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Thursday, February 9, 2012

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Issue 21 I N D E P E N D E N T

PUBLISHED SINCE 1906 http://utdailybeacon.com

Vol. 119 S T U D E N T

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Darwin Day held at UT

U N I V E R S I T Y

Staff Writer

• Image courtesy of Charles Darwin

Despite controversy, annual event still observed to promote understanding Christopher Elizer Staff Writer Darwin Day is a three-day volunteer run event that promotes the concept of evolution and its teaching in classrooms across Tennessee.

There will be an information booth set up on the Pedestrian Mall from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Tuesday through Thursday, as well as movie screenings about evolution at 11 a.m. and noon in Hodges Library, Room 213. There are also keynote speakers Wednesday and Thursday nights at

the UC Auditorium from 7 to 9 p.m.

Darwin Day has been happening around Tennessee for the last 14 years. Darwin was a self-taught English naturalist who developed the theory of evolution and natural selection. During a five-year voyage that began in 1831, Darwin took detailed accounts of plants and animals as he spent most of his time on land. These accounts are the basis of his theories of evolution and natural selection. After returning to England, he published these theories and the evidence collected from that voyage in the 1859 book “On the Origin of Species.”

Sara Kuebbing is a graduate research assistant in ecology and evolutionary biology and the co-coordinator for Darwin Day. Kuebbing said she believes Darwin Day is important because it is such an essential concept in science these

days.

“Evolution is a central concept in biology,” Kuebbing said. “Darwin Day is meant to teach people about why it is an important concept and why it needs to be taught in science classes.”

Kuebbing said the purpose of Darwin Day is not only to inform the public about evolution, but also to incorporate the theory into Tennessee’s science curriculums.

One showcase of Darwin Day is a teacher workshop held on Tuesday night. Teachers are provided extra textbooks on science education, which include evolution, and curriculums that meet state standards for teaching evolution. The workshop is intended to assist teachers in the classroom while teaching evolution as a part of their science curriculum.

See DARWIN DAY on Page 3

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Paralympic athlete speaks about positivity Caroline Snapp

Finches from the Galápagos Islands are depicted in the well-known drawings from Charles Darwin’s journals on evolution. The UT Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology is hosting its annual Darwin Day through Thursday, Feb. 9, which aims to inform the public about evolution and how it is seated as a major foundation to all studies in biology.

PAGE 6

Josh Sundquist, paralympic athlete and internationally known motivational speaker, spoke to students Tuesday night in the UC Auditorium.

Sundquist has brought his message of being positive to places such as Fortune 500 companies, inner-city public schools and the White House.

Sundquist lost his left leg at the age of nine due to a rare bone cancer and was given a 50-50 chance of survival. He was cured of the disease and eventually took up snow skiing. In 2006 he joined the USA Ski Team and competed in the 2006 Paralympics in Turino, Italy. He went on to write a memoir titled “Just Don’t Fall” and has gone on to become a YouTube sensation, gaining over 12 million views. His most famous video, “The Amputee Rap,” has over 800,000 views.

Sundquist has also developed a large fan base on Twitter with over 18,000 followers.

Sundquist speaks about remaining positive and hopeful against opposition. His speeches aim to encourage listeners to focus on the positive aspects of their lives instead of dwelling on the negative ones.

Sundquist’s speeches are told through a series of stories about his life, each relating to his message of being positive.

“It’s because of my disability that I was able to go to the Paralympics as a ski racer,” Sundquist said. “It’s because of my disability that I’m able to do this, to give speeches all

over the country and sometimes all over the world.”

The event was hosted by the Issues Committee, a student run organization and part of the Central Program Council. Eric Dixon, a senior in economics and Issues Committee member, explained the reason for bringing Sundquist to speak with students.

“We bring issues to campus that students might be interested in and we do that by bringing speakers to campus,” Dixon said. “He was proposed

by Maggie Hanna on our committee, and she basically thought that some sort of motivational speaker — something that we don’t really do often — could bring a lot of interest. He’s a big YouTube sensation and we thought that UT students would enjoy to come see him.”

Although mostly UT students attended the event, Sundquist did draw some out of state fans to the event. Sara Kennedy and Alexis Rivers both made the two-hour drive from Asheville, N.C. to attend the event. Both are students at the University of North Carolina at Asheville and are fans of his YouTube videos.

“I really like him on YouTube,” Kennedy said. “I really like his speeches online.”

Kennedy stated that she decided at the last minute to come to Knoxville to listen to Sundquist speak.

“I found out about it when I watched his new video today,” Kennedy said. “I realized Knoxville was only about two hours away so I decided to come. I didn’t know I was coming until about an hour before I left.”

Russia at odds with Syrian opposition The Associated Press BEIRUT — The European Union will impose harsher sanctions on Syria, a senior EU official said Wednesday, as Russia tried to broker talks between the vice president and the opposition to calm violence.

Activists reported at least 50 killed in military assaults targeting government opponents.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who held emergency talks in Damascus with Syrian President Bashar Assad on Tuesday, is trying to end Syria’s 11-month-old bloody uprising, which has left more than 5,400 dead, according to the U.N. Moscow launched the initiative on Tuesday, just days after it infuriated the U.S. by blocking a Western — and Arab-backed U.N. Security Council resolution supporting calls for Assad to hand over some powers to his vice president.

Russia’s approach does not call for Assad to step down, the opposition’s chief demand, and Moscow is increasingly at odds with the Western efforts to end Assad’s crackdown.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said outside forces should let Syrians settle their conflict “independently.”

