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-
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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.
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news editors: philipp kotlaba, liana bayne, gordon block newseditor@collegiatetimes.com/ 540.231.9865
january 26, 2011
COLLEGIATETIMES
On the weekend’s community service project: Thanks!>> As a parent of a child in one of the child care centers mentioned, I would like to thank those who came out to help!
On farm practices and animal rights activists: Anonymous >> Look I’m sure you’re well intentioned but that news story was aired three years ago. Everyone that’s not PETArded knows that animals are treated well or don’t care about animals. That’s the sentiment of mainstream America we know or we don’t care. The demo you’re going after won’t be convinced because they are set in their ways on the subject and insist that they are right. The article then ultimately is a waste because 1 it’s outdated and 2 wont effectively be received by your target audience.
Anonymous >> The purpose of this article was not to highlight that particular news story, it was to illustrate the point that agriculturists are misrepresented with either little or no knowledge about the industry and it’s workings. Granted that the Katie Couric’s story is not current, the aftermath of that news clip, and ones that are aired or published everyday across the country, leave many with an opinion of agriculture that might be very different if the good things they do were properly showcased.
On Campus Exxon’s transformation to a Shell station: Tretty>>
CORRECTIONS
Ive had to use Campus Exxon services several times in my years here. It’s a shame to see it go. Don’t we have a 7/11 in walking distance of the campus as well?
In “The Lyric welcomes Japanese film series,” (CT-Jan. 25), features staff writer Alice Park wrote the aforementioned story. The Collegiate Times regrets this error.
JUSTIN GRAVES -public editor -junior -sociology/leadership & social change
crime blotter
virginia Tea party-backed legislation advances The House of Delegates advanced three tea party-backed measures this afternoon after lengthy floor debates -- about federalism, perceived overreach by Washington, and the U.S. Constitution. The House approved a joint resolution in favor of the so-called “Repeal Amendment” to the U.S. Constitution. It gave preliminary approval to a bill that would keep Virginia goods produced or manufactured within the state and “held, retained or maintained” here from being subject to federal regulation. Members also passed to a final vote a measure that would exempt any residential building or home in Virginia from being subject to the
federal “cap and trade” legislation -- if it’s ever passed by the Congress -- if the buildings comply with the Statewide Uniform Building Code. The Repeal Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, under which two thirds of the states could collectively repeal a federal law or regulation, passed the House 59-34. Del. Joseph D. Morrissey, DHenrico, accused the Republicans of trying to change the “sacred document” drafted by the Founding Fathers, as a result of “some angst holding over from the Patient Protection Act,” the health-care overhaul. He said the majority party “has wrapped itself in the Constitution,
preaching fidelity to the Constitution time and time and time again. Until now.” And, Morrissey raised a series of questions about potential ramifications, including regional interests trumping national interests: “I got three words. American Civil War.” “This House joint resolution isn’t just controversial, it’s dangerous,” he said. “It’s not just unnecessary, it’s unpatriotic.” Debate on the bill relating to products made in Virginia also hinged on congressional power and symbolism of a perceived overreach. -Olympia Meola, mcclatchy newspapers
nation & world Google plans to add 6,000 jobs in 2011 LOS ANGELES — Google Inc. is planning its biggest surge in hiring yet, meaning it will add more than 6,000 new workers in 2011. The plans, which extend a hiring spree that began last year, mean big numbers for the Internet search giant, which plans to grow to more than 30,000 employees by the beginning of 2012. The bold plan shows that Google is bullish about its chances as it engages in fierce competition with Silicon Valley giants such as Apple Inc. and with upstarts such as Facebook Inc. for fast-growing new areas such as mobile and social networking beyond
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its core business of search. Google is also trying to keep employees, not just recruit them. Last fall, Google announced a 10 percent raise for all its employees. Hiring will be spread across the new initiatives. Many of the jobs will be at the company’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.; about a third of Google’s workers are now in the San Francisco Bay Area. Google’s outgoing CEO, Eric Schmidt, said at a conference in Europe on Tuesday that Google planned to hire more than 1,000 workers in Europe. Google added 4,565 workers in 2010, a 23 percent jump and the
largest since its hiring binge in 2007, when it added 6,100 workers. So analysts were not surprised that Google planned on pumping up hiring in 2011. Google’s Schmidt is preparing to hand off the top job at Google to Page, who wants to recapture Google’s entrepreneurial roots and speed up the pace of innovation. Google is also highlighting what it says is often overlooked: a start-up culture within the company, including the Android team working on the software inside mobile devices.
