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INSIDE
At 17, Eric Dingus nears pro electronica career.
SPORTS PAGE 6
UT students share reactions to shooting at Lone Star College. Legislator says concealed carry bill will remain unchanged. PAGE 5
TEXAN IN-DEPTH
Citing health benefits, group advocates pedestrian-friendly amenities in Austin. PAGE 5
By Alexa Ura
Stat Guy is back with a look at the most telling numbers of Texas’ disappointing basketball season. Only once has a Rick Barnes-led Longhorns team not won 20 games in a season. PAGE 6
LIFE & ARTS PAGE 8
Medical school budget projections released Administrators are taking the first steps to get a UTAustin medical school off the ground with estimates of first-year expenses for hiring and construction. Budget projections for the
new medical school, obtained by The Daily Texan through the Texas Public Information Act, show $1.2 million set aside for medical or surgery faculty salaries this year. The University announced plans to hire a dean in 2013 before hiring a teaching faculty. UT spokeswoman Tara
Doolittle said she was unable to confirm how much will be spent to hire faculty this year. “The April 2012 [budget projections] document is an estimate rather than an approved budget,” Doolittle said. “We and our partners are working very quickly to build a budget out and fine-tune
those estimates.” The projected budget also includes $47 million set aside for the construction of a research building, an educational and administrative building and a vivarium, which will be built near University Medical Center Brackenridge. The vivarium will house live animals
CITY
By Amanda Voeller
Science Scene explains how bicyles don’t need a human operator. At certain speeds they have a tendency to stay upright on their own. PAGE 10
DAN BRANCH “I anticipate introducing legislation to preserve the Top Ten Percent reforms ... if [UT’s raceinfluenced admissions] were to be struck down by the court, then all the Top Ten Percent reforms would fall and we would have chaos in 2014. PAGE 4
TODAY Blanton holds Restoration & Revelation tour 1:30-2:30 p.m. Masterful artistry, precise science and careful research come together in “Restoration and Revelation: Conserving the Suida-Manning Collection,” an in-depth, focused look at how museums care for and protect centuries-old works of art at the Blanton Museum of Art Have Coffee with Senator Kel Seliger The Tejas Club will host Texas State Senator Kel Seliger at their first Tejas Coffee of the semester. Join them from 8:45 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. at 2600 Rio Grande St for a discussion on higher education in our state.
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UT System approves plan for Cockrell replacement
LIFE&ARTS
Q-AND-A
maintained for research. Funds to establish a resident program are listed as $21.8 million for the first year. Doolittle said Steven Leslie, executive vice president and provost, and his office will oversee any funding that will go
SYSTEM
The Longhorns picked up commitment No. 15 on Wednesday. See why Rami Hammad chose the Longhorns and why his pledge creates momentum heading toward Signing Day. PAGE 6
Cult obsession Downton Abbey is off to another successful start in season three. PAGE 10
dailytexanonline.com
Not a typo: Longhorns lose by 38 points.
NEWS
SPORTS
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Pearce Murphy | Daily Texan Staff Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor signs a copy of her book, ‘My Beloved World,’ at BookPeople Wednesday evening. Sotomayor’s stop in Austin was one of many scheduled for her national book tour.
Her beloved justice Sonia Sotomayor visits Austin to promote memoir of childhood By Jordan Rudner People around the world watched U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor
administer the vice presidential oath of office to Joe Biden earlier this week, but UT students had the chance to see her in person when she visited Austin on Wednesday.
Sotomayor came to Austin to promote her new memoir, “My Beloved World,” in which she recounts a childhood spent dealing with Type 1 diabetes, material poverty and the early death of her alcoholic father. The book describes how she overcame that adversity to become a judge. The justice made stops
at KLRU’s “Overheard with Evan Smith” and local independent bookstore BookPeople, where she attracted more than 700 people. Sotomayor spoke at length about the improbability of her life story and said she hopes to convince people that it is
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The UT System Board of Regents approved a proposal that would demolish the Engineering-Science Building and replace it with a new building called the Engineering Education and Research Center at its meeting Wednesday. The proposal will now go to the Texas Legislature for tuition revenue bond funding. President William Powers Jr. said the University plans to build the new Engineering Education and Research Center regardless of the funding decision, but if the Texas Legislature approves the bond, UT will be able to build the center sooner. “This is the highest priority project on our campus right now and one of our most important and most successful colleges,” Powers said at the meeting Wednesday. “The [Cockrell School of Engineering] brings in $160 million a year in external research funding. ... It teaches 5,600 undergraduates and 2,200 graduate students. It has 278 tenured and
BONDS continues on page 5
CAMPUS
UT courses use Twitter to up student involvement By Christine Ayala Tweeting in class is normally done discreetly under a notebook or on a cell phone nestled in a crotch — but not anymore for some students. Associate professors Elizabeth Richmond-Garza, Thomas Garza and Orlando Kelm in the College of Liberal Arts have integrated Twitter into their large lecture classes this semester to enhance student interaction. Select liberal arts courses are being restructured through the Course Transformation Program, which aims to redesign lower-division, large enrollment classes into a more interactive learning environment.
Richmond-Garza said a top priority of restructuring classes is implementing technology, including social media, that can improve the course. “In these huge classes that almost everyone takes, the Department of English has been talking about how to really adapt and optimize what we’re doing, not just in my class but across the board,” Richmond-Garza said. “This is just one of the tools they are considering and how can they use them. They’re right in the middle of that conversation.” Garza uses a protected Twitter account in his Russian sci-fi in literature and film signature course to review class material with more than
International Relations and Global Studies senior Gerado Amaya tweets during his World Literature class Wednesday afternoon.
Shelby Tauber Daily Texan Staff
200 students. Richmond-Garza said Kelm inspired her to introduce Twitter into her courses. Although Twitter is encouraged in her Masterworks of World Literature class, Richmond-Garza said she does not require students to participate. However,
students can get participation points by tweeting with the class hashtag in addition to the traditional in-class interactions. “Some people find it a much less threatening and stressful way to interact,” Richmond-Garza said. “They allow me to know if
something is not clear, if something is fascinating and if people are disagreeing.” Architecture freshman Daniel Cotte said Twitter works as a class communication tool mainly because RichmondGarza incorporates students’
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News
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Thursday, January 24, 2013
NEWS BRIEFLY
FRAMES | FEAtuREd photo
ACC responds to early bomb threat
Volume 113, Issue 89
CONTACT US Main Telephone: (512) 471-4591 Editor: Susannah Jacob (512) 232-2212 editor@dailytexanonline.com Managing Editor: Trey Scott (512) 232-2217 managingeditor@ dailytexanonline.com News Office: (512) 232-2207 news@dailytexanonline.com Multimedia Office: (512) 471-7835 dailytexanmultimedia@ gmail.com Sports Office: (512) 232-2210 sports@dailytexanonline.com Life & Arts Office: (512) 232-2209 dtlifeandarts@gmail.com
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Emily Ng | Daily Texan Staff Shara Funari of Eastside Glass Studio blows into melted glass to form a glass bubble that will later be molded into a cup.
