Wednesday, January 26, 2011
An independent, student-run newspaper serving the Virginia Tech community since 1903
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COLLEGIATETIMES 108th year, issue 6
News, page 2
Food & Drink, page 5
Opinions, page 3
LIANA BAYNE A Pennsylvania newspaper is reporting that Virginia Tech sophomore Sam Wendler died on Friday, Jan. 21. Wendler, 19, was a graduate of Susquehannock High School in Pennsylvania, according to his obituary in his hometown newspaper, the York Daily Record. Tech officials were not available for comment Tuesday night. Wendler is listed as an industrial systems engineering major. The Roanoke Times reported that Wendler lived in The Village apartment complex on Patrick
Classifieds, page 4
Henry Drive in Blacksburg. There is no official confirmation of the location where Wendler was found dead. WENDLER We n d l e r ’s friends were commenting on his Facebook wall Tuesday afternoon expressing sadness over his death. According to the York Daily Record, Wendler’s funeral for Saturday, Jan. 29 at Grace United Methodist Church in New Freedom, Pa. Visitation is 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., with a 3 p.m., private memorial service.
Memorial license plates available soon MEIGHAN DOBER news staff writer Virginia Tech students, alumni and supporters will now be able to show their support for victims of the April 16, 2007, campus shootings while they drive. The Virginia Tech Victims Family Outreach Foundation has undertaken a project seeking to create license plates in honor of victims and survivors of the shootings. The plates were designed by class of 2010 graduate Zach Madrigal. They feature maroon and orange colors and have the phrase “In Remembrance April 16, 2007” on the bottom. “We had the idea a few years ago,” said Lu Ann McNabb, executive director of the foundation. “It is a nice way to honor those who have died.” Because the plates do not use the Tech logo or the phrase “Hokies,” no permission was needed from Tech. All orders for the plates must be made through the foundation’s website. All funds generated by the license plates will be deposited into a non-interest bearing account. The price of a regular license plate is $25 and a personalized plate is $35. There are two bills that are going through state general assembly to approve the license plates. Del. Luke Torian is sponsoring the bill in the
House and Sen. David Marsden is sponsoring the bill in the senate. Out of 40 senators, 32 have signed the bill, and 85 out of 100 delegates have signed. “I don’t think it will have trouble getting through,” McNabb said. The next step is to have Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell sign the bill. In order for the bill to go to the governor, there must be 350 paid orders for the plates. There are currently only 65 orders placed for the plates, but the foundation has heard from numerous other people who say they will place an order. If 350 orders are not placed, then all applications and money will be returned to the senders. The foundation will not make a profit off of the plates until 1,000 have been sold. After the first 1,000 plates are sold, the foundation will receive $15 for every license plate bought or renewed. “This money will go to support what we are doing at the foundation,” McNabb said. After the governor signs the bill, the plates would be sold at the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles. The foundation is composed mostly of family members of the victims in the shooting and survivors. Those interested in purchasing a license plate can visit VTVFoundation.wsiefusion.net.
DANIELLE BUYNAK / COLLEGIATE TIMES
Calif. kindergartner murdered by mother JIM GUY & PAULA LLOYD mcclatchy newspapers FRESNO, Calif. — The murder of a California kindergartner Tuesday stunned residents still heartbroken by the carbon-monoxide poisoning deaths of two of her Oakhurst Elementary schoolmates last week. The Madera County Sheriff’s Office said the body of Marijane Lyn Lewis, 5, was discovered Tuesday by her grandfather in the home near Ahwahnee, Calif., that he and his wife shared with the girl and her mother, Crystal Lynn Lewis. Preliminary reports indicate Marijane’s throat was slashed. Authorities found the body of Crystal Lewis three hours later under a bridge about 2.5 miles away. Sheriff’s officials said Lewis killed her daughter before killing herself. News that Marijane had been murdered hit hard at Oakhurst Elementary School, which was still reeling from the Jan. 16 deaths of students Alexis Montoya, 10, and Jayden Montoya, 8, from carbon monoxide poisoning inside their Oakhurst, Calif., home. Oakhurst Elementary decided not to notify students about the latest death
Sudoku, page 4
Mailing it in
Student dies over weekend associate news editor
Sports, page 6
but instead sent home a letter with suggestions for parents about how to talk to children about it. Melanie Schaeffer wondered what she would say to her 7-year-old son, who attends a different school, and her daughter, a fifth grader at Oakhurst Elementary. “We’ll probably be honest with them, but it’s hard to explain to a 7-yearold. Not only was (Marijane) murdered, but she was murdered by her mommy.” Schaeffer said. “Will they think, could this happen to me?” The news of Marijane’s death was also a blow to school staff members, who were informed at a lunchtime meeting. “What an awful thing,” said Glenn Reid, superintendent of the Bass Lake Joint Union Elementary School District. “It just hurts,” he said. “It’s like it’s your child.” Reid said when school officials learned of Marijane’s death, they began calling crisis experts across the state to decide how to break the news to her classmates. Ten crisis counselors will be on campus Wednesday, he added. “We’re getting good at this,” Reid said. “Unfortunately, it’s not something that you want to get good at.”
