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Executive Editor

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Chris “Zombie Ron Jeremy” Sprindis

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Max “Sexy Bo Peep” Siegal

Arts Editors

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H/+0=$##'23(%

-3*/(50I)BJ

“Who’s Armory? OUR Ar-

mory!” cried hundreds of pas-

sionate Northwest Bronx resi-

dents as they marched down

University Avenue on Sunday

afternoon. Holding signs—“Say

no way to poverty pay”—and

their fi sts in the air, the group

made way toward the Kings-

bridge Armory from St. Nicho-

las Church on University and

Fordham, where community

organizations had gathered to

demand community-benefi cial

development of the Armory

from local politicians and City

Council members.

The Kingsbridge Armory

was built in 1917 and is the

world’s largest armory—a nine-

story red-brick building that

covers the entire block from

Kingsbridge Road and 195th

Street to Reservoir and Jerome

Avenues with interior space

roughly equivalent to 4 foot-

ball fi elds. It was designated a

city landmark in 1974, and the

state gave the title to the armory

and its property to New York

City in 1996. Currently, the Ar-

mory is occupied by sectors of

the National Guard, but now,

The Related Companies, the

mega-developer that built the

Time Warner Center and Union

Square, wants to develop a mall

within the Armory. This pro-

posal was met with strong pro-

tests from community groups,

especially the Northwest Bronx

Community & Clergy Coalition

and the Kingsbridge Redevel-

opment Alliance (KARA), who

demand that Related Compa-

nies sign a Community Benefi ts

agreement before any develop-

ment begins.

This Sunday the Northwest

Bronx Community & Clergy

Coalition invited congress-

men, state senators, city council

members, and other elected of-

fi cials to a forum, “Blueprint for

the Bronx,” in the St. Nicholas

school gymnasium to hear the

specifi c requests of the commu-

nity concerning the Armory, im-

migration reform, and housing

foreclosure issues.

Among them, Bronx Bur-

rough President Ruben Diaz, Jr.

made a powerful speech to the

packed audience that focused

solely on the Armory Redevel-

opment issue.

“Telling ‘no’ to powerful

millionaires

is not an easy

thing. The

pressure is

hard,” said

Diaz. A wom-

an amidst

the packed

crowd yelled,

“We got your

back!”

“Right,”

he continued,

“and that’s

why I know

we are do-

ing the right

thing.”

Diaz, who

is partnered with the NWBCCC,

laid out the facts on the issue—

that the Armory is worth $25

million, that the city plans to

sell it to Related Companies for

$5 million, and that the mega-

developer will get $17 million

in tax breaks, affording Related

Companies a huge profi t.

“I want to do business in the

Bronx; I want developments.

But it’s not radical to say to

Related that if you’re going to

develop you need to a) consider

the affect on the local business-

es and b) give people good jobs,

full-time, with benefi ts!” Diaz

continued, assuring the cheer-

ing crowd that he will continue

to “say no” to the development

of the Armory until they sign

the Community Benefi ts agree-

ment.

The Community Benefi ts

agreement demands that Re-

lated ensures unionized paying

jobs for local residents at a liv-

ing wage of at least $10/hour

and prevents the creation of a

“poverty wage center” of 1,200

part-time, low benefi t jobs that

the Shops at the Armory mall

would give. It demands that Re-

lated Companies does not bring

any commercial retail space into

the armory that will displace the

hundreds of local businesses in

the area, and it demands that 4

small schools be constructed on

the north side of the Armory to

assuage overcrowding in Bronx

schools.

Bill Thompson, Democratic

candidate for mayor, spoke out

to the crowd, “Is this a city of

New Yorkers or a city of the

rich?” Backed by uproar from

the crowd, he pointed his fi nger

at City Hall. The Bronx has the

highest poverty rate in the coun-

try, with 37.8% of families in

the Bronx living below the pov-

erty level.

“Mike Bloomberg has taken

care of his developer friends

and ignored the needs of the

community. If the developers

are making so much money, we

should have jobs!” he continues.

The Related Companies is

one of the top three mega-devel-

opers in New York City. Chair-

man & CEO Stephen M. Ross,

owner of the Miami dolphins

and the 78th richest person in

America, is appraised at $2.5

million.

Though Related Compa-

nies “wants to see a project that

will uplift the community while

making money for the develop-

ers at the same time,” there have

been no intentions of creating

any full-time positions. This

would “further entrench the

poverty cycle in the communi-

ty,” according

to KARA rep-

resentatives.

Address-

ing the need

for more

schools in

the Bronx,

17-year-old

Miguel Rodri-

guez and other

youth leaders

from Sisters

and Brothers

United spoke

out, saying,

“We shouldn’t

have classes

in the hall-

ways and cafeterias.” With a ra-

tio of 35 students to each teach-

er, schools are overcrowded

in the Bronx. The Department

of Education has justifi ed this

with a 2005 statistic, asserting

that they only expected that 1/3

of these children will get to the

12th grade and that they will

therefore build enough space for

this 36% of students.

High school students from

SBU dressed in graduation

gowns and formed a line in front

of the stage holding signs saying

“What about me?” and “I’m not

in the 36%,” while their peers

at the podium urged members

of the audience to sign letters

imploring Ernesto Padron of the

Muller Local Redevelopment

Authority to move the National

Guard out of the Armory so that

much-needed schools will be

built in that space.

After more cheers of, “Sí se

puede!” and, “2,4,6,8, Related

must negotiate!” ceased, Pastor

Catrina Foster, representing the

community, directly addressed

City Council Majority Leader

Joel Rivera, asking him if he

will write to council members

to ensure that Related will not

be allowed to develop until they

sign the Community Benefi ts

agreement. He responded yes,

pointing to the crowd, “Because

for 30 years it has not been

Bloomberg or big developers

that have had developing ideas

for this Armory, it has been all

of you!”

The energy of the room

and the strength of the crowd’s

cheers that fi lled the space were

then carried onto the streets for

the ! mile walk and protest to

the Armory.

Fr. Jim Sheehan, a campus

minister at Bronx Community

College who was sitting in the

audience, explained that “any

time people aren’t afforded

good jobs and schools aren’t

developed well, the only insti-

tution here is the prison indus-

try—and the Armory is in a way

a symbol of that. The prison in-

dustry is a step-child of gentri-

fi cation and unplanned develop-

ments—we don’t need another

cheap development.”

Sheehan attended the forum

along with hundreds of his fel-

low residents because they “be-

lieved in social justice,” and,

specifi cally, “wanted the com-

munity’s voice to be heard.”

Fordham students can get

involved by contacting anyone

in Dr. Jeanine Fletcher’s Ser-

vice Learning Course focused

on KARA (specifi cally Mike

Haskins at mhaskins@fordham.

edu). Additional information is

available online at ourarmory.

org. There will be a City Coun-

cil hearing on November 12th

that will decide whether or not

to approve Related Companies

plan - the last chance for voices

to be heard.

by Kaitlin Campbell

STAFF BRONX ADVOCATE

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Growwwl!

“EEEE!”

Ruben Diaz, Jr. rallies

the community.

Recently, the Obama White

House has seemingly “declared

war” on FOX News, with staff-

ers ranging from Communica-

tions Director Anita Dunn to

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs

and even Chief of Staff Rahm

Emmanuel taking rhetorical pot

shots at the media giant. This

war went nuclear on October

23rd when FOX correspondent

Major Garrett was denied an in-

terview with White House pay

czar Kenneth Feinberg. After a

terrifi c little storm erupted, the

situation was cleared up and

FOX got their interview with the

man just like everyone else, but

a rotten taste had clearly been

left in some peoples’ mouths.

As per usual in the past nine

months, much mouth-breathing

rage and paranoia has been

spent discussing the White

House’s so-called “War on FOX

News.” Here’s some Real Talk:

FOX News is a disgrace to jour-

nalism, a poisonous presence in

the media landscape and shame-

less in its lowbrow nature, and

I personally condone this “war,”

which will prove to be both

a smart move politically for

Obama and represents the sort

of frank openness and honesty

promised in Obama’s presiden-

tial campaign.

These skirmishes have come

at the tail end of a ludicrous

summer where FOX News

openly peddled baseless con-

spiracy theories and outright

lies while offering itself up as a

powerful promoter of the woe-

fully stupid T.E.A. Parties. The

inherent bias in

FOX News may

have always

been readily ap-

parent, but at no

point in the net-

work’s thirteen-

year history has

it found itself so

openly meddling

in politics at the

beck and call of

the Republican

Party.

A number

of analysts and

thinkers have

come out oppos-

ing the pushback

on ethical terms. Notably, the

venerable Helen Thomas has

warned the Obama Administra-

tion to back off, which is trou-

bling to say the least. Thomas

has the experience, fortitude

and moral compass to make her

word gospel in most cases. Un-

surprisingly, on the other side of

the coin, Karl Rove (who’s now

moonlighting as a FOX News

political analyst) has declared

the FOX pushback “Nixonian,”

with scores of conservative

“thinkers” following suit. Toby

Harnden, a columnist for the

UK Telegraph, wrote that the

sparring is indicative of a presi-

dency stuck in campaign mode,

placing importance in rhetoric

and media presence rather than

taking on pressing issues of

state. Others, like The Huffi ng-

ton Post’s Jason Linkins, have

argued that while they agree

with the substance of the tactic,

they foresee negative political

fallout from the attacks.

Given the obvious impor-

tance of an autonomous press in

American democracy, the eye-

brow-raising across the board

is superfi cially understandable.

But as Salon’s Glenn Green-

wald helpfully pointed out, vo-

cally criticizing your media op-

ponents is a far cry from the sort

of Carnivalesque skullduggery

that the Bush White House free-

ly engaged in to keep the dumb

press quiet. Calling FOX out

for being what it is and doing

what it does in press

conferences bears

little ethical resem-

blance to Bush’s

CIA wiretapping of

CBS, ABC, the New

York Times and the

Washington Post

as a pushback from

their reports on se-

cret prisons abroad.

Rhetorical barbs

have nothing on the

sheer barbarism of

the Bush

White House’s

detaining of Al

Jazeera camera

man Sami al-Haj

for six years, or the detention of

the Pulitzer Prize-winning war

photographer Bilal Hussein on

bogus charges after his pictures

showed a different reality than

what Bush offi cials were art-

fully constructing.

The petty political reality of

the situation is that the decision

to lean on FOX hard is a move

designed to fi re up the liberal

base by whipping the hapless

boobs on the Right into a con-

spiracy theory-fueled frenzy

and letting all the world be once

again reminded of their lunacy.

While Glenn Beck (of all peo-

ple) fi red back with irreverent

humor, playing up wartime im-

agery by putting a red telephone

on his desk that the White House

can call whenever he spouts an

inaccuracy; others, like media

wash-up Tucker Carlson, are

all too willing to play the hy-

perbole card. Carlson whined

about the rest of the media cow

towing to the pushback, bizarre-

ly ignoring the overwhelming

slew of critics from everywhere

in the media spectrum. It’s very

obvious that the White House

won’t destroy or discredit FOX

News—if anything, this gives

them another whiney talking

point to harp on for the next

three years, playing into their

newfound conservative-white-

folks-as-victim shtick, and FOX

does a wonderful job of discred-

iting itself on its own. What it

does do is cause people like

Senator Lamar Alexander (R-

Tenn.) to shout about invisible

“enemies lists” in Congress and

talking heads/demagogues and

conservative bloggers to inevi-

tably continue spouting absurd

Holocaust/Stalin/Nixon com-

parisons, all of which make for

entertaining lunacy for the quiet

majority of America.

by Charles Hailer

STAFF DEADITOR

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The words “rent control”

tend to have somewhat of a

nostalgic connotation for New

York residents. Many long-

time and native inhabitants re-

member this term as a remnant

of a bygone era, when New

York’s middle and working

class could still live in a vari-

ety of neighborhoods and areas

throughout the fi ve boroughs

for a reasonable price (by New

York standards). With the onset

of rezoning projects and wide-

spread gentrifi cation in the post-

Giuliani years and with the ar-

bitrary reassigning of formerly

middle-class areas as “hip” or

“up-and-coming,” rent control

is looking more and more like

an artifact from the past, re-

membered by many but expe-

rienced by very few. However,

with the help of a recent ruling,

the New York Court of Appeals

may just be the bureaucratic Je-

sus that the rent control Lazarus

needs to spring forth from the

rocks and walk once again.

On Thursday, October 22nd,

the Appellate Division of the

New York State Supreme Court

made a landmark ruling against

the Tishman-Speyer partner-

ship regarding their holdings

at Stuyvesant Town and Peter

Cooper Village, two of the na-

tion’s largest apartment com-

plexes. The partnership, con-

sisting of Tishman-Speyer

Properties and BlackRock Real

Estate, along with the com-

plex’s former owner, Metro-

politan Life, was found in a 4-2

decision by the court to be liable

for an estimated $200 million in

rent overcharges and damages

to tenants of 4,352 units in both

Stuyvesant Town and

Peter Cooper Village.

The rent overcharges

in question were, ac-

cording to the rul-

ing, a direct violation

of New York’s J-51

housing program,

which was created to

encourage building

renovation and im-

provement in NYC

apartments.

According to the

provisions of the J-51

housing program, a

landlord may be eligible for

partial tax exemptions and

abatement benefi ts provided

that the landlord or building

owner does decontrol the rent

of or charge market price for

the apartments being renovated.

