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Bray gets cast off; not ready for game action T H E

Issue 57

E D I T O R I A L L Y

“The Rum Diary” uneven, but ambitious adaptation

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

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Vol. 118

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Vols top Railsplitters in final exhibition game Sophomore guard Trae Golden’s 22 points leads UT past Division II’s fifth-ranked team “That’s a great opponent,” Martin said. “Most teams wouldn’t play an opponent like that.”

LMU cut the Vols’ lead to four points after a 26-8 run Staff Writer in the second half.

“One of the things as a coach is when you have such Matt Dixon a big lead in the first half, you know something is about Sports Editor to happen,” Martin said. “Guys somehow let up. It’s a matter of us getting off to a good start and maintaining.

Monday night the Volunteers hosted their final exhiYou’re subbing guys in and out trybition game of the season ing to get guys minutes but you’re against the Lincolin Memorial trying to win the game at the same Railsplitters. time.”

The game marked the secWith six minutes left, Tennessee ond time first-year coach answered with a 3-pointer from Cuonzo Martin’s squad would Golden, followed by a dunk from take the court, and UT held off Tatum after an LMU turnover.

Division II’s fifth-ranked team “Cam really played well,” Martin 76-67. said. “His overall game in practice The Vols’ roster features was about defending and playing only one returning starter in hard.”

Cameron Tatum. Trae Golden, Golden deflected a pass, forcing Jordan McRae, Jeronne a key turnover on the next possesMaymon and Kenny Hall roundsion, and the Vols were able to stied out the starting lineup fle LMU’s advance. against LMU. Golden led the Vols in scoring Tennessee sprang to a 15-6 with 22 points, adding four lead early. Skylar McBee hit rebounds and eight assists. back-to-back 3-pointers to “If he stays healthy, he will be expand the lead to 21-6. one of the best guards in the “LMU is a good team, a very league,” Martin said. good team,” McBee said. “They “I’m not focused on my play, I’m have alot of good players. focused on the team’s play,” Golden They’re pretty lengthy. They said. have a lot of guys who can disThe Volunteers open the season rupt you on defense. I think Friday at 7 p.m. against UNCthat made us struggle a little Greensboro in Thompson-Boling bit.” arena. Friday’s contest will be the On the night, the Vols went opening game of the Maui 12-of-31 from beyond the arc.

Invitational before the Vols head to Martin allows players freedom Maui for the tournament, which to choose when to take big features Duke, Kansas, Michigan, shots.

George Richardson • The Daily Beacon Memphis and Georgetown.

“Guys have to play with confi“Friday can’t come soon dence,” Martin said. “You got guys Trae Golden lines up a shot over an LMU defender during a game on Monday, Nov. 7. Golden lead second guessing, you’re in trou- the Vols with 22 points in a tightly contested 76-67 victory over the Railsplitters in the final exhi- enough, so tomorrow we’ll get bition game of the preseason. back to the drawing board getting ble.” ready for UNC-Greensboro,” “He just tells us, if we play on defense, offense will come,” Golden said. “Cam can onslaught was Jake Troyli, who supplied 16 first-half Golden said. “We really need to just make sure that we come ready to play from the tip.” shoot the 3, I can shoot the 3, Jordan can shoot the 3, points and finished with 25.

Sam Scott

guys coming off the bench can shoot the 3, so, we’re going to shoot the 3.”

Tennessee led 44-28 at the half.

“We came out of the gate strong and not just on the offensive end, but the defensive end,” Tatum said. “We set the tone early and that is what we had to stick to doing.”

The Railsplitters’ only retaliation to the Tennessee

Students unite for social progress Morgan Liv McConnell Staff Writer UT’s Progressive Student Alliance (PSA) meets every Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. to discuss the elimination of sexism, war, racism and worker inequity.

The group’s goals are clearly defined, as explained by Karen Principe, senior in sociology and PSA secretary.

“We seek fair work conditions and a living wage for all workers, as well as an end to the oppressions of women, people of color, members of the LGBTQ community and other oppressed groups,” Principe said.

Fair pay and benefits for workers at UT is a traditionally vital issue to the PSA, which helped initiate the campus union, United Campus Workers, nearly a decade ago. Unfair treatment of campus faculty is largely the reason this organization formed in the first place.

Kaitlin Malick, a senior in sociology and co-chair of the PSA, said the PSA originated in January of 1997 in an effort to combat unfair wages at UT. Malick noted how important coalitions like PSA are at this time.

“It is critical that we students work together and unite on campus as part of this larger struggle,” she said.

While progress has been made since PSA’s formation, Leslie Principe, senior in Africana studies, claims that “there’s still a lot to be done.” She cited a 2010 study that revealed that 23 percent of full-time UT workers are not making a living wage.

“The first couple of years of PSA, with the Living Wage Campaign, we helped to open people’s eyes to inequality on campus,” Karen Principe said. “Administrators were getting so much money, yet people who worked here for 20 years couldn’t feed their families. Conditions have improved since then, but they are by no means ideal.”

