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(11/15/00 4:55am)
Tapiolan Honka was culled from the finest women's basketball players -- in the Helsinki area.\nThe Finnish team hasn't fared so well against American opponents.\nNow 0-7 on their tour, they've been blown out in all their exhibition matches this year, outscored by an average of 50 points. Some of the more lopsided games include a 119-44 loss to No. 1 Purdue and a 101-44 defeat at the hands of Kentucky.\nFor the Boilermakers, it was little more than a practice.\n"It gave us confidence and allowed us to get a feel for things," Purdue coach Kristy Curry said. "I was really pleased."\nThe Hoosiers fared almost as well, notching an 87-39 victory at Assembly Hall Friday.\nAnd although the victory was easy, IU didn't come out of the preseason game with empty hands. \nFrom the pregame warm-ups, it was apparent the Hoosiers would have no trouble dominating the paint. They towered over Tapiolan Honka, whose tallest player is center Nina Laaksonen at 6-foot-1. By contrast, the Hoosiers boast seven players at six feet or taller, including 6-foot-4 junior starting center Jill Chapman.\nOn that front, the game offered no surprises. The Hoosiers outrebounded Tapiolan Honka 51-25.\nChapman scored 13 points and pulling down 12 rebounds in only 19 minutes of play. Still, with Tapiolan Honka mounting an aggressive defense, she didn't take the game lightly, saying she worked as hard as she always does.\nAnd Chapman said she thinks lessons from the experience might come in handy later.\n"I think I'm more aggressive when I play against taller people," she said. "I need to do that all the time."\nOffensively, the Hoosiers played the height card to full advantage, frequently feeding the ball inside. Reserve forwards Tara Jones, a senior, and Allison Skapin, a sophomore, came up big in the second half, scoring six points and eight points respectively. Jones also grabbed six rebounds, as did backup sophomore center Erika Christenson.\nAfter a 10-point loss to the Reebok Lady All Stars to start out the year, it was all part of the game plan, she said. \n"Offensively, we took good shots," Bennett said. "We didn't do that last week."\nThe Hoosiers did improve their shooting percentage, hitting 37 shots in 69 attempts from the floor. Against the Lady All Stars, they only sunk 22 of 65 field goals, a meager nine out of 34 in the second half.\nIn that game, junior guard Heather Cassady had an off-night, making only one field goal in eight attempts. Against the Finnish squad, she recovered, scoring a game-high 14 points.\nBut Cassady and fellow guard Rainey Alting, a senior, focused their efforts more on moving around the ball from the top of the key against the Finnish team. At the end, Alting had tallied a game-high six assists.\nTheir numbers might seem like nothing to write home about. But unlike with the Lady All Stars, the statistics were spread fairly evenly across the field.\nBy the final buzzer, most of the women got in at least 10 minutes of playing time.\n"We got to play 13 players hard tonight," Bennett said. "Usually, 10 is very nice."\nAnd beyond better ball movement and shooting judgment, the Hoosiers came out of the preseason game better prepared to face a full-court press.\nAfter IU leaped out to a 12-0 lead, Tapiolan Honka turned on the pressure from baseline to baseline, forcing 17 turnovers in the first half. In one sequence midway through the half, the Hoosiers lost possession of the ball five times in two minutes before Cassady broke the streak by sinking a three-pointer.\n"We hadn't practiced for a full-court defense," Bennett said. "But it's something we have to address."\nAlso, Bennett said the win would raise morale.\n"We played hard for 40 minutes," she said. "Hopefully, this will build up some confidence"
(11/14/00 4:35am)
So it's all coming down to the Sunshine State. It's very troubling that a few scattered votes might actually determine the next leader of the free world. I have a simple solution, an easy way to avert that -- just sell Florida back to Spain, Bobby Bowden and all. One peninsula is one peninsula too many, as far as I'm concerned. \nLast Tuesday, I didn't vote in the presidential election -- and with good reason. So that all the civic activists wouldn't make me feel guilty with charges of apathy and involuntary manslaughter -- no wait, that's the federal court. Anyway, I drew up a list. Kind of like Martin Luther's 95 theses. Well not exactly.\nBut here I stand, I can do no other:\n1. Gore favors "eventually phasing out the internal combustion engine." This sounds like a fine idea, until you consider how many times you'd have to stop to pick up Duracells to repower your motor scooter. I'm at least somewhat conscious much of the time, and it hasn't escaped my attention that I'm not living in Venice.\n2. Bush declared "Jesus Day" in Texas. And all this time I thought Christmas and Easter were "Allah Day" and "Odin Day," respectively. My bad.\n3. Gore favors paying down the national debt. The idea behind this is to prevent aggravated inflation from leading to a future in which the Marlboro Mile is the national currency. Yet, when meeting with seniors and teachers' unions, he might as well be campaigning with Regis: "I might be a pathological liar, I might behave as though I'm animatronic, but I'll be damned if I can't buy your vote."\n4. Bush talks about how he's "not of Washington." Yep, he's certainly a Horatio Alger story, the very model of grit and drive. He's not even smart enough to be cleaning toilets for a living, but I'm sure he'd be governor of the second largest state in the union were his grandfather not a senator, and his father not head of the CIA, vice president and then president. \n5. Gore proposed a Constitutional Amendment to "ensure victims' rights." Well, since you're pandering and intent upon abusing a sacred document for political gain, why stop there? What about a Constitutional Amendment to ensure that "you, personally, have a nice day?"\n6. Bush winning would mark the triumph of the immature yet genial jock over the earnest intellectual striver. I could have sworn I graduated from high school at some point. \n7. It is well-established that Gore is a tree-hugger. I'm in the newspaper business. Let me think this over really carefully, and I'll get back to you.\n8. Signing death warrants like nobody's business, Bush has killed more people than John Wayne. Now, I'm a pretty lapsed Catholic, but I think I've got the "killing bad" concept down pat.\n9. "The only difference between the two major parties is the velocity with which their knees hit the floor when the special interests come knocking." Ralph Nader actually said that -- it almost became his campaign slogan. I'm sorry, but as a writer, there's no way I could ever support anyone who actually speaks like that. For the love of god, lock that man in a room with the collected works of Hemingway. \nTo his credit, Nader actually got in a pretty good crack the day after the election, when he was the only candidate who'd talk to the networks: "Al Gore cost me the election."\nProminent historical scholars agree that it's the first time he's ever evinced signs of human life. But still, it would be kind of hard to back a candidate who believes that Satan now has a stint editing The Wall Street Journal.