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-Jessica Guynn, mcclatchy newspapers
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editors: scott masselli, gabi seltzer opinionseditor@collegiatetimes.com/ 540.231.9865 COLLEGIATETIMES
january 26, 2011
T-shirts bring Tech community together ost of my life has been built upon a foundation of cotM ton. My “T-shirt drawer” seems to have morphed into an entire T-shirt dresser at the brink of overflow. It has become more of an obsession; in fact, I do believe it has become a lifestyle. My life in T-shirts can be tracked from the earliest elementary school memories where the cotton became the paper to my classmates’ signatures, and every new sport meant a new shirt. For some reason the height chart in my laundry room has very few markings after around the seventh grade, yet the shirts all still fit. My father owns a screen-printing business in Virginia Beach. I brag that I am a T-shirt connoisseur, but I do believe he may have me beat in a whole different way. That shirt you just purchased could actually be how I am able to afford college right now. It’s a pretty interesting business, and it never seems to stop. I have pictures upon pictures from various vacations in my albums of nothing but random strangers’ backs. “Hey, make it look like you’re taking a picture of me, but really just get that guy over there’s shirt. Don’t be obvious.” I’m like a creepy fan snapping pictures of Justin Bieber in the supermarket but really you’re just wearing a cool design of a whale that my dad could get an idea from. I have been a Virginia Tech fan since I could babble the word “Hokie,” and my dresser has been a reflection of it. Besides, the overabundance of white, orange and maroon have been key features to my wardrobe. When I was touring various colleges and trying to make my decision, I bought shirts and sweatshirts each time. I have a whole collection of Carolina blue, Wake Forest black and JMU purple, and to my par-
ents’ dismay, even a little bit of orange and blue, but we don’t need to talk about that. Everyone is proud of the school they go to, but and I’m about to sound like a Hokie Ambassador at Tech it’s just a little different. It would be impossible to forget where you are because “gobble, gobble bitches” or “maroon monsoon” is everywhere. Hokie pride isn’t just in the abundance of choices at the bookstores, which, compared to some of the other schools I visited, is very different. The difference is people actually wear it. I cannot even imagine how intimidating it would be to look up and see 66,000 excited people all wearing orange. When we are featured on “College Gameday” all sporting maroon on Feb. 26, it won’t just look shocking to the viewers at home, hopefully it’ll put a little damper into Duke’s offense. T-shirts are often more than just comfy cotton and ink. Besides being the source of my family’s income and a regular facet to my wardrobe, they bring people together and show support in ways few other things can. Shortly after the ACC Championship Game, I went to Boston to visit a friend. Proudly donning one of the many Tech shirts from my collection, it was daunting how many people noticed. I found fellow Tech fans and alumni on the plane, in the airport, in a restaurant, even in my friend’s dorm. Next time you walk across the Drillfield, look around. I may have a special connection to these popular items of clothing, but the power of our favorite T-shirt is hard to ignore.
JENNY SAMUELS -regular columnist -freshman -university studies
US Supreme Court’s mistake now obvious ow that we have suffered through our first post-Citizens N United election, it is time for critics of the Supreme Court’s decision to admit we got it wrong. The impact has been far greater and far worse than we anticipated. On the one-year anniversary of this dreadful decision, it’s plain that the theory and practice of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission are incompatible with a well-functioning democracy. In the case, a 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court held that corporations could spend unlimited amounts from their general treasuries to influence election outcomes. We need a constitutional amendment to overturn this decision and clarify that corporations do not have a right to overrun our democracy. The Supreme Court’s decision rested on two key flawed premises. First, the court held that forprofit corporations are entitled to the same First Amendment protections, including in the core area of election-related speech, as real, live human beings. Although the majority waxed eloquently on the importance of the First Amendment in protecting the expressive rights of disfavored persons, they “elided” the obvious point that corporations are not people, as Justice John Paul Stevens noted in his stinging dissent. While they are staffed, managed and owned by real people, corporations are separate legal entities from the people who make them up. Forprofit corporations possess features that distinguish them from humans, giving them enormous ability to influence politics, but leading them to operate without the richness of human motivations and concerns. Corporations have perpetual life, they have no conscience, they can’t be imprisoned, they are driven by a single objective — pursuit of profit — and they agglomerate unparalleled amounts of wealth. That second key premise of the decision was that corporate spending on elections — as long as it is not coordinated with candidates — poses no risk of corruption nor can even give rise to a perception of corruption. If we presume that the majority made this argument in good faith, there are perhaps five people in Washington who believe it to be true. There aren’t likely to be many more outside of the Beltway. Corporations don’t spend money on politics to express their inner feelings — they don’t have any — but to advance their economic agenda. They spend money precisely because they expect something in return. Issued less than 10 months before
the 2010 elections, Citizens United remade the electoral landscape. Not only did it enable corporations to write large checks to affect who would and would not be elected, it established that Wild West rules would prevail for campaign 2010. With inadequate reporting and disclosure rules, we don’t know exactly who spent what in the election. We do know that 150 organizations outside of the political parties reported spending nearly $300 million to influence federal elections, and that the actual number is much higher. Outside groups spending favored Republicans by about 2 to 1. Most of the outside money was funneled through a small number of groups, led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and two Karl Rove-affiliated operations. Most of the groups were funded by a small number of corporations and superwealthy individuals. And their spending had a disproportionate influence on the election. They were able to focus their efforts in close and strategically important races. As completely unaccountable entities, they were also free to run vicious attack ads without even the reputational harm that attaches to candidates who run negative ads. Virtually everyone hates attack ads, but while – or because – they turn off voters, they work. The leading practitioners of Citizens United-enabled unaccountable slash-and-burn have vowed more of the same — much more — in 2012. And Democratic funders say they see no choice but to get in the game. This is no way to run a democracy. As a first and exceedingly modest step, we need robust and straightforward disclosure laws so there is complete transparency about which businesses and people are spending what. More systemically, we need a fair election system that provides candidates with public financing so they don’t need to supplicate to rich donors. These objectives can be obtained legislatively. But there is no workaround for the central problem created by Citizens United. Corporations will retain the right to overwhelm elections unless Citizens United is overturned. Absent a rethink by the Supreme Court, that will require a constitutional amendment. Winning a constitutional amendment will be no easy thing, but a growing people’s movement is insisting we have no choice. Democracy is rule by the people, after all.