“We should not act like a bull in a china shop,” Putin was quoted by the Itar Tass news agency as saying. “We have to give people a chance to make decisions about their destiny independently, to help, to give advice, to put limits somewhere so that the opposing sides would not have a chance to use arms, but not to interfere.”

Lavrov told reporters in Moscow that Assad has “delegated the responsibility of holding such a dialogue to Vice President (Farouk) al-Sharaa.” He blamed both

Assad's regime and opposition forces for instigating the violence that has killed thousands of people since March.

“On both sides, there are people that aim at an armed confrontation, not a dialogue,” Lavrov said.

Military defectors are playing a bigger role in Syria’s Arab-Spring inspired uprising, turning it into a more militarized conflict and hurtling the country ever more quickly toward a civil war.

The regime’s crackdown on dissent has left it almost completely isolated internationally and facing growing sanctions. The U.S. closed its embassy in Damascus on Monday and five European countries and six Arab Gulf nations have pulled their ambassadors out of Damascus over the past two days. Germany, whose envoy left Syria this month, said he would not be replaced.

Nevertheless, Assad was bolstered by Tuesday’s visit from Lavrov and Russia's intelligence chief, Mikhail Fradkov. During the talks, the Russians pushed for a solution that would include reforms by the regime as well as the dialogue with the opposition.

Assad said Syria was determined to hold a national dialogue with the opposition and independent figures, and that his government was “ready to cooperate with any effort that boosts stability in Syria,” according to state news agency SANA. The Syrian opposition rejects any talks with the regime and says they accept nothing less than Assad’s departure.

In Brussels, a senior EU official said the bloc will soon impose harsher sanctions against Syria as it seeks to weaken Assad’s regime. The official said the new measures may include bans on the import of Syrian phosphates, on commercial flights between Syria and Europe, and on financial transactions with the country’s central bank.

Tara Sripunvoraskul • The Daily Beacon

Natalie Williams, senior in therapeutic recreation, rearranges words along the main hall of the UC as part of the Poetry Stick exhibit on Tuesday, Feb. 7.

2 • The Daily Beacon

InSHORT

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Tara Sripunvoraskul • The Daily Beacon

Katie Baker, freshman in French, flips a crepe during a French crepe-cooking demonstration in the International House on Tuesday, Feb. 7.

1950 — McCarthy says communists are in State Department During a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, Senator Joseph McCarthy (RepublicanWisconsin) claims that he has a list with the names of over 200 members of the Department of State that are “known communists.” The speech vaulted McCarthy to national prominence and sparked a nationwide hysteria about subversives in the American government.

Speaking before the Ohio County Women’s Republican Club in Wheeling, West Virginia, Senator McCarthy waved before his audience a piece of paper. According to the only published newspaper account of the speech, McCarthy said that, “I have here in my hand a list of 205 [State Department employees] that were known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping the policy of the State Department.” In the next few weeks, the number fluctuated wildly, with McCarthy stating at various times that there were 57, or 81, or 10 communists in the Department of State. In fact, McCarthy never produced any solid evidence

that there was even one communist in the State Department.

Despite McCarthy’s inconsistency, his refusal to provide any of the names of the “known communists,” and his inability to produce any coherent or reasonable evidence, his charges struck a chord with the American people. The months leading up to his February speech had been trying ones for America’s Cold War policies. China had fallen to a communist revolution. The Soviets had detonated an atomic device. McCarthy’s wild charges provided a ready explanation for these foreign policy disasters: communist subversives were working within the very bowels of the American government.

To be sure, McCarthy was not the first to incite anxiety about subversive communists.

Congress had already investigated Hollywood for its supposed communist influences, and former State Department employee Alger Hiss was convicted of perjury in January 1950 for testimony dealing with accusations that he spied for the Soviet Union during the 1930s. But McCarthy went a step further, claiming that the U.S. government, and the Department of State in particular, knew that communists were working in their midst.

“McCarthyism,” as the hunt for communists in the United States came to be known during the 1950s, did untold damage to many people’s lives and careers, had a muzzling effect on domestic debate on Cold War issues, and managed to scare millions of Americans. McCarthy, however, located no communists and his personal power collapsed in 1954 when he accused the Army of coddling known communists. Televised hearings of his investigation into the U.S. Army let the American people see his bullying tactics and lack of credibility in full view for the first time, and he quickly lost support. The U.S. Senate censured him shortly thereafter and he died in 1957.

— This Day in History is courtesy of History.com.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

The Daily Beacon • 3

NEWS

DARWIN DAY continued from Page 1

George Richardson • The Daily Beacon

Sara DePew, junior in anthropology, reads on a hill outside of Ferris Hall on Monday, Aug. 22, 2011. Students have been taking advantage of the unseasonably warm weather, enjoying time outside while temperatures stay moderate.

Army faces religious issue The Associated Press RALEIGH, N.C. — Soldiers who don’t believe in God can go to war with “Atheist” stamped on their dog tags, but humanists and others with various secular beliefs are still officially invisible in the Army.

Maj. Ray Bradley is currently to be the first humanist recognized as a “distinctive faith group leader” by the Army. In the meantime, he can’t be designated as a humanist on his official records or dog tags, although he can be classified as an atheist.

The distinction may not seem like a large one to those unfamiliar with humanism, but the Fort Bragg-based officer says it’s the equivalent of being told that “Christian” is an acceptable designation, but not “Catholic.”

