THEUWMPOST est. 1956
the student-run independent newspaper
February 20, 2012
Review of UWM film instructor’s Valley Maker page 3
UWM: Home of Ultimate Frisbee Champs
Issue 19, Volume 56
Editorial: SA fails to separate powers page 12 SA plea for Voter ID
A Thursday ride along with BOSS Who will
watch the Fireworks, bar pick ups, and friendly regulars make up the night watchmen? By Justin Jabs Staff Writer news@uwmpost.com
For Be On the Safe Side, every night is a busy night. BOSS Director Anthony Gomez says the safety transportation service takes over 400 calls in an eight-hour evening, more than a radio station contest. Last Thursday, I was given the opportunity to experience an evening with BOSS firsthand. The service is funded by segregated fees and gives students and faculty rides within their boundaries every night between 7 p.m. and 2 a.m. The goal of the evening was to discover and bring light to how the program operates, both from behind the scenes and in the vans with passengers. According to Gomez, BOSS was designed in 2000 by Student Association members “who wanted a ride,” and the program has experienced little change since. The driver I rode along with preferred to be called by his nickname, Rusty. Our
ride began at 10:18 p.m. on Thursday night. Thursdays are the “wildest,” Gomez says. “Most Thursdays are pretty wicked,” Rusty agreed. BOSS considers Thursday as part of the weekend. Many students agree – social gatherings and “thirsty Thursday” parties are not unheard of around college campuses. On any given night, at least a dozen BOSS employees are working. Usually, a team of three works dispatch back at their office in the Student Union, while 10 to 12 other students are out driving. Rusty has been a driver for over two years and is a senior set to graduate in May. By the time I joined him for the ride along, he had already been working for about an hour, taking the second shift of the night. Rusty prefers the late shift. BOSS stops taking calls at 2 a.m., but drivers can be out until 3 a.m. finishing up calls. The first shift begins at 7 p.m. and is spent taking students with night classes back home.
Concerns arise over election commissioner independence By Steve Garrison News Editor news@uwmpost.com
since June, and “had pretty much decided in October,” after Kostal’s presidency began to flounder. UWM Post: What qualifications would you bring with you to the position? Rick Banks: I have been involved in SA since October of my freshman year [2009 -2010]. My first committees were the Council of Diversity and Inclusion and SAC (Senate Appropriations Committee). The year after that I was elected a senator for L&S (Letters and Sciences) and became deputy speaker of the senate. Served on a lot of committees and other stuff, and this year I am speaker of the senate. Eric Grow: I am a newcomer to SA. I only got involved in SA back in September and I basically came into the office and had this wild idea for student voting rights. I was encouraged to run for the senate, I won my first try, and, you know, the rest is history. I was probably the only senator who passed meaningful legislation last semester – that was two things on voting rights. UWM Post: What made you decide to run for the vice presidency? Eric Grow: Even though I have been involved for a very short time, from what I have seen with all the corruption, like, if there is one person who
Concerns have been raised a week into the election season over the objectivity of the acting Independent Election Commissioner Anthony Dewees, who also serves as chief justice on the University Student Court. Cassie Van Gompel has filed an appeal asking that the student court overturn the commissioner’s decision to deny her party registration form, which was due on Feb. 13. In essence, Van Gompel is forced to appeal Dewees’ decision to … Dewees. If he chooses to recuse himself because of a conflict of interest, the court will not have enough members to make a formal decision, as per USC bylaws. The decision to reject ANEW’s party charter becomes more concerning because of Dewees’ connection with “The Wolfpack” an amorphous voting bloc made up of several senators, including vice presidential hopeful Tereza Pelicaric. Gompel said she was approached by Pelicaric about withdrawing her bid for the presidency and instead aligning with Allied Student Voice, the party nominating Director of Communications Dan Laughland and Pelicaric for the top executive spots. Rick Banks, who is running for president with United Panthers, said that he would be lying if he said he didn’t have doubts about Dewees remaining impartial. “I’m trying to keep the faith,” Banks said. “I would’ve preferred that there have been another independent election commission, but, from our conversation with Dewees, he seemed intent on having a free and fair election. Hopefully… but I’d be lying if I said I’m not a little worried about it.” Banks and Laughland cosponsored legislation at the last senate meeting that would limit the senate’s power to change the independent election commission’s bylaws. Both senators said the bill was a joint effort to proactively minimize fraud during the election season. “There were a lot of rumors going around about an unusually high number of candidates and using alterna-
See PARTIES page 3
See RIGGED page 3
Post Photo by Justin Jabs “Before eight, Union walkups are monstrous,” Gomez said. BOSS employees are not just drivers or dispatch; students work both sides. Three students work in the office every night, each with their own responsibilities. The first works the phone, taking re-
quests for rides and putting them into the computer. The user’s destination, current location and number in their party are recorded onto a spreadsheet. It is then up to the dispatcher to esti-
See BOSS page 2
SA Election Parties Announced On Feb. 12, three parties formally threw their hats in the ring, each one nominating candidates for the presidency and vice presidency. A fourth party, ANEW, is currently appealing their party’s rejection by the Independent Election Commissioner Anthony DeWees. The UWM Post sat down with the candidates to discuss why they decided to enter the race.
ICONIC President: Hugo Nguyen Vice President: Jory DeLoach II According to the charter: “The party will work to bring responsibility and accountability to Student Association as well as help students achieve their optimal potential by training students to optimize their ability in all aspects of life.” Are they in for the long run? “We’ve had some events that occurred and now our party is most likely to consolidate with another party,” Nguyen said via email. Asked to elaborate, he said he was concerned about going against two established candidates, and after being approached by another candidate, he was “99.9 percent” sure that he would withdraw his
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bid. Nguyen did not say which party had approached him. UWM Post: What qualifications would you bring with you to the president or vice president positions? Hugo Nguyen: I am a senior right now. I graduate this May. I did it in a span of three years and I am going to go to grad school here. I am majoring in accounting, econ, finances and marketing. I ran for school board in the city of Franklin in 2010, so I know how to run a campaign. Jory DeLoach II: I am a political science and maybe econ major – prelaw. I will be graduating at the end of next spring. This is my first year here at UWM; I went to UW-Marathon and Wausau for two years. I was the student government president, so I have a lot of experience in student politics. UWM Post: What made you decide to run for president and vice president? Hugo Nguyen: I think I can make the SA more efficient… I want to make sure the resources they use benefit the overall student body more. I want to cut the politics. I want to get things done. I don’t want to go through the process and play political games with other people. Jory DeLoach II: I am coming with a similar mindset. My goal is just to stop the political games and get stuff done. I was president during the whole budget issue in Madison and instead of just sitting around and complaining
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about everything, we actually came up with solutions about how to deal with it. UWM Post: What do you think is the single biggest issue facing SA right now? Hugo Nguyen: I would like to get more parking opportunities for people because it doesn’t make sense for a student to have to worry about a $20 parking ticket while they are in class. Jory DeLoach II: An important aspect of it is going to be stability. There have been a lot of fluctuations in SA in the past, a lot of issues, and we just want to bring a solid leadership so the students have a consistent voice to look up to next year.
United Panthers President: Rick Banks Vice President: Eric Grow According to the charter: “The purpose of this organization is to elect individuals to the Student Association dedicated to the principles of outreach, service and ethics.” Are they in for the long run? One of the established parties, both candidates have plenty of experience with SA. Furthermore, Banks said he has been considering a run
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February 20, 2012
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BOSS
Continued from page 1 mate the wait time and relay that to the caller. In the time that I was observing this process (approximately 10 p.m. on Thursday night), the waiting period was 25 to 35 minutes. “I think BOSS is congested with drunk people calling all the time,” junior Hannah Monthie said. Since calls are filled on a first-come, first-serve basis, it can be quite difficult to give an accurate waiting time. It takes experience, said Gomez. “We once had five math Ph.D. students try to develop an algorithm for the wait time,” Gomez said. The students were unsuccessful. Multiple factors go in to determining the wait. Weather can increase wait time not just because snowy or rainy conditions make it more difficult to drive, but because everyone wants a ride when it is cold out, Gomez says. Traffic, distance, and no shows also add to wait times. The phone is constantly ringing for the dispatcher. The second one call ends, another is picked up, with multiple students on hold behind them. Another employee communicates via radio with the vans. As soon as a driver drops off their passengers, dispatch gives them the location of the next user on the list. A team leader supervises the group, answers the cancellation line and steps in to one of the other roles if that person needs a break. “We take as many students as possible,” Gomez said. “Even if we could answer more calls, we might not be able to pick them up.” At 10:42 p.m., Rusty and I were waiting outside Sandburg Hall looking for
the uwm post
Norris making strides after alarming mental health report UWM faces a “balancing act” in providing more mental health services, yet still respecting student segregated fees
With the addition of new staff, as well as the creation of new campus outreach programs, the mental health services at UWMilwaukee continue to improve after an audit found that UWM had the highest student to mental health staff ratio in the entire UW System. The 2008 audit of all 13 four-year universities and three other UW colleges found that for every 3,500 UWM students, there was only one mental health professional available. Since that time, Norris Health Center’s Director of Counseling Paul Dupont said two counseling positions have been added, with another position being added next fall. In total, five psychologists, three counselors and two part-time psychiatrists are available to students. Although the current ratio of 3,500 students per mental health professional is above the UW System recommendation of one staff member per every 1,800 students, Dupont said UWM is moving in the right direction. “The numbers aren’t impressive,” Dupont said, “but we are incredibly busy.” Dupont said staffing issues can be attributed to the fact that UWM is the only UW System institution that funds its mental health program entirely through student segregated fees. Other schools either fund their programs solely through general purpose revenue or split the cost between general purpose revenue and segregated fees. Dupont described the situation as a balancing act. “We try to be as respectful as possible in recognizing the fees and costs of students,” he said.