(11/13/00 3:51am)
The son of a well-off Parisian upholsterer, Moliere seemed destined either to go into his father's trade or embark on a prosperous legal career.\nBut he left all of that behind, abandoning the security of his bourgeois trappings.\nInstead, he decided the theater was for him.\nAfter joining the fledgling Illustre Theatre company as an actor at the age of 21, Moliere faced a lifetime of debt. Barely scraping by, he even ended up spending some time in prison because of loan defaultments. But he persisted, eventually gaining the patronage of Louis XIII.\nIn large part, Moliere was so driven through thick and thin because he had something to say. Through caricature, he launched full-on assaults on all forms of human foible. In plays like "The Imaginary Invalid," he drew out a vice to ridiculous proportions, allowing the audience to put it in due perspective.\nIn "The Misanthrope," his most famous work, Alceste embodies the sin of misanthropy, the haughty contemptuousness that leads one down a lonely path. The University Theatre troupe staged a highly polished production of the classic farce, which closed Saturday.\nDeploring the insincerity of social customs, Alceste insists on bluntly speaking his mind -- whatever the cost. This propensity gets him into trouble when the foppish Oronte asks him his opinion of a sonnet he wrote.\nAt first, Alceste pans the verse, dismissing it as too contrived and deliberately in keeping with the modern style. But after some heated exchange, he goes so far as to condemn it as trash.\nOronte sues Alceste because of it, and the matter is complicated because they are both among the numerous suitors to pursue the hand of the lovely widow Celimene. Coquettish through and through, Celimene leads them all on without remaining faithful to any.\nAlceste's friend Philinte tries to persuade him to exercise restraint and clam up even when he feels strongly about something. And knowing what Celimene is really like, he also attempts to sell Alceste on her more agreeable cousin Eliante.\nStubborn as a mule, Alceste will hear nothing of it. Even after Celimene's dishonesty has been proven, he can't wean himself from her. But when she won't sequester herself off in the countryside with him, he retreats to lick his wounds.\nOn one hand, he hasn't grown at all. For all of Philinte's reasoning, he can only fall on the sword of principle. But on the other hand, one can only agree that he's correct to have reservations about her faithfulness if she "can't see the whole world in his eyes."\nTranslated by Richard Wilbur, the language is vibrant and lively.\nAlthough it's not easy delivering lines written entirely in rhymed couplets, the cast pulled it off well.\nThe performances were solid all-around, grounded in the farcical spirit of the work. Graduate student Geoff Wilson was especially good in the title role, making Alceste out to be the buffoon he is, for all his high-minded cynicism and contempt.\nLikewise, Kelly Ann Ford was excellent as Celimene, in her Master of Fine Arts thesis role. She lent the role depth and subtlety. After her back-biting came to light, she looked expectantly into Alceste's eyes. While it had been hard to read her character for most of the evening, she revealed all with a glance.\nAnd that's no small feat.
(11/10/00 4:12am)
Shakespeare is taught in 300-level acting, whereas the work of the French playwright Moliere is reserved for the 500-level courses.\nIt's not just the stilted language.\nMoliere wrote entirely in rhymed couplets, which makes it harder to deliver the lines.\nSuch is the problem of the University Theatre troupe, which is putting on "The Misanthrope" \nA comic satire of 17th century French court life, "The Misanthrope" slings arrows at both the artificiality of manners and intolerance for one's fellow man.\n"Moliere's genius is unsurpassed in his comedies of character and manners," said Robert Cohen, a professor at the University of California who is one of the many to translate the play. "It's about the excess and artificiality that he saw in everything."\nWritten for the pleasure of the court of Louis XIV, the play centers on Alceste, a blunt critic of the hypocrisies and insincerities of polite society. Given to speaking his mind, he offends, all the while remaining blind to his own egotism. Although maladjusted and obsessed with the faults of mankind, Alceste raises many valid points about the pretensions of gossips and fops.\n"In many ways, 'The Misanthrope' still resonates," said Christine Woodworth, media liason for the Department of Theatre and Drama. "It's been readapted a number of times, in contemporary settings, like Hollywood and New York City."\nAlceste's friend, Philinte, attempts to reason with him, trying to persuade him that there is often merit in saying one thing and meaning another. But he'll have nothing of it.\nLike all of Moliere's characters, Alceste is impervious to good sense. He's human folly writ large.\nHis tragic flaw is that he's hopelessly in love with Celimene, a coveted widow besieged by several foppish suitors. She leads Alceste along, but won't open herself up to him.\nHer role is ambiguous -- it can't be deciphered whether she's simply a coquette or in love with Alceste, although driven away by his moral snobbishness.\n"Celimene is an enigma," said graduate student Kelly Ann Ford, who plays the character as her Master of Fine Arts thesis role. "Both the characters around her as well as the audience cannot always tell whether she is telling the truth or not. Deciding what makes Celimene tick, is largely left up to the actress' imagination."\nFor Ford, preparation for the role was more than simple rehearsal. She had to research a written paper and an oral justification of her conception of the role.\n"Because I knew in advance that I would be performing this role, I had the unusual luxury of being able to thoroughly investigate the time period," she said.\nFaithful to the text, the production is set and costumed in period.\n"The actors have been adopting a style that they usually don't get the opportunity to use," she said. "They've really dived into the period," Woodworth said\n"The Misanthrope" plays through Saturday. Curtain time for all shows is 8 p.m. Tickets are $11.50 for general admission, $10.50 for students and seniors, and are available at the IU Auditorium Box Office and all Ticketmaster locations. Parking is available in the Jordan Avenue Parking Garage located east of the University Theatre, or in the Main Library parking lot, located north of the theatre. Because of construction, allow plenty of time to find parking.
(11/09/00 4:23am)
EVANSVILLE -- Brian Kemp, who works at an Evansville Shell station, woke up early Tuesday morning.\nHe cast his vote promptly at 6 a.m., when the polls opened.\nHe felt he had a personal stake in unseating the incumbent in the eighth district Congressional race. \n"John Hostettler's a complete hypocrite," he said. "I really hate that guy. He says he's pro-life, yet he always votes against the minimum wage. A single mother can't raise a child on minimum wage."\nBut Kemp didn't get his wish.\nThe three-term Republican Congressman coasted to an easy victory over Democratic challenger Dr. Paul Perry. After campaigning hard for 15 months and spending more than a million dollars, Perry only managed to carry Democratic bastions like Monroe County and Vanderburgh County, where Kemp resides.\nBut Hostettler won big almost everywhere else, widening his lead in more conservative counties like Orange and Lawrence. He held his own in swing counties and even won Pike, which would have been a cornerstone of a Perry victory. \nFor the first time, Hostettler won big. But the his six-point margin of victory didn't mean that anything has changed with the "Bloody Eighth," a battleground district notorious for being hotly contested. The campaign was as nasty and vicious as ever. \nAll throughout, both sides accused each other of lying and illegally funnelling political action committee funds into their respective war chests, among other things. During an afternoon campaign stop at a polling site, Perry bristled at negative ads run by the Hostettler camp.\n"He's a master of distortion," said Perry, who ran his campaign on health care issues like prescription drug coverage. "He portrayed me as in favor of a Canadian-style system, while all I've wanted is patients and doctors back at the center of medical decisions, instead of the HMOs. \n"He's an incumbent who can't run on a record of legislative accomplishment."\nVictorious by the widest margin since he first unseated six-term Democrat Frank McCloskey in 1994, Hostettler had no bad blood for his opponent.\n"When he called me to concede defeat, he was more than gracious," he said during his acceptance speech at 4-H Fairgrounds in Vanderburgh County. "He's been more than gracious this whole campaign. I wish the best for him and his family."\nBut Hostettler's supporters were not nearly as charitable. Watching Perry's concession speech on television, they jeered and made sport of his campaign slogan: "It's time to put a doctor in the House." Suggestions were whispered that he'd "go back to fleecing patients" upon returning to his private practice in Newburgh.\n"He tried to criticize the Congressman's voting record," said Stan Whipkey, Vanderburgh County Coordinator of the Hostettler campaign. "He flat-out lied about it because he was just a one-issue candidate. The people of the eighth District were smart enough to see through that."\nBill Gillenwater, finance chair of the Posey County Republicans, took some of the mud-slinging personally. Local Democrats accused his commission of illegally pouring political action committee money into the Hostettler campaign.\n"It's simply not what happened," he said. "I don't understand why candidates can't substantively debate what's better for the taxpayers of this district. I don't understand why they have to distort the truth"
