Monday, November 23, 2009 - The Daily Cardinal

The new Twilight movie sparks a heated debate among moviegoers ARTS

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University of Wisconsin-Madison

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BADGERS MEET BITTER DEFEAT AGAINST NU

33-31 loss to Northwestern hurts chances of major bowl game for UW SPORTS Complete campus coverage since 1892

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Monday, November 23, 2009

AMY GIFFIN/the daily cardinal

“…the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”

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Monday, November 23, 2009

An independent student newspaper, serving the University of Wisconsin-Madison community since 1892

For the record

On Nov. 20, 2009 The Daily Cardinal published the letter to the editor “Column does disservice to campus community.” The author has since stated that he meant the letter as a private correspondence with The Daily Cardinal. The Cardinal regrets the error.

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Madison’s finest spice up ‘Oprah’ episodes

Volume 119, Issue 54

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News and Editorial edit@dailycardinal.com Editor in Chief Charles Brace Managing Editor Justin Stephani Campus Editor Kelsey Gunderson Caitlin Gath City Editor State Editor Hannah Furfaro Enterprise Editor Ryan Hebel Associate News Editor Grace Urban Senior News Reporters Ariel Shapiro Robert Taylor, Kayla Torgerson Anthony Cefali Opinion Editors Todd Stevens Editorial Board Editor Qi Gu Arts Editors Kevin Slane Kyle Sparks Sports Editors Scott Kellogg Nico Savidge Features Editor Diana Savage Food Editor Sara Barreau Science Editor Jigyasa Jyotika Photo Editors Isabel Alvarez Danny Marchewka Graphics Editors Amy Giffin Jenny Peek Copy Chiefs Kate Manegold Emma Roller Jake Victor Copy Editors Steven Gilbert, Margaret Raimann

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BONNIE GLEICHER bonnanza The Facts of Life 1) Time passes.

2) We die.

3) Broccoli is healthier than beer.

4) “The Oprah Winfrey Show” will end.

O

n Friday, The Facts of Life received an addition as Winfrey announced that in the fall of 2011, her show will come to a close. The gut-wrenching news came as a shock to many viewers who frantically asked themselves, “But what will I do between 3-4 p.m. Central Standard Time?” and, “What other show can so easily drown out my roommate’s mindless babble?” and, “Who else can help me with my destructive sexual addiction?” (Check out today’s episode for details!)

It’s true—America is losing one of its great institutions. However, Winfrey has promised audiences that for the

last 18 months, she intends to produce some of her best shows.

Instantly, the wheels started turning: What will be her next giveaway?

Who will she have on her show?

And how can we finally get good ol’ Madison in the spotlight? Here are my interviewee suggestions: Scanner Dan Dan’s the man. That’s just the way it is. Add that to The Facts of Life! With his scanner, booming voice, and taunting points at passersby, Scanner Dan is the symbol of charisma—and Madison!

Who knows, someday Madison could be renamed “MadisDan” or “WisconScan.” But before that happens, Winfrey must feature him on her show. I await the day when Scanner Dan stands atop Winfrey’s couch (Tom Cruise style) and yells, “Hey Oprah, YOU’VE GOT DIARRHEA!!!!!!”

What’s that called? Television history.

The woman who works at the smoothie stand No smile lights up this campus more than this woman’s. Her signature banana-strawberry-coconut, “it’s-better-than-crack” smoothies, coupled

A mi manera

with her cheerful and animated demeanor, are the greatest cures for any all-nighter. Plus, her 50-cent cookies taste divine and that instant straw dispenser makes gulping those babies down even easier. When she appears on the show, she just might steal the spotlight from Oprah herself. Hey, she’ll need a replacement!

Piccolo Pete You know him, I know him, we all know him—but do we really know Piccolo Pete? With his spot in front of the University Bookstore, his long white beard and his unmistakable piccolo music, it’s hard to imagine Library Mall without imagining Piccolo Pete. I think it’s time Pete took a seat beside Oprah and told all, memoir-style. From his first steps, to his high school prom, to the first time he picked up the piccolo, I’d love for Oprah to unravel the man that is cloaked in mystery—and his trusty orange jumpsuit. Plus, she could really use more musical guests.

Now for the giveaways: Inflatable Terrace Chairs One look at a terrace chair and suddenly gravity takes over as your butt

is drawn straight to its multi-colored beauty. But what if we could enjoy the terrace chairs not only on the terrace, but also in our own living rooms, or even our own bathrooms? If Winfrey offered these chairs as giveaways, they’d become a household necessity, like the toaster, the toilet and the fork.

Spicy Cheese Bread This stuff is better than crack, it’s better than smoothies—it’s like heaven in a little plastic bag! On Saturdays at the outdoor farmer’s market, Madison residents have a taste of something so sublimely delicious, it should be illegal in fifteen states... but it’s not! If Winfrey offered this bread as a giveaway, the shop that makes it would receive more orders than late-night Toppers, Jimmy Johns and Jin’s Chicken... combined!

Madison would be coined the “Spicy Cheese Bread State” and for years afterward, kids all across the nation would dress as Spicy Cheese Bread for Halloween (plastic bag not included).

Ohhh, the possibilities.

Do you have some Oprah Winfrey Show ideas? Think you should be on it?

Lets see what we can do! Email me at gleicher@wisc.edu.

isa se americaniza, y no se entera Por Isabel Álvarez THE DAILY CARDINAL

Todavía recuerdo la primera vez que alguien me dijo “Isa, estás completamente americanizada.” ¿Americanizada? Anda ya, ni de broma. ¿Yo? ¿Negando mis raíces asturianas y rindiéndome a tradiciones del nuevo continente? Para nada. Fue mi amiga Águeda, que pensó que por haberle dejado un mensaje-video en el Facebook en vez de escribirle en su muro, me estaba pasando de la raya. Eso, en España, no se hace. “¿Isa, te has vuelto loca o qué? Un video, ¿a cuento de que?

Escribes como todo el mundo, deja de hacerte la guay.” Aparentemente esto del vídeo era demasiado avanzado tecnológicamente hablando para ella.

En aquel momento ni me planteé que Águeda tuviera razón, simplemente ignoré la observación de mi querida amiga y seguí con mi vida. Pero, desde entonces, ese comentario me ha perseguido y no he conseguido quitármelo de encima. Es más, cada vez me lo dicen más y más. El otro día mi amiga Kelsey me dijo, “Isa, eres

completamente americana.” ¿Qué me está pasando? Dada tal incertidumbre, decidí repasar mis hábitos diarios aquí en Madison. No puede ser para tanto... ¿verdad?

Vamos a ver, en lo que viene siendo un día normal, me levanto y me ducho. Bien, por ahora todo en línea. Luego bajo a la calle, me tomo mi café en mi termo super-megaguay y... uy, eso de los termos en España... ¿como que no, no? Bueno, oye, que en mi barrio se comentaba el verano pasado que igual ponían un Starbucks, ¡y decían que hasta tendría eso del drive-in! Que sí, que sí, eso de tomarse el café mientras vas a clase no es nada americano. Es más, yo una vez llegaba tarde a la parada del autobús y mi madre me metió el Cola-Cao en un termo y nadie se rió de mi...Bueno, vale, mi amiga Ingrid me lo cogió y al intentar descubrir su función me lo tiró todo por encima... pero no fue para tanto...

Bueno en clase, nada, lo normal... un mensajito de Facebook por aquí, riego las plantas del Farmville por allá, ¿habrá cambiado de foto de perfil el

tío bueno de mi clase de producción?

Bueno mientras mi profe termina éste tostón de clase voy a comprar un par de cosas por Internet... ¡Ay va! ¡pero si ya es mediodía! ¿Habrá que comer algo no? ¡Pero si es tardísimo!...Casi se me pasa la hora del almuerzo y ¡a ver quién aguanta hasta las seis sin cenar! ¿Qué pasa? Perdona pero las doce del mediodía es una hora normalísima de comer ¿eh? Es más, yo recuerdo en el colegio, cuando teníamos eso de tres o cuatro años, comíamos a la una de la tarde la mar de contentos...Vamos, comer a las doce, es lo que viene siendo una hora universal de tomarse el sándwich. Sí,... ¿qué pasa? Pues un sándwich para comer, normalísimo.

Ah ¿qué pasa que ahora hay que comer primer plato, segundo plato y postre? ¿Y café luego también no? No mira yo me como mi sándwich de crema de cacahuete y mermelada y tan fresca... ¿Cómo? ¿Que qué guarrada es esa? Pero bueno, ¡que osadía! ¡si esto es un manjar! Anda, anda...

Después de clase normalmente me voy a un cafetería a leer o a perder el tiempo con el ordenador. Sí, voy sola

a la cafetería... Sí, me siento sola... Pues no, no soy ninguna pringada. Sentarse sola en una cafetería leyendo está socialmente aceptado desde hace años, en cualquier parte del mundo. No, no me siento en una mesa para dos personas para que parezca que estoy esperando a alguien... ¡eh, no cojas esa silla, que ahora viene mi amigo!

Y nada por fin llegó el fin de semana. Tengo que prepararme bien porque a las 8 empieza el tailgating cerca del estadio y me voy a tomar un par de bloody marys, luego un par de beer bongs para entonar y venga, al partido. NO, no soy ninguna alcohólica. Beber a las 8 de la mañana es completamente normal. Sí, mamá, si estás leyendo, todo el mundo lo hace.

Pues claro que voy a seguir bebiendo después del partido, ¿para que crees que empecé tan pronto? Conseguir estar pedo durante un día de partido entero no lo hace cualquiera, hay que estar metido en el juego desde el primer momento, no todo el mundo vale para esto ¿vale?... hay que ser completamente, consumadamente, plenamente e íntegramente...americano.

dailycardinal.com/news

Monday, November 23, 2009

By Kelsey Gunderson The Daily Cardinal

lorenzo zemella/the daily cardinal

Wisconsin football head coach Bret Bielema walks off the field after the Badgers’ 33-31 loss to the Northwestern Wildcats in Evanston, Ill. For full coverage of the game, including some of Bielema’s postgame comments, see the Sports section on page 16.

City works to keep streets free of graffiti The Daily Cardinal

The recent arrest of three teenagers for criminal damage to property is the latest incident in Madison’s ongoing battle with graffiti.

According to the police report, one 14-year-old and two 13-yearolds were apprehended just before 3 a.m. on Nov. 9 when a Madison Police Department sergeant on patrol spotted them tagging a utility box. After stopping the teens, he discovered two cans of spray paint and several markers.

Markers are used to easily make designs on whatever object

is being tagged, the report said.

After further investigation, the teens were found responsible for over 200 instances of graffiti in the Madison area.

Crime statistics reveal this was not an isolated incident and graffiti is an ongoing problem for the city. There have been 62 graffiti complaints in Madison since Oct. 8, according to city statistics.

