The Student Newspaper of Worcester Polytechnic Institute r \
W e a t h e r ... Today: Possible showers. Highs upper 60s.
Tomorrow and Friday: Cloudy. Highs upper 60s.
Volume Twenty-six, Number Fifteen
Wednesday, September 9, 19i
WPI student selected for Nuclear Exchange Program in Russia Courtesy o f WPI News Service A WPI student is one of four uni versity students in the U.S selected to participate in a Russian and American Youth for Nuclear Sci ence (RAYNS) Program jointly sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and the Nuclear Society of Russia. This is the fourth year of this exchange program. John Koser, a junior mechanical engineering major from Fort Pierce, Fla. and the three other students will depart the U.S. on Sept. 9 for Moscow, Obninsk, and Uliasnovsk and return to the U.S. on Sept. 21. A group of Russian students will reciprocate and travel to the U.S. in November for a series of events in Washington, D.C. Others selected are: John Shipp - Texas A&M University - 3rd Year Grad; Daniel Dorsey - Texas A&M University - 1st Year Grad; and Leslie Duncan - U niversity of M issouri-C olum bia - 2nd Year Grad. This international student ex change program was previously o rg an ized u nder the R ussian/ American Exchange Program. The exchange program consists of two parts. First, American stu
dents travel to Russia to attend a meeting of the Youth Department of the Russian N uclear Society (YDRNS) and the natiorial meet ing of the Nuclear Society of Rus sia. While there, the students will be hosted by R ussian students who w ill serve as guides and translators. D uring the second part o f the program, the Russian students will travel to America to attend the national meeting of the American Nuclear Society. While in the U.S., they will be hosted by the American students. “The previous exchange trips have proven quite beneficial and eye opening for all participants,” says Bradley Rearden, RAYNS Ex change Program C oordinator. “They get to e x p e rien ce first hand the technological capabili ties o f each o th e rs ’ countries, through m eetings and facility tours. They are also given the opportunity to experience a cul ture from the other side o f the globe through numerous excur sions to fun and famous places. Perhaps the most important as pect o f these exchanges are the international friendships that are formed. Many of the participants maintain contact with their new friends long after the trip is over.
One product of the previ ous two years’ exchanges was the coordination of an international conference, Youth and the Plutonium Challenge, held in Obninsk, Russia in July of 1998. The primary organizers of this conference met through this exchange program , d is c u sse d id eas that th ey thought were important to young nuclear engineers, and organized an interna tional forum with well over 100 attendees from nine countries. Rearden believes the atmosphere of these ex changes is fast and furious and will motivate the partici pants to be more active in their field. C O U R TESY O F W PI NEWS S ER V IC E The dates o f this years’ exchange program for U.S. John Koser, the WPI student selected for the Nuclear Exchange Program with Russia. participants are: Sept. 20 Tour of Moscow In the Russian Federation Sept. 21 Depart for U.S. Sept. 9 Depart U.S. for Russia In the United States Sept. 10 Arrive Moscow, travel Nov. 14 Travel to Washing by bus to Obninsk Sept. 11-12 M eeting of the ton, D.C. Nov. 15-19 Winter meeting of Youth Department of the Russian the American Nuclear Society Nuclear Society Nov. 20 Tour of Washington Sept. 13 Travel to Ulianovsk Sept. 14-19 Annual Meeting of Area Nov. 21 Depart Washington the Nuclear Society of Russia
The suspicious person of the week... Turn the paper over and find out.
W est S t . ...
Homesickness intensities freshman blues by Arlene Birt Iowa State Daily (U-WIRE) AMES, Iowa — If home is where the heart is, many students are far from it. As newcomers to college life and independence, many fresh men face the strain o f living and studying away from the familiari ties of home. Stress caused by classes, com bined with h o m esickness and loneliness, can lead many firstyear students to depression, with drawal and sickness. This danger is especially high for freshman who have, in the past, spent little time away from family, friends and “home sweet home.” “H om esickness is a common part of a student’s adjustm ent,” said Dr. Nancy Corbin, assistant director for clinical services at S tu d e n t C o u n se lin g C enter. “Most new students feel excited, yet really they miss the things
they have left behind.” Some ISU freshmen expressed feeling lonely because the ab sence of their high school friends. “I’ve got the ‘lonelies’ because I don’t have my good friends to turn to,” said freshman Shannon Schwab from Evansdale. “But as I adjust, it’ll get better.” Missing familiar faces is not the only cause of hom esickness. It also can be brought on by the change of schedule and the new environments students confront, as well as the lack of parental guid ance, Corbin said. “Sometimes, just the newness of the experience can take stu dents back a bit,” she said. But for some, the first weeks of college have been more enjoyable than depressing. “I’m not homesick now, just sick for the people at home,” Schwab said. “I think many other fresh men are [homesick] now; they just haven’t realized it yet.”
Student Health C enter physi cian M ark Blaedel agrees that freshm en are not affected by hom esickness until later in the semester. “The students will be okay for the first two to three weeks be cause so much is going on, they don’t notice their homesickness, but as soon as they [settle in] we really start seeing it,” he said. Blaedel said the Student Health Center employees tend to see an increase in the number of sick freshmen about a month into the first semester. “Feeling depressed or anxious contributes to sickness," Blaedel said . “ S tre ss in m easu red amounts is healthy, but when a student is diverting too much en ergy to worrying about home, there may not be enough spent about [the student’s] well-being.” “It’s a mental thing,” said Colin Kurth, freshman in pre-advertis ing from A nchorage, A laska.
Secret society no longer secret by Lisa Lebduska Writing Center Director T h ey ’ve been gathering in Salisbury Labs for years now, an eclectic group of undergraduates and faculty speaking in hushed tones about a variety of subjects. On some day the discussions range from biological fuel cells to the triaxial loading of cementtious materials, on other days their con versations revolve around flood plain housing or Aaron Burr. This secret society is unified by a common goal: the desire to com municate as effectively as pos sible. Driven by that goal, these individuals come to the Writing Center (now on the second floor of the Project Center) to consult about their writing and/or their oral presentations.
What happens when someone comes to the Writing Center with a paper? He or she meets with a consultant who reads the paper aloud and asks questions about the piece’s organization, develop ment, coherence or grammar. The ideal tutorial is a dialogue, an ex change between a reader and a writer. Undergraduates usually work with our trained undergradu ate tutors (students who have successfully completed EN3003, an ISP in tutoring writing); gradu ates may now work with a trained graduate tutor, and faculty meet with me. W hat do people bring to the Center? We consult on class as signm ents, projects (S ufficien cies, IQP’s, M QP’s), application essays - any kind of writing. We can also help students prepare
and rehearse speeches for any kind of oral presentations. How do they do it? Some people make an appointment in ad v a n c e via our w eb site www.wpi.edu/+writing; others send email to writing@wpi.edu; others phone us at 831 -6070, and still others simply come to the second floor of the Project Cen ter. When can people get help? During the regular WPI terms, the C enter is open on MTRF from 10:00-12:00; 12:30-4:30 (ex cept on Fridays when we close at 3:30); and on W ednesday from 12:30-4:30. Now that you know who, w hat, and where we are (the Project Center!), we’d like you to realize that our secret society is no longer a secret.
“People make them selves sick because they dwell on it.” Blaedel warns new students to be aware of smoking, alcohol and sexual habits, as well as watching out for general health. “The hom esickness is going to pass, but some things aren ’t,” he said. “T hese p attern s start during the freshm an years, and a lot o f times, these are freedom is su e s .” Blaedel said students can com bat d ep ressio n by m o n ito rin g their health and exercise patterns. Paying close attention to eating, sleeping and exercise habits can reduce susceptibility to illness, he said. “Most kids who drop out do so during their first three semesters,” Blaedel said. “ It’s not because they can’t do the work, most of the time there is an emotional [in terference]. Retention problems are a pattern that is set up within the freshman year.” Of the 3,599 freshman of ‘96, 17.2 percent dropped out during or after their first year, according to the Office o f Institutional Re search Fact Book. On average, over the past 10 years, 9.8 percent of freshman have dropped out during or after their first year, compared to only 3.7 percent o f sophomore drop outs. Financial difficulties and trans ferring also may contribute to the num ber of dropouts during the first year of college, said Steve Sullivan, director o f News Ser vice. Student C ounseling Services, located on third floor of the Stu dent Services B uilding, offers stress reduction workshops, indi vidual counseling and support groups free o f charge for ISU stu dents. “I think the first thing is to help them understand that this is nor mal,” Corbin said. “This is a very big transition in their life.”
The Silver Maple Go sit under a tree.
At
a
WM
G l a n c e ...
Need something to do with your spare time? Check out What's Happen ing and have a ball, page 12 Want to go to a movie, but don't know what to see? Check out the Movie Guide page 6 Check out the Dilbert Chaos and Off the Mark, page 11 Looking for a job or a computer? Check out the Classifieds page 11 Ever wonder what disas trous things may happen when the new building projects start? See Predictions page 10.
C o n t e n t s ... Sports................................... 2,4 Arts & Entertainment........... 6-7 West Street House....................6 International House............... 6 Letters to the Editor.................6 Club Corner............................8 Commentary..........................10 Announcements....................II Classifieds.............................II Comics.................................. II Crossword Companion.......... 11 Police Ijog.............................12 What's Happening................ 12
Today: Possible showers. Highs upper 60s. Tomorrow and Friday: Cloudy. Highs upper 60s.
Wednesday; September 9, 1998
Volume Twenty-six, Number Fifteen
WPI student selected for Nuclear Exchange Program in Russia Courtesy of WPI News Service A WPI student is one of four uni versity students in the U.S selected to participate in a Russian and American Youth lor Nuclear Sci ence (RAYNS) Program jointly sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and the Nuclear Society of Russia. This is the fourth year of this exchange program. John Koser, a junior mechanical engineering major from Fort Pierce, Fla. and the three other students will depart the U.S. on Sept. 9 for Moscow, Obninsk, and Uliasnovsk and return to the U.S. on Sept. 2 1. A group of Russian students will reciprocate and travel to the U.S. in November for a series of events in Washington, D.C. Others selected arc: John Shipp - Texas A&M University - 3rd Year Grad; Daniel Dorsey - Texas A&M University - 1st Year Grad; and Leslie Duncan - U niversity of M issouri-C olum bia - 2nd Year Grad. This international student ex change program was previously o rg an ized under the R ussian/ American Exchange Program. The exchange program consists of two parts. First. American stu
dents travel to Russia to attend a meeting of the Youth Department of the Russian N uclear Society (Yl)RNS) and the national meet ing of the Nuclear Society of Rus sia. While there, the students will he hosted by Russian students who will serve as guides and translators. During the second part of the program, the Russian students will travel to America to attend the national meeting o f the American Nuclear Society. While in the U.S., they will be hosted by the American students. "The previous exchange trips have proven quite beneficial and eye opening for all participants,” says Bradley Rearden, RAYNS Ex change Program C o o rd in ato r. “They get to ex p erien ce first hand the technological capabili ties o f each o th e rs’ co u n tries, through m eetings and facility tours. They are also given the opportunity to experience a cul ture from the other side o f the globe through num erous excur sions to fun and famous places. Perhaps the most im portant as pect o f these exchanges are the international friendships that are formed. Many of the participants maintain contact with their new friends long after the trip is over.