The Tishman-Speyer partner-

ship had been collecting ben-

efi ts and enjoying an estimated

$24 million in tax breaks since

1992 as a result of the major

renovations and refurbishments

taking place at their Manhattan

properties, all the while selling

units at market rate, decontrol-

ling units and raising rents for

long-time residents by up to a

thousand dollars per month to

defer the cost of renovations

and to change the demographic

of its tenants.

Though the decision was

welcomed by many tenants, who

over the past few year have seen

their rents raised astronomical-

ly, real estate industry profes-

sionals are lamenting the court’s

ruling as potentially crippling to

the industry as a whole. Land-

lords and building owners all

over the New York metropolitan

area fear that the paradigm shift

(that is, the increased regula-

tion of NYC rents) represented

by the decision would drive

many buildings currently under

renovation into bankruptcy and

foreclosure, thereby having a

retroactive effect on New York

real estate for owners and ten-

ants alike.

Many owners and investors

have used the J-51 housing pro-

gram as a means of refurbishing

apartments and complexes to

meet the rapidly growing de-

mand for luxury housing in New

York, and have hiked

their tenants’ rents and

taken out numerous

loans to diffuse the cost

of these renovations.

This is especially true

for the Tishman-Speyer

Partnership, whose fi -

nancial reserves, kept

to pay the gap between

rent revenues, have

dwindled down to only

$24 million within the

last several years. If

the rent overcharge and

damages reparations are

paid to tenants according to the

court decision, then the partner-

ship is expected to default as

early as December of this year.

Though the fi nancial im-

plications of this decision are

certainly vast, the social im-

plications cannot be ignored.

This court’s ruling stands as the

fi rst major attack on gentrifi ca-

tion and unchecked rent rising

in New York. Stuyvesant Town

and Peter Cooper Village stand

as near-perfect examples of the

far-reaching ramifi cations of re-

cent New York gentrifi cation.

Built for returning WWII vet-

erans in the late 1940s (rents at

the time ranged from $51 to $90

a month for one and fi ve bed-

room units, respectively), these

complexes have since been

regarded as a vestige of New

York’s urban middle class. The

complexes have housed every-

one from FDNY fi refi ghters to

immigrant families and nearly

everyone in between. How-

ever, since the Tishman-Speyer

Partnership took over the prop-

erties, these residents have been

systematically squeezed out by

absurd rent hikes in order to

make way for a younger gen-

eration with more disposable in-

come and an eye for pretentious

aesthetics (many of the recent

renovations ape the minimalis-

tic style of failed Williamsburg

condominium projects and em-

ploy glass walls, white plastic

and imitation Keith Harring

artwork). Though the ruling

against Tishman-Speyer may

indeed create fi nancial woes for

investors and landlords around

the city, it nonetheless repre-

sents an institutionalized recog-

nition of the problems inherent

in the practice of gentrifi cation,

and a possible step toward miti-

gating its effects on New York’s

middle class.

by Sean Kelly

STAFF RENT CONTROL

NY Court of Appeals Rules in Favor of NYC Tenants

Super-fake photo

rendering, just like

the ones Fordham

has around the

construction site

!"#$%&'(%)"#*+)&,*)#*-".#./&0*1)$2,/#345676&3/89

When they say

“fair and balanced,”

they’re referring to

their checkbooks,

really.

!"#!$%&'()*'(++,' #-%'./.%&' ./0%'1

Funny story: Balloon boy

was in his garage the whole

time! Not-so-Funny story: Your

New York State Senator, Hiram

Monserrate, was just convicted

on domestic abuse charges for

stabbing his girlfriend in the

face.

Last December Monser-

rate’s girlfriend, Karla Giraldo,

appeared at the Long Island

Jewish Medical Center battered,

bleeding, and distraught. She

told hospital workers that Mon-

serrate had attacked her in their

Queens apartment, slashing her

across the face with a piece of

broken glass. Twenty stitches

criss-crossing around her left

eye later, Giraldo left the medi-

cal center. As the press has re-

peatedly pointed out, she seems

to have left her story there, too.

As required by New York

law, Monserrate was arrested

and charged after Giraldo’s ap-

pearance at the hospital. Once

Giraldo learned of Monserrate’s

arrest, reported lead prosecutor

Scott Kessler, she changed her

story. “I’ve always said this was

an accident,” Giraldo said in an

interview with the New York

Daily News. She reiterated this

testimony in court, vehemently

supporting Monserrate’s claim

that he clumsily tripped and

the not-at-all-suspicious bro-

ken glass he was holding ac-

cidentally tore into her fl esh.

She continued to testify as such

despite condemning testimo-

nies from multiple Long Island

Medical Center staffers and a

surveillance video

revealing Mon-

serrate dragging

a clearly injured

Giraldo through

their apartment

building’s lobby.

Giraldo’s testi-

mony was particu-

larly important, as

the evidence pro-

tecting Monser-

rate was shaky and

Clue-like at best,

a prime example

being Giraldo’s

bloody fi ngerprint

on the bedroom light switch.

Monserrate’s lawyer Joseph

Tacopina argued that the lights

were off prior to the incident

and “you don’t commit domes-

tic abuse in a pitch black room”

(a phrase I nominate as the new

“you don’t wear white after la-

bor day”).

However weakly the de-

fense’s arguments came across,

the facts remained that the inci-

dent occurred behind a closed

bedroom door and the victim

(the only witness) testifi ed in

favor of the defendant. The jury

acquitted Monserrate of the fel-

ony charges, conviction on any

of which would have ripped him

from offi ce and rushed him to a

seven-year prison sentence. The

state senator was found guilty

of only the sixth count: a mis-

demeanor for the violence wit-

nessed in the surveillance tape.

“She’s injured and bruised,

black and blue marks. There’s

skin tearing. There are already

injuries and a lot of blood,” the

judge described, adding “the

state has clearly proven he did

indeed cause injury to Karla

Giraldo without a reasonable

doubt.”

With the court-ordered re-

straining order between the

couple lifted and Monserrate

headed back to his senate seat,

the outcome of the case is un-

settling. It can be hard to grasp

why someone so clearly victim-

ized could support the source

of twenty stitches,

a bruised arm, and

the humiliation of

a public trial. How-

ever, what is prov-

ing more unsettling

is the gossip-rag

quality debate over

Giraldo’s deci-

sions. The head-

lines have been

spinning particu-

larly out of control

since she expressed

her hopes to marry

Monserrate in the

near future. Giraldo

has been labeled an idiot, an

embarrassment, and a liar. Most

(least) tastefully, Joanna Molloy

of the New York Daily News

called Giraldo “another member

of the Rihanna Denial Club.”

As was true in the case of

Rihanna, the villainization of

Giraldo is not justifi ed. Giraldo

is, like one in four women, a

victim of the cycle of domestic

abuse. While she claimed be-

ing dragged through the lobby

was the fi rst time she had ex-

perienced Monserrate’s anger,

neighbors reported that they

had often heard she and Mon-

serrate fi ghting. This suggests

that if violence hadn’t already

broken out, at the very least an

unhealthy dynamic had wormed

its way into their relationship.

So why would she return to

Monserrate or commit herself to

marrying him? Because abusers

are manipulative assholes. Stud-

ies have show that it takes the

average woman 4-7 tries to leave

her abusive partner, and of those

who do leave only about one

quarter ever report violence to

the police (see: the Onion News

Network’s “Domestic Abuse No

Longer A Problem, Say Bruised

Female Researchers”). With

this in mind, consider the ter-

rifying task that faced Giraldo.

Not only would she have to fi nd

the incredible internal strength

needed to leave her abusive

partner, but she would need to

do so on a national scale for the

Overall Good of Women. I can’t

imagine the fear one would

have to overcome or the heal-

ing one would have to undergo

to become such an advocate. I

believe Giraldo has the power

to one day fi nd that strength—

I just hope she doesn’t ask me

where to begin looking for it.

by Marisa Carroll

STAFF GETS OFF EASY (?)

NY State Senator Convicted (Slightly) on Domestic Abuse Charges

Despite the 18th century’s

dearth of deer in New York

State, deer have made a huge

comeback over the last 15 years,

according to senior conservation

ecologist at the Wildlife Conser-

vation Society Eric Sanderson.

During the harsh winters in the

Revolutionary era, the lumber

industry grew in tandem with

the cities, putting deer popula-

tions at risk. In the ongoing bat-

tle of Bambi versus woodlands,

it seems now that the tables

have turned. While deer have

been sighted in Alley Pond Park

in Queens, Inwood Hill Park in

Manhattan and wooded areas in

both the Bronx and on Staten

Island, trees younger than 20

years old have not. Conserva-

tionists in the area worry that

there will be no forests to speak

of in 50 years, as deer quite lit-

erally eat up their resources and

habitats upstate, leaving voids

termed “browselines.” These

herds of hinds are marching

to the big city by land and by

sea—via parkways, greenways,

and waterways. And with this

infi ltration, comes indignation.

Towns, villages, and counties

in the region have dispatched

bowhunters and sometimes

sharpshooters to cull the herds.

Now Westchester County, one

of the largest local jurisdictions,

is jumping on the deer death

docket, approving the cull in its

parkland, towns, and villages.

These areas represent among

the most densely populated re-

gions to authorize culling, and

therefore prefer the supposedly

safer method of bowhunting.

Because a typical arrow’s range

reaches no farther than 30 yards

(compared to a bullet’s 200

yards) and usu-

ally heads down-

wards, harming

innocents (well,

innocent non-

deer, at least) is

less likely.

For three

years now the

county has been

mulling methods

over, and it seems

they’ve reached

their conclusion

in a recent invite.

Sixty-fi ve hunt-

ers RSVPed to municipal or-

ders that read something like:

“You’re Invited! What: A cull!

Where: August county, specifi -

cally Muscoot Farm and Lasdon

Parks When: Early November

until the year’s end. Compen-

sation: As much venison as

you want!!” Yep, these hunters

aren’t killing does for dough—

they will only be paid in endless

meat and gloating rights, with

whatever they leave ending up

in food banks. Following the

WC’s move for hunting with

$1,000 fi berglass-or-carbon-

constructed bows and aluminum

arrows, three Hudson-side sub-

urbs are considering slaughter-

ing strategies as well. Hastings-

on-Hudson, Dobbs Ferry, and

Irvington of the Town of Green-

burgh, as well as Rockland

across the Hudson, are weigh-

ing the pros and cons of con-

trolled gun and bow hunts. As

a member of the deer task force

(yes, that exists) of Greenburgh

solemnly commented on the

deer-lemma, “Nobody wants to

eliminate Bambi. We just need

to manage the numbers.”

On this pro-“management”

side, deer ruin suburban land-

scaping, splatter-paint SUVs

with their blood, encourage

highway rubbernecking, threat-

en the survival of species like

the wood thrush and Kentucky

warbler (which need the low-

rise forests that deer are eating

for nesting), endanger people

with Lyme disease, and don’t

use an “s” when pluralized

(what the hell is up with that?)

On the other hand, while bow-

hunting might be safer, it is far

crueler. An arrow doesn’t kill

the deer immediately,

causing tremendous

suffering. Moreover,

it’s not as if a humane

alternative doesn’t

exist. As Dr. Patri-

cia Cohn suggested

in Valley Forge of

Pennsylvania, por-

cine zona pellucid

(or PZP), an immu-

nocontraceptive, can

be successfully used

to limit deer popula-

tions, as it already is

used by the federal

government on wild mares and

has reduced deer herds at the Na-

tional Institute of Standards and

Technology in Maryland and at

Fire Island National Seashore.

Coupled with contraception,

eating areas could be fenced off

so that deer don’t gobble too

much ground-level vegetation

and saplings, and as Priscilla

Feral, president of the Darien,

Connecticut-based Friends of

Animals, perhaps herds don’t

need thinning at all. She blames

humans’ “reckless overdevelop-

ment” for pushing deer to the

suburbs, and humans’ reckless

hunting for pushing them to fl ee

to the highways. In lieu of dart-

gunning birth control pills, she

suggests body checks for ticks

to prevent Lyme disease and a

simple fencing mechanism.

You may write such protests

off as biased animal lovers, but

members of the Audobon Soci-

ety actually argue that the real

cruelty would be not enforcing

a deer cull. Mr. Johansson, the

naturalist at the Bedford Audo-

bon Society claimed that with

depleted forests come depleted

food sources, and the deer are

starving. He has found mature

adults weighing only 60 pounds,

a fate worse than either arrow or

bullet. Whatever the method,

other offi cials believe deer cull-

ing won’t work at all, arguing

that the herd will work to sur-

vive, by breeding earlier or giv-

ing birth to more deer at a time,

ultimately producing more deer

than before. This theory, how-

ever, hasn’t been extensively

proven. What is clear, though,

is that with roughly 63 deer per

square mile (in contrast to the

preferred 10) in some parts of

Westchester, for the fl ora’s sake,

the fawns have to go…some-

where.

by Sarah Madges

STAFF ROBIN HOOD

!""#$%&'()*+,&-$./')&0"1$,-$2"3$4&#5$

The face of innocence?

Hardly.

File photo from the short-lived

“Adopt-a-Deer”program.

!"#"$%&$'()*+'%,-".%/)00$1%)2%34)5$6"-0$'

Chris Brown Reportedly Excited to Have New Cellmate in Hell

!"#$%&%% '($%!"!$)% *+'*,$)%-./%-001

Last week, in an unprec-

edented display of stupidity, the

Heene family of Fort Collins,

Colorado, proved that Ameri-

cans really will do almost any-

thing to get on television when

they pretended to have “acci-

dentally” launched their 6 year

old son in a giant silver weather

balloon, leading a two-hour

wild media helicopter chase

that was eventually found to be

a hoax when the empty balloon

landed and the country sheriff

found the son in a cardboard

box in the attic. Yeah, seriously.

