UWM Post 9-19-2011

THEUWMPOST est. 1956

the student-run independent newspaper

September 19, 2011

Pantherfest vs. Milwaukee Cup page 5

Issue 4, Volume 56

Voter ID Bill student option page 16

Interview with Susan Kerns page 15

Chancellor unveils plans for the fall Pledges to support faculty, commits to core values

SA Senate has four-hour quarrelsome meeting SA changes bylaws and approves three new senators

By Aaron Knapp Assistant News Editor news@uwmpost.com

the driver,” Larson said. “The Libyan checkpoint was literally one guy in an office. I mean, there were guys with guns, but it was mostly just young guys looking at your passport. You had to see more people to get out of Egypt than to get in to Libya.”

Larson used old credentials, written in Arabic, to get through security and to prove that he was a freelance journalist. After a 20 hour non-stop journey to Benghazi, Larson's ride into the city broke down. The cousin of his hotel clerk became Larson's key contact in Libya.

“The hotel clerks know I am a journalist who wants to see what is going on in Libya. There was this one

In a contentious and sometimes chaotic meeting that lasted nearly four hours, the UW-Milwaukee Student Association Senate heard from Wisconsin Assemblywoman Sandy Pasch and Chancellor Michael Lovell, inducted three new senators and amended the bylaws of itself and the University Student Court.

Additionally, the senate heard from a student proposing legislation in support of a new sticker that would allow student IDs to be used for voting in local, state and national elections, as well as learned that it is running on about a $7,000 deficit, about two percent of the overall budget.

The most controversial and heated debate was over a failed piece of legislation that would have removed part of the SA’s election bylaws requiring any candidate for SA President to have been a part of SA for six months prior to the election.

The legislation failed to gain the necessary 2/3 vote that is required for bylaw changes.

“We have to stand up and represent the student body, and I don’t think that’s what we’re doing [with this bylaw],” introducer of the bill Brent Green said. “If somebody wants to get on the Senate and they’re not particularly happy with ASAP [Achieving Student Action through Progress], we can restrict them from joining Student Association, which restricts them from running for President.”

Although Green ran with the political party ASAP alongside the SA president, vice president and the vast majority of senators, he and approximately half of the senators at the meeting wanted to undue this bylaw, which was added last summer to the Independent Election Commission’s bylaws, the organization that runs SA elections.

Many of the bylaw’s original supporters, however, reaffirmed the necessity of the law, saying that a candidate with no experience in SA would not know how to effectively use the position.

“I don’t think it’s an unreasonable request for someone to be part of an organization for six months, become knowledgeable, understand firsthand the issues that face our student body right now before running the organization,” Senator Michael Ludwig said. “What I care about personally, is that the organization isn’t run into the ground because someone runs it that isn’t capable of doing that.”

See LARSON page 3

See SA page 3

Chancellor Lovell gives his plenary address to a full house Thursday evening (Sept. 15) in the Wisconsin Room.

Post photo by Austin McDowell

By Steve Garrison News Editor news@uwmpost.com

Chancellor Michael Lovell thanked faculty and staff for their dedication to the university in the face of reduced compensation and emphasized the importance of strong core values during his fall plenary speech Thursday afternoon.

Lovell said that morale on campus has been challenged by state-wide austerity measures, with UW-Milwaukee’s ability

to recruit high-quality staff, faculty and students threatened.

Lovell acknowledged that a sharp spike in retirement this year, with 38 staff and faculty members leaving the university, has also been detrimental to morale.

Despite these setbacks, the soon to be inaugurated chancellor pledged to advocate for fair and competitive compensation and said he would continue to reinforce the university’s strengths, which, Lovell said include rising enrollment rates and ongoing

campus development projects.

“As we face continued economic challenges and increased competition, it is crucial for us to remember that values are what drive this university,” Lovell said. “My administration would make decisions based on this principle: Values come first, money and marketing follow.”

Values, Lovell said, are at the heart of the UWM’s mission to provide high quality education and help distinguish the university from growing online competitors, such as DeVry University and the University of Phoenix.

“Why is it important that we place these values first and insist that money and marketing follow them?” Lovell said. “One reason is that the financial dynamic of higher education has changed significantly.”

Also unveiled on Thursday was an aggressive new advertising campaign targeting prospective students.

Vice chancellor for university relations and communications, Thomas Luljak, said that the advertisements will

See CHANCELLOR page 2

Three wars, two majors and a Master’s degree

Final piece in a three part series

By John Parnon Assistant News Editor news@uwmpost.com

Ron Larson goes to classes, just like a student. Larson studies for exams and writes papers, just as a student would.

Larson is even beginning his doctorate in history and journalism at UWMilwaukee this year, just like a student.

Larson has also spent time in fox holes alongside Libyan rebels. Larson has watched U.S. rocket artillery fire on rebel positions in Afghanistan – and not through a TV set. Larson has not seen, but heard, sniper fire tear through the air just feet above his head.

And Larson said one of his greatest fears is not bombs or small arms fire, but failure, just like a student.

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Larson returned from his third trip to a war zone on Aug. 2, this time coming back to the states from Libya.

Larson said he bought his ticket for Libya on June 25 and left for Egypt on July 19. He was not officially embedded with troops like he had been in Iraq, and he was not there for anyone but himself, to be a witness to history.

“I’m not working for a newspaper, so all I really needed was a digital camera, pens and paper and a notebook,” Larson said. “Then all that was left was the logistics of how I was going to get into Libya.”

Larson said he found his first contact in Libya through Facebook.

Because anti-government rebels aren’t in the business of issuing visas and the border was controlled by the rebels

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FRINGE EDITORIAL

Continued from last week's “Three wars, two majors and a Master’s degree”

when Larson left for Libya, he wanted to make sure he would be allowed in.

“I asked [my contact], ‘Am I gonna have a problem getting into Libya?’”

Larson said. “She says ‘You tell them you’re a journalist. You look like a journalist. You have equipment. They should let you in.’”

Larson landed in Cairo, Egypt, and hired a private driver to take him into Benghazi. Larson said he wasn't sure if it was the Egyptians or the Libyans, but they would not let him head for Benghazi, because he had a corporate car and not a private car.

“I would have been stuck at the border for literally 20 hours, but there was a Libyan who had been living in Britain for 20 years. They offered to take me to Benghazi, and I paid for

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September 19, 2011

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THEUWMPOST Editor in Chief Zach Erdmann

Production Editor Melissa Dahlman

Managing Editor Mike La Count

Chief Copy Editor Jackie Dreyer

News Editor Steve Garrison

Copy Editors Kara Peterson Brad Polling

Assistant News Editors Aaron Knapp John Parnon Fringe Editor Steve Franz Assistant Fringe Editors Kevin Kaber Graham Marlowe Sports Editor Jeremy Lubus Assistant Sports Editor Tony Atkins Editorial Editor Zach Brooke Photo Editor Sierra Riesberg

NEWS BRIEFS

“Painting” Port Washington

Forty-eight year-old Dale R. Ziegler was charged on Thursday after a suspected weekend-long graffiti spree in Port Washington. He is suspected of painting messages such as “Ku Klux Klan” and “Welcome to swastika city,” as well as images of swastikas along the Ozaukee Interurban Trail. Ziegler, who is unemployed, blamed the food pantry at St. Peter’s Church’s for not giving him enough food and subsequently spray-painted “Hitler’s Food Pantry” on the church’s wall. Wilfred De Junco, Ziegler’s attorney, said that Ziegler suffers from mental illness and has no job.

Distribution Mgr. Patrick Quast Off-Campus Distribution Alek Shumaker Business Manager Tyler Rembert Advertising Manager Stephanie Fisher Online/Multimedia Editor Kody Schafer Board of Directors Jackie Dreyer Zach Erdmann Stephanie Fisher Mike La Count Kody Schafer

Phone: (414)229-4578 Fax: (414)229-4579 post@uwmpost.com www.uwmpost.com

Earthquake

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strikes Sikkim

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Suite EG80 Milwaukee, WI 53211 THE UWM POST has a circulation of 10,000 and is distributed on campus and throughout the surrounding communities.

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POLICE REPORTS On Friday, Sept. 16 at 7:40 a.m., a woman made a 911 call and then abruptly hung up. When dispatchers called back, the woman said she thought someone was breaking into her apartment, but she discovered the intruder was a squirrel. The squirrel had entered the house unbeknownst to the caller and was the cause of the noise.

On Thursday, Sept. 15 at 3:25 p.m., UWM Union security reported a theft from The Flour Shop. The suspect was identified as a tall black male with long blonde hair wearing a tan coat and hat.

On Sunday Sept. 18 at 2:00 a.m., a B.O.S.S. operator reported an altercation between two black males.

The operator said that a handgun was involved.

On Sunday Sept. 18 at 4:20 p.m., Sandburg security was informed that a log was on fire in Downer Woods.

Legal Clinic retraction: In last week’s article, “Legal Help to Students in Need,” The Post reported that students who have legal representation are still encouraged to seek advice from the UWM Legal Clinic. Actually, the clinic cannot offer aid to students who already have representation.

The Post apologizes for this error.

Post photo by Austin McDowell

CHANCELLOR Continued from page 1

serve as both a recruitment tool and an announcement that UWM has arrived as a top-tier university.

“The goal is to communicate the message to people who are thinking of coming to UWM, clearly there is a hook in there for the prospects, but also to build the brand, to make sure that people in the community appreciate the treasure we have here – the people and the wonderful programs in the University,” Luljak said.

The campaign, which began Sept.

12, includes commercials, online advertising and billboards throughout the Milwaukee area and in several states bordering Wisconsin.

Approximately 240 students, staff and faculty members packed the UWM Union’s Wisconsin Room on Sept. 15 to hear the chancellor’s address.

By tradition, the chancellor is asked every semester to open the first UWM Academic Senate meeting with a speech.

The chancellor’s spring plenary, titled “Transitions & Connections,” was overshadowed by Gov. Scott Walker’s then-recent announcement that the state would be enacting substantive austerity measures to reduce the state’s deficit.

In his address Thursday, Lovell acknowledged the visceral reaction of many staff and faculty members following the release of the budget repair bill.

“To be honest, I think we were all shaken by the austerity of the budget,” he said. “But what I was very proud of that day, was the way the campus came together…there was a certain sense that if we stuck together, we could get

through this.”

Lovell said the community’s response was unique to the campus, and it was one of the reasons he takes such pride in serving as chancellor at UWM. “Even today, seven months later, there is not a day that goes by that I do not hear concern for the graduate students, classified staff and those of the campus who have the highest percentage of their income being taken away by the state budget cuts,” he said.

Nationwide, tax support for state universities has been declining for decades, Lovell said, and even more dramatically in the last several years.

As a result, universities have had to

My administration would make decisions based on this principle: Values come first, money and marketing follow,” Lovell said. increase student tuition, aggressively pursue both gifted-grants and externallyfunded research grants and develop cautionary partnerships, all of which can distract a university from its core mission of education, Lovell said.

The rise of for-profit universities is also a reason core values are essential the chancellor said.

Online university enrollment has exploded in the last few years, with 780,000 students enrolled in 2004 to 2.1 million students in 2009.

According to a 2009 study conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics, The University of Phoenix and Kaplan University are the two largest post-secondary schools in America.

The University of Phoenix has almost five times as many students enrolled than Arizona State University, according to the study.

“This is a new day in post-secondary education,” Lovell said. “In this competitive environment, non-profit universities must give attention to their public image, both to recruit qualified students and to encourage philanthropic support.”

Lovell’s response to this new competition is an aggressive marketing campaign, highlighting the University’s values, accomplishments and aspirations. “[In] rolling out the new marketing campaign, ‘Powerful ideas. Proven results,’ we have developed an image, or brand, that reinforces who we are and helps distinguish UWM from other universities,” he said.

Television advertisements, which began running Sept. 12, are being broadcast on 15 to 20 cable channels and all the main “over-the-air” channels, Luljak said.

The television spots will run from now until next April, stopping briefly during the holiday season in December, Luljak said.

Online advertising will also play a role, both on locally-focused websites, such as jsonline.com, and nationallyknown websites, such as CNN.com and yahoo.com.