The majority of the complaints come from the downtown area, and the most common targets of graffiti are bus shelters, utility boxes, soda machines, traffic signs and sheds.

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9 months after UW cuts contract, apparel maker reopens disputed factory

Evanstunned

By Josh Hilgendorf

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In an effort to remove graffiti from these structures and prevent future incidents, the city has implemented a program called “Graffiti Free.” According to the program’s website, it employs graffiti removal efforts, a graffiti hotline and police involvement to keep the city’s buildings, neighborhoods and other structures clean and attractive.

If a citizen finds graffiti on their property, they are eligible to participate in the graffiti co-pay removal program. Tom Adamowicz, a Madison building inspector, said graffiti page 4

Russell Athletics, a clothing company that formerly produced licensed UW-Madison athletic apparel, announced plans last week to reopen a factory in Honduras and rehire the 1,200 workers who were let go when the factory shut down business last year.

Russell announced the closure of the factory, Jerzees de Honduras, in October 2008, allegedly in response to workers unionizing for increased wages and better working conditions.

UW-Madison then ended all business with Russell in February, saying the incident violated the university’s code of conduct for licensees. Many other universities nationwide also ended business with Russell after the plant closure.

Russell agreed last week, however, to reopen the factory and rehire the employees who had lost their jobs.

UW-Madison’s Student Labor Action Coalition has been the main group on campus involved in the campaign and has participated in several events throughout the year to protest the issue.

Daniel Cox, a SLAC organizer, said the reopening of the plant was one of the organization’s most significant victories.

“We are really excited because this is historic,” he said. “It’s a

huge game-changer in the university antisweatshop movement.”

Cox said he feels cutting ties with companies like Russell is the best way to continue pushing for better working conditions in factories.

“I think this Russell campaign shows us something really important: that cutting contracts of companies who have violated the code of conduct is the best way to bring them into compliance with the laws and help maintain the respect with their workers,” he said.

“Cutting ties really puts a lot of pressure on these companies to begin respecting the rights of their workers.”

Daniel Cox organizer Student Labor Action Coalition

SLAC is currently involved in a similar case with Nike, another company that produces UW-Madison apparel and has shut down factories in Honduras.

Cox said UW-Madison officials are trying to work out an agreement with Nike, but SLAC members feel more serious action needs to be taken.

“Cutting ties really puts a lot of pressure on these companies to begin respecting the rights of their workers,” he said.

H1N1 vaccines distributed to target populations Over one million doses of the H1N1 flu vaccine have been allocated to Wisconsin, according to the latest report from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services.

As of Nov. 20, nearly 41,000 daily doses were distributed to Wisconsin from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Although Wisconsin has received over one million doses, according to a statement from the DHS there are not enough vaccines to distribute to the general public on a statewide basis.

Last week, University Health Services said the H1N1 vaccine is available to students who have high-risk medical condi-

tions such as asthma or other chronic lung diseases, diabetes or cancer. Pregnant women and caretakers of infants are also eligible to receive the vaccine.

UHS said students will be informed when the H1N1 vaccine is available for students on a campuswide basis.

The DHS is currently surveying health-care providers to “assess if the target groups have been reached,” according to a statement. The results from the survey are expected to aid in the assessment of when vaccines will be available for Wisconsin residents who are not in the designated target groups.

—Hannah Furfaro

Gun aimed at driver after ‘dirty looks’ exchanged, no one injured

danny marchewka/the daily cardinal

Mother Fool’s Coffeehouse, located at 1101 Williamson St., has an entire wall dedicated to graffiti art. In its eight years of existence, co-owner Jon Hain says the wall has been a huge success.

Ten days ago a 29-yearold Madison man was driving toward West Washington Avenue from Park Street on a Friday afternoon when the driver of a passing car waved a gun at him, according to a recent police report.

As the victim was turning onto West Washington Avenue, a car attempted to cut him off.

The car sped past him, the report said, and as it did the victim gave the occupants of the offending car a “dirty look.”

According to the report, sev-

eral feet farther down the street, a passenger in the offending car produced a gun and waved it in the direction of the victim.

The victim said there were multiple people in the car. He described the vehicle as a large gold 1970s model with a dark stripe. The car continued to follow West Washington Avenue after the gun incident, the victim said.

The suspect is described as a black male of medium build in his 20s with short to close-cut hair, according to the report.

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Monday, November 23, 2009

State senator asks Audit Bureau to review BadgerCare

Wild pitch

A full review of BadgerCare, a Wisconsin health-care reimbursement program for lowincome families, was requested from the Legislative Audit Bureau Friday by state Sen. Mary Lazich, R-New Berlin.

With state funds for the program dwindling, Lazich said she wants to ensure that the money is being used effectively.

“We owe it to the taxpayers to ensure their money is being spent as wisely and efficiently as possible,” she said in a statement.

Lazich called for the review after the state recently implemented plans to expand the program. She said she is confident the “nationally recognized” LAB will identify any waste and inefficiency.

“The Legislative Audit Bureau can identify inef-

ficiencies or problems that the Department of Health Services can utilize to assist more individuals properly and effectively,” Lazich said.

Recent incidents of misused state funds have been found in the taxpayer-funded Wisconsin Shares child-care program and Wisconsin’s food-stamp program. Earlier this month, Gov. Jim Doyle signed into law a Wisconsin Shares “accountability bill” that aims to add new safeguards to the program.

Lazich said she is determined to stop any future fraud or errors in the BadgerCare program.

“The respected Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau can provide preventative medicine to ensure the state does not repeat previous scandals,” she said.

—Sarah Zipperle

DMV closed Friday for furlough day

danny marchewka/the daily cardinal

UW-Madison junior David Redick, a member of the MadHatters a cappella group, performs during the group’s fall concert series Friday night in the Overture Center’s Capitol Theater.

graffiti from page 3 the goal of the program is to help victims quickly remove graffiti from their property for a $100 flat fee.

“The standard logic of the whole thing is, the sooner you get this removed, if you hit the graffiti hard, the tagger won’t go there again,” Adamowicz said.

“If you hit the graffiti hard, the tagger won’t go there again.”

Tom Adamowicz building inspector City of Madison

Potential participants contact the city’s Building Inspection Unit and fill out an application. If approved, a contractor will remove graffiti from a resident’s property by power washing with water, chemical removal, sandblasting or brush-and-roller painting.

However, not everyone in the

city wants graffiti removed from their property.

Jon Hain, co-owner of Mother Fool’s Coffeehouse, located at 1101 Williamson St., set aside one wall of his business to allow graffiti artists to tag his building. Hain said the wall is important to give graffiti artists an outlet for their work.

“Graffiti is accessible. Young people can work on their skills in sketchbooks, and the cost of paint is minimal,” he said. “It is something available to people at all levels of society.”

Hain was granted city permission for the wall in 2001 after working closely with former District 6 Ald. Judy Olson and graffiti artist Don Wettach.

Hain said city permission was not actually needed, but he wanted to go through the proper process to allow people in the neighborhood to express their concerns and create something that would work in the long term. The only rule for the wall is that no depictions of violence, sexism, racism or commercial messages are allowed.

In existence for eight years,

Hain said the graffiti wall has been a huge success.

He said new artwork varies with the weather. The wall changes frequently in the summer, with new artwork appearing almost every week, and it slows down considerably in the winter. Hain said he is proud of his effort to make graffiti more accepted in society.

As part of the 2009-’11 biennial state budget, all employees at the Wisconsin Division of Motor Vehicles will take a furlough day this Friday.

All DMV offices will be closed and will resume regular business hours on Monday, Nov. 30. According to the DMV website, road test appointments can still be made through the DMV’s automated phone system.

This furlough day marks the DMV staff ’s fourth of 16 unpaid furlough days required of all state and university employees.

UW-Whitewater will also close Friday for its second fur-

lough day of the year. According to the UW System guidelines, the mandatory furloughs result in a pay reduction of 3.065 percent per employee annually.

“We get ourselves into a real pickle as a society when we start to pick and choose which art forms are or aren’t valid.”

Jon Hain co-owner Mother Fool’s Coffeehouse

“We get ourselves into a real pickle as a society when we start to pick and choose which art forms are or aren’t valid,” he said.

“It is important to put aside our prejudices and say those people are being creative, and that is something that should be nurtured regardless.”

wants to hear from you!

$1000 for 1000 words Essay Contest The Sixties plus 50: War, racism and sexism ignited campus demonstrations in the decade that began a half-century ago. Space was the new frontier and worries about the earth gave birth to the environmental movement. How far have we come, how far do we have to go in 2010 and beyond?

DEADLINE: Nov. 30, 2009. E-mail editor@dailycardinal.com

opinion dailycardinal.com/opinion

Editorial Cartoon

Monday, November 23, 2009

By John Liesveld opinion@dailycardinal.com

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Students must do their part to end racism

Professors must engage students to be effective QI GU opinion columnist

W

hat is the true measure of quality for an undergraduate education? High faculty-student ratio, smaller classes or more spots in popular lectures? It seems that all of these characteristics could contribute to a single page called “quality by numbers.”

When evaluations of our education are reduced to a lengthy spreadsheet, a crucial qualitative aspect is neglected: What about teaching methods?

Nice statistics can only improve undergraduate education to a very limited extent.

Even if students get into some of the more popular classes, that doesn’t ensure the quality of their educational experience.

Upon the buzz of the bell, your professor turns off all the lights of the 300-person lecture hall.

The moment his slideshow commences, you feel your head begin to nod. Don’t get me wrong, Professor X, the lecture is still informative. It’s just... uh... not creative enough.

What if one day your instructor comes in and asks students to throw colored Nerf balls at him?

To encourage innovative undergraduate teaching, the Carnegie Foundation started sponsoring the U.S. Professors of the Year awards program in

1982. This year, Tracey McKenzie from Collin College was one of the four national winners. As a sociology professor, she cotaught classes with instructors from other departments such as computer science and statistics.

The interdisciplinary exchange highlighted a fundamental ideal of sociology: understanding our society as a whole.

Creative teaching is not just useful for liberal arts schools or community colleges like Collin; big state universities could also implement the same teaching strategy. Brian Coppola from the University of Michigan teaches the demanding subject of organic chemistry. He engages student participation through student-facilitated discussions concerning their topics of research. So, instead of solely receiving digested materials from instructors, students have the opportunity to chew on the information themselves.

But how about large lectures where swarms of people just come, sit and go? Remember the last time your professor talked about quantum theory in the intro astronomy class? All those text-heavy explanatory slides hardly pique your interest, even though they are educational. So what if one day your instructor comes in and asks students to throw colored Nerf balls at him? That is what professor Alex Filippenko did to show how energy changes happen at the atomic level. By jumping from the floor to desks to make catches, he created a vivid illustration for his 700 University of California-Berkeley students.

At UW-Madison, I was lucky enough to experience a similar interactive education. In professor Tim Allen’s ILS 252, pantomiming has become an integral part of the class.

