Chicago-Maroon-11-02-18

CHICAGO

I Am Number Four

MAROON The student newspaper of the University of Chicago since 1892

A muddled mash-up of sci-fi and rom-com

Voices, p.5

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2011 • VOLUME 122, ISSUE 29 • CHICAGOMAROON.COM

POLITICS

DISCOURSE

Student running for 11th ward alderman

Robinson on freedom

Fourth-year Kozlar is youngest Chicago candidate since 1861

By Ivy Perez MAROON Staff A U of C fourth-year is hoping to make a southwest Chicago ward more youthful.

John Kozlar is running for the 11th ward alderman spot against past candidate Carl Segvich and incumbent James A. Balcer. At 22 years old, he is the youngest alderman candidate to run since 1861, and will be the youngest to serve if elected.

Ko z l a r b e g a n h i s c a m p a i g n by collecting signatures to enter the campaign as a write-in. With a group of college undergrads, including his campaign manager fourth-year Natalie Hall, Kozlar headed out to 11th ward neighborhoods, gathered over 400 signatures, and was successfully placed on the ballot.

Kozlar’s campaign emphasizes youth outreach inside the ward, especially in terms of providing opportunities. He said that a corruption scandal in the ward in 2003 resulted in the dwindling of opportunities for city jobs in the 11th ward.

Before 2003, 7 out of 10 individuals in the 11th ward were employed by the city. Young

people in the area, according to Kozlar, had four options: “Work for the city, go to college, find another job, or go to the streets.”

But since the scandal, the 11th ward has been watched closely by the city government, so jobs working for the city are more difficult to obtain. As a direct result, young people don’t have many opportunities, and only 23 percent of 11th ward youth go to college.

Kozlar feels that he can contribute. As a “new candidate with a new face,” he wants to advocate to get more city jobs for the community. “The corruption scandal should not reflect the entire community,” he said.

Kozlar’s grass-roots campaign philosophy stems from his youthoriented platform. He started by recruiting members from friends and other students, looking for equal amounts of time and money donations. His Facebook campaign page currently has 161 fans.

In his campaign, Kozlar focuses on his status as a Chicago native rather than pushing his University of Chicago credentials.

Kozlar has billed himself as

ALDERMAN continued on page 2

Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Marilynne Robinson speaks on the importance of America's Calvinist roots Wednesday afternoon at the Max Palevsky Cinema.

DARREN LEOW/MAROON

By Maria Mauriello News Staff Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Marilynne Robinson argued that the Christian tradition in America has a history of promoting freedom at a lecture Wednesday in Max Palevsky Cinema.

Robinson, who won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction for her novel Gilead, said that history has been distorted to create support for modern movements.

One example: Calvinism and Puritanism endorsed higher levels of personal freedom than many believe.

“Calvin has been very much misrepresented, and as a consequence the culture he has influenced has been misrepresented,” Robinson said.

She drew on readings from John Calvin and the Puritan writer John Winthrop, as well as historical legal examples, for evidence that freedom is supported

by American Christianity.

“Freedom is something that we give one another, not something that we take,” Robinson s aid.

“Freedom grows out of a history and out of mutual accommodation.”

Robinson encouraged the audience to read the works of Calvin and Winthrop to dispel their own misconceptions about freedom in American Christianity. “What [Americans] think is their past is

ROBINSON continued on page 2

CAMPUS LIFE

HYDE PARK

Late-night dining falls flat

Activists fear for Reagan's Hyde Park home

By Hans Glick News Staff Administrators are reevaluating late -night dining at Hutch Commons following low turnout midway through its debut year.

Campus Dining is attributing the lack of interest to student desire to eat even later and to use meal points rather than cash or flex dollars.

Late -night dining at Hutch— which offers an array of food options Monday through Thursday until midnight—averaged just over

47 transactions per night through 16 weeks of operations. It is less than a quarter of the 200 sales per night that Director of Campus Dining Richard Mason said would be ideal for the program’s continuation.

Even when three days’ worth of blizzard-induced closings and other holidays are taken into account, the daily transaction average tops out at fewer than 53 sales per day.

Transactions have been lower than expected since the program’s first stages. Last spring, when it was

a one-week pilot program, it averaged 143 transactions per night, which was lower than administrators and SG hoped.

Subway, the most popular of the program’s four options, has accounted for two-thirds of all sales, averaging about 32 transactions per night.

According to Mason, late night dining’s persistent underperformance can be attributed to a disconnect between students and administrators on the definition of

HUTCH continued on page 2

Late-Night Dining Sales in Hutchinson Commons Minimum number of sales needed to sustain late-night dining

Number of Sales

1200

300

200

100

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SABINA BREMNER/MAROON

By Amy Myers Associate News Editor While Ronald Reagan wanted to tear down a wall, the University might be tearing down his childhood home.

The University may be planning to tear down buildings on East 57th Street—including the apartment of the 40th president, according to South Side preservationists, who aren’t going to let the building go down without a fight.

While he spent the majority of his childhood living instate, but outside of Chicago, Reagan lived in the apartment in a six-flat building on East 57th Street and South Maryland Avenue for one year as a child, from 1914 to 1915.

The University purchased the building in 2004, with plans to expand West Campus to the areas between 56th and 58th streets and South Drexel and Cottage Grove Avenues.

The new buildings for the site include the William Eckhardt Research Center and a new child care center.

No demolition permit has been filed for that particular building, and the University has no announcements regarding this particular building, according to University spokesman

Jeremy Manier. The University has acquired demolition permits for two other buildings on South Drexel Avenue.

This hasn’t stopped preservation activists, like Southside Preservation Action Fund leader Jack Spicer, from speaking out against the demolition of

REAGAN continued on page 2

Across the street from the new hospital pavilion, 832 East 57th Street was Ronald Reagan's address as a child. His family lived on the first floor.

DAN SELLON/MAROON

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CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | February 18, 2011

INTERVIEW

Uncommon Interview with Brad Keywell Serial entrepreneurs Brad Keywell and Eric Lefkofsky cofounded Groupon in 2008 with then-Harris School of Public Policy student Andrew Mason. Groupon, a social retail website, recently turned down a reported $6 billion acquisition offer from Google. This quarter, Keywell and Lefkofsky are joint teaching a course at the Booth School of Business called Building Internet Start-Ups: Risk, Reward, and Failure. The M AROON spoke with Keywell about toys, Objectivism, and Midwestern values.

Chicago M AROON : You’re teaching a class at the Booth school with Eric Lefkofsky.

How did it come about?