toward the new medical school, including the new dean’s salary, until the infrastructure of a dean’s office is put into place following the hiring of the dean. The UT System Board of Regents voted last May to provide $25 million annually toward the medical school and an additional $5 million for the first eight years for equipment. The $30 million will flow through the provost’s office when funding is released in August. UT spokesman Gary Susswein said a hiring committee, under Leslie’s leadership, will decide the new dean’s salary. Leslie oversees compensation of the University’s 17 deans whose salaries range from $183,333 to $541,500, according to a salary database published by The Texas Tribune. “The first step is finding a dean,” Susswein said. “The hiring committee would then determine appropriate compensation.” Doolittle said it is too early in the process to discuss a possible salary. The UT System currently has six health institutions and all of them operate independently from the system’s nine
This issue of The Daily Texan is valued at $1.25 Permanent Staff
Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Susannah Jacob Associate Editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Drew Finke, Pete Stroud, Edgar Walters Managing Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Trey Scott Associate Managing Editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kristine Reyna, Matt Stottlemyre Digital Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hayley Fick News Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Shabab Siddiqui Associate News Editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Elyana Barrera, Bobby Blanchard, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Allie Kolechta, Mustafa Saifuddin, Sarah White Senior Reporters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Christine Ayala, Hannah Jane DeCiutiis, Joshua Fechter, Jordan Rudner Enterprise Reporters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Andrew Messamore, Megan Strickland, Alexa Ura Wire Editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Riley Brands, Kristine Reyna Copy Desk Chief . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Riley Brands Associate Copy Desk Chiefs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Jay Egger, Andrew Huygen, Sara Reinsch Editorial Copy Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Nile Miller Creative Director. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Natasha Smith Senior Designers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pu Ying Huang, Omar Longoria, Jack Mitts, Stefanie Schultz Photo Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Zachary Strain Associate Photo Editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Pu Ying Huang, Marisa Vasquez Senior Photographers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Maggie Arrellaga, Elisabeth Dillon, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Pearce Murphy, Chelsea Purgahn, Shelby Tauber Multimedia Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jorge Corona Associate Multimedia Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Andrea Macias-Jimenez Senior Videographers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Demi Adejuyigbe, Shila Farahani, Lawrence Peart, Alec Wyman Life&Arts Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kelsey McKinney Associate Life&Arts Editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aleksander Chan, Sarah-Grace Sweeney Senior Life&Arts Writers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Alexandra Hart, Shane Arthur Miller, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hannah Smothers, Alex Williams, Laura Wright Sports Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Christian Corona Senior Sports Writers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Garrett Callahan, Nick Cremona, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sara Beth Purdy, Rachel Thompson, Matt Warden Comics Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Massingill Associate Comics Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stephanie Vanicek Web Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tyler Reinhart Associate Web Editor, Social Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ryan Sanchez Associate Web Editors, Production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Omar Longoria Senior Web Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Helen Fernandez, Hannah Peacock Administrative Assistant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 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Reporters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Barak Bullock, Matthew Hart, Amanda Voeller Multimedia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Emily Ng Sports Writers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Ryan Haddox, David Leffler, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wes Maulsby, Peter Sblendorio Life&Arts Writers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kelly Eisenbarger, Robert Starr Page Designer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Thomas Nguyen Copy Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sarah Smith Comic Artists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Hannah Hadidi, Isabella N. Palacios, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Aaron Rodriguez, Lindsay Rojas, Lydia Thron
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academic institutions. UT’s medical school will be the first to be developed as part of an academic institution rather than standing independently. This raises questions about what the new medical school’s dean could receive as compensation. It is unclear if the new dean’s salary will rival the salaries of presidents of the System’s other health institutions or will be similar to UT’s other deans. Deans at UT make significantly less than health institution presidents. For example, Ronald DePinho, president of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, receives a base salary of $1.4 million per year, making him the fourth highest paid state employee and the highest paid president in the UT System. In comparison, President William Powers Jr. received a base salary of $613,612 last year, which makes him the highest paid UT-Austin employee, behind a few UTAustin coaches. Additionally, faculty members of the new medical school could receive salaries that surpass the compensation levels of Powers and the new dean. Most health institutions compensate a few professors more than the school’s president. For exam-
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ple, Rodney Rohrich, a professor at UT-Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, makes $1.75 million, which surpasses school president Daniel Podolsky’s base salary of $921,284. Rohrich is the third highest paid state employee. Overall, professors and administrators at UT System health institutions made up 21 of the state’s top 25 salaries for government employees last year. Susswein said the hiring committee will be put in place
soon. Meanwhile, Dr. Robert Messing, the recently appointed vice provost for biomedical sciences, will co-chair a steering committee with Dr. Susan Cox, the Austin regional dean for UT-Southwestern, that will oversee the establishment of a curriculum and residency, research and training programs. “Messing will help with a number of steps that need to happen in addition to locating an inaugural dean,” Doolittle said. “We are already working on getting accreditation and
Someone called a bomb threat into the Austin Community College-Rio Grande Campus at roughly 8:30 a.m. Wednesday. Police arrived soon after and a few roads were blocked, preventing convenient access to the campus, but students were still attending classes. Kyle Heine, an ACC-Rio Grande student, said he did not receive a text notification from the emergency alert system he subscribes to or any email regarding the matter. ACC spokeswoman Alexis Patterson Hanes said the campus sent out text notifications to its students. Hanes said ACC district police and the Austin Police Department responded immediately to the threat. ACC’s bomb threat came after a shooting at Lone Star College in Houston where three people were wounded. Hanes said ACC always reacts to these kinds of situations seriously. — Matthew Hart
set up a curriculum to get the M.D. degree approved. Messing will help coordinate those introductory steps as we set up agreements to pull academic units together.” Susswein said the new dean will be charged with hiring faculty members, establishing future budgetary procedures and leading fundraising efforts for the medical school. The University expects to enroll 50 students in the medical school’s inaugural class in 2015 or 2016.
salary breakdown The following individuals make up Texas’ 25 highest paid government employees.
4 UT Austin coaches
The base salaries of the current six presidents of UT System health institutions. Ronald A DePinho $1,404,000
1. Mack Brown Head football coach $5,266,667 2. Rick Barnes Head basketball coach $2,400,000
2 UT M.D. Anderson employees 6 UT Southwestern employees 12 UT Health Science Center at Houston employees
1 University of North Texas Health Science Center employee
MD Anderson Cancer Center
Daniel K Podolsky $921,284 UT Southwestern
David L Callender $657,497
UT Medical Branch at Galveston
Giuseppe Colasurdo $824,999
UT Health Science Center at Houston
William L Henrich $606,913
UT Health Science Center at San Antonio
Kirk Calhoun $502,394
UT Health Science Center at Tyler
Source: The Texas Tribune, Feb. 2012
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possible to overcome adversity. “One of the purposes of the book was to ensure that every adult and child who read it would come to the end and say, ‘If she can do it, I can too,’” Sotomayor said during her KLRU interview. “Aim as high as you can — even if you don’t reach your ultimate dream, the path there will enrich you.” Sotomayor said she was aware that releasing a memoir while serving on the court is an atypical move. “I have ventured to write more intimately about my personal life than is customary for a member of the Supreme Court,” Sotomayor writes in the book’s preface. “I will be judged as a human being by what readers find here.” H. W. Perry, associate
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professor of law and government, said Sotomayor’s decision to release a personal memoir reflects a new willingness among the justices to engage with the media. “The court is a relatively secretive place,” Perry said. “But certain justices are becoming more willing to be seen in public, grant interviews and write books, and that is a fairly new phenomenon.” Although Sotomayor did not explicitly mention Fisher v. Texas, a case currently before the Supreme Court that examines the use of race in UT’s admissions process, she did address her experience with affirmative action in the memoir. Sotomayor, a Princeton University alumna, said she often felt intense pressure
MEDIA
because of her status as a minority student on campus. “[The campus newspaper] routinely published letters to the editor lamenting the presence on campus of ‘affirmative action students,’ each of whom had presumably displaced a far more deserving affluent white male and could rightly be expected to crash into the gutter built of her own unrealistic expectations,” Sotomayor wrote in her book. “The pressure to succeed was relentless.” Perry said he would caution against drawing conclusions about a justice’s constitutional philosophy strictly based on his or her personal life history. “We’re obviously all products of our life experiences, and judges are not automatons,” Perry said. “But when
you go to law school, you debate, and that might equally shape how they come to interpret the Constitution.” Perry cited Justice Clarence Thomas, whose own experiences with affirmative action have not convinced him that the method is constitutional. “Justice Thomas, who believes that affirmative action perpetuates the problem of discrimination, serves as a perfect counterexample,” Perry said. UT law student Rebekah Mata said she did not mind that Sotomayor avoided talking about policy. Mata said she was simply thrilled to meet her in person. “We’re law students, so she’s kind of like our Rolling Stones,” Mata said.
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tweets into her lecture. “If a student has a question about the lecture or the reading they can simply tweet about it, allowing Professor Richmond-Garza to naturally integrate the answer in a seamless matter with the lecture, not disrupting her flow,” Cotte said. “It is less distracting than if students had to raise our hands and interrupt the lecture by yelling out questions across the large auditorium.” Theatre Studies sophomore Rebecca Walach said the structure of the world literature class is based on
what students are already familiar with, making the class a more comfortable and engaging environment. “There are more to lectures than a professor barking for fifty minutes, we should be taught the way we learn,” Walach said. “In today’s society we get our information through the media. She looks to find interesting ways to engage her students with music, video and social media.” Although Twitter is one of several online platforms that can be included in lectures, Richmond-Garza
said her colleagues have to find the technology that fits their class. RichmondGarza said she used the Blackboard blog feature in past semesters, but Twitter suited her lecture style better because it has character limitations and is updated in real-time. “Blackboard and clickers can be useful, but I haven’t found them to work as well,” Richmond-Garza said. “It should be there to enhance the learning. In smaller classes where you know every student, you might not need something like Twitter.”
Thursday, January 24, 2013
World & Nation 3
Kristine Reyna, Wire Editor
NEWS BRIEFLY
Morocco to change law on marrying one’s rapist
U.S. drone kills seven suspected militants SANAA, Yemen — Yemeni officials say a U.S. drone strike on a car outside the capital of Sanaa has killed at least seven suspected al-Qaida militants. The officials say the drone attack took place Wednesday near the town of Khwlan, some 20 miles southeast of the capital. Military officials and tribal witnesses say the car was destroyed, and burnt bodies could be seen inside the wreckage. The officials and witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media. Also, the Interior Ministry raised the death toll from a drone strike on Tuesday from three suspected militants to five.
