vol105issue11

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

http://clubs.ccsu.edu/recorder/

Against All Odds The Journey for Graduate and Professional School Admission

Kareem Mohamed Staff Writer

For CCSU student Dave McKenzie, whose published name will remain a pseudonym, becoming a dentist has been his dream since high school.

Upon entering college, he chose molecular biology as a major that he would passionately submerge himself into for the next four years in preparation for the challenges ahead.

But even with a prestigious private university education, attaining top grades, involvement in diverse extracurriculars, countless hours of shadowing and volunteering , and scoring a standardized test score of what supposedly is the “magic” number, one thing has kept him from a achieving his dream… he didn’t get in, twice.

For thousands of students each year graduate school is the next step in their educational lives.

Coveted by many, graduate programs offer the opportunity for students to attain advanced academic degrees such as the Ph. D that leads to specialization in a profession.

Most schools have between Nov. 15 and Dec. 15 application deadlines, but it depends on the medicine program. For law, deadlines range from Sept. 1 to Feb. 1 Conventionally, admission to graduate programs requires a bachelor’s level education, where one maintains a good GPA around a B+ average, a personal statement, a demonstration of good character and an above average standardized test score that measures ones intellectually capability as well as predicts their success in the respective program.

According to U.S. News and World Report’s Best Graduate Schools 2008 Edition, which ranks over 1500 programs each year, approximately 40,000 applicants applied to medical school for roughly 17,000 available seats (roughly 100300 per school).

With average school admittance rates of under 6 percent, which are comparable to that of Ph. D pro-

Melissa Traynor / The Recorder

BMS major Alycia Esliger will be applying to the UConn Medical School.

grams, the most difficult graduate programs to be admitted to have been those of the health profession, specifically medical and dental schools.

These programs, unlike law school, have prescribed course requirements that test knowledge in basic sciences and mathematics. Most of these courses overlap with the curriculum of universally any science major.

While many pre-law students major in political science and history, most pre-health destined students hail from major names like biomolecular science and cellular and molecular biology. One of the most difficult parts of enduring five to six semesters in a pre-health track of

coursework is the two-year chemistry sequence that includes organic chemistry – well known for its heavy information and difficulty. At some schools, this course weeds out many students and unanimously is proclaimed the “GPA killer”.

With emphasis placed on science GPAs or “BCPM” (Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Math) GPAs for admission, many students opt to take organic chemistry during summer sessions or at a community college level.

In addition, the primary breaking point for many pre-health majors is the feared Medical College See Journey Page 2

Central Professor Speaks on Psychotherapy and Counseling Amanda Ciccatelli News Editor

Carol Shaw Austad of the psychology department spoke at the bookstore about her book, “Psychotherapy and Counseling”, which combines theory, practice and research in a manor that students can learn to use when examining a mental health patient.

After years of experience performing psychotherapy, Austad has seen that students are being educated about psychotherapy models that have become out of context from psychology practice today. “It was important to me to integrate the kind of information into this textbook that a beginning student would want to

learn about in order to use the therapy models with the most efficiency,” she said.

Austad’s integration of theory, practice and research is unlike most psychology texts in that it uses all three elements together. According to Austad, the pedagogy in her book is helpful to students in the field of psychology because it portrays the basic 12 major physiotherapies.

One important feature of her book is the implementation of evidence-based practice. A mental health practitioner can use psychotherapy as a technique for treating a mental condition, and then use the results to decide whether the treatment was effective or not.

“Evidence-based medicine is a conscience, explicit and judicious use

of current best evidence of making decisions about the care for individual patients based on skills that allow the doctor to evaluate both personal experience and external evidence in a systematic objective manor,” said Austad as she explained this growing trend in medicine of the past 20 years.

The appendix section of her book has a hands-on exercise for students to practice running an actual evidence-based review. Another chapter of the book is on psychopharmacology, which, according to Austad, is unusual for a psychotherapy text book.

“Generally in psychology people are either physiotherapist types who don’t want to give clients mediSee Central Author Presents Page 2

Volume 105 No. 11

NPR Brings the ‘Giant Pool of Money’ Down to Your Street Amanda Ciccatelli News Editor

National Public Radio journalists Adam Davidson and Alex Blumberg spoke at CCSU on Thursday about the challenges and accomplishments of their journey from investigative reporting on the war in Iraq to the Wall Street financial crisis.

But more importantly, they managed to break down the financial crisis and translate the cryptic terms of Wall Street for the everyday citizen.

“I am going to explain why war is more fun than a financial crisis,” said Davidson. “If you are journalists,” added Blumberg.

Davidson found covering the Iraq war journalistically satisfying because he found the most interesting people who had compelling stories to tell.

“Alex and I will tell you that is very hard to do in Wall Street and the financial world,” he said. “I think it was easier to learn Arabic than it was to learn mortgage finance talk,” said Davidson.

Davidson arrived in Baghdad when the Hussein statue had just fallen and the majority of the city was given to American occupation. He was in Baghdad a couple days later when no businesses were open and people were just beginning to leave their homes to see the condition of their city after three weeks of war.

“If you think of a person like me, a journalist who has spent their life trying to find people who have something compelling to say, it’s hard in a place like America where most of our lives are most of the time pretty good,” he said.

The first stop for Davidson was a cemetery in Baghdad where he found a man who spent his days walking around looking for families who were burying their dead. He would approach the family, deliver a religious chant and the family would pay him for it. The man had been making a living that way for 30 years, according to Davidson, and when the rate of daily funerals increased, his business grew accordingly.

On the other hand, the financial crisis was more challenging because it had to be broken down into three and four-minute news stories on the radio.

“I would get a call at eight in the morning. There would be an assignment and I had to have a finished story on the air in four to five hours,” said Davidson. He felt it was frustrating to not be able to make the Wall Street stories as powerful as the cemetery story in Baghdad.

“The easiest thing to say is that this is a story of villains and victims, that there are bad people on Wall Street and that there are people are losing their homes because of the bad people on Wall Street,” said Davidson.

Davidson and Blumberg began investigating the financial crisis by finding out why companies were granting people loans without looking more deeply into people’s backgrounds and jobs.

According to Davidson, a man named Clarence Nathan borrowed $540,000 from a bank without any income verification. The man described the mortgage loan process as too easy and basically insane considering that a lot of people knew their loans couldn’t be paid back.

Blumberg said banks used to carefully check that people were employed before giving them loans, but everything changed in the early 2000s. The reason, said Bloomberg, was a giant pool of money consisting of $70 trillion with its own set of demands.

The pool, the journalists said, was a massive ocean of money made up, for example, of savings and was managed by people who were looking to invest – and invest a lot. The only problem was that Alan Greenspan had essentially cut them off from making money by investing in the government.

“He basically said, ‘Hey, global pool of money – screw you. You aren’t going to make money on federal investment banks for a very long time,’” Davidson said, explaining that Greenspan purposely kept the Federal Funds interest rate at one percent.

The two journalists carefully investigated a number of people who were participants in the chain of events that ultimately caused the financial crisis. Links between the Clarence Nathans of the world, who took out of these loans, all the way up the chain to the pool of money were revealed as Davidson and Blumberg followed the money.

See A Giant Pool of Money Page 3

This Issue

In Sports

Eagles Defend Nest BC defeats men’s basketball 80-65 in season opener.

Page 6

Ice Hockey Outshines UNH Blue Devils clinch victory with four-goal first and third periods.

Page 9

In Entertainment

GoW2 Emphasizes Teamwork Cooperative gameplay pushes Gears of War 2 past first version.

Page 11

In Lifestyles “The medium of clay brings out a primal connection in me.”

- AbbyJensen A CCSU ceramics major puts her work on display at a local cafe/laundromat.

Page 14

News

2 THE RECORDER Wednesday, November 19, 2008

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Editor-in-Chief Melissa Traynor Managing Editor Peter Collin Art Director Geoffrey Lewis Associate Layout Editor Edward Gaug Copy Editor Aril Grain Entertainment Editor Nick Viccione Lifestyles Editor Jane Natoli News Editor Amanda Ciccatelli Sports Editor Kyle Dorau Opinion Editor Marissa Blaszko Editor-at-Large Karyn Danforth

Journey to Graduate Schools Continued from page 1 Admission Test and the Dental Admission Test. These 5- or 6-hour computer-based exams force students to study biological and physical science topics for almost eight months in advance.

With the importance of admissions heavily weighted on standardized test scores, students hoping for graduate admittance venture into prep courses, namely the Princeton review, Kaplan and Examkrackers.

These cost over $1600 to enroll.

“That number is only a fraction of the admission and preparation cost that doesn’t even include the practice test fees, primary application fees of $65 a school, travel, suits for interviews and other test review supplemental accessories like books and CDs,” McKenzie said. “You are talking about well over $3000 for a shot at being accepted. ” Head of the CCSU Pre-Health Advisory Committee, Cheryl Watson stated that a score of 30 out of 45 on the MCAT certainly gets students in “somewhere.” For Law, an LSAT score ranging between 160-170 is considered competitive, according to CCSU’s pre-law advisors Paul Petterson and Robbin Smith.

Petterson and Smith added that these numbers are all relative in respect to what the rest of a student’s application looks like and more significantly, the desired school. Law programs have average acceptance rates of about 25-35 percent with

slightly more lenient ranges of GPA in comparison to medical schools.

Larger programs like Boston University will have an enormous , but competitive class of 500 seats to fill with students who have high academic credentials. Petterson recalls one of his past students who scored one point shy of a perfect LSAT score but didn’t get into his top choice of Harvard Law School (#2 in U.S. News rankings).

Professor Diane Cohen, another graduate advisor also commented on the competiveness of graduate record examination scores for Ph. D programs. These test scores that measure analytical writing, quantitiave and verbal reasoning are important, “particularly if you are looking for funding,” she said.

Beyond the numbers, other aspects factor into graduate school admission. Usually, deans and advisors will use cliché phrases like, “the wellrounded student” or a “diverse” academic career that includes plenty of résumé-boosting extracurriculars and experiences.

Assistant Dean of Admissions Keat Sanford at UConn School of Medicine, a top-50 program amongst the nation, emphasized extracurriculars like research, volunteer experience and shadowing physicians.

“We are looking for students with more than just numbers,” he said.

Web Editor John Vignali Illustrator Stefano Delli Carpini

Staff Caroline Dearborn Steve Packnick Misbah Akbar P.J. Decoteau Sean Fenwick Michael Walsh Shauna Simeone Gabrielle Pierce Mike D’Avino Doug Duhaime Hale Yalincak Kareem Mohamed

About

The Recorder is a studentproduced publication of Central Connecticut State University and does not necessarily represent, in whole or in part, the views of CCSU’s administrators, faculty or students. The Recorder articles, photographs and graphics are property of The Recorder and may not be reproduced or published without the written permission from the Editor-in-Chief. The purpose of The Recorder is to approach and define issues of importance to the students of Central Connecticut State University.

Meetings for The Recorder are held every Monday night at 7 p.m. in the Blue & White Room in the student center.

Melissa Traynor / The Recorder

CCSU Author Presents Continued from page 1

cation or they are biologically oriented and are saying they want to use a medication that will correct the condition,” she said.

Austad believes the first priority with patients is to get them functioning and then she would work with them psychotherapeutically.

“Any therapist needs to know the basics about pharmacology and they need to know when it’s best to refer the client and to understand when they need medication,” she said.

According to Austad, patients may have a problem that can be fixed with medication at an early stage along with using psychotherapy as a supplementary intervention.

The chapter called the “Biopsychosocial Model” explains that physiotherapists must learn to practice within a primary health care setting. Therapists have begun to integrate primary care with mental health care for a more effective outcome for the patient, both mentally and physically.

“Nearly 60 percent of visits to primary care facilities involve some kind of a psychological problem,” Austad said.

In her book, Austad used the case of young man named Jonathon who suffers from depression after his partner walked out on him. He appears in every chapter and the physiotherapies address his problems differently according to theory, practice and research. Austad also described the woman who left Jonathon in order for the readers to have further information when developing a treatment plan.

Austad began writing her book 25 years ago when she first started working in clinical psychology. She was a doctoral student who practiced what she called “academic ivory tower” types of theories by other professors.

“They would see no more than 20 patients and taught doctoral students how to do psychotherapy,” she said.

She eventually found a job at Community Health Care Plan in New Haven where she learned a lot about the application and methodology of psychotherapy.

