STUDENT LIFE THE INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER OF WASHINGTON UNIVERSIT Y IN ST. LOUIS SINCE 1878 Inside Scene: Illustrator Rachel Harris sends us a Postcard from Abroad from Italy. Also, Rachel Tepper’s new ‘toon, Strip Club, debuts. Page 4.
The Lady Bears are on fire—they’ve just secured their ninth straight UAA title and their 17th straight NCAA bid. Page 7.
VOLUME 127, NO. 57
In today’s Forum, students take on the EnBeaver, hop across the pond to Scotland and debate the Sex Issue’s utility. Page 5.
Sports keeps tabs on the NBA, the Olympics and our own basketball Bears. See Page 10.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2006
WWW.STUDLIFE.COM
Students to protest ‘gay therapy’ group By Marla Friedman Associate Reporter Students from Washington University plan to take a stance against Exodus, an “ex-gay” group that is coming to St. Louis on Saturday to host a conference called “Love Won Out,” which promotes therapy as a cure for homosexuality. GLBT-rights (gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender rights) activists will host a teach-in on Saturday to inform students about the ex-gay movement’s harmful effects. Medical Professor Ken Haller, Associate Director
of Counseling Services Thomas Brounk and psychology Professor Jim Reid will be leading the discussion. They will provide background information on the ex-gay movement and the psychological harm they say results from its practices, and will open the floor for student questions. Brounk hopes to communicate to students the pressing need to avoid anti-gay therapy. “Conversion therapy is harmful, not only to the individuals that undergo this therapy, but it also affects the public’s view of lesbian, gay, and bisexual people,” said Brounk. “It’s not
only something that we need to confront because it damages individual people’s lives, but it also contributes to the homophobia in our society.” Brounk compared the specifics of anti-gay treatment used in the past to methods used today. Although different, both treatments lead to a life of pain and loneliness, said Brounk. “Ten to 15 years ago they used electric shock or drug therapy, and they would pair those treatments with some type of homosexual-related stimuli, such as pictures of two men holding hands or kissing one another,”
said Brounk. “Typically those people walked away unable to be in any kind of relationship.” The “talk therapy” utilized today is not physically painful but leads to the same detrimental psychological effects, said Brounk. “Many of these theories are grounded in the idea that there was some kind of abuse or trauma that happened to the individual early on in life, perhaps sexual abuse, and that somehow by developing healthier types of relationships with the therapist, these kinds of misdirected objects of affection can be redi-
rected,” said Brounk. “This can be done through prayer, through believing that some kind of religious higher power has the ability to take this away.” Subjects might leave the therapy with unexpected effects. “What oftentimes happens is that maybe there can be some change in the actual attraction, but the ability to actually engage in any kind of heterosexual relationship is far less likely,” said Brounk. “These people are committing themselves to lives of celibacy without really being told that by the people who use this technique.”
Professor Reid closely follows Brounk’s views and advocates a cure for the anti-gay movement. “I’d like to change the ex-gay movement around and let [students] know that there is a cure for bigotry and that those people, the ones that run Exodus and offer those ‘cures,’ could change if they really tried. There is a cure for bigotry,” said Reid. Brounk offered some final advice to students on coming to terms with their sexual orientation. “It is important to educate
See PROTEST, page 4
Jonathan Kozol speaks amid Alumnus Craig recent funding controversy follows in SNL By Jessie Rothstein Staff Reporter Despite the controversy still surrounding the funding for Wednesday’s Assembly Series, Jonathan Kozol, an authority on the American public school system, was brought to the University on Wednesday for the ArtSci Council’s Assembly Series lecture. “We thought he would be a great person to represent the College of Arts & Sciences, since education is at its core,” said Aaron Mertz, the president of the ArtSci Council. Although the ArtSci Council faced the option of canceling this lecture after Student Union denied funding for the event, they decided against doing so because, in the words of Barbara Rea, “people need to hear what he has to say.” According to Rea, director of major events and special programs, “He’s one of the most requested speakers in the 10 years that I’ve been doing this job.” Throughout his inspiring lecture, Kozol described the vast segregation that persists in the American public education system, which he deems as “post-modern and millennial apartheid.” Having visited 60 inner-city schools throughout the country over the past five years, including some in St. Louis, Kozol confidently declared that the percentage of people in segregated schools is at its highest rate since 1968. “We stand right now at one of