Costly computer virus serves as warning NEW YORK — A computer virus that spread to more than a million computers worldwide, and produced at least $50 million in illegal profits or losses to victims should be a “wake-up call” for banks and consumers unaware of the threat posed by Internet criminals, a prosecutor said Wednesday. U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara and George Venizelos, head of the New York FBI office, warned of the growing threat to financial and international security as they announced that a two-and-a-half-year year probe had resulted in three arrests and the seizure of vast amounts of computer-related evidence. Gozi virus had infected 40,000 computers in the United States since 2005. — Compiled from Associated Press reports
By Smail Bellaouali Associated Press
Ariel Schalit | Associated Press A worker removes an election banner of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in Tel Aviv, Israel on Wednesday. Netanyahu scrambled to keep his job by extending his hand to a centrist party that advocates a push on peacemaking with the Palestinians.
Israel’s centrists raise hope for peace By Aron Heller & Josef Federman
in which the Palestinian issue was largely ignored, it remains unclear how hard Lapid will push the issue in what could be weeks of coalition talks with Netanyahu. Tuesday’s election ended in a deadlock, with Netanyahu’s hard-line religious bloc of allies and the rival bloc of centrist, secular and Arab parties each with 60 seats, according to near-complete official results. Opinion polls had universally forecast a majority of seats going to the right-wing bloc. While Netanyahu, as head of the largest single party in parliament, is poised to remain prime minister, it appears impossible for him to cobble together a majority coalition without reaching
Associated Press
JERUSALEM — The unexpectedly strong showing by a new centrist party in Israel’s parliamentary election has raised hopes of a revival of peace talks with Palestinians that have languished for four years under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Political newcomer Yair Lapid, the surprise kingmaker, is already being courted by a weakened Netanyahu, who needs his support to form a ruling coalition. Lapid has said he will not sit in the government unless the peace process is restarted. But following a campaign
across the aisle. Lapid, whose Yesh Atid — or There is a Future — captured 19 seats, putting it in second place, is the most likely candidate to join him. In a gesture to Netanyahu, Lapid said there would not be a “blocking majority,” in which opposition parties prevent the prime minister from forming a government. The comment virtually guarantees that Netanyahu will be prime minister, with Lapid a major partner. Netanyahu said Wednesday he would work to create a wide coalition stretching across the political divide. Speaking to reporters, he said the election proved “the Israeli public wants me to
continue leading the country” and put together “as broad a coalition as possible.” He said the next government would pursue three major domestic policy goals: to bring ultra-Orthodox Jewish men, who are routinely granted draft exemptions, into the military, to provide affordable housing and to change the current fragmented multiparty system, which often gives smaller coalition partners outsize strength. But Netanyahu only alluded to peacemaking in vague terms, saying coalition talks would focus on “security and diplomatic responsibility.” He took no questions from reporters and immediately walked out of the room.
RABAT, Morocco — Nearly a year after Morocco was shocked by the suicide of a 16-year-old girl who was forced to marry her alleged rapist, the government has announced plans to change the penal code to outlaw the traditional practice. A paragraph in Article 475 of the penal code allows those convicted of “corruption” or “kidnapping” of a minor to go free if they marry their victim and the practice was encouraged by judges to spare family shame. Women’s rights activists on Tuesday welcomed Justice Minister Mustapha Ramid’s announcement, but said it was only a first step in reforming a penal code that doesn’t do enough to stop violence against women in this North African kingdom. Last March, 16-yearold Amina al-Filali poisoned herself to get out of a seven-month-old abusive marriage to a 23-year-old she said had raped her. Her parents and a judge had pushed the marriage to protect the family honor. The incident sparked calls for the law to be changed. The traditional practice can be found across the Middle East and in places like India and Afghanistan where the loss of a woman’s virginity out of wedlock is a huge stain on the honor of the family or tribe.
Combat roles opened to U.S. women By Lolita C. Baldor Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is lifting its ban on women serving in combat, opening hundreds of thousands of front-line positions and potentially elite commando jobs after generations of limits on their service, defense officials said Wednesday. The changes, set to be announced Thursday by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, will not happen overnight. The services must now develop plans for allowing women to seek the combat positions, a senior military official said. Some jobs may open as soon as this year, while assessments for others, such as special operations forces, including Navy
SEALS and the Army’s Delta Force, may take longer. The services will have until January 2016 to make a case to that some positions should remain closed to women. The groundbreaking move recommended by the Joint Chiefs of Staff overturns a 1994 rule prohibiting women from being assigned to smaller ground combat units. There long has been opposition to putting women in combat, based on questions of whether they have the necessary strength and stamina for certain jobs, or whether their presence might hurt unit cohesion. But as news of Panetta’s expected order got out, members of Congress, including the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.,
announced their support. “It reflects the reality of 21st century military operations,” Levin said. Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, who will be the top Republican on the Armed Services panel, said, however, that he does not believe this will be a broad opening of combat roles for women because there are practical barriers that have to be overcome in order to protect the safety and privacy of all members of the military. Panetta’s move comes in his final weeks as Pentagon chief and just days after President Barack Obama’s inaugural speech in which he spoke passionately about equal rights for all. Panetta’s decision could open more than 230,000 jobs, many in Army and Marine infantry units, to women.
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Opinion 4
Thursday January, 24, 2013
Q-AND-A
Editor’s note: Texas State Rep. Dan Branch (RDallas) serves as chair of the House Higher Education Committee. He spoke with Daily Texan associate editor Pete Stroud about the diminished higher education budget, outcomes-based funding and how he hopes the 83rd Legislature will anticipate the outcome of the pending U.S. Supreme Court Fisher decision. The interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. Daily Texan: How does this session’s planned budget for UT differ from recent years? Dan Branch: If you look at just the general revenue appropriated funds, the base budget is a little bit less than two years ago. Because it’s a starting point, I think there are plenty of opportunities for changes to the base budget, so I think it would be premature to somehow predict that UT is going to do much better or much worse or even the same ... by the time we get to late May. DT: Why have you pushed for outcomesbased funding? DB: [We need] to put a little more incentive on completion rather than just enrollment. Now, we incentivize enrollment very much in the process, and my goal is to put a little more balance in that and have some incentives on the back end, where we need to do better ... In fact, I was really pleased that [UT President Bill] Powers sort of laid down the gauntlet for all of our four-year universities by
Editor-in-Chief Susannah Jacob
Q&A: Dan Branch
making a bold prediction that the 2012 fall entering class would be held accountable to graduate at 70 percent in four years.
DT: You filed a bill that would require universities to offer fixed, four-year tuition plans. If passed, how would your bill make college more affordable? DB: It gives certainty to students and parents, and any funders of higher ed — you know that if your student is one that’s interested in getting in and out in four years you’ve got a fixed price. My legislation doesn’t make it mandatory that that be the only price a school can offer. What it calls for is that each public university will give the option. So you can either buy higher education by the semester or year, as we price it today in most places, or you could buy it for eight semesters or four years at a fixed price. And obviously if you do that there’s going to be a bit of a premium built in on the front end because you know you’re going to likely get a discount on the back end because you’re getting a fixed price over four years. It’s also designed to encourage people to get in and get out ... and that’s the best way to keep your costs down ... And if you’re getting financial aid, you free up that financial aid for the next student. DT: How will the Legislature as a whole and your committee specifically react if the state wins or loses Fisher v. UT?
DB: We anticipate based on past history that the Supreme Court will rule probably in the late spring and therefore to be prudent, I anticipate introducing legislation to preserve the Top Ten Percent Reforms ... because in the reform package that we passed in 2009 ... was an amendment that got added to the bill that said that if there was a change in admissions policy as a result of a court ruling, all the reforms would go away. It was a sort of killer amendment. And my argument would be that it would now be timely to remove that portion of the reform package from statute, because ... if [UT’s race-influenced admissions] were to be struck down by the Supreme Court, then all the Top Ten Percent reforms would fall and we would have chaos in 2014 before we come back into session ... To me it makes much more sense to take that piece out of the statute and anticipate that there could be a ruling that could affect UT’s admissions, and if it does, then we would have smoothed out any risk of this sort of chaos in 2014. And those who want to revisit the reforms, they would have the opportunity in the 2015 legislative session to [do so]... But we can do that in a way that’s orderly, and not somehow that would just sort of pull the rug out from under UT because we had a Supreme Court ruling that all of a sudden, because of this amendment from 2009, rips out all of the reforms — and there would be no governor at all on the Top Ten Percent rule, which is what we had in place before 2009. There
Rep. Dan Branch serves as chair of the House Higher Education Committee.
was nothing in law to prevent 30,000 students from having an automatic right in the state of Texas to come to UT-Austin. And as you know, the UT-Austin entering class last year was a little over 8,000 students, and we would not have a way to take on that sort of capacity if all the reforms were to go away ... I think at a minimum, whether you’re rural, urban, right of center, left of center, we can all agree that we shouldn’t do something that would unintentionally harm UT and disrupt its admissions process while we weren’t in session and able to address it.
