News Bits

by Alex Henke

Devil offended by all the politician comparisons

The Devil arose from the dreary pits of Hell, Michigan, to clear his name and distance himself from the politicians he has been compared to in the past week. Lover of Jesus, hatred and the snack aisle, Reverend Jerry Fatty Falwell apologized for comparing Hillary Clinton to his master last Sunday.  Venezuelan president and runnin’-his-mouth punk Hugo Chavez, on the other hand, refused to retract his Bush-Satan comparison, citing evidence that delicious oil is worth all the back talk.  Still, Chavez heeded the advice of Devil Spokesman Nate Dogg when he suggested that those who are talking shit better LAY LOW.

E Coli breakout worsens to 171 sickened, Africa not amused

Popeye the Sailor Man supporters worldwide became even more nervous as the number of E. coli outbreaks related to spinach numbered 171 on Sunday.  “It’s the biggest epidemic since the SARS, or the anthrax,” said concerned shitty-food-eater J. Wellington Wimpy. In non-news, studies have shown that there may be one or two disease-related deaths in a large, unknown continent south of Europe, but it’s not E. coli related, so it must not be important.

Stock option scandal fails to grip nation, Jackass 2 #1 in theaters

In business news, a multitude of big business CEOs are under investigation for giving themselves back dated stock options – essentially giving themselves risk-free stock money by lying to the public.  Distressed stockholder and moviegoer Tom Cronin expressed his outrage, saying “Oh, man!  I haven’t seen it yet, but I bet they’re going to totally shit their intestines and eat them or some gross shit, man!  It’s going to be fucking awesome!  Wait, what?”

The Forgotten Fraternity: ∆T∆

This week the Back Page takes a look at the history of our school and of the famed fifth fraternity: ∆T∆ (or Delta Tau Delta for you non-classics major independents out there). What was this mysterious fraternity about? Why did they become disbanded? Do you call measured quantities of meth an eighth? Well read on and find out!

The Mission of the Charter 

We the men of the Whitman Chapter of Delata Tau Delta believe in and base our lives and brotherhood on the following four fundamental principles:

The Principle of Courage- Without courage a man is not a man. The courage to stand for what you believe in. The courage to stay strong in times of trauma. The courage to start a meth lab in your basement. This is what courage means to us Deltas.

The Principle of Awesomeness- Awesomeness is something to strive for. Generic awesomeness is a necessity for Deltas because people who are not awesome suck balls. And brotherhood doesn’t suck balls.

The Principle of Hella Tight- Hella tight is an abstract concept, but one we as Deltas strive for. It is an undefinable quality, but we believe everyone of our brothers should be hella tight in order to face the world.

The Principle of Inertia- Objects in motion tend to stay in motion, and objects at rest tend to stay at rest unless an outside force acts upon them.

Why were they disbanded?

Exactly.  Why were they disbanded? Was it because of a meth lab? Or is that just an awful rumor? We at the back page have done some detective work and have compiled a list of possible reasons this brotherhood was dissolved:

- They performed sober at Choral Contest one year and the Intra-Fraternity council refused to acknowledge them.

- No freshman wanted to join a greek system that was jokingly referred to as a “fat-ernity.”

- Their “Schindler’s List” themed all campus party was not a huge seller.

- One of their pledges died during their initiation ritual game of Magic the Gathering. He got a paper cut by a third edition Craw Wurm and bled to death because his pledge brothers were worried he was only doing it to steal their mana when they were calling 911.

- Tuberculosis.

- Meth was passé. Heroin was the new big thing.

Volleyball nets two wins

by Sarah McCarthy

It was an excellent weekend for Whitman volleyball, as the women won both of their first home matches.

On Friday night, the team beat George Fox University in a 3-0 win, scoring 30-19 in the first game, 30-18 in the second, and 30-21 in the third.

“Our entire team was in sync for that match,” said sophomore Kristen Brown. “It was one of [setter] Kate Borasto’s better matches.”
Saturday afternoon the team played a closer game against the Lewis and Clark Pioneers, though for that match, too, they went 3-0. The first game was close, and at one point the Missionaries were down 12-20. They stayed focused, didn’t allow themselves to be rattled and came back. Tensions were high as the teams traded points back and forth, but Whitman came out ahead with a 31-29 victory.

The second game stayed close throughout play, with a final score of 30-27.

The third game was a decisive win at 30-22.

“It wasn’t as clean of volleyball as I know we can play,” said Brown. “But we kept plugging away and came back.”

Men’s tennis brings the heat

by Caitlin Tortorici

If you think your weekend was intense, picture spending up to 12 hours a day running around on a tennis court.

On Friday, Sept. 22, the men’s Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Northwest Regional Championship tennis tournament kicked off, keeping players on the court from dawn until dusk.

Matches continued through Sunday, Sept. 24, and have taken place on Whitman and Walla Walla Community College campuses as well as in College Place.

This weekend’s tournament includes 48 men representing seven of the nine schools in the Northwest conference.

Of Friday’s 64 singles matches and 32 doubles matches, 12 of Whitman’s 13 players made the top 32.

Top ranked players—Phalkun Mam, Steven Ly, Robbie Munday, Matt Solomon, Christoph Fuchs, Jake Cappel and Nadeem Kassam, listed respectively—made the top 16 in addition to junior Robert Rye and sophomore Justin Hayashi.

Saturday’s matches narrowed 16 down to 4, awarding Mam, Ly and Munday three of four spots in the semi-finals. David Miller proved the only PLU student fortunate enough to make it in.

Also rewarding was Saturday’s surprise victory. First-year combo Nadeem Kassam and Matt Soloman defeated both the #4 seeds (PLU students Floyd and Loranger) and their elder teammates, #2 seeds, seniors Ly and Mam. The dynamic duo competed against David Miller and Justin Larimore in the finals on Sunday, Sept. 24, and won.

On the tournament’s final day singles champion Phalkum Mam and doubles champions Nadeem Kassam and Matt Soloman earned themselves a ride to the Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers to compete with the Southwest regional champions in the ITA National Small College Championships, said to take place Oct. 12-15.

Naturally, the Whitman morale is high. Sophomore Justin Hayashi predicts his team will earn a respectable standing at this year’s national tournament. Hayashi said, “We finished with a national ranking of #21 last year, but this year we will probably be in the top 10. Our coach says our freshman class is the best recruiting class he’s ever worked with at Whitman.”

Correspondence from France

by Emma Wood - Brest, France

Last night we celebrated my little host brother’s birthday: all five siblings, two parents, and me, the American, gathered around a choclatey, buttery cake. Like any 11-year-old, my brother ripped open his gifts; then he proceeded to walk around the table kissing each gift-giver on the cheek.  “Merci, Emma! Merci pour les bon-bons.”

It is the people in France, not the cute shops or cathedrals, who make my time here bizarre and wonderful.

When you first arrive, you notice only the chic types: the women who wear tiny neck scarves and peck each other’s cheeks as a greeting and could borrow clothes from Calista Flockhart. You notice the merchants: the neighborhood boulanger who sells you your pain-au-chocolat. You notice that your host family members all wear polo shirts and decorate in bright red plaid and your sister models for L’Oreal. “What!?” you say. “Where am I?”

When you’ve been here a week, you notice instead the young parents who walk their children to school, hurried, wearing half-buttoned sweaters. You notice the old women who meet for tea and the man in rather too-tight jeans who waits for the bus, same place every morning.

You notice that the nice stranger you asked about the bus schedules has in fact been drinking too much beer, in fact has a 12-year-old waiting at home, in fact has forgotten what’s sweet about life; and suddenly the roles are switched and you, the foreigner, become the helper. (Chocolate, not beer, to drown you troubles!” I told her).

The small encounters begin to feel more normal, more real. In a store, a woman my grandmother’s age asked me to model a turtleneck (pink, tight and sparkly) to see how it might look on her granddaughter.

Already I’ve been all over the city, talking with every variety of stranger, just in the process of finding classes, food, and my way back home in the evening. I was proud of myself last term when I ventured outside of Olin! (Here if one wants to go anywhere, one takes five trams, then catches a bus and walks the last three kilometers.  One shovels down “kebabs au fromage” (the grilled cheese of France) on the way to hip-hop class at the University sports complex.

All the while, my head is filling with language. I speak in French, write in English, and in my head it’s all swirled like soft-serve ice cream. I start to ask myself what it is that characterizes a language. What can a person communicate in one and not in the other? People tell me that Russian has the greatest number of words to describe the soul. The Eskimos have more words for snow than I could ever distinguish. How funny to notice that language actually alters what one thinks about.

I’m disguised now in skinny-pants and mascara, but I remain your loyal Chaco-wearing, spinach-eating informant. A bientot!

Joining fight against Wal-mart leads to discovery of inner workings of city politics

by Sophie Johnson - Chicago, Illinois

I thought I would be all for Chicago’s “big-box” minimum wage ordinance. It seemed pretty black and white to me: If an alderman voted yes on the issue he was standing behind the working man, the little man, the suffering, the poor. If he voted no, he was greedy, money-hungry, and would gladly sell his soul to Wal-Mart for a sliver of their annual profits. Obviously.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The minimum wage “big-box” ordinance, vetoed by Mayor Richard Daley on Sept. 10 and ultimately defeated by the City Council on Sept. 14, was the kind of ordinance that the typical Whitman student could definitely get behind. The measure would have mandated a living wage of $13 an hour (plus benefits) for employees working in stores with 90,000 square feet or more operated by companies with at least $1 billion a year in sales by 2010. In other words, it was like a personal invitation for big, evil corporations (mainly Wal-Mart) to stay out of the city of Chicago. Sounds good, right?

I thought so. Over the summer I looked into all the hype and rented the successful documentary “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price.” Now, I always knew Wal-Mart was no good. I knew they were driving small business owners out of work, their employee benefits were horrifically minimal, and they were using slave labor in China to manufacture much of their merchandise. But I had no idea about the extent of the atrocity of these practices.

There isn’t space here to list the amount of money this corporation costs workers and taxpayers, or to detail the unprecedented procedures in terms of health care, benefits and basic civil rights denied to employees. All the facts and figures are listed on the documentary’s Web site, and to read them will quite frankly make you sick to your stomach.

The measure, which was passed by the City Council when it was first put on the table, would keep Wal-Mart out. Furthermore, it would jeopardize the city’s relationships with other big-box stores (most notably Target) that exercise similarly shady practices. When I first read about it I thought, “Finally, justice,” and breathed a big, liberal sigh of relief.

It didn’t last for long, of course. In his first veto in 17 years as mayor, Daley expressed his concern that denying the entry of big-box retailers into Chicago would put a plug on job opportunities in neighborhoods that especially needed them. He further cited the sales tax revenue from these retailers that is critical to making the city work.

Well, I thought the mayor was stupid. Really, his reasons weren’t very convincing to me. So when I went to the city council meeting last Wednesday, I wanted desperately to stand with the swarms of union workers protesting rather than meet the mayor with the other students in my program.

But meet the mayor I did. The students in my group (all generally in favor of the ordinance) were allowed to ask questions, and a slew of criticisms came up for Daley to respond to. I thought his answers were contrived and shallow and he almost always avoided the question at hand completely. I guess that’s what politicians are supposed to do.

Shortly I realized another inherent truth about politics: city council meetings are tediously dull. For three bathroomless hours we had to sit there and hear various men in suits rattle on and on about facts and figures that ostensibly had no relevance, while we waited for the issue on everyone’s mind to come to the floor. Finally, someone brought it up.

It was Alderman Joe Moore, the notoriously inarticulate and hugely progressive alderman who had come up with the measure in the first place. He re-distributed a copy of it and proposed that it be reconsidered.

We all knew it would be ultimately vetoed. Three aldermen publicly voiced their intentions to switch their initial vote, which would push the measure into oblivion for good. I hated the mayor, I hated the three aldermen, I hated Joe Moore for being so tongue-tied all the time. In general, I hated that politics always seemed to work this way. I was convinced that I lived not in the land of the free, but the land of the corrupt.

The debate lasted two and a half hours, and by the end, I had changed my mind.

The aldermen against the ordinance had surprisingly intelligent things to say. One woman spoke for an incredibly poor neighborhood in which a Wal-Mart store had shown interest. She argued that she knew it wasn’t the best option, but that the neighborhood truly did need the jobs, and there was nowhere else to get them.

Another man owned a small business, but was nevertheless voting against the ordinance because he could not afford to pay his workers $13 an hour, and he knew they would flock to places that could if the ordinance passed.

Most convincing, though, were the arguments that the ordinance was good-intentioned, but poorly-constructed. A living wage should be a human right. It should be a statewide law. It should not be required only of Wal-Mart and Target, but of McDonald’s and Walgreens, too. The fight can be bigger, can attract more attention, can do even more.

I still don’t think highly of the mayor’s decision. I still poo-poo the aldermen that voted against the big-box ordinance. A measure like this could have been revolutionary in a city like Chicago. It could have said to the rest of the country, “The city of Chicago is going to protect its working class citizens at all costs.” In my opinion, the arguments in favor far outweigh those against.

That, however, is not what I took away from the experience. I genuinely believe that the majority of the aldermen that voted against the measure were good-intentioned. I know that sounds naïve, but you had to be there and hear them talk. I could see the other side of the coin, and not from the perspective of the unabashedly rich, either. These matters truly do come in shades of gray.

Yes, there is corruption in this nation’s government. It’s in D.C., in New York, in Chicago, and even in Portland. Yes, there are people in power that couldn’t care less about the working class citizen. The point is that the other kind of person— the good kind— exists in spades. The matter is to never give up the fight, whatever it may be for. We do have power. Our voices are indestructible.

Experiencing the Spanish life

by Sally Sorte - Spain

Can’t find the light switch? Try using your knee. Smoking is rampant, and tobacco stunts growth.

If you’re vegetarian get ready to eat Ghandi-style.  You can’t even order an ensalada because it’ll def contain tuna; dolphin safety questionable.

Flip-flops don’t exist. If you’re at the end of your Rainbows then you’re out of luck.

Rubias may not use the verb ‘pensar’ because blondes just don’t think.

There are assigned seats at the cine, and if you make any ruido people will throw their palomitas at you.

Tiendas are closed on Saturday, Sunday, or between 2-5 p.m. on weekdays; the gente are sleeping.

If you’re wondering why the party is weak at midnight it’s because you’re two hours too early.

In a restaurant, ‘tipping’ means rounding up to the next whole euro; I don’t know what it means for vacas.

‘Robbing the cradle’ simply doesn’t translate. You will have people triple times your edad soliciting your phone number and demonstrating foreplay onomatopoeia.

Don’t order a tortilla to satiate your Taco Truck cravings, because you’ll receive a Spanish omelette.

Look before you cross the street. Pedestrians have no rights, only what’s left after the cars.

Playboy is unnecessary; surf the canales after midnight.

Take caution when walking over a grate in a skirt, the air will blow it straight up à la Marilyn Monroe.

From a broad

-Where douche is a verb, not an insult…

Life on Aisle 12

by Sarah McCarthy

Living off-campus is, in many respects, unassailably cool. You are out from under the tyrannical thumb of the bureaucracy that demands you call your place of living some boring name like “Anderson” or “Douglas.” Instead, you may christen your house any name you choose, preferably a name that communicates without question that your house is the most clever of all houses. You can throw parties knowing that no RA will come break it up and you will take comfort in this fact only until you realize that the real-live police both can and will.

What no one mentions, though, is that living off-campus necessitates doing many decidedly un-cool things—things that smack of being not a carefree youth but a very boring adult. It starts when you notice some disturbing trends—i.e., that your toilets don’t really flush and that your kitchen floor which you thought was maybe just covered in artful brown polka dots is actually just layered in grime. You notice, with some trepidation, that though you have a dining room table, you don’t have any chairs to go around it, and that though you have a sink full of dishes, you lack any sponge or dish soap to deal with them.

Thus, you make a trip to K-Mart, because it is both slightly closer and slightly less evil than Wal-Mart, though you know that choosing K-Mart over Wal-Mart is not much more impressive than choosing Beelzebub over Satan. Rarely will you be less cool than during the hours (and yes, there will be hours) that you spend wandering the aisles of K-Mart. You will buy a Tupperware set, a vacuum cleaner, and floor polisher. You will take a moment—an honest-to-God moment of about fourteen seconds—to contemplate whether the price difference really makes it OK to just go with the generic brand swiffer refill pack. Will generic-swiffer swiff your floors with the swiffiness of the regular swiffer? You will feel like you are getting away with a devious trick when you come across a most flawless deal “1.29 for not just one, but TWO dustpans; two dustpans that, in fact, clip onto the broom for easy storage! Having bought a dustpan, you quickly realize that you can do one better than that and add a dust buster to the cart—a really delightful dust buster which you christen ‘Dustin’ and hang on your wall. Much like a cell phone or computer, Dustin has to be charged up to run at his full capacity, but when he is, there is nary a piece of dust that Dustin cannot bust.

Horror sets in, when you return home and realize that you have forgotten everything. Somehow, though you have spent a laughably large amount on products that you never conceived of buying before, there are many more very basic life necessities that your house lacks: a pot, for example, or a single glass that is not a sippy cup. And so you return. And so the cycle repeats.

I have been to K-Mart so many times in the past few weeks that I seriously contemplated whether or not it might be more cost and time-efficient if I went up to an employee and said something along the lines of “Ah, what the heck, I’ll just take the whole haul.” I could walk out then, with one of each and every item that K-Mart sells, comfortable that at least I could avoid another trip until the dishwasher fluid ran out. I don’t, though, only because, unless my house really takes a turn for the worse, I doubt we’d need the items found between aisles 16A and 17B—namely, the bright orange hunting hats and camo.

So, on-campus dwellers, I beseech you: appreciate that your toilet paper is magically bought for you, that you do not stand in the aisle and calculate whether the extra twelve cents is worth the extra-softness. And off-campus dwellers—just because we may have calculated such a thing doesn’t make us un-cool. Finally, the softness isn’t really worth it. The extra twelve cents would be much better put towards some refill swiffer pads.

Finding true love in the most unlikely of places

by Valerie Lopez

In a stark, sterile emergency room, I found love.

Granted that it definitely was not the best romantic setting, I heard the crescendo of violins and might have felt the same rapture Darcy experienced the first moment he sees Elizabeth Bennett. I just knew there and then, what I was going to spend the rest of my life doing.

All throughout my semi-traumatic years of adolescence, I always felt as if I knew what I wanted to become when I grew up. First, as I was suffering through the pains of teenage angst, I thought of becoming a glorified writer valiantly exposing the flaws of an all too commercialized, war-torn, politically corrupt, Britney Spears-infested society. Until I realized how hard it is to be a writer. Then, I watched a whole slew of John Grisham movies and decided that I would become a noble lawyer fighting for the cause of the underprivileged and the oppressed. I scratched that idea out once I started participating in Lincoln-Douglas debate in high school, where I was severely disillusioned by the petty catfights girls would initiate against each other once debate rounds were over. More importantly, it didn’t matter whether your arguments were morally sound; winning debate tournaments in my experience required your eloquent abilities to convince the judge you deserve to win, to make your opponent look bad, and to speak so fast your opponent can’t even propose contentions against you because hell, he/she didn’t know what you were saying. If you can convince a judge that eliminating a minority of the population for significant benefits for the majority, you take the gilded, plastic trophy home. Although this experience does not necessarily translate to what the law profession is, it was enough to turn me off. I do firmly believe that being a writer and a lawyer are very noble pursuits; I just couldn’t picture myself spending the rest of my life being either one.

I started to avoid family get-togethers because I despised the perpetual question every single aunt and uncle wanted to know: “what do you want to be when you grow up?” Err, hell if knew. I loved English in high school because a. I had a brilliant teacher and b., I love books period. But I already eradicated the possibility of being a writer, and I lack the supreme genius of crafting fictional stories. And then, I got lucky: I was forced to take Biology, loved it, and thought about being a doctor.

I came to Whitman with that knowledge, and although having survived a year of Templeton’s (bless his awesome soul and his tropical shirt) chemistry, I started questioning whether I possessed the ability to grace certain science classes and be in a medical profession.

Again, I got lucky. This summer, I worked in an Emergency Room, and it validated my hopes of being a doctor. The ER had the makings of an emotional orgasm: the harsh, fluorescent lighting, the bustle of doctors and nurses and their slightly gaudy scrubs, the sweet machines, cute nurses, the McDreamy doctor, the IV carts, the medical charts, xray photographs…yeah, I’m a freak, I know. Although I couldn’t provide medical attention to the patients (because a. that’s really illegal, and b. I didn’t want to kill anyone) it was really rewarding to be present in that environment where science comes to life and where people had the ability to help someone every minute of their 12-hour shift. Even though I was working the menial tasks, I loved it. It was the perfect ménage a trois of biology, social interactions, and selflessness.

It’s always very helpful using this gratifying experience when I question whether certain classes are worth it. I realized that all the possible professions I considered, all had the same, unifying purpose: helping other people. They were all merely different avenues of service, and it was great that I found which one I’m willing to undergo hell for.

I feel that sometimes we base life-determining goals on the glamour our society presents certain professions or endeavors to be, and reality can be quite different. Perhaps one of the inherent flaws in our system (and by system I mean the system of determining what we want to be) is that we are not exposed/ don’t expose ourselves enough to opportunities that validates what we want to do later on. Nevertheless, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to get my feet wet, and I happily splashed about the puddle.

Letters to the Editor – Sharing the sidewalk

First off, I ride a bike just about everywhere I can and it comes in especially handy here on campus.  I just flat out love to ride and I know there are many students and faculty that share my enthusiasm for  wheeling through the gauntlet of sprinklers and  across the everglades otherwise known as Ankeny Field in pursuit of the last bike rack at the RCC.  However, along with the halcyon joys of biking there comes a responsibility toward those who prefer to wear out shoe leather in there transits across campus.  I would just like to remind the cyclists of a few common courtesies that would make for a safer commute and improve the over all relationships we share with the foot traffic.

First off unless you are doing a time trial there is really no reason to be trying to break the land speed record while crossing the campus.  Slow down during times of congestion such as during change of classes and especially after dark.  Having a cyclist scream by with 2 inches of clearance is not appreciated.  If you want to break the sound barrier do it on the streets and not on the campus sidewalks.  I might add that the stopping distance for a bike on wet exposed aggregate sidewalks is comparable to the stopping distance of the Exxon Valdez.

Secondly, as a matter of courtesy,  a simple announcement of,   “passing on your left/right” when you approach a pedestrian from the rear gives them a warning of your approach and protects you from an inadvertent change of direction by the people you are passing resulting in a few extra pages in your medical records.  If you are too shy to announce your approach, a cheap bell or squeeze type horn will do the trick.  Unlike a car, on a bike you can actually communicate with others, what a concept!

Thirdly, refrain from chaining your bikes to stair rails especially ramps which can really hinder people who need to use the banisters in accessing the buildings .  It is college policy not to use railings for bike tethering.

While I’m at it, one of the best ways to keep from becoming another statistic on a police stolen bicycle report is to register your bike down at the WWPD headquarter on 3rd Ave., for 5.00 it’s a bargain.  And it goes without saying that a lock and cable are a necessity whenever you leave your bike unattended.

Have a great year and ride safely and courteously.

Tim Wright, Whitman Security Officer

Dealing with Chavez by peeling back his rhetoric

by Marcus Koontz

The other day Hugo Chavez, the dictator of Venezuela, appeared before the United Nations. In his speech he called President Bush the Devil and held up a book by Noam Chomsky that claims the United States is as much a terrorist state as any other. Chavez said he could still smell the sulfur from President Bush’s appearance earlier and later called Bush an alcoholic.

Venezuela’s oil gives Chavez a lot of power; recently he has made deals with Iran, the United Kingdom and low-income customers of heating oil in New York. These deals let him stretch his influence all over the globe. Because of this influence and his oil, even when he lies and makes vulgar claims there are no repercussions.

