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(06/09/08 5:35pm)
For the denizens of Ernie Pyle Hall, last week marked the anniversary of two people’s deaths, two people whose sense of humanity and range of accomplishment transcended the reaches of IU and the country.\nOne was former Director of Student Media Dave Adams. The other was former Attorney General and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy.\nBut last week was last week. I should shift my focus to the here-and-now, allowing all that sad stuff to slide back into the past, where it belongs. So why do I feel it necessary to take another look back?\nMoreover, how can the tribute we end up giving them do justice to the good they have done, and continue to do, for us? \nI don’t mean to cast a pall over any of the memories or experiences one may have with these two celebrated lives. In fact, I embrace the argument that the intimate and influential stamp they’ve left on each and every person should never be forgotten.\nBut not a few people would make that same argument on behalf of former president Ronald Reagan, who passed away four years ago last Thursday, or the countless men who died preserving our freedoms as Americans on D-Day, 64 years ago last Friday. \nHow, then, should we go about justifying and legitimizing the tributes we’ve already given? How can we bring ourselves to label one person’s life “important,” and the other “unimportant”? Well, that’s a complicated question. \nA tribute should not only celebrate the person and their emotional impact on individual lives. It should also draw attention to the social forces and attitudes they fought, and the ideals and ideas we can learn from them. In this way we can do what they would’ve asked of us, at the bare minimum: to understand, create and take charge of our own destinies. \nIn turn, once we’ve passed on, each of us will deserve a tribute in our own right, having left the world in better shape than when we first came into it. \nWe shouldn’t settle for sentimental reminiscences; we should admire and further the legendary work begun by the people who are now sealed away in the past. To fall short of doing so would make their accomplishments, if not their visions and dreams, seem simplistic and inconsequential – confined to the dry, lifeless pages of history. \nWe would see their names in some newspaper blurb and perhaps feel a pinch of familiarity or fondness. But we wouldn’t come close to realizing what they did for us, what they left behind to render our lives easier, happier and less difficult than their own.\nNeedless to say, settling for fond memories is the exact opposite of what a tribute should do. Our generation continues to be charged with an ignorance of history, but we have unprecedented opportunities to shape the history started by the people we’ve loved and lost. \nRemembering them is just the beginning. And if you ask me, that’s a pretty fortunate way to start.
(06/08/08 4:00am)
Editorial Cartoon
(06/01/08 4:00am)
Editorial Cartoon
(05/26/08 6:47am)
The New York Times, that beacon of cutting-edge journalism and cultural exploration, surprised me this week with its scathing portrait of the late novelist Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond 007, who would have turned 100 this month.\nMost of the article was dedicated to contrasting the fearless, witty, seductive hero with his creator—a lecherous, shy, thin man who smoked and drank himself to death before James Bond came to represent the symbol of ultimate masculine dignity.\nBut there are enough of those dudes in our literary history to fill an encyclopedia of tasteless trivia. Ian Fleming stands apart from them because his series of novels gave rise to a legendary film franchise, beginning with Sir Sean Connery in the early 1960s, which eventually reshaped our understanding and appraisal of the modern movie star.
