december 6, 2011
DESCRIPTION
The Interactive Issue of The Eagle for December 6, 2011.TRANSCRIPT
theEAGLE December 6, 2011Volume 86 – Issue 13
American University’s student voice since 1925
THEEAGLEONLINE.COM
@THEEAGLEONLINE
PROTESTAN AMERICAN
1970 – 2011PAGE 3
(Left) Vietnam War, May 1970; (Center) Occupy D.C., Fall 2011; (Right) Karl Rove, April 2007
theEAGLE TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 20112
MISSION
The Eagle, a student-run newspaper at
the American University, serves the commu-
nity by reporting news involving the campus
community and surrounding areas. The
Eagle strives to be impartial in its reporting
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rights.
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of The Eagle. Unsigned letters will not be
published. The Eagle reserves the right to
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lished in print or online. Letters and columns
are the opinion of the writer and
not the newspaper.
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curacy and clarity and will print corrections
or clarifi cations. To report a mistake, call
the editor in chief at (202) 885-1402 or email
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CLASSIFIEDS
EDITOR IN CHIEF
Lindsey Anderson
MANAGING EDITOR FOR WEB
Sean Meehan
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Julia Ryan
MANAGING EDITOR FOR THE SCENE
Yohana Desta
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Rachel Devor
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Zach C. Cohen
ADMINISTRATION & LOCAL NEWS
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Paige Jones
NEWS ASSISTANTS
Leigh Giangreco
Rebecca Zisser
MULTIMEDIA EDITOR
Diana Bowen
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
Joe Wenner
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Ben Lasky
Eric Saltzman
ASSISTANT SCENE EDITOR
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ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR
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EDITORIAL STAFF
CORRECTIONS — NOV. 22 ISSUE
POLICIES
theEAGLE
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American University’s student voice since 1925• The Nov. 22 article “Safe Space expands to ad-
dress GLBT policies” incorrectly read that AU’s
Communications and Marketing offi ce hopes
to start Safe Space 2.0. The GLBTA Resource
Center launched Safe Space 2.0.
• The Nov. 22 article “College dating site offers
hope for lovelorn students” reported that “Date
My School” started as a social networking
startup for students in the District. It was actu-
ally started as a startup for students at
Columbia University.
• The Nov. 22 article “Students ‘plug in’ to track
energy usage in Bender Library” read that a
hair dryer consumed 150 watts, but it actually
consumed 1,500 watts.
• The headline of the Nov. 22 article about the
AU staff member who was on “The Price is
Right” incorrectly identifi ed Bernard Schulz as
a professor. He is a staff member.
Eagle Rants This week’s best & worst of daily Eagle Rants
Got any Sodium jokes? Na.
I’m kind of weirded out by the fact that people here fi nd me attractive. I’m not sure if it’s just the AU gog-gles or the fact that they never met awkward middle school me. Any other guys have similar experi-ences?
God there are too many eligible girls at this school. I can’t pick just one
That awkward moment when the one guy you absolutely can’t stand and the girl you have an unbeliev-able crush on are fl irting with each other =/
#thatawkwardmomentwhen you’re not sure if a rant is about you or not.
Because sending your relationship problems to the Eagle Rants is a clin-ically proven form of stress relief.
My foreign born professor con-stantly uses the word “sexy” in place of “provocative”. It makes for an interesting block class, but re-ally, when is someone going to clue him in?
I love reading intelligent responses on Eagle Rants. It gives me hope knowing that among the numer-ous biddies and frat boys here at AU, there are students who actually think.
this effi ng chair promotes bad pos-ture uggghhhh my baaaacckkkk
I love cats. I love every kind of cat. I just want to hug them all but I can’t. Can’t hug every cat. meowwwwww
Because no one will turns down the girl who folded the napkins into cool shapes…“There are never forks at TDR, you have to walk around for like
10 minutes looking for a fork eve-rytime you want to eat”, the other day I walked around to every fork container and could not fi nd a sin-gle fork, so I ate my salad with a spoon. :(
Dec. 16 can’t get here soon enough.What happened to the editor’s notes? Please bring back the edi-tor’s notes, Madame Editor.[Editor’s note: Some days this edi-tor is merely uninspired.]
My monthly trust fund check is late. WTF. #richgirlproblems
No internet. No homework. No sit-ting next to your friend = 3.5 hours of pissing off broke alumni for bank
I’m sorry I called you at 4 AM and woke you up, only to yell at you for not calling me that day. I’m sorry I accused you of not trying in our relationship and of not loving me.
I’m sorry I made you feel like all my friends hate you. I’M SORRY. If you only knew how much I loved you and how much I would do for you. I just want to feel like you feel the same way.
Sexiled at 5 on a Thursday when the research for the paper I wanted to work on instead of going out to-night is in my room :[
Why is everyone here obsessed with cats?
Even though its forty degrees out, thank God for all the hot women with nice legs still wearing mini-skirts.
People forcing their anti-fur agenda on other in the anonymous Rant section make me want to buy fur. Lots and lots of fur...
Man, these AU goggles are getting
so thick, even the squirrels are lookin like babes
“Oh hey, it’s the end of the semes-ter, I should assign a long paper, group project, and have some quizzes.”-Every Professor
I once had a thing for a socialist...That awkward moment when you and your friend make a bet about when your other friend will fi nally realize they are gay and come out.....
Oh my God. The hamburgers in TDR for dinner on December 1 were SOOO good. For once, I felt that the $16 swipe was worth it.
The Sun will come out tomorrow...love the man with the stuffed dog
I am part of the 99%....whose tired of the 1% yelling on the quadDear AU Students wearing winter
jackets with scarves and fl ip fl ops,I’m confused.........
Anyone else tempted to sign up for DMS because of the video on their homepage? That cartoon is so con-vincing!
Egypt, calm down! I WANT TO VISIT YOU!!!!
This may be creepy, but the person who was on the computer before me submitted a rant and now I feel compelled to rant about them. You left sweat on the keyboard.
One day I’m going to work up a nice big fart, let it rip on the 2nd Floor of the library and walk out.
There are bloody foot prints in the bathroom. And still no one believes me that this place is haunted.
All I want for Christmas is sleep.
By PAIGE JONES & REBECCA ZISSER
EAGLE STAFF WRITERS
Though Occupy AU and A New AU, two student-led AU movements that emerged this fall, are advocating for dif-ferent causes in different ways, they have similar goals: to improve the lives of AU students.
“We’re all fi ghting the same fi ght more or less,” said Tom O’Connor, a freshman in the School of International Service and a member of both groups.
To help understand which organiza-tion does what and what each organiza-tion has accomplished, The Eagle has put together the following chart.
OCCUPY AU VS. A NEW AU AU officials debate protestors’ claims
News 3TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2011
Understanding the Student Movements
MEET THE MANAU alum, journalist David Gregory speaks on campus 6
PIPE DREAMSFacilities Management to repair pipes in McDowell 8
THE DOG HOUSEA look at
AU’s dogs 5
A NEW AU OCCUPY AU
WHAT IS IT?A New AU is part of the Community Ac-
tion and Social Justice Coalition, a student-run coalition of on-campus social justice groups.
Occupy AU is an offshoot of the larger Occupy movement. The group is not rec-ognized as an offi cial organization on cam-pus, unlike A New AU.
WHEN DID IT
BEGIN? Late October 2011 Early November 2011
WHAT ARE
MEMBERS
TRYING TO DO?
A New AU focuses on campus issues such as:• Rewriting the University’s corporate so-cial responsibility code• Voting a student member onto the Board of Trustees• Increasing transparency of the Univer-sity’s fi nances
Occupy AU focuses on student debt, loans and post-graduation employment rates.
“Occupy AU is reinvigorating activism on campus,” said Mitch Ellmauer, a sopho-more in the College of Arts and Sciences and a member of both groups.
School of Public Affairs sophomore An-drew Menefee said Occupy AU protests issues that are relevant to all students.
“Occupy AU forms a link on how the na-tional society is being affected currently,” he said. “It links campus with national is-sues.”
WHAT HAS
THE GROUP
ACCOMPLISHED?
Last month AU President Neil Kerwin pledged to improve the University’s social responsibility code both through better business practices and by making more socially responsible investments, The Eagle previously reported in its Nov. 22 issue.
“A lot of … A New AU’s purpose has been achieved,” said Ethan Miller, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences.
The group is still advocating for student debt, loans and employment.
WHAT’S UP
NEXT?
A New AU does not have any more con-crete plans for this semester.
“It’s getting towards the end of the se-mester so things are winding down,” said Mitch Ellmauer, a junior in CAS.
But A New AU will continue to follow up on the achievement of its goals this fall, particularly in regards to the social re-sponsibility code, Miller said.
“We want to make sure it actually does something,” he said.
Miller said A New AU will work to in-crease the transparency of University fi -nances.
Occupy AU is participating in two back-to-back rallies Dec. 6 and 7 to protest stu-dent debt and encourage student engage-ment, according to Ellmauer.
The fi rst event, “Take Over Congress,” will begin at 9 a.m. in front of the Capitol Dec. 6 to protest Congressman Virginia Foxx’s proposed cuts to the Pell Grant pro-gram. Members will be “Shutt[ing] Down K Street” by rallying outside major lobby fi rms, banks and lending institutions to urge for a resolution to student debt.
By ZACH C. COHEN
EAGLE STAFF WRITER
AU administration may address the demands of students groups such as A New AU and Occupy AU through a meeting next se-mester between President Neil Kerwin and student representatives.
“I will work to arrange a meeting with your organi-zation and others as early as possible in the spring semester to explore these matters in greater detail,” Kerwin said in a letter to Ethan Miller, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences, and to other stu-dent organizers.
The proposal “[dem-onstrates] Dr. Kerwin and the administration’s willingness to engage in a dialogue with students about their concerns,” As-sociate Director of Media Relations Maralee Csellar wrote in an email.
However, representa-tives won’t be able to imple-ment change instantane-ously since the University is tied to the Budget Com-mittee’s schedule, which will hold public comment sessions in late summer 2012, according to Ker-win. At these sessions, the University community can discuss the issues the stu-dent groups raised such as parking rates and fi nancial transparency.
“I believe that remov-ing issues from the es-tablished budget process would undercut our ability to take a truly comprehen-sive view of institutional needs,” Kerwin wrote in the letter. “Such actions taken without the involve-ment of the Budget Com-mittee would also compro-mise our commitment to
broad participation in the resource allocation pro-cess.”
Kerwin disagreed with the students’ view that there is a lack of student input in University mat-ters.
He said AU has been taking student concerns into account by keeping tuition increases at their lowest in 15 years, focus-ing on maintaining useful fi nancial aid for students and improving the Univer-sity’s sustainability.
The University also takes student input into ac-count through suggestions from project teams and academic departments, in addition to input from the non-voting Washington College of Law student on the Board of Trustees, Kerwin said.
Kerwin also said he regularly meets with the University Council, which has representatives from the Student Government, the Graduate Leadership Council and the Student Bar Association.
“The AU administration has been listening to the various questions, sugges-tions and requests from various student groups, including Occupy AU, A New AU, CASJ, the Stu-dent Worker Alliance and others, at meetings, town hall forums and through direct correspondence,” Csellar said.
Last month, Kerwin pledged to create a com-mittee with students, fac-ulty, staff and alumni to review the University’s investment practices to make sure money is only given to companies that share AU’s commitment to social responsibility.
By LEIGH GIANGRECO
EAGLE STAFF WRITER
In light of the recent Oc-cupy protests on campus and across the country, The Eagle looks back at the most infamous of AU protests.
VIETNAM WAR PROTESTS, May 1970
Tear gas fi lled the air from Massachusetts Av-enue to the Quad as police and students volleyed can-isters back and forth over Ward Circle in May 1970. MGC was plastered with scribbled posters warning tear gas victims to keep out. The gas had already seeped into the ventila-tion in buildings as far as MGC and residual tear gas chemicals on the protest-ers’ clothes caused other students in the building to experience eye irritation.
Before 1970, AU’s cam-pus had been relatively stable. But when the “Mor-atorium to End the Viet-nam War,” a series of anti-war protests across the country, started that year, on-campus protests began to gain steam.
Students had held dem-onstrations on campus against the Vietnam War and against racial segre-gation, but the infamous clash between police and students at Ward Circle in May 1970 sparked a revo-lution on campus.
School of International Services Professor Gary Weaver, who also edited and contributed to the
book “The University and Continued on Page 4
From Vietnam to Ladner, AU has rich history of
Continued from Page 3
gas mask on the way to his car that day.
“My brother was in the navy at the time and gave it to me,” Weav-er said. “He joked, ‘You need it more than I do.’ I used it frequent-ly enough.”
William Causey, a 1971 School of Public Affairs alumnus, was president of the student govern-ment at the time of the protests.
While Causey was personally opposed to the war, he saw many D.C. students getting arrested for civil disobedience. Howard Uni-versity shut down for at least three days in 1968 after students seized administrative buildings, accord-ing to The Eagle.
Causey commended then-AU President George Williams for keeping the University open in light of the student protests.
“They were frankly very ac-commodating and understanding of what was going on with the stu-dent body,” Causey said. “There was frankly not a great deal of op-position or resistance to what was happening on campus. I think one of the hallmarks of a university is to promote open, free discussion of an issue.”
With the exception of the tear gas incident, protests at AU were vocal but peaceful.
Then-Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird used to ride his limo home up Massachusetts Avenue by Ward Circle. Students threw marshmallows and leafl ets at the car, both of which stuck to the wheels of the car, according to Weaver.
The Secret Service became an-gry when the car slowed down.
“His car was never stopped,” Causey said of the scene. “But when he went through the cir-cle that one morning when there were a lot of students there, he made a gesture that was not a fa-vorable gesture.”
