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(10/05/10 4:27am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>"There were pictures.” “He was my stepfather.” “I don’t want to make this a big deal.” One by one, on the steps of the Monroe County Courthouse, they told their stories.The first Take Back the Night was a response. In 1975, microbiologist Susan Alexander Speeth was stabbed by a stranger late one night on the way to her Philadelphia home. The event was organized in her honor, and for the past 34 years, men and women have gathered together at marches, rallies and walks, sometimes through hostile territory, drawing attention to the survivors and the victims. For more than 10 years, the IU community has participated in Take Back the Night. Some years there are more people there than others, but every year there are stories.This year’s Take Back the Night was organized by the Women’s Student Association and sponsored by the IU Student Association. (Video of this year's Take Back the Night)In the wake of two sexual assaults following the IU-Michigan football game and several high profile incidents on campus throughout the past year, the campus conversation has had to change, said senior and IUSA Women’s Affairs Director Sarah Robinson. “I think it’s getting better,” Robinson said. “There hadn’t been enough conversation about it, especially not in proportion to how frequently it happens.” Robinson, who also works at the Middle Way House, an organization involved with Take Back the Night, said that the event shows campus-wide solidarity against sexual assault — an important part of preventing sexual assaults that frequently do not involve a stranger attacking a victim.Before marching to the courthouse, supporters gathered in Dunn Meadow. They mingled while singer-songwriter Tessa Wilhelm and acoustic duo Intentions to Break performed. When the music stopped, members of the Women’s Student Association introduced a series of speakers, ranging from President of Kappa Delta Laurence Cormier, assistant women’s basketball coach Amaka Agugua and Mimi.Mimi was a freshman at Butler University 30 years ago. She had rushed a sorority, and in between feeling anxious and excited about it, she had mustered the courage to ask an upperclassman to the fall hayride social. In their date before the party, he had made sexual advances toward her, and at every instance, Mimi said no. She wanted to party, she wanted to have fun, she did not want to have sex with him, she said. That date ended, and when it came time to go to the social, Mimi went with him. The party was fun. She drank, she enjoyed her friends ,and at the end of the night she went back to his dorm.There was someone else in the dorm, but it made no difference. Mimi remembered kissing him and then blacking out. When she woke up, he was on top of her, she was naked from the waste down and his friend was still in the room. Mimi fled back to her sorority. Unable to remember the combination lock, she slept outside curled in the fetal position. Before she left the stage, she told the audience that she started having conversations with her son that no always means no.A few hours and half a mile march later, a gaggle of 20-somethings told their own stories.Some were like Mimi, out partying with their friends only to wake up to something they imagined only happened to other people. Others were victimized by grandparents or cousins or doctors. All of them carried the experience with them. When the march ended at the courthouse steps, Middle Way House Crisis Intervention Coordinator Tina Cornetta spoke about the pervasiveness of domestic and sexual abuse and the things we can do to stop it. She sat down, and then there was silence. For a while, cars passed and candles lit, and there was still silence. Sam spoke first. He was a female to male transgender, and he’d been abused by his doctor. About 18 years later, he found out that his sister had experienced the same thing. Then another man stood up, and without telling the audience who he was, he talked about something he had only spoken to a few people about. He told them that no always means no, but sometimes no means not saying yes. Jessi wasn’t a victim herself. Her older sister had been assaulted in the seventh grade, and when her sister told Jessi how painful the experience had been, Jessi didn’t say anything. Jessi didn’t understand. Pushing through the tears and clearing her throat, Jessi told an audience of strangers that when someone you love comes to you like her sister had, you listen to them, you do what you can to not shut down.For about an hour, people like Sam, Jessi and Mimi told their stories. With monosyllabic names, or sometimes no name, they marched to the courthouse to talk to strangers about their experiences. On Indiana Avenue there were signs that read “Take Back the Night,” “No More Violence” and “Women Unite.” The speeches, the signs, the candle light vigil — it was all an effort to show support, to show solidarity. Sexual assault is an area plagued by under reporting and it’s something the organizations behind this year’s Take Back the Night deal with on a regular basis. In the end, the issue of sexual assault comes down to how each victim feels.“You can’t blame the victim for not reporting,” Jenna Graham, Women’s Student Association president, said a couple of days before the march. “One of the things that hinders a lot of people from reporting is that they know the person that attacked them.” Graham said that sexual assault isn’t something that can be stopped by blue lights, it is something that the community has to do. Bystanders have to step in, she said. As a campus, as a community, people have to stop it when they see it.