Fire and rain
GALLERY
James Galbraith Guest Columnist
Submit a firing line The best voices, the people’s voices. That is the why of the Firing Line. The true measure of any newspaper is its critics, and we want hard-hitting ones. Nothing is taboo except falsehood and libel. The editor will never change a letter’s meaning, but she reserves the right to shorten it so that others may also be heard. Letters should be under 150 words if possible. Don’t be afraid to tell us what you think, and send your letters to firingline@dailytexanonline.com
On a damp day in what was probably April 1965, my father, the economist John Kenneth Galbraith, took me to the Boston Common to hear a speech. We stood under umbrellas. The speaker was the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Later, in the lobby of a nearby hotel, my father introduced me to him, and I shook hands with the great man. As I remember, Rev. King’s children were present also; they must have been very young. I do not know what exactly the meeting that day was about, but I believe it must have been the war in Vietnam. Three years later, Martin Luther King Jr. was dead. In August of that year, 16 and a peace campaigner, I went to Chicago for the Democratic National Convention. It was an ugly time. The night it all ended, I joined the march back to Grant Park, scene of the police riot, in a crowd led by Allard Lowenstein — another future murder victim — and the Rev. Jesse Jackson Jr., who had been with King in Memphis. I carried a candle. As we marched up Michigan Avenue, flames flickering, hand in hand with a boy in an army jacket, we sang the Battle Hymn of the Republic. We sang it softly, slowly, as a dirge. Today on this campus, we have a statue of Martin Luther King Jr. He stands facing the LBJ Library, well apart from the Confederates on the South Mall. Not long ago his spot was a quiet one, flanked by a parking lot and the ROTC. Today it’s a hub of life. I lumber past him on my morning jog almost every day. Sometimes I give a little wave. But I don’t think about these matters all that much; compared to the struggle for peace and human and civil rights, the life of
an economist is dull. Still, on Monday morning it felt good to be near that statue, in a crowd richly mixed by color and years, to hear the reflections of colleagues and friends and to anticipate what would happen around noon in Washington, DC. In truth, I did not expect much; I’d burned out on hope and on politics some time back. And given the scant reference to the president at our ceremony, I got the impression that I wasn’t alone. Did we even plan to watch the inauguration? I wondered how many would. Not to watch, though, would have been a mistake. For as the pageant on the Mall unfolded, it soon became clear this would be a great day. Our president, Barack Obama unchained, gave a fine fighting speech — at last — a speech for human and civil rights, for the Declaration of Independence and the New Deal, for peace and a call finally to face up to climate change. And to an ex-activist, the symbols hit hard: the invocation by Myrlie Evers-Williams (widow of Medgar Evers, the civil rights leader who was murdered in 1963), the Star-Spangled Banner sung by Beyonce, and above all that Battle Hymn, with the spectacular voice of Alicia Olatuja ringing out the hallelujahs. I must have watched that a dozen times on the C-Span website. There was also a musically forgettable moment. That came when James Taylor, that troubadour of my college years, got up to sing. And then I thought, “Well, there’s another relic like me, still plugging away, doing what he can after all these years.” But it was OK. I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain. And everything else about the day made me feel young, one more time again. Galbraith teaches at UT’s LBJ School.
Aaron Swartz: a case for open access at UT Natalie San Luis Daily Texan Columnist
Two years ago, I coached a nearby high school debate team. When my students needed to research using databases LexisNexis or JSTOR, I gave them my EID and password. Try to say no to a high school student who wants to learn about political capital and budget negotiations — it’s almost impossible. Skirting copyright law so that a few 16-year-olds could peruse databases was worth the risk, and I doubted that my actions would devastate any major New York publishing conglomerates. While I was illegally providing students with academic articles, Aaron Swartz, co-developer of RSS, an Internet feed system, and co-creator of Reddit, a popular link-sharing website, was also breaking copyright law with plans to share academic materials on a larger scale. Swartz, a crusader for open access to academic materials, claimed that students, faculty and others with the privilege of access to databases had “a moral imperative” to share information with those who don’t have access. As a result, he faced criminal charges for downloading four million articles from the database JSTOR on MIT’s campus with the intent to upload them to file sharing websites. On Jan. 11, facing up to 35 years in prison and $1 million in fines, the 26-year-old Aaron Swartz killed himself, sparking energetic debates about information ownership and the criminality of sharing. The growth of digitized books and articles alongside the popularity and ease of file sharing has posed unique challenges to both universities and the publishing industry. Fred Heath, director of the University of Texas Libraries, says that over half of the libraries’ budget for resources — amounting to several million dollars
LEGALESE | Opinions expressed in The Daily Texan are those of the editor, the Editorial Board or the writer of the article or cartoonist. They are not necessarily those of the UT administration, the Board of Regents or the Texas Student Media Board of Operating Trustees.
— is dedicated to electronic materials. Much of that money is dedicated to database access with heavy restrictions on sharing. At UT, library visitors have certain limited privileges: Scholars can look at archival materials at the Harry Ransom Center and Texas residents can apply for library cards, for example. But online materials are much more restrictive: Visitors cannot access online academic materials unless they have obtained a visitor EID with a government-issued photo ID and are logged on to a computer in a UT library. Then, if visitors decide to share those articles, email them or make them available to the public, they could face federal copyright charges. According to Heath, “We, like MIT, are obligated to protect the intellectual property that we are obtaining.” That seems fair — the authors of articles work hard, companies like Taylor & Francis pay to print journal issues and databases must charge institutions if they want access. But the process is less straightforward. The vast majority of peer-reviewed academic journals do not financially compensate the authors of submitted articles, unlike books or other publications. Scholars are expected to publish in order to get tenure, so authors are willing to share their research for free. Publishers aren’t so generous. Without a university affiliation, purchasing a single issue of an academic journal will cost several hundred dollars on average. In some cases, if an article’s author wishes to republish the article in a book, that scholar must pay hundreds to the publisher to recover some of his or her ownership rights. Meanwhile, copyright restrictions seem only to become more austere. Over the past 100 years, copyright protection terms have been lengthened 12 times and never shortened. Philip Doty, associate dean of UT’s School of Information,
SUBMIT A FIRING LINE | E-mail your Firing Lines to firingline@dailytexanonline.com. Letters should be more than 100 and fewer than 300 words. The Texan reserves the right to edit all submissions for brevity, clarity and liability. The Texan does not run all submissions.
said in an email, “The stakeholders invariably ignored in many copyright policy discussions are the general polity, that is, the persons for whom the copyright clause in the Constitution was developed to protect.” In other words, the same laws that lock the general public out of academic research were created to protect their ability to eventually access others’ work. Fortunately, academics have some recourse. Efforts like Creative Commons — another organization that Aaron Swartz helped to create — aid researchers and academics in retaining legal ownership over their work, even if they donate it to a for-profit publishing company. According to Georgia Harper, the University’s scholarly communications advisor, a Creative Commons license “allows anyone with an Internet connection to use [the article] in the ways that most scholars would be happy to have others use their work.” Likewise, Dr. Doty advises scholars seeking freer access to their work, “Sign only those contracts to publish that grant the rights holder, in this case, the creating academic, the right to publish the material either in an institutional repository or on a personal website as well as to develop derivative works.” Not surprisingly, the individuals with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo are publishing conglomerates and their shareholders. Most of the population remains shut out of even publicly-funded academic research. Most students will be, too, when they graduate. But with growing opportunities to share research more openly, a shift toward open access seems inevitable, absent draconian copyright expansion. I hope the Aaron Swartz case is a mistake that we learn from rather than a harbinger of harsher punishments. San Luis is a Plan II and women’s and gender studies senior from Buda.
