110111 Chicago Maroon

TUESDAY • NOVEMBER 1, 2011

Community, student activists rally for trauma center Sarah Miller News Contributor Community and student activists died in droves on campus yesterday evening, collapsing from mock injuries in another “die-in” protest of the University of Chicago Medical Center’s lack of a Level 1 trauma center.

Members of South Side advocacy group Fearless Leading by the Youth (FLY) and student RSO Student Health Equity joined members of the community in a march from the corner of East 61st Street and South Cottage Grove Avenue onto the main quadrangles, calling for the UCMC to re-open its trauma center.

Protesters staged a “die-in” to commemorate those who they allege have died after sustaining fatal injuries without having immediate access to trauma care on the South Side.

Currently, there is no Level 1 trauma center on the South Side.

In a novel moment of Halloween flair, protesters then pretended to raise the “dead” and danced to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”

TRAUMA continued on page 3

News Editor Concluding months of national media attention that was at turns scornful and mocking, celebratory and indulgent, the UChicago Conference on “Jersey Shore” Studies finally made good on its promise last Friday to unite the likes of Foucault, Plato, and Snooki under one roof.

Lilian Leer (left) and fellow protestors march across campus on Monday afternoon to support a trauma center feasibility study. There is currently no trauma center on Chicago’s South Side.

SYDNEY COMBS | THE CHICAGO MAROON

The day-long conference, brainchild of fourth-year David Showalter, sought to expose a reality show centered on clubbing, hair gel, and tanning beds to the serious lens of academia. The novelty of the conference became the fodder of late-night talk show hosts, and gained attention from several media outlets, including The New York Times, Gawker, and The Huffington

Post.

“People love high culture– low culture things,” Showalter said.

Showalter, a tutorial studies major, said that paper submissions for the conference soared after Gawker’s Brian Moylan, one of Friday’s keynote speakers, wrote a piece supporting the project in May. Showalter received about 50 submissions JERSEY continued on page 2

Eric Gurevitch, University of Chicago alumnus, present “The Jersey Saga: Honor Culture in Medieval Iceland and Modern Seaside” at the UChicago Conference on Jersey Shore Studies on Friday.

JAMIE MANLEY | THE CHICAGO MAROON

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New Cairo program jets to Morocco Anthony Gokianluy News Contributor

Beside Plato and Foucault, “Jersey” treads on foreign shores Sam Levine

ISSUE 10 • VOLUME 123

THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO SINCE 1892

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Temperatures in Fahrenheit - Courtesy of The Weather Channel

Concerns about political unrest in Eg ypt have resulted in the temporary relocation of the Cairo study abroad program to Rabat, Morocco, following recommendations from the program’s faculty to directors in the Study Abroad Office.

The winter program will be moved this year mainly due to safety concerns arising from Eg ypt’s upcoming elections, but administrators have already said it will not affect the long-term status of the program.

“The College remains deeply committed to Cairo and Eg ypt more broadly, and we intend to maintain Cairo as this sequence’s permanent home,” director of the study abroad program Sarah Walter said.

CAIRO continued on page 3

Hairston digs in against U of C projects Giovanni Wrobel Associate News Editor Fifth Ward Alderman Leslie Hairston has announced that she will not support any amendment to an expansive zoning agreement that governs how the University uses much of its land,

effectively stalling several U of C projects in Hyde Park until the University addresses certain community concerns.

In an October 23 press release, Hairston described the University’s plans to amend the document, Institutional Planned Development 43 (PD43), as an

issue of “historic character.” The proposed amendment would expand PD43 to include several properties, including four buildings on Woodlawn Avenue between 57th and 58th Streets, to make way for the William Eckhardt Research Center and a PD43 continued on page 3

$50k grant brings tennis to Kenwood Jesse Orr News Contributor With the help of some highprofile NBA players and voters around the country, a Kenwood tennis clinic promising to keep neighborhood youths active after school has won an online vote for a $50,000 operating grant.

XS Tennis, headquartered at a Bally Total Fitness on East 47th Street near South Woodlawn Avenue, received the money as part of the Pepsi Refresh Grant initiative. The clinic’s executive director, Kamau Murray, hopes that XS Tennis will become an alternative for students too young to join other sports teams.

“We submitted our idea online with the idea of basically going into communities to provide safe havens for students,” Murray said. “We’re giving them a sport

and tool that could potentially result in college scholarships.”

Murray plans to enroll 3,000 students at 20 different schools for the programs, which will run several days a week from 3–to–5 p.m., with weekend championships at XS Tennis.

“If you think about it, schools on the South Side only have basketball teams, which you can’t try out for until sixth grade,” Murray said.

Murray credits tennis, an individual sport, with “lessons that have made me strong and keep me from making excuses. In basketball, you can say, ‘I passed the ball to him,’ but not in tennis.”

Winning the $50,000 was a project in itself. Murray was notified that his project was eligible August 1, the same day voting started. “We started with the 570 members of the facility,” Murray

said, “but also acted very strategically, calling up people who are very socially networked.” The polls closed September 1.

One of Murray’s childhood friends in particular, NBA Orlando Magic player Quentin Richardson, was especially helpful in reaching out to voters, getting several of his NBA colleagues to tweet about the grant.

“Quentin, Dwight Howard, Shawn Marion, Dwyane Wade—these guys have over seven million Twitter followers combined, so that even with only a 10 percent vote, that’s still 700,000,” Murray said.

“We’re encouraging other organizations to do the same thing, step up, and bring money to the table—it’s no use if you have a good idea but no way to pay for it.”

IN ARTS

IN SPORTS

Boy meets girl meets custom officials » Page 6

Chicago comes from behind to win in overtime » Page 12

Rocky night at Rocky Horror » Page 7

Maroons take third, fourth, at UAAs » Page 12

THE CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | November 1, 2011

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JAMIE MANLEY

| THE CHICAGO MAROON

ACADEMIA ON THE JERSEY SHORE How well does America’s gaudiest reality show stand up to scrutiny?

Organizer hopes conference literature gets republished JERSEY continued from front

for talks, and selected approximately half of the proposals to include in the conference.

The conference was supported by $2,580 from the Uncommon Fund, $2,000 from the Dean’s Fund, and $250 from the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality.

“The College has always supported unusual projects,” Showalter said, adding that the conference’s meteoric rise in popularity was “entirely luck.” “I don’t know if [President] Robert Zimmer knew about the conference, but this was a great school to do it at.”

Showalter said that approximately 400 people pre-registered for the conference, and that several hundred more attended the different sessions throughout the day.

Late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel turned the conference into a punchline in September, and questioned the academic value of studying the show.

“The University of Chicago is hosting an academic conference called ‘Jersey Shore’ Studies.’

Meanwhile in Korea, students are learning something called ‘math,’” Kimmel said.

Showalter brushed off Kimmel’s attempt to make fun of the conference.

“I’m happy to provide a night’s worth of monologue,” he said.

Looking beyond Friday’s conference, Showalter said he hopes to inspire other students to organize similar conferences and pursue projects that bring an academic focus to pop culture phenomena.

He added that he hopes to have the work from the conference published or reproduced in some way.

With the show’s fourth season having just concluded, Showalter, a self-described “nerd,” said that the conference has only deepened his passion for The Situation and the mantra of gym-tan-laundry (known endearingly among fans as “GTL”).

“I’m still watching and thinking about ‘Jersey Shore’,” he said.

The hard life of a “star employee” Anastasia Golovashkina News Contributor Professor Alison Hearn of the University of Western Ontario examined “Jersey Shore’s” contributions to the culture of branding from various perspectives in her keynote, “The Monetization of Being : Reputational Labor, Brand, Culture, and Why “Jersey Shore” Does and Does Not Matter.”

Hearn began by emphasizing the show’s value as a “self-branding vehicle.” The show increased MTV’s ratings by 65 percent and increased parent company Viacom’s yearly earnings by 20 percent, accounting for 97 percent of

the company’s overall profits, according to Hearn.

“Monetization of persona—it has a kind of liquidity,” she said.

“Everyone understands that their true selves have nothing to do with it; [the cast of “Jersey Shore”] is delivering their effective labor and MTV is generating a brand with it.”

Before each season, the program’s producers discuss possible story lines with the cast in order to safeguard, in a sense, their investments—they own a percentage of cast member Snooki’s public image, according to Hearn.

“As long as Snooki is under contract with MTV, the network

takes a cut of all her earnings,” Hearn said. “They are literally star employees. Their life is labor.”

Hearn said that MTV’s decision to continue running the show is increasingly common in what she called the “age of spin,” where “winning” is prioritized over truth.

“They’re going to keep this bus rolling until its wheels fall off,” she said.

One audience member asked Hearn about the buyers of “Jersey Shore” memorabilia, like Snooki’s book, A Shore Thing. The PowerPoint operator said he buys the merchandise because stars will always attract popular attention.

“Stuff on t-shirts will always sell. That’s the basic level of star emulation. I mean, this is a woman who claims she’s read two books in her life, and now she’s writing her second full-length novel,” he said.

University of Virginia Professor Andrea Press, a panelist in the conference who spoke on feminism and was in the audience for Hearn’s keynote, said she finds that the show appeals to many “high-achieving” college students. “Like a lot of ‘reality shows,’ it’s a carefully constructed spectacle of lower-class individuals. It appeals to people who are different,” she said.

singles off of the show’s soundtrack: “I don’t represent all Italians. I only represent myself.”

House music also plays a major role in the show as a coping mechanism when cast members have difficulty assimilating into Italian culture, according to third-year music major Melissa Scott. “When homesick, Snooki dances to and seeks certain music,” Scott said.

“The house music she is familiar with is a site of escape.”

In addition to homesickness, the cast also struggled to adopt Italy’s eating and drinking customs, said Alexandra Reznik, a Masters in English literature at Duquesne University. In one season

four episode, the cast find themselves visibly out of place during a tasting at a local winery.

“They have a disregard for the culture surrounding the wine tasting,” Reznik said, “but they are willing to participate in the consumption of the alcohol.”

Still, the panelists said, for those cast members hoping to identify more closely with their European heritage, all hope is not lost, pointing to a few of “Jersey Shore’s” rituals that are in keeping with the customs of their distant homeland: respecting and forgiving one’s family, obsessing over an ItalianAmerican spouse, and drinking shots before dinner.

A tale of two Italies Kelsey Reid News Contributor “Homecoming” was the operative word at one conference, “Guido Cultural Signfiers,” where a panel of University students outlined the characteristics of the American guido and traced the term’s lineage back through Italian culture.

