this formula perfectly.

A sweet country song performed by a trio of attractive Southerners — nothing sounds better to an aged Grammy voter, as evidenced by the group’sw winning both Song of the Year (the lyrics) and Record of the Year (the song itself). In a year with such interesting and intriguing options, why should it be surprising that we go for the song that simply states, “I, like, love you,” with a country twang?

Arcade Fire’s victory gives me hope, though, for what will become popular music. On a night where they stole the show, along with the amazing performances of Janelle Monae, Cee-Lo Green, Mumford & Sons, and other rising musical forces, it makes the future of popular music that much more interesting. I know Ms. Kidman and I can drink to that.

Darren Ranck is the Arts & Review Editor for The Heights. He can be reached at houseka@bc.edu.

The cast of glee “sing”

justin bieber “born to be somebody”

runner runner “hey alli”

chris young “tomorrow”

This remake of the song by My Chemical Romance has a refreshing tone more in tune with its message.

Not to downplay the original, but the cast of Glee has a more positive and uplifting effect in terms of the subject, which is to speak out against injustice.

It’s empowering and emotive; a true call to action to stand up for those who cannot themselves.

Justin describes to the world how his dream came true in this song. He also shows how hope and belief in dreams are so important. Though some may find it cheesy, it’s easy to see the meaning and value in his words.

The music is nothing impressive, but its lyrics make the impression. You don’t have to be a Bieber fan to enjoy this song.

I found this song very original, not for the musical score or the voices, but for the lyrical content. It makes you want to be Alli just to hear Runner Runner sing those dreamy words to you. This song is a slow and sweet change of pace from their betterknown, faster-paced song “So Obvious.”

Runner Runner is a relatively recent band, but they have a lot to offer.

This “young” country singer has a very rich and smooth voice.

The song explores the difficulty of the end of a relationship. He doesn’t want to let go, until tomorrow. His talent is surprising and catches the listener, having a haunting quality. Many people know they shouldn’t be together but have difficulty moving on, as he does when he says, “Every day I said I would [walk away].”

songs do take some of the African drum sounds that Simon took in his Graceland. Despite receiving quite a bit of bad press about this matter, the band rose from the ashes and proved itself once again as familiar enough to catch on, but different enough to be intriguing with Contra.

It’s the kind of music that is just hipster enough to gain you some street credit, but not enough to really impress the true music snobs.

Blame it on their fast popularity, not their lack of talent, though.

Most people are starting to know their plucky sound, especially after “Holiday” was featured in two 2010 holiday commercials.

I suspect Vampire Weekend has a lot more up its sleeve even after Contra. The four clever Columbia alumni still use New York City as their homebase, and, though no word of a third album has been heard, their simultaneously hilarious and haunting lyrics can’t possibly stop at Contra. Let’s just keep our fingers crossed that they keep growing and evolving.

Award season will soon be coming to a close, and now that my favorite ceremony (the Grammys) has passed, I still find myself yearning to talk about music. Seeing as this column is technically about movies, I figured I’d be as relevant as I can, so let me take this opportunity to discuss the Best Original Song category at this year’s Oscars.

In year’s past, the award has rightly gone to some timeless tunes, but interestingly enough, Disney has frequently dominated the category. Nobody will forget The Little Mermaid’s “Under the Sea,” a song whose enthralling origins can be found in this year’s criminally ignored Waking Sleeping Beauty. The age-old classic “Beauty and the Beast” won in 1991. Disney took home the prize again a few years later, with Elton John’s phenomenal and sweeping “Can You Feel the Love Tonight,” the tear jerking anthem from one of the best movies of all time, The Lion King, setting the scene for Aladdin’s mesmerizing and unforgettable carpet ride is 1992’s winner, “A Whole New World.”

Awards have also been handed out to Tarzan’s “You’ll Be In My Heart” and, one of my personal favorites, “If I Didn’t Have You” from Monsters Inc., Disney’s last trophy.

However, since 2001, the Oscar has gone to a more refreshingly diverse set of songs. Starting in 2002, when the award went to Eminem’s raw and visceral “Lose Yourself,” the category seemed like it was headed in a more progressive direction, allowing itself to be transfixed by an array of certainly more out-of-the-box tunes. Three 6 Mafia, the last group anyone would have ever expected to take home a trophy, did so in 2005, an otherwise weak year, for Hustle and Flow’s “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp.” Beyonce’s icy glare looked like it could rip right through Melissa Ethridge when the folk singer took home the prize for “I Need to Wake Up,” a song that truthfully felt like it had won only because the Academy voters had it bad for Al Gore that year. Disney had three chances to win for songs from its underappreciated Enchanted, a true stepping stone for Amy Adams (a nominee again this year for The Fighter), but lost to the far superior “Falling Slowly.”

In my opinion, 2008 is when the category started falling apart. With only three nominees (two of which were from one of the weakest Best Picture winners, Slumdog Millionaire), the award became somewhat of a joke, losing any sort of relevancy. Viewers in 2009 surely wondered what all of the songs sounded like. Sure, Disney was nominated again, but who saw The Princess and the Frog (I did, to be honest, but it was widely considered a failure)?

Each one of the nominated songs was weak and unimpressive.

At this year’s ceremony, a wide array of talents will take the stage to perform the four, once again quite weak, nominees. Like in previous years, when outside artists tackled the songs for one reason or another (most memorably Kristin Chenoweth’s wonderfully perky version of “That’s How You Know” from Enchanted), Florence Welch, the lead singer of the eponymously named Florence and the Machine, will join A.R. Rahman in reinterpreting Dido’s “If I Rise,” the unmemorable song from 127 Hours.

Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi will join forces for their Tangled number titled “I See the Light.”

Gwyneth Paltrow will continue her foray into entertainment supremacy with Country Strong’s “Coming Home.”

The final nomination is one that holds a special place in my heart, and it would be a crime if it lost. I know Disney has been overloading this column lately, but Toy Story 3’s stupendous “We Belong Together” deserves the Oscar, if only because the superior “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” was ignored way back in 1995. Make it right, Academy of Arts and Sciences. Give Disney the trophy they finally deserve again.

Susan Skakel is a columnist for The Heights. She can be reached at review@ bcheights.com.

Brennan Carley is the Assoc. Arts & Review Editor for The Heights. He can be reached at review@bcheights.

photos courtesy of amazon.com .

THis week on tv by Brennan carley

A week where the drama just does not stop

‘The Good Wife’

‘Grey’s AnatomY’

‘Law and order: Svu’

Arguably the best show currently on television, each sharp character of The Good Wife gets a fully fleshed-out storyline every week. Critics adore it and audiences flock to it weekly, for good reason. Julianna Margulies plays Alicia Florick, a sassy and pistol smart lawyer whose husband Peter is a politician trying to work on his reputation after a sex scandal. This week’s episode features appearances

by America Ferrera and the return of the subtly wonderful Gary Cole.

Last season’s finale was a terrifying yet wonderfully written episode, injecting show runner Shonda Rhimes’ aging hospital drama with a much needed creative resurgence this season. Each character has a significant, lush story line. In Thursday’s episode, Meredith will take control of the ER for the night, while Loretta Devine returns as the chief’s delightfully sassy wife, Adele Webber. This time, though, she enters the hospital as a patient. Meanwhile, watch for Mer-Der to struggle with baby problems some more.

Everyone’s favorite guilty pleasure show, SVU is worth watching because rumor has it that Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni are jumping ship at the end of the season. This episode, entitled “Bully,” features an appearance from the Real Housewives of New York’s resident countess, LuAnn de Lesseps, as an art patron who discovers a body in her gallery.

Unsurprisingly, upon questioning the woefully underappreciated Kate Burton, the detectives discover that the art world isn’t really as sophisticated as it seems. photos courtesy of Google

Music Nook

photo courtesy of google

With collegiate, preppy aesthetic, Vampire Weekend combines the sounds of Cape Cod, African jazz, and bluegrass for a strong sounds.

Vampire Weekend packs a collegiate bite Susan Skakel In 2009, Vampire Weekend released their latest album, Contra.

Rolling Stone called it “the album where Vampire Weekend discovered they could do just about anything,” and any other description simply does not do it justice. Catchy lyrics are paired with crazy bell sounds and simple and light guitar picking.

The album is simply a joy to listen to. As the year came to a close, Contra was named the 6th best album in 2010 by Rolling Stone.

Vampire Weekend came together in 2006 in New York City when they were signed by XL Recordings.

Their first, self-titled album was well received and their song “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” placed 67th in the Rolling Stone’s “100 Best Songs of the Year” in 2007. Despite being christened the “whitest band” by StuffWhitePeopleLike.com, their fan base continues to grow after Contra.

Vampire Weekend’s sound is, above all, light. Despite their New York City home, their sound is much more West Coast. The band plucks away at the guitar and add long piano rifts that fade and join into strong bass guitar solos, such as

“Taxi Cab.” A string quartet accompanies some songs like “Diplomat’s Son,” creating a classic sound that can still be called punk and pop.

“California English” and “Cousins” are both a punky jumble of lyrics, guitar, piano, and percussion in the most flattering way possible.

“White Sky” slows down for a more bass sound with a six-beat African rhythm. Despite each song’s unique sound, the order and sounds string together to create an album that should be listened to all the way through.

They demonstrate their Ivy League education in their catchy and clever lyrics. Halfway through singing along, you realize that you’ve sang about everything from college love to the plight of the Third World. “Then I see you, you’re walking ‘cross the campus / Cruel professor, studying romances / How am I supposed to pretend / I never want to see you again?” The lyrics of “Campus” may echo the thoughts of many Boston College students after a particularly bad Thursday night.

