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HIS NAME Is MUDD

No arres 3
mar rush wee

BY PETER QUACKENBUSH '
STAFF WRITER

No students were arrested during Rush Week, the
beginning of the induction process into sororities and
fraternities.

“This is the first year I can remember when no stu-
dent was arrested during Rush Week or Tear Night,” Dean
of Student David Howison said.

University Security believes that the threat of pun-
ishment forced students to think more responsibly when
attending parties.

The alcohol policies instituted at the beginning of
the year entail a three—strike system resulting in increas-
ingly stiffer punishment, culminating with the possibility
of suspension.

To comply with the policy, the Intrafraternity Council
instituted a "Dry Rush": Alcohol was strictly prohibited
during the rush period.

However, there were several violations.

"Three frats were issued strikes, and there is one
case pending," IFC President Quincy Springs said.

"We're a little disappointed in the Dry Rush. We're
disappointed in that three frats were caught with alcohol
violations.

"Violating Dry Rush is an extreme problem."

The IFC was encouraged by some recent statistics
regarding the first semester under the three—strike system.
Over Winter Break, the Alcohol Task Force issued a report
showing a decrease in student arrests by over 30 percent.

"We're very pleased with decreased arrests... A lot of
negative aspects of Greek life are down from years past,"
Springs said.

Overall, the IFC is pleased with the outcome of Rush
Week, but feels that more action may be necessary.

"We, as an IFC, are always looking for improvement,"
Springs said.

While there is nothing on the forseeable horizon,
Springs did not rule out the possibility of more changes to

"facilitate both freshmen and fraternities having a more
enjoyable time.

Associate Director of Security Steve Tornlinson ech-
oed those sentiments on the security side.

"There‘s always room ‘for "improvement,"
Tomlinson said.

Freshmen reviews of dry rush were mixed. Some
thought that it was not an accurate picture of Greek life
and seemed awkward. Others believed that dry rush made
relationship, not alcohol, top priority One such freshmen,

"(Dry Rush) really helped me to get to know the broth-
ers," freshman Jack Murray said.

 

MUDD ADDRESSING AND IN A DRESS. Rbgéi‘ Mudd
((50) began W/&L’s first—ever Institute for Honor
Friday with a keynote address discussing honor
at W&L, honor in his career and the difference
between the two. Mudd, a renowned journal-
ist, spoke in Lee Chapel to an audience of 600
attending the combined Founders Day Con-
vocation and ODK initiation. The Institute,

 

PHOTO ILLIISTRWON BY MARI’ GUY / The Ring—rum P/2:‘, INSET: PHOTO COURTFSY OF C 0.115 C HEER FOR W/IS}iINGT0I\’AI\’[) 1.55,

copyright Washington and Lee University, 1998
"fu'fideCl by the class of l960, is a $750,000 pro:
gram aimed at promoting academic integrity in
secondary schools and colleges, while also em-
phasizing ways that alumni can further pro-
mote integrity in the professions and the work-
place. lnset: Mudd and date Nancy Paddock in
1950 dress according to theme for the King
Arthur’s Court Fancy Dress Ball.

New alliance promotes unity, awareness

Originally an ad hoc committee of the Minor-
ity Student Association, the BFA announced its
separation early this year to work “on behalf of a
more collective attitude toward issues of diver-
sity.” Their mission statement pledges to “expose
and correct all action displaying prejudice, . . . dis-
seminate a higher level of consciousness and
educate our campus community on the meaning
of and demand for both unity and diversity.”

They hope to collaborate with several orga-
nizations already on campus that devote efforts
to promoting diversity and understanding on
campus, including the MSA, the Gay-Straight
Alliance, SAIL and PRIDE.

PRIDE Co—Chair Patrice Wedderbum looks
forward to working with the BFA.

“By working with different student.orgar1i-
zations on campus, we hope to further drive home
the point that diversity is not limited to a certain
race, ethnic group, social class, etc.,” she said.
“Diversity begins with the individual.”

The founders of the BFA, five black female
sophomores, say two incidents this year of racial ig-

BY ALISON TRINIDAD
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

The Black Female Alliance, a newly—forrned
student organization, kicked off a carnpus-wide
racial awareness campaign Jan. 10.

Titled “Unity in Diversity: Roll Call 1/10/02,”
the campaign seeks to document and “gauge the
racial temperature” of Washington and Lee for
the next six months. The BFA plans to meet with
university administration, faculty, student orga-
nizations, fraternities and sororities to survey at-
titudes and actions concerning race and gender
issues on campus. They hope to release the
progress and results of their study through news-
letters, and end-of—the—year report card and an
open forum in June.

Ultimately, they would like to see a sepa-
rate, university governing body created to hear
and settle accusations of racial discrimination,
similar to the Student—Faculty Hearing Board,
which deals with accusations of sexual miscon-
duct.

norance prompted them to begin the campaign. Shortly
after Sept. 11, three female W&L students and their
friends, all black, were forced to show their university
cards before being allowed to a fraternity party.

“These students were told that their entrance
could present an insurance risk (and) that they
didn’t look like ‘Washington and Lee students,”
the BFA stated in a press release.

Interfraternity Council President Quincy
Springs, a senior, remembers being called to the scene
and having to talk with that fratemity’s president.

“As a black man representing the Greek com-
munity,” Springs said, “I’m disappointed by the
way in which black people, in general, are stigma-
tized when they enter fraternity parties, especially
when those people are students.”

The second incident occurred on Oct. 31 when
a student entered the Co—op dressed in blackface.

“Things happen and people are comfortable
with it,” said BFA Chair Marinda Harrell. “To us,
that’s a problem.

“This is campus learning. Let’s learn about each
other—not in a lovey—dovey but fact-based way.”

Servers sick
of slight salary

GHQ workers upset by lack of tips, low wages

BY lMRAN NAEEMULLAH
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR

Many upperclassmen complain
about how the GHQ Bistro’s menu has
been significantly cut back this year.
Yet, what most don’t realize, is that
one thing hasn’t been cut back—-but
hasn’t been increased, either—and
that is the servers’ wages.

According to one of the GHQ’s
student managers, junior Erica
Riesbeck, the present hourly wage
for student servers is $2.25 per hour.
On top of that, servers get tips. Ide-
ally, the wages plus tips equals or
exceeds the federal minimum wage
standard of $5.15 per hour. However,
according to Riesbeck, this is not
the case.

Said Riesbeck, “We ask people
when they check out if they want to
leave a tip. Many people do, but
there is a lot of people who say they
don’t have any general debit funds
in their account, so they can’t leave
a tip.”

Riesbeck says that not having
general debits is not a problem, since
students can also leave cash tips.
However, the students who don’t
have the debits typically don’t have
cash on them, either. Riesbeck asks,
“Why would you go to a restaurant
where service is
provided and
not expect to
leave a tip? You
wouldn’t do that
in a regular res-
taurant, {so -why
here?”

Part of the
problem may be
that the other eat-
eries on cam-
p u s — E v a n s
Dining Hall and
the Snack Bar Express—are self—ser—
vice. People grow accustomed to not
having service, and consequently, the
idea of paying anything extra for a
meal falls to the wayside.

Collecting tips at the register is
one things; asking people to leave
one is another. Says Riesbeck, “You
don’t want to be rude, but basically,
you need to make people feel guilty.
With upperclassmen, there’s not so
much of a problem because they un-
derstand the concept of paying for
service. But with the freshmen, since
they have a new meal plan that in-
corporates three meals in the GHQ
per week, I think they tend to forget
that the meal plan actually just rep-
resents a dollar amount they can
spend in here before having to pay

extra. It’s not that they’re inconsid- ,

erate or anything like that, they are
just unaware.”

This is not to say that none of
the servers ever make a decent
amount of money. Riesbeck says that
when she worked as a server last year,
she would often make as much as $20

 

per night in tips. However, she also
says that one of her servers this year
made only $4 in tips for two nights’
work one week. Cash flow, she says,
is an issue.

The effect upon the servers is to
decrease their morale, because with-
out sufficient income, they have little
incentive to provide good service.
Says another student manager, Jen
Nelsen, also a junior, “Waitresses are
almost solely dependent on tips. If
you receive bad service, then under-
standably, you should not leave a
large tip. But at least leave some-
thing.” '

Another hitch is that the hours
of the GHQ have been significantly
trimmed this year in an effort to make
it more financially viable. The effect
upon its employees, however, is to re-
duce the number of hours they work.
Not only does that mean they receive
less pay in the form of hourly wages,
but, as Riesbeck said, they don’t have
as much time to wait a table and re-
ceive a tip.

“When the GHQ is open for an
hour and a half, that’s basically
enough time to wait maybe two sit-
tings at a table,” Riesbeck said. “Tum-
over is very low.”

The solution, of course, would
be to lengthen the GHQ’s hours,
which would
also help reduce
the crowding
that one ob-
serves at 5:30,
when the
restaurant ’ s
doors open for
dinner.