(08/05/10 7:21pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>After spending the last 12 years as the crown jewel of video game vaporware, Blizzard has finally unleashed “StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty,” the sequel to its groundbreaking classic “StarCraft.”Is it as revolutionary as its predecessor? No.Does that matter? Not really.“Wings of Liberty” is probably still the best game of the year.“Wings” has a better story line than the original, and this time we experience the story’s progression through actual character development instead of video conferencing sessions involving cartoon-y talking heads. Watching Sarah Kerrigan get over run with Zerg during a flashback was like a trailer for the “StarCraft” movie that’ll never happen — it was damn near cinematic.Since Blizzard decided to split “StarCraft II” into three games (the forthcoming “Heart of the Swarm” and “Legacy of the Void” ), “Wings of Liberty” focuses the single player entirely on the human perspective. If you like playing as the Terran, this is wonderful — but if you’ve spent the past decade honing your skills with one of the other two races, it’s annoying.While the game does an incredible job with the Terran campaign, the charm of the original was its offering three totally different playing styles. This time, players get one-third the play styles for about $20 more than the original cost at launch. A neat plot device does give you some time commanding the Protoss, but it’s a short experience.Along with the new single-player campaign, Blizzard has totally revamped the Battle.net multiplayer service by integrating it into just about everything that happens in the game. Players get matched by skill — and then get PWN’d by a kid who has been playing since launch. (“StarCraft” remains one of the hardest games to play casually.)Despite my complaints, I haven’t had this much fun with a strategy game in years.Just not quite as long as Blizzard took to make it.
(07/14/10 11:21pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>“If it bleeds, we can kill it.”If that statement instantly conjures up images of Arnie and a bunch of future politicians running around a South American jungle playing the most dangerous game with an alien, then you’re going to enjoy “Predators.”There’s been a lot of debate about whether Robert Rodriguez’s reboot lives up to the original. Some critics say it doesn’t have the “quiet suspense”; others say the dialogue is awful. Both critiques could be argued, but those are much tamer complaints than critics threw at the original “Predator,” which holds a rating of 36 on Metacritic.But critical analysis doesn’t really apply to these kinds of films.“Predators” is about taking the innovative idea that made the original so much fun — the toughest men in the world being hunted and killed one by one — and simply adding more. The film is ridiculously over-the-top: characters get decapitated and have their spines ripped out. If that’s the sort of thing you enjoy on a Saturday night, you’ll agree “Predators” is one of the best genre films in years.
(07/01/10 12:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>On Aug. 14, 1945, Edith Shain kissed a boy.He was a sailor, and the war was over. He pulled her aside and kissed her, and she closed her eyes. Photojournalist Alfred Eisenstaedt captured the moment for LIFE Magazine, creating one of the most iconic images of the 20th century.On June 20, Shain passed away. She wasn’t always the nurse in white, at least not for most of her life.In the commotion of V-J Day celebrations, Eisenstaedt didn’t get the names of either of his subjects, and for years there was debate about the identities of the two celebrators in the famous photo.That lasted until Shain came forward in 1979.When Eisenstaedt met her, he said he looked at her legs and knew she was the girl.Shain spent most her life out of the spotlight. She was a nurse, a teacher, a mother and a wife. She was never a celebrity — except when she was called upon to don a white dress and commemorate V-J Day in 2005. She said she was embarrassed by the photo, but not the kiss.“Someone grabbed me and kissed me, and I let him because he fought for his country,” Shain said. In 2008, she said the photo “says so many things — hope, love, peace and tomorrow. The end of the war was a wonderful experience, and that photo represents all those feelings.”Eisenstaedt has met several men claiming to be the sailor, and Shain even dated one of them, but she was never certain any of them were the man who kissed her on that joyous day.With Shain’s passing, we are forced to acknowledge that the Greatest Generation will soon be gone. It’s been 66 years since D-Day, and while those Normandy beaches are marked with the gravestones of the Allies who gave their lives there, we are losing the flesh-and-blood connection we had with