In order to raise awareness of these issues, the group is doing a series of educational events, including weekly film showings each Tuesday to expose corporate influence. The first of these films will be

“The American Ruling Class,” a dramatic documentary that explores class, power and privilege in America. All films will be followed by facilitated discussions in which viewers will deliberate on the movie’s themes.

Leslie Principe believes that these showings are an excellent opportunity to get more students socially aware and active.

“These PSA events teach you a lot about what’s going on in the world,” she said.

“The discussions are also excellent because they will push you out of your comfort zone.”

Beyond their efforts toward worker equality, the PSA is also planning an upcoming feminist bake sale.

“All items will be priced in a way that is proportionate to the pay differences that still exist between men and women,” Leslie Principe said. “So, for example, while a cookie may cost a woman something like 75 cents, we will charge men $1.”

This price variation is designed to illustrate the fact that women still only earn 78 cents on the dollar relative to men.

“This applies to workers on UT’s campus, too,” Leslie Principe said. “Women are paid less than men for working the same job, which is ridiculous in this day and age.”

All those interested in combating inequality and injustice at UT are urged to attend a PSA meeting and experience the fruits of activism for themselves.

“We have meetings every Wednesday night at 7:30 in the UC, and students who are employed by the university can also join the United Campus Workers, the union that represents them and fights for their interests,” Karen Principe said.

In Karen Principe’s opinion, it is especially important that college students in particular get involved.

“We live in an extremely flawed world and this doesn’t have to be the case,” she said. “Youth alone cannot fix the world, but the energy and free time that students bring to the struggle are vital to the survival of our social movements. Student activists also become the next leaders in those movements.”

Tara Srinpunvoraskul • The Daily Beacon

Chris Ruppett, sophomore in graphic design, fills out a ballet for a mock trial by the Progressive Student Alliance on the Pedstrian Mall on Wednesday, March 30. The PSA meets every Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. in the UC to discuss issues facing students and the means by which they can work to solve them.

2 • The Daily Beacon

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

InSHORT

Tara Sripunvoraskul • The Daily Beacon

Blaine Phelps, alumni in public speaking, plays guitar in the Humanities Amphitheatre the morning of Thursday, Nov. 3.

2:30 p.m. — Officer responded to a report of a Vol card stolen in Hodges Library.

4:02 p.m. — Further investigation conducted on a hitand-run that occurred on Oct. 31. The incident involved a vehicle leaving a parking garage and a bicycle. Both sides gave conflicting accounts.

Friday, Nov. 4

Saturday, Nov. 5

1:02 a.m. — Theft reported in Stokely Athletics Center.

A judging platform used in volleyball games had been stolen.

1:56 p.m. — A female student reported at the UTPD station that someone had stolen her Vol card and a black hooded sweatshirt.

11:12 a.m. — Officer sent to Clement Residence Hall in response to an Internet harassment report.

11:17 a.m. — Vandalism reported in the G-11 parking garage on Lake Avenue. The incident is believed to have occurred some time between 4:30 p.m. on Friday and 11 a.m. on Saturday.

Compiled from a media log provided to the Daily Beacon by the University of Tennessee Police Department. All persons arrested are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. People with names similar or identical to those listed may not be those identified in reports.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Downturn harms young adults most The Associated Press WASHINGTON — The wealth gap between younger and older Americans has stretched to the widest on record, worsened by a prolonged economic downturn that has wiped out job opportunities for young adults and saddled them with housing and college debt.

The typical U.S. household headed by a person age 65 or older has a net worth 47 times greater than a household headed by someone under 35, according to an analysis of census data released Monday.

While people typically accumulate assets as they age, this wealth gap is now more than double what it was in 2005 and nearly five times the 10-to-1 disparity a quarter-century ago, after adjusting for inflation.

The analysis by the Pew Research Center reflects the impact of the economic downturn, which has hit young adults particularly hard. More are pursuing college or advanced degrees, taking on debt as they wait for the job market to recover. Others are struggling to pay mortgage costs on homes now worth less than when they were bought in the housing boom.

The report, coming out before the Nov. 23 deadline for a special congressional committee to propose $1.2 trillion in budget cuts over 10 years, casts a spotlight on a government safety net that has buoyed older Americans on Social Security and Medicare amid wider cuts to education and other programs, including cash assistance for poor families.

Complaints about wealth inequality, high unemployment and student debt also have been front and center at Occupy Wall Street protests around the country.

“It makes us wonder whether the extraordinary amount of resources we spend on retirees and their health care should be at least partially reallocated to those who are hurting worse than them,” said Harry Holzer, a labor economist and public policy professor at Georgetown University who called the magnitude of the wealth gap “striking.”

The median net worth of households headed by someone 65 or older was $170,494. That is 42 percent more than in 1984, when the Census Bureau first began measuring wealth broken down by age. The median net worth for the youngerage households was $3,662, down by 68 percent from a quarter-century ago, according to the Pew analysis.

