daily cal - thursday, july 28, 2011
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Berkeley, Ca • thursday, July 28, 2011 – suNday, July 31, 2011
HigHer education
Part one of state DREAM Act signed into law
Like many other immigrants, ASUC Sena-tor-elect Ju Hong came to the United States in search of a better life.
Hong, 21, lived in South Korea until he was 11 years old. Financial difficulties became a press-ing issue when his family’s dream of a owning a small restaurant business drove them into debt. Hong still clearly remembers a night when two debt collectors came to his home, broke the door, grabbed a chair and smashed the windows.
“We couldn’t deal with it anymore,” Hong said. “One day my mom approached me and said we’re going to America. At first I didn’t want to go, but as a child, what else could I do? I was forced to go, but my mom’s true intention was to seek a better life for me and my sister.”
During his senior year of high school, Hong was filling out college applications when he real-ized that he didn’t know his social security num-ber. When he asked his mother, he discovered that his family had come to the country on tour-ist visas. The visas had since then expired.
After finding out his immigration status, Hong, who had been an outgoing and approach-able high school student, became “very distant from (his) friends and the community.”
“I felt very isolated — I was very embarrassed of who I was,” Hong said. “I remember avoiding questions like, ‘How come you don’t get a driv-er’s license? How come you don’t get a job, an internship?’”
However, the signing of AB 130 — part one of the California DREAM Act — on Monday may be the first step in equalizing opportunities for students like Hong.
The bill, authored by Assemblymember Gilbert Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, was signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown and allows UC, CSU and Cali-fornia Community Colleges to award privately funded scholarships to undocumented students.
“The DREAM Act will allow me to work, stay here and contribute to society, and that’s all I wanted to do,” Hong said. “It’s great news for dreamers and immigrant communities.”
Cedillo commented on the significance of the
supporters of the dreaM act, pictured here in a september 2010 protest promoting the act, are now beginning to see results with gov. Jerry Brown signing part one of the act, aB 130, into law Monday.
EvAn wAlbRiDgE/FilE
event at the bill’s signing, saying that “it has been a long journey to realize this moment and this day.”
“I know that I stand here today as the result of a great public education,” Cedillo said at a press conference. “Public education is the lifeblood of our democracy. Public education in this great state and this great nation is the equalizer of our society.”
Brown said at the bill’s signing that “this is one piece of a very important mosaic, which is a California that works for everyone.”
“Anything that’s going to advance the cause of our people — whatever their background, their color, their religion, their political philosophy — all of that is secondary to the fact that we’re
Californians together,” Brown said at the press conference. “There’s a dream, and that dream is fulfilled by the human imagination nurtured in schools, but also nurtured in neighborhoods.”
On the other hand, opponents of the act believe that “now is a bad time to be shifting funds away from our own education,” said John Freeman, a representative for Assemblymember Bill Berryhill, R-Ceres, who could not be reached for comment.
“Why would you offer to pay for somebody who could not even legally obtain a job when there are tons and tons of citizens in our own state who cannot afford their education?” Free-man said.
Nevertheless, supporters of the act are still not satisfied. Hong said that while the passage of AB 130 is a step forward, “We have to push, mobilize and organize” in order to get the sec-ond part of the act, AB 131, passed as well.
dream: PaGe 4
CheCk Online
www.dailycal.org
Watch a video of student reactions to AB 130, which allows undocumented students to apply for private scholarships.
Controversy continues in Auxiliary’s realignment
Though the administrative arm of the ASUC began reporting to a differ-ent department on campus July 1, little else has changed so far.
Aside from its direct change in re-porting structure, further effects of the ASUC Auxiliary’s highly debated realignment to the Division of Student Affairs will come later, officials said.
Many of the effects that the Auxiliary will see will not occur until after stu-dents are back on campus, when a com-mittee will be formed to discuss the de-tails of the transition through the next few months, according to Jonathan Poullard, dean of students and assistant vice chancellor for student affairs.
While the exact effects of the realign-ment had previously been unclear, Po-ullard explained in an interview what some of the advantages may be.
Among the potential benefits of the Auxiliary reporting to student affairs are creating a more streamlined oper-ating system, leveraging the fundrais-ing and marketing power of student affairs and potentially collaborating with other campus units such as Resi-dential and Student Service Programs, Poullard said.
However, Poullard added that these are all potential outcomes of the tran-sition that must still be discussed and explored by the transition committee.
“It’s not something that’s going to be done overnight,” Poullard said. “I think there’s lots of work to be done, and I think that we need to be very thoughtful and very deliberate. And to the best of our ability preserve the best of all com-ponents while providing opportunities to build upon that which we have.”
Previously, both the incoming and outgoing ASUC Senate classes united in a strongly worded letter decrying the change, while the outgoing senate passed a similar resolution, express-ing “extreme disappointment” with the administration for allegedly rushing through the process and not involving the senate more in the discussion.
One concern in the letter and resolu-tion was a potential conflict of interest between the Student Advocate’s Office and the Center for Student Conduct and Community Standards, which sits under student affairs.
But following the release of those senate documents, Poullard and Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Harry Le Grande — who oversees the division now housing the Auxiliary — were not immediately available for comment.
“I guess my overall response is that I can definitely understand,” Poullard said regarding the letter and resolution. “I can understand why folks might feel the way they reported to be feeling, and I can understand why students may have a perception of concern ... however, there is no conflict of interest between the role that (the Student Advocate’s Office) plays in advocating for students when a student faces alleged conduct violations. The rules are the rules.”
Last year’s ASUC President Noah Stern had previously remained largely out of the public back-and-forth re-garding the realignment. But he said in an email that he and former Gradu-ate Assembly President Miguel Daal brought up several potential prob-lems with such a move in a meeting last semester with key administrators
auxiliary: PaGe 4
financial aid
Debt-ceiling negotiations could impact pell Grant aid
As a result of the ongoing debt-ceiling negotiations in Washington, D.C., federally funded Pell Grant aid packages — which many University of California students rely on — may un-dergo serious cuts or gain new avenues of funding in the latest proposals to re-duce the federal deficit.
Pell Grants — a staple of government assistance to cash-strapped house-holds with college-bound students — offer up to $5,550 in aid that does not have to be repaid. Approximately 40
By Noah Kulwin | [email protected]
Grants: PaGe 3
city Budget
Lee Nelson, a retired Rockridge area resident, stood in the shallow end of Berkeley’s warm wa-ter pool on a Wednesday evening, his thin hands gripped around a swim noodle, basking in the heated waters.
Nelson, 68, has been using the indoor warm pool at Berkeley High School three or four times a week since he was sent there by his health care provider about three months ago to help with a fracture in his back.
“When I get out of here, it’s like it’s a new life, because I do have constant pain, and it’s like it re-vitalizes me,” he said. “I don’t even know how to explain it, but it helps me a great deal physically.”
He said the temperature of the water — which, at about 92 degrees Fahrenheit, creates a notice-ably humid atmosphere in the old gym that houses the pool — mitigates his pain and allows him to exercise.
