IUSA

'Red Hot' music leads to complaint

At about 2 p.m. Monday, senior Bridget Meskauskas was disturbed while taking her statistics midterm on the second floor of Ballantine Hall. "All of the sudden I hear really loud music, and I could tell it was the Beatles," she said. The music she heard was coming from outside Ballantine, where Red Hot Presidential Candidate and junior Lenny Weiss was playing a keyboard and singing "happy tunes," as he said in an e-mail. Red Hot is running against Hoosier in elections for IU's student government, the IU Student Association. "It was great, it was a lot of fun," Weiss said. "We set up, I had a nice keyboard, and we sang songs for the people in the passing period, and people sat around and watched and sang along."

Swept away on the cutting room floor

The second floor of Victoria Towers on Kirkwood Avenue is caught in a glass prism -- leaking glints of light through its bay windows and crushing the incoming rays into a million shards as they are bounced around the mirrored wainscoting, flung from the chandelier dangles, then repurposed in jars of blue Barbacide, cleansing the toothy combs at every beautician's work area. Elizabeth Tieman & Hair Designers is an elegant salon, meant to polish and cut only the most beautiful, refined Midwestern ladies. Even Elizabeth Tieman is a glass bobble, sparkling from the rhinestone embellishments on her eyeglasses to the little crystal dots lining the pockets of her black slacks. She enjoys the glints of things -- the glint of instant gratification, the glint of adventure, the glint of stardom.

James Earl Jones comes to IU

It's not every day people get to hear the voice that launches every CNN broadcast, narrates Verizon Wireless commercials and beckons Luke Skywalker to follow its lead. IU students will get that chance Tuesday night when James Earl Jones speaks at the IU Auditorium. The award-winning screen and stage actor will speak at 7 p.m. Jones is speaking as part of IU's celebration of Black History Month. He will be speaking for about one hour and then will take questions from the audience before signing copies of his new autobiography, "Voices and Silences." Jones said he hopes to field as many questions from the audience as possible.

SPRINGING INTO ACTION

Women's hockey team secures bronze

TURIN, Italy -- Katie King wishes she could've thrown her gloves in the air like a graduation cap and jumped into a pile of her teammates on the ice. Instead, she and the rest of the U.S. women's hockey team had to settle for some hugs -- and a bronze medal. King scored two of her three goals in the first period to give the Americans a three-goal lead and they glided to a 4-0 victory over Finland on Monday, playing in a third-place game they would've rather watched on TV from their dressing room.

Americans garner silver medal in ice dancing

TURIN, Italy -- At last, a figure skating medal for the United States -- in ice dancing, of all things. And yet another Olympic gold for Russia. Tanith Belbin and partner Ben Agosto snapped the U.S. medals drought in figure skating with a silver Monday night. They were behind Tatiana Navka and Roman Kostomarov, who gave Russia a gold medal hat trick -- pairs, men's and dance. No nation has swept the four skating events in one games, and Russian Irina Slutskaya is favored in the women's competition.

Bailing out Bonds

Hank Aaron reached a total of 755 career home runs in 1974. When he passed The Babe he was welcomed by some and wearied by others. What hastened those to hate Hammerin' Hank was the color of his skin, not the content of his character. Aaron handled hate with the handle of his bat. He crystallized the emergence of the black athlete in baseball by breaking its most historic record.

IU leaves Mexico tourney as runner-up to Houston

The men's golf team concluded play in the Club de Golf Santa Anita-North Texas Classic Monday afternoon with its best performance of the 2005-06 campaign, but one team remained ahead of IU on the leaderboard. The University of Houston left Guadalajara, Mexico, as the tournament champion, finishing first out of 11 teams at one over par with a score of 865. IU finished three strokes behind, followed by Southern Louisiana at four strokes back. The Cougars were able to break away from IU and the Southern Louisiana with whom they were tied for first entering the final round. The Hoosiers suffered a flat start to the tournament, ending the first round 11 shots over par at 297. However, during the second round later that day, IU proved itself to still be a threat to win.

Race preparation officially begins for new riders with 'Rookie Week'

Little 500 season officially began yesterday as the rookies took the track at Bill Armstrong Stadium for Rookie Week. All rookie riders are required to practice this week to orient themselves to the finer points of the annual race. "It's a good week for the rookies to get their feet wet before the veterans come out to practice," said senior Riders' Council member Ryan Moore. "They will learn some of the things unique to Little Five, and it's just a good way for them to get comfortable."

Facebook fun

Attention students: Jacob Stewart has updated your wall on The Facebook. Message reads as follows: "WOOOOO, WHAT WAS IT WITH THAT DONKEY ON SATURDAY NIGHT!!!" If this were a real message, potential employers could have a good laugh and then discard your application by locking it in a safe, binding it with chains and throwing it into Lake Michigan.