One product of the previ ous two years’ exchanges was the coordination of an international conferencc, Youth and the Plutonium Challenge, held in Obninsk, Russia in July of 1998. The primary organizers of this conference met through this exchange program , d is cu ssed ideas that they thought were important to young nuclear engineers, and organized an interna tional forum with well over 100 attendees from nine countries. Rearden believes the atmosphere of these ex changes is fast and furious and will motivate the partici pants to be more active in their field. C O U R TESY O F W PI NEWS S ER V IC E The dales of this years’ exchange program for U.S. John Koser, the WPI student selected for the Nuclear Exchange Program with Russia. participants are: Sept. 20 Tour of Moscow In the Russian Federation Sept. 2 1 Depart for U.S. Sept. 9 Depart U.S. for Russia In the United States Sept. 10 Arrive Moscow, travel Nov. 14 Travel to Washing by bus to Obninsk Sept. 11-12 M eeting of the ton, D.C. Nov. 15-19 Winter meeting of Youth Department o f the Russian the American Nuclear Society Nuclear Society Nov. 20 Tour of Washington Sept. 13 Travel to Ulianovsk Sept. 14-19 Annual Meeting of Area Nov. 21 Depart Washington the Nuclear Society of Russia
Home-run-athon
r %-2
Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa battle to be the first to break the home-run record in the Baseball Hall o f Fame. Who will win?
The suspicious person of the week... Turn the paper over and find out. Pa-12
5
/'AW'Aie s?1
Homesickness intensifies freshman blues by Arlene Birt Iowa State Daily (U-WIRE) AMES. Iowa — If home is where the heart is, many students are far from it. As newcomers to college life and independence, many fresh men face Ihe strain of living and studying away from the familiari ties of home. Stress caused by classes, com bined with hom esickness and loneliness, can lead many firstyear students to depression, with drawal and sickness. This danger is especially high for freshman who have, in the past, spent little lime away from family, friends and “home sweet home.” “Hom esickness is a common pari of a student’s adjustment," said Dr. Nancy Corbin, assisianl director for clinical services at S tu d en t C o u n selin g C enter. “Most new students feel excited, yet really they miss the things
they have left behind.'’ Some ISU freshmen expressed feeling lonely because the ab sence of their high school friends. “I’ve got the ‘lonelies’ because 1 don’t have my good friends to turn to," said freshman Shannon Schwab from Evansdale. "But as I adjust, it’ll get better.” Missing familiar faces is not the only cause of hom esickness. It also can be brought on by the change of schedule and the new environments students confront, as well as the lack of parental guid ance, Corbin said. “Sometimes, just the newness of the experience can take stu dents back a bit.” she said. But for some, ihe first weeks of college have been more enjoyable than depressing. “I’m not homesick now, just sick for the people at hom e,” Schwab said. "1 think many other fresh men are Ihomesick] now; they just haven’t realized it yet.”
Student Health C enter physi cian Mark Blaedel agrees that freshm en are not affected by hom esickness uniil later in the semester. “The students will be okay for the first two to three weeks be cause si) much is going on, they don't notice their homesickness, but as soon as they [settle in] we really start seeing it." he said. Blaedel said the Student Health Center employees tend to see an increase in the num ber of sick freshmen about a month into the first semester. "Feeling depressed or anxious contributes to sickness," Blaedel said. " S tre ss in m easured amounts is healthy, but when a student is diverting too much en ergy to w orrying about home, there may not be enough spent about [the student’s) well-being." "It’s a mental thing," said Colin Kurth. freshman in pre-advertis ing from A n c h o rag e. A laska.
Secret society no longer secret by Lisa Lebduska Writing Center Director T h e y ’ve been gathering in Salisbury Labs for years now. an eclectic group of undergraduates and faculty speaking in hushed tones about a variety of subjects. On some day the discussions range from biological fuel cells to the triaxial loading ofcemcnttious materials, on other days their con versations revolve around llood plain housing or Aaron Burr. This secret society is unified by a common goal: the desire to com municate as effectively as pos sible. Driven by that goal, these individuals come to the Writing Center (now on the second floor of the Project Center) to consult about their writing and/or their oral presentations.
What happens when someone comes to the Writing Center with a paper? He or she meets with a consultant who reads the paper aloud and asks questions about the piece’s organization, develop ment, coherence or grammar. The ideal tutorial is a dialogue, an ex change between a reader and a writer. Undergraduates usually work with our trained undergradu ate tutors (students who have successfully completed EN3003, an ISP in tutoring writing); gradu ates may now work with a trained graduate tutor, and faculty meet w'ith me. What do people bring to the Center? We consult on class as signm ents. projects (S ufficien cies, IQP’s, MQP’s), application essays - any kind of writing. We can also help students prepare
and rehearse speeches for any kind of oral presentations. How do they do it? Some people make an appointment in ad v an ce via ou r web site www .wpi.edu/+writing; others send email to writing@ wpi.edu; others phone us at 83 1-6070, and still others simply come to the second floor of the Project Cen ter. When can people get help? During the regular WPI terms, the C enter is open on MTRF from 10:00-12:00; 12:30-4:30 (ex cept on Fridays when we close at 3:30); and on W ednesday from 12:30-4:30. Now that you know who. what, and where we are (the Project Center!), w e’d like you to realize that our secret society is no longer a secret.
Pg. 6 “ People m ake them selves sick because they dwell on it." Blaedel warns new students to be aware of smoking, alcohol anil sexual habits, as well as watching out for general health. “The hom esickness is going to pass, but some things aren ’t,” he said. “T hese p attern s start during the freshm an years, and a lot of tim es, these are freedom is su e s .” Blaedel said students can com bat d ep ressio n by m o n itoring their health and exercise patterns. Paying close attention to eating, sleeping and exercise habits can reduce susceptibility to illness, he said. “Most kids w ho drop out do so during their first three semesters," Blaedel said. "It s not because they can't do the work, most of the time there is an emotional [in terference). Retention problems are a pattern that is set up within the freshman year." O f the 3,599 freshman of “96, 17.2 percent dropped out during or after their first year, according to the Office of Institutional Re search Fact Book. On average, over the past 10 years, 9.S percent o f freshman have dropped out during or after their first year, compared to only 3.7 percent o f sophomore drop outs. Financial difficulties and trans ferring also may contribute to the num ber of dropouts during the first year o f college, said Steve Sullivan, director o f News Ser vice. Student C ounseling Services, located on third floor of the Stu dent S ervices B uilding, offers stress reduction workshops, indi vidual counseling and support groups free o f charge for ISU stu dents. “I think the first thing is to help them understand that this is nor mal,” Corbin said. “This is a very big transition in their life."
The Silver Maple
Go sit under a tree.
Need something to do with your spare time? Check out W hat 's Happen ing and have a ball, page 12 Want to go to a movie, but don't know what to see? Cheek out the Movie Guide page 6 Check out the Dilbert Chaos and Off the M ark, page 11 l^ooking for a job or a computer? Check out the Classifieds page 11 Ever wonder what disas trous things may happen when the new building projects start? See Predictions page 10.
■ .*> . / <
Sports................................... 2,4 Arts<ic Entertainment........... 6 - 7 West Street House....................6 International House...............6 letters to the Editor................ 6 Club Corner........................... X Commentary......................... JO Announcements................... II ( lassifieds............................ 11 C'omics.................................. / / Crossword Companion.......... / / Police iMg............................ 12 What's Happening................ 12
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Home-run chase revives baseball by Mike Penner Los Angeles Times B aseball’s back, the die-hards and the true believers exult as the home runs ex plode overhead to the delight of the fren zied masses below, but all of them are only half right. Baseballs are back, back, back ... and halfway up the tarpaulin draped over the upper-deck bleachers in center field. Or bouncing o ff the giant cola bottle far be yond the left-field wall. They are shoot ing over fences and out of parks faster and fa rth e r than e v e r b e fo re , and America sits at home transfixed, pining for its latest long-ball bulletin the same way it waits for a hoagie at the corner delicatessen. Sosa! Fifty-seven! McGwire! Fifty-nine! McGwire! Again! Sixty! Sosa! Fifty-eight! Take a number, please. The wait for the next one shouldn’t be long. And in the m eantim e, here’s the slow-m otion re verse angle on that last launch by Mark McGwire and here’s what Sammy Sosa has to say about it and here’s what the
going price for that souvenir baseball is and here’s a documentary retrospective on the life and times o f Hack Wilson, fol lowed by interviews with the men who hit behind M cGw ire and Sosa in the lineup, the men who m ight pitch to McGwire and Sosa with No. 62 on the line, and the men who might make the historic broadcast call when McGwire and/or Sosa reaches climactic No. 62, which should be any minute now. Meet the new national pastime. Not the same as the old national pastime, not the way your father and your grandfather re member it. In 1958, the country’s obsession was with the game of baseball. In 1998, the country’s obsession is with the game of baseball, only leaner and cleaner, stripped of all needless out dated bygone clutter. Such as pitching, fielding, base steal ing, bunting, singles hitting and mana gerial strategy. Hooked on Home Run Derby. That is our passion late in the summer o f ‘98. Gopher fever. Just put the ball over the plate and let’s see how far we can send it. Give it a ride. Go deep. Go yard. Go
after Roger Maris and pound that record into submission beyond recognition. “Wherever I go,” Dodger broadcaster Vin Scully says, “that’s all people are talk ing about now.” That’s a substantial improvement for a sport usually in retreat mode this time of year, shunted to the side to make room for a new NFL season. It has been that way in particular since the 1994 strike, which not only vaporized a World Series but also the once-unbreakable bond mil lions of Americans had with baseball. So it is so m eth in g to see and hear_prime-time television programs in terrupting for home-run updates, radio talk shows cutting away for live play-byplay every time McGwire or Sosa step to the plate, office workers huddling around a TV upon hearing the periodic “Hey, everybody! M cGwire’s up!” Even if it is baseball consumed by the eye-dropper. A few seconds o f videotape here, a sound bite there, a 3 {-hour pro d u ctio n co n d en sed to th re e o r four swings from the heels and everyone-goback-to-what-you-were-doing-before. David Vincent, a home-run researcher for the Society of American Baseball Re search (SABR), calls it baseball “for the MTV generation with the five-second at tention span.” Philip Lucas, a professor of history at Cornell College in Iowa, describes it as “in stant gratification ... It appeals to the ca
Re
sual viewer and the kid who’s being taken to a game for the first time.” It is eye candy, easy to digest and un complicated. How many bodies that pass through the turnstiles on any given night can recite the infield fly rule or truly appre ciate a well-executed hit-and-run? But the home run is Baseball 101. Grab a bat and try to hit the ball as far as you can. The concept is as basic and as primal as this game fabled for its nuanced subtlety ever gets. “It’s the ultimate swat,” Vincent says. “People are going nuts right now over the concept of how far these guys are hitting the ball. It’s the same reason people buy cars that go fast. Or why people tend to like offense more than defense. “Most people would rather see a base ball game with 10 runs than one run. Why did that Yankee PR guy go out and try to measure Mickey Mantle’s home run? Be cause you’re thinking, ‘Man, did that one go a long way!’ That kind of brain process pops up everywhere.” No other act in American sport captivates and fascinates the way the home run does. The dunk in basketball? Too many of them every game. Dime a dozen. The long slap shot in hockey? Too hard to see if you're watching on TV. Even if you’re rink-side, blink at the wrong instant and all you get is a flashing red light. The bomb in football? Com parable, See Baseball, Continued to page 4
S
N ew speak Circulation Manager Vacant
News Editor____________ Justin D. Greenough
Web Development Justin D. Greenough
Features Editor__________ Alison Keach
Typist__________________ Mary Devlin
Sports Editor_____________ Eric Wilhelm
Writing Staff__________ Ken Gagni"
Advertising Manager Brandon Ngo
Stacey Leisenfelder Matthew Lug Joshua Millard Adam Ross
Advertising Assistant Prashanih Ram Business Manager Christopher Stank
Graphics Editor__________
Jessica Morgan Associate Editor Sarah Walkowiak Office Manager Vanessa Melanson Photography Editor Adam Young
Graphics Staff________ Justin Greenough Sally House Eric Wilhelm Photography Staff Jennifer Cooper Josh Millard Fredrick Tan Jess Weathers Natalie Chin Faculty Advisor John Trimbur
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Phone: (508) 831-5464 Fax: (508) 831 -5721 Email: newspeak@wpi.edu
Editor in Chief___________ Edward J. Cameron Jr.