“Humanism is a philosophy that guides a person,”

Bradley said. “It’s more than just a stamp of what you’re not.”

Humanism’s core beliefs range from the assertion that knowledge of the world is derived from observation and rational analysis to the conviction that working to help others also promotes individual happiness.

The issue is another sign of the growing willingness of military personnel at Fort Bragg and other military bases to publicly identify themselves as atheists, agnostics, humanists or otherwise without belief in a supernatural higher power and seek the same recognition granted to Christians, Jews and other believers.

“There are a lot more people with these beliefs than just Major Ray Bradley, but he’s in a position where he can stand up and put in a request for this,” said Jason Torpy, president of the Military

Association of Atheists and Freethinkers and an Army veteran.

Bradley, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan who enlisted in 1986, is respectful and protective of the Army, and careful to say his views are his own. He said he has been a humanist since before he enlisted, when “No Religious Preference” was his only option. Now he feels getting his official records to match his convictions is an important symbolic point.

“There’s no regulation that says I can’t go downtown and get a set of tags made that say ‘humanist,’ but I won’t do that because it won’t be on my official record,” he said. “To me, this is an individual right.”

A petition campaign organized by Torpy’s group wants “humanist” and “spiritual but not religious” added to the currently available religious designations.

Bradley said he applied

for the change to his record after learning that “atheist” was now an officially recognized choice for soldiers.

His request was ultimately rejected by the Army Chaplain Corps, he said, which didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Bradley believes some of the resistance comes from a lack of familiarity with humanism. sound too religious,” he said with a laugh, after catching himself using the word “congregation.”

“The point of the workshop is to help teach middle school and high school science teachers how to teach evolution effectively,” Jessica Welch, the coordinator for Darwin Day, said. “A lot of teachers come because they have an idea of evolution, but they do not know enough about it themselves to effectively teach the students, so we have two of our evolutionary biologists go and teach them evolution so they can better teach students. We also have a science teacher there who has experience teaching evolution who can help them more as a teacher rather than a professor that has no training, and it turns out to be very successful, especially here in Tennessee.”

This comes at a time when the teaching of evolution in classrooms is being threatened. Evolution is currently part of Tennessee’s high school biology course.

Tennessee’s House Bill 368 passed the House of Representatives on a 70-23 vote on April 7, 2011; the bill’s purpose was to “help students understand, analyze, critique, and review in

an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories covered in the course being taught.” One of the controversial theories is biological evolution. This means that teachers would not get disciplined for teaching something other than evolution, or not teaching it at all.

“Here in Tennessee I’ve actually heard from some teachers that fellow teachers don’t teach evolution in their classrooms, even though it’s a requirement.” Welch said.

“These teachers would rather their students fail on that portion on their exit exam than go to the trouble of learning evolution, teaching it and tackling the problem of people being against it.”

When asked to summarize what people can take away from Darwin Day, Kuebbing said that people should realize that the event is not an attack.

“I hope they can take away that Darwin Day is not an attack on anything, but it’s promoting the understanding of why evolution is important to biology and promotion of science education — the fundamental side of science day.

We are all about science education,” Kuebbing said.

Scientists uncover prehistoric lake The Associated Press MOSCOW — After more than two decades of drilling in Antarctica, Russian scientists have reached the surface of a gigantic freshwater lake hidden under miles of ice for some 20 million years — a lake that may hold life from the distant past and clues to the search for life on other planets.

Reaching Lake Vostok is a major discovery avidly anticipated by scientists around the world, hoping that it may allow a glimpse into microbial life forms, not visible to the naked eye, that existed before the Ice Age. It may also provide precious material that would help look for life on the ice-crusted moons of Jupiter and Saturn or under Mars’ polar ice caps where conditions could be similar.

4 • The Daily Beacon

Thursday, February 9, 2012

OPINIONS

Going

Somewhere... Hopefully US strays from founding principles Preston Peeden Managing Editor When you’re little, there are many old wives’ tales that you’re taught. Your parents tell you not to eat before swimming,nottoreadwiththelightsoffandnottoswallow gum, but ultimately, these lessons are urban legends. As we grow up, we realize that the lessons we were taught are the same exaggerations that their parents had taught them.

While most of these wives’ tales are inconsequential, one wives’ tale has stuck in my head recently. When I was going through school, I was taught that I lived in a country that was led by a government that cared about the people that it governed.

At first, this may seem to be a radical, anti-American statement, but that is not what I mean. I love this country, and I am proud to be a citizen of it. I truly feel that America has the potential to be the greatest and freest nation in the world. But that does not mean that I will blind myself to its follies and stand idly by as it diverts from its founding principles.

On Nov. 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln gave an introductory speech to the commemoration ceremony for the national cemetery for the lives lost at the Battle of Gettysburg. In his address, Lincoln paraphrased what he believed the war was being fought over when he said that “government of the people, by the people and for the people, shall not perish from this earth.” In Lincoln’s eyes, the war needed to be fought because without it, our government would cease to represent the idealistic democratic freedoms that it had been founded on, and that protecting the survival of our government’s vision was worth the pain.

It is hard to argue with Lincoln’s point. Though it is reductionist to say the Civil War was fought solely because of slavery, the forced enslavement of people was a central issue. At first Lincoln did not set out to end slavery, but his Gettysburg Address and Emancipation Proclamation are what shifted the focus from reunion at any cost to one of rejoining the nation as a land made up of truly free people.