Dupont said over 1,000 students took advantage of Norris’ mental health services last school year, accounting for nearly 6,000 counseling and psychiatric appointments. Since the 2008-2009 school year, Dupont said there has been a 12 percent increase in usage, along with a 30 percent increase in new intakes. While much of the increase can be attributed to the additional staff, Dupont said outreach and education has helped break down the barriers of reluctance many students feel. Dupont said the staff wants to start a program called “Let’s Talk,” which would set up a counselor in the Union for walkins once a week. Students could ask one or two questions and would not have to worry about providing their names or other private information like they would if attending an official session. Dupont said students most frequently express problems with anxiety and depression, but that groups are available for those struggling with concerns like eating disorders or weight issues. And although women are the predominant users of the campus’ mental health services, Dupont said the age range of individuals is much more varied. Both counselors and psychiatrists see everyone from freshmen to students as old as 50. “We see a very good cross section of the UWM population,” he said. Part of UWM’s attempt to improve mental health services included the creation, in 2008, of the Campus Mental Health Task Force, which determined the efforts UWM needed to make in order to meet the health needs of the campus community. One issue the group pinpointed was suicide. Sarah Belstock works in Health Promotion Services at Norris Health
Center. She said both instructors and students mentioned they were uncomfortable dealing with suicide, so she, along with other Norris employees and members of the psychology department, sought out a curriculum that would train individuals to identify, assist and intervene with individuals at risk for suicide. Belstock said the group found Campus Connect, a curriculum created at Syracuse University. She said it was a good fit because it was designed specifically for university communities. With a $7,500 grant from the Charles E. Kubly Foundation, a local organization that increases awareness and helps those affected by depression, Belstock said the group was able to pay for a trainer to come from Syracuse, as well as all the materials needed for the training session. One year ago, 25 people from UWM were trained to become Campus Connect instructors. Belstock said, since then, over 50 sessions have been conducted on campus, training over 700 people. And that number will continue to grow. “There will probably be more by the end of the week,” Belstock said. Belstock said those that have been trained include campus advisors, housing staff, resident assistants, those in leadership or mentor positions and instructors with high-stress classes. Those groups were targeted based on the likelihood that they would be put in a position to recognize a suicidal individual. With the skills learned through Campus Connect, Belstock said, since September, trainees have reported helping nearly 400 students, 100 faculty members and 175 other individuals not affiliated with UWM. “And a lot of these skills will help anyone,” Belstock said, “not just those that are suicidal.”
two separate parties. A group of three girls entered the van, heading to the Shi Chai Hookah Bar. The second party was declared a “no show”. BOSS has a strict four-minute wait time for users to claim their ride. Gomez says most students are “totally good” when using BOSS. However, with the lateness of the service’s hours, some passengers are not as courteous. Unlike UW-Madison’s SAFEride Cab, which does not transport between bars or parties, BOSS will take users anywhere within the boundaries. At least four of Rusty’s calls during the night began or ended at bars like Rascals, Yield, Cans and the Up and Under Pub. Two other users said they had been drinking at some point before boarding. As far as people getting sick in his van, Rusty has had a “vomit-free career” and he intends to keep it that way. SAFEride Cab has other restrictions in place, like a limit of two or less for groups of passengers and a strict six ride per semester rule. As of now, BOSS has no such restrictions, except only six passengers can physically fit in each van. “A lot of people rightfully depend on BOSS,” Rusty said. “I’m surprised Madison doesn’t follow our model.” As for the possible changes discussed in last week’s article, Rethinking BOSS, Rusty said cutting out the area north of Capital Dr. would not be a good idea. Although it was found by Gomez last September that only 7.1 percent of rides begin or end in this territory, Rusty said this change to BOSS would leave a lot of people “high and dry.” Rusty does not mind the long treks to and from boundaries; he enjoys them. Although getting around the area during his first semester as a driver took some
thought and concentration, Rusty said now it is a “muscle memory thing.” “I liked the idea of driving in a mini van listening to my iPod,” Rusty said, describing why he joined BOSS in the first place. “I was always my friends’ designated driver, so I got pretty good at it.” The evening turned out to be what Rusty called “a good Thursday.” The most commotion we experienced was a group of three women that were picked up from Yield Bar at 1:25 a.m. The students were yelling and screaming in excitement from their night, but very appreciative of the ride. Not all appreciate BOSS, however. While waiting for a passenger after midnight, a man ran past and shouted obscenities at the van. Apparently, it was not the first time this has happened. Students can say some “raunchy” things to drivers, said Rusty. “Some people think us following the rules is us putting them down,” Rusty said. “We have rules in place for a reason, so people shouldn’t lash out at drivers.” When Rusty took his break at 12:50 a.m., we spoke with a fellow BOSS driver Elena Jonynas. While picking up passengers at the 30 block of Maryland Ave. between Linnwood St. and Kenwood Blvd., what she believed to be bottle rockets were shot towards the van by “drunk kids on a balcony,” she said. Nobody was injured and the police were notified. “I have never been in a situation while driving BOSS where anyone outwardly tried to damage the van,” Elena said. “Luckily, they had bad aim and everything was fine.” Situations like these can arise, but BOSS takes measures to protect their drivers and passengers. “Each BOSS van has a direct line to
the police which we can use at our discretion,” Rusty said. “No one should feel unsafe.” Sarah Schild, sophomore, and Rachael Lau, junior, are frequent users of BOSS who requested a ride to Cans just after midnight. The two said they love the convenience that the service provides. “We love it, we enjoy BOSS,” Schild said. “We love that it’s included in tuition.” A passenger leaving the Engineering and Mathematical Sciences building at 12:57 a.m. says he uses the program every day to go home after long nights of study. Mojtaba Heydar researches public transportation system design and said BOSS is “pretty handy.” “I don’t worry at night,” Heydar said. “I can stay late at night and leave any time I’m done.” Over the four-hour ride along, approximately ten passengers were single riders while there were eight parties of two or more. Seven groups did not show up for their ride. By 12:30 a.m., the wait time for a BOSS van had escalated to 45 minutes. Rusty said the long wait might have prompted some riders just to leave without canceling. “Users have to be engaged and watching to get in their van,” Gomez said. “Those who call in to cancel are very helpful.” Gomez says BOSS employees share a special bond in which no one else has done what they have done, and most continue to work for the program until they graduate. Whenever Rusty would pass another driver and the road, the two would wave. BOSS communicates well, Rusty said, and described the employees as a “tightly knit group.” “There’s a real camaraderie between the drivers and dispatch,” Rusty said.
By Audrey Posten Special to the Post news@uwmpost.com
NEWS BRIEFS Judge Dread
U.S. Marshals are still investigating the Feb. 9 incident where Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer was robbed at machete-point in the Caribbean, on the island Nevis. The alleged brigand took $1,000 in cash from Breyer’s vacation home while Breyer’s wife and two guests were still in the home. According to CNN.com, local authorities are still “actively searching for a known person of interest” on Nevis.
Kohl’s says no to Milwaukee
Efforts to draw Kohl’s corporate headquarters from Menomonee Falls to downtown Milwaukee’s Park East strip failed, despite the city’s offer to finance the complex through a large tax incremental financing district. The TIF district would allow the retailer to recover $100 million in property tax rebates over 25 years after building the headquarters. Kohl’s declined to say why it rejected the offer to move downtown, but Kohl’s Chief Executive Officer Kevin Mansell said in 2010 it would inconvenience employees who live in or near Menomonee Falls and the development of property downtown was cost-prohibitive. Mayor Tom Barrett said, “We don’t know what the future is going to hold,” when asked whether the city could have done a better job recruiting Kohl’s, but said his administration will continue to make efforts.
Lebowski Fest says yes to Milwaukee
Lebowski Fest is coming to Milwaukee on June 22, bringing with it two of the dude’s most practiced pastimes: booze and bowling. The festival kicks off with a showing of “The Big Lebowski” at Cathedral Square Park with an option for $20 VIP service, giving patrons reserved seating and cocktail service. The festival is being rounded out with a bowling party on Sat. at AMF lanes with an admission price of $25. Lebowski Fest has been around since 2002 and will offer a $45 weekend pass for true enthusiasts, offering the VIP pass for the screening as well as entry to the bowling party. Organizers say that not all events have yet been announced.
Kellogg stocks up on Pringles
Processed food giant Kellogg will pay $2.7 billion to Proctor & Gamble to add Pringles to their roster of snack foods, which includes Keebler, Cheez-It and Special K crackers. The deal comes nearly a year after a $1.7 billion bid by Diamond Foods to acquire the cylindrically-packaged potato chip company fell apart after an accounting scandal.
Megadeath by Santorum
Presidential hopeful Rick Santorum’s campaign received a boost last week when he was promoted by Megadeath frontman Dave Mustaine. The heavy metal guitarist and VH1 mainstay said of the former senator and family values conservative, “I think Santorum has some presidential qualities, and I’m hoping that if it does come down to it, we’ll see a Republican in the White House... and that it’s Rick Santorum.” Mustaine went to on to say he will support the Republican ticket no matter who the nominee is.
CORRECTIONS In last week’s issue, the Post reported that the National Council on Teacher Quality currently ranks Wisconsin education programs as a solid D. The grade actually referred to NCTQ’s review of Wisconsin’s legislation related to teachers. We regret the error.
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has been above it, it’s been Rick Banks. So, I respect Rick as a leader, I see him as an executive, somebody who can set the agenda, and it is kind of like, I was just more honored that he asked me to do it. UWM Post: Why did you pick Grow for the position? Rick Banks: I had a lot of different people that kept approaching me and I did not really have the right fit for a person. I did not really consider Eric until it just kind of dawned on me. I want somebody who had not been involved, and was separate, but at the same time has gotten stuff done and knows the internal things and how to get stuff done. UWM Post: What do you think is the single biggest issue facing SA right now? Rick Banks: The largest problem the organization faces is focusing too much on itself. I think we are all putting in to get results, to do things that actually benefit the student body and a lot of people are more focused on internal relationships – internal structure – and not realizing that, yeah, we can fix the structure, but if we don’t have an end to that structure, which is to do something that actually benefits the student body, then it is pointless. Eric Grow: It was hard as a senator, because you get caught up into it. You get thrown into this environment where there are internal battles from every angle. Finally stepping outside of it, you know, leaving the senate, which I really think was the right thing to do, you see at these senate meetings they spend six hours just bickering over these internal fights. It is awful.
Are they in for the long run? The other established party (next to United Panthers), both Laughland and Pelicaric have been heavily involved in SA. Pelicaric, who Laughland said approached him about running, was originally rumored to be running with Senator Taylor Scott. Cassie Van Gompel, who is seeking the presidency with ANEW, said Pelicaric had approached her about withdrawing her bid and running with Allied Student Voice. Laughland’s interview was conducted by phone and email. Pelicaric could not be reached for comment before publication. UWM Post: What qualifications would you bring with you to the president or vice president positions? Dan Laughland’s official SA positions: Media Director 2009-10 Media and Public Records Director 2010-11 Director of Communications (managing a team of 4) 2011-12 Senator At-Large since October 2011 Committee Memberships: Chair of CAB [Campus Activity Board], Member of SAC [Senate Appropriations Committee], SORC [Senate Oversight and Rules Committee], IT Policy Committee, Academic Misconduct Hearing Committee, Advisory Committee on Educational Technology Fees, Digital Futures Grant Review Team UWM Post: What made you decide to run for the position? Dan Laughland: I had been talking to [Pelicaric] since last year and I really thought her ideas were in the right place. We got teamed up to get both sides – she has her thoughts and I have mine. UWM Post: What do you think is the single biggest issue facing SA right now? Dan Laughland: I think this mode of regrouping. After losing so many senators last year… we are struggling to figure out what to do. We are focused internally and we need to turn that around.