“I was able to take all the cumulative experience from my years of experience and apply it, and the end result is this text,” she said.

Professor Cohen stated that sometimes it can be about numbers but overall it is about being the best fit for that school and admissions officers want to create a “balanced and diverse class of intellectual minds.”

“The hardest part about applying is knowing what kind of applicant you have to be,” said CCSU student and prospective 2008 medical applicant Adrian Pacheco. “You hear different advice from so many people that sometimes you don’t know what to do and when to do it”.

Dave McKenzie, 26, a post-baccalaureate student preparing to reapply again, summed up his near-three year journey as being like a cascade.

“You get the GPA schools want, then you get the test scores they want, then everything else falls down to the next selection factor, until your finally reach the interview,” he said.

McKenzie was granted interviews at top dental programs such as the University of Maryland, UConn and Tufts University in 2006 but got nothing more than hopeful spots on hefty waiting lists.

Unlike its professional counterpart, law schools don’t place particular importance of internships of lawyers or volunteer jobs in admissions. Smith says that law schools’ rationale is that students will learn all the material they need to know once they get in.

“They just need the assertion that you can handle the load,” she said.

Smith urges her advisees to major in something that they are passionate about so that they can have the highest possible GPA when applying.

For students who don’t get accepted during the first run, several opportunities may warrant backdoor routes to acceptances from graduate schools.

Unfortunately, with law school admittance as traditionally being more number-driven, retaking the LSATs to improve scores is the only practical chance for reconsideration.

Students can venture abroad for a shot at medicine – Caribbean medical schools have been an increasing trend for American students in response to the rapidly increasing admissions in the M.D. applicant pool.

Students can also look into Doctor of Osteopathic medical schools, which have a more holistic and self-healing approach to medicine. The title D.O. allows one to have all equivalent practicing rights as an M.D. and compensation.

Other may find it more comfortable to take the MCATs one more time, or two, or even invest in masters level or more upper division coursework and retake classes at a rigorous school.

McKenzie said that graduate students need to have the ability to rebound quickly and he described how he overcame feelings of frustration, depression and financial exhaustion.

Relevant workforce experience can show dedication to the field and impress admissions. Paralegal programs allow one to work alongside lawyers and in some cases do the same nature of work. With any decision towards improving chances, there is a trade off.

“There is an expectation that this particular application cycle is going to be a rough one,” Smith said, adding that the economic crisis isn’t exactly helping law firms and hospitals.

Even for students with wellrounded attributes, the ordeal of pursuing admittance to these graduate programs takes extreme perseverance, but nonetheless, can be a game of chance.

3

THE RECORDER / Wednesday, November 19, 2008 / NEWS

Clinic Talk: ‘Choice’ May Not Always Mean Abortion AmAndA CiCCAtelli news editor

Hartford GYN Center administrator Jessica Wilson spoke to Central students at the Women’s Center on Thursday about the importance of a woman’s choice and about abortion services offered by the gynecology center.

Having worked at the clinic for 27 years, Wilson did her college internship at the clinic where she found her passion for speaking to young women about abortion.

The clinic mainly offers abortion services and educates young women about the different choices available to them along with counseling. Wilson is proud of the board-certified surgical staff, the safe environment and universal precautions that make up the Hartford GYN Center.

“When people call us, generally they have already made their choice about their pregnancy. We make sure to ask them to make sure they made the right choice for them,” said Wilson.

According to Wilson, 95 percent of their patients are confident in their decision, but sometimes when the time comes for their appointment, they face the protestors in front of the building and can change their mind at the last minute.

A group of about six protestors come to the front of the clinic every day to try and stop women from getting abortions. There is always an armed guard at the entrance of the clinic and another guard escorts in Wilson and her coworkers each morning. The doctors wear bulletproof vests because people have been killed and doctors have been shot.

“We have a session with each woman and talk with them about why they are choosing their decision for abortion,” said Wilson, who explained that most women choose abortion over adoption.

When a woman chooses adoption, she can choose from many options. One kind allows a mother to see the child regularly, a second doesn’t involve the mother seeing the child at all and another type of adoption just involves the mother sending gifts on holidays.

Lately, the clinic has been seeing something they named the “Juno Effect”. Actress Ellen Paige in the movie Juno played a strong and generous person in giving her baby to an older, more mature woman who wanted a baby when Paige knew she was too young to take on the responsibility.

“That movie brought out the beauty of adoption when somebody can do it,” said Wilson.

“We are there to help facilitate what the woman is feeling in her heart because sometimes they feel trapped in a certain boyfriend, husband or family situation,” she said.

If a woman chooses to have the baby, the center offers a list of gynecologists who are there to help the woman along her pregnancy and to maintain the baby’s health.

“Choice to me doesn’t just mean abortion.

Choice to me means choice,” said Wilson. “It is really hard sometimes for a young woman to say ‘I am pregnant and having this baby so let the chips fall where they may.’”

The clinic sees women of all ages, from as young as 12 to as old as 50. “We see a lot of col-

Giant Pool of Money Continued from page 1

Davidson said that the banks that were on the receiving end of these loan payments were fairly confident that the constant flow of money would continue, so the giant pool of money became involved.

“So picture the whole chain. You have Clarence. He gets a mortgage from a broker.

The broker sells the mortgage to a small bank, the small bank sells the mortgage to a [representative] at a big investment firm on Wall Street. Then [the representative] takes a few thousand mortgages he’s bought this way, he puts them in one big pile. Now he’s got thousands of mortgage checks coming to him every month,” Davidson said on their program at the NPR program “This American Life”, which aired on May 9, 2008.

“It’s a huge monthly stream of money, which is expected to come in for the next thirty years, the life of a mortgage.

And he then sells shares of that monthly income to investors. Those shares are called mortgage backed securities. And the 70 trillion-dollar global pool of moneyloved them.”

Eventually, the standards for receiving a loan were so low that they banks essentially just granted loans to anyone who asked so that they

could help feed the needs of the pool, as the journalists called it.

It was too good to be true, especially when the Nathans couldn’t pay back their loans and the pool actually began losing money. Banks had lost confidence in each other and trading between them became stagnant.

“For the last two months this market is dead,” Davidson said. “… For example, 45 banks need money, but zero banks have it. That means that 45 banks can’t give the regular man the loans. That is why they can bring Wall Street to your street.”

One the questions that kept popping up was, who are the criminals? While they agreed that there were some people involved who did criminal things, there is no way to blame it solely on one person.

“We’re talking about things that were largely done out in the open… it was a grand delusion,” Davidson said. “It’s hard for me to pick someone out – other than Alan Greenspan – and say, ‘here’s the schmuck who did this.’”

lege students,” said Wilson. The average patient who visits the Center is a 22-year-old Caucasian Catholic woman.

“For most people, 22 is a really strange age. You are in school, or you just got a degree, you are ready to explore the world and aren’t ready for a child,” she said.

Although girls don’t have to have parental consent if they are under 17-years-old, they are given a questionnaire and are asked about being aware of their choices and about their partner.

Depending on the circumstances, such as abuse and rape, the pregnancy may have to be reported.

“At 11 or 12, we absolutely have to report it,” she said. “If they are 13 -15 and the person they slept with is 2 years or older, we have to report it.”

Central student Amber Smith expressed shock when she heard of the extremely young girls who were seeking abortion services at the clinic.

“When I was in high school, they taught abstinence. Thank goodness we had the Internet and a Planned Parenthood. I think that if they implemented sex education into schools it would benefit people,” she said.

Connecticut is a liberal state when it comes to minors and Wilson thinks that characteristic is beneficial especially when young girls may not be able to confide in their parents.

Connecticut is also very liberal with abortion. According to Wilson, 60 to 70 percent of the GYN Center’s patients are on Medicaid, which fully pays for an abortion.

“The only problem is if you work for the federal government such as the Post Office, WallMart and Casinos. They won’t pay for abortion,” Wilson said.

Wilson also said that some women push the time limit of abortion and go to the clinic too late. The Abortion limit is 19.6 weeks for the Hartford GYN Center, but some women seek abortion services at five months into their pregnancy.

“People wonder why women wait so long, but sometimes women have what looks like their period when they are pregnant so they don’t think they are pregnant. Some are on drugs or are alcoholics,” Wilson explained.

Abortion has given many women choices in their lives they would not have otherwise.

“There are people out there that are living in some desperate situations and their best thinking got them to our clinic,” she said.

There is nothing as satisfying to Wilson as a woman who makes the right choice for her, whether it is to have an abortion, keep the baby or put it up for adoption.

“We give them the strength to face their family or their partner, stand up and say I don’t want to have an abortion, I want to have this baby, we are so happy for them,” she said. “We want to support these women no matter what their decision is.”

“If we could see the end to abortion tomorrow, we would love it, but I have been doing this for 30 years and every single week it’s the same story. We talk to every single patient about birth control, respecting themselves, communication etc, but the flesh is weak,” she explained.

NPR’s Adam Davidson, along with Alex Blumberg, came to speak last Thursday at the journalism conference.

Listen to “A Giant Pool of Money” at This American Life’s Web site, www.thislife.org. edward Gaug / the recorder

4 THE RECORDER Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Editorial

Editorial/Opinion

With news of job cuts and buyouts in many newsrooms, it doesn’t come as a surprise that the newspaper industry’s suffering has made its way into Connecticut. As the Journal Register Company’s troubles may threaten the livelihood of 11 weekly and two daily newspapers including New Britain’s Herald, the suffering is a little too close.

Without the promise of a buyer to take over these 13 newspapers that the Yardley, Pa.-based Journal Register owns in the state, the fates of The Herald and The Bristol Press are in question while Jan. 12, 2009 is fast approaching. The newspapers are expected to close if no one comes forward by this date.

The JR blames low advertising revenue and the economic recession for the sale of the papers.

News of the JR’s struggles also includes the company’s plans to cut 20 jobs at The New Haven Register, its flagship newspaper, with five directly in the newsroom.

Though it has been predicted that larger newspapers will face newsroom staff cuts and small, hyper-local newspapers will survive in their immediate areas, the truth remains that no newspaper is really safe. Statewide newspaper The Hartford Courant is working with limited resources in terms of covering local news, but with announcements that The Herald may fold, it seems that good, old-fashioned town news in print may be hard to come by.

What the Courant has been making do with, however, is the creation of iTowns and reader-generated content. This type of coverage allows

readers to submit articles and photographs to the Courant for publishing online or in print.

Should New Britain’s newspaper fold and several surrounding towns’ papers close, including those from Farmington, Newington, West Hartford and Wethersfield, receiving content from readers is something our area may have to rely on in the future. This means added pressure on other newspapers to step up coverage, heightened contributions by local bloggers and potentially unreliable material may be thrown into the conversation.

While this may sound like a user-friendly and, frankly, cheap idea, we’d rather that newspapering came with the accountability and effort provided by paid and trained journalists. The communication and ongo-

ing dialogue of the City of New Britain needs professionals pulling together and writing the news. If not, imagine a sea of letters to the editor, with all of their joy and anger, honesty and slant.

It looks as though the next few months in Connecticut will be an odd and potentially trying period, but we hope that the newspapers in jeopardy will survive and someone comes forward to renew a little faith in the industry.

Dropping coverage of certain aspects of town life is something inevitable, but the abandonment of town government, local sports, education and local crime beats with all of the detail and depth that area newspapers provide is something we’d hate to see. This is especially be-

cause we fear there aren’t many out there to pick up the slack.

There may not be much room for optimism; the recent past isn’t exactly encouraging. However, it is an exciting time to be in or going into the news industry despite setbacks and we’d like to see small newspapers make a turn for the better to provide the level of reporting and a watchful eye that every community needs.

What do you think about the possibility that The Herald will fold?

Email your thoughts to ccsurecorder@gmail.com

Is Rahm Emanuel the Sturdiest Choice?

Marissa Blaszko Opinion Editor

After being red-bated for weeks by the Republican Party, President-elect Barack Obama raised yet another red flag. This time, however, it was with his first staffing pick after being elected.

President-elect Obama’s newly appointed chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, served on the board of directors of the federal mortgage firm Freddie Mac at a time when scandal was brewing at the troubled agency and the board failed to spot “red flags”, according to government reports reviewed by ABCNews.com.

