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NEWS 3/18/10 7:00pm

Photo: You grab the blanket, I'll make the picnic

 

Students gathered on the Central Quad lawn to celebrate the beginning of Willy Week Monday. The Rice Program Council hosted a campus-wide picnic featuring musical stylings by Lovett College sophomore Tristan Clement, who DJed during dinner, and two local bands, the Erin Jaimes Band and The Sour Notes, who performed after dinner. RPC handed out Wild West Willy Week-themed water bottles to the first 200 attendees and sold T-shirts.

NEWS 3/18/10 7:00pm

Photo: Throwing it back

 

In preparation for Beer Bike, two Wiessmen practice their chugging skills. On the day of the race, women chug 12 ounces and men chug 24 ounces.

NEWS 3/18/10 7:00pm

Commentary: Focus on leaderboard, not on Tiger's wrongdoings

By Casey Michel

Last week, I was tasked with preparing a speech on why America may or may not be in moral decline. Pondering my options, I figured I could cite homicide rates, marijuana decriminalization and same-sex marriage - all the sociological strictures that comprise the glut of this nation's moral conversation. That is to say, all the points people are expecting me to discuss. And then I realized I didn't have to do any of this. Instead, I could just talk about Tiger Woods.

NEWS 3/18/10 7:00pm

Dean misrepresents mission of humanities

By Eric Doctor

Three weeks ago, the Thresher reported that the School of Humanities would be cutting two courses "not directly relevant to majors," HUMA 250: Writing for Print Media and HUMA 251: Typography and Design ("Non-major Humanities courses cut," Feb. 26). As an alumnus of HUMA 251 and an aspiring graphic designer, I find this news very distressing.However, what is more distressing is the fact that Interim Humanities Dean Allen Matusow asserted in a letter to the editor last week that these two courses are "peripheral to the core mission of the humanities" ("Courses cut due to limited budget," March 12). This statement demonstrates a grotesque misunderstanding by Matusow about the mission of his own school.

NEWS 3/18/10 7:00pm

Casino party security pays off

By Hallie Jordan

Nearly 800 party-goers, several donning fake hair braids and blue body paint, made their way to Lovett College last Saturday for the college's annual Casino Night, themed after the movie Avatar. As the partiers arrived at Lovett, they encountered a facade of "floating" mountains, a bridge over a water pit and a small waterfall complete with dry ice to give the appearance of fog. Lovett students started work on the façade before spring break and through the week preceeding the party, Lovett Chief Justice Jay Patel said.

NEWS 3/18/10 7:00pm

Rhodes shares broadcast news insight

By Kevin Lin

A vice president at Fox News Company at 32, David Rhodes (Will Rice '96), who spoke March 11 to a full crowd of students and faculty, has been one of Rice's fastest-rising recent graduates. Rhodes, the current head of U.S. television operations at Bloomberg L.P., spoke at Farnsworth Pavilion about his career and counseled those in social science majors about their prospects after college.

NEWS 3/18/10 7:00pm

Debate team remains sharp, looks to future

By Scott Norgaard

Not up for debate: Rice Forensics has once again succeeded in qualifying students for national competition. The George R. Brown Forensics Society, Rice's speech and debate team, is fresh from recent successes in its two past tournaments, the Sunset Cliffs Invitational and the American Forensics Association District III Invitational, where it qualified to move on to nationals April 2-5.

NEWS 3/18/10 7:00pm

Erratum

By Staff Editorial

In the March 19 issue, the Thresher reported in the article "Casino party security pays off" that undercover Houston Police Department officers made an appearance at Lovett's Casino Party. The officers in attendance were actually representing the Texas Alcohol and Beverage Commission. The Thresher regrets the error.

NEWS 3/18/10 7:00pm

Students debate health care

By Josh Rutenberg

Student debates were just what the doctor ordered. On Saturday evening, Hanszen College senior Sean Sessel and Ted Wieber (Hanszen '09) faced off against Hanszen sophomore Myles Bugbee and Jones College sophomore Kevin Bush to discuss the merits and drawbacks of healthcare reform in the United States. The debate, a collaboration of the Baker Institute Student Forum and Rice Young Democrats, and moderated by BISF President Robert Meister, paralleled ongoing congressional debates concerning federally mandated healthcare. The clubs asked for donations at the event to support the South Texas Colonia Initiative, Inc., an organization that provides medical aid to impoverished communities along the Texas-Mexico border.

NEWS 3/18/10 7:00pm

Would you rather...