ROBERT WEISSMAN -mcclatchy newspapers
The Collegiate Times is an independent student-run newspaper serving the Virginia Tech community since 1903
‘Huck Finn’ should remain uncensored
Collegiate Times Editorial Staff Editor-in-Chief: Peter Velz Managing Editors: Zach Crizer, Katie Biondo, Josh Son Public Editor: Justin Graves Senior News Editor: Philipp Kotlaba Associate News Editors: Liana Bayne, Gordon Block News Reporters: Claire Sanderson, Michelle Sutherland, Sarah Watson News Staff Writers: Erin Chapman, Meighan Dober, Jay Speidell Features Editors: Lindsey Brookbank, Kim Walter Features Reporters: Chelsea Gunter, Majoni Harnal, Mia Perry Opinions Editors: Scott Masselli, Gabi Seltzer Sports Editors: Michael Bealey, Garrett Ripa Sports Reporters: Nick Cafferky, Matt Jones, Courtney Lofgren, Josh Parcell Sports Staff Writers: Alyssa Bedrosian, Alex Koma, Ashleigh Lanza, Zach Mariner Public Information Director: Dishu Maheshwari Training Director: Kelsey Heiter Copy Editors: Taylor Chakurda, Thandiwe Ogbonna, Spenser Snarr Layout Designers: Danielle Buynak, Cathleen Campbell, Maya Shah, Victoria Zigadlo Online Director: Jamie Chung
he first time I read “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” T I had just finished “The Adventures of
Collegiate Times Business Staff Business Manager: David Harries Distribution Assistant: Ryan Francis
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Tom Sawyer” in fourth grade and expected some kind of sequel something that would tell me another story about finding hidden treasure or faking a funeral. Aside from unverified rumors of death, the two novels are incongruous. Today, high school students are gearing up for the release of a new version of Huck Finn, though this time with the word “slave” replacing “nigger” some 68 times. This new edition has academics and avid readers embroiled in a conversation about the ethics of this revision. My first attempt at reading the novel was admittedly derailed by Pap Finn’s constant use of the word. Twelve-yearold white kids in suburban Richmond are not unfamiliar with the word, though we were not prepared for the rate it was used in the novel. Certainly its usage presents irony, because Mark Twain’s commentary on the South highlights how ridiculously the bigoted, child-abusing, overboozing vagrant can exhibit some mutant elitism over a good-natured paternal figure simply because of race. Sure, the word is nasty. But seriously, “nigger” means something completely different than “slave.” One is used to connote the racist subjugation of African-Americans, but “slave” refers to the actual repeal of individual human rights. A “slave” has so many meanings these days, from a disgruntled worker who earns close to minimum wage to a furiously stupid song by Britney Spears about assuming a submissive role in a sexual relationship. “Nigger” has never wavered in meaning, nor will it. But this change is not about the presumed interchangeability of these words. It is more about the pedagogical role of the novel in the American high school. The novel is banned in new school districts every year, most-
ly because of the maturity level of students who pretend they have never heard “nigger” before, nevermind the word’s pervasiveness in the entertainment industry. High school students have heard it in songs, in movies, on television. They’ll hear it in college, in real life and it will make them uncomfortable. Generally speaking, high school students are stronger-minded than we give them credit for being. They know the value of a good controversy, and they will stop at nothing to get to the bottom of it. Aside from their typical school-day drama, we should look at the popularity of J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye.” High school students love reading subversive literature. What? Do you think that no kid in high school ever said, “Fuck the teacher and this shitty system of power that traps me,” without getting the idea from Salinger? Getting students to fall in love with reading is easy. My high school teacher told me that I could not study William S. Burroughs’ “Naked Lunch” or Philip Roth’s “Portnoy’s Complaint” for class because both possessed inappropriate topics for discussion. Yeah, because high school students certainly never rebel against authority, experiment with drugs or have sex with each other. Making the reader uncomfortable with the text’s subject matter is the greatest way to determine great literature. Instead of focusing on the presence of a taboo word, we must engage the tensions that exist from that word. High school students need to encounter the atrocities that existed in the antebellum South to have a real understanding of the horror. The bigotry should not be just a footnote but a major teachable moment. It is the responsibility of our English teachers to explain the tensions this book causes. I do not advocate teaching the antebellum South through this novel; rather, this novel must be
accompanied by a mature discourse regarding the origins and reproductions of the racism that has endured. The novel is not used to teach mid-19th century race relations, nor should it be. Just as “Animal Farm” should not teach Cold War tensions, Disney’s “Pocahontas” teach AngloNative relations, or “300” teach the Battle of Thermopylae. We are not to look upon works of art as accurate accounts of history. If we censor Huck Finn, why stop there? Let’s clean up “The Canterbury Tales” so the whorish Wife of Bath’s tale does not taint its readers. Don’t teach Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan” because the speaker’s opium trip catalyzes the poem. Heck, let’s not teach the Holocaust in history classes so our nation’s children will not have to endure the images of this unparalleled violence. Of course I do not truthfully endorse any of these propositions. However, throwing out the original Huck Finn will not alleviate the tensions that existed, and surely the future instructors of this novel will point out this redaction. “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is more than just a bunch of racist images patched together. The novel acknowledges the crippling hatred that existed in the South and does something incredible: It shows two people ignoring convention and acting morally. Teach this novel in high school. Teach impressionable youth that legality and morality are two separate entities. This novel demonstrates that mankind can act both with tremendous humanity and inhumanity, but humanity can prevail.