The chancellor said billboards will be scattered throughout the Milwaukee metropolitan area beginning this fall, and, for the first time, billboards will be placed outside of Wisconsin.

“We are going to be at the gateway – from Minnesota to Wisconsin, Illinois to Wisconsin and Iowa to Wisconsin – because we think we have a wonderful institution, and we want to spread word beyond Milwaukee.”

Sixteen people died on Sept. 18 after a 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck India and Nepal. The earthquake was the first one of the year to have caused major damage. The Indian state of Sikkim was hit at 6:00 p.m. and suffered major power outages across the state, as well as the collapse of two major roads. Over 50 people were reported injured, and telephone lines are down all over the country. Sikkim saw five of the 16 casualties, and over 50 injuries were reported. Rescuers are still searching the city for those who may be trapped under fallen buildings in the city, Police Chief Jasbir Singh told BBC News.

Baldwin too ballsy for the Emmys

Alec Baldwin pulled out of the Emmy Awards, in response to Fox’s decision to remove a joke he had written about Rupert Murdoch. Baldwin, who had recorded a segment to open the awards, told Entertainment Weekly that NewsCorp cut the funniest joke from his segment, which concerned the phone hacking scandal that erupted in Britain earlier this year. Fox claimed the joke was cut not because of Murdoch’s name, but because it was in poor taste to make light of such serious allegations.

No suing Sony A mandatory Sony PS3 update requires users to sign away their right to join class action lawsuits brought against the electronics giant. The Examiner caught the fine print in the latest system update – which states that by agreeing to the update, dispute resolution proceedings can only be carried out on an individual basis, unless the user sends an email to the company stating they will not comply with the request. The clause is assumed to be in response to recent class action lawsuits brought against the company after PS3 servers were hacked and sensitive data was leaked.

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uwmpost.com

September 19, 2011 3

A Libyan rebel takes aim at Ghadaffi loyalists near the city of Dafniya on July 28, 2011. Photo by Ron Larson

LARSON

Continued from page 1 contact that was supposed to meet me, and he didn't show up,” Larson said. “I think this hotel clerk felt kind of bad, and he said, 'Oh, Libyan people are not like that...my cousin, I think he can help you.’”

Larson then met a man named Nassar who used to be a tour guide and still spoke English, and, once they had

become acquainted, Nassar helped him get his Libyan press credential.

“Nassar had another friend named Odell. He was in the Libyan Air Force for a long time and saw a lot of the early fighting,” Larson said. “He told me this story about how they went into this one town, and there was nobody there. He said, 'We pulled back, and we are going to go in the next day.' They went in that day and got slaughtered by Gaddafi's troops.”

After talking with Odell, Larson

UWM Mobile app released on campus

New app allows students to check their class schedule and track dormitory shuttles

was told he should head to the Misrata district where it was much less organized and there was a lot less control.

“There was heavy, heavy fighting there in the spring, and the closest I can compare it to was Beirut – just devastation,” Larson said.

Larson was introduced to a commander named Sufian in Misrata who offered to take him to the front.

“There was a lot of shooting from the rebels on the Gaddafi side. It was like a World War I thing – it wasn't a

battle. It was a road with trees on it.

On either side there was a berm, a 10foot high wall of dirt,” Larson said. “A sniper or a machine gunner would be on top shooting, and they would be firing mortars.”

Larson said he would be sitting in a fox hole eating a sandwich and periodically someone would just stand up and fire a machine gun.

“You never felt immediately in danger,” he said. “But later on in the day, I was shooting video behind a

SORC plans to rewrite SA constitution

SAC gives extra money for Saudi Students Club’s event

By Aaron Knapp Assistant News Editor news@uwmpost.com With UWM Mobile students can view a map of the campus and businesses and services nearby. Post photo Sierra Riesberg

By Danielle Mackenthun Special to The Post news@uwmpost.com

Having trouble finding your next class, forgot your schedule or need to e-mail your professor on the go? Well, “there’s an app for that.”

UW-Milwaukee’s Information Technology Services activated the UWM Mobile application on August 29.

The app was approved for development last year, and UITS spent 2011 creating the program. The pilot project offers nine mini apps that allow students to check their courses, view maps, find out when a residence hall shuttle will arrive and more. There have been 5,000 downloads within the first weeks of the program’s launch.

In an effort to promote the new app, 6,000 “Go Mobile” t-shirts were handed out across campus, and students were entered into a drawing with the opportunity to win an autographed Brewers jersey, iPads and other prizes.

Winners were announced via e-mail this past weekend.

The UWM Mobile app was created to “provide information quickly to students,” Director of Auxiliary Services Scott Peak said.

Director of Web and Mobile Services for UITS Michael Hostad said UITS has received 600 messages in regards to the app, and most have been very positive.

Freshman Jabbar Muhammad said he appreciates the versatility of the new application.

“The app has so much integrated in it,” Muhammad said. “It helps in all aspects of college life.”

As a Cambridge Commons resident, freshman Erik Schiller said he can appreciate the shuttle search function.

“Living in Cambridge, it’s important to keep up with the shuttles, which UWM Mobile let’s me do. And let’s be honest, anything free in college is great,” Schiller said.

The UWM mobile app can be downloaded for free and is available for the Apple iPhone or Google’s Android.

UITS is also considering making the app available for Blackberry users.

Currently, UITS is expanding the app to add new mini apps related to athletic information and the Milwaukee County bus routes. UWM also plans to partner with search-engine giant Google to create an app that utilizes Google maps, allowing students to plot routes around campus.

A second version of the app is expected to be released in 2012.

Two subcommittees of the UWMilwaukee Student Association met on Friday. The Senate Oversight and Rules Committee met to discuss writing a new SA constitution, and the Senate Appropriations Committee met to hear two emergency grant requests.

At the SORC meeting Friday afternoon, representatives from the senate met to discuss plans for drafting a new SA constitution and brainstorm how they can amend specific parts of the current constitution.

SORC is writing a new constitution because amendments require at least 15,000, or about half of UWM’s students, to approve the changes. Since less than 1,650 students voted in the last general election, according to the SA’s website, SORC plans to use a loophole that allows them to abolish the entire constitution and write a new one without so many student votes.

“The way to get around that is to draft a new constitution that would not amend this, but abolish it,” committee member and Speaker of the Senate Rick Banks said.

The changes to the constitution will close some loopholes and open others. Banks mentioned that the constitution allows for many rules to be dictated in the Senate’s bylaws, which are constantly changing. They plan to write some of these rules in the constitution in order to give them some consistency from year to year.

On the other hand, SORC discussed allowing for some loopholes such as one that would permit the SA to incorporate new schools and colleges into the senate without rewriting the entire constitution again.

They tabled a charter for a new student organization that will become the Water Council at UWM, because no representatives appeared at the meeting, which will allow for the charter to come up at the next meeting.

Later that day at an emergency grant request meeting, scheduled regularly every three weeks, SAC heard grant requests from two new student organizations started earlier this year: Saudi Students Club and Women in Islam.

A representative of the Saudi Students Club asked for $210, in addition to the $500 grant they were already given, for an upcoming event it is hosting in the union. SAC granted it $193.75 for setup and a banner.

A representative from Women in Islam requested money for a table and refreshments at an informational meeting it plans to host. Because it was not clear how much money the club needs for the meeting, the request was tabled until the next meeting.

The second half of the meeting was devoted to Thomas Dake of the Center for Student Involvement, who updated the committee on changes to PantherSync, the website that UWM organizations use to submit grant requests, and UW System rules about how to fund student organizations.

berm, and twice I heard bullets whiz by my head. And they were maybe five feet above my head, and you can actually feel the bullets go by.”

Larson said after the battle, he spent some time interviewing wounded soldiers and speaking with citizens, oftentimes finding scores of antiGaddafi graffiti or people greeting him with open arms as a journalist.

“It just seemed like the antiGaddafi, pro-democracy attitude was so prevalent among these people,”

SA

Continued from page 3

Although Speaker of the Senate Rick Banks counted the vote as 14 voting to approve the amendment, 17 against and four abstaining, he later learned that the count ref lected that 35 senators voted when only 25 were present. In a chaotic moment during debate over another bill, Banks started to recount the votes in a way that would have allowed senators to change their vote. Banks quickly stopped and confirmed after the meeting that 13 voted for the amendment, eight against and four abstained.

Earlier in the meeting, the Senate heard from nearly a dozen speakers, including committee chairs, executive officers, President Alex Kostal, Chancellor Lovell and Wisconsin Assemblywoman Sandy Pasch, who came in place of Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca.

UWM student and Milwaukee Election Commission employee Eric Grow gave a presentation on a sticker that the commission developed and the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board approved that students may place on their student IDs that will allow them to vote. If a senator sponsors legislation related to this sticker, a supportive resolution may be introduced before the senate soon.

Also, three new senators were inducted into the senate. Molly Cohen of the College of Letters and Science beat two other contenders, Gabe Sanders won a seat against one competitor in the Lubar School of Business and Nathan Uibel took one of two open seats in the School of Architecture and Urban Planning.

After rejecting changes to the IEC bylaws and changing some senate and USC bylaws, the senate quickly tabled most of its remaining business, except for an act supporting the Panther Pledge and a budget adjustment giving the SA office manager a $720 raise by shifting funds in the executive budget. The next senate meeting will be next Sunday at 6 p.m. in the Fireside Lounge.

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September 19, 2011

the uwm post

Adding art to asphalt Beating the meter

UWM architecture students transformed parking spaces into art on PARK(ing) Day

By Molly Lefeber Special to The Post news@uwmpost.com

PARK(ing) Day on Sept. 16 gave UW-Milwaukee architecture students the chance to transform urban parking spaces into public works of art. Students from the 390/790 architecture courses installed and displayed class projects in three different parking spaces on Capitol Drive in Shorewood. The projects suggested ways to better the Milwaukee area, specifically urban places, like parking spaces.

“Part of the provocative nature of the project is that it provokes [people] into thinking about rethinking a parking space,” Associate Professor of Architecture Mo Zell said. “We’re asking you to think about this 10-by-20 space, 200 square feet where we store our cars all day long and think about putting other things there, even temporarily.”

One of the groups focused on the Oak Leaf Trail and wanted to compare the amount of bikers and pedestrians that use the trail with the amount of cars driving on the bridges above it.

They set up a pretend meter to track how many pedestrians came past their space compared to vehicles.

“We’re trying to get more people to use [the Oak Leaf Trail],” graduate student Rustin Schwandt said.

The group also thought about adding more to areas like the trail.

“I want [people] to realize that Milwaukee could use more public space,” junior Ariel Gonzalez said. “There’s no place to sit down around that bridge.”

The projects were put up to advocate for public art, as well as rethinking the space.

“It’s taking back the concrete part of the city and making it into more of a vegetated landscape,” Schwandt said.

“Instead of devoting our cities to cars, we devote it to people instead.”

The architecture students met with the Public Arts Committee of Shorewood to discuss ideas for the works of art and their placement.

“With high visibility and a lot of traffic on Capitol Drive, we selected the three installation locations, one at Atwater School, one at the post office and one just east of it,” Chair of the Public Arts Committee Richard Eschner said. “These aren’t going to be finished products, just ideas. Our goal is to just stimulate interest and make people aware of how art can enhance their life, cause them to think and cause people to talk.”

At the meetings, historians talked to the groups about some of the history of Shorewood. The city’s history was taken into consideration when making the installations.

“That was very helpful for the students

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to hear the stories of Shorewood,” Zell said.

“A big part of what we are doing is respecting the history but moving forward,” Gonzalez said.

PARK(ing) Day is a worldwide event that started in 2005 in San Francisco, California. Originally, the project started by taking real park aspects, such as sod and benches, and recreating the parking spaces into parks. The UWM architecture students got to put implications to the city into the idea.

Last year, Zell started to incorporate this event into her constructed site class.

“It’s been intense. We had about two weeks to do this entire thing. We were all kind of overwhelmed but excited to do it.

It’s been a fun time,” Huebner said.

PARK(ing) Day was held on campus the first year, instead of in Shorewood.

“Because there was direction from the public art committee, the projects are better,” Zell said.

