Special Projects

Feature: "Joke candidates" are no laughing matter

Martel College seniors Erik Tanner and Daniel Hays entered the Student Association presidential debate Monday night as "joke candidates," allowed to participate in the forum for their comedic value over their presidential merits. As the debate came to an end and candidates were afforded the opportunity to give a closing statement, Tanner and Hays turned to a more serious tone, offering thoughtful remarks on the state of the university. "There's something amazing at this university - there's a bold, irreverent and funny nature to it, and there's a freedom here that doesn't exist anywhere else," Tanner began. "Unfortunately, that side is starting to die for us - that spirit is starting to wane."

Relish: Lankford Grocery no longer tasty

You know when that sitcom you really, really like starts getting crappy? Like when Jim and Pam got married on "The Office," or when Jessica Biel moved out of her house on "7th Heaven"? We experienced a moment exactly like that when we decided to go review Lankford Grocery, a burger place located in a secret corner of Montrose. Having been there several times before, we were excited to share the experience with the dudes we pay to live with us because we have no friends. Yet, for reasons we don't understand, Lankford wasn't at the top of its game last week. Lankford Grocery, not to be confused with Langford Market (that place that sells women's clothing in The Village), is a hole-in-the-wall burger joint located in what appears to be a condemned house. With floors that curve like waves in the Pacific breaking on the beach in front of you during a beautiful sunset, walking around the restaurant feels a bit topsy-turvy. The overall vibe is like you've been placed in a Norman Rockwell painting, if Rockwell dropped enough acid one day to decide he was M.C. Escher. Actually, the warped floors are a little disconcerting the first time you visit, but after a while they're all part of the charm of this decidedly ?unhealthy establishment.

This week's Editorial Cartoon

Photo: Ice fairy

The statue in the fairy fountain between Jones and Brown Colleges iced over Feb. 3. Classes starting after 1 p.m. on Feb. 3 were cancelled, and the university was closed Feb. 4 due to dangerous weather conditions.

Meet the new Jones masters

Three colleges have picked new masters, who will start their five-year term in the 2011-2012 school year. Will Rice College chose Associate Professor of Sociology Bridget Gorman and Mike Reed; Wiess College chose Associate Professor of History Alexander Byrd and Jeanette Byrd; Jones College chose Associate Professor of Linguistics Michel Achard and Melanie Achard. Each week we will feature the new masters of an individual college.

Women move into tie for second in conference

In a conference known for its parity among the 12 schools, the women's basketball team has not won four straight regular season conference games since 2007, a large reason for its Conference USA struggles the last few years. It is hard to rise above .500 - and gain any traction in the standings - if it is impossible to string together victories. The Owls had the chance to get their fourth straight win this weekend, as Southern Methodist University (11-11, 4-5 C-USA), a team in the middle of the pack in the C-USA, came to town. In the last two weeks, the Owls' three straight wins had catapulted them into third in the conference, leaving people talking about the young team that had started playing like seasoned veterans.

KTRU goes HD through KPFT

While the FCC continues to contemplate KTRU's analog future, on Monday morning Rice's radio station will begin broadcasting on KPFT's HD2 channel using KPFT's 100,000-watt transmitter in northwest Houston. The university announced the seven-year agreement with Pacifica Radio, which runs KPFT, on Saturday. KTRU will continue to broadcast on 91.7 FM through its own transmitter until the FCC reaches a decision on whether or not it can be sold to the University of Houston, and it will also continue to broadcast online.KTRU Station Manager Joey Yang said that although HD radio is not currently a widespread technology, the same was originally true of FM radio.

UTEP stifles men's basketball for second time

In what has truly been a season of peaks and valleys for the men's basketball team, never did the team fall further than after a Jan. 15 loss at the University of Texas-El Paso (18-5, 6-2 C-USA) in which the team managed to score just 43 points, losing by its largest margin of the conference season. The loss, which at the time marked the fourth in a row for the Owls, came largely in part to turnovers and atrocious shooting, both signs of a young team finding its way against one of the best teams in the conference. But the 23-point loss in El Paso, Texas proved to be an end to the slide, as Rice bounced back to win three of its next four games in conference to get back to .500 on the season. With a win at home over the University of Houston (11-11, 3-6 C-USA) sandwiched by road wins at the University of Central Florida (14-7, 1-7 C-USA) and Tulane University (12-9, 2-6 C-USA), the Owls quickly removed themselves from the cellar of the Conference USA standings.