the most dangerous and reactionary moments in our nation’s history,” said Kozol. In his eyes, the apartheid that plagued the South prior to the Civil Rights movement is indistinguishable from the “socially and economically enforced apartheid” that he says is present in all of the nation’s big cities today. Responding to conservative politicians’ criticisms that he does not provide enough hard data, Kozol described a South Bronx neighborhood in which only 22 of the 11,000 students in the elementary and middle schools were white. Kozol emphasized the importance of finding out the reality of current circumstances by conducting first-hand research. Stating that one cannot get the truth by simply talking to administrators or looking at statistics, Kozol suggested that “every arrogant politician in our country, especially Bush, should be obliged to come into an inner-city school and teach for not just an hour, but a day, because it is all too easy to forget.” Kozol has done exactly this, and after living on both sides of the public education system and witnessing the disparities first-hand, he declared, “I know that we do not live in a genuine democracy, because the children of the poor do not have equal opportunities. At best we live in a hereditary meritocracy.” “In the eyes of America, because of the unjust, undemocratic, and archaic school system,
stars’ footsteps By Brad Nelson Contributing Editor
EITAN HOCHSTER | STUDENT LIFE
Author and political advocate Jonathan Kozol speaks in Graham
See KOZOL, page 8 Chapel on Wednesday.
Soulard gears up for beads and brews By Jeff Reul Contributing Reporter With Mardi Gras celebrations in St. Louis rumored to be second only to New Orleans, St. Louis might be called the “Second City of Mardi Gras.” Now with the Big Easy still recovering from Hurricane Katrina, the Gateway City has a shot to dethrone the No. 1 host with the 2006 Mardi Gras, Soulard’s 27th annual. Celebrations shift into full throttle this weekend, and over several hundred thousand people are expected to attend. Whether or not the Katrina disaster will affect the size of Mardi Gras in St. Louis this year remains to be seen. Yet the celebration has grown steadily over the years, a popularity that can be attributed to one main factor, according to Mack Bradley, spokesperson for St. Louis Mardi Gras. “Number one, it’s just a great party,” said Bradley. “It started in 1980 with 200 people, and this year we have two and a half times that number of police. This thing has grown. One thing that Soulard has demonstrated over and over is they love a great party…We don’t try to be New Orleans. We’ve got our own traditions and our own thing.” Some of these traditions include one of the world’s largest pet parades, the proceeds of which will be split with the Jefferson Parish Animal Shelter in New Orleans, said Bradley. Another unique aspect of the St. Louis Mardi Gras is the parade. In New Orleans, the organizations that put together the parade, known as krewes, produce the parade itself. Here, a non-for-profit organization, Mardi Gras Inc., produces the parade, leaving the krewes to concentrate on the floats, which can cost between $10,000-$30,000. This year’s parade will be the largest ever, with 115 floats, and is expected to raise more than $20,000 for the local economy, said Bradley. This weekend’s events begin at City Hall, where Mayor Francis Slay will host the “Mayor’s Mardi Gras Ball Masquerade 2006.” Tickets begin at $100 and
proceeds will support the city of St. Louis. The Grand Parade sets sail Saturday, Feb. 25 at 11 a.m. The route begins in downtown St. Louis and is scheduled to arrive in Soulard at 2 p.m. For Washington University students interested in attending the Grand Parade, the Campus Programming Council (CPC) is sponsoring two buses that
will run continuously from the Business School between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. on Saturday. A one-way trip costs $3, and unlimited trips cost $5. “We had talked about [having buses] before,” said junior Shilpa Rupani, copresident of the CPC. “St. Louis has the second biggest Mardi Gras, and we want
See MARDI GRAS, page 8
DAVID BRODY | STUDENT LIFE
An unidentified man sells beads in Soulard on Sunday, Feb. 19. Mardi Gras festivities are set to take place downtown all day tomorrow, and Fat Tuesday will occur next week.