For example, students may already know meiotic crossover is a key to biodiversity. But not a lot of them realize that the trigger is the exchange of DNA segments between homologous chromosomes. To explain the process, Allen asked them to act as chromosomes.

When “meiosis” happened according to his call, students started moving around, and guys swapped their hats for girls’ earrings and scarfs. For the 140 students in that lecture hall, that was something we would never forget.

After I read the article “Race deserves no place in university admissions” in Tuesday’s issue of The Daily Cardinal, I struggled with how to explain the intent of the author. I was caught wholly off-guard by the call for an end to affirmative action.

Furthermore, to declare that UW-Madison students are relatively colorblind is not a true statement, nor would those that believe in the benefits of a diverse education wish to be labeled such. It is essential that we as students in search of a liberal education maintain an effort to become culturally and ethnically competent, and this means recognizing and respecting fundamental differences.

To claim that it is easier to be a minority (underrepresented) student on campus than to be a racist is certainly absurd.

Perhaps the author intended to state that a racist would receive more flak from their peers than a minority (underrepresented) student does. I am not an underrepresented student at UW-Madison, but for the three months that I have been at this school, I have heard of the vast injustices committed against underrepresented students, whether that be a professor asking them to comment on something from their ethnicity’s point of view or having my friends tell me that they were forced to defend themselves after being told to go back to Mexico when, in fact, they have been living in the United States for the entirety of their life. These examples, my friends, are just the tip of the iceberg.

So what, as majority students, can we do? There are

many first steps that can be made, among the most important being education on white privilege. What is white privilege, you ask? I hadn’t heard of the term until I began attending weekly discussion to discuss multiculturalism either and was stunned when I learned about the everyday privileges I have as a person who is white. These privileges include (but are not nearly limited to): being able to open a paper or watch TV and see people of my race widely represented, being told about my civilization and being told people of my race made it what it is, using checks and counting that my race will not work against the appearance of financial responsibility and finally being sure that when I pick out a “flesh” colored bandage it will more or less match the color of my skin. The biggest privilege of all is not having to worry about this list (and not even knowing these privileges existed, which was my privilege until very recently).

It is the job of every human being in this society to take action to end racism. Unfortunately, like you had stated, the overwhelming majority of students do not actively seek out and love interacting with diverse and new people. Maybe if they did, this article would not have been written, because the author may in fact understand that there are fundamental differences between people of different ethnicities.

Maxwell Love Freshman, Community and Environmental Sociology

Like politics?

Creative teaching can be a great experience for both studends and instructors.

Creative teaching can be a great experience for both students and instructors. Innovative class time is especially rewarding for freshmen and sophomores, who are still trying to locate their academic interests.

As the lecture-discussion combo has come to dominate higher education, your only feedback consists of exams, papers and an occasional roll of the eyes.

In recent years, UW-Madison has dedicated itself to the availability of courses but not toward the quality aspect. While 44 other states honor their “Professor of the Year,” Wisconsin still has its arms folded with a “never-heardof-it” attitude. Now it’s time for a change. If necessary, Descartes’ dictum should take on a new version: “I do, therefore I am.”

Qi Gu is a junior majoring in journalism. We welcome all feedback. Please send all feedback to opinion@dailycardinal.com.

Up on the issues?

Want to tell Biddy how to do her job?

Apply to be a Daily Cardinal opinion columnist!

Submit three pieces 650-750 words long to opinion@dailycardinal.com. The deadline is Dec. 18th.

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Monday, November 23, 2009

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‘New Moon’ fills Madison movie theaters Three Daily Cardinal contributors react to their “New Moon” theatergoing experiences

By Kevin Slane THE DAILY CARDINAL

“Twilight” fans hit theaters in record numbers Friday, giving “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” one of the biggest opening weekends in film history.

Friday’s single-day box office gross of $72.7 million set a record, beating “The Dark Knight’s” previous record of $67.2 million. “New Moon” is likely to finish the weekend with $140.7 million according to studio estimates, good for third alltime behind “The Dark Knight” and “Spiderman 3.”

“We had some people attempting to start raves in the theater, and one older woman had a boom box blasting the ‘Twilight’ soundtrack.”

Mark Riechers assistant manager Point Cinema

Moviegoers in Madison were no different than the rest of the nation, selling out every showing and dressing up for the occasion. With large lines, rhythmic chants and raucous crowds, “New Moon” proved teenage girls can

create just as big a box office stir as teenage boys, the demographic largely responsible for the strong openings of “The Dark Knight” and “Spiderman 3,” among others.

Diana Savage, Daily Cardinal features editor, attended the midnight showing of “New Moon” at Marcus Theaters’ Point Cinema.

“I really liked the midnight experience,” Savage said. “I’ve been to ‘Harry Potter’ midnight showings too, and this was even bigger and wilder than those.”

Mark Riechers, an assistant manager at Point Cinema and Daily Cardinal film critic, said every showing for “New Moon” through Friday was sold out by the time he got to work at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday.

Point had midnight showings both Thursday and Friday, hoping to capitalize on the rabid following Stephanie Meyer’s books have garnered over the years.

As can be expected with any large event, the midnight showings at Point did not go down without some problems.

“We had people attempting to start raves in the theater, and one older woman had a boom box blasting the ‘Twilight’ soundtrack,” Riechers said.

“When we took it away from her, she

PHOTO COURTESY SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT

Hunky werewolf Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) had teenage audiences at the midnight showings of “New Moon” howling at the screen, often making it nearly impossible to hear the dialogue in his scenes. claimed we were anti-‘Twilight.’”

Some college students who wanted to get some reading done while in line for the film were surprised when they were let into the auditorium at 8:30. Unfortunately, the theater was pitch black, save for a few groups who were watching the

first “Twilight” film on laptops.

Once the film started, the crowds proved to be a bit too much for some moviegoers.

“My theater experience was terrible,” said Daily Cardinal Photo Editor Isabel Alvarez.

“There were a ton of girls laughing about every single line. I loved the movie, but I wish the crowd hadn’t been so crazy.”

Audiences seemed to react especially strongly to Jacob Black, a werewolf played by Taylor Lautner.

“There was a lot of catcalls when Jacob came on screen,” Savage said. “I actually missed lines because it was so loud.”

Despite the miscues, Madison’s premiere of “New Moon” proved that film studios can rely on the

teen girl audience. National statistics estimate girls aged 13 to 19 made up close to 80 percent of the audience, and Madison seemed no different.

“I’d say about 75 percent of the theater was teenyboppers,” Savage said. “The last quarter was a mix of college girls, older women and a few unlucky boyfriends.”

With the film garnering $140.7 million in one weekend, there will surely be many more “Twilight” films to come. While fans will rejoice at such a strong opening, some were less enthused.

“It was probably one of the worst experiences of my life,” Riechers said. “If I never had to go through another ‘Twilight’ opening, it would be too soon.”

Viral Videos of the Week In today’s edition of viral videos of the week, we’ve decided to take a look at some of the Internet’s best “Twilight” parody videos, in honor of this week’s “New Moon” release.

Search terms: Insane “Twilight” reaction video The release of the trailer to “New Moon” led to an odd viral video trend of fans filming themselves watching the trailer for the first time and freaking out. CollegeHumor parodies these videos, but makes each reaction an extreme exaggeration of fandom.

Search terms: Deleted “Twilight” sex scene Theirs was a forbidden love, one that could only be expressed through... anal? CollegeHumor again lampoons “Twilight,” this time transforming Edward Cullen from a sweet, sensitive soul into a horny douchebag. Poor Kristen Stewart...

arts Cardinal critics divided on ‘New Moon’ dailycardinal.com/arts

Monday, November 23, 2009

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Building on the drama and romance from the last film, ‘New Moon’ is a leap forward for ‘Twilight’ series

Shamelessly ripping off Shakespeare, ‘New Moon’ belongs in the bargain bin at the local DVD rental store

By Caitlin Furin

By Ariel Shapiro

THE DAILY CARDINAL

Do you side with Team Edward or Team Jacob? Fans have been asking this question since the dawn of the “Twilight” era, and the newest cinematic installment in the series only makes it harder to choose.

Dedicated followers have watched Bella Swan and Edward Cullen’s relationship unfold on the pages of Stephanie Meyer’s best-selling books. Now, under the direction of Chris Weitz, “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” introduces us to the second year of Bella and Edward’s life-threatening love affair and what will most likely become one of the most infamous love triangles of our time.

The acting also improves, with Stewart’s and Pattinson’s prominent on-screen chemistry.

As Bella (Kristen Stewart) ages, her desire to be changed into a vampire increases despite Edward (Robert Pattinson) pleading with her to stay human. Bella’s vulnerability as a human becomes very clear at a gathering to celebrate her 18th birthday, when she barely escapes becoming a meal for one of Edward’s family members. After this incident, Edward feels the only way to protect Bella is by leaving her. Bella’s world is shattered by Edward’s departure and she slips into the dark world of heartbreak.

After months of grieving, Bella begins a transition back toward a normal lifestyle.

She finds comfort in Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), who has had feelings for Bella since they first met. As she spends more and more time with Jacob, the hole in Bella’s heart diminishes. Just as their relationship starts to progress, Jacob reveals a monstrous secret of his own: he is a werewolf. Vampires and werewolves are sworn enemies, which puts Bella in the middle of a now very real fantasy world. When a series of events gives her the opportunity to bring Edward back into her life, Bella instinctively takes that chance, leaving a pleading, frustrated Jacob behind. But Jacob has no intent of giving up hope in

his pursuit of Bella’s heart, despite her claiming she will always choose Edward over him.

“New Moon” as a whole has shed the dullness the first installment carried with it, most likely due to the direction of Weitz.

“New Moon” is definitely a step up from the first movie in the “Twilight” saga.

The film as a whole has shed the dullness the first installment carried with it, most likely due to the direction of Weitz. The acting also improves, with Stewart’s and Pattinson’s prominent on-screen chemistry. Lautner also shows his maturity as an actor, not to mention his buff biceps and chiseled abs. Stewart really gets into character in this movie, and seeing her pain when Edward leaves her makes you empathize with her character. The werewolves bring an exciting new element to the story and the vision of them on the screen is breathtaking. There are slightly fewer awkward moments than the last film, and more comic relief is provided as well. The ending leaves a bit to be desired, as it clearly is setting the franchise up for another sequel.

Guys shouldn’t go to this movie with their girlfriends unless they enjoy watching them stare at Taylor Lautner’s six-pack.

True “Twilight” fans will surely enjoy “New Moon,” but those who don’t worship the ground Edward Cullen walks on would rather go see something less... vampire-and-werewolf-ish. Guys shouldn’t go to this movie with their girlfriends unless they enjoy watching them stare at Taylor Lautner’s six-pack. But if you are a serious fan of the “Twilight” series, “New Moon” will not disappoint.