Brad Keywell: Eric Lefkofsky is my partner, my business partner, and Eric started teaching years ago, at DePaul, a course on technology disruption and technologycentric businesses that can change different industries. He then moved that class to Kellogg, where I began to get involved with the course, guest lecturing and helping out, and ultimately we decided we were going to teach together…. It’s been a great partnership because Booth is a spectacular school with a true focus on entrepreneurship.

CM: Can you describe the “midterm experience” that the course description promised students?

B K: We gave each student a five -dollar bill, and the instruction was to take the five-dollar bill and buy a toy. The challenge is to create as much value as possible starting with the toy, using the Internet, using their own resourcefulness, using creativity, and then deliver it in the form of a video that either documents the results of their efforts or documents some value creation that started with the toy. So what we’re doing is challenging our students to be creative, to be resourceful, and to be innovative as it relates to creation of value.

CM: How would you have done it?

BK: Well if I told you, then I’d have to kill you, so I can’t tell you.

CM: Do you think future entrepreneurs will keep achieving the kind of success Groupon and other Internet start-ups have achieved in the past decade?

B K : I think that the advances in the Internet, specifically as it relates to the social graph, and the proliferation of interesting data, combined with advances in mobile technology and location-based services, have created a platform where great things will be created in the months and years to come that simply could not have existed ever before now. And then once those things are created, the mechanisms are in place for those things to grow at paces faster than has ever been conceived.

So the possibility for a student in my class, or any student for that matter, to create the next Groupon or the next whatever, the possibility’s absolutely there.

CM: On your website it lists some of your favorite books, and I noticed many of them are by Ayn Rand, and that on the list of charities you admire is the Ayn Rand Institute. Are you an Objectivist?

BK: I’m not... [laughs]. I would not consider myself an Objectivist, but I would consider myself somebody who is profoundly moved by Atlas Shrugged and who looks at Atlas Shrugged as an important book for any aspiring entrepreneur or aspiring “do-er” in our society.

CM: At the Future of the City conference last week, you talked about Chicago and “Midwestern values.” What do you see as Midwestern values?

Author argues Americans have lost sight of roots in Calvinism ROBINSON continued from front page generated around some cartoon in which everyone wears a black hat and Calvin hates everyone,” she said.

She noted that the texts from which she read are relevant to her own work as an American author. “Insofar as I can say I have an intention in writing, they have everything to do with it,” said Robinson, whose 2004 novel Housekeeping was named one of the 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005 by TIME. A common misunderstanding in American literary scholarship, Robinson said, is “to view great [American] writers as people who have escaped from [Christian religion], rather than people who are deeply rooted in it.” Robinson cited Hawthorne and Melville as examples of authors who were deeply influenced by

a non-partisan candidate, believing that politics work better on a community level when more people are involved. “When you listen to everyone, things begin to work,” he said.

A political science major on a pre med track, Kozlar is also a product of Chicago Public Schools—he attended Chicago’s Mark Sheridan Middle School and McKinley Park High school. “Politics and medicine are my two plan A’s,” said

CM: How would you recommend entrepreneurial-minded U of C students put that resourcefulness to work?

BK: You know, the University of Chicago is one of the great educational institutions in the country and really in the world. So what it provides for a student is a remarkable canvas. The question for each student is, what are they going to paint on that canvas? And I look at the University experience as one where the University is responsible for providing as many resources and choices as they responsibly can for the students, but ultimately the students are responsible for utilizing and capitalizing upon those resources in their own unique way.

So to a student at the University of Chicago, I would say, “Everything is at your fingertips, but ultimately only you can make the experience of the U of C a great one for you.”

HUTCH continued from front page “late-night” dining.

“My sense is, from talking to students, what they really mean is they want a dining hall late, where they can go use the meal plan,” Mason said. “What they’re really telling you when they say late-night is ‘I want to to go to Bartlett from 12 until 3 in the morning.’”

Mason said students want late-night food from their dining hall because they prefer to pay using their meal plan rather than cash or flex dollars, even if the actual cost is identical.

“From a transaction basis, it feels different,” he said.

The Global Dining Initiative (GDI), a campus-wide evaluation of food services that uses student surveys, has shown that the demand for healthy options and wider variety trump student interest in late-night dining, according to Mason.

Among the changes being discussed under the GDI program, Mason said that latenight dining alternatives are being evaluated, including a dining hall with designated late hours or extended hours during finals week.

While the University searches for a food service provider, late-night dining is one issue potential bidders must address. “We’re certainly going to challenge these suppliers to think about—and think creatively about—how they would do something like that,” Mason said.

Mason called the three campus residential dining halls “great spaces for students to gather” and noted that the potential for extending their hours was not at odds with the aims of Campus Dining Services.

“We’ve made an investment in these spaces, we continue to make investments in these spaces. We want to use them to their greatest extent, so for them to lie fallow does not feel good to us either.”

College Republicans President hopes Reagan apartment becomes museum Christianity.

Ro b i n s o n a l s o a r g u e d t h a t a “ f a l s e memory of history” often inaccurately colors modern readings in American literary scholarship.

According to Robinson, the idealization of the American South after the Civil War reflects a romanticizing trend in history which can lead people to “forget that breaches of freedom occur on both sides [during war.]”

“The losing side wins the war, in a sense, in any war,” said Robinson, who has also written for Harper’s, The Paris Review, and The New York Times Book Review.

The lecture was sponsored by the Lumen Christi Institute, the Committee on Social Thought, the Committee on Creative Writing, and the Department of English.

Student running for alderman plans to defer medical school if he wins ALDERMAN continued from front page

B K: At the conference last week, what I talked about was the need for our city and our region to embrace entrepreneurial risk-taking. Because without entrepreneurs and without risk-taking, we are not going to create the jobs we need to revitalize our cities. So in the context of that, what I talked about was the entrepreneurial resourcefulness and the values of hard work, persistence, and dedication that I think uniquely exist in the Midwest, and that clearly are an asset that we have capitalized on with our businesses—Echo, Mediabank, Groupon, and Lightbank among them.

Students want to pay with dining meal points, eat even later at night

Kozlar, who added that he will defer medical school if he is elected.

Kozlar is running against Balcer, who has served as alderman of the 11th ward for 13 years. He was appointed in 1995 by Mayor Richard Daley and was re-elected in 1997. In the 2007 election, Balcer won with over 70 percent of the vote.

Kozlar wants to change the way politics in Chicago work. “People talk a lot about the Chicago machine of politics,” Kozlar said, “but the only machine is the voter.”

REAGAN continued from front page the building.

