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Wednesday July 13, 2011
Volume 92, No. 122 www.theshorthorn.com
Since 1919
Wizarding Duels
How high can you go?
Two columnists discuss whether to read Harry Potter or to look past the series. OPINION | PAGE 4
Opinions differ on how short is too short for warm-weather clothing options. SCENE | PAGE 6
14 Years of Magic The legacy of Harry Potter will live on in its fans
ATHLETICS MUGGLES’ REACTION TO THE QUESTION: How does the Harry Potter franchise ending affect you?
Annamaria Slaven, biology and biomedical engineering senior
Source: http://www.imdb.com/boxoffice/alltimegross
M.J. Abualfoul, biology sophomore
“It doesn’t really affect me much. It was enjoyable, but all good things have to come to an end.”
HARRY POTTER MOVIE BOX OFFICE SALES: • Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010) $294,980,434 US • Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009) $301,956,980 US • Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) $292,000,866 US • Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) $289,994,397 US • Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) $249,358,727 US • Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) $261,970,615 US • Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001) $317,557,891 US
“It’s kind of sad because it’s the end of an era for us, because we grew up with it. It’s also kind of exciting because you get to see the best parts of the books now.”
“I can’t imagine the world without Harry Potter. They’ve got to come up with a new fictional character to replace Harry Potter.” “I read all the books. When those ended I was sad, but I don’t really care about the movies.”
Taryn Hon, accounting senior
Parker Craig, international business senior
UTA may shift to WAC If approved by the Board of Regents, UTA would join July 2012. BY JOHNATHAN SILVER The Shorthorn news editor
The UT System Board of Regents will consider Thursday whether UTA may leave the Southland Conference in all sports to join the Western UT SYSTEM BOARD Athletic Conference. The university OF REGENTS has deemed this MEETING move consistent UT System Board of with its plan to inRegents meeting crease national exFollow the meeting posure and become live at a national research http://www.utsystem. university, accordedu/bor/meetings/ ing to the recomwebcasts.htm mendation sent to regents. If the board approves the change in conferences, UTA’s move would be effective July 1, 2012. UTA generally doesn’t comment on pending items, university spokeswoman Kristin Sullivan said. “It’s a wonderful opportunity, and we hope the Board of Regents give it their strongest consideration,” she added. Karl Benson, Western Athletic Conference WAC continues on page 5
COLLEGE PARK
Courtesy: Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
(From left to right) Emma Watson, Rupert Grint and Daniel Radcliffe as Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley and Harry Potter, finish the Harry Potter sequence with the Deathly Hallows, which will premier this Friday at midnight.
BY JOHNATHAN SILVER The Shorthorn news editor
Ann Mai is wearing all black Thursday to mark the end of her childhood. Mai, an interdisciplinary studies junior and Harry Potter fan, said the books and movies have been with her since she was 8 or 9 years old. On Thursday, she will attend her first midnight showing to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. It’s a bittersweet moment, she said. “I’m so emotional. I’m excited,” Mai said. “I really want to see the story come to life on screen. But I’m really upset. Harry Potter’s been my life.” Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 is the last installment of the film series, which is based on the Harry Potter novel series. The magic began with the first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s
Stone (renamed Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in the United States), which was published in 1997 in the United Kingdom. Mai and millions of other children at the time fell in love with Harry Potter, a boy wizard, and his friends, who go on magical adventures and fight dark magical forces. “It’s about fighting oppression,” Mai said. “Yeah, it’s about magic, but there are parallels to the real world — like classism, racism and speciesism.” Through the books, readers can escape to another world, which is appealing, said Barbi Fowler, English graduate teaching assistant. Fowler is teaching British literature this summer with a focus on myth, monsters and magic in literature. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is a required reading for the class. Fowler included Sorcerer’s Stone in the
unit on magic for the class. “It’s good to get students thinking critically about texts they’re already familiar with, because a lot of students have at least read the books or seen the movies,” she said. Harry Potter novels aren’t just books that are popular today, Fowler added. They will stand the test of time, she said. The films, however, won’t, said Bart Weiss, art and art history associate professor. They’re not great films, but they’re nice ones, he said. The films will resonate with the fans, but not with future viewers, he said. “These are not films 20 years from now that critics will put on their top-10 lists,” Weiss said. “From an aesthetic point of view, I don’t think these films will have POTTER continues on page 8
Copper theft costs College Park project money The project is still scheduled to finish before the 2011-2012 basketball season. BY WILLIAM JOHNSON The Shorthorn staff
Contractors for the College Park District construction sites reported several thousand dollars worth of copper materials missing from the sites within the past month. Copper items taken included piping and wiring from circuit breakers, according to the university. Patrols will be on site after hours, on the lookout for suspicious behavior, said Jeff Johnson, UTA maintenance and special projects director. “The incident is still under investigation,” Police Assistant Chief Rick Gomez said. Whoever took the material managed to CENTER continues on page 5
RESEARCH
Professor brainstorms space weather Simulations of the sun and solar flares are part of what Ramon Lopez’s team does. BY CHRISTIAN KEITT The Shorthorn staff
Physics professor Ramon Lopez is a self-proclaimed “space weatherman.” Lopez and his team of researchers are working with other physicists around the country to develop computer models that can warn scientists of damaging space weather before it happens. “We are part of a team of many universities working on models of the interaction of the solar wind with earth’s magnetic field,” Lopez said. “We’re
trying to understand how well these models can predict certain things of interest, and what’s the basic physics between the solar wind and the earth’s magnetosphere.” Turbulent space weather occurs when the ionosphere, the highest part of the atmosphere, starts flowing with electric current from the space cloud that hits earth’s magnetic field. This generates electrical currents that flow down into the atmosphere and flow through the ionosphere, Lopez said. “Those changing electrical currents cause changing magnetic fields, those changing magnetic fields produce other electric currents in any nearby conductor,” Lopez said. “Pipelines and power grids would
be targets for these electric currents,” said Lopez. Many everyday things can be influenced by space weather. Ionospheric disturbances can cause errors in global positioning systems. “The use of GPS just keeps on exploding, and GPS is highly dependent on space weather,” Lopez said. Lopez said the effects of GPS errors extend beyond someone getting the wrong directions from their car’s GPS. “A lot of farming is now completely automated, so what a farmer does is he programs the tractor and the tractor goes and deposits seeds and fertilizer, all of that guided by GPS,” he said. SOLAR continues on page 8
The Shorthorn: Casey Holder
Physics professor Ramon Lopez explains possible benefits of research into solar flares that he and his students have recently been given a grant to conduct.