However, the
reason for short-
ening operating
hours, as previ-
ously noted, was
to alleviate financial woes at the GHQ,
which lost $60,000 last year.

Riesbeck agreed with the idea
that adding wages and tips earned
together at the end of a two—week
pay period, figuring out the aver-
age hourly wage from that amount,
and then adding on whatever is
necessary to meet the minimum
wage is a good idea. Either the serv-
ers earn $5.15 an hour, significantly
better than what they sometimes
make now, or they make even more
than that, in which case, the GHQ
doesn’t have to pay them anything
extra.

Riesbeck seemed confident that
a minimum wage level was a solid
idea. It avoids having the GHQ
lengthen its hours, puts less pres-
sure on cashiers to ask for tips and
ensures that student workers in the
GHQ earn a comparable amount to
what other student employees on
campus do.

Said sophomore Samantha
Snabes, a cashier, “Then you will at
least make minimum wage.”

Pregnant cadets win support of women’s groups

FILEPHOTO
OME CHEER FOR . omen’s ri ts rou s o ose new
4‘ C VMI W gh g p pp

policies that affect these and other female cadets.

BY JACK HAGLE
STAFF CORRESPONDENT

A new policy that makes marriage or parenthood a
bootable offense for Virginia Military Institute cadets has
been met with a barrage of criticism from two national
women’s rights organizations.

Days after the National Women’s Law Center sent VMI a
letter asking the state—funded  school to end the policy,
the National Organization for Women’s Virginia chapter on
Wed. decried the policy as “illegal and inexcusable discrimina-
tion against women.” Both organizations have asked the school
to rescind the policy. NWLC Ofiicials said they “have not
foreclosed any options,” regarding legal action.

Issued by Superintendent Josiah Bunting 111 Dec. 20
and put into effect at this semester’s start, the “values driven”
policy states that any cadet — male or female — who causes a
pregnancy or rrrarries while enrolled at VMI will be expelled.
The policy applies to inter-Barracks relationships and rela-
tionships between cadets and their non—VMI partners.

NOW issued a statement charging that the policy vio-
lates Title IX laws ensuring gender equality in state—funded
education. The organization also said the ban on pregnancy
violates the commonwealth’s Human Rights Act.

“NOW believes that pregnancy is a natural part of
the human experience and should never be used to limit
woInen’s opportunities,” the statement said.

Although the VMI policy states that “any policy govem-
ing marriage and parenthood or pregnancy must be even
handed in its treatment of male and female cadets,” NOW and
NWLC called the policy discriminatory along gender lines.

“With a woman, you can see when she is about to
become a parent,” said Jocelyn Samuels, NWLC vice presi-
dent and director of education, “whereas there is no mecha-
nism for discovering or confirming that male cadets have
become parents.”

But VMI officials have defended the policy, saying
the school was following orders from the Department of
Justice to develop a policy that would drop the 1996 fed-
eral lawsuit against the college. For over 150 years, VMI
employed a male-only admissions policy. The U.S. Su-
preme Court gave VMI the choice to accept women or
lose state funding. Recently, the case was dropped and
oversight from DOJ ended.

‘The notion of a legal challenge was not totally unex-
pected,” said VMI spokesman Chuck Steenburgh. “But our
advice from our attorneys is that what we have a policy that is
permissible under the law. We’re pretty serious about this policy

and we think it’s the best policy for VMI and our cadets.”

No-rrrarriage policies apply at all the federal military acad-
emies. And most academies treat pregnancy as a disability,
allowing pregnant cadets to return after the child is bom.

VMI, a state school, is not under the same guidelines.
VMI cadets pay tuition and have no military commitment
upon graduation. Federal service academy cadets’ tuition
is covered by taxpayers, but they must serve in the rnili—
tary upon graduation.

NOW said the policy is in direct response to VMI
acknowledging its first pregnant cadet last spring. VMI
begs to differ.

“The Department of Justice really insisted upon a
written policy that covered pregnancy as a condition for
the court case,” said Steenburgh. “Our preference would
have been to continue to handle these very complex and
important issues on a case-by-case basis, as we have been
doing, in order to have the court case dismissed. To say
that this is in response to our pregnant female cadet is
false as these organizations are charging.”

Pressure from alumni and the school’s board of visi-
tors to adopt a policy has increased. A growing trend of
cadets fathering children while trying to remain cadets was
also considered in forming the policy, Steenburgh said.

OCR::/Vol_104/WLURG39_RTP_20020121/WLURG39_RTP_20020121_002.2.txt
 

5 versity.

l

a

ll!

eras

 

W&L, Settle debut new
website on nuclear energy

Come inside the secret world of the Manhat-
tan Proj ect. Track nuclear proliferation count:ry-by-

, country. Examine the impact of the arms race on
A espionage and terrorism. Explore the benefits and
( dangers of America’s growing use of nuclear en-
\ ergy. Discover the complexity —— or not — of build-
. ing an atomic bomb.

All this is a few clicks away on a Washington

' and Lee University Web site going up this month

to help students, teachers, policy makers and sci-
entists quickly find accurate and comprehensive
infomiation on the nuclear age.

V The Web site —http://alsos.wlu.edu-— is part
of the National Science Foundation’s $40 million
National Science Digital Library designed to create,
organize and install high-quality educational re-
sources on the Internet. The Alsos site, created
through a $250,000 NSF grant, provides infom1a-

, tion about a rich array of authoritative and reliable
v materials drawn from sources worldwide.

The strength of the W&L Web site is the inte-

. gration of material from different disciplines, rang-

ing from physics to art, with both a current and an

3 historical perspective on issues involving nuclear
5 energy,” said Dr. Frank A. Settle Jr., a Washington
, and Lee chemistry professor and co-director of the
, project. The Alsos site currently features about 350
A annotations of books, articles, videos, photographic
I collections, CD-ROMs and links to other Web sites

to help users track how the development of nuclear

Z energy has and continues to influence the evolu-
, tion of science, technology, domestic politics, in-
; temational relations and the arts and humanities.

The seminal Invisible Man
still influences American politics

Lucas Morel was a high school sophomore
when he was assigned to read Ralph Ellison’s In-
visible Man, the controversial and critically ac-
claimed novel about an alienated black youth’s jour-

V ney through post-war America.

Morel forgot the book until several years ago,

‘ when he was exploring ways to bring political theory

to life for his students at Washington and Lee Uni-

Discovering the many facets of Invisible Man
— a work deemed by The New York Times as rel-

Y evant and important today as it was when first pub-

 

symposium featuring the country’s leading Ellison
scholars and renowned political and literary com-
mentators meeting Feb. 1-2 at Washington and Lee’s
historic campus.

Through the lens of today’s social and political
struggles, the symposium will examine how Ellison’s
sharp pen captured the attention—and changed the
views——of mainstream Arrrerica as racial tensions es-
calated duiing the budding Civil Rights Movement
and the explosive school desegregation cases work-
ing their way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

— Courtes y Latrina Stokes

C-schoc/ canceling classes

Planning for the future can be as inconvenient
as it is necessary. Just ask most of the professors of
the Williams Commerce School. Many canceled
classes on the first Friday of the semester to attend
a two-day planning session as the first step toward
developing new educational initiatives.

The process will require that professors cancel
class twice more this semester in order to meet with
the facilitators of the Ernst and Young Foundation,
the strategic planning partners who have donated
time and resources to aid in this process.

There was no other choice, said Dean Eliza-
beth Oliver about canceling classes. They settled
with “the three most inconvenient Fridays,” in-
cluding the last day of registration for spring
term and the last day of winter term classes.

VMI Supt. Bunting set to retire

Virginia Military Institiite’s superintendent,
Josiah BuntingIII, annourroedearlylastmonththathe
willstepasideattheendofthecurrentschoolyear.

“It struckmethatthisisagoodtimeforthe
[Board of Visitors] to go out and look for new
leadership,” Bunting told The Associated Press.

Bunting told the VMI Board of Visitors in a
written statementthathewil1stayatVlVl1asa
spokesman foracunent $175 million capital
campaign, designed to boost the school’s academic
reputation. Hewillalsoactasanadvisortothe
incoming superintendent until his contract expires in
Ju1y2(X)3.

“With the benefit of General Bunting’s
leadership, VMI has entered a new century poised to
become stronger and more cohesive than in any time
in recent memory,” Samuel B. Witt III, president of
the VMI Board of Visitors, said in a statement. “We
have a community of faculty, cadets, and staff
unsurpassed in its collective talent and energy, with
an extraordinary capacity to push forward the
boundaries of learning and leadership.”