“Regardless of what you think about Ronald Reagan, Reagan and his boyhood home here would deserve some respect,” said Spicer. “It’s Reagan’s only Chicago residence. Other than Obama’s house in Kenwood, it’s the only residence of any president in Chicago.”

Spicer believes efforts to preserve the building should not only stem from Reagan’s brief stay. He described the building’s architectural attributes, including metal fretwork and a unique 1920s entrance, as historically valuable. “Once they tear the building down, it’s gone forever,” he said.

Though Spicer and fellow preservationists had recommended that the buildings on 57th be maintained, he expects the University to demolish the building and others nearby to make room for hospital expansions.

He believes that the University’s renovations will leave a “sterile canyon” in Hyde Park.

Fourth-year and President of the University College Republicans President Joseph “Tex”

Dozier sees the building as an opportunity for the University to engage with the community.

Dozier suggested the apartment be used as the site of a museum to honor the former president.

The building on East 57th and Maryland Avenues received an orange rating by the Commission on Chicago Landmarks. The orange rating requires that 90 days of public notice be granted before a demolition permit may be obtained, unless a building is deemed hazardous. Major Hyde Park landmarks, like the Robie House, are protected by a red rating.

Dozier believes that the mandatory waiting period will allow time to open a community dialogue with University officials. He plans to use available media outlets to call attention to the building’s destruction if the demolition permit is acquired, he said.

Spicer also hopes the mandatory 90 day period will also allow for input from community leaders.

“Decisions that have to do with the history and the historic legacy of the neighborhood ought to be made in concert with the community,” he said.

CORRECTIONS » The February 15 News article “With Dining Contracts Ending, U Of C Calls For Bids” omitted the full name and position of Director of Campus Dining Richard Mason. » The February 15 News article “Bottled Water Ban Gains SG Support” misrepresented the Green Campus Initiative-backed resolution. The resolution encourages a reduction in the use of bottled water on campus, not a ban. » The February 15 Sports article "Fabulous Fifteen" misstated the record of women's basketball. The Maroons are 19-3 going into this weekend's games.

The MAROON is committed to correcting mistakes for the record. If you suspect the MAROON has made an error, please alert the newspaper by e-mailing Editor@ChicagoMaroon.com.

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CHICAGO MAROON | VIEWPOINTS | February 15, 2011

VIEWPOINTS

EDITORIAL & OP-ED FEBRUARY 18, 2011

EDITORIAL

CHICAGO MAROON

The student newspaper of the University of Chicago since 1892

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Circulation: 6,500 The opinions expressed in the Viewpoints section are not necessarily those of the MAROON.

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Table of discontents Departments should ensure that reading lists are posted with time schedules On Monday, the cycle began again: Spring time schedules went live, and all productivity halted as students pored over next quarter’s offerings. The listings were accompanied by a frustrating but familiar lack of information on what books these courses require, even though the schedules link to the Seminary Co-op and Barnes & Noble websites, and uploading reading lists is quick and simple. That professors neglect to provide these listings is unacceptable because, besides being inconvenient, it’s also against the law.

In August 2008, Congress passed the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA). Among the many stipulations of this legislation was a provision concerning textbooks: The bill mandated that all professors and departments should “disclose… retail price information of required

and recommended college textbooks and supplemental materials for each course listed in the institution’s course schedule used for preregistration and registration purposes.”

The rule is clear: Professors need to have book listings posted by the time the course request process starts. But if one peruses the time schedules of the Department of English, they will notice that less than a third of undergraduate courses have book listings and prices. The Department of Philosophy seems to have forgotten entirely that books are used in courses. There is likewise a minimal amount of information in the sociology and history schedules.

There is no excuse for such blatant disregard of federal policy.

Adherence to the law is easy for professors: In fact, all they have to do to post listings is enter the books’

titles on the Seminary Co-op’s website. More importantly, it’s incredibly helpful for students. We don’t have syllabi available, so the course description, evaluations, and reading list are our best indicators of what the class will entail.

The motivation for this law is more than just convenience; a student’s ability to take a class is often predicated on textbook costs and information. Having names and prices at the earlier, mandated time allows us to search for used books, scope out bargains, and bundle deals.

And in rare cases, the books required for a class may be so prohibitively expensive that some students would rather not take it. When that’s the case, the students deserve to know as soon as possible.

In 2008, we looked forward to a time when all time schedules would

STATE & MADISON

be supplemented by book listings and available prices. A law instituted to manage the costs incurred by students seemed like a perfect way to streamline an already frustrating course selection process.

Faculty follow-through on this policy, however, has been consistently disappointing. Professors and departments should take an hour out of their day to post their required books on their course listing, and they should do so before the course request process begins.

Give us the information we need to make educated decisions, and perhaps we can turn the page on years of unnecessary course request frustration.

The Editorial Board consists of the Editor-in-Chief and the Viewpoints Editors.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

@MayorEmanuel: Keep up the good work Grounds of Being Politicians' use of social media tends to be boring and artificial to end sale of character that has owned this year’s of voters who use these sites, but bottled water

By Jake Grubman MAROON Staff

It all started on a late-September day, in a blaze of glory and F-words.

“These people are (expletive) joking, right? Give me back my (expletive) house, or I will burn it down around you.”

And with that, Rahm Emanuel’s inner monologue became a Twitter persona in the form of MayorEmanuel, the anonymous and painfully funny

election. And aside from captioning the real Emanuel’s every move with R-rated language, MayorEmanuel is proving the value of fake Twitter accounts in changing political communication.

There are some very serious adults hoping the account goes away when (If? When.) Emanuel becomes mayor, saying that it distracts from real topics of discussion, but MayorEmanuel and other fake Twitter accounts like it are finally bringing some accountability to politicians’ social media feeds.

Elected officials, it seems, simply have to use social media these days. If they’re not friending or reTweeting at their constituents, they’re just not doing enough to reach the voters anymore.

They have to make themselves sound normal to draw in the huge amount

frankly, most of the officials who use social media fail miserably at sounding human.

It’s a proven fact that politicians who try to sound hip on the Internet wind up sounding completely unhip.

Politicians, because of age requirements and incumbent advantages, are almost always just too old to be Internet cool.

Their use of dated Internet lingo in blatantly political messages is just painful to read, and it drives home the point that political figures just don’t understand how social media work yet.