Since 2004 poverty in Venezuela has increased from 47 percent to 55 percent. The unemployment rate of Venezuela is 13 percent, which is 11 percent higher than at the beginning of his presidency. Recently Hugo Chavez has tried to intervene in elections in other Latin American countries. He has interfered with elections in Mexico, Bolivia, Peru and Colombia. He has backed a candidate in Ecuador. After he backed left-wing Lopez Obrador in Mexico and Obrador lost, he refused to recognize the elected president of Mexico. Chavez has a history of using his oil money and influence to blackmail other countries into doing what he wants. At home there is no freedom of press, political speech or action. Chavez oppresses any opposition in his country.

It’s ironic that Chavez comes to the United Nations on U.S. soil and bashes our country for being a terrorist state. He sponsors terrorists in Columbia and other Latin American countries. It’s ironic that he uses a tenant of our country, free speech, to deliver his message, because there is no free speech in Venezuela. It’s ironic that Chavez offers low cost heating oil to low income consumers in some U.S. states, because Chavez’s own people are becoming poorer and it’s ironic because Chavez’s actions purposely inflate the cost of oil around the world. Chavez will continue to have the power to be meddlesome while he has money and influence to do it.

It all seems to come back to our dependence on oil. If we could wean ourselves off our addiction, if we could stop buying SUVs and stop driving everywhere, we could do something about rouge dictators like Hugo Chavez. We could stop lining his pockets with money and making it necessary to listen to his rants. We need to have energy independence.

Can you believe such a man when he calls our president the Devil? Do we turn a blind eye to Chavez’s own job performance? Do we allow our dependence to deceive our eyes? I hope we can see through this man’s rhetoric.

Business loses its environmental virginity

by Ari van Schilfgaarde

This week, the environmental news was full of the promise of Sir Richard Branson, who pledged the sum total of the profits of his transportation businesses towards the development of renewable and carbon-neutral fuels. He is quoted as saying that the “transportation industry must be at the forefront of developing environmentally friendly business strategies.”

To bring his companies to the fore, Branson has committed $400 million to a new venture, Virgin Fuels, which will invest in and develop green energy projects. His reasoning behind the transfer may well be a deep-seated desire for philanthropy, or perhaps a strong belief in the importance of addressing global climate change, or perhaps a preemptive strike against the coming regulation of airline fuels. At some level the motive is irrelevant, what matters is that there is a commitment by the business community to bring about change.

It is impossible to deny that injecting 18 times what the entire United States Government spends on alternative fuels will make a difference in the global energy industry, but the reapportionment is still effectively a drop in the bucket. Greenwashing at best, a publicity stunt at worst. Drug companies, who make hefty profits on their own, expend about 10 percent of total revenue on R&D costs. Energy companies in contrast spend about 0.3 percent of their revenues on finding alternatives to petroleum.

So, how do we identify greenwashing from true values and separate the marketing from the real action?

This morning a partner and I interviewed Bob Perkowitz, a business leader in North Carolina. He sells women’s fashion to environmentally conscious consumers. If you spend more than $75 on any one order at his company, he will donate $1 to buy air power in the Dakotas. He says that he regularly cuts $15,000 checks to the wind company in the Dakotas. It costs him 0.5 percent of his revenues to do this and in no way affects his business model. It does, however, provide him with beautiful pictures of windmills in the VivaTerra catalogue, a subtle green logo, and help build a $35 million per year business.

He recommends taking some of the money and much of the experience on the marketing end of business and applying it to NGOs. By marketing an issue—like global warming or the death of pandas—to people trained to be marketed to, Mr. Perkowitz argues, we can mobilize support for the issues that we care about.

Mr. Branson’s newfound focus on fueling his companies is a good example: after being awakened to the dangers last year by Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth” he entered into talks with advisors and decided that the best course of action for his organization and the planet would be to reallocate his profits towards renewable and biofuel sources. Imagine who else could be tempted to such a realization. While he acknowledges that the development of such a ambitious goal is difficult and possibly one that will lose him profits in the short run, but he seems to be willing to sacrifice this for the longer term gain that he sees in having his fleet of airlines securely and cheaply fueled.

It is clear that we will not overcome the global climate change issue by simply using more ethanol, but with the aviation industry set to produce 15 percent of all greenhouse gasses in 10 years, Mr. Branson’s gesture is a start.

What remains to be seen is how this huge influx of capital over a sustained time period and without a specific focus will affect change in the nascent biofuels business. More importantly for the business community as a whole, will it successfully make the Virgin Group more profitable?

Ted Turner argues that Mr. Branson’s increased publicity will net him more funding than the advertising that he currently purchases—if other businesses are to follow suit, this has to show a return on investment for the individual. That’s what our economic system is based on, and all the greenwashing in the world won’t change that fundamental fact.

Business loses its environmental virginity

by Ari van Schilfgaarde

This week, the environmental news was full of the promise of Sir Richard Branson, who pledged the sum total of the profits of his transportation businesses towards the development of renewable and carbon-neutral fuels. He is quoted as saying that the “transportation industry must be at the forefront of developing environmentally friendly business strategies.”

To bring his companies to the fore, Branson has committed $400 million to a new venture, Virgin Fuels, which will invest in and develop green energy projects. His reasoning behind the transfer may well be a deep-seated desire for philanthropy, or perhaps a strong belief in the importance of addressing global climate change, or perhaps a preemptive strike against the coming regulation of airline fuels. At some level the motive is irrelevant, what matters is that there is a commitment by the business community to bring about change.

It is impossible to deny that injecting 18 times what the entire United States Government spends on alternative fuels will make a difference in the global energy industry, but the reapportionment is still effectively a drop in the bucket. Greenwashing at best, a publicity stunt at worst. Drug companies, who make hefty profits on their own, expend about 10 percent of total revenue on R&D costs. Energy companies in contrast spend about 0.3 percent of their revenues on finding alternatives to petroleum.

So, how do we identify greenwashing from true values and separate the marketing from the real action?

This morning a partner and I interviewed Bob Perkowitz, a business leader in North Carolina. He sells women’s fashion to environmentally conscious consumers. If you spend more than $75 on any one order at his company, he will donate $1 to buy air power in the Dakotas. He says that he regularly cuts $15,000 checks to the wind company in the Dakotas. It costs him 0.5 percent of his revenues to do this and in no way affects his business model. It does, however, provide him with beautiful pictures of windmills in the VivaTerra catalogue, a subtle green logo, and help build a $35 million per year business.

He recommends taking some of the money and much of the experience on the marketing end of business and applying it to NGOs. By marketing an issue—like global warming or the death of pandas—to people trained to be marketed to, Mr. Perkowitz argues, we can mobilize support for the issues that we care about.

Mr. Branson’s newfound focus on fueling his companies is a good example: after being awakened to the dangers last year by Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth” he entered into talks with advisors and decided that the best course of action for his organization and the planet would be to reallocate his profits towards renewable and biofuel sources. Imagine who else could be tempted to such a realization. While he acknowledges that the development of such a ambitious goal is difficult and possibly one that will lose him profits in the short run, but he seems to be willing to sacrifice this for the longer term gain that he sees in having his fleet of airlines securely and cheaply fueled.

It is clear that we will not overcome the global climate change issue by simply using more ethanol, but with the aviation industry set to produce 15 percent of all greenhouse gasses in 10 years, Mr. Branson’s gesture is a start.

What remains to be seen is how this huge influx of capital over a sustained time period and without a specific focus will affect change in the nascent biofuels business. More importantly for the business community as a whole, will it successfully make the Virgin Group more profitable?

Ted Turner argues that Mr. Branson’s increased publicity will net him more funding than the advertising that he currently purchases—if other businesses are to follow suit, this has to show a return on investment for the individual. That’s what our economic system is based on, and all the greenwashing in the world won’t change that fundamental fact.

Students tour WA, study immigration issues

by Christina Russell

With the October break approaching, one group of Whitties is sacrificing opportunities to catch up on sleep and homework in order to educate themselves on the immigration debate in Eastern Washington.

Entitled “The Border in our Backyard: The Immigration Debate in Eastern Washington,” this project received funding through the Mellon Diversity Grant. “Immigration is one of the most controversial political issues,” said project coordinator Laura Hansen, “and it’s especially relevant in our community because it reveals vast disparities in access to public resources, social tensions between different economic and racial groups, and prompts serious questions about our responsibilities to a group of people who are marginalized in our society.” Hansen has worked as a coordinator with Laura Fletcher and Sophie Kittler alongside politics professor Bobrow-Strain to make this trip possible.

Inspiration for The Borders in our Backyard is rooted in several experiential learning programs that have been made available to Whitman students in the past through the Politics department. Last May a group traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border where students garnered a multifaceted perspective on the opinions and tensions intrinsic to the immigration debate.

Students toured maquiladoras, which are U.S. owned factories in Mexico, and shared meals with local workers. They interviewed workers’ rights activists, U.S. immigration government workers, the border patrol, religious leaders and Mexicans attempting to cross the border and even walked the Sonora desert in order to understand what many Mexicans endure in order to reach the United States.

After returning from the border trip, students felt it was important for their fellow Whitties to confront the reality that immigration is not an issue solely dealt with on international borders but rather is one serving to define Walla Walla and the greater Eastern Washington community. “Immigrants support many of our local farms, providing a large labor supply for agricultural business that is so important to this area,” said Borders in our Backyard participant Andrea Miller.

“Most farms in the Walla Walla valley couldn’t function without immigrant labor,” said Hansen, “but immigrants often suffer from discriminatory implications that they are ‘stealing Americans’ jobs.’ This kind of rhetoric is directly contrary to economic realities and the American values that I personally think we should espouse when we talk about ideals of citizenship and democracy.”

The Borders in our Backyard group is composed of 18 students, three coordinators and Professor Bobrow-Strain. They will begin in Walla Walla on Saturday, Oct. 7 and proceed to visit Granger, Yakima, Sunnyside, the Tri Cities, Broetje and Hermiston. Throughout the course of their trip they will participate in community events and hear a series of speakers that will familiarize them on the components of immigration in Washington. Speakers include Andrew Dankel-Ibanez and Victor Chacon, professors at Walla Walla Community College.

Selection has already been made for the October break Borders in our Backyard trip; however, students “should know that there will be a lot of programming for the entire year,” said Hansen. Specifically, the Mellon Grant will be funding a series of relevant lectures in the spring.

‘Mr. Marmalade’ makes up thought-provoking first play of HJT season

by Sarah McCarthy

If you’re already planning on going to see “Mr. Marmalade,” stop reading. The main thing the actual script has to recommend it is its shock value, and if you already know the plot, the play will be far less thought-provoking than if you go without any expectations.

Likewise, don’t go to the show expecting to laugh. The play sounds as if it might be amusing and precious—its main character is, after all, a four-year-old who likes to act like a grown-up. The laughs, however, are few and far between. Really, “Mr. Marmalade” is a familiar story—that of a woman with low self-esteem in an abusive relationship who, eventually, finds new friends and moves on. The only difference in this case is that the woman is a four-year-old and her abuser is an imaginary friend.

Though the script itself grows wearisome in places, the performances and direction in this production make it well worth seeing. Becca Cox is convincingly child-like as Lucy, the lonely four-year-old who likes to play house but is also well acquainted with drunken fights, cocaine use and abortion. Peter Richards gives an outstanding performance as Larry, her friend, a disturbed child who has to repeat pre-school because he both committed “petty larceny” (his words) and attempted suicide. The two “child” actors do an excellent job of not falling back on gimmicky tricks to portray their characters. Teri Swartz likewise does an excellent job as Lucy’s less-than-ideal babysitter. Her character adds the most levity to the play, while also serving to at least partly explain where Lucy gets her adult mannerisms and ideas. Rohan Flinn and Tyler Kent both have challenging roles as Mr. Marmalade and Mr. Marmalade’s assistant Bradley, respectively. It would be a foolish criticism to say that either of these characters doesn’t actually come to life as “real”—they aren’t real, they aren’t supposed to be real, they are, in fact, nothing but a confused child’s perception of what the adult world is like. Flinn rises to the unique acting challenge of playing a caricature and a cliché. He is in one scene the cliché romantic boyfriend, in the next, the cliché deadbeat dad. Kent likewise does good work with Bradley, despite the fact that the script itself seems unable to justify the existence of the character. Larry already fills the role of someone with whom Lucy can commiserate about Mr. Marmalade’s cruelty—Bradley thus does little except emphasize Mr. Marmalade’s cruelty and allow for a few laughs when he tells Lucy that “Mr. Marmalade’s too busy to see her.” A highlight moment of the play, however, is hearing Kent’s lovely tenor voice when he, Heath Saunders and Mark Kennedy play a serenade for Lucy.

Perhaps the most telling line of the production is when Larry says dejectedly to Lucy, “If this is the part of my life that’s supposed to be so easy then I don’t want to stick around for the part that’s hard.” The play’s most important value is in the reminder that even very young children are not immune from misery when they live in a miserable world.

‘Mr. Marmalade’ makes up thought-provoking first play of HJT season

by Sarah McCarthy

If you’re already planning on going to see “Mr. Marmalade,” stop reading. The main thing the actual script has to recommend it is its shock value, and if you already know the plot, the play will be far less thought-provoking than if you go without any expectations.

Likewise, don’t go to the show expecting to laugh. The play sounds as if it might be amusing and precious—its main character is, after all, a four-year-old who likes to act like a grown-up. The laughs, however, are few and far between. Really, “Mr. Marmalade” is a familiar story—that of a woman with low self-esteem in an abusive relationship who, eventually, finds new friends and moves on. The only difference in this case is that the woman is a four-year-old and her abuser is an imaginary friend.

Though the script itself grows wearisome in places, the performances and direction in this production make it well worth seeing. Becca Cox is convincingly child-like as Lucy, the lonely four-year-old who likes to play house but is also well acquainted with drunken fights, cocaine use and abortion. Peter Richards gives an outstanding performance as Larry, her friend, a disturbed child who has to repeat pre-school because he both committed “petty larceny” (his words) and attempted suicide. The two “child” actors do an excellent job of not falling back on gimmicky tricks to portray their characters. Teri Swartz likewise does an excellent job as Lucy’s less-than-ideal babysitter. Her character adds the most levity to the play, while also serving to at least partly explain where Lucy gets her adult mannerisms and ideas. Rohan Flinn and Tyler Kent both have challenging roles as Mr. Marmalade and Mr. Marmalade’s assistant Bradley, respectively. It would be a foolish criticism to say that either of these characters doesn’t actually come to life as “real”—they aren’t real, they aren’t supposed to be real, they are, in fact, nothing but a confused child’s perception of what the adult world is like. Flinn rises to the unique acting challenge of playing a caricature and a cliché. He is in one scene the cliché romantic boyfriend, in the next, the cliché deadbeat dad. Kent likewise does good work with Bradley, despite the fact that the script itself seems unable to justify the existence of the character. Larry already fills the role of someone with whom Lucy can commiserate about Mr. Marmalade’s cruelty—Bradley thus does little except emphasize Mr. Marmalade’s cruelty and allow for a few laughs when he tells Lucy that “Mr. Marmalade’s too busy to see her.” A highlight moment of the play, however, is hearing Kent’s lovely tenor voice when he, Heath Saunders and Mark Kennedy play a serenade for Lucy.

Perhaps the most telling line of the production is when Larry says dejectedly to Lucy, “If this is the part of my life that’s supposed to be so easy then I don’t want to stick around for the part that’s hard.” The play’s most important value is in the reminder that even very young children are not immune from misery when they live in a miserable world.

‘Fearless’: Fun for fans, falls flat for everyone else

by Erin Salvi

For fans of the martial arts film, Jet Li’s “Fearless” will probably not disappoint. The film is packed with interesting, well-choreographed fight scenes that fit nicely into a decently fleshed out plot. If you are not, however, passionate about Wushu, this film has a number of problematic elements.

“Fearless” is a biopic tracing the life of Chinese martial arts master Huo Yuanjia (Li). As a young child, Yuanjia neglects his studies and responsibilities so he can secretly train to be a Wushu master like his father, who refuses to train Yuanjia himself due to a problem with asthma.

Yuanjia somehow gains great skill and knowledge of Wushu without his father’s help, and begins to build a reputation for himself as a great martial artist. Having never lost a fight, he takes on more and more challenges, expanding his fame and, to his detriment, his ego.

His good friend Jinsun tries to warn him of the empty consequences of fighting merely for fame and glory, but Yuanjia does not grasp his friend’s advice until it is too late. When his inflated sense of pride inevitably leads to disastrous repercussions, Yuanjia must rebuild his life in order to discover the true meaning of Wushu and become a hero to all of China.

One inherent problem with the making of a biopic is that a person’s entire lifetime presents a lot of ground to cover in a single film.
If the filmmakers are not careful with the material they select to include in the story, a film can become a convoluted mess. “Fearless” is not a mess, per se, but it tends to cut from one scene to the next with little or no transition or explanation of what occurred during the time between the two scenes.

The movie was edited down from 150 minutes to 104 minutes, which may explain the confusing and rapid changes in it. A 150 minute version of this film would have been far too long, but it may have cleared up the little issue of how Yuanjia magically ends up living in a farming community when moments before he was in his hometown.

In addition to problematic editing, “Fearless” has some trouble with historical accuracy. Without giving away key plot points, I’ll just say that a number of the events that occur in Huo Yuanjia’s life in the film either did not actually happen at all, or were significantly altered for the sake of the film.

It is true that there is always some level of creative reconstruction that must go into portraying someone’s life, but there is a fine line between imagining conversations that went on behind closed doors and inventing new historical facts for the sake of idealizing the character.

It calls the filmmakers’ integrity into question, and manipulates the viewers’ knowledge. Not only does the historical inaccuracy of “Fearless” manipulate the viewer, but the end of the film portrays an unambiguous moralistic message that gives the audience no choice but to submit to it.

You do find yourself rooting for Yuanjia by the end of the film, but is his defeat of four skilled martial artists from other countries really and truly enough to win honor for all of China? “Fearless” tells us that it is, but a viewer may feel conned into agreement.

‘Black Dahlia’ an overacted disappointment

by Josh Boris

Following in the footsteps of “Hollywoodland,” “The Black Dahlia” presents yet another unsolved mystery from Hollywood circa 1950. It is not rare for movies to be paired—to have two movies similar in topic released within a year of each other. However, as is often the case, one far outshines the other. Unfortunately for “The Black Dahlia,” the spotlight should be pointed on “Hollywoodland.”

“The Black Dahlia” offers an intriguing multi-tiered plotline. Officers Lee Blanchard (Aaron Eckhart) and Bucky Bleichert (Josh Hartnett) are Mr. Fire and Mr. Ice, the heroic partners of the LAPD. Blanchard is hot and passionate while Bleichert is cool and commanding. When Elizabeth Short (Mia Kershner), a young wannabe starlet, is grotesquely murdered, Blanchard throws himself headlong into her case at the risk of his personal relationships. Meanwhile, Bleichert is torn between his desire to finish another case and the alluring, yet bizarre, steps the Short case takes. The plot whisks and whirls around as connections are made between different pieces and other subplots are introduced, such as Bleichert’s affair with Hollywood rich girl Madeleine Linscott (Hilary Swank).

While it may be a little confusing to keep the pieces together, the interwoven plotlines come together nicely to form a solid story. There are twists and turns and mysterious people hiding in. There are also interesting metaphoric undertones that give it a little extra kick. While the detective story may be a little standard, it still has enough oomph to please.

What is most disappointing about the film is that the plot really has potential. However, it’s difficult to isolate that plotline from all the muck covering it. The presentation is classic film noir, with a dark ambiance, murderous intrigue, snappy dialogue, voiceover monologues; the whole nine yards. Unfortunately, that is exactly what ends up being its downfall. It appears as if director Brian DePalma (who has directed many hits in the past) was given the “Beginner’s Guide to Making Film Noir” and then just went apeshit. Not only does he grab every convention, but he lays it on thick, lacquering over the promising plot with a whole layer of heavy handed hackery. One femme fatale isn’t good enough, so DePalma has to throw in Scarlett Johansson, too, for good measure. The soundtrack constantly barrages you with a single trumpet to remind you of the loneliness of Bleichert, or a tension-filled vibrating orchestra to let you know that you should be on your toes. At every step of the way the film yells “look at how clever I am!” and “look at how gritty this is!” and never lets you alone. “The Black Dahlia” screams when it should be a muted hush.

This brings me to the acting. It appears as if DePalma prodded them at every step of the way to give more and more. Parts that should be reserved end up being over-the-top, and it becomes increasingly difficult to take the picture seriously. While many of the original film noirs of the ‘40s and ‘50s were overacted to death, it’s part of their charm and it ends up working because of the era and the way that the actors handled it (think Humphrey Bogart in “Casablanca”). However, in this day and age it’s hard to pull that style off and in the end “The Black Dahlia” is just too much and almost appears farcical.

As a big fan of film noir I really wanted to like this movie. It’s disappointing to see a film that at first looks like it got everything right, and then to find out that it all collapses under its own weight. If you want a dark Hollywood noir, go see “Hollywoodland” instead.

Flogging Molly delivers sweaty fun

by Caitlin Tortorici

On Friday, Sept. 22, the Reid Campus Center Ballroom had a truly new experience. After thousands of dollars and hours of labor by ASWC (among other orange-shirted assistants), Whitman was prepared to take on Flogging Molly, a seven-piece Irish American Celtic punk band famous for its unique sound and ability to make any audience member feel like a drunken Irishman (or woman).

Why did we choose to flog?

ASWC Social Chair Stefan Ducich said, “Elizabeth Dannon, a really good friend of mine, was the public events chair last year, and she liked having lots of smaller independent rock-esque concerts; as much as I really liked her taste in music, I wanted something people could get hyped about in a bigger, like, name-catching kind of way. I didn’t want to go for the standard, ‘Oh, we’ve heard of this band, they’re okay’; I wanted something that was going to be catchy and different that people would really grasp onto and enjoy.”

According to Ducich, ASWC had initially hoped to host the Decemberists, who were unable to come last year. However, the band was forced to cancel yet again for alleged personal reasons.

To the luck of many celtic folk fans, the ASWC Social Chair did some research and managed to book Flogging Molly through an intermediary agency in the midst of their SideOneDummy national college tour.

And there are many such fans. “We sold out 600 tickets in two days, which really means 600 tickets in a little over two hours,” said Ducich. “I feel that we have a pretty wide appeal for this concert.”

With a wide array of songs as well as instruments—electric and acoustic guitars, banjos, fiddles, mandolins, accordions and spoons, to name a few, not to mention a female member—most students had little difficulty finding an excuse to buy a ticket.

While Ducich was pleased to see so many Whitman students in the ticket line, he regrets not being able to open the show to the outside community. “I really hope to open future concerts to the rest of Walla Walla,” said Ducich.

Nevertheless, the ASWC social chair was glad to have the band playing in our (comparatively) humble ballroom.

“Flogging Molly wanted a small venue—although small to them is huge to us,” said Ducich. (Flogging Molly’s last “small” venue included up to 2,500 people.)

“We chose Reid because we wanted people to be able to dance. I didn’t want it to be in a huge room; I didn’t want it to be in a huge seated arena where people would have to save seats and watch a show. It’s not as much fun, especially for a band like Flogging Molly, where it’s a rowdy show; it’s a much more get up and be crazy type of show.”

That it was.

Not to say the opening band Bedouin Soundclash didn’t put on a great show. Based out of Toronto, vocalist and guitarist Jay Malinowski, bassist Eon Sinclair and drummer Pat Pengelly played a thoroughly danceable set of original songs and covers that mixed together all of punk, reggae, rock and soul.

“They were great. I must have burned at least a couple hundred calories,” said junior Brian Abelson, who danced all through the performance.

However, the true chaos ensued when the final act took the stage.

Beneath a sequence of crazy lights, hundreds of sweaty, smiling audience members hopped around to Flogging Molly’s livelier numbers and lovingly swayed to the band’s slower tunes.

The severe chaos took place in the front.