Allied Student Voice
ANEW
President: Dan Laughland Vice President: Tereza Pelicaric According to the charter: “To advocate, and fairly represent all University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee students to the Student Association of University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and [UWM] Administration in all matters concerning the student body, student rights and the university on a local and state level. We are in support of ethical leadership, integrity [and] transparency.”
President: Cassie Van Gompel Vice President: Brandon Wenger According to the charter: “ANEW aims to change how students view the Student Association that they themselves fund. We want to have higher levels of accountability by the executive board by requiring them to fill out weekly reports of what we are actually paying them to do.” Are they in for the long run? Despite the complications with their party charter, Van Gompel said
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Continued from page 1 tive voting or last-minute primaries, and I feared that these exceptional circumstances would lead people to make changes that hadn’t been fully thought out, or worse, were intended to ‘game’ the system,” Laughland said via email. “We should find the best way to operate in the rules we have for any given year rather than spend any more time trying to revise them.” Dewees and Pelicaric did not respond to emails requesting comment. The commissioner is appointed by presidential nomination, according to the independent election commission bylaws. President Angela Lang said that she originally was going to nominate Dustin Kashou as independent election commissioner, because he was independently-minded and was good with computers. However, she said she changed her
mind after talking with Dewees. “It was my impression after I talked to the Chief Justice that everything had kind of been handled and taken care of and stuff so there was not really anything for Dustin to do,” Lang said. According to the independent election commision bylaws, the commissioner is responsible for: Ensuring a safe, secure, online, democratic election process. Providing a copy of the IEC bylaws to any member of SA upon request. Providing nominations papers, campaign violation forms and campaign violation response forms to any individual upon request. The IEC bylaws goes on to say that “parties must be registered Student Organizations” to nominate candidates for election. Van Gompel argues that the bylaws are unclear, however, on when a party must be registered as a student organization. She argues in her formal complaint
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she is committed. A member of the Student Housing Administrative Committee, Van Gompel said she has applied for and was rejected by SA a number of times. “If you aren’t friends with them, they can’t push you around,” she said. Van Gompel said she was approached by Pelicaric about withdrawing her bid but had no intention of doing so.
Van Gompel’s interview was conducted in person and via email. Wenger could not be reached for comment before publication. UWM Post: What qualifications would you bring with you to the president or vice president positions? Cassie Van Gompel: I am the current president of Student Housing Administrative Council… As President of SHAC, I have passed fair funding legislation as well a SHAC Open Records Act. Additionally, I have held executive board members accountable for performing their duties by requiring that they log their hours and accomplishments in a production log that can be requested by any student at any time. Additionally I volunteer with the Youth in Government Program teaching middle and high school students how to maneuver between the legislative and judicial branches. UWM Post: What made you decide to run for the position? Cassie Van Gompel: I met with Rick’s campaign and Tereza’s campaign, and I decided that neither could do what was best for students. UWM Post: What do you think is the single biggest issue facing SA right now? Cassie Van Gompel: I think that the largest issue facing SA is a disconnect with the students they represent. SA does not solicit feedback from students and the procedures of how to get involved in SA are not known by the general population. Students need a direct way to give feedback to officials as well as knowledge of how to get involved in SA. To show how serious I am about this, any student who has any suggestions or wants to get involved in SA can feel free to email me at vangomp3@uwm.edu.
that Dewees never indicated in his allcampus email, on OrgSync, or on the election webpage that parties needed to be registered as student organizations before the registration date. Van Gompel, who currently serves as president of the student housing administrative council, said this was not the first time she had been rejected for a position in SA. She said she previous bids to serve on senate, committees, and the executive board were rejected. “If you aren’t friends with them, they can’t push you around and they don’t want you in the senate,” Van Gompel said. Even though she does not expect a fair judgement, she still decided not to acquiesce to Pelicaric’s request that she join Allied Student Voice. Lang said that if any party expressed concern over Dewees’ position as independent election commissioner, she would nominate someone else to the position.
Post photo by Sierra Riesberg
The Fireside experts Experts on green energy come to UWM By Clair Sprenger Special to the Post news@uwmpost.com While some sat down at a fancy restaurant for Valentine’s Day, around the same time interested community members and students attended the second in a series of Fireside Forums titled “U.S. Energy Policy, Green Jobs and the Wisconsin Economy.” The speaker for each week publishes a Crossroads opinion on their forum’s theme in the Journal Sentinel the Sunday before. Kate Gordon, the vice president for Energy Policy at American Progress, a national organization based in Washington D.C., criticized Gov. Walker’s wind farm restrictions and conservatives’ refusal to support green policy in her piece. The first forum of several this month discussed immigration, and those following Tuesday’s “Energy Policy” focus on national security, then trade and job policies in Wisconsin. A wrap-up discussion will take place the first Tuesday in March at the same time. Public outreach events designed to inform student voters have been organized by UW-Milwaukee before, but this is the first year of Fireside Forums. The forums were organized by the UWM Institute of World Affairs and the Journal Sentinel as a test run. Although organizers do not know whether Fireside Forums will continue, Institute of World Affairs Assistant Director and forum mediator Doug Savage hopes to make the series an annual event. The UWM Institute of World Affairs met with the Journal Sentinel editorial board and discussed the relevancy of topics to the audiences and the paper’s readers in deciding the forums’ themes. The forums were designed to tie national and international issues and policy
to local communities by bringing in national speakers. According to savage, some of these issues and ideas can seem so abstract that people don’t understand how they can affect them. Matthew Sweeney, who attended the forum with his girlfriend, came to the first forum and was inspired to attend the second forum as well. He said he appreciated how well speakers framed the topics, providing clear pictures of issues. When asked why he first came, he responded that he “wanted to hear from an expert.” “Energy Policy” discussed a number of topics on a large scale, often connecting global events to local events. Gordon began the forum by addressing the issues of industry competition around green technologies and innovations, as well as venture capital. Milwaukee Director of Environmental Sustainability Matt Howard then started the discussion by describing incentives that could be given to Milwaukee residents to become energy efficient at home. He mentioned easy methods of accomplishing this, including insulating houses. Also, Howard described how many local companies are already taking steps toward becoming greener to save money on wasteful expenses. According to Gordon, this is also true nationally. Gordon emphasized that green energy and practices open opportunities for all industries to save money, and for the American energy industry to generate wealth. Her message centered on how the U.S. must unanimously recognize green-collar work as an investment. Almost all other countries have invested, and Gordon believes if the U.S. does not act now, it will be left behind. The choice boils down to the status
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February 20, 2012
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School of Rock electrifies UWM’s Music Department Unique Rock and Roll Certificate offered only through Peck School of the Arts at UWM
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Post photo by Zak Wosewick By Zach Garhart Special to the Post news@uwmpost.com Professor Martin Jack Rosenblum works in an office unlike most any on the UW-Milwaukee campus with shelves jammed tight with recorded music, hidden posters and paperwork, Harley Davidson memorabilia perched just above a record player and even books published by the man behind the desk. The atmosphere of this office reflects the quietly successful life he has lived up to this point. Before all of his achievements of producing music on the charts, publishing poetry and music literature and even traveling the country on music tours, Rosenblum began by studying music itself. As his earliest studies of classical music training in elementary school began, a whole new type of music became exposed to him through the radio he was using as it started picking up frequencies for rockabilly stations. It was at that point which he started to play in a rockabilly band in the ‘50s. Rockabilly soon became a transition for him into what would later become an extensive involvement in rock and roll. “I started rock and roll as an artist at the very same time that it started,” Rosenblum said. “It showed me that there needed to be, even then, as serious of an approach to classical music, regarding rock and roll.” This philosophy leaves little room for suspicion behind the existence of
Certificate of Rock and Roll which UWM has proudly begun offering within the music department at the Peck School of the Arts. After all, Rosenblum was selected to lead the certificate program in the early 2000s when he was approached by PSOA Associate Dean Scott Emmons. “When we say rock and roll certificate, it involves all vernacular music in America leading up to rock and roll,” Rosenblum said. “It really is a complete study of American oral tradition in music.” While the idea of building the program circulated through administration within the PSOA under Peck’s Dean Wade Hobgood and Emmons, it wasn’t before long that the certificate became official. “Emmons and Hobgood really supported the idea of teaching American oral tradition music with the same seriousness and in-depth study which classical music is taught,” Rosenblum said. “In fact, we’re the only university in the world that offers this certificate program.” The idea was graciously acknowledged within not only the PSOA, but also just recently by a select few institutions throughout the country. Though UWM is still the only place where one is eligible to receive such a certificate on their degree, the idea of teaching similar classes has reached as far as the west coast. “Its influence is being felt in Berkeley,
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UWM UWM Post: Post: Crowdsource Crowdsource Rock and Rock Roll and Certificate Roll Certificate In 2010, Inthe 2010, Peck theSchool Peck School of the Arts of thebegan Arts began offering offering a 24-credit a 24-credit certificate certificate in rockinand rock roll and roll studies. studies. Two years Two later, yearsUWM later, UWM remains remains the only the only university university to offertorock offerand rock roll and accreditation. roll accreditation. With that With inthat mind, in we mind, asked we asked students students and faculty and faculty their thoughts their thoughts on theon program, the program, and what andelse what they else they would would like tolike liketo tolike see to UWM see UWM offer certificates offer certificates in. in.
RJ Herron, RJ Herron, Junior, Finance Junior, Finance "It kind of "Itsounds kind offun sounds to take, funbut to take, not ifbut you're not if you're learninglearning stuff you're stuff not you're going not togoing use." to use." New Certificate New Certificate Idea: Mountain Idea: Mountain Biking Biking
Mandy Bauer, MandyJunior, Bauer, Human Junior, Resources Human Resources "I think that's "I think awesome. that's awesome. If I was good If I was at music good at music I would probably I would probably do it, butdo I'mit,not." but I'm not." New Certificate New Certificate Idea: Break Idea: Dancing Break Dancing
Josh Henrich, Josh Henrich, Junior, IT Junior, Management IT Management "That's cool. "That's I like cool. Rock I like andRock Roll."and Roll." New Certificate New Certificate Idea: Fantasy Idea: Fantasy Football Football
HeadFirst Priest, First of Church Aminifu,Aminifu, Head Priest, Church Rastaof Rasta "I think it's "I think fabulous. it's fabulous. I'm a musician. I'm a musician. I was a I was a music major." music major." New Certificate New Certificate Idea: Reggae Idea: Reggae
Renee Rudnick, Renee Rudnick, Sophomore, Sophomore, Pre-medPre-med "I don't think "I don't it'sthink a badit's thing. a bad I don' thing. think I don' it'sthink a it's a very good very major, goodlike major, you like can'tyou do acan't lot with do a it, lot with it, but if you're but if interested you're interested in it, it's aingood it, it'sthing a good forthing for a school atoschool offer."to offer." New Certificate New Certificate Idea: Pool Idea: or Bowling Pool or Bowling Chris Merino, Chris Merino, Sophomore, Sophomore, Physics Physics "I think it's "I think alright it'sifalright peopleifare people interested are interested in in getting agetting degreeaindegree rock study." in rock study." New Certificate New Certificate Idea: Rock Idea: Climbing Rock Climbing
ROCK
Continued from page 4 California, where there are occasional classes being offered that deal with rock music as pop culture,” said Rachael Thomas Carlson, one of the first recipients of the certificate at UWM. Carlson, who prefers to be referred to as gender neutral, said that now people out there that are finally starting to think critically about rock music. Carlson, who received hir certificate in 2010, places an extremely enthusiastic value on the experience. Though, Carlson also added that receiving the certificate required an extremely heavy and rigorous work load. Certain skills, even outside of studying the evolution and impact of rock and roll, have developed in hir approach to academics. “It’s given me the ability to de-value another individual’s value judgment in the sense that if someone in class says, ‘I don’t like this, or I like this,’ you are able to find out why you don’t like it and find out at least some of the sonic or literary elements which you might disagree with,” Carlson said. “You are able to think critically about them and actively think about why they might or might not work.”