Net worth includes the value of a person’s home, possessions and savings accumulated over the years, including stocks, bank accounts, real estate, cars, boats or other property, minus any debt such as mortgages, college loans and credit card bills. Older Americans tend to hold more net worth because they are more likely to have paid off their mortgages and built up more savings from salary, stocks and other investments over time. The median is the midpoint, and thus refers to a typical household.

The 47-to-1 wealth gap between old and young is believed by demographers to be the highest ever, even predating government records.

In all, 37 percent of younger-age households have a net worth of zero or less, nearly double the share in 1984. But among households headed by a person 65 or older, the per-

The Daily Beacon • 3

NEWS

centage in that category has been largely unchanged at 8 percent.

While the wealth gap has been widening gradually due to delayed marriage and increases in single parenting among young adults, the housing bust and recession have made it significantly worse.

For young adults, the main asset is their home. Their housing wealth dropped 31 percent from 1984, the result of increased debt and falling home values. In contrast, Americans 65 or older were more likely to have bought homes long before the housing boom and thus saw a 57 percent gain in housing wealth even after the bust.

Older Americans are staying in jobs longer, while young adults now face the highest unemployment since World War II. As a result, the median income of older-age households since 1967 has grown at four times the rate of those headed by the under-35 age group.

Social Security benefits account for 55 percent of the annual income for older-age households, unchanged since 1984. The retirement benefits, which are indexed for inflation, have been a consistent source of income even as safety-net benefits for other groups such as low-income students have failed to keep up with rising costs or begun to fray. The congressional supercommittee that is proposing budget cuts has been reviewing whether to trim college aid programs, such as by restricting eligibility or charging students interest on loans while they are still in school.

Sheldon Danziger, a University of Michigan public policy professor who specializes in poverty, noted skyrocketing college tuition costs, which come as many strapped state governments cut support for public universities. Federal spending on Pell Grants to low-income students has risen somewhat, but covers a diminishing share of the actual cost of attending college.

“The elderly have a comprehensive safety net that most adults, especially young adults, lack,” Danziger said.

Paul Taylor, director of Pew Social & Demographic Trends and co-author of the analysis, said the report shows that today’s young adults are starting out in life in a very tough economic position. “If this pattern continues, it will call into question one of the most basic tenets of the American Dream — the idea that each generation does better than the one that came before,” he said.

Other findings: Households headed by someone under age 35 had their median net worth reduced by 27 percent in 2009 as a result of unsecured liabilities, mostly a combination of credit card debt and student loans. No other age group had anywhere near that level of unsecured liability acting as a drag on net worth; the next closest was the 3544 age group, at 10 percent.

Wealth inequality is increasing within all age groups.

Among the younger-age households, those living in debt have grown the fastest while the share of households with net worth of at least $250,000 edged up slightly to 2 percent. Among the older-age households, the share of households worth at least $250,000 rose to 20 percent from 8 percent in 1984; those living in debt were largely unchanged at 8 percent.

EKU leads effort to honor soldiers The Associated Press RICHMOND, Ky. — Matt Rawlings’ grim task in Iraq was to retrieve battered soldiers’ bodies from battlefields and load flag-draped coffins on planes for the trip home. The ex-Marine’s time with the military mortuary unit showed him the ultimate sacrifice of so many of his brothers and made him more than willing to volunteer for a stateside memorial recalling the fallen.

Rawlings is a senior at Eastern Kentucky University, where an idea was born to read the names of the more than 6,000 Americans killed in the war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan. He’ll lend his voice along with other students, faculty and staff and relatives of veterans who will spend hours on Veterans Day reading the roll call at EKU and 181 other college campuses across the country.

Among the names the former corporal plans to read is that of Marine Master Sgt. Brett Angus, a friend from his days in Iraq. Angus was killed by a roadside bomb in late November 2005.

Earlier that week, Rawlings had celebrated Thanksgiving with Angus and other comrades.

“This Remembrance Day hits close to home,” said Rawlings, 29, a six-year Marine who served in Iraq for parts of 2005 and 2006 and hopes to land a security job after graduation. “To me, it signifies that they have not been forgotten.”

Eastern Kentucky is a 16,500-student school whose ties to the military are rooted in its long-running Army ROTC program.

Some streets on the Richmond campus are named after students killed or wounded in war.

The Nov. 11 roll call has expanded to colleges in all

50 states and the District of Columbia. The commemoration, called the Remembrance Day National Roll Call, will include a minute of silence at 2 p.m.

Eastern time on all participating campuses.

As of Tuesday, at least 4,483 members of the U.S. military had died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The death toll in Afghanistan was at least 1,704 U.S. service members as a result of the U.S.-led invasion in late 2001, according to the AP count.

Along with each name will be the service member's rank. The names will be read within earshot of students strolling to and from classes.

Participants hope it resonates with students.

“This kind of helps bring it home,” said John Noone, a senior at Western Connecticut State University who served one tour each in Iraq and Afghanistan as a national guardsman. “A lot of these soldiers are the same age as all these college students on campus. They could easily be their friends or their brothers or their sisters.”