But the warm pool, which Nelson described as a “godsend” for its therapeutic benefits, is sched-uled to close in December as the Berkeley Unified School District prepares to demolish the building in order to make room for more classrooms at the high school, marking the second time in about a year and a half that a city pool has closed.
According to Lew Jones, the director of facili-
By J.D. Morris | Senior [email protected]
POOls: PaGe 4the city’s warm water pool, located at Berkeley high school, will be the second city pool to close in a span of approximately 18 months.
AnnA vignEt/FilE
Warm water pool set for December closure
In an effort to reduce the deficit, some officials have suggested making cuts to Pell Grant aid packages
This is the second installment of a three-part series that covers the city’s budget.
editOr’snOte
asuc | News Analysis
By Anny Dow | [email protected]
By Allie Bidwell and J.D. Morris [email protected]
Online coverage 24/7
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Video: Battle of the Frozen Desserts
The Daily ClogNOTHING BIZARRE ABOUT NEW MARKET: The Firehouse Art Collective’s new Weekend “Buzzar” promises to be a hit among local artists and artist-lovers alike.
IN NEED OF A LITTLE EXTRA CLASS?: Next week will offer the opportunity to see performances of Beethoven, Mussorgsky and Berlioz — for free! ... Sort of.
Sports BlogMUST-SEE FOOTBALL VS. OREGON STATE: Given that Cal tech-nically won’t be hosting any home games for the upcoming season, Jack Wang highlights the one or two worth attending.
on the blogs
The Fox Theatre was packed with seasoned fans dressed in jeans and boots and relaxation, everybody amped up to see a notorious Avett Brothers show. And they did not dis-appoint. Delicate banjo pickings and rich cello groans poured into eager ears with the decadence and potency
of a sonic Jack and Coke. Before long, heels were aclicking and arms were aswinging to the ripples of the musi-cal cocktail. Brothers Seth and Scott had the luxury of a thousand back up singers as they plowed through their exten-sive discography. ...
simone anne Lang/staff
Owl City’s recorded output has what one could call a dangerous lack of irony. Adam Young in person is just as ludicrously wide-eyed, being assaulted on stage by stuffed owls that he couldn’t help but fawn over. Yet his live music conveyed little message or emotion, coming off like the performed version of a smiley-faced Hallmark card. Young frequently introduced songs with a smile and a blunt statement: “This song is about stars/plants/fireflies”, like an over-excited kid at a middle school talent show. His backing band smiled benignly through the entire set, bop-ping their heads with the kind of soul-crushed enthusiasm that you see with
your average Disneyland employee. Young’s persona led to speculation that the majority of the audience would probably be 14-year-old girls dancing like they were on too much X. ...
The Avett Brothers delighted fans at the Fox
The polished Owl City catered to a young crowd
News & LegaLs The Daily Californian Thursday, July 28, 2011 – Sunday, July 31, 2011
HigHer education
UC law schools seek to lessen fees burden
Due to a sudden increase in system-wide student fees, several professional schools at campuses throughout the University of California are seeking ways to help ease the financial burden and anxiety of their students.
Last week, both UC Berkeley and UCLA’s law schools announced that they will offer scholarships to their students to cover the fee increase ap-proved about two weeks ago.
Though the two law schools came to the decision to offer scholarships sepa-rately, it was made primarily because the tuition increase was too large and came too close to the start of school, officials said.
At its July 14 meeting, the UC Board of Regents approved a 9.6 percent fee hike to be implemented for the fall se-mester in addition to an 8 percent fee increase approved last November.
“This state’s retreat has been most acute at the professional schools,” said Christopher Edley, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law, in an email to law school students last Thursday. “Bitter though this pill is for us to swal-low, it does have one benefit: although we have less remaining state subsidy,
By Anny Dow | [email protected]
we have more financial flexibility and more autonomy than do other aca-demic units within the UC system.”
Additionally, officials from the UCLA School of Law announced last week that the school would be offering emergency scholarships to help ease students’ financial strain.
“The regents approved the fee hike fairly shortly before school begins, which could possibly be a source of anxiety or burden to our students who have already made plans about what the tuition was going to be,” said Rachel Moran, dean of UCLA’s law school. “To avoid that kind of difficulty for our students, we wanted to find a way to hold them harmless from those tuition hikes.”
At the UCLA law school, a careful review was run to evaluate whether there were enough resources to fund the scholarships. After determining that the school could cover the fee hike, Moran decided it “was appropri-ate to take the next step,” she said.
“We’re happy that we could provide (the scholarship), and we always strive to do as much as we can with the re-sources available,” Moran said.
Other schools in the UC system have taken different approaches in response to the fee hikes.
At UC Irvine, scholarships covering one-third of tuition will be granted to each class of law students. The scholar-ship for the upcoming school year will account for the 9.6 percent student fee increase, said Rebecca Avila, assistant dean of administration and finance at the UC Irvine School of Law.
While the individual schools them-
selves are responsible for determining how to allocate funds and resources within the school, the UC Office of the President has also been working to increase state attention to higher education, said UC spokesperson Steve Montiel.
“The senior leadership of UCOP has been working to get an agreement with the state for more reliable, predictable funding so that we can have a plan that would help us with our planning and help students and their families with planning for tuition,” Montiel said.
But despite efforts to lessen the impact of fee increases, UC Berkeley Graduate Assembly President Bahar Navab said that the scholarships are only a temporary solution.
While Navab said scholarships are great for this year, “by and large this is a Band-Aid solution, given how high pro-fessional fees are at the law school.”
“We need a long-term solution, and this doesn’t even begin to dent the fi-nancial burden that most law students are going to be facing,” she said. “Even this scholarship — will they offer this in future years? Probably not.”
With fees likely to increase in future years, Montiel said focus needs to be placed on getting legislators to under-stand the importance of stability and funding for the university.
“It’s a tough time,” he said. “The state is facing serious financial problems, and higher education is not the only thing being cut. But it’s important that we all continue to let legislators know that it’s important for priority to be put on fund-ing for higher education in the state.”
Graduate Assembly head calls scholarships a short-term ‘Band-Aid solution’
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3OPINION & News The Daily Californian
Pilar [email protected]
If marijuana is as dangerous as heroin — as the Drug Enforcement Agency classifies it
to be — then Californians are living in the midst of a drug epidemic.
Most Californians, however, know better than to believe this hype, as joints are passed around in concerts like bread in church. Obtaining pre-scriptions for marijuana is hardly an issue when ads for medical cannabis dispensaries and evaluations fill the margins of most East Bay weeklies.
Though marijuana symbolizes the East Bay’s mellow counterculture, the federal government and its finan-cial investors continue to perpetuate marijuana’s stigma to the point of dismissing its medical credibility.
A friend’s mother, who died two summers ago after a long battle with brain cancer, starved to death. While the cancer caused her unimaginable pain and mental complications, she refused marijuana therapy meant to increase her appetite and reduce chemotherapy-induced nausea.
In spite of numerous examples of scientific research that legitimizes marijuana’s medical benefits (and considering that Cheech and Chong are still alive and well), the DEA is more concerned with shutting down California’s “cannabusinesses” than regulating pharmaceutical drugs that thousands of patients abuse and die from every year.