BEN WOODY -regular columnist -senior -English major
Lack of House consensus on health care problematic the most important domestic issues of the day, On our two political parties don’t merely lay out competing arguments; they inhabit alternative realities. The chasm was apparent over the last few days as the House of Representatives churned relentlessly toward its vote to repeal President Obama’s health-care law. The two-day debate, carried out in a marathon series of two-minute speeches, remained civil. But it was clear that civility alone won’t lead to consensus. To listen to Republicans, the healthcare law will destroy as many as 1.6 million jobs; to hear Democrats, it will create jobs. Republicans say the law will bust the national budget and deepen the federal deficit; Democrats say the law will reduce the deficit by $230 billion over the next 10 years and even more after that. As usual, of course, the facts are more complicated than either side acknowledges. Unfortunately, as is usual in floor debates, the discussion didn’t get into the nuances of these real-world dilemmas. Instead, members on each side spent their allotted time reinforcing their parties’ incompatible worldviews. To Republicans, the law will “fundamentally change the doctor-patient relationship,” freshman Rep. Ben
Quayle, R-Ariz., son of former Vice President Dan Quayle, asserted in his maiden outing on the House floor — though given his two-minute limit, he didn’t spell out exactly how. To Democrats, the law “is a moral imperative. ... We are our brothers’ keepers,” said Rep. Christopher Murphy, D-Conn. What the House was doing this week, of course, wasn’t really legislation; it was politics. The new Republican leaders of the House know that the Senate, still in Democratic hands, isn’t going to give repeal a chance to get to the floor, much less pass. Instead, this was merely the opening round in a long re-litigation of the healthcare debate that dominated the last Congress. That’s why the Republicans relied on what they see as their strongest argument: the fear that extending health insurance to more of the uninsured will be too costly for small businesses and taxpayers. And that’s why the Democrats relied on theirs: the voter-pleasing consumer protections that the law enacted. To listen to the Democrats, you’d think the cornerstone of the law was the clause that lets children stay on their parents’ insurance policies until they’re 26. But feelings about some parts of the law actually cross party lines. Most people like the provisions that pro-
tect patients from insurance companies, but they don’t like the individual mandate that requires people to buy insurance whether they want it or not. And most people worry about cost. That’s why Republican leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., one of the fiercest opponents of the health-care law, spent time promising that his party wouldn’t merely repeal the Obama bill but would also produce new bills of its own to guarantee the new rights that patients already hold dear. “Republicans care about health care,” Cantor told reporters Tuesday, sounding almost plaintive. When his lieutenants get to work this spring on their own ideas for health-care reform — proposals Cantor promised will protect patients, give more people access to insurance, lower costs and reduce the deficit — the debate will turn interesting again. Then, in the committees of the House, we’ll get a chance to hear reasoned arguments on what the true costs of the new law will be, and whether insurance can be expanded without imposing that unpopular individual mandate. But we’ll have to wait. Reasoned arguments on those issues weren’t on the agenda in this week’s floor show in the House of Representatives.
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january 26, 2011
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Marines get training in culture, languages before deployment nity to be more effective in his area of operation, where he is working. That is a powerful tool for him.” While the other branches of the armed services have similar culture and language programs, the Marine Corps is the first to provide culture and language training to all its deploying members. That’s important, Dallas said, because culture tells Marines what is considered normal in the environment that they are in . “If you understand that and then you see something different from the norm, that gives you an indicator that something’s up. It might be totally innocent or it might be something significant,” said Dallas. CAOCL was stood up at the direction of Gen. James Mattis. “When 1/8Mattis3/8 came back from commanding the Marine Ground Combat Element 1/8in
JULIA LEDOUX mcclatchy newspapers QUANTICO, Va. — A nondescript modular building on Quantico Marine Corps base is home to one of the newest weapons in the Marine Corps arsenal. And we’re not talking about guns or tanks. The Center for Advanced Operational Cultural Learning has trained thousands of Marines who are deploying around the world in the culture and language of those they will be interacting with downrange since its inception five years ago. “We very much look at it as a tool the commander can use, the Marine can use to help him do his job,” said George Dallas, CAOCL director. “The ability to understand the people brings to the commander a unique opportu-
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GEORGE DALLAS CAOCL DIRECTOR Iraq3/8 he said, ‘you know what, guys, we’re messing up in a big way because we don’t understand the culture and language of the people we’re dealing with,’” said Dallas. Mattis then directed Training and Education Command to figure out a way to fix the problem. CAOCL was stood up in 2006. “I think the Marines caught on real
quick,” said Dallas. “I think they realized if they understood the people, they were going to do better than they were currently doing.” Marines who have completed the training and have not only gone on to serve not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in Africa, Mongolia and South America. “They sing our praises more than anyone else does because they understand the power that they have when they do understand the culture, when they do understand the people and to a degree the language,” Dallas continued. Dallas defined culture as understanding a people, how they perceive things, and how they make decisions. “Those kinds of aspects help you when you’re in their spaces to succeed in whatever you’re going to do, its going to build rapport,” he explained.
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If you understand that and then you see something different from the norm, that gives you an indicator that something’s up. It might be totally innocent or it might be something significant,
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WORDFIND • Theme: Buildings on Campus Locate the list of words in the word bank in the letter grid.