Vampire Weekend describes themselves as “Upper West Side Soweto,” which has been Paul Simon’s Graceland territory since it was released in 1988. In truth, their

Brennan Carley

The Heights

Thursday, February 17, 2011

B3

By Darren ranck | arts & review editor brennan carley | assoc. arts & review editor charlotte parish | asst. arts & review editor

W

F

lashback to the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards. Accepting the Music Video of the Year award for her fearless “Bad Romance” video, Lady Gaga took to the stage in the now iconic meat dress. After a shout out to her “little monsters,” she sang a few bars from her upcoming single, the first from her latest project. She announced the title, “Born This Way,” and in that moment, the world, fans and haters all, waited in anticipation. This past Friday, the single dropped, and Gaga now has one of her most controversial, most divisive, and most successful records yet.

In fact, successful may be an understatement. “Born This Way” broke the record for fastest-selling No. 1 single on iTunes merely hours after its release. Music outlets from Rolling Stone to Entertainment Weekly to the website Stereogum praised the record for its infectious beat and epic production. All agree, though, on one point – this Lady Gaga is not the one everyone spent the past year analyzing through fashion, music videos, and performance. This Gaga wants to make a point.

“Born This Way” goes beyond a simple dance beat and speaks to liberate the oppressed, whether they be homosexual or people of color.

The bridge playfully urges, “Don’t be a drag / Just be a queen,” pushing those cowering in their own identity to live to their potential.

While the lyrics may be heavy handed, the intended message is a good one. From news coverage of the GLBTQ teen suicides to Kurt’s bullying storyline on Glee, homosexuality lands a spot as one of media’s hot button issues, and Gaga now heads the cause. Already an advocate of the repealing of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Gaga continues to take a stance on behalf of the oppressed through her music.

Not everyone feels the love, though. A contingent considers her latest hit trite and preachy. Even more questionable, many noticed the song’s overbearing similarity, both in message and in melody, to Madonna’s 1989 hit “Express Yourself.” Her ode to self-expression admittedly contains a similar drum-driven pop sound and utilizes the same phrasing. Even more telling, the Madonna camp posted the video for “Express Yourself” on her Madgesty’s website one day after the single’s release. Gaga revealed, though, that Madonna and crew approved of the song, clearing up that controversy for now.

The public still doesn’t know how to feel about Gaga’s transition. For many, the backlash begins. Gaga lost her edge, and now even the once intrigued could care less about her antics.

There’s a glimmer of promise in her Grammy performance, however, where Gaga gave one of her most staid but best sung performances yet.

Gaga heralds her own album as the best one of the decade. Are we to expect a more emotive, anthematic Mother Monster in the future? If we know Lady Gaga, she always has something up her sleeve. - DR

‘Paparazzi’ at the 2009 VMAs This is the performance that truly put Gaga a step above other artists in terms of live music. Celebrities looked absolutely stunned as Gaga emerged in a wheel chair, hobbled across the stage in a lacy outfit, and exploded into furious dance, all the while, her vocals remained completely flawless. The golden touch was when she clasped her hand to her torso and, upon removing it, began dripping with blood.

Her eyes turned furiously bloodshot and she ascended into the heavens, twirling madly as blood dripped from her midriff. Audiences were enraptured, and the applause she received was deafening. She had now truly arrived.

‘Speechless’ on 2010’s Royal Variety Show As the curtain rose, the Queen’s eyes must have been popping out of her royal head. Gaga sat atop a hovering piano bench in a flowing red leather smock with a matching eye mask.

She plinked away at a piano that was equally as high in the air as she. The funny thing about the scenario was that, apart from her eccentricity, there was no need for the stunt. Her vocals were incredible, as she belted out one of the best live performances of her life. With her proud father watching from the stately audience, Gaga sang the ballad to the nines. It was majestic in every sense of the word.

‘Telephone medley’ at 2010’s Brits Gaga delivered an emotionally raw performance after the death of her best friend and frequent design partner Alexander McQueen. The first and only television performance of “Dance in the Dark” is electrifying and dynamic. Kicking things off with a slowtempo version of “Telephone” sans Beyonce, Gaga quickly changes the pace as she slings a giant heart shaped guitar/synthesizer over her shoulder and wails in front of a giant rotating statue of her with a piano for a torso. Her vocals are stunning and vulnerable, her hair teetering dangerously in a foot-high wig.

‘You and I’ on The Today Show Rocking away on the piano as rain battered her captivated audience, Gaga premiered her new song on The Today Show last summer, delighting fans across the world. Peppered with bits of Elton John, Billy Joel, and Judy Garland (to whom she paid tribute earlier with a thoughtful version of “Someone to Watch Over Me”), the song was ferocious and insightful. Gaga showed off a more tender side of the previously impenetrably mysterious celebrity with simplistic aplomb. If audiences hadn’t yet fallen in love with the Gags, they surely found this new side of her instantly charming.

‘The Sun is Down’ with Yoko Ono in 2010 Adorned in a sparkly see-through jumpsuit and halo-like headband, Gaga seemed uncharacteristically subdued as she joined Ono for a performance of The Plastic Ono Band’s “The Sun is Down.” When she opened her mouth, she sang with all the oddities of Ono and the rejuvenated vocal prowess of John Lennon, for whom the concert was in remembrance.

Towering above the petite Ono, Gaga prowled and shimmied around the stage and immaculately upstaged the headliners as if the night would be her last.

It was remarkable.

‘Born This Way’ on The Grammys 2011 Decked out like Yo Landi Vi$$er, the androgynous and pint-sized half of South African rap-duo Die Antwoord, Gaga emerged from an egg shaped vessel and proved to the world that she doesn’t need all those theatrics to deliver a stellar performance. It was probably the most vocally spot-on she has ever been. Audiences complained that there was no real shock to the performance, but that was shock all in its own. She walked on stage, abandoned all gaudiness, and shook the song to its core. - BC

Smack in the middle of conquering the pop universe, Lady Gaga’s galactic dress at the 2010 VMA awards shone alongside her sparkly accessories.

Most opt for a clutch purse, but Gaga insisted on carrying a shimmering star to complement the Giorgio Armani piece that looked celestial and feminine on Mother Monster.

A veil shadowing her face until her prize was in hand, this rogue shift quickly made its way into the multitude of Gaga classics both for its simple sensuality and aesthetic uniqueness at the 2009 MTV VMAs. The short, chic number covered Gaga from head to thigh until she shocked Eminem on stage while thanking “God and the gays” for her award.

hether or not she is over the top, everything Lady Gaga does is with the intent to shock and awe – but more often than not, it’s also a development of a specific artistic idea and a statement.

With past rumors flying around about her sexual orientation and preferences, Mother Monster has established an aura of androgyny around herself that she uses in social statements about GLBTQ rights, particularly the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. Her costumes are over the top, never afraid to bare all – But even so, the sexuality that Lady Gaga brings to her songs is nothing like the past sex pop stars, such as those of Britney Spears.

To date, Gaga’s most explicit musical statement about the controversial Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy and the Catholic Church was showcased with her infamous “Bad Romance” music video. She received a mountain of backlash for wearing a cross during the provocative video, but Gaga prides herself in never backing down from a statement once made, and more often than not, she doesn’t even explain herself. This is the part of her mystique and artistry that can be lost behind the insane outfits and outrageous routines.

Wearing a cross, while literally auctioned off as a sex slave in “Romance,” may be offensive to the Catholic Church – that’s understandable.

But it’s not an accident, and neither is wearing a dress made entirely from cold cuts. Rather than simply dismissing her as crazy, over the top, or attention-seeking, you have to wonder why Gagaloo does what she does. For the 2010 VMAs, four members of the armed forces who had been discharged as a result of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell accompanied Gaga and her bloody meat purse. It’s easier to remember the latter because it is even more startling than the trio of YouTube videos she released urging her “little monsters” to contact their Senators and get the act repealed.

“Born This Way” marks the release of Gaga’s arguably most overt sociopolitical statement in lyrics. To counter her critics, Gaga’s support for GLBTQ rights doesn’t translate to an attack on the opponents: “It doesn’t matter if you love him / Or capital H-I-M!” she cries out.

Of course, it’s mostly the church that has had a problem with Stefani Germanotta. When Lady Gaga still went by that name (as she claims she still does in bed with in her recent interview with Anderson Cooper), she attended an all-girls Roman Catholic school in Manhattan, where she was never in trouble with the administration. It is more in her adulthood that she has become an advocate and a gay icon, calling her part in the National Equality March of 2009 “the single most important event of my career.”

In “Born This Way,” Gaga explicitly says “no matter gay, straight, or bi / Lesbian, transgendered life.” Yet, people are focusing more on the lack of bells and whistles in her first live performance of the new track at the Grammys. This is one of the occupational hazards of creating art that is so fantastical: it can overshadow the real weight of the piece. - CP

The pitch-perfect physical embodiment of pure gold, Gaga was lent this dynamic, elemental piece by Mugler for her “Paparazzi” music video after saying that she had been a fan of the designer’s vintage work since 2007. Paired with Gaga’s signature doll makeup, rouged cheeks and bluntly cut wig, the Mugler piece became a futuristic fashion trend.

With an asymmetrical, mosaic-tiled composition of mirrors shards, Lady Gaga blinded cameras in Vancouver in a black dress encrusted with reflective pieces. High-waisted and high-heeled as usual, Lady Gaga strutted around in her mirror suit with a matching, bedazzled mask – probably to avoid the distracting sparkle catching everyone else’s eyes.

