After finishing the first week of the new semester, the Owls headed out to Austin last Friday to take part in the USA Swimming Grand Prix Tournament. A total of five Owls competed in the events. The action began on Friday, when freshman and Austin native Erin Flanigan finished 27th out of a field of 39 entrants in the 400-meter freestyle. Her long-course time of 4:23.28 is equivalent to 4:52.77 in short-course yards. Also, Flanigan was one of two Rice swimmers in the meet's 100-meter butterfly. She was 41st in the prelims with a 1:04.50 (converts to 56.57 in short-course yards), while fellow freshman Casey Clark swam a 1:03.98 (56.11 SCY). Clark was also 51st out of 186 swimmers in the 100-meter freestyle after finishing with a time of 59.31 (a season-best 51.84 in SCY).
Baker College junior Duncan Eddy has officially raised enough money to pay for the Fondren library window. Eddy's posterior was the butt of Baker 13 jokes across campus after his gluteus went crashing through a Fondren window on the Halloween run. Fortunately, the damage is behind us. However, initially the incident was no laughing matter since Eddy was told he owed the university $15,000 if he was to stay enrolled.
For the third time in the last four years, Rondelet has been canceled. The Rice Program Council announced the decision last Friday at the Rice Memorial Center and through Facebook.
As an avid theatergoer, I was intrigued and amused when I heard that Toxic Avenger, an action figure from the silver screen, was about to show off his superpowers on the musical stage. Joe DiPietro and David Bryan, who collaborated on the Tony Award-winning musical Memphis, wrote the book and music for The Toxic Avenger Musical.
Remember back to the telecommunications innovations of your childhood. The cups attached with string. That one thing on the playground you could whisper in. Playing the game "telephone." All of these things had their appeal, but they did not hold a candle to the wallkie-talkie. The wakie-talkie was both effective and awesome. In your hands, you held the same type of device used by firefighters, spies and construction workers. The simple joy of saying "over" or "copy" was enough to send even the most cynical child into fits of joy.
With the resignation of John Huntsman Jr., yet another one of the Republican primary candidates has thrown in the towel on his presidential ambition. It now seems almost inevitable that Mitt Romney will clinch the nomination, and if he wins in South Carolina it is highly likely the remaining opposition will have no choice but to concede. The campaign is now driving full force out of the farcical circus of last year's colorful contenders and entering the long brutal general election that is the "Super Bowl" of American politics.
This August, Rachel Carlson (Martel '11) will be traveling overseas for postgraduate education thanks to the George Mitchell Scholarship. Out of 300 applicants, Carlson was one of 12 chosen to receive the scholarship for the 2012- 2013 academic year. She will study at Trinity College Dublin where she will pursue an master's in Environment and Development.
At the Leonard Hilton Invitational held at the University of Houston last Friday, the men's track team didn't even have to go the distance to come away with a solid performance in the meet. With only one participant in the mile and no participants in the 5,000-meter run, Head Coach Jon Warren (Jones '88) did not see the need for the distance runners to compete at the year's first indoor meet, preferring to eschew the element-free environment in favor of more practice for his runners.
Students and Rice community members stand outside RMC Chapel for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day memorial on Sunday.
After a heartbreaking loss to Texas Tech University in last May's NCAA championships, the Owls have been waiting for their chance to get back on the court. Rice wants to prove all the doubters wrong and show that it does have the players and the talent to win Conference USA and make a deep run in the NCAA tournament.
For years, sports fans have tried to explain why it's so much easier to win at home. The rims are still as high and the free-throw line is just as far as away, but there is just something about playing in your home gym that makes it easier to score points.
A few minutes past seven on the night of Jan. 18, as students waited on Intramural Fields 2 and 3, the fields' new lights turned on to fanfare, illuminating the area within a few seconds.
After a rough 14-10 record last season with which the team could not secure a berth to the NCAA tournament, the women's tennis team was hoping for a fresh start with a trip to the University of Central Florida Invitational to commence the season. Along with Rice and UCF, Texas Tech University was also a part of the three-day invitational.
With the women's track team back in action and looking to reclaim its spot as one of the top teams in Conference USA, Head Coach Jim Bevan's team turned to its strength in the distance events to guide it to a strong finish in the Leonard Hilton Invitational held last Friday at the University of Houston.
The U.S. is currently mired in a challenging fiscal situation — the annual deficit is over eight percent of gross domestic product and the national debt held by the public is almost 70 percent of GDP. As such, it is imperative that U.S. politicians and policy-makers think critically about how to reduce this looming crisis. Broadly speaking, there are two alternate, yet not mutually exclusive, options from which the nation can choose — cutting spending or raising more revenue from taxes. Looking at the current policies in place and those proposed by the Republican presidential hopefuls affords the public a chance to analyze the revenue aspect of the issue.
