‘THE COSBY SHOW’ BY PATRICK MURPHY | features editor Despite the chilly wind and spotty rain, very few Cosby sweaters could be spotted in the audience. In fact, Bill Cosby himself simply wore a
Virginia Tech sweatshirt and sweatpants. Cosby strolled on to the stage lazily — if not laboriously — yet the
74-year-old comic quickly showed he still had some pep left in him. see COSBY / page four
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Friday, October 21, 2011
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COLLEGIATETIMES 108th year, issue 103
News, page 2
People & Clubs, page 6
Opinions, page 3
Sports, page 5
Classifieds, page 4
TEA TIME
Clery Act appeal date set to Dec. 7 ZACH CRIZER editor-in-chief
MALLORY NOE-PAYNE news staff writer
Virginia Tech’s appeal of its $55,000 fine for failure to issue timely warnings during the April 16, 2007, campus shootings will be heard in December. The U.S. Department of Education has scheduled the hearing for Dec. 7-9 after Tech appealed its fine in April. The agency levied the fine as a penalty for two violations of the Clery Act, a federal law that requires universities to report crime statistics and give communities timely warnings of campus crimes. In a May 2010 report, the DOE said Tech failed to provide clear, timely warnings to its students and faculty members after the shootings in West Ambler-Johnston Hall on the morning of April 16. Student Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 students and faculty members that day before killing himself. Most of the shootings took place in Norris Hall hours after the initial shootings in West Ambler-Johnston. Tech officials filed the appeal in April with the help of Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, saying the university complied with the law as it was understood in 2007. “Based on what they knew at the time, law enforcement officers and the Virginia Tech administration acted appropriately,” Cuccinelli said in an April statement. “They did the best they could under the circumstances as they understood them. And that is the only fair standard by which their actions can be assessed.” Tech’s appeal argues that the definition of a timely warning as it stood in 2007 — the act has been amended since the shootings — was “vague at best.” Instead, the appeal says the DOE is enforcing “a standard Virginia Tech was expected to meet that is based on after-the-fact knowledge.”
A small assembly rose in unison Tuesday evening, removing hats and bowing heads to recite the Lord’s Prayer followed by the Pledge of Allegiance directed toward a small flag pinned on the wall of the Montgomery County Government Center. This ritual starts every meeting of the Tea Party of the New River Valley. Although its member list is up to 125, low attendance that evening was blamed on upcoming elections in the area that are keeping members busy knocking on doors and passing out pamphlets. Roger Averhart is a retired employee of Virginia Tech who has lived in Blacksburg his whole life. He’s been active in the group for a year. “I just think of it as a voice for average people,” Averhart said, “I get to meet different people. I’m more aware of what’s going on with like-minded individuals.” The New River Valley group is just one of the Tea Party organizations that has sprung up in southwestern Virginia since the movement’s beginnings in 2009. Tea Parties of Roanoke, Botetourt, Bedford, Floyd and Salem are all active and were founded to deal with specific local issues, such as water ordinances, income taxes or supporting local candidates for boards of supervisors. The Tea Party is a third-party movement that has made national headlines for two years following its upset-inducing influence on midterm Congressional elections, and more recently with debt debates in the national legislature. As Republican presidential nominees campaign around the U.S., the involvement of candidates who appeal to the Tea Party, such as Michelle Bachmann, is under scrutiny from both the left and the right for the way they’ve shaped debates on national politics. With ardent supporters and loud naysayers, the Tea Party is both blamed and celebrated for its involvement. “In general I see (them) as pretty radical. They are so rigid in their beliefs and unwilling to compromise,” said Trevor Stafford-Walter, a senior history and German major, as well as self-described liberal. “I would like them to not have that kind of power, to hold the government hostage.” Joe Pucci, a freshman engineering major and member of the College Republicans, disagrees. “This country was founded with the idea we could get together and protest as we wish. The Tea Party has done this, I think that’s fine,” Pucci said. “They’re not radical. I think it’s disgusting how they’ve been portrayed by the media. The perception that the American people are given is solely one against the Tea Party.” --The group is primarily driven by local grassroots organizations, which could make it more influential on a small scale than on a national level. level where members would like to see more of the power devolved. The organizations of southwestern Virginia have become movements within themselves to change local politics in the region, not just offshoots of the national Tea Party movement. But the faces of this movement don’t necessarily match the ones often envisioned. see TEA / page two
Sudoku, page 4
MALLORY NOE-PAYNE / SPPS
see CLERY / page two
Jack Selcovitz, a member of the NRV Tea Party and a retired police chief, proudly displays his cap at a Tea Party meeting.
Director screens Egypt documentary at GLC auditorium JAMES SHEEHAN news staff writer On Jan. 25, 2011, thousands of protestors gathered in cities across Egypt to voice their discontent with the Egyptian government. The year preceding those protests, director Lillie Paquette made a film documenting the growing social unrest in Egypt. Her work encapsulates the angst of Egyptians that would eventually manifest itself in a revolution and the ousting of Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s ruler of 30 years. Her documentary, “We Are Egypt: Voices Leading to Revolution,” screened last night in the Graduate Life Center auditorium. Paquette spoke with the Collegiate Times via phone to discuss her film and provide insights into the Egyptian revolution.
COLLEGIATE TIMES: What led you to filmmaking?
LILLIE PAQUETTE: I had been working in Washington D.C. for many years, and all of my studies have focused on the Middle East — Egypt in particular. I had been working at a nonprofit that administers the U.S. State Department’s grants for public diplomacy and democratization in the Middle East. So, after years of that, I decided I wanted to go into Egypt and actually make a film about the subject I had been
studying for so many years. So, I took my camera, I went there and I spent about a year working on actually documenting the actions of the activists, the opposition movement and the labor movement.
CT: You visited Egypt as an undergraduate exchange student before making the trip to start filming there. How did that experience influence you? LP: I really dove head first into all Middle East classes after Sept. 11 — it was something that drew me to understand the area and the issues more. The Egypt experience was amazing, and I have to say pretty much life changing. Of course I was young and impressionable on many levels, but it was a very enriching experience. I got to meet with lots of amazing people and have really neat debates and discussions with students from the University of Cairo. We also got shuffled around to meet all these famous characters, like Nawal El-Saadawi and even Muslim Brotherhood representatives, which was really a good cross-spectrum and a really enriching experience. I got back, and it solidified my interest in the area and the country even more. CT: The title of your film is “We Are Egypt.” Could you describe a typical protestor who you would encounter during the making of your film?
LP: The reason why the revolution was possible, I would argue, was that more than just the regular people who would normally go out and protest did go out and protest. During the year that I was there, however, it was the same old crowd that would go out, that would stick their neck out and allow themselves to be thrown in jail. Often, many of the people I hung around were young people from the middle class who had a higher level of education, and therefore access to Internet and access to global affairs, and an understanding of what they were looking for. However, you did see masses of economically challenged, working class people going out and staging sit-ins and strikes leading up to the revolution — very significant ones that I touch on in my film as well.
CT: What was the most difficult part about making the film?
LP: A
typical protest took place in police-controlled barriers — a cage pretty much — and you’ll see this in the film. The cage is lined with triple layers of riot police, which is very intimidating. And of course, past the riot police is secret security patrolling the area. So, the minute you leave the sanctioned area, someone will tap you on the shoulder and say, “You either stay, get in the cage or get out of here.” see EGYPT / page two
MICKEY RADOIU / SPPS Lillie Paquette responds to questions following the screening of her documentary Thursday evening.