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News
Thursday, January 24, 2013
STATE
5
CAMPUS
Mixed reactions follow latest campus shooting By Barak Bullock Less than a week after state Sen. Brian Birdwell, R-Granbury, filed a bill that would allow concealed carry license holders to carry handguns while on university campuses, violence broke out in Houston at Lone Star College’s North Harris campus Tuesday. Officials identified Carlton Berry, 22, as the suspected shooter. Berry is currently in jail after being treated for a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the buttocks at Northwest Medical Center in Houston. Law enforcement officials have charged him with aggravated assault. Following an argument, Berry shot a Lone Star College student three times. The student is in critical condition. Another student, who was not shot, was taken to the hospital for an unspecified medical emergency. A maintenance worker for the college caught in the crossfire is reportedly in “good shape,” according to Richard Carpenter, chancellor of the Lone Star College System. In a statement to The Daily Texan, Birdwell said the concealed carry bill known as the Campus Personal Protection Act will remain unchanged. “Though few facts or details have been confirmed as of late afternoon, the basis for filing the Campus Personal Protection Act remains the same,” Birdwell said in the statement. “This legislation is about ensuring that law-abiding citizens are able to defend themselves. It’s about trusting citizens
— Brian Birdwell State Senator
with their rights.” UT President William Powers Jr. has said he will oppose the bill. Students on campus had mixed reactions to the Lone Star College shooting. “This incident reinforces the point of the gun control debate going on now,” said Zainab Haider, a community and regional planning graduate student. She said she supports making it more difficult to acquire guns. Other UT students disagreed with tightened gun legislation. “More restrictions on guns won’t prevent shootings,” sociology sophomore Stephan Drawe said. Although Drawe disagrees with increased gun regulation, he also said he is against the idea of allowing people to carry concealed firearms on campus. The Lone Star College incident is the latest in a string of public school shootings following the December shooting in Newtown, Conn., where 26 people were killed.
Shelby Tauber | Daily Texan Staff Dan Burden, executive director of Walkable Communities, promotes the construction of pedestrian-friendly communities at the Bass Lecture Hall Wednesday night. His work with AARP and Walkable Communities has helped 3,500 communities become more livable and mobile.
Group promotes pedestrian safety By Matthew Hart Walkable Communities and national AARP hosted an event Wednesday night to promote the construction of pedestrian-friendly communities to an auditorium of senior citizens and UT students. Dan Burden, executive director of Walkable Communities, and Josh Collett, AARP expert and UT alumnus, presented plans that would reconstruct roads and make them more pedestrian friendly. Rebuilding these communities would be expansive, but Burden and Collett said it would ultimately save money and increase safety. “It’s about building the things that are going to make money and save money at the same time,” Burden said. To make communities more pedestrian friendly,
Burden said cities can add businesses to attract shoppers and promote economic growth. Crosswalks, bike lanes, wider roads and medians are all features that can make a city more walkable. Burden, a former photographer for National Geographic, presented his ideas and solutions to the inconvenient and increasingly dangerous streets communities manifesting in cities using imagery and art. Burden’s work focuses on supporting communities and helping them to become more healthy and engaged through active living. Burden said his work with the AARP and Walkable Communities, now a joint operation, has helped 3,500 communities become more livable and mobile. Some of their work can be seen in
Pearce Murphy Daily Texan Staff
efficiency and will lower the amount of deferred maintenance. The project was previously unsuccessfully proposed to the Legislature in May 2012. Engineering students said they look forward to the renovation and expansion of their program’s facilities, particularly because of the age of current engineering buildings. “They definitely look outdated in comparison to all of the newer buildings,” mechanical engineering sophomore Chris Krieps said. “They don’t have the same openness. It feels really cramped and stuffy when you’re inside of them versus the new liberal arts buildings which are really open and breathe nicely versus being in the mechanical engineering building.” New and updated resources are also a promising aspect of this project. “Some of the new technology that’s come out since [the buildings] were created could help us out,” electrical engineering sophomore Eric Van Dyk said. “If we could get new facilities, it could help us with research; some of the materials we use are kind of old, and some of the stuff that we could have could be so much better.”
At The Door, Starting 1-Hour Before Show Time.
Jill Blackwood. Photo: KirkTuck.com
Chairman Wm. Eugene “Gene” Powell (left) and Regent Robert L. Stillwell (right) hear various proposals during a UT system board meeting late Wednesday morning.
to engineering students. “It is a combination of a student-oriented project learning center … and flexible interdisciplinary modular research space,” Powers said. “It reflects not just the need for updated and higher-tech classrooms, but really a new way of teaching students, much more project-oriented, much more team-oriented.” The projected total cost of the project is $310 million, and Powers requested a $95 million tuition revenue bond authorization, or TRB. According to UT System spokeswoman Jenny LaCoste-Caputo, a tuition revenue bond finances construction through the selling of a bond. She said if the bond is approved, it would be issued to UT, but the state would pay the full amount. Powers said if the bond is not approved, the project would still be financed through alternative sources. “This project is going forward when we get the fundraising done even if the Legislature says we’re not going to have any TRBs,” Powers said. This project meets the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board’s standards for space need, building cost and building
west such as Portland, Ore., Seattle and Vancouver all developed neighborhood leadership programs with the help of Walkable Communities. “It took an entire high school just to train the neighborhood leaders just for that year,” Burden said. “We need to evolve and develop that leadership program for all of our neighborhoods.” Burden said a good test for a street is to see how many people bring their kids there for Halloween. UT city planning student Sam Seigel said he shared his feelings about Burdens’ presentation. “It was really inspiring as a planning student to kind of hear an address like this to everyday people,” Seigel said. “I can only imagine how difficult it is for the very old or very young to get around and to feel independent in a city like this.”
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tenure-track faculty, so it’s a very large and very important part of our campus.” This building is part of a 10-year project to modernize UT’s engineering facilities. The University built the Biomedical Engineering Building in 2008 for the new department, but pre-existing engineering programs have not received new buildings, Powers said. “In terms of the main campus and teaching our students and doing research, the last engineering building was the Chemical and Petroleum Engineering Building in 1986 — that’s 26 years,” Powers said. The new engineering building will total 430,000 square feet and will take the place of the Engineering-Science Building in the engineering area. “We are replacing an existing building and removing 240,000 square feet of space,” Powers said. “It is virtually not quite unusable, but obsolete, and in great need of either repair, but in this case replacement. It would add 193,000 square feet.” The project is intended to improve the resources, technology and research available
parts of Austin and Houston, where streets and communities have been completely transformed to fit a safe, mobile lifestyle. Josh Collett, head of the AARP International office in Washington D.C., said the network of age-friendly communities that AARP has launched have raised awareness. “The idea is really for each of the communities to raise awareness — engage older populations as well as the rest of the community in efforts that look ahead because these are economic development issues that will help cities going forward,” Collett said. Cities that have brightly emerged by retrofit could be idolized as being special communities, but Burden explains that the secret lies in development leadership programs. Cities in the Pacific North-
Regional Premiere
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Thursday, January 24, 2013
Christian Corona, Sports Editor
STAT GUY
Texas on a downward spiral By David Leffler
SPURS
106 NUGGETS
ROCKETS
Elisabeth Dillon | Daily Texan Staff Texas head coach Rick Barnes speaks to Jaylen Bond against Oklahoma in Norman earlier this week. Barnes, in his 14th season at Texas, has been unable to coach his squad to a conference win through five Big 12 games.
14
12
Years since the last time a UT men’s basketball team lost its first five conference games, in 1976. After losing to Kansas on Saturday and to Oklahoma in Norman on Monday, the Horns dropped 0-5 in Big 12 conference play.
Points per game for sophomore guard Sheldon McClellan, the Longhorns’ leading scorer. McClellan, one of two players averaging double digits in points scored, dropped 25 on Oklahoma on Monday.
Years that have passed since the Longhorns last won the Big 12 outright in 1999, Barnes’ first year on the job. Texas has also held a share of the conference title twice in that span, in 2006 and 2008.
Underclassmen on the roster, out of a total of 14 players. Although this inexperience has clearly hindered the Longhorns’ performance this year, the next several years will likely show plenty of improvement.
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Home wins for the Longhorns, making up all but one of their victories on the season. Texas has a combined 1-8 record in away games and contests played at neutral sites.
Losses suffered in overtime this season. Texas lost consecutive overtime games to Baylor and West Virginia earlier this month, the first time that has happened in the Barnes era.
1
Times a Barnes Texas team will have fewer than 20 wins in a season if this year’s squad fails to win. The only team to finish under Barnes with fewer than 20 victories was the ’98-’99 group.
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
Game this season in which the Longhorns managed to score 70 or more points in regulation. UT is currently averaging 63.9 points per game, nine points less than last year’s team and good for 260th nationally.
Longhorns in trouble, basketball needs a win
Freshman Sara Hattis tries to blcok against Kansas in her first career start on Wednesday in Lawrence. The Longhorns were demolished 76-38 for their seventh straight Big 12 loss.