The story, which was voted on and popularized by the members of online bookmarking site Digg.com, hasn’t quite gotten the reaction it deserves. Thankfully, Digg users (as well as a

portion of Obama’s young supporters) have an expression to sum up the outcome of just such a situation: EPIC FAIL. It should be pointed out, however, that Representative Emanuel is no failure in any way. As a senior advisor to the Clinton administration, he spearheaded Clinton’s welfare initiative that worked at keeping welfare money out of some of the poorest communities – many of which, it should be noted, voted for Obama.

The position essentially cemented Emanuel’s political career in Washington, as well as in Manhattan.

After the 2000 election, Emanuel moved on to become a massive figurehead on Wall Street through his work with Freddie Mac. But even after his official split from the company, Emanuel has continued to work with Wall Street hedge funds, the very “speculators” many blamed for the bank collapses.

Non-partisan Web site OpenSecrets.org wrote on the topic soon after the nomination, claiming Emanuel “was the top House recipient in the 2008 election cycle of contributions from hedge funds, private equity firms and the larger securities/investment industry – not the most popular of industries in the current economy.

Since being elected to Congress in 2002, after working as an investment banker, Emanuel has received more money from individuals in the securities and investment business than any other industry.”

The nomination was an obvious win for Emanuel’s side of the war over Wall Street. With a man who has been profiting off of their success in office, what do Wall Street execs have to worry about?

Change-drunk liberals are either seeing Emanuel through a pair of beer goggles or stopped paying attention the second CNN an-

nounced that McCain had stepped out of the way. The conservatives, it would seem, have been too busy building fall-out shelters to breathe what should have been a collective sigh of relief.

The Chief of Staff pick is unfortunate for those who elected Obama in the first place.

Instead of seeing the collective “we” Obama built his campaign on, the American people are getting a recycled staff member from a previous administration – one that effectively destroyed welfare faster than even Reagan’s. He’s not only that, but a member of one of the most unpopular congresses of all times, that moonlights as one of the “fat cats” that put us into this economic hole to begin with.

Green Party Candidate for VP Visits Campus Tim McKee

Special to The Recorder

A 2008 vice presidential candidate came to CCSU to share her views on the historic election and what it means to African-Americans.

She was the other woman who was running for Vice President of the United States, but many may not have heard of Rosa Clemente.

The title of her talk was “Running for All Our Lives: Rosa Clemente’s Vice Presidential Campaign as a Black, Puerto Rican, Hip Hop Activist” and it was standing room only in Founders Hall. Last Monday Clemente came to talk in Founders Hall about her experiences running with Green Party candidate, former Democrat Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and expressed her mixed emotions about the first African-American president-elect Barack Obama.

Her pride of the historic first was also tempered with a charge to the students.

“Now is the time for the work to begin! We need to hold him accountable for issues he campaigned on,” she said. “Students can’t think that they can just sit back and rest.”

One by one, Clemente listed differences between the Greens and the Democrats in charge now. She advocated for a Canadian-style single-payer health care system instead of probig business system that doesn’t cover everyone.

She pushed for a living wage that would remove people from welfare and get them back to work, instead of Obama’s slight increase in the minimum wage.

In 2008 campaign, she worked to bring more Latinos, working class people and women in the political movements of the United States.

In 2003, Clemente helped form and coordinate the first ever National Hip-Hop Political Convention, drawing 3,000 activists to generate a national political agenda for the hip-hop generation. But Clemente worries that hip-hop is becoming too male-dominated and may become a male-only art form in the future.

Former Green Party VP candidate Rosa Clemente posed with Prof. Catherine Hermes last Monday after her talk.

As an undergrad at the University of Albany and a graduate student at Cornell, Clemente was highly involved in both on campus and off campus politics. In 2001, she was a youth representative at the United Nations World Conference against Xenophobia, Racism and Related Intolerance. She urged the students

to get directly involved with local politics and issues.

She related how the Greens had over one million votes for their candidates and was the first party to have two women at the top of the ticket. After the talk, many students expressed an interested in forming a Campus Greens club to work on issues that Clemente had spoke of

Photo: Tim McKee

and said that she inspired them to get more involved with “ Green” politics.

Tim McKee is a returning CCSU student and National Committee representative for the Green Party. He can be reached at mckeetil@ccsu. edu.

5

THE RECORDER / Wednesday, November 19, 2008

AIDS Cure In Sight Seems Ethical Despite Risks GABrielle PierCe Staff Writer

Normally, one wouldn’t consider a person diagnosed with both AIDS and leukemia to be very lucky. However, a 42-year-old American man living in Berlin, Germany would beg to differ.

After being diagnosed with leukemia, on top of his existing HIV diagnosis, he was told he would need a bone marrow transplant to live.

His doctors sought a donor with a specific genetic mutation that is known to be resistant to the AIDS virus, known as CCR5. This mutation causes cells to be produced without CCR5 receptors. The HIV virus binds itself to these

receptors in order to spread throughout the blood. In theory, a person with this mutation is unable to contract the HIV virus.

After stopping his HIV medication and going through with the transplant, he has been both cancer and HIV free for over 600 days.

Unfortunately, the idea of a transplant to cure AIDS is far from becoming a regular treatment. German hematologist Dr. Gero Hutter said that the procedure comes with such a high mortality rate that it would be ethically unjustifiable except for this specific situation when a patient was forced to have a transplant because of another disease. However, the idea raises hopes that gene therapy might one day discover a cure for HIV.

Understanding that a bone marrow transplant is a very high-risk procedure and the mortality rate is high, one would assume that any mortality rate under 100 percent gives a person a better shot at surviving than the HIV virus does once it has developed into AIDS. It might be unethical to offer this treatment to those who are living normal lives on their medication, but for those whose disease has already progressed past a reasonable point, it could be a better option than waiting for their inevitable death. Although the outlook is grim, researching this bone marrow transplant to the point where it can be offered as a treatment for those who are near death could offer them a little bit of hope.

Treatments for HIV and AIDS are extremely costly. As the patient takes the medications, the virus mutates and requires stronger drugs with harsher side effects in order to keep it under control. There will always be a point at which a person can no longer rely on these medications to help them cope with their disease.

As a last resort a bone marrow transplant with donor marrow that carries the CCR5 mutation could be offered as a solution.

When the disease is beyond control and death is not only inevitable but also just around the corner, wouldn’t it then be an ethical treatment? Though this procedure is high risk, living with AIDS comes with risks that are even higher

A Firearm is the Best Home Security ShAUnA Simeone Staff Writer

Recently, a multitude of Brinks Home Security commercials has been appearing on TV. They are so unrealistic that they would be comical if their message wasn’t so frightening and misguided.

What happens in most versions of the commercial is a woman is at home alone when she hears someone trying to break in. After a second the door flies open to reveal a burglar as the security alarm is triggered. The noise of the alarm is enough to send the robber running away from the home. The woman is left safe and soon receives a call from Brinks saying that they are sending help to the house right away.

The unfortunate truth about this system is that it is only effective if the invader decides to run off after hearing the alarm, or decides to wait 15 minutes for the cops to show up before causing any damage. Although it is true that alarm systems can prove to be a deterrent in

home invasions, they don’t protect you 100 percent of the time.

What if you or your family is in the percentage of invasions where the invader continues to enter your home? A lot of damage can be done in the time it takes for the police to make it to your house. In this case it would be irresponsible to rely on the police to protect you from harm.

The truth is, the police do not have a legal responsibility to protect you. In a Washington D.C. Supreme Court case, Warren v. District of Columbia, it was revealed that three women were robbed, raped, beaten and forced to commit sexual acts on each other for 14 hours. The women had been calling the police repeatedly for a half-hour, but they never showed up. The women sued the police department, but the court ruled that the police do not have a responsibility to provide individual protection, and they were relieved of any wrongdoing.

In fact, the courts ruled that “...a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protec-

tion, to any particular individual citizen...” This is a scary precedent that was set by the court. If the police don’t have to protect us, then people need to protect themselves.

The best way to do this is with a firearm.

Firearms are an even stronger deterrent than alarm systems since 100 percent of home invasions are stopped when the invader is shot. Can Brinks offer those kinds of numbers?

Recently, in the town of Cape Girardeau, Mo., Ronnie W. Preyer, a registered sex offender, broke into a woman’s home and raped her. In a second incident, Preyer broke into the same woman’s house in order to rape her again. This time he cut off the electricity to her home and she was not able to contact the police. Instead, she picked up a shotgun, shot the man, and was able to escape unharmed.

When the police aren’t able to help sufficiently, people must take personal protection into their own hands.

Many of proponents of gun control bring up statistics of gun crime. Besides the fact that you are four times more likely to die in a car ac-

cident than by a gun, there is a strong correlation between gun control and gun crime that should be addressed. Areas of the country with the strongest gun control laws, such as New York City and Chicago, also have the highest crime rates. Most criminals obtain their guns illegally, so in areas where gun control is high, the criminals are still getting guns. The difference is that they know law-abiding citizens are unarmed. Criminals are much more likely to attack when they know you are unarmed and defenseless. When citizens are allowed to bear arms, criminals will not be as successful.

Brinks Home Security may be a good back up, but it would be foolish to rely on it to protect you from harm. Since the election, gun sales have gone up by 50 percent in Connecticut alone, a trend that is being echoed across the nation. Maybe people are beginning to realize that the best way to defend themselves and their rights is with a firearm.

6

Sports

THE RECORDER Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Last Second Jump Shot

Continued from page 16

problem of a hot-shooting Colgate team. Central trailed by as many as nine, due in large part to the Raiders going 6-12 from beyond the arc in the first half.

The Blue Devils’ struggles were personified by a rough night from junior guard Joe Seymore. The only remaining member of the 06-07 NEC Championship team went 1-9 from the field and grabbed just two rebounds in 26 minutes.

“We can’t have Joe get those kind of numbers,” said Dickenman, going on to explain how hard he works. “He’s the guy who, on Sunday morning, came in early and shot while the coaches were in a meeting because he wanted to get ready for the next game.”

Offensively, the Blue Devils were carried by Ken Horton

once again. Posting his first doubledouble of the season with 18 points and 10 rebounds, he met the expectations of the coaching staff.

Shemik Thompson contributed 12 points, while Marcus Palmer had 11 rebounds, including four on the offensive glass.

The closing minute was a lost opportunity for CCSU. Leading by four with 55 seconds remaining, a Venezia jumper to cut the lead to two was just a harbinger of things to come.

After draining the clock down to 17 seconds, Marcus Palmer missed a layup. He fouled Ben Jonson of the Raiders, who made his first free throw and missed the second. Central Sophomore Aaron Hall grabbed the rebound, was fouled, and went to the

free throw line. Missing the one-andone, the Raiders rebounded and had 12 seconds of time left.

Venezia took the ball off a screen, faked a shot to draw in Thompson and Palmer, and went up with a line-drive jump shot that found nothing but net.

“Me and Mark were there, he just made a tough shot,” said Thompson. Venizia finished with 10 points, none bigger than the last two at the buzzer.

Dickenman put the game in perspective.

“We had our chances,” he said.

“Maybe Colgate deserved to win the game. But this is a game you look back at as the season goes along. It hurts more. You don’t forget about this one.”

Local Rock Cats Sell the Experience, not the Game Kyle Dorau Sports Editor

Sophomore Aaron Hall has a late game lay-up.

Edward Gaug / The Recorder

CCSU Volleyball Heads to NEC Tournament After 3-0 Loss CCSUBlueDevils.com

Lauren Snyder had a team-high 10 kills as the Central Connecticut women’s volleyball team dropped a 3-0 decision at Robert Morris on Sunday afternoon. The Blue Devils finish the regular season with an 1113 overall record and a 5-3 mark in the Northeast Conference.

The Blue Devils will return to Robert Morris this weekend for the NEC Tournament.

The Colonials claim the NEC regular season title with the 25-21, 25-18, 25-21 victory over the Blue Devils on Sunday. They finish the regular season 8-0 and will host next

week’s NEC Tournament beginning on Saturday, November 22.

The Blue Devils finish 5-3 in the NEC, tied for third place with St. Francis (PA), and will be the #3 seed in the NEC Tournament by virtue of their victory over the Red Flash on Saturday afternoon. CCSU will play the #6 seed, Sacred Heart, on Saturday in the quarterfinal round.

On Sunday the Blue Devils were led by Snyder’s 10 kills and Amanda Bayer’s 26 assists. Amanda Olmstead added seven kills and 16 digs to help lead the Blue Devils.

Robert Morris was led by Emily Wolthuis who had a match-high 15 kills as RMU hit .264 in the match.