N J R C S Y P E B W U J H W N J B Y
S F X Q U X B L T P K I U U A D E K
M Y U F Z E T O I S B C A G L R H V
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F C B U K M R N A E S V I M Q A O M
W H Z F Y R B L T O M Z A H H F R A
By James Sajdak
ACROSS 1 Beliefs 7 Caber thro wers 15 Paris jilted her for Helen 16 Obama’ s birthplace 17 Jaguar’s coat ? 18 “Two thumbs way up!” 19 Simile center 20 Quic k to the helm 22 Ancient “Prose” and “Poetic” works 23 Autobahn sight 25 Wipe the floor with, so to speak 27 “__-mite!” : J.J.’s exclamation on “Good Times”
X A G Z I X K G O U O N M R F Y F S
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V WORD BANK D Burruss G Cassell S Davidson O Derring T Dietrick Lee D McBryde W McComas W Newman W Owens U Pamplin T Pritchard Shultz H Slusher O Squires J Torgeson I War P Williams F
1/26/11 28 Accused 30 Nothing to brag about 32 “The Social Contract” author 34 Product with a secret sauce 38 Rotter 39 Divide , in a way 41 Purchase from Sajak 42 Channelin g device? 44 Piecemeal ? 46 Poetic peepers 48 Just about knock down the door 49 O’Neill title flora 52 First name in design 54 Substantia l content
55 Pouts 57 Name f or lime based on its chemical compositio n 59 Flesh y-leaved plant 61 Near ly die laughing 63 Za yre depar tment stores creation 65 Qualifying words 66 Band aide 67 Took back 68 Quak ers with deep roots?
DOWN 1 Che wable stimulant 2 Deduce 3 Delight be yond measure 4 Drags 5 Words bef ore budget or mission 6 Hot 7 Bak e, as eggs 8 Plant with flamb oyant foliage 9 Plastic __ Band 10 Carroll’ s “slithy” thing 11 London hauler ? 12 Not clear 13 Bo y’s name seen in 2000 paper s 14 Wacky 21 Dwight ’s twotime adv ersar y 24 Surgeon for whom a mouthw ash is named 26 Stub by-taile d feline 28 Tolkien meanies 29 Oxygenconsuming organism
31 “Being on a __ stops me from getting Alzheimer’ s”: Jerry Stille r 33 Third most populous nation: Abbr. 35 Tea tray spread 36 Immunity off erer 37 Javier’s hundred 40 East Los Angeles b us lin e with a sun in its logo 43 __ Stone 45 Welcome center freebie 47 Tied do wn 49 Put away for a while 50 Rotter 51 Score sheets? 53 Li ke most movies 56 Cu t 58 Mor e, in adspeak 60 Zsa Zsa has eight 62 Pi ck up 64 Relativ e of Chas.? Tuesday’s Puzzle Solved
(c)2010 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
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“If I can build this kind of rapport between you and me, then I’ve won half the battle, and I don’t mean win and lose. My job is so much easier. You’re going to want to help me.” Dr. Paula Holmes-Eber, an anthropologist who helped create the teaching method used at CAOCL, said the training helps Marines see what they are doing in a larger context. “A young corporal on the ground is making an impression and developing relationships and feelings out there.” And its not all “touchy feely,” Dallas stressed. If Marines on the ground understand what is important to the native peoples around them and their perceptions, and power bases, then they will more easily get the answers that allow them to accomplish their mission. “I am building friends,” said Dallas. “I am being more efficient and effec-
tive in my operation because I can understand you, because things aren’t foreign.” And this understanding helps minor mistakes from becoming bigger problems. “The way the world gets smaller is through understanding and through communications. This is a global world now,” acknowledged Dallas. “Bu building understanding and by being able to communicate, we bring the world together.” Dallas, who served as a Marine for three decades, said he understands what it means to be a war fighter. “In this new world, this is an important tool the commander can use to close gaps, to better understand who he is dealing with, both friends and adversaries, so he can achieve whatever he’s been tasked to do in the most efficient and effective way.”
food & drink 5 january 26, 2011
editors: lindsey brookbank, kim walter featureseditor@collegiatetimes.com/ 540.231.9865 COLLEGIATETIMES
Culinary-themed phone apps make cooking simpler SEEK FOOD AND DRINK RECIPE HELP FROM THE ELECTRONIC WORLD WITH CHEAP PHONE APPS S. IRENE VIRBILA mcclatchy newspapers Need to convert ingredient quantities or learn how to make a mean martini? There are apps for that and more. When I first got my iPhone, I was thrilled to discover Convertbot, which made it fun and easy to convert ingredient quantities or temperatures from my British cookbooks. That app, it turned out, was just a taste of the onslaught of food and wine apps to come — so many, you’d have to be a full-time app tester to try them all out. (Unfortunately, I have another job.) But I do try a lot. Here are apps for the iPhone that I’ve found most useful. Several are also available on the Android platform.
Flashlight (More Blu Sky), $0.99 First essential for dining out: being able to read the menu or wine list. This app lights up your iPhone like a torch, shining a beam onto the page without disturbing the rest of the dining room. Brilliant. For iPhone4 only, but there are lots more flashlight apps out there for both platforms.
OpenTable (OpenTable Inc.), free Make restaurant reservations from anywhere with this easy-to-use app from the site that was brought down by foodistas trying to ace a reservation for LudoBites 6.0. Easy as pie to get a confirmed res. And just as easy to cancel as to make one, maybe even easier. So no more excuses for being a no-show. For iPhone and Android.
How to Cook Everything (Culinate Inc.), $4.99 Though a free How to Cook Everything Essentials app exists (with 107 recipes), spring for the paid app based on New York Times’ columnist Mark Bittman’s bestselling book. It’s like having that giant tome in your pocket — all 2,000 recipes — to consult on a whim or in an emergency. At the market and stumped for what to cook? Look it up, find a recipe and, with one
TURN OFFS:
click, unload the ingredients into a shopping list. Great design, easy to read and use. Nifty feature: timers included within the recipe. Check out Bittman’s Picks, the author’s list of favorite recipes from various categories. For iPhone.