LADNER PROTESTS, August 2005
Although former AU President Ben Ladner’s fi scal indiscretions marred AU’s reputation, the inci-
dent united the campus. Ladner, once one of the highest
paid university presidents in the country with a salary of $880,750 a year, spent $125,000 from Univer-sity funds between 2002 and 2005, according to The Eagle.
In August 2005, The Washing-ton Post alleged that Ladner had used the money for personal ex-penses, including lavish vacations with his family and a personal chef.
The University Board of Trus-tees offered Ladner $3.75 million to leave the school, a severance
package called the “golden para-chute” by members of the AU community who were angry with how AU administration handled the Ladner issue.
Students like Megan Linehan, a 2006 College of Arts and Sci-ences alumna, said the movement against Ladner evolved organi-cally.
With Facebook still in its in-fancy, Linehan rallied the students the old fashioned way: going door to door in the dorms, chalking the
sidewalk and posting fl yers.She said the protests started
out small but grew quickly outside a Sept. 27, 2005, Board of Trustees meeting on the issue. Students called for Ladner’s suspension and eventually stormed the meet-ing in Butler Pavilion, The Eagle previously reported.
Some of Linehan’s rallying methods were less orthodox. She rented a U-Haul for a weekend to protest Ladner’s moving expenses with a homemade sign reading: “We’ll move your stuff for free.”
“I just remember driving down
Connecticut thinking, ‘I’m gonna hit something,’” Linehan said.
The Ladner scandal resonated with professors as well. Linehan said several faculty let their stu-dents out of block classes early to protest.
“We felt a great solidarity; they didn’t seem afraid,” Linehan said.
Still, she and her longtime friend Maeve Reed, a CAS ’06 alumna, had some trepidation the night before the fi rst protest.
“What do you think is going to happen?” Reed said to Linehan that night in her apartment in the Berkshires. “There’s this kind of element where you’re just nerv-ously laughing because Ladner could do whatever he wanted at this point. There was a degree of
fear to it as well.”For Reed though, civil disobe-
dience is a family affair. Her great grandmother was a suffragette, and her uncle, also an AU alum-nus, was arrested during the Vi-etnam protests. Her grandparents even had to bail him out of jail.
“My grandparents were really proud and excited that I was out there protesting because they’re kind of activists,” Reed said.
KARL ROVE PROTESTS,April 2007
A smaller but vocal group of protesters confronted Karl Rove when he spoke in Ward in April 2007. Over 80 students came to Ward to protest Rove, even lying down in front of his limo.
Matt Kent, then-President of the College Democrats and a 2008 SPA graduate, said Rove was a fed-eral criminal because he violated the Presidential Records Act of 1978, the Eagle reported. The Act ensures that all White House writ-ten communication is open to the public.
Eagle reporters and other media were cut off from the inti-mate speech. Tickets had been available through the College Republicans website or at its gen-eral meeting, but it had not been advertised on Today@AU. Some protesters complained the event was not publicized enough.
The Community Action and Social Justice Coalition gathered outside Kay Spiritual Life Center before the protest at 5:30 p.m., planning to block Rove’s entrance to Ward, The Eagle previously re-ported.
The protesters then linked arms, forming a human chain around the building. They let at-tendees in but insisted they were there as a group to make a citi-zens’ arrest of Rove.
By the time Rove exited the building after the speech, the protest crowd had expanded to al-most 100 people.
The protest became physical when 16 demonstrators broke from the crowd to lie in front of Rove’s limo.
Campus police and security guard ran to the protesters and pulled them away. One protester claimed that a Public Safety of-fi cer dragged her by her hair. Another protester was more mis-chievous in his contempt for Rove, mooning the limo.
theEAGLE NEWS TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 20114
AU embraces its rich history of protests
By ZACH C. COHEN
EAGLE STAFF WRITER
A Public Safety offi cer and Clayton Pencek from Student Activities stopped members of Occupy AU from handing out fl iers on the Quad Dec. 5.
Pencek, a Student Ac-tivities events and market-ing assistant, said Student Activities did not approve the fl iers and they could not appear on campus until stamped with the Student Activities logo.
A banner that read “Oc-cupy AU” and had been hanging on the side Mary Graydon Center was also taken down.
Pencek said the stu-dents would have to leave the Quad with their mate-rials, but he offered to ap-prove the fl iers that day if the students sent digital formats of the fl iers.
Mana Aliabadi, a stu-dent in Occupy AU and an Eagle columnist, told the Public Safety offi cer and Pencek that Occupy AU was organized through the Community Action and Social Justice Coalition, which would give them the right to table on the Quad and get fl iers approved by Student Activities.
However, Vice Presi-dent for Student Life Gail Hanson told The Eagle in an email that Occupy AU is not a recognized student organization.
Occupy AU evicted from Main Quad
ABOVE: D.C. police offi cers used tear gas on students at a May 1970 anti-Vietnam War protest.LEFT: Students protested a speech by Karl Rove in April 2007.
COURTESY OF THE TALON
ALBERTO HALPERN / THE EAGLE
Students protested at Ward Circle, Rove speech
A student encourages passers-by to talk to mem-bers of Occupy AU on the Quad.
ZACHARY C. COHEN / THE EAGLE
theEAGLE NEWS TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2011 5
By PAIGE JONES
EAGLE STAFF WRITER
Kya and Elias frequent-ly go on walks around campus with McDowell Resident Director Mat-thew Le Brasseur and Anderson Resident Direc-tor Amanda Morley. They even have play dates with one another in Morley’s room.
Although Kya and Eli-as are campus residents, their contribution to AU is a bit different — they are dogs.
Resident directors are permitted to keep dogs in the residence halls, since they live in these halls year-round. However, they must pay a deposit of $560 to fully clean the room when the resident director leaves.
“It’s like having a real apartment on campus,” Le Brasseur said. “Most schools have this policy.”
Kya is a mix between a golden Labrador and Ger-man shepherd, according to Morley. The reddish-brown dog loves living on campus and cuddling with
students.“She’s adapted well to
living on campus,” Morley said. “She loves any kind of attention and loves liv-ing here.”
Kya formerly lived with Morley’s partner in her on-campus apartment at George Mason University. She decided to bring Kya to AU to help separate the feeling between work and home.
“It’s nice coming home to somebody,” Morley said. “I just feel bad that I can’t give her as much at-tention.”
Morley said she found Kya running down the street while visiting her partner’s family in Ken-tucky. Kya was the runt of a family and was going to be placed in a shelter or put up for adoption before Morley decided to adopt her.
Morley wakes Kya up at 6 each morning for a walk before leaving work, which is just a few rooms away from her apartment in Anderson.
Continued on Page 9
AU’s top dogs bring ‘puppy love’
By SAMANTHA HOGAN
EAGLE STAFF WRITER
From sleeping on sidewalks to organizing vigils in McPherson Square, AU students in Occupy AU and other student groups are giving their continued support for the Oc-cupy D.C. movement. Here are what each group is doing to support the Occupy movement.
Community Action and Social
Justice CoalitionCASJ is leading AU student en-
gagement in Occupy D.C. The coali-tion acts as an organizing collective for 14 campus clubs that coordinates independent events and directs in-terested students to clubs within the coalition, according to Mitch Ellmauer, a junior in the School of Public Affairs.
CASJ started in the 1960s as an anti-war and anti-draft counseling center and is not funded by AU. CASJ clubs including Movement for Global Justice, Student Worker Alli-ance and Fair Trade Student Asso-ciation have had student representa-tion at Occupy D.C.
During the first two weeks of Oc-cupy D.C., CASJ had 10 to 12 stu-dents and alumni actively participat-ing together in the events, some of which stayed overnight in sleeping bags at the protests.
“The point is to try to get people to see and know what’s going on in the city in terms of activism,” said Mary Donoghue, a senior in the Col-lege of Arts and Sciences.
Participation has lately been on a more individual basis and has been less consistent.
“The thing about Occupy is that it’s trendy, so people will go once or twice then lose interest,” said Rachel Mandelbaum, a junior in the School of International Service.
CASJ will be focusing on student democracy next semester, which would include increased student in-put in University decision making that goes beyond student govern-ment. The coalition hopes to put an elected student with voting power on the Board of Trustees.
Students for Justice in PalestineWhile many members of Student
for Justice in Palestine have par-ticipated in the Occupy movement independently, the group helped or-ganize a vigil Nov. 6 in McPherson Square for the victims of Operation Cast Lead, the 2008-2009 war in the
Gaza Strip.The vigil was not an official Oc-
cupy D.C. event, but many D.C. oc-cupiers joined in, Steve Demarest, a junior in SPA, wrote in an email.
SJP also protested Israel’s use of Caterpillar bulldozers during Op-eration Cast Lead to destroy homes, factories, food and water systems, Demarest said.
“There is a diverse group of politi-cal views within the Occupy move-ment, but I think the one common thread that unites protesters is oppo-sition to corporate abuse, i.e., putting profit over people,” Demarest said.
Eco-SenseEco-Sense has been advocating
for sustainability and environment awareness in the Occupy D.C move-ment. Members volunteer and en-gage in political activism on environ-mental issues on campus and in D.C. A handful of Eco-Sense members were recently involved with the Oc-cupy D.C. movement.
Mandelbaum; Megan Lyle, a sophomore in CAS; and other AU students attended the Anti-Tar Sands Keystone XL rally Nov 6. The rally was not directly a part of Occupy D.C., but many occupiers attended it, Lyle said.
The protest focused on stopping the construction of the Tar Sands Keystone XL pipeline, which could potentially pollute major water sup-plies and transport tar sands oil that burn dirtier than other oils, accord-ing to Mandelbaum.
The pipeline would stretch across thousands of miles from Canada, through the continental United States, to Texas to transport unre-fined oil, Lyle said.
American Vegan OutreachAmerican Vegan Outreach has
not been directly involved with Oc-cupy D.C., but numerous AU vegans have joined the Occupy D.C. move-ment, according to Paige McNa-mara, a sophomore in CAS.
The Occupy D.C. Declaration di-rectly mentions opposition to factory farms, a key AVO issue, McNamara said.
McNamara held teach-ins about veganism at Occupy D.C., offering the platform for discussion on why veganism should be a viable option for all people.
“I hope to be able to introduce the idea of veganism as a tool of lib-eration, not just for animals but for workers, people, consumers to the
people at McPherson,” she said. McNamara also said sustainable
living practices are a major theme at the Occupy D.C. camp. McNamara said it is only natural that veganism will be the next major discussion at Occupy D.C.
Justice Not JailsThe prison reform advocacy
group took part in a march from the McPherson Square to a Wells Fargo bank Dec. 2 to protest the bank’s in-vestment in the GEO Group. Demar-est said the GEO Group is a private prison company that cuts costs by assigning one doctor for every 1,300 prisoners at the Rivers Correctional Institute, where many D.C. residents are held.
He saw “a decent amount” of peo-ple at the protest.
“Once we got to Wells Fargo, many people spoke about their own thoughts and experiences with pri-vate prisons and the prison system in general,” Demarest said.
College DemocratsCollege Democrats is one of the
largest clubs at AU and has differ-ing opinions when it comes to the Occupy D.C. movement, said Chris Litchfield, president of College Dem-ocrats and a junior in SPA and CAS.
College Democrats agrees with Occupy D.C.’s major issues, but not with the methods the group has pro-posed for solutions, he said.
One of the major issues that Col-lege Democrats has focused on is wealth inequality. The Democratic Party is looking for a more equita-ble tax structure to help shrink the wealth divide between the 99 percent and the 1 percent, Litchfield said.
“I think there is still a role to play when it comes to advocacy in gov-ernment,” he said.
He also said he sees a lot of over-lay between the future of the Demo-cratic Party and Occupy participants.
“Occupy is not an arm of the Dem-ocratic Party, but moving forward, this will be a very defining time,” Li-tchfield said. “It is nice to see other people than the Democratic Party talking about these issues.”
On campus, College Democrats hosted a panel on debt negotiation Nov. 30 after the failure of Congress’ Super Committee and plans to host events in the near future focusing on student education of important issues facing the United States and AU.
Students with diverse interests unite in Occupy D.C. movement
theEAGLE NEWS TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 20116
ZACH C. COHEN / THE EAGLE
NBC’s David Gregory urges students to expand horizons
Class of ’12 picks financial aid fund donation as senior gift
AU adjunct professors move to join local labor union
By LEIGH GIANGRECO
EAGLE STAFF WRITER
David Gregory advised students to keep an open mind and think outside their majors during a casu-al coffee talk in the School of International Service Atrium Dec 5.
“Don’t be siloed,” Greg-ory said. “When I show up on campus, I don’t walk into the School of Com-munications because I’m a journalist.”
The 1992 SIS alumnus was dressed more com-fortably than his usual attire as host of NBC’s Sunday news show “Meet the Press.” He sat his long limbed body on top of a table rather than the arm-chair next to him when he addressed students.
Gregory told students that, although he was not an SIS major, he thinks journalism permeates eve-ry school on AU’s campus.
“What I love about SIS is that the tentacles go everywhere, and I hope minds go everywhere as a result,” he said.
Gregory said the lib-eral arts curriculum at SIS allowed him to explore global issues and practice critical thinking, both in-valuable tools in journal-ism. During the discus-sion, students challenged Gregory on the sensa-
tional state of journalism today.
“I think it’s incredibly important that inside this fantastic building, there is an active discussion of American journalism,” he said. “Journalism is every bit a part of SIS as it is in those other schools.”