Bunting, whocarnetoVlV1Iin 1995, is best
known forleadingVlVII ina1996U.S.SuprerneCouit
battle to keep the state-fimded college male only. He
oversaw the eventual assimilation of women into the

MONDAY, lANUARY LL02

BEHOLD, THE NEW KNIGHT or ODK

BLACK INDUCTED INTO ODK. Senior Richard Black is initiated into
the Omicron Delta Kappa honor society by senior Stacy McLoughlin.
ODK, founded at Washington and Lee in 1914, recognizes superior

MART (rm/Rmg—zum 2‘
leadership as well as outstanding academics. This year, 31 students
were inducted, representing junior and senior undergraduate stu-
dents and second and third year law students.

 

7 p.m—Lecture. “El poder subvertido en la
escritura fernenina de Mexico,” Leon Guillermo
Gutierrez, author, literary critic, lawyer and professor
 NorthenAiiditoiiurnRetieshrnents

Thursday,Jan.24

8 p.m—Lecture. ‘“Avaritia’ and ‘paupertas’: On
thePlaceoftheEarlyFranciscansintheHistoryof
Avarice,” Richard Newhauser, Trinity University.
Northen Auditoriurrr

Fn°day,Jan.25

l2prrr——Women @ Work speaker. PulitzerPri2e
vvinnerAnnTelriaes. RSVP de Maria x8932.

73()pm—E]rrrS<xiety.‘SexyBe2st?’(Frrglarfl,2(D1).
DirectedbyJoriathar1GlazerTroubadourCirerna

9 p.m.—1 6th annual lip synch contest. Strident

7pm-Martir1LinherKingJrcandleligl1trallyancl
marclrLeeChapelorIee(1iapelparkir1glotReoeptior1
tofol1owinFaiif'axLounge.

'Iiiesday,Jan.22

4 pm—Glasgow Endowment Reading. “Leon
Guillemio Gutierrez y el alrna mexicana,” Leon
GuillerrnoGutieneLaiithor,literaryciitic,1awyerarrd
professor from Mexico City. Northen Auditorium

Wednesday,Jan.23

8pm—AlooholicsArior1yrnousrneeting.Fairfax
Lounge. Al1W&LstudenIs,faculty/staff, andtheLex-

& Florida.

  

Ce|ica—

 
  

? fished 50 yea“ ago _ is the goal of agnafiopnal corps of cadetsin 1997. _COurtesyJackHageI tofollow.Operitothepiiblic.  Activities Pavilion. Tickets soldatthe door. \
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The Inside Story

On the outside, its easy to see that Celica is race—track
inspired. But the real excitement is on the inside...under the
hood. Take the Celica GT—S...Toyota worked with Yamaha to
build a 180 HP engine redlined at 7800 RPM...equipped it
with Variable Valve Timing with intelligence...a computer
that constantly monitors and retunes your engine for maxi-
mum performance...a cam with two sets of lobes to provide
two ranges of valve lift and duration for more usable horse-
power. There’s direct ignition for greater reliability...
iridium-tipped spark plugs for reduced maintenance...a
stainless steel exhaust manifold...a watercooled oil cooler.
And mated with Toyota's 4-speed electronically-controlled
automatic ”Sportshift”, you get transmission shift switches
on the steering wheel...just like Formula 1 race cars. Sweet.

 

  

www.gettoyota.c.om

Driving a new Toyota is easier than ever —

  

because now your Toyota dealer has a special college graduate
financing program available thru Toyota Financial Services
that offers a lot of great advantages.

 
  

So if you're within 4 months of graduation... or if you graduated
within the past two years...See your Toyota dealer for details.

    

WIJDE Sjlll

ll_l._._E'.

BEGINS FRIDAY. MNIIARY 11
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Jan. 18-24 30% ol-'1-'
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OCR::/Vol_104/WLURG39_RTP_20020121/WLURG39_RTP_20020121_003.2.txt
 

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It’s time to tear down
Woods Creek Apartments

In days of yore, parents would expose their
malformed offspring in the woods, leaving them
to die out of sight. University architects appar-
ently had the same idea with the Woods Creek
Apartments, placing those niisshapened build-
ings on the far side of the Dell arid ensuring
that only residents are forced to see them.

The Apartments are the only structures on
campus that make Leyburn Library look tradi-
tional and attractive. Their clumsy attempts at
modernity look less like Lloyd Wright than
Picasso. If the earth vomited up a pile of ugly
concrete blocks, it would resemble Woods
Creek’s exterior.

Of course, looks aren’t everything. It would
be one thing if the Woods Creek Apartments
only appeared to be hewn out of a particularly
infelicitous clump of boulders. The creature
comforts inside, however, are better suited to
the bathysphere than to upperclassman living.

The rooms are dark and damp. Institutional
cinderblock walls and airport high-traffic car-
peting do not make happy rooms, and the case-
ment windows’ synergy with the penitentiary
fluorescents has doubtless inspired prison archi-
tects. The windows are ugly enough that resi-
dents are grateful there aren’t too many of them.
Residents suffering Seasonal Affective Disor-
der should probably spend Winter Term abroad.

The steep stairs lace a labyrinthine floor
plan that makes navigating a chore. The balco-
nies are only good for hanging clothes to dry,
which further adds to the Third World appeal.

The complex’s sylvan setting makes it dif-
ficult, even dangerous, to approach. Woods
Creek residents returning from the Hill have to
transverse a very poorly lit path that becomes
treacherous after snow or rain. Recently, the
creek froze, and the ice-slicked bridge became
more problematic than picturesque.

There’s no reason for security, since only
those doomed to live there, or eager for a se-
cure drinking location, will want to visit.

After building the University Commons, re-
furbishing Reid Hall, and erecting the Wilson
Fine Arts Center, the University might well con-
sider new housing that could be advertised,
rather than sequestered on the creek’s far side.

UOTE OF THE WEEK:

PINIONS  
PC snafu strikes FDNY

0 THE. RING-TUM PHI
MONDAY, JANUARY 21, 2002

One of the most striking images
to be published following the Sept 1 1
attacks was a picture of three firemen
raising an American flag over the
wreckage of the World Trade Center.
The picture, taken by Tom Franklin of
The Record of Hackensack, N .J ., re-
minds one of the photograph of sol-
diers raising the flag over Iwo Jima
and perhaps foretold that a similarly
harrowing fight would be necessary
to win this war.

Fittingly, the property company
which owns fire department’s head-
quarters building had decided to con-
struct a memorial to the firefighters
who died on the 11th and chose to
commission a statue based on the
photograph. Unfortunately for those
who crusade in the name of “diver-
sity,” the photograph depicted three
white firefighters raising the flag. So,
instead of producing a statue that
mirrored reality, the fire department
chose to have cast a statue depicting
one black, one Hispanic, and one
white firefighter raising the flag. How
exactly does one depict an Hispanic
in bronze, anyway?

Yes, that’s right, in the interest of
political correctness, inclusiveness,
diversity and a host of other liberal
buzzwords, the department chiefs de-
cided to ignore the actual events that
took place and instead mold reality
into what they saw as, supposedly, a
better reflection of the event.

Their attitude can best be
summed up by a black fireman who
was quoted as having said, “The sym-
bolism is far more im-
portant than repre-
senting the actual
people. I think the ar-
tistic expression over
diversity would supersede any con-
cern over factual correctness.”

“Any concern for factual correct-
ness?!” The liberals have a great new
replacement expression for “truth.”
Just as the handicapped are now “dif-
ferently—abled,” and the short are now
“vertically—challenged,” the truth is
now no more than “factual correct-
ness.” It should of course be sacrificed
in favor of “diversity.” After all, the
FDNY is 2.7% black and 3.2% Hispanic.

This effort to fool with the truth
has enraged many of New York’s fin-

BREYTT. KIRWAN
OPINIONS EDIIOR
FMAll:l<lR\lVANB@\lVtU.lEl)U

est, especially since those who dis-
approve of the decision to sacrifice
reality to liberal politics are being la-
beled as “racist” and “insensitive.” It
must be their hidden racist agendas
that prevent them from supporting the
re-engineering of actual events. Noth-
ing could be further from the truth
about firefighters who risk their lives

daily to save New

RIGHT OF THE AISLE Yorkers of all colors
BRETTT. KIRWAN ‘O4

and who, on the 1 1th,
saved people from
around the globe.

In an interview with Rod Dreher
of National Review, firefighters ques-
tioned the decision to replace the
firefighters depicted in the photo-
graph by asking if changes in the Iwo
Jima memorial or Mount Rushmore
would be next. Perhaps, one offered,
“They (‘re) going to have to take Tho-
mas Jefferson off Mount Rushmore
because he owned slaves.”

Maybe paintings of the signing

of the Declaration of Independence will
be redrawn to better reflect America’s
current racial make-up. Perchance the

CoLrirrrsYvrwivpou(oM1ArEcoM
OUR FLAG WAS STILL THERE: This photo was to be perverted for “diversity.”

story of Apollo 11 will be rewritten to
include Miguel Collins, the Hispanic
astronaut who backed-up Neil and
Buzz. After all, “factual correctness”
isn’t as important as diversity.