The Heene’s fam-

ily consists of hus-

band Richard, wife

Mayumi, and their

three sons, Bradford,

10, Ryo, 8, and Fal-

con, 6. They fi rst ap-

peared on TV on an

episode of Wife Swap,

described as “a family

of storm-chasers who

devote their time to

scientifi c experiments

that include looking

for extraterrestrials

and building a re-

search-gathering fl y-

ing saucer to send in

the eye of the storm”.

That may sound cool,

but in reality the fam-

ily has no associa-

tions with any sort of

scientifi c research programs;

Richard Heene has a high school

education and is now a self-em-

ployed tile layer and the family

is essentially nothing more than

a bundle of science nerds who

post weather videos on their

blog. Seemingly harmless--until

you give them their 15 minutes

of fame and it infl ates their head

at such a rapid rate it eventually

explodes, spewing lies all over

the national news. On October

15, calls were put in to the Fed-

eral Aviation Administration

(FAA), local TV station KUSA-

TV (from which they requested

a helicopter to fi lm the balloons

progress), and then, fi nally,

emergency services, where they

expressed concern that their

son was in the balloon. Richard

Heene described the balloon as

a prototype for futuristic mode

of transportation where one

could fl y above cars at low lev-

els; this is laughable not only

because it’s an utterly ridiculous

concept, but also because the

“balloon” was made of plastic

sheets covered in aluminum foil

and the “basket” that Falcon had

supposedly been hiding in was

merely thin plywood and card-

board held together with string

and duct tape. Yeah, defi nitely

what I’m going to trade my

car in for. To also put Heene’s

mental state in perspective, he

reported that the balloon had a

“high voltage timer” which was

switched on and “would emit

one million volts every fi ve

minutes for one minute”. From

aluminum foil and tape? False,

Richie Heene. False.

So TV stations everywhere

follow this balloon for 50 miles,

across three counties, before it

lands outside of Denver Inter-

national Airport. Planes were

rerouted, the Colorado Coast

Guard was called, and surprise!

The balloon is empty. Turns out

this Falcon wasn’t fl ying - soon

after, the boy was found hiding

in the cardboard box in the fam-

ily’s attic. This inevitably raised

the idea that the entire thing had

been a publicity stunt, and the

Larimer County Sheriff’s of-

fi ce began investigating the in-

cident. Suspicions were raised

even more several days later

when the family was featured

on Larry King Live and Falcon,

upon asked why he didn’t come

out when his name was called,

turned to his parents and said,

“You guys said we did this for

the show”. Owned. The fol-

lowing day, when the family

was featured on Good Morning

America and the Today show,

Falcon actually vomited during

both shows when asked about

his comment AND when his

father was asked about it. Not

at all suspicious. Investigations

into the balloon by the Colo-

rado State University physics

staff also revealed that the bal-

loon could not have held the 50

pound boy – it had a maximum

capacity of 37 lbs, and even with

that likely wouldn’t have been

able to take off. Background

checks on Richard and Mayumi

revealed they met at a Holly-

wood acting school; Richard

was a failed actor/stand-up co-

median, and both the sheriff and

Richard’s associates described

him as obsessed with self-pro-

motion and television. If that

isn’t enough to indicate fraud…

THEY FOUND THE BOY IN

THE ATTIC. The Heene fam-

ily avidly denied it was a hoax,

but the overwhelming evidence

eventually forced Mayumi to

admit that they had lied to au-

thorities and the incident was,

in fact, fabricated; the affada-

vit stated: “The motive for the

fabricated story was to

make the Heene fami-

ly more marketable for

future media interest.”

Richard had had plans

for a documentary sci-

ence show he dubbed

The Science Detec-

tives, which entailed

storm-chasing and

pursuits of extraterres-

trial life. He pitched

the show to TLC

months before, and it

was (not surprisingly)

rejected. The October

incident appeared to

be nothing more than

a fanatical attempt to

garner enough media

attention for their own

show. The sad thing is,

had they not done so

they would have got-

ten their wish – the producer

of Wife Swap stated that prior

to the “Balloon Boy Incident”

there had been a show about the

Heenes in the works (the type

of show was not mentioned) but

following the publicity stunt the

idea was immediately dropped.

Currently the parents are

facing numerous charges, in-

cluding conspiracy to commit a

crime, contributing to the delin-

quency of a minor, and fi ling a

false report with authorities, as

well as a federal investigation

from the FAA, not to mention

the fact that the commissioned

Coast Guard helicopters that

followed the balloon cost thou-

sands of dollars. The Heenes

are pleading not guilty and no

charges have offi cially been

fi led yet, but it’s safe to assume

some form of action will be

taken against them. I’m not re-

ally sure what the lesson is here.

Your 6-year-old will rat you out

via projectile vomit? Aluminum

and tape do not a spaceship

make? Wife Swap is corrupting

America? Whatever it is, the

Heenes family can undoubtedly

we used as an example of what

NOT to do.

by Mickie Meinhardt

STAFF BIRDWATCHER

!"#$$%%&'"%()*'

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'%*'(&by Max Siegal, Sean Patrick Kelly, and Sean Bandfi eld

STAFF LIARS

BRONX, NY ~ In response to the ongoing surge in crime and

public disturbances in the greater Belmont neighborhood, noted

theologian and President of Fordham Univeristy Fr. Joseph M.

McShane, S.J.*, announced a new security initiative, the Jesuit

Escort with Students (“JEWS”) program. Still in its pilot stages,

the JEWS program aims to pair groups of students traipsing about

the Tri-bar with an elderly Jesuit from the on-campus geriatric

communities, resulting in mutual benefi ts. “The presence of aged

men in collars,” Fr. McShane explained, “will hopefully discour-

age any perpetrators planning to harass Fordham students. Ad-

ditionally, our Jesuits will enjoy the company, what with some-

one to fi nally tell their stories to besides bored nurse’s aides and

stuffed teddy bears.” Fordham Administration did not comment,

though, about the potential for the JEWS program to inhibit the

instances of co-habitation, as boners are scientifi cally proven to

occur up to 72% less when in the presence of clergymen.

-M.S.

WASHINGTON, D.C. ~ In a report released Saturday by the

Department of the Interior in conjunction with Biblical scholars

from Harvard School of Divinity, offi cials stated that, after care-

ful examination of scriptural texts, scholars have determined that

Willem Dafoe is in fact the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse.

Eclipsed throughout history by his four more famous counter-

parts Conquest, War, Famine, and Death, Dafoe was confi rmed

to be, in fact, the sparsely described and oft-forgotten Horseman

of Minor Inconvenience and Mundane Frustration. “With the re-

lease of my latest fi lm, Antichrist, I thought that now would be

the most appropriate time to reveal my identity,” said Dafoe to

eager reporters in a press conference after the report’s release to

the public. Dafoe stated that after a short promotional tour for

his latest fi lm, he will return to his ancestral home of the City of

Dis (located in Hell’s scenic 5th Circle) to prepare for his next

return in 2012.

-S.P.K.

BALTIMORE, MD ~ The famous poet Edgar Allen Poe was

buried this month for the third time in 160 years. Poe enthusi-

asts and literary scholars gathered in Baltimore to honor the grim

master of the macabre 200 years after his birth, and to compen-

sate for the sorry funeral he received the fi rst time he died.

In 1849, Poe was discovered babbling in drunken incoherence

outside of a Baltimore tavern; several days later he exited his

mortal shell, returning nevermore. Poe was initially buried in an

unremarkable patch of churchyard, but in October of 1875 he was

reburied with a more elaborate headstone and full service.

That apparently wasn’t good enough for Amon Tillado, president

of the Baltimore Poe Society and organizer of Poe’s third burial.

“The ceremony was a testament to the indelible legacy of one

of America’s fi nest poets,” Tillado stated. “Hundreds of people

gathered to pay their fi nal respects—and when I say ‘fi nal,’ I re-

ally mean ‘fi nal’ this time. Seriously, I mean it.” Tillado also ex-

plained that the ceremony didn’t go quite as planned: “Well, at

fi rst it was just going to be a funeral service, but then we just kind

of felt like digging him up and burying him again. You know, just

one more for old time’s sake.”

Not to be outdone, the estates of authors Virginia Woolf and Er-

nest Hemingway stated that they would similarly rebury their re-

spective corpses. The body of Virginia Woolf will be unearthed

and re-drowned, and Ernest Hemingway’s remains will be recov-

ered and re-shot in the head.

-S.B.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McShane

Assholes.

!"#!$%&'()*'(++,' #-%'./.%&' ./0%'1

There’s something about the

weather when political fi gures

come to Fordham’s campus.

Last year, when Newt Gingrich

came to speak, the weather was

dark, stormy, ominous. The sky

was much the same Thursday

the 15th when former Vermont

governor and DNC chairman

Howard Dean came to speak.

His talk was short. His question-

and-answer round was long. His

haircut and suit were befi tting of

a politician.

But fi rst, a personal refl ec-

tion. I am always taken aback

and how these kinds of events

bring out everyone’s unsolic-

ited opinions. It’s a bit ugly, to

be honest. Political events will

always attract the politically-

minded, regardless of align-

ment, allegiance, or competence

for that matter. I’m all for stu-

dent participation, especially

when it brings together groups

of students who wouldn’t nor-

mally be in the same room

together. But here’s the deal,

douche bag always sitting be-

hind me who feels the need to

comment on the conversation

I’m having with my friend: I

don’t really give a shit, and in

fact, no one really gives a shit,

what your politics are - unless

they ask. So keep your opin-

ion to yourself and don’t try to

shove it down my throat.

Digression over. The im-

pression that I was left from

Dean’s talk was that it was a sort

of next-generation pep rally,

one in which the older genera-

tion, slowly acclimating to the

fact that a changing of the guard

is coming soon, was imparting

what advice it could onto the

next generation, but in a good

way. Dean, in a grandfatherly

way, took us students up on his

knee and gave us some wisdom.

We are the world. The children

are the future. So on and so

forth, et cetera, et cetera. Insert

statistics about young kids to-

day and riff on those numbers.

Dean’s most effective rhe-

torical tool was a contrast be-

tween his generation and ours.

His peers were ready to go to

throw down in fi sticuffs about

damn near every political issue,

while we, he noted, are much

more bipartisan and willing to

communicate and compromise.

And if we aren’t willing to see

eye-to-eye, we don’t fi ght, we

blog. He touted us for our in-

volvement in the election of

Obama, but stressed the impor-

tance of continued engagement,

phrasing it, “This is your presi-

dent. Don’t blow it.” I agree

with this, because if my time

at Fordham has taught me any-

thing, it’s that nothing gets done

when students are apathetic.

Dean’s call to arms of sorts was

one that stressed the responsi-

bility that we have to participate

in the political process, even if

it’s just voting in an election or

being informed about the on-

goings of our government.

Another smart point that

Dean brought up was the need

to not forget about the outgo-

ing generation, but not in the

way I was expecting. I thought

that he was going to talk about

some duty that we have to take

care of our elders, but he instead

turned it around, noting that

older Americans are much more

concerned about us and what

they can do to make our future

better. Because of this, he urged

us to make sure to include the

older generation in the decision-

making process, as they see us

as what needs to be taken care

of the most. It’s a really roman-

tic vision of America, to be hon-

est, a place

where young

people talk

with the old

about growing

concerns and

new develop-

ments in the

world that the

older genera-

tion might not

understand

and indeed

very well

might not be

around to see,

but still care

about because

they want us to

have the very

best.

Up through

this point,

Dean did not

address what

the College

Democrats

ostensibly

brought him

to campus to

speak about:

healthcare.

A number of

their advertisements pushed on

the hot button issue du jour and

Dean apparently wanted to keep

us all in suspense. However, it

was in his discussion of health-

care reform that Dean really

became animated. He reiter-

ated the need for a revision of

the system, at the very least, but

raised his voice and pounded his

fi st at the need for the American

public to have choices with their

healthcare. The one undeniable

fault, he pointed out, is the fail-

by Max Siegal

NEWS CO-EDITOR

!"#$%&'()$*'+$,-'./$0'+1)$%2

A young Howard Dean.

The Love Doctor,

Dr. McDreamy,

Dr. McSteamy?!

Dr. Oh, I’ll shut up now.

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ing of employer-based health-

care, given that everyone in

America is losing their jobs.

All in all, though, Dean kept

it short. He prefaced his talk

with this point, stating a desire

to have more time to answer

questions from the audience.

I kept a tally, and eight of the

eleven questions asked were

about healthcare reform, so ap-

parently the crowd just couldn’t

get enough. However, it was

here that Dean rattled off a list

of theoretical health expenses

that a college student might

necessitate, and the fi rst on his

list was, and I quote verbatim,

a “yearly pap smear.” Moving

along, Dean also answered with

good humor a question about

his 2004 bid for the presidential

nomination, giving the au-

dience a few restrained, but

still meaty “byah” shouts.