While studying as an SIS student, Gregory had already begun a fi rm path toward a journalism ca-reer. During the summer of his freshman year, he worked as the Washington correspondent for KGUN-TV in Tucson, Ariz., and his “offi ce” was his dorm room in Letts Hall. Grego-ry was also the news direc-tor of ATV.
Gregory said he was sure his campus expe-riences would prepare him for his KGUN-TV internship. But when he had technical diffi culties shooting video on the Hill, he realized he needed pro-fessional assistance.
“They hired a profes-sional crew, and they still paid me,” Gregory said with some surprise.
He credited his success today to his early ambition and aggression. But he said he still knows how to balance assertiveness with manners.
His best advice to aspir-ing journalists comes from fellow NBC reporter Ted
Koppel, who told him to always listen to interview-ees.
“When I can relax and just listen to what they’re saying, it’s amazing what I can do, because I can re-spond, I can catch them if what they’re saying is not true,” Gregory said.
However, he said he still struggles to ask ques-tions during some inter-views, particularly with presidents.
“One of the challenges of interviewing Bill Clin-ton is fi nding a way to in-terrupt,” Gregory said.
During a more casual interview, Gregory said he once annoyed former President Clinton while trying to ask a question.
“He shot me this look that said, ‘You speak when I’m done speaking,’” he said.
Gregory also told stu-dents to make an impres-sion at their internships, emphasizing the impor-tance of getting to know your employer.
“The onus is on you not to just breathe the air,” Gregory said. “I always say to interns, ‘If I don’t know who you are that’s not my problem. You come up to me and introduce yourself.’”
By PAIGE JONES
EAGLE STAFF WRITER
Some AU adjunct professors fi led a petition with the National Labor Relations Board Dec. 2 to become a union.
A secret ballot election will be held soon for adjunct professors to vote for an American University Adjuncts Union.
Erik Cooke, an adjunct professor in the College of Arts and Sciences, said adjunct professors began organizing in the past few weeks to make this possible.
“It just kind of snowballed,” Cooke said. “It happened very quickly; there was nothing magical.”
Cooke said adjunct professors have be-come more informed and aware of their numbers through meetings outside the University.
“Now’s the chance to convince the rest of our peers about our need for this and talk about the state of adjuncts in the AU community,” he said.
Cooke said he is hopeful the adjuncts will create a union.
“I hope that we win,” he said. “Hope-fully a year from now, we’ll be better or-ganized and represented in a union.”
AU administration could not be reached for comment in time for publica-tion.
By ZOE CRAIN
EAGLE STAFF WRITER
The Class of 2012’s senior gift will be a donation to the Emergency Relief Schol-arship Fund, which helps students who are within a certain number of credits from graduating pay tuition after experi-encing a sudden fi nancial crisis.
Class of 2012 Council President Steph-anie Eichmann said the council was able to raise approximately $500 at an event held at Public Tenley Nov. 11, in her re-port to the Student Government Under-graduate Senate Dec. 4.
The group’s goal is to have 200 seniors contribute to the gift.
Eichmann also explained how the group plans to raise more money. Events are diffi cult, she said, because they must balance spending a minimal amount of money while planning events that would make people want to attend. The group also plans to use Phonathon to call par-ents of seniors and encourage them to donate.
The Senate also voted at the Dec. 4 meeting, the last meeting of this semes-ter, to support investigations into length-ening Terrace Dining Room hours and expanding meal swipes to cover all Bon Appétit-owned dining facilities, including Sushi and Pronto.
School of International Service Sen. Rory Slatko, the bill’s sponsor, said TDR’s current hours are inconvenient to stu-dents who have jobs or late-night classes.
Expanding TDR’s nighttime hours might encourage students to buy bigger meal plans, generating more revenue for the program, he said.
“They’re all owned by Bon Appétit,” he said of food vendors in Mary Graydon Center. “If they can take meal swipes at the Tavern or Salsa, why not the other places?”
Some members of the Senate raised concerns about whether this would place an unfair burden on dining facilities work-ers. Slatko addressed these qualms by explaining that Eagle’s Nest is able to re-main open until 2 a.m., so there is staff available for extended hours at other din-ing areas.
The Senate also passed Slatko’s second bill, which encourages improvements to the EagleBuck$ program.
The bill advocates for either a student-staffed department or an administration position that could assist with the mainte-nance and function of the program. Their responsibilities, according to Slatko, would include expanding the number of off-campus locations that take Eagle-Buck$.
The Senate also passed a bill spon-sored by Class of 2015 Sen. Patrick Kelly to create an LGBT Studies minor in the College of Arts and Sciences.
This minor would encompass a series of classes regarding the history, contribu-tions and development of the LGBT com-munity, according to Kelly.
David Gregory, an AU alumnus and host of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” spoke to students about his experiences in journalism in the SIS atrium Dec. 5.
Faculty will vote by secret ballot for
unionization on campus
By RYAN MIGEED
EAGLE CONTRIBUTING WRITER
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is launching an investigation into the private student loan industry, which it will publish as a report to Congress.
The CFPB will collect information from students, families, the higher edu-cation community and the student loan industry about the roles of schools in the market for loans, terms of repayment, loan modifi cations and more.
Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in July 2010, establishing the CFPB.
The brainchild of Harvard professor and U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth War-ren, the CFPB’s core duties, as listed on its website, include:• Conducting rule-making, supervision and enforcement for Federal consumer fi nancial protection laws;• Restricting unfair, deceptive or abusive acts or practices;• Taking consumer complaints;• And promoting fi nancial education.
Some members of the AU community have received the news enthusiastically.
“It’s important that this issue is raised,” said Tom O’Connor, a freshman in the School of International Service and self-described “student activist” in the A New AU campaign. “Any sort of investigation,
any sort of oversight, is required.” O’Connor fi nds it troubling that Sallie
Mae, the biggest lender of private student loans in the United States, was both a lender and collector of loans.
“People who lend out these loans should do so honestly and responsibly,” O’Connor said.
Jake Coz, a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences, agreed “the govern-ment has a right to investigate fraud.”
However, Coz argued that an investiga-tion should be done only if there’s reason to think fraud has occurred.
“You can’t pull over a car unless there’s reasonable suspicion,” he said.
Coz said some members of Congress may consider a resolution to forgive all outstanding student debt loans. He said such a resolution should not pass.
“It’s someone else’s money, so you have an obligation to pay it back,” he said.
The CFPB investigation is the second recent initiative by the Obama Adminis-tration in regard to student loans. Last month, President Barack Obama signed his new “Pay As You Earn” proposal to ex-tend income-based repayment, which al-lows borrowers to pay back their loans in smaller monthly payments based on their current incomes.
O’Connor said these recent actions show progress, but that there’s room for improvement.
He also said he will defi nitely respond to the CFPB’s call for information by pro-viding his own personal experience on the website and urging his fellow students to do the same.
“It’s never counterproductive to have your voice heard,” he said.
theEAGLE NEWS TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2011 7
Bureau to investigatestudent debt
Congressman criticizes GOP’s stance on LGBT issues
By ALEX GRECO
EAGLE CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., said Repub-licans’ anti-gay bias was not only hurting the LGBT community, but also the party’s national political position, in a speech to AU students Dec. 1.
“Wearing my partisan hat, I think Re-publicans are very good at being selfi sh, and they seem to care about things the most when it affects them,” he said.
Polis, a staunch gay rights advocate, said he believes more gay representa-tion is needed in Congress. However, Polis expects there are more gay people in the House of Representatives than the four openly gay representatives, which in-cludes him.
“There’s a few closeted ones that you can Google who will sit on the other side of the aisle, if you feel like it,” Polis said.
Polis said he wished to see closer to 20 to 25 openly gay members of Congress in the future.!
During the event, the congressman also discussed immigration reform. He said those wishing to live in the United States will benefi t the country by bring-ing their talent here.!
“The countries with the real immigra-tion problem are actually countries like Mexico and other countries where the best and brightest want to leave,” he said.!
Polis said it would be necessary to change the partisan makeup of both the House and Senate to pass the DREAM Act, an important part of what Polis sees as practical immigration reform. Giving undocumented aliens - who fi t within the act’s requirements - a path to citizenship is key to fi xing the immigration crisis, he said.
“You should either be here fully, legal-ly or not at all, and currently the status quo encourages this huge illegal popula-tion,” he said.
When speaking on the economy, Polis said there would be no simple solution to fi xing unemployment. The government should save during good periods and spend during bad ones, he said. He also blamed some of today’s economic woes on policymakers’ failure to have smart spending practices.
During his talk, Polis was not afraid to speak his mind about Republicans.
“We have a long way to go, and I think the Republicans are really showing their bankruptcy of ideas both in the super committee as well as with their presiden-tial campaigns and the campaign trail,” he said.!
Originally raised in San Diego (but born in Boulder, Colo.), Polis was the sixth richest member of Congress in 2011, according to Roll Call. Polis also co-founded online businesses such as Ameri-can Information Systems, bluemountain.com and profl owers.com.
He spoke out against the Stop Online Piracy Act, a controversial piece of pend-ing Internet legislation that could give the government more power to stop online traffi cking of intellectual property.
Polis said he believes many commonly used sites will be shut down if the bill is passed. He pointed out that successful sites — such as YouTube and Facebook — wouldn’t have existed if the law had been implemented earlier.
“It’s a very, very bad bill,” he said. “And we hope that we can prevent it from becoming law.”
FELICIA AFUAN / THE EAGLE
Openly gay Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., spoke about gay representation in Congress and the Republican party’s “anti-gay” bias Dec. 1.
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By SEAN CUDAHY
EAGLE CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating spoke to AU students about what he sees as America’s poor re-cord on Native American policy in Weschler Theater Nov. 29.
“The cruelty to Native Americans was bound-less,” Keating said.
Oklahoma has the na-tion’s largest Native popu-lation, with 35 recognized tribes.
Keating, who served as governor from 1995 to 2003, spoke to adjunct School of Communication professor Richard Bened-
etto’s “Dissident Media” class.
Benedetto and Keating formed a relationship dur-ing Benedetto’s time as a reporter with USA Today. Benedetto covered Keat-ing during his two terms as governor, during which Keating was a considera-tion for the 2000 vice presi-dential nomination.
Keating has visited Benedetto’s class every year since 2006.
“After I retired [in 2006] and started teaching, I just asked him to come in and he did,” Benedetto said.
Keating continues to visit campus each year be-cause he feels that he and
students mutually benefi t from his lectures.
“It’s not only engaging and educational for me but it gives me an opportunity to listen and learn what’s on [the students’] minds,” he said.
Keating framed his lec-ture around his 2008 chil-dren’s book “The Trial of Standing Bear,” the story of one Native American’s battle with the American legal system. He focused on a moment in the story when Standing Bear bold-ly stood up for his people.
“I ask all of you in this auditorium: Will you have your ‘Standing Bear’ mo-ment?” he said. “The an-swer is yes. How will you respond?”
Outside of politics, Keating has also worked in the life insurance industry and with the Federal Bu-reau of Investigation. He currently serves as CEO of the American Bankers
Association. He joked that work-
ing in life insurance put him alongside people who were generally happy with their jobs, while just the opposite happens in his current position in the banking industry.
James Connors, a soph-omore in SOC, said he felt the lecture was worth-while.
“Listening to the [for-mer] Governor speak was a privilege,” he said. “Hearing him talk about his experience made for an interesting class.”
Although Keating’s political career is behind him, the former governor has another big moment ahead of him: He is releas-ing a new children’s book on George Washington Jan. 3.
theEAGLE NEWS TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 20118
Former gov. slams US policy toward Native Americans
By JENNI MUNS
EAGLE CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Atul Singh, the founder and editor of global maga-zine Fair Observer, told AU students the signifi -cant differences between Indian and American edu-cation affect both nations’ societies and economies.
“In India, learning is culturally prized,” Singh said. “The popular kids in school are the ones who are really smart. Whereas if you’re a young kid in America, you’re probably looked at as cool if you’re good-looking and good at sports. This is fi ne, but it doesn’t help the U.S. econ-omy very much.”
Singh spoke to about 30 students in the School of International Service Founder’s Room Nov. 29 about the relationship between India, his home country, and the United States through three “prisms”: politics, history and economics.
“In my mind, ‘interna-tional relations’ is a fancy word for nothing but ap-plied history, politics and economics,” he said. “Those are the founda-tions upon which all inter-national relations rest.”
Singh came up with the
idea of Fair Observer at the New York Global Me-dia Summit in March 2010. He told AU students he wanted to create a maga-zine that was “a global platform for exceptional ideas.”
“If you look at the cur-rent global media market, you have too much news and too little analysis,” Singh said in an interview with The Eagle.
He also noted that The Economist is his maga-zine’s biggest competition, though it has its weak-nesses.
“While The Economist is fairly rigorous and much better than many other magazines, it is very much an Oxford and Cambridge view of the world,” he said.
Singh said the best ad-vice he can give to anyone, especially undergraduate students, is to learn to fail.
“People should fi gure out what they love, work really hard at it,and start living instead of worry-ing,” Singh told The Eagle.
The Kennedy Political Union, the South Asian Student Association and the Fair Observer spon-sored Singh’s lecture.
News editor pushes for stronger education system
WILLA HINE / THE EAGLE
Indian-American journalist Atul Singh is the founder and editor of the global magazine Fair Observer.
By PATRICK BURNETT
EAGLE STAFF WRITER
The heating, ventila-tion and air conditioning insulation in Mc-Dowell Hall will be replaced during winter break due to a manufacturer de-fect that led to drip-ping pipe sweat and ceiling stains.
Pipes naturally “sweat” when the surrounding air temperature is cold, but the inef-fective insulation of these pipes couldn’t contain the excess water, according to Sophia Benedick-tus, the assistant director of operations for facilities and vendor services in Housing and Dining. The excess water dripped onto ceiling tiles throughout the building, leading to stains on the tiles.