In this moment, our government proved to be one that cared, or at least one that, acting in its own self-interest, ended up helping millions. But since this high-water mark in the mid-19th century, our government’s focus has shifted

away from a utilitarian-esque mindset and moved to one of inward focusing self-interest.

History is riddled with examples of times when the U.S. government has acted in a way that did not represent the lofty ideals this country stands upon. One example is Guatemala in 1954.

Under the guise of a homegrown revolution, the CIA and U.S. government armed and trained militants to overthrow a popularly and democratically elected government in favor of a totalitarian dictator. Just from this description alone, the U.S. would seem to be acting against Lincoln’s principles. The deposed government of Jacobo Arbenz held the support of the Guatemalan people, while the U.S.-installed government of Carlos Castillo Aramas was supported by the elite landholding class and foreign companies. Acting on the principles of economic self-interest, as there was a conflict between the Washington-connected United Fruit Co. and the Guatemalan government over an agrarian reform law that would have broken up the company’s monopoly on the land, the U.S. sided with economic principles over humane ones.

This view was something shared by Charles de Gaulle when he said, “The U.S. has no friends, only interests.”

De Gaulle, who was jaded and suspicious of the U.S. when he said this, had a point. As the recent governmental forays into the territory of Super PACs show, which essentially allows for the most powerful single office in the world to be bought by its richest citizens, the government finds itself siding more and more with the wealthiest factions, benefiting the few at the expense of the many.

Juan José Arévalo, the Guatemalan president before Arbenz,saidthatwhile“moralvaluesservedasamotivating force in the days of (American) independence … the government descended to become a simple entrepreneur for business.”

Our country was founded on certain values. Those values were what led our nation to try to develop as a free and prosperous nation for all. But recently our nation has been led by people thinking about the bottom line of finances, and the easiest way for their own selfadvancement, as opposed to the betterment of all.

The entirety of our government does not always derelict its founding duties, but the fact that it does at all is a disconcerting thing. We all want a government that cares and works for its people, and our government can still be that.

I find it hard to still think that the government cares, but that won’t stop me from wanting to believe this old wives’ tale.

—PrestonPeedenisajuniorinhistory.Hecanbereached at ppeeden@utk.edu.

SCRAMBLED EGGS • Alex Cline

THE GREAT MASHUP • Liz Newnam

Columns of The Daily Beacon are reflections of the individual columnist, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Beacon or its editorial staff.

Inequality rampant in UT housing Urb an La n d sca p e s by

Lindsay Lee It’s time make some decisions about where you are going to live next year.

Choosing where to live can be a pretty daunting process. You have to decide if you want to live on campus or off, which building exactly you want to be in, how much it’s going to cost and whom else you are going to live with. There are so many options and so many possibilities that it can be positively overwhelming.

When you are disabled, the decision is much less complicated. There are very few off-campus buildings that have accessible apartments, let alone elevators. And even if they do have spaces, if the apartment is taken already, then you are out of luck.

So the disabled will most likely live on campus. Now, all they have to worry about is which building to live in. Only Clement, Hess, Morrill, Reese, Laurel and Andy Holt have accessible rooms, so the choice becomes easier for lack of options. There’s no need for an extended cost/benefit analysis because they’re all about the same.

And to make things really simple, the disabled don’t even have to worry about who they are going to live with because they never get to choose.

I think it pretty much goes without saying that the whole situation is pretty unfair.

When I was a freshman I lived in a single accessible room in Morrill because I am a wheelchair user. I was not allowed to have a roommate, which made me really angry. I felt like I was missing out on an essential first-year college experience. Other people were jealous of my setup, but it still felt like I wasn’t being treated like a normal human being.

Over the summer I lived in Laurel Apartments as a part of a summer internship on campus. All the other interns lived on the sixth floor and bonded easily because they were all so close, while I was tucked in the basement away from every other soul in the building.

This year I have lived in Andy Holt in a two-person apartment, the only type open to those with disabilities. I fought tooth and nail for permission to live with one of my best friends for the year instead of with a stranger, but still the answer was “no.”

Logically and economically, current UT housing policies make sense, to a degree. They only have a limited number of apartments for disabled students, so they don’t let me choose whom to live with because they have to make sure that the people who really need these spaces can live there before any other able-bodied individual.

But we live in a world that is so confining and segregating for the disabled. There’s always a specific place to sit in class, a separate path to take to get there, and a different way to go about doing everything. All these rooms and apartments are tucked away on the ground floor or in the basement, off in some wing that no one knows about or walks down. We are made to live together and keep to our kind in these segregated spaces. And it’s all in the name of “equality.” We get this “equal” housing so that we can have “equal” experiences on campus.

I’m sorry, but the University of Tennessee has not even come close to providing the disabled with an equal experience and opportunity. “Equal” would mean not having to take a side door to get into every building. “Equal” would mean not having to go all the way around the backside of the Hill and in the road in front of the KAT buses to get to class. “Equal” would mean not having to take the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street to avoid cracks in the pavement that cause damage to my scooter. “Equal” would mean being allowed to live with my friends and be social just like absolutely everyone else.

The marketing office has decided that we are now apparently a school with “Big Ideas,” so here are a few for you, UT: If you have so few accessible spaces that the disabled cannot live with whom they choose and integrate into regular society, build more. If your only accessible spaces are off in some separate wing no one cares about, move them. And if you care at all about this pledge toward “Civility and Community” you so espouse, please — I’m begging you — just listen.

— Lindsay Lee is a sophomore in mathematics.

She can be reached llee26@utk.edu.