“They were returning to their homeland, but it’s really the homeland of their relatives,” said Rita Biagioli, a Ph.D. student in comparative human development.

“Guido” arose as an insult for immigrants who had not assimilated into

American culture, according to Biagioli, but has since evolved into the cast members’ ethnic identity and youth culture.

However, this culture is often in conflict with continental Italian culture, Biagioli said, as seen in season four, which transplants the cast from their native New Jersey into foreign Italy: When the Italian translation for guido is translated back into English, it means “vulgar, provincial youth.”

Some of the characters in “Jersey Shore” recognize that guido culture is not synonymous with Italian culture.

As cast member Pauly D sings in “Beat Dat Beat (It’s Time To),” one of the

Snooki’s brush with Marxism Tiantian Zhang News Contributor A Marxist analysis was in play at one of the conference’s talks, where a joint panel of students from the U of C and the University of Western Ontario offered a backdoor look at labor relations on set and the show’s topsy-turvey balance of labor-power.

“Jersey Shore” has gone through multiple contract disputes and cast strikes to demand higher wages and better working conditions, according to Western

Ontario student Vincent Manzerolle.

Many of the contract terms with such characters as Pauly D and The Situation benefit only the producers, he said, explaining that the studio is allowed legally to misrepresent the cast members’ lives and foists responsibility on them for any deaths or injuries during filming.

The cast also had a labor-intensive, 24hour, seven-days-a-week work schedule for 30 to 60 days, according to Western Ontario student Atle Mikkola Kjosen.

Kjosen said that bathroom breaks were the only time away from the cameras.

Kjosen used the term “farcical reproduction” to describe the labor-power in reality shows like “Jersey Shore.”

“According to Karl Marx, there is a physiological limit to how long a worker can work. The worker needs rest to reproduce her labor-power in order to work properly the next day,” he said.

“However, it is not a problem for [the show’s] producers. If the cast is sleep-deprived, homesick, and on edge, they are more likely to engage in the ‘outrageous’ behavior that has, in part, made ‘Jersey Shore’ so popular.”

U of C students Eva DeLaurentiis and Rachel Landau discussed their paper, “Shoebies on the Shore,” in which they argued that the show has actually increased tourism, bringing money to the state, in spite of its overtly negative stereotypes of Italian Americans.

One of Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind polls conducted in February 2010 also showed that 59 percent of Americans who had seen the show had a favorable view of New Jersey, compared to only 44 percent of those who had not seen the show.

THE CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | November 1, 2011

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Northwestern professor: UCMC trauma center could save seven more lives a year TRAUMA continued from front

“It’s wonderful to see how much passion they have and great to listen to what others are asking the University to be and have that voice heard,” thirdyear Olivia Woollam said.

The corner from which the march began had great significance for the protesters—it was the street corner where 18-year-old Damien Turner, a FLY co-founder and activist calling for a trauma center, was fatally wounded in a drive-by shooting

in August 2010. Turner was pronounced dead at Northwestern Memorial Hospital on North Columbus Drive in the Loop an hour and a half after the shooting.

After Turner’s death, activists began calling for a study to explore the feasibility of a trauma center at the UCMC. At an October 20 “teach-in” meant to spread awareness about trauma care on the South Side, Northwestern University School of Medicine Professor Marie Crandall argued that re-opening

Students will still have opportunity to see Egypt, fully funded by the college CAIRO continued from front

Students were informed of the decision through an e-mail from Associate Dean for International Education Martha Merritt that cited a “multitude of newly significant anniversaries occurring during the course of the Civ [program]” and “the recently announced staggered schedule of elections [in Eg ypt] taking place throughout the winter” as reasons for the switch from Eg ypt to Morocco.

Although Merritt said the “probable protests” and “uncertain law and order” would be less of an issue for a short-term research trip taken by a faculty member, the nature of the Cairo study abroad program—which involves 23 college students living in the region for an academic quarter—drew concern from program faculty and the chair of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations.

While the Winter 2012 program will be mostly based in Rabat, students will be given opportunities to spend time in Fez and will join faculty on a trip to southern Spain. Toward the end of the trip, students will choose whether to take a week-long

trip to Eg ypt fully funded by the College.

The students have also been given the option to switch to the Civ program in Oaxaca, Mexico. Merritt emphasized that “the change in location would not create extra student costs for travel.”

Students accepted into the program said they were not too upset by the change in locale, which they said was reasonable.

“Better safe than sorry,” said second-year Amanda Bennett, who has an interest in Middle Eastern languages. “I’m glad that they moved it to another Arabic-speaking country, though it is a bit frustrating to learn the Moroccan Arabic dialect since it is heavily influenced by French and isn’t understood in other parts of the Arabicspeaking world.”

Jackie Somog yi, a fourth-year in the College, said she was excited to be able to still spend some time in Eg ypt, as well as see Spain.

“I only had a vague idea of the new trip but I knew Morocco as being beautiful from my friends,” Somog yi said. “At least it’s somewhere near the Middle East, and I’m glad to still be going.”

the UCMC trauma center would save about seven lives each year, despite costing the hospital $15 million annually.

The UCMC closed its adult trauma center in 1988 in order to invest in clinical specialties best suited for a research-based university hospital, according to a statement the hospital released on Monday morning in response to calls for a feasibility study. The UCMC is working to address other health issues on the South Side, the statement said,

including HIV, diabetes, obesity, and breast cancer.

“The data do not support the need for a feasibility study on a Level I adult trauma center here,” the statement reads.

Activists said that for residents of the South Side, the re-opening of the trauma center would mean more than just receiving better medical care.

“It means a change, a longing for a place for us at UChicago, a place that is safe, where people care,” 16-year-old FLY member Victoria Carter said.

U of C may need Alderman to pass amendment PD43 continued from front

new child care center, among other projects.

Explaining her objections, Hairston claimed that the University has failed to reveal the full scope of its planned developments to the community and is not addressing parking and transportation concerns.

The University has delayed submitting an amendment, which would start the approval process, to the City of Chicago Plan Commission (CCPC) since September 1.

If the University fails to gain Hairston’s support, it may be difficult to pass the PD43 amendment through the CCPC and the city council, which historically have not approved substantial zoning changes without the backing of the local alderman.

“It’s really several issues rolled into one,” Hairston said in her press release. “There’s a lot of confusion and misperception, mixed in with actual negative experiences. There are diverse interests sometimes working at cross purposes.”

Hairston will hold a meeting to address community concerns November 9 at 6 p.m. in Room 126 of Judd Hall. The University has still not announced when they plan to fulfill a promise Director of Civic Engagement Ellen Sahli made to reconvene one final time before the University submits its proposal.

“For the last several months, the University

has been in conversation with alderman Hairston about the proposed amendment to the Planned Development document, in an effort to address any questions or concerns that she or her constituents have,” University spokesman Steven Kloehn said, citing two public meetings the University has held with community members.

Hairston’s concerns echo those of many community members who live in the area covered by PD43.

“Hairston listened to us and kind of put a temporary hold on the planned development process from going forward until there is a substantive meeting where these kinds of issues actually get addressed,” said Linda Thisted, a homeowner on the 5700 block of Woodlawn Avenue.

Members of the Woodlawn Avenue community have organized as the Woodlawn Homeowners Association and hired a lawyer to draft language the community feels would make the PD amendment sensitive to their concerns.

Other community members have advocated for more decisive measures. Thisted and community activist Jack Spicer, who has advocated for the designation of the affected stretch of Woodlawn Avenue as a historic district, will meet with the executive director of the Newberger Hillel Center off 57th Street this Friday to gauge the institution’s support and position on PD43.

Ovarian cancer thrives on belly fat, study shows Jennifer Standish News Contributor

1948: POSSIBILITIES FOR POETRY Poetry reading and panel for the yearlong Sawyer Seminar on "Around 1948: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Global Transformation"

Rosanna Warren Regents Park Visiting Professor, Social Thought

David Wellbery LeRoy T. & Margaret Deffenbaugh Carlson University Professor, Germanic Studies, Comparative Literature, and Social Thought

A University of Chicago Medical Center (UCMC) study has found a link between excess abdominal fat and the spread of ovarian cancer.

The study was prompted when researchers noticed that cancer cells in patients with ovarian cancer tended to metastasize into the fat pad, or omentum, as well.

Over 20,000 women were diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2007, over whom nearly 15,000 died, according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It is most common in women over 60, and 90 percent of diagnoses are in women over 40.

The UCMC study consisted of injecting ovarian cancer cells into the abdomen of healthy mice, according to the BBC article “‘Fatty Apron’ fuels

ovary cancer.” Researchers noted that the cancer cells reached the omentum within 20 minutes.

The study is still ongoing and researchers are now targeting the fatty acid binding protein called FABP4 “as a potential therapeutic target,” said Kristen Nieman, one of the study’s authors. When researchers inhibited signals emitted by the FABP4 during the study, the attraction of cancer cells to the omentum fell by as much as 50 percent.

The UCMC is now incorporating the research of more University of Chicago graduate students— such as Carla Penicka (A.B. ’10) and Marion Zilhardt, a Ph.D. student on the Committee on Cancer Biology, who were both graduate students at the time of the study and contributed research.

However, the results may not be specific only to those with ovarian cancer. Nieman remarked that the findings “could potentially be applied to other forms of cancer such as breast cancer.”

Adam Zagajewski

El Día de los Muertos

Ferdinand Schevill Distinguished Service Professor, Social Thought

remembering those who have gone before

Readings include the poetry of Gottfried Benn, Bertolt Brecht, René Char, Geoffrey Hill, Czeslaw Milosz, Eugenio Montale, and Tadeusz Rozewicz.

Monday, November 7 5:00 — 6:30 p.m. reception to follow

This evening we will share a meal and celebrate those in our lives who have gone before us. Feel free to bring something for our altar that represents a loved one who has died.

The Franke Institute for the Humanities 1100 East 57th Street, JRL S-118, Chicago, IL

Wednesday, November 2, 2011 • 6:00 pm

Co-sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Franke Institute for the Humanities Open to the public. For more information, please see: around1948.uchicago.edu Persons with a disability who believe they may need assistance are requested to call 773-702-8274 in advance.

A vegetarian meal is served. Bring your friends!