The defective insulation was installed during a ren-ovation project in McDow-
ell this summer, according to an email from Facilities Management sent to Mc-Dowell residents.
However, Benedicktus
said there would be no more new stains until the HVAC units get switched to providing air condition-ing during the spring and summer.
“Now that we’re into heating season, there isn’t really an issue anymore because the pipes are no longer sweating,” Ben-
edicktus said. She said one of the pri-
mary reasons the repairs will be done during winter break is due to the large
size of the project.“We have to go into eve-
ry student room, all the public spaces and literally take the ceiling tiles out of the ceiling and replace all of the insulation that surrounds the pipes,” Ben-edicktus said.
Facilities Management had planned to replace the
insulation in public spaces Nov. 11-16, according to an email sent to McDow-ell residents. But due to health concerns, the entire project was delayed until winter break.
“With doing insulation replacements, you have to be aware that there are air particles and things like that, so we didn’t
want occupants of the building to come into contact with any potential issues, any par-ticular allergens things like that,” Benedicktus said.
While Ben-edicktus expects the issue to be resolved once the insulation is re-placed, she said Facilities Manage-ment won’t know if the project was successful until lat-
er in the spring semester.“Because we’re not go-
ing to be in cooling sea-son for another couple of months, we really have to wait it out to be 100 per-cent sure,” Benedicktus said. [email protected]
Facilities to replace pipeinsulation in McDowell Hall
BAILEY EDELSTEIN / THE EAGLE
Excess water from ineffectively insulated pipes in McDowell Hall dripped onto ceiling tiles throughout the building, staining ceiling tiles.
theEAGLE NEWS TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2011 9
Return your rental books now through:
December 19, 2011
RENTALCHECK-IN
forfor
AU Campus Store | Butler Pavilion
Visit www.american.bkstr.com for additional buyback hours and locations.
/AUCampusStore
DIANA BOWEN / THE EAGLE
Resident Director Amanda Morley’s dog, Kya, is a welcome addition to the Anderson Hall community. Resident assistants regularly offer to take Kya on walks.
Continued from Page 5
“She normally just naps the whole day,” Morley said. “She’s really good; she doesn’t disturb any-thing.”
The Anderson Hall staff is an active part of Kya’s life, Morley said. Some resident assistants occa-sionally walk her or watch her for short periods.
“A few staff members are very proactive about walking her,” Morley said. “If they’re ever stressed out, they ask to take her out for a walk.”
Le Brasseur said he re-ceives a similar reaction to Elias in McDowell Hall.
“Students in the build-ing love him,” he said. “I
get offers to walk him all the time.”
Elias stays in a crate and sleeps for the majority of the day until Le Bras-seur returns.
“I usually take him for a walk in the morning and when I get home,” he said. “I usually go by what he looks like he needs.”
Le Brasseur fi rst brought Elias to McDow-ell Hall when he became the resident director in July 2010. He adopted him from The Humane Society since Elias had three pre-vious owners.
“He has anxiety and abandonment issues,” Le Brasseur said. “He gets a little panicky when I step out, but he’s getting better.”
Le Brasseur said the Humane Society told him Elias was potty-trained when he adopted him, however it was soon evi-dent this was not the case. He mentioned one inci-dent where Elias pooped in front of the glass doors to the fi rst-fl oor lounge while students were eat-ing dinner last year.
“It was so embarrass-ing then, but it’s hilarious now,” Le Brasseur said.
Elias enjoys living on campus as well and even ventures on “puppy play dates” with Kya occasion-ally.
“He’s cute and really likes people,” Le Brasseur said.
Furry campus residents lend a helping paw
Scene 10TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2011
GETYOUR
GIFTON
SILVER SCREENThe Scene shares its picks for best TV shows and films of the year. 11
WINTER WONDERLANDFind ways to put a holiday spin on
sightseeing in the District. 12
Call me romantic, but I miss the days (and by days, I mean movies) where peo-ple made mixtapes on cassettes. I want to dance on my bed to horribly cliché music, like Kirsten Dunst in “Bring it On.”
The cool part about this cassette is that it actually has a USB Memory Stick inside, since most people don’t own a boom box anymore. The Mixtape Memo-ry Stick is about $25 and is a cute way to tell someone that you care while showing him or her some good songs that puts the nostalgia back into sharing music. –Kendall Breitman
So you have a friend who loves music. You’re not going to buy them a CD. An iTunes card, maybe, but both you and I know that this “friend,” more likely than not, pirates their music online. So buy them a record player.
Before you do so, forget the ignorant assumption that records are silly “hipster” trinkets. Records have been around 90 years before we were born. There’s noth-ing “trendy” about records — in fact, I can hardly think of something more timeless. Our great-grandparents bought and lis-tened to records. And the key word there is they “bought” them, as you have to do with every physical album. There’s no Internet pirating scheme with vinyl records.
So please, buy your music-loving friend a record player. A cheap one will do. You’ll help introduce them to the lost pleasure of buying a record for two bucks just because the album art is awesome.
Almost all new releases today come out on vinyl, included with a code for a free MP3 version, so there’s certainly no limit in variety. You’ll be supporting independent labels and their artists, who depend in part on vinyl sales. And most importantly, you’ll be encouraging a life long pursuit and love of owning his or her music.–Maeve McDermott
MIXTAPE MEMORY STICK
JUST DANCE 3
3RYAN RADIO
RECORDPLAYER
By now, everyone has probably gotten over the novelty of “Just Dance” on the Wii because of the sheer number of rip-offs that the game has spawned. You’re probably even wondering when the sec-ond “Just Dance” game came out.
But for Christmas, one great holiday gift you could get for a family member or a friend would be “Just Dance 3.” The sole reason being that “Let’s Go to the Mall” is on here. Anyone who is a “How I Met Your Mother” fan would know this song. It’s a fabulously bad song by the fic-tional Canadian pop star Robin Sparkles that was created to parody bad ’80s songs (and to create a hilarious running gag in the show), so it’s a wonder the song even made it onto a legitimate video game.
But let’s not question it, and just put on our jelly bracelets and our cool graffiti coat and learn that dance by heart.–Hoai-Tran Bui
This gift is perfect for those overtaken with retro nostalgia. 3ryan radios are vin-tage radios, custom-made with an iPod dock. In addition, it un-digitizes your MP3 tunes, giving it that warm, crackling sound you’d expect from a record player.
In order to purchase one, go to 3ryan.com and select a model that you like, be-cause each is an exact replica of a radio from the ’50s and ’60s. It’s pricey (they could run anywhere from $175-$675) so set it high on your wish list and start per-fecting those puppy dog eyes.–Yohana Desta
The holidays are right around the corner and you’re too busy with finals to even both-er coming up with great gift ideas. Don’t worry, the Scene’s got your back. Check out the Scene staff ’s favorite gift ideas and then pretend to pass them off as your own. It’s cool, we don’t mind.
American Horror StoryI’ll be the fi rst to admit that
I really can’t handle scary mov-ies — at all. That demonic little girl from “The Ring” still gives me nightmares. And yet, I can’t stop watching FX’s creepy new series, “American Horror Sto-ry.”
The show is based on the aptly nicknamed “Murder House” and its many inhabit-ants that have met a gruesome end there. Each episode begins with a fl ashback, telling the story of previous residents. There’s the gay couple that died in a double suicide; two nurses who were stabbed to death by cult-esque killers; trespassing twins murdered by some sort of demon.
But what really holds the plot together is its element of surprise. Each episode leaves you hanging just a little bit, cu-rious about what will happen to its current residents, a family of three, each with their own issues. And did I mention it’s created by the same people who made “Glee?” Just let that sink in for a few minutes. –Yohana Desta
Doctor WhoIf you had all of time and
space at your disposal, where would you go? “Doctor Who,” the 2005 continuation of the famed British sci-fi series that has been on the air since 1963, explores exactly this question.
To be specifi c, “Doctor Who” is a show that explores the im-possible. The story of a time-traveling alien, known only as the Doctor, who picks up human compan-ions to go on adventures in time and space, “Doctor Who” sounds like the most ridiculous concept ever. But somehow, it’s not.
“Doctor Who” is purely mag-ical, escapist entertainment that isn’t bound by notions like logic, time or place. Having just fi nished its sixth season, “Doc-tor Who” is in a creative golden age with showrunner Steven Moffat at the helm and the won-derfully quirky performance by
the current incarnation of the Doctor, Matt Smith.–Hoai-Tran Bui
Breaking BadThis one isn’t a question.
“Breaking Bad” has evolved from its relatively simple fi rst-season premise — Walter White (Bryan Cranston, “Malcolm in
the Middle”), a high school chemistry teacher, is diagnosed with terminal cancer and begins cooking meth to support his family — into the darkest, smartest, most twisted show on television. “Breaking Bad” is a show that requires your ultimate attention. Blink and you’ll miss a minor event that’ll come back fi ve episodes later and turn the show’s action on its head.
All the while, fans have been able to follow the stunning emo-
tional journeys of Walt and Jes-se (Aaron Paul, “Big Love”), his accomplice and former student, as the two become impossibly trapped in the darkest under-world imaginable, swirling with greed, gratuitous violence and the endless pursuit for Walt’s chemically impeccable crystal meth.
Thematically, “Breaking Bad” couldn’t be more differ-ent from AMC’s fi rst dramatic series, “Mad Men,” and while “Mad Men” is all chrome and lipstick, “Breaking Bad” is
soaked with blood and grit. But both shows share a keen sense of subtlety and have a way of weaving together all the themes, characters and minor plot elements into a stunning conclusion. And what other show on
TV today could make a meth-addled mother crushing her husband ‘s under a stolen ATM look like the most nat-ural occurrence in the world? –Maeve
McDermott
DexterWhat makes “Dexter”
one of the best TV shows in 2011? It’s addicting. By day, Dexter Morgan is a blood spatter analyst for the Mi-ami Metro Homicide De-partment. By night, he’s a vigilante serial killer who takes out the trash that
his day job couldn’t. The plot and character build-
ing that takes place through-out the six sea-
s o n s leaves the audi-ence invested in the storylines from one episode to the next. Each character carries his or her own stories, and every epi-sode advances those stories in exciting ways. For anyone look-ing to get into a new show, give “Dexter” a try. (No thanks to Netfl ix, who recently took it off of instant play — I’m not bitter). –Kendall Breitman
CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS
AMC’s “Breaking Bad” has won six Emmy awards.COURTESY OF AMC
COURTESY OF AMAZON
theEAGLE SCENE TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2011 11
HugoThere is a wave of nostalgia
sweeping the movie theaters and nothing embodies that sentiment more than the visual feast that is “Hugo.” It’s a grandiose adventure blending animation, live-action and classic fi lm.
The great thing about “Hugo” though, is that you can appreci-ate it for more than just the sum of its parts. Sure, on one level it’s a kid’s movie about a Parisian or-phan boy named Hugo (Asa But-terfi eld) who befriends a broken old man (Ben Kingsley) and tries to fi x him, but on another level, it’s an appreciation for fi lm and silent cinema.
Altogether, “Hugo” is a majes-tic fi lm that weaves together a tale about a few lost people trying to fi nd a purpose in life with a few nudging winks and references to classical fi lm, held together by Butterfi eld’s emotive perfor-mance and Martin Scorse’s bril-liant direction. A candy-colored and dreamlike visual masterpiece, “Hugo” is the rare kid’s fi lm that makes you feel more intelligent after you walk out the doors.–Hoai-Tran Bui
BridesmaidsIt seems like the storyline that
everyone knows: a group of off-kil-ter bridesmaids sorting through the chaos that is modern-day wed-ding planning. But, this year’s re-lease of “Bridesmaids” took the seemingly overused story and crafted it into one of the funniest comedies of 2011.
Although almost the entire cast is made up of women, this movie is not a simple chick fl ick, but instead talks about love and
life in a hilarious way that both guys and girls can relate to. And with a cast that includes Saturday Night Live alumna Maya Rudolph and current cast member Kristen Wiig, where could you possibly go wrong?
In the end, my favorite movies are the ones that can truly make me laugh, and going along with that criterion, “Bridesmaids” defi -nitely got the job done.–Kendall Breitman
SubmarineRichard Ayoade’s fi rst full-
length fi lm is a sparkling gem amongst the trashy teen fodder that gets pushed into theaters. Based on the novel of the same name, “Submarine” revolves around Oliver Tate (Craig Rob-erts), a 15-year-old boy who is part planner and part dreamer and thinks about his life far too much. His goal is to get a girlfriend, get his parents close again and just generally survive his inept friends and brawny bullies.
Ayoade’s aesthetic is both dreamy and light-handed, fi lmed in Swansea, Wales. It’s a drama with a funny streak that doesn’t get bogged down by taking itself too seriously. The fi lm does a great job in portraying the headspace of a 15-year-old, and viewers, fi lled with Tate’s own neuroses and viewpoints, fi nd themselves both bewildered and amused.
Plus, be sure to keep your ears perked for the luscious sound-track, which has six songs pro-vided by a softly crooning Alex Turner (lead singer of Arctic Monkeys). –Yohana Desta
SILVER SCREEN
One of the Scene’s favorites is “Bridesmaids,” co-written by Kristen Wiig.
From time traveling aliens to meth-cooking chem teachers, Scene picks 2011’s best TV
Movies made for all ages top Scene’s favorite year-end flicks
Continued on Page 13
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theEAGLE SCENE TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 201112
D.C. CHILLIN’Giving classic D.C. sightseeing traditions a festive holiday spin
By CHELSEA CLAYS
EAGLE COLUMNIST
After living here for a few years, or even after just one semester, sightseeing around D.C. unfor-tunately can have a been-there-done-that feel.