Sports notebook: Twice is nice for women's tennis

The 48th-ranked women's tennis squad got back in the swing of things this past week, notching two victories over regional rivals. After having their match against the University of Houston postponed until Saturday due to Friday's inclement weather, the Owls took advantage of the extra day of rest by easily overpowering the Cougars 5-2. The Owls swept all three doubles matches, with the closest margin of victory coming in the second seeded match, where junior Alex Rasch and freshman Dominique Harmath defeated Maja Kazimieruk and Joanna Kacprzyk from the University of Houston. After her clinching doubles victory, Harmath took out Bryony Hunter in two sets for Rice's second singles victory, bringing the margin to a nearly insurmountable 3-0. The lead proved to be too much for Houston, as junior Ana Guzman closed out the match with a 7-5, 6-0 win over Kazimieruk. Despite the match effectively being over, the last three sets in progress were allowed to finish, producing the Cougars' only two points, which were a three-set match victory by Giorgia Pozzan over senior Jessica Jackson and a loss by freshman Kimberly Anicete to Kacprzyk. The loss dropped Houston to 2-2 and Rice moved up to a 3-2 mark. After the long hiatus from Jake Hess Tennis Stadium, the Owls were ready to return to their home court Tuesday against Louisiana State University (0-1). Much like the match against Houston, the Owls started off with a sweep of the doubles matches to go up 1-0 against the Tigers. Guzman picked up another point in the first singles match against Yvette Vlaar. The next three matches went in alternating fashion, with LSU pulling within one point after a two-set loss by sophomore Daniella Trigo, then Rice going up 3-1 after Harmath's fourth victory in the last two matches, and finally LSU's Whitney Wolf, the 33rd ranked player in the nation, bested senior Rebekka Hanle in the top-seeded match to make it 3-2. However, Anicete came through for the Owls at the end, getting her second match-clinching victory of the year, this time in two sets over high school teammate Ariel Morton. LSU's Kaitlin Burns finished off Jackson in three sets, but the win was already set in stone for Rice, who improved to 4-2, while the 75th-ranked LSU squad dropped to 0-1.

Vinyl: A look at punk's timelessness

There's no better way to celebrate Presidents Day than by examining two hardcore punk bands named after two of our nation's great leaders: Reagan Youth and Dead Kennedys. With their incredibly low production values and occasionally paradoxical political views, these pioneering bands are an important part of the American punk tradition. Reagan Youth's name is a reference to the Hitler Youth: Appropriately, the cover art of the seven-song E.P. Youth Anthems for The New Order, their only release during the Reagan Administration, features a cloaked Klansman chatting up an all-American family. Part of me hopes no young punks in the '80s confused this group of radical anarchists for racists, as some of lead singer Dave Insurgent's (aka Dave Rubinstein) family were Holocaust survivors. A hostile combination of anarchism and socialism, Reagan Youth's politics represented the vocal distaste many hardcore bands had for American conservatism.

OWL-Socrates set to expand

Two years into the OWL-Socrates website pilot project - capturing videos of classes which students can watch from home - the Educational Technologies Department plans to expand the project.According to Director of Academic and Research Computing Gary Kidney, the program has captured certain classes under the Schools of Engineering, Natural Sciences, Business and Music. Around 10 professors currently use this technology. Kidney said that he hopes to increase that number by encouraging faculty to use the technology in his discussions with them, but the choice to use the technology or not remains the prerogative of the individual faculty members.

Beyond the Hedges

National

Photo: Candidates compete for votes, laughs

Georgia Lagoudas, Adrianne Waddell, and Erik Tanner and Daniel Hays answered both serious and silly student questions at the Valentine's Day-themed SA presidential debate on Monday.

You're still good Charlie Brown!