Brett Morris, the National Roll Call coordinator and EKU’s associate director for veterans affairs, said the school had its first roll call last year for all the U.S. war dead in Iraq and Afghanistan. The response was so positive he recruited other colleges in hopes of making it a nationwide event this year, he said.

Mission accomplished.

EKU recruited other schools by word of mouth at conferences, emails, notices on websites, phone calls and grassroots marketing, he said.

With so many schools participating, names of the war dead will be read aloud more than 1 million times during the day, Morris said.

4 • The Daily Beacon

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

OPINIONS

LetterEditor to the

World’s trajectory bleak without change In roughly the last century or so, America has built up a nearly unregulated economic system that has spread all throughout the “civilized” world. That system is now in a tailspin, edging dangerously close to complete collapse. The media is acting as if this is nothing new. They’re comparing it to the Great Depression, explaining it off as one of the periodic busts that accompany our country’s economic booms, or claiming it’s the repercussion of one party or another’s fiscal incompetence. They promise that this event is just like the others and that it will turn around, ushering with its pivot a period of economic surge and general prosperity.

But I’d like to propose something here, something that I’m sure will generate a mixed response. What if it doesn’t turn around? What does that mean for you, for me, for us?

In order to answer that question, one must understand the myriad of influences that have led us here. There have been many reasons listed by the media and academia as to how we got to where we are. But, suffice it to say, most if not all of these reasons somehow relate back to a central concept — unfettered capitalism. What we have now is the product of years of deregulation and an economic system that provides immensely for a very select few while keeping the rest scraping by, hoping that one day it might be their turn. What we have now is the result of a culture which treats economic and ideological freedom as if they are the same thing, something I’m sure a great deal of you have learned in your economics classes or your political science classes or in the media.

However, it doesn’t take much critical thought to debunk this ideology. After all, is it even possible that arbitrary, uncodified, unlegislated pieces of paper to which someone else has assigned a “value” could have anything to do with the satisfaction of your human rights? No, it’s not. We are much more than money allows us to be, more inherently valuable than it.

So, then, here we are — stuck in a selfperpetuating gain and consumption cycle in which we are spiraling quickly downward. And, the powers that be want us to believe that all of this will get better in due time. All the while those who caused this spiral (corporations and

the banking industry) go on collecting bonuses and bailouts, going on vacations in which they spend in one minute an equal value to our entire tuition.

And, if this doesn’t turn around, what then?

Well, today’s unemployment will be tomorrow’s norm. The master’s degree will become the new standard education level for employment for about a decade or so, then will be replaced by the Ph.D. Your children’s schooling will be more and more compromised unless you have the money to fight it, which will be a problem since the percentage of us who don’t have a job will be pretty sizable, regardless of what you’re studying now. World unrest will continue, crime will rise, especially theft and acts of extreme violence (a by-product of poverty). Politics will become increasingly polarized until the liberals are completely socialist and the conservatives are completely authoritarian. The world, as we all know it, will fall — not overnight, but over the span of our generation. This is not a doomsday prophecy; it’s an observation of trends and following them through to their logical conclusion, and I am far down the list of people who have followed these trends and arrived at the same conclusion.

There is hope, however. As people worldwide flock to the streets, the media and the establishment that was rewarded for causing our current climate are becoming afraid. They’re ramping up their rhetoric, they’re shoving their agendas forward in wild response, and they’re enlisting the use of police forces with less of an attempt to conceal their ties to such entities than ever before. The entities who view you as subhuman profit machines are suddenly being forced into defense, a position in which their ineptitude and barbarism is displayed for everyone to see. This is, quite possibly, the only hope we have to preserve that which matters most and changing that which has done us nothing but harm. So I urge you to inform yourself and take to the streets; otherwise you might realize what they already know about you far too late — it’s a lot easier to control someone when they don’t fight back.

— Joel Higgins is a junior in English. He can be reached at jhiggin6@utk.edu.

SCRAMBLED EGGS • Alex Cline

THE GREAT MASH-UP • 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.

No proof for US’s cultural decline C ampbel l’s Co r n e r by

Seth Campbell It’s often said that American culture has been on a downhill slide for the past several decades.

Though this claim is often made, I cannot seem to find any justification for such a statement. Maybe it’s merely a political fight the far-right chooses to delve into, but when one examines the situation, our country has not culturally deteriorated since our existence.

Many talking heads, specifically on Fox, choose to address this so-called deterioration of our social fabric rather frequently. Bill O’Reilly has authored a book titled “Culture Warrior” that asserts that secular progressives are constantly trying to screwup the notion of tradition in America. Another Fox personality, Laura Ingraham, has recently penned a book that deals with what she calls a “cultural decline.”

In O’Reilly’s case, the traditional America he cites as the goal in order to restore our cultural integrity is not as righteous as he remembers.

While he often blasts progressives, he must be forgetting that progressives were the Americans who forced suffrage and civil rights upon many traditionalists. Keeping a traditional element to our country is a good thing, but claiming these traditional values should outrank progress is ridiculous.