TV sports journalism poorly executed C ommit tee o f I n f ra ct i o n s by

Greg Bearringer

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For some reason, ESPN feels obligated to decide things like “Eli Manning is an elite quarterback” based primarily upon the last few games that some analyst watched. Probably because arbitrary nomenclature is just vague enough to mean anything, but sounds like decisive “analysis.” Of course, this is the same company that decided that employing Rick Reilly was a good idea, and supporting that notion by claiming he gets a lot of page views. (Challenge: If anyone who works at ESPN happens to read this, give me Reilly’s spot on the front page and tell me if more people read me than him. Go ahead. I dare you). What makes so little sense about having Trent “please don’t remember how terrible I was” Dilfer spouting nonsense about Tom Brady or Eli Manning is that there are a lot of really good writers and analysts who work for ESPN. Buster Olney’s blog with a cup of coffee might be the best part of any morning.

KC Joyner is really pretty good talking about college or pro football intelligently. Keith Law has a fairly strong cult following with good reason, and John Hollinger might be the best basketball writer who ever lived. It’s gotten to the point, though, that when people hear “ESPN” all they think about are inane discussions about worthless top 10 lists.

Of course, if you are a sports fan, there is also Fox Sports, the new NBC Sports Network, and an increasing number of people who look simply to Twitter for their sports news. I confess that during the winter meetings I was attracted to Twitter like drunks to Taco Bell — and I really mean that in the sense that I usually avoid Twitter, but during the winter meetings my standards dropped considerably. Lightning news is occasionally better than well-written, fully verified news (note: I may not be the best person to ask since I am an Angels fan and the reward for my temporary Twitter madness was Albert Pujols). In a lot of ways, we live in the golden age of sports fandom. Of course, all of what I have said so far can be applied to

traditional news. I can know who won the Republican primary in whatever state a full five minutes — five minutes! — before CNN has it up on their front page. Heck, it is possible to know news mere hours before it is verified as completely false.

The point I am trying to make is that overindulgence is usually a sign that something is terrible. History Channel is in the middle of a ratings golden age because Alien Pawn Swamp or whatever garbage has replaced it has a supposed niche in the market. There are currently 1,432 lame cop shows (as Greg Easterbrook recently pointed out in his prodigious Tuesday Morning Quarterback column) because people watch three or four of them a week. For all the people who scream at the top of their lungs about how terrible ESPN is need not to look at evil executives at Disney diving Scrooge McDuck-style into piles of money. Dollars to donuts, many of the people who work at ESPN would rather watch old reels of baseball games and Steve Sabol NFL films.

Executives, producers, directors and writers show us things we don’t like because we watch it. They get hired and fired and raises based off of how much we watch them, which means we incentivize them.

The best we can do when we have a career is do its function to the limit of its potential. A pro bowler should be able to bowl pretty close to 300 regularly. A high school English teacher should turn out a lot of students who know grammar with a high efficiency. A project manager is judged based primarily off of how much money he saves on costs versus how much they bid. A student is “supposed” to get good grades. Just about every profession has some metric to measure performance for this reason. For all this talk about “99 percent” that just won’t go away, I wonder if fundamentally a successful economy doesn’t necessarily include people who flout the rules or find loop holes like they are Nick Saban recruiting 127 people for 25 scholarships. If you accept that there are only so many people who can be legitimately good at making money, it figures that people who can look like they legitimately make money might fill in the gaps.

— Gregory Bearringer is a graduate student in medieval studies. He can be reached at gbearrin@utk.edu.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

The Daily Beacon • 5

ARTS&CULTURE

Anorexia scare hits Italy The Associated Press MILAN — A former prima ballerina’s repeated statements that anorexia is rampant at Milan’s famed La Scala theater have startled the dance corps, which issued a statement Wednesday denying the eating disorder was an issue.

The dancers wrote that they were “flabbergasted and embittered” over Mariafrancesca Garritano's statements in media interviews and a book that anorexia is widespread, affecting as many as one in five dancers.

“There is no emergency of anorexia, and whoever is part of our reality knows it well,” the dancers’ statement said.

The 33-year-old dancer was fired last month after continuing to make statements that the theater considered false and damaging to its reputation, La Scala spokesman Carlo Maria Cella said Wednesday.

Anorexia is typically characterized by an

extreme fear of becoming overweight.

People with anorexia severely restrict how much they eat and can become dangerously thin.

Garritano first raised the issue of the eating disorder in a book that came out in January 2010. That was followed by media interviews before the season opened last December in which she said she dropped to 43 kilograms (95 pounds) as a teenager after teachers called her “mozzarella” and “Chinese dumpling” in front of other students.

Garritano, who joined the theater at age 16 and had recently been promoted to soloist, was initially suspended after interviews, missing a performance with the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow in December.

Theater management fired her 10 days ago after she kept repeating the statements, Cella said.

The dancers said they were surprised by the theater's "drastic" position, but said they did not have all the information about the theater's procedures to draw conclusions.

Nude art shown in London gallery The Associated Press LONDON — There is a vast amount of flesh — clear and smooth or wrinkled and mottled — on display in the latest show at Britain’s National Portrait Gallery, a retrospective of the work of Lucian Freud.

Freud was the most renowned British portrait painter of the 20th century, and he found that clothes often got in the way.

The artist, who died in July at age 88, approached the human body the way his psychoanalyst grandfather Sigmund Freud approached the mind — determined to unmask its secrets.

The exhibition, which kicks of with a royal preview for the Duchess of Cambridge on Wednesday, features more than 100 paintings completed over 70 years, many of them nude studies of the artist’s friends and family.