Your RSVP is appreciated and helps us plan: 773-947-8744 or office@brenthouse.org

BRENT The Episcopal Center at the University of Chicago House www.brenthouse.org

5540 South Woodlawn Avenue • Chicago, IL 60637 • 773/947-8744

VIEWPOINTS

Editorial & Op-Ed NOVEMBER 1, 2011

Useless to the Core Current Core Bio classes are uninspiring and turn students away from the sciences The student newspaper of the University of Chicago since 1892 ADAM JANOFSKY Editor-in-Chief CAMILLE VAN HORNE Managing Editor JACK DIMASSIMO Senior Editor AMY MYERS Senior Editor JONATHAN LAI News Editor HARUNOBU CORYNE News Editor SAM LEVINE News Editor PETER IANAKIEV Viewpoints Editor SHARAN SHETTY Viewpoints Editor JORDAN LARSON Arts Editor HANNAH GOLD Arts Editor MAHMOUD BAHRANI Sports Editor JESSICA SHEFT-ASON Sports Editor DOUGLAS EVERSON, JR Head Designer KEVIN WANG Web Editor ALICE BLACKWOOD Head Copy Editor GABE VALLEY Head Copy Editor LILY YE Head Copy Editor DARREN LEOW Photo Editor JAMIE MANLEY Photo Editor

The College Admissions website tells visitors that the Core will help students “raise fundamental questions and become familiar with the powerful ideas that shape our society.”

To a large extent, this description is accurate—especially when it comes to Hum, Sosc, and Civ. However, in other areas, like the physical and biological sciences, the Core falls short of its lofty mission and goals.

The elephant in the room when it comes to the Core is the biological sciences component. Simply put, Core Bio sucks. It suffers from a lack of focus, which results in a course that covers too much and fails to properly transition into Bio Topics. The lack of focus and depth, when combined with homework assignments that border on the “busywork” that many students hoped they had left behind in high school, has a predictable consequence: Those who take Core Bio

end up disliking the biological sciences and are driven away from them.

It’s conceivable that a student can enter the College planning to study a science and have her Hum class shift her towards philosophy, but it is almost impossible to think of a scenario where Core Bio motivates someone to major in biology.

In general, the architects of the Core have a real problem on their hands when it comes to the science requirements. It is hard to deny that Hum, Sosc, and Civ are successful in their goals of introducing undergraduates to a wide variety of methodologies and texts, all while cultivating important interpretive, analytical, and writing skills. Students who leave these discussion-based courses often have a newfound respect for the fields that they were exposed to. Unfortunately, similar claims cannot always be made for lecture-based classes like Core Bio,

Global Warming, or Chemistry and the Atmosphere.

Sadly, there isn’t an easy way to address this problem—nobody is advocating for the elimination of the science requirement. A more plausible solution would be the introduction of more focused, text-based classes.

Courses that explore the teachings of Darwin’s The Origin of Species or Einstein’s Relativity: The Special and General Theory could instill the fundamental tenets of scientific thought while retaining academic legitimacy.

Other options could be classes that center on the history of science, as well as offerings on specific, overarching concepts like natural selection, thermodynamics, and genetics.

These are solutions that would eliminate the “blow-off ” reputation of most Core science classes while still limiting their scope to the essential aspects of scientific theory.

Some might argue that this would dilute the teaching of technical knowledge. While this trade-off might be inevitable, it’s also true that adhering to a more conceptual and focused curriculum would inspire more students to pursue said technical knowledge.

At the end of the day, there just isn’t a good reason for why the teachings of Plato and Marx are considered required knowledge for all students while those of Farraday and Heisenberg are only available to a small minority of math and science majors. If the Core’s mission really is to introduce students to the ideas that shape our society, then surely fields like physics, chemistry, and biology deserve better than what they currently get.

The Editorial Board consists of the Editor-in-Chief, Viewpoints Editors, and an additional Editorial Board member.

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It’s not delivery, it’s disaster Herman Cain’s popularity illustrates Americans’ misguided opinions

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By Ajay Ravichandran Viewpoints Columnist

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Even though actual voters won’t have a chance to weigh in on the Republican presidential field until next year, the race for the party’s nomination has attracted a remarkable amount of attention (a recent debate drew a record 6.1 million viewers), much of which is likely due to the series of seemingly unpredictable shifts that have marked the contest thus far. The most recent and perhaps most surprising example of this trend is the rapid rise of former Godfather’s Pizza

CEO Herman Cain to frontrunner status—a recent average of major polls places him slightly above the previously dominant Mitt Romney. While it seems clear that a candidate with Cain’s thin political résumé could never win a major-party presidential nomination, this fact should not be taken as a reason to ignore his sudden popularity; thinking seriously about the roots of his appeal can actually teach us a great deal about the current state of the GOP. An obvious place to begin is the role that Cain’s utter lack of experience in government has played in the race thus far. One might think that a candidate who had never been elected to any office would be hammered repeatedly by his rivals, but Cain’s frequent boasts that he is the only candidate who has never held a government job are in fact huge applause lines that put his career-politician opponents on the defensive. This dimension of Cain’s

appeal reveals an important feature of the mindset shared by many Republican primary voters’: the depth of their opposition to the political establishment, in both the party and the nation as a whole. To see a candidate’s lack of experience as a qualification, one must believe that the current political system is so badly flawed that it needs not reform, but demolition.

While this anti-establishment anger could serve as a welcome corrective to the arrogance of elites if it were accompanied by a plausible policy agenda, another key aspect of Cain’s campaign suggests that the latter is unlikely to emerge. This is his infamous 9–9–9 tax plan, which would replace the current tax code with a flat tax of nine percent levied on personal income, corporate income, and consumption. The plan’s support among Republicans likely flows from the extreme manner in which it CAIN continued on page 5

ESTHER YU Copy Editor BEN ZIGTERMAN Copy Editor

Preoccupied with entitlement Graduates of elite universities should examine themselves before protesting Allison Wu Viewpoints Contributor The Chicago Maroon is published twice weekly during autumn, winter, and spring quarters Circulation: 5,500.

The opinions expressed in the Viewpoints section are not necessarily those of the Maroon. © 2011 The Chicago Maroon, Ida Noyes Hall, 1212 East 59th Street Chicago, IL 60637 Editor-in-Chief Phone: 773.834.1611 Newsroom Phone: 773.702.1403 Business Phone: 773.702.9555 Fax: 773.702.3032 CONTACT News: News@ChicagoMaroon.com Viewpoints: Viewpoints@ChicagoMaroon.com Arts: Arts@ChicagoMaroon.com Sports: Sports@ChicagoMaroon.com Photography: Photo@ChicagoMaroon.com Design: Douglas@ChicagoMaroon.com Copy: CopyEditors@ChicagoMaroon.com Advertising: Ads@ChicagoMaroon.com

The recent Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement has generated activism and passion in many students and recent college graduates. I, too, confess to a momentary desire to join the angry “99” chants of my fellow youth, but perhaps it’s time to pause and take a step back to think about why we’re so taken with the idea of OWS. That is, “we,” the privileged students of a top university. After some thought, it seems clear, to me at least, that our participation in such a “sweeping” movement may have less to do with a sense of social justice and more with frustration at a lack of professional achievement.

It seems we students are protesting for ourselves, for a collective disap-

pointment at the lack of return on our educational investments: the haunting anxiety over the trade-off of staying true to aspirations versus finding a wellpaying job and moving out of our parents’ houses. I think elite graduates and students are riding on the revolutionary coattails of people with real problems in order to express outrage at the fact that a $200,000 education makes no more guarantees of success than a community college degree. It seems unfair that previous generations didn’t have this problem, and we’re determined to howl it out despite being fully aware that such a comparison is a foolish and irrelevant exercise.

There’s also a much deeper reason why many young people are so upset.

It’s because we stared at the world upon emerging from ivory tower universities

of intellectual greatness and saw that many of us, the supposed great thinkers of our generation, the crème de la crème, are actually only mediocre.

Ever since grade school, the “talented and gifted” have been singled out and encouraged by teachers more than others. Good students were usually given a free pass because they’d somehow received a reputation for being smart kids—so many of us were allowed to skate by, accruing full praise for halfhearted efforts. I’m especially guilty of it. Instead of developing practical skills, we were coached to be cultured and multifaceted with appreciations for highbrow endeavors like free jazz and conceptual art. When pitted against people who have done otherwise, many of us find our skill sets severely lacking.

OCCUPY continued on page 5

Letter: Support Occupy Chicago movement To the people of Chicago, Chicago aldermen, Superintendent McCarthy, Mayor Emanuel, and Governor Quinn: We, as faculty members, students, and workers at the University of Chicago, are writing to express our support for the Occupy Chicago movement to hold peaceful and democratic assemblies in our public parks.

We endorse this movement’s call to recognize and redress fundamental injustices in this country, including: the high and rising inequality of income and wealth; the lack of accountability on the part of the financial institutions that brought about the crisis of 2008; the undue political power of wealthy corporations and individuals; and the failure to tax corporations and the wealthy at fair rates in order to protect the jobs and living standards of millions of Americans. We recognize that as members of a privileged academic institution, we also share a role in confronting these injustices, whose elimination is a prerequisite not only for a just society but also for a well-functioning democracy.

On Saturday, October 15, our elected leaders used the Grant Park curfew as a pretext for suppressing the free speech rights of ordinary American citizens. Over 175 people were arrested, including numerous members of our university’s community. As members of the academy, we take free and open discourse, along with critical inquiry, to be fundamental to any healthy democratic society.

Yet the actions taken by the city of Chicago achieved exactly the opposite. As such, we write to condemn the actions taken by the city of Chicago.

LETTER continued on page 5

THE CHICAGO MAROON | VIEWPOINTS | November 1, 2011

Anti-establishment sentiment not a practical approach to politics CAIN continued from page 4 manifests two tendencies that pervade, to a certain extent, all of the candidates’ policy proposals. The first is an insistence that the nation’s current economic woes are the result of structural problems, such as the skyrocketing national debt and a flawed tax system, which are deterring private investment and must be addressed through long-term reform plans. The second is a growing concern with the

SUBMISSIONS The Chicago Maroon welcomes opinions and responses from its readers. Send op-ed submissions and letters to: The Chicago Maroon attn: Viewpoints 1212 East 59th Street Chicago, IL 60637 E-mail: Viewpoints@ChicagoMaroon.com The editors reserve the right to edit materials for clarity and space. Letters to the editor should be limited to 400 words.

Op-ed submissions, 800 words.

supposed problem of low-income families who do not pay income taxes; Cain’s plan is notable for the extraordinary degree to which it shifts the tax burden from the wealthy to ordinary Americans by flattening tax rates and imposing a new tax on consumption, which represents a larger share of income for people who earn less.