That’s not the case for the people behind the best fake accounts. Those people get it all the way; that’s why MayorEmanuel has almost three times the number of followers of the four real candidates combined. MayorEmanuel

TWITTER continued on page 4

ON THE OTHER HAND

A deficit of ideas We cannot ignore economic growth in discussions of the national debt

By Ajay Ravichandran Viewpoints Columnist In the past several weeks, the national political debate has become increasingly focused on reducing our massive debt. However, one important dimension of that problem has received very little attention: econom-

ic growth. While members of both parties still express concern about the slow pace of the current economic recovery, they seem to see further economic stimulus as an independent goal that conflicts with debt reduction.

However, averting a fiscal crisis will be nearly impossible unless growth rates increase significantly. Current budgetary projections, which estimate that the value of the federal debt will soon rise to more than 90 percent of our gross domestic product, assume an average growth rate of 3.4 percent over the next 10 years. Since this rate would be higher than the average in any of the last five decades, we need to start thinking seriously about how

to get the economy moving. But since we have to worry about the debt as well, we must stimulate the economy in ways that involve as little new net spending as possible.

One obvious place to start is the U.S.'s crumbling infrastructure. While public works like roads, bridges, and the electrical grid are obviously vital to economic growth, ours are in remarkably poor shape. The American Society of Civil Engineers periodically grades the nation’s infrastructure, and the average grade in its most recent report card (released in 2009) was a D. The need to rebuild our infrastructure has been further underscored by the

DEBT continued on page 4

I was pleased to read your article, “Bottle racket,” in the February 8 issue of the Maroon.

I recently took over as the general manager for the student-run D i v i n i t y S ch o o l c o f f e e s h o p , Grounds of Being. I have been struck similarly by the high sales of bottled water in my own shop, since my experience in food service in other areas of the city have shown a far more progressive bent on this issue, from both business owners and customers alike.

In response to your reasonable and responsible call, Grounds of Being will be phasing out the sale of bottled water over the next few weeks. Instead, we will sell custom-printed B PA—free stainless steel refillable water bottles. To encourage the purchase of these bottles, which we should have in two weeks, and discourage the sale of plastic disposable water bottles, we will be increasing our pricing by 50 percent for our remaining bottled water stock. Once we sell out, we will no longer purchase or sell bottled water.

As a business manager and a student member of this community, I appreciate your efforts to draw attention to this matter. We can hardly expect to be a progressive institution if we manage our natural resources poorly. I hope that other vendors on campus will soon follow suit.

Greg Chatterley M.A. student in Divinity School Manager, Grounds of Being

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CHICAGO MAROON | VIEWPOINTS | February 18, 2011

Fake Twitter accounts for politicians provide humor and insight TWITTER continued from page 3 sounds like an actual (very funny) guy, and that’s the case with these accounts in general. The fake accounts wind up sounding more human—more real—than the real accounts.

The fake personalities wind up forcing the actual officials to be truly authentic with their social media communication. The more MayorEmanuel burns the real Rahm, the more he’ll have to learn about communicating with voters through social media. For all of the posts that are just there for entertainment, the fake accounts do bring up real criticisms, and lined side-by-side next to that criticism, contrived answers from officials just aren’t going to work anymore. At some point, the brutal honesty of fake accounts will make the transparently fake garbage that fills most politicians’ Facebook and Twitter feeds

completely unacceptable.

Readers of this column are probably expecting the “stick to the issues” war cry somewhere in here. It’s not coming. MayorEmanuel has served as another sideshow to this year’s mayoral campaign, but there’s no actual damage here because of the very nature of Twitter.

Surfing the Internet is fundamentally mindless.

The reason that things like Twitter exist at all is so that people have distractions at work. Otherwise, why would blogs have “NSFW” tags at all?

You’re at work, and you’ve got that 2:30 (or 3:30 (or 4:30)) feeling; you’re not going to log onto the Chicago Tribune website to read about tax increment financing. (I mean, not that you’d read the Tribune anyway, but you get the point.) No, you’re reading up on Chad Ochocinco’s latest philosophizing or try-

ing to find the newest lolcat. Or combining Chad Ochocinco with a lolcat or something.

The entire point of Twitter (and basically every extremely popular website) is that people are looking for stuff that they wouldn’t miss if they never saw it. I’m on YouTube all the time, but it’s not like my life would be any worse if I couldn’t watch Kanye West saying that Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time. (Of all time.) The content I actually need just doesn’t exist in the right format on Twitter.

If I’m looking for real news, I need to get more than 140 characters of it. When news came out that Emanuel might not make it onto the ballot because of his “residency malfunction,” how many people thought, “Dang, where’s my Twitter account?” And if Twitter actually mattered for communicating the news, the headlines after

the Illinois Supreme Court ordered him back on would have read something like, “Rahm: ‘Thx for your support.’”

A handful of people will probably vote for Emanuel just because of the added visibility that the account provides. In general, though, fake accounts are just the new generation’s brand of comedy, and they actually force better communication from the real officials.

And when we’re done laughing at the new and creative ways MayorEmanuel finds to use profanity in describing press conferences, we can get back to focusing on the important stuff, like who’s strung out on crack and who’s not.

turn will help the economy grow faster. Second, the tax code is filled with provisions that provide tax breaks to individuals and firms who engage in specified economic activities. While some of these may be worthwhile, many are inserted to appease special interest groups aiming to subsidize transactions that benefit them. These advantages provide the groups who enjoy them with protection from competition, so they lack the incentive to constantly become more productive, which drives economic growth. The vast array of tax breaks that our system includes also deprives the federal government of revenue; a recent study by the Office of Management and Budget estimated that they actually cost $1.1 trillion annually. Eliminating many of these provisions would therefore enable the government to collect more revenue while also increasing the growth rate.

Some might defend the exclusion of economic growth from the debt debate by arguing that we need to confront the fact that reducing the debt

will require a substantial amount of sacrifice.

According to this view, trying to cushion the pain of that sacrifice by working to increase growth will make us take the debt problem less seriously by suggesting that we can get something for nothing. While there is some merit to this argument, it does not give sufficient weight to the difficulty of imposing shared sacrifice in a democratic political system.

Any politician who admits that his or her policies will make life harder for some citizens is more or less inviting a serious electoral challenge, and the history of efforts to reduce the debt suggests that most such challenges succeed. While we obviously cannot restore fiscal sanity without sacrifice, the task of convincing our fellow citizens to bear some of that sacrifice will be easier if we can make it a bit less burdensome.

Jake Grubman is a fourth-year in the College majoring in Law, Letters, and Society.

Consumption tax would spur economic growth DEBT continued from page 3 many bridge collapses, power outages, and other disasters that have occurred in recent years. A serious effort to improve American infrastructure would be very effective in stimulating short-term growth, especially since contemporary unemployment is concentrated among construction workers affected by the housing market bust.