(11/07/00 5:50am)
Third-party presidential candidates often rail against their lack of ballot access and media exposure.\nBut they're not the only ones fed up with the system.\nAnd they don't have the worst of it.\nAsk Scott C. Palmer.\nThe Wabash, Ind., resident is one of the hundreds of independent write-in candidates to embark on a quixotic quest for that prized piece of real estate: 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.\nWhile the number of those who register with Federal Election Commission hovers steadily around 400, few have organized campaigns. They don't hold fund-raisers or buy billboards and air time. They don't have legions of volunteers canvassing neighborhoods to get out the vote. Instead, they rely on Web sites, Internet newsgroups and mass e-mail lists to spread the word. \nStill, they're serious enough about it to go through all of the formal procedures. A few have even managed to get ballot access in their home states. \nFor instance, Tennesseans will step into the voting booth with the choice of Randall A. Venson, a liberal political activist and radio talk show host. While he leans toward Green Party candidate Ralph Nader, Venson told The Nashville Tennessean that Nader's "brand of progressivism is not ethnically diverse enough." Though he has a cell phone and an aide or two, he realizes he can't possibly win -- he just hopes to "wake people up." \nThe people of Utah can vote for Louie J. Youngkeit, an eccentric conspiracy theorist who claims on his Web site to be the "heir apparent of the (late aerospace billionaire) Howard Hughes' estate." When he ran for president as a write-in candidate in 1996, he had 19 votes.\nWhat all of the write-in candidates have in common is disillusionment with the system. \nPalmer is no exception. A write-in candidate for the first time, Palmer is convinced that the media conspires to maintain the status quo of a "major party duopoly."\n"I talked to a Secret Service agent in Indianapolis, and he told me that 384 people ran for president in 1996," he said. "I was confused. All of the television stations were only talking about Bill Clinton, Bob Dole and Ross Perot."\nWhile he was troubled at the news, Palmer still had faith in the political establishment. \n"It could have been that they weren't trying," he said. "So I decided to run for president myself and see if all these people just weren't trying or if the media deliberately excluded them."\nTrying to launch a campaign for the highest office in the land, the novice politician came across a roadblock.\n"I filed my statement of candidacy with the FEC," he said. "Then I reported it to the television stations. The television stations told me that I wasn't newsworthy. Running for president, and I'm not newsworthy."\nIt was then that Palmer came to a realization.\n"I knew then that there's a concerted effort by the television stations, the Republicans and Democrats, to lie to the people about presidential candidates," he said. "If the stations know all these citizens are running for president, and they tell their viewers that only Republicans and Democrats are presidential candidates, then they're being deceptive."\nHe began to put things in perspective.\n"The Republicans and Democrats take money from the lobbyists, lobbyists for the corporations that own all the television stations," he said. "The corporations donate money to ensure legislation in return for excluding all the candidates."\nThough he considers himself a "fairly average guy," Palmer doesn't see how the country can be adequately represented by only two parties.\n"We live in a diverse country, made up of a wide range of people," he said. "You can't vote on what the parties believe -- you have to vote on what you believe. Democracy's supposed to be about the people, not the parties." \nAnd so, Palmer could only conclude the system was unfair, opposed to the exercise of one's constitutional rights. \n"I don't have $20 million to spend on the television or bumpers stickers and yard signs," he said. "But I read the Constitution. It doesn't say that you had to have those things in order to run. It only says that you must be 35 and born in the United States"
(11/06/00 6:18pm)
He had no background in politics.
He was just a performance engineer at the Warwick Power Plant.
But John Hostettler decided to run for Congress, making a bid to unseat Democrat Frank McCloskey.
(11/06/00 4:00pm)
David Holland has been around.\nThe 53-year-old Grammy-winning bassist has performed with such legends as Thelonius Monk and Stan Getz. For years, he accompanied Miles Davis, collaborating on 14 of his albums.\nHe's bringing his quintet to the Buskirk-Chumley Theatre, 114 E. Kirkwood Ave., for a show tonight at 8:30 p.m. Local jazz trumpeter and composer Kyle Quass opens an hour earlier. \n"Almost everyone who played with Miles went on to establish themselves as a frontman," said music professor David Miller, also an active jazz musician. "And David Holland is no exception. He's shown a high level of artistry and distinguished himself."\nBorn in Wolverhampton, England, Holland saw music in his stars from an early age. At the age of 4, he started with the ukele, moving on to the guitar at 10 and then to the bass guitar at age 13. While he briefly took piano lessons, he was essentially self-taught, picking up the popular music of the day from song books and the radio. \nDuring his adolescence, Holland started playing gigs with local bands. Upon first hearing Ray Brown, he took whole-heartedly to the bass and immersed himself in jazz. \n"(Ray Brown's) approach to the instrument was the thing that inspired me initially," he said in a recent interview with Jazz Weekly. "He related to each soloist in slightly different ways and played for their style of playing."\nHolland moved to London at 18 to study at the renowned Guildhall School of Music and Drama.\nBut he never graduated. Holland was playing a show at a London jazz club, and Myles Davis happened to be sitting in the audience. Davis was so impressed by the young bassist that he asked him to join his band. \nSoon after, Holland found himself in New York City, in the recording studio with Davis for such immortal classics as Bitches Brew and In a Silent Way. \n"It was a great period," he said. "I was young. It was quite a daunting prospect to play with him."\nAfter a frenetic three years with the towering legend, Holland spent the next three decades serving as sideman for several musicians. Highly in demand, he focused his efforts mainly on rythym -- the melodic anchor of complement and counterpoint. Down the road though, his desire to spread his wings got the better of him. He put together the Dave Holland Quartet, which has released the critically acclaimed albums Prime Directive and Points of View.\nSigned by the German label E.C.M., Holland has been able to realize his free-thinking musical vision, which bridges the gap between from and the inspired chaos of improvisation.\n"One of the things about writing for jazz musicians is is that we have to leave it very open-ended in certain ways so that ideas brought in during rehearsals, and performances have room to be included," he said. "So a piece may start off with one particular idea, but I think it is very important for the composer to be open-minded too and to allow the music to grow in different ways."\nAs a band leader, Holland has received his share of laurels, including a 2000 Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance and Best Acoustic Bassist in Down Beat's Critics Poll for the past two years.\nThe show is part of the Jazz from Bloomington concert series, which has brought national acts like John Scofield and Christian McBride.\n"We're working on promoting original jazz and giving the musicians a hot place to play in Bloomington," said Monika Herzig, president of the group.\nTickets are $16 for general admission, $14 for students and seniors. They can be purchased at the Sunrise Box Office at (812) 323-3020.