According to the DEA website, a Schedule 1 drug has “a high potential for abuse, no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervi-sion.” Never mind that alcohol fits this description — market regulation seems to trump medical safety.
The likes of alcohol, pain relievers and pharmaceutical drugs are much easier to regulate in the market than marijuana yet more likely to be abused and cause death. Quite liter-ally a “weed” that is easily grown in the right climate, it would be difficult for pharmaceutical corporations to profit more from marijuana than their formulated drugs.
Beyond the issue of marijuana legalization, the federal govern-
ment’s actions clearly don’t reflect the people’s best interests. Though mari-juana has a high potential for abuse, the same can be said for other sub-stances approved by the DEA, such as amphetamines and antidepressants.
As financial incentives lure physi-cians away from their tumors of stu-dent debt into the glitz of commis-sion-based salesmanship, pharma-ceutical companies manipulate doc-tors to prescribe medication still wobbling between unproven hypoth-eses and one-time testimonies.
Though the passion of most doc-tors is doubtless, their vulnerability should not be dismissed. They may prescribe newly tested medicines
with the best of intentions, but their self-interested profit is unforgivable when patients become victims of this supposed original sin.
People have become lab rats for new pharmaceutical drugs, as
corporate efficacy carries more weight than the significant medical benefits of marijuana.
While independent marijuana dis-pensaries lack the collective financial support to lobby for coherent and fair marijuana reform at the national level, pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer and Merck have the fiscal power to test their latest drug innovations in the market, as their fines are inconse-quential compared to their profits.
Because medicine has become a field of glamorous payoffs that justify the reality of daytime dramas, the doc-tor is admired more often for his well-deserved paycheck than his passion. As we forget our childhood dreams, we justify our sacrifices with exuberant purchases like island dream getaways.
Even if more people smoke mari-juana recreationally than medicinal-ly, its recreational use should be compared with that of overly pre-scribed pain relievers and ADD med-ication. (Kids had whiskey in the 1920s — why not amphetamines for the modern age?)
Heroin abuse is undeniably more destructive than marijuana, simply considering how shared needles can spread diseases like HIV while the most marijuana cigarettes can spread is mononucleosis. Besides that both have “high potential for abuse,” there is no reason for marijuana to be asso-ciated with heroin.
The prevalence of TV shows, mov-ies and music that reflect marijua-na’s abuse show that its destructive tendencies fit in nicely with the dys-functional nature of American life. Unlike the tragedies heroin junkies are often found in (unless they’re Scottish), stoners are portrayed in a realm of self-destruction ranging from daze and confusion to escape and illusion.
Though marijuana is not as danger-ous as heroin, we are in the midst of a drug epidemic. But since most of the abused drugs are justified with medi-cal rhetoric and overworked bodies, all we need to ask for is a doctor and a prescription.
Prescribing high profitsConneCt tHe dots
Thursday, July 28, 2011 – Sunday, July 31, 2011
campus figures
Professor nominated to state Supreme Court
Gov. Jerry Brown nominated UC Berkeley law professor Goodwin Liu to the California Supreme Court Tuesday about two months after Liu withdrew his nomination for a federal appeals court position.
Liu will replace Associate Justice Carlos Moreno, who retired from the court earlier this year.
“I’m deeply hon-ored by Governor Brown’s nomination and look forward to the opportunity to serve the people of California on our state’s highest court,” Liu said in a
By Allie Bidwell | Senior [email protected]
statement.Liu was previously nominated by
President Barack Obama three consecu-tive times to serve on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, but he withdrew his nomination after a Republican filibuster blocked his confir-mation. Republicans questioned Liu’s qualifications for the position, stating that he lacked experience, and reiterated concerns about him promoting a liberal interpretation of the Constitution.
A professor at the UC Berkeley School of Law since 2003, Liu specializes in constitutional law. He is a Rhodes Scholar and won the campus Distinguished Teaching Award in 2009.
“Governor Brown’s nomination of Goodwin Liu to the state’s highest court is absolutely brilliant,” said Christopher Edley, dean of the campus law school, in a statement. “He’s an exemplary scholar with enormous
constitutional knowledge and intel-lectual rigor ... Our students and fac-ulty will miss his leadership and schol-arship dearly, but it’s a higher calling and California’s gain.”
Liu’s nomination will now be reviewed by two separate groups. The Commission on Judicial Appointments will hold one or more public hearings to review his nomination after the State Bar’s Commission of Judicial Nominees Evaluation, which is non-binding. However, Liu’s appointment will not become final until the Commission on Judicial Appointments confirms his nomination.
“Professor Liu is an extraordinary man and a distinguished legal scholar and teacher,” Brown said in a state-ment. “I know that he will be an out-standing addition to our state supreme court.”
Allie Bidwell is the news editor.
GoodwinLiu
From Front
Grants: An alternative plan involves cutting Stafford loans
percent of all UC undergraduates — around 72,000 students — are eligible for Pell Grants and received a total of $321 million this past year.
As part of Speaker of the House John Boehner’s deficit reduction plan, the Secretary of Education would lose the authority to grant incentives for on-time payment of loans, and not all savings from the interest-rate hike on graduate students would be put back into the Pell Grant program.
According to a statement from the Committee for Education Funding, the Boehner plan would reduce stu-dent loan spending by $21.7 billion but would only put $17 billion of the sav-ings back into the Pell Grant program — leaving the remaining $4.7 billion to be used to reduce the deficit.
Carolyn Henrich, legislative director for the UC’s Federal Government Re-lations office in Washington, D.C., said that this would effectively transfer the “burden of deficit reduction ... onto the backs of students.”
According to the Congressional Budget Office’s score of Senate Major-
ity Leader Harry Reid’s most recent budget proposal, in his plan, 100 per-cent of the savings from cutting subsi-dized Stafford loans would be used to fund Pell Grants. Still, members of the academic community are wary.
In a letter to the California Congres-sional Delegation, UC President Mark Yudof called for “continued funding for federal student financial aid programs.”
“I urge you to avoid disproportionate and harmful cuts to college students,” Yudof said in the letter. “Such reduc-tions will decrease college completion rates and damage rather than improve the nation’s economy.”
The July 20 letter also discusses the proposed interest rate hike of the fed-eral government’s Stafford graduate loan programs.
The Stafford graduate loan program — introduced in 1965 — subsidizes fixed-interest loans for graduate and professional students.
Yudof warns in the letter that “the impact of the additional interest costs for UC student borrowers would be ap-proximately $30 million per year” and
that “needy college students would as-sume very heavy new burdens in the name of federal debt reduction.”
Sara Goldrick-Rab, co-director of the Wisconsin Scholars Longitudinal Study — a study of the relationship between increasing Pell Grant aid and college credit accumulation — said she feels somewhat differently.
“If the set of options included cutting the maximum Pell Grant, changing the amount of credits required for a Pell Grant or getting money from an increase in the Stafford loan interest rate ... then the Stafford hike is the best option,” Gol-drick-Rab said. “However ... I would love to see an extended set of options.”