VICTORIA ZIGADLO / COLLEGIATE TIMES
Tech’s webmail to transition to Gmail by fall 2011 CLAIRE SANDERSON news reporter Students who are frustrated with Virginia Tech webmail may not have to wait much longer for a change. Tech hopes to have students’ e-mail outsourced to Gmail by next fall. “You’ll still have your vt.edu address, but it will just be on Google rather than webmail,” said SGA president Bo Hart, who has been helping to push the change. According to Hart, next year’s freshmen who have been accepted to Tech during the early decision process already have their addresses on Gmail. Systems engineer Ron Jarrell, who is in charge of the team that runs the Tech webmail system, said students will receive e-mails next fall offering directions on how to make the switch to the
new system. If they do not switch by a certain date, Jarrell said, their accounts will be switched automatically. “Once we have everyone off the mail system, it will just go away,” Jarrell said. Jarrell said his team created a survey last fall asking students about the idea, and it got a positive response. “There were some responses who said they like the webmail client and do not want a change,” Jarrell said. “But the vast majority — maybe three to one — said they would like Google. About another 10 percent said they would prefer Microsoft.” Jennifer Sparrow, director of emerging technologies, said the change to a more widely used mail system would be beneficial to students. “When students come to campus, they usually already have a Gmail or Yahoo account, so it’s a technology that they would be familiar with,” Sparrow
said. Sparrow said a system like Gmail would also be good for faculty. “We see it as a benefit from a teaching and learning standpoint,” Sparrow said. “Faculty would be able to embrace these tools almost for free.” Of course, some students already choose not to use webmail, so for them, the switch would hardly be noticeable. “Webmail is just a client, it’s just a way of reading your mail. You can use any other client like Eudora or Outlook and access your e-mail directly and never have to use webmail at all,” Jarrell said. Jarrell said about 80 percent of students currently use webmail exclusively, a number which he said is higher than many other universities. “There is a large chunk of students that use webmail and nothing else, a
small number that never use webmail at all, and there are a few people that forward their mail to another, off-campus address,” Jarrell said. Hart said that though he will not be here to see the result, he is still excited to be a part of the change. “It’s better for us because you’re able to store your e-mail a lot longer, and you don’t have to worry about space. I know a lot of people that forward it already,” Hart said. “The switch will also save the school a lot of money.” Jarrell said Tech spends about $150,000 per year to run the webmail system, in addition to dealing with daily trouble-shooting and problems with spam in the system. “We want to try to migrate it off to a system where we not only pay less,” Jarrell said, “but get a better system for the money.”