The fact that the 9–9–9 plan has helped to boost Cain’s popularity so dramatically suggests that the anti-establishment turn taken by many Republican voters has led to a serious problem: By drawing them away from the political mainstream, it has led them to focus on issues which are irrelevant to most Americans’ actual concerns. The main issue that most voters are worried about is the immediate problem of mass unemployment. Most mainstream economists attribute this to weak consumer demand that stems from the difficulties of accessing credit generated by the recent financial crisis and the large amounts of personal debt accumulated over the past decade. It’s unclear how a radical and complex tax proposal that would need to be phased in over several years would make it easier for consumers to spend money now.

The fixation on the under-taxed working class, which underlies the plan, is even less responsive to the actual political situation. Even if one ignores the poor understanding of the facts

which underlies this concern (most Americans who are exempt from the income tax pay other taxes, such as the payroll tax, and are likely to resent efforts to label them as freeloaders), focusing on abstract ideological concerns surrounding redistribution and progressive taxation while millions face the very concrete problems of joblessness and economic insecurity doesn’t seem like a viable approach to politics.

One might think that these points should only worry Republicans concerned about their party’s electoral prospects, but this would be a mistake for at least two reasons. The structure of our political system requires even parties with legislative majorities to cooperate with the opposition, so the existence of a major party which has no plausible solutions to important problems can pose a major obstacle to effective governance (as the last few years have shown). Furthermore, American liberalism will grow lazy and complacent if it does not have to constantly test itself against sharp conservative critiques. We should all hope not only for a halt to Herman Cain’s sudden rise, but also for the gradual disappearance of the attitudes that have made his popularity possible.

Ajay Ravichandran is a fourth-year in the College majoring in philosophy.

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The University of Chicago

Legal Forum

Combating Corruption presents a symposium

November 4, 2011 Co-sponsored by the ABA Global An -Corrup on Task Force

Panel One: Public Corrup on 9:00-10:15 am, Room V Panel Two: Corporate Corrup on 10:30-11:45 am, Room V Keynote: Patrick Fitzgerald United States A orney for the Northern District of Illinois 12:00 pm, University of Chicago Law School Room III Lunch provided, sponsored by KPMG Panel Three: Global Corrup on 1:45-3:00 pm, Room V Recep on 3:00-5:00 pm, Green Lounge All events are open to the public. For more informa on, please contact Teresa Sullivan, University of Chicago Legal Forum Symposium Editor, tasullivan@uchicago. edu. For special assistance or needs, please contact Rebecca Kla at 773.834.4326.

GIFTS SOLICITATION PREFERENCES TRAFFICKING KLEPTOCRACY

KICKBACKS EMBEZZLE POWER FRAUD

5

City of Chicago should respect first amendment right to free speech LETTER continued from page 4 We urge our elected officials to respect the right of free speech of participants in the Occupy Chicago movement and ask that these officials immediately work with them to hold their events at places and times of their choosing. We believe, in this case, that the preservation of first amendment rights takes precedence over local statutes and bureaucratic practices.

We also want to point out that other major cities, including Minneapolis and Dallas, have worked with local “Occupy” movements to find solutions that accommodate both the rights of the protestors and the responsibility of local government to ensure orderly conduct in public spaces. If the leaders of the city of Chicago wish to retain its good repute as America’s “Second City,” we believe it should follow the model set by such cities.

Involved students, faculty members and workers of the University of Chicago.

Privileged youth shouldn’t pretend to understand Occupy movement OCCUPY continued from page 4 Sure, it’s easy to boast of being well-spoken, fascinating conversationalists, or possessing “rich souls,” but that doesn’t get the job done any better. And it’s only now, in a recession, that such truth glares out like some monster under the bed. The chant “We are the 99%” might just be translation for “We are upset no one explained this before many of us got to such a dire place.”

But who was going to say anything? Teachers who were too busy giving praise? Parents who were too proud of ever-growing lists of accomplishments? Friends who were in the same boat? There’s no doubt that many people can be faulted for low wages and poor job prospects, but maybe the start of fixing things is taking a little responsibility for our own shortcomings. Of course it wasn’t fair that we were told to cultivate our intellect instead of our worth as part of the workforce, but tough luck: Everyone’s twenties are awful and filled with uncertainty. The onus is on our shoulders to prove that we aren’t just unemployable “emerging adults” who can’t stand being overeducated and underpaid.

Maybe getting a job, no matter how “beneath” us it is, is the beginning of the answer.

OWS isn’t something a lot of us truly understand, having been insulated from reality by our rare opportunities, and it isn’t right to pretend otherwise. An expensive education doesn’t make anyone better or more deserving. What should be done is to support the real protesters’ efforts for what they are, and not to co-opting their movement as a platform from which to moan our own discontent. If our educations have given us anything of worth, it should be the ability to recognize the hidden truth behind matters.

The truth is not about how a U of C graduate might deserve to earn more than the minimum wage; it’s about how the economic system put in place by politicians living in the pockets of private interest groups makes it difficult for more than a handful of people to be wealthy. OWS is about fighting the very real problem of socialization of losses and privatization of gains—it’s not about youth entitlement. If college-age students are to participate in the protests, some more research is in order so we don’t fall into the trap of thinking like spoiled children and making the movement about directing blame or bemoaning the injustice of our student loans. And the ultimate truth is that while government economic policy needs to change, our attitude needs to change, too.

Allison Wu is an alumnus of the University of Chicago’s Class of 2011.

CRIMINALEXTORTIONBRIBERYCRONYISM

ARTS

Trivial Pursuits NOVEMBER 1, 2011

Boy meets girl meets custom officials Sharan Shetty Maroon Staff The story is not a new one. Girl meets boy, boy is enamored with girl, both pass a few months in perfect bliss, then reality interrupts the blooming romance with impeccably bad timing. In the opening shot of Like Crazy, when Anna (Felicity Jones) slowly recites a poem to a class that is half-asleep, save for Jacob (Anton Yelchin), who is clearly smitten, we know immediately how matters will proceed. It’s no surprise when Anna later tucks a pink Post-it note beneath Jacob’s windshield wiper, with a scribbled number and the words “please don’t think I’m a nutcase.”

LIKE CRAZY Drake Doremus AMC River East

He doesn’t. The two share stares and small talk over coffee. Anna is a headstrong exchange student from England, residing in L.A. on a temporary visa. Jacob is a shy, jittery furniture designer, his home a one-room studio above his dusty wooden workshop. As spring begins, so does their Hallmark-style courtship: walks and play fights on the beach, spontaneous go-kart races, hands held on every sunbathed street in the city. But summer, as it tends to do, comes after spring, and Anna must leave to avoid overstaying her visa. The morning of her flight, as the two lie in bed together, she refuses to stray from Jacob’s side. He nods his hesitant approval.

Snuggles and smiles ensue.

Their decision backfires when Anna leaves for a week in the fall and, upon her return, is promptly rejected by customs officials. She is forced on a flight back to England, and the couple is hurled into a long-distance relationship with no apparent solution.

Anna (Felicity Jones) and Jacob (Anton Yelchin) try to think of something interesting to say while looking pretty in Like Crazy.

COURTESY OF ANDREA SPERLING PRODCUTIONS

And so Like Crazy, a peculiar film somewhere between (500) Days of Summer and Blue Valentine, begins its tale of two ordinary students tormented by the ocean between them. This is no sugar-sweet, treacly rom-com; it’s a gritty, hyper-realistic, and sometimes plain depiction of a decaying love. Director Drake Doremus has directed three features and, at 27, is the youngest fellow ever accepted into the American Film Institute. His latest work’s failure to move or affect, then, is sur-

prising but perfectly explainable.

The most obvious reason is the script—or, rather, the lack thereof. Doremus sketched out a 50-page plot outline, and the cast constructed every other detail and dialogue of the film from scratch. Improvisation has been implemented in a whole horde of hits, most recently in last year’s Blue Valentine. There, Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams kindled enough chemistry to justify the director’s gamble. Here, we witness the risk of such methods: They can produce

incredibly boring results. There is small talk but no substance. There is emotion but no consistent expression of it. With Jacob and Anna, we get two supposedly passionate lovers who just don’t seem to care that much.

This isn’t to rag on the actors, who brim with promise and potential. Yelchin has solidified his indie-star status: All curly hair and big eyes, he compels you not with machismo or smooth charm but with an off-kilter innocence CRAZY continued on page 8

Punk professor by day, punk rocker by night Sarah Miller Arts Contributor Artist Thomas Comerford, best known for his experimental documentaries, is beginning to get some recognition for his music career as well. An associate professor at the School of the Art Institute best known for teaching the history of punk music, Comerford has produced two albums with his band Kasper Hauser. On October 25, Comerford released his first solo project, Archive and Spiral. The Chicago Maroon caught up with Comerford to discuss his musical background, the makings of this solo project, and his future in the entertainment industry.

Thomas Comerford live in concert.

COURTESY OF JIM NEWBERRY

Chicago Maroon: At what point in your life did you decide to delve into music?

Thomas Comerford: That’s a good question, because that stuff had been going on all along. I started playing the guitar when I was 10 because my mom is musical, and she wanted someone to play with. She played the banjo. I did that for a while, and then petered out when I was in high school. When I was in college, I made the decision to be a artist; I was already studying sculpture and photography. In my second year of college, I started bringing my guitar to school and writing my own songs. I had already forgotten [how] to write music, so I was terrified of performing

in front of others. At that point, it was mostly for me. Sometimes I would do open-mic performances and distribute CDs with tracks to friends. I ended up kicking around for a while in a couple of bands. Then I started to take it more seriously in the late ’90s and try to make a go, not taking it too seriously as to having a manager, but I wanted to invest more time in songwriting and performing.

ARCHIVE AND SPIRAL Thomas Comerford Spacesuit Records

CM: How does your interest in music complement your teaching of the history of punk rock?

TC: I was in high school in mid- to late-’80s. I wasn’t even post-punk at that point, but I started finding this music. In the ’80s there was a vital underground rock scene and that came out of punk. For me as a teenager, discovering this music was about connecting the threads to punk bands like the Velvet Underground and the Stooges.

The essential component popularized by punk was this idea of DIY—making your own scene, doing your own thing according to your own principles rather than following business sense. That thread for me is most significant. Punk

has now [become] generic, and that happens, but for me, what is most exciting about [punk music] are the ideas. I take to heart a lot of the ideas that are in the music. I play really loud music in a band called Kasper Hauser, which actually just started as a four-track project in my bedroom. So part of the motivation for the solo project was to deal with this other material, other things I wanted to explore.