(11/03/00 2:45pm)
Sleep deprivation -- an affliction that costs the nation as much as $100 billion annually, has been linked to 100,000 auto accidents a year. The crippling fatigue it brings is so much more than statistics. But a college student, aggrieved over the loss of a friend, began a legacy of vigil that makes insomnia honorable for one weekend a year.\nA cavern of blindness\nJill Stewart saw it unfold: Kokomo rejected Ryan White.\nThe small town in central Indiana reacted only with fear and hostility. People shunned him and his family, on the street, at church. A bullet was even fired into his house.\nIt was the 1980s. Few people were informed about AIDS at the time. The media staged a factual blackout, spreading only horror stories and urban legends.\nConcerned parents didn't want Ryan in the same classroom as their children. It was assumed that casual contact was a form of transmission. School officials panicked and kicked him out. \nThough in the throes of the fatal immunodeficiency virus, he insisted on going to school. It went to court, and he won. \nRyan White died at the age of 19, back in 1990. He was a hemophiliac infected with HIV through a blood transfer. His story captivated the nation, and it led to sweeping change.\nThe legacy\nFor the first time, the media portrayed AIDS victims in a positive light, instead of sinners reaping the whirlwind. Congress passed the Ryan White CARE Act to provide financial assistance for families and communities coping with the rages of the AIDS epidemic.\nHis death also left a lasting mark on the Bloomington campus.\nA few days after Ryan died, his friend Jill Stewart, an IU student, sat in the office of student adviser Jeff Jones. They discussed how IU students could carry on White's name.\nJones mentioned a 48-hour dance marathon at Penn State which had received top student event honors the year before. \nAnd so, Stewart and about a dozen other IU student leaders chose to organize the IU Dance Marathon in February 1991, with Jones as their advisor. \nPouring money into the freshly christened Ryan White Infectious Disease Center at the Riley Children's Hospital in Indianapolis, the Dance Marathon is now nearly a decade strong.\nFor 36 consecutive hours, students dance and occupy themselves with games and competitions. It's become a calendar event, a staple of the fall. Raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for sick children, it's the third largest collegiate philanthropy event in the country.\nBleary eyes\nWhile being crammed into the Wildermuth Intramural Center with hundreds of people might not be a common experience, going drastic lengths without sleep is. Now slowly infiltrating corporate America through the gung-ho ethos of Silicon Valley, it's been core curriculum on campuses nationwide from time immemorial. It's as pure college as pizza delivery or a keg party.\nWith an upcoming exam or project, few students flinch at the prospect of pulling an all-nighter. Or putting off sleep for a few hours. And maybe then another few hours, then sleeping through the class one stayed up to do the reading for. \nAt one time or another, everyone has stumbled wearily into the restroom at four in the morning, splashed water on one's face and groggily glanced at a heavy set of eyes, disheveled hair and a sheen of grease streaked across the forehead.\nEveryone has then slowly trudged back to a stack of books and scattered papers, tempted to crawl under the warm, inviting covers. Or flip on the television and lie down, telling oneself all the while that it's just a moment of well-deserved rest. \nBut, however much neglected, sleep is essential to good health, like a high-protein diet.\nIt's not merely a "time out" from the daily routine -- it's a period of rejuvenation for body and mind. Sleep problems often lead to a lack of productivity or enthusiasm, and an inability to handle stress. \nAccording to a survey conducted by the National Sleep Foundation, respondents who admitted to not getting enough sleep reported difficulty concentrating, completing regular chores and dealing with minor irritations. Sleeplessness has adverse affects on learning, memory and logical reasoning.\nStill, the foundation reports that more and more college students are spending less time sleeping. \nIt's not a matter of insomnia, though that's how it's usually referred to in conversation.\nInsomnia is a chronic psychological problem, rooted in an inability to sleep. It's tied to many other mental disorders, like depression and free-floating anxiety.\nKeeping themselves awake with stimulants varying from coffee to television, most students are prone to simple sleep deprivation. Cutting back on this is a simple matter of better scheduling, says Anne Reese, director of the Health and Wellness Education Center. \n"(Students) try to cram too much into a day," she says. "At night, entertainment and activities keep us awake."\nBut Reese concedes that the life of students doesn't lend itself to well-restedness. Like debt, sleep deprivation just adds up over time.\n"Experts always tell you to go to sleep at the same time each evening," she says. "But the whole schedule of students makes this very difficult to do."\nAs much as the work seems to pile up, spilling over the boundaries of routine, there's a price to be paid for all those late evenings -- the price of one's sanity.
(11/03/00 7:26am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>"Shhh, it's a dead body in my trunk. Wanna see it? F**k around and you'll be it." That's right, Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope are back -- back and lamer than ever.
The shock-rock rap duo Insane Clown Posse just released its latest album, Bizzar, which fails artistically on a number of levels. Poor spelling is the least of ICP's woes.
(11/03/00 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>"Shhh, it's a dead body in my trunk. Wanna see it? F**k around and you'll be it." That's right, Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope are back -- back and lamer than ever.
The shock-rock rap duo Insane Clown Posse just released its latest album, Bizzar, which fails artistically on a number of levels. Poor spelling is the least of ICP's woes.