The Heights

scene and heard

B4

Thursday, February 17, 2011

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By Taylor Cavallo For The Heights Britney Spears Britney Spears’ new music video for her first single “Hold It Against Me” off the Femme Fatale album is set to premiere today (at 9:56 p.m. on MTV for those who are really eager). The teasers on the MTV website were pretty disappointing, as they don’t give that much away. They all show an ominous countdown followed by the words ‘Britney Spears’ and ‘Hold It Against Me’ in Metallica-esque font, which if you ask me, seems quite promising (does the sarcasm translate?). Believe it or not, this is Britney’s seventh album and, to say the least, she is trying a bit too hard. If she wants to win the public back, she should re-release “Hit Me Baby One More Time.”

opentable.com The days of calling restaurants for reservations are over: Opentable.com allows you to make reservations quickly and easily online. With search options for location and cuisine, readily available (and honest) restaurant reviews, and even a list of available reservation times, I can’t imagine an easier way to make dinner plans. Confirmation e-mails are sent right away and reminder e-mails are sent the day before, in case you forgot about your plans. Might as well make a dinner date while perusing Perez.

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Dom Mazzetti Bonnaroo

Minaj at the Grammys

I am admittedly, completely, and utterly infatuated with Nicki Minaj. I love her attitude and her raps are obviously shocking, but in the best way possible (I frequently refer to her as Lil’ Kim 2.0).

Because of my love for her outrageous statements, I was not surprised at what she wore to the Grammys this past Sunday. For those of you who missed it, she wore head-to-toe animal print (cheetah, to be specific) and had bleach blonde hair in a Marge Simpson-esque do. But you know what? I loved it.

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Part of the lineup for June’s Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival 2011 in Manchester, Tenn. was recently released, and there’s only one thing I can say: they did it big, since this summer marks the festivals 10th anniversary. Having experienced Bonnaroo last summer, I can say that this amazing lineup will make the heat, the stench, the mud, the hippies, and the lack of bathrooms completely worth it. Headlining this year is Eminem, Lil Wayne, Mumford & Sons, Bassnectar, The Black Keys, and Ratatat, not to mention some old time favorites – Gregg Allman, Buffalo Springfield, Stephen Stills, and Neil Young. More of the lineup will be released as the festival date comes closer.

Just when you thought there couldn’t be one more seemingly uneducated Italian in the public sphere, Dom Mazzetti pops up. His YouTube videos, on topics from terrorism to hipsters (my personal favorite), have been everywhere you turn. He’s jumping on the bandwagon of the ‘guido’ fad, talking about things that no one really cares about. But, I’m sure for those people that still live on the great one-liners of New York/New Jersey Italians (it’s so hard to distinguish sometimes), it’s hard not to watch. Hopefully these videos don’t gain Bieber popularity.

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Food for thought: inspired by ‘chef’s’ kitchen

on The Session

Music abounds at Beehive

courtesy of creativecommons.org

After 380 years of de- it is. After four years The Beehive now atvelopment, Boston offers tracts some of the most prolific jazz artists little space for new busi- in the country. On Saturdays and Sundays nesses to thrive. Coffee it also hosts a weekend jazz brunch, featurshops, organic ice cream ing a selected menu and new live performers p a r l o r s , A f g h a n i b i s - each week. But on any given night, you might tros, Ed Hardy boutiques encounter a European electronica duo, a fla– many businesses fail menco group, or a solo bluegrass singer. You within a few years because can either browse through the event calendar they can’t make do with on The Beehive’s website and make a reservathe compact confines of tion (there’s never a cover charge), or you can the city’s buildings. But play the live equivalent of pressing shuffle, Zak Jason in 2007, the owner of The waltz in one night, and happen upon some Beehive, a Bohemian jazz-reggae-eclectic progressive reggae polka trio (if such a group cocktail-comfort food bar, scored one of the exists, they would perform at The Beehive most mammoth brick edifices in the South before any other venue in Boston).

End. Like Rafiki, who renders a shabby tree With bookings like these, yes, The Beehive into a makeshift art gallery attracts an eclectic crowd, and a center for premonia daunting population dentions in The Lion King, The “But on any given night, sity of men sporting indoor Beehive has made inspired scarves and women donning you might encounter a use of its space. thrift shop blazers. But you W h e n yo u e n t e r t h e European electronica duo, don’t have to be a characbuilding — connected to ter from Rent to savor The a flamenco group, or a the Boston Center for Fine Beehive. The comfort food solo bluegrass singer.”

Arts — the hostess will ask cuisine and modern cocktail if you would like to dine menu unpeel the Bohemian and drink upstairs or downstereotype you could stick stairs. Venture downstairs. Upstairs exists for on the place. Executive chef Rebecca Newell’s those who don’t wish to embrace The Beehive, menu features “fall-off-the-bone” baby back or for those who arrive after the downstairs ribs, truffle potato and cheese pierogis, duck has flooded (which it will almost any night). A l’orange, and a fresh raw bar selection. converted boiler room, the downstairs boasts At the bar, beyond craft beers hard to find a stage and a dining room before it for patrons at other bars like Harpoon Munich Brown and who wish to experience the performers face Fisherman’s Brew, the hip bartenders build to face, another dining room separated by electric cocktails. From the honey lavender oriental curtains for patrons who wish to dine whiskey fizz (with Jack Daniels), to the Classic and experience the performers’ music during Aviation (with gin and maraschino liqueur), to their meals, and an expansive bar in the back the Lady Godiva Martini (with espresso vodka, corner for patrons who wish to indulge with Godiva white chocolate, and vanilla liqueur), the performers’ music lubricating conversa- the bar offers something for every taste and tion with friends. every mood. If you don’t know what to select, Each night a different performer takes the let the music guide your decision. stage. Everyone from The New York Times to the German newspaper Der Spiegel has hailed Zak Jason is a Heights columnist. He can be The Beehive as a triumph of a jazz bar. And reached at arts@bcheights.com.

courtesy of creativecommons.org

You win some. You lose some. That’s what they say, but outside the context of Top Chef or any one of the many food-based reality shows that have flooded the networks as of late, how does winning and losing relate to cooking?

Speaking of Top Chef, Kristin Canfield I have to wonder how many people will have to lose based on poorly cooked pasta for these chefs to get their acts together.

All kidding aside, it’s interesting that so many of us watch these shows. After all, until Roald Dahl’s “television chocolate” is invented, the audience can’t actually taste what the chefs make. It is forever left up to the chef ’s descriptions and the judges’ reactions. Moreover, these shows end with a disclaimer that producers may have influenced the decisions.

Attempting to peel back these hermeneutic layers isn’t easy, nor do most people take the time to do so. Sometimes I think we have a fixation on watching these chefs fail. It makes them appear more human and undercuts their insistent clinging to certain pretentious enclaves within the culinary world - molecular gastronomy anyone?

Back in the real world. I have recently had my fair share of successes and failures. Stable cheese sauce? Check. Adapting an Eastern European coffee cake recipe to make more portable cupcakes for a class? Check. Improvising a delicious Italian dinner on Saturday night using ingredients that were nearing death? Check. And then there are the failures.

Allowing a pepper grinder to explode while putting the finishing touches on a creamy cauliflower sauce? Done it. Too much fat in my sugar cookies and they won’t stop spreading? Look no further. I have even, fervently, in search of authentic al-dente pasta, taken a

bite to realize my noodles were horribly undercooked. The benefits of the real world and the lack of a strict clock was a major benefit and life saver in this otherwise disastrous case. I simply brought water back to a boil and allowed the noodles to finish cooking. Oh the glamorous life I lead.

At the end of the day, these failures, albeit discouraging at times, have only egged me on in my pursuit of culinary fame within my family and close friends. The cookies are too crispy? The spice in the sauce overbearing?

Tell me so I can make it better. There’s nothing I enjoy more than sitting down and figuring out where a recipe went wrong. I probably won’t live to see the day when the audience can get a taste of the dishes on these cooking reality shows, but perhaps what I really want is the honest judges: people willing to give their opinions of where they think a dish worked and where it might have fallen short of expectations.

All that being said, the hardest lesson to learn might be when to give up on a recipe, an idea, a flavor profile. Oftentimes, it has seemed like food is the most important relationship in my life. It certainly is the one relationship upon which I have built many others. As a result, I find I am just as seldom inclined to give up on it as I am to give up on a past boyfriend, no matter how sincerely I know that it just doesn’t work. So, how do you ever know you should abandon a recipe and move on with your life? Perhaps when the prospect of winning the next one outweighs the terror of losing yet again. Until you get there, my friends, I encourage you to trudge on in the dark. After all, the discoveries that may await you on the other side might just be worth it. If it’s not, you’ll be glad you kept that up to no good boyfriend of yours around, I hear he’ll eat anything.

Kristin Canfield is a Heights columnist. She can be reached at arts@bcheights.com.

The Heights

Thursday, February 17, 2011

B5

+Music

NEW RELEASES

Oberst leads Bright Eyes to new highs

By Katie Lee Heights Staff

By the time any band has released their eighth album, listeners pretty much know what to expect. The band has probably developed some thematic motifs because their song lyrics and their melodies have become as recognizable as the band name itself. However, this week, Bright Eyes, the American indie / folk group founded by singer-songwriter and guitarist Conor Oberst, decided to surprise alternative music fans with something just a little bit different. The People’s Key, released this past Tuesday (conveniently released on the same day as Oberst’s birthday), seems to turn away from the folk influence that has been the foundation of the band’s sound. Instead, seasoned rock-‘n’-roll songwriting accompanied by electronic tones act as the basis for the newly released album. Diehard Bright Eyes fans may be hesitant to think that the band could release anything better than their 2005 album I’m Wide Awake, but this may arguably be the group’s best album yet. Oberst and the rest sound more mature, stronger, and much more compelling.