However, the holidays are a great way to spice up the classic traditions of visiting the monu-ments at night or checking out the National Zoo.
Here are some activities to make D.C. feel like a winter won-derland!
Rest of the year: Waiting in line for the amazing cupcakes
that D.C. has to offer
During the holidays: Order ahead for holiday fl avorsEveryone loves cupcakes, from
the various D.C. “cupcakeries” whether it’s a red velvet-fl avored Georgetown Cupcake or a Cho-coco from Hello Cupcake. They’re the perfectly portioned dessert in classic fl avors, but with the holi-day season comes a whole new selection of limited edition fl avors.
Try the candy cane and ginger-bread fl avors at Hello Cupcake or the scrumptious chocolate eggnog and white chocolate pep-permint fl avors at Georgetown Cupcake.
Taking picture in front of your home state at the WWII
Memorial
Take a picture in front of your state’s Christmas Tree
Everyone has a Facebook pro-fi le picture from Welcome Week with themselves standing beneath their home state’s column at the WWII Memorial, pointing up with pride. Why not put a holiday spin on this picture? Along with the National Christmas tree, each state decorates a Christmas tree representing special traditions from that state (crabs with Santa hats adorn my home state of Mar-yland’s tree). No two Christmas trees are alike.
Strolling along the Monuments at night
Check out holiday lights at ZooLights
Not many places in the District are as pretty to me as the monu-ments lit up at night, but for six weeks every year the National Zoo sets up light displays through-out the zoo. These spectacles of light pay tribute to D.C.’s more ex-otic animal residents as well as the city’s unoffi cial mascot, the panda. Check out these holiday light dis-plays before heading home.5-9 p.m., Nov. 25-Dec. 11 (Friday through Sunday nights) and Dec. 16-Jan. 1 (every night except De-cember 24, 25 and 31)
Shopping at Metro Center and Chinatown
Gift shopping at the Downtown Holiday MarketH&M and Urban Outfi tters
are immensely popular places to shop in the Metro Center/Chi-natown area for AU students, but when looking for gifts for your loved ones, branch out beyond these retails chains. The Down-town Holiday Market hosts over 125 artisans and crafters selling their unique gifts and trinkets throughout December. Support a small local business without fears of double gifting your friends and signifi cant others.Dec. 2-23, noon to 8 p.m. Centered on 8th and F Streets NW
Picnic on the Mall
Ice Skating in the Sculpture Garden and Hot ChocolateAs the weather turns colder, the
National Sculpture Garden opens up its ice skating rink. It’s defi -nitely a top wintertime treat and a great D.C. tradition to replace pic-nicking on the Mall. Enjoy a more cultured way to ice skate as you watch friends attempt spins and backwards skating while admiring fabulous sculptures. $7 for Students with ID for a two-hour sessionMonday–Thursday, 10 a.m.–9 p.m.Friday-Saturday, 10 a.m.–11 p.m.Sunday, 11 a.m.–9 p.m.
‘TIS THE SEASONTake some time out of your fi nals to explore D.C. with a winter holiday twist. Go to the National Zoo at night to see the beauti-ful neon lights (top), the Sculpture Garden at the National Gallery of Art to go ice-skating (middle) and the Downtown Holiday Market (left) to get special gifts for everyone on your shopping list.
theEAGLE SCENE TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2011 13
Get a dose of British comedy with film ‘The Trip’
The Do’s and Don’ts of Foodie Gift-Giving Kennedy Center goes ‘mad’ over latest improv play
Continued from Page 11
FOODIE FUN — Rather than get your favorite foodies a cheesy cooking video game or add to their abundant collections of kitchen appliances and tools, try a classic cookbook or make reservations for dinner at a restaurant of their dreams instead.
There are almost no rules for the Kennedy Center’s long-running play, “Shear Mad-ness,” which adapts itself to each city in which it’s performed.
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COURTESY OF SCOTT SUCHMAN
COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA
The TripSpoiler alert — I haven’t
seen a movie in months. In 2011, I saw the movies that everyone else saw too. I shed a few tears at the ending of “Harry Potter.” Old ladies glared at me for munching on popcorn too loudly during the “The Tree of Life.” I glumly watched “The Hangover II” insult my intelligence by being the same movie as the fi rst “Hangover.”
But when I did step out of a multiplex and into my neighborhood indie theat-er, I stumbled upon the year’s best buddy comedy, “The Trip.” Starring Brit-ish comedy B-listers Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon as themselves, the largely improvised movie follows the two men on a hilarious-ly fancy restaurant tour of the English countryside. Along the way, Coogan and Brydon offer honest takes on fame, family and growing old, all wrapped up in a sense of humor that’s always droll and of-ten insightful.
Everything about the movie feels real, from its patient, slow-moving pace to its lack of a real plot and especially the authentic and mature rapport be-tween the two stars.
But what made this movie my favorite of the year is the pure delight of being the third person at Coogan and Brydon’s table for two, laughing uncontrollably as they go tit-for-tat with dueling Mi-chael Caine impressions. –Maeve McDermott
By KELLY HOLLIDAY
EAGLE COLUMNIST
Though anxiety over fi nals is slowly but surely bubbling in my stomach, I still found time to pro-crastinate over Thanksgiving break and make my Christmas wish list.
Along with a plethora of books (I’ve decided to jump on “The Hunger Games” bandwagon) and the “Crazy, Stupid, Love.” DVD (Hello, Ryan Gos-ling’s abs), I’ve listed a number of gifts that will satisfy my foodie soul.
As someone who has asked for and received food-related items for the past several holidays, here’s my advice on the do’s and don’ts of foodie gift-giving this season.
Do: Give something completely unexpected. Foodies love a quirky culinary gift, and there’s
no shortage of them nowadays. Consider giving a cheese-making kit for the
dairy-lover in your life: The Cheese Supply of-fers creamy ricotta, rich mozzarella or tart goat cheese kits for less than $30.
For the Italian enthusiast, think about adopt-ing an olive tree from a hillside olive grove in It-aly. Nudo-Italia is a collection of olive groves that allows you to adopt an olive tree of your choice, and sends the olive oil it produces to you over the course of one year. At over $100, the price is hefty, but the fl avored oils that arrive in the au-tumn shipment are well worth the cost.
Don’t: Give kitchen appliances or tools. There’s nothing a foodie dislikes more than
having a drawer full of wooden stirring spoons and mismatched sets of measuring cups. This holiday, avoid giving another food processor or
citrus zester unless it’s specifi cally mentioned on the receiver’s list.
Do: Give a classic cookbook. Irma Rombauer’s “The Joy of Cooking” is es-
sentially the bible of cookbooks, but it’s kind of like the “Citizen Kane” of food: Everyone’s seen (or read) it, but no one owns it. Correct that by giving the chefs on your list the classic cookbook they’ve been dying to put on their bookshelf. One Christmas I hunted down an early edition of Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cook-ing” for my dad, who’d been searching for one in second-hand bookshops for months. It was one of my favorite gifts to give.
Don’t: Buy any sort of cooking video game. Food and Xbox sound good in theory, but in
reality they just don’t mesh. Take last year, when my mom bought my brother “Iron Chef America: Supreme Cuisine” — he played with it for about fi ve minutes, and I think it’s still gathering dust on top of his Blu-ray player.
Do: Make reservations for dinner at the restaurant of their dreams.
As a foodie, I have an entire section of my bucket list dedicated to cuisine, starting with din-ing at Michel Richard’s Citronelle. With the meal starting at $350 dollars, you can see why it hasn’t been crossed off yet. This year, treat the food-ob-sessed with a meal from a restaurant that would otherwise break their bank. For D.C. dwellers, consider a plate of braised short ribs and truffl e-mashed potatoes at BLT Steak, or the 22-course feast at Komi.
By ZACH C. COHEN
EAGLE STAFF WRITER
In a seemingly innocuous hair salon in Georgetown, anything can happen. Therein lies the wild plot for “Shear Mad-ness,” now in its 24th year at The Ken-nedy Center.
Along the way, never is a moment lost to make the show more topical. “Shear Madness” has been around quite a long time, but never in this form. In fact, the show changes every night. Improv and satire are king in the Theatre Lab at the Kennedy Center.
With constant references to U.S. Speaker of the House “John Boehner’s tanning salon,” the Republican primary, “the Style section of the Post” and a hat tip to Dupont Circle, the script is tailored to the local audience, as are all of the “Shear Madness” performances playing around the world.
Running the show in every way is Nick O’Brien (Aaron Shields, who stud-ied theatre at AU). With the help of his trusty sidekick Mike Thomas (Joel Da-vid Santner), O’Brien is looking to catch the evil mastermind who killed Isabel Czerny, a washed-up concert pianist who lives above the parlor and is preparing for her upcoming revival tour when she was suddenly stabbed with a pair of — you guessed it — shears.
Continued on Page 14
By OLIVIA STITILIS
EAGLE COLUMNIST
There is nothing if not an abun-dance of health information at our fi ngertips these days. Yet, infor-mation is confl icting — carbs are good one day, bad the next; cof-fee cures cancer if you have three cups, but causes cancer if you have four; no one really knows the health benefi ts of dark chocolate. We can feel so overwhelmed that we don’t even care anymore.
Now that it’s offi cially the holi-days, and now that we have fi nals, present buying and New Year’s Eve planning to stress over, who needs to exert more energy fi guring out what the healthiest food and drink options are this time of year?
There is also nothing if not an abundance of food and drinks dur-ing the holidays. A holiday party here, an end of the semester happy hour or a cookie exchange there and, according to Men’s Health magazine, the average person can consume up to an extra 600 calo-ries a day between Thanksgiving and New Years, which translates into 6 pounds!
Fear not readers, Vitamin O’s holiday edition of Eat This, Not That is here to help!
Eggnog vs. Hot Chocolate Choose the hot chocolate. The
main ingredients in eggnog are milk, cream and eggs, not exactly a one-way ticket to fl at abs. Egg-nog also packs 14 grams of fat as compared to 4 from hot chocolate. However, for hot chocolate, the healthiest option is homemade to avoid the full-fat milk or whipped cream when ordered out (or just ask for skim milk). Chocolate, in moderation, is also proven to lower blood pressure, lower your risk of heart disease and contains antioxidants that help lower bad cholesterol and increase good cholesterol.
Mulled Wine vs. ChampagneGo for the bubbly. A glass of
champagne only has 5 grams of sugar, whereas mulled wine can have over three times as much. Even though the main ingredient in mulled wine is red wine, which has clear health benefi ts, all of these are cancelled out by the massive
amounts of sugar usually added. In comparison to champagne, which usually has around 100 calories per glass, the sweetest of mulled wines can have close to 350 calories per glass. In order to combat this sugar overload, make your own mulled wine and just lessen the sugar and increase the amounts of spices and oranges instead.
Gingerbread vs. FruitcakeDespite including fruit in its
name, fruitcake is not healthy at all. How could it be when the three main ingredients are sugar, corn syrup and butter? A slice can set you back almost 400 calories and 13 grams of fat. Meanwhile gingerbread cookies are usually (depending on size) between 50 and 100 calories and 2 to 5 grams of fat. Gingerbread has the poten-tial to be made healthier by swap-ping white fl our for whole wheat and offers plenty of good spices like cinnamon, ginger and cloves, which all have health benefi ts.
Shrimp Cocktail vs. Crab Cakes
In this battle of the appetizers, shrimp cocktail defi nitely wins, as it is signifi cantly healthier. In fact, one crab cake has the same calories as 36 shrimp! One crab cake also has 19 grams of fat and one shrimp has only 1 gram. Crab cakes are usually laden with mayo, bread crumbs and then fried, whereas shrimp is nothing more than the shrimp and, of course, the cocktail sauce which is also low calorie, but high in salt — so remember, a little goes a long way.
Happy holidays readers! Enjoy the festivities, eat, drink and be merry, but remember you can al-ways reference Eat This, Not That for some healthy eating pointers as you celebrate into 2012!
OSTITILIS @THEEAGLEONLINE.COM
theEAGLE SCENE TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 201114
Continued from Page 13
And that’s where the fun begins. The next hour and a half is a whirlwind of con-fusion as the two undercover cops, with the help of the audience, interrogate their four witnesses.
The most fabulous of those suspects is Tony Whitcomb, marvelously played by Neil A. Casey, the wonderfully fl amboy-ant barber and owner of the Shear Mad-ness Hair Styling Salon, who has a bit of a grudge.
At his side is Barbara DeMarco, the fl irty shampoo girl and the heir to Cz-erny’s material wealth.
And what’s a whodunit without some romance? DeMarco’s love interest, the sleazy Eddie Lawrence (Nick DePinto) slinks around the salon, allegedly trying to buy Czerny’s grand piano.
And fi nally, the fabulously wealthy Mrs. Shubert (Brigid Cleary), or Pookie, if you prefer, does everything she can to get out of that salon just to make her trip to Bermuda. However, the four are caught in the same predicament as the mystery unravels, and they must navigate their way to the truth while locked in the Shear Madness Salon.
But here’s the twist: there are four different endings, and the audience gets to choose. O’Brien and Thomas poll the audience on their chief suspects shortly after intermission, where attendees have just fi nished interrogating the actors themselves. From there, the actors have taken their cues and play out the ending with the discovery of the true criminal.
In the performance The Eagle attend-ed, the audience accused Lawrence. But, O’Brien retorts as the play concludes, Whitcomb, DeMarco and Shubert all could have been the villain, and Lawrence could have been an innocent Rachmani-noff lover with a natural fear of blood. It all depends on the whim of the audience.