Grade: A

THE DAILY CARDINAL

The “Twilight” series is the “Romeo and Juliet” of our generation. Like, seriously. Well, that’s what Chris Weitz (“The Golden Compass”), director of the latest installation in the vampire saga, “New Moon,” would like us to believe, anyway. It is not enough that in her second “Twilight” novel, Stephanie Meyer blatantly rips off the Elizabethan classic.

Weitz determines that the fan base cannot make this connection for themselves, and so in the opening shot, next to our sleeping heroine, Bella, lies a copy of that most famous of love stories. It is an association that we are supposed to carry with us through the whole film, and one that gives Meyer far too much credit.

Pattinson broods around like a lobotomized Brando, and Stewart looks so broed and annoyed it’s like she is trying to suck.

You know the drill. Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), an awkward but pretty teen falls for Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), a hottie from the wrong side of the grave.

Sure he vants to suck her blooood, and yeah, the reason why he’s dating her is pretty much because her sanguineous scent reminds him of a hot ’n saucy BBQ sandwich, but he’s a totally nice vampire!

He and the rest of his clan don’t feed on humans, just everything else that bleeds.

Also, he doesn’t burn in the sun like the vamps in HBO’s far superior “True Blood,” he glitters like a rhinestone. So it’s totally safe for them to date, right?

In an all-too-fleeting moment of logic, Edward decides it probably isn’t.

Bella is left with a broken heart and a habit for throwing herself into neardeath situations just to catch a glimpse of her beloved ex. While Edward himself is nowhere to be found for the majority of the movie, we learn that although he refuses to be with Bella, he plans on kicking the bucket whenever she does. In Italy.

How very Shakespearean (and original).

So how does the pop writer of the

decade fill up all of that lonesome, longing space with some chiseled, supernatural excitement? Werewolves! That’s right, for those of you who are turned off by the sophisticated but bloodthirsty Cullens, you can get your ya-yas from a pack of Calvin Klein underwear models who double as giant wolfbears. The hottest of these “wereboys,” Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), comforts Bella in her time of woe by helping her fix some motorcycles.

As he gets closer to her, Jacob helps bring out Bella’s wild side, and provides the last necessary angle for an oh-so forbidden, yet perfectly chaste love triangle.

Of the three main actors, Lautner provides the best performance. Not that it is genius by any means, but it is thoroughly adequate, and he provides a charming contrast to his paler counterparts. Pattinson broods around like a lobotomized Brando, and Stewart looks so bored and annoyed it’s like she is trying to suck. As seen by her performance in Sean Penn’s “Into The Wild,” Stewart is a once-indie darling who can actually act, and perhaps this performance is her attempt to escape the clutches of her “Twilight” contract without being chased

by Twi-hards and Hollywood execs wielding pitchforks.

For those of you who are turned off by the bloodthirsty Cullens, you can get your ya-yas from a pack of Calvin Klein underwear models who double as giant wolfbears.

It’s not all bad, though. A couple of members of the Volturi, an Italian vampire pack who are significantly more liberal with their diets, provide some much needed entertainment in the film.

Michael Sheen (“Frost/Nixon”) is wonderfully menacing as the aristocratic Aro, and surprisingly, Dakota Fanning is completely disturbing as the sadistic Jane.

One performance that also has to be mentioned is that of Anna Kendrick as Bella’s self-involved friend Jessica. Kendrick’s spot-on delivery actually provides some laughs in this otherwise humorless film.

Grade: C

GRAPHIC BY CAITLIN KIRIHARA AND JENNY PEEK/THE DAILY CARDINAL

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technology

dailycardinal.com

Monday, November 23, 2009

Top new tech buys for 2009 Black Friday is looming ominously near and for those students without CNET addictions, that means it’s time to start enduring Best Buy ads, G4 recommendations and humiliating conversations with tech-savvy friends to tease out which new E-products and iWants will entertain friends and family this year. While transparent toasters, dancing MP3 player/robots and runaway alarm clocks certainly have their niches, here are five new tech items that should please just about anyone, including the Little Mermaid and her insatiable yearns for “gadgets and gizmos a-plenty.” iPhone 3GS Although the iPhone 3G is $100 more expensive then its predecessor, the 3GS, it may offer more bang for the buck, in that it improves all the features 3GS had only half-assed.

For instance, with its 16GB of standard storage space (or 32GB with a $100 upgrade) who needs to drop $200 on a new iPod? Similarly, with its three megapixel-camera and new autofocus video-recording functions,

coupled with a longer battery life, most amateur photographers will find the 3GS a satisfactory replacement for their digital camera. Finally, the newly added Voice Control feature is just plain cool, allowing for dance party wars between song-shouting friends.

“Paparazzi!” “Thriller!” “MMMBop!” You get the idea.

Price: $199 Windows 7 It’s hard to imagine computer software provoking a more negative reaction than Windows Vista when it was released in late 2006. From technophiles to technophobes, Microsoft’s misfit child was lambasted from every direction for its poor design, usability, performance, speed and battery usage. Bottom line, Microsoft’s bloated empire was on the line, especially as its competitors, especially Mac OS X, continued to pull away. To make up for this, Windows 7 needed to be much more than a slight improvement. So far the reaction from nerds and luddites alike has been positive.

For starters, Windows 7 cuts out

some unused, fattening features like Windows Calendar, Windows Mail, Windows Contacts, Windows Photo Gallery and Windows Movie Maker (though all can be reinstalled if desired) to speed up the processor. It also includes a smarter taskbar similar to OS X, and is user-friendly enough for anti-Vista stalwarts to finally upgrade from their 7-year-old XP software.

Home Premium version price: $119.99 Motorola Droid The colossal battle between the Google empire and Steve Jobs hit a new geeky high this year when Google came out with its Android 2.0, a mobile operating system currently used by Motorola’s Droid phone. Not much sets the phone apart from the newest iPhone, but for many Jobshaters, that is reason enough to favor it. Droid does offer a handy keyboard opposed to the iPhone’s touch screen, as well as a larger display, and like the latest iPhone, the Droid also offers 16GB of storage space. Considering neither technology titan is likely to

collapse in the near future, the decision may come down to your feelings about the two companies.

Price: $199

So go ahead, click that alluring popup ad. Your songs will be safe even if your motherboard is trashed.

Price: $129

Pogoplug Anyone who’s ever woken up at 4 a.m. in College Library and realized they’ve just passed out on their laptop keyboard and inadvertently triggered a malicious virus and erased an entire research project and, more importantly, their entire iTunes library, knows the value of an external hard drive. But hard drives can be bulky to carry everywhere, and who wants a large glowing device revving beside them in a quiet library like some imprisoned kitten? The Pogoplug, from Cloud Engines, Inc., takes care of these problems by connecting up to four of your external hard drives to a secure Internet location. Not only does this provide easy access and saving capabilities so long as the user’s working on their paper through the Internet, the Pogoplug can also autosync with applications like iTunes, Windows Media Player and iPhoto.

Amazon’s Kindle DX For those not spun into blissful nostalgia by flipping through pages of yellowed novels that smell of mothballs and the Memorial Library cages, the Kindle DX may be the product for you. With four gigabytes of internal memory, a new rotating sensor feature and music-storing capacity, the Kindle DX allows readers to scan up to 3,500 stored e-books, all while listening to Bob Seger’s “Turn the Page.” The DX’s 9.7-inch screen is 2.5 times larger than Kindle 2’s design, and though it is a bit thicker and heavier, the comparison is relative considering few students would scowl at the DX’s 18.9 ounces when the alternative is lugging the complete works of William Shakespeare up Bascom Hill each week. Despite its steep price tag, the Kindle could have some practical use down the road.

Price: $489

Media device mosh: What deserves your attention?

Classic gamer debate: Nintendo’s Wii or Microsoft’s Xbox?

Now that the standard versions of the Wii and Xbox 360 are so close in price, it may be difficult to decide which console is the best buy this year. For the confused gamer, here’s a rundown of the strengths and weaknesses of the Xbox 360 and Wii this holiday season.

Nintendo Wii

Since its launch in 2006, Nintendo’s Wii has emerged as the dominant console in the video game marketplace, easily outselling its competitors. With its innovative nunchuk and remote controllers, Wii Sports and new games like Wii Fit Plus, the Wii has positioned itself as the console for those gamers less interested in the traditional action or first-person shooter genres.

Cost: $199.99 The inclusion of Wii Sports is still a strong selling point three years after its release, as many of the types of gamers Nintendo is trying to attract just want to play the addicting bowling and baseball games.

The Wii is also a bargain, considering it allows for $5 and $10 downloads of almost every Nintendo game from past consoles. The ability to play “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time” from the Nintendo 64 may make the entire purchase worth it to some fans. Most of the newer releases on the Wii also sell for $40 to $50, cheaper than the standard $60 for Xbox 360 new releases.

The ability to use Nintendo Gamecube controllers also makes it a cheaper buy, as anyone with a few old controllers lying around won’t have to splurge on the nunchuk versions.

Recent Releases New Super Mario Bros $49.99 The venerable Mario and Luigi return in this long-running franchise, with Nintendo opting for a more traditional sidescroller than the more experimental (and frankly more innovative)

“Mario Galaxy” released in 2007. The game allows for four-player cooperative play in the story mode and decent multiplayer options, but it’s not the level of creativity you would expect, considering it is so similar to “Super Mario World” on the SNES. However the graphics translate well to 2D and the inclusion of the old-school propeller suit deserves credit.

The Wii’s holiday releases overall feel slightly lackluster. The console needs to expand beyond franchises like Mario, with an encouraging sign seen in the upcoming release of “Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers” on Dec. 26. Other highlights include EA Sports Active, which greatly improved the longevity of exercise simulators on the console with more mainstream workouts like abdominal crunches or lunges. The Wii is a solid choice most of all if you have friends or roommates interested in breaking into video games, as the learning curve and pick-up and play nature of the games make them great for beginners.

Xbox 360

Although it lags behind the Wii in terms of sales, the Xbox 360 has carved out a place for itself in consistently outperforming the Playstation 3 in units sold. The recent price drop to $199.99 for the most basic version of the console also makes it a much more appealing buy than the earlier $299.99. The Xbox leads the Wii in the number of action and first-person shooter games available, but has still been plagued by hardware problems that may mean a broken console in under a year.

Cost: Arcade Version $188.99, Pro Version with 20GB hard drive $199.99, Elite Version $299.99 Many Xbox 360 users choose to avoid the

standard Arcade version, but this leaves them trying to find a Pro version at $199.99 or opting for the considerably more expensive Elite. The fact that it is also a fully functioning DVD player also gives it an advantage, though this is less of a strong point then it was three or four years ago when DVD players were more expensive.

Recent Releases Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 $59.99 One of the most anticipated games of the year, “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2” includes several new features like a cooperative two-player ‘Special Ops’ mode that features challenges like fighting your way across a collapsing bridge. However the story is hokier than the original “Modern Warfare,” with a crazed Russian terrorist instigating a series of events that lead to Russia attacking the East Coast.

