INSIDE
Jack’s comfort food impresses
PAGE 2
Romney improves in last weeks
PAGE 4
Volleyball wins again
PAGE 5
Alex Cross flops PAGE 6
FRIDAY
OCTOBER 19, 2012 FRIDAY High 78, Low 55 SATURDAY High 82, Low 70
VOLUME 98 ISSUE 28 FIRST COPY FREE, ADDITIONAL COPIES 50 CENTS
POLITICS
Courtesy of AP
James Baker served as Secretary of State under George H. Bush.
Tower Center awards Medal of Freedom to James Baker MARK REESE/The Daily Campus
Senior linebacker Taylor Reed celebrates after returning an interception for a touchdown.
For the history books
Mustangs set scoring record against Cougars DEMETRIO TENIENTE Staff Writer dteniente@smu.edu After a disappointing loss to Tulane a week ago, the Mustangs bounced back with a 72-42 victory over the gritty and explosive University of Houston team Thursday night at Gerald J. Ford Stadium. SMU’s 72 points set a new school record. The previous record was 70 points against Daniel Baker College in 1920. The last time SMU scored 60 or more points was in 1936 against Texas A&M (61-0). “It was not a feeling of the offense scoring 70,” head coach June Jones said. “It was a team deal, and that pretty exciting.” The Cougars made several carless mistakes from beginning
to end turning the ball over nine times, fumbling three times on special teams and throwing six interceptions, three of which were returned for scores. “We know once we get on a roll [the turnovers] keep coming and that’s a good feeling,” linebacker Taylor Reed said. During the opening kickoff of the second half, Houston’s Ryan Jackson fumbled at his team’s 18 yard line — allowing SMU’s Randall Joyner to return it for a score and a 35-14 lead. Then SMU defensive tackle Darrian Wright returned an interception 10 yards for a score, making it 45-14. However, it wasn’t until after a questionable call erased a touchdown catch by SMU’s Darius Johnson, that the Mustangs showed much intensity. The next play quarterback Garrett Gilbert
connected with Jeremy Johnson from 18 yards out with less than two minutes to play in the half. Twenty-eight seconds later, SMU’s Taylor Reed intercepted a pass and returned it seven yards for his first career touchdown, giving the Mustangs a 28-14 lead going into half and opening the flood gates. Despite all of the miscues by Houston the score was 14-14 at the beginning of the second quarter. If the Houston team was able to compose itself, the game would have been a lot closer. Houston outgained SMU 560 to 384, but was penalized 9 times for 73 yards and turned the ball over 9 times. A 43 yard strike from Garrett Gilbert to Keenan Holman, followed by a 24 yard touchdown pass to Darius Johnson 59 seconds later, made the score 59-28.
With certain defeat looking the team in the face, the Cougars continued to fight until the game’s end by scoring two more times on two long plays, a 49 yard touchdown pass and a 75 yard interception return making the score 59-42. “We knew we would be in a dog fight with how good their offense is and how quick they can score,” Gilbert said. “So offensively it was all about keeping our foot on the pedal all night — and we just came out and attacked. “ Gilbert went 23-38 for 265 with four touchdowns and two interceptions on the night. Darius Johnson caught nine passes for 110 yards and two touchdowns. Zach Line rushed for his 19th 100 yard rushing game of his career. He ran for 113 yards on 22 carries with 2 touchdowns.