Do yourself a favor: if and when you go see this show, vote for Whitcomb. Casey truly delivered the most outrageously hysterical (read: crazy-over-the-top and simply comedic gold) performance of the evening, and there’s no doubt it would be a riot to see him take center stage as his rage against his neighbor takes him to the edge.
But no matter how you vote, you’ll get a night of entertainment, and it will never, ever be the same as the night before.
Comedy brings ‘shear’ delight PLAY ALLOWS CROWD TO PICK EPIC ENDING
ONE CRAB CAKE HAS THE SAME
CALORIES AS 36 SHRIMP
VITAMIN O
Staying healthy over break
Gary Oldman takes on double life in new film
By HOAI-TRAN BUI
EAGLE STAFF WRITER
Gary Oldman is a serious man. You could tell by his dark clothing, thick glasses, dark blue cravat and the quiet demeanor with which he spoke when he and direc-tor Tomas Alfredson sat down with The Eagle and four D.C. media outlets to talk about their new fi lm “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.”
A spy thriller set within the walls of MI-6 during the Cold War, “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” is a slow burn of a fi lm based on the 1974 novel of the same name by John le Carré. The fi lm stars Gary Oldman (“The Dark Knight”) as George Smiley, a retired MI-6 agent who is called back into service to fi nd a mole in the “Circus,” the code name for the MI-6 agency. Previously, the book was adapted as a TV miniseries in 1979 starring Alec Guinness, whose performance, Oldman stated, loomed large.
“It’s the paranoia, the insecurity,” Oldman said. “Doesn’t matter how long you’ve been doing it, you still have those doubts that you can pull something off. That’s what exciting about the work as well. You hope that what I call ‘the cloak of inspiration’ will fall and that you will be able to pull it off.”
However, Oldman and Alfredson didn’t have to worry too much about being faithful to previous adaptations. Before the start of production, le Carré approached them himself to tell them he would rather they put their own spin to the story.
“We didn’t do this fi lm to please John le Carré,” Al-fredson said. “We did it to please you or to interest an au-dience. So it’s not a crucial thing, but when he said that it was very liberating, and it made me jump and made me dare to do it at all.”
One liberty the fi lm took with the story was adding some homosexual implications that had only been im-plied in the original novel.
“It was considered a very subversive thing to be gay then,” Oldman said. “And you had to take on another persona. It was another lie, anyway, that you were living. Outside of the service or outside of the workplace, you were still living a double life because you couldn’t pub-licly come out.”
The fi lm doesn’t shy away from being extremely cryp-tic in its use of code words and the slow unfolding of the underlying mystery. Alfredson said he wasn’t wor-ried about alienating audiences and wanted to make a fi lm that considered the audience to be grown-up and allowed for audience participation.
“We don’t have all the answers,” Oldman said. “So you’re discovering this as George is on this journey, on this investigation. It’s diffi cult with this genre, with this type of movie, it’s sort of a tightrope that you walk be-cause you don’t want the audience to be ahead of you.”
While Alfredson and Oldman weren’t afraid to deviate from the norm, they acknowledged that the story told in “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” was timeless.
“For me, this story is very much about loyalty and friendship and betrayal,” Alfredson said. “And those sub-jects are eternal.”
“I mean there’s so many things happening in the world today,” Oldman said. “It’s just the faces have changed, the enemy has changed. We’re continually dealing with it, but the enemy changes. The world’s a mess. And it’s perfect. It always has been.”
theEAGLE SCENE TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2011 15
AUDIOPHILE! e Scene sta" recommends some of our favorite albums of the year. Check it out, your earbuds will thank you.
M83 takes its name from Messier 83, a galaxy 15 million light-years away, and that’s precisely where “Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming” inhabits. From its dreamlike interludes to its expansive synth melodies to Anthony Gonzales’ career-making vocals, everything about “Hurry Up” suggests an existence somewhere far from Earth.
What launches “Hurry Up” into the strato-sphere is one of the strongest album openers in recent memory, the one-two punch of the sweep-ing, Zola Jesus-bolstered “Intro” and the breath-
lessly exuberant “Midnight City,” the latter featuring a sax solo that puts all the other 2011 saxophone-soaked records to shame. Apologies, “Beth/Rest.”
“Hurry Up” is a triumph, a double album ab-sent of any bloated tracks or pretense, a record that’s effortlessly epic. Followers of indie rock have grown accustomed to “cinematic” albums that swing for the rafters — and even witnessed Arcade Fire win a Grammy for one such album early this year — but Anthony Gonzales’ mag-num opus sets a new standard.
M83 rises above the bevy of other 2011 releas-es by inhabiting an entirely different universe — one of its own making.
— MAEVE MCDERMOTT
Oh, the indie rockers from Sheffi eld have only gotten better over the years. Bursting onto the music scene in 2006 with their furiously fast rock debut, “Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not,” Arctic Monkeys received critical and mainstream success.
This past summer saw the release of their fourth album, the cheekily titled, “Suck It and
See.” It’s full of sumptuously melodic guitars and summery, esoteric lyrics, like “Jigsaw women with horror movie shoes / Be cruel to me, ‘cause I’m a fool for you,” courtesy of lead singer Alex Turner, whose lyricism always has a head-in-the-clouds quality.
However, the band hasn’t gone soft by any means. Check out guitar-heavy jams, “Brick by Brick,” “Don’t Sit Down, ‘Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair” and the catastrophic “Library Pictures.” Be sure to check them out live when they go on tour next March with blues rock duo The Black Keys!
— YOHANA DESTA
Released Oct. 28, “Ceremonials” is Florence + the Machine’s second album, and is a worthy successor to 2009’s “Lungs.” Florence + the Ma-chine’s trademark ethereal sound doesn’t waver,
and the album has a stronger and more unifi ed theme than “Lungs” did. Here, the band, led by singer Florence Welch, experiments with shriek-ing violins and spectral choirs, giving a gothic tone to songs like “Leave My Body.”
“Ceremonials” is a hauntingly beautiful album, with ephemeral ballads like “Never Let Me Go” or “What the Water Gave Me.” It’s is a massive tri-umph after the near-perfection that was “Lungs.”
— HOAI-TRAN BUI
“Pink Friday” by Nicki Minaj was offi cially re-leased in November 2010, but since some of her newest singles released in 2011 have been con-sidered part of this album, this can still be my
favorite album of 2011.From catchy upbeat songs like “Super Bass,”
to songs where Nicki’s true weirdness shines to a point only she can go, like “Roman’s Revenge,” “Pink Friday” established Minaj as the newest face of female rappers (sorry Kim). Minaj’s next album “Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded” comes out on Valentine’s Day and will hopefully have more “Did It On Em” and less “Right Thru Me.”
— KENDALL BREITMAN
M83
ARCTIC MONKEYS
FLORENCE+THE MACHINE
NICKI MINAJ
HURRY UP, WE’REDREAMING
SUCK ITANDSEE
CEREMONIALS
PINK FRIDAY
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Lewis
ACROSS1 Useful app for a
smartphone11 Meas.14 Telephone
booth, for Billand Ted
15 “What are youwaiting for?!”
16 Programmer’sbane
17 1996 Olympictorch lighter
18 Organicchemistry topic
19 New York team21 “99 Luftballons”
band22 Completely
flummoxed26 Marina Del Rey
sight27 It may be
renewable29 Informal voucher30 Attach, in a way31 Scoville unit
veggie32 Scapula mover37 Was charming?38 Makes an effort39 Flushing
Meadowsstadium
40 Medevacconveniences
44 Origamimishaps
46 Baltic waterway47 Cut the crop49 Automatic-door
feature51 Actress
Campbell52 Engage in a
summeractivity?
53 “Jeannie Out ofthe Bottle”memoirist
59 Do stuff?60 Bond’s Aston
Martin had one61 Words of praise62 Black Gold and
NorthernDancer, e.g.
DOWN1 One with the
gold2 “Ta-da!”
3 Guys4 “__ Mine”:
George Harrisonbook
5 Musical fourths6 Suffix for
sciences7 19-Across org.8 “O __ Mio”:
AnnetteFunicello hit
9 Genesis name10 Honor a favor11 Lawless12 Sign of a lawn
infestation13 Drawstring
alternative14 High school
subject?20 Musical dynasty22 __ Inácio Lula
da Silva: 2003-’10 Brazilianpresident
23 Bird: Prefix24 Left no stone
unturned in25 Like a bungee
cord28 Meghan Daum
piece, e.g.31 Astrological
delineation
32 “We’re on!”33 Tended some
bald patches34 Fellers grasp it35 Classmates36 Rabin’s
predecessor41 “Gunsmoke”
actor42 Rocker
Ramone43 File menu
command
45 Able to walk astraight line
48 Bottled (up)50 Indian dignitary54 TiVo button55 Abbr. in old
dates56 Greek airport, on
itineraries57 Hundred Acre
Wood denizen58 Sheet music
abbr.
Complete the grid soeach row, column and3-by-3 box (in boldborders) containsevery digit, 1 to 9. Forstrategies on how tosolve Sudoku, visitwww.sudoku.org.uk
Level: 1 23 4
© 2011 The Mepham Group. Distributed byTribune Media Services. All rights reserved.
READ MORE AUDIOPHILE AND WATCH THE MUSIC VIDEOS ATTHEEAGLEONLINE.COM/SCENE
AU students should be used to the sur-rounding neighborhood’s consistently contentious reactions to the Campus Plan. After several months, lawn signs reading “Oppose AU Campus Plan” now provoke little more than an eye roll. But the Advisory Neighborhood Council 3D has just taken a step too far.
This week, our own ANC 3D announced its support for the Residential Parking Pro-tection Act, which is now before the D.C. Council. According to its own language, this legislation would “prevent full-time students who reside within the District of Columbia boundaries from being issued or from using a reciprocity parking sticker for out-of-state vehicles.”
Essentially, students bringing cars from home would be unable to park on D.C. streets unless students reregister their vehicles to receive D.C. tags. Such a policy would have unacceptable conse-quences for AU students, and, in the long run, would harm the community whose parking spaces it attempts to make exclu-sive.
Proponents of the resolution point to the current ban on out-of-state vehicles at Georgetown University, arguing that such a policy should be applied citywide. Yet the clear differences between the
Georgetown’s urban setting and AU’s residential neighborhood clearly under-mines this argument.
If passed, the resolution would prevent students from parking on the streets in front of their apartments or houses any-where in the District, in addition to the
streets surrounding AU. Making it more diffi cult for students to use cars in a sub-urban setting, where public transporta-tion is not always suffi cient, is hardly pru-dent nor is it fair. Like the very residents supporting such a proposal, AU students should be able to park at their own home. The two should not be mutually exclusive.
This legislation is unfortunately typical of the neighborhood pathos throughout the Campus Plan proposal process — a shortsighted and emotional response that sees students only as an inconvenience to
residents, instead of the economic benefi t we are.
Annually, AU students inject $64.7 mil-lion dollars into the District. Besides our daily commercial impact, the estimated 7,000 AU students that live off campus create a huge demand for rental hous-
ing. Should off-campus students begin to choose only apartment complexes within walking distance to AU, the benefi ts of the thriving local real estate market would be drastically cut for the surrounding com-munity.
As such, we look to Deon Jones to lead the fi ght against this proposal. This is exactly why our campus organized and fought through countless barriers to elect a student representative to the ANC.
Beyond our student leaders, AU should also play a role in preventing this
rule from being enacted. We recognize that discouraging students from driving is the offi cial position of our school, and we recognize its environmental merits. Yet a community that blatantly discrimi-nates against college students would act as a detriment to AU recruitment efforts.
Recognizing this harm, administrators should seek to form a coalition with other D.C. schools, shop owners and landlords that may be adversely affected by any rule that discourages students from living in and attending school in D.C.
Unfortunately, the situation thus far looks grim. Six of the 13 members of the D.C. Council are cosponsoring this bill, with only a simple majority needed to pass. Our response to this must be strong. And it must come quick.
The offi cials who represent our Uni-versity aren’t often given such a clear chance to advocate for the needs of stu-dents. Yet now we are faced with a policy aimed directly at discriminating against AU students.
Attention Deon Jones, Student Gov-ernment President Tim McBride, Presi-dent Neil Kerwin and all AU offi cials: this is one of those times. ! E
ARE OUT-OF-STATE STUDENT DRIVERS OUT OF LUCK?STAFF EDITORIAL
Opinion 16TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2011
For all its strengths, one of the reasons I hate AU is the per-ceived need to have three or four internships to get a good job af-ter graduation.
While I certainly think intern-ships help — I have to believe I didn’t lick those envelopes for nothing, I just have to — I no longer consider them the be-all end-all that so many of my peers make them out to be.
I never realized until this summer how many hardwork-ing ‘Hillterns’ have a tough time translating their getting-yelled at experience into the getting-paid money experience.
Take my fi rst anecdote. An AU student, we’ll call him Ste-ven, spent his summer laboring in a senator’s offi ce in his home city. Then he spent his fall in-terning in the same senator’s D.C. offi ce, again unpaid.
This looked great on Steven’s resume, in a purely aesthetic sense, but when summer rolled around he found himself work-ing at a bagel shop because he hadn’t heard back from a sin-gle internship he applied to.
The bagel shop didn’t hire him because of his ‘Hillterning-ways’,
they hired him because he inter-viewed as an outgoing, compe-tent worker.
But don’t cry for him, or judge him condescendingly. A kid on my kickball team (judge me condescendingly) was waiting tables one night and one of the patrons hooked him up with a job at a large fi nancial institution where he’s now making $80,000 a year, fresh out of college.
Which isn’t to say you wouldn’t make great professional contacts chatting your life away at the De-partment of Labor, but since so much of life is based on chance encounters, why spend it in a cu-bicle?