All in all, The People’s Key has the potential to be a career defining album for Bright Eyes.

The difference in sound is noticeable just from an initial listen of the album. One of the most memorable and distinctive tracks in the collection is the song “Shell Games,” the current single from The

21 Adele

the people’s key bright eyes

We’re New Here Gil Scott-Heron & Jaime xx

produced by saddle creek released feb. 15, 2011 Our rating a-

Chart Toppers Singles

courtesy of google.com

Bright Eyes successfully breaks away from their old sound, but not their old fans with their newest album, playing with rock-’n-roll and electronic influences.

People’s Key. The track starts softly with Oberst’s familiar voice backed by a piano. As the song goes on, the rhythm and sound continues to build in an appealing manner.

Accompanying this upbeat rhythm are poetic lines such as, “If I could change my mind / change the paradigm / prepare myself for another life / forgive myself for the many times / I was cruel to something helpless and weak.”

Lyrics such as these are prevalent throughout the album and add a contemplative and more emotional aspect to an already

strong collection of tracks.

Another track that uses this upbeat tone is continued with another catchy track, “Jejune Stars.” This song is sure to be a favorite due to its catchy melody and memorable lyrics.

One final notable track in the collection is “Ladder Song,” a haunting and melancholy piano ballad. This particular song has the most familiar sound of the group and reflects the tone of previous Bright Eyes’ albums. However, there is something about the song that gives it a distinctive maturity. Their sound is nota-

bly more developed, especially in “Ladder Song,” making it all the more enjoyable.

Yet there are some parts of the album that don’t seem to fit with the rest and may be off-putting for some. For instance, the first song in the 10-track collection, “Firewall,” is unusually contemplative and dark for an opening song. For the first two minutes and 20 seconds of the song, a voice comments on time travel, extraterrestrial life, and the expanding universe.

While it may have worked for a 30-second opening to the

song, it just seems to be too long. Despite the weakness of the beginning of this track, the song builds to be much more captivating and enjoyable.

After dedicating so many years to folk inspired music, it is refreshing to see Connor Oberst moving outside of his comfort zone. The album is full of captivating rhythms and poignant lyrics that make it an undeniable success. You won’t want to miss out on The People’s Key for it is sure to be one of the most highly respected alternative albums of the year. n

1 Born This Way Lady Gaga 2 Firework Katy Perry 3 F**kin’ Perfect P!nk 4 The Time (Dirty Bit) Black Eyed Peas 5 Black and Yellow Wiz Khalifa Albums

1 Now 37 Various Artists 2 Sigh No More Mumford & Sons 3 My World 2.0 Justin Bieber 4 Pink Friday Nicki Minaj 5 Greatest Hits...So Far!!!

P!nk Source: Billboard.com & CMJ.com

Political and pastoral collide in Harvey album

By Kylie Rolincik For the Heights

PJ Harvey would be phenomenal at fashioning one of those ridiculously hipster blogs—you know, pictures of disheveled 20-year-old girls wearing high heels while posed apathetically in corn fields and brightly colored candy bar wrappers lying on

piano keyboards, with various social commentaries as captions. If reveling in the glory of such dynamic strangeness and aesthetically pleasing oddity appeals to you, so will politically-fueled motion of Harvey’s eighth album, Let England Shake. Offering 12 tracks of stirring bitterness, the dynamic singer-songwriter presents an artful grappling with the political situation in

England. With tracks like “The Last Living Rose” and “The Glorious Land,” she renders enticing visions of landscape and legend. The dreamy quality of these melodies and otherworldly melancholy conjures a transcendental atmosphere – much like those hipster images of mundane items placed into compelling circumstances, namely, the candy bar wrappers situated on a piano or a

Let england shake pJ harvey produced by vagrant records released feb. 15, 2011 Our rating a-

courtesy of google.com

Reflecting on the violence and devestation of war, Harvey masterfully twists dark subject matter with light melody.

jubilant rubber duck placed atop the large-caliber main gun of an armored fighting vehicle.

The bleak yet musically delicate nature of this album comes to life in a sample section of the Four Lads’ “Istanbul,” which then amalgamates with Harvey’s first shrieking melodic declaration, “Let England shake / Weighed down with silent dead.” Eerie vocals run together with arrhythmic permeations of autoharp—an instrument that Harvey utilizes extensively on her solo live set. This odd compilation of noises is further infused with a saxophone and a trombone, producing impressive warmth of depth and disquiet. This opening track, “Let England Shake,” confronts a meditation on the legacy of war and empire from a deeply vulnerable and affected stance—it’s all rather unnerving, but in an insightful rather than reckless sort of way. This tune glides across a reflective sea of haunting disposition, chiming and bloody.

You then remain in this tense interaction with mortality for the remaining 11 fearsomely creative tracks.

Grammys’ best and brightest

By Brennan Carley

Assoc. Arts & Review Editor Arcade Fire Rocks the Grammys: Performing their least-television friendly song, the Canadianbred band members tore their way through an edgily wonderful “Month of May.” Moments later, Win Butler accepted the Album of the Year Grammy for The Suburbs, the first time in years that the award has truly gone to the best album of the year. “We’re gonna play another song!” he declared, as the band took their instruments once again and performed “Ready to Start.” The band has since won a Brit (the English equivalent of a Grammy), announced several more festival appearances across the world, and poked fun at the mildly ridiculous “Who is Arcade Fire?” blog that popped up after their win.

Janelle Monae Steals the Show: While audiences were busy watching Bruno Mars and B.o.B. perform “Nothin’ On You” and a delightful rendition of “Just the Way You Are,” a tiny powerhouse was preparing herself to take the stage and the show by storm. Her choice of “Cold War” was inspired. It allowed her to show off the vulnerability of her impressive pipes. Her dancing was as infectious as the smile on her face. Today, it was announced that she would co-headline a tour with Mars, “The DooWops and Hooligans Tour,” set to touch down in Boston’s Agganis Arena on May 6. Buy tickets now and impress your friends, because it’s only a matter of time before she racks up Grammys of her own.

Mumford & Sons Overshadow Bob Dylan: Most Americans watching the Grammys on Sunday probably had never heard of the

British folk band before. The four immensely talented members were up for the Best New Artist award (losing to the bouncy haired Esperanza Spalding), and also had the honor of performing with The Avett Brothers and Bob Dylan himself. The band’s buoyant and ebullient rendition of “The Cave” completely upstaged the gravelly voiced Dylan. Mumford & Sons have come so far in the past year, and show only signs of growing.

Skylar Grey: Mysterious and shadowy, Grey emerged during Eminem and Dr. Dre’s woozy performance of “I Need a Doctor.” Not much is known about the smoky-voiced singer. She is a songwriter who has lent her talents to tracks like “Love the Way You Lie Pt. 2,” Rihanna’s sequel to the summer anthem.

She lent her sultry vocals to the Diddy Dirty Money track “Coming Home” and was a delightful

surprise on “Doctor” when it was released a few weeks ago. Intriguingly, her face was never shown once on the Grammys, as the technicians instead bathed her in darkness. It only made fans more ravenous to know more about her.

Rihanna and Drake Inject the Grammys with Youth: After Barbra Streisand’s long winded and stuffy performance of the schmaltzy “Evergreen,” the pace of the awards show began to slow considerably. Her standing ovation seemed purely out of respect for her past than reverence for her present. Rihanna took the stage once again, though, this time in a revealingly frilly frock to sing “What’s My Name?” The playful manner in which Rihanna and Drake interacted bordered on inappropriately sexual at times, but their flirtations with literal fire made it all the more excellent. n

Soldiers falling in battle, atop the mutilated landscape are images that shape the song “The Words That Maketh Murder.” The lyrics “I have seen and done things I want to forget / Soldiers fell like lumps of meat / Blown and shot-out beyond belief” strike a hideous, perhaps sickening, and certainly less than joyous tone of resonance. Nonetheless, the song itself is brilliantly catchy.

Comprehending the political motives behind Harvey’s craft is not necessary to savor the unique musicality on display.

The album maintains a surprisingly pop-oriented rhythm section, though it most certainly leans towards the breed of eclectic eccentricity. This song in particular features an almost jazzy syncopation and accent. Once it even slips into a military chant of its title, overlaid with Harvey’s piercing thematic contemplations of warfare and the nationalistic dialogue lurking behind centuries of mass annihilation.

The song “Hanging On The Wire” is breathtaking, nimbly fluttering along with an innocent samba beat, yet profoundly disturbing in terms of lyrical content. It chronicles

a lone soldier who awaits the bullet’s strike. This jarring contrast between the gruesome nature of wartime affairs and the lush, orchestrated quality of the music is a remarkable artistic achievement.

Harvey is overcome by her identity as both an Englishwoman, uncomfortable with her nation’s violent endeavors, and a musician, capable of producing melodious noise of her thought. There is a similarly strong weight of meaning within the almost six-minute long “All And Everyone.” Slow paced and rhythmic, it inflicts a contemplation on the bloody battle of Gallipoli, in which nearly half a million people died. There is a delicate anger in the ubiquitous presence of death, the lyrics from which assert the genuine poetry of Harvey’s musical disposition.