As far as Ingraham is concerned, we have a serious issue involving a breakdown of our once rich morals and culture. Recently, Ingraham condemned NBC for allowing singer Chris Brown to perform on the Today Show due to his role in a dispute with fellow singer Rihanna. By no means am I approving of Brown’s violent assault, but citing this as an example of cultural decline is absurd.

Domestic abuse has been a plague upon our country since its formation. To think that Brown’s act of violence showcases a cultural deterioration

doesn’t quite make sense because historically, domestic abuse has always been a problem in America.

When O’Reilly chastised Pepsi for hiring Ludacris as a promoter, he cited Luda’s crude lyrics as reason for not hiring the rapper/actor. O’Reilly has limited vision when it comes to music because certain musicians have been rather violent and crude since the 1960s. Johnny Cash was able to sing the violent “Folsom Prison Blues” and then accompany the Reverend Billy Graham as he held a Crusade in Neyland Stadium. While some of Luda’s lyrics may be disrespectful, it is O’Reilly’s choice whether to listen or not. Simply because he does not approve of hip-hop doesn’t mean he should rant that our culture has fallen apart.

Days after the terrorist attacks on 9/11, the Reverend Jerry Falwell blamed the attacks on feminists, gays, abortionists and many other Americans. Though he eventually apologized for his blindly hateful comments, Falwell shares many of the same views as O’Reilly and Ingraham. These personalities don’t agree with someone, so they choose to attack these people by blaming them for any flaw in our country. It is nothing more than pure stupidity.

I’m just not sold our country has deteriorated.

To deteriorate means we actually had a morally strong culture at one point and I just cannot find that time in American history. Once upon a time, disagreements were handled by having a duel with your adversary. In the South, disagreements were often settled with a backwoods bare-knuckled brawl. Neither of these seems very moral or culturally mature. Matter of fact, President Obama seems to trump the beloved Andrew Jackson in terms of decency.

If someone wants to prove the claim of cultural deterioration in modern-day America, you’re going to have to show me something better than Ludacris lyrics or a single case of domestic abuse. Until then, I will continue to believe we’re about as moral as we’ve always been.

— Seth Campbell is a senior in history. He can be reached at scampb42@utk.edu.

Couples delay marriages more often Bus y N ot h i n gs by Samantha Trueheart

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Forty years ago, many college students were not only thinking about their future professions and financial stability. Instead, many women were already planning their weddings. Although the initial planning has not gone astray for most college-aged women due to the website that Pinterest provides, yet it seems that many of these women creating their “dream weddings” do not have an actual mate in mind for the big day. In fact, our generation is starting a new trend where couples choose to get married later rather than sooner. Many sociologists and psychologists have noticed this delay in marriage, and have questioned why we are choosing to wait.

Today, the statistic for the average age of a woman getting married has risen to 26, and for men, 28. In comparison, the average age in 1946 for a woman to get married was 21, and 25 for men.

This drastic change of delaying marriage until a couple reaches their late 20s and early 30s is being noticed in today’s modern society by all racial, ethnic and socio-economic groups in America.

While the age of matrimony is stalling for younger couples, it raises the question if this delay is necessary or practical for one to have a successful marriage. Many have opposing views on the subject. Some feel that getting married earlier in their youth is the best option since the couple can mature and grow together as one. Also, if couples chooses to marry younger, then they have a higher chance of conceiving children. Most professionals agree that a woman should begin conceiving children by the age of 30, as it is harder to become pregnant as time elapses. And while there are several scientific options for a woman to enhance her chances of pregnancy as she ages, it is not advised to rely completely on these methods.

In defense, others feel that if a couple waits until they are older and more financially stable, the marriage has a higher chance of lasting past the

golden years. Psychologists and other researchers have found that if a couple marries before the age of 20, they are two to three times more likely to end in a divorce. As more and more people are earning their college degrees and even continuing their education into graduate and doctorate schools, many young adults feel they should wait for marriage. Many reports have shown that couples who choose to marry later in life actually have a better marriage and work together in a cohesive and constructive manner.

In the professional world, according to More Magazine, 92 percent of women value flexibility in the workplace when they become mothers.

There are statistics that still verify that while these professional mothers long for their working status to stay the same as before they had children, it can be extremely challenging. This may be why so many women want to wait to have children because this information is widely known and they may fear it.

Since our parents grew up in a time when the average marriage age was lower, it seems that many young adults are feeling the pressure from their older relatives to find their soul mate and settle down. However, many people in our generation claim that they still need to figure out who they are and what they want to be before they even consider the idea of marriage. And while our parents might long for the days when they have small grandchildren running through their homes, they need to understand that our society is shifting towards an individual outlook. Young women and men may wish to settle in their careers and make a name for themselves before they decide to tie the knot.

Hopefully our generation will solve some of these work/family life issues and learn to compromise our longing to have families, children and marriages while maintaining a purposeful life filled with a meaningful and fulfilling career. Perhaps choosing to wait a few years after one has established a career to marry will help women make these demands for work balance a more persuasive argument that will benefit the decline of the American family.