Peanuts and the gang are back but in quite a different fashion; they are all grown up. In Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead, presented by the Rice Players, Charlie Brown and his friends are teenagers and, while they might be fictional, they face real and relevant problems. The cast of the show is small but strong and manages to give each character life. Bert Royal's play, Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead, originally premiered on May 3, 2004. Starting in New York City, the off-Broadway production quickly spread throughout the United States, claiming several awards in 2004 and 2006. Royal's dramatic parody addresses contemporary issues that teens deal with, from drugs to homosexuality. The story opens on C.B. (Charlie Brown) right after his beloved dog Snoopy has passed away.

Men's tennis goes on 1-1 road trip in Louisiana

There are times when effort can overcome a talent deficiency, and the men's tennis team's trip to the Pelican State was unfortunately one of those times. Assistant Coach Efe Ustundag (Baker '99) knew that it was going to be hard for the Owls to go into Louisiana and come back unscathed, especially having to take a trip to 45th-ranked Louisiana State University (1-2), who needed a win over a highly ranked Rice squad to bolster its NCAA tournament resume. "LSU was going to throw everything they had because [they knew] we were their ticket to the NCAA tournament," Ustundag said.

OWL-Socrates expansion a welcome addition

Rice is expanding the OWL-Socrates program, which allows professors to record lectures and post them online for students to peruse (see story, page 4). This expansion to the academic curriculum will be extremely advantageous for students. The ability for students to view lectures online provides for exceptional flexibility. Should a student be put at disadvantage for missing class because they were sick or representing our university at an athletic event? Furthermore, students would have the option to delay their lecture after an all-nighter of studying; going to a 9 a.m. class on two hours of sleep is simply useless if a student crashes 10 minutes into the lecture. Not only will this enhance overall wellness, but students can be sure they were alert when attending lecture; the osmosis method of absorbing lecture while falling asleep simply does not work. These online lectures will also provide the benefit of being a tool for studying for exams. Looking back at lectures of challenging asset could prove to be an indispensable asset.

Club baseball proving two can play at this game

Since Head Coach Wayne Graham stepped on campus 20 seasons ago, Rice baseball has been synonymous with winning, and winning with class. Owl baseball is the first impression of Rice for many people - excellence in all facets. From its inception in 2004, club baseball at Rice has not always created the same impression. With more engineers than legitimate "ballplayers," the club baseball team was like the National Club Baseball Association's own version of the Chicago Cubs, the league's "lovable losers." Struggling to field a competitive team in its first couple of seasons, the Owls piled up losing records. Up against seemingly insurmountable odds, playing against schools 10 to 20 times larger than their own, the team continued to practice every week and play every weekend. Fast forward to the 2009 season, and the squad knew right away they had a special group. Rice finished its spring season with an 18-3 win over Vanderbilt University and rode that momentum into conference play. The spring season was not without bumps, but the Owls' passion for the game and desire to compete pulled them through. An especially-motivated group of freshmen pushed the Owls to practice more often, and an old saying, "baseball is a game of repetition," held true on IM Field 7. Every day, there was visible improvement in the team's defense spurred on by many "player's practices," extra practices called by the players, not the leadership.

Letters to the Editor

Online Comment of the Week In response to "Puppy Mill needs further regulation," Feb. 4:

Homophobic tendencies still abound in South Asia

Great empires may come and go, but like the tides, they leave behind a tangled assortment of flotsam and jetsam. In the case of the British Empire, that included much that one might admire, but also a British Protestant morality that was codified in laws that persist to this day. Section 377 of the colonial Penal Code is a striking example. It classed consensual oral and anal sex as "carnal intercourse against the order of nature" and made it a crime punishable with imprisonment for life. When the British administrators withdrew, they took their soldiers, but left their law books behind. Section 377 was recently repealed in India, but it is still very much on the books in neighboring Bangladesh. Prosecutions under Section 377, which effectively makes homosexual sex illegal, are extremely rare. Section 377, hence, does not impair Bangladesh's moderate image in the world and questions about the country's human rights record on the issue of homosexuality are avoided in the international arena. Nonetheless, Section 337 forces the local LGBT community into a shadow existence. Their official illegality silences their voices in the public sphere.

Last week's online poll results