Ratio (Ruhlman Enterprises Inc.), $4.99 This one is based on Michael Ruhlman’s book “Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking.” Keep this baby close and you can wing it almost anywhere, recipe-free. On vacation and yearning to make biscuits or brine a pork loin? Whip out this app and you can calculate proportions of ingredients needed. Most useful: Ruhlman’s suggested variations on a theme and the ability to save your notes on what worked — or didn’t. In the works: a dedicated baking app. For iPhone and now Android.
Cook’s (America’s Test Kitchen), free From Cook’s Illustrated magazine, this collection of recipes may be free, but unless you become a member of CooksIllustrated.com for a $34.95 annual fee, you won’t be able to unlock the majority of it. You’ll also miss a number of the magazine’s handy taste tests of ingredients. Try it with a free one-day pass. Recipes are all thoroughly tested in consummate Cook’s Illustrated style, which means you won’t be wasting time with any duds. Stronger on regional American cooking than any more exotic cuisines. A plus: a shopping list feature and clean, easy-to-navigate design. For iPhone.
EPI (CondeNet), free Epicurious Recipes lets you search 25,000 recipes from the archives of Bon Appetit and the late Gourmet. The range of recipes is broad, and if you’re stuck for a recipe for Jerusalem artichokes or kohlrabi, you’ll surely find something here. Search by main ingredient, course, cuisine or season. A wonderful resource when you don’t have your library of cookbooks nearby. You can also save favorites
to a folder and dump ingredients into a shopping list. For iPhone and Android.
Convertbot (Tapbots), $0.99 Clever app that converts weight, volume, temperature and much more from one measurement to another. Fast and elegant. For iPhone.
KitchenPad Timer (Prativo Group Inc.), $1.99 Not so swift at multitasking in the kitchen? Here’s an app that manages multiple timers for your stovetop and oven, four each, which should be more than enough unless you’re catering Prince William’s wedding. So as not to confuse the cook, each can be tagged with what’s cooking and at what temperature. And you can see which stage everything — stock, ragu, apricot jam, duck — is at all on one display. It gives at least the illusion of control, which may serve to soothe culinary anxiety. For iPhone.
Pocket Cocktails (Pocket Cocktails Inc.), $0.99 Speaking of pockets, here’s your faithful cocktail primer with photos and recipes for hundreds of drinks. Best section is the classics, with recipes for drinks such as the Greyhound, Moscow Mule, Sazerac, plus a separate martini section (available as a free app as Top Martini Recipes). Complete with tips on chilling glasses, muddling, creating garnishes. A suggestion: Lose the cutesy shooters section and an embarrassingly brief, pretty useless wine and beer section. (But maybe more is to come in an update?) Cute: Shake your phone (which will make a sound like a cocktail shaker) to choose a random drink recipe. For iPhone, with an HD version for iPad.
Vintage Chart+ by Wine Spectator (Wine Spectator Custom), free For those who encounter a situation frequently (as in high-end wine lists) in which they need to check or compare wine vintages, this is the app for you. Wine Spectator gets it right with this elegantly designed application. Search by country or region, or both, but more fun, by zooming in on a topographic world map — Anderson Valley, Douro,
g. learned a thin and i haven’t
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South Africa. Not every wine region in the world is represented, so the app can seem a bit thin if you’re into Hungarian Tokaji or Chinese Chardonnay. As for accuracy, vintage info is based on hundreds, if not thousands, of tastings by the wine magazine’s staff over a number of years, distilled into a sentence or two. For iPhone.
Craft Beer App (Xtreme Labs), $0.99 Explore American craft beers with this crafty app. I immediately looked up Allagash Tripel Reserve and found detailed info and tasting notes, including the recommended serving temp (40 to 50 degrees). A beer expert might quibble with the choices and notes, but for budding beer lovers, this could be useful, if only to impress your friends with your newfound expertise. And it costs less thana few sips of beer. For iPhone.
COURTESY OF MCT CAMPUS
Access cooking phone apps easily from a cell phone.
Stir-fry
MIA PERRY features reporter
After packing on the pounds over winter break with multiple heavy holiday meals, try starting to shed the weight with this healthy “leftovers” stir-fry. It’s the perfect way to start the new semester on the right food foot. Ingredients: ½ head of cabbage roughly chopped 1 onion diced 1 lb ground chicken 1 lb garlic sausage (or any kind) 2 cups red, yellow, green peppers (mixes found at any grocer) 2 cups brown rice frozen (let thaw) salt and pepper Combine onion and cabbage in a large skillet on high heat and let cook. Once cabbage is wilted, gradually add chicken. Once chicken is browned, add sausage, gradually. Add peppers, brown rice and salt and pepper. Put lid on skillet and let stand, stirring occasionally until meat is cooked all the way through. Enjoy!