Many feel that the discussed De-partment of Education budget cuts come at a time when the need for Pell Grants is increasing among the most disadvantaged students.
“Cuts to the Pell Grant program are not going to feel universal,” Goldrick-Rab said. “The grant ... matters a lot more to students with lower test scores and parents who did not go to college. The effect will be disproportionate.”
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4 news Thursday, July 28, 2011 – Sunday, July 31, 2011The Daily Californian
Student life
From Front
dream: Second half of act still pending in state Senate
AB 131, which would allow un-documented students to apply for and receive state financial aid, such as Cal Grants, is still pending in the state Senate.
“This would be the huge gain that really made a big difference,” said UC Berkeley Vice Chancellor for Equity and Inclusion Gibor Basri. “Financial aid is the predominant obstacle these students face and the single factor that most prevents extremely talent-ed individuals from achieving their potential at UC Berkeley.”
Other individuals in the UC Berke-ley community have been actively voicing their opinions about the DREAM Act. Campus spokesperson Dan Mogulof said that UC Berkeley
Chancellor Robert Birgeneau “has been a really strong and vigorous ad-vocate and champion for this legisla-tion.”
“The chancellor said publicly that AB 131 is a critical component in allowing students to attend (UC) Berkeley because that would broaden the aid for so-called AB 540 students,” Mogulof said.
AB 540, passed in 2001, grants in-state tuition for higher education, regardless of citizenship or residen-cy, to students who graduate from a California high school, among other requirements. According to UC es-timates, “approximately 500 to 650 students who qualify for the AB 540 nonresident tuition exemption are
Campus revokes recognition of fraternity
The campus revoked its recogni-tion of the UC Berkeley chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon on July 15 fol-lowing repeated student conduct, social code and risk management violations and failure to comply with prior sanctions.
The fraternity had previously been under a state of stayed revocation — a probationary period often resorted to before installing a final revocation — since January 2008 and had eight incidents in the last year in which the campus Code of Student Conduct was violated, according Amanda Carlton, director of student involvement for the campus Center for Student Lead-ership.
“After a period of time in which there have been multiple violations, we attempt many different courses before revocation,” Carlton said. “It is not very common, but we try our best to make sure the chapters are in alignment with university policy.”
According to Carlton, the incidents all occurred at the chapter’s house on Bancroft Way and involved fire safety violations and failure to follow guide-lines for serving alcohol.
“Because the fraternity had eight
By Amruta Trivedi | [email protected]
The campus chapter of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity recently lost recognition after multiple code of conduct violations.Derek remsburg/staff
violations in the last year, from July 2010 to July 2011, (the Center for Student Conduct and Community Standards) offered a resolution to the fraternity as a final step towards revo-cation,” Carlton said.
Chapter president Daniel Meyer ac-cepted this resolution as an informal revocation on July 15, and as a result, the UC Berkeley chapter of Sigma Al-pha Epsilon is no longer endorsed by the campus. Additionally, the chapter cannot apply to be re-granted recog-nition for another four years.
Meyer declined to comment on the situation with the fraternity, stating in an email that any public-ity in which the chapter participates needed to be cleared by the national organization.
National representatives from Sigma Alpha Epsilon could not be reached for comment.
Because the fraternity is no longer recognized by the campus, it cannot access campus-supported funding opportunities or participate in cam-puswide or all-Greek events put on by CalGreeks, Carlton said.
She added that the members and alumni of the fraternity as well as na-tional organization affiliates cannot recruit members on campus for an-other four years.
Since 2005, the campus has re-
voked recognition of campus chapters of seven fraternities and one sorority, Alpha Kappa Delta Phi, for reasons including fire and safety violations, social code violations and repeated risk management violations.
Since then, only one fraternity, Pi Alpha Phi, has regained recognition from the campus after its revocation period was over.
In order to reapply for recognition, leaders of the campuswide chapter and national organization as well as alumni must begin talks with both the staff at the Fraternity and Soror-ity Life unit of the Division of Student Affairs and leaders from the cam-pus Interfraternity Council after the chapter has complied with the terms of its revocation.
David Lopez, president of the cam-pus Interfraternity Council, declined to comment on the situation with Sig-ma Alpha Epsilon, stating in an email that discussing the matter would have to be deferred to the campus.
According to Carlton, the process for establishing or rechartering a fraternity or sorority chapter is more involved than starting a student orga-nization.
“We hold fraternities and sororities to higher standards, because they have a sponsored relationship with the university,” she said.
From Front
auxiliary: ASUC Senate meeting minutes show possibility of move was known
involved in the realignment.“I believe our explanation brought
to light a number of issues they had not considered,” Stern said in the email.
Additionally, although the senate has said it was not involved enough in the realignment discussions throughout the process, a look at meeting minutes from last semester indicates senators did at least know that a realignment may occur.
The possibility of a realignment for the Auxiliary was brought up at several meetings. However, the discussion was mainly hypothetical, as many of the updates stated that no final decisions had been made.
Furthermore, the minutes provide some insight into the perspective of Auxiliary director Nadesan Permaul, who declined to comment on the move following his retirement just two days before the realignment took effect.
Because the coming year will be a complex one for the ASUC — espe-cially with the Lower Sproul Plaza re-development project — at the Feb. 16 meeting Permaul questioned whether now is “the best time to break apart the services that provide the ASUC with support during this process.”
Though Permaul suggested that col-laborating more closely with student affairs and other campus units made sense, he said at the meeting that there are other ways to collaborate with the campus that do not involve the “dis-mantling” of the Auxiliary.
“Moving forward, it is important that students are involved in every step of the process,” Stern said in the email. “The worst thing the ASUC can do is lose its seat at the table as its future is shaped.”
Allie Bidwell and J.D. Morris are news editors.
From Front
Pools: Imminent closure is partly a result of Measure C’s 2010 failure
ties for the district, the old gym is also seismically unsafe, therefore further-ing the need for the building’s demo-lition, which he said should occur in January. At that point, Berkeley will have reduced the number of pools it operates from four to just two in the span of about 18 months.
Yet the closure of the pool at Willard Middle School last year as well as the upcoming closure of the warm pool were not without significant efforts to save them.
At the Berkeley City Council’s June 28 meeting, attempts to include fund-ing for the pools in the city budget were unsuccessful as the council sought to overcome a projected $12.2 million deficit in fiscal year 2012 and $13.3 million deficit in fiscal year 2013.
Seeking to provide some monetary relief for the city’s aging aquatic in-frastructure, Councilmember Max Anderson had proposed allocating $40,000 in one-time expenditures to support the pools. Additionally, Coun-cilmembers Kriss Worthington and Darryl Moore had proposed the prepa-ration of a report regarding therapeu-tic warm pools and recommendations for a new Berkeley warm pool as well as pre-bond planning for all of the city’s pools.
Neither effort was successful.Furthermore, after failing to garner
enough public support to remain open, the Willard Pool closed July 1, 2010 and has subsequently been filled with dirt.
None of this would be the case if a ballot measure to save the city’s pools had passed last summer.