“Maybe someone we don’t even know will come by and look at something and say, ‘Gee, maybe we ought to pursue this more seriously,’” Eschner said.

The projects were on display from noon to 6 p.m. Friday. All of the information on participating areas, past displays and a history of PARK(ing) Day can be found on the official website at HYPERLINK "http://www.parkingday. org"www.parkingday.org.

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Lack of parking issue at UWM persists

By Chris Flood Staff Writer news@uwmpost.com

When the City of Milwaukee generated $23 million in revenue last year from parking citations and the Journal Sentinel listed UWMilwaukee as the second highest ticket hot spot in Milwaukee, some residents and students began to question whether the campus area is an actual target for parking enforcement.

Cindy Angelos, parking financial manager at the City of Milwaukee’s Department of Public Works, said these areas are not targeted, but, rather, they have a high demand of onstreet parking, which creates the need for increased regulation.

But even if the area is not being targeted, anyone planning on parking still has to deal with a campus, commuters, 59 different parking code violations, a street sweeping program, night parking regulations and winter parking laws.

Kiara Opps was a UWM student and resident two years ago and lived on the 2900 block of North Murray Street. Now she’s living in Riverwest and said there are less parking checkers and less street regulations.

“There was a different parking rule on every street near campus and a parking checker waiting for someone to break the rule,” Opps said. “In Riverwest, there doesn’t seem to be as many parking checkers.”

Opps said she averaged around three parking tickets a semester living near UWM. The street sweeping program is another hurdle for residents parking on the streets near campus for the first or third Friday of the month, depending on the street, from April 1 to Dec. 1.

Being confused about the rules, or simply not being aware of them, won’t save you from getting towed. Street sweeper parking violations carry with them a $105 tow fee, and every day that a car stays in the lot, $20 is added to the total.

On top of the citations, Opps said her car was towed twice within several months when she lived in the area because of street sweeping – the only two times her car has ever been towed.

“I think they are doing their job, but it seems like they focus on the UWM area, which is hard because [students] have no money,” Opps said.

When asked why people feel UWM is a target for parking enforcement, Angelos said, “People across the city in all areas tend to express the same sentiment. Parking enforcement is deployed city-wide, 24 hours per day, seven days per week.”

“Parking regulations are enacted for safety and for demand reasons,” Angelos said. “One tends to see a greater number of regulations [when there are more vehicles than on-street parking] to maintain safety and to offer increased turnover for those searching for parking.”

Geoff Hoen is a resident living in a f lat near campus on the corner of Locust Street and Lake Drive.

“My roommates and I really had to work out a deal to see who got the space in the garage in the winter,” Hoen said.

“I didn’t want to park on the street, but it’s like any city, there are going to be parking rules.”

Hoen said, on average, he’s received one ticket about every other month for

not having a night parking permit, parking too long in a two hour zone or parking less than 15 feet away from the crosswalk.

In February, 200 cars were towed in one day along Farwell Avenue and Prospect Avenue, and the majority of the people had not even known they were in violation of parking regulations, because the temporary plastic tow away zone signs had been removed.

“The signs were stolen by individuals and found a week later elsewhere on the East Side,” Angelos said.

To fix this situation, all the tickets that were issued for tow-away violations in the area where the signs were stolen were voided, and if anyone had already paid for their ticket and/ or tow, they were given a refund, according to Angelos.

“The Milwaukee Police Department is aware of what happened and will be vigilant in patrolling for this type of activity in the future,” Angelos said.

Hoen and Opps both agreed that incidents like these are examples of how parking regulations can cause confusion.

Alternatives for off-street parking include the Capitol Drive and Humboldt Avenue U-Park lot, as well as a free parking structure in the Northwest Quadrant on campus.

Cashiered garages are available underneath UWM’s Union and Lubar Hall (during public hours) and cost $1.25/hour or a maximum of $11.25/ day.

There are also mixed-regulation garages, pay spaces and meters in or by a number of campus buildings. Hourly public and student parking pay stations are $0.80/hour.

Opps does not believe campus alternatives to street parking are worth it because of the price and limited availability.

Director of Campus Planning and Construction Claude Schuttey said, “The Northwest Quadrant fills up by 9:30 or 10:00 a.m., and the [Klotsche Center and] Pavilion always has one level open.”

“I think they have done as much as they can on campus, but there are so many people. It’s hard to come up with an easy solution,” Opps said.

Parking has not only posed a problem for UWM, however, but for campuses nationwide.

INFORUM, The Forum of FargoMoorhead, published an article at the beginning of the month titled, “Moorhead parking problems return with college students.”

Another article published in The Daily Titan, a campus paper based out of California State UniversityFullerton, addressed the issue earlier in September, too, stating that parking was no longer just a student problem, but also a faculty problem.

On Sept. 13, the University of Illinois at Chicago launched a partnership with Zipcar, according to the Sacramento Bee PR newswire.

The partnership with Zipcar allows students to reserve shared, energy efficient vehicles by the hour or day for $25 annually. Students would share the car with a number of others, rather than have their own, and the Zipcar takes 15 personally-owned cars off the road, according to the article.

September 19, 2011

SPORTS

Panthers sweep Loyola, stay undefeated in conference

THE UWM POST

Pantherfest vs. Milwaukee Cup

Dueling events forced students to make tough choice

Weekend sweep of UW-Green Bay and Loyola start season off right

Students look on at Pantherfest while the Milwaukee Cup was going on. Post file photo.

By Tony Atkins Assistant Sports Editor sports@uwmpost.com

Senior Morgan Potter reaches low for a dig Saturday afternoon.

Post Photo by Sierra Riesberg

By Nick Bornheimer Staff Writer ports@uwmpost.com

The UW-Milwaukee women’s volleyball team cruised past Loyola University in straight sets –25-20, 25-15, 25-21 – Saturday over their conference foe, helping the Panthers to an undefeated Horizon League opening weekend.

The Panthers (9-4, 2-0 Horizon) came away with their first three-set victory of the season Saturday afternoon.

UWM seemed to control the pace over the entirety of the match. Their four-set win over rival UW-Green Bay the night prior gave the Panthers a 1-0 mark going into Saturday’s bout.

“Every time we play we get another step closer to where we want to be,” Panthers coach Susie Johnson said.

“We’ve had some injuries to overcome and some younger players that have had

to step in and transition to this level, but we are playing well enough to win right now.”

Sophomore Rachel Neuberger looked impressive, both offensively and defensively, recording 12 kills, six blocks and hitting .375 – all-team highs.

Freshman Kayla Price accounted for 37 assists, while seniors Melissa Jansen and Kerri Schuh added 11 kills to help UWM hit an efficient .252 as a team.

Defense was also a key for the Panthers in their sweep. UWM totaled 11 blocks and held the Ramblers to a .126 hitting percentage.

Both teams traded points early in the first set. Loyola (3-7, 0-1 Horizon) was up 8-5 after an early timeout, but struggled to keep the Panthers’ attack in check and relinquished their lead halfway through the set.

UWM never trailed again after gaining the lead in the first set.

Milwaukee looked dominant in the

second set, finishing off the eventual 10-point victory on a 7-0 run.

Loyola made some noise in the third set, but it was the Panthers’ contest to lose from the beginning. The Ramblers pulled within one point of UWM making the score 15-14. Milwaukee stayed composed, though, taking the final set 25-21 and sending Loyola packing without so much as a taste of victory.

“I like where our team is at,” Johnson said. “I don’t think we’re as good as we’re going to be, but we definitely have an opportunity to win the league again this year. It is a matter of getting better every day in practice and being well prepared.”

The Panthers look to continue their hot streak and stay undefeated in conference play, as Butler rolls into town this Friday night at 7 p.m. and Wright State at 4 p.m. Saturday. Both matches will be played at the Klotsche Center.

Sometimes too much of a good thing can be a very bad thing. This year’s Campus Kickoff week at UWMilwaukee was a very enjoyable time for many students, with many activities and events going on to get students engaged on and off campus. Students enjoyed another phenomenal Pantherfest performance, headlined by Grammy award-winning rapper Lupe Fiasco and critically acclaimed mash-up artist Girl Talk.

But the Milwaukee Cup was going on during Campus Kickoff, too – a yearly soccer match against Marquette University for bragging rights around town. The Milwaukee Cup is arguably one of the biggest and most exciting regular season games during the men’s season.

Like Pantherfest, this year’s Milwaukee Cup didn’t disappoint. Yet there was a slight problem: Pantherfest and the Milwaukee Cup were held on the same night, which is unfair to the men’s soccer program.

“I’ve been attending the Milwaukee Cup for the past couple of years,” Milwaukee resident and soccer enthusiast Sam Davidson said. “Just to see some good collegiate soccer here is great for the city. I think it is a shame that after having such a great turnout last year, it didn’t carry over to this year because of

poor scheduling.”

Fans from all over the city were there cheering on their respective school and/ or favorite team. Personnel in attendance described the 2010 Milwaukee Cup as having an “electric atmosphere,” because UWM won the trophy back after losing to Marquette two years in a row.

The team has been getting better over the past two years, and the 2010 Milwaukee Cup was crucial in helping the program regain its respectability and prestige. This gave the Panthers the momentum going into this year’s game.

On September 9, the Panthers played their hearts out and won late in the game against rival Marquette. Unfortunately, a large portion of the UWM student body knew nothing about it because of Pantherfest. If the Milwaukee Cup had happened at a time that didn’t coincide with a major concert event, awareness – and attendance – could have been much higher.

There may have been scheduling conflicts that forced both events to happen on the same night, but the people behind Pantherfest probably could have collaborated with the athletic department and found another date.

The Milwaukee Cup is arguably the biggest regular season event for UWM soccer, drawing fans from Marquette, UWM and the city at large. It is a shame that after such a great outing in 2010, the 2011 Milwaukee Cup was but a mere afterthought on the minds of the campus community.

SPORTS

uwmpost.com

Panthers open conference with a bang Senior Sarah Hagen tallies two goals in win over Cleveland State

Freshman Emily Scott battles for position against Cleveland State Saturday. The Panthers won 4-0. Photo courtesy of The Cauldron

By Mitch Pratt Staff Writer sports@uwmpost.com

The Milwaukee Panthers women’s soccer team rolled to a 4-0 victory in their Horizon League opener against Cleveland State on Friday night at Krenzler Field in Cleveland, Ohio. The victory pushed the Panthers’ all-time record against Cleveland State to 12-0.

Junior midfielder Helen Steinhauser was impressive throughout. The Ann Arbor, Michigan, native had assists on

three of the Panthers’ season-high four goals. Two of those tallies, a header in the 23rd minute and another score in the 58th minute, went to senior forward Sarah Hagen, who continued to dominate any and every opponent in her path.

Hagen’s goal in the 23rd minute proved to be the game-winner, giving her game-winners in back-to-back contests.

She now has 11 goals in the team’s first nine games.

The Panthers (8-1, 1-0 Horizon) were able to stifle a Cleveland State (5-

3, 0-1) team that had come in winners of three straight. Milwaukee outshot the Vikings 18-4 (only one of those four shots landed on goal versus nine for Milwaukee) and dominated the pace throughout the match, the 500th match in Lady Panthers’ soccer history.

The team will be back in action next week with two games at Engelmann Field. They’ll first face a non-conference foe in Western Illinois at 7 p.m. on Friday night, only to return to Horizon League play as they take on Detroit at 1 p.m. Sunday afternoon.

Two is better than one

Packers running attack in good shape with Grant and Starks

Ryan Grant (25) give the Packers a potent 1-2 punch. Photos courtesy of trentonian.com

By Nolan Murphy Staff Writer sports@uwmpost.com

Traditionalists in the National Football League have long preached that a balanced offense only comes about with one workhorse running back. In case you were wondering, this isn’t your father’s league anymore. The reigning Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers march into the 2011 season with a twoheaded running attack that features veteran Ryan Grant and unproven second year running back James Starks.

The members of Packer nation spent their lockout plagued off-season wondering if and when football would resume and whether Ryan Grant would still be wearing green and gold. Grant, who had to sit out nearly the entire Super Bowl campaign with a broken leg, is

making a return. Coming back, he will be eager to prove doubters that he can still contribute.