CM: What is the significance of your album’s title, Archive and Spiral?

TC: I think the title is pretty significant in trying to suggest ideas about the collection. I like that it’s open-ended in how you want to deal with it. The idea of the archive in the first half of the record refers to very particular people. In one case I am performing someone else’s song, “Sunday Morning,” by the Velvet Underground. I like the idea of archive, thinking of the concept of an archive and how I still make films. I got this [notion] of archive as a person of ideas and stories and influences and cultural material we’re surrounded with... The idea of archive permeates the second half of the record, but it is more personal, less historically oriented. A couple of songs at the end work with particular images and ideas that work with folk music, like “Moonshiners” and “Sugar Baby.” For me, spiral has a bunch of meanings, but it is related to the meaning of archive COMERFORD continued on page 9

THE CHICAGO MAROON | ARTS | November 1, 2011

Rocky night at Rocky Horror

Full focus on Empty Quarter at FSC Sarah Miller Arts Contributor Portland-based filmmakers Pam Minty and Alan LeTourneau captured the agrarian and vast expanse of southeast Oregon in their experimental documentary Empty Quarter, screened last Thursday at the Film Studies Center. Fittingly, Empty Quarter derived its title from a history textbook used to describe the sparsely populated region.

The three counties featured in the documentary—Lake, Harney, and Malheur—make up onethird of Oregon’s landmass, but contain less than 2% of the state’s population.

Empty Quarter featured various still shots of the largely undisturbed landscape and clips that showed the daily lives of the residents. The film portrayed a balance between work and leisure by showing shots of the hard-working ranchers as well as friends and families gathering in a restaurant.

The documentary also contained testimonials from residents who spoke about the history of the region as well as the hardships the farmers and ranchers face. The choice to use just the audio from the interviews placed focus on the actual interview, rather than on the appearance of the speaker.

The 16-millimeter shots of the Oregon countryside were mesmerizing and serene, but the

film also depicts the difficulties of rural life and small town economies. In one testimonial, a resident described the impact of the rising cost of living and inflation on the farming community, claiming, “Everyone’s making money but the farmer.�

In a question-and-answer based discussion following the film, Minty said that she got the idea to make this film because her father grew up in the area, and her childhood family vacations were spent visiting relatives in southeast Oregon. LeTourneau, also an Oregon resident, stated that he had an interest in making a film about the “empty quarter,� but for a different reason. “I am interested in the arbitrary nature of borders. The residents tend to identify more with Idaho and are more conservative.

They have a conflicted identity in terms of statehood; most of the government [action] takes place in Salem and Portland,� he said.

Together, Minty and LeTourneau collaborated with the Chamber of Commerce and denizens of the area to capture shots of everyday life in southeast Oregon, primarily between May and October. LeTourneau stated that the people they filmed were “open� and “socially engaging,� and the personalities of their subject came alive through the short clips of ranchers working and families enjoying downtime.

7

Lindsay Warren Arts Contributor

The image of a grain silo in Empty Quarter, a film about the region of Southeast Oregon, an area populated by ranching and farming communities.

COURTESY OF ALAIN LETOURNEAU AND PAM MINTY

Since its release earlier this year, Empty Quarter has been shown in several venues across the country. In the future, Minty and LeTourneau hope to return to southeast Oregon and screen the film as a measure of gratitude.

The process was painstaking, but they captured their subject well and left the audience in awe of the scenic landscape. Empty Quarter took ten years to shoot and produce, but it was well worth the wait.

It was 4:21 a.m. There was confetti in my hair, permanent marker that refused to come off my hand, and my eyes were done with contacts for the next week. I had seen people in outrageous costumes, learned new dance moves, and gotten packed into a tiny space with lots of strangers. And now I could say that I had survived The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

When I first told people I was making the hour-each-way trek to the Music Box Theatre for this particular viewing experience, I was met with mixed messages from friends and family: “You’re going to love it.� “You’re going to hate it.� “You are about to be scarred for life.�

Thankfully, I was able to find two friends willing to take the risk and join me on my Halloweekend quest: Maria, a Rocky Horror veteran, and Demi, a Rocky Horror virgin, like myself. Before even nearing the theater, we inadvertently started an argument on the #55 bus and almost got lost on the way to the Red Line. And then we had to walk through costume bar night in the Wrigley Field area. Our journey put those of Greek heroes to shame.

After finally making our way into the vintage theater, passing by unfortunate people who hadn’t purchased tickets ahead of time, Maria treated us all to Rocky Horror “Virgin Kits.� After all, watching the movie is only a fractional part of the fun. Of course, the Music Box allows neither toast nor water pistols, which I had previously thought of as integral parts of the Rocky Horror

viewing experience. We would have to make do with party hats and sponges.

Once the Music Box staff had (thoroughly) made sure we weren’t carrying in forbidden items, I had to mentally prepare myself for the “Virgin Initiation� Maria had warned me about, during which all the Rocky Horror newbies stand up, climb on stage, and are forced to do awkward tasks in front of everyone. But it never came. Sure, they had us stand up and flip off the person next to us, but I knew the people next to me. That was pretty anticlimactic after hearing about faking an orgasm on stage.

Before I could feel too gypped, though, members of the Midnight Madness staff had a tandem boxer race up and down the aisles. Then there were costume contests in “non-Rocky Horror,� “sexy non-Rocky Horror,� and finally “Rocky Horror� categories, most of which were not mutually exclusive.

It was easy to figure out who regularly attended Rocky Horror night by who was shouting the Eight Cardinal Rules of Rocky Horror at the Music Box along with the actual staff members. As I tried to understand what was going on by piecing together microphonescrambled words, I realized we were all standing up and raising our hands. I may or may not have sworn an oath involving six-inch heels, sexual gratification, and the Transylvanian national anthem, but I’m pretty sure it’s non-binding either way since I had to make up the words for most of it.

And finally the movie began. It quickly became apparent that I should have purchased an annotated script along HORROR continued on page 9

The Lumen Christi Institute, The Committee on Social Thought, and

The University of Chicago Law School present

Politics as Vocation in Cicero and Burke

The Ground Up: Exploring the Right to the City A Film Symposium Sponsored by the University of Chicago Human Rights Program, the Film Studies Center, the Civic Knowledge Project and the Chicago Studies Program

Mary Ann Glendon

Harvard University Law School As Aristotle noted long ago, two very different and sometimes incompatible ways of life—the political and the philosophical— exert a powerful pull on the ambitious and talented members of any society... Ms. Glendon’s The Forum and the Tower

and a contemplative one, between ‘life in the public forum and life in the ivory tower.’... The Forum and the Tower is a wise exploration of the eternal tension between action and thought. — Brian C. Anderson,

Mary Ann Glendon is Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and is a former United States Ambassador to the Vatican. She holds A.B., J.D., and M.C.L. degrees from the University of Chicago. In 1992 the University of Chicago awarded her an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.

Saturday, November 5, 2011: 10 am to 4 pm Film Studies Center - Cobb Hall 306 5811 South Ellis Ave This event is free and open to the public. Lunch will be provided.

Register at: http://humanrights.uchicago.edu/righttothecity Part of the ongoing series Seeing Human Rights, this program includes screenings of Land of Opportunity (2010, Dir. Luisa Dantas), which documents the rebuilding of New Orleans post-Katrina, Voices of Cabrini: Remaking Chicago's Public Housing (1999, Dirs. Ronit Bezalel and Antonio Ferrera) and excerpts of Cabrini Green: Mixing It Up (2011, Dirs. Ronit Bezalel and Brenda Schumacher), which chronicle the demolition of the Cabrini Green community and assess the state of public housing ten years later. A panel discussion will follow the screenings with Ronit Bezalel, Filmmaker; Deidre Brewster, Human Rights activist and organizer; Luisa Dantas, Filmmaker; Janet Smith, Associate Professor, College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs, UIC; and moderated by: Judy Hoffman, Senior Lecturer, Depts of Cinema and Media Studies and Visual Arts, University of Chicago.

For more information: Sarah Patton Moberg – spmoberg@uchicago.edu

Tuesday, November 1, at 7:00 PM Mandel Hall For more information, visit w w w.lum enc hr i s ti . o rg

The University of Chicago Human Rights Program 5720 S. Woodlawn Avenue • Chicago, IL 60637 773-834-0957 • humanrights.uchicago.edu

THE CHICAGO MAROON | ARTS | November 1, 2011

8

Style

Chicago Manual of

Want to know what’s in? After flipping through pages and pages of catalogues and combing the Internet, I’ve compiled a list of five of this season’s strongest trends.

Red, sky blue, burnt orange, turquoise. Instead of grays, blacks, and whites, designers are looking to bright colors to fill their palette this fall and winter season. As the world turns gray and murky with precipitation, don’t fight the winter blues—be the winter blues. It’s less about a hint of this or that and more about big sheathes of colors—bold, bright, big.

Maxi and midi skirts are also in this year. Short and tight are out for once as designers bring back flowing skirts and dresses. Long pleated skirts

in particular are in, especially if they hit right above the ankle. Pair them with booties, an oversized sweater, and a belt. The best part about this look? You can pile on layers of tights, leggings, and socks underneath and still look polished on top.

Knit sweaters, as always, are also in this season. This year’s difference?

Last year fishermen sweaters were huge, but now they’ve evolved and expanded into even more oversized and cozy pieces. They’re a bit shapeless and bound to stretch out as you wear them, so be sure to buy a little smaller than you actually want, and if you do decide to pair one with a maxi skirt, use a belt to give you some shape.

Wide-cut trousers make a bolder

by Jessen O’Brien

Don’t beat the winter blues, be the winter blues

and newer statement. Though reminiscent of the bell-bottom jeans from your tweenage years, when worn right, wide-legged trousers give you a tailored and sophisticated look.

Continuing from last spring, skinny pants are being replaced with widelegged trousers once worn by the likes of Katharine Hepburn. While the original high-waisted trousers are still popular, this year they’ve also shrunk from both ends, the waist and the ankle, creating a less dramatic effect.

Following from the past few years, knee-high boots are still in, but don’t stuff your wide-cut trousers into them. These boots look great with midi-length pieces and jeans. Top it all off with a hat, and you’ll be fully

stylish from head to toe. Just about every designer house has been practicing its millinery, creating every type of hat imaginable. Marc Jacobs is making pillboxes, Gucci’s making fedoras, and John Galliano’s making berets. Whatever hat suits you best, go for it—as long as it’s on your head, it’s been in a collection this season.