CHICAGO—After a show one recent Saturday night, Matthew Craig, an actor in the improvisational group Second City, was giving a visitor a tour around the group’s theatre when he was stopped by three attractive coeds in the lobby. “You were awesome tonight,” said one of them, a fashionable blonde. “You should [go] out drinking with us tonight.” “Come back for the improv set tonight at 1 a.m. and we’ll go get a drink,” he replied. The girls, who said they were sorority sisters from Miami of Ohio, were too plastered to notice he was joking around. They also probably didn’t notice his wedding ring. When the girls were out of earshot, the visitor asked, “Does this sort of thing happen often?” “I try not to hang out in the lobby too often—not that the temptation would tear me away— but those kind of women…” His voice trails off for a second. Then he continues. “There was this guy who used to work here named Andy. He claimed that if he played his cards right, he was [a] bit of a drinker, and he would go across the street to the bar every night and pick someone up. It got to the point he couldn’t go across the street anymore because he got a reputation.” “Those are fun moments,” he added. “Ridiculous. But fun.” Another pause. “It’s just nice to be recognized.” A little history lesson Let’s step back a moment. Before the drunken co-eds. Before Andy’s adventures chasing tail at the bar across the street. And way before Matthew Craig was working at Second City, let alone alive. Let’s go back to the 1950s. We’re at the University of Chicago. Some undergrads there run a campus theatre company. They perform a play called “The Typewriter.” It’s a big hit. A couple of them start talking about opening a theatre. In 1959, they open up Second City on the North Side of Chicago. Their brand of theatre is unconventional. Second City performs its comedy revues cabaret-style. It gets rid of the fourth wall and interacts with the audience. It still uses a script but gives performers leeway to ad-lib their lines. Crowds love it. As the years pass, a number of the cast members go on to stardom. Mike Nichols, Alan Alda, Robert Klein, Alan Arkin, Joan Rivers, Peter Boyle. Even one Washington University alumnus, Harold Ramis, who wrote “Animal House” and “Caddyshack” and directed “Ghostbusters” and “Stripes.” But Second City doesn’t become famous until Saturday Night Live debuts in 1975. Half of SNL’s first cast came from Second City. John Belushi, Gilda Radner,
Bill Murray. The tradition continues today. Tina Fey and Rachel Dratch are Second City alumni. So are Mike Meyers and Chris Farley. “It’s almost false to say that Second City is 45 years old,” said Craig, “because it’s been in the last 20 years that Second City has become the bastion of what it really is.” Meanwhile, improv continues to grow in popularity. Short-form improv, which is heavy in game playing, became popular after “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” came to television. (By the way, two of that show’s stars, Ryan Stiles and Colin Mochrie, performed at Second City.) And a number of improv clubs have opened up in Chicago and elsewhere. Even Second City expanded, and currently maintains stages in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York and other cities. “I think improvisation now is the same kind of heyday standup was in during the early ‘80s and ‘90s,” said Craig. From biology to comedy When Craig entered Washington University in 1991, he had no intention of getting involved in this improv business—not professionally, at least. Growing up in Dayton, Ohio, he had dabbled in community theatre and had been in a few plays in high school, but his real goal was to become a doctor. But the University’s pre-med program can be overwhelming. “It’s quite the tunnel when that’s what you’re studying,” said Craig. “So I needed to do something to step out of it.” He was already a resident advisor, a member of the all-male a cappella group The Pikers and the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. So he decided to return to acting. He auditioned for Mama’s Pot Roast, a new improv group on campus. He was accepted, and took the spot held by Peter Sarsgaard, who was graduating. Sarsgaard, who recently hosted Saturday Night Live, is best known for his role in the film “Jarhead.” After spending his junior and senior years in the group, Craig made another decision. “The fall of my senior year I decided I wanted to shake it up,” said Craig. “For no other reason, at least for now I knew I didn’t want to go to medical school. I was having some success with improv. So I struck a deal with my dad. I was going to take two years after I graduated from college to move to Chicago and study improvisation and see what I could make of it.” In the fall of 1995, Craig moved to the Windy City and trained in Second City’s conservatory program, which not only teaches students the Second City style of improv but also serves as a feeder into one of the group’s several casts performing around the country. He lucked out and also got a job as a head bartender at a trendy restaurant, which allowed him to live comfortably
See IMPROV, page 3