6 sports january 26, 2011
editors: michael bealey, garrett ripa featureseditor@collegiatetimes.com/ 540.231.9865 COLLEGIATETIMES
Men’s tennis aims to build on success of last season ALEX KOMA sports staff writer How can a program top the most successful year in its history? This is the question the men’s tennis team is asking itself as its spring season opens. At the end of last season, the Hokies were ranked 24th in the nation, the highest final ranking the program has ever received. The team also made it to the round of 32 in the NCAA Tournament before losing to Louisville. Featured star senior Yoann Re, who was the No. 58 ranked player in the country, departed after the season. Coming into this season, the Hokies are forced to cope with the loss of Re, as well as the expectations that come with being ranked so highly. “(Re) was one of the most successful guys that has ever been here, but we have a tough team, a really good team,” said junior Luka Somen. “I’m pretty sure we’re going to take advantage of that and be as successful as last year.” Although the team has lost Re, it welcomes back redshirt senior Pedro Graber, who missed all of last season while recovering from wrist surgery. “We had a really top-notch player in Pedro who was here with us last year, but was just not able to play,” said head coach Jim Thompson. “(Graber has) been able to help fill that void Yoann (left), but ... he’s such a great player. We will miss him this year for sure.” In addition to Graber’s presence, the team emphasizes the increased depth of the roster as one of the fac-
tors that should help the team repeat its past success. “(Re) is a tough guy to replace, but all of us really have made a huge jump,” said senior Will Beck. “And everyone through the last guy on our team all are so close to each other that really almost any guy can play almost anywhere in the lineup.” The team will include only three seniors to go with five juniors, three sophomores and two freshmen on the roster. “It’s always good to have both seniors and a lot of freshmen (on the team), it’s never good to have such a young team, or such an old team, but we are right where we have to be,” Somen said. In fact, the team this year may be more experienced than those of years past. “(Yoann) was the only senior I had last year, and we always seem to be having a younger team,” Thompson said. “I feel like this team is a little older actually, so I think they’re used to the battles and they understand the work ethic that’s required.” The team kicked off its season this past weekend with matches against Eastern Kentucky and Longwood, and it came out with 7-0 victories in both contests. “Eastern Kentucky is a good team that won their conference and made the NCAA (tournament) last year, and I think our guys really took them seriously and came in and worked hard the week before school started and played well,” Thompson said. Despite the early victories, team members know that many strides need to be taken throughout the rest
LUKE MASON / SPPS
Despite losing their top player, Yoann Re, the Hokies are aiming for their fifth consecutive NCAA tournament appearance this coming spring. of the season. “We still have to improve (how the guys deal with) the pressure of the match ... but I’m really happy that we had those two matches that will help us to begin the season in the right way,” Somen said. The first matches of the year
offered the team the opportunity to work out any initial problems. “It was the first match of the year, so everyone did have a couple jitters, and that is understandable. But I think we came out with good intensity, (they were) obviously two
teams we didn’t want to lose to,” Beck said. The team hopes this initial success is indicative of how the team will perform throughout the rest of the season. “We’ve been to the NCAA tournament the last few years, and we’ve
made it to the second round and the round of 32, and we feel like that’s good but we’d certainly like to go a little further,” Thompson said. The team will now travel to the ITA National First and Second Round on Jan. 28, where it will face No. 21 Pepperdine.
Cutler suffered MCL tear, Steelers shoot for seventh will not require surgery Super Bowl title in Dallas VAUGHN MCCLURE & DEBORAH SHELTON mcclatchy newspapers CHICAGO — No matter how you dissect his left knee injury, Bears quarterback Jay Cutler wasn’t healthy enough to continue in Sunday’s NFC championship game against the Packers. Bears coach Lovie Smith said Cutler suffered a medial collateral ligament sprain, which, essentially, is a tear. The severity of Cutler’s injury was a Grade II MCL tear. Such an injury, which is not a complete tear, typically takes three to four weeks to heal. Smith said Cutler, who suffered the injury in the first half of Sunday’s game, would have been “questionable” had the Bears made it to the Super Bowl. He won’t need surgery. The MCL is the most frequently injured ligament in the knee. It attaches to the femur, or thigh bone, and the tibia, or shin bone, and runs across the inside of the knee. Orthopedic surgeons interviewed by the Chicago Tribune about Cutler’s injury emphasized that they had no personal knowledge of his case but agreed to talk about MCL injuries in general, which they said are often poorly understood by the public. Picture a thick rope. Then think about what would happen if that rope were pulled so hard that the fibers stretched and began to tear. Now imagine that rope is inside your knee. Yep, that would hurt. Orthopedic surgeons in the Chicago area used variations of the rope analogy on Monday to explain what happened when Cutler sprained his medial cruciate ligament. The knee is supported by four major ligaments, and the MCL helps control the knee’s movement from side to side. “It’s like a stool with four legs,” explained Dr. Sherwin Ho, director
of the sports medicine fellowship program and associate professor of surgery at the University of Chicago Medical Center. “Take one leg away, or part of it away, and it doesn’t take much to collapse it. “With an MCL, if you walk around being very careful and there’s no lineman running at you at 25 miles an hour, you’re good. But if you put the athlete on a playing field and he makes one wrong step, he’s crumbling — and then you start damaging other ligaments. The athlete could sustain a career-ending injury if you were to take that risk.”