Michael Auping, chief curator of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas — where the show will move after its London run — said Freud was often asked why he painted so many nudes.

“He would say, every time: ‘It’s the most complete portrait,’” Auping said.

The exhibition opens with early head-andshoulders portraits from the 1940s and ‘50s, then moves on to the to vast, monumental nudes for which Freud became famous. He painted standing up in his London studio, layering oil paint on large canvases with a broad, coarse-haired brush.

Many of the paintings have generic names — “Naked Solicitor,” “Man in a Blue Scarf” — but the portraits are revealing images of the artist’s inner circle, or sometimes Freud himself, often naked and looking vulnerably exposed.

Freud kept his focus on depicting the

human body even when the prevailing fashion in art turned to abstraction.

National Portrait Gallery director Sandy Nairne said that for seven decades Freud looked at people with an “unrelenting, determined eye.”

“They sometimes feel in your face and very explicitly naked,” Nairne said of the paintings. “But that was always with the cooperation of the sitter. In the end, they were sympathetic.

“None of these are casual sitters. They are not figures — they are individuals.”

Berlin-born Freud, who moved to Britain with his family in 1933 when the Nazis came to power in Germany, painted his mother, his brother, his daughters Bella and Esther, and Rebecca Vaughan • The Daily Beacon an eclectic array of acquaintances. The sub- Josh Sundquist plays his parody cover of “Free Falling” during a presentation in the jects of his paintings range from performance University Center on Tuesday, Feb. 7. Sundquist, a paralympic athlete, gave stuartist Leigh Bowery and supermodel Kate dents a message of positivity in the face of opposition.

Moss to Brig. Andrew Parker-Bowles, a horse-riding friend (who got to keep his uniform on).

He was at work until the very end. The exhibition includes Freud's unfinished final painting, “Portrait of the Hound,” which shows his assistant David Dawson and whippet Eli, and appears to have been cut off midbrushstroke.

Most of Freud’s sitters seem to have loved the experience of posing for the master. Sue Tilley, subject of several nudes including “Benefits Supervisor Sleeping” — which sold at auction in 2008 for $33.6 million, a record for a living artist — remembers long sessions of chat and laughter.

She said Freud was “a complete one-off ... exciting, interesting, funny and serious — every single personality trait wrapped up in one person.”

“Lucian Freud: Portraits” is open to the public from Thursday until May 27, then moves to Fort Worth from July 1 to Oct. 29.

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Read the Beacon Classifieds!

ACROSS 1 Year in a voyage by Amerigo Vespucci 4 Business card abbr.

7 Top of a ladder, maybe 12 Resident of Mayberry 14 “That was funny!”

17 Results of some cuts 18 Turkey’s home 19 ___ B. Parker, Theodore Roosevelt’s 1904 opponent for president 20 What you might break into 22 Medical drips 23 Ending 24 Captivates 27 Biddy 28 Figure of a Spanish count?

29 White 30 “The ___ of March are come” 32 Gut reaction?

33 Grammy winner Elliott 34 With 21-Down, catchphrase that provides a hint to eight answers in this puzzle 37 Org. featured in 1983’s “WarGames” 39 Actor Stephen 40 Marshal ___, cold war leader 44 French city near the Belgian border 45 Swedish manufacturer of the 90, 900 and 9000 46 Early gangsta rap group featuring Dr. Dre 47 Crowns 49 Zenith product 51 Quagmire 52 Minuscule lengths 53 Quick snacks 54 Like some movie versions 57 Stupefied

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S P I N S M A R I N O T I C E G S H E J E E Z B O S S Y R A A D A L O X N D I V E E D G E R E T H R O D T U X L E S E E D E S

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59 Jane who wrote “In the Shadow of Man” 60 Much of northern Israel 61 It’s nice to be out of them 62 Blues org.

63 Acid DOWN 1 Book after Zechariah 2 Fought à la the Three Musketeers 3 Set up, as software 4 Schoolyard game 5 Time o’ day 6 ___ two evils 7 00s, e.g.

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8 “Deal with it!”

9 Rocky peak 10 Suffragist ___ B. Wells 11 Shells of shells 13 Spanish uncles 15 Spirited 16 It may be thrown in a ring 21 See 34-Across 25 Picnic spoiler 26 Opening 28 Ratted 31 Singer/songwriter McLachlan 33 Kingdom in ancient Jordan 35 Retreat

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36 Move to a new position 37 “You’re doing it completely wrong!”

38 Get too big for 41 Fixed 42 Plucks, in a way 43 Cereal grain 44 Clean up, as a program 45 Some jungle gym exits 48 Alter 49 Certain steak 50 Part of a Caesarean trio 55 Trouble 56 As well 58 “Prob’ly not”

6 • The Daily Beacon

ARTS&CULTURE

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Saturday, February 11 What: Go! Contemporary Dance Works When: 8 p.m.

Where: Bijou Theatre How much: $16.50 child/senior, $21.50 adult Our take: Local dance company to perform “ALICE,” their take on Lewis Carroll’s classic “Alice in Wonderland.”

Thursday, February 9

• Photo courtesy of Natural Child

What: Natural Child with Big Bad Oven and Choreboys When: 10 p.m.

Where: Pilot Light How much: $5 Our take: A night of drunken swagger from Nashville Infinity Cats Natural Child and locals Big Bad Oven and Choreboys

Friday, February 10 What: Knoxville Opera presents: Gounod’s Romeo and Juliette When: 8 p.m.