Borderlands $59.99 Borderlands features four different mercenaries looking for loot in a sort of post-apocalyptic wasteland. A “roleplaying shooter,” it has several customization options for characters, mostly relating to weapon choices or modifying how a character absorbs damage.

The graphics are similar to “Fallout 3,” though less colorful at times and the enemies can sometimes be hard to distinguish from the bleak environments.

A growing library of games has made the Xbox 360 more than just a console about “Halo 3” as upcoming releases early next year like “Mass Effect 2” and “Bioshock 2” round out the selection of creative roleplaying games. Yet the Xbox 360 is still the best console for more traditional gamers, as the prevalence of shooting or action games make it less likely to appeal to families that may be interested in the Wii.

graphic by jenny peek/the daily cardinal

Multimedia devices: Are iPods the only option?

Walking around Madison’s campus and noticing peer preference when it comes to entertainment in transit feels like a broken record. Either people are texting on their phones (more often than not an iPhone or Blackberry) or they have white headphones in their ears denoting their official status as an Apple user. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this trend is indicative of the media device market, as most figures project Apple’s dominance over the mobile media device market stretching to somewhere around 70 percent. But this isn’t because of a lack of competitors.

Ever since Apple unveiled the technology behind the iPhone, competitors have been springing similar products on what felt like a monopolized media device market. And just because Apple had such a head start does not mean it should remain as pervasive as it is.

The Zune provides the best and most worthwhile comparison, as we can all assume Microsoft has the most money to throw at a potential iPod competitor. With three years already under its belt as a portable media device—the whole social network and multiplatform connectivity aspect of the brand name does not appear to have taken off—Zune has refined and diversified its line to fully compete with Apple’s line of iPods, but even this comparison isn’t entirely fair.

The classic iPod finds itself in a league of its own nowadays. Every competitor attempts to match the video, picture and user-friendly wide-screen capabilities of the iPod Touch. This leaves it in an exclusive position when it comes to the technical aspects. Longer battery life, larger capacity and more accommodation for different formats of music and video files are the most convenient and significant benefits.

If you’re looking for a device to organize and play your music, the only option is the iPod Classic.

However, most people in the market for media devices are not going to be interested in this niche market item. Audio/video capable smartphones from within the same market are taking over mainstream audio player demand as capabilities like Wi-Fi connectivity and multi-

platform Internet browsing become everyday luxuries for some. Here is where the real comparison comes into play: the iPod Touch versus the Zune. So let’s run down some stats.

The Zune capitalizes on the iPod Touch’s inability to play the radio, and it also allows you to see what song each station is playing for easier sifting. On the other hand, few people use the radio unless they’re listening to a friend’s WSUM broadcast anyway, in which case they don’t need to know any more information than 91.7 FM. The radio capabilities are a nice add-on for the Zune, but they shouldn’t really be a factor when deciding unless you are a very casual music fan. So on to the basics.

Any differences in battery life are negligible between the two, and overall, battery life is becoming less of a concern. A slightly nicer screen on the Touch makes up for the slightly lesser maximum capacity it carries, but where the real important differences come is from the basics: size and price.

Zune offers the widest variety of sizes: four, eight, 16, 80 and 120 GBs, with prices ranging from $81.99 to $249.99. This makes it much more accommodating than the iPod, which employs the onesize-fits-all mentality on their latest 160 GB iPod Classic, and Touches are only offered with 8, 32 and 64 GB, with only the 8 GB model being cheaper than the Classic model. So as far as Apple goes, unless you’re not interested in holding your entire library or you’re willing to skirt the extra skrilla, Touches are out of the question.

But the bottom line regarding price is already obvious and wellknown: Apple is pricier.

As much as one can try to delve into the specifics of the comparison, price will always provide the basis of any argument. Apple will always provide smooth, intuitive, user-friendly products at a higher price, while competitors will grasp at the iPod’s slick image but cut corners to offer it at a lower price.

Putting aside Apple’s dominance over the market and resulting convenience for users, Apple products’ bang have still always been worth the extra buck.

technology

dailycardinal.com

Monday, November 23, 2009

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TV on the Internet: What about terrible TV movies?

By Anthony Cefali The Daily Cardinal

Graphic by jenny peek/the daily cardinal

Fantasy sports ‘fans’ love numbers, not the sport behind them

By Scott Kellogg The Daily Cardinal

A few Sundays ago I was at State Street Brats, where I usually am on Sundays, watching a Jets game. The Jets played an early game, and the anticipated Packers-Vikings clash with Brett Favre returning to Lambeau Field was at 3:00, so as the Jets game wound down, Packers and Vikings fan began to file into Brats for the big showdown.

My focus was still on the Jets game, but there was someone right in front of me wearing a Vikes jersey. I saw him look over to his left across the room and start cheering, so I looked over, and it was Devin Hester running for a big gain.

I thought, “Why is this Minnesota fan passionately cheering for a player on a divisional rival?” Of course, after the run I hear the obligatory “he’s on my fantasy team!”

Fantasy sports offer a lot of positives: They allow fans to use and showcase their sports knowledge, bring meaning to games which previously had little importance and provide competition among friends.

However, they also bring forth annoying moments such as that one.

It’s irritating enough when watching sports to hear someone brag about how he has Reggie Wayne on their team when he catches a touchdown against the Jaguars, or announce he owns the Cowboys’ defense when Dallas is beating up on the Redskins.

But the most bothersome part of fantasy sports, is how these supposed fans of their teams suddenly root for players on rivaling squads, and even

players actually playing against their team.

How many times have you hear something like, “The Packers are playing the Colts and I have Peyton Manning on my fantasy team, so it’s a winwin situation.”

An argument against this could be that fantasy is still good for sports because it garners interest from people who were formerly not concerned with sports.

I know firsthand from my roommate two years ago, however, that this is not necessarily always the case.

Every Sunday I had to listen to this “Bears fan” cheer for Ryan Grant because he was on my roommate’s fantasy team.

This guy got really into the league, did his research and had some success, but it was not based at all on appreciation of the sport.

The next year he did not play fantasy football and went back to showing very little interest in the NFL. So while it may be argued fantasy sports attract a new type of fan base to their sports, it should be noted most of that interest isn’t purely directed at the sport itself, and it’s largely temporary.

I’m not completely against fantasy sports—I’ve played in my share of leagues.

I’m not in a fantasy league at the moment, but I was in a pretty competitive baseball league last season.

I enjoy participating in leagues, but it’s just getting too annoying to witness fans compromising support for their teams in the name of fantasy sports.

The most formative moment of my life came at the age of nine years old. My family had just moved to a different town, and I had come down with a heinous ear infection. The infection caused me to lose my hearing in one ear, and I had to stay home from school for two weeks.

One of the perks of the situation was being able to watch cable since the people who lived in the house before us did not shut it off.

And since I had never had cable in the past, boy did I take advantage of it. Before, I only enjoyed quality television in the form of Saturday morning cartoons—now, every day was Saturday!

Who knew there were entire networks dedicated to shows with seizure-inducing color pallets and glockenspiel melodies?

And the channel surfing! Who knew there were so many channels? I sure didn’t. It was in this process that I first saw Weird Al Yankovic’s almost-parody of his own life, “UHF.” As a film, “UHF” is a lot of things—good not being one of those things—and films of this quality dominate cable TV during daytime hours. But it holds a special place in my heart as a film that

seemed to be only broadcast for me—I mean who else would be watching cable TV at 11 a.m. on a Wednesday? This trend of watching graveyard comedies continued on throughout the years whenever I got sick at school and during the summer when it was too hot or rainy to play outside. Because of this, I am now well versed in all of Pauly Shore’s films (“Encino Man” is my favorite because I feel that Pauly Shore was actually playing himself in the film), “Police Academy 1-6,” and “Big Trouble in Little China.”

Now I sit in front of my computer quite some time later watching as this integral part of American culture gets replaced by our ability to watch anything we want whenever we want.

Sure, Hulu and TiVo help to make TV watching convenient for us by eliminating the scheduling component as well as most commercials, but they are ignoring the ethical side of their progress.

The DVR revolution is inadvertently ruining our collective popculture memory by eliminating the spontaneous beauty of daytime movie reruns. It is rendering actors like Steve Guttenberg and Daniel Baldwin obsolete, and erasing them from our memory.

No one ever really wanted to pay

money to watch “Teen Wolf Too,” but we would watch it provided that there are limited commercial interruptions and we find ourselves unemployed in the future.

We grew up watching these movies. These are movies that we quote now and laugh about for being ridiculous wastes of our time, but they are useful exercises in pop-culture awareness. “UHF” actually turned up in a trivia competition I played in. One of my current friendships is based on the fact that both my friend and I felt that Tom Hanks played his best role in “Bachelor Party.” Just think of all the connections that will never be made without any of the “Beverly Hills Cop” films because of Hulu. We also start to forget things like even though Jason Alexander made us laugh as George Costanza, he also made us cry in pain as Robert Grant in “Dunston Checks In.” Again, this is our technological dilemma—is all of this progress really worth it? Is it worth losing films like “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure” and “Repo Man” because there are other things of quality on TV and the Internet that we can actually record?

Frankly, I say as human beings, we are better off without Ernest occupying any space on the boob tube.

Looking for a place to live next year?

Look no further! dailycardinal.com/apartments

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technology

Monday, November 23, 2009

dailycardinal.com

technology

Don’t cross the streams

ISABEL ÁLVAREZ/the daily cardinal

Students are turning to websites like Hulu or Megavideo in pursuit of their favorite shows’ latest episodes.

By Mark Riechers The Daily Cardinal

New episodes can show up on the web anywhere from a day to a week after the episode airs.

The streams aren’t HD, but they are definitely sharper than a lot of videos around the web.

Hulu also has the most streamlined ad structure, with simple 15 and 30-second ad breaks during episodes. Hulu even has a desktop application with a remote-friendly interface so you can control shows from across the room.

A close second is the official

CBS web site, which also has surprisingly simplified streaming episodes, though not every show is available for streaming (no Big Bang Theory, boo!)

Adultswim.com features a selection of complete episodes and a huge clip library with minimal commercial breaks. ABC.com comes in dead last among the big players for having ads that need to be clicked through to move back to the show, making watching across the room a pain.

There are strict limitations in place to keep you watching regular broadcasts—for one, only a certain number of new episodes are available at any given time.

Hulu recently changed its policy to only allow five complete episodes of many shows online at once. New episodes can show up on the web anywhere from a day to a week after the episode airs.

Hulu may even start charging viewers in 2010.

These are the forces that drive many viewers across the

A round-up of legal and quasi-legal TV streaming websites tracks to the seedier part of the Internet for their TV. In case the Hungarian subtitles on that episode of “Weeds” weren’t your clue, not all of these sites are 100 percent on the straight and narrow when it comes to copyrighted material. Obviously, that doesn’t stop sites from linking to pirated content available for free streaming.