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f&nlMS OfM ! Corrections... The Newspeak staff would like to apologize for and correct an error which appeared on the front page of last week’s issue. A paragraph in the article “Campus Update” should have read as follows: “A new Learning Center is being developed with a full-time person who will report to Ann Garvin of Academic Advising. The Learning Center will be located next to the new office of Academic Advising on the first floor of Salisbury Labs. Ann Garvin has moved her office to the room where the Writing Center used to be (Salisbury 1st floor) and the Writing Center’s new home is now in the Project Center on the second floor.” We apologize for any inconvenience this error may have caused. As always, Newspeak strives to provide accurate and informative news for its readers. It was brought to our attention that the award for the “Most Fun Web Page” infor mation was misprinted. The winner, group 15, has the Group Leader Sarah Snow, and the FC is Prof. Sharon Johnson (IE department).
W e d n e s d a y , S eptem ber 9, 1998
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P age 3
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W e d n e s d a y , S eptem ber 9, 1998
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Baseball: Who will be the first to break the home-run record? Continued from page2 though it lacks the sheer mano a mano machismo of a home run hitter squinting and digging in against a fastball pitcher. The knockout in boxing? T h at’s about as close as it gets, al though it is worth noting: W hen’s the last time McGwire bit off half of a bullpen closer’s ear? “Somehow in my mind, I equate the home run with the knockout punch,” Scully says. “And even in baseball when people are describing the home run, it’s always, ‘He ripped it, he belted it, he scorched it, he hammered it, he killed it.’ It’s a very, very aggressive part of the game.” Sparky Anderson, former manager of the Cincinnati Reds and Detroit Tigers, also uses boxing imagery when discuss ing Am erica’s affinity for the home run. “In the history of boxing, the greatest fig h ters have never been the h eav y weights,” Anderson says, “but who are the people fascinated by? The guy who lowers the bomb. They love to see the bomb, the big thing go off. “ G uys lik e Rod C arew and Tony Gwynn, such great hitters, they never got the attention that the guys who hit home runs do. Go back to Ralph Kiner and all of them. “ I really d o n’t understand it. It’s like the kid down in Texas, (Juan) Gonzalez. To me, he’s having an unbelievable year. But he’s only got 38 home runs or som e thing, so he’s ju st penny ante. “But it’s that way. Boxing’s that way. Football. There are the guys who com plete all these short passes. But the guy who throws them bombs, he’s The Guy. Always has been, always will be. “ I t’s alw ays been said, ‘You drive Cadillacs if you hit home runs. You drive Fords and Chevys if you hit singles.’ “ Not that there’s anything wrong with that, the home run sluggers o f today con tend. “Americans love power,” McGwire ex plained during one o f his now daily M cG w ire-side chats with the national sporting media. “Big cars. Big trucks. Big people. Baseball fans have always been draw n to th e hom e run and the guy throwing close to 100 miles per hour. T hat’s what they want to come and see. “I remember as a kid, I always wanted to go see M ik e S chm idt and D ave K ingm an, o r Nolan Ryan and Frank Tanana. It’s like going to see golfers. John Daly when he came in and was hitting over 300 (yards), then Tiger. Not every body can do that.” Tim Salmon o f the Anaheim Angels n o tes, q u ite ac cu ra te ly , that “ w hen y o u ’re grow ing up, you d o n ’t dream about getting a single to win a big game. You think about hitting the home run to win it. That’s the fascination. “It’s like in football, you want to be the quarterback throwing the winning touchdown pass. Or in basketball sink ing the shot at the buzzer. Home runs are something as a kid you identify with and dream about.” Forget whatever you may have been told in Kevin C ostner’s treacly “Field of Dreams.” The truth of the matter is that in baseball, in late 1990s America, if you hit it far, they will pay attention. “T h ere’s a sense of, ‘Wow, look at that!,’ “ says Robert Creamer, author of the 1974 Babe Ruth biography, “Babe: The Legend Comes To Life.” “It’s also vicarious, the idea that when someone does one thing well, other human beings feel it. “ During Joe DiM aggio’s hitting streak in 1941, everyone loved DiMaggio. It was just the most exciting thing, to have this guy doing this day after day. W hy? I think it was a human being saying, ‘Yeah, one o f our guys did that.’ There’s just a vicarious satisfaction that comes from another human being doing something so well.” W hich leads directly to the suddenly sold-out audiences at Busch Stadium , who aren’t there to see if the Cardinals can climb to within 19{ games o f the
first-place Houston Astros. “The home run has an audience-participation aspect to it,” says Donald Honig, a baseball historian and author. “The ball’s hit and you come to your feet. You’re a part o f it. You watch the out fielder go back. For a few seconds, you all share in it. “It’s like the 50-yard pass in football. You watch it go out there and everything depends on it. Unlike a snappy play in the infield, which happens so fast you need to watch the replay to fully appre ciate it.” Those few seconds of suspense while the ball is in the air, exhilarating or excru ciating, depending on one’s particular rooting interest, provide a rush that no other elem ent in baseball can consis tently deliver. “There’s a certain amount of majesty to it,” Scully says. “The flight of the ball, it stays in the air so much longer than any other ball that’s hit. ... I think it just mesmerizes people.” A dissenting opinion is offered up by Angel pitcher Chuck Finley on behalf of every sorry soul who ever stood alone on the mound and watched his finely crafted handiwork get pummeled from here to the upper deck. Finley’s theory on America’s obsession with the home run? The same reason people go to stock car
races,” he says. ‘They want to see wrecks.” It wasn’t always this way. Before Babe Ruth, the home run was regarded as a freak, an accident, a needless luxury that threat ened to corrupt the game and sully its cricket-like principles of making contact and putting the ball in play. The presiding philosophy of the day was best articulated by outfielder Wee Willie Keeler, who ended his career in 1910 with 2,962 total hits, 2,536 of them singles: “I hit ‘em where they ain’t.” The long-ball legend of the era, Frank “Home Run” Baker, finished his career with 96 home runs, fewer than McGwire has hit since opening day 1997, and a single-sea son high of 12. Then in 1919, Ruth hit 29 home runs and followed it the next season with 54. Fans reared on the sacrifice bunt and the Balti more Chop could scarcely comprehend the numbers; this was the stuff of Jules Verne, H.G. Wells and Ripley. Purists and pundits were appalled. “If you read Ring Lardner closely, you get the impression he was sour on this kind of baseball,” Creamer says. “It wasn’t the kind of baseball he was used to. He felt (the home run) cheapened it.” Ty Cobb, poster buy for the fading hitbehind-the-runner era, was bitterly resent ful over how Ruth crassly barged his way onto baseball’s center stage. “Early in Ruth’s career, Cobb said some
nasty things about Ruth,” Vincent notes. “He’d say, ‘Ruth’s not playing real base ball because he’s putting the ball into the stands.’” Eventually, Cobb and his ilk would be swept away by the tide of public opinion. Ruth’s larger-than-life home-run exploits captured the mood, as Lucas puts it, of “a society on the move and changing rapidly and sort of self-indulgent.” “Ruth sort of epitomized the social revo lution of the 1920s,” Creamer says. “He cer tainly wasn’t the only one doing these great things then. You had Jack Dempsey, Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen in golf, Bill Tilden in tennis, Red Grange. “T here was ju st this succession o f people doing things that hadn’t been done before. What Ruth did was do more and do it bigger and do it louder and more dra matically than anybody else. So he really set the tone.” Big soon became synonymous with bet ter, eventually reaching a point where the once-storied singles-hitting specialist is about to go the way of the flannel uniform and the day-night doubleheader. “How many Rod Carew and Wade Boggs types do you see any more, players who are content to make contact and spray the ball around?” Honig asks. “I think the av erage player today would rather hit .250 with 28 home runs than .300 with 11 home runs.”
Infinite opportunities. Dynamic careers.
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Tricia Chee
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began building her
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future in 1995 within GE's Technical Leadership Program. Today, she's an Account Manager at GE Power Systems.
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Come visit GE at the WPI Career Fair Sept. 16
GE Panel Discussion: “Career Opportunities in Engineering: GE and Beyond ” Sept. 17 Please confirm dales and times with your Career Placement Office for any last minute changes.
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W e st Street H o u se
Under the Old Silver Maple by Tom Balistrieri Student Development and Counseling Center A WPI student, a very sad stu dent, sits under the Old Silver Maple. You know the tree I mean, the one by the picnic table behind Harrington. The student, the Sad One, sits there on the grass in the bluish dark of night leaning against the tree, tears streaming down al ready salt-streaked cheeks. The Sad One’s head is filled with thoughts and concerns. What am I doing at a tough school like this? I’m not smart enough to be here. And I miss my mom and
dad. In the belief of many Native tra ditions, the Old Silver Maple is very cognizant of the student. It gazes at the Sad One with compas sion, offers a caring touch and lis tens intently. It is what the Sad One needs most-someone, some thing that will listen and genuinely care. In the belief of many Native tra ditions, the Old Silver Maple can even offer guidance to the Sad One. Seems ridiculous, I know. But Na tive elders say it is where their wis dom was born. Being a wise elder, the Old Silver Maple would encourage the Sad
One to consider some things. The Old Silver Maple would plant, so to speak, ideas-things, ideas, that all of us need to consider if we are to find health and happiness. The things to consider are: 1. Who are you? Answer in terms of your values, skills, experi ences, goals, desires, what you stand for and what your legacy is so far. 2. Where did you come from? Answer in terms of your family background, your race, your reli gion, your gender, your beliefs, your culture, and your experiences. 3. Why are you here? More spe cifically, why are you here at WPI?
