NEWS
3/10/11 6:00pm
Sports notebook: Women's track take eighth, Women's tennis falters over break
Women's track take eighth
Women's track take eighth
Today, anger, malaise and fatalism pervade American politics. Listening to our leaders' speakers, one might infer that our very way of life is under constant threat. For those in need of some good old-fashioned American optimism, I recommend viewing the 1998 Disney Channel Original Movie, My Date with the President's Daughter, a film not only about fashion, blooming sexuality and fatherhood but also about a government by and for the American people. The movie covers one night of madcap hijinks and romantic tension between the president's 16-year-old daughter, Hallie Richmond (Elisabeth Harnois, Ten Inch Hero), and the longhaired Duncan (Will Freidle, "Boy Meets World"). The two meet in a local mall after Hallie runs away from one of her father's (Dabney Coleman, You've Got Mail) cliché-ridden campaign events to go live life as a regular teenager. Ignorant of her important stature and desperate to prove to his friends that he can get girls, Duncan asks Hallie to the local school dance. Duncan then steals his father's (Jay Thomas, Mr. Holland's Opus) BMW and in one of the greatest scenes of the film, realizes that 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is no regular house. The two then embark on their date, quickly ditching the Secret Service at a movie theater, and run amok and unsupervised along the streets of Washington, D.C., forcing President Richmond and Duncan's father to join forces to locate the wayward teenagers, as the Secret Service proves inept.
Hosting East Carolina University on Saturday, Feb. 26, it was once again the season-long Achilles' heel that dug the Owls in a hole in the first half. Rice allowed the Pirates (15-13, 7-7) to shoot 8-15 from behind the arc over the opening 20 minutes, and found themselves down by 10 points at the half.But led by the shooting of junior forward Lucas Kuipers, the Owls would battle back down the stretch in spite of the deep-range shooting of ECU. A Kuipers three-pointer with 6:16 left would bring Rice to within four, before a junior guard Connor Frizzelle jumper after a pair of free throws tied the game with just 2:48 to go. After the teams exchanged threes down the stretch, the Pirates had the ball tied at 68 with 34 seconds to go. After dribbling out the clock, ECU's Sherrod connected on a deep three-pointer with under three seconds to go to put the Pirates ahead for good.
The long anticipated shortage of Beer Bike balloon fight trucks has finally come to fruition, and the campus Beer Bike Coordinating team has been caught much like a deer-in-headlights (see story, page 1). The success rate of colleges acquiring trucks has taken a distinct drop-off in the past few years as the true purpose of Beer Bike truck rentals became more apparent to local truck proprietors. Unfortunately, 2011 was the breaking point; many colleges are without trucks, and the university is without a solid backup plan. Although the blame for the truck shortage does not lie directly with the Beer Bike coordinators, they can be held culpable for a significant lack of foresight. When deciding on an alternate parade plan earlier this year, the coordinators should have noted the recent decline in truck availability and selected an alternative that minimizes the need for trucks.
Never having won the Conference USA Championship, the swim team has been well accustomed to placing third or a satisfactory second, but this year was different. The squad has always preached optimism before the first splashes of every conference championship, but reality usually set in, for the Owls quickly resigned themselves to yet another year staring up at perennial champ Southern Methodist University. However, the depth and sharp execution delivered by the team last week in University of Houston's Recreational Center Natatorium provided some new pages for the school's record books. On day one, the relay team started the Owls strong as the foursome of freshman Michelle Gean, junior Shelby Bottoms, sophomore Kylee Talwar and freshman Karina Wlostowska swam a season-best 1:43.15 to place third in the 200-medley relay, the third-fastest time in Rice history. The 800-freestyle relay team carried out the momentum, with freshman Chelsea Fong, junior Alex O'Brien, junior Alison Godbe and sophomore Stephanie Wei blazed to a third-place finish with a season-best 7:23.42, the fourth-fastest time in school history.