Similarly, the Soviets had a policy
of air-bushing individuals out of pho-
tographs after they had been deemed
unsavory by the party. Also, in
George Orwel1’s I 984, the hero, Win-
ston Smith, is employed with the gov-
ernment ministry whose task it is to
alter news accounts of the past so
they reflect the current government
line. Modern leftists have adopted a
similar attitude toward the truth.

In response to this revisionist
campaign, Brooklyn firefighter Steve
Cassidy faxed a petition to firehouses
asking that firefighters sign to pro-
test the department’s decision. Ap-
parently, they may have listened and
Fire Commissioner Nicolas Scoppetta

«..-. said thatrother ideaswill be examined

so that a-more “fitting” memorial will
be built. Hopefully, the next memorial
won’t confuse true heroism with the
heroes of the left.

Assr. EDITORS DoN’T
DESERVE ARMS. THEY CAN
TYPE WITH THEIR NOSES.

—DISGRUNTLED PHI OPINIONS EDITOR

 

Editor-in-chief Matthew B. McDermott
Associate Editor Katie J. Howell
Asst. News Editor Latrina Stokes
Asst. News Editor Irnran Naeemullah
Opinions Editor Brett T. Kirwan
Asst. Opinions Editor Andrew Lafimer
W&Life Editors Matthew A. Coursen
Catherine C. Guy
Sports Editor Jeremy S. Franklin
Asst. Sports Editor Dave Crowell
Contributing Editor Alison Trinidad

Photo Editor MaryE.Guy
Photographer Meg Ferrara
Business Manager Paul A. Seifert
Asst. Business Manager Emily Barker
Advertising Managers Rober'tFloyd
William Litton
Brian Castleberry

Internet Editor Peter L. Djalaliev

The Ring-tum Phi is published Mondays during the
undergraduate school year at Washington and Lee Univer-
sity, Lexington, Virginia. The Washington and Lee Publi-
cations Board elects the Editor-in-chief, but The Ring-
tum Phi is otherwise independent.

The Ring-tum Phi welcomes all responsible submis-
sions and letters. All submissions must be e-mailed to
phi@wlu.edu or in the University Center mailbox by 5
pm. Friday to appear in the following week’s edition. The
Ring-tum Phi reserves the right to edit submissions for con-
tent and length. Letters and columns do not necessarily
reflect the opinion of the Ring-tum Phi Editorial Board. Ad-
vertising does not reflect the opinions of The Ring-tum Phi
or its staff. This newspaper observes current court defini-
tions of libel and obscenity.

The Ring-tum Phi
Mailing Address: University Center
Washington and Lee University
Lexington, Virginia 24450
Street Address: 31 Washington Street
Lexington, Virginia 24450
Telephone: (540) 462-4060
Fax: (540) 462-4059
Email: phi@wlu.edu

http://phi.wlu.edu

   

Letters to the Editor

IFC answers poor depiction of pledgeship

Dear Editor, '

Last week’s Staff Editorial painted an unfair picture
both of the Greek System and the pledgeship process.
The article is particularly troubling because of the audi-
ence it reaches. Through their own experiences, students,
both non—Greek and Greek alike, recognize the true ele-
ments and the exaggerations present in the article. The
faculty do not have the same frame of reference; however,
and know only about the Greek System what they see in
the news and the anecdotal evidence they gather in the
classroom. This is what makes last week’s editorial coun-
terproductive to all of the progress made over the last
year, by the IFC and the Greek System as a whole.

The comments made that pledges will be consuming
inordinate amounts of alcohol, and other “pharmaceuti-
cals” is harmful to the already precarious situation that
the Greek System is encountering. Given the tragic events
of last year, the IFC’s Alcohol Initiatives and the ATF’s
policies, it is unfair to casually state that pledges will con-
sume “gallons of alcohol.” Much progress has been made
to making the environment at Washington and Lee safer.
For the first time in many years, there were no arrests on
the weekend of Tear Night. Arrests for this entire school
year are down, as are infirmary visits. It is a misrepresenta-
tion of pledgeship to infer that rampant alcoholism will be
encouraged, or even tolerated.

, Furthermore, to state that the educational aspects of
pledgeship should supercede that of the classroom does
not reflect the attitude or present priorities of the Greek
System. Since the faculty demonstrated so much displea-
sure with the academic performance of pledges by con-
sidering shortening pledgeship, the IFC is offering $5,000
to the fraternities to reward academic improvement. The

 TALKBACK  

I 6€S g.7’ -

fraternity whose pledges demonstrate the most improve-
ment from first to second semester will receive $2,000,
second place will receive $1,500, third place $1,000 and
fourth place will receive $500.

In closing, the IFC feels that the editorial last week
had the potential to damage all the hard work that has
been done over the last year to improve the pledgeship
process. Faculty members are not aware of the good things
that have been done and are being done to make
pledgeship safer and more educational, but by reading
last week’s article they have gotten another negative pic-
ture of the Greek System.

Sincerely,
The Inter-Fraternity Council

Senior citizens support students’ right to cany

Dear Editor,

The recent killings at a Florida college is the third
violent attack to take place on a school campus this month.
Our schools are victim—rich environments for criminals
because the criminals know that they will not face resis-
tance from anyone armed with a gun.

It is time to make our schools safe. We need to follow
the Israeli approach and arm parents and grandparents
and have them guard our schools. This plan has worked
well in Israel since 1974. Yet we continue the failed scheme
of making schools “gun free”.

On college campuses we need to allow all adults to
carry a gun. There is no reason that adults between the
ages of eighteen and twenty—one should be barred from
owning and carrying a handgun. The average age of our

SEE LETTERS, PAGE 4

PAGE 3

Robertson snuggles
with African dictator

Who is Charles Taylor? He is the President of the
impoverished, war-ravaged nation of Liberia whose
checkered past has crossed with Pat Robertson’s
checkered present.

After a bloody coup d ’etat involving numerous
public executions in 1980, Charles Taylor joined the
ranks of the new Liberian government led by Samuel
Doe. Taylor proceeded to gain Doe’s trust, smuggle $1
million from him, and flee to the United States. He was
arrested and held for extradition, but turned up in Liberia
again after breaking—out of a Massachusetts prison.

In the Liberian rain forests, he assembled an army
of emaciated villagers, diugging their children and send-
ing them on his most dangerous missions. Slowly, he
overtook areas of the

country. Doe’s forces LEFT OF CENTER
were unable to stop '

him  L®-L

Taylor sold off
rubber plants, mineral deposits and any other resource
he gained to foreign exporters when he overtook a new
area of the country. His wealth growing, Taylor was
elected to the presidency in 1997.

Why am I telling you all this? Because the identity
of one of this murderously corrupt president’s busi-
ness partners fascinates me. You might have heard of
him: Pat Robertson, W&L alumnus, president of the
Christian Coalition, Christian Broadcasting Network,
and Freedom Gold Limited. FGL is a company
Robertson founded in 1998 that funds and profits from
mineral and gold excavation. Its profits are held in the
Cayman Islands.

This information comes from an unlikely place, the
December issue of GQ. However, while Robertson de-
clined to talk to GQ for the article, his attorneys did
acknowledge the fact that Robertson is indeed putting
his money into the project in Liberia.

What the GQ article hopes to show is the corrupt
manner that Robertson’s company pulled the rug out
from under two American businessmen running the
operation in Liberia, Ken Ross H and Ken Ross III.

While this is somewhat interesting, the real shock
is the fact that Robertson has no qualms about his
current business partner. Whether or not Pat Robertson
and Charles Taylor have ever met face to face is still
uncertain, but Ken Ross 11 has been in a seven hour
meeting with the television evangelist and several of
Taylor’s aids. It was in this meeting that Ross allegedly
turned over his maps and information to Robertson so
he would consider investing in the project.

Ken Ross 11 and his son claim that Robertson,
instead, took this information and went straight to make
a deal with Charles Taylor, excluding them from the
venture. If that is in fact true, it stands alone as a des-
picable truth.

Moreover, was it not Robertson who, after the at-
tacks on Sept. 11th, posted the following on his CBN
web site? ‘”Ihe focus of many in America has been the
pursuit of health, wealth, material pleasures, and sexu-
ality. Sadly, those in the churches have been as self-
indulgent as those in the world.”

Strong words for a man whose current Liberian busi-
ness partner formally backed the vicious Revolutionary
United Front in neighboring Sierra Leone. The RUF’s sig-
nature is the machete that they use to lop off the heads of
the heads of terrorized men, women and children while
illegally trafficking mortars, rifles, satellite phones, com-
puters, vehicles, food and drugs from Liberia.

The GQ article quotes Robertson’s attomey, speaking
on his behalf, ‘”Ihe U.S. has not discouraged or prohibited
dealings in Liberia nor are any U.S. national security inter-
ests adversely affected by an investment in Liberia”

That is all well and good, but I am not so certain
that the Almighty will fail to have a problem with the
lapse of judgement that Robertson seems to be having
here. While talking out of one side of his face, accus-
ing Americans and their churches of having only fi-
nancial gains and sex on the brain, he is keeping re-
turns of millions of dollars from a partnership with a
detestable, evil Liberian “president” in the Caymans.