“The whole concert, ‘til Flogging Molly, all the people who don’t go to school here were just not rocking out at all, and then, all of a sudden, I’m being smashed onto the front of the stage, and I’m like, ‘I can’t breathe!’” exclaimed overwhelmed sophomore Helen Lummis. “It was insane!”

The insanity didn’t end with the floor routine. Before long, shirts were discarded and crowd-surfers politely escorted out of the ballroom and branded with permanent marker.

First-year and ballroom exile Alex Miller had a very disorienting experience. “I was crowd surfing—they picked me up and lifted me in the air, and then some guy grabbed me and pulled me out. I don’t know if I’ll ever get back in. They drew an ‘X’ on my arm.”

While several witnesses found Miller’s experience displeasing, junior Alec Sugar chose to emulate it. “I realized that Flogging Molly is about rising up, it’s about lifting up the human spirit, so I decided I’d represent that physically by getting up on top of the crowd, supported by my fellow Whitman students,” said Sugar.

And of course, those who kept a lower profile still ended up having a good time. “I’m having a great time. I like them. They have a lot of different stuff. I like their political stuff. They’re also really funny; I really like the song about his mom,” said senior Mariama Loos-Diallo.

The band truly did have a range. They played a number of songs from their 2004 album, “Within a Mile of Home,” as well as old favorites from “Drunken Lullabies” (2002) and earlier albums.

“Drunken Lullabies was amazing!” said junior Kaitlin Phillips. “I loved it.”

All in all the night was a success. The turnout was tremendous and the respect some felt was lost by the Guitar Hero II stand (“DDR, but with guitar,” said Brian Abelson) was regained with the inexpensive array of soft t-shirts for sale.

Everyone seemed to have a good time, too. Said sophomore Wes Price,“I really liked these guys. They flogged my Molly.”

Speaker debunks sleep loss myths

by Christina Russell

Sleep deprivation is not something to yawn about. Last week Richard D. Simon Jr., MD visited Whitman to address the far-reaching implications of sleep loss among college-aged students. In his lecture “Who Needs Sleep?” he described the dangers of functioning with no sleep and strategies for combating this dangerously common problem among the late teens and early 20s demographics. Kari Martin and Erin Flaucher, Student Academic Advisors for Prentiss Hall, brought the lecture to campus. “We were really happy with the turnout,” said Martin. “[Simon] presented a lot of relevant information. I was impressed by the amount of scientific studies and specific biological reasons he offered and was amazed by the results.”

Simon is a Whitman graduate in Chemistry who went on to medical school at the University of Chicago. He is currently working at the sleep center at St. Mary’s Medical Center, serving the Tri-Cities area.

Simon started his lecture by inquiring how one might feel attending class after having just consumed three or four beers. He explained that this is the same impairment a student experiences when they show up for class having had only six hours of sleep. What happens when you get no sleep? Your body functions at the same capacity it would if you were to drink 11 beers, Simon said.

Many people lose sleep because they have something called Obstructive Sleep Apnea; that is, they snore. “The coolest thing about snoring is that it always means that you are suffocating,” said Simon sarcastically. If you know that you snore at night, Simon recommends that you seek help right away, because this obstructive problem prevents its victims from ever gaining the restorative benefits of a full-nights rest.

Sleep is too often taken for granted. Simon explained that there are five crucial components of sleep cycle that take place every night: stages one through four and REM (rapid eye movement, during which dreams occur). “If you were in stage three and four sleep, I could walk into your room, steal things and you wouldn’t notice,” said Simon. After this stage, your body becomes completely paralyzed when you dream. These natural stages must take place in order for you to maximize your sleep. However, these states are often compromised by drugs like caffeine, which Simon explained has a half-life of six hours (that is, six hours after taking it half of the drug is still active in your body) or alcohol, which, if consumed the night before your sleep, will prevent your body from going through the deep sleep cycles. Because of these factors, most college students can wake up more sleep-deprived than before they went to bed.

If you are desperate for sleep before an exam, Simon offered a fail-proof recipe: Consume 100-200 mg of caffeine (about two cups of coffee) and sleep for 10-15 minutes. This will provide you with energy for two to four hours.

Simon explained that a common misconception with sleep loss is that the body will adapt to it over time. This is not true, he said. “Your psychological perception of sleep will stabilize, but your actual sleep deprivation won’t.” This means that if you are only allowing yourself six hours of sleep, you will eventually think that this is all you need, but your body will still suffer. Simon said that by the time Thanksgiving Break rolls around, college students have on average deprived themselves of 60 hours of sleep throughout the course of the semester that they need to catch up on.

How should students combat the effects of sleep deprivation and make the most of the hours they are awake? Simon recommends purchasing a blue light box, which projects blue wavelengths of light and simulates the amount of natural light your body requires in the morning in order to be fully awake. Essentially, more light in the morning and less or no light in the evening triggers signals in your brain that promote healthy circadian (daily) rhythms. “I want you to sleep,” said Simon, “and if that means putting your head down on your desk in class and napping a nap, then do it.”

New ‘quarterlife’ will not clash with ‘blue moon’

by Lizzie Norgard

Attracting submissions from across the Whitman community, the first issue of the student-run literary magazine “quarterlife” is in its formative stages.

Students interested in staff positions met last week to discuss the details of the new magazine. Drew Arnold, who with Ben Gannon formulated the initial vision for “quarterlife,” said that the magazine aims to publish fiction, but will also be open to poetry, essays and alternative journalism. “Quarterlife” will publish work based on a theme for every issue, the first of which will be “Summer is Hell.” Arnold has collected several submissions for the first issue, in which many writers recount summer times ranging from lackluster to infernal, and distributed them to the staff for selection.

Despite the constraint of the theme, Arnold said that the goal of “quarterlife” is to showcase “the best things [they] get,” so the staff will consider various themes and styles of work. “Quarterlife” will have a guest section for exceptional work that does not necessarily fit the theme. The magazine also encourages submissions from Whitman faculty and alumni. Arnold said, “We are keeping our guidelines open for submissions because we don’t want to be tied down in regards to what we publish. We want to put the most interesting stuff out to the community.”

“Quarterlife” will be free of charge and will release a new issue three times per semester. The staff is in the process of reading and selecting submissions for the first issue, which will come out early next month. Each issue will consist of approximately 96 pages. The funding for the magazine is projected to come from a combination of ASWC funds and donations from businesses, though the magazine has yet to be established as a club and hence be eligible for money from ASWC. Students on the financial end of “quarterlife” have been distributing letters to local businesses seeking their support, a favor they will return by printing their ads in its issues.

Comparing “quarterlife” to “blue moon,” Arnold said that the main differences are that it will release more issues and publish theme-based material. He said that the purpose of the magazine is not to compete with “blue moon”: “‘Quarterlife’ will add to the creative atmosphere of Whitman, and instead of competing against ‘blue moon’ I think it will help it in the sense that more things are being written and more people are experiencing new things. It is always good to read and it is always good to write.”  To submit writing to “quarterlife,” contact Drew Arnold at arnolddt@whitman.edu.

ACA welcomes curiosity, promotes Asian culture

by Gayle Chung

In regards to the Asian Cultural Association (ACA) club, one might ask, “How ‘Asian’ do I have to be in order to attend this club?” For some, this might be a sinful question. For others, it might be slightly racist.

Few Whitman students know about the ACA club. Those who are aware of its existence often don’t know if they will fit in based on their ethnicity. Owing to people’s fear of being labeled as ‘racist,’ race is often a hard issue to talk about.

But it is this fear of talking about “anything Asian” that ACA seeks to rid. When asked about the club’s goals, ACA president Johnny Hu said, “We are trying to promote the Asian culture as well as Asian-American awareness.” Hu and the rest of the members of ACA strive to encourage both Asians and non-Asians to come to the meetings and ask any questions they may have about the Asian identity. However, it is often the issue of not being “Asian enough” that keeps people away.

“It’s a multipurpose group. We all come together,” said Hu. “You can choose for yourself whether or not you want to fit in. Nobody will judge you based on race if you attend one of our meetings.”

During the first meeting of ACA, people got together and introduced themselves. They also discussed the direction of the club and what kinds of activities they wanted to do. For the second meeting, they began preparations for setting up a Study Abroad Night for those who are interested in studying abroad in an Asian country. ACA also aims to start a dialogue among people about sensitive issues such as immigration, racism and the popular conception of Asians in America today. Knowing that not many people know about or understand Asian cultures, Hu said, “We want people to try to be as open as possible. People should speak up and ask their questions.”

The ACA club will be meeting next Sept. 29 in Reid 207. Interested students are encouraged to attend a meeting and ask any burning questions. After all, perhaps a fellow Whitman student is wondering the same question.

Alum shares experiences, advice with students

by Marcus Koontz

Your Whitman education will give you “the ability to think critically, to communicate, and the confidence it takes to succeed,” said Travis McElfresh, class of 1988, during his recent lecture on his own career path after attending Whitman.

McElfresh came to Whitman from Hillsboro, Oregon almost 20 years ago. “I looked at Reed College. I hated it. It was scary,” McElfresh said. “They were all a bunch of nonconformists that looked the same.” Then he came to look at Whitman and deemed it “perfect.”

In his four years at Whitman McElfresh claims to have “spent a lot of time on the river … too much.” He also thought he spent a little too much time playing a video game called “Crystal Quest.” He said that on his first paper in Modernity he received an ‘F’ and that his first semester GPA was less than 2.0. “The second semester was worse,” McElfresh said, but he kept at it and eventually achieved 4.0s. “I just was a procrastinator,” he admits. “That was a skill.”

Some of his most interesting memories of Whitman are traditions that have been forgotten. “Room jacks, that’s a lost tradition,” he said. “You basically punk somebody’s room, you dismantle everything.” To get back at someone who has room-jacked you, he suggested that you “penny lock” their door. You do this by stuffing as many pennies as you can between the bottom of the door and the doorjamb, while pulling the door away from the doorjamb. After you let go, people will have a hard time getting the door to open.
McElfresh talked about many of the things he did at Whitman—rock climbing, party planning, procrastination, and river rafting, to name a few—as skills he has leveraged to help him in his career path. He suggests that nothing he did at Whitman was wasted.

Of course, McElfresh said that he took more away from Whitman than the ability to sabotage dorms and climb rocks. Remembering things he thanked Whitman for, McElfresh said, “I learned a lot from my professors, but I learned just as much from the students. The students are top-notch.” He also said that he got his ability to think critically from Whitman professors and the “intense four years of doing [critical thinking] here.” He said, “I had professors that would invest time in me to help me problem solve.” He talked about problem solving and noted the importance it has had on his career: “That’s probably one of my greatest assets now. … Whitman will prepare you in great ways.”

Among the advice McElfresh gave Whitman students was that they should chase opportunities as they arise instead of sticking stubbornly to a plan. “I stuck to that Ph.D. track for a long time, but now I chase opportunities,” he said.

McElfresh talked about his journey from Whitman to graduate school to the dot-com boom, Microsoft, Xbox and to his current job at MSNBC.com.

When McElfresh decided to get involved in technology he was only a few months away from obtaining his Ph.D. in high temperature geochemistry at the University of Wyoming.

“That was a huge stress for me,” he said. “Giving up the Ph.D. route was probably when I started losing most of my hair.” During the dot-com crash, McElfresh said he “worked like a dog and loved it” for a company called OneSoft. However, he eventually “headed for the high hills…the safe hills” of Microsoft. His job at Microsoft was “figuring out which courses to build with a Microsoft developer, then building them.”

When he made the decision to move on to the Xbox, McElfresh believed he’d gotten the job because of his experience in playing Xbox games and his ability to talk about potential ideas he had for enhancing the games. Now McElfresh believes, “Xbox was cool, but it’s all about wasting people’s time”.

McElfresh is currently the Vice President of Technology for MSNBC.com. He spoke about how MSNBC.com is the world’s number one online news website. “It’s about morale, about being in something you’re passionate about. [MSNBC.com is] a great service to the public,” said McElfresh. “[I] enjoy creating an environment that people love to be in.” Aside from work, his crew at MSNBC.com has morale-boosting events such as paintball and whitewater rafting or floating down a river while drinking beer. “We’re still doing jacks … just at work,” said McElfresh.

Three main points that McElfresh wanted students to take away from his speech were: “You will become a producer of a product or service,” “You are what you are, the only change is that you’ll better understand yourself,” and that you need to “embrace opportunity, don’t stress about a change in plans.”

The Sava and Danica Andjelkovic Endowed Fund was created to bring speakers, most of them graduates of Whitman, to campus to share information about their career paths. The endowment was funded with a gift from Vojislav Andjelkovic, class of 1994, in honor of his parents.

Professors spend sabbatical time studying

by Lizzie Norgard

When one of your professors returns from sabbatical, don’t ever ask, “How was your time off?” You might ask them what they were working on, though their scholarly labors will likely be revealed through their teaching. Such is the case with professors Patrick Frierson and Robert Tobin, who took sabbaticals in 2005-2006 and 2004-2005, respectively.

Philosophy professor Patrick Frierson spent his sabbatical writing articles for publication in several philosophy books and journals. In the summer of 2005 he contributed articles to an encyclopedia on Kant, and then spent most of the following year writing a series of articles on Adam Smith and environmental ethics. One of Frierson’s articles on Adam Smith will be published in a book called “New Voices,” and another will be published in a journal called “Pacific Philosophical Quarterly.” In the summer of 2006, Frierson worked with a student through a Perry grant on a translation of Kant’s notes on Rousseau, which he had begun with another student in 2005, also through a Perry grant.

Frierson said that producing articles while teaching is “impossible.” “When I’m teaching, it’s 95 percent teaching, 4.5 percent advising, and half a percent research,” he said. He expressed a need for balance between teaching and scholarly work because while scholarship is an end in itself, it is secondary and supplemental to his teaching: “[Scholarship] ends up being valuable for my teaching, partly for all the reasons that everybody thinks it is—I stay excited about what I’m doing, I end up knowing a lot more about what I’m teaching than I would if I weren’t doing scholarship. But also it cultivates virtues in me that I think help me in my teaching—it forces me to write clearly and in a way that other people can understand, and also to write at a higher and higher intellectual level, and that’s stuff that I’m trying to get my students to do.”

Besides strengthening their ability to relate to students’ academic endeavors, the work professors do on sabbatical also affects the content of their courses. Professor of German and Gender Studies Robert Tobin, who received a grant in 2004 from the Rockefeller foundation to study in a year-long Columbia University program called “Sexuality, Gender, Health and Human Rights,” said that his understanding of gender and sexuality has broadened through contact with other fellows in the program, which has changed the way he teaches classes.

While in the program, Tobin wrote a book on the political and medical origins of the term “homosexual” in nineteenth century Germany and, while studying, he interacted with people of academic backgrounds different from his own. He said that most of the people were studying sexuality and gender from the point of view of law, human rights or public health. “That was very mind-broadening for me, because most of the people in the program are working on more contemporary issues, so I was kind of unusual and liberal-artsy that way,” he said.

Describing his opportunity to consider gender and sexuality from the angles of contemporary health and human rights, Tobin said, “I feel so much more broadly educated, and it had the direct effect last year that I was able to offer a special studies course, also called “Sexuality and Human Rights,” in the Gender Studies program, which was pretty exciting for students.” Tobin also said that much of the material in other classes he teaches, such as last year’s “The German Discovery of Sex” and this year’s senior seminar, comes directly from work he has done on sabbatical.

Press Release: Whitman returns conservation reserve program payments

Sept. 21, 2006 – Whitman College announced today that it has repaid the Farm Service Agency (FSA) for all payments it received under the federal Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) for 2004 and 2005. The repayment of $101,000, including interest, was a result of an unintentional violation of CRP rules, according to President George Bridges.

In 2004 Whitman College accepted a cash rent payment from a tenant on a farm which was enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). The college believed the rent payment was allowable under the CRP rules, but Whitman was subsequently advised by the FSA that the acceptance of the cash rent payment was not in compliance. The matter was referred to the Washington State FSA committee.

In a letter to Whitman dated Sept. 19, 2006, the state committee reported that it found the violation “was not so much specifically intended to evade the payment limitation rules but rather had that effect.” The state committee determined the violation made Whitman ineligible to receive CRP payments in 2004 and 2005 and directed the college to refund payments received for those years plus interest.

Whitman College owns 15 farms in Southeastern Washington and Northeastern Oregon. The farms provide employment for local farmers and income to support the college. Management of the farms is led by the college’s Farm Committee, and includes staff and local farmers.

“Whitman trustees and officers are disheartened by this matter and take it very seriously. It is the policy of Whitman College to abide by and adhere to all government farm program rules,” said Jim Hayner, Whitman trustee. “Whitman has acknowledged to the FSA that it erred in accepting this rental payment and has implemented additional oversight and control measures to ensure that an incident like this does not occur in the future,” Hayner continued.

Core revisions in progress

by Christina Russell

“Change is a hard thing,” said Lynn Sharp, head of the board of faculty appointed to revise the Antiquity and Modernity curriculum.

Antiquity and Modernity, the required class for the first-year student body known to the Whitman community as “Core,” has essentially been the same for the past 12 years. Minor augmentations have included the addition of Medea and Mozart in recent years, the removal of Rousseau’s “Discourse on the Origin of Inequality” and the incorporation of a different version of Sappho. However, the program hasn’t seen any drastic changes in the past several years. Nor will it anytime soon.

Sharp has been working for the past year with the General Studies committee and now works with a group formulated from professors young and old with diverse experiences whose only commonality is that they’ve all taught Core. This group meets with the understanding that it is “time to revise,” said Sharp. “I wouldn’t call this a major overhaul.”

Last year, thought was given to changing the times at which Core was held or offering it at a variety of times. Ultimately, it was decided that the time would stay the same. The reasoning behind this choice was that it would ensure that all students were reading the same books at the same time. “You’re reading Medea, your roommate is reading Medea, the person across the hall is reading Medea, and you are all talking about it,” said Sharp.

Logistically, having the course at the same time grants Core professors priority in choosing classrooms as well. Also, the time consistency makes it easier for first-years to take other entry-level courses without worrying about compromising for Core.

“We’re talking a bit early,” said Sharp. “I can’t say how much change will happen within the next year.” Thus far, what they do know is that it is forecasted that changes will be proposed and decided upon by the end of next spring so that the first-year class of 2011 will be the first to study under the new syllabus.

Two surveys were conducted last year—one for the now junior class student body and one for faculty—inquiring what participants liked and disliked about Whitman’s current approach to teaching the required first–year course. Results of the survey showed that in general, most were favorable of the existence of the course. Ultimately, two main issues surfaced as components of Core that were “broken,” said Sharp.

First, that there are too many texts, which is a direct corollary to the second, that there isn’t enough time to work on writing. A less predominant complaint was that there should be a mixture of Western and alternative voices. As a result, the committee intends to discuss solutions that will emphasize a reduction of the volume of text in order to promote the integration of writing instruction.

While there are no plans to replace texts from the Western tradition with alternative pieces, strides are being made to evaluate the possible inclusion of more “non-dominant” voices. Sharp mentioned Karl Marx as a non-dominant voice, whereas the Koran and the Tao would qualify as alternative voices, that is, as voices from cultures other than our own.

“The Committee hasn’t finalized anything,” said Sharp. “There’s always controversy. The goal of Core is to get students thinking and writing in a creative, constructive and collaborative way. There are people that are worried we’ll lose the integrity of the course. We on the committee hope not to do that.”

Service Sunday draws students to volunteer

by Lizzie Norgard

Graciously forgoing the IM football games, over 30 students took part in youth-themed service projects at Green Park Elementary and the YMCA last Sunday.

Several of the students met at Reid at noon on Sept. 24 to help re-paint a map of the United States on the playground at Green Park, while another group departed to the YMCA to volunteer at Family Fun Day, a United Way-sponsored event involving games and crafts for kids.

Led by Tricia Haley, the community outreach projects coordinator for the Center for Community Service, six of the volunteers helped re-paint the Green Park map. Each volunteer took charge of a color and covered the faded, chipping states with bright new coats of red, green, yellow and blue, careful not to trap one another between wet Midwestern states.

Several volunteers said that they took part in the project to get outside and have fun.

Rebecca Sickels, coordinator at the Center for Community Service, said that Whitman students have been re-painting the map annually for the past four or five years. The project has become so regular that the Center for Community Service does not notify Green Park before coming.

“We’re like painting elves,” said Haley. “People just come to school and find the map repainted.”

Meanwhile at the YMCA, approximately 25 students manned booths and played games with kids at Family Fun Day. The volunteers arrived just after noon to help set up tables, tents and games, and the games began at 1:00. The day was divided into two shifts, with about a dozen volunteers on each shift.

After setting up, volunteers helped kids and their families sign up for games such as the three-legged race, sack race, balloon toss, and Frisbee and softball throw. Volunteers also manned craft booths, a lemonade stand and a line for a bouncy castle. Some also got their hands and feet wet playing such games as the water balloon toss with the kids.

When asked how volunteers for the youth-themed service Sunday projects were recruited, Sickels said that in addition to student listserv e-mails and flyers posted around campus, she also posted a flyer on Facebook. Sickels decided this year to advertise on Facebook in the hope of reaching more students. She said that the number of students volunteering for the projects organized by the Center has been decreasing over the past few years.

Referring to sign-up lists for weekend projects, Sickels said, “We used to be full by Wednesday, and now we barely fill.” Thinking at first that the events needed to be better communicated to students, she began advertising them on Facebook, but she has yet to see this change affect the number of volunteers.

Continued construction renders local bridge unavailable for use

by Lizzie Norgard

Though we all know by now that we can’t walk past Reid down Park Street, the details of the Park Street bridge project have remained a mystery.

Formerly an arched structure leading across Mill Creek, the 80-year-old Park Street bridge was demolished over the summer, and construction of a new bridge has since been underway. Fred Miklancic, project representative and inspector for the architectural engineering company Anderson Perry and Associates, Inc, explained that the old bridge had a load bearing limit of nine tons, requiring fire engines and many trucks to navigate around Park Street. The new bridge will consist of stronger concrete reinforced by steel beams, which will allow heavier vehicles to cross. Miklancic said that the Division and Blue Street bridges will also be replaced “in the next year or two.”

Beginning in early June and working four 10-hour shifts per week, construction workers from Vono, the construction company contracted to replace the bridge, tore down the old bridge over a period of a month and a half. Since then they have also laid the sub-structure, which consists of steel-reinforced concrete slabs set under the bridge. To prevent refuse from falling into Mill Creek, the workers also laid a provisional steel bridge over the water. The next step in the project is to lay the superstructure across Mill Creek.

The layout of the Park Street block between Boyer and Alder will not change significantly. The street will retain the same width that it had before construction began, but the new bridge will be flat as opposed to slightly arched as it once was. It will be constructed from girders, the steel-reinforced concrete beams that will lie diagonally across the creek.

Miklancic said that the project has undergone some delay from having to wait for the girders to arrive at the site. “We’re ready to put them in right now, but it’s going to be almost another three, possibly four weeks before we get the girders,” he said. He said that the contractor wants the workers to begin constructing the sidewalk alongside the bridge to make up for the lost time, but that this is risky because “until you get the bridge set in there, you need to know exactly where you’re going, and if you make a little mistake about where the sidewalk and curbs are, then you have to change the sidewalks.”

The completion date for the project is Nov. 3, assuming no significant problems arise from now until then.