As told by this season’s picks, current fashion is leaning away from the traditionally feminine and more toward a somewhat androgynous style with pieces that obscure the shape. Forties’ elegance is back, and women can look just as elegant sporting a long, drapey silhouette as they can with a tight dress and heels. In other words, the ’50s, with so much emphasis on a woman’s figure, might

finally be fading from fashion now that Mad Men is on hiatus. When dressing, think simple, elegant, and strong. Most of these trends look best if you’re tall and skinny—long skirts and wide-cut trousers in particular. If you have a different shape or stature, though, don’t worry—the key is really as simple as searching out a good fit and knowing which trends to follow, and which to ignore. If you’re short, you can look like you’re drowning in all of these oversized pieces. I recommend wearing one at a time to counterbalance this effect.

If you’re tall, play with them all, and see what works for you. No matter what you decide to do, there are plenty of options to balance winter comfort and composure.

nowhere to be found. Visits are rare.

They pass most of their time trying to forget or ignore one another.

We are forced to believe that these boring people actually love each other, but they seem much more interested in moving on with their boring lives.

Finally, there’s the visa issue. A forced and charmless contrivance, its function as a plot device to cook up conflict is completely transparent. At best, the two are naïve for intentionally ignoring its expiration. At worst,

they’re just plain stupid.

Doremus, for his part, keeps the camera close to the face, the lens tightly trained on his freshfaced lovers. Colors are faded, and the editing is simple and precise.

Dialogue is muted, natural, and always very colloquial. Doremus is an auteur of the moment, at his best when capturing a single image: The couple silently listening to the restrained melodies of Graceland, the symbolic tying of a beaded bracelet spelling out

“patience,” a montage of Jacob and Anna splayed across the bed all summer, the screen all sheets and skin and sunlig ht. These moments lend life to an otherwise dull series of events.

Moments, howe ver, need to matter. The final image is supposed to be one of revelation : Anna and Jacob are tog ether, th e s o u l s o f th e i r c ha r a c t er s exposed in a bittersweet reunion.

Unfortunately, there’s still not much to see.

Like Crazy is, like, boring CRAZY continued from page 6 and goofy charisma. Jones exudes an easy, youthful energy. But their adlibbed lines ring hollow. It’s tough to conjure the melancholy of a longdistance relationship off-the-cuff and without direction.

What truly kills the film is an implausibility that annihilates any attempt at a realistic depiction of a relationship. For one, the set-up simply isn’t up to snuff. Five minutes in, the two are in the throes of an infatuation that is cute to

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watch but cloying and confusing to process. The act of falling in love—of establishing a deep and understo o d affe ction—is one that’s thinly realized and never fully articulated, so all the heartbreak that follows seems extreme and artificial.

Even if we assume a bond forged in such sudden passion, Jacob and Anna’s efforts to sustain it seem curiously timid. They are resigned to half-assed texting and monthly p h o n e c a l l s . V i d e o c hat s a re

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David and Kris Wray, Resident Masters at Max Palevsky Residential Commons present the Autumn 2011 Wirszup Lecture

John Wilkinson Professor of Practice in the Arts Department of English Committee on Creative Writing

What is Cambridge Poetry?

November 7, 2011 at 7:00 PM Max Palevsky East Commons

Free and open to the public Refreshments will be served

THE CHICAGO MAROON | ARTS | November 1, 2011

Mixed emotions at Midnight Madness HORROR continued from page 7 with the Virgin Kit, but after a while it was easy to remember who was an “asshole” and who was a “slut.” In a pinch, it also seemed acceptable to just yell random things at the screen. Some Midnight Madness staffers stayed along the aisles to harangue the movie (and sometimes the audience), while others participated in a live-action edition of the events on screen. I still don’t know the plot, and I’m not sure I really need to, but I found myself loving the witty commentary from people around me as I tried to fend off flying Virgin Kit items (mostly from Demi).

The Rocky Horror spirit of excitement carried over to the trip home: We sent pictures of a pink

boa in a bush to a (male) housemate, packed ourselves onto a Red Line train that was way too full, heard drunken renditions of most classic party ballads, and froze as we waited for the bus back to the dorm.

Everything people told me about Rocky Horror was true in some way. I loved seeing people get so into this movie and wave around glow sticks during a poignant scene. I hated being one of the few people in the back who actually wanted to dance. I also may have been scarred for life by some of the costumes and/or movie scenes. At the end of the night, though, I got to realize once again just how crazyamazing Chicago is. And I have every intention of doing the “Time Warp” again someday.

Comerford archives influences in album COMERFORD continued from page 6 and the idea of history being cyclical. I want the songs to be somewhat visceral; they’re definitely not for everybody because of the subject matter I’m dealing with. They attract a particular type of audience over another. I want them to have a visceral impact, not to be just conceptual. Spiral is a way of thinking about history, but also [refers to] having a destructive nature, like a downward spiral...

my guitar... and then I go through my notebooks and feel out where the songs are headed. Basically, looking at this stuff, I start to shape the words. Even though that’s the way I often do it, it’s not the only way. Sometimes I write a song in the afternoon....

Sometimes very pointed things drive it, other times the process is generating these words and feelings and descriptions, and, once the song comes into focus, how to arrange it...

CM: After listening to the album, the lyrics of the song “Gravity” really stood out to me. Where do you find inspiration as a songwriter?

TC: I’m often inspired by reading the newspaper, fiction, and poetry. So I do get inspired by other writers, but then a big part of my process is more like automatic writing where I keep notebooks with me at all times, and I write down words and ideas. I’m aiming to be poetic, to find striking combinations of words that stress or find an interesting way to describe a feeling or situation. It simply comes through the activity of writing and letting my brain play with words. Another aspect of the process is writing the music, which I do on

CM: What are you working on next?

TC: Well, there are a number of things on the table right now. Kasper Hauser has 12 songs that I’ve written, so we’re going to record in December. It’s been kind of crazy—I’ve never written as many songs as I have in the past year and a half, but I want to keep working on the solo project. Another solo record will happen, but probably not until next summer. There are a lot of things in the works. I know certain things are going to happen, others may or may not. Somehow I usually find a way to do the things I set out to do, but if it takes a little longer than expected, that’s okay.

9

CROSSWORD

with Jamie Mermelstein

THE JER SEY SHOR E COR E

Across 1 NY hrs.

4 Micronesia’s largest island 8 _____ Base 13 Heart of Darkness setting 15 Molten rocks 17 Redwoods 18 White, in Argentina 19 BIOS 21 Knuckle or knee 22 Polite rural reply 23 Outkast rapper Big ___ 24 Friend 25 Hockey legend 28 Woodstock band ___Na Na 29 Norse fate goddess 30 ASAP 32 OPEC member, abbr.

34 Actress Rene 36 HUMA 40 Goose Island brew 43 City of God setting 44 Mail carrier org.

48 Mo. before May 49 Juicehead 52 Irish haunt 54 Slithery sea creature 55 Not Dems. or Repubs.

56 Desktop image 58 He played Opie 60 PHSC 64 Mean Girls queen bee 65 Doesn’t delete 67 Charlie’s “Two and a Half Men” replacement 68 Home of the Oilers 69 Thinks over 70 Swedish shags 71 It’s the loneliest number Down 1 They’re out of this world 2 Doe 3 Margarita must 4 “ ____ know” 5 Mussel 6 “Jumping Jack Flash, it’s ____” 7 Amble 8 Unexpected attack 9 Trattoria appetizer 10 Alike, in Arles 11 Collected works 12 2 and 3, to 6

14 16 20 21 26 27 31 33 35 37 38 39 40 41 42 45 46 47 50 51 53 57

Vol. measure Marry Crosses out Wedding figs.

Coke complement “I smell a ____” Letters before F? Iowa harvest unit Sumerian sun god “So you’ve said!” “___/Tuck” Bega, “Mambo #5” singer Bullock Be tyrannical Charged Mails Retiree’s benefit Fox-like ___ Eleven Awful lot Kudos Hockey

59 61 62 63 66

player abbr.

Opera conductor Daniel “Nick at ____” Paradise Lost guitarist Site of Hannibal’s defeat Hurricane dir.

Friday 10/28/11

THE MEMBERS’ LECTURE SERIES FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC T h e O r i e n ta l I n s t i t u t e &BTU UI 4USFFU t oi.uchicago.edu

Symbol and Meaning in the Art of Predynastic Egypt A lecture by

Stan Hendrickx The Media, Arts and Design Faculty

Wednesday, November 2 7:00 PM Oriental Institute 1155 E. 58th St. Breasted Hall Reception to follow Free UChicago Arts Pass Membership! Scan the code or go to oi-uchicago.edu/getinvolved to sign up.

The artists of Predynastic Egypt were capable of producing almost any kind of representation, yet they depicted humans, animals, and plants in a strongly stylized symbolic fashion. Why did they choose to portray the world around them in this way?

Perhaps the artisans wanted to render the general idea and characteristic essence of their subjects, which allowed double interpretations, that is, the combination of originally independent ideas into new symbols. These symbols then became a kind of label with deep cultural power that could be used in different political and religious contexts. Examining Predynastic art in this way allows us to understand the most important cultural symbols and values at the dawn of Egyptian civilization.

About the Speaker Stan Hendrickx has a PhD in archaeology and art history. Since 1977 he has participated in excavations and surveys in Egypt and has published extensively on the Predynastic and Early Dynastic periods.

The Members’ Lecture Series is made possible by the generous support of Oriental Institute Members.

THE CHICAGO MAROON | SPORTS | November 1, 2011

10

Weekend victories push win streak to four SOCCER continued from back chance to become only the third player in school history to score 30 times over a career.

Despite Chicago’s momentum heading into their second home game of the weekend, though, the Maroons struggled out of the gate on Sunday.

“The Rochester game was definitely a game of two halves,” Coville said.

The Maroons got behind early after Rochester scored on two consecutive corner kicks in the 37th and 38th minutes. Due to several mishaps, the Maroons found themselves in territory they thought they had moved past.

“I felt like the first half we came out and really just played a pretty unemotional and average

half. [Rochester] played with a lot more energy and as a result of that, they won a lot of loose balls and converted some chances, which put us in a big deficit at halftime, but I was really proud of the way the team played in the second half,” Wiercinski said.

When the second half kicked off, it was a different ball game and a different team. In the 58th minute Choquette fed the ball to first-year forward Nic Lopez, for the Maroons’ first goal of the afternoon, giving Chicago a breath of life.