Moreover, Robertson’s attorneys also confirmed
that Taylor had recently phoned Robertson, “protest-
ing the unfairness of UN sanctions.” Taylor has more
than once been linked to the kidnappings of UN diplo-
mats and leaders on the African continent. Clearly, Tay-
lor knew to call upon his business associate as
Robertson believes the United Nations General As-
sembly to be, “pro-socialist, pro-Islam, anti-American
and anti-Israel.”

Not wanting to judge, I ask the following: Has Pat
Robertson crossed a moral line pairing up with a tor-
tiirer and murderer whose armies have ravaged Liberia’:
resources, stolen food out of starving villagers’ mouths
and cut off the arms of innocent women and children’:
The phrase, “anything for a buck,” has never been this
disturbing.

    

 

c5S1 g.99 M   ‘O2 ultas Cold.” csltss pretty.”  S Wpathfli Ygll Can
-—Mike Reynold, ‘02 eP1:::1 Siag’ --Matt Kaufmann, ‘05 --Anne J ohansen, ‘O5 __AES::tv$1a1'l, ‘O5

 

OCR::/Vol_104/WLURG39_RTP_20020121/WLURG39_RTP_20020121_004.2.txt
   

 

PAGE 4

The party’s over

Compact disc copy protection threatens consumers

Little do most consumers
know it, but since last Sept. the
battle over piracy has reached a
fevered pitch in the music indus-
try. Yet while 2001 was the year of
the computer with Napster and
file sharing litigation, develop-
ments during the coming months
will affect anyone who owns a
compact disc player.

If the RIAA has its way, it
won’t be long until all we see on
store shelves is a new breed of
copy—protected CDs. The implica-
tions are dramatic for anyone who
listens to music.

Debate has centered on a en-
coding data scheme designed by
Israel—based Midbar Technolo-
gies. Dubbed the Cactus Data
Shield, the system works by de-
liberately corrupting a disc so that
any computer
based player
Cannot prop-
erly read it. This
ensures that
only devices like your average ste-
reo can access the songs.

Test copies of Cactus discs
secretly made their way into the
market a year ago, and now labels
such as BMG and Universal have
announced plans to produces all
their titles with copy protection.

With Cactus, you’re out of luck
not only if you want to bum a copy

  

ANDREW LATIMER ‘05

of a CD, but also if you try play mu-
sic on your computer, DVD player,
game console, MP3 player, high—end
stereo equipment or even certain car
CD players. Try to play a rip of an
encoded CD or use a Cactus on one
of the aforementioned devices at a
high volume, and you run the risk of
blowing out your speakers.

Chances are you already own
one of these corrupted discs and
don’t know it. There are no mark-
ings on the packaging to distinguish
Cactus-enabled albums from regu-
lar ones, nor is there any official
RIAA list of modified titles. For now,
all you can do is cross your fingers
when you go to a music store and
hope that you don’t walk out with
an anti—rip CD.

These steps are not being
taken in the name of defending
the intellectual
property of mu-
sicians. Labels
are merely inter-
ested in making
sure that digital song swapping
does not eat into their profits.

It’s no great surprise that ma-
jor media outlets have not even
bothered to cover this issue of
copy protection. Music labels
have ensured that the transition
to Cactus discs be as quiet as pos-
sible. To them, music duplication
should not be available for home

ORiN1oNs

CDURTESY WWW. 7E[£K)IVIOi. E9

OLD DAYS: W/e’ll return to the golden days of radio should the music industry prevail.

use, even if it is protected by law
and does not fall under the Digi-
tal Millennium Copyright Act.

Concemed music buyers should
write to their local congressman and
ask to draft legislation that requires
manufacturers to include waming la-
bels on protected CDs. Music com-
panies cannot be allowed to sell an
inferior product without first notify-
ing the purchaser.

Once the labels are in place, the
best way the American public can deal
with the issue successfully is to follow
the example set by Britain in Nov. Con-
sumers reacted strongly to word that

the latest Natalie Irnbruglia compact
disc had been modified, and thousands
complained and retumed their Cactus
albums for non—encoded stock The
outcry was so pronounced that there
areno f1rrtl1erplanstoirrrplenrentcopy-
protection in Britain’s near future.
Only time can tell how Ameri-
cans will react to the recording
industry’s plans for a brave new
world. Either we sit idly by and have
inferior products foisted on us, or
we protests the further spread of
Cactus encryption. The choices we
make before the year’s end will re-
shape the way we listen to music .

LETTERS from page 2

. degree of pressure to

 

soldiers fighting in Afghanistan is just un-
der twenty years old. When these young
adults come home they are barred from own-
ing and carrying a handgun to protect them-
selves and their families.

On college and university campuses
these young adults are not the only ones
who are barred from exercising their civil
rights. Everyone, student and faculty
alike, is stripped of the right to own and
carry a gun. This puts everyone on cam-
pus at risk.

John Bender, executive director of Se-
niors United Supporting the Second Amend-
ment said, “There is no question that every-

 

one at these schools would have been safer
if armed adults were there in sufficient numbers.

“Last year we offered to pay the tu-
ition at a firearms training facility for five
volunteers from the first public school to
implement the Israeli program. No school
accepted our offer.

“I will extend that offer to the Martin
Luther School in New York so they can make
their school safe and protect their students.
I have no doubt that had this program been
in place before the attack there, the attack
wouldn’t have happened.

“Colleges have a student body and staff

composed of adults. They just need to allow

To be eligible to win:

these adults to exercise their civil rights. The
schools need to allow all adults on campus
to make the choice whether to be armed or
not. It will make the schools much safer.”

The young men and women in our
nation’s colleges deserve to be safe and
to have all their civil rights protected and
respected. There is no reason that they
should be turned into defenseless targets
just to satisfy the ravings of the radical
anti—civil rights groups.

   

Sincerely,
Seniors United Supporting
the Second Amendment

ONE WINNER WILL BE RAND .
THE CONTEST DATE, IULY 1. 200
THE CONTEST, ONE OF THE S

SELECTED TO WIN THE GRAND

  

MONDAY, JANUARY 21, 2002

W&L’s Top 10 conflicts exposed

Campus is beholden to nearly a dozen senseless competitions

Let me begin by first apologizing for my
lack of article in last week’s Phi. I opted not
to write because had I done so, I would have
immediately fallen into the trap of recount-
ing rush week and all its proverbial glory,
something that perhaps might be erring on

6.) GHQ vs. The D-Hall: In addition to
all their other commitments, freshmen are
now forced to choose between Evans Din-
ing Hall and the GHQ for their meals. I’ m not
sure if this is a fair trial to place before them.
Especially since the Cooperational Facility

the side of cliché. of Glory will ultimately win
As my inaugural ad— ORTHERN ’ XPOSURE anyway.
dressof2002,Ifeelsome ORS E 7.) Boys vs. Girls:

write something good,

but then I remembered that nothing really
registers in one’s mind for more than a span
of a second. Therefore, what I write today
will tomorrow be rendered as just another
testament to weak journalism.

After reading last week’s Trident, I
couldn’t help but be reminded of the inanity
of The Trident’s war with The Phi, which
brought me to thinking about the slew of
odd conflicts permeating the school. And
thus, I present the Top 10 Most Prominent
Conflicts in W&L’s Bubble.

1.) The Trident vs. The Phi: Ireally don’t
understand what the big deal is. It’s not like
we’re publishing The New York Times here.
They’re college papers. We can probably
co—exist in the same realm without constant
scrutinization of each other’s typos. No one
really cares anyway.

2.) North vs. South: Perhaps I only con-
sider this stupid because I’m the underdog
and on the losing side. Virginia isn’t that
southern. I live only six hours from school,
whereas Texans live roughly seventeen.
That should count for something.

3.) Inter—fraterr1ity Conflict: What’s in a
name, that by which we call any other frater-
nity would smell as sweet. Though I revere
the Greek system, I sometimes feel like we
might need NATO to monitor its respective
alliances and conflicts.

4.) Inter-sorority Conflict: Never as
much manifested as it is during Rush Week
and Derby Days, it’s pretty damn cut—throat.

5.) VMI vs. W&L: Poor VMI’s. They’re
just trying to do the right thing... which ap-
parently is running for fifteen hours a day.

KRIS POLLINA ‘O3

Speaking of waxing
cliché...I think I might be
tired of hearing people bitching about the
opposite sex. Given our fantastic social cul-
ture, it very well might represent the epitome
of hypocrisy.

8.) Palms vs. BJ’s: I couldn’t do a lot of
fieldwork in this area since I’m still under-
age, but just as the freshmen must choose
between the D-Hall and the GHQ, stressed
upperclassmen must face the question of
Palms or BJ’s. I’m not entirely positive, but I
think the Palms might have the edge.