(11/03/00 5:00am)
Sleep deprivation -- an affliction that costs the nation as much as $100 billion annually, has been linked to 100,000 auto accidents a year. The crippling fatigue it brings is so much more than statistics. But a college student, aggrieved over the loss of a friend, began a legacy of vigil that makes insomnia honorable for one weekend a year.\nA cavern of blindness\nJill Stewart saw it unfold: Kokomo rejected Ryan White.\nThe small town in central Indiana reacted only with fear and hostility. People shunned him and his family, on the street, at church. A bullet was even fired into his house.\nIt was the 1980s. Few people were informed about AIDS at the time. The media staged a factual blackout, spreading only horror stories and urban legends.\nConcerned parents didn't want Ryan in the same classroom as their children. It was assumed that casual contact was a form of transmission. School officials panicked and kicked him out. \nThough in the throes of the fatal immunodeficiency virus, he insisted on going to school. It went to court, and he won. \nRyan White died at the age of 19, back in 1990. He was a hemophiliac infected with HIV through a blood transfer. His story captivated the nation, and it led to sweeping change.\nThe legacy\nFor the first time, the media portrayed AIDS victims in a positive light, instead of sinners reaping the whirlwind. Congress passed the Ryan White CARE Act to provide financial assistance for families and communities coping with the rages of the AIDS epidemic.\nHis death also left a lasting mark on the Bloomington campus.\nA few days after Ryan died, his friend Jill Stewart, an IU student, sat in the office of student adviser Jeff Jones. They discussed how IU students could carry on White's name.\nJones mentioned a 48-hour dance marathon at Penn State which had received top student event honors the year before. \nAnd so, Stewart and about a dozen other IU student leaders chose to organize the IU Dance Marathon in February 1991, with Jones as their advisor. \nPouring money into the freshly christened Ryan White Infectious Disease Center at the Riley Children's Hospital in Indianapolis, the Dance Marathon is now nearly a decade strong.\nFor 36 consecutive hours, students dance and occupy themselves with games and competitions. It's become a calendar event, a staple of the fall. Raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for sick children, it's the third largest collegiate philanthropy event in the country.\nBleary eyes\nWhile being crammed into the Wildermuth Intramural Center with hundreds of people might not be a common experience, going drastic lengths without sleep is. Now slowly infiltrating corporate America through the gung-ho ethos of Silicon Valley, it's been core curriculum on campuses nationwide from time immemorial. It's as pure college as pizza delivery or a keg party.\nWith an upcoming exam or project, few students flinch at the prospect of pulling an all-nighter. Or putting off sleep for a few hours. And maybe then another few hours, then sleeping through the class one stayed up to do the reading for. \nAt one time or another, everyone has stumbled wearily into the restroom at four in the morning, splashed water on one's face and groggily glanced at a heavy set of eyes, disheveled hair and a sheen of grease streaked across the forehead.\nEveryone has then slowly trudged back to a stack of books and scattered papers, tempted to crawl under the warm, inviting covers. Or flip on the television and lie down, telling oneself all the while that it's just a moment of well-deserved rest. \nBut, however much neglected, sleep is essential to good health, like a high-protein diet.\nIt's not merely a "time out" from the daily routine -- it's a period of rejuvenation for body and mind. Sleep problems often lead to a lack of productivity or enthusiasm, and an inability to handle stress. \nAccording to a survey conducted by the National Sleep Foundation, respondents who admitted to not getting enough sleep reported difficulty concentrating, completing regular chores and dealing with minor irritations. Sleeplessness has adverse affects on learning, memory and logical reasoning.\nStill, the foundation reports that more and more college students are spending less time sleeping. \nIt's not a matter of insomnia, though that's how it's usually referred to in conversation.\nInsomnia is a chronic psychological problem, rooted in an inability to sleep. It's tied to many other mental disorders, like depression and free-floating anxiety.\nKeeping themselves awake with stimulants varying from coffee to television, most students are prone to simple sleep deprivation. Cutting back on this is a simple matter of better scheduling, says Anne Reese, director of the Health and Wellness Education Center. \n"(Students) try to cram too much into a day," she says. "At night, entertainment and activities keep us awake."\nBut Reese concedes that the life of students doesn't lend itself to well-restedness. Like debt, sleep deprivation just adds up over time.\n"Experts always tell you to go to sleep at the same time each evening," she says. "But the whole schedule of students makes this very difficult to do."\nAs much as the work seems to pile up, spilling over the boundaries of routine, there's a price to be paid for all those late evenings -- the price of one's sanity.
(11/02/00 4:00am)
He had been passed over twice before.\nPassed over twice and arguably cheated on the last occasion. \nBut the moment of truth again loomed, casting its daunting shadow. His stomach was tied in knots. \nHe just had to get out of the office, away from his colleagues, their expectant looks and good-natured well-wishing. He had finished his work for the day, a cartoon depicting two college students passing a horde of sweatshop protesters. \n"My econ prof says exploiting labor is what made America great," reads the captioned dialogue.\nSo he headed off to the local health club and went for a swim. He didn't need the stress. He took a few laps. He tried to relax, but he just couldn't get it off his mind. \nSo he dried himself off with a towel and went to the lobby, looking for a pay phone.\nAs soon as the other line picked up, he knew.\nHe knew.\nHis eyes welled up. He was afraid he would burst out in tears.\nThe cheering and champagne-fueled merriment nearly drowned out the voice on the other side.\nBloomington native Joel Pett had earned journalism's highest honor.\nA Pulitzer Prize. In Pett's case, for editorial cartooning. \nFinally. After all the near misses. The crown of glory. The loftiest form of recognition from one's peers. The proverbial first line of the obituary. The hope that lurks in the back of the mind of any bright-eyed and bushy-tailed student who's ever set foot in the J-School. But Pett didn't take that route. It just wasn't for him.\nAlthough his father was a professor at IU, he dropped out of school soon after he enrolled.\n"It was too much work," he said. "And I could never decide on a major."\nStill, Pett always had a pretty good idea of what he wanted to do with his life.\nWhen he was in grade school, his father took the family to Nigeria to head up a fledgling education program. But they soon returned to Bloomington, to the cozy confines of academia. His parents wouldn't subscribe to the Indianapolis Star, deeming it too conservative. So they turned to The Courier-Journal (Louisville).\nOn many a lazy Sunday afternoon, Pett would leaf through it. And that's how he first became acquainted with Hugh Haynie, the Courier-Journal's cantankerous editorial cartoonist circa the 1960s. \n"That's when I fell in love," he said. "I thought it was so cool how he mocked Nixon, how he dogged on the Vietnam war."\nAnd so, Pett started out doodling in notebooks, trying to imitate Haynie.\n"It didn't take me long to realize I couldn't do that," he said. "Haynie had a lot of talent, and I just didn't. But then I saw the cartoons in The New Yorker. They always had something to say, some point to make. But the drawing was scribbly chickenscratch.\n"I saw that and I knew I could teach myself to do much worse."\nJoking aside, Pett doesn't put much stock in fine draftsmanship.\n"It's all about the visual gimmicks," he said. "With Nixon you just needed the unibrow and the jowls. With Reagan it was just the hair. You could put that hair on a garden-variety vegetable -- and voila, you've got a president."\nAfter he graduated from the University High School in 1971, Pett tried to find a forum for his artistic leanings in the IDS. But no such luck.\n"They run that place too much like a real newspaper," he said, excitedly spitting out a few expletives. "They had a guy doing it five days a week. That's not how it should be run. It should be open to anyone who wants to submit."\nBut after he dropped out, he had more time on his hands. He took to free-lancing, and got pieces regularly published in The Herald-Telephone, the predecessor of the Herald Times. \nBut most of the time he slacked off, playing golf and loafing about on campus.\n"I wanted to keep from having a real job for as long as possible."\nIt wasn't until 1984 that he got his break.\nHe applied for a position at the Lexington Herald-Leader, where he's been working ever since.\n"I was lucky enough to get it," he said. "A buddy helped me out. The only other applicant withdrew. That was Bill Watterson (of Calvin and Hobbes fame). He didn't yet know what he wanted to do with his life, and now he's obviously incredibly wealthy."\nKentucky hasn't always been receptive to Pett's views, which tend to the liberal side. Hate mail he's inspired regularly fills the op-ed page.\n"I spent much of my childhood in Nigeria," he said. "You tend to sympathize with the underdog when you've lived in a Third World country. People will write in all the time, calling me a communist-sympathzin', baby-killin', Second Amendment-hatin', unilateral disarmament-favorin', big government-lovin'... Guilty as charged, you know."