Obama asks GOP to work with him to create US jobs STEVEN THOMMA mcclatchy newspapers WASHINGTON — Looking to boost the country’s slow economic recovery — and his own political rebound — President Barack Obama used his State of the Union Address Tuesday night to pitch an agenda that he said will create jobs and to portray himself as a leader above partisanship eager to work with the Republicans who share power. It was Obama’s first chance to speak directly to the Republicans who seized control of the House of Representatives and increased their strength in the Senate with a landslide election in November, and he used it to try to frame the coming epic debate over the federal budget, national debt and the economy on his terms. Speaking to a Congress with a Republican Speaker of the House over his shoulder for the first time, Obama paid heed to the 2010 elections. He insisted, though, that the country didn’t repudiate his Democrats so much as divide power. “With their votes, the American people determined that governing will now be a shared responsibility between parties,” he said. “New laws will only pass with support from Democrats and Republicans. We will move forward together, or not at all — for the challenges we face are bigger than party, and bigger than politics.” “At stake right now is not who wins the next election — after all, we just had an election,” Obama said in the prepared text of his address. “At stake is whether new jobs and industries take root in this country, or somewhere else. It’s whether the hard work and industry of our people is rewarded. . . . We are poised for progress.” While Republicans say that they won a mandate to roll back much of his agenda, Obama insisted anew that the verdict from voters was against Washington gridlock and that their marching order was to get things done to help Americans get jobs, keep them and earn more. And he pointed to success for the country during his two years at the helm. “Two years after the worst recession most of us have ever known, the stock market has come roaring back. Corporate profits are up. The economy is growing again,” he said. “But we have never measured prog-
MCT CAMPUS
President Barack Obama gives his State of the Union address. ress by these yardsticks alone. We measure progress by the success of our people. By the jobs they can find and the quality of life those jobs offer. . . . That’s the project the American people want us to work on. Together.” The mood in the room was more sober than the year before, after the Jan. 8 shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., and 18 others prompted calls for more civil political discourse. Among the guests looking on from the gallery with first lady Michelle Obama were the intern who rushed to Giffords’ aid, the family of a 9-year-old girl killed in the attack, and doctors from the hospital where Giffords and others were treated. Members took the unusual step of sitting beside colleagues from the other party. Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., who in September 2009 stunned the chamber by yelling “You Lie!” at Obama, sat Tuesday with Democratic Reps. Susan Davis of California and Madeleine Bordallo of Guam. Such efforts of public shows of bonhomie weren’t universal. Three members of the Supreme Court didn’t attend. Justice Samuel Alito, who mouthed “not true” when Obama used the speech last year to criticize a court ruling on campaign finance, was in Hawaii on Tuesday.
Fellow conservatives Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas also chose not to attend. Obama emphasized increased spending, or “investment,” on several of his top priorities, and challenged the nation to see this as a historic turning point comparable to the U.S. space race with the Soviet Union of the late 1950s and 1960s. “Half a century ago, when the Soviets beat us into space with the launch of a satellite called Sputnik, we had no idea how we’d beat them to the moon. The science wasn’t there yet. NASA didn’t even exist,” Obama said. “But after investing in better research and education, we didn’t just surpass the Soviets. We unleashed a wave of innovation that created new industries and millions of new jobs. This is our generation’s Sputnik moment.” Obama proposed greater spending on education to provide better-trained workers, road building to speed commerce, and wireless Internet to reach 98 percent of the country to ease communication. He also proposed to overhaul corporate taxes by closing loopholes and cutting corporate tax rates. Brushing off his spending-freeze proposal from last year, he proposed to freeze spending on a small portion of the federal budget for five years — the roughly 12 percent left after spending
on defense, homeland security, interest on the debt and entitlements such as Medicare and Social Security. Aides said his proposed freeze would pare $400 billion off the projected federal deficit over 10 years. Republicans were cool to the spending-freeze proposal, noting that it wouldn’t just lock out increases but cuts as well. “At a time when the Treasury secretary is begging Congress to raise the debt limit, a ‘freeze’ is simply inadequate,” said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. “The problem,” said Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., his party’s leader in the Senate, “is it freezes in place an extraordinary increase in spending that’s occurred over the last two years.” Instead, Republicans want to cut non-security spending to 2008 levels — before a deep recession sent federal spending soaring with bailouts and stimulus spending. In a strong message to Obama even before his limo pulled up the Capitol, the House voted earlier in the day to cut back spending to those 2008 levels. “America is fast approaching a tipping point. Reckless spending today threatens to impoverish future generations tomorrow,” said House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, RWis., in an e-mail to conservatives Tuesday. “The budget battle ahead will determine whether we continue our decline into a cradle-to-grave welfare state or move in a new direction consistent with America’s founding ideals,” said Ryan, named by his party to give its formal response to Obama. Obama also threatened to veto spending bills that include pork-barrel spending known as “earmarks.” With Republicans who run the House already vowing to ban earmarks, Obama’s threat was apparently aimed at the Democrats who control the Senate, where Majority LeaderHarry Reid, D-Nev., insists it’s the Senate’s right to put anything it wants in spending bills. “I don’t think it’s helpful,” Reid said. “It’s all a lot of pretty talk, but it’s only giving the president more power. He’s got enough power already.” In a brief turn to foreign affairs at the end of his speech, Obama also announced he’ll visit Brazil, Chile and El Salvador in March.