TheCompleteNovember23Digest

Page 1

NEWS

Conflicts in testimony

SPORTS

VIEWPOINTS

Men, women drop tilts. pg. 9

Writer discusses big girls’ status. pg. 11

Jaguars fall on hardwood

Glover case takes turn. pg. 3

Doing it for the big girls

estABLished in 1928

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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2010

VOL. 56, ISSUE 17

Students raise awareness

Salazar visit does not satisfy

by breanna paul

by cain burdeau tHe ASSOCiAted pReSS

diGeSt OpiNiONS editOR

As a part of National AIDS Awareness Month, the psychology department and the School of Social Work held an HIV/AIDS seminar, November 17 in the Royal Cotillion Ballroom of the Smith-Brown Memorial Union. Lacey Tillotson and Gloria Thompson, were in charge of putting the seminar together and each teaches an independent HIV class and Addictive Behavior Class respectively. Anniet Freeman and Edward Linden, students in both classes, are the class’ coordinators and liaisons. Each class performed research of informative topics. “All of the posters in the seminar were made by students in Dr. Tillotson’s HIV class,” Freeman said. “We are just trying to put out a lot of informative information to make our young people are aware of the situation,” Linden said. Freeman and Linden stressed that this seminar was a class effort. From 10a.m. until 2p.m., students were able to pick up information about HIV/ AIDS, including protection and prevention of the sexually transmitted disease that has heavily affected the African-

photo by leneka kelly/digest

Balloons were released in honor of those who have been affected by HiV/AidS. there were also displays and presentations about HiV/AidS awareness inside the Smith-Brown Memorial Union.

American community, especially African-American women. Deborah Thomas, a professor in the psychology department was excited to put on the seminar. She said that she was hoping for several hundred students to attend. “We are just glad to see some are coming because it’s increasing their awareness,” Thomas said. “Even though it’s required for some classes, they are picking up literature and the flyers and listening to the videos, so that’s increasing their awareness as well. It’s increasing the knowledge that they have to get more information about HIV/ AIDS,” she continued. Peer health educators, within the psychology department who helped facilitate the Seminar, informed students about safety and prevention on different

from Baton Rouge came to the seminar during free time in between classes. “I felt like it was smart decision to come, instead of not doing anything,” Bray said. “I learned that AIDS heavily affects AfricanAmerican women. I didn’t know that before.” Bray feels that seminars like these should be held on campus more often. The HIV virus turns into Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and causes severe damage to the infect person’s immune system; it can eventually lead to death. While students were able to pick up information on HIV/ AIDS related topics, there were videos of women speaking about the effect that the disease has had on their life. There was also a balloon launch in honor of those affected by the disease in the courtyard of the Union at 12 noon.

topics that affect college-age students. Some topics included drinking and driving, sex, abuse, drugs and violence. Outside the event, they also go to different classes to survey and research the students to get statistics on campus. “The peer health educators make the students aware of what’s going on as far as those topics go,” Thomas said. Senior Ja’Kahta Brown from Alexandria went to the seminar because as a requirement for classes. “We set up all the flyers and had to make gift bags,” Brown said. “I learned a lot about HIV/AIDS in my social work classes.” Throughout the seminar, students were able to pick up condoms and be tested for HIV/ AIDS, free and confidentially. Simone Bray, a freshman mass communications major

HOUMA—Oil and natural gas industry leaders and Louisiana elected officials expressed frustration Monday that a meeting with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar didn’t lead to more progress on easing restrictions on offshore drilling. Salazar traveled to Louisiana on Monday to meet with offshore oil and natural gas drillers who’ve cried foul over new rules put in place by the Obama administration for the Gulf of Mexico since the BP oil spill. “If the regulators want to sit around and figure out what rules and regulations to come up with, if they wait much longer they won’t have much industry to regulate,” said James W. Noe, the head of the Shallow Water Energy Security Coalition, an industry group pushing to get the Obama administration to speed up permitting. Salazar said he would continue working with the offshore drilling industry, but he stopped short of announcing any major breakthrough. “We recognize that we have some difficult issues to work through,” Salazar said after meeting with industry leaders at an offshore platform building yard in Houma, a city southwest of New Orleans with deep ties to oil and gas drilling.

Spill panel details goofs, hero in ending gusher by seth borenstein Ap SCieNCe WRiteR

WASHINGTON—A single picture from a cell phone camera may have saved the Gulf of Mexico from a few more weeks — if not months — of oil gushing from the BP well. A new study from the presidential oil spill commission

describes the behind-thescenes, excruciating tension and mistakes behind the threemonth effort to cap the busted well. More than anything the report pulled back the curtain on what happened during hectic times as 172 million gallons of oil gushed into the Gulf from April 20 to July 15. The 39-page report faulted

BP and the federal government for being unprepared for a well blowout, but then lauded them for scrambling for different fixes after the disaster. The report painted a picture of chaotic meetings described by outsiders as disorganized and by insiders as “akin to standing in a hurricane.” And it criticized BP’s constant underestimating of

how much was spilling, dooming some fixes and possibly delaying the ultimate capping of the well. Amid the messy meetings, came details about a lone scientist working from a cell phone photo who saved the day by convincing the government that a cap it considered removing was actually working as designed.

The cap that eventually stopped the oil from flowing was nearly pulled about a day after it was installed in midJuly because pressure readings looked so low that they indicated a leak elsewhere in the system. BP wanted the cap left in place See spill panel page 3

THE NEXT ISSUE OF THE DIGEST WILL BE TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 30. ISOLATED T-STORMS HIGH

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