Yet, the certificate does not come quickly. Among the core curriculum courses required for the certificate are American Popular Music; Music 102, the Literary Aspects of Rock and Roll; Music 300, American Folk and Popular Music; Music 309, Folk Music in Contemporary Culture; Music 409, and Certificate Program in Rock and Roll Studies; Music 509. While each of these courses are three credits, a variety of three credit elective courses are also offered. The certificate requires at least nine credits from the elective curriculum offered as well, totaling 24 total credits required for the certificate. As for those who have already received their certificate, Rosenblum said each of the recipients currently remain focused in some venue of the graduate music program, while some also move into the MLS program with an agenda of their own. The goal throughout the process of building the certificate program has remained the same for both Rosenblum and the entire music department. “We bridge the gap between those misconceptions from various genres of music and sort them out,” Rosenblum said. “In the end, we wind up with an authentic description of a kind of rock and roll of which I speak.”
FIRESIDE
Continued from page 3 quo or green industry, Gordon said. Both Howard and Gordon argued that steps toward becoming greener must start locally. They said that advocacy proves more successful when green-collar workers from communities push for
February 20, 2012 better policies from their local governments than when national organizations lobby and the issue becomes faceless and abstract. Another point Gordon emphasized was that the terms of debate should not be defined by single mistakes, such as the green industry policy and Solyndra investment failure. She emphasized this point by giving Apollo One as an example of a project that failed, but was followed
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by more trials and innovation. After some discussion, audience members were given the opportunity to ask questions. Gordon also stayed another half hour after the forum answering questions from several high school and college students who were still curious about the issues discussed. Gordon, a veteran speaker, said “I like to do these events often,” especially when given opportunities to speak to students.
SPORTS Panthers squeak out victory at home 67-63 over Fairfield 6
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February 20, 2012
Despite a flu bug that left three players out and another at half strength, Milwaukee persevered By Nick Bornheimer Staff Writer sports@uwmpost.com After relinquishing an 18 point lead to the Fairfield Stags, UW-Milwaukee battled minus three players to secure a victory on Senior Day. Milwaukee held the Stags to 16 points on just 24 percent shooting in the first half, but the visitors regrouped in the second to make the game closer than anyone in the arena figured it to be. “We really persevered and battled,” Panthers head coach Rob Jeter said. “We seemed to run out of gas a little bit, but Fairfield was relentless, they just kept coming.” The Panthers (17-12) have now prevailed in consecutive contests and are
starting to build some momentum going into the conference tournament. The loss by Fairfield (16-11) snapped a six-game winning streak for the team. Paris Gulley and Tony Meier had 19 and 18 points, respectively, but it was key contributions from some different players that helped the Panthers to overcome the absences of James Haarsma, Ryan Haggerty and Christian Wolf. Starting point guard Kaylon Williams could not even be honored on Senior Day because of an IV he received just before tip-off. “I kind of played through it,” said Williams, who tallied 10 assists off of the bench. “It was Senior Night so I was planning on playing and hoping to play, but right before the start of the game I didn’t think I could. I got an IV and it made me feel a lot better.”
The Panthers closed out the first half strong. The team went on a 15-3 run in the final 11:30 of half number one and held a commanding 30-16 lead at the break. The Stags slowly clawed their way back into the game as the second half progressed. Whether it was Milwaukee’s fatigue, a sideline outburst by Fairfield head coach Sydney Johnson or the unremitting effort by pro-prospect Rakim Sanders, it was a nail-biter at the U.S. Cellular Arena. Coming out of a Milwaukee timeout, Meier hit a three point shot with 4:39 to play to give the Panthers a 60-51 lead. But then, the Stags put together a run. At the 3:06 mark, Fairfield was in the driver’s seat. The Stags had their first lead of the game after compiling an 11-0 run.
Depleted and exhausted, the Panthers could have cut their losses and threw in the towel, but they didn’t. Clutch free throws by Shaquille Boga, a key charge drawn by Demetrius Harris, a courageous drive by a sickly Williams and a big defensive rebound by Ryan Allen had the Panthers back in command. Meier made it a two-possession game with 3.4 seconds left hitting his second of two free throws after being fouled. It was foul shooting and secondchance opportunities that almost cost the Panthers Saturday. Milwaukee shot a dismal 59 percent from the charity stripe, and was outscored 16-2 in second-chance points. But the Panthers came up big when they had to. “We had a hard time keeping them
Panther tennis grounds Phoenix One bad apple Is Stephen Jackson a bad influence on Brandon Jennings? By Tony Atkins Assistant Sports Editor sports@uwmpost.com
Post photo By Sierra Riesberg
UW-Milwaukee women’s tennis team wins at home against Green Bay By Nolan Murphy Staff Writer Sports@uwmpost.com The UW-Milwaukee women’s tennis team went into last Friday’s Horizon League opener with revenge on their minds. Two years ago, the UW-Green Bay Phoenix came to the LeClub with practically the same team as they have now and won on the Panthers home court. Friday’s results were much different with Panthers running away with the match. Each of the top three seeds Maddy Soule, Chelsea Bailey and Christina Colarossi all won in a dominating fashion and in straight sets. “It was nice to win 0 and 0, and I felt like all my shots were good and I was on,” Soule said.
The Panthers won the doubles meet 2-1, with top doubles pairing Soule and freshman Christina Colarossi defeating Green Bay’s top doubles paring 8-2. Soule played almost error free in a week in which the Panthers leader and best player was hampered with an illness and had minimal practice time. When the day was finished the Panthers came away from their first Horizon League matchup winning five of their six single’s matches. Fifth and sixth seed Kristin Kurer and Brittany Skemp did their part in securing the landslide victory for the Panthers. UWM head coach and LeClub tennis pro Sean McInerney was very satisfied with the day’s results, citing the veteran experience as a key in the conference match.
“I am very confident in our two freshman, Chelsea Bailey and Christina Colarossi, as our number two and three seeds and having demonstrated that they are as good as anyone in the Horizon League at their respective positions,” McInerny said. This week, the Panthers host two matches against Valparaiso and a nonconference matchup against Ball State. Coach McInerney feels that the match against Ball State will be a great test for his squad. Both matches will again be played at LeClub off of West Good Hope Road. You can catch the women tennis team Friday at 4 p.m. against Valparaiso and then a Saturday nightcap against powerhouse Ball State at 6 p.m.
For Women’s basketball recap from Ohio, go to uwmpost.com
Last year, the Bucks revamped their roster in hopes of finding the right group of players to build around their two stars in the young Brandon Jennings and Andrew Bogut. Instead, this team may have ended the “Fear the Deer” era in Milwaukee already. Now, let’s not all press the panic button on the Bucks just yet. This is a franchise that has been working very hard to bring good basketball back to Milwaukee, and they will work very hard to make sure that the city is well represented in the NBA. Senator Herb Kohl, the team’s owner, has been reaching deep into his pockets to bring in talent as of late. The problem here is that they wind up with the wrong players time and time again. This year seems to be more of the same. As the Bucks try again to find stability as an NBA franchise, they find themselves hampered by players with character issues who actually seem to be disengaged from the direction the team wants to go. Quickly this season, Stephen Jackson, who was reportedly reluctant about becoming a Buck, made fast friends with Brandon Jennings. Both grew up in particularly rough areas - Jennings is
off of the glass,” said Jeter. “They were so much quicker to the ball than we were. But we found a way.” Sanders had an impressive 21 points and nine rebounds for the Stags. The Panther’s Kyle Kelm also added eight points of his own on the afternoon. Milwaukee heads back into conference play this week to close out the season. They take on UIC in Chicago Thursday night before heading to Loyola for a contest Sunday afternoon. “We really have battled and been through a lot of things and today’s game is pretty similar to how our season has gone,” Jeter said. “We just found a way to finish the game.”
“straight outta Compton” after skipping out on college to come play professional ball. Meanwhile, Jackson hails from “The PA” in Port Arthur, Texas. The two, being from rugged areas, naturally share common interests and become friends. Add that to the fact that they are very expressive and both can ball out of this world, you can see the two becoming great friends. As a player on a team sport, making friends in obviously encouraged. However, when you look more into this situation from a team perspective, you can notice a pretty frail situation in the locker room. The undoubted leader of the team in Andrew Bogut is now doubted as his health has been hanging in the air since 2009. This leaves the Bucks with two star players in Jennings and Jackson, two great players, two great friends, what can go wrong? Right? Stephen Jackson is a great player, and he is a great fit for the Bucks talent wise, but are the Bucks a good fit for Stephen Jackson? Jackson, who was drafted by the New Jersey Nets in 1997, has had an overall bad reputation around the league. To Jackson’s defense, he has been very active in youth organizations in Port Arthur, San Diego and has done more good than anyone would give him credit for. He was also the recipient of the NBA’s Community Assist award in 2008. On the other side of the coin, this is the same Stephen Jackson that received a 30-game suspension for the infamous “basket-brawl” between the Indiana Pacers and the Detroit Pistons. With all that aside, there remains Bucks basketball and the situation that ensues in the locker room. On Jan. 20, Jackson was suspended for missing the bus to shoot around before their game against the New York Knicks. Then there was the suspension eight days later against Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers where Jackson was suspended for criticizing an official during the game before. “To all my fans apologize for my actions. Its just somethings refs shouldnt say. Gotta keep my kool. Lesson learned,” Jackson said via Twitter regarding the suspension. Ironically, Jan. 28 was the date of his mixtape release party for “What’s A Lockout?” at Club 618 in downtown
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February 20, 2012
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Keeping track
Panthers utilize tune-up to prepare for indoor championship By Erika Hanson Special to the Post sports@uwmpost.com The Klotsche Center hosted the Panther Tune-Up this past weekend, which served as the final preparation for the Horizon League Indoor Championships this weekend. The Horizon League Championships are at the Watson and Tressel Training Site in Youngstown, Ohio. Friday night provided one last building block on the training base that the Panthers have been establishing since early fall. Teams and clubs partook in the meet from the Milwaukee and Illinois area, as well as individual competitors looking to hone their skills. Most UW-Milwaukee track and field athletes competed, with some sitting out to rest up for next weekend. Of those who participated, many did events that are considered “out of the ordinary” for them. Many athletes cut down their
typical distance in order to preserve leg strength and stamina. “It really became a high quality workout,” Panthers coach Pete Corfeld said. “It allowed for a strong training day combined with a little bit of a competitive feel.” This coming weekend will test the training, coaching ability and team cohesiveness that UWM has boasted in the past. Nine women’s and eight total men’s teams will meet to compete for the rights to the Championship trophy. The Panthers men have brought home the indoor gold for eight consecutive years, while the women have done so for the past three. The goal of course is to continue that tradition of success by working hard, staying positive and harnessing a mindset focused on victory. If you can manage to think of it this coming weekend, send us a little whisper, “Go, Milwaukee!” as we head east to continue to build on what we’ve started.