Where: Tennessee Theatre How much: N/A Our take: Shakespeare’s star-crossed tragedy in song. Staged in French with English subtitles. Yes, live subtitles. Work that one out.

• Photo courtesy of Go! Contemporary Dance Works

What: Fuddy Meers When: 7:30 p.m.

Where: Clarence Brown Theatre How much: $5-$30 Our take: A woman with aphasia is confronted with a mountain of absurd realities.

What: On My Honor Vinyl Release Show with Your Favorite Hero, A Hero Remains, The Bad Dudes When: 6 p.m.

Where: The Valarium How much: $5 advance / $7 door Our take: Worth the admission and stomaching the rest of the mediocre bands for The Bad Dudes.

What: Groundswell Collective Community Space Opening with Youf Group and Smoking Nurse When: 7 p.m.

Where: 1512 Magnolia Avenue How much: Encouraged donation for rent and supplies Our take: New community space, spearheaded by the Groundswell Collective, aims to provide the public with an open atmosphere in which to gather and create. Great cause. Great people. Go. What: Fuddy Meers When: 7:30 p.m.

Where: Clarence Brown Theatre How much: $5-$30 Our take: A woman with aphasia is confronted with a mountain of absurd realities.

Sunday, February 12 What: Go! Contemporary Dance Works When: 3 p.m.

Where: Bijou Theatre How much: $16.50 child/senior, $21/50 adult Our take: Local dance company to perform “ALICE,” their take on Lewis Carroll’s classic “Alice in Wonderland.”

What: Knoxville Opera presents: Gounod’s Romeo and Juliette When: 2:30 p.m.

Where: N/A How much: $5-$30 Our take: Shakespeare’s star-crossed tragedy in song. Staged in French with English subtitles. Yes, live subtitles. Work that one out.

What: Fuddy Meers When: 2 p.m.

Where: Clarence Brown Theatre How much: $5-$30 Our take: A woman with aphasia is confronted with a mountain of absurd realities.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

SPORTS

The Daily Beacon • 7

Slive discusses playoff possibility The Associated Press NASHVILLE (AP) — Mike Slive helped propose the plus-one plan to find a national champion in football and says actual change remains a couple years away even if everyone can agree on changes to the Bowl Championship Series.

The Southeastern Conference commissioner said Wednesday a decision could be made later this year but cautioned it’s premature to speculate on what changes might be made. He says they need time to sit down and analyze plans with discussions needed among the conferences.

“Really a lot of this discussion is premature, and I want to respect the process that we’re in,” Slive told members of the Nashville Sports Council during a question-and-answer session. “We’ve had fouryear formats since we started. We’ve done it on the basis of four years, so each fouryear period you have to sit down and decide what format is going to be going forward. So we have decided to sit down and talk about this from every different side.”

Slive said they started discussions the day after Alabama beat LSU for the SEC’s sixth consecutive national championship in January with another meeting scheduled later this month. He said there will be several meetings on the topic after he saw no interest from his colleagues or other

conferences in pursuing a four-team playoff to decide the BCS champ back in 2008.

The format of pairing four teams playing two semifinals plus the title game was proposed by Slive and the commissioner of the Atlantic Coast Conference only to be shot down by leaders of the Big Ten, Pac10, Big East, Big 12 and Notre Dame.

Now the Big Ten is expressing interest in changes.

“What would it look like and whether it’s actually going to happen, all of that is premature,” Slive said. “I think we need the time to sit down and analyze it. We need time to take ideas back to our respective conferences and ... a decision to be made sometime later this year as we begin to talk about the ... next format.”

The SEC commissioner said they also need to look very carefully at how any changes affect traditions like bowl games.

Before the session, he said they have two years left in the current format, leaving plenty of time to work through any changes.

He’s also not sure what prompted the current interest in the plus-one plan.

“It’s been an enormous success for us to have four different teams win the national championship over the last six years has been incredible and unusual. It’s a record that’ll never be broken,” Slive said.

“Whatever it is that brings people to the table, I’m glad they’re coming.”

Memphis moves to Big East The Associated Press At long last, Memphis is part of the Big East.

The Tigers officially accepted an invitation on Wednesday to be part of the conference’s next incarnation in 2013. Memphis is the seventh school, and fourth from Conference USA, to sign up since December for future membership in the Big East. The Tigers will compete in the Big East in all sports.

“It certainly is an historic day for us,” University of Memphis President Shirley Raines said during a teleconference with Big East Commissioner John Marinatto and Memphis Athletic Director R.C. Johnson.

Memphis has been trying to upgrade its conference affiliation for years, and the Big East was always the most likely landing spot. The Tigers were snubbed during the Big East’s last massive expansion in 2005 and lost a longtime rivalry with Louisville in the process.

Now with the Big East rebuilding again and eventually in need replacements for West Virginia, Pittsburgh and Syracuse, there was finally room for Memphis.

Marinatto called Memphis a “perfect fit.”

“There were a number of contributing factors for our membership in making the decision to invite Memphis, including among other reasons its geography in the heart of our future membership makeup, its Central time zone presence, its top-50 media market, as well as its outstanding cor-

porate and community support, quality athletic facilities and the overall brand and competitiveness of its athletic programs,” Marinatto said.

The Big East’s goal was to create a 12team football league that could hold a conference title game, while maintaining the supersized and strong basketball side of the conference.