Now after a week one victory over the Saints, it looks as if the Packers are planning to use Grant and Starks equally, favoring to each of their individual strengths. The Packers distributed the touches between the two backs in the week one win, with each back having twelve and eleven carries respectively.

Starks, however, ended up with more touches – and in the second half. Ryan Grant received the start, but the Packers showed their willingness to ease him back into his first game since last year’s season opener.

The average NFL player’s career length is three years, with running backs having the shortest tenure at about two and a half years of service, according to the NFL Players Association.

Green Bay will look to use Grant and Starks equally to start the season as a way to keep both backs fresh and rested. Coach Mike McCarthy discussed the topic of running back depth in an interview prior to week one with the Green Bay Press Gazette.

“We’re younger, and we have some talented guys. They’re all going to play,” McCarthy said.

A key part of the Packers attempt to repeat as champions in 2011 weighs on the ability of Ryan Grant and James Starks to both contribute and stay healthy. By no means is there a controversy brewing at running back, but instead a strategy to keep healthy competition constant and ride the hot hand. The luxury of having two starting-caliber running backs on the roster is a problem that the Packers and McCarthy are willing to handle during their journey to repeat.

September 19, 2011 6

The road, the driver and the search for meaning Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive is a brilliant riff on American morality and film history's engagement with the subject. Image courtesy of collider.com

By Steven Franz Fringe Editor fringe@uwmpost.com

In 2007, the Coen Brothers’ No Country For Old Men was released, a film that would notably go on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. But also released that year were Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood and Andrew Dominik’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, a group of revisionist Westerns which all coincidentally dealt with similar ideas about the construction of American mythology and the absence of recognizable moral law in the American West.

Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive is better than any of the three (maybe better than any film in the last 20 years), a ruthlessly

constructed treatise that engages with the ideas of those films and others, coming to a decidedly different conclusion while utilizing the language of film more fluidly and effectively than any film outside the oeuvre of Quentin Tarantino.

Ryan Gosling stars as a nameless driver, a nomad who functions alternatingly as getaway driver, stunt driver and mechanic.

New to his apartment building, he meets, befriends and falls for his neighbor Eileen (Carey Mulligan), a woman he believes to be a single mother until he learns of her husband Standard’s (Oscar Isaac) imprisonment and imminent release.

Upon his freedom, the driver offers to aid him in a pawn shop robbery to settle a prison debt and seeks revenge on behalf of both Standard and Eileen when the robbery goes wrong.

The film engages with a variety of

themes related to both the American mythological identity (especially as it relates to violence and sex) and the ways in which film history has attempted to extrapolate on a complex moral system.

Its most obvious points of comparison are with road movies like Easy Rider and Vanishing Point – even going so far as to directly reference the latter in its very first sequence. Gosling, on a getaway job, seeks the aid of his employer (Bryan Cranston), who, along with offering him a vehicle with which to complete his task, offers him his choice of stimulants to keep him awake. The same scene occurs in Vanishing Point, but instead of choosing a flashy car and an upper like Kowalski does, Gosling takes no drugs and chooses a car that blends seamlessly into the crowd.

It’s the first of many differences. Unlike Tarantino’s Death Proof, which is simply a

re-contextualization of the tendencies and eccentricities of car movies, Drive chooses to actively converse with those films, often disagreeing with them on basic principles.

Classic road films tend to arrive at bleak conclusions about the absence of meaning in the wake of the failed cultural revolutions in the 1960s – Kowalski flatout dies at the end of Vanishing Point – but Drive is much more hopeful about the construction of purpose and moral meaning in modern America. The title of the film carries a double meaning, referring simultaneously to the driver’s profession but also his search for a purpose – a drive. Eileen represents this to him, and, in the process of securing her safety, he discovers a newfound reason for being, even as (and perhaps because) he brutally slaughters those who stand in his way.

The film is also obsessed with the

idea of looking back, of trying to escape what’s behind us. The driver’s dodgy past is alluded to but never elaborated upon, and Standard’s release party ends with an emotional speech on his part about second chances. Refn saturates the film with mirrors, to the point that there are very rarely important sequences into which they aren’t built.

But considering the utter difficulties such attempts encounter, especially as Hollywood financier Bernie Rose (Albert Brooks) and small-time mobster Nino (Ron Perlman) continue to emerge in instance after instance of the film’s rapidly-spiraling, The Big Chill-like story, it becomes obvious that escape from one’s fate is difficult, if not impossible, and the only agency we can ultimately depend on is our own motivation.

8

September 19, 2011

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September 19, 2011 9

A cultish comic Michael Ian Black proves his devoted following

By Kevin Kaber Assistant Fringe Editor fringe@uwmpost.com

Michael Ian Black faced a reception that was a little too warm at his engaging show Saturday at Turner Hall.

The room was filled with rowdy fans on Saturday night at the Turner Hall Ballroom. An army of loyal fans of The State, Stella and Wet Hot American Summer amassed to see their favorite cultish comic figure, Michael Ian Black.

But before Black could even finish his greetings, drunken hecklers screamed their requests for Black to renew his now canceled line-up of cult favorites – something on everyone’s minds, though few had the courage or blood alcohol content to let their desires be heard. This went on for around five to ten minutes, but Black, who is obviously accustomed to this behavior, let the audience finish their conversations and reminded them they were there to see him.

Perhaps the most intriguing testament to Black’s odd and hilarious brand of humor was the gift he gave to an audience member early in his set. This particular audience member tweeted about skipping her cousin’s wedding to see Black, whom in turn argued that the marriage would end soon anyway and gave the audience member a gift bag of pretzels, teas, an apple and a roll of toilet paper.

Black then let the audience know that the “evening [would] start with poop and end with poop,” which,

indeed, it did. Over the night, however, he covered a variety of topics including, but not limited to, overdosing on pot during his honeymoon in Amsterdam, the consequences of shaking (but not throwing) babies and “purposeful fucking.”

Like many of his statements in VH1’s I Love the… series, Black did have something to say about Wisconsin, namely its cheese curds. When he described them as “sucky” to a Madison crowd the night before, Black said his reception was as if he had just “taken a shit in Vince Lombardi’s dead corpse.”

A few jokes from the comedian’s set were derived from his newest and sarcastically titled comedy album, Very Famous. All of Black’s jokes were received as if the audience hadn’t heard the album, though the comic’s loyal fans probably relished in hearing Black’s dry and irreverent tone in person.

In another bid to promote his material – and in lieu of an encore – Black read an excerpt from his 2008 book, My Custom Van. The essay he read was none other than the heavily curse-laden “Taco Party,” to which the crowd was at its most receptive, in howling fits. Black’s observational brand of comedy is likely some of the oddest humor around, but the amount of hearty laughter at the Turner was evidence enough that Black’s cult followers have been with him through it all, from one canceled show to the next.

10

the uwm post

September 19, 2011

More than a voice James Vincent McMorrow Paula Poundstone at the Pabst Theater charms Turner Hall

By Steven Franz Fringe Editor fringe@uwmpost.com

do nothing but shamelessly pander to them) loudly booed the mere reference to Texas governor Rick Perry long before Poundstone offered her own Paula Poundstone is in the difficult mostly apolitical insight into his position of having her voice be more behavior. They also insisted on making famous than anything else about her. the point to approvingly clap any time While her sense of humor has finally she expressed an opinion similar to come to the fore during an extended theirs, interrupting more than one stint on NPR’s immensely popular of her set-ups. And her more absurd “news game” Wait Wait…Don’t one-liners and quips overwhelmingly Tell Me!, she’s still mostly a faceless drew the fewest laughs, as if, for one performer. Add this to the fact that she reason or another, her crowd expected was a featured her to be far more performer on And her more absurd S ein feld-esque two of the more than she ended up one-liners and quips important cult being. animated shows overwhelmingly drew the B u t of the last 15 Poundstone, fewest laughs, as if, for years – Science with her unique Court and one reason or another, o b s e s s i v e Home Movies her crowd expected her compulsion – and you see to talk – she why she’s never to be far more Seinfeldelaborated at really had that esque than she ended up length upon her much success OCD, which asserting herself being. makes her think as a standof something to up comedian, despite being, oddly say about anything that anyone else enough, a constant cultural presence says – soldiered on, often reveling in her entire career. the awkwardness that existed between But that’s not to say she’s not her and a crowd that didn’t entirely deserving of it. Poundstone, like her get the joke. She insisted on engaging mid-‘90s contemporaries, draws on a with members of the audience, usually combination of absurdity and razora sign that a comedian has run out sharp wit, often in the form of a bizarre of material. But based on the fact one-liner, to provide a unique cultural that she performed for 120 minutes, perspective that doesn’t necessarily this was obviously not the case, and pass moral judgment but certainly Poundstone spent the majority of her looks down on a society that baff les long conversations with members of her, often bordering on brilliant. the audience ruthlessly and hilariously Unfortunately, most of this point digging into their own eccentricities, is lost on what’s become her target making fun of their careers and audience. During her two-hour set at poking at their lives. At one point, she the Pabst Theater on Friday night, an apparently drove a woman to tears, entertaining if very drawn-out event, it which was not exactly discouraged by was difficult for her to come to terms the few people at the beginning of the with the fact that the people who show who very strangely brought her follow her comedy are not necessarily Pop-Tarts, Diet Coke and cheese as an the people she writes comedy for. apparent tribute. That’s just asking for A crowd filled with baby boomers trouble. (who mostly expected Poundstone to

The Irish songwriter brings emotional sincerity to a packed house

Apparently rising from nowhere, Irish singer/songwriter James Vincent McMorrow successfully wooed a substantial audience Friday at Turner Hall.

By Christopher Ryan Stone Special to The Post fringe@uwmpost.com

Dublin’s James Vincent McMorrow returned from across the pond to proffer to a densely populated Turner Hall Ballroom Friday night, thanks to the groundswell of enthusiasm engendered from devoted airplay by 88Nine Radio Milwaukee’s Tariq Moody – the bucolic songwriter’s “first proper show in Milwaukee.”

It’s fairly clear here that McMorrow elides propriety with the augmented sonic mettle producible only with the help of studied musical backing. It’s the type that interpolates the artist’s lulls with harmonic flourishes to, ideally, sublimate the divergent timbres of the parts into a transcendent whole. Sonic mettle, however, need not be causally related to emotional transcendence.

McMorrow’s voice commands that authority all on its own. Band-less for both an interlude and cover-filled encore, it was with unconcealed power, even rapture, that the artist’s fluently effusive falsetto soared above wispy fingerpicking to flesh out every dram of spirited pith lying between

the notes of his chosen compositions.

So effective was this approach that it’s almost a shame that two of the encore’s three songs were covers – of Midlake’s “Roscoe” and Chis Isaak’s “Wicked Game” – for McMorrow’s lyricism, at its best, echoes both Neil Young’s jaded, imagistic wit and the wistful, sun-caked desolation of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.

“Sea is not my friend / Seas they conspire / Still I choose to swim / Slip beneath the tide,” sang McMorrow on the closing number of the concert proper, in an ethereal performance of one of his best-known numbers from 2010’s Early in the Morning, “If I Had a Boat.”

Immaculate, multilayered harmonization á la Fleet Foxes opened the song to the warm atmosphere coaxed into being by light accompaniment on slide guitar. This served as a prelude to unleashing the entire band into a bombastic, kick drum-driven climax, over which McMorrow howled, through a contorted expression, “This is not the end / This is just the world / Such a foolish thing / Such an honest girl.”

To say that the band was an intrusion on McMorrow’s talent would be an

oversimplification, for their contributions ascended the presentation to an altitude sufficiently tempestuous to accompany the singer’s abandonments of the milieu attributed him when critics hazarded Bon Iver comparisons. Easily the most successful instance of this occurred during the band’s eleventh song, “From the Woods!!” (It’s about a return to primordial nature to escape pursuit. Think Jack London.) Appropriate, given the title’s emphasis, McMorrow bellowed out the song’s final bars through an abrasive growl not impossible to imagine as having literally come from the woods, and the band accompanied dissonantly, thrashing perfectly.