This album took nearly three years to write and five weeks to record. And whether through the gentle sound of mourning or the rhapsodic bouts of driving discontent, there is a manifest momentum within the music that mingles with the forcible lyrics to produce a spell of robust discernment. n

B6

The Heights

Thursday, February 17, 2011

The Heights

Thursday, February 17, 2011

B7

Representative Ron Paul

By Matt Palazzolo Heights Staff

Alex Manta / Heights graphic

Ron Paul (R-Tex.) was born in Pittsburgh, Pa. on Aug. 20, 1935. He received a bachelor’s degree in biology from Gettysburg College, and an M.D. from the Duke University School of Medicine.

Paul served as a doctor with the Air Force from 1963-1965 and with the Air National Guard from 1965-1968. He later opened his own medical practice in Texas, specializing in obstetrics and gynecology. Paul reportedly delivered over 4,000 babies while specializing in Texas.

Ron Paul decided to enter politics on Aug. 15, 1971, the day former President Richard Nixon ended the country’s gold standard. He became a Republican candidate in the 22nd District of Texas in 1974, but was defeated by incumbent Robert Casey. Gerald Ford appointed Casey to head the Federal Maritime Commission in 1976, and Paul won a special election to fill the empty seat. He lost months later in the general election to Democrat Robert Gammage, but was later elected in 1978, 1980, and 1982. He left the House to run for Senate in 1984, and would not be re-

elected until 1996. He is currently the Republican Congressman from Texas’ 14th District.

Paul has the most consistent conservative voting record of any member of Congress since 1937. He has criticized excessive government spending, championed gun rights, and even advocated term limits for members of Congress.

However, Paul voted against the Iraq War Resolution in 2003 and even sponsored a bill to repeal the war authorization.

In 1988, Paul won the Libertarian Party nomination for the presidential election. He labeled Ronald Reagan a failure, criticizing the high deficits of his presidency. He publicly stated that he did not expect to win the election, but rather wanted to bring attention to Libertarian positions. Paul garnered 431,750 votes in the general election, far behind the victorious George H. W. Bush.

Paul again ran for president in 2008, this time as a member of the Republican Party. Despite his defeat, Paul has won the straw polls at the last two Conservative Political Action Conferences.

His son, Rand Paul, is the junior senator for the state of Kentucky. n

Though the facts aren’t clear, laugh out loud. It’s healthy Laughter, from B10

beginning to understand the mechanisms behind its incredible array of functions. How various brain areas contribute to the human experience, including our response to humor, continues to be a topic of great interest.

“The laughter circuitry in the brain involves many different regions in the cortex, including the frontal and occipital lobes, and the motor strip, as well as subcortical structures in the limbic system. These areas help us understand and process the humorous stimuli (a joke, situ-

ation, or emotion) and then cause the larynx and respiratory muscles to produce the laughter,” Langerman said.

So, will giggling regularly keep the doctor away? According to WebMD, the short answer is that researchers are not sure yet. It’s difficult to determine if laughter actually causes particular health benefits (besides a mini facial and cardio workout). For example, let’s say that people who laugh more appear to suffer from fewer heart attacks. This may occur because people who find humor in life’s troubles are better able to manage their stress, or be-

cause they have a positive attitude and a desire to maintain a healthy lifestyle. In other words, chuckling may not be solely responsible for the outcome. As Robert Provine, psychology professor and author of Laughter: A Scientific Investigation tells WebMD, “Laughter is social, so any health benefits might really come from being close with friends and family, and not the laughter itself.”

More research is needed, but studies examining the relationship between laughter, blood flow, and even improved immune system response are still very interesting.

We should all strive to incorporate humor into our everyday lives.

Provine asserts that he is not against laughter by any stretch of the imagination. “I’m just saying that if we enjoy laughing, isn’t that reason enough to laugh? Do you really need a prescription?”

Finally, what makes some jokes funny and others fall flat? According to HowStuffWorks, there are three major theories about why we find certain things humorous. The first is called the incongruity theory which “suggests that humor” arises when logic and familiarity are replaced by things that don’t normally go

together.” The second, the superiority theory, involves finding humor in another person’s misfortunes. And the third, the relief theory, a statement or action is used to release tension by producing laughter.

What is the take-away message from all of this? Laughter is complex, but wonderful. It is one of life’s greatest gifts and should be enjoyed on a regular basis. And if you are really interested in the “world’s funniest joke,” be sure to investigate Laugh Lab’s website for yourself.

Rachel Newmiller is a Staff Columnist for The Heights. She welcomes comments at marketplace@bcheights.com.

SCVNGR rewards Boston area students for competition

By Diana C. Nearhos Heights Senior Staff

Last week, Boston College students could be found snapping pictures of the fried food at Corcoran Commons, the architecture of Devlin Hall, and the messy corners of their rooms on their iPhones and Androids. They uploaded them to SCVNGR, a location-based game, as part of the Beantown Competition.

SCVNGR is an application available on the iPhone and Android that is creating a game layer on top of the world. Similar to Foursquare or Gowalla, players check in to locations on their phones.

What makes SCVNGR different is the game dynamics.

When you check in, there are challenges with different point values. You might just say something about the place, similar to a tweet, or you could take a picture, or perform a stunt.

Starting Monday, Feb. 7, BC students competed with Boston University, Northeastern University, and Emerson College students to earn the most points and win tickets to a Celtics game.

Each school had 15 challenges active at any given time, developed and marketed by students. BC had five students controlling the challenges: Nate Almeida, A&S ’11; Brendan Quinn, CSOM ’11; Pat Christophel, A&S ’11; Ariana Rosa, LSOE ’11; and

Sevy Nieves, A&S ’11. marketing.

“We wanted to put chal“It was the first time we’ve lenges in the highest traf- ever done something like ficked areas that also had this,” said Nick Herbold, the highest smart phone pen- SCVNGR recruiter and BC etration,” Quinn said. “For ’07. “It was tremendously instance, Fulton Hall was a successful for giving us a feel high priority because there for what works with college is a high percentage of CSOM students and what are the students that have smart places that you need to tap phones.” into both from our perspecDuring the day, the chal- tive as a company and as a l e n ge s we re i n a ca d e m i c university.” buildings and at night they The SCVNGR team said were rotated they did not into the resireally know “We were a little dence halls. what to exOnly 15 chal- surprised at the amount pect as far as lenges were who would of participation level allowed to be d o wh a t i n and engagement level. the compeactive at any one time, but We were thinking maybe t i t i o n , b u t t h ey c o u l d s o o n fo u n d one school will do be changed that there throughout [reach 1,000 points] and were plenty the week.

BU had about ten times o f p e o p l e From the wanted that amount and every who students’ to play, esother school cleared it.” pecially when perspective, t h i s wa s a bragging chance for a r i gh ts we re -Nick Herbold fun competiat stake.

SCVNGR Recruiter, BC ’07 tion between “We were neighboring a little surschools and prised at the a chance to amount of win bragging rights and may- participation level and enbe some prizes ranging from gagement level,” Herbold said.

Celtics tickets to a t-shirt. “We were thinking maybe one SCVNGR had its reasons school will do [reach 1,000 for wanting to partake in points] and BU had about ten the competition as well. By times that amount and every handing it off to students other school cleared it.” who know their classmates BU won the competition and campus best, the com- with 14,151 points, Emerson pany was able to experiment followed with 2,898, then with types of challenges and Northeastern with 1,166 and

BC with 1,034. Even before the Beantown Competition, BU had been integrating SCVNGR into student life.

The school used the application during their Commonwealth Avenue Street Fair to bring students to different events and during hockey games to generate interest.

SCNVGR has many uses beyond this competition.

Schools can use it during orientation or for visiting students who are on selfguided tours of the campus.

Local businesses can use it to attract costumers.

There is an added level for SCVNGR as a marketing tool: the rewards. Many businesses, such as El Pelon, Roggie’s, and Zipcar, offer rewards if a customer reaches a certain point level. For example, someone can receive 15 percent off the total bill at El Pelon for earning ten points by checking in, taking a picture of himself, trying the hot peppers, listing his favorite chip topping, or other challenges.

“Rewards are, for me, the biggest draw to SCVNGR,” Quinn said. “If I got to a place and I see that they have a SCVNGR reward, I will do everything in my power to obtain the maximum reward during my trip there.”

Some restaurants, like Roggie’s, put a sticker on the door to attract people to their SCVNGR rewards. SCVNGR also makes it easy to find rewards. A player can see all of

David Cote / heights editor

SCVNGR is an entertainment application released for Android and iPhone. the rewards near them upon checking into any location.

Someone checking into Walsh Hall can see that rewards are offered at El Pelon, for example.

SCVNGR has an estimated over 800,000 players online, competing with their friends

and earning rewards.

So, if you see a student taking a picture of his Resident Director, or counting the Jarritos bottles at El Pelon, ask to do a social check in.

You will both get double the points and be that much closer to your next reward. n

Social networking: Has it personalized and sold you off?

Social Media, from B10 etc.) have become household names, provide useful services to millions of people, and have valuations in the billions. Their technological capabilities and tremendous “human” data allows them to venture into fields and perform incredible feats of informational analysis.

For example, Google “knows” which locations people search for the most when they utilize Google Maps.

They also know how individuals actually look at the pages and which locations they tend to zoom in and spend

time on. Theoretically, couldn’t that information be used in evaluating real estate prices? If a particular location is known to generate interest online, and a correlation exists between online action and physical intention, then it is possible that it will be well-frequented. What’s more, Google could (and may already) examine the demographics of people who perform particular searches. For instance, perhaps Internet users in zip code 02467 frequently search for “pizza.”