To accomplish that goal, Marinatto has traveled across the country to recruit new members to a league that will span from coast to coast. In December, the Big East announced Boise State and San Diego State from the Mountain West Conference would join in 2013 for football only, and Houston, SMU and Central Florida, from Conference USA, would become members in all sports.

Last month, Navy football jumped on board, though that won't happen until 2015.

Memphis gives the Big East 11 football teams committed for the 2013 season, still one short of the 12 needed under NCAA rules to hold a conference championship game. The league could ask the NCAA for a waiver to play a title game with less than 12 teams, though Marinatto there are no plans for that and the Big East championship football game will debut after Navy joins for the 2015 season.

There’s also no guarantee some of the holdovers, such as Louisville, Rutgers and Connecticut, won’t jump at the chance to join another league if the opportunity comes up. But for now, Marinatto said Memphis is the final piece of the puzzle.

Ian Harmon • The Daily Beacon

Sarah Toti runs down a return during a match against Michigan on Sunday, Feb. 5.

Toti was honored by being presented back-to-back SEC Freshman of the Week awards for her play helping the Lady Vols to consecutive wins against Notre Dame and Michigan.

8 • The Daily Beacon

Thursday, February 9, 2012

THESPORTSPAGE

McBee’s 3s down Gamecocks

Clay Seal Assistant Sports Editor Not much has come easily for Tennessee in SEC play.

But things seem to be even tougher on South Carolina.

Behind 50 percent shooting from beyond the arc, the Vols beat the Gamecocks for the 10th straight time, 69-57 Wednesday night at Thompson-Boling Arena.

After trailing by as much as 15 points, the Gamecocks used a 14-3 run to climb back to within four points by the 6:36 mark in the second half. It was a three-point game with four minutes remaining.

Tennessee coach Cuonzo Martin wasn’t surprised at all

by South Carolina’s late surge.

“We did a poor job of executing our offense,” Martin said. “Just play simple basketball. You went up 15 by passing, cutting and moving, let’s go up by 20 by passing, cutting and moving. It’s not a celebration time. It’s finishing a basketball game.”

Senior guard Cameron Tatum’s six points were exactly what he needed to make him the 44th member of

Tennessee’s 1,000-point club.

Junior guard Skylar McBee scored a career-high 18 points on 4-of-7 3-point shooting in his second career start for UT (12-12, 4-5 SEC). The junior from Rutledge, Tenn. got his first start Saturday against Georgia.

“A little bit of the nerves were gone,” said McBee. “But like I said, it ain’t about starting or finishing, it’s about our five guys working as a unit when we’re out there, whether those minutes come early or late.”

Sophomore Trae Golden returned to the staring lineup at point guard after coming off the bench for the first time this season Saturday, scoring 14 points with four assists.

Junior forward Kenny Hall started in place of freshman Jarnell Stokes, who sprained his hand in practice, contributing a game-high 10 rebounds to go with three blocks.

“I thought Kenny Hall played a tremendous game,” Martin said. “I thought he was special on the defensive side of the ball. Executing, switching guards, I thought he came ready to play.”

Stokes has played in seven games this season, and started UT’s previous five games after he joined the team

in January.

Bruce Ellington led the Gamecocks (9-14, 1-8 SEC) with 12 points. Brenton Williams and Brian Richardson each added 11.

The Vols outrebounded the Gamecocks 34-30, but South Carolina won 18-14 on the glass in the second half.

The Vols have won two straight games for the first time since a four-game win streak that ended with a Jan. 4 loss to Memphis. The Gamecocks dropped their fourth game in a row and remain in last place in the SEC. McBee hit three-straight 3-pointers in the final three minutes of the first half and added a pair of free throws to send UT on a 14-4 run and take a 35-27 lead at halftime.

“When you hit one or two, your confidence boosts up,” McBee said. “And then you just let it fly. You don’t even really think about if it’s going in or not, and I think that’s kind of what happened.”

With 2:52 left in the game, Golden hit a layup and the and-one free throw to give UT a 62-55 lead.

The Vols are back in action 4 p.m. Saturday at No. 8 Florida.

Kentucky has championship look The Associated Press LEXINGTON, Ky. — Florida coach Billy Donovan handicapped what could be the national title game in April.

The most intriguing matchup?

Kentucky against Syracuse.

“If you’re looking at talent, I think Kentucky has clearly six guys who are going to be firstround picks on their team. I don’t know that Syracuse has six firstround draft picks, but they have really, really good talent and they have incredible length,” said Donovan, who won national titles in 2006 and ‘07. “It would be a heck of a game.”

After a 78-58 loss to the Wildcats on Tuesday night, the Gators have faced the top three teams in the poll — Kentucky, Syracuse and Ohio State — all on the road.

Donovan’s take is that Wildcats have the moxie to cut down the nets.

It’s helped the Wildcats (24-1, 10-0

S o u t h e a s t e r n Conference) win 16 in a row and keep coach John Calipari a perfect 48-0 at Rupp Arena since taking over in April 2009 with the Wildcats winning their last 49 home games.

“We have this little swagger,” said freshman Anthony Davis, who had 16 points. “We just want to go out there and play hard and win. We’re very capable of winning a national championship if we keep playing how we’re playing.”

Kentucky’s goal from the start was to win an eighth national championship after losing to eventual champion Connecticut in the Final Four last year and the Wildcats reloaded with Davis, Michael KiddGilchrist and Marquis Teague. Add in sophomores Terrence Jones and Doron Lamb, senior Darius Miller and a fourth freshman, Kyle Wiltjer, and Kentucky is one of the country’s youngest teams and also one of the most talented.