They post an overall record of 19-9 this season.

New Britain Rock Cats Vice President and General Manager John Willi came to Central last week to speak about the finer points of selling potential customers on minor league baseball.

The lecture was given in the CCSU Bookstore to a group of students interested in sports business.

The visit was sponsored by the CCSU Marketing Club.

The General Manager’s role is portrayed as a glamorous one in Major League Baseball, jet setting from ballpark to ballpark and proposing scores of trades. In the minors, it is decidedly more of a marketing position.

The way the minor league baseball hierarchy is set up, all the minor league teams enter an affiliation with a major league club, and answer to them. There is minimal say on the players and personnel moves.

Making sure the stadium is packed on a nightly basis is Willi’s responsibility, and he has done so with flying colors. The main reason is that the organization has chosen not to sell the game, but instead sell the experience. Between the game, the food, contests and promotions, the emphasis is on attracting families to

the ballpark for the entertainment value.

“It was kind of a taboo thing to say,” said Willi about the change in the Rock Cats’ advertising. “But we’re not going to market to baseball fans.”

While it is still important for the organization to let people know who they will be playing and who the future stars are, he explained the family-centric marketing strategy.

“We’re going to be selling fun instead of baseball. We’re going to create in-game promotions and theme nights and theme areas where you can do more than just watch a game,” he said.

Those theme nights and theme areas are all part of a strategy that includes branding and sponsoring everything, including days of the week.

Doing so made plenty of sense, since there wasn’t a ton in terms of on-field product that the Rock Cats management had control over.

“I love baseball, but I don’t decide who plays first base,” said Willi.

Roster moves and the weather are the two things out of his control, but everything else is fair game in terms of advertising and marketing.

A significant part of the Rock Cats’ presence in the community is their small army of mascots. Headed by the namesake, Rocky the Rock Cat, Willi realizes that mascots are

the main attraction for a lot of kids who come to the ballpark.

“Mascots are a huge part of the experience,” he said. “It got to the point where we now have six mascots, more than any team I’ve ever heard of.”

The Rock Cats purchase mascots from now-defunct baseball teams and radio stations and “sign them” to the team.

Catering to the college students and marketing majors in the crowd, Willi mentioned the need for highlymotivated interns.

“Intenships, volunteering, and part time work are priceless,” he said.

Interested applicants are encouraged to contact the Rock Cats offices or visit their Web site for more information on internship programs.

The talk by Willi was received well by the students that attended.

“I personally am not really into baseball,” said CCSU Marketing Club President Michelle Robles, “but I’m actually really interested in the entertainment aspect of it.”

The Rock Cats open their 2009 season in April, and are a minor league affiliate of the Minnesota Twins.

“I think it’s a great opportunity for anyone,” said Robles.

Mallory Breaks Through 1,500-Yard Mark

Continued from page 16

drive, but Saunders stripped senior Evin Jones on the first play. Blue Devil junior Roberto Rodriguez recovered.

Neither team scored the rest of the opening quarter and then traded punts to start the second stanza.

CCSU took over at its own 20 yard line following a touchback, and junior Hunter Wanket led the team 80 yards over seven plays for another touchdown.

A roughing the passer call against Sacred Heart helped push the Blue Devils out to their own 46-yard line, and two big plays put them inside the SHU 10. Wanket hit Vargas over the middle for 32 yards, and Richardson rambled for 27 yards to get to the three-yard line.

Richardson finished the drive with a three-yard score, his second rushing touchdown of the season.

Izzo’s point after made it 21-0 in favor of the Blue Devils.

Central Connecticut got the ball back quickly, intercepting Fink’s replacement, red shirt freshman Ray

Sheehan, on the second play of the following drive. Senior captain Michael Bailey stepped in front of the attempt, giving CCSU the ball at Sacred Heart’s 35-yard line. The Blue Devils failed to score, but had another chance to get on the board before the break.

After Marino sacked Sheehan and forced an intentional grounding call, the Pioneers chose to go for it on fourth down and 25 from the CCSU 43-yard line. Sheehan was sacked again, this time by Saunders, who also forced a fumble.

Central Connecticut freshman Charlie Williams recovered at the Sacred Heart 31-yard line, and Wanket connected with senior Jermaine Roberts on first down for a 31-yard touchdown. CCSU recovered an onside kick following that score but was stopped at the SHU one-yard line as the half expired.

Central Connecticut had 119 yards on the ground over the opening 30 minutes. Meanwhile, the Blue Devils held Sacred Heart to minus-19

yards rushing. Senior Ernie Greywacz and sophomore Dominique Rose each had five first half tackles for the Blue Devils.

The Blue Devils added to their lead on the second half ’s first drive.

They started at their own six-yard line, but a 53-yard Mallory run moved the ball to Sacred Heart’s 23. Two plays later, Mallory ran in from 18 yards out for his second touchdown of the game. Izzo made it 35-0 with the extra point.

Sacred Heart looked poised to get on the board on the ensuing drive, but Blue Devil junior Marcus Dorsey intercepted Sheehan in the end zone on a first and goal play from the seven-yard line.

Dorsey returned the pick 86 yards before being knocked out of bounds by Sheehan. Junior Anthony McCoy got the Blue Devils down to the three-yard line, and Richardson finished off the short scoring drive with his second touchdown of the game. Sheehan was intercepted again on the following drive, this time by

Marino. However, the turnover did not result in any more Blue Devil points.

After a Blue Devil punt at the start of the fourth quarter, Sheehan led Sacred Heart down the field and ended CCSU’s bid for a second straight shutout. He hit sophomore Mark Uyeno for a 13-yard touchdown, capping a seven-play, 52-yard drive.

CCSU responded with an 80yard scoring drive. The Blue Devils ran the ball 12 times, and Vargas’ only touch came on a one-yard touchdown. Mallory had 38 yards, and Richardson had 36 yards on the drive.

Sacred Heart added seven more points to make it a 49-14 final.

Sheehan connected with junior Steve Tedesco for a 23-yard score.

Central Connecticut finished with 438 yards of total offense, posting 337 on the ground and 101 through the air. Richardson added 89 yards to Mallory’s 150-yard performance. It was Mallory’s ninth 100-

yard game of the season. Norris added 48 yards on the ground and 11 yards on 2-of-4 passing. Wanket completed 5-of-7 passes for 90 yards.

Roberts had two catches for 39 yards.

The Blue Devil defense, meanwhile, held SHU to 23 yards rushing.

It was the fifth time this season CCSU held an opponent under 100 yards on the ground. In addition to Marino and Saunders, Greywacz had six tackles. He and senior Lamont Tillery also forced fumbles.

The Blue Devils forced fiveplus turnovers for the second straight week. After intercepting five passes and recovering a fumble last Saturday against St. Francis (PA), they intercepted three passes and recovered two fumbles this afternoon. They forced four fumbles against SHU. CCSU ends the season at 7-4 overall and 4-3 in Northeast Conference play. Mallory moved up the CCSU all-time rushing leaderboard, ending his junior season in sixth place with 1,893 career yards.

7

THE RECORDER / Wednesday, November 19, 2008 / SPORTS

Pick Your Poison

NFL Predictions for Week 10

What a week in the NFL. There were blowouts, nail biters, controversial calls, all-time firsts and even the first tie in six years. We here at Pick Your Poison also saw a few things we haven’t seen before.

Carey Brimmer picked a season high 14 games right and rode that wave all the way to the number two spot on our board. It was also our second straight week of at least six of our contestants reaching the 10 pick plateau, which was a first for this season as well.

Last week we asked our contestants who they thought would win the AFC East and most thought the Jets would take the crown, including Edward Homick who said, “I think the Jets will make a surge and win the division title, since Brett Favre can do it all and is still the best QB in the game.”

With only three weeks of competition left for the Pick Your Poison crown everyone needs to keep those picks coming and if you have any comments or questions email us at ccsurecorder@gmail.com.

Peter Collin

Kyle Dorau

Managing Editor

Edward Gaug

Sports Editor

Nick Viccione

Associate Layout Editor

Entertainment Editor

Cincinnati at Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh

Tampa Bay at Detroit

Tampa Bay

Tampa Bay

Tampa Bay

Tampa Bay

N.Y. Jets at Tennessee

Tennessee

Tennessee

Tennessee

N.Y. Jets

Buffalo at Kansas City

Buffalo

Buffalo

Buffalo

Buffalo

Chicago at St. Louis

Chicago

Chicago

Chicago

Chicago

Miami

New England

New England

New England

Minnesota at Jacksonville

Jacksonville

Minnesota

Jacksonville

Minnesota

Philadelphia at Baltimore

Baltimore

Baltimore

Philadelphia

Baltimore

Houston at Cleveland

Cleveland

Cleveland

Houston

Cleveland

Dallas

Dallas

Dallas

Dallas

New England at Miami

San Francisco at Dallas Oakland at Denver

Denver

Denver

Denver

Denver

Washington at Seattle

Washington

Washington

Washington

Washington

N.Y. Giants at Arizona

N.Y. Giants

N.Y. Giants

N.Y. Giants

N.Y. Giants

Carolina at Atlanta

Carolina

Carolina

Atlanta

Carolina

Indianapolis at San Diego

Indianapolis

Indianapolis

Indianapolis

Indianapolis

Green Bay at New Orleans

Green Bay

Green Bay

New Orleans

New Orleans

Pick of the Week

This Week’s NFL Prediction Leader Board

Baltimore def. Philadelphia It is a pretty ominous sign when you can’t score more than 13 points against a team that gives up almost 25 points a game. Baltimore on the other hand, gives up a mere 18 points a game. Barring a collapse of the entire NFC East, this game could be the end of the Eagles 2008-09 playoff hopes.

Rank

Name

Total Points

Current Week

1

Kyle Dorau

102

8

2

Carey Brimmer

99

14

3

Kevin Petruzielo

98

9

4

Anthony Gonsalves

97

9

5

Gary Berman

94

13

6

Nick Viccione

93

12

7

Ed Gaug

91

10

8

Ryan Kennedy

89

9

9

Marc Chouinard

81

10

9

Peter Collin

81

10

11

Edward Homick

76

8

12

Alex Waters

64

6

13

Melissa Traynor

62

0

New England def. Miami

Tennessee def. N.Y. Jets There is absolutely no reason to pick against the Titans until someone proves they can beat them. That and I hate the Jets more than just about any other sports team in existence.

I’ll be honest; I’m just picking New England because I’m a pessimistic Dolphins fan. I think Cassel has developed well since the last time he faced Sparano, The Tuna and Co. Hopefully I’m wrong and Miami continues along the path to a playoff berth and maybe even the AFC East title.

OPE N HOUSE

N.Y. Giants def. Arizona In what I consider the most intriguing game this weekend, the Giants will continue their winning ways against a Cardinals team that still needs to prove to me that they can win games against tough teams.

Thursday, January 15 • 4:30–6:30 p.m.

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8

THE RECORDER / Wednesday, November 19, 2008 / SPORTS

Eagles Defend the Nest Against Devils “They were a little bit bigger, a little bit stronger.”

- Coach Howie Dickenman Kyle Dorau Sports Editor

CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. – Central men’s basketball (0-1) was able to fly with the Boston College Eagles (1-0) for half of the game, but BC’s depth and size caught up to the Blue Devils as they fell 80-65 at Conte Forum on Friday.

Sophomore Ken Horton led CCSU with 21 points, logging a team-high 35 minutes against the ACC power. Central seemed unphased by the big-time environment, flying out of the gate with seemingly limitless energy. The Blue Devils led by as many as seven in the first half, silencing the crowd of 4,197.

“We hung in there for a little while,” said Horton. “I think we take this as a learning experience and work on our rebounds.”

The calling card of a Howie Dickenman-coached team, rebounds were the hot topic after the game.

The teams didn’t differ much in overall rebound total, but the story was the offensive boards, which BC took by a tally of 18-12.

Coach Dickenman was quick to comment on the lack of consistency on the glass.

“We have got to get more rebounds from more people,” he said, going on to cite a lack of boxing out down low. “If you’re told to lay a body on someone, even if you’re a freshman, you can still lay a body on someone.”

Those offensive rebounds BC earned came back to haunt the Blue Devils, as they were out muscled down low. The Eagles had 21 secondchance points, and more than half of their 80 total points came in the paint.

A pleasant surprise for CCSU came in the form of Robby Ptacek, who managed ten points in his Blue Devils debut.