And that brings me

to my broader refl ections

about the event. First of all,

I thought Dean did a much

better job toward the end

of his talk, when he actu-

ally got all fi red up, as well

as during the Q and A. It

would seem in comparison

to the Newt, if I may com-

pare political fi gures that

come here to speak, that

Dean is the weaker one in

terms of scripted speech

delivery. But accordingly,

Dean seemed much more

colloquial, warmer, and

eager to connect, brief as

it may have been, with the

little people. However, I

was ashamed at the Ford-

ham community for not re-

ciprocating. A good part of

the crowd, only about 400

or so strong, left at the end

of Dean’s short talk and did

not stay for the question

and answers. Chalk that

up to it being a Thursday,

chalk it up to the weather,

chalk it up to the College Dems

doing a worse job advertising

than the College Republicans,

but it was still less than half of

the people who showed up to

see the Newt. But Newt didn’t

say anything about running for

president, which is why every-

one went to see him. Dean, on

the other hand, shouted “byah!”

to the crowd, and received an

understanding and appreciative

applause in return.

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America’s Tokin’ Black

President made waves in the

drug community last week when

he announced a new federal

policy in our country’s war on

drugs. The federal government

will cease persecution of people

using marijuana for medical

purposes by their state’s law.

Currently, 14 states have some

medical marijuana law on the

books: Alaska, California, Colo-

rado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland,

Michigan, Montana, Nevada,

New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode

Island, Vermont and Wash-

ington. Another seven, Con-

necticut, New York, Louisiana,

Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Ne-

braska, Pennsylvania and Ohio,

have some sort of “do not go di-

rectly to jail” decriminalization

law. Why, here in New York,

any amount less than 25 grams

will earn you a $100 citation

(That’s about what you’d get

for jumping a subway turnstile

or peeing on the icebox at Cas-

tillo). New York marijuana law

is especially interesting because

there’s no criminal penalty un-

less the pot is in “plain view.”

The police, however, will often

intimate to suspects that turning

the pot over will make things

better, and then arrest them for

it being in plain view.

Of all the states with some

degree of marijuana medical

legalization / decriminaliza-

tion, California stands at the

forefront of our national collec-

tive consciousness for a variety

of reasons. Cali is our largest

state and they have arguably

the laxest statewide pot laws

of the nation. Up until 2008

in Mendocino County anyone

with a medical marijuana card

could legally possess up to 25

plants and two pounds of sticky

greens with no state penalties.

Furthermore, all over California

marijuana dispensaries—basi-

cally stores that sell pot to peo-

ple with medical cards—have

opened all over the state. Herein

lies the rub: while it is within

state laws to grow marijuana as

a licensed caregiver or patient,

it’s still illegal under federal law

to do either of those things, and

especially to open a store like

Hollyweed and Kush Mart (both

real places).

Unfortunately, the legal

marijuana industry cross-pol-

linated with the regular ole’

marijuana industry, which led

to an increase in pressure on pot

growers as a group. This, com-

bined with the Bush-era war on

drugs fronted by chronic public

masturbator John Ashcroft, led

to a number of federal (read:

DEA) raids on (state) legal dis-

pensaries. This was, aside from

a fl agrant 10th Amendment vio-

lation, a real disappointment for

all California marijuana users.

President Obama’s call to

end such raids was a move

widely hailed by marijuana ad-

vocates as bringing things like

“sensible discussion” and “ra-

tional discourse” to America’s

confusing relationship with

drugs. One person in America

is arrested for marijuana-related

crimes on an average of every

thirty-eight seconds. Half of all

drug arrests are for marijuana--

1.7 million people were arrested

in 2007 and 2008. In New York

City, 80% of people arrested for

marijuana-related crimes are

minorities. Finally, twelve bil-

lion dollars is spent each year

to prosecute offenders. That’s

money that’s not going towards

improving inner-city schools

or protecting us from threats

abroad or curing cancer; it’s be-

ing spent to put Tommy Chong

behind bars. The high cost of

the “War on Drugs,” combined

with the growth of violent Mex-

ican cartels who derive their in-

come from running drugs means

that the federal anti-drug budget

is stretched further than ever.

Now, with both pot-happy Cali-

fornia and the rest of the nation

facing skyrocketing defi cits, the

idea of spending billions of dol-

lars to aggressively and violent-

ly deny sick people medicine

seems to make little sense. God,

John Ashcroft was an asshole.

Obviously, this move has

been met with some criticism:

right-wing newsmonger Matt

Drudge ran the headline (in

green) as “High Times,” and

featured a photo of Obama sur-

rounded by children. The for-

mer spokesman for the White

House Offi ce of National Drug

Policy Bob Weiner (ha!) re-

leased a press release saying,

“There is a real danger that if

marijuana is made essentially a

prescription drug, its abuse and

usage explosion could parallel

other prescription drugs over

the last decade, such as Oxy-

Contin, which have tripled na-

tionally and quintupled in many

locations because of the ease of

availability.” And hell, to some

extent they’re right. Drugs can

fuck people up, and the White

House decriminalizing medical

marijuana might be a step to-

wards reversing seventy years

of demonizing and race baiting

as a national drug policy. This

may even cause a kid to take a

hit of grass. However, a sensible

marijuana policy would remove

the restriction-free black mar-

ket that makes marijuana both

available to children and makes

other drugs available to mari-

juana users. While a hands-off

federal policy regarding medi-

cal marijuana is a boon to all

civil libertarians, we still have a

ways to go to defeat a racially

motivated cog in the prison-

industrial complex. It was none

other than Harry J. Anslinger,

the fi rst drug czar in the United

States, who reminded us, “Reef-

er makes darkies think they’re

as good as white men.” A sensi-

ble drug policy has been a long

time coming, but we may fi nally

be near a sensible time.

by Rudyard Crippling

STAFF HERBOLOGIST

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With the Obama adminis-

tration constantly under heavy

scrutiny from America’s conser-

vative right, the last things that

the fl edgling government needs

are accusations of fl ip-fl opping

(as opponents of John Kerry so

lovingly called it) or hypocrisy.

Even the slightest change of

stance on an issue could poten-

tially provide hours upon hours

of fodder for conservative wind-

bags and talking heads all over

the 24-hour news circuit. How-

ever, in a recent move regarding

legislation to protect journalists,

President Obama has pulled a

hundred and eighty degree turn

egregious enough to send Rush

Limbaugh into a laughing fi t

that sends a geyser of expensive

whisky and Oxycontin spewing

out of his nose at Sunday dinner

with the in-laws.

The legislation in question

is the Free Flow of Information

Act of 2007, which was passed

in the House of Representatives

on October 16th of this year, and

was subsequently placed on the

Senate calendar two days later.

If passed, this bill would pre-

vent the practice of compelled

disclosure, and would provide

for a federal Shield Law for

journalists and other writers

(state Shield Laws already exist

in 37 states; however, the issue

has not yet been addressed on

the national level). Essentially,

a Shield Law protects journal-

ists from being subpoenaed

to provide testimony as to the

sources of information that they

obtained during the course of

their professional investigative

process. Not only does a Shield

Law protect the journalists who

obtain the information, but also

the sources of that information

that, for some reason or another,

choose to remain anonymous

about what they shared with the

journalist in question.

Naturally, the bill contains

provisions for exceptional cas-

es, such as instances in which

national security is threatened

or when something like a pro-

fessional or trade secret is re-

vealed. However, according to

President Obama, who initially

supported the bill ardently dur-

ing his campaign, these excep-

tional provisions and contin-

gency clauses are not enough.

Since the bill’s introduction to

the Senate calendar, Obama has

proposed a number of amend-

ments that would not only

weaken the Shield Law signifi -

cantly, but are also essentially

contrary to the purpose of the

legislation. Under the original

text of the bill, judges would be

given discretionary privileges

for individual cases in which a

journalist is requested to reveal

his or her sources on a particu-

lar matter--that is, it would be

up to the judge of the case to

decide whether or not the secu-

rity issues related to particular

information being revealed take

precedent over the public’s right

to know. With the amendments

proposed by the president,

judges can be stripped of their

discretionary privilege when the

federal government decides that

a particular source should be re-

vealed, or decides that the case

constitutes a matter of national

security.

There are several problems

with the proposed amendments,

which, in addition to eschewing

the effi cacy of the bill, have also

mired the legislation in the Sen-

ate Judiciary Committee. Pri-

marily, the criteria for exactly

what types of information con-

stitutes a threat to national se-

curity would be left entirely up

to the government. This would

essentially make the process

of judiciary discretion useless,

since in any case it could be

stripped away and the decision

overthrown if the federal gov-

ernment sees it fi t.

This government privilege

holds the possibility for gross

distortion and rampant abuse.

Historically, the federal gov-

ernment has used the guise of

national security to censor and

block information that portrays

the U.S. government in an un-

favorable light or reveals some-

thing embarrassing. A perfect

example of this is the famous

Pentagon Papers case of 1971.

In this case, journalist Daniel

Ellsberg obtained an extensive

report on U.S. involvement in

Vietnam from 1945 to 1967,

and subsequently leaked these

papers to the New York Times.

Upon hearing of the leak, the

federal government immedi-

ately attempted to censor the

publication of all articles writ-

ten on the subject, claiming that

the reports contained sensitive

information that may compro-

mise the security of U.S. troops

stationed in Southeast Asia and

elsewhere. In reality, the reports

were primarily historical in na-

ture, and contained no military

intelligence of value to the ene-

my. Rather, the reports revealed

that several presidential admin-

istrations had intentionally mis-

led the public about U.S. mili-

tary involvement in Vietnam,

thereby portraying the federal

government and military nega-

tively. In the end, however, the

Supreme Court ruled in favor of

the journalists, saying that the

actions of the government vio-

lated the fi rst amendment.

As the Pentagon Papers case

demonstrates, the power for the

federal government to decide

what can and cannot be revealed

is a dangerous privilege when

left unchecked. If the amend-

ments proposed by the president

are applied to the Free Flow of

Information Act, then cases like

this may become commonplace.

Without an effective and fair

federal Shield Law, future jour-

nalists will have little protection

as to the confi dentiality of their

sources, and their work and

mission will suffer greatly. Not

only would this harm the jour-

nalism industry, but it would

pose an impediment to creating

an informed public.

by Sean Kelly

STAFF 1st AMMENDMENT

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october 28, 2009

We Want to be Used!

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by Caroline Egan

STAFF BETTY FRIEDAN

Like most Fordham students

do, I pass numerous fl iers dur-

ing the day promoting cam-

pus events or clubs and ignore

them. But this past Tuesday I

came across three startling and

offensive (not to mention de-

ceptive) advertisements from

Fordham’s Respect for Life

Club promoting their next meet-

ing. Although I inherently dis-

agree with Respect for Life’s

anti-choice views, it is not their

mission I have a problem with

but rather their tactless advertiz-

ing tactics.

The fi rst has

a cartoon image

reminiscent of the

Virgin Mary with

a woman crying

into a handker-

chief above the

statement “1/2 of

patients that enter

an abortion clinic

will never make it

out.” At fi rst, this

statistic struck me

as suspect. If such

a thing were true

wouldn’t this be

more well known?

Then I realized—

in my pro-choice

mind the patient is

the woman. But for

some pro-lifers, it’s

the woman and the

fetus. Naturally, if

you think that life

begins at the mo-

ment of conception,

half the patients do

die. Clearly Re-

spect for Life knows many peo-

ple will automatically assume

the patient is just the woman

and thus such a statement is ex-

traordinarily misleading. This

angered me, but I reminded

myself that I attend a Catholic

university where many of my

peers adhere to more conserva-

tive stances, so I did not let the

topic and the outright deceit get

to me so much.

This feeling changed as I

walked down to the ground lev-

el of Jogues where I saw a large

yellow poster with colorful bub-

ble letters asking “Who Loves

Abortions?” Um… no one?

Why would someone love abor-

tions? What a ridiculous ques-

tion to pose. The poster offered

three possible answers: Women,

Babies or Irresponsible Men,

all with a little box to check the

right answer: irresponsible men.

Without realizing people

were around me I blurted out

“That is so offensive!” and re-

read it, wondering how such

an offensive statement would

be approved by OSL & CD?

This poster is purely offensive

to both men and women. First

of all, it implies that the choice

of having an abortion is in the

hands of a man, not the pregnant

woman. This is not altogether

surprising, as this anti-choice

group, like so many others, is

headed by a man. And what the

hell constitutes an irresponsible

man? Is he irresponsible for

having sex (probably pre-mari-

tal, because obviously the only

people who have accidentally

impregnated someone are un-

married miscreants)? Is he irre-

sponsible because he did not use

protection (we will ignore the

small chance that contraception

fails)? It is the responsibility of

both the man and the woman to

use protection when engaging

in sex for pleasure. Both sexes

need to be held accountable for

the use of contraception, wheth-

er that be women using birth

control, or choosing not to have

sex because neither of you have

a condom. It is a woman’s and a

man’s responsibility to have safe

sex. Does Respect for Life think

women are incapable of making

sure all their sexual experiences

are done safely and with contra-

ception (if the act requires it)? I

would hope in this day and age

women can be blamed for being

irresponsible just as men are. It

takes two to have sex and both

involved should be expected to

act responsibly.

The third sign I saw uses

the commandment “Thou Shall

Not Kill” (Oh, Catholic guilt!)

with a picture of a sonogram.

Now I’m not an OBGYN, but

even I know that the fetus pic-

tured in the photo is clearly in

its third trimester. In case Re-

spect for Life forgot to research

when abortions are performed,

60.5 % are performed within

the fi rst eight weeks of gesta-

tion and 88.5 % within the fi rst

twelve weeks. The only time

an abortion would occur during

the stage depicted in the photo

would be if the woman’s life

was in danger (it would be a

forced c-section).