— Samantha Trueheart is a sophomore in communications. She can be reached at struehea@utk.edu.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

ARTS&CULTURE

The Daily Beacon • 5

Depp’s ‘Rum Diary’ praiseworthy Sega attempts to revive classic Jake Lane Arts & Culture Editor When thinking of Johnny Depp, often the term “frequent collaborator” comes with a mixed-to-negative connotation. Tim Burton? Great in the early years, spotty as time wears on (personal bias: the Mad Hatter make-up is unforgivable). Gore Verbinski? Let’s just say if they gave an Oscar for making Keith Richards even more of a cartoon, Depp and Verbinski would be the forerunners in the field.

The shining exception to that rule, and granted this steps out of the filmic context and applies to many real life roles, would be the late great Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.

Depp first played the father of Gonzo journalism in Terry Gilliam’s 1997 adaptation of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” following a several month stint during which Depp lived in Thompson’s basement, bonding over drugs and firearms as Depp learned Thompson’s mannerisms.

While that film’s cult following has made it a rite of passage in some circles, the critical response was less than glowing.

Regardless of the inevitable hating of those viewers and critics outside of the drug culture, Gilliam’s film succeeded in capturing the chaotic psychedelia of Thompson’s novel.

Depp’s turn in “The Rum Dairy,” the recent adaptation of Thompson’s “lost” first novel, comes then as a sort of precursor and fitting antecedent to his turn as Raoul Duke. While Duke of the prior book and film presented an addled cynicism and atavism for the eventual casualties of the acid generation, Paul Kemp instead embodies a mainstream journalistic ambition to tackle the “bastards” of society at large.

While the character in the novel is 23, Depp at a youthful 48 presents him as anything but middle aged with vigor and a true lust for life.

Whereas one could compare these adaptations, such discussion is fruitless. The decade in between their timelines, those ever-swinging sixties, is a sort of deified touchstone in the Thompson universe, and while the Jefferson Airplane-Lyle LovettFlea sequence of “Fear and Loathing ” touches upon this, the transition of the thinly-veiled meta-Thompson of “The Rum Diary” to “Fear and Loathing” is so total that the characters are truly two equally captivating individuals.

As the de facto stand-in for Thompson and an intimate friend until Thompson’s suicide in 2005, Depp channels the more focused side of Thompson as Kemp, who ends up as a stringer and astrology columnist in Puerto Rico after bottoming out in the New York scene. As one of a sordid cast of alcoholic ne’er-do-wells Kemp first indulges in then rebels against the American expatriate wiles of the island state, colluding in shady business deals and

consuming 480 proof alcohol brewed by a dubious neo-Nazi burnout (Giovanni Ribisi in a stand-out role).

Like many modernist tales, Kemp’s struggle with privileged society is complicated by a love triangle, whose role in both the novel and film drags the plot down but provides eye candy both in the sequences of Carnival in Saint-Tropez and in Chenault (Amber Heard), the object of Kemp’s affection. The problem is not so much the performance of Heard or Aaron Eckhart, who plays her affluent beau and Kemp’s benefactor, Sanderson, but rather the total lack of chemistry between the two on screen. One could argue this is intentional to show Kemp as the more vital suitor, but it makes for tepid viewing when even Depp and Heard lack much of a spark, either.

The on-location shots in Puerto Rico are the true stars of the film, and while the time-appropriate doctoring of buildings, costumes and vehicles sets the film as of a bygone age, the ongoing struggles which American colonialism foists on the indigenous peoples of the land provide a subtle, underlying conflict to bolster Kemp’s personal vendetta against Sanderson and his ilk. Kemp’s discovery of the extreme poverty, racial tensions and exploitation in the area fuels the potential dissolution that would temper Thompson’s own embittered outcries against Nixon, Vietnam, yuppies and George Bush. The tacked-on epilogue of the film echoes this sentiment but also betrays the life of Thompson and the trajectory of Kemp as set forth in the book.

Director Bruce Robinson’s ambition shows throughout the film as a more consistent hand than that of Gilliam, but this causes the film to drag in the absence of the zany ephemera of the earlier film.

Robinson constructs a believable film world but misses opportunities to overload the viewer with the absurdity as set down

by Thompson. Observe Ribisi’s Moburg, who dons an SS uniform and listens to recordings of Hitler to Kemp’s dismay.

Moburg also provides the mythical alcohol which doubles as an incendiary device, but exists as a fringe character in the narrative and perhaps the sole source of offbeat comedy which came as second nature to Thompson the man and author.

While “The Rum Diary” will not cultivate the following of its sibling Thompson adaptation, the film’s standalone spirit of moral outrage among even the derelict outcasts of society nonetheless fuels an adventure worth the cost of admission. As Duke would say, “buy the ticket, take the ride.”

— Jake Lane is a senior in creative writing. He can be reached at jlane23@utk.edu.