I have taken an informal sur-vey of my least formal peers and have come to the defi nitive con-
clusion babysitting is the only way to achieve Nirvana.
To those babysitters who have yet to discover the path to freedom from suffering and will complain about obnoxious chil-dren, I will remind them that, while children are by nature sometimes unbearable, offi ce managers choose to be unbear-able. The menial tasks of interns are well documented, so I won’t delve into those soul-crushing depths. Anything for a buck, though, right?
Well, in 2010 the New York Times reported anywhere be-tween 25 percent and 50 percent of internships are unpaid, and by my estimates nearly 100 percent of those were illegal. I base that on the Labor Department’s crite-rion for legal unpaid internships: “The employer … derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern.” Creating databases of media contacts may not be too hard, but it is helpful to the company.
Anyway, I promised the edi-
tor not every one of my columns would cite the Labor Depart-ment, and that’s something I’m going to work on.
Keep in mind, however, while interns volunteer their time away for the reward of being treated like 7-year-olds, others are treat-ing 7-year-olds to ice cream and getting paid upwards of $20 an hour doing so, and most at least $15.
Many do so poolside, books in hand, letting the lifeguards ensure all parties are employed the next day.
Others spend their summer afternoons at more hellacious places of screaming children such as playgrounds.
But as John Milton wrote, “Bet-ter to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven.” And to call the Hill Heav-en is as inappropriate as calling ‘Hillterns’ slaves, and not nearly as accurate.
Adam Gallagher is a senior in SOC.
ADAM GALLAGHER | NO HUMOR IN HEAVEN
Dish rags to riches
ANC 3D seeks to legally prevent students with cars from home from parking on D.C. streets.
This is unacceptable.
AU’s obsession with holding internships is
misguided.
Growing up as an Iranian-American, my most challenging internal struggle was reconcil-ing my Iranian cultural identity with the American way of life.
I found myself constantly faced with one choice to assimi-late and another to maintain my cultural allegiances. So when my elementary school friend happened to have an extra PB&J sandwich in her lunch-box, my decision between eat-ing her sandwich and the Irani-an food my mother had packed me that day would always be escalated into a stress-inducing identity crisis.
As I grew into adolescence and its increased de-mand for self-refl ec-tion, I began to com-pare what I knew of Iranian society with the American lifestyle, scrutinizing the two with the hope that I could ultimately re-solve my confl icted identity.
In making these comparisons, I began to reach an unsettling conclusion: unlike the close-knit, communi-ty-based existence I observed in Iranian society, American life exuded nothing of the sort. Instead this country seemed to be a place of alienation and soullessness, a place that never provided the identity affi rmation and sense of belonging that I had discov-ered in Iranian culture.
After a while, I was exposed to an idea that seemed like a revelation at the time.
When I fi rst learned about the concept of the “American Dream,” I thought I fi nally had a grasp on the American experience. It seemed simple enough: starting from nothing, working hard and (with a bit of luck) ultimately ending up with an improved, comfortable and successful livelihood. Thus, the American Dream was the allur-ing promise of social mobility.
Despite the hope it seemed to inspire in many (including my immigrant family), I also
soon learned that the promise was an empty one.
The American Dream was not the common experience but rather the common American motivation.
Although it existed in theo-ry, this dream was a complete-ly false construction of how our society functions. Thus, it seemed, the dream was a gro-tesque hallucination induced by the grind of this culture’s value system and alienation. Like something out of an absurdist drama, the promise was some-thing to hold us over as we fu-tilely awaited the arrival of a better way of life.
At a recent organizing meet-ing for an upcoming student march/direct action next week, I was exposed to the harsh con-sequences of this promise for other people my age.
At the beginning, we decided to our share stories of why we were involved in the student movement. I was astounded and deeply moved. From heart-breaking home foreclosures to unbearable education loans to rampant unemployment, I found a running theme of bro-ken dreams in everyone’s story.
Yet while I felt a deep sad-ness bordering on rage, I also felt a profound sense of com-munity and solidarity with eve-ryone around me. I now realize that the only time I have ever felt this true sense of commu-nity in my 12 years living in this
country has been during my participation in social change initiatives and other such move-ments.
Ultimately, it seems that, in the pursuit of the American Dream, we have forgotten to build up our American commu-nity.
The extreme individualism, which we perceive is demanded of us, has inhibited us from un-derstanding this fundamentally human concept of solidarity. We depend on a comforting yet de-ceptive life trajectory construct-ed by this society, simply going through the motions instead of contemplating and truly living.
Although we hear, we aren’t really lis-tening to each other. Although we look, we aren’t actually seeing each other.
So the question becomes, what can revive and bring to surface the humanity left in us? What can overturn our numbed disinterest, immobi-lizing skepticism and unwarranted individu-alism?
The answer seems to rest in reestablish-ing our human com-munity bonds and sense of solidarity
with one another. Yet we can only begin to revive our solidar-ity if we feel indignation and rage against the daily grind and injustices that have deprived us of our souls for far too long.
As the 20th century Welsh poet Dylan Thomas advised us all: “Do not go gentle into that good night / Old age should burn and rave at close of day / Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
So it seems that our common potent rage is really an empow-ering, combative force in the battle against our humanity’s dying light.
Mana Aliabadi is a freshman in the School of Public Affairs.
theEAGLE OPINION TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2011 17
The majority of AU students are used to a blistering cold De-cember and a white Christmas, with chestnuts roasting in an open fi re.
But after living in Brazil for years, I feel at a loss without my warm beaches, coconut water and tropi-cal South American Christmas. However, it is more than weather that is making Christmas such an intense case of culture shock for me here in the United States.
At fi rst I wanted to say it was capitalism — the fact that Christ-mas has gone commercial.
Nevertheless Brazil is a capital-ist country too, and I would be ly-ing if I said that Santa and Christ-mas weren’t both commercialized and used as a tool to draw in con-sumers.
However, a very distinct expe-rience brought my realization full circle.
At our local Tenley CVS, I was shopping for a birthday card for a friend. A woman next to me grabbed a card that said “Happy Holiday’s.”
All of a sudden, it struck me that the religious sense of Christmas is much more present in Brazil and South America than in the States. By religious, I don’t mean those ab-stract values that many people say is lacking in modern culture, such as love, charity and family, but in-stead the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ.
Brazil is the most “Catholic country” in the world, with the largest population of Catholics.
This is especially evident dur-ing Christmas. Many Christmas cards include God or Jesus, and the nativity scene is present both at malls and public locations. Churchgoers adhere to dietary re-strictions, so much so that bacal-hau, a Portuguese fi sh, is in high demand during the Christmas sea-
son. Both pre- and post-Christmas masses are held, as well as Christ-mas mass, with an ever-increasing number of attendees.
While we still buy and ex-change gifts, the religious value of Christmas is very important to Brazilian culture and the holiday itself.
The US is going through the op-posite effect.
To many, it seems as though there is a war against Christmas and its religious roots, most pre-sent in the substitution of the term “Merry Christmas” for “Happy Holi-days” in cards, slogans and ads. The idea that there is a “War on Christ-mas” has been promoted by Bill O’Reilly and other red-state talking heads for years, and they intend to fi ght back by demanding that private enterprise make Christmas overt and with legislation requir-ing governments to use the phrase “Christmas tree.”
However, I don’t see the problem as a “War on Christmas,” but just the simple fact that the US is a melting pot of both cultures and religions.
While the religious undertone of Christmas may not be as pre-sent in the United States as it is in Brazil or Latin America, it can be attributed to the myriad of other religions that are present in the country and celebrated during the holiday season.
Although the US is the third most Catholic country in the world, it is also one of the largest immi-grant countries. The acceptance of different cultures and religious val-ues gets to the root of one of the true meanings of Christmas, love and acceptance, ideals that Jesus continuously preached.
While I’m still not used to this politically correct Christmas and at times feel homesick, I too am ready to accept the different reli-gions that constitute the Holidays.
Unlike Bill O’Reilly, I won’t see “Happy Holidays” as slamming a door at Christmas’ face, but in-stead opening doors of interpreta-tion and integration.
Julia Greenwald is a freshman in the School of Communication.
JULIA GREENWALD | RANTING WITH MYSELF
A Christmas comparison line
The lack of religion in the U.S. version of Christmas is clear, but is it
bad?
The American Dream is not the common
experience, but rather the common American
motivation.
MANA ALIABADI | THE EXAMINED LIFE
Seeking the American Dream
theEAGLE OPINION TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 201118
In October, student clubs from across campus came together to form the New AU campaign, fi ghting for de-mocracy, transparency and accountability on campus.
Starting out with a week of action that culminated in a rally and letter delivery to President Kerwin, there was real momentum behind the movement, between groups that had no prior experience working together.
Since then, the New AU campaign has continued reach-ing out to other student groups and continuing to spread the word about the issues that we have been working on.
The momentum of the early actions transformed into more grassroots support, as AU students began to stand up for increased democracy, transparency and accounta-bility — students who had never been involved before. We met with administration fi gures to advocate for our central issues in AU offi ces as well as on the Quad.
As the semester ends, it is time to refl ect on the achieve-ments of the New AU campaign and how to take further steps to ensure our voices are heard on campus.
A few weeks ago, President Kerwin released a new state-ment on social responsibility, addressing many of the issues brought up by the New AU campaign, and pledged to put together a working group that will include students in order to amend and implement these new policies. At the open forum with the Board of Trustees, Kerwin said this working group would be put together in the beginning of the spring semester.
We consider this a signifi cant victory for recognizing the voices of students on campus when it comes to social responsibility on campus.
As with anything, the devil is in the details: the adminis-tration must take this endeavor seriously for it to work, and students will continue to hold the administration’s feet to the fi re if administrators choose not to stand by their state-ment on social responsibility.
Across campus, students are organizing for a better, new AU. The Student Worker Alliance has been address-ing a variety of student and worker concerns, especially relating to parking rates. Occupy AU has been mobilizing students to get involved with the Occupy movement and has been raising awareness around a variety of issues af-fecting students on campus, especially student debt. The Disability Rights Coalition has been working towards cre-ating a more accessible campus. Take Back the Tap has been a major initiative of EcoSense, trying to reduce our campus’ environmental footprint. And American Vegan Outreach is fi ghting for a more vegan friendly environ-ment here at AU.
The New AU campaign is now winding down. The fo-cus of much of our action is shifting as we continue to pres-sure the University to stand by the policies it espouses.
And as the New AU campaign will not be continuing as we have known it into the spring semester, the fi ght continues. We will be there when the Board of Trustees meets again in February.
We want to encourage any and all students interested in activism to seek out the organizations that interest you. Start an organization of your own, and help us build the movement.
Building A New AU isn’t about a single campaign or ‘fl y-ering’ or marches. It is the collective effort to build a better university, and together we can do that.
Ethan Miller (CAS ’13) and Chris Litchfi eld (SPA/CAS ’13) are members of the Organizing Collective of the Com-munity Action and Social Justice Coalition
The recent article, “American University has highest student debt among D.C. Universities,” touches upon fi nancial concerns that are re-verberating nationally, as well as here at AU.
However, AU’s average student indebtedness fi gure for the class of 2010 ($36,206) as reported by the Project on Student Debt and cited by The Eagle can be somewhat mislead-ing when not explained in context.
We understand that the average debt fi gure seems daunting, especially in these hard economic times, but keep in mind the fi gure only focuses on the percentage of the class who took out student loans. What is not refl ected in the fi gure reported is amount of fi -nancial assistance that AU provides to our students to help reduce costs and allow them to meet their educational goals.
To put fi nancing one’s education into perspective, let’s talk numbers for AU’s class of 2010: • 78 percent of the class of 2010 re-ceived some form of fi nancial aid; • 61 percent of the class received some form of AU institutional funding (merit and/or need-based);• 56 percent of the class borrowed student loans;• 44 percent of the class did not take out a loan.
Interestingly, the percentage of loan borrowers at AU is below the 65 percent national average for students attending four year, private, nonprofi t universities who took out a student loan during their college tenure, ac-cording to The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Now, to break down the numbers for the 56 percent that borrowed: Two-thirds only borrowed federal loans, and, of those, the average indebted-ness at graduation was $21,146. By contrast, 19 percent borrowed private loans, and their average loan indebt-edness was nearly three times great-er than those borrowing only federal loans. This small contingent of large borrowers drastically skews the stu-dent loan indebtedness average for AU’s class of 2010.
Moreover, nearly a quarter of stu-dents who borrowed private loans did not demonstrate fi nancial need and/or did not apply for fi nancial assis-tance. These are students who, most likely, opted to use loans as a fi nanc-ing tool.
Additionally, for the 2010 graduat-ing class, AU provided far more insti-tutional grants and scholarships than students borrowed — by more than 60 percent. Institutional expenditures totaled $152,906,566 compared to $91,239,120 in loan expenditures dur-
ing the same four-year period. Since the recession, our offi ce and
the University have had a heightened sensitivity to unexpected fi nancial hardships families are facing, and we have taken steps to determine how best to use the University’s resources to increase institutional support to students.
This academic year alone, $69 mil-lion of the University’s budget has gone towards fi nancial aid, and fi nan-cial aid expenditures are third behind personnel (faculty and staff) and sup-plies in the overall budget, an indica-tion of the University’s commitment towards the students.
In addition, one strategy we im-plemented this year to aggressively address student need was to redirect funds used for merit scholarships to need-based fi nancial aid in order to cover a greater percentage of the fi nancial need of students. As such, nearly 100 percent of eligible incom-ing students had 100 percent of their demonstrated fi nancial need met.