What do you want to accomplish? What do you want your legacy to be? Why are you on this earth? How will you bring meaning to your life? 4. Do you really w ant to be healthy, happy and successful? Don’t be too quick to answer! Think this through. Discern what it is you believe and how you behave that hurts you and helps you. These arc important questions, things, that we all need to consider and regularly reconsider. The an swers to the questions .help us to determine a path and help us to re main on the path. The answers help us to live in balance as we become
wise adults. So the Sad One sits alone un der the Old Silver Maple? Does the tree really feel the presence and mood o f the student? Is the Sad One really alone? That’s for you to decide. But no m atter what your decision or belief.take the time to consider your life. Take the opportunity to talk with friends, family, your advisor, a counselor about yourself and your life. This is a time when you will feel many things very in tensely. You will have many questions. Seek the answers. Take the time to ponder your life. Go sit under a tree.
International House every Wednesday from 5 to 10 PM. Tutors are available to help students in almost all of the freshman courses. All students who need extra help should arrive early on September 9th to ensure that they get a tutor! The Mentoring Program, also conceived last year, is more organized and immediate this year. All in-coming students, freshman or transfer, are assigned a mentor to rely on for social, cultural and academic help. Great effort has been made to
put similarly classified students with a mentor who has similar experiences at WPI. For instance, Rabih, a transfer student from Lebanon, guides the transfer students. An entirely new initiative, the Language Cafe, seeks native speakers (and outstanding students) of Spanish and German to meet students enrolled in these courses for language practice. All interested persons should contact the ISC leadership to express your desire to participate. The ISC is planning Coffee Hours
and a membership drive for the near future. All WPI students, faculty and staff are encouraged to join the ISC. The fee is $2; with the membership card, discounts at many of the establishments around WPI are offered on goods and services. To join, sec Janice at International House. Regular ISC meetings are held at International House at 4:30 PM. Welcome one and all. Wow! Things are happening at the ISC!
current position or circumstance is. Only choosing one opponent o f many to attack in a royal rumble is difficult. Whether you pin or are pinned, there are many reasons to get back in the ring. With at least eleven modes o f play and seventeen wres tlers, it doesn’t get old quickly. A solitaire game can be boring, but m ultiplayer w restling rocks the house! If the default wrestlers don’t suit your fancy, make your own! Cus tom characters can be created from an incredible variety of body types, apparel, tattoos, and more. Gener ate a random personality or custom ize your own. These characters can be strengthened through victory.
and progress can be saved to a controller pack. Additional op tions for custom characters also reveal themselves as the game continues. Parents, use prudence. Since the graphics are realistic, so is the violence. Add a variety of color ful comments from wrestlers and fans alike, and you have an au thentic, mature wrestling game. This game has a ‘Teen” rating for gamers at least 13 years old, due to animated violence, mild lan guage, and suggestive themes. Move over, Bomberman: WWF Warzone may be one of the best party games of all time, and one of the best wrestling titles there is. Are you ready to rumble?
more creative! Then again I am a hypo crite and like songs that are just weird in their lyrics and make no more sense than this song, but at least sound good...this song doesn’t sound good because their lyrics didn’t match the music. Another song that really annoys me is the last track, “Sexual Sandwich” . The title may sound intriguing, but please save your money. The vocal in this tries, but some how kills the
song. It’s a Barry White rip off, but the voice sounds like the youngest Hanson hitting puberty. While listening to one song on this CD, a roommate o f mine (Megan) comments “They have a sim ilar style to Toad the Wet Sprocket, however they lack the inherent catchiness and striking lyrics of 11 WS.” However I think my other roommate, Alicia, put it the best “It really sucks”.
In t e r n a t io n a l H o u s e
International House Update by Billy D. McGowan Director, WPI International House The International Student Council (ISC) has gotten off to a spectacular start this year! The PreOrientation program on August 20th and 21st set in motion a dynamic calendar of events, destined to make this year one of the most exciting in the history of the ISC. The Chair (Rabih El-Khoury), Co-Chair (Ali Durlov Khan) and
Secretary (Sharad Bhojnagarwala) of the ISC have been busily rushing about making sure that all procedures and arrangements arc in place for the begining of the new academic year. In a recent conversation with Sharad, it was clear that the leadership of the ISC is both capitalizing on some of last y ea r’s experiments and starting some new initiatives of its own. The Tutoring Program, begun last year, will be expanded this year. Tutors will be available at the
A r t s & En t e r t a in m e n t
Game Review: WWF Warzone by Ken Gagne Newspeak Staff Title: WWF Warzone P latform : Nintendo 64 & Sony PlayStation Publisher: Acclaim Rating: 9.3 (with thanks to Prof. William W. Farr for use of his initials) Those guys on the grid iron have nothing on the men in the ring. When it comes to sheer brutality, no sport is like wres tling. The action isn ’t always faked, as players will painfully learn in Acclaim’s WWF Warzone fo r N in te n d o 64 and Sony PlayStation. This review is based on the N64 version.
From the Undertaker to Bret Hart to “Stone C old” Steve Austin, the best and worst of the WWF are present to deliver a powerful package. Up to four players can sim ultaneously com pete in tag team, cage, Royal Rumble, and many other matches. Using a high-resolution graph ics mode, W arzone accurately portrays wrestling action. Over 300 motion-captured maneuvers, from the basic wham-bam-body slam to signature moves, will have players screaming in delight or agony. The basic camera angle doesn’t change, but when a spe cial move or hold is executed, will zoom or rotate for the best, most painful angle.
In the ring, there is no back ground music. Opening and clos ing theme songs and the like are sim plistic. But the variety of speech in the game is a selling point. Vince McMahon and Jim Ross give a play-by-play com mentary; the fans cheer, catcall, and offer remarks; the wrestlers taunt. The choice of words is right for a wrestling crowd and fun to hear. The button assignments don’t make much sense, but are quickly m em orized out o f necessity . Moves are performed in a near Street Fighter-like combinations of directions and button presses. An in-gam e list o f m oves is readily available for whatever the
CD Review: The Flys - Holiday Man by Natalie Chin Newspeak Staff A little background info on The Flys: They are comprised of five members, two, whom are brothers of a family of eight boys and a girl. Adam and Josh Paskowitz, are vox and vox/rhymes respectively; Peter Perdichizzi plays guitar; James Bcx>k is on Bass; and Nick Lucero plays the drums. The band members live
an active life on and offstage. Adam is a surfer who is very dedicated in his search of great waves. Peter is into mountain biking and Nick graces the cover of their album by sky div ing, which is only one of the extreme sports that he participates in. If you have listened to the Dis turbing Behavior soundtrack then you have certainly heard The Flys single “Got You (Where I Want You)”. The voice and sound is very
mellow and can put you into a nice tranquil trance, but as it starts near the end of the track, the hard-hitting sound of the lead vocals suddenly puts you in a chaotic mood, which sounds g(xxi. That is about the only good song on this CD. “She’s So Huge”, the first track on their CD. the lyrics to it are pre posterous. It just has a sense of like ‘y eah ...I like you...you are huge...yeah’. I mean come on, be
Movie guide: Capsule reviews of current releases Courtesy o f Los Angeles Times Opinions are by Los Angeles Times reviewers. Ratings by the M otion Picture Association of America are: (G) for general audi ences; (PG) parental guidance urged because of material possi bly unsuitable for children; (PG-13) parents are strongly cautioned to
give guidance for attendance of children younger than 13; (R) re stricted, younger than 17 admitted only with parent or adult guardian; (NC-17) no one younger than 17 admitted. A ir Bud: Golden Receiver Much more retread than sequel to last summer’s charmer, “Air Bud.” The result, which has the golden retriever Air Bud scoring on the
football field rather than the bas ketball court, is stale and disap pointing, with its relationships poorly developed. With Kevin Zegers, Gregory Harrison and Cynthia Stevenson. (G.) Armageddon - Big and clumsy the way only $ 140-million projects manage to be, “Armageddon” is finally undone by its grandiosity as much as by anything else. Spo
L e tte r s t o th e E d it o r
Parking at WPI To the Editor: Parking space remains in very short supply at WPI. I’d like to use this venue to request that
everyone parks in as consider ate a m anner as possible. Park between the lines in the park ing lots. Park close to other
cars when parking on the street. We’ll all benefit. - Dave Brown, CS Dept.