All throughout and all told, McMorrow’s primary emotional response to the show seemed to be gratitude – toward Radio Milwaukee, toward his band, toward the crowd, toward the venue – about which he was not shy to shout to the rafters. But if ever there was an excuse for repetition, for overwhelming instrumentation, for heart-on-sleeve lyricism, then it’s sincerity. And James Vincent McMorrow, above all else, embodies sincerity.

uwmpost.com

September 19, 2011 11

Dropping an atomic bomb in a cornfield

A UWM professor tells the recorded history of a lost idiom

By Graham Marlowe Assistant Fringe Editor fringe@uwmpost.com The fusion of poetry and music is one of human civilization’s earliest forms of artistic expression, going as far as back as the illustrated walls of prehistoric caves, Native American ghost dances and Charles Cros’ experiments with art songs throughout the 1800s. But the idiom – “a sonic binding” of poetry’s word, as UW-Milwaukee’s Dr. Martin Jack Rosenblum calls it – is better traced via recordings. With numerous theories emanating from the varied approaches that poets and musicians have taken over time to differing results, Dr. Rosenblum continues to shine a light on poetry and music in his scholarship and personal artistry.

Well into his 60s, Rosenblum has lived through the majority of the idiom’s important moments and is compelled to recount some of history’s most significant examples.

Jack Kerouac/Steve Allen recordings (1957) Prior to these recordings, it was poetry being performed next to jazz.

In the Kerouac/Allen recordings, it’s as if they are overhearing each other, raising their eyeglasses and introducing themselves as they interact onstage.

When author Jack Kerouac went on The Steve Allen Show, high on the success of his novel On The Road, it incited a rock ‘n’ roll-inf lected thirst for literature in America. Suddenly everyone had become an amateur Beat

poet, when really it had just been a while since an American writer had made literature cool in the way that Kerouac’s prose had been doing.

The duo effect is warm and natural.

Allen’s playing brightens Kerouac’s words at every turn.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti – Poetry Readings in the Cellar (with the Cellar Jazz Quartet): Kenneth Rexroth & Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1957) Recorded at The Cellar in San Francisco, this album is downright cinematic, particularly on “The Statue of St. Francis,” where the true hypnosis that’s felt in poetry/ jazz fusions is most easily found.

Ferlinghetti didn’t record himself much, largely because he was too busy managing the poetry community (and the famous City Lights bookstore in San Francisco) to be doing much else.

It’s a shame he never got out of the office more.

Kenneth Rexroth – Poetry and Jazz at the Blackhawk (1958) While this record contains evidence of a strong personality, like any “young” style of music, it has its shaky, developmental first steps. The juxtaposition of familiar big band jazz licks behind Rexroth's dark, contemplative images of the everyman works to varying degrees of success.

(The guy can draw amazing pictures in the mind.) Poetry and Jazz at the Blackhawk revealed to the American public that this stuff could be fun, and that’s what mattered – and still does. It’s understood, in the content

of Poetry, that “something important is happening, right here, right now…”

In Rexroth’s words, it’s different.

The poetry and the jazz “happen” simultaneously but are not bound to each other. (In other words, the text and the music operate on separate planes.)

Kenneth Patchen – Kenneth Patchen Reads With Jazz In Canada (1959) Performance-wise, Patchen was a wildcard to the early days of 1950s poetry, despite that his words appeal to a wide spectrum of experience.

Patchen’s synergy with the band puts an extraordinarily dark spin on everyday life, which he felt was transcendent. And in 1959, the relationship between jazz and poetry had only recently blossomed. But from a distance, Patchen’s life-questioning observations were extraordinarily colorful in a black-and-white era.

Martin Jack Rosenblum – Music Lingo (with Jack Grassel) (1987) Music Lingo was an innovative step for the genre and proved to be “like dropping an atomic bomb in a cornfield” for the music industry at the time of its release.

Rosenblum, a well-educated poet and Bob Dylan scholar, felt poetry had hit a wall (“boring [him] to death”). Grassel was fed up with the jazz community for not taking chances at the time (ex: Spyro Gyra, “smooth jazz”).

On Lingo, the two took a jazz musician’s approach to the reading of

poetry, feeling out the mood of a room and focusing on the now – that time, that place, those people, right there and adjusting their improvisatory performances to that setting. Lingo’s overseas popularity is strange enough, but its local, underground popularity set the stage for what artists could do with poetry from that point forward.

The Roots – “The Return to Innocence Lost” from Things Fall Apart (1999) Things Fall Apart showed people that the Roots were also capable of startling ref lections on black consciousness in the ‘90s (thirdwave feminism, poverty, domestic violence). This track is an example of work younger audiences might recognize from their seminal 1999 album. Truth be told, however, the African American poetry experience is considerably different than that of, say, the young white male. But the complexity of that experience makes for something difficult to discuss in a concise article.

The track ’s gross realism (literally) finds meaning in life’s darkest, saddest moments – the narrator’s voice ending as a beat reporter starts dictating the details of a crime via telephone. This may be off-putting to casual Roots fans.

Various Artists – Kerouac: Kicks Joy Darkness (1997) This spoken word tribute album coincided with a ‘90s resurgence of interest in the writing of Jack Kerouac. The on-screen success of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas re-

lit the fire caused by the Beat poets in the ‘50s and ‘60s and gave writer Hunter S. Thompson exactly what he didn’t want: more fame. Even the guy’s surprisingly-well-thought-out funeral caused a ruckus. It involved, of all things, a monolith cannon with a logo he designed for the occasion.

Needless to say, the compilation might not have shined the kind of light it set out to achieve for its lessfamous contributors, but it shows a different side to the personalities of Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler and Richard Lewis.

Lastly, Kicks Joy Darkness opened up a vein of networking for the poetry community that continues today and brought a handful of fringe poets out of the darkness they were living in.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor In the world of post-rock music, an anything-goes mentality suits the best bands best. Godspeed’s first album used poetry as post-apocalyptic narration from which the music is built around – a technique they’ve followed with nearly all of their subsequent work.

Where Godspeed succeeded in the indie-rock niche made it a tough but convincing sell to experimental music listeners at the turn of the millennium.

Here the focus is lifted from the words, but the music is built around them. Through the distant rumble of strings and chaotic instrumental climaxes, the environment densely coats the narrator’s words.

The exciting conclusion in next’s week issue.

the uwm post

12 September 19, 2011

St. Vincent’s Strange Mercy pleases, doesn’t shock Songstress Annie Clark keeps her unique style on her third album $3 MICROS & IMPORT PINTS $.40 WINGS

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St. Vincent's Strange Mercy is a terrific leap forward in songwriting for one of indie rock's most promising stars.

Image courtesy of theaudioperv.com

By Patrice Vnuk Staff Writer fringe@uwmpost.com

St. Vincent’s Annie Clark is relatively well-known in the indie music realm. Despite the critical acclaim surrounding Clark’s debut album Marry Me (2007), it wasn’t until the pleading of my friends convinced me to absorb her second album, 2009’s Actor, in full.

Actor solidified Clark’s standing as a talented and “quirky” musician and created a niche for herself as a softvoiced yet experimental performer.

Her third and most recent album, Strange Mercy, has the same whimsical intensity as the previous two, with clear, signature melodies contrasted against raw and psychedelic guitar riffs. It’s a comfort to know Clark hasn’t made any attempt at creating “safe” music. As with her previous work, the music of St. Vincent is anything but ordinary, and

the obvious attempt at being different – while difficult to follow at times – is an overall success at making interesting and dynamic music.

Strange Mercy’s opener, “Chloe in the Afternoon,” has a throbbing, mechanized beat that immediately brings the album to life. Clark’s distorted guitar, juxtaposed with her high, ringing voice, shows that even though she hasn’t strayed from her own brand of music, it’s still quite unlike anything else coming out today.

Throughout the rest of the album, the technique and mechanisms of each song remain similar enough to call it characteristically St. Vincent, but not so similar as to forget where one track ends and another begins. This rollercoaster of an album is different without being a challenge to listen to and ensures a sort of unpredictability for the listener.

While each song has its own character, not all reach the upper tiers

of the better ones. Much of this may depend on personal taste, but rarely can an entire album appeal to everyone who hears it. Going through Strange Mercy several times will allow you to pick out your favorites, and, since they’re all pretty distinguishable, this shouldn’t be very hard to do.

The music recalls the feminine qualities of Sufjan Stevens and Of Montreal, but with even more thrown into the mix. The unique imbalance is somehow charming enough to make it acceptable, even for the more mainstream-inclined audience. It’s the type of music that is appropriate in all venues, at all times and for any frame of mind. It can uplift moods or commiserate with a bad day. Without risking boldness (or boredom), St. Vincent knows how to create pleasing music and can do it while still retaining some indie credibility.

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September 19, 2011 13

An art film without a spine

Jean-Luc Godard can’t quite clarify his thoughts in Film Socialisme

Pearl Jam turns twenty this Tuesday The band makes important cultural statement with new documentary

By Graham Marlowe Assistant Fringe Editor fringe@uwmpost.com

Jean-Luc Godard's first digital feature, Film Socialisme is a strange, abstract blip on the career of a master filmmaker.

By Kevin Kaber Assistant Fringe Editor fringe@uwmpost.com

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines socialism as “any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.” Jean-Luc Godard has another way of defining the social policy in his latest film, Film Socialisme, albeit not one pleasant to decipher.

Godard’s vast and influential filmography has spanned over half a century, and the now 80-yearold filmmaker has yet to stop. Film Socialisme is his first filmed on video – a new, but equally malleable, medium for Godard – and boy, does he stretch his limits.

Film Socialisme is an avant-garde (too avant-garde, really) film depicting socialist ideals… maybe. There quite obviously isn’t any narrative to speak of: broken imagery and “translated” subtitles in Godard’s so-called “Navajo

English” do no justice to bring about the least amount of understanding to the movie’s audiences (English-speaking audiences at least – the French may, in any case, be able to understand the dialogue). The typical dramatic arc, a Hollywood and literary standard, is done away with. The film’s structure can instead be depicted by a straight, dashed line.

But if you look at the movie for what it’s worth, you might be able to pick up on what the crazed Godard is trying to do. You can get a sense of protests and politics from the two-word subtitles. According to the dialogue – which is seemingly stated by the film’s one-dimensional characters in the least appropriate situations – AIDS was invented to kill the blacks, Europe is in social decline and the FBI copyright protection (what you would see on DVDs and VHS tapes) is unfair. Likely the only point in the film that even remotely begins to put a statement together is during the last twenty-or-so minutes, when film and documentary clips and stock footage begin to be most

prevalent against the largest volume of subtitles in the film.

As opposed to the stock footage sequence, which looks like a montage of every PowerPoint shown on campus at any one point in time, Godard’s own filmed bits are not likely to elicit much of a response. Most of the film takes place on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean, and its passengers “discuss” a variety of topics while the purposely-recorded wind (something you hardly ever hear in a movie) disrupts conversations. The cruise ship itself, a floating, drifting, and untethered mass, could be Godard’s comment on society, but on the other hand, it looks as if Godard just filmed his vacation on the ship with professional cameras and cell phones and dubbed it to his stubborn liking.

So Socialisme acts more like a series of art film shorts in a difficult collage than a full-length feature. There’s seemingly no single, comprehendible theme to the movie, but an interpretation can be had. You might just have to be Godard himself to figure it out.

Cameron Crowe’s film career has been a slow, steady series of cult-creating classics. But the thing he does best, romanticizing the hell out of the rock and roll experience, has been recruited once again for Pearl Jam Twenty, set to show at the Landmark Oriental this Tuesday.

Crowe’s work found its audience in the post-baby boomer generation. By zeroing in on that generation’s ethos and core values, he’s scored big over the years with minor blockbusters, like Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) and Almost Famous (2000), both of which were based on personal anecdotes.

If his memory serves him well, Pearl Jam Twenty, a retrospective documentary, will tell the truth about the grunge-rock titans.

Crowe’s films have been said to evade cynicism. With Pearl Jam’s rocky, complicated history, one would assume biographies would be ripe, even overflowing, with it, as band members often choose to tell their own, bitter sides to each of the band’s stories in

documentaries like this.