We are in the 21st century

and 79% of college students

have had or are having sex. So,

pre-marital sex can stop being

such a taboo, Respect for Life;

times are changing and sex is not

just for procreation anymore. In

addition to the deceptive

and offensive nature of

Respect for Life’s pro-

motional fl iers, I’m fl ab-

bergasted by the fact that

the Offi ce of Student Life

& Community Develop-

ment would approve such

misleading and offensive

club fl iers. The moment I

encounter any of Respect

for Life’s fl iers or events

(especially their spring

event where they have

fl ags representing all the

dead ‘babies’ out in front

of Alpha House), I feel

I’m being shamed for my

personal views. There

is no compassion for or

recognition of women’s

necessity for the option

of safe and legal abor-

tions and no discussion

of how the lack of com-

prehensive sex-education

results in the need for

abortions. Has Respect

for Life asked Fordham to

challenge their backward sexual

health policies and provide con-

doms to the student body? That

would probably be a more ef-

fective way of decreasing the

number of unwanted pregnan-

cies on campus.

Perhaps the most disturb-

ing aspect of these fl iers is that

Respect for Life is looking for

people who agree with these

signs. It terrifi es me to think

some one would read the yel-

low poster saying irresponsible

men love abortions and think,

“Hey! That’s so true! Irrespon-

sible men are the reason why

abortions happen, those helpless

women! Those victims of impu-

rity!” and then proceed to take

an interest in the club and attend

the meetings.

I may not agree with Re-

spect for Life’s mission and I do

not agree with many of the opin-

ions on this campus but it seems

they are the only club who uses

hate speech and deceptiveness

to promote their club’s mission.

Just a few weeks ago, in our

fi rst issue of the semester,

we at the paper hypothesized

that, as the people who bank-

roll this institution, students

hold a lot of power. In this

800-word power trip, we en-

couraged all students to do

something to make a positive

change on our campus, start-

ing with the cuts in the Walsh

library’s hours. Well, as many

of you may have heard, USG

has announced that the library

will now be open until 2AM.

While the 24-hour study sec-

tion of the library has not been

restored, we think this is still a

big deal, and here’s why:

Individually, we’re all pret-

ty much powerless against any

bureaucracy, including Ford-

ham. When we organize, how-

ever, we can have immense

infl uence. This extension of

the library’s hours proves that

if enough of us organize, if

enough of us whine and yell

and demand change…Ford-

ham listens to us.

United Student Govern-

ment (USG) and Progressive

Students for Justice (PSJ) have

spent a lot of time and energy

to organize student efforts to

get the library’s 24-hour sec-

tion reopened, and they con-

tinue to work toward this end.

We won’t lie; we at the paper

were worried the student sup-

port for and interest in their

campaigns would dwindle

as weeks went by, midterms

passed, and the 24-hour sec-

tion remained closed. But we

had a good feeling when we

participated in PSJ’s study-in

last week (10/21/09), in which

nearly 150 students showed up

to study until they got kicked

out at midnight. Hey, maybe

the 900+ members of the Face-

book group “Reopening the

Overnight Section of the Walsh

Library” didn’t all feel the need

to show up to convey the mes-

sage that the space is in fact

used, but at least we weren’t

the only ones who were still

pissed about it.

In a statement released on

Thursday, October 22, USG

President and all-around cool

dude John Gordon announced

the extension of library hours.

(Damn, right after the paper

fi nished our last non-midterm

week midterm.) USG met with

Dr. Stephen Freedman, head of

the Offi ce of Academic Affairs,

the offi ce responsible for the li-

brary hour cuts due to budget

woes. Gordon explained that

the extension of hours, “was

made possible by the gener-

ous and considerate support

of Fordham College and the

College of Business Admin-

istration, who will be allocat-

ing some of the funding from

their discretionary budgets to

offset the costs of keeping the

library open.” This stuck out to

us. In our article covering the

closing of the all-night study

zone (9/23/09) we explained

what administrators had told

us: Fordham has many sepa-

rate budgets, meaning that the

money to keep the library open

and the money spent on, say,

McGinley’s renovations or late

night programming, come from

different budget pools. While

we understood the concept,

we found it hard to believe

that someone in a position of

power couldn’t put his or her

foot down and reallocate funds

for an important cause, such as

keeping the library open. Ap-

parently we were right! Ford-

ham College and CBA gener-

ously reallocated some of their

budgets to keep the library

open later, which is great, but

at the same time we wish the

reallocated funds could have

come from departments less

vital to the student body.

We’re sure that PSJ, USG,

and many other student organi-

zations (including yours truly)

will continue to bitch and moan

until the 24-hour section is re-

stored in its full glory. And we

encourage all those groups to

pressure for a seat at the table

when these decisions are made,

to seek budget transparency,

and to pursue an open dialogue

between Fordham students and

administrators. However, we

think it’s important to acknowl-

edge what a big deal these two

extra hours are. They are proof

that if we all care about some-

thing passionately, Fordham

has to care about it too.

Like we mentioned before,

the paper loves power trips.

Our newfound confi dence in

the power of the student body

got us thinking…What should

be the next issues Fordham stu-

dents organize around? Contra-

ception at the health center? A

free speech space on campus?

Reasonable dormitory sign-in

policies? The possibilities are

as endless as the change you

want to see on campus, so we

ask you to write to us (whether

it be a letter to the editor or a

full-blown article) about what

you care about. We want to be

a mouthpiece for the student

body, so use us.

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by Mickie Meinhardt

STAFF CAVITY

We Americans are fantastic

at divesting original reasons

for celebration from holidays

and turning them into com-

mercialized, over-decorated

excuses for eating and drinking.

Halloween is no different. As

most probably know, October

31st festivities were initially a

commemoration of the dead,

dubbed “All Hallows Eve.” It

was believed that on this day the

souls of the departed returned to

Earth, and various cultures de-

veloped different traditions to

welcome these ghosts, includ-

ing large bonfi res with dancing,

singing, storytelling, and offer-

ings of food for their deceased

ancestors. The varying customs

amalgamated when imported to

America by our wealth of im-

migrants. The early pagan rites

of old became celebrations of

the harvest and of autumn in

general, and the fl ood of Irish

and English immigrants in the

late 19th century introduced the

ideas of costumed celebrations

and going door to door asking

for money or food. It became

a national holiday of com-

munity, and at the turn of the

century there were movements

to remove “frightening” and

“grotesque” elements. Thus the

modern Halloween was born:

more candy, less tradition, and

a big focus on entertaining the

young. In the 1950s the baby

boomers made trick-or-treating

what it is today as a cheap way

to celebrate community and to

quell the vandalism that had be-

come as much a part of the holi-

day as the other traditions. Par-

ents could prevent “tricks” by

bribing their greedy spawn with

sugar – welcome, new Ameri-

can consumerism tradition!

Now Americans spend about

$6.9 billion a year on Hallow-

een–only behind Christmas in

ridiculously excessive celebra-

tory spending.

Though we defi nitely have

our faults, the one thing we

Americans do very well is eat,

and our penchant for sugar is

the biggest on Earth – 96% of

Americans have a regular urge

for a sweet, and 2 out of 5 admit

to having a “sweet tooth”. As of

2002, we consumed 7.1 billion

pounds of sugary goodness an-

nually: that’s $22 million worth.

Currently Americans eat about

a half a pound of candy (not in-

cluding baked goods) a week.

Not that this is a bad thing at

all. I am the last person to con-

demn National Eat-Free-Candy

Day. It is well known that I

have a ludicrously overdevel-

oped sweet tooth; I’ve shown

up at the bar with penny candy

watermelons in my purse, used

my car’s glove compartment

to store Cherry Ring Pops, and

have brought enormous bags

of candy to the paper’s print

shop. Probably addicted. And

while nutritionists the world

over would have you think this

is a veritable death sentence, 10

years ago the Harvard School of

Public Health published a study

showing that people who regu-

larly eat candy live longer than

those who don’t. Heyyyy, that’s

awesome, I will outlive all of

you (provided I don’t fi rst con-

tract diabetes). Plus, my overkill

consumption has led to a very

extensive knowledge of most

types of candy and baked goods

and their respective city ven-

dors. So to celebrate our won-

derful commercial holiday this

Friday, I trekked to the Nirvana

of candy stores I had long heard

of but never visited – Economy

Candy, on Rivington and Essex

in the Lower East Side.

New York Magazine

described Economy as “a candy

variety & abundance that would

leave Willy Wonka weeping in

his cocoa”. Opened in 1937, it

has almost every candy ever

made; old-fashioned candy,

chocolates, nuts, dried fruits,

name-brand candy, and sugar

free candy (for when I do actu-

ally get diabetes!). I had a mild

stroke upon entering; the rela-

tively small store has confec-

tions cramming literally every

inch of its space. It took me al-

most a half hour just to browse,

and if there weren’t at least 4

other people with equally as

wide eyes and slack jaws as me,

the salespeople probably would

have asked questions. The old-

fashioned section regurgitated

the best of my childhood with

candy buttons, wax fangs, Nik-

L-Nip wax bottles, candy Legos,

and those weird strawberry

candies my ancient next-door

neighbor used to give me. I bee-

lined to the gummy section for

a 5lb bag (actual size) of gum-

my teeth, my favorite but sadly

fairly hard to fi nd confection. I

also picked up a couple boxes

of candy cigarettes to fool my

friends (never smoked a cigg in

my life, bitches), and some can-

dy necklaces, you know, to jazz

up my Friday night outfi t. I re-

ally wanted some of their choc-

olate covered dried fruit – they

had mangos, papaya, and pine-

apple, among others – but it was

only available in large quantities

and I had to save my money for

rare Irish licorice and giant dark

chocolate pretzels. They even

had their own Asian rice cracker

trail mix. They sell almost any-

thing in enormous bulk bags

too, making it decidedly more

affordable than, say, Dylan’s “I-

will-deplete-your-life-savings”

Candy Bar. Though pretty far

out of the way, it’s defi nitely

worth the journey. I now have

enough supplies to at least make

it through next weekend, the

amount that would probably last

a normal person a month.

Halloween, though

stupidly hyped up and mass-

marketed, is a fantastic holiday.

When else do you have an ex-

cuse to dress up as anything you

want and eat candy until you

puke (although likely you’ll be

vomiting Skittle fl avored vod-

ka, not the actual confection).

So head to the Bowery for a

popcorn ball and Bit O’Honey

at Economy and leave some

Snickers on the doorstep for

dead Grandma this All Hal-

lows Eve. Or embrace your in-

ner pagan and dance with skulls

around a bonfi re to ancestral

chants while drinking ale and

roasting pigs. Either/or.

by Jonathan Jacoby, Lindsay

Kaufman, Shawn Lemerise,

Nicole Marchand, Lauren

Spears, Irene Wei

STAFF NEUTRAL

How would you feel if

Fordham University commit-

ted to being carbon neutral by

2020? Think about how proud

you would be to be a part of the

Fordham community.

We are a group of six Ford-

ham Graduate Business Admin-

istration students who chose

to undertake a semester-long

project of building consen-

sus amongst students, faculty,

administrators, and alumni

that Fordham University will

achieve a zero carbon footprint

by 2020. Little did we know this

fall when we began our Man-

agement Sustainability seminar,

“Getting Green Done,” that we

were embarking on a journey,

a journey to make Fordham an

environmental leader.

Since we began the course,

we have spent countless hours

in class and outside exploring

issues related to sustainability,

particularly in business: what it

means for the environment, how

sustainability can be achieved,

and the repercussions of con-

tinuing down the same path we

are currently on as a society.

We have also considered how

we as a group can best effect

change on a scale that is mean-

ingful both to us personally and

to an entity that is larger than

ourselves. With the support and

encouragement of the two other

teams in our class, we con-

cluded that we should focus our

energy on building a consensus

to support carbon neutrality for

Fordham.

As we researched this topic,

we studied what other universi-

ties are doing as they lead the

charge toward carbon neutral-

ity. We compared their efforts

to Fordham’s current sustain-

ability efforts. What we have

learned is that there is a univer-

sity Sustainability Committee

that has been and continues to

exert signifi cant effort to raise

awareness within the Fordham

community, engages in proj-

ects that reduce the university’s

carbon footprint, and promotes

sustainability in general. This

committee was instrumental in

having Fordham commit to re-

ducing its carbon footprint by

30 percent by 2017. However,

this past year our dear institu-

tion had been graded a C- by

greenreportcard.org, an orga-

nization that aims to promote

sustainability in colleges and

universities by evaluating the

sustainability efforts of institu-

tions of higher education in the

United States and Canada. Very

recently we were raised to a C+,

a grade that is still one of the

low scores amongst the partici-

pating universities in New York

City.

Fordham’s commitment to

reducing its carbon footprint

by 30 percent by 2017 is cer-

tainly noble, but it is certainly

not enough. 30 percent is a

number that is easy to achieve;

most colleges and universities

can do 30 percent without much

creativity and only moderate

campus enthusiasm. Achieving

a zero carbon footprint is hard.

If something is not hard, is it re-

ally worth doing at all? We are

not suggesting the university

abandon its current commit-

ment; only suggesting that the

Fordham community should ex-

pand upon this commitment and

signifi cantly so.

We strongly believe that as

a community we must do better.

We also believe that, as a com-

munity, we have an opportunity

and a duty to make this great in-

stitution even greater. We urge

Fordham to sign the American

College and University Presi-

dent’s Climate Commitment

(ACUPCC) with a bold prom-

ise to become carbon neutral by

2020. The ACUPCC doctrine

represents a pledge by universi-

ties to address climate change

by eliminating their campuses’

greenhouse gases over time.