Furthermore, because better infrastructure would raise the overall growth rate, well-targeted infrastructure spending could generate additional revenue and thereby help to lower the national debt.

“Well-targeted” is the key term, however—if infrastructure spending is to help provide the deficit-reducing growth that we need, we have to make sure that it is allocated to projects likely to improve the economy’s long-run growth potential rather than elected officials’ re-election prospects. The Obama administration’s proposed national infrastructure bank might help with this

task. This body would be composed of experts from both parties who would be given a fixed sum of money to spend without political interference. They would be appointed for extended terms and would thus be able to think about the lasting impact of their decisions. Similar bodies have operated successfully in many states, so this option is worth considering seriously.

Another area to look at is the badly flawed American tax code. Two features of our tax system create unnecessary impediments to growth. First, the federal government taxes the most productive economic activity while leaving much of the least productive activity nearly untouched. Income earned through work, saving, and investment is taxed, but the U.S. lacks the broad-based consumption taxes present in many other developed nations. Instituting such a tax and using it to replace some or all of the revenue that existing taxes provide will give workers and firms incentives to be more productive, which in

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VOICES

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT FEBRUARY 18, 2011

FILM

MUSIC

Four makes muddled mash-up of sci-fi and rom-com

Chicago indie label makes its way to the top

By Ana Klimchynskaya Voices Cosmic Latte It’s not entirely surprising that a blockbuster movie like I Am Number Four would be filled with Hollywood clichés. The film is a mix of typical high-school romantic comedy and scifi. The only original thing about the movie is that it puts the two together.

Otherwise, it’s everything you expect from these two genres.

By Charna Albert Voices Indie Darling

I AM NUMBER FOUR Directed by D.J. Caruso Wide Release

Alex Pettyfer plays John Smith, an undercover alien who resembles a typical teenager in every way except for his glowing blue hands and sporadic superpowers. He’s one of the last of his kind, and must constantly remain on the run to escape from the Magadorians, another race of aliens that wants to hunt down and kill him.

The result is that he moves from place to place, becoming the new kid in a typical Hollywood high school.

As is expected, he falls for Sara (Diana Agron), the popular girl who dated football player Mark (Jake Abel), your usual jock and bully. Of course, the new kid makes friends with the kid who’s bullied by the football team. Then, of course, come the obvious scenes between the new kid and the girl he has his eye on from the beginning. They’re slightly awkward, as such a script requires, but they inevitably fall for each other.

To alleviate this predictability, we

Sarah (Diana Agron) didn't expect John (Alex Pettyfer) to break that out when she asked for a flashlight.

COURTESY OF DREAMWORKS SKG

get the alien invasion, though this is left fairly undeveloped. The film is based on a book, where all of this is perhaps explained. But this movie is not advertised as a novel adaptation.

The audience of this movie is one that needs this context explained.

The Magadorians are hunting these aliens because somehow killing them all will help them take over planet Earth. This culminates, of course, in a ridiculous, over-the-top, sparksflying, buildings-blowing-up climax full of huge monsters, guns, and stunts.

However, since John’s race, the history of his planet, and his own personal history are never really developed or explained, we really don’t care who wins the war. We only care about John because he’s a well-developed character, though he’s stuck in a plot which makes him irrelevant.

John stands up for what he believes in, for those who are bullied and for those he loves. And he has the capacity to “truly” love, per his alien nature.

Unlike humans, he loves only once, and he loves unconditionally (interest-

ing comment about human nature, by the way). He cares about the girl he falls for, and you know he’ll go to any length to keep her safe from the weird scary aliens. And, most of all, he’s searching for a home and to find others like him. He embodies a struggle to belong, and does so powerfully.

However, this problem is solved in deus ex machina fashion when Number Six (Teresa Palmer), another alien from John’s planet, shows up.

She’s pretty kick-ass, although of

FOUR continued on page 6

THEATER

Sanchez answers life's big questions with Porque

By Kirsten Ihns Voices Besos y Lagrimas The search for God is a pretty big undertaking. In Porque No Comes, Lupe Sanchez single-handedly takes on the task. The play is a one-man semi-autobiographical comedy act written, performed, and produced

by Sanchez himself, though it is directed by Jonald Reyes and Oliver Aldape.

Overall, the performance was enjoyable and often quite funny.

However, Porque No Comes’s narrative struggles and doesn’t quite fit the purpose that Sanchez intended for it. No clear or credible point emerges, although it seems as though the entire show is trying very hard to make one. Sanchez’s clear talent for character sketch is the force that carries the show; its successes are many, but momentary and disorganized.

Self-described as a “semi-falsified autobiographical performance,” the piece begins with Sanchez’s birth into a Catholic Hispanic family and follows his development from infant to adult in Schaumberg, IL—a wealthy, mostly white suburb. The

play takes its title from Sanchez’ s mother’s highly amusing tic of saying that every misfortune happens “porque no comes,” or “because you don’t eat.”

The story tries to fit Sanchez’s life into the very traditional Christian narrative of disbelief, misfortune, and eventual conversion. At the same time, it attempts to address the racism Sanchez experienced as a casual occurrence throughout his life. In this the play fails; the highly stereotyped racist characters (e.g. a Confederate bandanna-sporting football team initially dislikes Sanchez because he is Hispanic) do not conclusively develop Sanchez’s character. In his own words, he “sells out” and accepts the friendship the team later extends him. The viewer understands the pain Sanchez feels because of racism, but the play never successfully links the experience of racism to a marked effect in his life.

Even more problematic is God, who figures very strangely into the play, given how it foregrounds the role of faith. God booms answers out of the overhead speakers when

called upon, yet speaks with portentous vagueness, finally handing out such strange and direct consolations such as “heaven is on Earth,” or “heaven is a place that you choose” (which turns out to be the ultimate message of the play).

PORQUE NO COMES Gorilla Tango Theatre Saturdays, through February 26

There are two significant “interviews” that Sanchez has with God. In the first appearance, it’s hard to tell whether God is to be satirized or serious. Sanchez’s body language and script cue the audience to note the ridiculous quality of the interview, yet Sanchez also seems very sincere in his pursuit of faith. In the second interview, when things have worsened significantly in Sanchez’s life (friends in car crashes, brain aneurysms), his acting takes a turn for the serious, and the viewer suddenly understands that the interviews, and God, are to be taken in earnest. After this point, the story

feels very forced and predictable.