Like Led Zeppelin and the Beatles before them, perhaps one of Pearl Jam’s career faults was their innate desire to attempt to slightly reinvent the band with each album, as well as to construct a changed identity for the members themselves. The band’s journey has been an evolutionary process for the fans, too, and there’s no doubt that they’ve lost a few troops along the way. The critical consensus around their music is irrelevant at this point in their career, but it does illustrate the complex relationship their music has to its fans.

Pearl Jam Twenty’s trailer contains an honest realism that fans can relate to and believe in. With the band now in its mid-twenties, there is a natural impulse to spit shine one’s past mistakes, as if they never happened at all.

Nevertheless, the band’s hit-andmiss history has been anchored by the cinematic imagery of its lyrics and classic rock guitar theatrics. This probably made Crowe’s job easier as the director.

We’ll see how well it syncs up with the long-term memory of Pearl Jam, given the band’s career-spanning aversion to making videos.

Pearl Jam 20, showing for one night only on Tuesday, will chronicle the career of one of rock's biggest acts.

THE POST IS HIRING The Post currently has opening positions for:

Photographers Account Executives Comic Artists Section Writers Interested applicants should send an e-mail to post@uwmpost.com with the position title in the subject line.

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the uwm post

September 19, 2011

Now showing at a theater near you War of the watchers

A look at what’s to come at UWM’s Union Theatre

By Fringe Staff fringe@uwmpost.com

The UWM Union Theatre is one of the most notable and diverse movie theaters in the entire country, but it can be easy to overlook, in the context of studies and the day-to-day bustle of the UWM campus. Every week, the staff at The UWM Post provides a brief guide to the theater’s most notable titles, in an effort to encourage students to make the most of this unique and vibrant resource.

An Evening with Luther Price (Tuesday, 7 p.m.)

Massachusetts native Luther Price is one of the most renowned and important late-20th century avant-garde artists, and his appearance at UWM is not without significance. His bizarre, offkilter, often-controversial 8mm films from the late 1980s through the modern day have influenced more than one generation of artists – contributing even to the aesthetic of the grunge movement.

They have been showcased at some of the most important museums in the world, including New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and Whitney Museum of American Art. An African Election (Wednesday, 7 p.m.)

Part of the Union Theatre’s ongoing Documentary Frontiers series, 2011’s An African Election is a simple, beautiful documentation of the 2008 Ghana presidential election. Not incidentally set in the year that Barack Obama, a man of African ancestry, won the presidency in this very country, the film chronicles the attempts of a fledgling democracy to have itself taken seriously in the era of nationbuilding without falling into the traps of autocracy and tyranny. The election also retrospectively occurred only three years before the African nation of Egypt demanded its own freedom and the nation of South Sudan was born.

World on a Wire (Welt am Draht)

(Friday-Sunday, 7 p.m.)

Renowned German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 1973 film (or two part television miniseries, depending how you look at it), World on a Wire, shows full length in a newly restored version at the Union Theatre Friday through Sunday. A major proponent of German New Cinema, Fassbinder enjoyed toying with the minds of his audiences in emotionally deep and difficult ways. While World on a Wire departs into a science fiction theme, it does not differ from the rest of Fassbinder’s catalog of challenging films. World on a Wire demonstrates Cartesian philosophy in a scientific way: a computer program named the Simulacron simulates reality. Things go awry when the Simulacron’s programmer mysteriously dies, and Dr. Stiller is left to piece together a peculiar series of events. Perhaps the inspiration for the Matrix trilogy, World on a Wire is sure to satisfy anyone with a penchant for scifi mindbenders.

R.W. Fassbinder's World on a Wire, showing this weekend at the Union Theatre, is a joyously strange science fiction journey.

Netflix vs. Hulu Plus

By Sean Willey Staff Writer fringe@uwmpost.com

How many of us are still mad at Netflix for when CEO Reed Hastings and company spiked the monthly subscription price by 60% overnight?

Netflix users now to pay $16 a month for an unlimited streaming and one-DVDat-a-time plan ($18 if you add Blu-ray) – leading to many loyal users to stop their subscriptions. Now where could they go?

The solution is Hulu Plus. It is the best alternative for college students, because with a “.edu” email address, they get one month free. After that, it’s only $8/month.

Hulu Plus makes its mark on the streaming world with its up-to-date TV episodes, including past seasons of currently running shows. It also gives viewers something unheard of to Netflix: behind-the-scene footage from ABC, NBC and FOX. Hulu Plus gives content from many other networks as well, including, but not limited to, Lifetime, PBS and A&E. Netflix offers TV shows, but they are never the latest of any given season.

You have to wait until the whole season has finished, and it takes some time for them to become available. Even then, the shows may not be able to be accessed through the website’s “Watch Instantly” feature. Sure, popular shows like Lost and 24 are, but both series are finished. That’s the common philosophy of Netflix: “Wait until the series is over, and then we’ll put it in our instant library.”

If you’re a TV fanatic, Hulu Plus is for you, but if you’re a movie buff, then Netflix is where you want to be.

Netflix offers the most up-to-date movie collection around. If you can handle $16/month, you can put all the movies you want in your queue and between that and the one-DVD-at-

a-time option, you have over 20,000 instant streaming titles to watch. It’s a no brainer. Even if you reduce your plan to instant streaming only, that’s still tens of thousands of titles to choose from for only $8.

Hulu Plus isn’t giving up easily, though. They offer many films from The Criterion Collection and are adding more every month. Criterion Collection is synonymous with movie aficionados, providing around 800 classic and contemporary films. But this collection isn’t primed for fans of Hollywood blockbusters.

Both services are equally as accessible. Both have apps for Androids and iPhones and can stream from your internet-enabled Blu-Ray player, Playstation 3, Xbox 360 or Wii. The picture quality, however, is different.

Hulu Plus streams in 720p and Netflix streams in HD, but Hulu doesn’t offer DVDs or Blu-rays – another reason why Netflix is geared towards movie buffs.

There’s one other feature that is an added bonus for Netflix subscribers. Say you’re going on vacation for a week and don’t plan on doing any movie watching.

You can simply put your subscription on hold, and you won’t be charged for that time off.

Netflix is the better choice, even with the price hike, which isn’t that bad for what they are offering – over 20,000 movies instantly plus almost every movie imaginable able to be ordered on DVD or Blu-ray. Sixteen dollars is still a lot cheaper than a cable subscription. Most television network websites offer free streaming anyway.

Do take advantage of the one month free of Hulu Plus, but, remember, most films in their Criterion Collection can be ordered on Netflix. There’s no doubt about it that for the TV fanatic, Hulu Plus is your most convenient choice.

The beautiful thing about all this technology is that we do have a choice.

uwmpost.com

September 19, 2011 15

Looking ahead to the Milwaukee Film Festival

An interview with staff member Susan Kerns

By Steven Franz Fringe Editor fringe@uwmpost.com

A former UW-Milwaukee film studies department faculty member, Susan Kerns has since moved on to become the Educational Director for the Milwaukee Film Festival, the evergrowing annual event that has grown tremendously since its inception in 2009. This year’s edition of the festival, its most substantial yet, begins with an opening-night showing of Robbie Pickering’s South by Southwest smash Natural Selection, and The UWM Post sat down with her to discuss the direction of the festival, UWM’s involvement and the scope of its reach.

UWM Post: To start off, give us a brief history of the Milwaukee Film Festival.

Susan Kerns: This is our third year.

2009 was the first year of the Milwaukee Film Festival, and basically, we’re trying to bring films to Milwaukee that wouldn’t be here otherwise or might come later in the year. We’re trying to expand the kinds of films that people are able to see in Milwaukee and also the kinds of films that people are interested in.

A couple of years ago, Milwaukee was deemed a non-viable film city, and distribution in this city changed, which means now we get Hollywood films, and we don’t get a lot of independent films.

When that happened, places like the Oriental and the Downer started to play more big-budget films, and there was a shift in what we saw in the theaters here.

That’s one of the things that we’re trying

to balance.

Post: Is there any difference in how you run the festival now than when the festival began?

SK: We’re growing. I’m full-time over there now, and I’d been working with them as a volunteer. So I’m new, and (Executive Assistant & Membership Coordinator) Angela Catalano is also new as a full time staff member, and we have much more seasonal staff than we’ve had in the past, which means we’re growing. That means we’re able to offer bigger programming: bring more people in from more places, do more kinds of special events. This year we have Vilmos Zsigmond, an amazing cinematographer who did Close Encounters of the Third Kind and The Rose, which is his favorite, so he’ll be here to do a Q&A about those films.

Post: Has the attention span of the festival broadened? Are you looking much wider than you have in the past?

SK: Yes, we really are. We’re trying to focus on international films, so we have a new program this year called Passport: India, and we’re finding a whole spectrum of Indian films, from the lowbudget to Bollywood. There’s Robot, which is a YouTube sensation because the last ten minutes are this amazing action spectacle. And we’re bringing in a film called Gandu, which translates to Asshole, and it’s more like a low-budget indie film.

Post: Is it still Bollywood?

SK: That word is so contentious. I wouldn’t say so. But we’re also trying to find more independent films within the United States, so we’ve got this

film called Dragonslayer that did really well at South by Southwest. It’s a lowbudget documentary about this skater in California, and it’s been fascinating because our screening committee hated it. Such hatred in their comments that I was like, “We have to screen this movie!”

Post: What is a screening committee made of?

SK: The screening committee is made up of people from around the community. It’s all volunteers, and they have different levels of expertise in film. Some work in local theater, some do acquisitions for the public library, some are just people who’ve seen 8,000 movies, some work at the university. It’s just this range of people who know a lot about film, so we value their opinion about what they do or don’t like.

Post: You mentioned that Milwaukee is a “non-viable film entity.” Do we have any idea why?

SK: I don’t know the ins and outs of it.

I think it had to do with attendance for independent movies.

Post: Is it difficult to navigate the geography of the theaters involved in the festival? There seems like a big difference between the Oriental Theatre, on the East Side, and the Marcus North Shore Cinema in Mequon.

SK: That’s part of the problem. It’s hard to go to a 3:00 p.m. showing in Mequon and a 5:00 p.m. showing on the East Side, and then make a 7:00 p.m. showing at the Marcus Ridge Cinema in New Berlin. We’re trying to figure out how to reach out to the whole community.

One of the things that is interesting about Milwaukee is that we don’t have a

theater downtown.

Post: We used to. The Grand is sitting empty. The Avalon in Bay View, too.

SK: The Avalon and The Grand both are huge opportunities, but right now, the closest Marcus theaters in the festival – because Marcus is a company that sponsors us – are in Mequon and New Berlin.

Post: What part does Milwaukee Film play in the local cinema scene?

SK: It’s huge. Right now we have three local features screening this year, and then we have a shorts program with eight local shorts. Many of those filmmakers are UWM-related. docUWM, the UWM documentary center, has a feature. It’s really the biggest local venue. And our local films sell really well, because people really want to see them and support the community.

The other thing is that with our collaborative cinema program, we work with filmmakers at different levels, so it’s a really great way for college students to be production assistants on a set and make connections with professional filmmakers in Milwaukee. We do that because we want them to be able to make that leap.

Post: Do you feel that the more notoriety the UWM Film Department gets the better it is for the Milwaukee Film Festival?

SK: Absolutely. I think we feed each other, and I know that we’re working pretty hard to try to connect local filmmakers with national filmmakers – directors in other cities, producers in other cities. And we also had an orientation for filmmakers who are part

of the festival this year to help them market their films.

Post: Is there a specific goal for the size of the festival?

SK: I don’t think we’ll ever be Sundance.

Certainly we’ll grow as much as we can.

We don’t have an end goal. Our goal right now is to grow the festival year-toyear. Last year, we had only one panel, and so many more people came than we expected that we expanded it to a group of panels this year. We’ll continue to look for those kinds of areas for growth, things like getting actors and producers to become interested in the festival.

Post: How does UWM itself contribute to the festival?

SK: One of the things that more places have done this year is sponsor some of the films. The Center for International Education is sponsoring the film City of Life and Death, and the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies is doing one, and so is the film studies department. Another way is through membership. We have a membership program, and there are definitely faculty members who are members of the film festival, but we also have a student membership. It’s only $30, and it’s an unadvertised rate.