9.) C—School Majors vs. The World:
They’re convinced the real world is out to
plan their derrrise. You should probably re-
lax. You’re smarter than everyone else.

10.) Humanities Majors vs. Their Inner
Turmoil: When my sister left for college and
she asked for some parting words of wis-
dom, I told her not to date a philosophy major
because you never know when he’s going
to get up and leave to find himself. (She goes
to Georgetown, so it’s not like I was ruining
anyone’s game. I can already hear the cries
of protest.)

Perhaps the greatest conflict but the one
I’m hesitant to list because I hate subscrib-
ing to the alcohol—related media, is the
struggle between man and his drunk coun-
terpart. But if I didn’t put something in about
alcohol, this might have ended up on the
cutting room floor. I suppose we couldn’t
have fostered the unadulterated sense of in-
dividualism and character without competi-
tion here. Oh, wait, I have another one. The
struggle between the newspaper columnist
and her Sunday night deadline. I’m all about
disclaimers.

Write for The Ring-tum Phi
Washington and Lee’s Paper of Record

E—mail phi @wlu. edu for more information

‘A’ You must be a single person age 12 through 29. If you win and are under 18, your
parent or guardian must agree to‘ take title to the car.

‘A’ You must not father, conceive, or give birth to a child from July 1. 2001 through th
contest award date of February 12, 2002. .

* You must currently reside in Buena Vista, Harrisonburg, Lexington, Staunton, or
Waynesboro cities OR Augusta, Bath, Highland, Rockbridge, or Rockingham counties
both at the time you enter the contest and on the award date of February 12, 2002.

A complete list of official rules and regulations is available at your local
Health Department and online at http://www.mb4c.org.

There is no limit on the number of times that you may enter the contest. However; each
personal statement that you write must be different. You may also enter your
statement on any 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper or onllne at the website listed above. Entries
may also be mailed to MB4C at P. 0. Box 2126, Staunton, VA 244-02.

MONTHLY WINNERS WILL BE RANDOMLY
f , ZE, A2001 IEEP WRANGLER. AWARDED ON
FEBRUARY 12, 2002. THE RUNNERS-UP VWILL RECEIVE $1000 SAVINGS BONDS.
PRIZES WILL ALSO BE AWARDED FOR OLJALITY ENTRIES.

 

j l

4 l

OCR::/Vol_104/WLURG39_RTP_20020121/WLURG39_RTP_20020121_005.2.txt
lVlATIllEWCOLiRSH\J&CATHERINEGUY
W&lIFE EDITORS
EMAI.-cnURsENAI@IIrIuEI)U8cGIIYc@wInEDU

PAGE 5

BY MIKE GEORGE

t STAFF WRITER
A Michael Mann’s retelling of the
5 life and times of heavyweight boxer
Muhammad Ali is certainly long
enough to paint a vivid picture of a
fascinating figure in American his-
tory. At a running time of over three
5’ hours, “Ali” certainly had time to say
something. When I left the theater,
‘however, I was
frustrated and
annoyed at this
'film’s lack of
depth and char-
Vacter develop-
ment. This
Vmovie is a whole
lot of fluff, a pic-
ture that looks
good but says very little about Ali

himself.

, Starring Will Smith, “Ali” por-
trays the life of the self—proclaimed
, “greatest boxer of all time” from Ali’s
;.first title victory over Sonny Liston
to his resurgence against George
L Foreman in Nigeria’s “Rumble in the
Jungle.” This film is full of great ac-
tors who are misused and left watch-
‘ ing Will Smith, who seems to be do-
ing all the talking. The sad part is
that “Ali” seems to not really say
. ything about the complexity of the
' man himself. The film touches on few
of the controversies that surrounded
he champion, from the allegations
that Liston threw the first fight to the
story about Howard Cosell’s fight
with ABC to find exposure for the
former champion. All you see is a
series of situations with no resolu-
.ions, from Ali’s fight with the gov-
ernment to his problems with the

  
  
 
  
 
 
  
 
   
  
   
   
   
 
   
 
 
  
  
  
   
  
   
  
   
  
  
   
  
 
  
  

W&LIPE EDITOR

life.

in that area.

Goshen native.

fraternity in Red Square. Despite
the better wage, the admittedly
I outspoken and fun—loving father of
two loathed the duty.

Cleaning the fraternities
was nearly unbearable (being
a member of one myself, I am
familiar with the extreme filth
that‘can accumulate in a mat-
ter of hours inside one of the
‘seemingly pristine redbrick

mansions).
4 After two grueling years
cleaning the frats, Dale as-

dorms.

_ In only 18 months, Dale was the head custo-
‘tdian of the BDG quad, the position he currently

holds.

5 To Dale, hard work is just a part of life. After grow-
ing up on a farm in Goshen, not too far from his farm
‘in Kerr’s Creek where he and his family now reside,

’ the young high school graduate decided to join the

Army and serve his country.

y After three years stationed in Germany, Dale re-
turned to the United States, ready to have some

1 -‘gun.

jobs popped up.

However, his exploration of the rest of the coun-
try was not enough to keep him away from

Rockbridge County for long.

 

photo courtesy of httpz//www.coIona.bc.ca/tils/details/ali.h[ml

;*AIrIaIIs short of knockout

THIS MOVIE IS A WHOLE
LOT OF FLUFF, A PICTURE
THAT LOOKS GOOD BUT
SAYS VERY LITTLE ABOUT
ALI HIMSELF.

BY MATTHEW A. COIIRSEN

For Steven “Dale” Lyle, the head custodian in
-he BDG Quad, variety is a must—have quality of

For the last 12 years, Dale has served the Wash-
'ngton and Lee community doing a number of differ-
ent jobs. Starting in early 1990, Dale went to work for
he printing center of the University, running the
binding department and all of the copiers on cam-
us. For a total of seven years, Dale enjoyed his time

Interacting with students, faculty, and adminis-
tration daily was a special perk of the job for the

In 1997, Dale went to work as the custodian of a

sumed the position of a custodian of the

The avid camper and hunter then traveled to the
;Midwest and lived from North Dakota to New Mexico
working on seismograph crews and doing whatever

    

Nation of Islam and his own family.
But none of these conflicts are ar-
gued from either side of the issue,
they are just presented. For a film
that focuses so much on one charac-
ter, Ali seems lost in the turbulence
of the world around him, and the fo-
cus of the film is lost.

Jon Voight, Ron Silver, and
Mario Van Peebles are all excellent
in their roles, but don’t expect to
see enough of
them. As much
as the film
seemed cloudy
and confusing,
Will Smith ’ s
portrayal of the
champ solidi-
fies him as a le-
gitimate actor.
His portrayal is both humorous and
convincing, and brings some en-
joyment to an otherwise frustrating
picture. Mario Van Peebles is amaz-
ing as Malcolm X, but Denzel
Washington played the same char-
acter before, and you can’t help but
compare.

Michael Marm’s direction is a step
above anything Ihave seen. “Ali’s” fight
scenes are dazzling and unlike anything I
have seen in film. As much as this film
may earn Michael Mann an Oscar, it
seemed too artsy and surreal for me. The
film was probably meant to be a moving
work of art, but that doesn’t work with
biographical films. Mann would have
made a great photographer or artist; his
work is often inspiring and unique. As a
storyteller, however,  far short.
Thisfilmis worth seeing once, butit is far
less than what anyone expected. The
story of Muhammad Ali’s life is fascinat-
ing, but this re-telling is not.

 

Photo courtesyof http://www.gary.gIay.Clara.net/comingsoon/alipI'e.hIm

SWING. ABOVE LEFT:Will Smith as Moharnmed Ali tkaes a swing at his audience in
a scene popularized as one of the film’s promotional posters. ABOVE: A victori-
ous, bulked—up Smith as Ali cheered to glory by a throng of adoring fans. The

movie, unfortunatley, does not meet with equal praise.

  yle lays down law in dorms

  ead custodian brings years of diverse experience to the freshman dorms

So the young man returned to Goshen and
took ajob at the wood plant for 7 years. After the
wood plant, Dale also worked at a frozen food

good.

hna.

delivery company called Schwan’s for a little over
a year before coming to Washington and Lee for

About five times each year, Dale, his wife, Karen,
who has worked for W&L for 20 years, and their two
kids, Steven Henry, 12, and Nicole Hope, 16, enjoy
camping and fishing at the Outer Banks of North Caro-

Finding the trips very relaxing, Dale remembers what

he loves the most about his variety of jobs on cam-

pus: precision and challenges.
Eventually, Dale would like to return to the

printing department, maybe to retire. For him,

AFTER 11 A.M., DALE AND
HIS CREW OF FOUR
CUSTODIANS ARE
RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY
CUSTODIAL MATTER THAT
MAY COME UP ON CAMPUS,
EXCEPT IN THE DOREMUS
GYM.

the printing job is where his heart is. The rela-

tionships he developed with
his co-workers and his mas-
tery of the skill were special
to Dale.