As time began dwindling, however, it appeared as though the Maroons’ streak had met its end. That was, until the very last minute.

With less than a minute left in the ball

game, Choquette followed up his assist with a corner that sailed into the top of the net just as time was expiring. The score set up overtime and a second chance.

“In the second half we came out with a lot of energy and played one of our best halves of soccer. We really deserved our goals and had a lot of momentum going into the overtime; it was really our game at that point,” Coville said.

The Maroons came out firing in the extra period, scoring in the very first minute of overtime. After Rochester was whistled for being offsides, Chicago took a free kick and came through in the clutch with a pass from Coville to first-year forward Kyle Kurfirst, who didn’t let the game-winner slip away.

“It was a great third goal, created by a lot of good, aggressive play by several players and a great assist from [Coville] and goal from [Kurfirst],” Wiercinski said.

The Maroons outshot Rochester 11–8 in the contest.

“The team is feeling confident coming off of this weekend and there is a lot of momentum with that streak. We fully expect to carry this quality play and energy into Wash U. It is a game with big implications for us as well as them, and with it being at home on Senior Day, it doesn’t get much bigger,” Coville said.

The Maroons face Wash U at 11 a.m. on Saturday at Stagg Field for their season finale.

Men’s and women’s teams express disappointment despite highest finish in years XC continued from back ing ‘the plan’ at all.”

Fourth-year Jane Simpson finished 22nd overall with a 6,000-meter time of 23:34. She was also frustrated by the meet.

“We were hoping to have a standout race before Regionals. We’ve had trouble getting all the elements of a good team finish together,” Simpson said, “so now we’ll have to wait another two weeks to see if we can pull ourselves together.”

Rachel Ohman, a fourth-year who finished 10th in Saturday’s race, shared her opinion.

“We have an incredibly strong team,” she said, “but have had some difficulties performing well on the same day.”

For the women, the postseason began with a bad start.

“From the start, a lot of us got stuck behind slower runners and were not able to start moving till about 1,000 meters in,” Khan said, “and I think this mentally affected us when it

shouldn’t have.”

Despite the small size of the field and slightly muddy conditions, there was a good show of fan support at the Championship.

“Last time we ran at Montrose Harbor there were a lot more people at the meet,” Schlick said. “Thankfully, we had a good number of U of C students, including our track team, come up to cheer us on. They definitely helped us in the later stages of the race.”

Indeed, according to Simpson, the crowd size had its benefits, at least from a runner’s perspective.

“The cheering there was excellent,” she said, “loud from the variety of fans, but small enough that a runner could make out specific messages from teammates or Coach Hall.”

Ohman, who was named to the All-Association Second Team after the race, was thrilled with the atmosphere at the race, even though she was disappointed with her individual performance.

“Yesterday was perfect racing weather, and the atmosphere was more energized than any UAA championship meet I’ve attended,” Ohman said. “We are incredibly grateful for the enthusiasm and encouragement we received.”

Third-years Billy Whitmore and Isaac Dalke were named to the All-Association First Team.

With the Midwest Regional Championship in two weeks, it’s time to excel and exceed expectations.

The Maroons think they will be ready.

“I think we have a lot to look forward to at Regionals. We had some strong performances from Isaac Dalke (5th), Gregor Siegmund (17th), and Billy Whitmore (3rd),” Schlick said. “If they can keep that up we should have a strong showing.”

According to Ohman, Saturday’s Championship should be used as a learning experience for the women’s team.

“With two weeks left before the race, we need to be more focused, energized, and united than

we’ve been all season. UAAs helped to show us the work we still have left to do before the regional meet,” Ohman said, “but I am confident that our women’s team will be ready to realize our dream of qualifying for Nationals.”

In order to make it to the National Championship in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, the Maroons must perform well at the Midwest Regional Championship.

“We still have a good chance of making the NCAA Championship Meet. Over the next two weeks, we need to figure out how to be aggressive and run for each other,” Khan said. “At practice, we run like a top-15 team in the country, but we need to figure out how to translate that into competition.”

The Midwest Regional Championship meet will take place at Saukie Golf Course in Rock Island, Illinois on Saturday, November 12. The race is hosted by Augustana College. The women’s 6,000m begins at 11 a.m., and the men’s 8,000m starts at noon.

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THE CHICAGO MAROON | SPORTS | November 1, 2011

11

A Downtown Ride: Weaving through Chicago’s concrete jungle J.T. Sullivan Sports Staff

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One of the best ways to get to know the city is by riding through it on two

wheels. I hope you will try some of the routes I recommend, make deviations of your own, and take stops along the way to get to know the communities youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be traveling through. At the very least, I ##bV Ab`SSb hope this column will serve as inspiration to get out of Hyde Park and explore Chicago by bike. It will be a fun year; I hope you enjoy the ride. ]`S

tem of assigning addresses is based on the intersection of Madison Street and State Street being the center of coordinates in the city (0 North 0 West). Also, you will notice that a number of east-west streets downtown are named after U.S. presidents, starting with Washington as the farthest north and ending with Roosevelt as the farthest south.

Two blocks north, as we ride from Dearborn Street to Washington Street, we reach our destination at Daley Plaza. The plaza is named for late Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley and is the meeting place for Critical Mass cyclists. Daley Plaza is famous for its large, black steel statue, designed by Pablo Picasso. The piece is untitled but is often referred to as â&#x20AC;&#x153;Chicago Picasso.â&#x20AC;?

Donated by the late Spanish artist in 1967, it is often said to resemble a bird, but no one knows its true inspiration. Directly west of the Plaza is Chicago City Hall, complete with roman pillars and a garden roof.

Riders begin piling onto Dearborn around 6 p.m., and after a few loops around the Plaza the Mass ride a block west to LaSalle Street and head south. LaSalle dead-ends at Jackson Boulevard at the base of the Chicago Board of Trade. While surpassed in height by more modern skyscrapers, the Board of Tradeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s art deco from 1930 remains commanding. We swing left onto Jackson and then north two blocks later onto State Street, one of Chicagoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most famous thoroughfares, passing Garrettâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Gourmet Popcorn on the corner. If you ever have time to try this Chicago staple, I recommend a tin of the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Chicago Mixâ&#x20AC;?: Half-caramel and half-cheese.

At the corner of State and Randolph Street, we pass the Marshall

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This past weekend I headed downtown with six other Hyde Parkers to partake in the monthly Chicago tradition of Critical Mass. The final Friday of each month, at 5:30 p.m., thousands of Chicagoans congregate at Daley Bicentennial Plaza in the Loop to celebrate bike riding by taking to the streets en masse. The ride isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t especially fast, so any level of cyclist can enjoy Critical Mass, and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s also a great way to see the city. This particular ride was too long to describe in detail in its entirety, so I am going to focus on the sites we covered at the beginning of our trek, along the lakefront and downtown.

Our group starts heading east on 55th Street, and takes the tunnel at the end to the Lakefront Trail. It is a chilly afternoon, but thankfully there is little wind and rain, a cyclistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s worst enemies.

Riding north on the Lakefront Trail is a course most anyone who has ridden a bike in Chicago has taken. My favorite segment, likely shared by many, is where the path bows east at 35th Street, giving northbound riders a clear view of the lakefront skyline.

We enter Burnham Park, which stretches north along the lake to the monstrous black steel and glass structure of McCormick Place. The open lakefront land commemorates Daniel Burnham, the architect and urban planner responsible for designing both the Worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Columbian Exposition of 1893 and Chicagoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s downtown in 1909. Burnhamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s city plan focused on making the beautiful land bordering the Chicago River and lakefront accessible to the public.

An historical point on the

trail that many often miss is the plaque at the 31st Street Beach commemorating the drowning of a young African-American man, who was struck by a rock hurled at him as he swam at the â&#x20AC;&#x153;whitesonlyâ&#x20AC;? segregated beach in 1919.

The event triggered the infamous Chicago Race Riot that lasted three days on the South Side in the summer of 1919, resulting in dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries. The plaque is a reminder of the dark history of a beautiful Chicago beach.

As our group continues north, the path winds through the Museum Campus, passing Soldier Field, home of the Chicago Bears; the Field Museum of Natural History; and the Shedd Aquarium. A peninsula stretches east into the lake from the Museum Campus.

This is Northerly Island, an old airfield that has been converted into a 91-acre prairie park. As the trail bends around Shedd, riders are given an up-close view of the skyline as it looms over Grant Park and Chicago Harbor.

The Lakefront Trail then enters Grant Park and pulls next to Lake Shore Drive, with the Buckingham Fountain, one of the largest fountains in the world, passing by on the left. My group turns west off the path at Monroe Street to Michigan Avenue. After a right on Michigan and then a quick left onto a brand new bike lane on Madison Street, we head west to Dearborn Street through the heart of downtown. Many downtown streets unfortunately do not have bike lanes and traffic can be heavy, so we ride with caution. There is never any shame in hopping on the sidewalk and walking your bike a couple blocks if need be.

Some quick facts about downtown streets: Chicagoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s grid sys-

Ride Distance: 20.12 miles

Fieldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Building, Chicagoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest and oldest department store, which was acquired by Macyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s in 2005. The building is famous for the large bronze clocks that stretch over street corners and have, over the years, been weathered to a green tint. Farther north we pass through Chicagoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s theater district, highlighted by the bright lights of the marquee of Chicago Theater, at State Street and Couch Place. Though most eateries in Chicagoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Loop are chains or fine dining, for those looking for a foodie destination, I recommend Gold Coast Dogs.

Located a block east of State Street at Randolph and Wabash, they serve a mean Chicago char dog.

Continuing on State, we cross

over the Chicago River and head west on Kinzie Street. The rest of the ride winds through North Side neighborhoods that I hope to touch on in more detail in future pieces. For riders looking to head back to Hyde Park from here, I recommend taking the stairs down to the Chicago Riverwalk at State Street and Wacker Drive. The Riverwalk has a bike path that can be taken east to the lake, to merge with the Lakefront Trail and head south to Hyde Park. This will make for a solid 21-mile route. Until next time, enjoy the action of Chicagoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s downtown and the beauty of the lakefront.

Care to join me or have ideas for future routes? E-mail jtsullivan@uchicago.edu.

Out of UAA contention, Chicago still eyes NCAA berth Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Soccer Alexander Sotiropolus Sports Contributor Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not over â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;til itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s over.