Post photo by Sierra Riesberg
BUCKS
Continued from page 6 Milwaukee. Recently, Jackson has expressed some disdain about playing in Milwaukee. During one post-game interview, when asked if he wanted to play in Milwaukee, Jackson declined an answer. “I can’t answer that. If I answer that, I’ll get fined,” Jackson said when asked if he wanted to be in Milwaukee. Stephen Jackson is one of those players who will act right in the correct situation. In San Antonio, Jackson was fine as he won a championship. He was also fine playing under two legends in Michael Jordan and Larry Brown in Charlotte. Here in Milwaukee, however, Jackson seems to not want to be here under a degree of instability, and it seems to be causing a spillover in the locker room. The other star, Brandon Jennings, came into Milwaukee totally loyal to Scott Skiles’ system and the direction of
the team. There have been frustrations for the young guard as well, but most of the time, they never spilled into the media. Recently, after a Jackson benching, Jennings expressed his “disappointment” in Skiles’ decision. “I felt like he should have played against Chicago,” Jennings said. “The fact that we were struggling, I was in foul trouble, maybe he could have gave us a spark. Just his presence probably could have changed the game. You never know.” In addition to the comments made about Jackson’s benching, Jennings told ESPN’s Chris Broussard that he was “exploring his options” and doing his research on playing in a bigger market. After seeing players like Chris Paul, LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony swap jerseys, maybe Jennings is thinking the same. Maybe Jackson’s situation is only making it worse for the Bucks in retaining their “franchise guy.” In the meantime, all we can do is wait and see how this situation plays itself out.
UW-Milwaukee’s Men’s Ultimate Frisbee team, Black Cat, stormed into Nashville earlier this month claiming their first official tournament championship in years, posting a 6-1 record. The team posted wins over Purdue and Vanderbilt. Photo courtesy of the Black Cats
Post photo by Sierra Riesberg
Mississippi River rafting
UWM film lecturer makes documentary about rafting down 1600 miles of the Mississippi River By Aaron Knapp Features Editor fringe@uwmpost.com For Sean Kafer, a visit to UWMilwaukee in his late teens and a stop at a student film festival fundamentally changed his course in life – or rather it gave him a course. Kafer was stunned by the students’ unconventional approaches, fascinating subject matters and the experimental techniques that UWM’s film department is known for. But more than that, Kafer was blown away by simply by seeing all of these uses of 16mm film. “I think it was seeing the 16mm being projected and the flicker of the black and white images, it knocked me out,” Kafer said. “I don’t think I had ever been around a film projector, and then seeing what people were doing with the film too was kind of a wild thing.” Although the industry-preferred 35mm film captures more detail and an image that is 75% percent larger, 16mm film is cheaper and much more popular among student filmmakers on a budget. For Kafer, even with access
to higher quality film and digital projection, there is still nothing that can compare to 16mm film on an old projector like at that film festival. “It’s like looking at a painting and seeing the actual paint gathering up on the canvas,” Kafer said. “It’s not like video where you’re seeing pixels up on the screen; you’re seeing dust and celluloid and emulsion…imperfection in a beautiful way. “ Now 32, Kafer has been a part of the UWM film community for most of 14 years and now teaches in the department. Last week, the Union Theater screened the culmination of his studies at UWM, his master’s thesis and his first feature-length documentary, Valley Maker, a record of his 43-day, 1600-mile raft ride down the Mississippi River in the summer of 2009. Accompanied by different friends throughout the trip, Kafer sought to understand the great American river that is so well-known but no one seems to know much about. “There’s a lack of films or video or documentation of the Mississippi River, but it’s known worldwide,” Kafer said. “I just wanted to know
what this big American gem was.” Hailing from New London, Wisconsin, Kafer often visited his father’s hometown on the Mississippi River as a child. Later he and his friend David Markman decided that they would one day travel the entire length of the river, occasionally going on camping trips along Wisconsin’s section of the Mississippi. When Kafer’s opportunity presented itself in 2009, he and Markman worked together to use their very limited budget to design their own raft rather than using a boat, constructing what was essentially a small wooden shanty floating on ten bright blue, 55 gallon plastic barrels. “When Dave and I had built this boat, we had never water-tested it,” Kafer recalled. “We didn’t know if it would float.” While they assembled the raft for the first time in Prescott, Wisconsin, on the first day of the voyage, Kafer and his crew were heckled by onlookers, a group of whom offered to rescue the Valley Maker’s crew if Kafer paid them $200 up front. After such interactions, Kafer tried to steer clear of other boats and camp
on sandbars where they couldn’t be seen. However, the odd raft was a curiosity to other locals on the river would pull up in their own boats and want to stop for a conversation. “While we were going down, people would want to stop us at all times, delay your trip and just want to talk to you all the time,” Kafer said. “And that’s fine. It’s nice that people want to do that, but we wanted to get down the river.” Although locals often seemed less than confident that the raft would stay afloat, they were often happy to talk on camera and drive Kafer and his crew to places where they could get food and gasoline for the small motor on the back. In addition to interviews with locals and a couple accounts of other crewmembers, Kafer showed the changing scenery between the scenic bluffs, sleepy towns and clear water of Minnesota and Wisconsin to the flood walls, host of mosquitoes and rust colored water of Louisiana and Mississippi, sometimes narrating these scenes with a string of individual, disconnected words. While these scenes evoke a stirring sense of inde-
pendence, they also reveal a crew that is increasingly worn down by bug bites, sunburn and a hot, humid climate. “It’s romantic in hindsight, [but] while I was there it didn’t feel as romantic,” Kafer said. “I’m motoring all day long, looking for camping spots, looking for gasoline, worrying about our food, making dinner and shooting everything all at the same time. There’s not so much time for the romantic ideal.” Kafer was struck at a film festival screening last year when an audience member asked if he saw anything beautiful along the way given all of the hardships he endured and all of pollution and destruction to the nature he saw around the Mississippi River. “She thought I was saying a very negative thing about the river, which isn’t true at all,” Kafer said. “To me it was all beautiful. The industry is kind of beautiful, too; it’s kind of like the life-blood behind our country and it starts off right there in the Mississippi for a lot of industry – to me everything is beautiful.”
fringe
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An ode to the Mighty Sean Kafer’s Valley Maker provides meaning for the Mississippi
Sean Kafer’s MFA Thesis, Valley Maker, reminds us city dwellers that the Mississippi will always be an important, powerful entity to our American traditions. By Kevin Kaber Assistant Fringe Editor fringe@uwmpost.com We miss out on a lot in Milwaukee. Besides a barrage of multicultural
events, a seemingly endless list of things to do and enough foods and beers to try to offend the most gluttonous, Milwaukee is still mostly composed of concrete. There’s little sense of nature in the city and that of what
we have feels more or less artificial, polluted and overall lackluster. Even Bradford Beach has tested positive for E. coli. But as many of us know, a state full of natural beauty is to be had right in our backyard.
February 20, 2012 Valley Maker, an MFA film project, is the personal journey of UWMilwaukee Film Department Adjunct Instructor Sean Kafer and a few colleagues as they travel in a homemade plywood and barrel raft, aptly named the Valley Maker, which might compare in size to a king size bed, down America’s greatest river – the Mississippi. Starting in Prescott, Wis., Kafer and crew’s journey down America’s 1,600 mile backbone to New Orleans may seem about as Huckleberry Finn as it gets, but Kafer’s documentation of the trip is far from any Mark Twain novel. Right away, we’re taken to towns of which many urbanites fail to think about or choose to remember. These are the towns that were once littered with industrious settlers, but now decrepit buildings inhabit the areas along with town elders who were more than happy to share their stories with Kafer. Among the most happening communities on the river is Hannibal, Mo., whose cherished citizen, Mark Twain, still thrives in the form of vending machines, street signs and field trip tours. The filmmaker’s view of the Mississippi landscape is one of the film’s greatest strengths. The bluffs that the flat Eastern Wisconsin plains lack surround Kafer and the Valley Maker crew for the duration of the entire cross-country trip and pinpoint the fact the Mississippi’s tremendous forces have for millennia carved valleys in the center of the nation. In addition, Kafer’s camera travels through wetlands in somewhat Terrance Mallick-
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like sequences, often times ending its focus on river-dwelling wildlife (such as the fish flies that hatch overnight in the millions). Though it might be considered a documentary to some, Valley Maker’s lack of consistent narration may leave some viewers bewildered. A lot of Kafer’s interviews are intriguing – an elderly woman sharing a story about a storm’s sudden drop in temperature that left duck hunters frozen in Wisconsin wetlands in the early half of the century, is vivid despite its teller’s late-aged innocence – and sometimes skew on comical – a Missouri father and son tell Kafer that Jacques Cousteau’s own crew were afraid enough of catfish that the divers ordered to be equipped with shark suits. On the other hand, Kafer’s crew share stories of their own: of the lower Mississippi’s collection of drained pollution-induced rashes and severe bug bites, of close encounters with massive barges, of difficulties in shallow waters. Interestingly, Kafer’s narration is just a laundry list of terms and descriptors of the river itself. Often times, these itemized lists hang over montages of industrious images. Because of the sparse vocals, a sense of cinéma vérité encumbers most of the film, but ultimately, the film’s purpose is to incite feelings and even educate viewers of the Mighty Mississippi and its own undervalued folklore. Valley Maker defies a strict genre, but it definitely has at least some capacity to make a Muir or Twain out of any of us.