radically watchable, it’s at its best at those infrequent moments when it doesn't take itself too seriously. But the film’s general tendency to over play its strengths and emphasize its
weaknesses is a tough obstacle to overcome. Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, Liv Tyler and-Ben Affleck star. (PG-13, for sci-fi diSee Movies, Cont. to pg 7
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Movies: What do you want to see? Continued from page 6 saster action, sensuality and brief language.) The Avengers - Ralph Fiennes is “top professional” John Steed and Uma Thurman is “talented amateur” Emma Peel, teaming up to stop a mad meteorologist (Sean Connery) from freezing London to death. Almost as droll and defi nitely as dotty as the original TV series _ though not as well-as sembled. (PG-13 for brief strong language.) Blade - Wesley Snipes is half man, half-vampire and all-pro-lethal weapon in this sultry, silly story pitting the Marvel Comics hero against a megalomaniacal blood sucker (Stephen Dorff) who, of course, wants to Rule the World. If you dig state-of-the-art martial arts, this might be for you. With Kris Kristofferson and N’Bushe W right. D irected by Stephen Norrington. (R for strong, perva sive vampire violence and gore, language and brief sexuality.) Carla’s Song - Esteemed Brit ish filmmaker Ken Loach attempts to repeat the success of his “Land and Freedom” with a story of a G lasgow bus d riv er (R obert Carlyle) who falls in love with a beautiful Nicaraguan expatriate (Oyanka Cabezas) and returns with her to her war-torn homeland. But a co n triv ed and attenuated Glasgow prologue undercuts the impact of all that occurs in Nicara gua. With Scott Glenn. (Unrated: wartime violence, adult themes.) Dance With Me - Somewhere between the inspiration of Baz Luhrmann’s “Strictly Ballroom” and the execution of this clichehugging melodrama about a Cu ban immigrant who teaches a pro fessional dancer how to listen to the music, the magic was lost. With Vanessa L. Williams, Chayanne,
and Kris Kristofferson. Directed by Randa Haines. (PG for mild lan guage and sensuality.) Dead Man on Campus - This dreadful loser turns upon the dubi ous comic premise that finds a pair of college roommates (Tom Everett, Mark-Paul Gosselaar) sure to flunk out unless they can find a third roommate sufficiently suicidal that they can push him over the edge and invoke their college’s obscure regulation that if a student kills him self, his roommates automatically get straight A’s for the semester. Every bit as labored as it sounds. (R for drug use, language and crude sexual humor.) Dr. Dolittle - Animals move their lips a lot in this witless mod ernization of the well-known sto ries, but they have nothing of in terest to say. And neither does any one else, including a largely wasted Eddie Murphy. Directed by Betty Thomas. (PG-13 for crude humor and language.) Ever After - Though Anjelica Huston steals the show as a wicked stepmother, Drew Barrymore is per fectly cast as a p o st-fe m in ist Cinderella who very much takes things into herown hands. Still, this modern fairy tale ends up too in sistently endearing and pleased with itself. (PG-13 for momentary strong language.) Everest - Led by co-director David Breashears, the Imax crew’s breathtaking footage leaves view ers gasping for air along with a trio of elite climbers as they inch toward the top of the world _ until a killer storm blows in. Narrated by Liam Neeson. (Unrated. Some scenes are too intense for very young chil dren.) 54 - The glamour and deca dence of the fabled disco Studio 54 are seen through the eyes of bar tender Ryan Phillippe. Mike Meyers
plays club owner Steve Rubell. (R for strong sexuality, sex-related dia logue and some language.) Halloween: H20 - This lastest installment is as stylish and scary as it is ultra-violent. Jamie Lee C u rtis is terrific as a wom an haunted by her memory of de mented slasher Michael Myers. The film is a work of superior crafts manship, but you better be braced for its gore. With Adam Arkin, Josh Hartnett. (R for terror violence/ gore and for language.) How Stella Got Her Groove Back - A glossy, good-humored romantic fantasy taken from the b estsellin g novel by Terry McMillan. “Stella” may be frothy and paper-thin, but it’s another great success for star A ngela Bassett, who has the skill and force of personality to make this frivo lous concoction as close to real as it’s going to get. Taye D iggs, Regina King and Whoopi Goldberg co-star. (R for language and some sexuality.) I Married a Strange Person Animator Bill Plympton’s inge nious but less-than-riving featurelength cartoon tells what happens to a bridegroom who happens to be watching TV when some lovemaking ducks crash into it. The re sulting fantasy has some adultsonly sequences. (Unrated) Lethal Weapon 4 - A tired, fourth generation copy that counts on the popularity of Mel Gibson and Danny Glover to counteract its tendency to make a fetish out of familiarity. The usual faces do one more time what they’ve done re peatedly in the past. (R for violence and language.) The Mask of Zorro - Stars An thony Hopkins, Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones have re vived one of the most venerable of sw ashbuckling fran ch ises. A
lively, old-fashioned adventure yam with just a twist o f modem attitude. (PG-13 for some intense action and violence.) The Negotiator - It’s a measure of how energetic a visual style di rector F. Gary Gray has, and how vividly Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey register on screen as a two police hostage negotia tors on opposite sides of a siege, that this film is intensely watchable from minute to minute though a lot of what’s happening doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. (R for violence and language.) The P arent T rap - The 1961 Disney classic about identical twins plotting to reunite their di vorced parents has been delight fully updated to an irresistible fam ily entertainment. Dennis Quaid and Natasha Richardson shine as the parents, and Lindsay Lohan is irreplacable as both of the twins. (PG for some mild mischief.) Return to Paradise - Can pas sionate attorney Anne Heche con vince amoral New Yorker Vince Vaughn to spend years in a Ma laysian prison to save the life of one-tim e pal Joaquin Phoenix? Briskly directed by Joseph Ruben, but finally too melodramatic and implausible to be taken as seri ously as it would like. (R, for lan guage and drug content, some sexuality and a scene of violence.) Saving Private Ryan - A pow erful and impressive milestone in the realistic depiction o f combat that stars an indelible Tom Hanks as a World War II officer assigned to find a soldier in newly invaded F rance and bring him hom e. Though this Steven Spielberg-di rected effort is hampered by a con ventional, at times overly senti mental script, it gets as close to the unimaginable horror and chaos of battle as fiction film ever has. Ed
which point WPI moved into sec ond place. At the 1000 meter mark, WPI did a power 20 and drew even withNYAC. By the end of the race, WPI was in first by two lengths. Earlier in the season, four boats w ere sent to the International Rowing Championships, two of which brought back bronze med als. The freshmen four worked
hardest for their medal, losing to a stro n g Princeton U niversity crew in the qualifying heat. The WPI freshmen worked their way through the rep__echage to the final, where they placed third. Princeton took the gold and Co lumbia just barely got the silver. In the WPI boat were Paul Doe, Dave Baker, Bob Coughlin, Bob Daley
ward Burns, Matt Damon, Tom Sizemore and Giovanni Ribisi also star. (R for intense, prolonged, re alistic sequences of war violence, and for language.) Snake Eyes - A trashy, cartoonish entertainm ent about corruption, assasination and farflung co n sp iracies that exists purely as a vehicle for director Brian De Palma to show off the kind o f wizardly camerawork that is his passion. Even star Nicolas Cage can’t make up for a dramatic side that is coarse and undernourished. (R for some violence.) T here’s Something About Mary - Crude, raunchy, way over the line, with jokes that are not within hailing distance o f good taste, this romantic follow-up to the F arrelly b ro th ers’ “ Dumb and Dumber” takes maximum advan tage of the irresistible wholesome ness of Cameron Diaz as the girl everyone falls in love with. Also starring Matt Dillon and Ben Stiller. (R for strong comic sexual content and language.) Why Do Fools Fall in Love? R&B singer Frankie Lymon’s tragic life is illuminated through the story of three women (Halle Berry, Vivica A. Fox and Lela Rochon) who claim to be his legal widow. (R for lan guage and some sexuality.) Wrongfully Accused - This farfrom-inspired sendup finds the nearly 20-year-old “Airplane!” for mula spoof of big popular pictures gone stale and mechanical, espe cially in this summer of ‘T h ere’s Something About Mary.” A vague takeoff on “The Fugitive” with nods to a clutch of other pictures, it stars Leslie Nielsen and Richard Crenna (who is amusing) in the Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones parts, respectively. (PG-13 for sex-related hum or and lan guage.)
Crew Wins the Nationals by Barry Aronson Newspeak Staff, 1978 The good fortune the WPI crew enjoyed last spring stayed with them throughout the sum m er, which reached a climax when the four man crew with coxswain won the national championship. The boat seating went as follows: Paul
Doe, Dave Baker, Bob Caughlin Bob Daley, Gary P ietry k , and Debbie Eyegen in the coxswain’s seat. A straight pair was also raced, placing fourth in the petite finals. The race started with the New York Athletic Club coming off the line strong and taking a command ing lead. Viking had WPI by a half a length until the 750 meter mark, at
and Gary Pietryk in the coxwain’s seat. The other bronze was taken by the pair with the coxwain. Bob Yule and Scott Boothe row ed and Herby coaxed. The straight four rowed a disappointing sixth (last boat in the final ) and the straight pair placed fourth in the petite fi nals.
Boynton Hall: Returning home Newspeak Staff September 12, 1978
Printed below are articles found deep within the dusty Newspeak Archives. The date: Twenty years ago, September 12, 1978. We hope you enjoy these flashbacks from long ago. I f you*d like to request printing o f a specific issue, date, or event, please email newspeak@wpi.edu and if we*ll see if we can dig it up!
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After being empty for several years and a major facelift and in terior renovation, Boynton Hal is once again “one-hundred percent o cc u p ie d ,” according to WPI P la n t E n g in ee r A n th o n y Ruksnaitis. The building, W PI’s first, was built in 1865 to house c la s s ro o m s , la b o ra to rie s , a chapel, and then limited adminis trative offices. Since that time, the building has gradually be come the administrative center o f the campus. Boynton Hall was emptied about two and one half years ago when test revealed dangerous overloading o f sup port m em bers, caused by the heavy records stored in the vari ous offices. According to Mr. R uksnaitis, the reoccupation began in mid July and ended in tim e for the arrival of the Freshm en. The offices in the building are for the m ost part open. The offices them selves are not num bered, m aking it a bit difficult to find
any given one. L isted below are the offices and a key to the floor plans printed to the right. A - Photocopy room, B - Mike Kyritsis, C Mailing Room, D Word Processing, E - Storage, F - Mailing and Duplicating, G Print Shop and Bindery. 1 - Presi dent Cranch, 2 - President’s Sec retary and Receptionist, 3 - Dean Van A lstyne, 4&5 - R egistrar Robert Long, 6,7&8 - Office of Continuing Education, 9 - Admissions-financial Aid, 10-O fficeo f A cadem ic A ffa irs, 11- Dean Grogan, 12 - Dean Bolz, 13 - Dean Kranich, 1 4 - Dean Clarke, 1 5 Secretary o f the Faculty, 16 Accounting, 17 - Personnel, 1 8 Vice President Lloyd, 19 - Con troller and Head o f A ccounting Barrett, 20 - O ffice o f Graduate and C areer Plans, 21 - U niver sity Relations O ffice (Including Public Relations, News Bureau, Publications and A lum ni O f fices). Editor’s Note: Floor Plans ap pearing in the 1978 Issue were not re-printed due to space restric tions.