There are numerous sites that compile these streams in one place to make it easier to find the show you’re looking for—Sidereel and SurfTheChannel being two of the more comprehensive search engines. They link to legit sources like Hulu when they exist, but the streams of “Dexter” and other premium cable channels generally come from under the trenchcoat of the Internet.

The “safe harbor” provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act provide some murky protection for sites like these from legal consequences stemming from the actions of the site users, i.e. the bootleggers they link to. We’ll see how long this shaky defense holds—online media is a growing business, and the major players aren’t going to idly watch these sites move in on their market illegally.

Other premium cable channels generally come from under the trenchcoat of the Internet.

availability of a back catalogue.

Megavideo is even designed a lot like Hulu. However, they aren’t completely without costs—Megavideo requires paid subscription for more than 72 minutes of use, and Ninjavideo doesn’t work without installing helper software or asking for your name and e-mail.

The options for TV streaming sites have exploded, but we’ll help you sort through the pile.

There’s no such thing as a free lunch, and if you’re willing to put up with these quirks to see “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” the day after it airs, godspeed.

TV streaming sites will always have a place for those who need to waste 20 minutes at work or catch the most recent episode of their favorite shows. But, given the limitations of both legit and illicit sources of streaming TV, the idea that your computer could completely replace your TV any time soon is still up for debate.

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It’s hard to deny the impact that ubiquitous TV streaming has had on how the students watche their shows of choice. Stroll through the aisles of the College Library computers in the labs and you’ll see two or three people catching up on “The Office” over lunch (or a Spanish midterm, for that matter). The options for TV streaming sites have exploded, but we’ll help you sort through the pile and try not to land you in jail in the process.

First off, the recommendation here is that if it’s available on an official streaming source, use it.

Obviously, these sites don’t have the dubious legality of sites like Megavideo and Ninjavideo that we’ll get into later. What’s more, generally the quality is significantly higher, because it doesn’t have to be beamed in from an underground bomb shelter in former Soviet territory.

As far as major streaming

sites are concerned, Hulu pretty much reigns supreme, with fresh content from NBC, ABC and Fox headlining a catalogue of thousands of shows from past and present.

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Visit Generally the streams themselves will get the axe as soon as a commercial watchdog comes across them. That’s why many underground streaming sources aren’t up for long, as they are taken down after copyright infringement notices appear.

Megavideo and Ninjavideo seem to lead the pack when it comes to quality bootleg episodes, immediacy of posts and

dailycardinal.com

for more information about safe, legal Internet TV streaming

Bluwazzat? A student’s guide to DVD and Blu-ray this holiday season

By Mark Riechers The Daily Cardinal

Everyone remembers their first. It wasn’t always very good, but you still put it in more than a couple of times. But most while most of our DVD collections have grown exponentially since that first single-disc release of “Cheaper by the Dozen,” Bluray remains a relatively unknown medium among the Rameneating masses here on campus.

But with tumbling prices and another Black Friday of HD deals looming, now might be the time for an HD deflowering.

First, have no illusions: you need an HDTV to play Blu-ray discs. Blu-ray video is essentially indistinguishable from DVD on your parent’s old 27-inch TV. Sparing the technical details, just go with a 1080p HDTV if you’re buying new, it offers the maximum resolution that Blu-ray discs can afford. If you’re stealing a TV from some relative who’s elected to upgrade, just make sure that it can display at least 720p or 1080ip video so you can see most of the difference Blu-ray gives to picture quality.

There are a lot of options in

terms of Blu-ray players out there, and each has slightly different sets of features. Sony’s Playstation 3 remains one of the best players on the market at $300. However, Panasonic and LG have a few players with the basic features you’ll need like BD 2.0 compatibility and NetFlix Instant streaming for under $200, probably less this week if you check the ads.

Picture isn’t the only thing you should be looking for in future Blu-ray purchases.

Once you’ve got all your gear squared away, you won’t just want to grab any old film for your first purchase. This will be what’s called your “presentation” disc by videophiles, the movie you’ll show off to Mom and Dad when they ask where all your money has been going this semester.

Generally, big-budget blockbusters tend to make better reference material. “Star Trek” and “The

Dark Knight” are great examples– rich—color and detail, full use of the surround-sound channels and an enormous boost in clarity of that creepy Joker makeup.

Not all blockbusters look so hot though—the increase in visual fidelity can expose flaws in effects that weren’t as apparent in theaters. The Blu-ray release of “Pirates of the Carribean: The Curse of the Black Pearl” looks a little off during the scenes aboard the Pearl when the crew are revealed in their skeleton forms—these CGI scenes tend to stick out from the rest of the film, making for a more unsettling experience through the uncanny valley (human-like images that look realistic but not photo-real) that the theatrical release didn’t subject audiences to.

Picture isn’t the only thing you should be looking for in future Blu-ray purchases—like DVD before it, Blu-ray allows for an unprecedented number of special features on the disc, and a good Blu-ray makes good use of the format by offering collectors great extras along with the film.

This includes the usual makingof features, but now can include

much more expansive web-based features as well—for instance, on December 12, Warner Brothers will offer a world-wide community screening of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” hosted by director David Yates and actor Daniel Radcliffe through the Blu-ray release of the film.

Not all blockbusters look so hot though—the increase in visual fidelity can expose flaws in the effects.

Special features don’t have to be much to add value to the experience—the picture of “Juno” is fine, nothing to type a Facebook status about, but what really makes watching “Juno” on Blu-ray great are the menus.

The animated style from the film’s opening is borrowed in a hand-drawn animated menu system, complete with drop-down options for special features and scene selection that makes for a quirky package that taps into the

spirit of the film.

You can find some great values out there if you know what to look for in high-value Blu-ray purchases. Grab TV box sets on Blu-ray—dollar for dollar, you always get more entertainment out of the hours of episodes available in these collector’s sets.

And since most shows today are shot and produced in HD, they don’t have the variability in picture quality that many film Bluray releases can have.

Also be sure to pick up DisneyPixar combo releases–these fourdisc editions of “Up,” “Monsters, Inc.” and others include a Bluray disc, a disc of special features, a DVD copy and a digital copy of the film, to make sure you can watch on every device that you own.

Blu-ray is a bit more complicated than DVD, but the end result will be well-worth the effort. You may even get all weepy and nostalgic for that old “Air Bud” DVD you used to watch every afternoon. Stick to these tips and you should end up watching something a little more tasteful than “Tomb Raider” this time around.

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Gobble Gobble. Benjamin Franklin wanted to make the wild turkey, not the bald eagle, the national bird of the United States. dailycardinal.com/comics

Monday, November 23, 2009

Today’s Sudoku

Catching a wild turkey

Evil Bird

By Caitlin Kirihara kirihara@wisc.edu

© Puzzles by Pappocom

Angel Hair Pasta Classic

By Todd Stevens ststevens@wisc.edu

Solution, tips and computer program available at www.sudoku.com.

Fill in the grid so that every row, every column and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 through 9.

Sid and Phil Classic

By Alex Lewein alex@sidandphil.com

The Graph Giraffe

By Yosef Lerner ilerner@wisc.edu

Charlie and Boomer

By Natasha Soglin soglin@wisc.edu

Today’s Crossword Puzzle

Answer key available at www.dailycardinal.com

Measure Up ACROSS 1 Bagpiper’s garb 5 ___ ‘til you drop 9 Airy courts 14 Nosh from Nabisco 15 Warsaw Pact nation 16 Dieter’s downers 17 Make a maxi a mini 20 Like some computer help 21 “C’mon, be ___” 22 Vegan staple 23 A crack investigator?

25 Go up the creek without a paddle?

27 “See-saw, Margery ___” 30 Jalopy 32 Street sense 36 “Woe is me” 38 Bad, as a prognosis 40 Aleut relative 41 Builder’s find 44 Wagner specialty 45 Neither nuts nor crackers 46 Bollywood drape?

47 Bubba Gump offering 49 Barnyard creatures 51 Cause of some flashbacks 52 Not once, to a poet 54 Amusement park shout

6 “Bleak House” girl 5 59 Palindromic act 61 Brightly shining 65 Shout to a DJ 68 Pear-shaped fiddle 69 Move hither and thither 70 Flower of one’s eye?

71 Warehouse supply 72 “The Virginian” author Wister 73 Part of many fast-food meals DOWN 1 Thirteen-stringed Japanese zither 2 Persia, now 3 Albanian coins 4 Front-wheel adjustment 5 Division of the psyche 6 Thirty-third president’s monogram 7 Org. concerned with working conditions 8 Attends Exeter, e.g.

9 Little League rules item 10 Sunbather’s goal 11 Arranges a prize fight?

12 Crazy about 13 Like a post-eruption landscape 18 Last state admitted in the 1800s

19 Constitution’s composition 24 Bellyaches 26 Supernatural life forces 27 Carpenter’s grooves 28 Hebrew alphabet start 29 Show uncertainty 31 Arizona Native Americans 33 Like the boonies 34 Amphitheater features 35 Opposite of wild 37 Canary’s relative 39 “Can you hear ___?”

42 Politician with limited power 43 Yale’s home 48 Bit of fowl language 50 Lily with an edible root 53 Old- fashioned 55 Upper New York Bay island 56 Auto loan figs.

57 “Up Where We Belong,” for one 58 Early Christian pulpit 60 Arab boat 62 Continental currency 63 Encircled by 64 Arizona city 66 Muscle used in pushups 67 Victim of temptation

Washington and the Bear

By Derek Sandberg kalarooka@gmail.com

technology

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Monday, November 23, 2009

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Reliable tech gifts for (or from) students Not every technology-related gift is a knockout, so here are some practical buys for the humble shopper

By Justin Stephani The Daily Cardinal

The DoIT tech store is one of the few small tech shops near campus, and if you wander away, you’ll be forced into a Best Buy or Borders where you’re just another face in the crowd of customers. DoIT, however, is designated to help students get what they need to stay technologically savvy. It is refreshing to visit a store where you are given an identity as a customer, but what about its ability to offer their demographic the best deals in town?

With that in mind, we scoured the store for the most agreeable, practical gifts for college students, or at least whatever was cheap enough for them to let us try out.

The grab bag included two laptop cases, two pairs of tech-savvy gloves and a pair of earbud headphones. All are reasonably priced and cool enough for the average student, and most represent safe choices for parents needing a couple of extra items.

Bucky prominently resides on one of the cases and the other features a cooling system, while the gloves help iPod touch and iPhone users in dealing with touch screens in the winter.

Laptop Accessories School-spirited Badger gear is an ideal gift, but everybody goes through that gift phase upon being accepted, so nobody’s

so you can’t argue with its ability to serve its purpose.

The second accessory is a much more interesting gimmick: a cooling pad. To prevent overheating, this pad is packed with

fingertips for the thumb and index fingers, it is not worth it. The tips of the fingers for the thumb and index can be drawn back and magnetically held out of the way when sifting through touch screen menus.