Doesn’t that mean that strong demand for pizza exists within this particular geographic area?

All of these pursuits are, in the

end, in the name of marketing. They allow a company to reach a particular group of people better (or, in the current age of social media, individuals). As a result, advertising agencies and marketing companies are facing a tremendous raft of new competitors from previously unlikely directions.

Firms such as Accenture and Bain are positioning their marketing consulting practices as “digital agencies.”

Microsoft, IBM, and Google possess such tremendous market data and analytical ability that they have tools that can entirely replace traditional marketing research, customarily conducted by advertising agencies. It

is possible that this could usurp many of the products offered by companies such as Nielsen, Gallup, and J.D. Power. As if this wasn’t enough, sites like YouTube and Hulu know exactly which people like particular media content and when they like to watch them. They also know which advertising they prefer to watch. With this information, who needs traditional media planning?

When one couples this with the difficulty encountered in social media marketing (due to the aforementioned affinity felt for the sites and perception that brands are “intruding”) the modern advertising agency feels like

a place of redundancy, not innovation. It’s no wonder that at the four advertising agencies I have worked at across three continents I have witnessed what can be best described as “relief ” amongst upper-management that they are about to exit this capricious business and “panic” amongst middle-management about their future, or lack thereof. Those of you considering a career in advertising or marketing should be aware that you’re in for one long hard slog.

Ameet Padte is a Staff Columnist for The Heights. He welcomes comments at marketplace@bcheights.com.

B8

The Heights

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Geneva Connection

Swiss version of direct democracy shows swing to the right Danny Martinez Despite Switzerland’s record of going against the grain of European trends and policies, it has not escaped from the recent shift to the right in political cultural that has swept across the continent. I will attend to the factors that I believe are playing a major part and see how they are affecting the current political climate in Switzerland.

In the United States, the issue of immigration is one that induces a rise in temperatures, as well as voices in debates, especially when November nears. The influx of Muslim immigrants, from the Middle East and the Magreb (the northern African countries of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt) promises to change the ethnic and cultural complexion of

Europe. But this change alone is not sufficient for the explanation of a shift to the right in European politics. Infrequent terrorist attacks, like the 2004 Madrid train bombing that took 200 lives and the 2005 London bombings, remain salient in the minds of Europeans perpetrated by extremists, many of whom are Muslims.

According to Europol’s 2009 Terrorism Situation and Trend Report, “among the large population of second generation Muslim immigrants in the European Union, some individuals and groups of individuals have proven vulnerable to recruitment and radicalization.”

The report found that second generation Muslim immigrants’ angst is fueled by this identity crisis and an absence of acceptance into a mainstream community, prompting them to look elsewhere, specifically the religious and cultural identity of their parents, for refuge.

Another sentiment as a result of this flux in immigration has been that the sacred cow of the

welfare state - the shift of basic services from private firms to the state - must be protected. Already difficult to sustain because of the extraordinarily high costs, a political trend towards nativism has arisen – securing the welfare of Europeans.

On the larger continental scale, these trends have translated into stricter immigration laws, bolstering domestic intelligence agencies and other departments that intend to secure the peace and maintain the tranquil way of life.

How has this affected Switzerland domestically? Even the country famous for repelling outside forces has not remained untainted.

Although Switzerland’s right-wing extremists are numerically small, they have been growing at an alarming rate. And while popular sentiment does not endorse extremist views per se, one third of the Swiss population, were identified as Islamophobes in a 2009 survey. The political culmination of these trends politically can be

seen in the Swiss People’s Party (SVP).

In Swiss politics, the highest body is a seven-member council vied for by four of the most important political parties in Switzerland. In 2003, SVP’s power increased dramatically, holding two seats of the sevenmember body. SVP’s policies can be characterized as traditionally conservative on the social spectrum and strongly favoring market principles and the free market for economics. Much like the Tea Party in the U.S., however, the SVP’s political positions do not appear at times to be the most cohesive. Many of their positions are based on xenophobia.

The infamous minaret-banning law was promoted by the SVP. Kevin P. Phillips, an illuminating American political commentator, designated this “New Right” as groups “emphasizing social issues, religious and cultural alienation, anti-elite rhetoric, lower-middleclass constituencies, populist fund

raising and plebiscitary opinionmobilization.”

Alienation might not be the right word, because there is a general Swiss feeling – one that SVP has tapped into – that Switzerland should integrate into Europe as little as possible. Actions such as refusing entry into the E.U., justifying Swiss involvement in World War II (survey of Swiss history to be covered in a future column) and rejecting the idea of global – or continental – governance in the form of intergovernmental organizations has become the M.O. of the SVP and its supporters.

In the most recent Federal Assembly elections in 2007, SVP gathered nearly three-quarters of a million votes, capturing over a quarter of the popular vote and winning 62 seats.

In Geneva, thoroughly entrenched in French-speaking Switzerland (called Romandie), SVP influence is minimal. However, with hushed voices, Les Genevois speak of the People’s Party rising

Mubarak’s regime falls to the people Egypt, from B10 many that the elections held in the coming months will be corruption-free. With such a popular uprising of the people, it also seems likely that the elections will result in tumultuous change. However, recent reports have noted that the Egyptian people have been united by a cause, but not by a leader. Though leaders like ElBaradei have emerged, it is unlikely that the people will continue to be as united as they have been the past few weeks.

Mustafa Kamel al-Sayed, a Cairo University political science professor, told reporters, “There are already some divisions among the demonstra-

tors. Some are saying, ‘Let us give the promise of reform a chance and trust the armed forces, who say they will guarantee reform.’ Others are saying, ‘No trust is left.’”

In a speech regarding the Egyptian revolution, President Barack Obama told the press, “The people of Egypt h ave s p o ke n , t h e i r vo i c e s have been heard, and Egypt will never be the same.” He continued, saying that, “By ste p p i n g d ow n , Pre s i d e n t Mubarak responded to the Egyptian people’s hunger for change. But this is not the end of Egypt’s transition, it is a beginning.” All that remains to be seen is how Egypt’s newest beginning will end. n

Hussein Malla / Ap photo

Egyptian police celebrate the fall of Mubarak’s regime in the streets of Cairo, abandoning their previous duties.

stock. Many are fearful of even stricter immigration policies, which, for Geneva, is quite relevant considering its status as a truly international city.

Like the Tea Party in the U.S., it is unclear the direction the SVP will take. While many of its ideological principles may prove successful, the base and strength of its support is built around rural regions where xenophobia and political drumbeating are more convincing than rational policy argument. If the People’s Party continues to perform well in national and cantonal elections, the movement may prove not to be as ephemeral as liberals would like.

However, it is impossible to gauge the future because of Switzerland’s unique direct democracy. For many, this is what frightens them the most.

Danny Martinez is a Senior Staff Writer for The Heights. He welcomes comments at marketplace@ bcheights.com.

The Heights

Thursday, February 17, 2011

B9

David Cote

Matt Palazzolo

Hilary Chasse

Who will win the budget showdown: Democrats or Republicans?

No one wins. Either way we’ll be insanely in debt.

China: California will be foreclosed on by Communists if the deficit grows any bigger.

Fiscal mismanagement has been going around these days, so who can say?

With Obama showing he’s not serious about the deficit, Republicans have a chance to set the bar.

Hopefully the Democrats.

The Republicans would take an axe to the federal budget.

Should the children of illegal immigrants be granted U.S. citizenship?

Yes, but we should prevent there from being any illlegal immigrants anyway.

Only if they pay taxes. And learn English. And bow to a portrait of Reagan.

I have no wittiness to add to this emphatic yes.

Yes, but we must get serious about border security.

Yes, under certain conditions. Don’t punish children for their parents mistakes.

Will Iranian protestors be able to overthrow their government?

Iran has its ways of controlling citizens.

300 protesters should do, maybe 250. Ahmadinejad hasn’t drafted elephants into his Guard yet.

Something tells me Ahmadinejad will be having none of that.

I’m not holding my breath.

Iran knows how to brutally stifle protests.

Who knows? The protestors should take some advice from the Egyptians.

How does Donald Trump compare to other potential GOP presidential candidates?

Better than Palin or Beck.

Seriously though, this better be a joke.

He’s got the hair and a catchphrase. That’s enough to win the Iowa caucus.

GOP candidates need better hair than that.

He is a clown compared to serious candidates such as Romney and Pawlenty.

His hair isn’t as good as Mitt Romney’s.

Marketplace Editor

Asst. Marketplace Editor

Managing Editor

Tomas Castella

President, College Republicans

Kristoffer Munden President, College Democrats

Angola’s economy booming

By Gerard Farara Heights Staff

Despite the economic woes of the Western world, there remains an African nation that is booming with prosperity.

Nestled near the southern tip of the African continent, Angola has rapidly emerged as one of the more prosperous sub-Saharan nations. Since the conclusion of its bloody 27-year civil war in 2002, brisk development and relative political stability have borne many fruits for the country. From a prosperous oil industry that has put the country on track to surpass Nigeria to become the largest African oil producer, to the mines that have made the country the fifth largest source of diamonds in the world, Angola has certainly made the improbable climb out of the deep crevice it created for itself. Its infrastructure and agricultural industry are on the upswing as well, as the aftermath of the war left the country in tatters.

But in the tiny commuter town of Zango, just outside the capital Luanda, one can clearly see the growing social problem that lies beneath this veneer of prosperity. Here, the domestic poverty line is physically visible, as a blue metal fence separates the newly constructed posh apartment complexes with lush green lawns and state of the art sprinkler systems from the farmers who used to till the very land they now can just barely glimpse over the fence. Through this looking glass, it is evident that becoming one of the premier African nations has seemingly come hand in hand with drastic financial polarity.