Now showing at a theater near you A look at what’s to come at UWM’s Union Theatre
By Kevin Kaber Assistant Fringe Editor fringe@uwmpost.com
The UW-Milwaukee Union Theatre is one of the most notable and diverse movie theaters in the entire country, but it can be easy to overlook, in the context of studies and the day-to-day bustle of the UWM campus. Every week, the staff at The UWM Post provides a brief guide to the theater’s most notable titles, in an effort to encourage students to make the most of this unique and vibrant resource. Bab’Aziz: The Prince Who Contemplated His Soul ( Wednesday, 7 p.m.) This gem from Tunisian director Nacer Khemir places its viewers into a whole other world of spiritual dervishes in history’s pre-Biblical Arab deserts. Bab’Aziz, the aged and blind dervish, travels the expansive, arid desert with his granddaughter in search of a mystical gathering of the world’s dervishes that happens only once every thirty years. Khemir’s unique vision for this timeless tail is full of eye-pleasing cinematography and light humor. As part of the Union Theatre’s Middle East and North African Film Series, Bab’Aziz is a truly unique spectacle of an Arab world that modernity has all but forgotten.
Le Havre stands out as a well crafted and darkly comic French film throughout the Union Theatre’s offerings this week.
Le Havre (Friday, 7 p.m.; Saturday, 9 p.m.; Sunday, 5 p.m.)
Just shy of the UWM’s Festival of Films in French, Le Havre is a must see picture. Marcel Marx, a miserably old shoe-shiner whose life is truly (and comically) grim, befriends a young African immigrant on the lamb after escaping an illegal immigrant raid. The two form a quirky bond as both continually defend and look after one another. Director Aki Kaurismäki’s Martin McDonagh-esque sense of lightly bitter dark humor and his use of picturesque cinematography, which skews on the edge of a Wes Anderson film, are just some of the reasons that the film won the 2011 Cannes Jury Prize. The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (Friday, 9 p.m.; Saturday, 7 p.m.; Sunday, 7 p.m.) Meet Cosmo Vitelli, a Los Angeles night club owner whose severe gambling problems have led him into deep debt with his bookies. After grossing a huge debt on a night that was meant to celebrate his recent paying off of his last massive debt, Vitelli is given the option to break even with his debtors by performing a “hit” on a seemingly lowly Chinese bookie. Unbeknownst to Vitelli, the plot is thickened as the Chinese bookie is in fact a leader of the Chinese mob. Inspired by the gritty early works of Martin Scorsese, director John Cassavetes has since paved the way for American independent filmmaking.
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Lost at sea change A motel stay you’ll never forget Despite some good songs, A Sleep & A Forgetting is not high watermark By Zach Brooke Assistant News Editor fringe@uwmpost.com
El Sicario, Room 164 illuminates corruption of drug war
By Graham Marlowe Assistant Fringe Editor fringe@uwmpost.com With Mexico writing letters to the U.S. government begging them to decriminalize narcotics, you’d think a documentary like Gianfranco Rosi’s El Sicario, Room 164 would generate more controversy than it has: specifically the kind of controversy that imparts the common sense needed to reevaluate The War on Drugs. This is ironic, as the film’s masked narrator spends 80 minutes in darkened rooms detailing how border-hugging narco-traffickers know no boundaries – of morality, of wealth, of conscience. Meanwhile, the man behind the veil has a $250,000 bounty on his life, a gripping reminder that hangs over the film like looped ESPN footage at a sports bar. Told through the lens of a hardened criminal (and father), the documentary’s stark and visually static qualities bear strong resemblance to Richard Linklater’s 2001 thriller Tape (2001), except the protagonist of El Sicario has no score to settle with high school friends; he risks his life telling the truth, whereas the brutal honesty of Tape’s characters leads them to the end of a cruel riddle. Yet both take place in motel rooms where time is a vacuum, suffocating you with morose middle-of-nowhereness and haunting you with their lonely hum of silence. The sicario who leads us through the complex corruption of the drug trafficking network is surprisingly calm and collected, if a bit normal, which humanizes someone otherwise undeserving of such eloquence. Save for the endless array of lists, graphs and maps that he draws with permanent marker on sketch pads, we learn that his misled days in secondary school forged an easy path towards organized crime in ways the American public would never believe. After a brush with the law, the narrator joined a local police academy (in Mexico), an institution he learns is just as responsible for the protection of public safety as it is in turning a blind eye to it. While there are many sicario imitators, he explains the profession’s honor code in a way that constructs a winning public image of Breaking Bad’s Walter White. (For instance, a sicario never boasts, is well-educated, speaks well.)
“I had no license; I didn’t know how to drive,” he says of starting work with the cartel. “But I learned in a day.” Little did he know, the academy would become training grounds for the cartel, as his all-night assignments usually had him arriving 15 minutes before the academy’s 5:45 a.m. roll call. In the world of nameless, faceless transactions, the sicario is candid about being “drunk and [high] all the time” to handle the emotional burden of his job, which consisted primarily of “quick and clean” kidnappings and assassinations in discrete locations. Irony surfaces again when he tearfully explains that nerves of steel were required to move product(s) whose purpose is to soften the blow of life itself. And while the game has changed since the days of Scarface (1983), the difference of business ethics lies not in the corruption of the Mexican government but in the realm of evidence. In one scene, he explains how DEA informants are no longer buried in the heat of disaster since microchips can lead officials right to the scene of the crimes. In another instance, the sicario explains that the idea of safe houses is a joke to narco-traffickers, for even in the event of an open-range murder, their crimes are so well-orchestrated that they often swoop in, commit the act, and then disappear within minutes to secret garages in an area already surrounded by the traffickers for several blocks. Near the end, the sicario also injects anecdotes about women naïve enough to believe they can outsmart the cartel at their own game by marrying into it. Unfortunately for them, they are usually one of dozens, and with Mexican border patrollers paid off with money and/ or drugs as commonplace as ever before, the idea of family perhaps has a different meaning altogether. The film’s questionable conclusion – a revelation on par with born-again Christiandom – is as sour-tasting as it is believable, and the family man who once thought he could never exit the game of drug trafficking takes it upon himself to tell us otherwise. For this reason, those who could not sit through the final 20 minutes walked out on the truth. Those who did saw what may be the final breaths of a man whose bravery may never be heard from again.
Pity the poor pop star. Meandering blindly through an unending quest for relevancy, constrained by the opposing demands for music both fresh and familiar – it’s a balancing act that only gets harder the longer you’ve been at it. There’s precious little margin of error, a tall order for anyone. And God help you if you fuck it up. Such is the predicament faced by veteran indie rockers Islands as they drop their fourth album, A Sleep & A Forgetting, into a 2012 sonic landscape that’s vastly different than the one they debuted in six years ago. Billed as a breakup album, the Montreal-based Nick Thorburn outfit largely avoids the worst pitfalls associated with such a potentially cloying theme, yet such a narrow-minded focus on the lovelorn angst that accompanies an intimate parting of ways comes with a price, namely that Thorburn occasionally treats the audience like mere bystanders as he argues in public with his girlfriend. That combined with a general indifference to the seismic shift in popular tastes can’t help but give the impression that A Sleep & A Forgetting fails to surpass the band’s past output. That’s not to say there aren’t any good songs. There are several. But the summation of A Sleep & A Forgetting is a decidedly uneven affair. The first two tracks perfectly encapsulate the hit or miss nature of A Sleep & A Forgetting. The opener, “In A Dream It Seemed Real” is a pleasant enough, if a little bland, subtly playful pop-confessional that registers positively with any engaged listener. All that is quickly jettisoned however, for a detached paint-by-numbers soft rock follow up that carries all the emotional intimacy of any given Starbucks mixtape.
Sidestepping this unfortunate wrinkle is the third track, which places itself among the albums highlights. Indulging in Thorburn’s strained high-pitched vocals underpinned by rollicking menace, “Never Go Solo” is a jaunty pathological showstopper that would make good music to sync up the rowers on the proverbial ship of fools. Afterwards, unfortunately, tragedy again strikes, as this gem is followed but yet another clunker, a sterile Caribbean-esque doo-wop number that mercifully dials it back from the verge of dropping anchor at Margaritaville. From there the album plateaus, offering a string of consistent songs, which comprise the heart of the order so to speak. This is Islands at their best. Nobody ever confused Islands with death metal or club music, but when they want to, they are capable
of rousing choruses and stomping, energetic compositions. A for a few tracks they apparently remember that. Yet after the heartwarmingly fragile cool down number “Lonely Love” the album is for all intents and purposes over. The remainder is comprised of trite stripped-down afterthoughts that come with all the fun that’s to be had listening to other people talk about their relationship problems. It’s not that songs take a risk that doesn’t work out. Rather, they don’t work out because they take no risks. Because of this, the most honest thing that can be said about A Sleep & A Forgetting is that it has a few very good songs, but falls far short of being very good album.
A new breed of dance music
Grimes’ Visions is unlike anything you’ve heard before
By Patrice Vnuk Staff Writer fringe@uwmpost.com With her girlish voice and dark techy-music, Claire Boucher’s music project, Grimes, might take some getting used to if you’re more accustomed
to the FM radio. The 23-year-old musician, DJ and artist releases her third full-length album, Visions, this week, which follows albums Geidi Primes (2010), Halfaxa (2010) and EP Darkbloom (2011). The dream-like quality of Visions sounds like a recollection of her single “Vanessa,” off of Darkbloom, which was the song that really put her on the map of upcoming artists. The new album, though, goes beyond the catchy melodies of her previous work. Although Boucher’s music isn’t generally considered mainstream, her inspirations are. She cites performers like Katy B and Nicki Minaj as idols for their daring and ingenuity, which are qualities she strives for while performing. But hearing her music would never remind you of either. Visions sounds like the product of another world, most likely a weird alien planet that has moved beyond the realm of traditional instruments. Boucher’s looping vocals over electronic beats and effects are an interesting innovation of dance music that seem to have come out of nowhere; comparing her music to another’s proves quite the task.
Boucher often uses her voice itself as an instrument, twisting it into a new beat and manipulating the already falsetto pitch even higher. At times she seems to sing in tongues, so it’s difficult to understand what she’s actually saying at any given point. This also creates part of the allure. Instead of focusing on what the lyrics are spelling out for you, it’s how the syllables and vowels sound once they’re pushed together that turn it into music. Songs like “Genesis” and “Nightmusic” feature a dance-like synth beat combined with her otherlanguage vocals in that high-but-nottoo-high tone. Even though her style is unique, it’s likeable on the first listen. “Oblivion” can be played on repeat seven or eight times and still retain its freshness. Boucher’s breathy and nearly childlike voice is, for some reason, addicting. Listening to the album in its entirety, which is available on NPR’s website, is the only way to actually grasp whatever it is she’s getting at. There’s really no other way to interpret it.