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I thought they were a union. If that’s the way they unionize themselves, they’ve got bigger issues than the one they have with the owners. I’m very disappointed. JERRY ANGELO GENERAL MANAGER
A Grade I sprain involves microscopic tearing of the ligament. With a Grade II injury, about 50 or 60 percent of tissue is torn and the ligament is elongated. In the case of a Grade III injury, all fibers are ruptured and it is totally disconnected, said Charles Bush-Joseph, professor of orthopedic surgery at Rush University Medical Center and head team physician for the White Sox. Cutler probably will be treated with a hinged knee brace for four to eight weeks, Bush-Joseph said. Then Cutler likely will begin a physical conditioning and rehab program. Like other orthopedic surgeons interviewed for this story, Ho said the decision not to play Cutler made a lot of sense, medically. “We know from experience,” he said. “None of us would second-guess
the decision to take him out of the game.” Both Smith and general manager Jerry Angelo took issue with those questioning the quarterback’s toughness. They were particularly disturbed when current and former NFL players voiced their opinions via Twitter and other social media outlets. “I think it’s crap,” Angelo said. “I thought they were a union. If that’s the way they unionize themselves, they’ve got bigger issues than the one they have with the owners. I’m very disappointed.” Smith emphasized how Cutler wanted to return to Sunday’s game, but it wasn’t an option. Cutler was sacked twice against the Packers and apparently sustained the injury during one of those plays. “Jay didn’t take himself out of the game,” Smith said. “If you’re going to attack somebody, you should be attacking me as the head football coach, and our medical staff. We’re the ones. He wanted to go back in. He was injured and went back in the second half. I see it the complete opposite of how it’s been portrayed right now.” Cutler has been a target of criticism from the moment he threw four interceptions in his Bears debut at Lambeau Field. But no matter how the skeptics view him, Angelo has not lost faith in his franchise quarterback. Angelo was asked why people constantly point the finger at Cutler. “I can’t answer that,” he said. “I don’t create perceptions. You create perceptions. “I certainly don’t like what was said. I take that personally too. He’s our quarterback. We wouldn’t have been where we’re at without him, and I want that to be made clear. We stand by him. Nobody’s perfect. His play’s not perfect. He’s not perfect. There’s nobody in this room or in this league that is either.”
CLARENCE E. HILL mcclatchy newspapers PITTSBURGH — Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones dreamed that history would be made in Super Bowl XLV at Cowboys Stadium on Feb. 6. Jones will get his wish. Instead of his Cowboys looking to become the first team to win a Super Bowl at home, it will be the hated Pittsburgh Steelers playing to christen Cowboys Stadium with their NFL-record seventh Super Bowl title. The Steelers got there thanks to a 24-19 victory against the New York Jets before 66,662 fans at frigid Heinz Field. Pittsburgh jumped out to a 24-3 halftime lead before holding on to qualify for its third Super Bowl in the last six years. They won titles following the 2005 and 2008 seasons. “It’s hard to rank them,” an ecstatic Steelers president Art Rooney II said. “We will take as many as we can get. It’s great to get a chance to do this. Hopefully we will finish the job.” It was former Texas Longhorns nose tackle Casey Hampton, who grew up in Galveston hating the Cowboys, who brought it full circle for Jones and Cowboys fans, still smarting from two Super Bowl losses to the Steelers in the 1970s. “This is a great franchise,” Hampton said. “This is my third Super Bowl since I’ve been here and it’s more special going home to Texas. I never liked the Cowboys. If (Jerry Jones) is going to be mad, that’s even better.” Adding even more mud to the eye of a Cowboys franchise and its America’s Team moniker, which is next with five rings but none since the 1995 sea-
son, is that the upcoming Super Bowl at Jones’ $1.2 billion show palace will pit the Steelers against the Green Bay Packers. In other words, it will be a classic matchup of the league’s greatest dynasty team against the NFL’s first Super Bowl dynasty team. The Packers won the first two Super Bowl titles. Steelers coach Mike Tomlin is back in the Super Bowl for the second time in four years as a coach. He is also looking to become the first African-American coach to win two titles. Tomlin didn’t even want to think about what lies ahead, choosing to soak up the AFC title-game victory a little while longer. “It’s so special because it’s the here and now,” Tomlin said. “It’s a unique group in there that has had a unique journey, so it’s special. It’s awesome.” The journey began with quarterback Ben Roethlisberger suspended for the first four games of the season for violating the league’s personal conduct policy. The Steelers weathered the storm and now Roethlisberger is back, trying to become just the fifth quarterback in league history to win three Super Bowl titles. The others are Joe Montana, Terry Bradshaw, Troy Aikman and Tom Brady. “We’ve been through a lot as a teamandpersonally,”Roethlisberger said. “It just feels good. Shoot, any time you get to a Super Bowl it feels good, I don’t care what you have been going through or what is going on. We put a lot of stuff behind us early and found a way to get it done.” The Jets, led by their bombastic coach Rex Ryan, entered the game flying high after wins at Indianapolis and at New England.
For them to beat Super Bowl champion quarterbacks Peyton Manning, Brady and Roethlisberger all on the road would have arguably been the greatest run to a Super Bowl in NFL history. But it was not to be. It was the third straight titlegame loss for Ryan, who lost to the Steelers as a defensive coordinator with the Ravens in 2008 before losing to the Colts in his first year with the Jets. Though disappointed, the talkative Ryan promised to knock at the door again next year. “Obviously there is a huge amount of disappointment for us,” Ryan said. “But I got news for you, our goals won’t change. It will never change. We are going to chase that Super Bowl. We’re going to chase it until we get it. And we’ll chase it after that again.” It was classic Steelers football at the outset as they played smashmouth football on offense and defense, outgaining the Jets 131-1 on the ground in the first half. And when safety William Gay returned a fumble 19 yards for a touchdown to make the score 24-0 late in the second quarter, the game seemed over. But the Jets got a field goal by former Cowboys kicker Nick Folk just before the half and then opened the third quarter with a 45-yard touchdown pass from Mark Sanchez to Santonio Holmes. They had a chance to make it 24-17 midway through the fourth quarter but running back LaDainian Tomlinson was stopped on fourth-and-goal from the 1. A safety and late score made it interesting, but the Jets couldn’t stop the Steelers from running out the clock.
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