Viewers like us

Big Bird needs our help. That's right; Jim Lehrer, "The American Experience" and that big yellow bird have all become targeted by President Bush's new, severe budget cuts. Whenever budgets need cutting and belts need tightening, public broadcasting is always an easy target. When there are 300 channels providing a wide range of programming, it's quite easy for free-market adherents to say that PBS should simply vanish. So, to no one's surprise, when Bush proposed his budget, 13 percent of the public broadcasting budget was gone.

He's a jet of water?

Tucker Carlson is a douche bag. Sen. John Kerry is a douche bag. That perpetually tan guy who lives in the apartment below you and pops his pink polo collar is a douche bag. The rules of language determine these statements to be nonsense. According to Random House Webster's Dictionary, a douche, n., is 1) a jet of water, sometimes with a cleansing agent, applied to a body part or cavity or 2) an instrument, as a syringe, for administering a douche.

Preparation is everything

The Daily Illini, the University of Illinois' student newspaper, recently went out on a limb and printed all 12 of the controversial caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. The Illini's editor in chief, Acton Gorton, wrote an article next to cartoons stating that, even though he thought the cartoons were gross and hurtful to Muslims, on account of free speech and the importance of the topic it was his duty to run the cartoons. In choosing to run the comics, Illinois didn't shatter a precedent of restraint. Student newspapers at Wisconsin and Harvard have also decided to run the cartoons.

Bush promotes energy plan on tour through Midwest

MILWAUKEE -- Seeking to fuel his own agenda, President Bush encouraged Americans to change their energy consumption habits and help move the nation away from its reliance on oil. "I think we're in an important moment in history," Bush said during his first stop of a Presidents' Day tour of the Midwest. "We have a chance to transform the way we power our economy and the way we lead our lives." Bush spoke Monday at the buildings division of Johnson Controls Inc., which sells products designed to make its customers' properties more energy efficient.

'Signs of life' detected at buried Philippine school

GUINSAUGON, Philippines -- High-tech gear detected "signs of life" Monday at the site of an elementary school buried under up to 100 feet of mud that swept down a hillside soaked by rain in the eastern Philippines, the provincial governor said. Sounds of scratching and a rhythmic tapping were picked up by seismic sensors and sound-detection gear brought in by U.S. and Malaysian forces, said South Leyte Gov. Rosette Lerias. Generator-powered lights were set up to allow teams of rescue workers to dig through the sludge during the night.

Routine check key to stopping cancer

WASHINGTON -- No one ever checked whether Leslie Bather's breast cancer was spreading to her brain, until the day tumors caused three frightening seizures. MRI scans can help spot when cancer in another part of the body sends seedlings into the brain, but few patients get routine checks. Neurology specialists say it's time to change that: More patients are surviving initial tumors long enough for their brains to be at risk, as treatments get better at battling cancer below the neck yet fail to protect the brain. And improved technology is making it easier and safer to treat those new brain tumors -- if they're caught early.

Candy makers cater to health

ALBANY, Ga. -- It's every chocolate lover's wish that their favorite indulgence could somehow be healthy for them. Now, chocolate makers claim they have granted that wish. Mars Inc., maker of Milky Way, Snickers and M&M's candies, plans to launch a new line of products made with a dark chocolate the company claims has health benefits nationwide next month. Called CocoaVia, the products are made with a kind of dark chocolate high in flavanols, an antioxidant found in cocoa beans that is thought to have a blood-thinning effect similar to aspirin and might even lower blood pressure. The snacks also are enriched with vitamins and injected with cholesterol-lowering plant sterols from soy.

Domestic eavesdropping ignites local response

Though U.S. Senate Committee on Intelligence Chairman Pat Roberts said he negotiated "a fix" to the White House wiretapping law Thursday that would avoid an investigation, some Bloomington opponents are obstinate to make officials produce an independent inquiry of the administration. MoveOn, a family of nonprofit civil action organizations, plans to hold a candlelight vigil on the south side of the square at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday as a nonpartisan effort to pressure U.S. Rep. Mike Sodrel, R-New Albany, to request an investigation.

Wonderlab explores 'The World We Create'

In fewer than 90 seconds, 60 seventh-graders scrambled to construct a Roman arch. Three sets of hands control the building of a mini-skyscraper with virtual cranes and 20 third-graders climbed their way to the top of a ladder made of lily pads. At "The World We Create," a traveling exhibition currently at the Wonderlab, Bloomington's museum of health, science and technology, children are exploring a variety of activities meant to teach them about the worlds of engineering and architecture.

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