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All along the seaboard Tennis’ second album missing an oar By Graham Marlowe Assistant Fringe Editor fringe@uwmpost.com Not quite photogenic enough for a She & Him album cover and too mature for the blissed-out laziness of Best Coast, husband-and-wife duo Tennis have long made an effort to strip away the cutesiness of similar outfits into something more on par with a quarterlife crisis. After all, their first album, last January’s Cape Dory, was inspired by a seven-month sailing expedition along the Eastern Seaboard without electricity. Yet the Denver duo has electricity that famed producer Phil Spector would salivate over if he weren’t a convicted murderer (and it was still the early ‘60s). Both Dory and their latest full-length (Young & Old) strive for a stereophonic experience that producers like Spector made their calling card way back when, and for the most part they’ve succeeded. Even though Tennis doesn’t have a sound layered enough to warrant Spector’s bombastic “Wall of Sound” treatment, their instrumental minimalism allows the materials to linger in the air long afterward, if only for their sugar-sweet melancholic hooks. Such hooks are less prevalent – or at least less obvious – on their second effort, but there is more to blame for it than Young and Old’s producer Patrick Carney, otherwise known as the drummer for now-mainstreamed garage-blues duo The Black Keys. Listeners might recall the shift of perspective Carney’s own band endured with 2008’s Attack & Release, a sizable departure from their rugged blues-rock that experimented with smoky interludes and generally more “composed” song structures. Since Tennis works with so few materials, one would expect change to be glaringly obvious on Young & Old. Fortunately for the xenophobic, Carney’s presence is about as involved as an absentee father’s child support check. By doing away with Dory’s simple, functional guitar solos, as well as the frequency of “sha la la” behind Alaina
Moore’s lyrics, the difference is emotional rather than musical…which is okay if you’re a singles band but not in the context of thinly-veiled concept albums. What’s odd is how easily the last track of Cape Dory (“Water Birds”) slides into the first track of Young & Old, as if we’re merely beginning the second volume of Dory. With songs now fearless enough to crack the three-minute mark, that timestamp lends an eery perfectionism to the songs whose air of promise is largely gone, minus how it hovered around long enough to wash up with their yacht in the form of Dory’s monothematic sentiment(s). The thing is, Dory had a distinct Atlantic coast coolness to it that recalled the pre-autumn chill of a John Cheever short story. Those seven months spent along the Eastern Seaboard were still fresh in their mind for their first album, and as one grows further away from that beauty the harder it is to recreate it under a familiar guise. While Young & Old comes up a little short on lilting beauty – think Dory’s “Bimini Bay” and “South Carolina” – there is enough of the forlorn still present to still have a world where “meaning comes and goes” (“My Better Self ”), and “Paradise is all around / but happiness is never found” (“High Road”). By now the duo’s affection for one another (and the world around them) creates songs that equate love to a sickness on tracks like “It All Feels the Same.” It’d be hard to imagine what that feels like when you’re also seasick, but by track nine (“Take Me to Heaven”) Moore’s words turn weary when she cries, “There’s nothing left for me / So far as I can see” in a flash of childhood reflection. More than a few times, the pair stumbles upon west coast detachment, and thus there’s enough freedom in the album’s spirit to give a reverb-whet emulation of the California beach experience (if only in sonic terms). All this makes one wonder if their sound is better captured by washed-out Polaroids than organ, guitar, bass and percussion.
Cursive, I am Gemini By Kevin Kaber Assistant Fringe Editor fringe@uwmpost.com Midwest post-hardcore outfit Cursive had decent sized shoes to fill after their 2009 album, Mama, I’m Swollen (perhaps the largest shoes they would ever have to fill). The band that has all but become Taking Back Sunday has now released its seventh studio album, I Am Gemini – a concept album that lacks effort like upperclassmen with senioritis. Without doing any homework on Cursive’s latest, one will step into its first track, “This House Alive,” and quickly forget about it. It tries so hard to portray a matured band (which it does accomplish if you look all the way back to the Cursive’s mid-to-late ‘90s actual posthardcore, emo-laden works, which parallel the genre’s mythical figure, Sunny Day Real Estate) by means of an expansive set of instruments and sounds granting the wide-shot introduction of the rest of the album. But, by looking closer at the lyrics (which can be painstakingly difficult as similar bands try so hard to induce emotional feelings that their song’s ambiguous wordings typically leave listeners to have ambiguously emotional reactions – or no reactions at all; not everyone can be
a poet) we’ll find a bit of a story in a set of twins, one of which is obviously bad judging by each monologue’s accompaniment by heavy rock stylings, the other, good by default. The two twin brothers have been long lost and are now reuniting, violence and benevolence occurring here and there. This ‘meh’ story is likely a culmination of lead singer and songwriter Tim Kasher’s desire to “immortalize” in his own discography the Greek mythological tale of Gemini (hence the album’s name), in which the polar twins Castor and Pollux (hence Kasher’s twins here are named Cassius and Pollock) do evil and benevolent things, respectively. Kasher makes no attempt to hide this fact, as oftentimes chants of “I am Gemini!” occur throughout the album. Despite the story’s overdone nature and predictable outcome, Kasher’s bored presence on the album over a bland version of ‘80s glam and pop-rock guitar style and heavy drums is not enough to keep interest in the album. In the past, Cursive has done a great job with concept albums (Domestica and The Ugly Organ both feel original and well done), but I am Gemini seriously lacks the band’s tried and true methodology and replaces it with Greek mythological name-dropping.
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EDITORIAL The following piece represents the views of the Editorial Board of THE UWM POST. The editorial board is not affiliated with the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee and these views do not represent the views of the university.
Old habits die hard in the Student Association The appointment of Chief Justice DeWees to Election Commissioner betrays the SA’s recent attempts to separate the powers In the aftermath of last semester’s scandal among former SA executives, the new leadership and legislative branch has been focused on cleaning up and reforming UW-Milwaukee’s student government. Newly appointed President Angela Lang signed her first piece of legislation, the SA Accountability Act, into law late last semester. Since then, the senate and executive branch have been in a heated debate over the best way to maintain separation between the three branches of government. With President Lang’s executive order, “No student of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee who draws a stipend from the executive branch of the Student Association shall also be a member of the legislative or judicial branch of the Student Association.” Regardless of how the resulting vacancies in the executive and legislative branch are filled, moving towards fully independent branches is a good step for the SA in the fight against corruption and abuse of powers. As senator Matt Rosner said in his opinion piece published in the Post earlier this semester, “the senate has the authority to regulate the executive branch and to hold it accountable, but if we have members from that branch in the senate, we can’t achieve one of our main responsibilities.” As the campaign season begins to heat up, the Student Association has a big opportunity to rebuild its trust and relations with the general student body. Faith in student government at UWM can be restored depending on how open the SA is for allowing new people with new ideas compete in this year’s elec-
tion. The sins of cronyism, corruption and exclusivity mustn’t be repeated. Unfortunately, old habits die hard. As defined in Article VII Section 2 of the SA Constitution, “The Independent Elections Commissioner shall have the duty of overseeing and managing the Independent Election Commission.” Included in the abilities of the IEC is the authority to either accept or deny party registration forms and can effectively prevent certain people from entering the race. Therefore, in order to maintain a fair and open election, it’s imperative that the person appointed as election commissioner hasn’t any current duties nor recent ties in the Student Association.
At best, the appointment of Chief Justice DeWees to election commissioner was laziness, and at worst it’s the corruption that has been plaguing the Student Association for years. This year’s appointee, Chief Justice Anthony DeWees, couldn’t be less independent to the election. Not only does he currently hold the highest position in the judicial branch, but DeWees has ties to the SA dating back to his time
as treasurer starting in 2008. His experience and knowledge of the SA are not damning, but rather his ability to remain independent while having prior relationships with those running in the election. President Lang’s appointing of the Chief Justice to the Election Commissioner position calls into question whether the SA is genuine in its attempt to reform. Regardless of it being either cronyism or just a lack of motivation to find a better candidate, the IEC opening was a golden opportunity for the SA to truly open its doors to the student body. Rather than continuing to work towards being less exclusive, the SA resorted to hiring an insider to do the job. An incidence of conflict of interest has already occurred with Chief Justice DeWees acting as the IEC. When Cassie Van Gompel submitted her 2012-2013 party registration form, it was rejected by decision of DeWees because she did not submit her party as a student organization. As a result, Gompel is appealing Commissioner DeWee’s decision to none other than Chief Justice DeWees. The situation would be humorous of it wasn’t such a blatant disregard for fairness in government. At best, the appointment of Chief Justice DeWees to election commissioner was laziness, and at worst, it’s the corruption that has been plaguing the Student Association for years. Regardless, it’s evidence that the President Lang’s work to separate the powers may be less than a genuine attempt to reform student government and more an attempt to make student government look better.
LETTERS
TO THE EDITOR
All of us at THE UWM POST want to hear what you think and welcome your letters to the Editor. Feel free to comment about articles, opinions or anything you find in our weekly issues. Send your letters in an email to letters@uwmpost.com. In your submission indicate whether or not you wish to remain anonymous.
Shahrazad restaurant In response to: What to eat on Oakland
Thank you for your article, it mentioned restaurants close to UWM with which I was not acquainted and made me aware that I have more choices for eating while on campus. You omitted, however, one restaurant which I really like, the Shahrazad Middle Eastern restaurant in the block South of Locust on Oakland. I enjoy their fresh, healthy and reasonable meals. Their weekday luncheons are my favorite. I am especially addicted to the many great ways they prepare mushrooms. Erna Schatzman
True Market Value
In response to: More flexibility for UWM means a better UW System The op-ed brings attention to the benefits of a more granular, market-driven tuition model which recognizes the market value as a substantial part of an education’s utility rather than pretending that most students and graduates consider knowledge in itself as justifying the total tuition paid. Including regional business representatives on the valuation boards is a good compromise between the status quo and the thorough but difficult prospect of regularly surveying HR departments from throughout the Fortune 500 about the job offer rates for UWM graduates among a variety of job functions. Joseph Ohler, Jr.
Social Progressives In response to: The astounding arrogance of social conservatives White you write about social conservatives pushing their beliefs onto others, social progressives are dictating that all employer provided insurance needs to cover birth control, including religious institutions who are morally opposed. Just goes to show that social conservatives have not monopolized the market on arrogantly forwarding beliefs. JF
Chelsea Bailey (right) and Beth Garner (left) lose their doubles match 8-6 amid UWM’s defeat of UWGB 6-1. Post photo by Sierra Riesberg.