Post: Not anymore.

SK: I think everyone should be doing it.

You can email Angela Catalano about it at angela@milwaukee-film.org. So you get a discount to the film festival, but you also get free films throughout the year, one per month. Basically, for $30, you get to see at least 12 movies.

Gears of War adds third chapter to reputation

Changes to gameplay reward dedicated players

Image courtesy of thegamingliberty.com

By Tom Kosiec Staff Writer fringe@uwmpost.com

Sony recently published Insomniac’s Resistance 3, their biggest console exclusive shooter for the fall, and now Microsoft is set to do the same with Epic Games’ Gears of War 3. GOW3 hits stores September 20, and, based on early impressions from video game websites like 1UP, IGN, and Kotaku, this just might be the best game in the series.

Like its first two installments, GOW3 features the same intense third person/first person gunplay that demands strategic use of taking cover to bring down the Locust alien race. The active reload system has returned, in addition to the series’ trademark emphasis on co-op play.

Team-based mission objectives, similar to a GOW2 sequence where players carried a large box while fending off enemies, are also a part of GOW3.

What’s new this time around is fourplayer co-op support for the campaign, larger-scale battles, bright outdoor environments, new weapons and unique gameplay sequences such as a zipline and a hallucination section. The opportunity to play as different characters like GOW fan favorite “Cole Train,” along with new female soldiers and a time-shifting storyline is also innovative.

Plot-wise, GOW3 takes place after the events of the second game and the main crux of the story is that Marcus Fenix (voiced by John DiMaggio, the voice of Bender on Futurama) is searching for his long lost father (Adam Fenix), who’s rumored to still be alive.

The biggest change to GOW multiplayer from past games is dedicated servers, which will make matchmaking less frustrating for everyone. Even better, if someone quits a match, the game won’t be dropped, and bots will take the place of players who are too cowardly to stick it

out.

Multiplayer modes from past GOW games, like Team Deathmatch and King of the Hill, return with more refined structure and balancing. In addition, a few of the new multiplayer maps will feature environmental effects like earthquakes and floods. Best of all, for those who suck at shooters, GOW3 is very novicefriendly, with a training ground mode and handicaps that track player performance so hardcore players won’t slaughter inexperienced players.

New and improved weapons, like the sawed-off shotgun, Retro Lancer, Hammerburst, a sniper rifle called the One Shot and the Digger, help freshen up the gameplay for multiplayer veterans.

The Digger is especially gruesome, since players can either use it to dig into the ground to kill nearby enemies through its earthquake effect or fire it directly at them causing the targets body to be torn apart and literally explode at the neck. Other

welcomed new multiplayer tweaks include aiming reticules, which show accuracy rating for all guns, and smoke grenades, which now stun opponents causing them to drop heavy weapons.

Other abilities have also been added to multiplayer, including the mantle kick (a new move that can be used to attack people hiding in cover), a self-revival technique for near death moments, using your captive as an explosive device and, lastly, a new execution kill involving the Snub Pistol.

A new reward system similar to Call of Duty, where players can earn medals, ribbons and titles to advance their rank, has also been added to GOW’s multiplayer mode. Interestingly, a multiplayer event calendar rewards players with unlockable costumes, executions and weapon skins.

Lastly, most intriguing is a new mode called Mutators, which allows user to mod select game modes. All of this new content will go a long way towards extending

GOW3’s lifespan for gamers.

GOW3 ships in three separate versions for gamers to choose from. The standard edition only includes the game and retail case, while the Limited Edition, priced at $79.99, comes with an Octus award box, an Octus service medal, a fabric COG flag, Fenix family mentors and a code to unlock Fenix’s father as a multiplayer character. Gamers who spring for the $149.99 Epic Edition get all the features from the Limited Edition, in addition to a giant Marcus Fenix statue, a 96-page art book and the Infected Omen Weapons pack, which comes with five skins for the five starting weapons in the multiplayer modes.

Microsoft is celebrating the GOW3 release with a crimson red GOW themed 320 GB Xbox 360 with two matching red controllers and the game for $399. The special-themed GOW controllers and faceplates are also available to purchase separately.

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the uwm post

September 19, 2011

EDITORIAL The following piece represents the views of the Editorial Board of THE UWM POST. The editorial board is not affiliated with the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee and these views do not represent the views of the university.

Stickers a welcome start

Changes needed to perfect Voter ID When Voter ID became law last May, most student IDs were automatically excluded from acceptable forms of identification. This is no longer the case now that the Government Accountability Board has approved student IDs for voting, provided they have necessary stickers attached.

We endorse this decision as a whole.

Yet even this seemingly straightforward directive is laden with conditionals.

Rather than limiting ourselves to a blanket judgment, we will weigh in several particulars.

First, we believe that UWMilwaukee should begin offering these stickers as soon as the law goes into effect. The GAB’s decision stopped short of mandating that colleges issue acceptable voter identification, leaving it to individual schools to pursue a sticker program if they so choose. However, it would be unconscionable for UWM to decline to provide makeshift voter IDs. While a sticker program would require school funding at a time when resources are already spread thin, administrators should be mindful of the GAB-approved stickers as a costeffective alternative to calling for new IDs altogether. Turning existing school IDs into acceptable voter identification shouldn’t be considered a luxury, and UWM should find a way to absorb the costs.

Though all students would potentially benefit, those from out-ofstate clearly have the most to gain. By

having an acceptable college ID, they could avoid having to acquire a separate form of Wisconsin identification. Instate students with expired identification would also be given greater flexibility come election time.

These groups may not constitute a huge number of people, but they are not imaginary either. It is incumbent upon the university to assist them. They should not be subjected to the Kafkaesque experience of going through the Department of Transportation in order to participate in the electoral process.

Second, we believe changes to Voter ID law should be made to make the process less cumbersome and more inclusive. This is not the same as calling for the law’s repeal. We have no intention of revisiting a debate that seems, for the most part, settled. Rather, we advocate change out of a desire to see existing law made better.

For starters, requiring proof of enrollment to be presented along with a student ID seems excessive and should be scrapped. Our sympathies here lie both with students, who are being asked to carry sensitive information to their polling place, as well as volunteer poll workers, who are being given the thankless task of acting as de facto magistrates. The whole process seems to be equal parts airport screening and Kabuki play.

Beyond that, under GAB guidelines, stickers will expire no later than two years after being issued. Recalls aside,

there are very few elections for which a sticker will be valid. Even if a student’s university status changes within that timeframe, it’s not as if their identity is any different.

Additionally, we believe the types of acceptable student IDs should be expanded to include those issued by technical colleges. We can think of no good reason for their omission. The GAB itself questioned the exclusion of technical colleges, arguing that they are similar to two-year schools in the UW system. Disqualifying those schools strikes us as elitist and is a slap in the face of vocational training.

The changes we advocate may seem highly specific, but by no means are they inconsequential. We believe that every double standard, every costly registration requirement and every election irregularity is significant.

In its present form, the Voter ID law carries the potential to bring about all three. Stickers help, but further action is needed.

While we accept that voter fraud poses a threat to our system of government, we believe voter suppression to be an equal threat. If in our quest to eradicate the former, we institutionalize the latter, then we have thrown out the baby with the bathwater.

The legislature should revisit the law before it has a chance to muck up the process, if only to spare the state from fending off future legal challenges.

LETTERS

TO THE EDITOR

All of us at THE UWM POST want to hear what you think and welcome your letters to the Editor. Feel free to comment about articles, opinions or anything you find in our weekly issues. Send your letters in an email to letters@uwmpost.com. In your submission indicate whether or not you wish to remain anonymous.

Unwarranted anger played role in education cuts In response to “Bill contributes to educational breakdown,” published September 12 First, and importantly: everyone points at Walker because he signed the budget law, but we also have to remember that all of the state Republican representatives supported it too.

A lot of people actually like the teacher retirement increase. Accurate or not, their perception of older teachers is that they are lazy because of tenure, suckling the teat of the taxpayer without doing much work, failing to close the achievement gap. Most people don’t really know much about education, but everybody thinks they do because they went to school for over a decade. That is why we have decided to let businessmen, rather than educators, create education policy.

Also, property tax increases are halted for now–that was part of the budget law. Municipalities will just make cuts to balance budgets.

The point of the legislation was not just to close the budget deficit by reducing the amount of money the state uses to compensate teachers. It was to dramatically and permanently reduce the amount of money both state and local governments use to compensate public workers. It holds taxes constant while closing deficits and lays the groundwork for possible tax decreases in the future. And it gets rid of the unions. All those goals are easier to achieve if you don’t have to bargain with the unions, and unions only give money to Democrats anyway.

For Republicans, this legislation was awesome. Reduce the amount of financial support the opposing party is able to garner? Pave the road for future tax decreases? Show that you are the party that is capable of getting our financial house in order? Begin starving the public education system while strengthening the private? Yes, yes, yes and yes.

Education is always in the spotlight when this legislation is talked about because education is something people hate to pay for but desperately want to be high quality–a conundrum that starts debates about teacher quality and compensation in a state with some of the nation’s highest test scores–and because WEAC was one of the most vocal opponents to the budget legislation.

But Scott Walker actually says he loves teachers. He likes to make a point of it. He just doesn’t like unions, for the typical Republican reasons. Teachers–not all, but many–like the union, or at least parts of it, because they feel it keeps them from getting screwed over, either by their administration or financially by the state/city. Walker has said that once the union disappears, teachers will see that they didn’t really need it after all, that it didn’t really protect them or do anything good, that it just wasted their dues money. People rightly call him arrogant because he believes that he understands their career and compensation better than they do.

“Some of these teachers even felt as if continuing to teach would actually cause them to lose money.”

It would. Many non-union school district employees (positions not part of the teachers unions like district IT departments) have been required to contribute more for their health care and pensions every year for the last few years, without seeing a pay increase. This is essentially a pay cut. Union members know that when the union disappears, this is going to happen to them too (already happening), and may even happen in times of economic prosperity now that there is no collective bargaining. Would you like to lose money every year of your career after decades of middle-class financial stability, or after 5 years of college and 24k of school debt? But your property taxes will be low. If you can even find a job now that pays you enough so that you can purchase property someday.

Whether or not the new laws will harm or help the quality of education in Wisconsin will take years to become apparent, and can easily be obscured by other factors in any analysis. And even if it does hurt education, when the public is feeling angry at government/taxes/teachers, they will probably vote for even more extreme measures.

- “D”

Persuaded, never forced In response to “Happiness is no guns,” published September 12

Architecture and Urban Planning students created a concrete surface replacement by bundling books together and covering them with a clear coat of resin. Post photo by Sierra Riesberg

When I carry a gun, I don’t do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I am looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. The greatest civilization is one where all citizens are equally armed and only can be persuaded, never forced.

–ProfPorkchop

uwmpost.com

OP-ED

September 19, 2011 17

Overexposed Milwaukee wants to be Video hosting sites like WorldStarHipHop glorify bad behavior

By D’Andre Dawsey Special to The Post editorial@uwmpost.com

Every day, countless people find ways to make themselves known, to gain their share of the 15-minutes-of-fame pie. The most common of these methods is uploading videos of their random moments to popular community video hosting websites, such as YouTube and Dailymotion. After these sites grew in popularity, copycat sites naturally came about and expanded on that premise. Of these copycat sites, very few have taken off in the way that WorldStarHipHop has.

Taking the basics of a video hosting site and developing it into such a tremendous platform for exposure would normally be seen as worth of a round of applause, but I simply can’t agree. For all the good that this site offers – exclusive video debuts, interviews, documentaries and more – it equally exposes the ills of our society and makes them readily available for public consumption.

For example, WorldStarHipHop routinely has videos of public fights, videos of models that could be considered soft-core porn and generally negative footage that should not be glamorized.

And all of this content can be viewed from the very first page of the site.

Even some of our own local ills have been exposed. Go to worldstarhiphop. com, click on the search bar at the top

of the page and type in “Milwaukee.”