To date, 657 colleges and uni-

versities have signed the com-

mitment. If you read through

the list of institutions that have

signed the document (www.

presidentsclimatecommitment.

org), you’ll notice that many

great institutions have pledged

to rid their campuses of green-

house gases. Now is the time for

our university to add its name to

this list and to go well beyond

the level of commitment of oth-

er universities. Now is the mo-

ment for Fordham to become a

global leader in the most impor-

tant challenge of our life time.

At this point, we hope you

are asking yourself what you

can do to support the cause

and become a part of the con-

sensus. The answer is fairly

simple: talk about it. Spread

the word. Speak to your friends,

colleagues, professors, parents,

alumni, and other members of

the Fordham community and let

them know that you are support-

ive of the university committing

to being carbon neutral by 2020.

Ask those with whom you speak

to tell others. Ask them, “how

would you feel if Fordham Uni-

versity committed to being car-

bon neutral by 2020?” It always

makes for a great conversation!

If you are a part of the con-

sensus for Fordham University

to commit to being carbon neu-

tral by 2020, we also ask that

you simply join our Facebook

group page, Fordham Univer-

sity Carbon Neutral by 2020.

There you will fi nd links to in-

formation that we hope you’ll

fi nd interesting, as well as a

discussion board. You can also

reach us at fucarbonby2020@

gmail.com. We encourage ev-

eryone to join us on our journey.

A Public FunMessage from GBA

My Diabetic Coma Fantasy

!"#!$%&'()*'(++,' #-%'./.%&' ./0%'11

by Sean Kelly

STAFF PAGAN

*Disclaimer: This happened.

As I approached the corner

of 42nd Street and 47th Avenue,

I noticed that there were several

sets of park benches, not a sin-

gle one as I originally expected.

The instructions I had received

from the Lodge Master were un-

equivocally clear: I was to wait

on the park benches facing the

street near the corner of 42nd

and 47th for fi fteen minutes, at

which time I would be retrieved

by and led to the temple for the

ritual. Due to the peremptory

and cryptically secretive nature

of the instructions, I wanted

to make absolutely sure I was

in the exact right place at the

proper time, lest I be denied

access to the temple. However,

this was my fi rst time in this

particular area of Queens, and

the rough set of directions that

the Lodge Master had emailed

to me was the only idea of the

area that I had before getting off

the 7 train. Unable to decide

which set of benches to sit my-

self down and wait on, I took a

gamble and sat down on a bench

next to a dreadlocked woman

with a nose piercing and a pen-

tagram ring (she stood some-

what out in the relatively quiet

residential area near Queens

Boulevard), hoping that she too

was waiting for the Lodge Mas-

ter to retrieve her.

Turns out my intuition guid-

ed me well this time. After about

20 minutes on the bench and two

nervously smoked cigarettes,

a tall, stocky bald man with a

large goatee emerged from an

alley across the street, surveyed

the benches and walked over

towards where I was sitting.

He addressed the dreadlocked

woman and myself, introduc-

ing himself as Frater Oz, Lodge

Master of the Tahuti Lodge

OTO, the local Thelemite tem-

ple. He led myself and four

other guests though the gate to

the alley from which he had just

come, into the basement side

door of an apartment building,

through a laundry room and

into the antechamber: a small

basement apartment decorated

with various Egyptian imagery,

Gnostic Christian symbolism

and even a clock face bear-

ing the image of Baphomet.

At the edge

of the room

was a set of

black velvet

curtains, and

through the

small gap be-

tween them I

could make

out a dimly lit

black-walled

room, with a

checkerboard

pattern alter

at the front.

It was then

that I realized that I was beyond

confused, and slightly terrifi ed

to be in a basement apartment

(temple?) with fi ve strangers,

surrounded by ancient pantheis-

tic imagery.

So why exactly did I decide

to make this foray into obscure

paganism in Queens? Well, dear

reader, I have no clue. However,

I can tell you how I got there.

Due to the exceptionally slow

nature of my campus job in

the past few weeks, I had been

exploring some of the more

darkened and poorly-preserved

trails that the magic internet

has to offer. One particular aim-

less meandering landed me at

waningmoon.com, the self-de-

scribed “NYC Pagan Resource

Guide.” I began to peruse the

member organizations of the

site and stumbled upon the Ta-

huti Lodge. A quick tour of their

website revealed that they were

adherents of the pseudo-religion

of Thelema. Thelema is a faith

invented by British author and

noted occultist Aleister Crow-

ley, and is based on the central

dictum “Do what thou wilt shall

be the whole of the law…Love

is the law, law under will.” The-

lema borrows on rituals, imag-

ery and traditions from ancient

religions and mystic traditions

such as Kaballah, Gnostic

Christianity and the Egyptian

pantheon, and follows the tra-

ditional Left-Hand Path model

of classical Satanism. Basically,

Thelema is the equivalent of oc-

cult chop suey.

After exploring the Lodge’s

background and beliefs, I found

a page called ‘open events’, and

promptly began to slaver like a

wild hyena coming upon a de-

composing zebra carcass. I im-

mediately looked at the calen-

dar, and saw that on Saturday,

October 17th, an open ritual

was to take place. Its descrip-

tion read, “Come join Frater Oz

as we visualize and vibrate the

Middle Pillar together.” I was

gloriously bewildered by what

this could possibly mean, and

contacted the Lodge Master

about signing up as a guest. Af-

ter a brief correspondence with

Frater Oz (which yielded the

aforementioned bizarre direc-

tions), it was confi rmed that I

would indeed be a guest at the

Tahuti Lodge’s Middle Pillar

Ritual.

So there I sat, surrounded

by Frater Oz and four other

guests in a basement

apartment in Queens,

about to begin a

ritual about which I

knew next to noth-

ing. After a brief

introduction and

explanation of the

ritual, Frater Oz took

myself and the other

guests through the

black curtains and

into the temple space

proper. We were told

to each fi nd a corner,

and meditate silently

to clear our mind for fi ve min-

utes. Frater Oz then proceeded

with the Lesser Banishing Rit-

ual of the Pentagram, during

which he purifi ed the temple

space with incantations, invoca-

tions of various deities, incense

burning and, fi nally, making the

sign of the pentagram in each

of the four cardinal directions.

He then performed a similar

purifi cation ritual involving the

hexagram, and then instructed

us to form a circle in the mid-

dle of the temple space. He

explained that we were to run

down all of the energy spheres

that ran down the center of the

body and thus comprised the

middle pillar. Led by Frater Oz,

who gave a short description of

each sphere to help the group

visualize them, we meditated

silently for several minutes be-

fore chanting the Hebrew name

three times. We proceeded to do

this for all of the spheres from

the head (Kether region) all the

way down to the feet (Malkuth

Chakra), and ended off with a

breathing exercise and another

fi ve minutes of silent medita-

tion.

While the ritual itself was

certainly rather esoteric and bi-

zarre, this was not what struck

me most of all about the whole

situation. Rather, it was Frater

Oz’s steadfast adherence to the

gods of antiquity and a seem-

ingly arbitrary amalgamation of

ancient pantheons that stuck in

my mind. Seeing an impromptu

temple space constructed in a

basement in Queens, and hear-

ing Frater Oz chant in dead lan-

guages while busses backfi red

on the other side of paper-thin

walls created a juxtaposition

that, at its core, was more sad-

dening than amusing or be-

wildering. Though the Tahuti

Lodge is a rather unorthodox

and confusing institution, the

mystique and novelty can only

carry it so far. When the confu-

sion and novelty are stripped

away, you’re left only with a

makeshift alter and some hand

painted Satanic imagery adorn-

ing the walls of a stuffy base-

ment apartment off Queens

Boulevard; something Aleister

Crowley probably did not fore-

see when he composed The-

lema’s doctrine and pantheon in

rural English castle.

by Chris Sprindis

ASSISTANT EXECUTIVE

EDITOR

I’m ashamed to admit it, but

I’ve failed at beer. Worse, I’ve

done it more than once.

The fi rst time I let beer

down was when I bought a

goldfi sh, named it Beer, and

watched helplessly as it died

in its Carlo Rossi wine jug two

days later. For some reason I

thought keeping a fi sh named

Beer in a wine jug was hilari-

ous, and I’ll admit to still seeing

something comedic in it. More

comedic than Beer’s name and

place of residence, however,

was defi nitely his face. Being a

Celestial Goldfi sh, he had eyes

that bulged almost completely

out of his head that looked up

in two amazingly noticeable

directions and he was missing

a dorsal fi n. Luckily for sci-

ence, in 1668 Francesco Redi

disproved spontaneous genera-

tion (the idea that living things

can come from inanimate ob-

jects) by showing that meat

Mixing Beer and Winekept sealed in a jar would not

produce maggots. If Redi failed,

and spontaneous generation was

still an acceptable theory, every-

one would think that Beer must

have been the spawn of beer, he

was the perfect embodiment of

everything malty and ferment-

ed. Anyways, he looked like an

idiot and he died in two days.

I failed at beer when I kind of

killed Beer by making him live

in a wine jug. He was a great and

peaceful addition to the apart-

ment, and I was hoping to be-

come more serene with an “I’m

going to live my life through

you, Beer” attitude towards the

fi sh. R.I.P. Beer.

The second time I failed at

beer was in preparing for this

article. These past few weeks I

slept happily knowing that the

local stores were stocked with

many types of Oktoberfest beer

(I remember trying at least six

Oktoberfest beers from differ-

ent brewers), and I planned on

writing this article about the

different types that could be

purchased in the area. When it

came time to do my research,

however, there was only one

type left, the Sam Adams Ok-

toberfest. Oktoberfest beer, or

Märzenbier, is typically a Ger-

man style lager that is brewed in

the Spring to prepare it for the

Fall, and it is generally a very

balanced beer of prominent malt

fl avors and present but not too

present hops. Despite my fail-

ure, I’ll try to run over some

of my favorite beers that have

popped up recently and seem to

be sticking around.

If you’re ever in the mood to

turn your hungover poops fol-

lowing that morning breath of

fresh fart blacker than Satan’s,

give Sierra Nevada’s Porter a

shot. Unlike their Stout, which

has a more severe coffee under-

tone, the Porter is much softer,

with something reminiscent

of chocolate that runs straight

from the fi rst smell through the

swallow. This is heavy beer, and

more for enjoying than getting

drunk off of, but anything’s pos-

sible.

While Sierra Nevada’s se-

lection is consistently great

(their Bigfoot Ale Barleywine is

a punch in the face in terms of

mix of violent fl avors and 9.6%

alcohol), it has always been

Dogfi sh Head Brewery that I

come to time and time again

on the shelf. With a motto like

“off-centered ales for off-cen-

tered people,” it’s not surprising

that they manage to turn even

a normal beer into something

extreme. Rather than a standard

India Pale Ale, they continu-

ously hop their IPAs for the du-

ration of the boil, creating beers

that ruin your taste buds in the

best way possible.

With higher than average

percents of alcohol and some

“you will never forget me” fl a-

vors, their IPAs make their way

into my fridge pretty often, but

it has to be their Fall seasonal

I’d choose to be my desert is-

land beer, provided the island

always had Fall weather. For

those who like pumpkin pie, or

are just moderately sane, their

Punkin Ale will turn Fall from

an already spectacularly beauti-

ful season into something heav-

enly. Punkin Ale is a fairly dark

brown ale made with pumpkin

(the little extra bit of sugar from

the pumpkin gives it a little

more alcohol too) and all the

spices you’d fi nd in a pumpkin

pie.

Take advantage of what the

stores have, it might not always

be there. To Beer and beer ev-

erywhere, I apologize for ever

letting you down, or killing you,

but at least there’s always some-

thing worth drinking lurking on

the shelves. Give them all a try.

“Me? Well, I really like to vibrate the

Middle Pillar, if you know what I mean.”

!"#$%&'%()*+),-./-0)1-('2%3)4$($%'56)'%)78--%5

In Memoriam.

!"#$%&'% ()$%!"!$*% +,(+-$*%'./%'001

by John O’Neill

STAFF REMEMBER YOUR

ROOTS

I am a student at Fordham

University, and I hail from the

city of Milwaukee. I am an odd-

ity here for several reasons, but

the one I’d like to touch on is

that of my origin. When people

meet at Fordham, they generally

go through the routine back and

forth about what they’re think-

ing about majoring in, where

they live, and eventually where

they come from. I’ve received

a number of reactions when I

announce that I am from Mil-

waukee, Wisconsin. Generally

the announcement is meet with

some degree of excitement or

interest, but this article is for the

others of you. For every positive

reaction I’ve received to my be-

ing from Milwaukee, I’ve heard

“oh I’m sorry”, “where’s that?”,

“Oh, the city of cheese and

beer”, and “Isn’t it cold there?”

I quickly answer in an attempt

to dispel any misconceptions,

and likely go on to give any per-

son who continues to stand near

me a laundry list of why I love

my hometown and home state.

But now that I am sober, and

have the ability to edit and lay

out my argument, here is why I

love my hometown of Milwau-

kee. To address the criticisms;

yes, it does get cold; yes, I did

go to school at 35th and Wiscon-

sin, across the street from the

Miller Brewery; and yes, cheese

is a thing we enjoy eating. To

those with a more in-depth

knowledge of the city and its is-

sues, yes, we do suffer issues of

segregation; yes, the city deals

with a severe budget defi cit;

yes, the city schools are largely

inadequate in graduating pupils;

yes, over one in fi ve city resi-

dents live in poverty; and yes,

one in two black men in the

city are unemployed. Yes it’s

all true, the city has its faults,

I admit it, and that’s why I am

here at Fordham.