\nPett said he plans on voting for Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush, the governor of Texas. And he encourages others to as well.\n"I've finally come to understand Reagan," he said. "I always voted for the good of the public interest. But now I've come to understand Reagan's 'me too' philosophy, though he was still a crummy president. So I'm voting for Bush -- it's in my self-interest. I can draw him better."\nWhile Pett likes to make a wry crack, he takes his very work seriously. Listen to him for a few minutes, and one would think cartoons on the op-ed page stand as the last bastion of democracy.\n"I offend people," he said. "I'm not paid to express opinions you agree with. I'm paid to express my own opinions. Nowadays, people are afraid of expressing their opinions. Everything is run through focus groups. It's like one long Thanksgiving dinner, where the relatives are asked not to bring up religion or politics. \n"That's not what democracy is supposed to be about -- it's supposed to be about vigorous debate."\nIn one cartoon from his Pulitzer portfolio, a CEO revels in the fact that "our foreign workers get poverty wages and endure subhuman conditions."\n"That's what makes our company great," the CEO explains. "Diversity."\nAnother cartoon just stemmed from all the articles he had seen about youth obesity. A hoggishly fat kid sets in on a meal at the kitchen table. With a look of disapproval, his mother tells him that he's got to go on a diet, so he'll be "a smaller target at school."\nThe moral outrage of occasional wittiness of Pett's work has carried him far. He's syndicated in 33 papers nationwide, and his work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Boston Globe.\n"(Pett's cartoons) aren't very funny, especially compared to the work of his contemporaries," read a February Brill's Content article on the state of editorial cartooning. "They don't make you laugh out loud. If anything, they make you think. If editorial cartooning has a conscience, it's Pett."\nIn 1989, Pett was first nominated as a Pulitzer finalist in the editorial cartooning category. Ten years later, he came within a hair's breadth of winning it. \nPaul Conrad of The Los Angeles Times and the late Jeff MacNelly of the Chicago Tribune were the other finalists. Both already had three Pulitzers. The cartooning committee recommended Pett, but the board disregarded it and selected Steve Breen of the Asbury (N.J.) Park Press.\nIt came completely out of nowhere. And Breen hadn't even really established himself yet.\n"I was disappointed," Pett said. "But I wasn't bitter. Being a finalist is just as great an honor."\nWhile he's now basking in the limelight, Pett admits to being troubled by the state of the industry.\n"All these people write infotainment," he said. "Whatever happens to be in the news, whether the Subway Series or who wore what to the Academy Awards. That's just hack-work, insipid.\n"It shouldn't just be an entertainment vehicle, something that's funny."\nBut Pett's not above the occasional flight of whimsy, however much he rails against it.\n"I did this cartoon, on the presidential candidates always saying they won't go negative," he said. "So I had them saying double negatives. I later ripped off my own idea and did one where they're saying triple negatives. It's a good pun and it's funny. But it didn't have a point.\n"And you know what? It ended up in the Sunday New York Times. Even The New York Times. That's what they want now. Go figure."\nBut Pett just shrugs it all off and turns out his five cartoons a week.\n"Some people will say that coming up with an idea a day would be impossible," he said. "A single idea. I really worry about them. I mean, come on -- going an entire day without a thought. But the other half of the population thinks I've got the easiest job in the world"
(11/01/00 5:10am)
Since he emerged from Greenwich Village in the 1960s his voice has been as craggy as his appearance disheveled.\nHe's never been the conventional rock star.\n"I always needed a song to get by," he said in a 1987 interview with Rolling Stone. "There's a lot of singers who don't need songs to get by. A lot of 'em are tall, good-lookin', you know? They don't need to say anything to grab people."\nBut Bob Dylan keeps on the road, spreading the good word, going all the way until the wheels fall off and burn.\nNow touring college campuses, he'll make a stop at 7:30 p.m. tonight at the IU Auditorium.\nWith tickets priced at $31.50 with student discount, the show has long been sold out.\n"You are going to be up close and personal with Bob Dylan, and you can't get that at a large amphitheater," said senior Jeff Zuckerman, Union Board concerts director. "He's going to be in his element."\nUnion Board booked the rock and roll hall of famer, who had played regularly at the Auditorium before its recent renovation. \n"It was the obvious choice for us, and the obvious choice for him," Zuckerman said.\nWell-known for his intelligent yet often cryptic lyrics, the folk singer ended up having a profound influence on rock and roll. With trailblazing albums like Highway 61 Revisited and Blood on the Tracks, Dylan captured the spirit of the era. He spoke out against the Vietnam War and the establishment, taking a stand for personal freedom.\n"He, Elvis and the Beatles are the most important figures in rock history," said associate music professor Glenn Gass, who teaches a course on the history of rock and roll. "They really opened up the ground for what rock could be as art and what rock could say, the level you could express yourself in a pop song." \nAfter paying his dues for nearly four decades, Dylan finally received a Grammy for the release of his last album of original music, Time Out of Mind. A gloomy reminiscence on life, it looks back at failed relationships and the magic of youth. Billboard heralded it as "a brilliant album from an artist with an endless store of genius." \nAnother album is not yet in the works, as Dylan continues to barnstorm the country, strumming his guitar. But with previously released music, it's been another story.\nColumbia Records released The Essential Bob Dylan, a two-disc collection of his classics, yesterday. It features remastered hits like "Mr. Tambourine Man," "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" and "Blowin' in the Wind," songs that have long lingered in the public imagination.\nAfter his show at the Auditorium, he'll pack up for West Lafayette, where he'll be playing Thursday. Before he heads northeast, he'll hit campuses in Ohio and Michigan.\nThe times, they might be a changin', but all the evidence suggests Dylan will remain a constant as long as he holds out.
(10/27/00 4:19am)
Think of homelessness.\nThe images conjured are of the down-and-out, those who have fallen on hard times.\nIt's not something one associates with symphony orchestras.\nBut when the Creative Arts Auditorium closed down in the spring of 1999 because of the School of Music's ongoing budgetary problems, things looked bleak for the Camerata Orchestra.\nThe Buskirk-Chumley Theatre lacked the stage to host a 70-member orchestra. Other venues such as the Musical Arts Center raised questions of availability.\nBut the Camerata is back in business, kicking off its 12th concert season with a 3 p.m. performance Sunday at the Auditorium. The three remaining concerts are scheduled at Bloomington South High School.\n"For a while, it looked like we weren't going to have a place," said Lenore Hatfield, the Camerata's concertmaster and founder.\nThe esteemed Luis Biava, resident conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, will serve as guest conductor of the program, entitled "Opulence."\n"Few musicians are as generous and as revered as Luis Biava, the ideal conductor," raved The Philadelphia Daily News.\nOnly three years ago, Bloomington audiences would not have had the chance to observe Biava in action. Keith Brown, a former professor at the School of Music, served as conductor and artistic director from its inception up through 1996.\n"Since he's left," Hatfield said, "we've brought in a good many nationally recognized guest conductors. It's just gotten bigger and bigger."\nThe Camerata Orchestra has expanded significantly from its humble beginnings in 1989. Hatfield, who has an extensive background in the violin, was new to the area. While she still serves as guest concertmaster at the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, she grew tired of traveling out to places as far as Cincinnati and Indianapolis to perform.\n"There really wasn't a chance for faculty at the school to play in an orchestra," she said. "So I sought to remedy that."\nEventually, she hoped to model the Camerata after the Aspen Music Festival, which features collaboration between students and faculty.\nAt first, the fledgling orchestra played primarily chamber music at local churches. But, rounded out by student performers, it soon began playing full-fledged symphony orchestra pieces.\nWhile it is out of a permanent venue, the Camerata Orchestra has gained such prominence in the community that it can now occasionally play at the MAC or the Auditorium.\n"I'd say we have a sensational orchestra," Hatfield said. "We certainly stack up to a lot of others in the state."\nAnd the orchestra now brings in more than $300,000 a year, which goes toward scholarships and grants. The revenue comes largely from corporate sponsorship.\n"Many of my clients attend the series each year," said Cary Curry of Curry Buick, which partially underwrites the orchestra. "I think they'd be pleased that I am giving back to the community in this manner."\nThe program for Sunday showcases popular standards -- Beethoven's "Overture Leonore No. 3" and Mahler's "Symphony No. 5."\n"I especially look forward to the chance to perform Mahler's 'giant,'" Hatfield said. "It has a great expanse of sounds and feelings."\nTickets are available at the IU Auditorium Box Office and all Ticketmaster outlets. They run at $10 general admission, $4 for students.\nFor more information, call (812) 333-9955.