P age 7
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A r t s & En t e r t a in m e n t
Movies: What do you want to see? Continued from page 6 saster action, sensuality and brief language.) The Avengers - Ralph Fiennes is “top professional” John Steed and Uma Thurman is “talented amateur” Emma Peel, teaming up to stop a mad meteorologist (Sean Connery) from freezing London to death. Almost as droll and defi nitely as dotty as the original TV series _ though not as well-assembled. (PG-13 for brief strong language.) Blade - Wesley Snipes is half man, half-vampire and all-pro-lethal weapon in this sultry, silly story pitting the Marvel Comics hero against a megalomaniacal blood sucker (Stephen Dorff) who, of course, wants to Rule the World. If you dig state-of-the-art martial arts, this might be for you. With Kris Kristofferson and N’Bushe W right. D irected by Stephen Norrington. (R for strong, perva sive vampire violence and gore, language and brief sexuality.) Carla’s Song - Esteemed Brit ish filmmaker Ken Loach attempts to repeat the success of his “Land and Freedom” with a story of a G lasgow bus d riv er (R obert Carlyle) who falls in love with a beautiful Nicaraguan expatriate (Oyanka Cabezas) and returns with her to her war-torn homeland. But a co n triv ed and attenuated Glasgow prologue undercuts the impact of all that occurs in Nicara gua. With Scott Glenn. (Unrated: wartime violence, adult themes.) Dance With Me - Somewhere between the inspiration of Baz Luhrmann’s “Strictly Ballroom” and the execution of this clichehugging melodrama about a Cu ban immigrant who teaches a pro fessional dancer how to listen to the music, the magic was lost. With Vanessa L. Williams, Chayanne,
and Kris Kristofferson. Directed by Randa Haines. (PG for mild lan guage and sensuality.) Dead Man on Campus - This dreadful loser turns upon the dubi ous comic premise that finds a pair of college roommates (Tom Everett, Mark-Paul Gosselaar) sure to Hunk out unless they can find a third roommate sufficiently suicidal that they can push him over the edge and invoke their college’s obscure regulation that if a student kills him self, his roommates automatically get straight A’s for the semester. Every bit as labored as it sounds. (R for drug use, language and crude sexual humor.) Dr. Dolittle - Animals move their lips a lot in this witless mod ernization of the well-known sto ries, but they have nothing of in terest to say. And neither does any one else, including a largely wasted Eddie Murphy. Directed by Betty Thomas. (PG-13 for crude humor and language.) Ever After - Though Anjelica Huston steals the show as a wicked stepmother, Drew Barrymore is per fectly cast as a p o st-fem in ist Cinderella who very much takes things into her own hands. Still, this modern fairy talc ends up too in sistently endearing and pleased with itself. (PG-13 for momentary strong language.) Everest - Led by co-director David Breashears, the Imax crew’s breathtaking footage leaves view ers gasping for air along with a trio of elite climbers as they inch toward the top of the world _ until a killer storm blows in. Narrated by Liam Neeson. (Unrated. Some scenes are too intense for very young chil dren.) 54 - The glamour and deca dence of the fabled disco Studio 54 are seen through the eyes of bar tender Ryan Phillippe. Mike Meyers
plays club owner Steve Rubell. (R for strong sexuality, sex-related dia logue and some language.) Halloween: H20 - This lastest installment is as stylish and scary as it is ultra-violent. Jamie Lee C urtis is terrific as a wom an haunted by her memory of d e mented slasher Michael Myers. The film is a work of superior crafts manship, but you better be braced for its gore. With Adam Arkin, Josh Hartnett. (R for terror violence/ gore and for language.) How Stella Got Her Groove Back - A glossy, good-humored romantic fantasy taken from the b estsellin g novel by Terry McMillan. ‘'Stella” may be frothy and paper-thin, but it’s another great success for star A ngela Bassett, who has the skill and force of personality to make this frivo lous concoction as close to real as i t ’s going to get. Taye D iggs, Regina King and Whoopi Goldberg co-star. (R for language and some sexuality.) I Married a Strange Person Animator Bill Plympton’s inge nious but less-ihan-riving featurelength cartoon tells what happens to a bridegroom who happens to be watching TV when some lovemaking ducks crash into it. The re sulting fantasy has some adultsonly sequences. (Unrated) Lethal Weapon 4 - A tired, fourth generation copy that counts on the popularity of Mel Gibson and Danny Glover to counteract its tendency to make a fetish out of familiarity. The usual faces do one more time what they’ve done re peatedly in the past. (R for violence and language.) The Mask of Zorro - Stars An thony Hopkins, Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones have re vived one of the most venerable of sw ash b u ck lin g franchises. A
lively, old-fashioned adventure yarn with just a twist of modern attitude. (PG-13 for some intense action and violence.) The Negotiator - It’s a measure of how energetic a visual style di rector F. Gary Gray has, and how vividly Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spaccy register on screen as a two police hostage negotia tors on opposite sides of a siege, that this film is intensely watchable from minute to minute though a lot of what’s happening doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. (R for violence and language.) The Parent Trap - The 1961 Disney classic about identical twins plotting to reunite their di vorced parents has been delight fully updated to an irresistible fam ily entertainment. Dennis Quaid and Natasha Richardson shine as the parents, and Lindsay Lohan is irreplacable as both o f the twins. (PG for some mild mischief.) Return to Paradise - Can pas sionate attorney Anne Heche con vince amoral New Yorker Vince Vaughn to spend years in a Ma laysian prison to save the life of one-tim e pal Joaquin Phoenix? Briskly directed by Joseph Ruben, but finally too melodramatic and implausible to be taken as seri ously as it would like. (R, for lan guage and drug content, some sexuality and a scene of violence.) Saving Private Ryan - A pow erful and impressive milestone in the realistic depiction of combat that stars an indelible Tom Hanks as a World War II officer assigned to find a soldier in newly invaded F rance and bring him hom e. Though this Steven Spielberg-di rected effort is hampered by a con ventional, at times overly senti mental script, it gets as close to the unimaginable horror and chaos of battle as fiction film ever has. Ed
ward Burns, Matt Damon, Tom Sizemore and Giovanni Ribisi also star. (R for intense, prolonged, re alistic sequences o f war violence, and for language.) Snake Eyes - A trashy, cartoonish entertainm ent about corruption, assasination and farflung con sp iracies th at ex ists purely as a vehicle for director Brian De Palma to show off the kind of wizardly camerawork that is his passion. Even star Nicolas Cage can’t make up for a dramatic side that is coarse and undernourished. (R for some violence.) There’s Something About Mary - Crude, raunchy, way over the line, with jokes that are not within hailing distance o f good taste, this romantic follow-up to the Farrelly b ro th ers’ “ Dum b and Dumber” takes maximum advan tage of the irresistible wholesomeness of Cameron Diaz as the girl everyone falls in love with. Also starring Matt Dillon and Ben Stiller. (R for strong comic sexual content and language.) Why Do Fools Fall in Love? R&B singer Frankie Lymon’s tragic life is illuminated through the story of three women (Halle Berry, Vivica A. Fox and Lela Rochon) who claim to be his legal widow. (R for lan guage and some sexuality.) Wrongfully Accused - This farfrom-inspired sendup finds the nearly 20-year-old “Airplane!” for mula spoof of big popular pictures gone stale and mechanical, espe cially in this summer of “There’s Something About Mary.” A vague takeoff on “The Fugitive” with nods to a clutch of other pictures, it stars Leslie Nielsen and Richard Crenna (who is amusing) in the Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones parts, respectively. (PG-13 for sex-related hum or and lan guage.)
which point WPI moved into sec ond place. At the 1000 meter mark, WPI did a power 20 and drew even with NYAC. By the end of the race, WPI was in first by two lengths. Earlier in the season, four boats were sent to the International Rowing Championships, two of which brought back bronze m ed als. The freshmen four worked
hardest for their medal, losing to a strong P rin ceto n U niversity crew in the qualifying heat. The WPI freshmen worked their way through the rep__echage to the final, where they placed third. Princeton took the gold and Co lumbia just barely got the silver. In the WPI boat were Paul Doc, Dave Baker, Bob Coughlin, Bob Daley
and Gary Pietryk in the coxwain’s seat. The other bronze was taken by the pair with the coxwain. Bob Yule and Scott B oothe row ed and Herby coaxed. The straight four rowed a disappointing sixth (last boat in the final ) and the straight pair placed fourth in the petite fi nals.
Crew Wins the Nationals by Barry Aronson Newspeak Staff, 1978 The good fortune the WPI crew enjoyed last spring stayed with them throughout the summer, which reached a climax when the four man crew with coxswain won the national championship. The boat seating went as follows: Paul
Doe, Dave Baker, Bob Caughlin Bob Daley, G ary P ietryk, and Debbie Eyegen in the coxswain’s seat. A straight pair was also raced, placing fourth in the petite finals. The race started with the New York Athletic Club coming off the line strong and taking a command ing lead. Viking had WPI by a half a length until the 750 meter mark, at
Boynton Hall: Returning home Newspeak Staff September 12, 1978 After being empty for several years and a major facelift and in terior renovation, Boynton Hal is once again “one-hundred percent o c c u p ie d ,” acco rd in g to WPI P lan t E n g in e e r A n th o n y Ruksnaitis. The building, W PI’s first, was built in 1865 to house c la s s ro o m s , la b o ra to rie s , a chapel, and then limited adminis trative offices. Since that time, the building has gradually be come the administrative center of the campus. Boynton Hall was emptied about two and one half years ago when test revealed dangerous overloading o f sup port m em bers, caused by the heavy records stored in the vari ous offices. According lo Mr. Ruksnaitis, the reoccupation began in mid July and ended in time for the arrival o f the Freshm en. The offices in the building are for the most part open. The offices them selves arc not num bered, m aking it a bit difficult to find
Printed below are articles found deep within the dusty Newspeak Archives. The date: Twenty years ago, September 12, 1978. We hope you enjoy these flashbacks from long ago. If you'd like to request printing o f a specific issue, date, or event, please email newspeak@wpi.edu and if we’ll see if we can dig it up!
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any given one. L isted below are the offices and a key to the floor plans printed to the right. A - Photocopy room, B - Mike Kyritsis, C Mailing Room, D Word Processing, E - Storage, F - Mailing and Duplicating, G Print Shop and Bindery. 1 - Presi dent Cranch, 2 - President’s Sec retary and Receptionist, 3 - Dean Van A lstync, 4&5 - R egistrar Robert Long, 6,7&8 - Office of Continuing Education, 9 - Admissions-financial Aid, 10 - Office of A cadem ic A ffairs, 11- Dean Grogan, 12 - Dean Bolz. 13 - Dean Kranich, 14 - Dean Clarke, 15 Secretary o f the Faculty, 16 Accounting, 17 - Personnel, 1 8 Vice President Lloyd, 19 - C on troller and Head of A ccounting Barrett, 20 - Office o f G raduate and C areer Plans, 21 - U niver sity Relations O ffice (Including Public Relations, News Bureau. P u b licatio n s and A lum ni O f fices). Editor’s Note: Floor Plans ap pearing in the 1978 Issue were not re-printed due lo space restric tions.
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C lu b C o rn er Christian Bible Fellowship I hope everyone’s first week of classes has gone off without a hitch. This Tues day night we will be having prayer time in Founder’s at 9:30. If anyone is inter ested you can e-mail cbf@ wpi. On Fri day night we will be having FNF, which is a time where we praise God, and have fun together. “Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave o f all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Mark 10:43^5 (NIV) If asked what is the greatest quality of a leader, what would your answer be? When asked this question, most people would not count the quality of servitude among there answers, but in fact this is a very impor tant quality for a leader to have. Jesus who was the Son of God came to earth to serve. He healed others, and most impor tantly He died for our sins.
Music Association Alden Voices Wow! Go Freshmen! I was really im p re sse d by how w ell we p lo u g h ed through all that music. We’re in awe some shape for our first concert on Sept 19th for Parents day. Tell all your friends to buy Bagels at Bagel Day, every Thurs day in Salisbury Lounge. And the 12th is our car wash at the Mobil Station on the corner o f Park and Institute from 9-4.
Chamber Choir Check out that alto section. Is this a 1000% increase over last year? Dont for get rehearsal 7-9 Sunday and 6:30-8:30 W ednesday. We are going to sound AWESOME for our first concert, Parents Day Sept 19. La La La La...
Glee Club Well kids, welcome back to yet another fun filled year with Big Lou and the rest o f the gang. It is going to be an exciting year, and with a very talented officer core, a n ea t-o a s s is ta n t d ire c to r in M ike Driscoll, and o f course, LJC, who could possibly want more? This year is going to be an exciting one, and we hope that you are ready for it. Remember that we have a full month of concerts coming up, as well as W right’s Chicken Farm, and a TON of Tuesday Night Clubs. DO YOUR BEST TO AT TEND THEM ALL — it’s a lot o f fun, and would I lie to you?!? And let’s not forget about the tour this year!!! Czech Republic and possibly A ustria. Get the passports ready and pack up the kids Margaret, wez goin’ in ternational !!! And since we want as many voices as possible, if you know some one (unfortunately they have to be male) who enjoys singing at triple forte, bring them to rehearsals, and we’ll break them in from there!!!