“organic crystals” that “dissipate heat faster than alternative products,” according to its packaging. As humourously serious as the packaging takes its product, this is actually practical and could help frequent onthe-go laptop users, but even if this does help you, you’re not going to get the excitement of knowing exactly when and where you’re getting this not-so-superficial benefit, so there goes the thrill of the gift.

Overall, any case or precautionary measure to protect your livelihood as a student is a good idea when the lives of laptops are short enough to probably need a replacement within a short four- or five-year undergrad career. But for Christmas, gifts like this are the technological equivalent to socks: A nice covering keeping things an appropriate temperature, but occupying the gray space between a ‘need’ and a ‘want’ leaves something to be desired under the tree.

But if you want to use this fingertip feature, you need to work at getting the fingertips exposed, which in itself involves exposed fingers. Aside from this being counterproductive, once the thumb and index are in full effect and guiding your multi-media pursuits, it is even more detrimental to the warm-and-fuzzy you should be looking for out of a glove.

The second pair makes up for these flaws by using conductive material on the fingertips of the index and thumb fingers to allow the same capabilities without the fidgeting. They are not stylish in any way, and the gold finger tips make them quite dorky. Nonetheless, they are effective and worth the $20 price tag if your iPhone is your best friend.

Tech-savvy gloves

wetting their pants over a computer or iPod case with Bucky adorning it.

That said, the material is soft, solid and reassuring as any mid-grade case should be,

What isn’t an obvious catch, however, are gloves allowing you to use touch screens on the way to class when it becomes too cold to bare even the littlest bit of skin to the harsh wind.

Both gloves are made by Freehands, but in the case of the pair sporting hatchback

Headphones The most exciting piece of equipment in our grab bag of goodies was easily the pair of Skullcandy headphones. These earbuds seal out white noise and lock in the music’s freshness like a Ziplock bag.

When trying out new speakers or headphones, the first sound to turn to is the bass. With these headphones, though, the bass naturally grabs your attention.

Whether you want the crisp bass of Radiohead’s “Idioteque” or the deep southern rumblings of Outkast’s “The Way You Move,” Skullcandy impresses.

The starkest contrast between standard sound-proofing earbuds and these is the fullness of the sound. Enhanced bass provides obvious benefits, but if you have

used generic headphones long enough, or switch back and forth between generic and better quality headphones, you can easily perceive an added depth to the sound that will not be lost on music fans.

The spectrum of sound in Skullcandy earbuds swirls through the depths of whatever is flowing through them, as opposed to the underwhelming 2-D wall of sound most earbuds produce.

Drawbacks? The cord is stiff, which means if you twist or wrap it around your player a lot, it will be consistently kinked.

Still, it’s a very reasonable price to pay for the difference in sound and it’s not the end of the world to have to throw a meager $10 at a pair of replacements.

These headphones represent the opposite end of the spectrum compared to the first four items discussed. While they are the safe, standard gift choices that will never manage to impress nor really disappoint, the headphones stand for the gift you never see coming, but inexplicably prove to be exactly what you were hoping for.

Overall, though nobody should complain about getting any of these gifts for their base level of practicality, something that often gets lost in the blind excitement and innocent materialism of Christmas morning. In the long run these gifts will prove more useful than that batterypowered, remote control helicopter that breaks by New Year’s, though we all know they will never be as entertaining.

Finding Black Friday prices for bargain buyers while avoiding the mayhem

By Zach Zaban The Daily Cardinal

Like most college students, my budget for gifts is small. So naturally, I want to milk each penny out of my purchases. Luckily, the UW-Madison campus and the Internet have great resources to buying meaningful tech gifts on a small budget.

Amazon.com’s top electronic purchases include MP3 players, digital cameras, headphones, GPS Navigators and USB drives.

I found alternatives to these items that bring the same holiday cheer without a burning hole in my wallet.

The eight-gigabyte iPod touch costs $199 at the DoIT store.

With access to countless applica-

tions, the ability to access the Internet with a Wi-Fi connection and house 1,750 songs, the iPod touch is bound to make someone light up with a smile. If you want to give an MP3 player but don’t have $200 to spare, look at the iPod shuffle.

This item is great for taking on weekend trips, walking to class or wearing while you work out. The best feature of the iPod shuffle, however, is its price: $59 from the DoIT Store.

I am a big fan of Canon digital cameras because of their performance and picture quality. Sam’s Club sells the Canon PowerShot A1100 for $119.

An entry-level camera, the A1100, is perfect for captur-

ing your friends’ crazy shenanigans for Facebook or e-mails.

If you are going abroad and need a camera with more power, I recommend the PowerShot SD1200, available for $175 on Amazon.com.

If you are like me and do not want to pay full price for gifts, use social media to find ridiculous sales around your area.

As for headphones, I personally cannot afford a $200 pair of

Dr. Dre’s Monster Beats headphones. An alternative that costs much less but still brings great sound is a pair of Skullcandy INK’D earbuds. You can pick up a pair of these headphones from the DoIT Tech Store for $9.95.

I purchased a pair of Skullcandy Earbuds last year and like them because they are durable and deliver great sound quality at a low price.

If you are like me and do not want to pay full price for gifts, I’ll let you in on a little secret: use social media to find ridiculous sales around your area.

I searched #blackfriday on Twitter the other night and discovered Black Friday discounts on TVs, DVD players, GPS navi-

gation systems, printers, computer items and clothes. Amazon. com also uses Twitter and updates the followers of “amazondeals” on popular discounted items.

Some Internet sites even let you see future holiday discounts.

Blackfriday.info gives you access to holiday advertisements for stores like Target, Best Buy, CompUSA, RadioShack and Walmart.

The bottom line is if you find a perfect gift but cannot afford it, stores across the nation have alternatives that will make your friend, significant other or mother happy. You could also give a tech gift that is free but will undoubtedly impact the lives of others: a simple, sincere e-mail or Facebook message.

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sports

Monday, November 23, 2009

dailycardinal.com/sports

Women’s Hockey

Badgers leave points on the board once again at SCS

By Nico Savidge THE DAILY CARDINAL

For five of the Wisconsin women’s hockey team’s first six series, there was a troubling trend the Badgers tried to stop. With the exception of their sweep over Minnesota, the Badgers have lost or tied their opponent in the first game of the series only to come back and take a victory in the second.

Against St. Cloud State this weekend, however, the Badgers broke that trend, but probably not in the way head coach Tracey DeKeyser would have liked.

Wisconsin took a 2-1 road victory over the Huskies Friday, but fell in the second game 4-2, breaking their first-game loss trend but notching their sixth split series of the season.

The Badger penalty kill was a key to victory in the first game, holding St. Cloud State scoreless on six power plays, including a pair of 5-on-3 advantages in the first period. Freshman goaltender Becca Ruegsegger started both games for Wisconsin and

recap from page 16 us in the second half.”

Sophomore defensive lineman J.J. Watt traced Saturday’s loss back to the defense’s struggles.

“We need to create turnovers, we need to stop the run, we need to stop the pass, we need to get sacks, and we really didn’t do any of those things today,” Watt said. “And that’s not going to win you a football game in the Big Ten.” Despite those issues, Wisconsin had two chances in the last 3:43 of the fourth quarter to take the lead and the victory, but a pair of turnovers led to

analysis from page 16 By halftime, NU receivers already had six gains of 20 or more yards.

“They’re going to dink and dunk you, and then they’re going to speed you up, and then they’re going to throw a shot on you deep when you’re not expecting it. So yeah, they’re really effective,” senior safety Chris Maragos said. “They made plays and we didn’t, that’s really what it boils down to.”

Several players even went as far as to guess that Mike Hankwitz, who coached at Wisconsin two

recorded 29 saves Friday to secure the Badgers’ narrow lead.

After being held scoreless through the first period, Wisconsin struck just 1:12 into the second period when sophomore forward Brooke Ammerman scored on a rebound. Ammerman, the Badgers’ leading scorer, added another goal Saturday, meaning she now has scored a point in every game since Wisconsin’s shutout loss to North Dakota in the season opener.

Freshman forward Breann Frykas scored the Badgers’ game-winning goal on a rebound from sophomore forward Carolyne Prevost in the third period.

DeKeyser said she was proud of the team for getting its second win in a series’ opening game.

“That’s a huge accomplishment for our team,” she said. “I know that we have been close many times, but it was rewarding to get the win and I felt confident with our abilities and the scoring chances we had.”

The next day, however, the

Badger defense was less stellar.

Ammerman’s second goal of the weekend gave Wisconsin an early 1-0 lead with a top-shelf shot. After St. Cloud State tied the game at one with a power-play goal later in the period, Prevost stayed in front of three pursuing Huskies on a breakaway to score a shorthanded goal for another 2-1 lead.

But three unanswered St. Cloud State goals, including another on the power play, ended the Badgers’ hopes for a sweep and handed the Huskies a 4-2 win.

While St. Cloud State was 2for-8 on their power-play chances, Wisconsin ended the weekend 0-for7, continuing the Badgers’ inability to convert while on the one-player advantage. So far this year, Wisconsin is 5-for-59 on the power play.

The Badgers must now recover from the loss and prepare to face out-of-conference opponent Providence Nov. 27 and 28 on the road.

—uwbadgers.com contributed to this report.

the close loss.

The Badgers moved the ball well down the field on their first late drive, benefiting from a third-down pass-interference call against Northwestern. However, a Clay fumble on the next third down handed the ball back to the Wildcats. Although it looked like Clay never got far enough to convert the 3rd and 1, the fumble made it a moot point and put the pressure on Wisconsin’s defense.

The Badgers held Northwestern to a three-and-out, preserving the clock but costing Wisconsin the last of its timeouts. Tolzien’s interception

ended the Badgers’ last drive, leaving the quarterback to reflect on the missed opportunities.

“That’s the tough part about it— we have been good in those situations,” he said. “But you’re only as good as your last play and you’re only as good as your next play.”

Bielema said the loss took a big toll on Wisconsin’s morale and that the team needs this next weekend to recover before facing Hawaii on the road Dec. 5.

“I’m glad that we have a bye week, because it’ll take some time to heal the wounds with these guys,” Bielema said.

years ago and now serves as defensive coordinator for Northwestern, may have played a role in preparing the Wildcat offense. They said the receivers seemed to have some inside knowledge before plays even started.

“It was crazy, they [were] calling out, names of our coverages ...

They knew the signals and everything,” senior linebacker Jaevery McFadden said.

Hankwitz’s unit also had a strong day, especially in terms of shutting down the Badgers’ vaunted rushing attack that entered the weekend at the top of the Big Ten. Sophomore

running back John Clay got his 100 yards but needed 23 carries to get it, and fumbled on a late Wisconsin drive.

A key factor was the way Northwestern looked to cut the legs from under the pulling offensive linemen, creating piles that UW runners were forced to navigate around.