Another problem for the play is the flow of time. Sanchez’s girlfriend going in for a wax takes a lagging six minutes in a one and a half-hour play, while Sanchez’s God-inspired leap to success goes at whirlwind speed: In literally 25 seconds he rattles off a list of accomplishments that sounds more like a résumé than a story.

Despite these unfortunate qualities, the play is not a failure. It is a piece of stage comedy whose greatest strengths have nothing to do with its rhetorical goals. It is often funny and surprising, and showcases a genuine and sparkling talent for concise characterization.

Sanchez’s ability to evoke place and person with a few gestures, an accent, and posture is much to be admired. From his depiction of his small-town Mexican grandmother’s ninja-like chicken-catching skills, to his family’s way of dealing with invasions of cousins (“Do I have to sleep in the oven again?”), the viewer leaves the play with a very clear, endearing, and funny portrait of a family, complete with all of its idiosyncrasies and problems.

Considering the state of the music industry, it’s hard to be a musician these days. Fledgling musicians have to promote, market, and advertise their shows by themselves. And at the end of the day, instead of getting paid to do a show at a music venue, they need to pay the venue. Three seasoned musicians named Michael Teach, Michael Narvaez, and Jacob Covington had this in mind when they founded Chicago Acoustic Underground (CAU), a hybrid Internet music show, record label, and booking agent.

“It was much easier to be a singer-songwriter back in the ’70s, when I was performing,” Teach said in his combination apartment/recording studio overlooking Armitage Avenue. “You would go to a venue in the afternoon and play for the owner. If he liked it, he would put it on that night. The beauty of it was, when you walked off stage, cash would be in your hand.”

Teach and his friends came up with the idea for CAU five years ago as a solution to the problems plaguing struggling artists and the music industry as a whole. The three decided to handpick the best original artists they could find at Open Mic nights throughout the city and feature them on podcasts, which they posted on the Internet on a homespun, bare-bones website.

“This was five years ago, too, so no one knew what in the hell a podcast was,” Teach reminisced.

But to their surprise, the site began to succeed. They began by producing one podcast per week and putting it up on the site for download. By six months, they had 1,000 hits per month. After four years, they had a million hits per month in 42 countries and were recording a podcast almost every day. They now have five artists signed to their record label and organize numerous live shows.

Starting as a small-scale organization, CAU is now larger, with a music division, production division, and publicity division. And everyone—down to the entertainment lawyer the organization consults—is a musician.

However, Teach stressed that the organization is still laid-back and friendly. He cited this as an advantage to the music industry’s bureaucracy, which is one reason it finds itself in trouble in the digital age.

“The music industry is in total chaos,” he said. CAU has an insider view of the pandemonium unfolding—many of their artists have gone on to sign with major labels, including Crystal Bowersox, a runner-up

UNDERGROUND continued on page 6

6

CHICAGO MAROON | VOICES | February 18, 2011

Chicago Underground aims to connect with artists on personal and professional level

Four's plot panders to genre clichés FOUR continued from page 5

UNDERGROUND continued from page 5 on season nine of American Idol who just signed with Sony.

“Sony has no idea what to do with the new paradigm,” Teach said, referring to the digitization of music and steep drops in CD sales.

“It’s really funny to hear Crystal tell stories about them. One division has no idea what the other is doing.”

CAU, on the other hand, is relatively small and tight-knit, making it easy for it to adjust quickly to new technologies and trends.

CAU’s record label, named CAUdog after Teach’s extremely sociable dog Buffy, produced 1,000 CDs of the first artist to sign with them, a band called Goodbye Home. When only half of them sold, the organization quickly adjusted its business model, producing only 200 CDs per album release and making the rest available for sale online only.

“We’re the small guys, so we’re adaptable,” Teach said. “For Sony to make the same

change would be impossible.”

Another thing a large record label can’t do is act as an advisor for fledgling artists, something CAU always strives to do. Teach and the CAU team listen to hundreds of artists and give them tips, advising them on what areas they need to improve and giving marketing and publicity advice.

“A lot of artists need promotional help,” explained Hannah Frank, the organization’s publicist. “They’ll be trying to do it themselves and they won’t know how, or they’ll hire some entertainment company for 3,000 dollars to give them a nationwide blitz of press which local artists really don’t need.”

The relationships CAU has forged with its artists have often crossed the boundary from professional partnerships to lifelong friendships.

“When I discovered Crystal Bowersox, she was literally singing for her supper on the Red Line,” Teach said. He believes by show-

ing this kindness towards the artists, the organization encourages them to stay in Chicago, keeping it a great city for music.

The organization also has plans to expand.

Teach hopes to purchase a building to both house the recording studio and serve as a place to broadcast streaming music shows on the Internet similar to the podcasts. The live audience for these shows will be by invitation only. They are also planning to start sponsoring CD release shows for artists.

So far, this hard work has paid off. The organization is set to make a profit for the first time in 2011.

It helps that everyone in CAU was once a struggling artist, Teach believes, putting them in a unique position to understand and help new musicians.

“Everyone knows about the pain and the Ramen noodles and the challenges,” Teach said.

course she’s skinny and impractically clothed, per Hollywood convention. She shoots and fights her way through the ending and saves John and his girl. Once she and John start working together, he is in perfect control of his powers, which only a few days ago had been only budding and uncontrollable.

In the end, it’s not clear what audience the film is targeting in this undeveloped mashup of genres. As a high school rom-com, it’s absolutely predictable, and the only redeeming feature is John’s character. As an alien invasion movie, it’s not scary or interesting. The film is really disappointing, because Alex Pettyfer is a talented actor. A few years ago he starred as a teen spy in the film Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker, which was an action movie with depth and character development. Pettyfer became his character, and the movie was perfect. After such perfection, it’s so disappointing to see his talent wasted on a movie with lots of special effects and CGI monsters but no depth or suspense or plot.

The Fun Corner.

"Time Schedules: The Musical" Across 1. Test out of 2400 5. They Might Be Giants’ “___ Actual Size” 9. Hebrew one?

14. Mil. addresses 15. A head 16. Sufjan’s instrument 17. Ballplayer who was 90% mental, and the other half physical 19. Wimp 20. ENST 12300 + ENGL 28811 (The Smiths, 1985) 22. “No frigging way!”

23. Dicey 27. Not bottled 30. Veinticuatro horas 31. Gmail folder I try to keep empty 35. Cat-eating alien 36. First name in fashion 37. HIST 29902 + ANTH 25325 (Terry Cashman, 1981) 41. Eye piece 42. Tennis touch 43. LP half 44. Bread for your saag paneer 45. Advanced course 48. Isaac of the Three Laws 50. The “5” in a guitar tab 55. PHIL 24715 + GNDR 29600 (Lady Antebellum, 2010) 58. “Want ___?”