Chris Flowers Staff Writer The fall of “Sonic the Hedgehog ” has been a severe one.

Sonic was responsible for pushing the Genesis to greater sales than the SNES in the U.S. but is now shoved into Nintendo mini-game collections where he humiliatingly loses to Mario in foot races.

The 2D Sonic games of the Genesis generation are regarded as classics, while the 3D games are largely derided. Playing “Sonic Generations” made me question whether the core mechanics of Sonic were ever really any good or his popularity came from Sega’s gigantic marketing push and the game’s sense of speed, which was unique for the time. While I liked the Sonic games for the Genesis and Game Gear when I was a kid, they aren’t games I ever go back to like “Super Mario World.” I have a clearer memory of “The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog ” cartoon than the content of the actual games.

Unfortunately, Sonic is not voiced by Jaleel White (Steve Urkel) in Generations, though he does dine on chili dogs during the opening cut-scene.

“Sonic Generations” is structured as a look back through the history of Sonic and revisits nine levels through the history of the series. The levels begin with The Green Hill Zone from “Sonic the Hedgehog ” and go all the way up to a level from last year’s “Sonic Colors.” Although the classic Genesis games only contribute a third of the game’s nine levels, each level is tackled by the classic potbellied mute Sonic and the spiky and sleek modern Sonic from the 3D era, making for a total of 18 mainline levels in addition to a plethora of optional challenges.

Playing as the original Sonic feels almost exactly like it did back in Sega’s heyday. Levels are strictly 2D platforming affairs with some camera movement for 3D effects. The only additional mechanic is the ability to charge your spinball with a single button, though holding down and smashing jump still work. If you want to revisit classic Sonic gameplay with gorgeous visuals but everything else in tact from the originals, including some very retro music and sound effects, these sec-

tions give you just that. The nostalgia was enough to keep me happy through classic Sonic’s Genesis levels, but this was only about 15 minutes of gameplay and it quickly wore off. Progression consisted of flying across the level at out-of-control speeds until I hit a wall or an enemy, and some slow and easy platforming sections.

The feeling of being out of control adds to the sensation of breakneck speed but was often frustrating. The sense of being slightly out of control comes not only from the level design but also from the physics where Sonic seems to have less air control than my Mario-attuned brain is used to.

The issue of being out of control is greatly amplified while playing through the modern Sonic sections. These levels incorporate sections of 3D gameplay from the post-Dreamcast games into the 2D platforming and often feel more like polygonal roller coasters than video games. I mostly just held forward and bounced off the edges of the narrow track I was placed upon.

The decision to split the game between two different characters who look and play very similarly but with slight differences occasionally resulted in some crossed wires in my brain. Classic Sonic speeds up with his signature spinball maneuver, while modern Sonic uses a recharging boost meter. This caused a few mistakes while alternating between characters, but the bigger source of confusion came from modern Sonic’s ability to do a homing attack on nearby enemies by pressing jump while in midair. Due to the fast-paced nature of the game, you often don’t have time to wait for your brain to recognize that the homing indicator has popped up, but must press jump as soon as you get within an enemy’s proximity.

Often I would do this while playing as classic Sonic on reaction to spotting an enemy but would just collide with them, losing all of my precious rings.

My recommendation for “Sonic Generations” is a narrow one. If you really want to play an old-school Sonic game, this is the best option, but at a $50 price point and short length of gaming, “Sonic Generations” does not present a great value for nostalgic fans.

6 • The Daily Beacon

Bray’s cast removed, not yet cleared Matt Dixon Sports Editor Tennessee sophomore quarterback Tyler Bray took the first step towards returning under center on Monday when the sophomore quarterback got the cast taken off his right hand. But that doesn’t mean he’ll play this Saturday when the Volunteers play at Arkansas.

“We don’t expect him to play,” UT coach Derek Dooley said. “I never have expected him to play this week.”

Bray has been sidelined since the Georgia game on Oct. 8 with a broken right thumb on his throwing hand.

“Tyler will get his cast off today and will get evaluated,” Dooley said. “What does that mean? First of all, it means how is your strength to squeeze a ball? And it’s going to take a little time because it has been kind of locked off there to get the kind of range and motion back.

Secondly and more importantly, how has the bone healed? We will Xray it, evaluate it and then go from there.

“We have to look at the X-ray, feel his strength levels and if both of those things check out, which the likelihood is they won’t, and then we go to a CT-scan, which I think is the final determining factor. The pain is not the issue. The pain is what he can tolerate. The issue is the bone has to be healed, because we aren’t going to put him out there and the bone is almost there but it’s not. The bone has to be healed, he has to be able to tolerate the pain and he has to be able to perform.

If he can’t go out there and throw it like he’s used to throwing it, then why play him?”

Bray was ranked among the top quarterbacks in the country in several passing categories through the Vols’ first five games, completing 65.9 percent of his throws (116-of-176) for 1,579 yards and 14 touchdowns with only two interceptions.