News Bits

by Alex Henke

Bruised and dismayed Republican senators ‘reluctantly agree’ to implement Bush torture bill
Shortly after leading Republican senators who support a slightly anti-torture bill met with the president in his newly created ‘special interrogation’ room, each senator returned to Capitol Hill bloodied and in ‘reluctant support’ of Bush’s staunch pro-torture bill.  “As a Vietnam P.O.W., I can say that I’ve been through a lot of things a person should not have to go through,” said Senator McCain (R-AZ), formerly a leader in the opposition to the Bush torture plan.  “But damn, at least those damn Viet Cong didn’t do a number on my genitals with electric prongs, hot tar and pictures of Barbara Bush bending over naked.  I had to tap out after a good five minutes, which is more than I can say of my wishy-washy colleagues.”  The senators did relent, however, that the ‘documentary’ of Michael Moore bathing in chocolate pudding mix combined with five seconds of a Jack Thompson speech would be enough to make any possible terrorist do or say anything.
Microsoft Zune’s success based on people’s desire to share music, experience blue screens of death
In business news, Microsoft plans to be the 54th Ipod Killer by launching its new Zune media player.  Its features include wireless music sharing complete with RIAA lawsuits and a touch of that Microsoft feel with fully implemented blue screens of death.  While Apple is predicted to remain the dominant force in the portable music market, Microsoft is predicted to make large gains in the “Oh god damn fucking fuck shit FUCK, my hard drive with all my legally e-purchased music crashed and it’s not backed up, and the cheapest solution is just to buy all the songs back I SHOULD HAVE NEVER LET MY COMPUTER BE RIDIN’ DIRTY FUCKING FUCK SHIT ASS SHIT” market.

Rough start for women’s soccer

by Andrew Hookom

The women’s soccer team had a disappointing start to Northwest Conference play this weekend, losing twice.

After a hard-fought 0-1 match against second-ranked Willamette Saturday, the Missionaries were soundly beaten 1-4 by last-ranked George Fox on Sunday.

“This is obviously not the way we wanted to start off the conference season,” said Coach Scott Shields after the Sunday game.
The team has added seven new players this season, but Shields said that doesn’t explain the early losses, since there is also a solid group of six seniors who have been playing together for years.

The team played much more cohesively and put up more of a fight against the stronger Willamette. Jennifer Doane bested a defender with a between-the-legs dribble, while first-year Corina Gabbert earned a yellow card for an aggressive tackle. But the team struggled to score a goal even with 18 attempts to the Bearcats’ 15. Gabbert had 12 of the attempts, putting five on goal.

“We had some awesome opportunities, and we just didn’t capitalize,” said Shields.

The one Whitman goal of the weekend came in the second half of the game on Sunday when Sammie Arthur netted a penalty kick. While the Missionaries shared the ball evenly with George Fox, they struggled to combine passes and create scoring opportunities.

“We decided not to really show up and play as a team,” said Shields. “We need to figure out what our team is going to be.”

Two of the Bruins’ goals came from players who were left wide-open. The first goal, scored only a few minutes into the game, was the result of a breakaway that goalkeeper Erica Goad tried to chase down and couldn’t. Their fourth came from a cross to an open player.

Shields said two of Whitman’s defenders had a top-notch game Sunday, however, pointing to lapses in the mid-field that led to untenable defensive situations.

“When breakdowns happen in front, bad things will happen,” said Shields.

Whitman will take to the road next weekend, visiting Pacific University and Linfield College, both ranked below the Missionaries.

Students pose the ‘campus climate challenge’ at Whitman

by Katie Collier

Whitman’s Renewable Energy Club has joined a national movement of over 315 campuses in a campaign called the Campus Climate Challenge that encourages colleges and universities to address global warming issues and reduce their environmental footprint.

Senior Juliana Williams has been leading the Renewable Energy campaign on campus for the past few years and has worked with a small group of people to encourage change at the college administrative level. This year she felt the need to expand her mission to a the more comprehensive format of the Campus Climate Challenge: “We’re looking to start a ‘movement’ here because this change can’t happen with just a few individuals. This is probably our generation’s largest challenge. So many people don’t know what they can do about it or if they can do anything about it.”

Williams emphasized the value of activism in the area of global warming given the political climate of today: “Its time for us to take over because the political situation is such that legislation is getting nowhere.”

The Campus Climate Change campaign will focus on both long-term and intermediate goals. Williams explained, “Ultimately, we’re aiming to get Whitman to use 100% renewable energy. We know this will not happen immediately, but we want to be working with the administration in developing a long-term plan.”

In the meantime, Williams outlined several intermediary goals to reduce energy consumption, increase energy efficiency and expand Whitman’s renewable energy use.

One potential plan is to give students the option of choosing an “energy plan” along with their meal plan. Students would have the option of paying for a certain amount of renewable energy to be run in their rooms.

Another intermediate goal that the campaign is considering this year is an “alternative gifts plan.” Parents and friends would be able to purchase renewable energy for Whitman students and faculty rather than giving them the traditional gifts of clothing, music, etc.

President George Bridges has apparently expressed interest in another plan to revise Whitman’s Environmental Principles, a set of bylaws that determine under what circumstances the college will pay for environmentally friendly practices. Campus Climate Challenge hopes these revisions will result in a more proactive policy.

Students involved in the campaign this year will help draft the long-term plan alongside the Whitman administration. They will also be working regularly at devising and implementing the proposed intermediate measures. Williams commented, “I would like to see all of these intermediate measures implemented by the end of this year and going into effect as soon as possible.”

A final component of the Climate Challenge will be educating the student body and faculty on issues of global warming and easy steps they can take in their own lives to cut consumption of energy.

Students meet on Fridays at 2:00 p.m. in the Reid coffeehouse. Students interested in the campaign are welcome to attend or may contact Williams at williajm@whitman.edu.

Men’s soccer ties Willamette University 0-0

by Marcus Koontz

Despite running into double overtime at home against Willamette University, the Whitman men’s soccer team still came up scoreless Saturday and ended the final 10 minute overtime period tied.

“[The team] just couldn’t put the ball in the net,” said #30 Brett Axelrod, goalkeeper. All through the game the sun was shining, the wind was blowing and the fans were there in standard Whitman fashion. The first half started out slow, with the scoreboard showing only two shots on goal at the end of the half, both by Whitman.

The second half heated up, with Whitman taking three more shots on goal, all misses, and at the end of the second half Willamette took a shot on goal that was blocked by the goalkeeper. In overtime both teams continued to be frustrated by a lack of goals, and the game ended scoreless. Saturday’s tie puts Whitman at one win and one tie for the season record, and one tie in conference play.

When asked how the season is starting out, Coach Washington said, “We have had an extended pre-season with the trip to England, so we hope these games will help our preparation.”

While the extended pre-season may prove advantageous in the team’s upcoming games, there are other reasons to anticipate a good season this year. “We are excited as to the depth and quality of our team,” said Coach Washington. When asked who was at the top of their game this year Coach Washington said, “Too early to say …. Stephen Phillips and Andy Huntington look good up front. Cole Sherman and Jon Rue, also; both keepers look good.” When asked about injuries, Washington said that his major concern was Kevin Sigley, who is nursing a groin injury.

Whitman lost Sunday, Sept. 10, 1-0 against North Idaho College, but the loss doesn’t count towards Whitman’s NCAA record because NIC is a two-year college. Whitman’s Junior Varsity Team scored a 3-1 win against Saint Martin Tuesday, Sept. 12. The last game Whitman played before press time was Saturday’s tie against Willamette.

Students pose the ‘campus climate challenge’ at Whitman

by Katie Collier

Whitman’s Renewable Energy Club has joined a national movement of over 315 campuses in a campaign called the Campus Climate Challenge that encourages colleges and universities to address global warming issues and reduce their environmental footprint.

Senior Juliana Williams has been leading the Renewable Energy campaign on campus for the past few years and has worked with a small group of people to encourage change at the college administrative level. This year she felt the need to expand her mission to a the more comprehensive format of the Campus Climate Challenge: “We’re looking to start a ‘movement’ here because this change can’t happen with just a few individuals. This is probably our generation’s largest challenge. So many people don’t know what they can do about it or if they can do anything about it.”

Williams emphasized the value of activism in the area of global warming given the political climate of today: “Its time for us to take over because the political situation is such that legislation is getting nowhere.”

The Campus Climate Change campaign will focus on both long-term and intermediate goals. Williams explained, “Ultimately, we’re aiming to get Whitman to use 100% renewable energy. We know this will not happen immediately, but we want to be working with the administration in developing a long-term plan.”

In the meantime, Williams outlined several intermediary goals to reduce energy consumption, increase energy efficiency and expand Whitman’s renewable energy use.

One potential plan is to give students the option of choosing an “energy plan” along with their meal plan. Students would have the option of paying for a certain amount of renewable energy to be run in their rooms.

Another intermediate goal that the campaign is considering this year is an “alternative gifts plan.” Parents and friends would be able to purchase renewable energy for Whitman students and faculty rather than giving them the traditional gifts of clothing, music, etc.

President George Bridges has apparently expressed interest in another plan to revise Whitman’s Environmental Principles, a set of bylaws that determine under what circumstances the college will pay for environmentally friendly practices. Campus Climate Challenge hopes these revisions will result in a more proactive policy.

Students involved in the campaign this year will help  draft the long-term plan alongside the Whitman administration. They will also be working regularly at devising and implementing the proposed intermediate measures. Williams commented, “I would like to see all of these intermediate measures implemented by the end of this year and going into effect as soon as possible.”

A final component of the Climate Challenge will be educating the student body and faculty on issues of global warming and easy steps they can take in their own lives to cut consumption of energy.

Students meet on Fridays at 2:00 p.m. in the Reid coffeehouse. Students interested in the campaign are welcome to attend or may contact Williams at williajm@whitman.edu.

Student activists seek niche in IFC

by Andrew Hookom

A small group of students has developed a proposal for a new Interest House based on fostering activism on campus.

The house would provide institutional support for students with plans to develop initiatives involving Whitman and/or the larger community.

“We’re just starting the process,” said Thomas Miller, who assembled the three-person team working on the idea. “My goal is to have a guarantee by the end of the year that there will be an activist house by next year or the year after.”

The new interest house would either replace one of the current interest houses, or else could be made from a house Whitman already owns, such as the Hotel California.

Miller got the idea for the house while studying activism and social change in South Africa last fall, where he bared witness to 40 percent unemployment and startling rates of HIV/AIDS.

“Students get demobilized while they’re at Whitman,” said Miller. “They have the potential to be interested in politics on campus and in the community, but when it comes to doing something concrete, they don’t really feel like they can do that many things.”

Miller also emphasized the need for continuity, which he hopes the house could provide: “There are people who come through here and they start something and then they graduate [leaving their project unfinished].”

The house itself would serve as a liaison to the community, providing contacts and resource information to students and providing a place for faculty, community members or other students to come for help with projects they are working on. In this way, house projects would hopefully get carried over from year to year, but applicants to live in the house would be required to submit plans for their own initiatives also.

The house could also use interest house programming funds to host speakers who will help students develop conceptual frameworks that allow them to, as Miller said, “translate their passions into action in the real world.”

Miller plans to meet with Nancy Travelli, the associate dean of students in charge of campus life, to discuss the plans next week.

Said Miller, “I’m hopeful for the project because Whitman is generally very supportive of student initiatives, and this is a good way for Whitman to engage in the community, which is something we’re leaning towards.”

Student-organized NGO opens Whitman chapter

by Katie Collier

Seniors Megan McConville and Thomas Miller have recently presented an impressive blueprint for a Whitman chapter of Student Movement for Real Change (SMRC), a student-led NGO meant to empower students to affect change in remote, neglected areas of the world. United under a common interest in water issues, the two students will spearhead a project to bring clean, safe water to 10 schools and the surrounding rural community in Kayafungo, Kenya.

Miller described SMRC as a way to “help people at Whitman understand how we can have an impact on remote areas through grassroots work, research and fundraising at home.” McConville expressed a desire to increase general campus awareness, and particularly to groom a pool of dedicated club members to a more acute understanding of research and fundraising methods in order to carry this chapter into the future. “Maybe a couple years down the road Whitman will be choosing its own project to promote through SMRC,” she said.

SMRC was founded four years ago in Colorado by then-college student Saul Garlick, a personal acquaintance of McConville. Having gained its status as a 501(c)(3) non-profit, SMRC has already seen success in the construction of the Ashlati Primary School in the Limpopo Province of South Africa.

Garlick’s initial fundraising efforts and success were contagious, and chapters of SMRA have spread to eight colleges and universities nationwide, where hundreds of impassioned students have joined the efforts to take action on issues all over the world. Schools have raised up to $10,000 in a year to help support their projects.

The Kenya Water Project also has a hands-on portion that will be led by the SIT Kenya study abroad program. Students will be able to do first hand research and see the project through in Kenya.

A number of Whitman students have participated in SIT Kenya in the past and McConville hopes to get the Whitman Study Abroad office involved in promoting the program. Senior Caitlin Chapman, who returned from Kenya last December, endorsed the idea as “a positive way to be involved in issues we were previously only able to observe on SIT.”

The Water Project has the potential to appeal to both hard science and humanities students. McConville worked on the environmental chemistry end of a water project in Ecuador last spring, while Miller has delved into development politics at Whitman and while abroad in South Africa last fall.

Miller also praised the organization for its ability to bring students together between campuses. “There are only 1400 students on a campus like Whitman, and only so many people in a small town like Walla Walla, but together with other campuses and communities we have the potential to make a huge impact.”

Miller described tentative plans to implement an already existing $10 bracelet campaign, whereby students who “can’t really afford much more, but want to be involved” can purchase a SMRC bracelet in sponsorship of the Water Project. The club will organize a few larger fundraising events both on and off campus this year, and will meet regularly to learn more about the situation. Details about the first meeting will be advertised on campus soon.

Adventures in clubbing

by Sally Sorte – Spain

Get to the metro right as your train is pulling away? Me cagué en la leche. Spill your sangria? Me cagué en la leche. Somebody steal your cell phone? Me cagué en la leche. ‘I shit in the milk.’ No, that’s not Nesquik.

Avoiding thieves is an art. Your wallet needs to move to your front pocket, zippers need to be closed and forward, backpacks must be worn like pregnant suits—like in “10 Things I Hate About You,” you cannot be distracted by books or maps thrust in your face, and the vigilance can never cease. Thieves may come in the form of children playing under tables—chasing runaway balls, a confused tourist hablar-ing perfect Español, a classy con artist working with her compañero, or a grimy homeless guy without shirt, shoes, or service.

I encountered the latter, and didn’t see his back until he was already a block away. My friend and I were frisked like cat food, but luckily my purse was woven around my wrist and his cargo pocket contained no valuables.

In Spain the expression for paying attention is ‘estar al loro’—to be like a parrot, but even birds in paradise may become demasiada borracha—crunk.

Por ejemplo, at the Casa de Cerveza you can have all the beer, sangria, and Camacho that you can libate for 10 euros. With no Sharpie on hand to tally your brazo, you may lose count.

I was with a group from a Boston program and the familiar sound of American hip hop summoned me to the dance floor, German girl named Anna in tow, our cell phones wall-flowering it on the table.

Some time later, with new numbers to insert into the phone, I returned to the table to find a dude that reeked of mierda sitting in the chair closest to the door. The table had been stripped; our phones were gone, as was Anna’s purse. I told the bouncer that we’d been had and pointed out the sketchy dude and his sketchier accomplice. The bouncer rounded up his cronies and a few of the burlier bartenders, and they took it afuera.

I watched from inside the Casa while the bouncers laid down the smack and got our ‘moviles’ back. Those hijos de putas will be out of business for awhile, pero no me importa, ladrones shouldn’t try to shit in my milk.

Writing from a broad—where the first floor is always the second story.

Yearning for taco truck

by Emma Wood – Brest, France

I could do nothing but throw back my head and stare when we entered the Cathedral de Nantes today. The flesh on my arms took on that sensation reserved for mornings in the silent wheatfields and the beginning of Shostakovich’s 8th quartet. Neck craned, I traced with my eyes the peculiar melange of curves and straight lines in the ceiling structure, trying to fathom the vastness above me—that empty space, space no human can occupy. In Tom Davis’ aesthetics class, we talked about man’s unique orientation to the earth: we, unlike any other creature, stand on two legs in order to look toward the heavens. Here in this manmade piece of heaven, my body did just that.

Outside the cathedral, once again in survival mode, your eyes return to the roads; as many statues, steeples, and pillars you pass, you’ll see just as many dogs—or more—and the French don’t believe in Pooper Scoopers. Paris Hilton would be appalled. Today in the pouring autumn rain, we skirted the dogs on the cobblestone streets and strained to hear our tour guide’s stories about Duke so-and-so and his lovely Duchess.

In all facets of life here, historical reverence meets the mundane: Cathedrals and dog shit. Tobacco stores in ancient plazas, student housing in old bourgeois courtyards. Covered outdoor marble walkways are lined with modern shops, and the streets are all named after French philosophers. It’s as if the physical structures of years long past remain as a membrane for modern culture that’s constantly changing within.

I walk to the student center each morning, rain or no, and on every corner, there’s a boulangerie; every person I pass clutches a baguette. I’d kill for a bean burrito these days. All the croissants in France are at my disposal, and I’d trade them for a taco truck. The vegetarian diet in France is easy: baguettes, la fromage, et la beurre. The natives give me glowing accounts of vegetarians returned home carnivorous!

Every day I have interesting mishaps. Often I simply get hopelessly lost, because the French don’t believe in square city plans: instead, it’s a patchwork of circular plazas, from which branch out anywhere between four and eight roads. I thus practice my French with the local florist, patissier, and the old lady who’s waiting for the bus: “Je cherche la Rue de Gigant, Madame. Je suis Americaine….Merci.”

In my house, too, there are variables. For the first time since high school, I’m not supposed to do my own laundry (that’s the French mother’s job). Last week I bit my nails each day at a dwindling underwear supply, when yesterday at the crucial moment I found neatly folded stacks on my bed.

I won’t be truly European until I buy myself some skinny jeans and a pair of chic black ankle boots. That, and lose the American accent….

Hope all is well in Walla Walla; shoeless, and happy. I hope you attended Writers’ Colony, and that your family didn’t get eaten by bears.

Cooperation: Key for a successful democracy

by Ari van Schilfgaarde

Last week I focused on the goodwill and collaboration that led to the Xeriscaping of the new Health Center. The implication of the kind of collaboration that led to this reasonable compromise on all sides was mutual respect and the messy business of public involvement.

The great downfall of participatory democracy is that it takes time and energy that few busy people like to expend, and expediency decries. The reason that I keep harping on about true social participation is that without it – without educated and interested citizens/students – the things that sustain us (as a society and species) will not continue.  I don’t mean that last statement as rhetorical flair, nor as fire-and-brimstone, but rather a sober declaration of fact.  Here are some examples.

The undeniable appeal of the veneer of collaborative conservation is now evident in the rhetoric emanating from the Offices of Interior and Agriculture. Last week, the former governor of Idaho and new Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne began a “listening tour” of the country. He is following on the heels of Gale Norton, the recently retired Secretary of the Interior when she came up with the “Four C’s: communication, consultation and cooperation, all in service of conservation.” Secretary Kempthorne has since added “community” to the original four.

One might expect that with such a focus by the Federal land managers on cooperation and community, the Department of Interior would not go to court to defend rules that prevented public comment on any projects. The 2003 rules were designed to allow “environmentally benign” projects like logging and mining operations to cruise through rural communities like Walla Walla without the added trouble and red tape of consultation with, or cooperation of, the community.

Three weeks ago, the BLM – which Secretary Kempthorne oversees – auctioned off 22,000 acres in Colorado and Utah for oil and gas development on previously roadless areas. This despite calls from the governor of Colorado to preserve currently roadless areas and the fact that the new oil and gas rigs will go onto slopes that provide drinking water for 45,000 people.

Another major land manager in the West, the Forest Service, under the able direction of Mike Johanns was recently slapped in court for exactly the same overstepping of authority.  Using the 2003 rules, the Forest Service allowed oil and gas drilling and the logging of thousands of acres of your land without any sort of public appeals process.  This includes the recent leasing of land torched by the Biscuit Fire despite public outcry and the public dissent of the governor of Oregon.

But there are bright sides to these stories, and they all stem from the active voice of the interested and active citizen. Continued and active pressure has convinced oil and gas interests to donate the mineral rights leased to them by the government to conservation groups. In the Walla Walla Valley, local watershed groups, tribes and farmers have partnered to return the Walla Walla River from a dry trickle to a measurable flow year round. The most recent wilderness area added to the Federal Wilderness system is in Utah, where W’s approval ratings are the highest in the country. The Cedar Mountain Wilderness Area was developed in part because the people of Utah, particularly those near Salt Lake City, realized that their state would become a dumping ground for high level radioactive waste, and in order to keep their families safe, they joined forces with the conservationists to protect 100,000 acres of land.

By virtue of the fact that the interests of the conservation movement aligned with the interests of families, those interested in preserving wild places had allies to go to Congress and the decision making bodies. On a much smaller scale this happened at Whitman with the Health Center. Coalitions of interested citizens do, in fact, make a difference, and that is what four years at Whitman is trying to teach us.  Make a difference now and bring people with you; you only have forty years left.

Learning to dance for the sake of sanity

by Valerie Lopez

Dance. . In the midst of all the alkane nomenclatures studied at 9:30 on a Saturday night, I began to zone out.. in room temperature, cyclohexane simultaneously undergoes varying conformations, given that the temperature provides enough energy to overcome the energy barrier.. What’s mildly depressing is not that I’m studying on a Saturday night (it is, after all, a unique ability either naturally studious Whitties possess, or frantic students catching up for school) but that these carbon cyclohexanes are getting more rotation action than I am. Therefore, after slipping into a funk of apathy towards chemistry, I resolved to brave the frigidity and walk across Ankeny (oh first years, you’ve got mad skills for surviving the walk home from the foam party) with the company of fabulous girlfriends to dance our blues away.

There’s something almost overwhelming when you catch yourself reflecting as you dance. It’s interesting when the dance floor no longer becomes this temporal escape from the reality of the world, but when it transmutes itself to a microcosm of how we express ourselves and how we relate to others in our interpersonal relationships in the real world. Dancing reveals how nurturing friendships can be, the precarious balance of compromise and power when you dance with a partner, and most importantly, how we connect with ourselves.

Exhibit A: Dancing with good friends will do you good.

In my personal experience, no matter how awkward, spastic, and downright idiotic you look dancing, it doesn’t matter at all when you’re in the company of good friends. There’s a comforting degree of approval and support, and yes, while they may encourage you to look like an idiot, it’s all good in the end. There seems to be an air of confidence and they provide that fuels the way you dance. Outside the context of the dance floor-slash-the-TKE-basement, good friendships allow you to be who you are, no pretenses involved. Therefore, because these relationships can be nurturing, you exude confidence no matter how spastic you actually are in real life (shout out to my good friend and dancing fiend, Sagen).

Exhibit B:  The way you dance with a partner can be indicative of how well you’ll get along with them in real life.

Ah, yes. We enter into the realm of guy-girl booty dancing.  Although this mode of dancing can get very crass to parties not involved (as in those of us not involved in the dancing orgy conglomerate during the BSU dance) dancing with a guy/girl is actually a very delicate social situation. Dancing with a partner becomes a series of negotiations and compromises resolved in a matter of picoseconds. A flick of the wrist can cascade into a simultaneous swagger of the hips. These series of compromises include the balance of power between the parties involved, how each person dances complementary to the other person, made more complicated by the rhythm of the music. Moreover, dancing becomes a test of social boundaries: the appropriate sites of groping, the expressions of intimacies, and of course the appropriate height for how low you can go. If by some extreme luck you find someone in the dance floor you dance well with, it’s almost a sure bet you will get along well enough with him/her in real life.

Exhibit C: Me, Myself and I: A Pas De Trois of Ecstasy.

It is of no coincidence that I evoke the same high-inducing quality of dancing to that of an actual drug. Unlike dancing with another person, dancing by yourself (and by that I mean no other person clinging onto you) is e-xxx-tremely liberating. There are no compromises to be made: you are literally marching to the beat of your own drum. And while not everyone utilizes this mode of self-expression, it is still a very good way to let emotions pulsate through your veins and direct the sway and movement of your body. Dancing is my high, my emotional band-aid. Doing it sober is even better, because you are acutely aware of differing sensations happening simultaneously: the distinct college beer smell, the thumps of the bass, the rhythm of the music…you get what I mean.