“He’s someone that I know will be a good player for us,” said Dickenman. “Ptacek did himself well tonight in his first game.”

The Eagles were without the services of senior guard Tyrese Rice, who was serving a one-game teamimposed suspension for violation of team rules. The 2007-08 All-ACC first team player averaged 21 points per game last season, leading Boston College.

The differences between major conference basketball such as the ACC as opposed to smaller conferences like the NEC was fairly visible as the game wore on. BC kept attacking with their depth against a stillyoung Blue Devils team. “[They were] a little bit bigger, a little bit stronger,” said Dickenman.

Horton agreed with the CCSU coach.

“I think playing a team like this, that’s in the ACC, that’s bigger than us and stronger than us, shows us what we need to work on,” he said. “For us to go out there, lose by 15 and battle as long as we did, that shows that we have the ability to get tough and get rebounds and get physical.”

Central held Boston College off the scoreboard for the first 2:37 of the game, part of the reason they jumped out to leads of 8-1 and 10-3 – the largest margins they would have all night.

Four different Blue Devils would go on to reach double digits in points.

The Eagles got back in the game by taking control in the post, as well as shooting 55.6 percent from the field in a second half. Rakim Sanders led BC in scoring, putting up 24 points while also nabbing seven rebounds.

“We just didn’t have an answer for him,” said Dickenman.

The Blue Devils are back in action on Saturday as they make a road trip to Albany to face the Great Danes. Game time is 7 p.m.

Boston College 80

Blue Devils 65

Right: Marcus Palmer puts up two of his seven points while teammate Ken Horton looks on.

Bottom Left: Shemik Thompson drives on the BC offense.

Bottom Right: Forward Tamir Johnson surveys the court.

Photos: Conrad Akier

9

THE RECORDER / Wednesday, November 19, 2008 / SPORTS

Blue Devils Outshine UNH Wildcats 8-3 Kyle Dorau Sports Editor

Goalie Carmine Vetrano (30) and forward Dane Anderson (20) defend the goal.

Photos: Paul Krish Jr.

Four-goal first and third periods powered CCSU hockey past the University of New Hampshire in a Super East battle on Sunday at Newington Arena. Senior forward Erich Stoneman had a pair of goals to push the offense.

Despite putting up a snowman on the scoreboard offensively, the Blue Devils did not score once on the power play.

“Five on five, we can play with anybody,” said Central head coach Jim Mallia.

Five-on-five hockey was a rarity in a penalty-marred second period that saw Central give up a pair of goals and let UNH back into the game. Trailing 4-0 after the first frame, the Wildcats would score three straight goals and put the pressure on CCSU. “We let up on the pedal, and they came back,” said Mallia. “They put in two goals because we gave them a chance to breathe.”

As bad as the second period went for the Blue Devils, it could have been much worse. The penalty kill stepped up twice on separate occasions – once killing off a four-onthree, followed by a five-on-three situation.

“A five-on-three is the toughest thing in hockey,” said Mallia. “To kill those off and dig down deep as a team, it shows the character we’re starting to find within each other and within this team.”

Junior goalie Carmine Vetrano also spoke about the crucial kills in the second period.

“Your best penalty killer has to be your goaltender,” he said. “It comes to a point where this is where your team needs you. You have to put the team on your back.”

Vetrano got the win for CCSU, his fifth of the season.

A four-goal outburst, including a pair of markers just eight seconds apart, put the game away in the third period. The most encouraging aspect of the Blue Devil rallies was the wellrounded scoring, as the top three lines each made their presence felt on the score sheet. Junior forward Kevin McConnell led Central in points with a goal and three assists.

Junior forward Ryan Paglinco got CCSU on the board first as he created a turnover at the UNH blue line. With McConnell serving as a two-on-one option, he flipped a backhand high that Wildcats goalie Joe Bramante got a piece of, but just trickled in to open the scoring.

Paglinco is tied for the team lead with eight goals. Senior left wing Mike DiClemente also notched his eighth of the season in the victory.

Other scorers for Central included Joe Dabkowski, Rob DiClemente and Brian McConnell, who scored the first goal of his Blue Devil career in the third period.

Central hosts the first annual Connecticut Governor’s Cup this weekend, starting with a game against Division III Southern Connecticut State University at 6 p.m. on Friday.

The winner of that game will face either the University of Connecticut or Western Connecticut State University on Saturday in the finals at 9 p.m.

Women’s Soccer Falls to BC

Continued from page 16

Central attempted to respond, as they had their best chance offensively early in the second half. From 20 yards out, Leah Blayney rang a shot off the crossbar and out of play.

Desperation provided Central with some of their best play in the game, but they were unable to get on the scoreboard.

The nail in the coffin was BC’s third goal, a play in which the net minder Herd didn’t have a chance.

Knowlton took the ball wide of the net and sent a drop pass to forward Stephanie Werth, who chipped it over a diving Herd to make it 3-0.

Werth’s third goal of the season came in the 57th minute, creating a virtually insurmountable lead.

The large deficit did not keep CCSU from fighting hard the rest of the game. Herd made a great diving save to rob Wirth just minutes after she had scored.

“We just kept fighting,” said sophomore Clio Tregear. “We just wanted to get at least a goal, we just wanted to prove to ourselves that we could score against them.”

Herd kept the game from getting out of hand, making three saves with less than 20 minutes to go.

Boston College dominated on the score sheet, taking 17 shots as opposed to CCSU’s five. In addition, BC had a total of 12 corner kicks to Central’s one.

The game was played on the day on which five years beforehand, CCSU upset Boston College 1-0 in Newton. The lone victory for Central in the 13 meetings between the two teams, it came in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

The Blue Devils once again could not topple a highly ranked BC team, but have plenty to be happy about in regards to their season.

The women’s soccer team are NEC Champions for the seventh time, and set a team record with 12 shutouts.

“It hurts to lose tonight, because we came here to win. That was our mentality,” said D’Arcy.

Photos: Conrad Akier

Top: The ball slips in front of midfielder Clio Tegear.

Left: Junior Rachel Caneen reaches out to snatch the ball.

Bottom: Junior Karise Hilt tries to steal the ball.

THE RECORDER / Wednesday, November 19, 2008 / ENTERTAINMENT

10

Entertainment It’s an admirable thing, seeing a lovechild born into the world under such unpretentious circumstances. After a passionate night of hot and sweaty lovemaking, The Strokes and Vampire Weekend have brought into this world a beautiful baby, complete with its father’s loose swagger and its mother’s infectious pop sensibilities. Named Little Joy, this radiant child is as enjoyable as it is modest, featuring nary an ordinary attribute despite its humble ambitions.

In all seriousness though, Strokes drummer Fabrizio Morreti’s side project has a lot to offer despite its light delivery. If you didn’t get the gist, the album sounds uncannily like the Strokes mixed with Vampire Weekend, only instead of coming out of a garage or a prep school,

it’s coming from a cocktail lounge. This happy/ boozy/laid back aesthetic is not an accident.

Named after an L.A. lounge frequented

by Moretti, Little Joy pops and cruises and then slows down but never gets boring, even while regularly and obviously borrowing melodies from early R & B tunes. What keeps things interesting, aside from lead singer Rodrigo Amarante’s almost exact replication of Strokes singer Julian Casablanca’s hazy drawl, are the slight but memorable shifts in beat and genre that make the most ordinary songs sound like nothing you’ve ever heard.

The lyrics and melody of “Brand New Start” sound like they could have easily been a part of a Sam Cooke single, but jumpy horns and Amarante’s raspy croon add effective nuance, while “No Better Sake” spices things up with a flamenco-esque beat. Stand-outs “With Strangers” - melancholy without being dour and “Keep Me In Mind” - the best song The Strokes never did - display the deceptive but

successful range of influences and moods achieved within the short track list. Little Joy may not change your life or even make most “best of the year” lists, but it’s thoroughly enjoyable from beginning to end - which is much more than can be said about 90 percent of today’s releases.

Though EODM doesn’t change much in terms of substance and intent, the new album can be seen as a bigger success than their previous two releases based on consistency alone.

Whereas Peace, Love, Death Metal and Death By Sexy provided a handful of real gems in between duds that fail mostly because of lackluster tunes propped up only by solid drum beats and guitar riffs, Heart On features the same good attributes.

The new album also displays a steady dose of melody, which means that for the first time ever the group has released a complete album with tracks that surpass the short-lived novelty of cock-rock. Of course, the cock-rock is still as apparent as ever and Heart On serves to solidify EODM’s stature as one of the most entertaining and unpretentious acts making music right now (just try not to smile when Jesse “Boots Electric” Hughes shrieks “Tight pants!”). It seems as though they’ve finally perfected their type of rock that seriously fucks around and is serious fucking rock.

P.J. Decoteau / Staff Writer

an apology for wasting 45 minutes of my life.

And if you cherish your time, stay as far away from this album as you can.

up, but lucky for everyone he came back with a ton of new material recorded under his own name.

Unlike Death From Above’s thrashy dance-punk combination, Grainger has mellowed down and is recording smart, lyricdriven indie rock that sends him to the head of the class at Saddle Creek. Unlike Saddle Creek name-stays Bright Eyes and Cursive, Grainger is mixing in upbeat instrumentals and nearly pop vocals that will appeal to a wide cross of music connoisseurs.

Sebastien Grainger and The Mountains starts very strong with the track “Love Can be So Mean,” a drum and guitar heavy song that relies almost solely on Grainger’s vocals (as does most of the album) to lead the listener through.

While Grainger is extremely talented, it’s tough for an album to carried by a single person in most aspects. The instrumentals are decent and there is a good mix of distortion throughout, there are no stand out sections that overshadow Grainger’s vocals.

For fans of DFA 1979, Grainger’s solo project will be hit or miss, but anyone that appreciates strong lyrical content and a straightforward indie sound, Sebastien Grainger will be an instant hit.

Edward Gaug / Assoc. Layout Editor

Little Joy Little Joy Rough Trade Records November 4, 2008

Photo: Lauren Dukoff

Behemoth Ezkaton Metal Blade Records November 11, 2008

Behemoth sure knows how to make their fans happy.

Ezkaton is an EP that features recordings of fan favorites, live tracks as wells as a few surprising covers that will keep Behemoth’s followers satisfied.

After Behemoth’s The Apostasy (which was an extreme achievement in the metal scene) no one could’ve seen this move by these soonto-be metal gods. With the release of their new EP it just proves that Behemoth doesn’t want to be swept under the rug as winter rolls around.

One of the new recordings, “Chant for Eschaton 2000”, was one of the most notable changes in this fan favorite and the result of heightened production value. The song sounds crisp and new, and the noise feedback is reduced. Most notably the intro is shaved down so that the chorus jumps out instantly.

Behemoth also gives the fans a live recording of this track so that they can further solidify the sound they want to be known for.

The most interesting parts of this EP are the two covers on it. Behemoth manages to remind the fans of their influences and the metal pioneers Master’s Hammer by covering one of their greatest tracks “Jama Pekel”. Behemoth also covers The Ramones’ song “I’m Not Jesus” and surprisingly this song transitions well. The increase of speed and the demonic vocals just turn in into a real thrash type song. As Nergal (the band’s singer) shouts, “I’m not Jesus, I can’t heal you” it fits perfectly with the band’s tones and message. Not to mention the song sounds way more badass than the original.

The additions of the live tracks make a nice present for those who can’t go a day with out listening to some Behemoth. This EP isn’t going to turn people over to Behemoth but it will make the ones who do happy.

Sean Fenwick / Staff Writer

In a recent interview, lead singer of the Eagles of Death Metal, Jesse Holmes, described the new album as sounding “like the Rolling Stones getting butt-fucked by Devo.” While it may be a crude way to describe such a leap forward for the group, the sentiment remains a valid reflection of their new album, Heart On; namely, are they serious, or just serious about messing around? It seems as though the answer may be an ambiguous “a little bit of both.”

The good news is that both the question and answer are irrelevant when you’re getting pounded by equal parts juicy guitar licks, sexually charged lyrics and falsetto swagger. Serious or not, the band knows how to rock without making things more complicated than hot chicks and booze, and in the case of real rock, that’s pretty much everything required.

Eagles of Death Metal Heart On Downtown Records October 28, 2008

There was once a time when bands would strive to create great music and not care about the money. Hinder proves that those times are long gone. Hinder’s new album Take it To The Limit is nothing more than a generic piece of garbage filled with boring riffs and stomachturning vocals wrapped up with a smile as it is given to the public.