(10/26/00 3:32am)
The Grateful Dead. \nPhish. \nThe Allman Brothers.\nSuch bands have gained cult followings by following their improvisational muses, taking their tunes wherever their fingers might lead.\nStraight from Athens, Ga., Widespread Panic is no exception.\nThe country-flavored jam band will perform at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 28 at the IU Auditorium, a show sponsored by SFX and Union Board. Student tickets are $22, and they go on sale at all Ticketmaster outlets at 2 p.m. today.\n"Since they came here in 1997, we've wanted to bring them back," said senior Jeff Zuckerman, Union Board concerts director. "For those who haven't seen them before, they're a jam band influenced a lot by Southern rock. If you liked String Cheese Incident, you'd find them right up your alley."\nWhile more rooted in country than folk, Widespread Panic draws a good many comparisons to Phish and String Cheese Incident. Union Board public relations director Vaughn Allen, a junior, said booking the popular underground act adds to the diversity of the fall concert lineup. \n"This is the latest in a series of Union Board concerts whose genres are decidedly all over the map," he said. "Between Bonnie Raitt, Wyclef, String Cheese and Widespread, we've been trying to hit the campus on all fronts."\nFormed on the University of Georgia campus, Widespread Panic honed their sound for six years before releasing their debut album, Space Wrangler, in 1988. Shortly after, they signed with Capricorn Records and picked up a slot on the inaugural H.O.R.D.E. Festival tour in 1992.\nPlaying with Phish and Blues Traveler gave their rich musical gumbo more of a stage, and they've been on the road ever since. Dedicated to their craft, they've released a new album every single year, which is almost unheard of in the music industry. \nBut Widespread Panic hasn't made a name for itself by being conventional.\nIt's shied away from making music videos or packaging an image.\nWithout support from MTV or the radio, it has built up a large and loyal fan base by just staying out on the road.\n"They've played across the Midwest," said Andy Wilson, a spokesperson for Sunshine Promotions. "They've certainly picked up steam in the past two years. I don't want to say they have a cult following because a lot of bands do, but they're certainly in the same realm as the Grateful Dead." \nReserved tickets will be available for $25, and a student price of $22 with the presentation of a valid IU student ID. Tickets can be purchased today at the Student Activities Desk, the IU Auditorium Box Office, online at www.sfx.com, all Ticketmaster outlet, or Charge-By-Phone at 333-9955 or in Indianapolis at (317) 239-5151.
(10/26/00 2:42am)
Started with the push of a button.\nA little red button.\nFlicked on the television the other night, and was startled to recognize myself.\nLike a 42 point headline, I was splashed across the screen, staring back at myself.\nI caught NBC's "Deadline," which stars Oliver Platt as the gritty, rabble-rousing star columnist of the New York Ledger, a tabloid presumably modeled after The New York Times.\nAn indie film mainstay, Platt is known for his breakthrough roles in such landmark works as "Tall Tale: The Unbelievable Adventures of Pecos Bill" and "Funny Bones."\nA Pulitzer Prize winner, Platt's character, Benton, pens the column "Nothing but the Truth." Day after day, the hard-boiled, ink-stained, womanizing sot champions the little guy, going whole hog with the crusading for justice thing.\nWith the help of some of his journalism students at the college at which he finds time to teach, Benton frees a wrongly convicted man from death row. A man whose head he had called for during the trial.\nTireless in his pursuit of the truth, Benton also discovers a candidate for city council is a convicted fugitive living under an assumed name. He stirs up the ire of the Russian mafia, prompting death threats.\nAll this is supposed to be dramatized or romanticized, but I can tell you that it's just a day in the life of a journalist like me.\nI sit here, typing up this column, eating Chinese food from the carton, chain-smoking unfiltered Pall Malls. A bitter cup of coffee in a dinky little Styrofoam cup rests just next to my keyboard, a half-finished flask of whiskey in the pocket of my ugly tweed sports jacket. I'm wearing a fedora with a press card stuck in the bill. My colleagues, not burdened by deadlines, exchange witty banter.\nPeriodically, my editor-in-chief -- a gruff, balding fellow with rolled-up shirt sleeves and a green visor -- calls me into his office to chew me out.\n"Damn it, you're pushing the line," he'll say. "You've got to back down."\nBut no, I disregard all that, in noble pursuit of the truth, tearing down corrupt public figures and other sacred cows so comfortable in their complacency. Sources never stonewall me, and the police are always friendly and helpful. Hell, I don't even need to take notes.\nLibel laws never bother me. So maybe that Congressman didn't really cannibalize those innocent schoolchildren. I shouldn't be expected to know he was addressing the House floor. No skin off my back.\nAnd I'm resolute in the certainty that the fruit of my investigative efforts should be opinion pieces, instead of solid, factual reporting. Columnists break all the important news. Were it not for the diligence of some obscure Hollywood hack, the public would still be in the dark about the whole Brad Pitt/Jennifer Aniston fling.\nYes, I am a proud member of the Fourth Estate, the only defense between the people and the forces of tyranny. Were politicians not kept in check by the watchful, scandal-hungry eyes of the media, they might actually get laid every so often.\nWhenever I'm trying to prove the innocence of some poor schmuck on death row in spite of a slew of conclusive DNA tests and the testimonies of eye-witnesses, I can always turn to my trusty students. They don't have to obsessively worry about getting clips in the mad hunt for internships.\nIt's really just cake. After my first byline in the school paper, The Wall Street Journal started knocking down my door.\nAnd doubling between a daily stint at the newspaper and teaching a few courses has never presented a problem. That's why journalism faculty are so frequently active reporters.\nAt the end of the day, I hit the pub to work off the stress. The bartender always provides some insightful new angle to a story that I never would have otherwise considered. And showing up to work severely hung-over is almost mandatory.\nEvery night, a strikingly beautiful and similarly laureled colleague of mine and I rut like weasels in heat.\n"Oh Joseph," she'll whisper in my ear.\nBut then, police sirens!\nImmediately, I'll throw on a shirt and tie, running off into the dark streets, reporter's notebook in hand. \nInto the mean city streets, the streets where so many hopes have been shattered, so many dreams deferred, so much life teems as people hustle about, thinking only of clocking in....\nYada, yada, yada.\nJust send me my Pulitzer.