CHRISTOPHER SAUL Staff Writer csaul@smu.edu The John Goodwin Tower Center for Political Studies awarded former Secretary of State James Baker its annual Medal of Honor “for his extensive service to his country, resiliency in the face of adversity, grace and dignity as a statesman and continuous pursuit of peace and democracy throughout the world.” Several members of the SMU community, including President R. Gerald Turner and Dedman College Dean William Tsutsui, helped introduce and award Baker the distinction. Following his acceptance of the award, the retired Republican from Houston spoke about U.S. foreign and domestic policy and his own beginnings in politics. “You may remember those early days in the Texas Republican Party, when it was almost a hanging offense to be a Republican in Texas,” Baker quipped about his early days. Baker attributed John Tower, not the Bush family, with turning Texas into “the reddest of red states.” After acknowledging Tower’s contribution to Texas politics,
the 82-year-old noted that he had been alive for a third of the United States’ history. He began to expunge his views about both domestic affairs shortly after. “There has been a lot of speculation nowadays about America’s decline. I would submit to you that these kinds of worries are not novel,” Baker said. “Nonetheless, the declinist talk is growing louder, and I suppose it’s not too hard to understand why.” “The terrible attacks of 9/11 set the tone, and since then we have endured a financial collapse, a protracted recession, a fiscal crisis that threatens the very credit worthiness of the U.S. government and perhaps most importantly, a polarized politics that makes it ever more difficult to govern.” Baker suggested that among other reforms to government, the value of compromise should not be understated, especially in a world with 24hour news networks that thrive on controversy. “Compromise [to the media] is now a dirty word,” he said. In addition to the value of compromise, Baker listed immigration, illegal or otherwise,
See FUTURE page 3
VOLUNTEERISM
RELIGION
Alternative Breaks takes no breaks
Student secular humanists seek a Senate charter
Students spend fall break fighting homelessness YUSRA JABEEN Contributing Writer yjabeen@smu.edu
Every year, SMU students sign up for the SMU Alternative Breaks program that sponsors domestic and international trips to engage students in service learning. During this past fall break, students traveled to Austin, San Antonio, and Atlas, Ark. for community service. Students who traveled to San Antonio volunteered at Haven for Hope, the largest homeless transformation campus in the U.S. Doors Network, an on-ground supervising organization, arranged the students’ site visits. Haven for Hope provides a central location for several different organizations to work for homeless populations, including chronically homeless men, women, veterans, and the physically and mentally disabled. The diversity among homeless populations shocked SMU senior Christina Moreno. “These people come from all backgrounds,” Moreno said. “They all have to live together and coexist, regardless of who they are or where they come from. There are
veterans and teachers, alongside the mentally ill, felons, sex-offenders and drug addicts. They all have to find out a way to get along.” Students also worked in St. Vinny’s Bistro, which provides food, shelter and hygiene services to over 1300 homeless people. They helped maintain organization rosters, prepared and served meals and cleaned and sorted food donations in the warehouse. The students also had a chance to interact one-on-one with the “prospects” — a Haven term for identifying homeless people. “The Haven for Hope system [is] very cool,” SMU senior Kasey Nelson said. “I would be interested to see what kind of system could be implemented in Dallas.” On Monday, students visited the Catholic Worker House, an organization that functions as a club for the homeless. The Catholic Worker House distinguishes itself as an organization that treats the homeless as guests. “It was more of a home, and had a more hospitable environment. I learned that we should treat everyone with respect regardless of the position they hold in society,” Lauren Castle said.
The house also provides healthy food options, free grooming and cleaning facilities, mental health services, HIV testing and career counseling to its guests. Guests are served food in actual dishes and cups instead of disposable cutlery. “It was a very immersive experience. It was truly eye opening being able to interact on an individual base with the guests,” SMU junior Binh Doan said. One of the biggest highlights for students was being able to put a “face” to homelessness. They were amazed to learn the backgrounds of homeless people and how their circumstances led them to live on the streets. “What shocked me the most was how many walks of life people we served meals to had come from,” SMU first-year Andrea Taylor said. The students described their experience working with the homeless population as enlightening. They learned various perspectives of approaching the issue of homelessness. “The AB trips are about opening up [minds] and help students
SeeTRIP page 3
EMILY BABICH Contributing Writer ebabich@smu.edu At Southern Methodist University, religious students are presented with many options for worship and community gathering. In the ‘Student Organizations’ section of SMU’s website, 13 chartered religious organizations can be found. SMU, however, currently lacks a chartered group for secularist students. While a secular group for students may not have a spot on SMU’s “Student Organizations” list just yet, a group of active secular humanists are pursuing that goal. SMU’s Secular Humanist Group (SHG) meets weekly, and though it is a relatively new group, it hopes to become a chartered organization this year, Brandon Bub, SHG president, said. “[The other founders and I] wanted to make a forum for non-religious students.
Courtesy of AP
The secular humanist movement has grown in numbers and power in recent years.
We realized that there wasn’t really any sort of representation for non-religious students on campus,” said Bub. “We wanted to make a group that could be a haven for non-religious students, and also a place to promote discussion about religion.” The Secular Humanist Group, affiliated with the National Secular Student Alliance, prides itself as a community for students and faculty
who identify as atheists, deists, nontheists, agnostics, humanists or those who simply do not believe in a divine entity. The group operates much like one of SMU’s many religious organizations. It holds meetings to discuss beliefs and the members’ well being and works on community service projects together.
See EVENT page 3