61. Private place 62. Extremely outdated Sweethearts message 63. Biblical masturbator, or a multinational organization in Infinite Jest 64. Words before instant or uproar 65. School attended by 38-down 66. Mandatory: abbr.

67. Dream girls, slangily

Solution to today's puzzle

Down 1. “___ to your mother for me” (Mark Wahlberg, to animals) 2. “I’m ___ and didn’t know it” 3. Frat fashions 4. Words before bird or plane 5. Greets and seats 6. Injured 7. Sandy hue 8. ___-Pei (dog) 9. Sassy roll-call response 10. Dens 11. Stunning trio?

12. Sleepover needs 13. Big Spanish-language newspaper 18. “___ Blues” (Neil Simon play) 21. Springfield brews 24. Illinois’ Stevenson 25. Handle grounders 26. 52-down, on a par 3 28. Shul teacher 29. Near-Miss. state 31. Turner’s biography adored by crossword constructors 32. Writer Ephron, et al.

33. Putin’s pancakes 34. Greenlights 36. Delivery specialists, for short 38. See 65-across 39. ___ de guerre 40. Unrefined 45. Evening affair 46. Apple market?

47. Go up (as in Kingdom of Loathing) 49. Muse of memory 51. Smack again 52. Hole ___ 53. Heady director Christopher 54. Spiderman’s Stacy and others 56. Asgardian Avenger 57. Xeroxed publication 58. Org. with Bengals 59. Explosive director Michael 60. Without: abbr.

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7

CHICAGO MAROON | SPORTS | February 18, 2011

Inconsistentency has plagued Maroons all season

Complete team effort makes for dominant wins

M. BASKETBALL continued from back page

RESPECT continued from back page

points.

“We try not to get beat by the same thing twice.

Whatever our opponent excelled at the first time, we try and make sure they don’t do that again,” third-year guard Michael Sustarsic said. “A lot of our problem against Brandeis and NYU the first time was finishing plays around the basket, so if we do that then we’ll put ourselves in a good position to win.”

“We have to come out with energy and play hard against league opponents,” third-year Tom Williams noted. “Most every game we have been able to do this.”

It’s been a difficult season for the Maroons, with wins over elite teams and disappointing defeats.

“This season has been a bit of a roller coaster ride,” Adams stated. “We’ve shown that we can compete with the best teams in the country, but we haven’t been able to consistently put together strong efforts throughout the season.”

With only one graduating fourth-year the team hopes to develop further, both at the end of this season and into next season.

“This season hasn’t been as successful as we had hoped, but as a team we know what needs to get done over the summer for us to have a healthy and successful 2011–2012 season,” Williams conceded.

“This season comprised the most frustrating few months of my life. We beat good teams, lost to junk teams. Looking forward, I don’t really have an answer,” Sotos added, voicing the team’s frustration. “D–III coaches [can’t hold practice over the summer.] They’re not paying for us to go here.

You need self-motivated kids who will put the time in the off-season to get better. If guys improve this summer, we’ll be in great shape next year. If guys sit around and play video games all summer, we’ll get the same sub-par results. The level of basketball being played has to rise, otherwise nothing will change.” The Maroons will play Brandeis at 8 p.m. tomorrow and NYU at noon on Saturday.

sive. But ultimately, watching our women’s team play such fundamentally sound basketball is much more entertaining to fans who actually want to watch basketball, and not just a bunch of athletes running up and down the court. Our women’s team decimates opponents because every player understands her role on the court. When one player is having an off day, the next player steps up, and when it all comes together the finished product is great Friday night entertainment.

So what if the game starts at six? Grab an early dinner and make your way to Ratner. This team is worth it.

Hallman sets school 200 IM record SWIMMING continued from back page First-year Eric Hallman set a new school record in the 200 IM final Thursday afternoon, finishing in third place with a time of 1:52.99. Hallman will also compete in the 100- and 200-yard butterfly events.

Hallman and the rest of the men’s squad were sitting third in the seven-team pool before the final relay Thursday.

The women came out strong with a recordsetting performance in the 200-yard freestyle relay, clocking in at 1:37.32 and finishing third.

Continuing the record-breaking trend, Kathleen Taylor broke her own record in the next event, the 500-yard freestyle, and first-year Vivian Yuen followed her in the 200-yard IM by breaking the school record with a time that will likely send her to D-III nationals. Third-year Tara Levens finished fifth in the 50-yard freestyle, a swim that marked the fifth broken record of the day.

The women’s team finished the regular season with a 5–2 dual meet record and two first-place finishes in invitationals. The men ended up 2–5 in dual meets and also won both invitationals they hosted.

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IN QUOTES

SPORTS

“The last time I knew dogfighting was a sport was never.”

—White Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle, defending his prior statement that he wished Eagles quarterback Michael Vick had gotten hurt last season as retribution for dogfighting.

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

IN MOTION

JUDGMENT DAY Chicago one win away from share of UAA title, school record

The Maroons celebrate after their win over Wash U in January. A home win over Brandeis or NYU this weekend will clinch at least a share of the UAA championship for Chicago.

MATT BOGEN/MAROON

By Matt Luchins Sports Staff Victory this weekend would taste very sweet indeed for the Maroons, who are looking to win both their 16th and 17th games. With home victories over Brandeis and NYU this weekend, eighth-ranked women’s basketball can simultaneously set the school record for the longest winning streak and clinch sole possession of the UAA title.

The latter accomplishment is especially important, since next weekend the Maroons (19–3, 11–0

UAA) travel to ninth-ranked Wash U (18–4, 9–2), their perennial archrival and direct opponent for the conference title. Two wins this weekend would make that game somewhat inconsequential.

“There are no meaningless games, and that’s especially true when we play Wash U,” said head coach Aaron Roussell. “However, our focus now is on winning these home games. I have always wanted to go undefeated at home, but we have yet to do so.”

That goal seems very much in reach, as the Maroons have won

15 straight games, including away matches against this weekend’s opposition. The squad blew out Brandeis (11–11, 3–8), who they play tonight at 6 p.m., but only squeaked by NYU (12–10, 6–5), their opponents this Sunday at noon.

“NYU is the fastest team we have played against all year, so we struggled last game to stay in front of them,” third-year point guard Bryanne Halfhill said. “We are really good at getting a lot of points in transition, and so is NYU, so it was a very fast-paced game with both

teams getting up and down the court quickly.”