Littered throughout the country are such tiny oases of rich urban life. Ferretti yachts worth millions can be seen docked in expensive harbors and luxurious but exclusive beach clubs have been constructed for only the wealthy few. The government’s pledge to build a million houses has been quite fittingly referred to as “$1 million houses,” as most

of the houses that do get built taps in a tiny suburb of Luanda, are affordable only for the most giving one million people their wealthy. Angola has managed to first taste of fresh water in a very achieve what few other African long time. nations have not: to capitalize So who is to blame for this successfully on the vast re- wide financial gap? As a recent sources it has. But at the same article by The Economist noted, time it has still failed to spread the blame lies on many fronts. the spoils of this economic boom From the proud former guerilla evenly. Its Gini coefficient, a leaders who have a feeling of selfmeasure of income distribution entitlement, to the lack of skilled at which zero represents perfect labor workers, Angola has a host equality, was rated at 0.55, one of social and political dilemmas of the highest in the world. that have capped the spread of its Venture outside of Angola’s wealth. In a recent ranking of the luxurious regions though, and most corrupt nations published the desolate povby Transparerty that plagues ency InternaVenture outside of the majority of the tional, a Gercountry becomes man based Angola’s luxurious immediately oborganization, regions though, vious. A dismal Angola was 9 percent of the ranked 10th, and the desolate capital’s populaquite a jump poverty that plagues from its pretion of five million has running wavious ranking the majority of the ter. Roughly half of 22nd. Racountry becomes of the population fael Marques, of 18 million has immediately obvious. a local advoaccess to basic cate for pohealth care. Anlitical change, gola is home to some of the conducts daily corruption tours world’s highest rates of infant of the nation’s capital, highmortality and has the only known lighting what banks and busicases of urban polio. Clearly, nesses are run by which corrupt the disparity has had its rami- government representative. The fications. Ramifications which, logic behind the corruption, the unfortunately, have left few bet- article argued, is the feeling that ter off than they were during the they earned these benefits after instability and turmoil of the guiding the country out of war. civil war.

And as president for 31 years, And with this growing divide, Jose Dos Santos has been quite a recent upsurge of land seizures happy to appease their desires has become a source of social in order to maintain their crucial tension. Many of the musseques, support. or small self-constructed settleBut, on the other hand, Anments, that once began near gola has a huge labor force dethe white sandy beaches on the ficiency that drastically needs Atlantic Coast have been pushed to be addressed. When officials back to make room for the more bought 3,000 new buses earlier upscale developments on these this year, they could only find more ‘desirable spots.’ As a 1,500 workers to drive them. result, the amount of displaced In truth, political corruption families has sparked drastically. and the lack of skilled labor it Despite a budget that nears seems have boldly drawn the $40 billion, one that surpasses ever-widening financial gap and some European nations, chari- if this problem isn’t addressed, table organizations are still the social turmoil could resurface best way to tackle Angola’s many to threaten the relative prossocial issues. Last year, UNICEF perity it has worked so hard to managed to set up about a dozen achieve. n

Photo Courtesy of upstatenyer

Next week marks the fifth anniversary of Justice Clarence Thomas’ mysterious silence in Supreme Court debate.

Justice Thomas keeps quiet Thomas, from B10

word in at court can be, with the justices showering lawyers with questions almost as soon as they begin their presentations.

Between 1988 and 2008, the justices asked an average of 133 questions per hour-long argument, an increase from about 100 in the past 15 years.

Thomas’ career has not been without controversy. His 1991 nomination to the Supreme Court by former President George H. W. Bush was met with instant criticism as many thought he would reverse the civil rights gains that Justice Thurgood Marshall, whom he replaced, had fought so hard to attain. Additionally, many people worried that he was not experienced enough, having only spent two years as a federal judge.

As his nomination to the Supreme Court was going through the Senate, Anita Hill, a law professor at the University of Oklahoma, came forward with accusations that Thomas had sexually harassed her when she had worked for him years earlier. She told reporters he had engaged

in inappropriate discussions of sexual acts and pornographic films after she refused his invitations to date him.

Then, in October of last year, an ex-girlfriend of Thomas, lawyer Lillian McEwen, described him to Larry King on CNN as a “raving alcoholic with a porn fetish.” She said that when Thomas gave up alcohol, instead of improving his reckless ways, he “went backwards” and became an angry, obsessive man who bullied his son. “Clarence became not the person I knew when I first met him,” she told King, adding that he “drank to excess” when they first met.

Thomas has since married Virginia Lamp Thomas, a lawyer affiliated with starting a nonprofit Tea Party-affiliated lobbying group, Liberty Central.

When the controversial justice does occasionally speak from the bench - when it is his turn to announce a majority opinion - he reads from a prepared text, and speaks in a gruff manner.

He does not, as many of his colleagues do, explain the case in conversational terms that the civilians in the courtroom will understand. Instead, he relies on

legal Latin and citations to subparts of statutes and policies.

Thomas’ most famous comments came during a 2002 case involving race. In an argument over a Virginia law banning cross burning, his passionate insight changed the tone of the discussion and arguably altered the outcome of the case.

During his remarks, he recalled “almost 100 years of lynching” in the South by the Ku Klux Klan and other groups. He told the court, “This was a reign of terror, and the cross was a symbol of that reign of terror. It was intended to cause fear and to terrorize a population.” The court ruled that states may make it a crime to burn a cross if the purpose is terrorization.

According to The New York Times, in the past 40 years, no other justice has gone an entire term, much less five, without speaking at least once during arguments, and it is expected that Thomas will spend Tuesday’s court time acting as he usually does—leaning back in his chair, staring at the ceiling, whispering to Justice Stephen G. Breyer, and rubbing his eyes to emphasize his boredom. n

Weber steps down as head of German Central Bank

By John Morrison Heights Staff

Axel Weber announced his intentions to step down from his post as president of the German Central Bank, Bundesbank, this week. He plans to leave office April 30. Weber has long been the frontrunner to lead the European Central Bank (ECB) after the anticipated departure of Jean-Claude Trichet in October of last year. With Weber’s eminent departure from Bundesbank, his option to succeed Trichet this upcoming year has been scuttled, leaving Europeans nervous over the fate of the ECB and the euro itself.

This sudden announcement has forced German Chancellor Angela Merkel to search for an

immediate replacement for Weber at Bundesbank while sending European political and financial leaders into a frenzy to find a new candidate to succeed Jean-Claude Trichet and oversee the ECB. A strong leader is crucial to survival of the Euro, especially in this critical recovery period stemming from the financial crisis gripping the world over the past three years.

The New York Times reported that, “Among economists, the favored candidate for the central bank post now seems to be Mario Draghi, governor of the Bank of Italy.” To economists and financial gurus, Draghi has the experience and savvy necessary to head up the most important financial office in Europe. However, as with all important international offices, political and diplomatic

influences play a bigger role than financial skill and know-how.

Draghi, although well qualified, may possibly be hindered by his nationality since many European officials believe that the next head of the ECB should hail far from southern Europe, the epicenter for the spiraling debt crisis partly responsible for the global recession. Unfortunately for the euro, the economists are not making the decision of who will succeed Trichet as head of the ECB. Questions regarding why Weber decided to leave Bundesbank and thus abdicate his bid for head of the ECB have come about in recent days. Many believe that Weber may take a job in the private sector, perhaps as president of Deutsche Bank. Other speculations have arisen saying that

Weber might want to avoid the possibility of becoming the head of the ECB because of a previous conflict with the ECB’s 23-member Governing Council and politicians. Weber told reporters of The Wall Street Journal that opposition to the ECB’s bond purchases of seemingly weakened euro-zone countries “might not have always fostered acceptance of me with some governments.” Therefore, “since May of last year, I have been aware that this would adversely affect a potential [ECB president] candidacy. During this time my conviction to not seek this important office has matured.”

Without a strong leader like Weber to head the ECB through the recovery stages of the financial crisis, Europeans invested in the euro’s survival have become

increasingly nervous about the future of European financial security. Marie Diron, an economist working in London for the consulting firm Ernst & Young, told reporters, “The main thing is to get someone who can achieve consensus and communicate clearly.” However, many believe that getting such agreement from the people involved in selecting a new leader of the ECB may be next to impossible.

Even so, countries that have been hit hard by the financial crisis such as Ireland, Greece, and Portugal, may breathe a sigh of relief over Weber’s departure and effective dropout in the race towards president of the ECB. His tough views on inflation and bailouts of failing European economies were at odds with the struggling

nature of such economies. Weber has become increasingly isolated in his views of maintaining the “no bailout policy” and price stability that the euro was founded upon over 12 years ago, views that draw heavily upon the financial policies of Germany. As such, he may feel that a discreet exit from government financial policy is best.

Although many economic and financial officials will do everything in their power to maintain the fact that the euro is still above water, the newfound publicity surfacing around the future of the leadership of the ECB may be a cause for concern. For the bank, this unwarranted publicity could cause increased strain on a system already trying to defend its actions of bailout across the euro-zone financial system. n

marketplace The Heights

Thursday, February 17, 2011

B10

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Market Report

in the News

Privacy or profit?

Politics The U.S. House of Representatives renewed key provisions of the Patriot Act on Tuesday.

The sections had been voted down last week after debate between Republicans and Democrats.

Numerous potential Republican presidential candidates spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference this weekend. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) won the straw poll for the second time in the row.