one of the greatest stories in American history. As the children of the Baby Boomers, we are in a unique position. Our children will grow up in a world with almost no living members of the Greatest Generation. We will have to tell our children about our grandparents and all the things they struggled with.I imagine those stories will seem like ancient history.In recent years, we’ve immortalized the men and women who fought World War II in films and video games. Games like Medal of Honor and Call of Duty, films like Saving Private Ryan and miniseries like Band of Brothers — and more recently, the film Inglourious Basterds and HBO’s The Pacific — have built a modern narrative, perhaps our narrative, about that bloody conflict.It was the just war fought by average Americans against an evil and cruel enemy. It was a better time, and perhaps they were better people.I don’t think I’m alone in saying I know more about World War II from those films and video games than I ever learned from own grandfather. He died when I was seven. He had Alzheimer’s, and it was hard for me at my young age to reconcile the old man I knew with the young soldier my mother told me about.Now that I’m 20, close to the age he was when he served, I get it.He wasn’t a hero, at least not in the Hollywood sense. They were young men, they were typical and they loved America. And when they came home, America loved them.As a nation, we celebrated. All the pain, hatred and loss washed away with a kiss in a sea of people. It doesn’t matter who the couple was or what their story was, because on that day, it was everybody’s story.For each member of the Greatest Generation who passes on, we are losing our connection with that story.Someday, it will all just be history.
(06/23/10 9:33pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Warren Buffett wants to give 99 percent of his wealth before he dies. I’d like to do that, too.I grew up learning simultaneously that a man is entitled to what he earns and that a rich man is a good man only if he gives back to the community that helped make him rich.Having spent several weeks in the United Kingdom, a country that continues to support a monarchy with tax dollars, I think the idea of the wealthy philanthropist is special part of American culture.Last week, Fortune magazine ran a story about a plan by Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates to convince America’s billionaires to donate at least half of their wealth to charity during their life or upon their death.That was the starting point; ideally, they’d like to raise the pledge threshold even higher.In a political climate awash with doomsday scenarios about socialist politicians and crooked CEOs, it is good to finally see the elite doing something noble.Buffett and the Gateses are setting an example for their peers and continuing a long tradition of American philanthropy.The trio have organized several meetings of the richest men and women in America, and while it has taken several years (and several extravagant dinners — these are billionaires after all) to forge the pledge, those dinners were the start of what could be a new era in this country’s charitable history.Americans tend to suspect the worst from the wealthy, especially after the string of white-collar crimes that defined the first part of the 21st century, but Gates and Buffett are reminding us that rich people in America used to be a source of community support.At their best, rich Americans earned their money through ingenuity, genius or just plain old hard work, never through trust funds or inheritances, and they always used their wealth to benefit the community that helped make them rich. At least, that’s we say about ourselves before we get the money.Gates, Winfrey, Buffett — these are the names of self-made Americans, modern faces of the American Dream. It only makes sense that the people who earned their billions the hard way are the ones telling their affluent peers that they need to give away their money — preferably during their lives and definitely when they die.During this time of economic crisis, having an upper class that believes in the same values as the average person is incredibly important.I don’t know Buffett or the Gateses, but this pledge lets me know that, despite some obvious differences in our lifestyles, we believe in the same things.The idea of having an upper class we can count on could do a lot to ease the tensions that are strangling American discourse — and that’s perhaps a greater gift than even the billions they’ll donate at home and abroad.But the money works, too.E-mail: thommill@indiana.edu