After a night of dancing, waking into the real world almost takes quite a bit of adjustment. It is a nice way to let loose and get away, but also still very interesting that we still operate under social forces, however blurred they are in the dance floor. You know you’ve had fun the night before when you find yourself a bit sore walking to brunch the next day. And people have come up to me and told me they’ve gotten danced out.

And me? Hells no. I’ve got too much canned heat in my heels, baby.

Show some respect and make everyone’s life better

by Marcus Koontz

“She’s a *beep*!” said one, and the other chimed in “Yeah, assigning this *expletive* assignment she assigned!” Back and forth the girls went. They called one of my professors expletive after expletive, giggling the whole time. I was sitting outside of the group study room they were using before they arrived and after they were there I had a hard time studying. I had an even harder time not hearing what they were saying because of the loud and coarse nature of their discourse.

It wasn’t long before I had to leave. But I left with a feeling of disgust. I left with a feeling that I hadn’t had before, that some Whitman students were not the nice, caring, happy and smart people I thought they were. The particular professor that the girls talked about has always been really nice to me and other students.

This experience brought me to a broader question. It is a long held theory of mine that people have abandoned morality as some tarnished relic of the religious groups of the world. Is morality important today? Do people think about their actions and how their actions affect others? I hold the position that morality predates the dominant religions of today and that it has always been appropriate for people to treat each other with morality.

I’d like to define morality as such: The branch of knowledge concerned with right and wrong conduct, duty, responsibility. What are our duties towards other human beings? What are our responsibilities? What is right and what is wrong in our actions? I’d like to jump out from under these huge weighty questions, because I have no clear cut answer to offer for them. But I want to make the point that we still have moral duties and responsibilities and they far predate the religions of today, they even predate writing itself.

Marcus Aurelius was a Roman emperor who lived from 121 A.D. to 180 A.D. and was a stark example of a non-Christian moralist. In the “Meditations” he wrote, “It is a ridiculous thing for a man not to fly from his own badness, which is indeed possible, but to fly from other men’s badness which is impossible.” In other words, one should try to fix oneself and not try to run from other’s misdeeds. Aurelius also wrote, “He who does wrong does wrong against himself. He who acts unjustly acts unjustly to himself, because he makes himself bad.” Marcus Aurelius – even in 160 A.D. without the influence of Christianity or other religions – looked down on people committing the kind of badness that I witnessed those girls in the study room undertaking. I call the girls’ act badness because two girls who curse their professor for trying to teach them and for assigning assignments that will only further their education certainly seems bad to me.

We have certain moral duties to each other and they extend farther than respecting everyone’s differences. As people that interact with each other in a community in which learning and mutual improvement is the goal, respect is the first obligation. One must be respectful in action and speech. Courtesy, help when necessary, communication and negotiation are obligatory acts. A person that lives in a community like ours should spend a little more time thinking about their words and actions and a little less time just talking and doing.

Inbox [100]: Spam!

by Sarah McCarthy

Among my dirty secrets, this may well be the dirtiest: that I sort of love spam email. The only possibly dirtier secret is that one time, in Paris, I watched the entire first season of “The O.C.” and sort of loved that too. That fact, though, is best not dwelt upon, so instead I shall for a moment explain what I find so all-fired delightful about spam.

To preface: I have fought the good fight against spam. I have never given out my email address to websites that request that you do so, I have refused to be lured by websites that exclaim that I am the 99,000th visitor and that I have WON a free* Ipod!!!!!. I have even, just to make myself feel better, actually responded to spam emails with a sternly worded letter, informing them that I am a Very Important Person and that “if this barrage of lewd emails does not immediately cease, I shall prosecute to the fullest extent of the law.”  Of course, one second after sending this strongly worded note a failure notice appears in my inbox. In the un-necessarily dramatic language of a failure notice it informs me that it cannot send my message and that “this is a permanent error; I’ve given up. Sorry it didn’t work out.” I am sorry too, but in the meantime, I allow myself to be endlessly amused by the creative genius of spam.

For one thing, each time I open my account I am amazed by the names of the people supposedly sending these emails. It must be assumed that naming geniuses like Roald Dahl and Charles Dickens are, contrary to popular belief, alive, well, and working for spam manufacturers. Just in the last week, I got an email from “Aracali Hendrix” offering me free ring tones, “Ferdinand Hooker” telling me that my debt was canceled, “Penelope B. Ramana,” likewise telling me good news about my debt, and, my personal favorite, “Octavius Zoraster” telling me, via the subject line “Mike Tyson Where’s A Rolex YOU Should To!” Compared to those names, Augustus Gloop and Nicholas Nickelby look downright boring. I get an email almost every day from the aptly named “Insane Rich Guy” with the subject “I Must be Insane For Doing This!” I have, of course, never opened this email, but no day is really complete without it.

Likewise, I am perpetually amazed at the spam emails that actually serve no possible purpose. I don’t mean this in a general way, in the sense that spam as a whole advances humanity in no way. I am referring instead to the emails that I have read and re-read, to discover that even if I was desperate to buy whatever it was they were selling, I couldn’t, because I can’t figure out what that thing might be. A “sentence” from one such email: “tree allnew playable GPG give better idea what expect this love RPGS enjoy.” Don’t bother re-reading that. Reading it once was already excessive.

Much better than that sort of drivel are the ones that actually employ rhetoric that is at once clever and deeply, tragically flawed. My favorite in this vein are the ones that cut right to the chase and ask, in their subject lines: Remember Me? Remember the Conversation We Had About Penis Enlargement? Each time, I can’t help but wonder: had I been engaged in such an unusual conversation, would I really need a reminder? I try to imagine that somewhere on this planet there might be person who read that subject line and thought “Oh yeah—yeah, it’s all coming back to me now. Good conversation, that one.” I also love the emails that fancy themselves clever by saying things like “Re: The Question You Asked Me.” These are, inevitably, from UNKOWNADDRESS@yahoo.com and sent, as so much spam magically is, from a date far in the future. UNKOWNADDRESS’s answer to my mythical question usually also involves penis enlargement.

I could enumerate further on the glory of spam, but I shall not because a) spam is actually a serious problem that costs the United States taxpayers quadrillions each year and b) because Mr. Zoraster has a point—if Mike Tyson where’s a Rolex, it’s high time that I stopped writing this column and got one for myself.

Adjectives for Handler’s ‘Adverbs’: well-worded, mediocre

by Erin Salvi

It starts promisingly—immediately and obviously a clever piece of prose that perhaps seems like a good idea but only briefly achieves the level of profundity that it truly hopes to touch upon. Handler’s premise for his novel, “Adverbs,” is this: it is not what we do that is important, but rather the way in which we do things. Hence all of the adverbs that serve as titles for each of the novel’s chapters. It’s an interesting premise but one that Handler does not explore to its fullest potential.

Handler is best known for his extremely popular children’s series, “A Series of Unfortunate Events,” which tracks the trials and tribulations of the Baudelaire orphans as they narrowly avoid the clutches of the nefarious Count Olaf. He has, though, also taken a stab at writing a few novels, “Adverbs” being the most recent. Unfortunately for Handler, he seems to have a better grasp of the morose and macabre, as in “A Series,” than he does of—love, the topic he struggles with throughout this latest novel.

In reality, actually, one can hardly call this a novel. “Adverbs” is more like a collection of short stories that are vaguely connected by certain themes and motifs barely holding the book together. Characters that appear in one chapter might be found in the background of a scene in another chapter, but if Handler is attempting to create a web-of-life story, he is unsuccessful. He frequently uses names more than once, from chapter to chapter, but they often appear to be being attributed to different characters. To what purpose? It’s hard to say; there are only two or three characters that Handler actually brings to life for the reader to care about.

If there’s one thing I can give Handler credit for, it’s that he is quite the wordsmith. He plays with language as few writers do, twisting the traditional view of a word into something completely different, describing images in a unique way. “Taxi cabs lining the streets like kernels of corn on the cob.” Things like that. However, Handler is well aware of his abilities with words, and his writing can get just a bit too cute and clever for his own good. A writer shouldn’t simply use his book in order to showcase his capabilities. A book does not succeed unless it can take the reader to a higher level of understanding than he or she had experienced before. Moreover, while cleverness can be an excellent element in a novel as long as it is not the only element, Handler tends to use the same gimmicks over and over again; this can work well in children’s literature but make the mature reader feel belittled.

There is some gorgeous prose in this book. But it occurs in bits and pieces, never in lengthy stretches of writing. “Obviously” is a very charming chapter in which a boy is inspired to chivalrous acts in a movie theater from his reading of “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” His most successful chapter, “Soundly,” is actually a very powerful story about two best friends, one of whom is dying. It’s really a shame that the rest of the chapters are not nearly as successful. Anyone who has ever taken a literature class knows that it is important to “show, don’t tell,” but Handler seems to have misheard, and instead gives us a show and tell. Maybe next time he’ll put away the adverbs and pull out a few more nouns.

T-sports doesn’t disappoint

by Sarah McCarthy

Theatre Sports, the premier improv comedy group at Whitman, kicked off their season last Tuesday.

As usual when they perform, the crowd was already starting to form half an hour early. By the time the show started, late-comers found standing room only, with students crammed along the sides and back of Maxey auditorium.

While many of the freshmen had seen improv groups before, the Whitman group’s reputation for off-beat humor had preceded them. Several expected that the show would be “a lot raunchier” than any improv they had seen in high school. Some students were a little more skeptical about whether T-sports would make it worth their time. “If the first joke isn’t funny, I’m going home,” said junior Roberta Gannett. Luckily, the first joke passed muster and Roberta stayed.

The opening game of Tuesday’s show was “The Incredible Growing and Shrinking Machine” which, as the team was quick to point out, shortens to the handy acronym “IGASM.” The scene began with the suggestion “sandwich.” The scene thus started out simply, with team member Sarah Hathaway making a sandwich. One by one, though, the other team members came in and each of them was required to completely change the nature of the scene. Each new member then leaves one by one, until only the original actor and the original scene remains. Like many of their games “IGASM” takes quick thinking and an excellent memory.

Other games played at this show included “Press Conference” “Theatre Styles” “Story, Story, Die” “American Musical” and “Monologue, Monologue, Monologue.” The highlights of the show were arguably “American Musical” in which junior Matt Aliabadi played Cher in an on-the-spot musical entitled “Cher Didn’t Do It,” and the impersonations of anime characters that Jeff Wilson, Kim Wetter and Eric Wehlitz gave during “Theatre Styles.”

While Matt Aliabadi, Sarah Hathaway, Stephen Carter, Dru Johnston, Eric Wehlitz, Kim Wetter, Caitlin Schoenfelder, Jeff Wilson, Ben Kegan and Ezra Fox might make it look easy on stage, it takes more than just a sharp wit to be a successful member of T-sports.
The team practices three nights a week and last spring went to Chicago to learn more from improv troupes Second City and ImprovOlympic. When questioned how they stay so up on pop culture, senior Johnston explained that they don’t really work on that part. “Some of us are just really good at it and they tell everyone else what they need to know. Then again, at Whitman we get very scholarly suggestions. I doubt there are many other schools where “Sappho” is a frequent request.”

There are lots of things to enjoy about being a member of T-sports. Johnston said that his favorite part is the team atmosphere while Aliabadi said more simply that his favorite part was “failure.” To be on T-sports, though, both agreed that you have to be “a team player who’s willing to commit and willing to help make everyone else look good on stage.”  The team has no fixed number and has ranged from ten to seventeen players in the last four years. As a hint for all those interested in auditioning, Johnston gave wise advice: “If you’re not nervous, it won’t be good. If you don’t think, it’s a lot better.”

‘Hollywoodland’’ gives glimpse into sordid Hollywood

by Josh Boris

As I noted last week, the summer blockbusters are quietly slipping away to be replaced with a bevy of more introspective pieces and Oscar hopefuls. This can be seen in the fact that not one, but two neo-noir films were released within a week of each other.

Allen Coulter’s “Hollywoodland” and Brian De Palma’s “The Black Dahlia” both examine unsolved Hollywood mysteries of the ‘40s and ‘50s with a heavy dose of spin and conjecture, and both strive for the critical acclaim that other neo-noirs such as “L.A. Confidential” and “Memento” received. “Hollywoodland” is the first offering, and it provides an entertaining, though sometimes bumpy, ride.

“Hollywoodland” presents us with a dual plotline, as we watch the events leading up to the death of George Reeves (Ben Affleck), TV’s original Superman, and the investigation by seedy, yet dedicated, private eye Louis Simo (Adrian Brody). The death of Superman originally appeared to be a suicide, fueled by the cancellation of his show and his inability to find work, but as the story unfolds, Simo discovers a tangled web of mobster movie bosses, jilted lovers and mysteriously suppressed information and suspects foul play.

The movie is too long, too convoluted and some might say too unsatisfying. Certain plot points are only minimally addressed and could have been cut out, while others are addressed for much too long. The side plot of Simo’s estranged wife and child (which is compared to the rise and fall of Reeves) seems inconsequential when compared to the larger plot, and while it offers some character development, it slows down the movie too much to be justified. While I appreciated the fact that Coulter was confident enough to leave the movie open-ended, others expecting everything to be wrapped up nicely will be disappointed. Although it offers multiple solutions to the mystery, it never points to one and definitively says “this is what happened.” However, these problems are only minor detractors from an overall enjoyable and intriguing film whose power comes from the examination of the multi-faceted Reeves and his decline.

The acting is phenomenal. I never thought I’d say this, but Ben Affleck mixes charm and quiet desperation to form the perfect picture of a washed-up actor grappling for a dignified comeback. Does this sound familiar? Actually, Affleck appears to be playing himself: the promising young actor of “Goodwill Hunting” who slid into drivel such as “Daredevil” and “Gigli.” It is perhaps this splash of reality that makes him so convincing as the Reeves character.

On top of Affleck’s performance, Diane Lane is superb as Toni Mannix, the wife of MGM head Eddie Mannix (Bob Hoskins), who is allowed by her goonish husband to play sugar-momma to Reeves. As usual, Brody turns in an intense performance as the private detective whose sometimes-shady motives give way to a dedicated desire to solve the mystery and to fix the analogous problems in his own life.

While the film certainly doesn’t give the breadth of intrigue, corruption, and mystery offered by “L.A. Confidential,” it is nice to see directors attempting to achieve that combination of gritty thrill and intelligence in their work. I believe better films will come along, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Academy gives a couple nods towards “Hollywoodland” come February.

Viva Voce: ‘You’re gonna get your blood sucked out’

by Gayle Chung

With a phrase like “you’re gonna get your blood sucked out,” who could resist the temptation to go hear such sweet melodies?

On Sept. 15 in the Reid Campus Center Ballroom, the married duo Viva Voce brought an upbeat mixture of Indie pop and soft rock style of music to the ears of Whitman students and young locals alike.

Kevin and Anita Robinson first began their Indie rock journey in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, in 1998. Success did not come to them instantly, but a few years later more people began to hear the Robinsons’ work.

Soon, their music spread across the United States, over the Atlantic Ocean, and into the U.K. Both in the U.S. and in the U.K., their most popular album, “Get Yr Blood Sucked Out,” has helped them acquire a wider audience since their humble beginnings in Alabama. Now located in Portland, Oregon, Viva Voce, Italian for “word of mouth,” has continued to develop its sound into a more dark, seductive pool of collected sounds of Indie rock.

The Robinsons’ Whitman performance truly reflected the amazing work they have come to be known for. With Kevin at the drums, Anita at the microphone and a guest vocalist backing them up, the bodies of Whitman students and the younger generation of locals were jerked into motion as they rocked to the collection of guitars, basses, drums and a cowbell.

The music’s beat would often purposefully fall apart, only to come back together again in a foot-tapping rhythm. The lighting and overall dark setting of the stage fit well with Viva Voce’s harsher style of music. Their simple black t-shirts and blue faded jeans contrasted with their hard-hitting lyrics from songs like “From The Devil Himself” and “We Do Not Fuck Around.”

When asked about how they feel about Viva Voce’s music, one student replied, “I love it. And the chick is good-looking, too.” Another student commented on the intensity of their music. The musical couple knows how to control their audience’s emotions. They would often change the tempo by speeding it up and then radically slowing it back down. Other times, they would start a song with an unexpected burst, making those closest to the speakers jump back.

Before Viva Voce hit the stage, Point Juncture, WA started out the night, truly surprising many people with what they had to share musically with an energetic performance. With whoots and claps, this relatively unknown group from Portland, Oregon, got the audience riled up with their intriguing and impressive display of instrumental multi-tasking.

At one point, the lead vocalist was singing her hard-hitting lyrics while pounding away at the drums with her right hand and playing the keyboard with the other. Both the talented bassist/vocalist and the lead guitarist were no less astounding.

Health Center relocates to make room for new art studio

by Christina Russell

Never before has there been a better excuse to get sick. With a spacious site, air conditioning and as many free condoms and cough drops as your heart could possibly desire, you will be sharing cups with your friends and eating things off the ground like you were in first grade again, eager to grace the Health Center with your presence and experience its amenities. “The nurses are nice,” said junior John Klein, “and I mean, it smells new.” Since Aug. 21, the first day of first-year orientation, Whitman’s new Health Center has been up and running, looking to serve students at their new location at 11 Merriam St., on the corner of Merriam St. and Boyer Ave.

The Health Center was moved to accommodate the new studio art facility, which is due to break ground in the near future. “Oh, we were always interested,” said Ellen Collette, the Director of the Student Health on campus, in regard to whether they had asked for a new center. “Consider it a secondary benefit of planning for the new studio art center.” Whitman did more than a little relocating in the process. The Tekisuijuku Japanese Interest House was moved to 528 Washington St., near Lyman House, and the Music Box, a house popular for music majors because of its proximity to the practice rooms, was demolished in the name of studio art.

The change that Collette is most excited about is that the new Health Center is adjoined to the counseling center. “Better proximity, better care,” she said. “There is a seamless flow between the two departments.” Other than the counseling/health merge, new features include a far more spacious facility that enables the health center—for the first time—to comply with federal privacy regulations and offer air conditioning. Returning students may remember that in the former Health Center, patient rooms were in a highly trafficked area; this is no longer the case. The ample square footage of the new facility also allows patients to have their very own room. No longer will students have to share their patient’s quarters with three or four other ill individuals. “The sheets aren’t that comfortable, but it’s relaxing in there, really low key,” said first-year Lara Spengler. “They get you a glass of water and everything.” “The old center was more like a barrack,” said Collette.

Additionally, the Center will be offering special Women’s Clinics on Wednesday nights, which start on Sept. 27. The special evening time slot is intended to provide additional anonymity to students who want to schedule an appointment with a nurse practitioner during a time when they can guarantee classes won’t interfere. Men are allowed to use the Center at this time too; the women’s time was established and named as such “because we noticed more of an interest and need,” said Collette.

Students are welcome to stop by to utilize the health facilities 24 hours a day. A physician is still available between 8 and 10 a.m. five days a week as well as a psychiatrist three hours a week. Students can walk in during these hours, though it is encouraged to make an appointment ahead of time if you have a tight schedule. To make an appointment, call extension number 5295. After all, according to Collette, “this is the Cadillac of health centers.”

Saturday Farmers Market open through October

by Elsbeth Otto

As the fall harvest comes in from area farms, the Walla Walla Farmers Market continues to attract students looking for locally grown, fresh produce and arts and crafts from area artists.

Walla Walla’s primary farmers market, located between Third and Fourth Avenues on Main Street, takes place 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. every Saturday from May through the end of October.  A much smaller Thursday afternoon farmers market, found in downtown’s Heritage Park, ended its May through September run this past Thursday.

Selling everything from tie-dye to salsa, nectarines to breads, the farmers market serves as both a marketplace for local products and a place to connect with the greater Walla Walla community. Anna Empey, a high school senior and five-year veteran of the farmers market, noted that while she enjoys selling her family’s fruit at the market, her favorite part  is undoubtedly the people—“They’re open, they’re nice, they’re friendly. I especially enjoy working with college students.  It’s fun to get to know some of them who keep coming back,” she said.

“The people are so fun,” concurred Anna’s mother, Lanette Empey. “[The other vendors and ourselves] all have a party.”
As the farmers market celebrates its 10th anniversary this summer, it continues to grow.  With 52 booths—including 46 vendors and 6 non-profit agencies, Beth-Aimee MGuire, the market manager, has observed a 35 percent increase in the number of booths from last year. Attendance at the farmers market has also been strong this summer.  On an average Saturday, McGuire estimates between 2500 and 3000 people stop by the farmers market.

In order to have a farmers market stand, sellers must go through a selection process, pay membership dues and undergo semi-annual checks from McGuire to ensure that they alone are producing the goods they are selling.  McGuire goes to this extra effort to ensure the quality and integrity of the farmers market and “stress the importance of supporting local farmers,” which she sees as the essential idea behind the farmers market.

Many Whitman students take advantage of the opportunity to purchase fresher, less expensive produce, interact with the larger community and support local farmers and artists provided by the farmers market.

“The sausages are awesome, or, yeah, hella good,” said Farmers Market sausage connoisseur and Whitman senior Wes Hubbard.
“The corn at the farmers market is amazing!” said Whitman sophomore Andrea Seymour. “I like it. I love it. I want a lot more of it.  Plus the corn at Safeway is two for a dollar whereas you can get between four and six ears for a dollar at the farmers market, and the corn is way better.”

“Everything I get [at the farmers market] tastes wonderful,” said sophomore Kari Martin.  Yet after completing a week-long eat locally challenge for her environmental sociology class, Martin felt more aware of the limited nature of the farmers market. “I’m really glad the farmers market is a venue that’s available to Whitman students.  At the same time it doesn’t have everything necessary to fill all dietary needs. … I would love to see it expand to fulfill more dietary realms, shall we say.”
First-year Camila Thorndike, another fan of the farmers market, also recognized the market’s limited nature. “I’d like to see a greater variety of foods to draw people to the market—specifically cheese, eggs, meat … everything that’s missing, so that people don’t have an excuse not to go there.”

Students particularly appreciate the low prices of food at the market, especially the Empey’s fruit stand, which happily gives away a piece of fruit to any visitor to the stand.

Students speak up against Facebook ‘News Feed’

by Caitlin Tortorici

Facebook: According to a Spring 2006 Student Monitor survey, it’s the most “in” thing on American college campuses along with beer and second only to the iPod.

So naturally, a great deal of controversy arose when students felt the site had breached their privacy with the addition of the News Feed and Mini News Feed features earlier this month.

On Tuesday, Sept. 5, Facebook users around the globe logged in to discover a strikingly different homepage. The formerly centered message alerts and birthday announcements had been cast to the right to make room for a new feature – a constantly changing headline documenting the recent Facebook activities of a member’s friends. Such activities include profile updates, wall postings, plans to attend events and newly consummated online friendships.

Users’ personal profiles included a news feed of their own – the Mini News Feed, which displayed a given member’s own recent actions on the site.

While students remained generally satisfied with the addition of “Facebook Notes,” a blogging feature, as well as the Global Network feature, a majority felt that the News Feed had crossed the line.

“It just gives me way too much information,” said sophomore Etasha Bhatt. “I’ll search for it if I want to know it.”

Facebookers felt most violated by the initial lack of privacy controls. Thousands of global groups were formed in protest, including the largest, “Students Against Facebook Newsfeed” which accumulated nearly 750,000 members.

On Sunday, Sept. 8, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg responded to the criticism by posting an apology on the homepage. Zuckerberg said, “I wanted to create an environment where people could share whatever information they wanted, but also have control over whom they shared that information with. Somehow we missed this point with [News Feed and Mini] Feed, and we didn’t build in the proper privacy controls right away. This was a big mistake on our part, and I’m sorry for it.”

With the apology came a new set of privacy controls. Students gained the ability to filter the information going into the News Feed by deleting certain actions within their Mini Feed.