By Wes Maulsby Daily Texan Columnist
Photo courtesy of KU Athletics
Horns demolished by Jayhawks Big 12. With the Longhorns undermanned with their two leading scorers, Nneka Enemkpali and Chassidy Fussell, out for violation of team rules, Texas struggled to do anything right. Kansas began the game on a 10-2 run, sinking shot after shot against a slow Texas defense. The Jay-
hawks (12-5, 3-3) finished the half on a 25-3 run to take a 46-12 lead into halftime. Texas’ 12 points was the lowest first-half scoring output in school history. Their 17 turnovers did nothing to help the
KANSAS continues on page 7
Already reeling in the middle of an awful losing streak, Texas was dealt another blow at the hands of the Kansas Jayhawks. The Jayhawks lived up to their name by marauding and pillaging the Longhorns to the tune of a 76-38 win. This seems to be the low point of an already dismal season for Texas basketball. The Longhorns’ ninth loss in a row keeps them winless in conference play and, when paired with the men’s fivegame losing streak, puts University of Texas basketball squads on a collective 14-game losing streak. It’s about time to figure out what is going wrong with basketball here in Austin. Both teams have their fair share of excuses. The men have no upperclassmen on scholarship. The women are under a first-year head coach that saw two upperclassmen, Cokie Reed and Chelsea Bass, have to leave the
It’s about time to figure out what is going wrong with basketball here in Austin ... there is no excuse for having zero wins in 2013. program because of injuries. The team was already shorthanded before Chassidy Fussell and Nneka Enemkpali served onegame suspensions for violating team rules. But there is no excuse for having zero wins in 2013. There is no excuse for being a combined 0-12 against Big 12 opponents. And there is no excuse for being doubled up by any team. Texas’ standards are usually very high in the
TROUBLE continues on page 7
BASKETBALL
Harlem Globetrotters bring excitement, fun By Peter Sblendorio The world’s most exciting basketball team travels to Austin this week. The Harlem Globetrotters will be putting on a pair of performances at the Frank Erwin Center on Thursday and Friday. The Globetrotters, who
(1) DUKE
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15.1
Another game down and another loss for the struggling Longhorns. The Kansas Jayhawks handed the Longhorns a 76-38 defeat in Lawrence, Kan., on Wednesday night, dropping Texas to 0-7 in the
NCAAB
HORNETS
37
By Matt Warden
SIDELINE
(25) MIAMI
Daily Texan Columnist
So far, not so good. That about sums up UT’s men’s basketball team this year, which is riddled with inexperience and injuries. Although the Longhorns still have practically half the season left, the team is well on its way to surpassing last year’s squad’s 14 losses, the most at Texas during the Rick Barnes era. Can they turn things around and salvage what many consider a lost season? With 13 conference games remaining and an NCAA tournament berth looking like a long shot, the Longhorns have plenty of room for improvement over the next couple of months. On that note, here is a statistical breakdown, from greatest to least, of the Longhorns’ season up to this point:
STARTS HERE
will celebrate their 87th anniversary this year, are in the midst of their 2013 “You Write the Rules” World Tour. In addition to hosting exhibition games across the United States, the Globetrotters will perform in a number of different countries in 2013 in-
TOUR continues on page 7
A Harlem Globetrotter star dunks during a trip to Portage, Mich. The Globetrotters visited the northern state earlier this year to ‘Play Basketball on Ice’ as part of their 2013 tour.
William Pugliano Associated Press
SPORTS BRIEFLY New 2013 commit: Hammad to Texas
On Wednesday afternoon, the Longhorns received their 15th overall commitment for head coach Mack Brown’s 2013 recruiting class. Offensive guard Rami Hammad, a Rivals.com four-star recruit out of Irving, Texas, committed to Texas approximately one week after the offer went out. Hammad is the No. 31 offensive guard recruit in the country for the 2013 class. He stands at 6-foot-5 and 314 pounds and could potentially play either guard or tackle for Texas. “I’m going to make sure we’re the best O-line in the nation. I believe in the setting there,” Hammad said in his announcement. This is the third school that Hammad has committed to. He originally had committed to Oklahoma State this past summer before decommitting in order to keep his options open. Next, he promised his future to Baylor in November. However, Hammad quickly rose to national notice after a lights-out performance at the Semper Fidelis All-American Bowl in California earlier this year. Texas contacted him regarding an official visit before an official offer was issued by Texas coach Stacy Searels after the All-American Bowl. The Longhorns also picked up a JUCO commitment Monday, offensive tackle Desmond Harrison.
Swimmer, diver earn Big 12 honors
Swimmer Gretchen Jaques and diver Maren Taylor were recognized by the Big 12 Conference this week. Jaques, a junior who focuses on both the breaststroke and freestyle, was named the Big 12 Women’s Swimmer of the Week for her performances against Auburn earlier this month. Most notably, Jaques finished ahead of Micah Lawrence, a U.S. Olympian in the 100-yard breaststroke. This is her first weekly conference award. Taylor, a junior diver, was named the Big 12 Women’s Diver of the Week. She took home first in both the 1-meter and 3-meter springboard events against Auburn and first in the one-meter springboard against Georgia. This is her third weekly conference award this season and 12th overall.
– Sara Beth Purdy
KANSAS continues from page 6
sports TROUBLE
Longhorns as the Jayhawks scored 20 of their 46 points off turnovers. Although Texas had a couple of scoring runs in the second half, it was much the same as the Jayhawks finished the game shooting 50.9 percent, including 47.6 percent from the three-point line, while blanketing the inexperienced Texas lineup. Freshman Imani McGee-Stafford was forced to play big minutes due to Enemkpali’s absence, registering eight points and eight rebounds in 28 minutes of play. Senior Nadia Taylor played a career-high 18 minutes and scored a career-high eight points. Even with the suspension of two key players, the Longhorns continued their inconsistent play. Texas outrebounded Kansas 39-36 but shot 27.3 percent from the field with 28 total turnovers. Whether it’s inexperience or simply a lack of focus for the Longhorns, something needs to be changed sooner rather
realm of athletics. Now it seems that as soon as Texas wins a game its fans will be ready to storm the court — assuming there are enough fans at the game to properly do that. Following the resignation of Gail Goestenkors in March of last year, Karen Aston was brought back to Texas after a six-year absence. But the first-year head coach is having as much difficulty as Texas’ 14year veteran on the men’s side, Rick Barnes. Basketball is in very bad shape right now. Wednesday’s loss by the women is merely the latest in a long line of failures that have now stained the Texas basketball program. What is the solution? When will this remedy itself? When will a Texas basketball team win a conference game? Furthermore, will either even manage to win a game on the road? The women have not won a game since before Christmas. It can’t get much worse for the Longhorns, so it’s about time that things started to get better.
Photo courtesy of KU Athletics Junior transfer Gigi Mazionte tries to block against Kansas on Wednesday night in Lawrence. The Longhorns struggled all night and fell 76-38 to the Jayhawks, falling to 7-11 for the year.
ball started Oct. 7, 2012, during their show at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn and it will be used for the duration of their 2013 tour. Pink wristbands will be sold at the Frank Erwin Center this week, and a portion of the proceeds will go to raising breast cancer awareness. Austin has long been a destination for the Globetrotters, who will be visiting many of the country’s biggest cities during the tour. The Globetrotters have typically commanded large crowds in their past trips to Austin and current player “Cheese” Chisolm
told KVUE News earlier in the week that they enjoy performing in front of the Austin faithful. “We’re very excited to be here. We love playing in Austin,” Chisholm told KVUE. “We’ve been coming here for a while.” The Globetrotters, who formed in 1926 and changed their hometown to Harlem in 1929, have been highly regarded across the globe for decades and they have had a number of impressive performers in their history. The most notable player to ever put on the Globetrotter uniform was Wilt Chamberlain, who would go on
Thursday, January 24, 2013
7
SPORTS BRIEFLY
continues from page 6
Until we can learn to be disciplined together and do this thing together, then we’re going to continue to have disappointments... — Karen Aston, Women’s basketball coach
than later. “Until we can learn to be disciplined together and do this thing together, then we’re going to continue to have disappointments in the Big 12 because it is too balanced as a league,” head coach Karen Aston said following last weekend’s game against Oklahoma. Texas will continue its search for a conference win when it hosts Kansas State on Saturday afternoon at the Frank Erwin Center.
Police say Ratliff failed sobriety test
TOUR continues from page 6 cluding Germany, France and the United Kingdom. Fans at the Frank Erwin Center will have the privilege of watching the Globetrotters perform their trademark trick passes and highlight-reel dunks against the team with the world’s longest losing streak, the Washington Generals. In addition, fans will be given the opportunity to directly impact the game, as the “You Write the Rules” Tour calls for people to visit the Harlem Globetrotters website in order to vote for new features that they wish to see in the game. Potential rule changes
UNS AD IRNE FOR ONL
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that fans can suggest include having two balls on the court at once, doubling the point value of every basket and implementing a 35-foot four-point shot. The Globetrotters also feature a trio of female players this season, giving them a total of 11 women in their history. One of them, Mighty Mitchell, will be making the trip to Austin to take on the Generals with the rest of the Globetrotters. Throughout the tour, the Globetrotters will be using a pink basketball to increase breast cancer awareness. The use of this
WHAT TO WATCH Globetrotters @ Generals
Date: Thursday, Friday Time: 7 p.m. Where: Erwin Center to become a Hall of Fame center in the NBA. Although there will likely not be a player of Chamberlain’s caliber on this year’s squad, fans going to the see the Globetrotters Thursday or Friday night should get their money’s worth.