In the four games he has missed, UT quarterbacks Matt Simms and Justin Worley have combined to be just 52-of-107 (48.6 percent) for 628 yards, one touchdown and five interceptions, albeit against much better competition, including the nations’ top two defenses: LSU and Alabama.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

THESPORTSPAGE

Worley, a true freshman, replaced Simms in the fourth quarter against the Crimson Tide on Oct. 22 and started UT’s past two games at home against South Carolina and MTSU. “He performed the way we hoped he would. We have confidence in Justin,” Dooley said. “I tell you we had it going into South Carolina.

He just had first-game jitters. Now Justin’s challenge will be he is on the road, he’s playing an SEC team, a top-10 team. It will be a lot more adversity than he faced on Saturday night. But you have to get the first step before you can get the second. We will see how he handles it. He is still a true freshman and he is going to have to go on the road in a tough environment against a good football team.”

Lane running wild(cat) With UT still trying to improve its running game, coaches used freshman tailback Marlin Lane in a wildcat package against the Blue Raiders.

Dooley said he was pleased with the results the Vols got with Lane taking direct snaps from center, calling it “a starting point,” but noting “it’s not going to solve our (running) problems.”

“I’ve always liked it, I have,” Dooley said. “I haven’t run it here just because I haven’t had a comfort level with the right guy running it. I think it’s a good way to take a few plays off the quarterback. If you don’t run your quarterback runs, the zone read stuff, it’s just a way to have that component in your offense and it helps, but it is rarely going to be the difference between winning and losing.”

How does the team’s second-leading rusher feel about the new formation?

“It doesn’t matter,” Lane said. “As long as I’m out there running it, I’m cool with it.”

M-I-Z-Z-S-E-C After months of speculation, the Southeastern Conference officially announced Sunday that Missouri was leaving the Big 12 conference to join the SEC. “We all knew it was coming,” Dooley said. “I don’t really have an opinion on it, and if I did it wouldn’t matter. I’ll worry about that in the spring. It’s a great academic institution, it really is. So it’s going to really enhance our academic reputation in the league.”

Taylor Gautier • The Daily Beacon

Da’Rick Rogers eats up with Tyler Bray in celebration after Rogers’ touchdown catch against MTSU on Saturday, Nov. 5. Monday, Bray had the cast removed from his throwing hand, but he is not expected to return to play this weekend against Arkansas.

Sisters square off in volleyball match David Cobb Staff Writer Tennessee’s Sunday afternoon match against Mississippi State was more than just another SEC battle.

It was a family affair.

Tennessee freshman outside hitter and reigning National Player of the Week Tiffany Baker was pitted against her sister Chanelle, a junior outside hitter for the Bulldogs.

Although Chanelle was the first of the tandem to record a kill, it was Tiffany’s Lady Vols which prevailed in the matchup, as UT bested the Bulldogs in four sets (25-22, 23-25, 25-16, 25-14) before a crowd of 1,002 at ThompsonBoling Arena.

Tiffany recorded a doubledouble with 11 kills and 10 digs in the victory.

She spoke about the experience of playing against her sister and former Hebron High School (Carrollton, Texas) teammate.

“It was different,” Tiffany Baker said. “We already (played) once at Mississippi State. I’ve always played with her in sports like basketball and volleyball. It’s always fun though. We talked mess to each other before the game when I saw her.”

Tiffany was not the only Lady Vol to post double-digit kills, as outside hitters Kelsey Robinson and Leslie Cikra led the team with 15 each. Junior middle blocker DeeDee Harrison contributed 10.

UT head coach Rob Patrick commented on the significance of receiving a balanced offensive effort from his team.

“This is exactly the way we want our stat sheet to look,” Patrick said. “And it hasn’t looked like this most of the year.”

After giving up a 23-20 lead

in the second set, the Lady Vols headed to the locker room with the match tied at one game apiece.

Baker talked about the message Patrick sent to the team during the intermission.

“He just told us we weren’t playing very hard,” she said.

“And that we didn’t have that sense of urgency that we needed to, like we did against Florida or in tough matches.”

After the break, Patrick’s squad outscored the Bulldogs 50-30 in the final two sets.

“We were playing O.K. volleyball,” Patrick said about the first two sets. “But we didn’t have a sense of urgency while we were playing.”

In the third set, UT received kill contributions from six players, including five from Baker.

“For our offense to be as good as it can be, we have to get production out of more than one or two areas,” Patrick said.

The victory improves the SEC-leading Lady Vols to 223 (14-1 SEC) as the team has now won 18 of its last 19 contests.

“We have a big target on our back,” Patrick said. “We have to learn how to play with that target. And I thought we did a pretty good job to be honest with you. Mississippi State is probably not going to make the NCAA tournament, so what are they playing for?

They’re playing for this type of a match and trying to get an upset. They have nothing to lose. They’re going to play really loose. I thought our kids did a really nice job of picking up the sense of urgency and being able to fend that off.”

UT will travel to face Mississippi (9-15, 5-1) on Friday, before finishing the weekend at Alabama (11-16, 4-12) on Sunday.