With privacy restored, many students have come to appreciate the convenience of the new feature. “Like everyone else, I originally felt the News Feed was a huge breach of privacy,” said sophomore Elliott Okantey, who has only recently begun to weigh the benefits of the face-lift. “Now that you can control the things that people see, it’s kind of growing on me.”

Meanwhile, several students are less concerned about their friends seeing their online activities than the prospect of future employers scanning their profiles.

“I’ve heard Facebook is like an online resume,” said sophomore Kayla Cooper. “Employers can look at it just like [they do] MySpace.”

Such investigation would violate Facebook’s terms of agreement, which states that user information is available only for “non-commercial use.” Nevertheless, several instances in the past two years have proven Facebook to be less than private.
“All you need to log on to Facebook account is a college e-mail address. I’m sure all administrators all have them,” said sophomore Kellie Wutzke, who believes in keeping a low profile.

Sources document that it has become increasingly common for dry-campus colleges and universities to investigate alcohol policy violations via Facebook. In October of 2005, the Boston Globe documented a student at Fisher College who was expelled for stating on Facebook that a campus policeman “loves to antagonize students” and “needs to be eliminated.” In March of 2005, the secret service met with University of Oklahoma freshman Saul Martinez after he suggested on a Facebook group message board that the group should raise money to assassinate President Bush and replace him with a monkey.

As is documented on the school’s website, The University of New Mexico has gone so far as to block students with a UNM e-mail address from logging onto Facebook. High schools nationwide have also prohibited students from logging onto Facebook from school computers.

Students continue to fear for their privacy as Facebook plans to open its doors to all Internet users in the near future. This fear is made apparent in interest groups bearing names such as “The Day Facebook Becomes MySpace Is The Day I Delete My Account.”
Zuckerberg addresses these concerns on the Facebook’s current homepage, asking users where they stand on the issue: “Do you want to be completely invisible to people who aren’t in a college or a high school? Do you want to make sure they can’t message or poke you?”

Zuckerberg further points out that the website will continue to keep high school and college networks exclusive while including regional users. In any event, many would agree that the Internet is public domain.

ASWC senate outlines hopes, goals for 2006-7

by Sarah Golden

This year’s first ASWC student senate meeting commenced last Sunday night, Sept. 10. The Executive Council (EC)—sophomore, junior and senior class senators and the oversight committee—gathered in Reid to discuss, among other things, hopes, areas of focus for the year and the potential of an ASWC retreat.

“It’s really great to see you all here today and all the enthusiasm and energy that will comprise ASWC this year,” said ASWC President Eric Wehlitz at the start of the meeting.

The meeting opened with each officer of the EC discussing their committee’s overall goals for the upcoming year. Offices are: President Wehlitz, Policy Chair Jeff Wilson, Finance Chair Ajay Abraham, Programming Chair Aisha Fukushima and Hiring Chair Laura Hanson. A common thread running through the remarks made by officers was optimism and a hope to facilitate higher productivity this year.

“I’m excited to get a lot of things done this year in the policy committee,” said Wilson. “I want to cover a lot more bases, evaluate what makes policy and how policy needs to be made.”

EC members also spoke about improving the communication within committees and the larger ASWC body to make operations as efficient as possible.

“I want to make the delegation throughout the committee stronger and work as a group,” said Fukushima. “I also want to see stronger communication with constituency—there could be a lot of excitement about the events that will happen throughout the year.”
Abraham, the Finance Chair, spoke about how all campus activities are connected to the available funds. “We need to capitalize on our endowment and contingency funds,” he said. “We need to figure out how to get more so we can do more.” Abraham suggested avenues such as working with the business office.

Hanson spoke about the prospect of involving constituents with the governmental process. “I want to facilitate the nomination process to increase campus awareness,” said the Hiring Chair, who believes that an increased transparency in the nomination process will make ASWC more accountable for its actions.

ASWC also discussed the first-year elections. The chair of the Oversight and Elections Committee, Shayna Tivona, spoke about her committee’s effort to increase the first year class awareness of the candidates and voter turnout. A dinner with ASWC and the first year senate candidates was also organized last, with the intention of the prospective senators spending time with ASWC before the elections.

Wehlitz also organized the first ASWC overnight retreat, scheduled for the last weekend of September. The retreat will take place at the Johnson Wilderness Campus, and Wehlitz believes that the time spent as a group, removed from the larger Whitman community, will make ASWC a stronger entity.

“There will be games, getting-to-know-you stuff, along with discussions within committees about things to do over the year,” said Wehlitz, urging senators to solidify their ideas before the retreat. “If you haven’t thought much about what you want to do over the summer, the next few weeks are an awesome opportunity to develop your ideas.”

Throughout the meeting, the beginning-of-the-year vim from ASWC seemed to cyclically be revitalizing the group.
“We have a lot of energy to make things happen this year,” said Wehlitz

Bon Appetit makes change to Starbucks

by Lizzie Norgard

Napkins have appeared on the suggestion board in Prentiss dining hall expressing students’ reactions to Starbucks coffee, which Bon Appetit now serves instead of the Pura Vida brand it has served since 2002.

Bon Appetit made the transition over the summer, and as Whitman students have returned to food service, the coffee change has been given mixed reviews.

“I am very disappointed in this recent decision by Bon Appetit,” said one student who preferred not to be named. “Pura Vida was 100% organic, fair trade coffee. The new Starbucks coffee only promises to purchase a certain amount of fair trade coffee, not 100%.” Expressing disapproval that Whitman would support such a “greedy company,” this student said: “It was my understanding that a few years ago, Whitman students lobbied to get Pura Vida coffee, and now it’s sad to see that their efforts have been turned around.” Other students have also expressed negative sentiments.

Roger Edens, general manager of Bon Appetit on the Whitman campus, explained the reason for the turn-around: “The main reason for the change is that we were having problems with quality and service with Pura Vida. Equipment would break down and the company would be slow to come out and fix it, and we received complaints from baristas, students and catering clients about the quality. We decided it was time for a change.” Edens explained that Bon Appetit did switch from Starbucks to Pura Vida several years ago, due to the efforts of a student group on campus demanding fair trade coffee. He said that they did not request Pura Vida specifically, but that students chose from several fair trade options. Edens said, “At the time Starbucks couldn’t provide fair trade coffee, but now that they do we aren’t compromising anything by going back.” In response to the objection that most of the coffee Starbucks purchases is not fair trade, Edens said, “It depends on how you look at it. The percentage of fair trade coffee may be small, but Starbucks is the biggest coffee purchaser in the world, and they provide more in pounds of fair trade coffee than any other coffee company.” Edens also said that while not all Starbucks coffee is fair trade, 100% of the coffee that Bon Appetit purchases from Starbucks for the Whitman campus is a fair trade blend.

Concern about fair trade is often at the heart of disagreements over whether or not Starbucks is ethically responsible. While some students have criticized Starbucks for purchasing only a small percentage of its coffee from fair trade suppliers (3.6%), others laud Starbucks’ support of small farming communities. Sophomore Chad Brizendine praised Starbucks’ economic assistance to farmers too poor for the fair trade label: “What Starbucks has found is that the best growers are small farming communities that are in foreign countries, and they don’t have a lot of money, so they can’t be fair trade certified.

So what Starbucks does is pay for the fair trade certification for the community, and they also give that money back to the community to build schools or to fund programs there.” He said that “Starbucks specifically is in the best position to provide benefits across the board in terms of industry and coffee shops.” He supports Bon Appetit’s decision to switch to Starbucks.

Besides the fair trade label, other factors such as employee benefits and taste influence students’ opinions about coffee companies. Another anonymous student said in an email that “[Starbucks is] one of the top corporations in the country in terms of  employee benefits, so I want people to stop assuming that just because they are a big name that they are bad.” While approving of Starbucks’ corporate policies, this student bemoaned the taste of the Starbucks coffee served at Reid: “My only complaint as an avid Starbucks customer is that the Bon Appetit employees have not been trained as Starbucks baristas, and honestly although the beans are the same I can taste a difference and it’s not good.” Roger Edens responded to this dissatisfaction by assuring that Bon Appetit baristas will undergo training from Starbucks managers.

Although some may object that Starbucks coffee does not taste the same when brewed at the campus center, Reid barista Cheree Williams said that most students have responded positively to the new taste. Explaining that students used to complain about the taste of Pura Vida, and that many have preferred new drinks made from Starbucks coffee, she said, “I feel a lot better about serving it.”

Whitman Investment Company conducts meetings, elections

by Marcus Koontz

A club that manages two hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars! That’s the role of the Whitman Investment Company. The company, whose motto is “To Inquire. To Achieve. To Learn,” and whose purpose is, according to CEO Nate King, “to educate its members about the strategies for and benefits of investing,” was established by an alumni endowment for the specific purpose of giving students the opportunity to learn about financial markets. The club meets every Tuesday at noon in G02 on the bottom floor of Reid.

After King opened last Tuesday’s meeting he gave the floor over to Tom Poole who presented a Security Update Report on one of the club’s holdings, NVIDIA (a company that makes popular video cards for computers). Poole talked about the trouble that NVIDIA has recently found itself in. Those troubles include possible delisting from the NASDAQ for not filing financial reports in a timely fashion, as well as probes into “incorrect” dating on executive stock options. Poole suggested that the information showed “poor corporate governance” and moved to sell WIC’s entire holding of NVIDIA stock. After brief discussion about the company’s current earnings ratios compared to the industry average, the motion was seconded by another trustee and passed unanimously. The sale of NVIDIA stock will add around $9,500 dollars to WIC’s cash on hand. This money will likely be put into a new investment.

The meeting also included the election of WIC’s executive officers for the semester to replace officers who stepped down in the middle of their terms. There were four people running for the two open positions: chief financial officer (CFO) and chief operations officer (COO). The CFO “organize[s] speakers to come visit Whitman and set up various other programs,” said CEO King, and the COO “record[s] meeting minutes and track[s] reports on  investments we are following.” Sam Tate and Tom Poole vied for CFO and Ari van Schilfgaarde and Wynne Auld ran for COO. After intense discussion the trustees running for office decided to share the responsibilities for each position for the current semester.

Anyone can attend WIC meetings and learn about investing, but only trustees have a say in the major decisions of the company and can run for office. According to the company’s bylaws, “In order to become a trustee, an individual must: (1) attend three consecutive meetings; (2) present and defend a research report on a specific stock agreed upon by the applicant and the Vice President; (3) be nominated by a current trustee and elected by simple majority of the current board.” For more information on WIC, visit  www.whitman.edu/wic.

Fall rush yields good results for greek system

by Caitlin Tortorici

It’s rushing season again, and the greeks have kept these last weeks action-packed.

Rush officials are happy to report that they have done their part to keep the process efficient and the interest high.

Sorority officials have looked to old custom to optimize this year’s process. According to Rush Officer Becky Antilla, this year’s rush ran much as it did two years ago. Girls rush for all three sororities over the course of three days. The process consists of one event each day to help the girls narrow down their options. The first is activity day, in which the girls generally become acquainted with each other by putting on skits and exploring the section. The second is philanthropy day, during which sororities introduce their philanthropy projects, put on a slide show and perform some sort of service activity. The third day is tea day, when the girls actually receive their bids based on their own preference and that of the sorority.

While the three-day process might seem strict to those who rushed last year, Antilla trusts it will be more efficient. “It lets us get to know our potential new members because we have more face time with them. It’s much easier to get through rush in a weekend than go to a party every single night.”

With 93 women rushing, Antilla believes the renovated system will be much more successful for all the groups. “It’s a lot easier for potential members to see the group dynamic of each house in this system than it was last year. I’m confident that all the girls rushing will end up with the group that best meshes with their individual personalities.”

Adjustments have been made within the fraternity system as well. According to Sigma Chi Rush Chair Andrew Knox, men rushing will be allowed to spend time at the fraternity houses during the day with no rules in effect. This is aimed to give the participants a better idea of fraternity life. While Knox worries about the prospect of daytime drinking, he remains confident that the larger window of time will give prospective members a better opportunity to select the house that best matches their interests.

While the freshmen class has a limited selection of males, Knox and other fraternity members have seen no decline in interest. “We have a lot of great guys rushing,” said the Sigma Chi Chair.

Junior Beta Jeff Wilson shares Knox’s enthusiasm. “We’re doing as well as any other year. A lot of guys are coming out to check out the facilities, check out what the frat system is all about at Whitman. I think everyone’s been enjoying the frat parties,” said Wilson earlier last week.

Certainly, everyone has something to say about the famous all-campus festivities.

The Sigma Chi party, “A Black Light Affair,” was the first of the parties. Junior Zach Lough looked positively upon the affair. “I had a grand time. People seemed to be enjoying it. And there’s not a lot of electronica at parties, so that made it stand out,” said the Sigma Chi member.

Other students had mixed reactions. “It was really sweaty, which freaked a lot of people out,” said freshman Russel Caditz-Peck. Caditz-Peck plans to pledge later this week. “It was a good time overall.”

Several sophomores were not so optimistic. Kelly Wutzke, who attended the Sig event as a first-year, looked upon this year’s affair with new eyes. “Parts of it were fun,” said Wutzke. “But eventually the heat, the sweat, all the dirty bodies became too much to bear. Sweat was condensing on the ceiling; it was like a smelly sauna.”

Last Saturday’s Phi Delta Theta luau seemed better received by the majority. “I thought the preparation for the luau was pretty outstanding,” said freshman Alex Miller. Sophomore Jesse Maxwell agreed. “The huge sandbox was pretty sweet. And you can’t go wrong with fire torches,” said Maxwell. Sophomore Amy Strauss, who attended the event for the second year in a row, was equally impressed. “I had a great time. They did a great job putting it together and it was far more sanitary than the black light party.”
In addition to their all-campus blowouts, fraternities organize a number of events to keep their prospective brothers interested. Each fraternity hosts a formal dinner, in which they give participants a tour of the house. “It was great to get a feel for the different houses,” said freshman Marshall Baker.

Baker’s enthusiasm is not confined to formal events. “I quite enjoyed the camaraderie of getting free lunch and jumping off cliffs,” stated the nineteen-year-old.

Other men’s rush activities included wakeboarding/tubing, paintballing, golfing, trips to the rodeo, broomball, bowling, Monday Night Football sessions and pool parties.

“I think the activities were received really well,” said sophomore Beta member Brian Abelson. “I think the guys appreciate how convenient it is.”

Many students would agree that the men’s rush is a far more convenient process than the women’s.

Sophomore Elliott Okantey, who rushed his freshman year, didn’t realize he was doing so until later on. “I just enjoyed the free lunch,” said Okantey. “Then I ended up getting two bids.”

Nevertheless, Okantey chose not to rush.

“There’s sort of a secret society aspect to the greek system that I don’t like. I didn’t want other people going into a room and deciding what kind of guy I was, so I really withdrew,” said Okantey.

Nevertheless, Okantey has decided to give greek life a second chance. “There’s a really good group of sophomores who are pledging this year for TKE. It’s all about the guys you are with.”

Many students now in fraternities would agree that although they did not initially see themselves as frat boys, they were won over by the friendliness of other fraternity members and the promise of cheap housing.

“I think it’s a lot less effort to join a sorority than a fraternity,” said sophomore Caitlin Schoenfelder. “I feel like girls who rush for sororities do it much more intentionally,” said the independent. “Guys just have frat guys showing up at their door and treating them to lunch.”

Sophomore Kayla Cooper agrees. “I’d rather pledge for a fraternity than a sorority. Guys get along without being catty. And they don’t have to pay to rush.”

In any case, most students can appreciate rush for the many social opportunities it provides. It certainly adds some spice to the last nights of summer.

Volleyball copes with decreased team size

by Sarah Golden

As the 2006 volleyball season begins, Whitman is finding its team to be smaller. Two players, junior Hayley Hillman and freshman Helen Peros, have decided to stop playing.

“It just ended up being too big of a time commitment,” said Peros, who wants to be more involved with activities on campus than a commitment to a sports team would allow. “There’s a lot of traveling and I didn’t want to miss out on different social activities.”

For Peros, the decision to leave was a difficult one, as volleyball was a huge part of her life in high school. “But there are plenty of other opportunities to get into athletics at Whitman,” said Peros. “I’m ready to try something new.”

Though the team expressed sorrow at losing members, Peros said that overall, they seemed to understand her decision.

“Nothing big or controversial happened,” said sophomore volleyball player Kristan Brown. “People’s priorities change all the time.”

At the end of last season, three sophomore players quit, meaning the volleyball team has lost a total of five players in the last year. “We only have 11 players now,” said Brown, “so in terms of numbers it was a big loss.” With six players on the court at one time, the number is low for an average team.

As of now, Brown says it’s too early to know how the lack of players will affect the team’s performance this season. “In terms of utility player, it’s going to hurt us,” said Brown.  “It will put a lot more of a crunch and more pressure on the player to stay healthy and not become injured.”

Over last weekend, the women played a tournament in Cincinnati, Ohio, where they played, among other teams, the number one Division III team in the nation.

“We’ve never seen teams like this before,” said Brown.  “There aren’t teams of this caliber on the West coast.”

Despite the high level of competition, Whitman won one of three games, leaving the team optimistic and excited about the rest of the season.

IM sports commence

by Andrew Hookom

Whitman intramural (IM) football kicks off another season of play next weekend, leading in a new year of offerings from one of the top IM sports programs in the country.

Team registration forms for all divisions of football were due Thursday, Sep. 14 and, as some teams began training last weekend, it is expected that turnout will be strong again this year.

Football regularly has the “most participation, enthusiasm and seriousness” of any IM sport at Whitman, said Claudia Yeung of the IM sports committee. Although injuries had been a problem in past years, last year’s newly “reinforced” safety rules “greatly reduced the incidence of injuries,” said Yeung.
Play will primarily be on weekends through late October; playoffs will be Saturday, Oct. 28 with championships Sunday, Oct. 29.
Other sports to be offered this year include soccer and dodgeball, which will begin simultaneously in November. Soccer will begin Nov. 4 and continue until Dec. 9, with no games held during Thanksgiving break. In the spring there will be basketball, volleyball, bowling, ultimate Frisbee and softball. All IM sports require liability waivers. These can be found in the athletic office in Sherwood.

Whitman was ranked 3rd among colleges and universities nationwide in the category “Everyone Plays Intramural Sports” in the 2007 Princeton Review “Best 361 College Rankings.”

The IM committee is still looking for referees to officiate at football games. Interested parties can e-mail yeungcc@whitman.edu for more information.

Women’s soccer defeats Northern Idaho

by Katie Collier
After a tough 1-4 loss to Northwest Nazerene University on Thursday, the Whitman women’s soccer team found rejuvenation on Sunday in a polished 2-0 victory over North Idaho College.

“Thursday’s game was rough and we made a lot of little mistakes, but today we were able to tighten up as a team and stick to our game plan for a solid 90 minutes,” said senior Betsy Neel after the game on Sunday.

Freshman Forward Corina Gabbert proved herself a valuable asset to the team by scoring in both games. “Corina is an awesome forward. She knows how to score goals and also how to play a passing game to produce goals,” said senior Captain Erin Frame.
The games last weekend marked the end of a four game pre-season before the team faces Willamette this Saturday at noon. The tentative team that allowed three Nazarene goals in the first half of Thursday’s game sprang into recovery after letting one more shot by early in the second half. Taking more control, junior Kristin Berndt had several close shots, and Gabbert managed to sneak one in during the last 16 minutes of the game.

On Sunday the team found more flow on the field, dictating play and eliminating the minor breakdowns in formation that hurt them on Thursday. An assist by senior Captain Sammie Arthur helped nudge the team into the lead during the first half, and a Whitman shot was deflected off an Idaho defender for another goal in the second.

A majority of underclassmen compose the 2006 Whitman women’s soccer team, and the players recognize that this preseason has been about learning to play with a new group of girls. Senior Defender Vanessa Warner said, “We have a lot of new players this year, and so we have to learn to be able to connect with each other, figure each other out.” Already the team has begun to make these connections. Junior Forward Kristin Berndt saw this element of teamwork as the key difference in the weekend’s two games: “I think today we worked well with the midfielders in making opportunities for ourselves. Thursday’s game, I feel like we were a little more hesitant and not as controlled in our passes and runs. Today we really worked the ball around.”

Looking into the future, Berndt said, “Our game this coming Saturday is probably going to be one of the toughest of the season. Willamette, Whitworth, UPS and us will all be fighting for the number one spot.”

She went on to state her confidence in the team’s abilities: “We have enough talent to challenge the top teams in the nation, like UPS, yet enough composure to stay strong in every game.” The girls will play this challenging and important first conference game at home against Willamette Saturday at noon.

Kiss registration confusion goodbye

by Marcus Koontz

Registering to vote may seem like an easy task, but throw in hundreds of students from all over the country and things get more confusing.

One of the most baffling aspects for college students registering to vote is the question of “which address to use and if they should register where they are going to school,” said Secretary of State Sam Reed, the top elections official in Washington. There are two address spaces on the Washington State voter registration form (see form to right). The first is the Washington Resident Address and the second is the Mailing Address. If a student registers their Washington Resident Address as their parents’, they will vote in their parents’ district. If they put their school address as their Washington Resident Address they will vote in their college’s district. Districts are areas that group people together by issues affecting them. Some examples of different districts that affect people are city, county, and school. Walla Walla County Auditor Karen Martin said, “[People] are able to vote on the issues that affect [their] district”.

Things are even more confusing when a student is from out of state. Should that student vote in their home state or the state their college is in? Secretary Reed said, “Students should register and vote in the area they are most connected. Voting allows you to really become involved in the community.” A student’s choice about where to register should depend on where they want to have a say. Reed added, “It is ultimately the student’s choice.” However, Martin notes, “We cannot register [students to vote] for another state. They need to contact [that] state … to find [that] information.” She also suggested that students be careful of the effects of registering in Washington because it will make them residents of Washington State. “If they have a car here that is registered in another state they may have to change it to Washington,” she said. “It might remove the out of state exemption.”

Another question that causes confusion is whether or not a student should affiliate with a party. “In Washington State, individuals are not asked to declare a party affiliation,” Secretary Reed said. “However, affiliating with a party is a good way for students to get involved in their local, state, and national elections.” Washington State lets voters pick from three different ballots on which to vote: Democrat, Republican, or non-partisan. “Remember that the primary is an opportunity for the two major parties to select the candidates that will appear in the general election,” said Sam Reed.

Where can a student register? This year, first-years can be registered by their Student Academic Advisers in a program set up by Jeff Degroot. Jeff participates in the College Civics Commission, a program sponsored by the Secretary of Washington State that tries to encourage young people to vote. For students who aren’t first-years, registration can be completed at the Walla Walla County Auditor’s office at 315 W. Main. Voter registration forms can also be printed from the Secretary of State’s website (www.secstate.wa.gov) and mailed in.

Though the deadline to register to vote in the primary elections was Sep. 1, students can still register to vote in the general election that happens on Nov. 7. Those already registered to vote in Washington can mail in a voter registration or address correction form if it is postmarked by Oct. 6. Students that are not registered in Washington can register to vote in person at the Auditors Office until Oct. 23. “If anyone has any questions they can … call our office,” said Martin.

Don’t just do something, stand there

by  Sophie Johnson

“I’m just here to drink. And I guess to meet new people.”

This girl had the blondest hair you’ve ever seen, bright blue eyes, and a purse that must have cost more than my entire wardrobe. I just sighed and shook my head: it was depressing how comfortably this girl slid into her stereotype.

Honestly, this was not the type of person I expected to meet during my semester in Chicago. The Urban Studies program I applied to is “all about” teaching me how the city works from a social justice perspective, according to their Web site. It is “all about” learning the reality of urban life, questioning perspectives, and understanding what is necessary for the instigation of active change. Nowhere in the program description did I read that it was about drinking.

But here I was in a meet-and-greet circle (yes, like the ones we did circa first grade), and this blonde girl from Valparaiso University outwardly stated that she is just there to party.