My high school cross-country coach once said that there was no greater insult then for someone to say, "you have great potential." It meant that you were doing something wrong, that you could be great but weren't there yet. That said, The Adjustment Bureau, directed by George Nolfi (The Bourne Ultimatum), only had great potential despite an intriguing premise and talented actors.The movie begins with New York congressman David Norris (Matt Damon, Inside Job) meeting Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt, The Devil Wears Prada), the girl of his dreams, on a bus and striking up one of those flirtatious and witty conversations that only occur in movies. Soon we learn that this seemingly innocuous event was not meant to happen. Harry Mitchell (Anthony Mackie, We Are Marshall), a member of the Adjustment Bureau, an assortment of fedora clad figures that ensure mortals follow the "plan" of the godlike chairman, was supposed to spill Norris' coffee to prevent him from getting on the bus. Mitchell attempts to fix the problem by pausing time to tweak the situation, but in another snafu, Norris remains in real time and notices this. This forces the senior member of the adjusters who is in charge of the congressman's case, Richardson (John Slattery, Iron Man 2), to explain to Norris (and the audience) the existence of the bureau. This knowledge comes with a tremendous caveat: if Norris tells anyone else he will be subject to legitimization. Furthermore, he can never see the girl. This sets the action for Norris to fight the agents of fate itself to be with the girl.
Online Comment of the Week In response to "Alcohol: Probation Announced" Feb. 25:
While most students were lounging around on beaches and getting 12 hours of sleep at home during spring break, the men's tennis team was working hard and playing crucial matches as they traveled to San Diego to play at 54th-ranked San Diego State University (1-8) and at the 20th-ranked University of San Diego (9-2) while also participating in the Pacific Coast Doubles Championship in La Jolla, CA.The Owls started spring break off right as they beat San Diego State, 5-2 on February 28. Rice claimed the crucial doubles point thanks to wins from the pairs of senior Oscar Podlewski and sophomore Harry Fowler and juniors Christian Saravia and Isamu Tachibana. After that, the Owls put the match away as they won four of the six singles thanks to sophomore Peter Frank, Podlewski, Saravia and Tachibana.
The Thresher sat down briefly with each of the new college presidents and asked about their goals, their colleges and their spirit animals.
After a couple of tough losses, the Rice women's basketball team still heads to the Conference USA tournament in El Paso in a great position - sitting on a first round bye and avoiding a potential matchup with powerhouse Houston until the final game. The Owls, going into the last few weeks of the season, needed to win one game of the next three to clinch a first-round bye, an important few days off for a team at the end of a long season. They had games against three of the very best teams in C-USA: Tulane, Houston and Southern Methodist University - all of which could earn byes inside the tournament.
Brockman Hall, the new building for Physics and Astronomy, is near completion and the Physics Department began moving in during February.Most of the Physics faculty are moving to Brockman Hall, with the exception of the High Energy Astrophysics faculty, who are staying in Herman Brown Hall.
All residential colleges held mandatory meetings on Monday night to discuss each college's response to the recent campus-wide moratorium on hard alcohol and to inform students about the circumstances that led up to the administrative action.Each college was given the freedom to specify its own enforcement policies, definition of a private party and other aspects of moratorium that were mentioned in the letter from Dean of Undergraduates John Hutchinson on Feb. 24.
As a freshman at Rice University last year, I was thrown into a new atmosphere of college parties and drinking that was largely unfamiliar to me. But, as I quickly learned, there was no safer or more open place than Rice when it came to alcohol policy. Through a combination of private gatherings, public parties and Rice EMS services, this campus struck a perfect balance when it came to providing freedom and safety for students. Never once when I was intoxicated at gatherings (private or public) did I feel I was in the least bit of danger. Knowing RUPD was usually reasonable and emergency services were available allowed students to party and have fun together without living in constant fear. Moreover, students at Rice constantly looked out for one another. This year, with the administration's new heavy-handed approach to alcohol policy, things have certainly changed for the worse. Let me first concede that the rise in Rice EMS intoxication calls this year is a troubling statistic, and a problem that students have been trying to address since it was brought to our attention. Although these EMS calls cannot simply be explained away, I certainly think that the administration has handled the issue poorly from the get -go. The alcohol forum was an effective means of creating an open dialogue, but it only involved a small portion of students who were willing and able to attend and was never followed up by a formal address from Dean of Undergraduates, John Hutchinson. Why now, only a month after the initial alcohol forum that was meant to get the students involved in the process, are we facing harsh sanctions from the administration? If the intent was to warn students about possible consequences and give them an opportunity to turn things around, a month is hardly enough time for 3,000 students to implement changes within the colleges and show a measurable improvement. The only thing the Rice administration has succeeded in doing is making themselves look responsible to outsiders and creating animosity amongst the student population.
