The Student Newspaper of Worcester Polytechnic Institute
W e a t h e r ... Today: Brisk. Highs in the 50s Tomorrow: Partly cloudy. H igh in the 60s.
Thursday: Chance o f showers. Highs around 60.
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n ig h t s p e c ia l:
A c a p p e lla fe s t 5
by Natalie Chin Business Manager
N ew C linton initiative targets cam pus hate crim es by Erica B. Levy Harvard Crimson
“ 'What is the probability o f get ting groups o f engineers that sing in one room?’ ... ‘Umm that would be slim to none. - The MCs of the show. F o rtu n ately fo r the au d ien ce, Simple Harm onic Motion (SHM ) m anaged to beat the odds and pull together a great concert. The high spirited voices o f five a cappella groups kept filling Riley Commons full o f sweet joyous sounds Satur day night. A side from the main theme o f the concert, which is the singing, it was full o f skits that were as entertaining as the music. The evening began with the M IT Logarythms. They were both funny and whitty in their singing. They san g so n g s su c h as “L u lla b y e (G ood n ig h t, M y A ngel)” (B illy Joel)* and “Better Man” (Pearl Jam). Their part of the show gave way to the next act, which is SH M ’s coun-
Jay LaBlanc ‘00 and Ryan Mackey ‘02 participated in a skit at SHM's Acapella Fest 5. The skit portrayed ways to make sure you get shotgun. terpart, Interstate 8. They had a
Saturday Night Live skit theme throughout their perform ance, it involved Monica Lewinsky, the in famous stained dress, a cigar, Mary Catherine Gallagher, and the Spar tan Cheerleaders. One of the great est parts o f their act was when, as a ’’tribute”, the girls started to sing SH M ’s signature song, “Good Old A c a p e lla ” . H o w ev er Jo n ath an Reynolds ’98, an alumni o f SHM and once the soloist o f the song, w ouldn’t let that happen and be cam e involved in a show with I8’s soloist, Terri Green ‘99. The duo fought it out and in the end the au dience was the definite victor, for the two voices o f R eynolds and Green certainly got everyone’s en ergy all fired up. Som e o f the other songs that 18 performed were ‘Take A C h a n c e O n M e ” (E ra s u re ), “Galileo” (Indigo Girls), and “Sweet Dreams” (Eurythmics). The third group to go was the Dartm outh Cords. T heir singing was accompanied by their fantas tic choreography. In the end the audience was certainly captivated by their sense of style, wit, and sing ing capabilities. Part o f their reper to ire fo r th e e v e n in g in clu d ed
STANK
W ith Sim ple H arm onic M otion jamming behind him, Eric Cattelle ‘01, sings the theme song from the JefTersons at Acapella Fest 5, on Saturday, April 10,1999.
“Wonderwall” (Oasis), “Walking In M e m p h is” (M arc C o h e n ), and “Istanbul” (They Might B e Giants). A fter intermission, the Colum bia M etrotones took over the stage and began to enchant the audience with their sweet soft voices. They sang songs such as “Kiss” (Prince) and
See SHM, continued to page 2
(U-WIRE) CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — President C linton announced Tuesday morning that he will take political action in response to hate crim es in the U .S.— where m ore than 8,000 hate crimes were reported in 1997. T he P re sid e n t p lan s to fig h t against hate crim es through both an executive and legislative push. Two o f his spokespeople later dis cussed the initiatives in a confer ence call with reporters yesterday. Clinton is advocating a broader definition o f hate crimes in a new bill that is now w orking its way through C ongress. A ccording to the president’s special counsel for civil rights, Edward Correia, if more crimes are considered to be based on “hate,” the crim inals who com mit them will face stricter sentences. State governm ents are often not tough enough ag ainst crim inals who have com m itted hate crimes,
Traditions Day‘99
The Candle Walk was an event that many attended during Traditions Day. It was one among many events that took place on Wednesday, April 7,1999.