In an election in June 2010, Mea-sure C garnered just over 60 percent of the vote, falling short of the two-thirds majority required to pass. The measure would have incurred $22.5 million in bonds to pay for pool maintenance and aquatics programs and created a spe-cial tax to repay the bonds.
Bond funds would have been used to construct a new warm pool and reno-vate pools at Willard and West Cam-pus Junior High School as well as con-struct an all-purpose pool at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School.
Still, efforts to save the warm pool may not be completely dead in the water.
“I think the closer we get to Decem-ber, the more sense of impending doom will come upon the council and the community — this is a pretty significant resource that’s going to be yanked away,” Worthington said. “To me, it’s already a sense of urgency, because even though it
was six months away (when the council adopted a budget), it’s clear to me that this is going to have a dramatic impact on hundreds of people.”
Additionally, Berkeley voters may see another pools measure appear be-fore them on the November 2012 bal-lot, according to Rob Collier, co-chair of the Berkeley Pools Campaign, a grassroots group of city pool users and supporters. However, Collier said it is still too early to determine what that measure will look like.
Should that measure pass, the soonest a new warm pool would be open to the public would likely be the end of 2013 due to the amount of time required for planning and construction, Collier said.
“For many users, time is critical for them because they are in poor health — this is a lifeline for them,” he said. “For some of them, this is a life or death issue.”
According to William Rogers, the city’s director of parks and recreation, the warm pool sees about 13,000 visits per year and, as of an estimate made about three years ago, about 300 non-duplicated users per year. Rogers de-scribed those users as a mix of both Berkeley and non-Berkeley residents, perhaps due in part to the relatively low amount of warm pools in the area.
When Berkeley’s warm pool does close, however, users will not be left entirely without options.
The Downtown Berkeley YMCA, lo-cated just down the street from the high school, has a warm pool of its own. But transitioning there may not be a viable solution for some warm pool users like Nelson, who said the YMCA would be more expensive for him.
“I’m not suggesting that it’s a one-for-one substitution, but I am sug-gesting that for folks who need a warm pool, that is an option,” Rogers said.
Berkeley resident Sandra Gey, 69, who uses the warm pool about five times a week, said she is not as terri-fied of its closure as she had previously been because a hip replacement she underwent about 10 months ago has given her “something really good and solid” to stand on.
But she has yet to determine what she will do when the pool, which she said has made a “tremendous differ-ence” in her mobility, closes.
“I haven’t figured it out,” Gey said. “I just keep hoping it won’t close — that I’ll continue to be able to swim here.”
J.D. Morris is an assistant news edi-tor.
potentially undocumented,” said UC spokesperson Dianne Klein in an email.
As for AB 131, the UC estimates that approximately 800 undergradu-ate students who qualify for AB 540 nonresident tuition exemption would meet the requirements for a Cal Grant. In addition, it is estimated that another 400 to 500 students would qualify for $3.7 million to $4.6 mil-lion in institutional aid, Klein added in the email.
Until AB 131 is passed, supporters of the DREAM Act said they will con-tinue working to build awareness and momentum.
“It’s a human rights issue,” Hong said.
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The Daily Californian 5news & arts & entertainmentThursday, July 28, 2011 – Sunday, July 31, 2011
ReseaRch & Ideas
Researchers at UC Berkeley have recently pinpointed a cause of visual discomfort, headaches, eyestrain, and blurry vision when viewing 3-D stereo imagery, according to a study pub-lished Friday.
Displays utilizing 3-D stereo imag-ery, including those on mobile devices do not optimally present 3-D stereo imagery, which results in visual dis-comfort, according to a recent study led by Martin Banks, a campus profes-sor of optometry and vision science.
According to the study, depending on size — ranging from mobile devices to movie theater screens — and view-ing distance for 3-D stereo imagery, content should either come toward or move away from the viewer.
Joohwan Kim, a co-author of the study, said that usually when the movie industry translates a 3-D film from the theaters onto a smaller platform, like a mobile phone, they scale the depth range uniformly while not thinking about the biological visual issues.
This type of scaling can cause what is called the vergence-accommodation conflict in viewers, resulting in dis-comfort, Kim said.
According to Kim, the conflict arises “when you fix your accommodation (where the light source is) but change your vergence, which depends on the shifting depth of the 3-D content.”
There are various means of increas-ing viewier comfort when looking at 3-D content, according to the study.
When a 3-D stereo device is fairly close, such as in a mobile device or laptop screen, viewers experience more visual comfort when the con-tent appears to move past the screen rather than out toward the viewer, the study states.
Conversely, when viewing 3-D stereo imagery at a farther distance like in a movie theater or on a television screen, viewers are more visually comfortable
By Jonathan Tam | [email protected]
A campus research team, which included Joohwan Kim, above, found a reason that viewing 3-D stereo imagery on mobile devices can cause discomfort such as headaches.
Derek remsburg/staff
when the 3-D content appeared to move out of the screen toward them, the study found.
Bill Sprague, a third-year campus graduate student working with Banks, added that the conflict is not one peo-ple experience naturally. In the natural world, a typical person would not ex-perience the vergence-accommodation conflict because the place where the eye receives light and where the eye focuses on the object in space are con-tinuously linked together, he said.
According to Kim, age is a factor when considering levels of viewer dis-comfort. The study focused on young adults ranging from the age of 19 to 33, because by the age of 50, people begin to lose the ability to change accommo-dation, which is what stereo 3-D im-ages require, he said.
When individuals approach the age of 50, Kim said he would expect that they will likely experience less dis-comfort from 3-D stereo imaging than their younger counterparts.
Brian Barsky, a campus professor of computer science and vision science, said this study brought to light one of many factors that cause discomfort when observing 3-D imagery.
“Although discomfort experienced in viewing stereo displays arises due to a myriad of causes, this valuable study shows that one of the factors is the dissonance between the con-verging movements of both eyes to fuse a single binocular vision and the accommodation, or focusing, of the crystalline lens inside each eye,” he said.
According to Banks, the study will hopefully impact future 3-D imagery technology.
“We hope that content providers will use this information to help design future 3-D content, assist display manufacturers and will help design displays.”
Campus researchers find cause of discomfort in some 3-D displays
CheCk Onlinewww.dailycal.org
Jonathan Tam discusses levels of discomfort when the eye is exposed to different stimuli.
NEWS & ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Amelia Taylor-Hochberg
DETOUR
FILM
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6 arts & entertainment Thursday, July 28, 2011 – Sunday, July 31, 2011The Daily Californian
Duet records are generally a mix of cheap love songs and tired ballads. But Release the
Sunbird have come to give the genre a fresh overhaul with their debut, Come Back to Us. Led by the Bay Area’s Zach Rogue of Rogue Wave fame, his latest project brims with charming melodies and soothing vocal harmonies.
The album has a way of feeling natural as opposed to being swamped from massive Pro Tools editing. Rogue has stated that he wanted the album to feel pure, deciding to go for a sim-pler sound that allowed the vocals to shine. This approach proves success-ful, as the euphony created by Rogue and guest vocalist Kate Long are infectiously sweet to say the least. The duo seem to blend well together, their vocals creating a comforting current running through an acoustic stream. While the album contains some upbeat, feel-good tunes, it’s the more solemn tracks like “Why Can’t You Look At Yourself” that best highlight Rogue and Long’s unifying voices — the backing instruments temporarily lowered to accent the duo’s soulful crooning.