After third- and fourth-place finishes in 2009 and 2010, respectively, the track team took a step back with a sixth place finish during the Conference USA Indoor Championship held at Yeoman Fieldhouse at the University of Houston on Feb. 25-26. While four Owls medaled last year, only two took the podium this year, including junior Dan Sloat, who finished third in the 800-meter run for the second straight year and redshirt sophomore Clayton Chaney, who came up short of his goal of being C-USA champion in the heptathlon. Despite the ultimate decrease in standing amongst their conference peers, Head Coach Jon Warren (Jones '88) had a rational explanation for Rice's performance. "We've got two guys that we missed during indoor, [senior] Philip Adam and [redshirt sophomore] Jack Spinks," Warren said. "Philip doesn't have more indoor eligibility, and Jack broke his leg, so we're kind of playing him by ear in terms of getting him back for the majority of the outdoor season. If we have those guys, then we're easily third."
Students matriculating at Rice in the 2011-2012 school year will face an annual tuition increase of $1,780 more than last year bringing the total price of attendance to $47,821. Rice announced this 5.4 percent rise last Monday and concluded that the tuition cost specifically will be $34,900. Its growth rate has fluctuated slightly over recent years; last year, the tuition went up 5.3 percent from 2009, and between 2008 and 2009, there was a 5 percent price increase.
Whereas students involved in past water balloon fights have paraded slowly along the inner loop, a lack of trucks to carry the balloons means that students will now fight solely on Founder's Court, and then make their own way to the track for Saturday's races - if they so choose.Due to last-minute cancellations by truck rental companies, only six trucks were still reserved by the colleges as of Wednesday - not enough to have the parade as in years past. Instead, students will gather on Founder's Court at 10 on Saturday morning for the balloon fight before the races begin at 11:30.
As you are probably aware by now, LIVE CONSORTIUM is in the first week of its University HIV Anti-Stigma Campaign at Rice. The goal of the campaign is to educate the Rice community about HIV, the negative effects of stigma and how we, as a community, can create positive change. This article is the first in which I will write about the current HIV epidemic in Houston and what we can do together to solve the HIV problem. Current HIV statistics for Houston and The United States are astounding. Over a million Americans are currently living with HIV. Houston ranks eigth nationally in the number of total reported AIDS cases and one in 90 Houstonians is living with HIV. In Houston, African Americans represent 55 percent of all HIV infections and African American women represent approximately 75 percent of all women infected with HIV. Nationally, HIV remains one of the leading causes of death for persons age 25-44 and young people, ages 13- 24, are at greatest risk for acquiring HIV/AIDS.
There aren't too many bands still around that can claim they have affected generations with their live performances. Seminal progressive rock group Yes is among the longest-lived bands in the history of popular music. I have a personal connection to the band's staying power: In 1976, when my mom was 16, she saw Yes play in Fresno, CA for a packed house. I saw the same band (with some alterations to the original line-up) last spring at the House of Blues here in Houston. While the average age of the crowd has certainly increased, there was no mistaking the same energy and devotion of the Yes fans that had left my mom's ears ringing for three days after the Fresno performance that she is still complaining about 30 years later. While I appreciated the kinder acoustics of the House of Blues, I found myself yearning for the raw sound that I imagined numbing my mom's eardrums back in the day and signaled the beginnings of the progressive rock movement. Yes' seasoned performers are some of rock 'n' roll's most accomplished musicians, and had their start in the same incubator as legends such as Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, the Who, Jethro Tull, King Crimson and the Moody Blues at the Marquee Club in London. Happily, because the group was in town to kick off their Rite of Spring mini-tour of North America in Houston last Sunday, I had the privilege of speaking with the preeminent bassist Chris Squire over spring break about Yes' long performance career and their newest album, set to be released this coming summer.