Aaron Vandesteen, Brian Donnelly, YuPing Toh, Michael Wheeler, Jay LeBlanc, Jurg Z w a h le n , G abe F lo res, E than Deneault, Jeff Haynes, and Chris Hamel. And a special congrats and good luck to first-year director Michael Wheeler!! We’d also like to thank everyone for trying out. We’d love to take everyone, but there are just so many spaces to fill. But we do ex pect to see you non-seniors trying out again next year! Well, the plate is just now starting to fill up, and we already have several gigs lined up on campus, as well as some potential collegiate gigs (and the parties that fol low them...). It’s going to be a busy year, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do for acappella, right? So suck it up, breath deep, blend, and for C rip e’s sake — DON’T HUM THAT NOTE!!!
Newman Club Well we had a tremendous cookout on Sunday, August 30th. It was such a suc cess that we plan another one for Sun day, September 27th. We found out that our President MacLeod can really cook. Jen C and Maureen U gave him an A in cooking. We are planning a video and pasta night on Friday, September 11th at 5:30 PM in the Religious Center. Come yourself and bring a friend. Our first Executive Board meeting was held on Monday night, August 31st. As you can see below we are planning sev eral events for Term A and B We are going apple picking in the near future . Watch for the announcement. We will be having a retreat during Term B . Dave Martin and Maegan Rivard are the co-chairpersons for that event. Our next Executive Board meeting will be Monday n ig h t, September 28th at 9:00 PM in the Religious Center. In the meantime, Fr. S is starting his famous suppers on Tues day night, Sept. 9th. Watch your mailbox for an invite. Watch next week’s column for the schedule of our prayer and dis cussion groups. We are having two such groups this year. Hope to see you all at Mass on Sun day. remember we have two Masses; one at 11:30 AM in Alden and 5:00 PM in Founders. Also do not forget our Video and Pasta night this Friday night at 5:30
Science Fiction Society Hello all you weird, wacky, wonderful people out there! This is out first club cor ner of the year. Gaming weekend was fan tastic, as usual. Of course, I had to jump into the sfs time machine and go forward in time for find that out, but hey, that’s why we have one in our library, right? We’re very impressed by the number of new members we got this year. It looks like the SFS has doubled its membership for the fourth year running. Soon we shall be able to take over the world! But that’s an other story... The WPI Science Fiction Society has its meetings at a new time this year. Show up for our weekly meetings, Wednesday at 7:12 pm in Olin Hall, room 107. Be there or be mundane.
Jazz Group
Skeptical Chemists
The first week of the year was an excit ing one as always. We have some new members, and some great gigs lined up already. It looks like this year is going to be lots of fun for all, and we hope that everyone will come out and support us at our concerts. We have many gigs scheduled already, and you can check o u t our sch ed u le at < w w w .w pi.edu/ ~wpijazz>. Our first concert will be on parents weekend, so keep an eye out for us then. I hope to see a lot of you come and enjoy some jazz this year!
What are you waiting for? Firey writ ing in yer lab notebook? Someday, Will will take over this•» club corner and I will be free! free! free! to drift in the green glow of my electron m icroscope... We Skeptical Chemists held our first m eet ing on Wednesday, September 2nd and elected the next generation of officers congratulations to Will Kennerly (Presi dent), Leanna Joy Delgrosso (Vice Presi dent), Jason Nadeau and Alisha Spafford (Co-Secretaries) and Liz Asting (Trea surer)! We’re going to take the pictures for that CBC Department bulletin board at the student-faculty mixer, com ing around or on September 23rd. More de tails as they precipitate. Taking Orgo I? Chem I? Quantum? Thermo? Every Wednesday night, for your studying pleasure, there will be a g ro u p m au lin g o f the c h e m istry
Simple Harmonic Motion Back the grindstone again, ladies. First o f all, let’s congratulate all the new mem bers of SHM — Jason Ingalsbe, Ryan Mackey, Eric Cattelle and Matt Crawford! Also congrats to all returning members:
cirruculum in the 1” floor lounge of Founders. This is a great opportunity for commiseration. Chemists like to com miserate, so perhaps you’d want to get used to it now. Learning chemistry is optional, but our voracious enthusiasm for SN2 reactions may be so overwhelm ing that you remember a thing or two. Our next meeting is tentatively sched uled for Wednesday, September 16lh at 4 pm in the basement lounge of Goddard Hall. Next week, Will will finally tell us w hat w e ’re so sk e p tic a l of. S k e p c h e m @ w p i.e d u .________ h ttp :// www.wpi.edu/~skepchem. The Society for Medieval Arts and Sciences SMAS hit the ground running this year, starting up meetings and practices almost before the school year started. W e’ve already got several activities in planning, enough to last us into B term. The big gest field trip s so far will be K ing Richard’s Faire, Higgen’s Armory, and Purgatory Chasm. Dates will be set at the next meeting. Smaller activities are also set on a more regular basis. Court meetings (the usual meeting conducted as a baronial court, in garb) will be the last meeting o f each month, so the first will be on Sept. 29. Belly dancing classes are every W ednes day at 7:30 in Founders, and we hope to start up a medieval folk dance class soon. The armorers, bardies, tailors, and car penters guilds are looking for new ap prentice members to help out the club. Regarding the Realms part of SMAS, fight practices are in full swing, teaching new members the basics of light weap ons combat. We’ll be going to plenty of events throughout the year where we can show off our prowess and meet hordes o f in te re stin g p eo p le (and th in g s ). Realms-related information will now be posted on the realms-members@wpi list, so anyone w ho’s interested can email realms@wpi to be included. Our next meeting will be Tues, Sept. 8 at 7:00pm in Founders Basement. Fight practices are on M ondays and T hurs days at 7:30pm on the lower fields. For more information, contact the officers at realms @
SGA The first SGA meeting o f the term was held last Tuesday at 6:00 p.m. Individual committees are interested in your input with regard to ideas for projects to work on this term. Join one o f the SGA com
mittees and get involved in student gov ernment. You need not be a senator to help. If you are interested in finding out more about SGA at WPI please stop by the of fice and talk to one o f the senators about how you can become more involved in campus life at WPI. If you are interested in receiving minutes and agendas via email p lease co n tact A n ne-M arie at teddy@wpi.edu. The next SGA meeting will be held Tuesday evening at 6:00 p.m. in the Lower Wedge. All are welcome to attend!
WPI Linux Association Welcome to yet another club corner for Wilbur Palm er’s International Lambada Academy.. (Not to be confused with W PI’s Linux Association) Last week, our informal meeting was hijacked by the ACM. Bless their little hearts, all of us who showed up to talk fun Linux stuff, they told to shut the hell up so the meeting could be used to plan out the booth at the activities fair.. So, those who attended should be aware that the Tues day meetings are usually much less orga nized and more interesting. However, one shouldn’t be too hard on the ACM, after all, the joint ACM and WPILA booth at the activities fair was quite nice. It in cluded a bigassed “Butterfly” computer made by BBN back in “the day”, and demos o f Strego’s latest projects and toys, and some old crowd-pleasers, like BB. This week our informal meeting was much more normal, with a little bit of intro d u ctio n for new m em bers ( “ Hi, I ’m Castro!”), and the usual melee of semi-ran dom discussion of various problems, plans, and the like, followed by Strego’s unstop pable migration to see the WB’s Tuesday night lineup. If you’ve just signed up for WPILA, or haven’t yet but think you might be in terested, come to the meeting on Tuesday night in Fuller labs 3rd floor lounge. It starts at 7PM, usually lasts a couple hours, and is unstructured enough that showing up late isn’t a problem. There’s also the larger, more structured meetings about once a month- the next one is 7PM, September 16th in Kinnicutt hall- usually including free soda and cookies and a speaker on some cool topic. I hope to see plenty more new people at the next meeting... Until next time... You can c o n ta c t th e o ffic e rs at w p ila @ w p i.e d u , o r ch eck h ttp :// www.wpi.edu/~wpila for more informa tion.
A n th o n y 's M an
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L o ca ted a cro ss G rove Street fro m J illia n ’s.. Just a short walk from the WPI campus.
Call to day for an appointment (508) 752-5510 i i M
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Anthony's
i i i i i i i i i i i i i a i
By Appt. or Walk-in Hours: Tues - Sat: 7:00am to 6:00pm Closed Sunday and Monday
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Students and advisors who feel they have completed outstanding I n t e r a c t iv e
Q u a lif y in g
P r o je c t s
this past academic year should submit their projects for the 1 9 9 8 P r e s id e n t 's IQ P A w a r d s C o m p e t it io n .
Deadline for Submission of Applications for the 1998 President's IQP Awards Competition is: M o n d a y. O c to b e r 5 .1 9 9 8 a t 4 P M
Applictions are available from Betty Jolie in the project center. Final judging is in Higgins House, December 2, 1998.
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C om m entary
Predictions for the new school by Matt Lug Newspeak Staff It’s that time of year again, the time we all put aside the sanity of summer and re turn to heating ourselves senseless with textbooks because that damn problem just isn’t working out like it’s supposed to. And what the heck was the professor thinking when he wrote these class notes? Any way, here are some predictions for the new school year. Please note: these events may not actually happen, all information is pure speculation. Boynton Excavation Surprise When digging out new space under Boynton for dungeon cells, er, workstudy offices, construction workers will find a surprisingly large deposit of uranium. Administrators will advise the WPI com munity that it will be quite some time be fore WPI will be able to benefit from this discovery. Skeptics will investigate a link between the uranium deposit and strange administrative behavior. Tuition Increase In a surprise move this fall, advance no tice o f the annual tuition increase will be given to allow students and their families to prepare. It will be announced that one year of education at WPI is the equivalent o f the p en tag o n ’s “ How to use your $15,000 hammer” course, and that the in crease will bring the cost of tuition close to that c o u rs e ’s estim ated cost of $3,200,000 per person. Students who are unable or unwilling to pay the new tuition will be put to work in the new Boynton Uranium Mine (BUM).
purchase it. Intelligent Network Not to be outdone by Newspeak, the CCC will announce that the WPI network has achieved full sentience. Though this will be seen as one of the greatest techno logical advances of all time, the network’s personality will be described mainly as “touchy.” Most users will notice little or no difference in network performance. End of the Revolution After facing criticism from students, par ents, faculty, staff, law enforcement per sonnel, politicians, and well-known inter national terrorists, TMG will announce that his reign of terror is over. When asked why he ended such a successful but mis understood cause, TMG will only say ‘The women, dang it, the women. All this fight ing scared off the few that were here to begin with, and it just isn’t worth it any more.” When asked for comment, “the women” will say that TMG could have just asked them out, instead of doing the whole bloody revolution thing. TMG will last be seen entering the Boynton Uranium Pro cessing Facility, Correctional Institution, Sandwich Shop, Amusement Park, Under ground Nuclear Weapons Testing Facility, and R etirem ent C om m unity (BUPFCISSAPUNWTFRC).