There are countless things wrong with this album – first things first, the title is horrible.

Take it To The Limit? Is Hinder serious? Titles like this have been dropped in the ‘80s as well as tight spandex, feathered hair and pretty dudes pretending to be badasses.

The second aspect about this album that forces a gag reflex is the overall sound. With front man Austin Winkler’s raspy voice going on and on about getting drunk and getting lucky, this album gets old faster than Amy Winehouse relapses and goes back to rehab. The guitar riffs and solos are completely unoriginal and so are the lyrics. This album caters to two demographics: teenage boys who want nothing more than a good night and the tweens who give it to them.

Did Hinder become rock gods but didn’t tell the public? Hinder’s attitude is one of the main reasons why this albums is so horrendous.

These guys are seriously cocky. There are eleven tracks on this album and eight of them feature Winkler’s chuckle at the most random times in the song. After seeing what these guys look like its obvious they idolized Motley Crue, Hinder even managed to dig up Mick Mars to throw down some licks, but, to no surprise, Mars just makes it worse.

This may or may not be news to some readers, but Hinder is awful, and I had not expected to be this appalled by this record when I volunteered to review it. Hinder owes people like me

Hinder Take it to the Limit Universal Records November 4, 2008

Sean Fenwick / Staff Writer

Techdeath is a genre that can be hard to grasp for music listeners.

There are always 15 things going on at once and the real concentration of creating music is towards technicality rather than melody. Despite this, many bands have emerged as masters of the genre and have a loyal fan base. More recently, one of those bands is The Faceless.

After their acclaimed debut album Akeldama, The Faceless took on the task of creating a second album; Planetary Duality.

From the start of the album (and nearly every song), you are reminded that it is indeed a tech-death album.

The roaring guitars and thunderous rhythm sections make this very clear. However, the contrast created by the solos became a shock for me. The speed of the solos is significantly different than the rest of the music. This really creates a sort of light and dark effect to the album.

Planetary Duality features a unique array of vocals. This includes the usual death growls, clean vocals which can be compared to the likes of Dimmu Borgir and the very awkward addition of robot vocals. The robot vocals are really just how it sounds, a very mechanical approach to saying lyrics that no one can understand.

Overall it works out fine, and it is something that stands out.

Although it’s hard to say that this album has an epic track seeing as it is only 32 minutes long, the album is as close as The Faceless can come. The two-part Planetary Duality title track is stunning. You’ll find samples, vocal variety and the best riffs bundled in those seven minutes.

I can’t help but feel that The Faceless tried to re-create Akeldama. Some may be excited, but there is a lack of progression in Planetary Duality. If you are not a fan of tech-death music before listening to this album, chances are that won’t change. If you are, then it is enjoyable for a listen or two.

Mike D’Avino / Staff Writer

The Faceless Planetary Duality Sumerian Records November 11, 2008

Sebastien Grainger Sebastien Grainger & The Mountains Saddle Creek Records October 28, 2008

When I first listened to Death From Above 1979 a few years ago, I knew that the band’s sound could never be replicated by anyone. When the duo broke up, two acts came from the ashes along with two completely different and contrasting styles of music. Believe me, this is a good thing.

Jesse F. Keeler went on to form elecronic heavy hitters MSTRKRFT and Sebastien Grainger... well Sebastien Grainger disappeared for nearly two years after DFA’s break-

P.J. Decoteau / Staff Writer

Heavy synth, dance club jams, earperking experimentalism – if it has it all, there is a great chance that it will frequent my playlist.

In the case of Mr. Oizo (Quentin Dupieux), the bearded mastermind from the City of Love across the pond, he not only fills the quota, he surpasses it with Lambs Anger.

If there is one thing the French do well, it is electronic music. Oizo’s third fulllength starts strong, ends strong, and rarely gives the listener a second to breathe. They should be furiously enjoying themselves on the dance floor with a bottle of bubbly.

Lambs Anger is full of attractive samples, vocal lines and beats that could easily make a paraplegic get down. Oizo obviously knows his strengths when composing and he utilizes them to their full potential.

If you consider yourself a fan of filthy electronic jams with some spunk in them, you may already be familiar with Mr. Oizo. However, if you are still in the dark, there is no good reason not to find this album and wear it out.

Mr. Oizo Lambs Anger Ed Banger Records November 17, 2008

Nick viccione / Entertainment Editor

THE RECORDER / Wednesday, November 19, 2008 / ENTERTAINMENT

+

A Guide to

11

‘Twilight’

Photo: Kombo Games

Gears of War 2 Emphasizes New Sense of Teamwork Photo: Summit Entertainment

Kate Daly

Special to The Recorder

I was on a plane, flying to Ireland, sitting next to a girl who I had previously only said two words to. Now, not only would I be sitting way to close to her for the next couple house, but I would also be spending the next week with her.

While I was trying to figure out how to fall asleep and not hog the center armrest at the same time, she pulled out “Eclipse”, the third book in the “Twilight” series, and I immediately knew we’d have a lot to talk about. From there on out, it was conversation after conversation about “Twilight” – it takes over fans’ lives, much like a favorite band, sports team or as World of Warcraft does for some people.

“Twilight” is a novel series that is young adult romantic fiction. I am 21, consider myself a full-grown adult and I still love it dearly. The basic story is of everyday girl Bella Swan who moves to Forks, Washington and falls in love with the quintessential Prince Charming. Her perfect man, Edward Cullen, happens to be a vampire. Not very plausible, but it needs to be stated that I am a girl who still thinks there is a small chance Hogwarts and the whole Harry Potter world could actually exist.

Readers learn about the ice-cold steel-like skin of vampires, their speed, their grace and their unchanging perfection. It’s easy to be sucked in to the intricate web of “Twilight”.

And after readers learn about their additional abilities, which include mind reading, clairvoyance, emotional manipulation, there is now no more hope. You are hooked. The character’s lives are so fascinating, and their family dynamics so real, that it is hard to not believe. Every emotion in the book is written perfectly by author Stephenie Meyers.

The first book “Twilight” is a sappy love story. Book two, “New Moon”, is the emotional roller coaster. A very clear allusion to Romeo and Juliet, this is where many people attempt to stop reading when it becomes obvious that Edward Cullen may not be perfect, and we add a whole new set of mythical creatures into the mix, and learn that Bella may be a little schizophrenic. The third book “Eclipse” is the perfect bridge to the final book, which leaves readers wanting more. It is suspenseful and makes for a quick read.

The final book, “Breaking Dawn”, premiered with 1.3 million copies sold on the first day. But the critical reception was not all that great. This is really the final chapter in the love story between the two main characters and from what I understand, this book was a letdown to some. But I will leave it at that, and let possible new fans decide for themselves.

Twilight the movie comes out on November 21 and is based on the first book, not the entire series. I will be dragging a handful of my friends with me to brave the throngs of tween girls to be among the first to see the film.

Gabrielle Pierce Staff Writer

Probably the most notable aspect of Gears of War 2 is the extremely comprehensive cooperative play. The majority of third person shooter games are made to be played by a single person. However, in Gears of War 2 the game really emphasizes the use of teamwork.

There are many situations in which one player relies on the other to successfully complete a task in order to move the story forward.

They even go so far as to simulate moving furniture with another person in order to force the players to work together. The teamwork-related game play is so creative that the U.S. military has even expressed interest in using this game to build cooperative skills among its recruits.

The weapons in Gears of War 2 are a big step up from the original game. In the previous game there were weapons that were far more powerful than others, making it impractical to

Director Profile Fritz Lang

Michael Walsh Staff Writer

Calling Fritz Lang ahead of the game would be quite the understatement. Lang, who began his career during the silent era of 1919, constantly set the bar during the early stages of cinema with his revolutionary films that spanned from fantasy dramas to thrillers to art films.

Lang was a student of the German expressionism style and it showed in his films.

The style is categorized by the use of light versus dark and suffocating interiors and set pieces of an unrealistic nature, as seen in Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

The plots and stories of German expressionism typically dealt with oppressive themes

try new weapons. The effectiveness and practicality of each weapon in Gears of War 2 has been balanced extremely well. So rather than relying on a few choice weapons to get you through the game, players are encouraged to rotate through different sets of weapons (and even rewarded for doing so) depending on where they are during the game.

In addition to this, the general game play has been vastly improved. Rather than small rooms with waves on enemies showing up one after another, there are vast battle grounds in which action is going on all around the player.

This gives the player the feeling of actually being in this epic war that has been described since the beginning of the first game.

In addition to this the vehicle scenes seem to be inspired by Halo 3, taking the best parts from that game and adding puzzles that, again, emphasize teamwork and give the player a sense of urgency.

The graphics have been much improved, as well. Rather than a grey scale setting, the game has been given a wide range of color and epic, wide-open battlegrounds.

To top it all off, the artificial intelligence has been boosted by an amazing amount.

Rather than enemies fumbling around haphazardly, they work together by taking cover and organizing ambushes against the player.

A new online element has been added to Gears of War 2. A setting called “horde” offers up to five players to take on waves of non-stop enemies for up to fifty levels. As players gain health, strength and numbers, they need to rely on each other and use genuine battle tactics in order to finally defeat the horde.

All in all, Gears of War 2 is a major improvement over the last game, as exciting as it was. Anyone who might enjoy a decent third person shooter is encouraged to pick up this game as soon as possible.

such as madness, betrayal or the threat of a higher power. Sometimes the themes would mix with supernatural or mystical elements.

This, combined with the sometimes-absurd set pieces, created a dreamlike feel for a good number of the expressionism films. Expressionism is seen as being important for influencing popular genres such as the early horror films and film noir.

Lang’s first masterpiece was his 1922 crime epic Dr. Mabuse the Gambler. It’s a fourhour silent film that was originally told in two parts. The film is supposedly inspired by Al Capone. Most film historians point out that this depiction of one of film’s first “super-criminals” is foreshadowing Adolf Hitler’s reign of Germany – Dr. Mabuse is a psychologist and uses powers such as hypnotism to become a con artist achieve his evil goals. With enough patience from the viewer, Dr. Mabuse the Gambler is a tremendously sprawling film qualitative of the German expressionism genre and at the same time a landmark gangster film glimmering with examples of things to come in the future of cinema.

In 1927 Lang created his next classic with Metropolis. This futuristic dystopian film focused on the clash between workers and owners in an urban setting of capitalism – a common theme for many films the day. Metropolis was the most expensive film of its time and this was for a good reason. Lang’s lavish special effects still impress to this day. The elaborate settings have links to the German expressionism Lang began with but are combined with a sense of art deco and contemporary modern art style.

Metropolis’ contributions to the science fiction genre are endless. In 2008 a 16mm reduction negative of the original cut of the film was found in a film museum’s archives in Argentina – something which was considered long-lost. If you haven’t seen this masterpiece there will be no better time to see it when the

entire film is released for the first time ever on DVD and Blu-ray in 2009.

From here Lang went on to create the espionage thriller Spies and the widely considered first ever “serious” science fiction film Woman in the Moon. While both films are huge successes for Lang, I’ll direct most of my attention to Lang’s first “talkie”, his 1931 masterpiece M – a film that deals with the thentaboo subject of a child murderer. Peter Lorre’s lead performance as Hans Beckert, the murderer, jumpstarted his career and lead to him being given many similar roles as a villainous character. Most of Lang’s achievements with M come from subtleties such as a unique way of capturing the image or the use of whistling in one of the film’s key scenes. M is also seen as a major precursor to the film noir genre America adopted in the 1940s.

Most of this inspiration comes from the dark and stylish cinematography Lang utilized to create his atmospheric film.

After Lang left Germany, a country in which his early work became successful, he came to the United States. Lang worked on a variety of types of films including the film noir genre he helped inspire, westerns with Henry Fonda and war films. Lang is responsible for some of film noir’s greatest films including Scarlet Street, Woman in the Window and The Big Heat. Lang left a legacy of being one of the most inspirational film directors of all time. He left an exhaustive catalogue of work of carefully created films. If you’d like to check out where cinema began and how it grew, examining Lang’s work alone would do you good.

Essential viewings: Destiny, Dr. Mabuse the Gambler, Metropolis, Spies, M, Fury, The Big Heat, Scarlet Street, Woman in the Window.