For now though, Dale is quite
happy helping to keep W&L as
beautiful and well—kept as it al-
ways has been.

What most people do not re-
alize is that after 11 a.m., Dale and
his crew of four custodians are
responsible for any custodial
matter that may come up on cam-
pus, except in the Doremus Gym.

That is a lot of responsibility forjust one small crew.

For an experienced world traveler, patriot, cattle-
raiser, and ocean fisherman, it’s just another thing that
gives his life variety. Though head custodian will prob-

ably not be his only job until retirement, Dale Lyle will

sible.

certainly do his best and make it as enriching as pos-

When asked what he thinks of the impact his
job has to the community, Dale responded with

an encouraging statement: “I think we do a good

job keeping the dorms looking good for the stu-
dents. I think the students and the parents seem

to be more appreciative each year of what we do.

And that’s nice.”
So if you see Dale walking from dorm to dorm, or
coming out of the “Den” under Graham-Lees, give a

wave, say “hello” and take pride in the way our

school looks each day.
Without people like Dale, this school would not

be the aesthetically magnificent university that it is.

 

I taste a delicious stereotype every
time I throw on my itchy gray tunic.
Volumes are spoken when I say I’m a
VMI cadet.

To alumni we’re part of an age-old
tradition and a heritage that
transcends any one person or time.

To our fathers we’re handsome
young men and women marching in
crisp unity on our 13-acre front yard
pledging a life of service and duty to
the country and the commonwealth.

To our mothers it’s an opportunity
to sport our cryptic spider logo on
everything from polo shirts to giant
stickers on the back of every vehicle
that we own. ,

To W&L (we Self—conscious cadets
think) we’re a group of mindless jack-
booted misogynistic robots.

To us it’s a drag.

It’s all true, but it’s not the whole
picture. A

I think more often than not, an
educated, open—minded person will hold
an intense bias against the military.
Bright, observant people have a built—in
reaction to all things regirnented.

 

MONDAY, JANUARY 21, 2002

top tenBOOKS@W&L

According to amazomcom, Harry Potter
is the book of choice for most W&L students...

   
  

5
up

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H‘  tter and the Goblet of Fire
Mary Grandpre (Illustrator)

National Security from
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amrrzan. earn it

  
  

  

   
 

$20.96 on amazontom
lirl qf 1/re current /op mi
domain

Mme W/11.5//I1

INFOGRAPHIC BY KATIE HOWELL / The Ring—tum Phi

The guy next door: 1

A VMI point of View

I remember walking into a
vegetarian restaurant on Washington
Street. Heads turned and the room
went silent as I came in wearing my
uniform. The psychic vibe screamed
“Whats that hyper-conservative
jingoist doing subverting my tofu
experience?”

Hey, you don’t have to wear
Birkenstocks to get a kick out of good
bean paste.

To the other extreme, I was walking
back from lunch when a well—dressed,
well—spoken, genteel Southern
woman asked me to pose for a picture.
She snapped a quick shot of me
standing up straight, with my hands
in the small of my back. Then she
pushed her sunglasses into her hair,
smiled, and extended a diamond-
studded hand out to me.

She told me there was a moral
war raging against American values
and places like VMI were among the
few bastions of hope left in the
country. I smiled, nodded, and
walked back to my room, past
clusters of cadets who were

 

BY SAM LAGRONE/STAEE CORRESPONDENT

smoking, swearing, and telling dirty
jokes.

But we have our own bias too.
There’s a joke that floats around post.
And I’m sure there are plenty about
Vlvfl.

“How many W&L students does
it take to screw in a light bulb?”

“Two, one to mix the drinks and
one to call his da 

There might be some truth to that,
but it’s not the whole story. I know.

And how would I know, the only
time I go on your campus is when I’m
puffing through on my mandatory
three mile run.

It goes to show that we can’t
fully understand everything right
away. That’s why I’m here. Every
week, assuming the fine editors of
the Ring-tum Phi will let me blow
my horn, I get to tell you a little about
the lives of the guys and gals who
walk like robots across your
campus.

If you want me to write about
something, if you want to disagree, drop
me a line at lagr0nesr@mail.vmI'.edu

Pamper yourself. . .

 

You know you want to write, so do it
email phi@wlu.edu

OCR::/Vol_104/WLURG39_RTP_20020121/WLURG39_RTP_20020121_006.2.txt
OCR::/Vol_104/WLURG39_RTP_20020121/WLURG39_RTP_20020121_007.2.txt
  

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‘ll/llloNDAY, JANUARY 21, 2002

( W&L vaults to upper half of

3 Art; ODAC with midseason spurt

BYJERENIYFRANRDN
SPORTS EDITOR

Although Roanoke snapped the
Washington and Lee women’s bas-
ketball five— game winning streak with
a 71-62 overtime win on Sunday, the
Generals have done enough to turn
their season around.

Back-to—back home losses to East-
ern Mennonite and Bridgewater on

A Jan. 4-5 left the Generals 3-6, 1-4 in

the Old Dominion Athletic Confer-
. ence. Now, despite Sunday’s setback

'3 to the Maroons, W&L has climbed

; into the top half of the ODAC stand-
ings at 8-7, 6-5.

V ‘ “At that point in time where it was
‘ 3-6, it was getting to the point where

u

I *§

: it wasn’t fun anymore,” senior for-
ward Jessica Mentz said. “Now we’re
‘' all playing together, and we’re hav-

4, ing an amazing time. We’ve really

‘..

A clicked, and we have really good team
chemistry right now.”

, In addition to playing together,

’ W&L coach Janet Hollack says her

4 BY MICHAEL LEE

SroRTs WRITER

V Monday night saw a pair of wins

for Washington and Lee swimming at

, Twombly Pool.

Grove City College traveled from
Pennsylvania to challenge the Gener-

V als, but were unsuccessful. The W&L

4

4

V

4

.‘.

 

O .

,4>V'$P

men triumphed 1 13-92, and the women
won 13 1-74.

players are starting to believe that
they can beat anyone on their
schedule.

“I think they’re actually starting to
believe in themselves and in our sys-
tem,” she said. “Once we all get on
the same page, we realize the poten-
tial that we have, and now we’re try-
ing to achieve that.”

The Generals maintained their mo-
mentum from a three-game road win-
ning streak with a 62-37 win over
Lynchburg Wednesday at the Warner
Center. W&L had little trouble with
the Hornets, rolling to a 28-12 half-
time lead.

Freshman Bethany Dannelly set a
school record with 11 assists, and
Mentz led the Generals with 29 points
and 13 rebounds. Senior Megan
Babst contributed 13 points, while
freshman Emily Barker scored 1 1.

W&L’s defense, which held
Lynchburg to 26 percent shooting
from the field, surpassed that effort in
a 57-33 drubbing of Hollins on Friday.
The Pride shot 16 percent from the
floor in the second half — 23 percent
for the game — and scored just 14
points after the break.

“That’s definitely a hats-off to

The women leapt to an early lead
over the Wolverines, capturing the
200 medley relay and never look-
ing back.

Junior Blair Huffman swept her
events, winning the 200 individual
medley, 200 breaststroke, and the 200
butterfly.

The Generals also concluded the
meet with a win, taking the 200 freestyle
relay and cruising to an easy victory.

PORTS

Roanoke ends Generals’ 5 - game winning strek

1
TIE: RrNo—’I‘tIM PI~II

_jLl\t.IVll1‘l\m\l\llN
Smmfimn
mmflmmmwwmo

our defense,” Hollack said. “Hollins
is a good shooting team. I didn’t
want us to get caught by surprise
by them able to get hot in our own
gym, so we certainly had to make
sure that we got our hands up in
their face.”

The Generals weren’t hurting on
the offensive end, as Mentz (19
points, 14 rebounds) and Babst (19,
11) each finished with double-
doubles. Barker added seven points,
and Dannelly had six points and six
assists.

Mentz was 6—of-10 from the floor

and Babst hit 8-of—l7 for a team that —

hit 48 percent of their field goals,
many of which came from down low.

“We always try to put it inside a
lot,” Mentz said. “A lot of times it
gets hard, because they crash and
pressure inside so much. Megan and
I are the ones who can usually pro-
duce and finish inside, but we have
to rely on our outside players to hit
some shots and open it up for us to
do that.”

Despite double-doubles for Mentz
and Babst again on Sunday, W&L
couldn’t set a new school record for
consecutive wins against Roanoke.

I if . . .
.;Sw1mmers swe ve City in home meet

~ Neither team could build a lead of bet-

ter than three points for the final 15 :48
of the second half, as the game was
knotted at 59-59 after regulation. '

However, the Generals managed
just three points in the extra frame in
the defeat.

Mentz had 25 points and 11 re-
bounds, while Babst added 19 points
and 12 rebounds. Barker contributed
13 points and seven boards.