(06/02/10 10:33pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>I am Straight Edge, and I am not better than you.In the last ten years, Straight Edge has been steadily increasing its mainstream visibility, and as it has done so, it has become increasingly apparent that it’s headed for an identity crisis.So, what is Straight Edge, exactly? A gang? A youth group? An effective measuring device?A person who claims Straight Edge agrees to abstain from drugs and alcohol as well as promiscuous sex. That’s basically the consensus as I see it.There are some people who are vegetarian or vegan and also Straight Edge. They’re sometimes called hardliners.There is no Straight Edge Society of America to make rules about what is or isn’t Straight Edge. There are just the basic tenets: stay clean and live a healthy life. That’s basically all Minor Threat singer Ian MacKaye could fit in his 30-second Straight Edge manifesto, aptly titled “Straight Edge.” It’s punk rock, not Shakespeare.Minor Threat is widely acknowledged as the band that invented Straight Edge, mostly by coining the phrase. Since then, Straight Edge has been a fixture in the American hardcore scene.Bands like Judge, Earth Crisis, Gorilla Biscuits, Slapshot, Casey Jones, Have Heart and Throwdown have all propelled Straight Edge to the forefront of American punk rock.Warped Tour bands like Fall Out Boy and AFI put the culture in the living rooms of Middle America.So, is it edgy? Or is it just traditional American values armed with loud guitars? The FBI has investigated Straight Edge gangs in Reno, Nev., and Boston, but Straight Edge has been a topic of positive media coverage as well — on Fox News Channel, of all places.In some ways, Straight Edge lends itself to extremism, but so does anything worth believing in, right?Whenever people realize I don’t drink, the question always comes up: So what made you decide not to drink? For those of us who abstain, this can be a dreaded conversation.You’re worried about coming off as judgmental, self-righteous or, most awful, lame.I’ve gotten pretty good at answering that question. I should be — I’ve been doing it for five or six years. And the fact that I attend one of the biggest party schools in the nation means I get asked that question pretty frequently.I’ve found the easiest and truest answer is this: I don’t drink because of a promise I made myself. When I was 14, a lot of my peers and I decided to be Edge. Most of them quit being Edge. It was the cool thing to do — and then it wasn’t. When they quit getting stupid haircuts, they quit being Edge. It was a fashion statement — empty and superficial.Those of us who claim Edge sincerely have to constantly battle the stereotypes. These include notions of the brute who beats up some kid at a show, the guy who draws X’s on his hands but smokes cigarettes and the horde of so-called “fashioncore” teenagers who ditch Edge the minute they get invited to drink in their friends’ basements.The more exposed we are, the higher the percentage of kids who treat Edge like a temporary commitment.I’ve never been that way. I suppose the real test is being offered drugs or alcohol and refusing. Every time I’m in a situation in which I might be tempted, I have the same thought: I could never deny who I am.You can grow up and believe everything is ironic, that everything is a sham, and you can ditch Straight Edge as you outgrow it. Or you can hold on to the idealism you had when you were a kid. It has served me well, and that’s what Edge has always been to me.It was a promise I made myself years ago — that I’d always believe in something and never let go of it. In life, there are only few things you can really hold onto forever: your family, your love and your integrity.I could have chosen to be celibate or to pray 50 times a day, but years ago I decided I would never drink, do drugs or have empty, meaningless sex — a pretty simple set of rules.I’ve got three X’s on my shoulder that will never disappear, and I’ve got a promise in my heart that I’ll never break.E-mail: thommill@indiana.edu
(04/28/10 7:19pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Circa Survive singer Anthony Green has always had a passion for the sadder side of things, but “Blue Sky Noise” is the closest thing to a rapture of spirit I’ve ever heard put to tape. Is he talking about a relationship with a girl, just the cliché emo guy heartbreak and crooning or assessing the crushing dalliances of modern life? I’m inclined to think Green is flowing about the latter. If “Juturna” was the cold solace of winter and “On Letting Go” was the summer’s saddest anthems, I’d say “Blue Sky Noise” is spring.The chord progressions are fresh, a major/minor exchange the band has never touched on. Green’s vocals are developing away from the eerie, child-like choir boy to, dare I say, a raspier inflection? Sure, the band is still rooted in its King Crimsonisms, but now it’s kicking ass as well. Green and Co. have totally captured the best parts of spring: changing your environment and moving on. Forget being heartbroken over the fact that things aren’t working and get out.