12

THE RECORDER / Wednesday, November 19, 2008 / ENTERTAINMENT

A Different Bond is Still a Good Bond Michael Walsh Staff Writer

Photo: Columbia Pictures

For fans of the 46-year-old James Bond film series, the release of a new installment is much more than your average theatrical release.

It’s an experience and an event no other film series is able to create. Casino Royale, which is seen as a reboot for the longstanding series, cemented Daniel Craig as a more than capable James Bond player and introduced a new gritty tone to the Bond series. Quantum of Solace, the newest addition to the series, looks to pick up right where things left off.

Solace, which is the first direct sequel in the series, has James Bond battling Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), a member of the secret Quantum organization. Greene poses as an environmentalist, but is attempting to take control of Bolivia’s water supply.

While it’s surely arguable, the James Bond series is one of cinema’s most storied and legendary film series. Solace is the 22nd “official” Bond film where official means it’s an EON Productions-produced James Bond film. The series has seen six different actors play James Bond from the original Sean Connery to the current Daniel Craig. With this kind of extensive past the large fan base of Bond fans, comprised of both diehard and casual fans, always have lofty expectations for each new release.

Solace, which is directed by Marc Forster, does as much justice to the Bond series as it needed to do.

Say hello to the new James Bond. This isn’t the gadget-wielding Bond of the past. He sure as heck isn’t the same Bond we’ve seen stop evil genius after evil genius from taking over the world. This is a rough, rugged Bond brooding with emotion. While some fans may hold bitter over the change from over-the-top to a realistic and serious tone, it’s time to face the facts and realize there comes a time for change.

The new Bond films themselves are highly indicative of modern filmmaking in general. As far as I can tell, change, in this case, is good.

Solace, which is far more action-oriented than Royale, is an exhilarating and fast-paced experience. My only criticism of the action is the way it was handled by Forster. While the action scenes are not at all poorly thought out or unimpressive, they were noticeably disorientating.

Each high-octane action sequence is made up of quick cuts and edits, hyper-edits as they call it in the business, leaving the viewer with no sense of the surroundings and at times no clue as to what exactly is happening. On occasion this leaves location unidentifiable and can be extremely distracting.

Royale’s parkour-style chase is an example of how to handle things properly. The scaling of the construction site features smoother and longer shots and truly conveys the grand scale of the chase whereas Solace’s tight shots and quick edits do little for the action. Action scenes can be intense and exuberating without the camerawork being all over the place and jumpy.

That said the action in Solace is still conceptually impressive and ultimately thrilling.

While Solace’s plot won’t particularly amaze it’s still a solid one. Solace is hell-bent on revenge. Both Bond and Bond girl Camille (Olga Kurylenko) are seeking to close the doors on past events. I was very impressed with how this emotion was handled in both characters. In fact, the characters in general were a typically impressive facet of the film.

Returning characters Felix Leiter and Mathis were both handled well and make for some of the best Bond-character interaction moments in the film, complete with signature Bond style dialogue. The building relationship with Bond and M (Judi Dench) is absolutely fantastic. Amalric is easily dislikeable and despicable as “Greene”.

If you find yourself disliking Solace immensely you might be stuck deep in the past.

Fact is this isn’t a James Bond film of the past.

The main villain doesn’t pet a cat all film nor does he have a pond of man-eating piranhas in an underground lair. He doesn’t even have a bleeding eye like Le Chiffre in Casino Royale.

It’s no secret that while Solace isn’t a perfect film it’s a more than acceptable entry into the Bond canon.

If Daniel Craig’s first two films as 007 are any indication of the future, Bond fans are in for a treat or two down the line. Solace features tons of action, plenty of thrills and memorable characters. Cynics may call this a very un-Bond-like generic action film. I’ll call it an enthusiastic and bold approach that’s a step in the right direction for this historic and legendary series.

College Gaming League has First Intercollegiate Contest

Liz Mensching

Daily News Ball State University

(U-WIRE) - Six Ball State University students battled a team from the University of Central Florida in the virtual world of Team Fortress 2 on Friday night.

The match-up, sponsored by Dell’s College Gaming League, was the first intercollegiate gaming competition. Gamefire.tv streamed the match live on the Internet, where professional gamers from Team Pandemic provided commentary of the action.

Ball State team member Anthony Coplen said the competition was interesting because of the large gaming communities at both universities.

“We’re seen as the underdogs,” Coplen said, “but we are going up against the seventh largest undergraduate college in the nation, so I guess we are.”

The six Ball State men practiced together for several weeks in preparation for the match.

“Our biggest challenge is working as a team, instead of beefing up our own stats,” sophomore communications major Jed Wilcox said.

From the start of the match, UCF’s slow, powerhouse strategy contrasted Ball State’s standard techniques and put pressure on the team, Wilcox said.

As the game progressed, UCF’s aggressive playing strategies challenged Ball State’s teamwork. Ball State rallied their efforts and pulled ahead with an unexpected win in the first of three rounds.

“We found our footing with a strategy that works for us and UCF never adjusted,” Wilcox said after the first round.

Problems with UCF’s server worked to Ball State’s advantage several times when UCF gamers were disconnected from the game. But even with a faulty server, UCF managed to keep their morale and scores high enough to claim the next two rounds and the overall win.

The mood in Ball State’s Gaming Lab was light, even after the loss.

“We might not be the best team,” Coplen said jokingly, “but at least we have the better server.”

Ball State team members Richard Tinsley and Thomas Mast said they felt good about their team’s performance, considering their lack of experience in comparison to UCF. Coplen looked past this loss to the bigger picture of the future of the gaming world.

“This match was a stepping stone into another sport,” Coplen said. “It’s an E-sport.

Hopefully it picks up because it’s a lot of fun to compete with friends. We hope this will expand to other games, like Counter-Strike and World of Warcraft.”

13

CALENDAR WEEK OF NOVEMBER 19 + 26

MUSIC 11.20 Stars of the Lid w/ Apse @ The Space Hamden, Conn.

7 p.m. / $12

Although it has been since the turn of the millennium that either member of Stars of the Lid has lived in Austin, the story began as such: In 1990, Adam drunkenly wandered into the former KTSB radio station on 21st. and Speedway where Brian was rockin the airwaves with some nifty records by Rod Mckuen. He was proclaiming that his car was out of gas, and he hit a deer.

It turned out that he was definitely drunk. And although there was blood on his car, Brian saw no deer. This incident was the catalyst that ignited their strange musical relationship.

Originally formed in Austin, Texas on Christmas day 1992, Stars of the Lid (one of the most apropos names in all of music) have scratched out quite a niche for themselves in the amorphous world of ambient classical music.

11.21 Tom Gabel (of Against Me!) w/ Emily Brodsky @ The Space Hamden, Conn.

7 p.m. / $12

11.29 Girl Talk @ Lupo’s Providence, R.I. 7:30 p.m. / $18

Girl Talk is the pseudonym of DJ and remixer Gregg Gillis. A Pittsburgh native who works as a biomedical research engineer during the day, Gillis channels his other creative energies into Girl Talk, whose sample-based dance tracks have made him the John Oswald or Christian Marclay of the mash-up generation. Each of his songs are built on recognizable samples of recent hit singles, recontextualized into an entirely new piece. Not just a geeky studio boffin, Gillis is also a manic, intense live performer known for his high-speed exhortations into the mic and tendency to strip to his underwear onstage while dancing circles around his laptop and DJ setup.

11.29 City of Ships Mammoth Hunter @ Cherry Street Station Wallingford, Conn.

7 p.m. / $7 City of Ships is a dominating rock trio come to offer something fresh when the world needs it most. Recently relocated to Richmond, Va. via northwest Florida, they bring a rhythm section locked in and thundering with the force of man’s most powerful machines. Despite the crushing weight of their low-end assault, the young band sends the listener flying through otherworldly dimensions with atmospheric, eerily melodic guitar work and vocals that speak directly to the pain and wonder of living in the modern age.

11.30 Marnie Stern w/ Talk Normal @ Daniel Street Milford, Conn.

8 p.m. / $8

A decade ago, Tom Gabel began his music career as a 17-year old solo acoustic act known as Against Me!, belting out songs of rebellion in laundromats and any other venue that would have him. Flash forward to today, and Gabel’s agitation cycle is still cranked high, but not without a wild streak of optimism thrown in for good measure.

11.22 Johnny Rodgers Loop 2.4.3 @ The Space Hamden, Conn.

7 p.m. / $10 An exciting night of songs, sounds and searing rhythmic story-telling. Loop 2.4.3, who “reinvent(s) percussion from the bones out” (NPR-Fresh Air), and has been described as “a really focused and thrilling percussive ride”, will headline an evening of music at The Space that has something for everyone.

It wasn’t until she was 23, when she heard Sleater-Kinney for the first time, that Marnie Stern’s life began to the take her in the direction of the noise and punk-inspired experimental rock that would later define her music. She soon began learning finger-tapping techniques on her electric guitar and began assiduously practicing and recording songs until she had enough for a demo. Stern sent the tape to Kill Rock Stars, which immediately signed the young singer/guitarist to their 5RC imprint. Her new band features members of Hella and The Advantage.

12.3 Kira Kira w/ Dygn, Belly Boat and The Files and Fires @ The Space Hamden, Conn.

7 p.m. / $8

11.28 Shiny Toy Guns @ The Webster Theater Hartford, Conn.

7 p.m.

Embracing every neutral genre of music, Shiny Toy Guns create enveloping, inviting soundscapes best described as future-forward rock.

While they manipulate the latest technology with ease, theirs is not a quest to be hipper…

Shiny Toy Guns are far more driven by the need to open doors and create new songs and sounds that resonate through their listener’s minds long after the latest trends in music have faded away.

Kira Kira (from Iceland) is Kristín Björk Kristjánsdóttir on thumb piano, music boxes and all kinds of toys wired with contact mikes.

She also plays guitar, glockenspiel and of course loud lady laptop. These kids have been playing with Kira Kira lately: Alex Somers on piano, glock and casio puppy; Eiríkur Orri Ólafsson on trumpet, flugelhorn and music box; Hilmar Jensson on guitar; Samuli Kosminen on percussion (dingalee dang); Pétur Hallgrímsson on lapsteel (skriðgítar); Magnús Helgason on super 8 projector; Guðlaug Dröfn on glock and piano; Kristinn Gunnar Blöndal on drums.

FILM

11.19 - 11.22 Burn After Reading @ Cinestudio Hartford, Conn.

7:30 p.m.

With their overtly comedic follow-up Burn After Reading, the Coen Brothers return--about a third of the way - from the dark, dank recesses of the human psyche they traversed in their Oscar-winning No Country for Old Men. For those unfamiliar with the landscape of modern movie psychoanalysis, this puts the fraternal filmmakers square in the cruel, misanthropic and farcical realm of their 1990s-era body of work, somewhere between the tragicomic crime thriller of Fargo and the disconnected noirhomage anti-storytelling of The Big Lebowski, with 2007’s No Country retroactively adding new nihilism-tinged dimensions of smart skepticism to the proceedings.

11.21 – 11.22 Towelhead @ Cinestudio Hartford, Conn.

Towelhead follows the dark, bold and shockingly funny life of Jasira, a 13-year-old ArabAmerican girl, as she navigates the confusing and frightening path of adolescence and her own sexual awakening. When Jasira’s mother sends her to Houston to live with her strict Lebanese father, she quickly learns that her new neighbors find her and her father a curiosity.

Worse, her budding womanhood makes her traditional and hot-tempered father uncomfortable.

11.21 – 11.23 Christmas on Mars @ Real Art Ways Hartford, Conn.

9:30 p.m.

Christmas on Mars is a science fiction feature film from the Oklahoma psychedelic alternative rock band The Flaming Lips. It started development in 2001. Filming was completed in October of 2005, and the film premiered on May 25, 2008 at the Sasquatch! Music Festival.

Christmas on Mars is currently in release across the United States, and has been booked into several dozen cities for unconventional screenings.

11.21 – 11.30 Azur and Asmar @ Real Art Ways Hartford, Conn.

7:30 p.m.

Once upon a time there were two children nursed by same woman. Azur, a blonde, blueeyed son of a noblewoman and Asmar, the dark skinned and dark-eyed child of the nurse. The nurse tells them the story of the Djinn-fairy waiting to be released from her chamber by a good and heroic prince. Brought up together they are as close as brothers until the day Azur’s father cruelly separates them, banishing the nurse and Asmar from his home and sending Azur away to boarding school.

11.30 – 12.02 Religulous @ Cinestudio Hartford, Conn.