Although the band does the duet genre justice, they can’t fully escape the cliches that follow this style of mushy music. The rhythms and chord progressions found throughout most of the album can become repetitive after a couple of listens. It seems at times that the group constrains them-selves too much within the walls of the genre, rather than exploring beyond the usual expectations. It’s also hard to not be a little corny. Track titles like “Come Back to Us” and “Everytime You Go” speak for themselves with sappy longings of peace and lost love. However, Release the Sunbird have still created a worthwhile album, rebirthing duet records from their played-out ashes. — Ian Birnam
Release the SunbirdCOME BACK TO US
[Bushfire]
album reviews
Electro-pop can’t stop and won’t stop, as is proved by the release of Little Dragon’s third
album, Ritual Union. The Swedish quartet, led by the sultry, nymph-like vocals of Yukimi Nagano, flaunt their refined self-assurance with this latest installment of work. In the past, Lit-tle Dragon stood above the rest of the electro-pop blur of synthesizers with their knack for dishing out a collage of textured and colorful sounds to satisfy the musical palette. However, this time around, they merely leave you hungry for seconds.
This new album is lacking the fresh musical nuances that their sophomore album, Machine Dreams, created and sustained. Ritual Union gives you an initial hope for what one would imagine the slow jam rhymes of the future to sound like, with songs such as the buoyant title track “Ritual Union” and “Shuffle a Dream.” Yet, it continues on and falters in an attempt to relax into its own coolness. The album gets caught in a slow sway of uncertainty and eventually dozes off in a kind of poetic lethargy. A greater part of the album varies between bare beats and synth riffs that drip with flat-lined moodiness. Granted, Nagano’s croons still echo smooth jazz, but on this record, she has a tendency to subdue them with too many hushed phrases. The album is not a complete let-down — it’s cohesive, consistent, and well-polished, but a bit too plain for its own good.Rather than taking advantage of the raw talent and lim-itless potential of Little Dragon, the album is shockingly disappointing, albeit still entertaining. Let’s look at Ritual Union as a light appetizer to Little Dragon’s next album where they can hopefully indulge in their fuller, potential genius. — Dominique Brillon
Little DragonRITUAL UNION
[Peacefrog]
There’s nothing extraordinary about Vanessa Carlton. She plays the piano all right. She
sings just okay, and she’s pretty enough not to scare off CD buyers with her face on an album cover. However, being just suitable isn’t enough. Since her 2002 hit and Zales commercial go-to song, “A Thousand Miles,” Carlton has yet to release ma-terial of a similar pop magnitude. Al-most 10 years since and four records later, Carlton’s most recent release, Rabbits on the Run, joins the ranks of the nameless tracks and mediocre piano-driven ballads that have come to comprise her career.
Even in her heyday (if having a one-hit-wonder can be defined as heyday), Carlton only played second string to Michelle Branch, and on this record, her bland persona and middling musical dynamism only sink Rabbits on the Run further into this second-rate rut. On “Carousel,” there’s light, airy piano. On “Fair-weather Friend,” there’s light, airy piano. And to no one’s surprise, there’s light, airy piano — complete with light, airy vocals — on every track. There’s nary a note of variety to be found on this record, where songs run the the extreme range between trite guitar ballads and trite piano ballads with Carlton’s almost squeaky vocals found somewhere amidst the rudimentary rubble. However, if you dig deep within the trite, there is some,potential treasure. The muted and intimate a capella vocals on “This Marching Line” recall the rawness of Cat Power’s “Lived in Bars.” But, to call those fleeting moments “treasure” would ignore how drab most of this album is. At times, when Carlton is crooning, it feels as if she’s as bored as anyone who listens to Rabbits on the Run will be. — Jessica Pena
Vanessa CarltonRABBITS ON THE RUN
[Razor and Tie]
8-30-11
UCB – California Memorial Stadium Seismic Safety Improvements
Webcor Builders will be receiving prequalification packages from subcontractors who would like to be evaluated for the
opportunity to propose on trade package 34-Security Systems.
Prequalifications will be evaluated for the construction of the California Memorial Stadium Seismic Safety Improvements, project no. 12263A and will be received no later than August 4, 2011 @ 2:00pm. Subcontractors submitting prequalifications must be able to provide all of the work described within the
trade package; submittals for only a portion of the work will not be accepted.
Please contact Allan Miller at 415-978-1016 to obtain a prequalification package and instructions.
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7arts & entertainment & marketplaceThe Daily CalifornianThursday, July 28, 2011 – Sunday, July 31, 2011
Film
Let’s play tennis,” says an eager Justin Timberlake after giving Mila Kunis’ curvy behind a
once-over. Contrary to the popular definition of the sport, he isn’t looking for some exercise. Rather, the couple is getting action off of the courts in an attempt to prove that the act of inter-course can be as emotionally charged as an innocent tennis match. Before you roll your eyes and begin to mind-lessly recite the plot that we all know by heart, give “Friends with Benefits” a chance. Sure, it recycles worn-out tales. But director Will Gluck (of “Easy A” fame) has turned something trite into a fast-paced romp that throws out the cliches for knee-slapping and unique wit.
It begins on an innocuous note: boy meets girl. Boy, however, does not like girl. And girl does not like guy.
The girl is Jamie (Mila Kunis), an aggressive headhunter in pursuit of her latest conquest, Dylan (Justin Timberlake). Though he is perfectly content with being the art director at a small yet successful Internet company, Dylan eventually lets himself be wooed by Jamie’s charming offer and uproots to New York, where he has landed a job at GQ. Jamie, having done her job, merely shakes his hand and walks away.
But she quickly returns. Because if you met a guy who looked like Timber-lake, you would come running back as well. Jamie and Dylan embark on the traditional path of friendship — lunch dates, secret spots and, of course, shar-ing tales of relationship woe. Kunis’ candor and Timberlake’s boyish charm turn their camaraderie into more of a bromance than a liaison until the
By Cynthia Kang | Senior [email protected]
Young, carefree and enjoying the good life in New York, Dylan (Justin Timberlake) and Jamie (Mila Kunis) are two friends who are testing the boundaries of their friendship.Screen GemS/courteSy
moment they both admit that they, quite frankly, miss sex. Thus the brilliant idea is formed and a pact is made (sworn on a Bible iPad app, no less).
After wrestling with a few initial complications, the good ol’ chums seem to have the whole friends-with-benefits system down pat. Their relationship is frantic, and yet it works. Clothes off, jump into bed, pick a position — rather than awkwardness, there is a strange sort of benevolence and consideration. For a few scenes, it appears that this
too-good-to-be-true arrangement might actually have a happy ending. Jamie and Dylan still remain the friendliest of friends, it sure is a great stress-reliever and the sex is great (from what we see of it, anyway).