CLASSIFIEDS THE DAILY TEXAN
DALLAS — Police said Wednesday that Dallas Cowboys defensive lineman Jay Ratliff didn’t seem drunk after they pulled him over this week before arresting him for driving while intoxicated. Ratliff didn’t immediately give off the smell of alcohol or look drunk after a late-night accident Tuesday in Grapevine, about 20 miles northwest of Dallas, according to search warrant paperwork released Wednesday. He was arrested after failing a field sobriety test. The 31-year-old Ratliff “seemed to be moving around quite well given the wreck,” but police officer Eric Barch wrote in a search warrant affidavit that he wanted to investigate further because the accident happened shortly after midnight, when wrecks can often involve an intoxicated driver. People in good physical shape like Ratliff can also hide how intoxicated they are, Barch said. Barch spoke to Ratliff a second time and noticed a “moderate odor” of alcohol on his breath, the affidavit says. Ratliff ’s eyes were also bloodshot and watery, Barch said. Ratliff said he was driving home from Arlington and was following directions on his navigation system when the crash occurred. While in jail, Ratliff told police that earlier injuries might have prevented him from passing the walk and turn, and the stand on one leg portions of the test, Barch wrote in the affidavit. —Associated Press
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Life & Arts
8
Thursday, January 24, 2013
MUSIC
Eric Dingus composes a new beat By Hannah Smothers
Like many 17-year-old boys, Eric Dingus tends to spend a lot of his time tucked away in his South Austin bedroom. Instead of toiling away in front of a gaming device, Dingus sits behind his laptop producing the electronic songs that serve as the platform for his budding career. The Daily Texan sat down with Dingus to discuss the trivialities of being 17 while sitting on the brink of a professional career. The Daily Texan: When did you first start becoming interested in music? Eric Dingus: I started drumming when I was, like, 12. The day before I turned 12 is when I had my first drum lesson. My parents were in a band so I always had a lot of music around the house. They don’t play it anymore or anything, but they’ve always been encouraging. DT: When did you make the transition from drumming to making the electronic music you do now? Dingus: In ninth grade is when I started, but I started getting really serious about it in the middle of tenth grade. That’s when I got the software I use now, Ableton Live.
TATE
continues from page 10 the problem. As Small explained, not everyone with a disability may want to be institutionalized, but not everyone with a disability feels comfortable living plainly in their community, either. “It blew my mind. I had never thought about community integration [on a person-by-person basis] before,” Tate said. Tate’s conversations with disability advocates also helped him hone in on the best way to elucidate the difficult message of disability rights. “The most effective way to get a point across is to show a really complex, interesting character that people
ABBEY
continues from page 10 getting together with friends and baking English-themed treats before each episode. “I’ve become so involved in the characters’ stories. They are so well-written and as time goes by you get more invested in what happens with these people,” Flinn said. The Dowager’s quick wit
DT: How do you produce the music you’re making now? Do you do any sampling? Dingus: It’s mostly, like, digital. I really like to sample ‘50s vocal jazz music like Ella Fitzgerald and that kind of stuff. It can range from ambient piano music to, like, KPop. I try to make the samples unrecognizable; it’s fun and more of a challenge. If you do something completely different with the samples, you’re still making your own music. DT: How did you get into electronic and rap music? Was this something you always listened to? Dingus: I got into it in ninth grade. The song “It Was A Good Day” by Ice Cube, I really liked that beat and the song. I realized that not all rap was bad and that’s what I’d thought because I’d just heard stuff on the radio and I didn’t really know much about it. I don’t try to copy any specific genre or sound, really. I just like to see what happens with my own sound. I haven’t tried to hop on any bandwagon. DT: How would you describe the music you’re making now? Dingus: Ethereal is sort of a big word I’ve used for a while. I just like to make what I would describe as ethereal dream hip-hop beats. My
Chelsea Purgahn | Daily Texan Staff Eric Dingus is a 17-year-old local electronic musician who describes his sound as “ethereal.” Dingus started playing drums when he was 12 and became interested in electronic music when he started high school.
first serious album was called Ethereal Depression. I just thought it sounded cool. DT: A lot of the song and album titles are really dark or heavy. Is there a reason behind this? Dingus: I’ve been on antidepressants since second grade, and it’s definitely
can relate to, instead of just showing that ‘all institutions are bad.’ That’s not the truth: some institutions can provide healing environments and be the kind of place for a certain person,” Tate said. The commitment of Tate and his team to the message of inclusion extends to their casting process. Six to eight of the roles in the movie are for characters with disabilities, and they will be played by actors who themselves have disabilities. Hollywood movies usually steer clear of casting people with disabilities to play characters with disabilities (see Sean Penn in “I am Sam,” Tom Hanks in “Forrest Gump” and Daniel Day-Lewis in “My Left Foot,” to name a few). This phenomenon is referred to in the disability community as “crip-face,” a
deliberate play on the term “blackface.” And like blackface, there’s absolutely no need for it; just as there are more than enough capable black actors to cast in roles for black characters, there are more than enough capable disabled actors to cast in roles for disabled characters. So far, Tate and his team have sent letters announcing the casting call to more than 70 disability advocacy organizations, many of which work with people with disabilities who have an interest in the performing arts. Although not all of the 12 main characters are specified in the script as having disabilities, they will consider actors with disabilities for all of the roles. “I think that’s a really important part of the commitment to inclusion,” Tate said.
has become a favorite of fans, despite her often closedminded and judgmental nature. Viewers count on her for surprising insight when it matters most, whether that be when Lady Edith is left at the alter or when the very fate of Downton is at stake. “It is something I really look forward to. I have to watch out though because the Dowager’s sass is contagious,” Flinn said. Cali Bittick, a vet tech in Austin, prefers the
whirlwind romance of Lady Sybil and former chauffeur for the Grantham family, Tom Branson. “There’s nothing like forbidden love, especially when rigid English tradition is mixed in,” Bittick said. This season started by throwing many story lines up in the air including the very fate of Downton itself. While there is quite a bit to catch up on, it’s not too late. “Downton Abbey” airs on KLRU every Sunday at 7 p.m.
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played a role in the sound itself. I didn’t really talk to many people at all in school. In the classes, I had a notebook I would just plan music stuff in. The whole mood or everything can be dark I guess, a lot of the themes of the albums or projects and song names are pretty dark. I don’t force it or try to make
something that’s extremely dark or depressing. DT: Do you draw inspiration from your experience with depression? What are your songs generally inspired by? Dingus: I’m constantly inspired. Music is all I really do unless I’m with friends. I work on music probably at
least 6 or 7 hours a day. Basically, every day I wake up really early and walk to the coffee shop because I discovered coffee over the summer and I’m pretty into it and it gets me inspired. I just walk back and forth between my house and the coffeehouse and work on songs. The environment really matters.
ART
Suspects arrested in Romania in massive Dutch art heist By Mike Corder Associated Press
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Dutch detectives and a prosecutor will travel to Romania to investigate the possible involvement of three men in a multimilliondollar art heist in the Netherlands, a police spokesman said Wednesday. The Dutch team will travel to Bucharest in coming days to share with Romanian authorities details of their investigation of the Oct. 16 theft from Rotterdam’s Kunsthal gallery of seven extremely valuable paintings by artists including Picasso, Monet and Matisse, said Roland Ekkers of Rotterdam Police. Romanian police arrested the suspects Monday night “in another art-related investigation in Romania, but there are indications they also have something to do with the art heist in Rotterdam,” Ekkers told The Associated Press. The arrests marked the first breakthrough for police since the late-night raid at the Kunsthal, the biggest art theft in more than a decade in the Netherlands. Ekkers said reports that some of the paintings were recovered were wrong. Romanian police “checked, double checked and checked again and it is not true,” he said. The three suspects may have been part of an international ring, Romanian authorities suggested Wednesday. Lucia Zaharia, spokeswoman for Bucharest’s Sector 5 court, told the AP that the men were held for 29 days pending an investigation into whether they were involved in the heist.
BIKES
continues from page 10 bicycle turns in the direction it falls. But why does it do that? That’s where things get really complicated. Rather than a simple explanation, scientists have developed a formula that determines whether or not a bicycle design will have
Photo courtesy of Police Rotterdam | Associated Press This photo released by the police in Rotterdam, Netherlands, on Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2012, shows the 1971 painting “Harlequin Head” by Pablo Picasso.