(12/11/09 5:37am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>As a 22-year-old mother of two, Jessica Scott is not your average freshman. After spending the years following her high school graduation working at a health care company and as an instructor at a dance studio, Scott said she decided to return to school. When she arrived on campus, she was instantly recruited by IU Essence, a hip-hop dance group.“I really had no choice,” Scott said. “They told me, ‘You’re doing this.’” The dance group was started by former IU student Taprena Augustine in 1995. Arbara Rogers, former IU Essence team captain and current Indianapolis Colts cheerleader, said Augustine believed there was a lack of opportunity for minority students on campus. Since the group’s formation, IU Essence has performed all over IU, and more recently on cable television. Without official sponsorship from the University, Essence has been managed and coached solely by students. Even without a staff sponsor, Essence has been able to perform for large audiences without any funding from the school. Last year, the group performed at BET’s “Spring Bling,” and tentatively in January, they will return to BET to perform on the daily music video countdown show, “106 & Park.” After finishing her degree at IU, Rogers said she decided to take her dance and academic career to the next level by auditioning to be an Indianapolis Colts cheerleader while attending graduate school at the University of Indianapolis. Rogers and her former Essence teammate Kimberly Tibbs have spent this year balancing their academic careers with their duties as members of the Colts cheerleading squad. “I started my dancing career with Essence, and I wouldn’t be here without Essence,” Tibbs said. Essence members said a goal for the group has been to increase minority awareness on campus.“At the beginning of the year, during Culture Fest, what do you see?” Rogers said. “You see IU Essence.” Although the team is primarily comprised of black students, Rogers said the group has made an effort to not exclude anyone.“We’ve always been diverse,” Rogers said. “It’s not like a racial thing while we’re at practice. We’re all one unit. We’re all IU Essence.” Rogers said that Essence received donations from various minority student groups on campus. But despite this support, members said they feel life in Bloomington is far from perfect.Scott said her impressions about race relations in Bloomington were formed when a white male spit in her face for allegedly cutting him in line at a night club. When she was thrown out of the club by a black female security guard for fighting back, she was even more shocked. Scott said the encounter made it difficult for her to feel welcome in Bloomington. “I asked her, ‘Now be real, if someone spit in your face, what would you do?’” Scott said. “She told me that’s how things are here.” For students like Scott, Essence is an opportunity to connect with other students in a comfortable environment. Because some former members have success as NFL cheerleaders and others have entered the workforce after attending IU, Essence has given its members a sense of community and an alumni network many of them said they felt was lacking from their experience at IU. Despite the problems she deals with at IU, Scott said she is optimistic about her goals. “Someday, I won’t be able dance, but I’d always like to be involved with it,” Scott said. “I’d like to do something that helps people.”
(12/12/08 4:34am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>For many at IU, the bursar is a place where students send their money and never see it again. Although students might feel somewhat disconnected from the Office of the Bursar, the disconnect certainly not by design. At its core, the bursar is the University’s student billing department. Students can pay their room and board, tuition, Health Center and other miscellaneous fees all online, in person or by mail. Executive Associate of the Bursar, Kimberley A. Kercheval, is one of the people in charge of helping students and parents get a grip on the bursar. “We spend a lot of time teaching students, parents and others about how the IU system works, instructing on e-billing and e-payment questions, where to find information, who to contact for assistance,” Kercheval said in an e-mail interview. The goal is to keep parents and students informed about what’s going on with their billing accounts. This even includes things students might not want parents to know about – like parking tickets, library fines and going over your printer quota, Kercheval said. Everything from donations to the IU Dance Marathon and even season tickets to IU athletic events are all billable to the bursar.Junior Kelley Guzman is one of the many IU students who uses the bursar to pay for her medical expenses. “Outside of tuition, I rarely use the bursar for anything other than trips to the Health Center,” Guzman said. The other place students can get medical aid charged to the bursar is the IU Optometry Clinic. At the clinic students can get their eyes checked as well as purchase prescription glasses. Juan Gamarra, like many other freshmen, finds the bursar fairly confusing.“Sometimes I don’t understand what the charges are, but it’s my first year, so I’ll get over it,” he said. It’s not only students who have problems with the bursar – their parents can also have difficulty with the system. “My mom has problems with late fees because she never knows when a payment is due, and I never seem to get an e-mail about it,” Guzman said.Alumnus Dan Corson-Knowles remembers a time when students could bill textbooks to their accounts. “You used to be able to bill books bought at the IU bookstore to the bursar, but it was anti-competitive so they were forced to stop letting students do that,” Corson-Knowles said. Gamarra also had some common desires for bursar improvement. “It would be a lot easier if you could just place your money in the bursar and have your meal points on there, as well as anything else you might need money for,” Gamarra said. “It would also be nice if the bursar’s Web site was easier to access.”Students must also be careful not to overspend and to pay attention to deadlines. “If bursar balances are not paid on time, students are subject to late payment fees, may be prohibited from enrolling in subsequent semesters and may be denied access to University records and services,” Kercheval said.