THE DAILY
MISSISSIPPIAN
Monday, October 10, 2016
Volume 105, No. 35
T H E S T U D E N T N E W S PA P E R O F T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F M I S S I S S I P P I S E R V I N G O L E M I S S A N D OX F O R D S I N C E 1 9 1 1
WHAT’S INSIDE...
What’s in a word? The GOP and the term “conservatism” SEE OPINION PAGE 2
We want you to enter your spookiest tales in our scary story competition SEE LIFESTYLES PAGE 6
Visit theDMonline.com
@thedm_news
Volleyball team falls to LSU in fifth set SEE SPORTS PAGE 8
A beautiful multitude:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Clinton, The ordination of Reverend Gail Stratton Trump attack on character
PHOTO BY: CLARA TURNAGE
Family and members of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Oxford reach toward Gail Stratton, who was ordained Sunday in the Paris-Yates Chapel on campus.
CLARA TURNAGE On Sunday in the Paris-Yates Chapel, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Oxford ordained Gail Stratton, a biology professor at the University of Mississippi. Stratton and her wife, Pat Miller, have been members of the UUCO church for more than 10 years, and Stratton is the first minister that the Unitarian Universalist church ordained in Mississippi in living memory.
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unlight floods the little room where they gather every Sunday morning. The wood beams creak under the weight of the congregation as a bell announces the beginning of service. The Unitarian Universalist Church of Oxford is nestled just outside of town, down County Road 198. An oak tree looms over the parking lot and shrubbery threatens to overgrow the wooden fence behind the small, white building. A few dozen file into the sunlit sanctuary and sing together, listen to one other and talk about their community.
It’s removed from the traffic and bustle of Sunday mornings in Oxford and is similarly detached from the conventions of most Sunday morning congregations. A primary focus of the church is to welcome everyone – every religion, every orientation, every gender, every race and every ethnicity. Nearly 16 years ago, the congregation welcomed Gail Stratton to their church. On Sunday, she was ordained as their new minister. ‘I WASN’T LOOKING FOR A CHURCH’ Stratton, a biology professor on campus, grew up riding horses, camping and
hiking in New Mexico. Her father was a scientist; she credits him for her interest in biology. She received her bachelors, masters and doctorate degrees in biology. She taught in Ohio, Illinois, Michigan and Tennessee before moving to Oxford to teach at the university. Stratton says there is beauty in the multitude of life, and people often try to break down and generalize that diversity. Take spiders, for example. Boxes of spiders, which are Stratton’s research focus, line the walls in her office. In a recent interview, she
walked down the shelves and picked out one and then another, describing their differences and similarities. She says you can never call a spider “just a spider.” “It’s like saying every person is just a person. No. You lose the depth of who they are,” Stratton said. “Every person comes from a family. Every person comes from a particular history. We all bring that to everything that we do, but that makes us just that much more interesting.” Stratton moved to Abbeville in 1995. She came to be with her wife, Pat
SEE MULTITUDE PAGE4
ST. LOUIS (AP) — In a bitter debate filled with fire and insult, Hillary Clinton declared that Donald Trump’s vulgar comments about women reveal “exactly who he is” and prove his unsuitability to be president. Firing back, he accused her of attacking women involved in Bill Clinton’s extramarital affairs and promised she would “be in jail” if he were president. Trump, who entered Sunday night’s debate desperate to steady his floundering campaign, unleashed a barrage of attacks and continually interrupted Clinton. He repeatedly called her a “liar,” labeled her the “devil” and contended she had “tremendous hate in her heart.” On one substantive matter, he acknowledged for the first time that he had paid no federal income taxes for many years. The debate was the culmination of a stunning stretch in the race for the White House, which began with the release of a new video in which Trump is heard bragging about how his fame allowed him to “do anything” to women. Many Republicans rushed to revoke their support, with some calling for him to drop out of the race. Answering for his words for the first time, Trump denied that he had ever kissed and grabbed women without their consent. He said repeatedly that his words in 2005 were merely “locker room talk” and paled in comparison to what he called Bill Clinton’s abuse of women. “She should be ashamed of herself,” Trump declared. Ahead of the debate, the businessman met with three women who accused the former president of sexual harassment and even rape, then invited them to sit in the debate hall. Bill Clinton never faced any criminal charges in relation to the allegations, and a lawsuit over an alleged rape was dismissed. He did settle a lawsuit with one of the women who claimed harassment.