“They were part of a group, according to documents,” she said in a telephone interview. “We can only investigate people who are in Romania,” she added, a hint that the gang had foreign members. The stolen paintings came from the private Triton Foundation, a collection of avant-garde art put together by multimillionaire Willem Cordia, an investor and businessman, and his wife, Marijke Cordia-Van der Laan. Willem Cordia died in 2011. The stolen paintings were: Pablo Picasso’s 1971 “Harlequin Head”; Claude Monet’s 1901 “Waterloo Bridge, London” and “Charing Cross Bridge, London”; Henri Matisse’s 1919 “Reading Girl
in White and Yellow”; Paul Gauguin’s 1898 “Girl in Front of Open Window”; Meyer de Haan’s “Self-Portrait,” around 1890; and Lucian Freud’s 2002 “Woman with Eyes Closed.” The apparent ease with which a pair of thieves managed to grab such a valuable haul of art was stunning. The thieves broke in through an emergency exit at the rear of the Rem Koolhaasdesigned building, grabbed the paintings off the wall and fled, all within two minutes. The gallery said after the theft that it had a “state of the art” alarm system. Willem van Hassel, the museum’s chairman, said its security systems are automated and do not use guards on site.
this essential attribute. Insomuch as it has been tested, the formula works. Unfortunately, it’s not a simple twoor three-variable equation: it requires 25 different characteristics of the bicycle to make a prediction. So do we know how a bicycle works? Technically, yes. We have an equation that can predict whether or not a particular design will be easy to balance. But
that doesn’t mean we fully understand what’s going on and the one-sentence explanation of what keeps it upright only leads to more questions that aren’t so easily answered. But that’s how physicists earn their living. And if that’s what goes into figuring out the bicycle, it is not too difficult to see why they’re still struggling to understand dark matter.
Comics
Thursday, January 24, 2013
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Life & Arts 10
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Kelsey McKinney, Life & Arts Editor
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Bicycle research rolls in circles SCIENCE SCENE By Robert Starr
Physicists are known to tackle the big problems: How did the universe originate? What is the nature of matter, energy and time? How can we make the rules that work for very small objects (quantum mechanics) not conflict with those that work for very large ones (general relativity)? However, one doesn’t need to reach for such abstract material to find topics that physicists struggle to understand. In fact, you need look no further than right outside your classroom at the common bicycle. This seemingly simple device, which has existed in its current form for more than a century, is devilishly complicated and there still isn’t a fully intuitive explanation of how it balances on its two wheels. What makes the question of the bicycle’s stability so perplexing is that the answer seems immediately obvious. It’s stable because somebody’s steering it, right? Not quite. A bicycle remains upright even if the user removes his hands from the handlebars, effectively giving up his ability to steer. In fact, a bicycle doesn’t even need a rider at all: bicycles balance perfectly fine without anybody on them, provided they’re moving fast enough (somewhere between eight and 13 miles per hour — a relaxed speed). A second explanation may come to mind, for those
Illustration by Ploy Buraparate | Daily Texan Staff
who have learned some high school physics: the spinning wheels keep the bicycle from falling. Rotating objects, like the wheels of a bicycle, are stable and the faster they spin, the more stable they become. This gyroscopic effect, as physicists refer to it, explains why tops and yo-yos behave the way they do. It does not, however, explain the bicycle’s stability. Bicycle wheels are fairly light
and don’t generate enough inertia to overcome even a slight tilt. Additionally, while a bicycle can remain stable without a rider, that’s only when traveling forward. Push it backward at similar speeds and it quickly topples over. If the gyroscopic effect were a major contributing factor, this probably wouldn’t happen. To make sure that this effect wasn’t necessary, a group working out of Cornell
University built a bicycle with two additional wheels. These didn’t touch the ground; they merely spun in the opposite direction of the main bicycle wheels, eliminating any gyroscopic effects. This non-gyroscopic bicycle, which more closely resembles a scooter, remained self-stable. What’s more, once the bicycle was in motion, the experimenters pushed it to the side in an attempt to knock it
FILM
VIDEO: bit.ly/ss_bikes over. They couldn’t; the bike corrected itself. Partially through this research, physicists have come up with an explanation for why bicycles don’t tip over: they always turn toward the direction they’re falling. When the bicycle begins to tilt to one side, the front wheel turns in that same di-
rection, which prevents the bike from falling over. This can be verified by locking the handlebars so that the bicycle can’t turn. When you do this and give the bike a push, it topples over. OK, so this self-stability has to do with the way the
BIKES continues on page 8
TELEVISION | ‘DOWNTON ABBEY’
‘Downton’ brings sass, humor across the pond By Kelly Eisenbarger
Photo courtesy of lovelandfilm.com Josh Tate is the writer and director behind the film “Love Land.” His film is about a young woman named Ivy living with a severe traumatic brain injury. The film is part of Tate’s mission to advocate for the rights of the disabled.
Struggles of disabled inspire film by UT alum By Laura Wright Joshua Tate and his collaborators are about to have a big few months, or at least they hope. Next month, Tate, who graduated from UT in 2008 with degrees in psychology and in radio, television and film, will put out a nationwide casting call for “Love Land,” the film he hopes to direct. In February, Tate hopes to begin scouting locations in Texas, where he hopes to film “Love Land.” And in only six days, the “Love Land” fundraising campaign Tate launched on Seed and Spark, an online crowdfunding platform which focuses specifically on fundraising for cinematic projects, will end. At the time of
writing, the project was listed on seedandspark.com as having funded 48 percent of its $50,000-$100,000 goal. For Tate and his team, which includes co-writer Paul Gleason, producer Andrew C. Richey and producer Maritte Go, all of whom Tate met while completing his MFA at USC film school, the only mission bigger than getting the movie made is spreading the message that inspired it: that of disability rights. This complex and often convoluted message finds expression in the struggles of Ivy, “Love Land”’s main character. As a teenager, Ivy received a traumatic brain injury that impaired her motor and cognitive skills. In the screenplay, she strives to make a life for herself in the “normal” world of her small Texas town, but
runs into problems with romance and drugs that land her in Love Land Ranch, an institution for the disabled. Ivy’s losses and victories in the story are plentiful, but they aren’t of the saccharine movie-of-the-month variety usually encountered by characters with special needs. Ivy, as envisioned by Tate and his team, is a complex and morally ambiguous character capable of being mean, kind and compromised. But Tate didn’t originally set out to make a movie with such a complex and nuanced message. “I started out looking to make a movie that was really about how institutions were bad. It was a very simple look at things,” he said. In 2006, inspired by a conversation with his uncle
about disability rights, Tate made a documentary titled “Forgotten Lives” that explored abuse in Texas institutions for the disabled. Originally, Tate’s concept for the movie “Love Land” focused not on the struggles of Ivy, but on the experiences of Roger, the poster boy of Love Land Ranch whom Ivy develops a relationship with. It wasn’t until Tate and his co-writer, Paul Gleason, toured the country and met with disability advocates that the movie’s plot — and perspective — changed. Tate credits Michael Small, a disability advocate who lobbies for personcentered services for the disabled, with helping him think differently about
TATE continues on page 8
The third episode of the third season of cult obsession “Downton Abbey” premieres Sunday. To hear others speak of “Downton” is to be subjected to repeated “amazings!” followed by hurried highlights of each character. The tried-and-true British “Upstairs, Downstairs” formula of the show has piqued American interest since its beginning, especially among fickle millennials. “Downton,” NOT Downtown, could have easily been dismissed as another BBC period piece. But the show has attracted a varied audience by encompassing many plot lines and genres. It has been dramatic, tragic, romantic, mysterious and humourous. Humourous enough to cause even the heartiest American to use the British spelling of humor. Local lawyer Paige Bruton Williams said she was surprised by the success of the show with American audiences. “PBS was always the channel to turn on to educate
DOWNTON ABBEY Channel: KLRU When: Sundays at 7 p.m.
yourself about the Civil War or entertain your cats while you left home. Now, it has suddenly turned into the channel everyone is watching with just one show,” Williams said. “Downton” proves there is a corner of public television where manners and propriety matter and are pored over by thousands. Not before Downton could a 20-something American tell you what a footman did. “Downton” makes the job of a footman exciting and scandalous. Viewers have connected over a mutual dislike of whiny middle daughter Edith and respect for the Dowager Countess’ impeccable snark. While some cultural references might very well go over Americans’ heads, it is the characters’ depth that makes watching every episode a necessity. UT senior Crystal Flinn has a tradition of
ABBEY continues on page 8
Nick Briggs | Associated Press This undated publicity photo shows Maggie Smith as the Dowager Countess, left, and Shirley MacLaine as Martha Levinson from the TV series “Downton Abbey.”