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OP-ED
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Forty bucks a Memes go mainstream week and 100 jobs The most popular internet jokes for Milwaukee By Joseph K Ford Staff Writer editorial@uwmpost.com
Forty bucks in every paycheck. President Obama stopped by Master Lock the other day and told us he’s holding Congress responsible for giving us an extra forty bucks in every paycheck. Forty bucks! That’ll go a long way in turning this economy around. That’s supposed to show us he’s got our back, he’s fighting the good fight against tall odds and an obstructionist system that forgot about the working people. Forty bucks! Sounds like forty acres and a mule to me. Fast talking con men once swindled people out of that lessthan-stellar bonus with the law on their side back then. I suspect less-than-stellar results this time around too. By the way, con is the first syllable in the word conservative. The rich will figure out a way for their government lackeys to funnel this forty bucks back to the top, claim victory, justify their thievery and collect more bonus taxpayer money for doing it. We get forty bucks a week while failed financial wizards on Wall Street get million dollar bonuses to buy politicians and further their failed policies. They’re using our money to pay lobbyists to stifle stiffer regulatory legislation that would help us. We get forty bucks a week while billions of taxpayer dollars go to the
Pentagon to research and develop safer and more efficient ways to deal death and destruction around the world. We get forty bucks a week while millions of taxpayer dollars go to Israel to carry on their middle-east malfeasance. We get forty bucks a week while billions of taxpayer dollars go to the military to carry on the idiocy in Afghanistan. And let’s not leave out the food industry that receives millions of taxpayer dollars to ‘manufacture’ cheap food that’s killing us. They’re stealing our money and most of us don’t even notice. We’re too busy watching American Idol. They’re stealing our money, our health and the health of our planet, and they’re telling us it’s either our fault or there’s no problem, here’s forty bucks just go shopping. They’re making college so expensive and so much harder to get to that most of us are ill-equipped for the analysis and critical thinking necessary to wade through the b.s. and too busy trying to keep our heads above water to mobilize the masses and force a friendlier way of doing things. Geez! We’re screwed and I’m leaving. I’m so glad that I don’t have any progeny to pass this fiasco to and my roots are shallow enough that I can pick up and move on a whim. Ya’ll have fun with this mess. I’ll be watching with glee from some mountainside in an undisclosed location…with an extra forty bucks in my pocket.
By Miranda Rosenkranz Staff Writer editorial@uwmpost.com
First and foremost, I am not claiming to have known of memes before everyone else. I learned about forums and Internet jokes when I was a freshman in college. I spent many nights in my dorm room procrastinating doing a paper by browsing funny things on the Internet. However, I noticed that recently ‘memes’ have exploded. A meme is kind of like an inside joke on the Internet. They are forms of social commentary that can mock or compliment aspects of our culture. With the advent of Facebook pages such as University of Wisconsin Memes and UW-Milwaukee Memes, the trend has exploded. From “Scumbag Steve” to “Good Guy Greg,” these images with comical captions have become popular. However, many are frustrated that memes have gone mainstream. One of the reasons is because people use them incorrectly. Each image corresponds to a certain kind of joke so the caption should match. One example of a misuse was on “The Most Interesting Man in the World” (the Dos Equis man), and the captions said “I do not always decide to go to the Grind but when I do, I get diarrhea.” This meme is supposed to be of a man who is talented and awesome, not of a man who cannot control his bowels. There are many more mistakes such as “Y U No” spelled out “why you no” and “Condescending Wonka” not being condescending. Before posting an image,
Scumbag Steve please either look it up first or make your own original meme. Another problem with mainstream memes is that advertisers and corporations have caught on. Virgin mobile has recently copyrighted “Success Kid” for a line of advertisements. Along the same lines, advertisements are now featuring popular YouTube videos. One in particular is Wonderful Pistachios using “Keyboard Cat.” Is nothing pure in this world? The whole purpose of a meme is to have an image anyone can put a caption on and make into a joke. These images and videos were created by private individuals. How do companies find out who made the image? Do they pay royalties to the artist? It is almost impossible to figure out where popular Internet images originated; yet, companies are using them to generate profits. I am not bashing the success of memes and funny videos, but I am concerned that companies can take popular images and buy rights to them. Has Pandora’s Box been opened? Would companies not allow people to use meme
generators? The whole point of memes and videos is for people to make funny captions and share them. Aside from these few qualms, the success of the meme trend is positive. The UW-Milwaukee Meme Facebook page is full of original jokes that every student at UWM can enjoy. The best JPEGs are the ones people create themselves. There are pictures of the Union and Bolton bums, snapshots of the Jesus-mobile, images of UWM Pen Guy and even a meme for “Help Stop Violence” man. Anyone who has attended UWM has run into their fair share of interesting folks. By using pictures and captions, people can share these inside jokes. UWM has over 25,000 students, and funny pictures of campus life brings us all together. For the critics of the meme-trend, it is too late. Memes have become a part of pop culture. This was bound to happen eventually so enjoy it while it lasts. For everyone else, “stay thirsty my friends” and keep on meme-ing.
Helpful hints Care for the public good? for helpless boys A country built for the public good has The do’s and don’ts of getting a girl’s attention. By Angela Schmitt Staff Writer editorial@uwmpost.com In just about every TV show and movie that portrays a diverse social group, there is always the one character that is charming and always gets the girl. From the Fonz,\ to more modern day ladies men such as Entourage’s Vinny Chase, who dated just about every female character on the show, and my personal favorite, Don Draper from Mad Men. These characters have charm oozing out of them, and they always have beautiful women eating out of the palm of their hand. In real life, unfortunately, while I’m sure smooth, classy men like Don Draper do exist out there, I’m finding that as a single girl, I have to wade through a lot of bad pick up lines and tackiness in my quest to find them. I should start by saying that this is not a blanket statement that applies to all men. I have come across many men who are charming and have been quite impressive, but I have also met a few guys who have bombed pretty miserably. This one is for them. Everyone has at least one story about some guy who used a really corny, rude
or crass pick up line on them, and in these stories, the poor guy failed, right? Apparently these boys don’t know too much about trial and error, because none of them seem to be coming up with new ways to approach women. Since I just so happen to be a woman who has a pretty good handle on what works with us, I feel that it is my duty to give you guys a few hints. When you are trying to start a conversation with a complete stranger, there is a fine line between friendly and creepy. Here is my first big huge hint: more times than not, pickup lines are on the creepy side. Whatever happened to “Hi, how are you?” and taking it from there? It’s friendly, and rumor has it, it’s how normal people start normal conversations. Just so we all know what not to do, here are a few terrible pickup lines that I found in my extensive academic research (all from www.pickuphelp.com). “Do you believe in love at first sight or should I walk by you again?” “Hey beautiful...that is your name right?” “How much does a polar bear weigh? Enough to break the ice- can I get your number?”
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turned to the individual; can we turn back? By Andrew Bornhoft Special to the Post editorial@uwmpost.com Bill Moyers has done more in his life than there is space to write about in this column. He was deputy director of the Peace Corps, President Lyndon B. Johnson’s press secretary and has worked in news for CBS, NBC and PBS. Moyers launched a new show this year, Moyers & Company, which covers politics and the current face of America. Moyers ends his first show talking about growing up in an age where doing things for the public good was a common practice. In a recent episode of Moyers & Company, Moyers said, “I grew up in a working class family. We were among the poorest in town, but I was rich in public goods. I went to a good public school, played sandlot ball in a good public park, had access to a good public library, drove down a good public highway to a good public college, all made possible by people I never met. There was an unwritten bargain among the generations. We didn’t all get the same deal, but we did get civilization. That bargain is being shredded.” We all see the tattered remains of that bargain whenever we interact with civilization. Roads that have
fallen apart, out of date libraries, broken down public parks, slow government service and drastic increases in tuition due to education cuts are all signs of a generation designed to benefit itself rather than the whole. Today, instead of going to the library, you buy a book. Instead of taking mass transit, you by a car. Instead of playing sports at a public park, you join a private club. And it gets worse from there. Americans do not want to pay for somebody else’s roads, education or health. Today you are expected to do everything on your own and if you can’t, well, as Mitt Romney said, “I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there.” And yet the American public seems to be fine with this new, more individual society. Millions of Americans want smaller government and are willing to bear the burdens that will come as a result. The New York Times wrote this past weekend about 57-year-old Ki Gulbranson. He owns a storefront shop in Chisago County, Minnesota. Gulbranson has never made more than $46,000 in a year. As a result he has had to rely on the earned income tax credit to pay for much of the cost of modern-day life. However, he said, “I don’t demand that the government does this for me. I don’t feel like I need
the government.” Why does he feel this way? Is it not good to have compassion for someone? Is it not good to share your prosperity with others? When asked about higher taxes, Gulbranson said he does not want to put that burden on others. I argue though, that it is not a burden. I am willing to pay higher taxes if it means he and his family never have to face depravity. I am willing to pay higher taxes if it means building good public transit. I am willing to pay higher taxes if it means an overall benefit to society. Maybe it will mean I take fewer trips to baseball games or barrow a book from the library rather than buy it, but we all should be willing to take these steps because it will mean the roads we take to games are better, and the book we barrow is new and no one needs to fear the costs, both financial and mortal, of getting sick. We should do what is good for the public, because we are the public. Look around you. We built this country by sharing our prosperity. It still is great, but not as great as it once was. Have compassion for each other, believe in society and let’s renew our bargain. To paraphrase Bill Moyers, we may not all get the same deal, but we will have civilization.
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COMICS Primal Urges
She Said, He Said
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PUZZLES
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DOWN 1 Depressant 2 No longer asea 3 Signal lights 4 Antelope species 5 Excessive exhibited masculinity 6 Send 7 Drop down in water 8 Region 9 Landed estate 10 City in Japan 11 Tree cutter 12 Female chicken 13 Donkey 21 NY “Island” 22 High card 26 Billions of years 27 Color 29 Offensive 30 Not married 31 Alone, at a party
34 Jacob’s twin 35 Garden water body 36 Fee 37 Tulsa’s state 38 2012, for example (2 wds.) 39 Mrs. Bush 40 Dessert option 43 Plead 45 Rome, there 46 Arcade coins 47 Seasonings 49 Burning structures, at funerals 50 Shoe leather, maybe 51 Grocery store section 54 Imitated 55 Birthmark 56 Uses the remote 57 Entrance rug 58 Unrefined metal solution found on page 4
solution found on page 4
ANAGRAM CRACKERS INSTRUCTIONS: Unscramble the letters below to spell out everyday English words. When you’re finished, unscramble the circled letters to find the missing word from the quip!
WIFAS
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Q: What’s worse than raining cats and dogs? A: “___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___” solution found on page 4
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IN-WORD Find as many words as possible using only the letters from this week’s IN-WORD. Words must be four or more letters long. Slang words, proper nouns, and contractions are not permitted. Only one form of a verb is permitted. Words that become four or more letters by the addition of “s” are not permitted.
SCANDAL
Can you find 14 or more words in “SCANDAL?” Our list can be found on page 4.
solution found on page 4
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