But all good things come to an end and, what do you know, feelings begin to arise. Here is where the previously dynamic plot falters. What once had potential to be a hilarious and refresh-ing comedy that brimmed with original wit begins to slip into sappy chick-flick
‘Friends with Benefits’ brims with chemistry and wit
mode, molding into the very kind of rom-com that the characters themselves detest. Jamie and Dylan struggle to sort out their emotions in typical angsty fashion, with dysfunctional families thrown in for good measure.
Maybe it’s time to address the elephant in the room. How many more films can Hollywood spit out about friends who want to get some? However, despite the striking similarities between this film and another recent release, the clever “Friends with Benefits” reinvents conventions. Instead of an awkwardly
matched pair, there sizzles the undeni-able chemistry between Kunis and Timberlake. Instead of a strange period mix, there is the perfectly timed motif of Semisonic’s “Closing Time.” And instead of melodramatic character expositions that we frankly don’t give a damn about, “Friends with Benefits” entertains with quick-witted humor that, when launched at a frenzied pace and paired with just the right amount of cheesiness, is ultimately what makes the film the answer to all of rom-coms’ problems. Cynthia Kang is the arts editor.
DUMMY
#4784CROSSWORD PUZZLE
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Answer to Previous Puzzle
# 21
V. EASY # 21
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V. EASY # 22
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V. EASY # 23
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V. EASY # 24
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# 21
V. EASY # 21
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V. EASY # 22
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V. EASY # 23
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V. EASY # 24
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Page 6 of 25www.sudoku.com 24 Jul 05
#4784CROSSWORD PUZZLE
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16
17 18 19
20 21 22 23
24 25 26
27 28 29 30 31 32 33
34 35 36
37 38 39 40
41 42 43
44 45 46 47
48 49
50 51 52 53 54 55 56
57 58 59 60 61
62 63 64
65 66 67
ACROSS 1. Chile!s mountains 6. Otherwise10. Make a mess14. Printer!s mark15. Secular16. Word with dead or head17. Señorita!s confidante18. Self-confidence20. Barney Fife!s title: abbr.21. The one and the other23. Opposite of exit24. Medieval,
spelled medievally25. Simple float27. Pressed a keyboard!s bar30. Company emblem31. Large container34. Meaty concoction35. Not smashed36. Period37. “The Iron Chancellor”41. Singer Bobby42. Foreigner43. Dagger44. Make a boo-boo45. __ of; frees from46. Breaks a traffic law48. African lily49. Prefix for phrase or legal50. Upright stone slab53. Showing good judgment54. Filled one!s tummy57. Parts of a formal attire60. Doomed62. Handle: Lat.63. Flutter64. African antelope65. Pool hall beverage66. Cincinnati __67. Despicable; traitorous
DOWN 1. USNA, for one: abbr. 2. Item on a dog tag 3. Faucet problem 4. Diagnostic test, for short 5. Unchanging 6. Fill with joy 7. Whip 8. Malia, to Sasha 9. Old French coin
10. Inclination11. Dryer residue12. Tale opener13. Nobleman19. Turn over a new leaf22. Eccentric24. Eight: Sp.25. Sign of spring26. Grows gray27. Push28. Dad, humorously29. Fall flower30. Traditional earring spots31. Author of “Around the World in Eighty Days”32. Formed a curve33. Grabs35. Like a derisive remark38. Knight!s page39. Mixture of this and that40. Bewildered46. Droop47. Like better48. Cathedral feature49. Histories50. Striker!s opposite51. Sound
52. Comfort53. Moved smoothly54. Rat-__55. Nomad!s shelter56. Nelson, for one58. Chad!s place: abbr.59. __ du Diable61. So. state
A L T O D E L A Y O D D S
N O O N E R A S E F O R A
D U B S R I G H T O F W A Y
A T O T I E S R E N T S
G R A D S J A R
R E G A L E B A L S A M
I R A T E A D A M S D E E
G U N S A M I S S T M A N
A P E A L I V E F A I N T
T R A C E D B U R S T S
T R E W E E P S
S A U T E R I A L I S T
O B S E S S I O N S O B O E
I L E S A S S E T A L M A
L E S T P R E S S R E E K
Answer to Previous Puzzle
1. Chile’s mountains6. Otherwise10. Make a mess14. Printer’s mark15. Secular16. Word with dead or head17. Señorita’s con�dante18. Self-con�dence20. Barney Fife’s title: abbr.21. The one and the other23. Opposite of exit24. Medieval, spelled medievally25. Simple �oat27. Pressed a keyboard’s bar30. Company emblem31. Large container34. Meaty concoction35. Not smashed36. Period37. “The Iron Chancellor”41. Singer Bobby42. Foreigner43. Dagger44. Make a boo-boo45. __ of; frees from46. Breaks a tra�c law48. African lily49. Pre�x for phrase or legal50. Upright stone slab53. Showing good judgment54. Filled one’s tummy57. Parts of a formal attire60. Doomed62. Handle: Lat.63. Flutter64. African antelope65. Pool hall beverage66. Cincinnati __67. Despicable; traitorous
1. USNA, for one: abbr.2. Item on a dog tag3. Faucet problem4. Diagnostic test, for short5. Unchanging6. Fill with joy7. Whip8. Malia, to Sasha9. Old French coin10. Inclination11. Dryer residue
12. Tale opener13. Nobleman19. Turn over a new leaf22. Eccentric24. Eight: Sp.25. Sign of spring26. Grows gray27. Push28. Dad, humorously29. Fall �ower30. Traditional earring spots31. Author of “Around the World in Eighty Days”
32. Formed a curve33. Grabs35. Like a derisive remark38. Knight’s page39. Mixture of this and that40. Bewildered46. Droop47. Like better48. Cathedral feature49. Histories50. Striker’s opposite51. Sound52. Comfort
53. Moved smoothly54. Rat-__55. Nomad’s shelter56. Nelson, for one58. Chad’s place: abbr.59. __ du Diable61. So. state
# 21
HARD # 21
2 7 4 1 67 5 4 9
3 83 4
8 52 8
7 31 4 6 2
8 4 6 7 5
8 9 2 7 4 1 6 3 57 5 6 8 3 2 1 4 94 1 3 5 9 6 8 2 76 7 9 3 5 4 2 1 82 8 1 6 7 9 4 5 35 3 4 2 1 8 9 7 69 6 7 1 2 5 3 8 41 4 5 9 8 3 7 6 23 2 8 4 6 7 5 9 1
# 22
HARD # 22
6 3 9 49 2 5
4 35 2
7 4 83 1
8 16 8 29 7 1 5
1 5 6 3 9 8 2 4 79 7 3 4 6 2 8 5 12 4 8 1 5 7 6 3 98 3 5 2 1 9 7 6 47 1 9 5 4 6 3 2 86 2 4 7 8 3 1 9 53 8 7 9 2 5 4 1 65 6 1 8 3 4 9 7 24 9 2 6 7 1 5 8 3
# 23
HARD # 23
2 6 1 9 54 6 78
7 2 89 5
1 4 62
5 4 66 7 1 2 3
7 3 2 6 4 1 9 5 84 9 5 3 2 8 6 7 18 1 6 5 9 7 4 2 35 7 9 2 6 3 8 1 46 4 8 9 1 5 2 3 73 2 1 8 7 4 5 6 91 8 3 4 5 6 7 9 22 5 4 7 3 9 1 8 69 6 7 1 8 2 3 4 5