“Maggie Ely [the conference’s second-leading scorer] had one of the best games anyone has had against us in a long time,” Roussell added. “NYU played very well against us last time, and we were fortunate enough to also play well on that day and pull out a victory.”

While Brandeis is the weaker team, Roussell seemed to think that the lopsided score was a fluke.

“I think we happened to catch Brandeis on a bad night last time,” he said. “They were not hitting shots they normally do, and we had enough periods where we played well to put the game away early.

This time could be different. We expect to be in a real tough battle both games this weekend.”

But Chicago is primed for an exceptionally close game after taking down Rochester last weekend, 66–56.

Though the team has never trailed in seven of their victories this season, they were behind 30–28 heading into halftime against the Yellowjackets.

“We’re usually on top the whole game, but at Rochester we were trailing for the majority of the first half,” Halfhill said. “When we went into halftime we knew we had to get it together. We got into the locker room and just made it clear that we needed to start playing like a team. We’re lucky we get to play two halves!”

Clinch the UAA title and the accompanying automatic NCAA tournament bid, and the Maroons could be playing quite a few more halves.

the season, the Maroons will need to limit their turnovers against both teams.

The South Siders committed 30 total turnovers against both teams earlier in the season. Emory and Brandeis capitalized on Chicago’s careless ball control by scoring a combined 30 points off those mistakes.

Given their familiarity with both teams, Chicago will need to focus on limiting their own mistakes and winning battles in the low court. “We know everything these teams are going to do,” third-year Tommy Sotos said. “For me, evenly matched conference games always come down to the same thing: who can get stops late in the shot clock, and who controls the turnover and rebound battle.”

Interestingly, the Maroons won the rebound battle against both teams in their previous game. However, the Maroons shot a gloomy 32 percent against Brandeis, and only 30 percent against NYU. In those games, it was not so much about getting second chances as it was about converting them into

M. BASKETBALL continued on page 7

RESPECT continued on page 7

MEN’S BASKETBALL

Teams start UAAs with record showings

Conference rivals offer shot at redemption

Chicago started off the UAA competition with record-smashing success, and they hope to continue this trend through Saturday. The women broke school records in five of six events, and the men set two new records. Men’s and women’s swimming and diving compete this weekend for the UAA championship, hosted by Rochester at the Webster Aquatic Center outside of Rochester, NY. The women, ranked 10th in D—I I I women’s swimming by CollegeSwimming.com, have a shot at finishing in the top two in the UAA if they can fend off Carnegie Mellon (11th) and Wash U (12th). The men will vie for another top three finish this year among tough competitors. Wash U, Carnegie, and Emory are all ranked ahead of the men in the UAA. Emory has won on both the men’s and women’s sides since 1998, and are showing no signs of abdicating their titles this year.

The divers kicked things off

Wednesday evening with the men’s one-meter dive. Second—year Bobby Morales smashed his own school record of 375.13, set last year, securing sixth place with a final score of 435.50. Morales will compete for a title on Friday in the three-meter dive, an event in which he is seeded second.

Second—year Becky Schmidt is looking to repeat her two-title performance last year at UAAs. Schmidt was halfway to reaching her goal Thursday evening, winning the three-meter dive with a score of 477.70. She is seeded first in the one-meter dive on Saturday.

Senior Ed Wagner hopes he enjoys the same success he did last year as well, when he won the 200-yard breaststroke and placed second in the 100-yard breaststroke. “This year may be a little faster in those events, but I think that I have a pretty good shot at finishing in that range this year,” Wagner said.

“We are better prepared—physically, mentally—now than we have been in the past three years, so I know we will swim fast all weekend.”

SWIMMING continued on page 7

By Nick Foretek Sports Editor After two tough losses officially dashed the Maroons’ hopes for a conference title, Chicago will play two UAA opponents this weekend at home in Brandeis and NYU. Resting at 8–14, it has been a season of disappointments and struggles for a young team that had hoped, at one point, to capture the UAA crown.

The Maroons, alongside their weekend opponents, share a 5–6 conference record, and will be able to eclipse their rivals and gain sole possession of third place should they win out. They have lost on the road to both opponents, falling to Brandeis 59–53 and to NYU 62–47.

Hoping to remedy their past errors, assistant coach Drew Adams noted, “If we take care of the basketball and focus on bringing a strong effort defensively this weekend, we have a good chance of getting two wins against two talented teams.”

Hindered by sloppy play throughout

By Mahmoud Bahrani Sports Editor Women’s basketball has finally has gotten the respect it deserves—although not from the student body. After weeks of being ranked behind Wash U in the D3hoops.com national poll, the Maroons are now ranked seventh in the country. Yet around campus there seems to be a lack of acknowledgement that there is a powerhouse basketball team right here at Chicago. 775 people showed up to Beach Night to watch Chicago take on Rochester, drawn by the allure of free Hawaiian-style pizza. Just two weeks later, when the Maroons returned to Ratner riding a nine-game winning streak and ranked 13th in the country, only 345 people showed up. Pizza, and not the team, seemed to be the attraction.

The average attendance at a Chicago women’s basketball game is only 304, and that includes the legions of parents that drive in from places all over the Midwest. By contrast, the average attendance at a Wash U game is 444, almost 50 percent more than a Chicago game. The undergraduate populations are roughly the same.

That’s the same Wash U team that now sits two games behind Chicago with only three to go. A win in either game this weekend ensures Chicago the UAA title and earns them an automatic berth in the NCAA national tournament. A win in Friday’s game against Brandeis extends their winning streak to a remarkable 16 games, tying the longest winning streak in University history since 1996.

There is often a lot of joking around on campus about the quality of our sports teams. But this time around, we actually do have a team that has a legitimate shot at challenging for a national title, and not just this year—all five of our starters, as well as several key reserves, are returning next year.

Maybe we’re not at a D-I institution with ESPN coverage or a long heritage of basketball success, but a culture has to start somewhere, and what better time than now, with our team playing at a higher level than we’ve seen in years? Since head coach Aaron Roussell got here seven seasons ago, the Maroons have won 70 percent of their games. That sounds like a team worth getting behind.

One problem seems simply to be sexism. The men’s team is not playing anywhere close to the level of the women’s team. The men are 5—6 in the UAA and haven’t won more than two games in a row this year. And yet, attendance at men’s games is almost 25 percent higher than the attendance at women’s games.

Yes, men’s basketball is more explo-

SWIMMING AND DIVING

By Peter Visser Sports Staff

Giving respect where it’s due