By Josh Rutenberg

Baker College Master Jose Aranda, Director of University Bands Chuck Throckmorton and Professor of Earth Science and Chemistry Andreas Luttge debate the finer things in life at Tuesday's Beer Debates, part of the Willy Week celebrations in Willy's Pub.

NEWS 3/18/10 7:00pm

Golf improves performance from last tournament, Buttacavoli takes 10th overall

By Paul Fitzgerald

The golf team fought heavy winds to post a sixth-place finish at the Louisiana Tech University Bulldog Classic on Tuesday. While the finish represents an improvement over the team's performance at the Border Olympics last week, it left the Owls hungry for the upcoming University of Arkansas-Little Rock First Tee Collegiate Classic in two weeks. Rice opened the first round of play at Squire Creek Country Club in Choudrant, La. with a cumulative score of 306, putting them in sixth place. Senior Michael Buttacavoli and junior Michael Whitehead paced the Owls with a pair of three-over 75s. Senior Christopher Brown and freshman Jade Scott both shot six-over 78.

NEWS 3/18/10 7:00pm

Beer Bike necessitates responsible precautions

By Staff Editorial

And so begins the event that needs no introduction. Maybe the alumni wandering back to campus have tipped you off, or maybe the abnormally copious amounts of free booze have alerted you to this weekend's festivities. Regardless, tomorrow begins the most sacred tradition in Rice history: chugging, biking, chanting college cheers.So we'd like to be responsible for a minute and just remind you a) to wear sunscreen, and b) to not be stupid. The former should be simple enough: You can even get sunburned on overcast days, and according to the latest weather reports, it looks like Saturday will be rainy. The latter, however, we cannot stress enough. This semester alone has seen its share of Beer Bike parade debates, and we'd be overjoyed to see this year's parade and races go off without a hitch. So control yourself. Have fun, but if you can tell, even in a drunken stupor, that what you're doing is a bad idea, don't do it. It's (probably) not worth maiming yourself to earn the respect of that tattooed hottie.

NEWS 3/18/10 7:00pm

Inconsistent enforcement tarnishes image of RUPD

By Yan Digilov

Picture this: You're a freshman in your second semester of college, on the verge of the most exciting week of the school year. To get the festivities started, you throw a kegger the likes of which no freshman has ever imagined, attracting guests from across the university. After hours of drinking and dancing to the wildest 1990s house music your DJ could find, the crowd dies down around 1:30 a.m., and you see a girl from across campus lying in the corner.It's your room, and after seeing your neighbors get sent to the county jail for smoking pot last week, you make the drunken decision that your "tobacco pipe" and rainy day stash could be found if the police enter your room. Just then, your buddy calls you to chill in the other room. You wake up the next morning with a headache, walk back to your room and find that the girl has .

NEWS 3/18/10 7:00pm

Remember Me remarkably forgettable

By Jackie Ammons

Sometimes even a movie can have an identity crisis. Such is the case with Remember Me, a film that promotes itself as a coming-of-age drama, yet mixes themes of death and deep loss with scenes of romantic bonding. The question of whether Remember Me is a drama, dramedy or action film is never fully answered because the plot has no real direction. Then again, Remember Me is less focused on plot than it is on serving up an intensely emotional Robert Pattinson as eye candy for the audience.Remember Me begins when Ally (Emilie de Ravin, "Lost") witnesses her mother's murder in a New York City subway just before her police investigator father (Where the Wild Things Are's Chris Cooper) rushes to the scene. Ten years later, Ally's life connects with that of Tyler Hawkins (New Moon's Robert Pattinson) after he has a run-in with Ally's father. On a dare from his goofy friend Aidan (The Invention of Lying's Tate Ellington), he decides to date Ally as revenge on her father.

NEWS 3/18/10 5:22am

INA best newspaper web sites

 

Five TownNews.com hosted sites were recognized as some of Iowa’s best newspaper web sites at the Iowa Press Association’s annual convention last month in Des Moines, Iowa.

NEWS 3/11/10 6:00pm

Rice drinking culture fosters respect, shared responsibility

By Katie Jenson

College students drink alcohol. Not all of them, by any means, but many, including those who are underage. So instead of creating dormitories replete with teetotalers and closet alcoholics by merely punishing alcohol offenders, Rice embraces an unconventional approach: teaching these students how to drink responsibly in the first place. The result is a safer party environment and sounder university policy and attitude than one might see at other schools.One of the most important facets of Rice's drinking culture is its emphasis on peer responsibility. Rice University Police Department and the threat of punishment are seen as the last resort for alcohol episodes. On a university campus where many of the drinkers may not be of legal age, this environment promotes drinking in the safety of students' rooms rather than driving off campus to binge-drink.

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