As always, we encourage students and families to contact our offi ce if they have concerns regarding fi nanc-ing an AU education. For current students, the best place to start is AU Central at x8000 or via email at [email protected].
Brian Lee SangDirector of Financial Aid
Sharon AlstonVice Provost for Undergraduate Enrollment
Many faculty members were pleased to see!The Eagle’s coverage of the possibility of AU adjunct fac-ulty joining a union.!However, the ar-ticle!doesn’t take into account a large cohort of faculty that is distinct from tenure-track and adjunct.!
In the latest faculty manual, this other cohort was designated “term faculty.”!We want to make sure!The Eagle’s readers get the complete pic-ture of the work force at AU.
For perspective: term faculty account for over 20 percent of the university faculty.! In fall 2010, term faculty taught 43 percent of 100-299-level courses (i.e., generally the fi rst-! and second-year courses), and they taught 35 percent of the 300-499 courses.!!!
Term faculty positions are full-time positions, and term faculty have access to multi-year contracts, which means that they can — and do — have long relationships with AU, just as tenured faculty do.
While term faculty positions are teaching-dedicated, term faculty contribute a great deal to the life of the university outside the classroom, serving as advisors to student organ-izations and to independent studies, serving on committees, presenting at conferences, researching and pub-lishing, etc.
Within the last few years, term faculty successfully fought for the right to promotions and other sup-port from the University.!
The Chronicle of Higher Educa-tion!published a piece about this new development in June.!As the!Chroni-cle!reports, AU is actually ahead of the curve when it comes to “adapt-ing its governance structure and policies to today’s academic work force.”! It goes on to state that AU “has found ways to offer its term fac-ulty members new career tracks, re-search opportunities, and more say in university affairs.”!!
The Eagle’s separate editorial of Nov. 22! was right to encourage a debate about the job situations of adjunct faculty, but! Eagle! readers (students, faculty and prospective students and parents) should know about these important term faculty gains as they think about how to con-tribute to that debate.
Kelly Joyner & Heather McDonaldWriting instructors in the College Writing Program
Financial Aid Office offers context to student debt debate
AU term faculty serve an important role on campus
OP-ED LETTER TO THE EDITOR
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
A New AU campaign in review
Last year, term faculty
successfully fought for University
support.
theEAGLE SPORTS TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2011 19
Continued from Page 20
blocks, we get momen-tum.”
But AU wasn’t able to complete the comeback, and Delaware took the sec-ond set to even the match at one.
Throughout the third set, the Eagles struggled to make good passes, which led to them commit-ting eight attacks errors.
“Our ball control wasn’t that great, and when we don’t have ball control, everything else just kind of falls apart,” said fresh-man hitter Sara Rishell, who tallied 10 kills and six blocks.
The third set entailed six lead changes and nine ties. However, Delaware picked up two points off a Heath service error and Katie Hank kill to take the game 25-22.
“There was a point in the third set that we lost, and everything just felt tense,” said sophomore Morgan Hendrix, who led the Eagles with 12 kills. “We weren’t playing like we usually play, and we kind of freaked out.”
The fourth and fi nal set was more of the same for AU, as the team struggled to make good passes and get solid hits on the ball en route to a 25-23 fourth set loss that clinched the match for Delaware.
“We’re a young team, and to get that far is out-standing,” Rishell said. “A loss puts a chip on our shoulder, and I’m really looking forward to going back to the tournament next year to turn some heads.”
By SAMANTHA RAPHELSON
EAGLE STAFF WRITER
The AU women’s basketball team fell to the No. 6 University of Maryland Ter-rapins 76-42 Dec. 4 at Bender Arena, as the Terps picked up their ninth-straight win and posted their best defensive per-formance of the season.
Geleisa George scored a team-high 10 points for the Eagles (5-4, 0-0 PL) off the bench, while Lisa Strack chipped in nine points and four assists. Twenty of AU’s 42 points came from bench players.
“We’ve got really good players com-ing off the bench,” AU Head Coach Matt Corkery said. “We’ve got players that are plenty capable of being starters if we wanted to use them in that way. I think it’s great that when we substitute, we get en-ergy, we get an added boost and we have players who bring a new dimension to the game.”
Maryland (9-0, 0-0 ACC) saw fi ve play-ers reach double fi gures, led by Alyssa Thomas’ 17 points on 8-10 shooting.
“I think the lead kind of got away from us a little bit when they were getting easy transition opportunities or second chance opportunities,” Corkery said. “But overall [I’m] proud of the effort, proud of how hard we played and how we got after it today, despite the outcome.”
AU jumped out aggressively as Strack hit a 3-pointer less than a minute into play. But the Eagles only held the lead shortly, as Maryland put up three jumpers in a row.
With AU falling behind by three points,
Alexis Dobbs cut the early Maryland lead to 8-7 with a jumper. That would be the last time the Eagles would score for the next few minutes, as Maryland went on an 11-0 run that was not broken until George came off the bench and nailed back-to-back jumpers.
The Eagles knocked in only fi ve more points on the half, as the Terps continued to take advantage of the struggling AU of-fense that went 7-29 in the opening half.
The half ended with Maryland leading 38-16.
AU was unable to stop the Terps in the second half, having similar offensive woes and letting the defi cit grow larger.
The highlight of the half came when Maryland’s Brene Moseley made a steal, passed to Thomas and started the fast break. It seemed Thomas would go for the easy layup, but at the last minute, handed off to Moseley who converted the layup for a 54-23 advantage.
The game ended with AU going 16-54 from the fi eld and 2-22 from beyond the arc.
“I feel like we got a ton of open looks, they just didn’t drop,” Strack said. “But like coach said, I can speak for myself a lot of the times when I took my 3’s, my feet weren’t set; I hopped into it. I think we had good looks, we just got to knock them down.”
The Eagles will next travel to Troy, Ala., where they will face Troy University Dec. 11 before beginning a three-game homestand.
Terps overpower women’s basketball
RACHEL DEVOR / THE EAGLE
Lisa Strack and the Eagles had a tough time against the No. 6 Terrapins, falling 76-42 at Bender Arena. Strack, who leads the team with 11.2 points per game, will look to help AU get back on track in its Dec. 11 contest at Troy.
Delaware defeats AU in first round ofvolleyball tournament
No. 7 AU wrestlingsuffers setback
By JACK KERNOCHAN
EAGLE STAFF WRITER
The AU wrestling team dropped a 23-14 decision to the University of Mary-land in a battle between two nationally ranked teams Dec. 2 at College Park.
The Eagles came into the bout at No. 7 in the InterMat rankings, while Maryland entered the match at No. 20 in the country.
The Eagles trailed early, as Shane Gentry defeated AU’s Thomas Williams 2-1 in a hard-fought match at 125 pounds.
After Maryland’s Geof-frey Alexander beat Chris Brienza at 133 pounds, the Eagles found themselves in a quick 8-0 hole.
But AU would not back down, and two strong vic-tories from No. 9 Matt Mariacher (141 pounds) and Kevin Tao (149 pounds) cut the defi cit to one, at 8-7.
Mariacher took down Frank Goodwin 7-4, and Tao followed with a 12-4 major decision against Ben Dorsay.
With the score tight, No. 4 Ganbayar Sanjaa stepped to the mat for the Eagles against No. 16 Kyle John in one of the most anticipated matches of the day.
Sanjaa came up big for AU in the 157-pound bout, earning a clutch 14-6 ma-jor decision and propelling AU into the lead for the fi rst time all afternoon at 11-8.
But the Terrapins quickly reclaimed the lead in the 165-pound match. AU’s Sean McCarty fought hard against No. 2 Josh Asper, but Asper recorded the technical fall over Mc-Carty and gave Maryland a 12-11 advantage.
Phillip Barreiro (174 pounds) attempted to give AU some momentum with a victory over No. 17 Jim-my Sheptock, but Shep-tock earned the technical
fall at 17-2. Immediately after-
wards, Maryland’s Ty Snook defeated Thomas Barreiro 8-3 in the day’s 184-pound match. Snook’s triumph allowed the Terps to extend their lead to 20-11 and head into the fi nal two bouts in great position to collect the victory.
The day’s second-to-last matchup featured No. 8 Daniel Mitchell competing for the Eagles for the fi rst time this season. Mitchell faced a tough opponent at 197 pounds in No. 20 Christian Boley, and near-ly earned the victory.
But a late takedown by Boley gave the Maryland grappler a 7-6 victory and extended the Terps’ lead to 23-11.
The fi nal bout of the afternoon was another matchup of ranked oppo-nents, as AU sent Ryan Flores, the nation’s top heavyweight, to the mat against No. 10 Spencer Myers. Flores earned a strong 7-3 victory, sending the Eagles home on a posi-tive note despite the loss.
The Flores-Myers matchup marked a re-match of the NWCA All-Star Classic Nov. 21, a bout Flores won 11-2.
Despite the loss, there were several positives to take away for the Eagles. Three of AU’s four ranked wrestlers earned victories in their matches, while Mitchell looked strong in his fi rst action of the sea-son and should be a huge part of the team going for-ward.
The Eagles will look to rebound Dec. 10 when they take on George Ma-son University in Fairfax, Va.
By JOSH PAUNIL
EAGLE STAFF WRITER
The AU volleyball team saw its sea-son come to an end when it fell to the University of Delaware 3-1 in the open-ing round of the NCAA Tournament Dec. 2 at Penn State.
The Eagles (23-11, 13-1 PL) lost by set scores of 25-17, 22-25, 22-25 and 23-25 to the Blue Hens (21-13, 11-3 CAA), who were champions of the Colonial Athletic Association.
AU’s 10-game winning streak that started Oct. 19 at Howard University snapped with the loss.
After their victory in the fi rst set, the Eagles were unable to continue their excellent passing and defense, which was one of the determining fac-tors in the match.
“A couple areas of our game fell apart,” said Rebecca Heath, who re-corded a double-double with 14 digs and 10 kills for AU. “Passing wasn’t where it normally is, and we just weren’t as tight on defense where we needed to be, and that was big.”
After being in control for the entire fi rst set and not allowing Delaware to lead at any point, AU fell behind 13-7 in the second set. The Eagles fought back and earned a couple of points, but were down 22-15 after the Blue Hens took advantage of multiple AU attack errors.
However, the Eagles made their most impressive run of the game by scoring six straight points to cut Dela-ware’s second set lead to 22-21.
“[Head Coach] Barry [Goldberg] always says blocks come in bunches, and it all started to come at one time,” said freshman Kelly McCaddin, who totaled 11 kills and had a match-high hitting percentage of .526. “We’re a big team, so when we make kills and get
“We weren’t playing like we usually
play, and we kind of freaked out.”
—Morgan Hendrix, Sophomore
By JOSH PAUNIL
EAGLE STAFF WRITER
For the fi rst time since the 2008-2009 season, the AU men’s basketball team has won seven straight games with its 66-60 triumph over the St. Joseph’s University Hawks Dec. 4 at Bender Are-na.
“That was a real nice win,” AU Head Coach Jeff Jones said. “We scrapped, we played with a purpose, we had focus [and] we had a lot of different guys making contributions. So it was just a really nice win, and I’m really happy with the team.”
Charles Hinkle recorded a career-high 32 points on 10-16 shooting from the fi eld to go along with a team-high eight rebounds for the Eagles (7-2, 0-0 PL). The NCAA leader in total points scored (211), Hinkle shot 5-9 from beyond the arc and 7-7 from the free throw line.
“It was just one of those days where everything was clicking for me,” Hinkle said. “My shot was going in, my teammates were setting great screens and passing it to me in the right spots.”
One of Hinkle’s biggest plays of the game came with 5:11 left in the second half, when he converted a four-point play that extended the Eagles’ lead from 53-51 to 57-51.
“We were a little bit stag-nant and it was an unsettled situation,” Jones said. “We actually had tried to run something, but there was a breakdown and he just kind of bailed us out. Good players make big plays and that was a big moment in the game.”
Prior to Hinkle’s play, the Eagles had only scored four points in the previous 6:30 and it looked as though they might give up their lead after allowing a 14-6 St. Joe’s run.
Outside of Hinkle, Troy Brewer was the only Eagle to reach double digits with 12 points on the night.
Carl Jones led the Hawks (5-3, 0-0 A 10) with 13 points but struggled throughout the game, shooting 5-16 from the fi eld and missing all four of his 3-pointers.
The Eagles did a good job of controlling the pace throughout the game and lim-ited transition opportunities for St. Joe’s. They were able to hold the Hawks to 13 points fewer than their per game av-
erage, while the Eagles com-mitted just two turnovers in the fi rst half.
“I thought we played very solid defensively,” Jones said. “We really, really emphasized the importance of getting back in transition. They un-derstood we better make it a half-court game. We didn’t want to milk the clock, but we didn’t want to rush and we certainly didn’t want to get in a track meet.”
Another thing that proved valuable for the Eagles was their ability to make free
throws. They shot just under 90
percent as a team (14-16) and went 6-7 in the fi nal 45 sec-onds of the game.
AU also shot an impressive 44 percent from the 3-point line.
“For us to get a win like that, it shows teams that we’re playing at a higher level and higher caliber,” Brewer said. “And at the same time, it helps build our confi dence.”
Hinkle propels Eagles to winSenior forward scores 32 points in 66-60 victory
RACHEL DEVOR / THE EAGLE
Riley Grafft chipped in four points in AU’s six-point win against St. Joseph’s University Dec. 4 at Bender Arena. The Eagles will take a seven-game winning streak into their Dec. 7 home game against Hampton.
Volleyball closes with NCAA loss
Sports 20TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2011
Continued on Page 19
Women’s basketballTerrapins prove to be too much for Eagles 19
WrestlingNo. 20 Maryland takes down No.
7 AU in College Park, Md. 19