Cities and urban issues

have been an interest of mine

since the early years of my

childhood, evolving from

drawing buildings, to taking

photos, to actually beginning

to grasp the issues of urban

development. As I grew old-

er, I began to learn the issues

which affected my city as a

whole. Though my neighbor-

hood and my existence was

rarely exposed to these prob-

lems, I grew to learn that the

problems of some are the prob-

lems of all in a tight knit com-

munity like Milwaukee. Doing

service work through my high

school and going on weekly

neighborhood explorations and

photography tours with my fa-

ther helped me begin to under-

stand the vast contrasts which

plagued the city. Where better to

learn how to fi x these ills than at

a social justice minded univer-

sity in the world’s greatest city?

Perhaps you’ve made up

your mind about Milwaukee

in these last three paragraphs.

Wow, what a horrible place

you must be thinking; well I

plead with you to continue on.

I genuinely believe that my ef-

forts are not wasted on a dy-

ing rust-belt city, but rather are

logical ones fueled with passion

for the rebirth of a magnifi cent,

already thriving, and under ap-

preciated Midwestern city. Mil-

waukee is a place of beautiful

sandy beaches, Frederick Law

Olmsted parks fi lled with cen-

tury old oak trees, shady bike

paths, stately Tudor mansions,

a trendy loft district comprised

of renovated factories, quirky

ethnic restaurants, densely pop-

ulated ethnic neighborhoods of

old frame houses and apartment

blocks, tree lined sidewalks,

delightful church and lakefront

summer festivals, community

pools, viaducts, and innovative

universities and medical cen-

ters.

Milwaukee once had a may-

or by the name of Daniel Hoan

who posed the question, “What

is a city without its citizens?”

Milwaukee might be nice

homes and some cool bridges,

but it’s primarily an atmo-

sphere, a community. It’s about

Kaycie Bong, the little girl at

the daycare I grew to love, it’s

about Mr. Cavanaugh, the Eng-

lish teacher who taught me to

love reading, it’s about Charlie

Wendelberger and the nights out

riding bikes together, it’s about

James Stoffel and I shutting

down the neighborhood pool

at dusk after ignoring the pool

for the entirety of our two hour

shift, it’s about walking over to

get a corned beef sandwich at

Benji’s with James Hagner, it’s

about cracking open a couple of

beers with Sarah, Will, Michael,

and Christy out in the parking

lot of Miller Park and listening

to Bob Uecker announce the

Brewer game; it’s about Susan

Meier, the neighbor who came

over with plate after plate of

exquisite pies and cookies just

because she‘s a kind woman,

it’s about the funerals that ev-

eryone on the block comes out

to attend when a beloved elderly

neighbor passes away, it’s about

the sandwiches, spiced rum, and

lively conversation which occur

after the burial, it’s about play-

ing Spyro in a basement with

my second grade cousin Erin

after a night summer night bar-

b-que, it‘s about sports crazed

dads who take a son totally dis-

interested in sports out to take

photos while the Badgers play

Ohio State, it‘s about moms

with just one child who let their

sons go away and adventure the

world despite their immense

fears. That is Milwaukee, that

is my home. To all of you read-

ing this, you have a home, be it

Milwaukee, Cleveland, Miami,

or San Diego. So from now on,

when someone asks you where

you’re from, remember the sto-

ries, the people, and speak up

with pride and passion and tell

them about the place that made

you.

!"#$%&'(()*+,(*-.+/01(+-2%3+4&*-+5((1

by Alex Gibbons

FEATURES AND LIST

EDITOR

This is the worst hangover

ever. There is an electric pain

right behind my eyes, and, half-

asleep, ripping them from their

sockets seems like it would

yield satisfaction. Probably not

a good idea, says a voice behind

my eyes that only intensifi es

the pain. I succeed in escaping

back to sleep and relish one last

dream before I roll out of bed.

A familiar specter visits my

bed, promising nothing but a

few moments of dreamtime per-

version, but as my hand slides

across the sheets it feels and

wraps around the warm body of

a female. Thinking my specter

has made itself present in my

waking life, I pull her close, un-

able to explain the phenomenon

but too groggy to care. Then I

notice the fur. And the smell.

My eyes open to see that I am

tightly hugging dog ass. I think

about it, debate the hygienic

problems of hugging dog ass,

decide that I’m probably dirtier

than her anyways, and resume

my butt hugging. This morning,

a big heap of dog ass is actually

comforting.

The female body that lays

writhing in my bed next to me

is, in fact, a dog. She’s a black

and white pit-bull terrier and, as

far as I’m concerned, still fer-

tile. She was found by the girl-

friend of one of my roommates,

tied to a tree at the Edgar Allen

Poe Park near Kings-

bridge. The plan, at

least what I thought

was the plan, was to

take the dog in until

we found a suitable

owner. Our apartment

would have a dog run-

ning around it for a

little while, a source

of constant entertain-

ment, and we’d gain

the benefi t of having

done something chari-

table: an intoxicating

feeling of righteous-

ness. Win-Win.

Several months

later, because of laxity

or laziness or a combi-

nation of the two, the

dog has established

herself as an inhabitant of the

apartment. Some efforts were

made to fi nd a new owner, but

they were never really persued.

I try to reason why the dog is

still around, but I know it’s re-

ally just because I like her and I

enjoy her company. In an apart-

ment dominated by four college

age men, fi lth and detritus scat-

tered about, unknown diseases

culturing in the bathroom, she

provides a female’s touch.

Sometimes that touch comes

in the form of dog shit, carefully

placed at the bathroom door, as

if, while defecating inside, she

took into account our ape-man

traditions. Or maybe a pile of

dirty clothes will be peed on,

or the keyboard of my laptop

plastered with black fur after

she rubs her head on it, trying to

lie in my lap. All of these stem

from my initial reason of want-

ing to fi nd a new owner. Dogs

require responsible people to

look after them, and shit, I’m a

fi lthy disgusting slob who regu-

larly has a mountain of dirty

clothing gathering somewhere

in my room. But even while

negligence threatens

her very existence,

she’s adorably happy

to be around, a smil-

ing, jumping, tail-

wagging being to

greet me at the door

when I come home

that makes me for-

get about my failing

Spanish grade, about

my longing for New

England, about the

inexorably stressful

state of my life.

If I’m sitting

down, she climbs

into my laps and

sits staring at my

face with a simple-

ton’s gaze. Before I

met her, I was sure

that pit-bulls were wretched,

violent, and dangerous animals.

When she fi rst began climbing

into my lap like this, at the be-

ginning of our relationship, I

imagined she was sizing up my

gullet, prepared to rip my lar-

ynx from its current residence.

Instead, she places her front

legs on my shoulders and rests

her head on mine, an eerily hu-

man gesture that implies some

emotion or understanding. But

I’m reminded constantly of her

ability to kill, of her muscular

body that was designed to run,

tear, and rip. There’s some pri-

mordial nerve deep inside of

her that makes her bark at for-

eign voices, or growl at the door

when she hears it being jostled

by some intruder outside. But

when she stares at my face I’m

calmed by the knowledge that

she sees me as a protector.

But in the same eyes there is

contained something that pulls

and tugs at my insides. Some-

thing that transports me back

in time to days when I gazed

into a different canine face that

I swore never to betray. My

Dog. And now I feel guilty. My

Dog still warm in the ground,

dead two years, and I fi nd my-

self giving attention to this new

bitch, sharing my bed with her,

writing foolishly sentimental ar-

ticles about dogs. I entertain the

idea that dogs share something

universal, and that with the new

girl I can honor my Dog’s exis-

tence. But then I remember the

jealousy of dogs, and feel guilty

again. At least it’s not a cat, I tell

myself.

!"""""""""""""""""""""""

“dog ass”

Not Fair

!"#!$%&'()*'(++,' #-%'./.%&' ./0%'12

by Lenny Raney

FEARWAX EDITOR

In a classic Realer than

Fact revelation, Kirk Cameron,

the actor best known as Mike

Seaver on 80’s sitcom Grow-

ing Pains, is still around and

apparently completely insane.

He, along with some Australian

douche named Ray Comfort,

are the hosts of a television se-

ries called Way of the Master

and co-founders of an evangeli-

cal fundamentalist organization

called Ministry of Living Wa-

ters. You may have seen snip-

pets of the series on the inter-

net, the most popular of which

involves Comfort explaining to

Cameron that the existence of

the banana disproves evolution.

Wait, I’ll give you a second to

let that set in. Okay, ready for

the explanation? Well, Comfort

says that the way the banana

perfectly fi ts a human hand and

peels so readily is compelling

evidence for intelligent design.

He fails to men-

tion that many wild

bananas are round,

littered with seeds,

and particularly foul

tasting and more

importantly, that

the curved yellow

bananas we all con-

sume and enjoy are

the product of sev-

eral thousands of

years of cultivation

and forced evolu-

tion. Yes, that’s right:

evolution is exactly

the reason why ba-

nanas are so awe-

some. As offensively

ridiculous as this is,

it gets even worse.

In “honor” of the

150th anniversary

of the publication

of Charles Darwin’s

On the Origin of

Species, Ministry of

Living Waters is cur-

rently in the process

of publishing and

handing out upwards

of 200,000 copies of

the seminal work,

but with a twist. It

will feature a 50 page introduc-

tion by Comfort that, amongst

other things, states Darwinian

evolution is a purely a theory on

macroevolution (it’s not), cites

that one Einstein quote where

he speaks positively about the

existence of God (despite the

many in which he doesn’t), and

relates Darwin’s theory to Hitler

and the Holocaust (really?).

I don’t want to turn this into

a tirade about fundamentalism

or evangelism just as much as

I don’t want to turn this into a

militaristic antitheistic diatribe.

I’d much rather focus on the

consummate hilarity of see-

ing grownup Mike Seaver any-

where, let alone as a hardcore

insane Christian preacher. I’d

highly suggest Googling him.

He looks exactly like he did

when he was 17 but now has

a slowly receding hairline and

the most eerie of pedosmiles. In

celebration of this monumental-

ly hilarious turn of events, the

rest of this article will consist of

a short fanfi c about how Mike

Seaver found Jesus:

Ben walks into Mike’s room

with a baseball and glove under

his arm and a large glass of milk

in his left hand. “Mike, come

play baseball with me!” Ben

says, jumping on Mike’s bed,

disrupting him from doing what

is seemingly homework and

spilling a little bit of milk on the

page he was working on.

“BEN! WHAT ARE YOU

DOING, YOU DWEEB? You

just ruined my letter! I am going

to KILL YOU!” Mike shouts.

Ben, having dropped the glove

and ball, runs out of the room

and down the stairs yelling “I’m

sorry! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean

to mess up your homework!”

Mike darts down the stairs after

him.

“It’s not homework, Ben…”

says Carol mysteriously, who is

sitting on the couch watching

television while the chase is oc-

curing. Ben and Mike stop dead

in their tracks.

“What are you talking

about?” they inquire in unison.

“Well…” begins Carol, “I

heard through the grapevine

that Mikey has a little crush at

school.” The audience coos.

Mike immediately retorts,

“SHUT IT CAROL. You don’t

know anything!”

“Tell me! Tell me!” inter-

jects Ben. The audience laughs.

“DON’T TELL HIM OR

ELSE.” responds Mike.

“Or else what? I’m friends

with Julie Lautner who’s friends

with Charlie Brauning who’s

friends with Adam Grady’s sis-

ter Cara who’s best friends with

Allie Samuels who says that you

have a crush on her. She says

she catches you staring at her

in English class all the time and

knows you were the one who

left that love note in her locker

two weeks ago. Next time you

write an anonymous love note,

try to do it in somebody else’s

handwriting or at the least not

write in your own when you tag

your name on the basketballs in

gym,” explains Carol. The audi-

ence laughs harder.

“Mike has a girlfriend! Mike

has a girlfriend!” Ben says,

mocking Mike. Then, a mis-

chievous look appears on his

face and he sneaks away mys-

teriously, heading for Mike’s

bedroom.

Redfaced, Mike replies,

“Whatever, Carol, I don’t have

a girlfriend and I don’t have a

crush on Allie

Samuels!” and

he stomps off,

clearly upset. End

scene.

The next day

at school, Allie

Samuels and sev-

eral of her friends

are standing in a

tight circle around

something of in-

terest laughing

hysterically. “Al-

lie, I love you so

much that some-

times I just don’t

know what to do

with myself!” she

reads desperately

trying to hold

back her laugh-

ing. Her friends

laugh even hard-

er. “Hey, what is

this white stain

here?” she asks,

noticing the milk

Ben spilled on the

page.

“Well, I guess

he does know

what do with

himself when he thinks about

you, Al,” Cara Grady smarmily

replies.

“OH MY GOD, EW!”

shrieks Allie as she drops the

page and runs towards the bath-

room, knocking over who else

but a clearly fl ustered and liter-

ally fl oored Mike Seaver. Awk-

ward silence ensues as a look of

pure loathing blankets Allie’s

face. She steps right over Mike,

hands him his letter, opens the

door to the bathroom, and in the

most cold and calloused tone

possible, says “Michael Seaver,

you need Jesus.”