Ameet Padte

public ceremony. In his memoir, My Grandfather’s Son, he wrote that he was often teased about the way he speaks. Growing up in rural Georgia gave him a distinctive southern drawl that discouraged him from asking questions in both college and law school.

He also wrote that his fellow students intimidated him.

In 2000, Thomas told a bar association in Richmond, Vancouver, that his tendency to remain silent stemmed from his longing to be courteous to others.

“If I invite you to argue your case, I should at least listen to you.”

Thomas has also complained about how difficult getting a

Students in the Carroll School of Management have probably learned about the value chain, defined as the set of activities and processes an organization uses to transform input into output. For a traditional retailer, it’s quite simple. For instance, Burberry produces its wares in a factory.

These are then shipped to the relevant distribution center in a particular country, then to Burberry stores. The final step is the exchange between the store and you, the “end consumer.”

For services, the process is somewhat different due to the aspect of “inseparability,” meaning that the product is produced and consumed simultaneously. You might imagine then that the value chain for a service like Facebook would be quite simple: Facebook makes the website and you use it.

However, that is not the end of the story. Facebook makes the website. You use it, populating your profile with your age, gender, location, tastes, interests, photos, videos, and thoughts. Facebook then sells this information to advertisers (such as Coca-Cola and Nike) and their advertising agencies, which use it to target advertising content towards customers more effectively. In Facebook’s value chain, marketers are the “end consumer.” You are the product.

There are currently over 500 million users on Facebook, each a virtual treasure trove of marketing information.

There are another 100 million on Twitter and 60 million on LinkedIn. The willingness of social media users to share their personal traits is a testament to the extent with which consumers have bonded with the services, treating their profiles as an extension of their own individuality rather than external entities. It speaks to the paradigm shift that Facebook (and later Twitter) has caused across the Internet.

It used to be that surfing the Internet was like exploring the jungle. It was messy, cluttered, and difficult to navigate.

While the advent of algorithmically-based search engines made locating desired content more feasible, jumping from site to site was still a meandering process. In addition, one could leave behind his or her “real” identity and assume an Internet alias. Anyone could be anyone on the Internet.

What Facebook did was drape the tangible world’s face-toface interactions and social network over this environment. When I read an article on The Wall Street Journal, I immediately know if my friends have “Liked” it and what other people, not Internet avatars, think of it. I can then share it with my friends across multiple social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn).

This has a number of useful effects. For instance, The Wall Street Journal could theoretically examine the users who have “Liked” a particular article and study their demographics and geographic distribution. This would allow them to tailor content toward their audience more effectively.

It is genuinely incredible that these nascent and once small technology start-ups (Facebook, Google, Twitter, FourSquare, Groupon,

See Thomas, B9

See Social Media, B7

President Barack Obama unveiled his plans for the 2012 budget this week. The plan aims to reduce the federal deficit by $1.1 trillion over the course of the next 10 years.

Economics The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 42 points and the S&P 500 fell four points on Tuesday, the market’s largest losses in more than two weeks after a period of steady increase.

Delta Airlines removed the expiration date from the frequent flier miles SkyMiles reward program. Previously customer’s miles would expire if they were unused after 14 months.

Oil traded at an 11-week low of $84.44 per barrel on Monday. On Wednesday, the price had already jumped back to $104 per barrel due to the presence of the Iranian navy in the Suez Canal.

Science & Technology LG revealed the world’s first 3-D smartphone, the Optimus 3-D, on Tuesday. Users will not need special glasses while using the phone, much like the newly announced Nintendo 3DS game system.

On a week-long Jeopardy special, an IBM supercomputer competed against the two highest-earning champions in the show’s history, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, beating both in one matchup.

Stardust, an American spacecraft, took pictures of a comet orbiting the sun on Monday. Stardust, which is about to run out of fuel, will float off into space indefinitely.

in numbers $8.6 billion Ecuadorian residents have been awarded. They had sued the Chevron oil company for years of pollution.

500,000 hotel rooms from various chains that will have Starbucks coffee available to customers.

2

protestors killed in Iranian demonstrations this week by riot control police.

in quotes “

We feel an honest desire to protect gains from the revolution.

”

–Wael Ghonim Egyptian opposition leader

“

He knew that I was 24-yearsold because I told everyone I was 24-years-old.

”

– Karima El Mahrough 17-year-old dancer Italian PM Berlusconi was accused of having sex with

hussein malla / ap photo

Protestors in Cairo to take the streets to celebrate the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak. Mubarak stepped down after 18 days of protest by citizens.

Mubarak’s 30-year regime falls B y D avid C ote

Marketplace Editor On Feb. 10, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak resigned from his nearly 30 years in office, a change precipitated by widespread protests throughout Egypt, which began Jan. 25.

“President Mohammed Hosni Mubarak has decided to step down from his post as president of the republic and has empowered the supreme council of the armed forces to manage the affairs of the government,” said Omar Suleiman, Egyptian vice president, in a television broadcast last Friday.

Th e a n n o u n c e m e n t wa s met with massive celebrations across Egypt as citizens took to the streets in high spirits for the first time in several weeks.

Po p u l a r o p p os i t i o n l ea d e r Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, called the moment the “greatest day of my life. The country has been

liberated after decades of repression,’’ he told reporters.

On Feb. 13, the military junta established af ter the resignation of Mubarak announced the suspension of Egypt’s constitution, vowing to rewrite it in 10 days. According to government reports, the constitution will be put to referendum within two months of its writing in order to appease the protesters’ demands of constitutional overhaul. In the past, the constitution had made it nearly impossible for political parties to oppose the National Democratic Party (NDP), of which Mubarak is a member. The far-reaching changes made by the council on Sunday eviscerated this corrupt political system that permitted Mubarak’s elongated presidency. According to The Sydney Morning Herald, “The dissolved legislative body was seen as illegitimate following elections last year that

were marred by widespread allegations of fraud, and gave Mubarak’s National Democratic Party an overwhelming majority.” Changes proposed by the opposition groups “have called for democratic reforms that would enable more candidates to run for the presidency, impose term limits on the post, and enable more political parties to be formed,” in order to support more fair, democratic elections.

The military also announced the dissolution of the current parliament and “a six-month timetable for holding national elections,” in which the citizens who protested so vehemently will be allowed to participate.

The question that remains is whether such elections will result in actual democracy for the people of Egypt. Said Shadek, professor of political sociology at the American University of Cairo, told reporters that there are “encouraging

signs that demands of a secular democratic system advocated by pro-democracy protesters could finally be realized.”

Though the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist movement, is a key opposition party, it is unlikely that they will support a presidential candidate in the approaching election.

Internationally, most countries have voiced support of the movement of the people.

Nearby Mideast countries such as Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Iran condemned the government while supporting the rights of the people to protest.

Two supranational organizations, the European Union and the United Nations, voiced their support for the Egyptian people and their “legitimate concerns.”

With so much international attention, it is predicted by

See Egypt, B8

Health & Science

Science of laughter Rachel Newmiller Sherlock Holmes and Watson were going camping. They pitched their tent under the stars and went to sleep. Some time in the middle of the night, Holmes woke Watson up and said, “Watson, look up at the stars, and tell me what you see.” Watson replied, “I see millions and millions of stars.” Holmes said, “And what do you deduce from that?” Watson replied, “Well, if there are millions of stars, and if even a few of those have planets, it’s quite likely there are some planets like Earth out there. And if there are a few planets like Earth out there, there might also be life.” And Holmes said, “Watson, you idiot, it means that somebody stole our tent.”

The above has been deemed the world’s second funniest joke according to Laugh Lab, “an internetbased experiment” created by Richard Wiseman, a professor at the University of Hertfordshire in the U.K. and member of The British Association for the Advancement of Science.

Beginning in 2001, this unique study asked people to submit their favorite non-offensive jokes, provide their demographic information, and rate a series of these supposedly

humorous entries using a “giggleometer.” Over 40,000 submissions and 1.5 million ratings were collected from participants in 70 countries, providing researchers with great jokes and insights into the psychology of humor.

The bottom line is, laughter is serious business. So what happens when we laugh?

Is laughter really the best medicine? And what makes something funny?

As Alex Langerman, a former Howard Hughes Medical Institute fellow and current otolaryngologist (ear, nose, throat and head/neck specialist), explains, “Laughter is probably the least well-understood airway-related reflex.

However, the mechanics are simple. The sound of laughter is created when we are exhaling and the vocal cords close periodically. As the cords get close together, the sound occurs. This reflex also involves periodic activation of the respiratory muscles, which produces the rhythmic airflow that helps make the sound.”

If something is really funny, we can go into hysterics, laughing uncontrollably, gasping for air, flailing our arms, and even crying as a result of the humorous situation. And, as you have probably already guessed, the brain plays a role in your reaction to any comical moment.

Although this three-pound mass has intrigued people for many years, scientists are just

See Laughter, B7

i nside Marke tp l a c e

this issue

Photo courtesy of Supremecourthistory.org

Clarence Thomas, above, was appointed to the Supreme Court by Bush in 1991.

A silent spell

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has remained silent for almost five years

By Michela Gacioch Heights Staff

Next week will mark an important anniversary for Justice Clarence Thomas: it will be five years since Thomas, one of the most conservative and perplexing judges in the nine-member Supreme Court, last spoke during a court argument. On Feb. 22, Thomas and his colleagues will return from the Supreme Court’s midwinter break to hear arguments on two criminal cases. If he speaks, it will be the first time his voice has been heard in court since a death penalty case was heard on the same date in 2006.

He has revealed various reasons for his silence during public arguments—the court’s most

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