UB students work in hands-on projects to improve Heights
Archaeologist Perrelli goes on excavations in WNY THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT PUBLICATION OF THE UNIVERSITY AT BUFFALO, SINCE 1950
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Bulls using different tactics to improve doubles play
Wednesday, april 17, 2013
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Volume 62 No. 73
Photos by NICK FISCHETTI, BRIAN KESCHINGER, & ALEXA STRUDLER, THE SPECTRUM
ANTI-ABORTION DISPLAY INVOKES STUDENT RESPONSE SARA DINATALE
Senior News Editor
Graphic images of aborted fetuses towered beside the Student Union entrance on Monday and Tuesday. Between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. each day, billboards showed dismembered fetus limbs and comparisons of abortions to genocide, child abuse and hate crimes – images Christian Andzel, the president of UB Students for Life, knows may make people uncomfortable. But he feels “it’s time to resonate the word abortion with pictures.” The images
met a strong student force, and on Tuesday, opposition mounted as up to 150 students gathered outside of the Union. Andzel contacted the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform’s “Genocide Awareness Project.” The group travels around the country to multiple universities with its anti-abortion display. Darius Hardwick, the regional director for the Center of Bio-Ethical Reform, said he knows the display he brought to UB can get people “worked up,” but he thinks it’s important to discuss “what abortion is.”
UB Students for Life does receive a budget from SA, but none of that money went toward this event. It did not cost the SA club any money for the Center to come to campus. On Monday, Laura Curry, an adjunct professor in the media study department, was arrested after vocalizing her opposition to the display and using the word “f**k.” Curry was charged with disorderly conduct and the police report states Curry was released with an appearance ticket. Many students are upset with Curry’s arrest, and a cellphone-captured video of her confrontation with the University Police Depart-
ment has been shared hundreds of times on Facebook. “I’m not being disorderly, that is disorderly,” Curry told UPD while gesturing to the display, according to the video. She continued by saying she felt the large images were profane, and they were “swearing” to her. “What is the difference between that image and me saying f**k?” Curry went on to ask the officers. UPD declined to comment for this article. Andzel said he doesn’t think the incident with Curry called for an arrest, but it was UPD’s matter and he
and his associates had no involvement. “Our police are not doing a good job [in the terms of Curry’s arrest]. They are doing the best job they can, but they aren’t doing the best job possible,” said Phil Tucciarone, a junior chemical engineering major. “That’s because of a lot of confusion from the ground to the ceiling in terms of authority. I can’t blame them, but they are struggling like we are.” Tucciarone was frustrated with the arrest but expressed gratitude for the work UPD did in keeping the students safe. SEE PROTEST, PAGE 6
Boston bombings hit home at UB Marathon attack affects students, alumni; UB expert offers terrorist theories LISA KHOURY
Senior News Editor
Courtesy of James Hamel
UB graduate James Hamel (left) posted this photo on his Facebook with his sister Nancy (right) to inform his family and friends they were safe at the Boston Marathon. An unknown attacker set off two bombs less than a half a mile away from Hamel and his sister. The act of terror killed three people, including an 8-year-old boy, and injured over 170.
UB alumnus James Hamel was almost at the finish line at the Boston Marathon on Monday when he heard an explosion .3 miles away. He didn’t stop running. He was about to beat his goal and finish the race in 4 hours and 15 minutes. He didn’t know that two bombs exploded near the finish line at 4 hours and 9 minutes. When Hamel got home and watched the replay of the explosion, he saw the clock strike 4 hours and 9 minutes. He then realized what had happened. “I just kind of was like: ‘Wow,’” Hamel said. “If I had just maybe trained a little harder or had a little bit of a faster pace – that was when I pieced it together how lucky we were. At first I was upset I didn’t finish. I was so close to the finish line … Once I realized how close and how severe it was, I was just thankful that everybody, my sister and my father and I, were OK.” His father was supposed to meet them at the finish line but decided not to before the race started. The attack killed at least three people, including an 8-year-old boy, and injured over 170 runners and spectators, according to ABC News. Hamel, a former UB wrestler who graduated in 2011, said Boston is in a state of shock.
Sophomore economics and international trade major David Harary is from Holliston, Mass., just outside of Boston, and is troubled by his vivid and happy memories of going to the marathon every year as a kid. Both can’t understand how someone could devastate such an innocent and exciting day, in which thousands of people from around the world attend the race and sporting events. Krista Konze*, who graduated from UB in 2009 with a business degree, and her fiancé had just sat down for lunch at P.F. Changs after attending the Boston Red Sox game. The restaurant staff immediately told them that the restaurant was in lockdown. Cellphones glued to hands, the restaurant-goers in the P.F. Changs on Boylston Street, a half a mile away from the Boston Marathon finish line, checked the news and social media and learned two bombings had just occurred only a few blocks away. People who had already finished the race were sitting down to eat, medals in hand, at P.F. Changs. “It was just scary to be locked down in a restaurant not knowing anything, and then to have to step outside and have the cops yelling at people to move away,” Konze said. “I was worried, being in such a big building, what if a bomb goes off in here? We didn’t want to stay there. My fiancé was trying to think
of ways to get out and get home safely.” Harary sat on the sidelines and cheered runners every year as a young child and early teen at the Boston Marathon. He said there’s a “very strong connection” in Boston between children having fun and the Boston Marathon. “I have very vivid memories, very happy memories, of going to Ashland to sit on the sidelines of runners,” Harary said. “Any of the runners that I know, I just imagine those same kids today doing the same thing, having that same support for the adults who run 26 miles, and hours later their legs are blown off. And that’s pretty scary to let a child know that the runner that you were just supporting and cheering for, their legs were just blown off. It hits it hard.” Nine children were admitted to Boston’s Children’s Hospital, according to the Washington Post. Hamel said one of the most disturbing parts of the attack is that many racers dedicated their run to the 20 children and six adults who were massacred at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in December. Throughout the marathon, there were moments of silence for the victims. Then, in the same run, adults and their children experienced devastation again. SEE BOMBINGS, PAGE 11