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Boynton Overthrown In response to the increased tuition and poor working conditions of the newly ex panded Boynton Uranium Processing Fa cility (BUPF), a mob of angry and wellarmed students will march on Boynton and demand the unconditional surrender of all WPI administrators. Administrative sym pathizers will be dealt with in public beat ings on the quad in what will become a massive reign of terror against WPI au thorities. The leader of this movement, a masked individual only known as ‘That Masked Guy” (TMG), will defend his ac tions by citing instances of student abuse throughout WPI’s history. Christmas Cancellation Christmas will not come this year. Hanukkah and Kwanzaa will still be held on a probationary basis. All Santa Claus im personators will be handed over to TMG to serve in the Boynton Uranium Process ing Facility and Correctional Institution (BUPFCI). Newspeak Fights Back Newspeak has faced harsh criticism in the past, but an advance in newspaper tech nology will put an end to that. Newspeak will employ a Self-Defending Format (SDF) that allows the actual words being criti cized to jump off the page and attack the offending reader. When asked for com ment, TMG will applaud the new format, saying “Now I don’t even have to make an effort to beat the crap out of those whiny snot-nosed computer-addicted momma’s boys who don’t approve of my methods. I can just have Newspeak print an article about it, and let the paper do the rest.” Publications worldwide will begin using this new format, along with another tech nology that allows the newspaper or maga zine itself to farce random individuals to
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W e d n e s d a y , S eptem ber 9 ,1 9 9 8
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Announcem ents
C l a s s if ie d s
Army ROTC PT to begin by Vanessa Melanson Cadet Corporal Army ROTC starts up this week, and it would like to wel come all the new cadets to the program. The first PT (physi cal training) starts 9 Sept 98 at 0630 in Harrington Auditorium
room 038. The successive PT's are held on M ondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, at the same time and same place. If any of the new cadets or anyone else interested in the Army ROTC program has any questions feel free to contact vamoosa@wpi.
IFC & Panhel present: The Dating Doctor Find out if these lines will really work: • W hat’s your sign? • Are your legs tired because you been running through my dreams all night • If I told you you had a nice body would you hold it against me?
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• Have we met before? • Your father must be a ter ro rist because y o u ’re the bomb! Com e Friday S eptem ber 11,1998 at 9:00 pm in Alden Hall and have all o f your re la tio n s h ip q u e s tio n s a n sw ered.
Calculus Tbtoring Schedule A’98 T\itor: Nastaran Baradaran Mon: 11:00 a.m. - 1 :00 p.m. Tues: 11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. Weds: 9:00 a.m .- 1:00 p.m. Thurs: 11:00 a.m .- l:C0p.m. All tutoring sessions will be held in SH302
HELP WANTED Make your own hours sell kodak spring break ’99 trips highest commission - low est prices no cost to you travel free including food, drink & non-stop parties!!! world class vacations 1998 student travel planners “top producer” 1-800-222-4432 Spring Break ’99 - Sell T rips, Earn C ash & Go Free!!! Student Travel Ser vices is now hiring campus rep s/g ro u p o rg an izers. Lowest rates to Jam aica, Mexico & Florida. Call 1800-6484849____________ SS/PS Deparunent needs reliable work/study student, 8-10hrs/week. Clerical, com puter skills required, web experience helpful. Federal funding NOT necessary. Contact Pam Riley, SS/PS Dept., x5296
hard drive, 32 MB RAM, 8x CD-ROM, floppy, PCMCIA Ethernet card, System 8.1. $1500 OBO. kgagne @wpi.edu or x6469
only student run newspaper on campus. No experience necessary, just time and a willingness to work. Areas needed include news fea tures and sports.
the Student Activities Of fice, or em ial them to Newspeak @wpi .edu.
P lace a personal ad. They're free and they let help get you point across. Ju st put them in the Newspeak box located in
How do you know your drowning? When you're in way over your head.
Happy Belated Birthday Scott.
MISCELLANEOUS Never trust a guy with a parrot. Needed, writers for the
Dang rain
Newspeak will run classifieds tree for all WPI students, faculty, and staff Free classifieds are limited to six (6) lines. Ads of a commercial nature and ads longer than six lines must be paid for at the off campus/commercia) rate of $5.00 for the first six lines and 50 cents per additional line. Classified ads must be paid for in advance. No information which, in the opinion of the Newspeak editors, would identify an individual to the community will be printed in a personal ad. The editors reserve the right to refuse any ad deemed to be in bad taste or many ads from one group or individual on one subject. The deadline for ads is noon on the Friday before publication. All classified ads must be on individual sheets of paper and must be accompanied by the wnter's name, address and phone number.
Name
Phone
Address
Total Enclosed $
Allow only 30 characters per line
FOR SALE For Sale: M acintosh PowerBook 1400cs laptop computer. 117 MHz, 720 MB
C o m ic s
off the mark
by Mark Parisi
K £S SoMfTSoRT O f D lS G R O N 'fcft) C U S fT o /^ R -
Wk
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Dilbert® I HAD TO PROMISE! THt CUSTOMER COE C00 LD BUILD THE THING IN MONTH EVEN THOUGH YOU SAID IT LUAS IMPOSSIBLE.
I'LL SOLVE THE TIMING PROBLEM BV SHIFTING BLAME TO ENGINEERING W HILE SPEN D IN G THE HUGE BONUS I GOT FOR THE SALE.
X0UR PLANNING HAS IMPROVED
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& & Crossword Companion
CHAOS by
Brian Shuster
"Well this is the last straw Harriet, go get me my shoe"
ACRO SS 1 Scottish cap 4 Oral 8 County in Florida 12 Southern state (abbr.) 13 Against 14 In the middle 15 Give in 17 Vigor 19 Egyptian sun god 20 Boy 21 Inferior 22 Edge of cloth 23 Always 25 Create current of breeze 26 Leave 27 Small rug 28 Heat source 29 Courtesy title for woman 32 Exist 33 Sand build-up on shore 35 4th musical scale note 36 Law 38 Sick
39 Tap gently 40 Actual weight ( abbr) 41 Morning breakfast item 42 Cut 43 Fall behind 45 Pertaining to (suf.) 46 Small, temporary bed 47 I am (cont.) 48 Employ 49 Not awake 52 Bastion 54 S. E. Asia bird 56 Recent form (pref.) 57 Great lake 58 12 months 59 Three (pref.) DOW N 1 Blacktop 2 Beer 3 Wooden hammer 4 Grit 5 Picnic pest
6 Indefinite pronoun 7 Couch 8 Water barrier 9 Be 10 Disastrous 11 Cheese 16 Listening organ 18 Division of the psyche 21 Wound cover 22 Built to transport bricks 23 Send forth 24 Holds flowers 25 Good time 26 Fish 28 Sit (p.t.) 29 Bad (pref.) 30 From a distance 31 Spouse 33 Repair with thread 34 Large 37 Pester; annoy 39 Inventor's sole right 41 Foe 42 Poland (abbr.) 43 Living organism 44 Love 45 Exist 46 Former Russian emperor (var.) 48 N. American Indians 49 Collection 50 Ever (poetic) 51 Hawaiian food 53 S New England state (abbr.) 55 You (poetic)
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P o l ic e L o g Thursday, August 27,1998 2:33am - Suspicious Person: at Institute and Dean. 2:44am - Suspicious MV 3 :05am - Code 5: Re: 2:44am. 3:18am - Report: Fire alarms at Becker. 3:34am - Arrival: At Becker, electrical problem causing alarms, Worcester fire on scene. 3:46am - Clear: WPI officers from Becker. 8:01pm - Medical: Baseball field, Male injured. 8:25pm - Clear: Student transported to St. Vincent’s by AMR. 11:03pm - MV Damage: Front drivers side damage. Friday, August 28,1998 8:35am - Property Found: In recycle bin, 2 wallets and one set of keys. 1:03pm - Skateboarders: At Freeman Plaza, 4 youths from Holden, they were advised of trespass. 1:30pm - Vans selling speakers, off campus, in vans. 1:30pm - Missing Property: Stratton Hall. 1:48pm - Wedge Area: Called in by custodian, bag hanging from door handle, Morgan. Student asked to remove bag and complied. 6:48pm - Malicious Mischief: 2 Vehicles hit with poles and kicked at Institute Lot on 8 /2 6 8/27. Students came in to make report today. 11:13pm - Noise complaint: Loud music, vicinity of Salisbury Estates. 11:23pm - Officers clear Salisbury Estates, residents advised. 11:23pm - Assist / Noise Complaint: Complaint of loud party on Hackfeld Road. Caller referred to WPD. 11:26pm - Sargent reports spoke with resident of Hackfeld road, re: loud party. Saturday, August 29,1998 12:17am -M alicious Mischief: Report of graffiti in Daniel’s main stairway. 1:09am - Loud Party: Sargent reports spoke with residents of Salisbury Estates again re: loud party. Sunday, August 30,1998 12:00am - Malicious Mischief: Student reports broken windshield on his Honda Accord. 1:13am - Assist: WPD requests assist on Institute Road. 1:22am - Assist: WPD requests assist at Institute Road and Schussler, disorderly group. 1:3 lam - Officers clear Institute Road and Schussler. 1:44am - Assist: Officers assisting WPD on Institute Road. 1:49am - Officers clear Institute Road, 4 subjects under arrest by WPD. 2:45am - Disabled Vehicle: Officer reports disabled MV on Park Ave., WPD noti fied. 3:40am - Suspicious Person: Officer out with MA registered vehicle in fraternity park ing lot.
W e d n e s d a y , S eptem ber 9, 1998
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Whafs Happening: September 9-14 First Day of Graduate Classes 7pm - IFC/Panhel Scholarship Night, Higgins 218 7pm - Skeptical Chemists Study Session, Founders I* floor lounge
4pm - W Tennis vs. North Adams State 5pm - Etiquette Seminar for Student Leaders (Invitation Only), Morgan A 7pm-Volleyball vs. Simmons 7 :15pm -FieldHockey Vs.Merrimack ^ y 7:30pm - Health Education and Wellness Program, Morgan C 8pm - Movie, Back to the Future, Sponsored by Phi Sigma Sigma, Perrault
9pm - IFC/Panhel Date
12pm-ATO Voileyball Tournament, Quad 8pm - MSEC Show, v. Gravity Kills; Kills, Alden
11:30am - Catholic Ma$s, Alden Hall J 5pm - Catholic Mass, Founders Study Room 6:30 & 9:30pm - Movie, Good Will Hunting, Perrault
employees would like vehicles moved and no longer parked there. Owners of vehicles notified. Thursday, September 3,1998 7:54pm - Suspicious Persons: 2 w/males, mid-20s, tall & thin, 1 blue shirt 2nd long hair possibly trying to steal bikes located on West St. by the Quad park benches. 8:04pm - Suspects were not found. No one matching the description. 9:16pm - Suspicious Vehicle: w/male in white buick century, unk reg in area of West Street. Approached students and propositioned female then drove off.
Monday, August 31,1998 1:59pm - Property Found: By residential serv ices, w allet belonging to Fram ingham State student. Called Framingham State PD. They will advise student of property. 1 1:52pm - Noise Complaint: Salisbury Street fraternity, loud group. Tuesday, September 1,1998 12:12am - Officers clear Salisbury Street. 11:19am - Dangerous Act: Student hang ing on back of FW Webb truck, officer advised student of hazard. 11:31am - Theft: Wallet, student in Daniels. 3:59pm - MV Complaint: First Baptist Church Lot staff parking there, church
Check out our flash back page. What was WPI like 20 years ago?
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