She wasn’t the only one, either. Going around the circle, I learned that at least half of the 46 people involved in the Chicago Urban Studies program this semester were really only there to have a good time. They could care less about political machines, racial inequalities, gentrification, moral dilemmas and peace of mind. They just wanted to get shit-faced.

This has been the general trend of e-mails I’ve received and other reports from my friends abroad: “Man, this country is great. Lots of cool people and stuff. And the drinking age is seventeen!” Apparently, the reason to take a semester abroad is to go out to bars every night, drink foreign liquor and dance in places where you don’t speak the language.

Okay, okay. Yes, we’re young, we’re (for the most part) good-looking, all our parts still bend and an opportunity to get out into the world and take advantage of it is put in front of us when we apply to abroad programs. Can we really be blamed if we down a few shots four nights a week?

And furthermore, it can’t be all fun and games. Obviously, there are program requirements to meet, classes to take and landmarks to see. After all that work, it’s perfectly reasonable to have a couple of drinks, right?

Well, I don’t know. On a Friday night, sure. During Oktoberfest, I would expect nothing less. But every night of the week? To me, it sounds like a huge waste to be in an incredible new place if you’re too drunk to realize where you are.

Chicago is quite possibly the most interesting city I have ever been to. It is backed by a rich and scandalous history of simultaneously progressive and regressive political movements and racial struggles that tirelessly persist. This is the place where jazz was born; where some of the biggest architectural achievements in the history of time still stand; where deep dish pizza burst onto the scene. Last Friday night, I could have gone to a party in one of those blonde girls’ apartments. I could have tried to take the train back to my apartment while tripping over my feet. Maybe that would have been fun.

But instead, I went to Wrigley Field. I went to a concert at the Metro and met interesting people from around the area. I danced to M. Ward while people with Midwestern accents cheered all around me. I ate at an authentic African restaurant. And while I was walking back toward the train, I noticed that the moon was fuller and more orange than I had ever seen it before, and it seemed unreal. All of this made me happy just to be alive.

That’s the best reason to go abroad: to see the world in ways you’ve never seen it before; to find yourself shocked by cultural anomalies; to ultimately examine yourself under a totally new lens and maybe see something that you’ve never seen before. Don’t go to party in a new place. Instead, go to live your life in a new way. Come back changed, and not because you got into a drunk driving accident.

The honeymoon stage

by Sally Sorte 

Soy Americana.

-Yes, I feel like a cup of coffee-

With an endless supply of German beer at my fingertips, and sometimes bonking my elbow, the twelve hour flight cruised right by. Either because of two-dimensional maps, or because greek life has gotten to me, I forget that flying straight over the Atlantic isn’t always the most direct route to the eastern (in comparison to us) continents. We flew over the North Pole, ice pipe cleaners crystallizing across my window, and although I didn’t spot any elves or auroras, we dashed through the cold pink clouds of an amazing sunrise.

I view the three stages of culture shock as analogous to dating. You have your lovey dovey honeymoon period at the beginning, then the differences and annoying habits accost your attention, but if you’re able to get through these speed bumps then you’re on your way to long term success.

My honeymoon ended as soon as I stepped out of the taxi onto the corner of la calle Don Ramon de la Cruz (the street names here are a mouthful) with my suitcase, backpack, and carry-on (half as much as the girl from USC who split the taxi with me) into 39˚C-plus degree heat and nobody answered the buzzer.

A few other things I wasn’t prepared to encounter: plain toast for dinner (the abuela says jam is only used at breakfast), water is scarce in Spain (so turn off the shower while you scrub, and then back on to rinse, hence I have new appreciation for my lufa), thievery on the metro is rampant (stash your cash in your money belt or bra), second hand smoke feels pretty first hand when it’s blown in your face (oxygen masks are only cute on TV), and all the cool kids pee their pants, since public restrooms don’t exist.
On the other end of the spectrum, Madrilenes share Whitman’s perspective on litter—it’s trashy; the night life is raging; the drinking age is much improved, no fake necessary; whenever I get lost (which is often) I find yet another museum or architectural phenomenon; I don’t have to pretend to be Canadian; the insults are hilarious (Multaplicase por cero! Go multiply yourself by zero!); and the shopping is off the chain.

Missing Whitman in France

by Emma Wood 

Hello—I miss you. I miss you when I read the student listserves: Core books for sale; sex talk with Sharon Osborn. I miss you when I tell people I’m from Walla Walla and they make me repeat it three times fast.

I write to you from the coast of France, a small town called Brest. Eighty American students fill the top floor at the “Hotel Centre”; and each day, after croissants and coffee and cheese (How can they do it? No Atkins in France!), the bus wafts us away to some crumbling cathedral or an island with all-day bicycle rentals, beaches and tiny stone cottages with bright blue windows and doors. It’s exactly like my middle school orchestra trips, but instead of malls, we’re stopping at castles; and the bus driver speaks only French. Yes, everything is in French now—shampoo bottles, tennis games, billboards. On the plane into Amsterdam, they weren’t so trusting: all the announcements ran in Dutch and English, and flight attendants backed down the aisles chanting “Coffee, sir? Coffee, ma’am? … Coffee?” in the manner of smartly-dressed parrots. Five days later, I was the parrot, conjuring long-forgotten phrases like “Ou est la toilette?” searching for the phantom restrooms in the rush of the Brussels train station. It’s not easy for the clueless Americans. “Ou est la damn toilette!?” Once one reaches the damn toilette, one needs also .30 Euro for the privilege of using it. We wait as if at a movie theatre, toilets the long-awaited attraction, and I have my first taste of small-talk in French. “Long line, eh?” took on sudden importance.

I’m reading a book called “Wind, Sand and Stars,” by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, and I want you all to read it. This man understands what it is to travel—to begin to know a land and its people. He worked as a mail pilot in the early days of commercial flying, each day skirting the Alps and crossing fields in Spain to deliver the post. He writes of the evening before his first flight, and how he grilled his friend, a more seasoned pilot, for precise topological descriptions. “Don’t worry about the maps,” his friend says, and bit by bit describes the land using scattered landmarks: fields of sheep (“careful, you’ll have them in your wheels!”), a Spanish couple who wait up and watch for pilots in trouble.

It’s like this that I’m getting to know the country. It’s not thorough or orderly, just a handful people and places; a great unknown peppered with the familiar—beacons, as Saint-Exupery calls them. Little by little and place by place, more and more lights start to glow.

Letters to the editor

To the editor:

Between 1990 and 1992 I taught at Whitman as a sabbatical replacement in the sociology department, and I have the highest regard for my Whitman faculty colleagues. I also have long appreciated the general progressive social and political climate of Whitman. However, today my spirit is saddened. I want to share what I just experienced at La Monarca, the taco truck on Isaacs, which reaffirms the unfortunate local image of Whitman College students.

A colleague and I went to the taco truck for lunch. There were about eight or so college-age men, many wearing TKE t-shirts exposing their likely Whitman affiliation. As their meals were being prepared, my colleague and I waited next to the group to place our order. Although one of them, a young white man, began speaking in a manner that some may find vulgar, I am rarely ruffled by such language. Nonetheless, when the same young man suddenly took notice of us, he tittered, “Sorry! (laughter) We’re from Walla Walla CC (more laughter).”

While he undoubtedly had no idea that we work at WWCC, what struck me was that he wanted to pin his self-consciously unbecoming behavior on my students. This incident simply bolstered the elitist stereotype that Whitman students bear, and deepens the economic and social wedge between our institutions and the community due to the condescending and belittling nature of the remark.

Having taught at WWCC for the last eight years, I have enormous respect for the community college students. In general, they are hard-working, dedicated people who don’t take their education for granted. It is gratifying and rewarding to be part of their journey. I used to think that Whitman was the ideal institution, but my enriching experience at WWCC has been even better.

So much for Whitman’s “progressive” image.

Cordially,
Susan Palmer
Sociology
Social Sciences Division Chair
Walla Walla Community College

To the editor:

Last fall semester, I wrote a series of columns for the “Pioneer.”

Through the process of writing them, and now rereading them, I have finally come to understand and deeply regret the pain, outrage and misunderstandings many of them caused.

Therefore, I wish to apologize to the Whitman community for the damage I have done. I would also like to apologize to the following groups and individuals whom I targeted in these violent pieces of writing: the Walla Walla Police Department, the patrol captain of that department, Natalie Knott, the greek system and Phi Delta Theta in particular, ASWC and Professor Tom Davis.

Andrew Hookom ’07

Landscaping the Whitman Bubble

by Ari van Schilfgaarde

To those of you who ended up at the new health center this weekend, you probably didn’t notice the landscaping around the new building. But staggering home, newly released from the consequences of your improprieties, you may have seen the berms and plants that surround the former TEK. They are new here, and they are a product of a change that I hope will become the norm around campus.

The changes at Whitman have frequently been microcosms of larger social or environmental changes throughout the country, and this is a perfect example. With these plants taking root in front of the new health center, Whitman has tentatively entered the latest Western fray about sustainable water use. The majority of the plants here on campus were selected to further a pastoral and inviting theme, so we find ourselves with manicured lawns and shady trees scattered throughout campus. This leaves us with a beautiful and easy to take care of campus; at issue is simply the availability of water.

This basin’s water is over-allocated three times over, and although some of the water is recycled from keeping the academic buildings temperate, much of it comes from Walla Walla’s municipal water supply. Historically it has been the case that turf is the largest “crop” in the West in terms of water used, but the tremendous drought of the last decade has brought with it a new focus on conservation.

Thanks to support from the Whitman grounds department and the administration, advocates for conservation have been able to reach a compromise between the dominant pastoral theme and a sustainable low-water-use garden.

The plants at the new health center are mostly native species, species adapted to a water regime that gets most of its precipitation between November and February. This ecosystem is a sagebrush desert – more than seven inches of rain rarely falls in this part of the world, and the green lawns and hydrophytic (water-loving) trees wouldn’t grow here without the wells that pump the last of the glaciers from a thousand feet below the ground.

This sort of landscaping, a quasi-Xeriscape pattern, is at the heart of a new revolution sweeping the West. Municipalities from Phoenix to Denver and Albuquerque have begun to find that Xeriscaping, with its focus on aesthetics and low water use, is an attractive option when compared to acres of thirsty turf.

Xeriscaping, simply put, is a set of seven principles that allow for an aesthetic garden while simultaneously adapting the garden to the specific locale. Contrary to popular legend, it allows for the judicious use of turf, provided low water plants are also present. Compost and manure are necessary, as are mulches to retain water below the soil. Having an efficient irrigation system (drip is ideal) is a cornerstone, as is careful maintenance. (One can find these principles detailed in the Aug. 21, 2006 issue of High Country News, p 13.)

Whitman’s newest garden has all of these attributes and has the added educational benefit of demonstrating what a native plant composition might have looked like. This is a huge advantage over the landscaping at other buildings on campus, but it is an experiment and a risk that the administration took.

Like all experiments it is a learning process. The drip irrigation system has been a bit of a debacle – it fails to water the plants properly, and the plants are dying. But this is a learning process, and perhaps the die-hard water conservationists must accept a little judicious use of broadcast irrigation. Then Whitman may be able to save a little money, conserve some water and provide information to those who want to learn more about piercing the irrigation bubble.

This garden has become a true meeting ground for the future of the College, and the compromises reached last spring that are still getting worked out and amended speak to the goodwill amongst the stakeholders on the campus. With the new health center, everyone has accrued some benefits and most importantly learned some lessons. Native plants need not be ugly, and turf need not be the only landscape option. Collaborations such as this one are the foundations for reconciling sustainability with current quality of life drivers.

So next time your RA brings you stumbling and incoherent through the doors of the health center, look around when you leave; those flowering lavender are Whitman at its best, and they are the future of our home.

The loss of the dollar’s glint

by Marcus Koontz

“How come we can buy stuff with money?” I remember asking my teacher when I was younger. He seemed baffled at that question. Such a simple one, and it is often the simple questions that are hardest to answer. That question’s answer is a simple idea that we assume: money is worth something. Being the persistent child I was, I asked everyone I knew and got the same wrong answer from each of them.

Our money represents gold the government has hidden away, they said. Each dollar was worth a small amount of gold. They said that gold was something that everyone agrees is valuable. They explained how back in the olden days people used to barter. A person would bring 15 chickens and trade them for one cow. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that carrying 15 chickens around was a pain. So, to make a long story short, someone thought up the idea of making little golden coins that people could trade instead of chickens. That system worked out well until some rich guy carrying around 2,000 of these coins fell in a river and drowned to death.

So someone with even more acuity thought of making a system in which one could print some paper and then put some gold in a vault that guaranteed the value of that paper. This was the dawn of our dollar.

Sadly, gold is no longer the basis of our dollars, as many people think. A piece of paper that is printed with a special logo is what we consider valuable now. Until recently currency had to be backed by gold for other countries to accept it as payment. But now the country with the dominant international currency enjoys a monopoly over other countries. That country can bully the others however it wishes.

Printing money without gold to back it up is counterfeiting, and since 1913 and the creation of the Federal Reserve Board the United States government has been the largest counterfeiter in history. When a country prints money that it doesn’t back up with hard currency it is effectively inflating the cost of things. If you have the same amount of gold spread backing more dollars, each is less valuable.

Why would the government create inflation? The only answer that seems plausible is that it wants to spend far more money than it has. When the government can simply print more money to pay its bills instead of raise a tax, it looks a lot better to the voters. What the voters don’t know is that secretly we pay that tax just like in other countries.

In the 1940s the U.S. Government muscled out the United Kingdom for the prize of maintaining the reserve currency of the world. After that point the dollar was “as good as gold” at a rate of one ounce of gold for every 35 dollars. But since we didn’t have enough gold to match the amount of cash in circulation, the gold standard effectively went up in flames in the 1960s; France and other nations demanded the gold for each dollar they delivered to the U.S. Treasury. In 1971 Nixon stopped paying out gold for the dollars.

After that debacle we developed an amazing system that allowed us to print as much money as we wanted. An agreement was made with OPEC to sell oil worldwide using U.S. dollars exclusively. The agreement made the dollar synthetically strong and allowed us to export our inflation to countries worldwide. The U.S. dollar also became tremendously influential because of the OPEC agreement. That influence was crucial in cementing our status as a dominant super power. It doesn’t take a genius to see that it also strongly vested our country’s interests in the Middle East. Our dollar was backed by oil and it has given us a strong reason to defend our interests.

Every year our country borrows more and more money from other countries to fund our huge spending. Our trade deficit continues to grow. Inflation – caused in large part by our spurious printing of dollar bills – continues to make it harder for working class people to live. If our country was a corporation, it would be bankrupt right now. We have to return to responsible levels of spending – levels we can support without borrowing from other countries. We also ought to return to a gold standard and stop producing excess inflation. We should break our dependence on foreign oil for energy and economic security. I can only hope we pull our heads out of the sand before we are forced to.

Annals of organization

by Sarah McCarthy 

When packing to return to school, I encounter three distinct categories of objects.

The first category is easy to manage – objects that clearly ought to be packed. Such objects include, but are not limited to, clothes that I have worn some time in the last year, a technological device that I actually know how to operate, a toothbrush, a pair of quasi-wearable underwear. These objects are delightful. There is no question about them. They are put into a bag and then completely forgotten about until the unpacking starts.

The second is perhaps even easier – objects that clearly ought to be thrown out. Shredded Kleenex, receipts for a croissant bought in 1998, inkless pens, CDs snapped in half, balls of hair, and other unmentionables fit squarely into this category. These objects are even more delightful, for they are put into a large Hefty bag and, if all goes well, NEVER HEARD FROM AGAIN. They are out of my life, I have washed my hands of them, and only the garbage man knows where the final resting place may be. I couldn’t relocate them if I tried.

The third, though – the third is why packing is a beast. Objects in the third class taunt me by being neither clearly garbage nor clearly useful either. These objects include, among others: a “J” scrabble tile, a CD which may or may not be blank, a dime, a flip flop, a sock, an eraser, a letter that used to have sentimental value, a freshman year homecoming picture of two people I was never really friends with, half a deck of cards, a cord that probably goes to something, somewhere, a warranty manual that probably also goes with that same something, a graded paper from 10th grade, a page of sheet music from an indeterminate song, a sketchbook with two pages ripped out, a certificate commending me for excellence in 8th grade social studies, a half empty bottle of amoxicillin that reads “Take Daily Until Bottle Complete,” a page of dialogue recorded from people on a bus, a fondue kit, a spool of white thread, and a key that the neighbors might have given me in case of emergency.

Were this a normal time, were I a normal person, these objects would not be seen as mocking instruments of torture. The “J” would be returned to the Scrabble box, the dime put in a change purse, the sock reunited with its mate. Yet now – now there is no time for such niceties. In vain, I pick up the offending objects, look at them sadly, and make a “to deal with later” pile. Five minutes later, I forget that I made such a pile, and seeing an un-packed item, confront it again.  Its place has grown no clearer. Shall I pack it? There is always a good possibility that I might need a spool of white thread at school. But perhaps its place is at home? It only take a few such encounters for my neck muscles to tighten, and just a few more for the patience to snap and for my brain to alight upon a wonderful phrase that I heard in a going-out-of-business ad: Everything Must Go!  Empowered by my new doctrine, I race around the room, wildly throwing everything into either the suitcase of garbage, whichever is nearer or less full. Dimes accidentally go into the trash. I pack the single sandal, despite knowing that no match waits for it at school. I throw out the warranty manual, knowing in the back of my mind that the object it goes to is probably broken and still would be under warranty if I ever bothered to save them.

Once back at school, in a room unencumbered by category 3 items, I resolve that never again will I pack with such abandon. This year is going to be different. I will have a cleaner room, a cleaner life, a room that practically packs itself. In any event, this is what the start of the year should be – the hell of packing, forgotten in the excitement of a new year, another chance to get it right.

“Sunshine” a worthwhile watch

by Erin Salvi 

The idea of the disfunctional family is nothing new to cinema, but it is a concept to which practically everyone who has learned to walk and talk can relate. Perhaps this is why film studios and audiences alike seem to reach no point of exhaustion with this genre of movie. While viewing these films amid an audience, one can practically hear every individual thinking, “Yes! God yes! That is my family, right there on the screen, they’ve hit it dead on! Why, why can’t a family just be normal?” This question may someday be answered, but until we do so, films exploring this topic will continue to grace the screens.

The family in Little Miss Sunshine

Olive dreams of winning the “Little Miss Sunshine” pageant, but her entire family must somehow look past their individual issues and band together to get her there. The process is a sometimes hilarious, sometimes tragic journey from New Mexico to California that the family embarks upon in a big yellow bus. Along the way, these imbalanced characters somehow reveal themselves as empathetic creatures. Beneath their hard exteriors, they are fragile, desperate souls trying their hardest to hold together the only thing that has ever provided them with any stability: family. Olive’s trek to become “Little Miss Sunshine” turns out not only to be a young girl’s dream of beauty pageant victory, but her entire family’s search for a way to become something a little greater than they are. They desire to become “winners,” but the tools they have to reach that goal have been jumbled up into the stew that is messy familial relations. Little Miss Sunshine verifies that the old adage is true: it is not the destination, but the journey that really counts. Cliché, perhaps, but this cliché is filled with so much inventive humor and raw familial interaction that you’ll be glad to have gone along for the ride.

Group brings Irish punk to Whitman

by Alex Frank 

Last fall’s big-deal, school-sponsored show undoubtedly had a surfeit of star power – it certainly marked the first appearance of a band who only months before taking the stage of Cordiner rocked a fictional little joint called the Bait Shop. But while Death Cab for Cutie may’ve gotten Seth Cohen and Co. dancing on “The O.C.,” their Whitman performance was pretty much akin to listening to their record in a really big room while four nerdy-looking dudes stood around onstage. Though it was a coup in terms of booking – Walla Walla stood out considerably on a tour itinerary otherwise comprised of Denvers, Chicagos and the like – as far as a live rock ‘n’ roll show goes, well, it wasn’t exactly “Live at Leeds.”

Perhaps that was ASWC’s mindset, then, when they booked Irish folk-punks Flogging Molly, whose live show is to Death Cab’s what a 30-second Guinness keg stand is to a nice glass of merlot. The seven-person outfit prides itself on being equally adept at igniting a Warped Tour pit full of pre-pubescent punks as it is converting middle-aged moms at folk festivals to their inspired blend of high-octane punk fury and traditional Irish balladry. The group’s September 22nd date at Whitman ought to be a case study in how to whip a ballroom full of jam-band-loving college kids into a drunken step-dancing frenzy – surely, a sight not to be missed.

The group – named for the Los Angeles club Molly Malone’s, where the group spent their early days – prove beyond a doubt their aptitude for pleasing crowds on Whiskey on a Sunday, a feature-length DVD chronicling the group’s worldwide tours, as well as the recording of their latest album Within a Mile of Home. Equally competent at hyper-speed late-night singalongs (“Drunken Lullabies”) as they are at surprisingly tender ballads (“Don’t Let Me Die Still Wondering”), expect an unabashed party when a tour bus smelling suspiciously of Jameson rolls up to campus next week.

Though they do the sound considerable justice, Flogging Molly aren’t the first group to integrate balls-out punk rock and tried-and-true Irish folk. Crook-toothed, eternally hammered Shane MacGowan brought the genre mish-mash to prominence in the ‘80s with his band the Pogues; their 1985 album Rum, Sodomy and the Lash, a fascinating amalgam of Irish tradition and punk attitude, is widely considered to be one of the finest albums of the decade. Boston’s venerable Dropkick Murphys took a different route, adding bagpipes and tin-whistles to a gruff, decidedly working-class brand of punk.

Still, Flogging Molly are one of the best, and easily the most well-known, bands currently playing Irish-influenced punk rock. With three albums under their collective belts and showing no signs of stopping, their Whitman appearance will, if nothing else, be the sweaty, all-campus party those big houses on Isaacs only wish they could throw.

“The Illusionist” shows glimpses of a promising movie, leaves viewers wanting more

by Josh Boris

The fun, frolicking festival of summer is coming to an end, and so are the big budget blockbusters that dominate the hearts and minds of American pop culture during those heated months. “Superman” has flown away, “Snakes on a Plane” is slithering off and as the weather cools down we are greeted with smaller, more introspective, perhaps “artsy” films as the Oscar race begins to gear up. Films such as “The Illusionist,” “Little Miss Sunshine,” and “Hollywoodland” serve as an opening salvo for the months to come. However, while Neil Burger’s “The Illusionist” shows some promise, its overly-clichéd plot and reliance on tried-and-true movie mechanics keep it from truly blossoming.

The film begins with the arrest of renowned illusionist Eisenheim (Edward Norton) by Chief Inspector Uhl (Paul Giamatti) for inciting resistance against the Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell) through his illusionist act. What follows is the reconstruction of the events leading up to the arrest through Inspector Uhl’s report to the Crown Prince. As the plot unfolds we find that a young Eisenheim’s forbidden love with a duchess is rekindled when she appears as a volunteer in his magic show fifteen years later. However, her impending engagement to the prince creates obvious complications, and he must use all of his skills to win her back and eventually take down the corrupt prince.

When all of the frills are stripped away, the plot boils down to a pretty simple and recognizable one: Poor laborer falls in love with rich woman, but the standards of the time demand that their love cannot exist and she is promised to a rich man. Poor man must use his wits and talents to win back rich girl and show how evil rich man is. It’s like “Titanic” but without the sinking boat. While the “twists” in the movie are interesting, they’re not very surprising. Anyone who says “wow, I can’t believe the illusionist pulled off an incredible illusion” hasn’t really been paying attention to the movie.

However, it’s the frills that make the movie. The sets and cinematography are simple yet elegant, and form a beautiful and convincing picture of early 1900’s Vienna. The acting is also quite simple and understated and, with the exception of the often overdramatic prince (though he’s the kind of character you love to hate), the overacting you expect from both a period piece and a forbidden love story are thankfully absent. Edward Norton is low-key and his characterization is often punctuated by intense silences that lend to his mysterious quality. Giamatti once again performs well and is thankfully given a role in which he for once isn’t a pathetic loner. Even Jessica Biel, as the countess, performs well. While the main illusion is not that surprising, Burger is excellent with the little details, and is careful to keep us distanced enough so that we are never part of the illusion but are always curious onlookers.