# 24
HARD # 24
5 7 89 8 33 5 42 6 5
7 29 5 6
9 1 38 4 7
5 3 9
5 1 4 3 7 9 6 8 29 6 2 8 4 1 3 7 53 8 7 6 2 5 4 9 12 7 3 9 6 8 1 5 46 4 5 7 1 2 9 3 88 9 1 4 5 3 7 2 67 2 9 1 8 6 5 4 31 3 8 5 9 4 2 6 74 5 6 2 3 7 8 1 9
Page 6 of 25www.sudoku.com 24 Jul 05
# 21
HARD # 21
2 7 4 1 67 5 4 9
3 83 4
8 52 8
7 31 4 6 2
8 4 6 7 5
8 9 2 7 4 1 6 3 57 5 6 8 3 2 1 4 94 1 3 5 9 6 8 2 76 7 9 3 5 4 2 1 82 8 1 6 7 9 4 5 35 3 4 2 1 8 9 7 69 6 7 1 2 5 3 8 41 4 5 9 8 3 7 6 23 2 8 4 6 7 5 9 1
# 22
HARD # 22
6 3 9 49 2 5
4 35 2
7 4 83 1
8 16 8 29 7 1 5
1 5 6 3 9 8 2 4 79 7 3 4 6 2 8 5 12 4 8 1 5 7 6 3 98 3 5 2 1 9 7 6 47 1 9 5 4 6 3 2 86 2 4 7 8 3 1 9 53 8 7 9 2 5 4 1 65 6 1 8 3 4 9 7 24 9 2 6 7 1 5 8 3
# 23
HARD # 23
2 6 1 9 54 6 78
7 2 89 5
1 4 62
5 4 66 7 1 2 3
7 3 2 6 4 1 9 5 84 9 5 3 2 8 6 7 18 1 6 5 9 7 4 2 35 7 9 2 6 3 8 1 46 4 8 9 1 5 2 3 73 2 1 8 7 4 5 6 91 8 3 4 5 6 7 9 22 5 4 7 3 9 1 8 69 6 7 1 8 2 3 4 5
# 24
HARD # 24
5 7 89 8 33 5 42 6 5
7 29 5 6
9 1 38 4 7
5 3 9
5 1 4 3 7 9 6 8 29 6 2 8 4 1 3 7 53 8 7 6 2 5 4 9 12 7 3 9 6 8 1 5 46 4 5 7 1 2 9 3 88 9 1 4 5 3 7 2 67 2 9 1 8 6 5 4 31 3 8 5 9 4 2 6 74 5 6 2 3 7 8 1 9
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A&E “I woke up in the desert like I’d been dropped out of the sky.” —Jake Lonergan, “Cowboys and Aliens”
Thursday, July 28, 2011 – Sunday, July 31, 2011
The highly anticipated ‘Cowboys & Aliens’ is an explosive yet quirky summer blockbuster.
Last November, when the trailer for “Cowboys & Aliens” was released, there was a collective gasp of “wait, what?”
among audiences across the country. All that could be deciphered from those ambiguous two minutes was that, as the title would suggest, there would be both cowboys and aliens, which in and of itself is quite an unusual combina-tion. Most regarded the trailer with humor. It seemed to be a comical “Snakes on a Plane”-esque hoax carried out by none other than Mr. Steven Spielberg himself. And undoubtedly, most, if not all, audience-goers will shell out the $10 purely to find out if “Cowboys & Aliens” is an elaborate joke or an epic hybrid action flick… or both. Thankfully, “Cowboys and Aliens” answers that question nearly immediately. Outlaw Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) awakens suddenly in the desert to discover that he is alone, wound-ed, wearing a metal cuff that he can’t remove and has no recollection of who he is. After skillfully beating off would-be assassins, he sets off to find shelter in the form of the frontier
By Tamar McCollom | [email protected]
town of Absolution, home to Civil War hero Colonel Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford). After get-ting into a kerfuffle with the Colonel’s dimwit-ted and hysterical son (Paul Dano), Jake finds himself on the bad side of the most powerful man in town. But all disagreements must be put aside when aliens come to Absolution to kidnap loved ones as part of their desperate search for gold. The two former enemies must work together with the help of the mysterious Ella (Olivia Wilde) to take down the aliens and bring home their family. Is it ridiculous? Absolutely. But, it’s also fun and unapologetically camp. “Cowboys & Aliens” walks the fine line between parodying the western and science fiction genres and making a respectable fusion of both. It plays it straight enough to maintain a legitimately seri-ous front, but it’s also in on the joke. Glances are held that millisecond too long, turning suspense into comedy. Relationships, both familial and romantic, are hammed up to a hokey, pseudo-dramatic level. But all the hyperboles appear to be intentional and do receive the desired laugh. Conversely, the action scenes are genuinely intense and with-out unnecessary gimmicks. Better still, the CGI aliens effortlessly meld into the stylized period
setting that so beautifully captures the West in all its wide-open glory. What really makes “Cowboys & Aliens” work is that it never loses the plot, no matter how ridiculous the plot may be. There are points early on where the audience might not have any idea what they are watching or where it’s going, but director Jon Favreau (“Iron Man”) always seems to. He never gets buried in unnecessary details or subplots and keeps the story on track. However, there are minor holes that you just have to go with. Dolarhyde pretty much sums up the absurdity of the aliens’ desire for gold when he remarks, “What are they going to do with it? Buy stuff?” In the end, however, none of the trivial oversights affect a story brimming with fierce action, comedy and effective perfor-mances. To their credit, both Craig and Ford deliver great performances. Granted, Ford is playing a variation of the role he’s always played, Indiana Jones. As Colonel Dolarhyde, he’s tough, stub-born and willing to deliver a chilling one-liner. He even has the hat, although sadly he’s with-out his satchel. Craig, however, is the standout. He might still look a tad too James Bond-like with his supernatural blue eyes and chiseled features, but he’s remarkably convincing as the
strong yet brooding renegade. Even more impressive, Craig nails the Western accent, seamlessly adapting to his surroundings and completely losing all traces of British affecta-tion. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Wilde. Her character, while ultimately vital to the progression of the story, is dull and under-developed with no distinguishable traits or nuance. Wilde spends nearly all of her screen time standing completely still and staring blankly at the camera, at times appearing to mimic Stephen King’s Carrie. Even worse, the robot is set up, rather preposterously, to be the romantic lead. She and Craig have about as much chemistry as two appropriately sized slabs of plywood. Their only moments together are spent staring shallowly into each other’s similarly blue eyes, and their obligatory kiss is beyond cliched. The romance might be lackluster, but it doesn’t take away from the oddly fun story. “Cowboys & Aliens” might seem like a stretch, but bear with it. It isn’t the Oscar-nominated western “True Grit,” nor does it try to be. But it is, in all fairness, a decent summer action movie worthy of the $price of admission from all the skeptics.
universal pictures/courtesy