“I had to adjust better and maybe try to get under it, but they were coming down, hard cut, and it creates a pile,” junior guard John Moffitt said, adding the tactic was probably a specific adjustment made just against the Badgers. “I think we kind of strayed away from our gap concept plays and stuck more with our zones and things like that.”

Junior tackle Jake Bscherer noted that pulling linemen to lead block is one of the keys to Wisconsin’s usually prolific rushing scheme. The Badgers entered the game averaging 208 rushing yards but were held to under half that Saturday.

The problems on the ground were especially apparent in the first half, during which Wisconsin only managed 23 yards while falling behind by 13 points.

“We were running up on the back of guys, and obviously we have to get a clean read and clean progression from the hand off to the read, and we weren’t doing that,” Bielema said. “We made some adjustments. I’d thought we would come back and be able to run the ball in the second half, but we weren’t able to.”

Need to Know Wisconsin Badgers

0 14 10 7

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Northwestern Wildcats 10 17 3 3

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John Clay: 100 yards, 23 carries. Garrett Graham: 6 catches, 98 yards, 2 TD. Mike Kafka (NU): 26-40, 326 yards, 2 TD. Mike Kafka and the Northwestern passing attack embarassed the Wisconsin defense, racking up 437 total yards while the Badger offense struggled to respond. Two late turnovers killed Wisconsin’s try at a comeback, dooming them to another loss in Evanston.

Quote of the Game: “We need to create turnovers, we need to stop the run, we need to stop the pass, we need to get sacks and we really didn’t do any of those things today.”

J.J. Watt

DANNY MARCHEWKA/CARDINAL FILE PHOTO

Sophomore forward Brooke Ammerman hit the back of the net two times this weekend, but it was not enough to sweep the Huskies.

st. cloud from page 16 freshman Craig Smith received a five-minute major penalty for checking an opponent into the boards from behind.

However, the Badgers responded well, killing off the major and, when it was all said and done, killing off nine straight minutes of SCSU power play. With the

Upcoming Schedule 11/27 - at Michigan St. 11/28 - at Michigan 12/4 - Michigan Tech 12/5 - Michigan Tech 12/11 - at North Dakota 12/12 - at North Dakota 1/2 - Merrimack* 1/3 - Ferris St./Yale* 1/15 - at Colorado C. 1/16 - at Colorado C. 1/22 - Denver * Badger Showdown

soccer from page 16 of Wisconsin’s net. BC freshman forward Victoria DiMartino drew a foul from Wisconsin junior defender Taryn Francel after the two collided, which set up an Eagle free-kick opportunity about 22 yards from the goal. Boston College junior forward Brooke Knowlton placed the ball out of Dalton’s reach in the upper corner of the net for the game-winner.

Wisconsin could not respond to BC’s goal and produced only two shots on net during the entire match. Its other opportunities came off freshman defender Lindsey Johnson’s trademark flip throw-ins that were placed directly in the box, but no Badger was in the right spot to put the ball away.

Despite the loss, head coach Paula Wilkins was happy with the progress the team made this year and tipped her hat to BC. “I’m disappointed with the loss, but I am extremely proud of my players and how far they have come this season,” Wilkins

momentum soundly in UW’s favor, senior forward John Mitchell put the Badgers ahead for good with his second goal of the season.

The goal came with 5:09 remaining in the second period.

Sophomore forward Jordy Murray and junior forward Patrick Johnson converted on third period scoring opportunities to round out the scoring on a night in which the Badgers racked up 35 penalty minutes on 12 penalties. In conjunction with the defensive effort, junior goaltender Scott Gudmandson registered 18 saves to improve his record to 3-1-1 on the year.

The Badgers (5-4-1, 7-4-1 WCHA) take a weekend away from WCHA play next weekend and tour Michigan. Wisconsin stops in East Lansing for a 6 p.m. matchup with Michigan State before closing out the weekend in Ann Arbor Saturday night. The puck drops at 6:30 p.m. against the Wolverines.

—uwbadgers.com contributed to this report. said. “I think that Boston College is a very good team with some great players that can attack 1 v 1. They are very dynamic and obviously caused some problems, and you can understand why they won the ACC.” With such a radical turnaround from last year’s 10th-place Big Ten finish and so much young talent on the team, one cannot help but look to next season and wonder what the Badgers can achieve.

Wilkins hopes her squad can build on this year and acknowledged there may be more expectations of next year’s Badgers.

“I hope [we can build on this year],” Wilkins said.

“I think that having this much success pretty fast will put a little bit more pressure on them.

I think, again, we go back and say ‘we need to get better every game’ and next year, you know, we’ll have a whole different team, and so we’re just trying to try and build on this year.”

—uwbadgers.com contributed to their report.

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Monday, November 23, 2009

Football

Wisconsin drops out of polls after defeat to NU RECAP

Wisconsin’s errors too much to break losing streak at Ryan Field

By Nico Savidge THE DAILY CARDINAL

EVANSTON, Ill.—With 42 seconds to go in Wisconsin’s game against Northwestern, the Badgers took possession at their own 20. Despite trailing 33-31 when the drive started, Wisconsin’s players were confident their team could mount a quick scoring drive and steal a win over the Wildcats despite a mistake-filled game.

On the first play of the drive, however, those hopes were dashed as junior quarterback Scott Tolzien’s long pass to junior wide receiver Isaac Anderson instead sailed into the hands of sophomore Northwestern cornerback Jordan Mabin. The Wildcats took a knee to kill the rest of the game, Northwestern’s students stormed the field and the Badgers suffered their third loss of the year.

“I guarantee you there wasn’t anybody on our sideline that didn’t think that we could win that football game with our offense taking the field,” head

coach Bret Bielema said.

Wisconsin, who was steadily climbing up the rankings with each victory, fell completely out of the AP Poll with the defeat.

For Tolzien, his performance in the dying minutes of the game stuck with him.

“Right now the thing in my mind is the last three drives, the last three passes that I threw: two incomplete [passes] and an interception,” he said.

“That’s crunch time, that’s where big players come up big, and we weren’t able to do that today.”

Wisconsin’s final plays were in no way the start of their issues against Northwestern. The Badger secondary struggled, allowing 248 passing yards through the first half and 364 total, while Northwestern’s defense frustrated sophomore running back John Clay.

Wildcat senior quarterback Mike Kafka had a great performance on Northwestern’s Senior Day, flying past the Wisconsin defense with quick throws for big gains. Senior linebacker Jaevery McFadden said the team’s weak first half, which gave the Wildcats a 2714 lead at the break, hurt the Badgers’ chances later in the game.

“That was probably the worst first half that we’ve played all year,” McFadden said. “We dug ourselves too deep of a hole to get out of, and it hurt recap page 14

ANALYSIS

Secondary no match for Kafka, Northwestern wide receivers

By Ben Breiner THE DAILY CARDINAL

EVANSTON, Ill.—To say the Badger secondary had been an issue all year would be an understatement.

Whether it was big plays by Fresno State, Iowa and Indiana or games against Minnesota and Michigan State that got just a hair too close after blown coverages, the defensive backfield has not had a banner year by any standard. And now that unit can add Northwestern as another troubling chapter.

“They did a good job of throwing and catching, that’s for sure,” Wisconsin head coach Bret Bielema said, noting how effective the Wildcats’ hurry-up offense was.

“Anytime you can get so many yards without any time coming off the clock, and they’re able to line back up and do it again, you could definitely see that our defensive

LORENZO ZEMELLA/THE DAILY CARDINAL

Sophomore cornerback Jordan Mabin picks off junior quarterback Scott Tolzien to squash a last-gasp comeback effort for UW. guys were on their heels,” he said.

The Wildcats’ senior quarterback Mike Kafka had his way with the Badger defense, spreading them vertically, horizontally and every which way to the tune of 326 yards, carrying Northwestern on a day when the running game was

simply stifled.

The Northwestern receivers spent most of the first half slicing past Wisconsin corners, safeties and linebackers, consistently finding the holes and seams in zone defenses. analysis page 14

Women’s Soccer

Men’s Hockey

Wisconsin wins one, drops one at St. Cloud State in weekend series

By Parker Gabriel THE DAILY CARDINAL

The Wisconsin men’s hockey team went on the road for only the second time this season and came home from St. Cloud with a series split for its efforts. The Badgers generated plenty of scoring opportunities Friday night but had trouble finishing and allowed two goals in the final minute of the

contest in a 4-1 loss. Then, led by its defense, Wisconsin rebounded Saturday night and handed the Huskies a 4-1 loss.

Friday night’s loss was not because of a lack of scoring chances for the No. 15 Badgers. In what has become a theme this season, the offense peppered freshman goalie Mike Lee with 39 shots.

Converting on those chances,

ISABEL ÁLVAREZ/CARDINAL FILE PHOTO

Senior forward John Mitchell scored the game-winning goal in game two to ensure UW would not leave St. Cloud pointless.

however, was the problem for the Wisconsin offense, particularly down the stretch.

The three-goal differential in Friday’s result is deceiving, as the two teams were locked in a battle for most of the night. Wisconsin had chances in the third period, trailing 2-1 for nearly the entire period. With 47 seconds left and junior UW goaltender Brett Bennett on the bench in favor of an extra attacker, St. Cloud put the game out of reach with an emptynet goal. The Huskies converted again seconds later, this time on a breakaway, to put the exclamation mark on the victory.

Senior forward and captain Blake Geoffrion accounted for the Badgers’ only goal of the night, scoring on a 4-on-3 power play midway through the first period.

Junior defenseman Brendan Smith registered his team-leading ninth assist on the play.

Saturday night Wisconsin responded with a spirited effort.

Smith opened the scoring just over five minutes into the game.

He tallied a power-play goal after his initial shot ricocheted off a defender’s skate.

After St. Cloud tied the contest later in the first period, the Badgers found themselves in trouble in the second period. Wisconsin’s penalty-kill unit had fought hard to fend off back-to-back penalties when st. cloud page 14

DANNY MARCHEWKA/CARDINAL FILE PHOTO

Head coach Paula Wilkins could not take her team past the Eagles and to the Elite Eight, but was still proud of her team.

Tournament run comes to an end with 1-0 loss to Eagles

By Jack Doyle THE DAILY CARDINAL

Looking for its first Elite Eight appearance since 1991, the Wisconsin women’s soccer team went into Chestnut, Mass. Friday night hoping to pull off an upset win over No. 7 Boston College.

But the Badgers did not contain the Eagles’ explosive offense and fell 1-0 at Newton Soccer Field.

Over the course of the game, the Badgers were outshot by a 21-

7 margin. Wisconsin junior goalkeeper Michele Dalton saved seven of the eight shots on goal, but the one she missed proved costly for the Badgers, who were incapable of generating enough offense to match BC. The Badgers held the Eagles scoreless for the entire first half, and it wasn’t until the 61st minute that BC finally hit the back soccer page 14