(05/21/08 4:00am)
Editorial Cartoon
(05/19/08 4:00am)
Editorial Cartoon
(05/14/08 4:00am)
Editorial Cartoon
(05/12/08 5:56pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The most memorable words of my freshman year came from my acting teacher: “Don’t think that you can impress me ... I’ve seen Helen Mirren, the greatest living actress in the world, perform in London from a front-row seat.” Aside from the assumption that all acting students are prone to vain delusions like these, my beef with this piece of “advice” concerns the pervasive American habit of upholding the ideas, opinions and qualities of someone with a British accent above those of the slack-jawed everyman (i.e., you and me). The veneration of Helen Mirren, however little her acting ability has to do with it, is understandable. English elocution is not only clearer and more resonant than the average American’s, it is more elegant and confident in its intonation – its sound evokes an appreciation for the language far less common on “our side of the pond.” Pop stars, sports heroes and our president are not exclusively at fault here.Upright, educated Britons can hardly be accused of taking their words for granted or abusing them to the extent we do, even when dishing out the slang that has endeared them to us. Laurence Olivier’s performance as Hamlet endures largely because the diction needed to speak and animate Shakespeare’s lines was a way of life for him. For Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, the stars of “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz,” the timing and placement of profanities peculiar to the British Isles comes just as naturally.While Helen Mirren’s displays on the stage and screen are by no means negligible, her fawning admirers (from the Academy Awards to my former professor) are not primarily concerned with talent, dramatic presence or even the sound of her voice. They are breathing new life into the stereotype that a national or regional dialect is synonymous with intelligence, sophistication, respectability – and sometimes superiority. Americans can be dumb. So can the Brits. Neither country has a monopoly on idiocy. The difference lies in our perceptions and presumptions. The perception that the British, on the whole, sound more articulate and more intelligent than we do has at least some truth to it. They are more likely to modulate their tone, pitch, and inflection for the sake of correctness. Their subtleties and proprieties of speech continue to influence us.Their actors also hail from an entirely different set of traditions than ours, which were redefined by Marlon Brando (who, in “A Streetcar Named Desire,” proved that great acting and speaking were two clearly different things).I ran into the presumption while interviewing to work at a local video store. The manager was interested to know I lived in Kent, England for a year. “Is that where all this is coming from?” she asked, gently mocking my frenetic hand gestures, a nervous tic. “Because everything over there, I hear, is more ... sophisticated ...” She then trailed off in the way most people do when they start to realize they don’t know what they’re talking about.
(05/11/08 8:52pm)
The most memorable words of my freshman year came from my acting teacher: “Don’t think that you can impress me ... I’ve seen Helen Mirren, the greatest living actress in the world, perform in London from a front-row seat.” \nAside from the assumption that all acting students are prone to vain delusions like these, my beef with this piece of “advice” concerns the pervasive American habit of upholding the ideas, opinions and qualities of someone with a British accent above those of the slack-jawed everyman (i.e., you and me). \nThe veneration of Helen Mirren, however little her acting ability has to do with it, is understandable. English elocution is not only clearer and more resonant than the average American’s, it is more elegant and confident in its intonation – its sound evokes an appreciation for the language far less common on “our side of the pond.” Pop stars, sports heroes and our president are not exclusively at fault here.\nUpright, educated Britons can hardly be accused of taking their words for granted or abusing them to the extent we do, even when dishing out the slang that has endeared them to us. Laurence Olivier’s performance as Hamlet endures largely because the diction needed to speak and animate Shakespeare’s lines was a way of life for him. For Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, the stars of “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz,” the timing and placement of profanities peculiar to the British Isles comes just as naturally.\nWhile Helen Mirren’s displays on the stage and screen are by no means negligible, her fawning admirers (from the Academy Awards to my former professor) are not primarily concerned with talent, dramatic presence or even the sound of her voice. They are breathing new life into the stereotype that a national or regional dialect is synonymous with intelligence, sophistication, respectability – and sometimes superiority. \nAmericans can be dumb. So can the Brits. Neither country has a monopoly on idiocy. The difference lies in our perceptions and presumptions. \nThe perception that the British, on the whole, sound more articulate and more intelligent than we do has at least some truth to it. They are more likely to modulate their tone, pitch, and inflection for the sake of correctness. Their subtleties and proprieties of speech continue to influence us.\nTheir actors also hail from an entirely different set of traditions than ours, which were redefined by Marlon Brando (who, in “A Streetcar Named Desire,” proved that great acting and speaking were two clearly different things).\nI ran into the presumption while interviewing to work at a local video store. The manager was interested to know I lived in Kent, England for a year. “Is that where all this is coming from?” she asked, gently mocking my frenetic hand gestures, a nervous tic. “Because everything over there, I hear, is more ... sophisticated ...” She then trailed off in the way most people do when they start to realize they don’t know what they’re talking about.
(05/11/08 4:00am)
Editorial Cartoon
(05/05/08 4:00am)
Editorial Cartoon
(05/02/08 4:00am)
The No. 133 recruit in the class of 2010 Victor Oladipo walks in on the ground level of Memorial Stadium Thursday.
(04/23/08 4:00am)
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(04/21/08 4:00am)
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(04/18/08 4:00am)
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(04/17/08 4:00am)
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(04/16/08 4:00am)
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(04/14/08 4:00am)
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(04/10/08 4:00am)
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(04/09/08 4:00am)
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