7:30 p.m.

Bill Maher, with his wryly contemptuous gleam (a look that says, to almost everything, ‘‘You’ve got to be kidding me!’’), is only too happy to be the skunk at the garden party. That’s one reason some folks can’t stand him.

ART

Through 02.01 Judith Leiber Handbags @ New Britain Museum of American Art New Britain, Conn.

FREE Leiber was born and raised in Budapest, Hungary, where she studied the craft of handbag making during World War II. At the end of the war, Judith met and married Gerson Leiber, an American GI stationed in Budapest. In 1947 the couple immigrated to the U.S. and after many years working for various New York handbag manufacturers, Mrs. Leiber launched the Leiber Company in 1963. Since then, her company has created world-renowned handbags, evening bags and accessories.

11.20 Carol Padberg – Face Value @ Real Art Ways Hartford, Conn. $3 Donation

By using fragments of found typography to take apart and put back together language, Padberg creates visual improvisations. She often chooses materials that create a tension between the flat graphic voice of type and the fluidity of paint and handwriting. Sometimes comical, sometimes minimal, these images ask questions about design, nonverbal language, and the modernist lineage of abstract painting.

Through 12.30 Faith & Fortune: Five Centuries of European Masterworks @ Wadsworth Atheneum Hartford, Conn. $5 The return of 60 of the Wadsworth Atheneum’s renowned Old Master paintings from a threeyear national tour provides opportunity to pair these with equally rich and varied sculpture and decorative arts from the museum’s permanent collections. The paintings include works

by Fra Angelico, Caravaggio, Hals, Zurbarán, Canaletto, Boucher and Tiepolo. In addition, the exhibition will feature nineteenth-century masterworks of the Neo-classical and Romantic schools by Ingres, Delacroix and others. The sculpture and decorative arts comprise dazzling objects made of bronze, silver, ivory, ceramics and glass.

Through 01.04 First Doubt: Optical Confusion in Modern Photography @ Yale University Art Gallery New Haven, Conn.

FREE Drawn from the Chasanoff Collection as well as from the gallery’s permanent collection, “First Doubt” features approximately 100 photographs taken by a diverse array of 20th-century photographers. Seen together, they reveal the interpretive nature of the lens and the interpolative nature of the photograph.

Did we miss something?

E-mail us with your weekly campus event listings at ccsurecorder@gmail.com.

14 THE RECORDER Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Lifestyles

PLAYI NG I N THE MUD Ceramics Isn’t Just About Vases and Mugs A Local Artist Showcases Her Work on Clay Dinosaurs

Photos: Marissa Blaszko / The Recorder

Abby Jensen’s work is on display at the Spin Cycle Cafe in Newington.

Marissa Blaszko Opinion Editor

To students who have never ventured down to the basement of Maloney Hall, the studios that ceramics majors use look like a cross between auto body shops and the sets of horror movies. There are hubcaps nailed to the walls, massive cages everywhere, and ovens large enough to fit a cow in.

In the middle of all the chaos stands Central art student Abby Jensen, whose work is a reflection of something quite different from the dismal state of Maloney Hall.

“I find great beauty in connecting with the earth and the many generations that have come before us, living directly from the land,” she was quoted as saying on the postcard for her first solo show. “The medium of clay brings out a primal connection in me.”

A solo show is big news for any artist – and for an undergrad student, it’s an even bigger deal. Entitled “Preconceptions”, it’s not only Jensen’s show that will be showcasing her growth as an artist; the title is in it-

self a one-word narrative of Jensen’s relationship with clay.

“The preconception I had at the beginning about ceramics [was] that it was all functional forms,” she said about the tea kettles, mugs or plates that a portion of three-dimensional artists work with. But that’s not the only stereotype the bottom-dwellers of the Maloney Hall have to deal with.

“There tends to be a feeling that ceramics are more craft than art – which it can be,” Jensen said. “But there are definitely some people pushing it more towards art.”

Jensen, who has been slowly moving away from functional forms, may be one of those people. Instead of spending all her time working on vases, although she still has quite a few

unfinished ones sitting in the basement of the art building, Jensen has begun a series focusing on her fascination with dinosaurs.

As someone who spends her days “playing in the mud,” it should come as no surprise that Jensen feels a connection to the giant lizards.

“They reflect a personal mythology of being connected to the Earth,” she said. “[It’s] the primal connection I feel to the clay, too.”

One of the pieces to be featured at “Preconceptions” is Jensen’s own self-portrait.

The bust of an unidentifiable woman, Jensen hand-built the horns of a triceratops around the figure’s head, making her clay self out to be a puzzling mix of humanity and deviousness.

Another dinosaur, an almost metallic protoceratops, is part of Jensen’s “half mythology, half science reality.”

The work by itself is incredible, even before considering that although Jensen had taken craft and jewelry-making classes in high school, it wasn’t until the fall semester of last year that she fell into ceramics. Unsure of where her art was going, Jensen signed up for the Ceramics One course after a number of art students told her to take ceramics as an art major.

The moment, she said, that she knew she

had found what she wanted to do with her life was when Professor Sheri Fafunwa took the class outside to learn to add a raku finish to their work. A low fire technique, the finished ceramic pieces are moved to a container of combustible material to give it a certain finish.

“It was the coolest thing ever,” said Jensen.

At that point, Jensen was struggling at the potter’s wheel and admitted to have had trouble hand building certain things. But in an act of both defiance and determination, Jensen threw herself into the studio to work until she was comfortable with both.

Although it may look easy, she said, students of other majors are often surprised at how much work actually needs to go into a single pot.

“You have to train your hands to know what they’re doing,” she said, pointing out yet another preconception about her chosen medium.

Jensen’s “Preconceptions” opens up December 5, from 7-10 p.m. just off the Central campus, and is open to anyone interested in having a drink, doing some laundry and seeing some art.

The Spin Cycle Cafe Laundromat is located at 190 Fenn Road in Newington.

Look forward to the laundromat dating scene on Tuesday nights, free soap on Wednesdays and happy hour with open mic on Thursdays.

THE RECORDER / Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Sports 11.19 http://clubs.ccsu.edu/recorder

Mallory Scores Twice in Season-Ending Win at Sacred Heart

Raiders Steal Game from Devils Last-Second Jump Shot Seals CCSU’s Fate

THE RECORDER Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Harvard Defeats Women’s Basketball

CCSUBlueDevils.com

CCSUBlueDevils.com

Junior James Mallory ran for 150 yards and two touchdowns to lead Central Connecticut (7-4, 4-3) in a 49-14 season-ending win at Sacred Heart (8-3, 4-3).

Mallory went over the 1,500yard mark on the season, finishing his junior campaign with 1,520 yards.

Senior Josh Vargas and sophomore Eric Richardson each added two rushing touchdowns for the Blue Devils, who totaled a season-best 337 yards on the ground.

Sophomore Jeff Marino and junior Ray Saunders led the CCSU defense. Both had eight tackles, including a sack apiece. Marino added one of three Blue Devil interceptions, and Saunders forced two fumbles.

Central Connecticut’s special teams set-up an early scoring chance, blocking a punt off the foot of Pioneer senior Derek Marks. Blue Devil freshman London Lomax came off the left edge to get to Marks.

Sacred Heart recovered at their own 10-yard line, turning it over to the CCSU offense on downs. The Blue Devils were in the end zone four plays later. Senior captain Josh Vargas plunged in from a yard out for his sixth touchdown of the season.

Sophomore Joe Izzo made the point after to give Central Connecticut a 7-0 lead.

Sacred Heart sophomore quarterback Dale Fink was knocked out of the game on the next drive, and the Pioneers punted it back to Central Connecticut. Junior quarterback Aubrey Norris led the Blue Devils on a nine-play, 57-yard drive to make it a 14-0 game.

Norris carried the ball five times for 39 yards on the drive.

Mallory had 18 yards on four carries, including seven yards on the scoring play. It was Mallory’s 14th touchdown of the season and the 17th score of his career. With the touchdown, he became the 14th player in CCSU history to reach 100 career points.

The Pioneers started at their own 40-yard line on the ensuing

Junior captain P.J. Wade had 16 points, and sophomore Kerrianne Dugan posted 15 points and nine rebounds as Central Connecticut (0-2) lost 70-63 against Harvard (1-1) in the consolation game at the USF Shootout.

Freshman Gabrielle Oglesby added 15 points, five rebounds, three assists and two steals for the Blue Devils.

Central Connecticut jumped out to an 8-0 lead and did not trail until the 8:50 mark when the Crimson went up 18-17. The two teams traded leads before CCSU used a 10-2 halfending run to go ahead 31-26. Dugan had 10 first half points for the Blue Devils. Wade added eight.

The Blue Devils maintained their lead at the start of the second half. After a pair of Wade free throws, they led 44-38 with 12:15 remaining in the game. Harvard used a 9-2 run to gain a 47-46 advantage about three minutes later, but Dugan responded with two free throws to put CCSU back in front. However, that would be Central Connecticut’s last lead of the game.

Harvard regained the lead on an Emily Tay jumper and held on for the victory. An Oglesby three-pointer tied it at 61-61 with 2:55 left to play, but the Crimson ended the game on a 9-2 run.

CCSU hit 6-of-17 three-pointers, while limiting Harvard to a 0-of10 day from behind the arc. The Crimson won the battle at the free throw line, though. They hit 20-of28, including 18-of-20 over the final 20 minutes.

Sophomore Emma Markey had 27 points and 12 rebounds to pace Harvard. Freshman Brogan Berry added 15 points, hitting 11-of-12 free throws to spark her effort.

Dugan was named to the alltournament team. She averaged 13 points and six rebounds to lead CCSU. Central Connecticut will begin the home portion of its schedule on Thursday, Nov. 20. The Blue Devils welcome Maine to Detrick Gymnasium for a 7 p.m. match-up.

See Mallory Breaks Through Page 6

Edward Gaug / The Recorder

Sophomore Ken Horton (30) and junior Joe Seymore (32) make the long walk back to the locker room.

Kyle Dorau Sports Editor

The Central Connecticut State University men’s basketball team (0-2) just couldn’t seem to deliver the knockout blow to Colgate on Monday night.

The Raiders took advantage, stunning the Blue Devils and 2,164

on hand to witness the home opener at Detrick Gymnasium. Mike Venezia’s leaner in traffic from the top of the key as time ran out was the difference, as Central fell by a score of 58-57.

The focus after the game was on free throws. Central went just 1222 from the charity stripe, with the lone bright spot being freshman

Robby Ptacek’s 6-6 performance at the line.

“Free throws are exactly what they are,” lamented Blue Devils coach Howie Dickenman. “Free. You get them for nothing, and we need to take advantage.”

CCSU dug itself into a hole early, as sloppy play compounded the See Last-Second Jump Shot Page 6

Women’s Soccer Falls to BC Kyle Dorau Sports Editor

NEWTON, Mass. – The Central Connecticut State University women’s soccer team had their season come to an end at the hands of tenth-ranked Boston College on Friday, losing 3-0 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

A goal by Boston College forward Caitlin Hiler on a penalty kick in the 44th minute took the wind out of the Blue Devils’ sails. Her third goal of the season set the tone for the rest of the evening. Two second-half goals put away the Blue Devils’ chances of advancing.

It seemed clear from the start that the Eagles were the better team on this day, looking a step or two faster than the Blue Devils. Central showed some nerves early, but managed to keep it scoreless for the majority of the first half. Boston College controlled play overall, posting seven shots before CCSU even took one.

The crucial play of the game was the penalty kick by Hiler. As BC

forward Amy Caldwell drove into the box at an angle from the right wing, she was knocked down by a Central defender to draw the call.

A shot to the lower left corner of the net beat senior Blue Devils goalkeeper Erin Herd to give the Eagles a 1-0 advantage.

“The defining moment in the game was the call for the penalty kick,” said head coach Mick D’Arcy.

Boston College extended their lead after halftime, when Brooke Knowlton scored in the 48th minute on a pass from Caldwell. With the game suddenly 2-0, it presented a major problem for the Blue Devils as time began to run out.

“The game plan kind of goes out the window when you go down two to nil,” said D’Arcy. “The first goal hurt us from a morale point of view, but the second one ultimately did us in.”

It was the ninth marker of the season for Knowlton, who leads BC in goals.

See Women’s Soccer Page 9

Midfielder Lauren Salvia regains composure after a BC goal.

Photo: Conrad Akier