The first video that shows up in the results is a fight involving two black teenagers outside of a classroom in Riverside High School on the first day of class this semester. Thanks to the resourcefulness of modern smartphones, the whole altercation was caught on tape and promptly uploaded to WorldStarHipHop. The fight does not end until one of the boys involved is knocked unconscious. This is only half of my problem here. When I checked to see how many views this video had since its Aug. 18 upload date, I was appalled to see that it had been viewed 813,452 times. I will admit that I have visited this website a number of times to watch music videos and comedy skits that were actually entertaining, but videos like this fight footage are the garbage that tends to get the limelight.

Who knows if what I’m saying even matters in the minds of those who run sites such like this? At the end of the day, these individuals probably care about little more than how much site traffic they are getting and the amount of ad revenue that is subsequently being generated from that. Will the site ever clean up its act and try to show more positive aspects of our society? In a perfect world, yes, but we currently live in an imperfect world. Guess it’s just entertainment after all.

the next San Francisco

Streetcar investment is a pricey gamble

By Mikhail Nenaydykh Special to The Post editorial@uwmpost.com

In hopes to attract business and raise property values, Milwaukee’s Common Council approved a plan to build a 2.1 mile stretch for a streetcar that would run north from St. Paul Avenue and Fourth Street to Franklin Place and Ogden Avenue. Traveling north, the proposed transport would go through Broadway Avenue and Van Buren Street, and, conversely, it would travel south on Jackson Street.

The total cost of this preliminary route is approximately $64.6 million, of which $54.9 million would be covered by federal grants, leaving taxpayers on the hook for the remaining $9.7 million. The streetcar’s estimated annual cost would be $2.65 million, and this does not include planned extensions that have no funding attached. (The city is banking on additional federal grants to cover these costs – otherwise, they, too, will be it the taxpayers’ responsibility.)

There is a provision that the route and subsequent costs could change in the final design section of planning.

This is particularly worrisome, because the design was already accepted by a

Common Council vote taken on July 26. Backed by Mayor Tom Barrett and Alderman Robert Bauman, the next stage in the process is a finalization of environmental documentation this fall, after which the final design period would begin a year from now.

If all goes according to schedule, construction would begin in fall of 2012 and be completed in fall of 2014.

Considering that Milwaukee currently has a $50 million deficit, this seems like a ballsy path to go down. A streetcar would make the city more attractive to business and could potentially raise property values, but is it worth plunging our city deeper into debt? Although it might not seem relevant to us as a student body, we are, in fact, exactly who it involves.

By the time the current powers that be are gone, we will be the ones stuck signing the checks. This aggressive, ambitious attempt at creating a lasting mark is left to be paid for by the future generations of Milwaukee. This is not unlike all the bailouts being handed out left and right, totaling a sum in the trillions. This perverse trend of spending on a future generation’s credit is what caused the present economic tailspin. And apparently, the policymakers have decided that

the only way out is to continue doing the same thing – either that or they are ignoring the facts.

It can be argued that with added property value, the consistent revenue from tickets ($1.00/a ride) and the new jobs created, the project could be well worth the investment. But the streetcar route will only be roughly two miles long. What real value will the project have on its own?

If the project is a failure and future developments are abandoned, the county will have spent roughly $10 million on a replica of an Epcot ride.

Although failures are never planned for, the potential must be addressed.

For the streetcar to be a success, it would have to generate at least $2.65 annually just to pay for its own operation. Fat chance of that, given the rate of success that other public transit services in Milwaukee have. The Milwaukee Public Transit System is close to being bankrupt, and ridership has dropped 21% in the last five years.

It may sound cool to have a highspeed streetcar network throughout the city, but this project is just the first route of many surely to come, and the costs are already imposing on an indebted county.

Growing egos 9mm is faster than 9-1-1 in the music industry Allowing concealed weapons on campus New study shows rise of narcissism in popular music

By William Bornhoft Staff Writer editorial@uwmpost.com

One thing you might say about today’s popular music industry is that there is no shortage of bizarre, unprecedented behavior. Artists like Kanye West, Lady Gaga and Nicki Minaj are unapologetic about their lifestyle and appearance in the limelight. Large, enigmatic personalities aren’t new to the American pop culture scene. What is a relatively new trend is the statistically higher amount of egocentrism and narcissistic content in today’s hit songs.

Nathan Dewall, a psychology professor at the University of Kentucky, helped conduct a study on song lyrics between 1980 and 2007. What he and his colleagues found was an increasing focus on the singer’s own self and a higher level of use of hostile language towards critics, more commonly referred to as “haters.”

This shouldn’t be terribly surprising.

The most common subjects that today’s pop musicians enjoy writing and singing about are how physically attractive, wealthy and popular they are. In addition, researchers say today’s love and romance songs are much more likely to focus on the artist’s pain and frustration with their partner than anything else.

Love songs in the ‘80s were more positive in nature and tended to focus on two people and their happiness together,

in contrast to one person’s complaints about the other.

It could be argued that today’s hit artists are proudly acting on the ageold advice to “be yourself.” While individuality and self-confidence are great character traits, humility is just as important, and a person shouldn’t have to tear others down in order to feel good about himself or herself. Tearing someone down in order to bring oneself up is what a schoolyard bully does, and that’s precisely what some of the more popular artists of today are known for.

The rise in narcissism isn’t evident in pop music alone. Many of the TV shows that are popular among younger audiences thrive on self-centered behavior. Where would Jersey Shore be if the cast had any shred of humility?

Probably not in it’s fourth season.

Perhaps growing egos have contributed to the popularity of Twitter and Facebook and resulted in more hostile rhetoric in our nation’s politics.

Regardless of how deeply growing egos have affected our daily lives, we, as a culture, have come to expect – and even enjoy – the self-loving nature of our celebrities.

This really isn’t something we should be patting ourselves on the back for. Pop culture icons tend to reflect the morals and values of a society, so it might be beneficial for us all to take time off from focusing on ourselves and start worrying a little more about each other.

will create safer environment

By John Prellwitz Staff Writer editorial@uwmpost.com

That Wisconsin has finally adopted concealed carry into law is great news, indeed – and long over-due. The Right to Carry movement has made great strides in the last two decades. In 1986, only Vermont offered restriction-free concealed carry while fifteen states prohibited concealed carry entirely.

By the end of 2011, Illinois will be the only remaining state with a total ban on concealed carry, while 37 states (including Wisconsin) are defined as “shall-issue,” meaning their government must issue permits to anyone who meets the requirements.

As each state declared its intentions to allow concealed carry, the decision was met with criticism, concern and more than a little fear-mongering. A common argument has been that allowing citizens to arm themselves with guns would turn a simple dispute over a parking spot into a Wild West shootout. Not only has that fear proven groundless, a study conducted by the Texas Department of Public Safety confirmed that a concealed carry permit-holder is fourteen times less likely to commit a crime than any other citizen.

Similar arguments have been made in regards to allowing guns on and around university grounds. Concerns have been raised that allowing guns on our campus would turn debates into a gunfight or put a stopper in open discussions altogether.

At schools across the country where guns have long been permitted, this has proven to be a non-issue – even in Utah where students and faculty may openly carry a weapon without need of a permit.

While Wisconsin’s ban on concealed carry has long denied law-abiding citizens the right to defend themselves, it does not impose restrictions on criminals who illegally possess weapons to inflict harm. Laws do not prevent crime – they only serve as a deterrent and an outline for punishment after the crime has already been committed. The same is true on our campus and in the classroom.

Restricting guns from Virginia Tech classrooms did not and cannot prevent a massacre, but one legally-armed student could have made a difference, if only the law were altered.

While Wisconsin’s new concealed carry law will allow permit-holders to carry on campus grounds and in any building that is not otherwise posted, we at UW-Milwaukee may face restrictions owing to Hartford University’s presence within our campus. Current federal law

prohibits the possession of firearms within 1,000 feet of school grounds, succinctly encompassing all, or most of, our campus. As such, even if weapons are allowed within our buildings, most students would be unable to legally carry them while walking to and from their homes to campus.

In the event of either a school zone or building restriction remaining in effect beyond November 1, I believe it entirely reasonable and prudent that UWM provide controlled lockers for students who wish to carry prior to reaching campus grounds. Such lockers are already in place at six UW schools, including Madison and Stevens Point, where they are monitored by campus police.

If I had one critique to make of Wisconsin’s new law, it would be that individuals are not required to demonstrate competency with a firearm prior to being issued a permit – only proof that they attended classroom instruction. To those who intend to carry a weapon, whether it’s a handgun, a Taser or mace, I strongly encourage you to practice with it regularly and be well acquainted with its safe and proper use.

It’s the responsible thing to do and an enjoyable way to spend an afternoon.

To read Jessica Wolfe’s titillating analysis of lingerie football, visit uwmpost.com

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September 19, 2011

COMICS PRIMAL URGES

the uwm post Andrew Megow

KING-FAT

Mitchell Moeser

PRESSER

Mitchell Moeser

HE SAID, SHE SAID

Kat Rodriguez

PET OF THE WEEK Contrary to popular belief, and the bad stigma of their wild cousins, these two little rodents are full of nothing but love. Rescued as babies from the local shelter, these brothers are completely inseperable. This dynamic duo enjoys lounging in their hammock, cuddling on fleece blankets, or in the sweaters of their adoptive parents, and treating their tiny ears to the sounds of Beethoven and Bach. Their favorite treats include cheerios, veggies, and the occassional sweet. These mini lovers are relentless when it comes to giving kisses, asking for rides on shoulders, and tormenting each other, just as brothers do.

uwmpost.com

PUZZLES

THEUWMPOST CROSSWORD

September 19, 2011 19

SUDOKU INSTRUCTIONS: Fill in the squares so that every row, every column, and every 3x3 box contains the numbers 1 through 9 exactly once.

ACROSS 1 (Not) Even one bit (2 wds.)

6 Auth. of some works, maybe 10 Lovers’ quarrel 14 Hawaiian beach house 15 Plant joint 16 Story 17 Flatterer (2 wds.)

19 Atop 20 Slapped on the bum 21 Tony or Meadow 23 Enthusiastic 25 Lazy person 26 Anaheim locale (2 wds.)

32 Imp 33 Neutral color 34 Space 37 Peak 38 Word before engaged 40 Earnhardt of cars 41 Directed 42 Fam building 43 U or I 44 Wasp cousin (2 wds.)

47 Photography tone 50 College head 51 Antigen hypersensitivity 54 “The pros,” for example (2 wds.)

59 Move turbulently 60 Like mammals (hyph.)

62 Copied 63 Lotion ingredient 64 Lawn character, maybe 65 Possessive pronoun 66 Suffered a wound 67 Keller or Hunt DOWN 1 Liturgical vestments 2 Piece of material used to cover large areas 3 Small buffalo

4 It’s mowed 5 Connection 6 Pertaining to certain electrodes 7 Yeses counterparts 8 Praiseful poems 9 Roman emperor 10 Firm 11 Pertaining to the pope 12 Unaccompanied 13 Certain singing voice 18 Actor Campbell 22 Feel sorry for 24 Deciduous shrub 26 October birthstone 27 Aged 28 Chopped 29 Veto 30 Web address, for short 31 Negative vote

34 Ogle 35 Sheltered 36 Strike, as with a snowball 38 Zilch 39 Building wing 40 “What’s up, ___?”

42 Scorch 43 Vincent of ear removal (2 wds.)

44 Obeys a street sign 45 Like a duck’s feet 46 Prison 47 Political Palin 48 Run away and marry 49 Half of a hand tool, maybe?

52 Snatch 53 Scream 55 Work on muscles 56 Hero

solution found on page 4

GODOKU

INSTRUCTIONS: Fill the squares so that every row, every column, and every 3x3 bo contains the following letters exactly once: N, R, E, I, B, Y, T, C, A. One row or column will reveal a hidden word!

solution found on page 4

solution found on page 4

UWM Fun Facts Total faculty & staff: 3, 637 Annual operating budget: $680,041,800 UWM has over 137,000 living alumni

Here is a map of the newly discovered waterways in our nearest neighbor planet, Mars. See if you can make a tour of all the towns and back to point of beginning without going through any one spot twice. Commence at the south pole from the letter T, spell a complete sentence, using each letter once. The puzzle was sent to a leading magazine, to which a vast majority of correspondents reported “There is no possible way,” and yet it is a very simple puzzle.

20 September 19, 2011

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