Unfortunately I left the theater wanting more. While the plot relied around tricking the audience, in the end I would have liked to know more about what exactly was going on. The explanation of events seemed a little too empty. They also put too much into the clichéd love story where a greater examination of how a magician could take down royalty and the political ramifications may have been more interesting. Despite its short length, several of the plot points were overdrawn and it often felt quite slow. Throughout the film you can see bright spots peeking out, but I wouldn’t expect “The Illusionist” to appear on Oscar ballots come the next year. On a scale of “boo” to “whoo!” I would give it a “meh…”

Verve Coffee: Walla Walla’s new organic hotspot

by Christina Russell 

When were the last times you found enthusiasm, energy and vitality, all while picking up your daily cup of coffee? Verve, Walla Walla’s newest coffeehouse, facilitates an environment that enables customers to discover these qualities, all while quenching their thirst and satiating their hunger. A co-venture between Gary Hemenway and his wife Lauren, Verve is a place that strives to “facilitate artistic expression,” said Gary. “The eye needs a place to rest.”

Located at 53 South Spokane Street, a short walk from campus, the house is spacious, with a variety of furniture on which to curl up and study, or read back issues of Whitman’s “blue moon” literary publication, which lay invitingly on more than a few tables. For architecturally minded Whitties, there are also copies of the alternative-design magazine “dwell” for your reading pleasure. Perfect for studying, there is free wireless Internet and a conference room in the back for those who prefer to focus in solitude. Barista Sarah Rice, a junior at the Global University, recommends stopping by to study between 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. “Those are our quietest hours during the day,” she said.

The walls are adorned with local art. The Hemenways’ vision for the art scene is of working artists showing their pieces alongside aspiring students’ work. “I want to give students a place to show for free,” said Gary. Currently showing is Katherine Wildermuth’s work in watercolors, which runs through Oct. Nov. and Dec. will feature H. Drake and Eric Ashley, both photographers, and after the New Year Reggie Mace will be showing his Polaroids.

Verve is participating in the Walla Walla Art Walk, which takes place on the first Friday of every month. These Fridays will feature an eclectic mix of live musicians in genres ranging from jazz and bluegrass to alt-rock and indie. “The room is live, conducive to acoustic music,” said Gary.

The repertoire of drinks includes the usual coffeehouse lattes, tea, Chai and Italian sodas – actually made from popular French syrups – but with an organic twist. All of the coffee served at Verve is 100 percent organic and fair trade and is shipped from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. The decaffeinated coffee is all Swiss-water processed. “Our coffee never sits in-house for more than two weeks,” said Rice. Rice’s favorite drink at Verve is a Soy Mate. Mate is a traditional drink of the indigenous people of South America. It is similar to Chai, but offers over 24,400 antioxidants in one serving. Verve is also serving Xango, which is made of the mangosteen fruit from Thailand. Xango is an all-natural homeopathic dietary supplement. Gary recommends drinking a small amount twice a day. He started taking it to alleviate fatigue he incurred from frequent travel to India. Verve also offers a variety of pastries, most of which are baked in-house. “It’s not uncommon to walk in at the beginning of the day and find cranberry walnut scones, or chocolate chip muffins,” said Rice. Gary had plans to expand the menu to include Paninis during the lunch hour, but says that sandwiches are on hold until he can find “the right press.”

Verve is open Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. The hours were recently revised to include late nights on Wednesdays and Sundays, from 7 p.m. to midnight.

Students who are passionate about the arts and have a medium they would like to share with Verve can contact Lauren Hemenway on her cell phone at (509) 301-2969 or at the store at (509) 526-0929.

Sheehan exhibit a “sound laboratory”

by Gayle Chung

When no one is around, everything is silent. Only the art gallery guard sits at a desk in a corner of the Sheehan Gallery. But soon, the presence of visitors is announced by the sound of a large bell. Before the eyes of the observer, farming disks, reminiscent of inverted mushrooms, cover the gallery’s glossy floor, and muddy wooden stakes innocently dangle overhead, still and unmoving. With a plastic mallet in hand, the visitor hits the disks, sending a multitude of sharp rings into the air. The stakes sway back and forth as the orchestrator moves from disk to disk with childish amusement. More people enter the gallery, curious about the setup and the sounds reverberating through Olin’s halls.

Since August 26th, the Sheehan Gallery has housed this installation, entitled “Instrument Implement”, as the second component of Buster Simpson’s ongoing public art project “Walla Walla Bound.” But this exhibition is not the last creation in this series; “Instrument Implement” serves as a “sound laboratory for the future installation of a sculpture” that will serve as testament to the “ecological, economical and spiritual” values of Mill Creek in Walla Walla. This and the future installation of Simpson’s project seek to engage and enlighten the public by clearly identifying the benefits that Mill Creek bestows upon the Walla Walla community.

Whitman students, professors, and staff often come to the gallery with curious and questioning expressions on their face. Many slowly walk in the gallery, timidly looking around. But for those who have heard about the projects already, they know exactly what to do. They automatically grab a mallet placed next to the entrance and make a beeline for the farming disks.

“It’s something like stress relief!” said a visitor to the gallery. Walla Walla locals, too, have been visiting the gallery, hearing much about the exhibition and the artist. One particular local Walla Wallan, when asked what he thought about Simpson’s work, said, “I’m really excited to see how this all plays out. I don’t know too much about it, but I can’t wait to see how it will end up.” Before exiting the gallery, he said, “But before I go, I’m going to hit theses disks one more time.”

Also, in a room towards the back of the Gallery, the observer can learn a little more about the whole “Walla Walla Bound” project and get a taste of what the “Poetic License” component will entail. An “episodic series” of poetic observations will be printed on license plates and placed along the restored concrete walls surrounding the Mill Creek that pass through the urban sections of Walla Walla. Covering the back wall, several printed poems hang, intended to provoke thought in the viewer.

An opening lecture and reception will be held on Sep. 15th. Simpson will begin his lecture at 5 p.m. in Olin 130, where inquiring minds can ask any burning questions they may have about “Walla Walla Bound.” Or, if one wants to get more personal with Simpson, they can talk to the man himself during the opening reception, which will start at 6 p.m. The exhibition is on display until Oct. 5th.

First-year elections kick off

Allison Armstrong
I think the class of 2010 is an amazing class and I would be honored to represent us in senate.  As a first-year, I am still learning all that this school has to offer, just as my classmates are.  I want to be able to help them with first year struggles and be able to voice any concerns or suggestions they might have.  So far, I love this school and want to work hard to keep it as good as it is, to not only maintain the endless activities and learning, but to also serve the greater Whitman Community not only by myself, but to involve the entire class of 2010 in changes that are made.  The coming year already sounds amazing (Flogging Molly, etc.) and I hope to be a part of the decisions in the coming year.

Seth Bergeson
I led capture-the-flag in pink shorts and body paint.  I led my high school’s fondue club and cycling club.  I led Whitman’s first British Romantic Comedy Fondue Party.  I led my high schools’ Student-Faculty Senate this past year and was my classes’ sole representative for four years.  Through my leadership in the Senate, I worked tirelessly to build and strengthen relationships throughout my previous divided K-12 school.  From the smallest kindergarteners to the oldest seniors, I sought and worked towards a completely united K-12 community.  Thus I wish to further strengthen the community of Whitman, a college that I love, and will work tirelessly to improve as a senator of the Class of 2010.

Adam Caniparoli
I want to be on Senate because I want to make a difference on campus.  I feel that as a student, it is difficult to influence the goings on here.  I plan to put together a better communications network because most people blow off the student digests and don’t know what’s going on.  I want to have more all-campus and all-class events to get to know more people and feel like a larger part of this wonderful community.

David Changa-Moon
I love people, Girls and Boys.  I feel as though I have a good sense of what the greater student body wants and needs.  For a school to function without a sense of unilateralism and to achieve the greater goal of community it seeks; students need to be allowed more influential positions within the school’s administration and governing.  I hope to establish at least one if not two students from each year to serve on the judicial system.  Students should hold other students accountable to the expectations of the school and can further offer prospective in the judicial process.  Further, I would like either senators, elected or appointed students to sit in on faculty and administrative meetings.  I would like to serve on the programming or financial committees and hope to bring a hot tub to campus as I have not been able to find one.

Sam Chasan
All I’m interested in is representing the views and ideas of my class, my (Jewett), and my section (2-West!!!), beyond that… what ideas are there?  Whitman rocks already.

Chuckie Harris
I want to meet people and serve the Whitman community, especially my class.  I’m open to new experiences and hope this will help me feel like a bigger part of the freshman class.

Jacqueline Kamm
The role of a senator is to be a representative of the larger group’s ideas, concerns, and aspirations.  If given the opportunity to serve as a senator for the class for 2010 I would do just that—be a representative.  I want to know all of your thoughts, make sure they are heard and then acted upon.  Being first year students we don’t know about all that happens at Whitman so it can be hard for us to be heard or know what issues are present on campus.  As your senator I would ensure that you would remain informed and your voice would be heard.  To learn about my specific plans, experience, or how to contact me further just ask or call me at 425-890-8053

Brian A. Mendiola
For the last year my biggest goal has been to become a United States Senator from Washington.  I plan to ignite the flame of my burning passion by running for senator of the Whitman class of 2010.  These years will become our metamorphosis as we get prepared to lead the day of tomorrow.  I cannot promise the sun and the stars, but you have my word that I will work to be as humble and hardworking as I can.  We will be building memories here that we will have for the rest of our lives, and my only wish is that I will have the honor to become a part of them and Whitman College history.

Manuel “Manny” Mora
Politics is in my blood.  My dad’s political career changed my life in ways I couldn’t fathom.  Because of it, I went from leading a secure and stable life to one full of uncertainty and struggle.  I learned first hand what happens when power is abused and the voice of people ignored.  My motivation to run for freshman class senator is fueled by a desire to ensure that the class’s voice is heard, that our rights are protected, and that we are treated with equity and respect.  Thus, my plan for the upcoming year is to give the class of 2010 a way to express, and if need be defend, their voice.  It’s not about me, it’s about you!

Alex T. Potter
I’m running for Senate to advocate for student interests.  For example, I plan this year if elected to advocate for faster internet connections in the dorms.  I bring experience as president of student government in high school, so I believe I can best support the interests of Whitman students.

Stephanie Silver
I would like to serve as an ASWC senator to get the chance to be involved on campus using what I think are my best skills – activity planning, helping others to get involved, and being generally enthusiastic!
My plan for they year is to find creative ways to get people excited about student activities and service here at Whitman.  I’m really excited for this year and I think I could contribute very positively to the ASWC team!

Melissa Yockelson
Whitman prides itself on its diversity, on the open-mindedness of its students.  My goal as a member of the ASWC Senate is to expand upon this pride.  I plan to do this by empowering the students by making sure that all avenues are open for them to have their voices heard.  This will be done through supporting the various clubs on campus, supporting free speech, and looking in to possible activism activities associated with national organizations such as Amnesty International or Save the Children.

Accident Injures Whittie

by Sarah McCarthy

During the first week of classes, 2005 graduate Bridget Kustin came back to Whitman to talk give a talk about her experience as a Fulbright scholar in Bangladesh. Her talk, entitled “Engaging Islamic Bangladesh: Development, Islam, and U.S. Diplomacy,” was scheduled for Thursday, Aug. 31.

The afternoon before her presentation, however, Bridget was struck by a car while crossing the street. She and history professor Elise Semerdjian were in a crosswalk on Boyer Avenue, just outside the Brew Pub. From the accident scene, Bridget was rushed to St. Mary’s Hospital. Once initially stabilized there, she was airlifted to Harborview Medical center in Seattle. She is currently still recovering in Haborview. She has suffered back injuries, but faculty members who have spoken with her say that she is in stable condition. “It will be a long, slow, process of recovery,” said professor of English Jean Carwile Masteller. “But she will recover.”

Bridget, a 2005 graduate, was a parliamentary debater who had won many individual awards for her excellent public speaking skills as well as several 1st place victories in tournaments. She was known among all on the team as welcoming, kind, and incredibly talented. Bridget spent her Fulbright year studying the post-9/11 alliances that the U.S. government is trying to cultivate in moderate Islamic countries such as Bangladesh. Her presentation, according to a press release, was to be “a multimedia program that explores the vibrancy of Islam beyond the Arab world, challenges conceptions of Islam prevalent in Western media, and examines questions of power, autonomy, and political agendas in the field of development.”

Bridget is an example of someone who gives and does not stop giving—of her talents, her energy, and her time. On Friday, Sept. 1, the day after her talk, she planned to continue her research by going to Mumbai, India to learn Bengali. Despite the tight scheduling, she had found the time to come back to Whitman and share her experience as a Fulbright scholar with other interested students. She told Professor Masteller that she was “overwhelmed by the outpouring of support for students and faculty.” Someone who gave so much to Whitman both during and after her time here deserves nothing less.

Athletic center opens doors for students

by Caitlin Tortorici

Whitman has a new obsession: It’s not that cute freshman in your calculus class; it certainly isn’t facebook. It’s the Baker Ferguson Fitness Center.

Since the new facility’s opening on Thursday, Aug. 31, fitness veterans and rookies alike have rushed to experience athleticism at its finest.

Junior Kaitlin Phillips, who set foot in Sherwood only twice last year, enjoys the new facility up to five times a week. “It’s so snazzy,” said Phillips.

Why so snazzy?

“It’s like a health club,” said a sophomore and former Sherwood enthusiast. “It’s so much more convenient than Sherwood.”
It’s true. No longer do gym-goers arrive to a conniving vending machine and a waiting list for dysfunctional machinery. Since the dawning of Baker Ferguson, Whitties are greeted by smiling staff members in red uniforms, towels neatly folded, and 49 cardio machines to get their hearts racing and fat burning.

And what’s more: each treadmill, bicycle, and elliptical comes with a TV screen and nearly 80 channels to choose from. In a single Zone training session, students can expand their minds with educational programming, or dilute them with the entertainment channel of their choice.

Leading up to the impressive front line of cardio machines, the athletic center houses over 150 pieces of strength equipment.

If the first floor is too overwhelming, students can climb up to the second and work their bodies in a smaller, more intimate space. Those wondering where they keep the less ambitious free weights will find them here as well.
As for the mysterious room next door with the yellow spinning bikes, it was originally intended to be a stretching room. According to Tom Olson, gym officials may move the bikes to Sherwood and convert the cardio room into a spinning space. In any case, Olson hopes to offer spinning classes for credit within the next year. Meanwhile, the bikes are available to anyone craving a ride.

Students also have the option of cooling off on in the athletic center’s 30-meter pool, which serves recreational swimmers as well as varsity teams, club water polo teams, kayaking club practice, and community organizations such as the Walla Walla High School swim team. The pool regularly opens for recreational use Monday through Friday from 7 to 9 a.m. and noon to 1:30 p.m., and Monday through Thursday from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. It opens from 2 to 5 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays and Sundays from 7 to 9 p.m.

Some may say that an athletic center is only as good as its lavatory. So, it’s only appropriate that Ferguson’s locker room comes with glistening toilets, handsome navy lockers, and commodious showers.

Baker Ferguson, the man behind the center’s name, grew up in Walla Walla and graduated from Whitman in 1939. He taught briefly in the business and economics department after World War II, and served on board of trustees from 1966 to 1983. He mentored many Whitman presidents and earned the 2000 Whitman College Alumni Association Gordon Scribner Award for Distinguished Service. The new facility celebrates his seventy-year association with the college.

Baker Ferguson’s 10,000 square feet of fitness training space is open to all students, faculty and staff. It operates at the same hours kept by Sherwood: 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and noon to 9 p.m. on Sundays. Sherwood will remain open to facilitate varsity and IM sports, rock climbing, racquetball and dance classes.

Skies darken as fire rages

by Christina Russell

Lightning struck in the southeastern region of Washington last month, provoking a forest fire that has enveloped over 100,000 square feet of land and continues to threaten. The fire started on Aug. 21 and is located in the eastern and southeastern regions of Dayton and Waitsburg. Residents of Tucannon and Maloney mountain roads as well as the Stentz Springs Recreation Park have been evacuated until further notice. A network of roads in the area including all property comprising the Umatilla National Forest has also been closed.

InciWeb, an incident information system, published that six Type One and 29 Type Two fire crews have been enlisted to contain this natural catastrophe. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) allocated funds for the outbreak on Aug. 22, when it became apparent that the fire posed an immediate threat to at least 50 households and up to 1,500 more. Thirty-five individuals were forced to evacuate (FEMA News Release). According to the Dayton Chamber of Commerce, as of Tuesday, Sept. 7 a total of 103,100 acres had burned. The containment at this point was up to 80 percent. There were 1,017 persons working to fight the Complex fire at this time.

While this fire has been detrimental to the residential community in Dayton and surrounding areas, from a biological standpoint it is serving an integral role in the ecosystem. Professor of Biology at Whitman Delbert Hutchinson reflected on the biological implications of the Columbia Complex fire. “I can’t say whether it is bad to fight for ecological reasons, but it is true that natural disturbances [like fire] increase diversity and maintain stability.” To many, it appears that fire is harming our environment, as burning wildlife does not seem to be a positive occurrence.

Hutchinson said, “The landscape is adapted to this kind of change. We are building homes, we don’t like it when natural things come through – go figure.”

Hutchinson explained that because residential development has taken place in forests, there have been a lot of preventative measures undertaken to eliminate the periodic fires that would otherwise occur in a state of nature. Because of this, when a fire does happen there is an excessive amount of underbrush waiting to burn that serves as fodder for the flame. In this circumstance, Hutchinson said, “When you get a fire – it’s one hell of a fire. It’s going to explode.” There have been preemptive efforts in forests like the Columbia Complex to clear out the underbrush that increases the magnitude of the flame. “But, I question sometimes,” said Hutchinson. “How much are we really controlling?” The truth is that in as little time as fifty years, no matter how many preventative measures are executed, there will be another fire. “We just want to control stuff,” he said.

“The biology is rather clear,” said Hutchinson. “Ultimately, though, this is a decision we have to make as a society, a decision informed by biology.”

Concerned students can help displaced fire victims by sending toilet paper, paper towels, bottled water, Gatorade or small monetary donations to the Dayton Fire Fighters Association. Supplies sent either to the Dayton Fire Station or the Dayton Chamber office will reach those in need. People seeking more information contact the Chamber at (509) 382-4825.

A few words of advice from your Back Page Editors

by Stephen Carter & Dru Johnston

Hi First-Years. College can be tough. We should know.  We’re both fat.  So in order to help you through this tough transition, we’ve compiled a list of some helpful tips that we wish we were given.

Sincerely,
Dru and Stephen
-Do you own a guitar? Play your guitar at every opportunity!  Nobody finds you annoying!

-Having trouble deciding which fraternity to rush? We’ve compiled some lesser known pre-requisites for each of them:

Phis- You must have your own X-Box Live Headset.

Betas-   You must understand the irony of popping your collar.

TKEs- You cannot be able to produce a working definition of the word “irony.”

Sigs- No Prerequisites.

-Did you make a mistake and hook up with someone regrettable? Well that’s a little insulting but we had a good time.

-Are things not working out between yourself and your roommate? Maybe a little pep in your sex life is just what the doctor ordered. Try incorporating massage and oils into your lovemaking. If that doesn’t work, your RA has been trained by Reslife in the art of the menage a trois. But make sure to pour out your alcohol!

-Do you like food service? Keep in mind that Stephen and Dru would love to eat at food service and that you will never use all of your meals.

-Need someone to talk to? Send complaints to backpage@whitman.edu.

News Bits

by Alex Henke

Pro-wealth Christians evangelize in Beirut, terror level rises
A new wave of Americans have reaffirmed their equal love of God and Benzes by taking  “evangelivacations” to Beirut, Lebanon and convincing the local population that God wants all Christians to be rich.  “Sure, my immortal soul is, like, really important,” said Born Again Rich Valley Girl Cher Horowitz, “but, like, so is the fact that I have to remain fashionable.  I mean, like, look at these ugly houses.  God, like, wants them to know that flaming rubble is so out of style.”  In other news, the terror alert increased from “red” to “Oh, fuck.”

Microsoft creates new high school entirely out of euphemisms
In education news, Microsoft’s recruitment and marketing programs expanded into the world of high school education when it created a high-tech high school in a working-class Philadelphia neighborhood entirely out of paradigm shifts, thinking outside the box, and $63 million.  Noted PTA member and guitarist Roger Waters described the vocabulary-altering phenomenon: “Everything’s changed.  Teachers are called ‘educators,’ students are called ‘learners,’ and, all in all, you’re just another ‘constructive piece’ in the … wall … of learning.”

Pope bashes Canada for gay marriage and abortion, Americans ask what a “Canada” is
Shortly after the Pope criticized Canada’s liberal policies towards same-sex marriage and abortion, Americans asked what, exactly, was a Canada.  “Now, I’m always one for an intelligent discussion,” stated Detroit native David Jones, “but before I agree or disagree with his Holiness, what’s a Canada, and why should I care?”  A Canada responded to A merica’s ignorance by annexing A laska and forcing it to vote in A socialist policy.

Democrats criticize ABC for airing conservative bullshit instead of liberal bullshit
The evil corporate hegemony Disney is being attacked and praised by an array of even-more-evil-and-hegemonic-than-a-corporate-hegemony politicians and pundits for refusing to cut its 9/11 miniseries on ABC.  Noted opiate connoisseur and general fatty mcfatterson Rush Limbaugh lauded the show for its shots at the liberal side, saying, “I’m glad Clinton’s sexcapades finally get the media attention they deserve, because he’s a bad man with his constant sex with many girls … I’m so lonely.  My only friend is Mr. Mallomar.”  On the other side of the fence, former motha fuckin’ P.I.M.P. Bill Clinton criticized the series for the fact that its falsehoods were directed against liberals.  Clinton commented, “All right, major news media.  You had your fun with the whole Monica thing, but that was legit.  You’re only supposed to make up bullshit about the Republicans.”

Address from the President

by George Bridges

Dear First Years et al,

First off, I just wanna say: TWO-WESSSSSSSTTTTT!!!
By now all you Two-Westers have probably figured out that you’re in that section for a reason. All your application essays pointed to one undeniable fact. You are all insanely badass. Seriously D-Section, how do you sleep at night? Two-West and the Prez agree, you stink.

On another note, you returning students may not know that there is a change in Jewett’s fourth floor. Due to an excessive amount of RAs they have added another section. In addition to Four-East and Four-West there is a new section called Far-West. This makes the former Four-West the middle east. We support a free and democratic Four-West. If elections are not held in forty days, you will be bombed.

On a lighter note, there have been some serious changes here at Whitman. Let me highlight some of the major ones:

- You may remember the office hours which were advertised by my administrative assistant, JoAnn Collins. These hours have been cancelled. But I am keeping the cookies. For me and my Two-West boyz.

- A lot of people think that the new fitness center will make the campus fitter. But we know you’re just going to the gym to watch the Food Network on the treadmill. Keep chasing that chocolate cake. Fatty.

- ASWC has officially been disbanded. In its place is a big pile of money in the basement of Reid Campus Center with a sign that says: “Take what you need!!!”

- Because the new health center is in the old Japanese Interest House all of your health and wellness needs will be solved with a traditional kimono, samurai short sort and the insistence that you perform Hari-Kari.

- You may notice the lack of Pat Keef around campus. Well we are pleased to inform you that we have a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Timothy Kaufman-Osborn will be taking his place. We look forward to his hilarious misadventures and his untimely death.

- As always, stay out of the forbidden forest and avoid the whomping shitberry tree.

- If you have any idea who “RAB” is write to me at president@whitman.edu. God! I can’t wait for book seven.

That’s it. Enjoy the year. -GB