Although the 23rd-ranked womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s soccer team (9â&#x20AC;&#x201C;5â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2, 2â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2) is now officially out of contention of having the best record in the UAA, with Fridayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s home loss to 18th-ranked Case (12â&#x20AC;&#x201C;3â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2, 4â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2), 1â&#x20AC;&#x201C;0, and Sundayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 1â&#x20AC;&#x201C;0 home win over Rochester (8â&#x20AC;&#x201C;7, 2â&#x20AC;&#x201C;4), the Maroons still feel optimistic about their chances of receiving a bid to the NCAA DIII National Tournament.

Yet the Maroons are uncertain about their chances after Fridayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s late loss to Case.

Prior to the game, Chicago had its game plan set and was only focused on beating the Spartans, not on winning Sundayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s affair. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We knew their strengths,â&#x20AC;? sec-

ond-year midfielder Claire Mackevicius said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We knew who we had to follow.â&#x20AC;?

Throughout the game, the Maroons contained the Spartans in the manner they had discussed prior to the game.

Both teamsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; defensive efforts made for a 0â&#x20AC;&#x201C;0 halftime score.

Going into halftime, Chicago allowed only three shots against and had seven shots going for them.

The game stayed stagnant at 0â&#x20AC;&#x201C;0 until the 77th minute, when Case third-year midfielder Kendra Simmons broke away from the defense. Fourth-year Chicago goalkeeper Emma Gormley came out of the net in an attempt to save the ball, but Simmons chipped it over her head into the back of the net. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t a defensive breakdown,â&#x20AC;? Mackevicius said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;They made a good play.â&#x20AC;?

Mackevicius said the goal was

tough to handle mentally, given the effort the Maroons contributed all day to contain Case. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We had a fantastic defense the whole game; [Gormley] had a great game,â&#x20AC;? she said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;That made [the goal] even worse.â&#x20AC;?

Chicago was unable to score in the final minutes of the game, giving Case the 1â&#x20AC;&#x201C;0 win.

The Maroons, going into Sunday, used Fridayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s loss to spark a focused mind-set. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We were more ready to fight on Sunday after Fridayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s results,â&#x20AC;?

Mackevicius said.

To make matters better for Chicago, Rochester was coming off a 5â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1 loss on the road to Wash U on Friday.

With fourth-year forward Ellen Coleman, the UAAs leader in shot attempts on their team, the Yellow Jackets were not about to be throw in the towel after a big loss.

Chicago contained Coleman in

a manner most teams this season have not been able to maintain. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We had [fourth-year defender] Maggie [Tobin] just take care of her all game and gave her basically no opportunities,â&#x20AC;? Mackevicius said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We just did a really good job of shutting her down and not allowing her to either take the lead for her team or dish it off to anyone else.â&#x20AC;?

Because of that, the Maroons were given opportunities on the offensive end.

In the 26th minute, second-year forward Micaela Harms scored a goal off an assist from first-year forward Sara Kwan. The goal proved to be the game winner.

At the half â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s conclusion, Chicago allowed Rochester to take only two shots. But even though the Maroons had the 1â&#x20AC;&#x201C;0 advantage at halftime, they did not want to stick to a completely defensive strateg y.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Our [head] coach [Amy Reifert] always says, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;A 1â&#x20AC;&#x201C;0 lead is the most dangerous lead in soccer because it can easily be turned right around,â&#x20AC;&#x2122;â&#x20AC;? Mackevicius said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We were not at all defensively minded even after our goal. We kept pushing.â&#x20AC;?

By attaining that mentality, in the second half the Maroons outshot Rochester 8â&#x20AC;&#x201C;4. Coleman was only allowed two shots the entire game.

The team effort, which led to the 1â&#x20AC;&#x201C;0 victory, inspires the Maroons to finish the season off on a high note for the chance to make the NCAA tournament. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We are optimistic,â&#x20AC;? Mackevicius said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just a numbers game after Saturdayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s game against Wash U. We just play to win that game and then cross our fingers.â&#x20AC;?

Chicago hosts Wash U in the regular season finale on Saturday, November 5 at 1:30 p.m.

SPORTS

IN QUOTES “I had hoped this marriage was forever, but sometimes things don’t work out as planned.”

—TV personality Kim Kardashian, after divorcing her husband, NBA player Kris Humphries. Their marriage lasted 72 days.

Chicago comes from behind to win in overtime Men’s Soccer Vicente Fernandez Senior Sports Staff With their backs against the conference wall, the Maroons (9–6–2, 2–4) fought their way out of obscurity in the UAA this weekend. After beginning conference play 0–4, Chicago rode the momentum of a two-game winning streak and pulled off huge victories against conference rivals Case Western (12–4, 3–2) and Rochester (9–4–2, 3–2–1) on Friday and Sunday.

The wins prove what Head Coach Scott Wiercinski has known all season long: that his team can compete with, and win against, anyone.

“The results are a little more indicative of our ability to play than those previous results where we didn’t play well and found a way to lose,” Wiercinski said.

Winning against two of the top teams in the UAA, the Maroons now have a four-game winning streak rolling as they head into the season finale against Wash U. “We knew we were capable of much more than our results showed, and felt confident going into these games. Everyone was very proud to prove the quality we truly have. These wins were a big boost to us, against the second- and third-place teams in the league,” fourth-year midfielder

Stanton Coville said.

The Maroons’ first challenge of the weekend came at Stagg Field on Friday against a Case Western squad that boasts one of the nation’s top scorers, Vinny Bell. Bell entered the match ranked sixth in the nation for all of DIII with 18 goals. Chicago contained Bell and pulled off the 1–0 upset.

“We really mixed up our game plan quite a bit to deal with Vinny Bell…. [Second-year defender] Terrell White was the man of the match,” Wiercinski said.

White thrived off the challenge of shutting down one of the nation’s best, and held the forward to just one shot on goal in 90 minutes of play.

“He was absolutely fantastic as a defender. He was able to make [Bell] a little bit more of an ordinary player than he typically is, and that really gave us an opportunity to win,” Wiercinski said.

The defensive play didn’t stop at White, however. Behind their stronghold the Maroons outshot Case 14–8 with first-year goalkeeper Elek Lane recording three saves to post his sixth shutout of the year, and his third straight.

“The rest of the team really did a fantastic job of helping [White] in important moments,” Wiercinski added.

Coville provided Chicago’s lone score, a goal off the head of a player

Fourth-year Rashad Masri evades Rochester’s defense at a home game on Sunday.

KELLY FRYE | THE CHICAGO MAROON

who is proving to be one of Chicago’s all-time great goal scorers. Off a set piece in the 18th minute, firstyear midfielder Michael Choquette placed a ball that Coville was able to drive into the net.

“It was one of our corner kick set pieces, playing short to draw the defense out a bit, and it worked perfectly. I was able to drift to the back post while my defender was ball watching, and Choquette played a

great ball in; I didn’t have too much left to do,” Coville said.

The goal is Coville’s ninth of the season and the 29th of his career.

Against Wash U he will have the SOCCER continued on page 10

Maroons take third, fourth, at UAAs Postseason slips away with loss to Case Western Football Daniel Lewis Associate Sports Editor

Fourth-year Rachel Ohman runs during the UAA Championship at Montrose Harbor on Saturday.

COURTESY OF DAVE HILBERT

Cross Country Matthew Schaefer Sports Contributor If there was any time for an upset, it was Saturday at Montrose Harbor, the site of the 2011 UAA Championships for cross country.

It had the desired ingredients: a home site, fair weather, a lakefront location, a pro-Chicago crowd, and fast-paced competition. But it was not to be.

The 10th-ranked men and 33rd-

ranked women finished third and fourth respectively in the first postseason race. While the results were not surprising, they were not as high as either team had anticipated.

Fourth-year Brian Schlick was hoping for at least a second-place finish for the men’s team.

“I feel we performed satisfactorily.

We were definitely hoping to beat NYU and were not able to do so,” Schlick said. “However, we had some people, such as Gregor Siegmund and Isaac Dalke, step up and contribute. Hopefully they can continue that

momentum into regionals.”

The women aimed high, but finished behind Wash U, NYU, and Emory.

“The UAA championship was pretty disappointing. Going into the race we were all pretty pumped up–we knew exactly what to do to get second place,” fourth-year Sonia Khan said. “It’s really frustrating not racing well when it comes to mental aspects because we all know we are in great shape and obviously want to do well but we just haven’t been executXC continued on page 10

The Maroons suffered a crushing 6–0 loss at Case Western over the weekend, thanks to the disappearance of their running game and an inability to score in the red zone.

Chicago’s record remains respectable at 5–3, but the team’s conference record is now 0–1, and playoffs look to be a long shot.

The largest disparity between the two teams on Saturday was seen in their ability to run the ball. While Case racked up 201 yards on the ground, the Maroons managed only a meager three net yards on 23 carries.

The Maroons’ lack of a running game hindered their ability to move the ball and extend drives, making it all the more painful when they had chances to score and could not do so.

“The biggest problem was scoring in the red zone. We flat out failed to do it,” said third-year receiver Dee Brizzolara, one of the few bright spots on offense with five catches for 103 yards.

Late in the first quarter, the Maroons found themselves with great ball position following an interception by first-year linebacker Schuyler Montefalco, but third-year kicker Jeff Sauer’s field goal attempt was blocked.

Sauer also missed from 43 yards late in the third quarter.

Chicago was stopped on a pair of drives in the fourth quarter that end-

ed on downs. With seven minutes left in the game, the Maroons started on the Case 33-yard line and drove to the goal line, but could not score. Then, with four and a half minutes remaining in the game, Chicago mounted another drive that ended with an incomplete pass on fourth down at the opposing 14-yard line. A touchdown on either drive could have propelled the Maroons to victory.

“Case had a good team overall and a good defense,” said third-year quarterback Kevin Shelton, who completed 13 of 28 passes for 154 yards. “I feel like we were every bit as good, if not better, but unfortunately we couldn’t find a way to prove it.”

Neither team enjoyed a prolific offense, and both teams suffered from missed chances on third downs, but the Spartans, unlike the Maroons, were able to convert their red zone opportunities into points. Chicago had a strong defensive effort, led by fourth-year Danny Polaneczky’s team-high 15 tackles, but Case’s two field goals were enough for the win.

The loss leaves the Maroons out of the playoffs and in a tough position in the UAAs. Given that no conference champion has lost a UAA game since 1996, Chicago’s chances to repeat are in serious jeopardy.

“We were all upset over the game, but we have two more left, so we’re moving forward and focusing on Carnegie Mellon,” Brizzolara said.

The Maroons will return home to face Carnegie on RSO Day this Saturday at noon.