W P I’s April F o o l’s w ebsite a big hit on top o f Alumni Gym. We got a lot o f mail from people saying that we made them laugh and brightened their day.” Nearly 100 m embers o f the com m unity voted fo r th e ir favorite p h o to and story. At th is point, b o th the p h o to g rap h and story a b o u t P a r r is h as a 0 0 7 s tu n t double are the com m unity favor ites, with the crab photo and hous ing lottery story com ing in sec ond. The polls are still open: members o f the community who missed the page can view it, along with the April Fool’s pages o f past years, at th e fo llo w in g a d d re s s : h ttp :// www. wpi .edu/Apri 1/
by Amy L. Marr WPI Web Coordinator W PI’s webmasters replaced the W PI H om epage on April F o o l’s Day for the third consecutive year. This tim e around, Web C oordina tor Amy Marr and CCC Operations Coordinator Troy Thompson sim ply replaced the photos and sto ries on the real homepage with some hilarious interpretations o f “what makes W PI special.” “We really had fun with it this year,” says Marr. “We wanted to m ake people do a ‘d o u b le-tak e’ when they looked at the page and saw Dr. Parrish as James Bond or the Sole Proprietor’s inflated crab
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Jeopardy contestants were tested on their knowledge of WPI history and traditons. Competing were representatives from both the freshman and sophomore classes.
What's Inside.. Ani D iFranco
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V olu m e T w e n ty -S e v e n , N u m b e r Ten
T uesday, April 13, 1 9 9 9 S a tu r d a y
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"New rythms to old songs fresh ened the night up tremendously but the crowning pinnacle of Ani mani festing herself as a real person was her forgetting the chords/guitar line to o n e of h e r o ld e s t s ta n d b y s , “Shameless” . The audience loved her im provisation to get out of her memory lapse, and she laughed as hard as anyone, once she got the part back again." ^
Correia said in the conference call. “ It carves out a special role for g o v e rn m e n t to p ro te c t p e o p le from discrimination,” Correia said. “We have a national problem that we have to do som ething about.” T he current federal law on the subject, w ritten in 1968, says that “ hate crim es” must be m otivated by prejudice based on race, color, religion o r nationality and com m itted against som eone w ho is engaged in a federally protected act. “F ederally p ro tected a c ts ” in th is d e fin itio n , m ean s ro u g h ly acts which inherently identify the actor as a m em ber o f a m inority group, such as m arches and pro te s ts . The new law would add gender, disability and sexual orientation to the definition and would broaden the legislation to include any crime motivated by “hate,” regardless o f circumstance. H e arin g s on th e le g is la tio n , which currently has 30 co-sponsors in the Senate and 140 in the House, are scheduled for late April. Clinton also outlined three initia tives to stop hate crim es before they happen by teaching children about hate and discrimination. The president’s plan would help educatc the government about dis crimination in schools and would teach young peo p le about hate crim es’ effect on society, Clinton said in a press release. Annual reports on school safety produced by the Justice and Edu cation D epartm ents will now in c lu d e in fo rm a tio n a b o u t h ate crimes, Clinton said. And, for the first time, the De partment o f Education will have to collect data about biases and hate crimes on college campuses. Lastly, the President called for a “public-private partnership” pro gram to educate m iddle school stu dents about tolerance through tele vision shows and classroom pre sentations. Mary Smith, associate director for policy planning, said that targeting a middle school audience may catch the problem before it starts. “These are children who are just approaching a d o le sc en ce,” said Mary Smith, associate director for policy planning, during the confer ence call. Smith added that the edu cation initiatives aim to catch chil dren before they have set attitudes about discrimination. Instead o f teaching about spe cific biases, Smith said, the program will introduce children to universal ideas about differences. “[It’s] teaching a way of life,” she said.
SocC om m C offeeH ouse
R eader R esponse
Ellis Paul performs at WPI
Letter to the Editor... "For those people w ho don’t want their suitem ates to sm oke, th e re ’s an easy solution: d o n ’t live w ith sm okers!"