Dannelly added 10 more assists,
breaking senior teammate Carter Tho-
mas’ year-old school record for single-
season assists at 86. 3

With nine ODAC contests remain-
ing, Hollack wants her team to con-
tinue doing the things that led to five
straight wins.

“Every coach always wants you
to continue doing what you’ve been
doing,” Hollack said. “That’s what I’m
preaching to them at practice: don’t
do anything out of the ordinary, re-
main consistent, lean on the things
that have gotten us there.

“If we improve each game and each
day, we’re definitely going to finish
at the top if we retain this roll.”

The Generals host conference power
Guilford at 7 p.m. on Wednesday.

WOLVERINES BITTEN: Juniors Blair Huffman (left) and Kirk Vogel swim in
Monday’s home dual meet against Grove City.,The W&L women defeated

Mary Guy/ The Ring-tum Pbz)

The men, on the other hand,
were behind at first. Grove City
won the 200 medley relay by four
hundredths of a second, in spite
of W&Ljunior Brett Burns’ come-
back on the anchor leg of 50
freestyle.

That first loss didn’t slow the Gen-
erals a bit. Junior Patrick Frankfort
and sophomore Colin Mitchell re-
stored the team’s confidence with

the Wolverines 13 l -74, while the men won by a 1 13-92 score. (Photos by

 

wins in the 1,000 freestyle and 200
freestyle, respectively.

Sophomore Eric Ritter also won his
two individual events, surprising
Grove City from the outside lane in
the 50 and 100 freestyle.

Monday night, Marymount Uni-
versity will travel to Lexington to con-
test the Generals in their final home
dual meet of the season. The meet
starts at 6 p.m.

    

PAGE 7

RY G/The Rig-tum P/Ji

GOOD POINT: Freshman Bethany Dannelly set a pair of school records for assists
this week: 1 1 in a single game in Wednesday’s 62-37 Win over Lynchburg and 86
in a season in the Generals’ 71-62 overtime loss to Roanoke on Sunday.

BY JEREMY FRANKLIN
SI>oRrs EDITOR

The Washington and Lee men’s
basketball team suffered through
more growing pains this week, drop-
ping a road contest to Guilford and
a home game to Virginia Wesleyan.

Aron McMillan led Guilford to a
65-51 win in Greensboro on
Wednesday. McMillan hit all eight
of his shots from the field for 16
points and collected eight rebounds
for the Quakers.

Junior Touissant Crawford led
the Generals with a season-high 16
points on 4-of—5 shooting from
three—point range, and classmate
Scott Hettermann added 15 points
and 10 rebounds.

W&L ran into a red—hot Virginia
Wesleyan team on Sunday. The Blue
Marlins (9-7, 7-3 ODAC), who upset
conference powerhouse Harnpden-
Sydney on the road on Wednesday,
used that momentum to pull out a 67-
50 win at the Warner Center.

Hetterrnann, who leads W&L in
scoring this season, left with a leg

Struggles continue for
young men’s hoops team

injury at the 15:36 mark of the first
half and didn’t return. The Generals
struggled mightily from the field, fail-
ing to hit a field goal for the first 10
minutes of the game and shooting
just 26.5 percent from the floor.

But W&L’s defense kept them in
the game, and the Generals trailed
just 27-19 at halftime. An early sec-
ond-half run closed the gap to 29-
28, but foul trouble soon plagued
the W&L frontcourt.

With freshman Mark Franceski
and sophomore Hamill Jones — who
led the team with 13 and 10 points,
respectively — on the bench, the
Blue Marlins blew the game open
with second-chance points. Virginia
Wesleyan outrebounded W&L 47-
28 for the contest.

Life won’t get any easier for
the Generals (4-1 1, 2-8) this week,
as the top-ranked Division 111
team in the nation, Randolph-
Macon, visits the Warner Center
at 7 p.m. tonight. W&L also faces
Emory and Henry on the road
Wednesday and Roanoke at
home Saturday.

Get involved with the best in NCAA Division III athletics...
Write or he spor 3 section 0

THE RING—TUM PHI

Opportunities are available now to cover basketball, rack  
and wrestling and, in he near uture, spring sports —

rom baseball to golf, lacrosse to tennis.
Contact Jeremy Franklin at X4060 or franklinj @wlu.edu

OCR::/Vol_104/WLURG39_RTP_20020121/WLURG39_RTP_20020121_008.2.txt
 

 

PAGE 8

  
 

MONOAY, JANUARY 21, 2002 V

Generals focus on remainder of season

W&L wrestlers host triangular Saturday look ahead to Feb. 16 Centennial Conference championships

BYDAVE CROWELL
ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR

The Washington and Lee wres-
tling team retumed to its roots in host-
ing the 25th annual W&L Invitational
on Saturday afternoon.

In the presence of W&L wrestling
alumni, the oldest having grappled
about six decades ago, the Generals
(2-3, 0-2 Centennial) ended the day
with a disappointing finish, accord-
ing to coach Gary Franke.

“We got some difficult draws to-
day,” the veteran coach said. “(Sopho-
more) Corey Little and (freshman) Brian
Avello faced some especially tough op-
ponents. Sometimes that happens to
you in big tournaments.

“I still think we need to get a little
more out of our seniors though, as far
as leadership and energy goes.”

Sophomore Joe Mueller placed
highest for the Generals, capturing
second place in the 184-pound class.
Mueller wrestled two close matches,
first defeating Adam Hicks of
Pensacola Christian College 3-2 in the
semifinals.

In the finals, Mueller fell to Wes
Kusetski, 5-3, of Washington and
Jefferson.

Senior Ivan Zdanov also wrestled
well on Saturday, seizing third place
in the 174-pound division.

Zdanov began his day with an im-
pressive showing against Chad
Lasher of Pensacola Christian, getting
a pin at 1:24. Zdanov was then de-
feated, 11-8, by Matt Smith of Wash-
ington and Jefferson, placing him in
the consolation finals.

CANCUN
JAMIIICJI
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THIRD-PLACE FINISH: Senior Ivan Zdanov (top) wrestles Washington and Jelfersons Matt Smith in the 174-pound class semifinals
at Saturdays W&L Invitational. Smith won the match, 1 1-8, but Zdanov beat Scranton’s ]ose Valdez in the consolation finals. .

Zdanov responded by beating Jose
Valdez of Scranton, 7-0, to capture third.

This weekend’s finish followed on
the heels of his second place showing
at the Ursinus Invitational on J an. 12.

“Ivan has been wrestling very well
for us,” Franke said. “He lost a real
heartbreaker last weekend , which was
a bit disappointing, but he’ll continue
to work hard.”

According to Franke, juniors Alex
Poor and John Polena also had a good
tournament at home, each being de-
feated in the consolation finals.

The Generals, however, had to en-
dure another day without their best

wrestler, senior captain Ezra Morse,
who has been sidelined with an ankle
injury.

“We’ve definitely missed Ezra,”
Franke said. “We’re looking forward
to him returning and providing his
leadership and energy.

“When you lose his kind of leader-
ship, it takes away some of the spark.”

Franke, for good reason, believes
that leadership, especially from se-
niors Zdanov and Ben Segal, will be
key as the team heads towards next
weekend’s W&L Triangular, in
which the Generals will face West-
ern Maryland and Ursinus.

Gallaudet recently dropped out of
the competition, which was origi-
nally designed as a quadrangular.

“We have two real challenges com-
ing up,” Franke said. “Westem Mary-
land is very tough and I believe
Ursinus is the second best team in
the Centennial Conference.

In addition, the team is moving
closer to the ultimate test, the Cen-
tennial Conference Tournament on
Feb. 16.

“It’s in the back of our heads, but
right now we need to concentrate on
our triangulars and going to Newport
News,” Sega] said.

  

W&L SPORTS SCHEDULES JANUARY 22-28

Monday, Jan. 21

Wednesday, Jan. 23 January 25-26

Swimming Men’s Basketball Indoor Track wrestling
, Mary’moBiint|s:1tVl\,I&|||_,6p.m. W&Lat Emory and Henry, \;V&.Lat('3hristopherNewpOrt 
com Men s as et a 7p.m. wimming | W&L at Bridgewater, 4 pm
FlandolphMaoonatW&L, Women’s Basketball W&L vs. Johns Hopkins Menis Basketbau
7p.m. Guiltord at W&L, 7 p.m. and Mary Washington Roanoke at W&L, 7 p.m.

Saturday, Jan. 26

‘x

   
 
   
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
   
  
 
   
  
   
   
   
   
  
   
  
  
    
   
  
  
   
  
   
  
   
   
    

80

Photobywchaelmaueo

its nopammm our-mpafiauon

This bracelet was a gift Amber Apodaca
received from the center where she helped teens with
drug and alcohol problems. She was wearing it

when an underage drunk driver took her life.

Friends Don’_t Let Friends Drive Drunk.