(10/25/00 6:10am)
The Buskirk-Chumley Theatre is deeply in the red.\nBut things seem to be on the upswing.\nThe publicly funded Indiana Arts Commission has extended $68,000 in grant money it had previously withheld, citing the absence of a financial plan. The money will cover operating expenses.\nThe commission refused disbursement of the grant in September because the Bloomington Area Arts Council was unable to prove it could handle the theater's financial woes. But just last week, the council was restructured. It adopted the interim strategic plan recommended by an ad hoc committee appointed by the mayor. \n"The receipt of these funds will assist the BAAC in maintaining operations while the study commission works on a long-range financial and organizational solution for the BAAC and the Buskirk," said city councilman Jeffrey Willsey, interim Bloomington Area Arts Council board president. "The funds will be used for staff, operating expenses and other purposes as stipulated under the grant."\nChaired by Indiana Court of Appeals Judge Ted Najam, the committee recommended the management of the Buskirk-Chumley Theatre be separated from the arts council. The not-for-profit arts council also runs the John Waldron Arts Center, 122 S. Walnut St., a popular venue for local theater and visual art. Najam raised concern over the possibility that the mounting debt would swallow up the Waldron as well. \nThe Bloomington Area Arts Council board approved the hiring of Sally Gaskill as interim executive director, IU Auditorium General Manager Bryan Rives as its interim theater manager and Willsey as interim president of the board. \n"Sally is well-known as a professional in community arts development and administration," Najam said. "We in Bloomington are very fortunate that she lives here and has agreed to help us chart a course in the future." \nGaskill said she plans to draw up a strategic plan with measurable goals based on input from donors and board members. Within six months, she hopes to have the problem resolved.\nWith a master's degree in art management, Gaskill served as executive director of the Arts and Culture Council for Rochester, N.Y. for seven years. She moved to Bloomington after her husband, Massimo Ossi, accepted a position with the School of Music this fall.\nMeanwhile, the commission is working on its own plan for financial solvency. The arts council board has taken it on as a formal adviser.\n"I am extremely pleased with the progress the study commission has made in such a short amount of time," said Mayor John Fernandez, who appointed the ad hoc committee in September. "I am also grateful to the Indiana Arts Commission for acknowledging the efforts being made to assist the BAAC and releasing the grant funds."\nFernandez took action once it became clear that the Bloomington Area Arts Council was having a hard time climbing out of debt. The Kerasotes movie chain donated the theater on the condition that it not screen films.\nIt embarked on a $3 million renovation project, restoring the original balcony that had been closed off when Kerasotes added an upstairs screen, among other interior improvements. With major donor support, the arts council paid off $2 million. But the stream of donations dried up.\nDuring a summer stretch without much programming or revenue, the situation went from bad to worse. The arts council failed to meet financial obligations, such as payroll and loan payments. It cut full-time staff by half, even eliminating executive positions.
(10/25/00 4:06am)
It's unlikely to have the historic magnitude of the Lincoln/Douglas debates.\nBut Rep. John Hostettler (R-8th) and Democratic challenger Paul Perry will square off in early September in the format named after the famed 1858 U.S. Senate debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas. \nWhile it has not been finalized, both congressional candidates accepted an invitation to debate this week from Grassroots United, a non-partisan, Bloomington-based voter education group. \nTentatively, the debate will be at 10 a.m. Sept. 9 at the Monroe County Courthouse. In the proposed format, both candidates will make introductory statements and then fire questions at each other. Each will also be allotted time for the rebuttal of the other's response. \n"This is a pivotal Congressional race, targeted nationally," said debate coordinator James Pfaff. "It should be very exciting for people to come out. We've settled on a style that will let the candidates to get their message out."\nPfaff said the race is important because it has been targeted by the Democratic National Committee, which hopes to win control of the House of Representatives this November.\n"This race is definitely in the DNC's radar," he said. "It's traditionally been a Democratic district, though not a strongly Democratic one."\nIt will be the first debate between the congressional candidates, who have also agreed to face off Oct. 15 in Evansville. Perry, a Newburgh-based physician who is running his campaign on the issue of health care, has asked Hostettler to debate him in all 13 counties in the 8th District of southwest Indiana.\n"Congressman Hostettler needs to stand up and explain why he voted against patient protections for Hoosiers and why he voted against prescription drug coverage for our seniors," Perry said in a press release. "On Sept. 9, the people of Monroe County will finally get to hear from him. I hope he gives people in every county the opportunity."\nBut Jim Banks, a spokesman for the Hostettler re-election campaign, said Perry had never formally extended the invitation to Hostettler.\n"Our opponent has told the media that he wants to have debates in every county," he said. "But he's never actually faxed our camp a challenge. The first we heard of it was when we read it in the paper."\nBanks said the debate should give voters enough information to cast their November ballots.\n"Our opponent hasn't been very active on the campaign trail recently," he said. "And we're looking forward to the debate. It'll provide a contrast between the two candidates"
(10/20/00 6:50pm)
The critically acclaimed "Life During Wartime" draws as much from Dostoevsky as from Swift.\n"In the roughly five years since Keith Reddin began spending more time writing than acting, he has produced a steady stream of black comedies about the underground of corruption, political and moral, that lurks just beneath the slick sitcom surface of American life," wrote Frank Rich of the New York Times after the play's 1991 off-broadway opening. "'Life During Wartime' is an archetypal sample of its author's works."\nOpening at 7 p.m. tonight and running through Oct. 28, the play opens the T300 Studio Theatre season. Tickets are $8.50 for general admission and $7.50 for students and seniors.\n"Life During Wartime" relates the story of Tommy, an impressionable young man employed at a home security company. His morally bankrupt employer Heinrich educates him in the ways of hard sell tactics, encouraging him to instill paranoia in potential customers.\n"You don't have to sell fear -- it sells itself," he advises. \nSo Tommy plays off the paranoia lurking in the suburban paradise in which the play is set. During his first house call, he not only makes a sale but picks up a mistress. He quickly rises up the ranks, even making it into a television commercial. \nBut he later learns a dark truth. To bulk up sales, Heinrich breaks into some of the homes that he protects. The situation escalates, and it leads to murder. Stuck in the crossfire, Tommy is torn between materialism and morality.\nPunctuated with appearances of the dissident Swiss theologian John Calvin, "Life During Wartime" is a "sharply satirical exploration of American moral malaise ... interweaving the personal and the political, the antic and the tragic," according to the alternative weekly The Seattle Times.\nServing as the voice of fundamental human wickedness, Calvin is "our narrator of sorts," said director Dennis Black. "I have selected to use a 'film noir' quality and feel in the production and 'film noir' depends heavily on narration."\nBlack said he was pleased at the opportunity to direct the quirky play, an absurdist fable.\n"I don't think we have a category for this new type of theater," he said. "During the last 20 years, playwrights have been writing in a style that is not defined by one term -- a more eclectic style of writing."\nAnd that's the vein of the T300 series, which also features the melancholy "Stanton's Garage" and "The Food Chain," a screwball comedy about urban neurotics.\n"The series is comprised of cutting-edge contemporary American drama," said Christine Woodworth, media liaison for the Department of Theatre and Drama. "All the plays have been written and produced in the past 20 years. And they've all made their mark either in regional theater or off-Broadway. Eventually, in a 100 years or so, they may end up the new classics."\nTickets are available either through the Auditorium Box Office or by phone through all TicketMaster (812) 333-9955. For ticket information, call (812) 855-1103. Parking is available in the Jordan Avenue Parking Garage located east of the Theatre, or in the Main Library parking lot, located north of the Theatre. Due to construction, allow ample time to find parking.