Mike, I don’t think this is

what Allie meant.

by Lauren Duca

STAFF LIKES THIS

For the internet predator, we

have this prototypical image of

a pale middle-aged white man

with a comb over and moth-

eaten sweater wearing over-

sized glasses, staring hungrily

at a computer screen. Our gen-

eration is becoming that Chris-

Hansen-hunted man; we’re all

fucking creepy. Advancements

in technology and new forms of

communication have changed

the way we interact with and

stalk each other. Facebook has

presented us with an array of

questions that sociology will

take years to answer. It is easy

to friend someone; to look at

their 642 pictures; to fi nd out

their birthday, siblings’ names,

hometown, political views, re-

ligious views, interests, favor-

ite movies, and favorite books,

but what is not easy is the face

time that comes after Facebook

activity.

You just sent Matt from your

Spanish class a friend request.

You think he’s kind of cute. He

has a goatee, and he wears a lot

of fl annel, and the other day

you saw that he was listening to

that song you love by Belle &

Sebastian; he’s edgy but sensi-

tive, and that’s sexy. There’s a

lot of other guys that look like

him on campus, actually when

you were jogging without con-

tacts on Thursday, you ran fast-

er cause you thought you were

about to pass him (but didn’t)

like seven times. Anyways,

you’re mutual friends with

someone on Facebook, and after

just two minutes of hesitation,

you hit submit and send him

an invitation to be your 875th

friend. He accepts, you get no-

tifi ed, and the creeping begins.

You start clicking through his

pictures, and SHIT, you really

lost track of time, because he’s

wearing a Christmas sweater in

the last one he was tagged in,

how many months did you just

click through? Oh, well, you’ll

get back to studying, right after

you update your music info. You

liked The Moldy Peaches before

you knew he did, just forgot to

add them in there.

It’s 8:29 on Tuesday, you

have an 8:30 and you’re only

halfway to Dealy. Goddamnit,

you can be such a dilly-dallier

sometimes. You duck into class,

kick past a hideous and cum-

bersome Vera Bradley bag, and

slip into a seat. You catch a bit

of facial hair in your peripheral

vision. Could it be? It is. You

are within a foot of the only

subject you studied last night,

of the face you watched smirk-

ing in photo booth sessions,

grinning at grandma’s birthday

party, concentrating in game af-

ter game of beer pong. You are

sitting next to Matt. He notices

you looking his way, turns in

your direction, and engages you

in full eye contact. You don’t

react. Showing no recognition,

you start looking through your

bag for a pen. Crap. You have

now reached stalker status.

You have literally looked at

pictures of this kid in his house,

in his dorm, in his boxers, at

Tinkers, at Mugz’s, at his little

sister’s piano recital, on his best

friend’s boat, on vacation, and

on something he snorted in the

same album, and you are not go-

ing to even acknowledge him.

It’s ridiculous, it’s absurd, it’s

awkward, and we all do it, basi-

cally on a daily basis.

Half a decade ago, if some-

one said, “So, I was looking at

some photos of her from two

summers back. She went to this

barbeque at his aunt’s house,

and anyways, I don’t think

she’s always been a vegan.”

You probably would have run to

alert the poor actually-animal-

eating girl that she was being

preyed upon. Now, you’re look-

ing at those same pictures and

sometimes even clicking away

to her aunt’s profi le.

There are a million uncom-

fortable moments we encoun-

ter in the day-to-day. You are

guaranteed a certain allotment

of awkward. You will have

to make small talk with your

teacher, because you happened

to be walking past the library

at the same time. Your drunken

hook-up is going to be on cam-

pus probably 93% of the days

you are. And there’s no real way

to get out of saying hi to the girl

who lives next door more than

once in the morning, especially

if you both end up going back to

the bathroom to brush your teeth

after showering. But it is easy

to dodge the disgusting feeling

of ignoring someone that you

know all too well from the in-

ternet, because you have yet to

meet them in the real world.

So, stop. Deal with the awk-

ward you have to, and avoid

the awkward you don’t. When

you’re on your laptop, write

your essay, take your obliga-

tory Under The Infl uence alco-

hol tutorial, pirate some music,

harvest your fucking avocados

on Farmville, do just about any-

thing but spend your time as a

internet predator.

I would not “like” our gen-

eration’s stalker status.

!"#$%&'!"#$%&!'()*()*%&+

“I AM A BANANA!

I PROVE THAT GOD IS REAL!”

!"#$%&'% ()$%!"!$*% +,(+-$*%./0%.112

by Keeran Murphy

STAFF DEADITOR

With their victory in game

six, the SK Wyverns have forced

the Kia Tigers to play game sev-

en for the KBO Championship.

I am talking, of course, about

Korean baseball and the Korean

Baseball Organization, a subject

both fascinating and pertinent.

To start, notice that the two team

names men-

tioned above

bear no refer-

ence to their

respective loca-

tions. (If you

are wondering,

the SK Wyverns

are located in

Incheon and

the Kia Tigers

are based in

Gwangju. An-

other interest-

ing tidbit: Out

of the KBO’s

eight teams,

three are locat-

ed in Seoul. Put

another way,

37.5% of the

country’s teams

are located in

one city.) Instead of bearing the

name of the city in which they

are located, KBO teams are

identifi ed by the companies that

own them. The American reader

will be familiar with Kia; SK is

the third-largest conglomerate

in South Korea, composed of 92

subsidiary and affi liate compa-

nies. Sure, the Cincinnati Reds

play in Great American Ball-

park, but they’re still the Cin-

cinnati Reds. Also, notice that

the team names are all written

in English. There is a lot going

on here, even just in the names

of the teams.

Busan, Korea’s second larg-

est city, is home to the Lotte

Giants. And before they were

knocked out of this season’s

playoffs, I attended a home

game against the Woori Heroes

(formerly the, get this, Hyundai

Unicorns). The ballpark fare

is worth mentioning, as it was

the fi rst thing I experienced at

the game. Going in, I didn’t

know what to expect in terms of

grub; I only assumed, correctly,

that hot dogs and Cracker Jack

would be conspicuously absent.

First I bought a bag of some lit-

tle doughnuttish things molded

to look like mini corns-on-the-

cob. Said snack is produced by a

greasy machine that squirts a set

amount of something best de-

scribed as “goo” into little metal

corn molds on a sort of assem-

bly line. The goo hardens in the

molds as they circle towards the

end of the line, where they are

ejected into a heat lamp-warmed

tray and wait to be stuffed into

a paper bag and served to the

customer. The outside of the

snack is cakey, but the inside

is stuffed with a viscous fi lling

that’s much like the cream of

a custard doughnut, except the

cream is more glutinous and

less sweet. What’s most unset-

tling about these snacks is that

I think the inside is actually

just the goo that didn’t fi nish

cooking. They were probably

one of the unhealthiest things

I’ve ever consumed. And they

weren’t good, per se, but I still

ate a gross number of them.

After the game had started and

the sight of the soggy machine-

made snacks was starting to

make me queasy, I bought some

squid from a vendor—head and

tentacles both. Not much to say

about this, except I think they

were fried in butter and were

delicious.

The stadium was packed

to full capacity and the crowd

was wonderfully raucous. In-

terestingly, one of the crowd’s

favorite players was the Mexi-

can Karim Garcia, the only

player with facial hair, whose

name under a Korean tongue

becomes something like “Gah-

(l/r)eu-see-uh.” For all you

sports fans out there, this is the

same Karim Garcia who played

for various MLB teams (includ-

ing the New York Mets and the

New York Yankees) until 2004.

And according to his Wikipedia

page, in 2004, he and teammate

Shane Spencer “were involved

in a parking lot encounter

with a pizza deliverman, but

no charges were fi led.” This

makes sense, as he’s a stocky

galoot with a signifi cantly sub-

standard batting average. But

when he makes contact the ball

soars; he’s your run-of-the-mill

slugger, a Gashouse Gorillas

(see: Looney Tunes, “Baseball

Bugs,” 1946). My impression,

though, is that such players are

few and far between in Korean

baseball, and so the crowd loves

it. Even when Garcia hits a pop

fl y that is clearly going to land

gently in the glove of the center-

fi elder, the crowd stands up and

“whoooooooaaaa”s like it’s a

near-home-run.

There were certain similari-

ties between the Korean and the

American baseball stadium ex-

perience. Just like in America,

there was a “Kiss Cam.” Also, a

man proposed to his girlfriend;

she said yes ; ). But there was

plenty that was different. The

Lotte Giants do not have bat-

boys; they have batgirls. They

wear white skirts, orange tank

tops, pink baseball caps, and

pigtails. Make of this what you

will. And there is no seventh-in-

ning stretch, but there is a sixth.

The cheering is defi nite-

ly the most exciting part of

the game. They

whole crowd is

electric, and they

have a differ-

ent cheer or song

for every single

player, usually

incanted when

that player comes

to bat. One fun

Giants idiosyn-

crasy is that fans

bring newspaper

sto the game and

,through a system

of tearing and

twisting, make

their own pom-

poms.

In the eighth

inning, I was

puzzled as to why

stadium person-

nel were walk-

ing around toss-

ing bright orange

plastic bags into

the crowd. At fi rst

I thought it was a

sort of “pick up

your own trash”

policy, but the crowd seemed

too eager. The bags are in fact

for everyone to make ridiculous

looking hats. They are tied so

that they’re full of air, and the

two loop handles are wrapped

around the ears, with the bright

orange plastic sac of air on top

of the head. Gazing out upon

the capacity crowd, it looked

like a swarm of bright orange

jellyfi sh has descended upon the

stadium.

Also, there are cheerleaders.

They are on a stage set up in the

right fi eld seats, and the major-

ity of the time they do cutesy

coordinated dance numbers.

They are dressed similarly to

the batgirls: white skirts and or-

ange tops, but for some reason

in the eighth inning they change

into super short jean shorts and

tee shirts that say “DIVA.” The

reason for this metamorphosis

is unclear. I can’t remember if it

coincided with the distribution

of the plastic bags. The cheer-

leaders alternate on stage with

a more literal “cheer-leader”—

a man in a Giants uniform and

white gloves (and in the fi rst in-

ning he had some kind of white

cape or fl owy outergarment,

making him look very much

like a relatively lame super-

hero, but the cape/fl owy outer-

garment was jettisoned after the

fi rst inning), capering and gam-

boling across the stage, gesticu-

lating in sharp, precise motions,

looking like he’s trying to give

semaphore code sans-fl ags or

trying to direct an airplane on

a tarmac. He’s always either

shouting cheers into a micro-

phone or blowing sharply into

a whistle. He’s darn good at his

job, and he really gets the crowd

going. Through the entire game

there’s not a quiet moment, and

the cheering almost never stops.

Returning to team names, the

Giants are the “Lotte” Giants,

not the Busan Giants. Lotte is a

megalithic Asian conglomerate

that, according to its Wikipedia

page, “consists of over 60 busi-

ness units. . .engaged in such di-

verse industries as candy manu-

facturing, beverages, hotels, fast

food, retail, fi nancial services,

heavy chemicals, electronics,

IT, construction, publishing, and

entertainment.” Many of the Gi-

ants cheers consist of only the

word “Lotte,” chanted repeat-

edly. I don’t know if there is re-

ally a true equivalent to Lotte in

America, but imagine a crowd

at a baseball stadium cheer-

ing for their team by chanting

“GE! GE! Gooooooo GE!” It

would be something like that.

Even more bizarre to imagine

are the cheers that must come

at Woori Heroes home games,

when you consider that Woori is

the nationalized Tobacco com-

pany. But despite this unabash-

edly postmodern integration of

corporate ownership and team

(Lotte Department Store is even

spray-painted on the fi eld, in

Korean), I’ve never seen a more

energetic and supportive crowd.

Here, advertising, the ma-

chine which makes sport on

such a massive spectatorial

level possible, is not just post-

ed on a jersey, as is the case in

English Premier League soccer;

the at-home viewer is not just

reminded that today’s presenta-

tion is “brought to you by…” In

the KBO, advertising is truly in

a Frederic Jamesonianly post-

modern sense “incorporated

into the very substance” of the

sport. And not only is the viewer

or crowd beaten over the head

with this advertising, but when

the stadium

crowd chants

for its team, it is

the crowd that

wields the beat-

ing stick. But

for KBO fans,

this seems not

to matter. There

is something

academical ly

scary about

this; it seems

like brainwash-

ing—the unwit-

ting manipu-

lation of the

individual and

subjugation to

the corporate

machine, the

a s s i m i l a t i o n

of man-as-cog

into that ma-

chine under the

convenient ruse

of “sport.” But

I’m not sure

how much it

really matters

in praxis when

weighed against the simple joy

and enthusiasm of the fans. For

them, it seems, that which we

call a rose by any other name

would smell as sweet, and that

which we call a business con-

glomerate might as well be a

baseball team.

“When I Looked at His EyesI Saw Three Letters: KBO”

!"#!$%&'()*'(++,' #-%'./.%&' ./0%'12'''

/&#3

by Sean Bandfi eld

STAFF HARDCOREBEQUE

Dahvie Vanity is a shad-

ow character and an all right

guy. Dressed in black lace and

spiked platform boots, with

red-fl are hair, he could only

front the techno-scream proj-

ect known as Blood On The

Dance Floor. His band scorches

earth with brokenCYDE on the

Crunk Kids Tour, which cuts

and burns across our nation as

these words are put to paper. I

recently sat him down to talk

about the crucial things: vanity,

virtue, Crunkcore, cookies.

Let’s talk about your birth

certifi cate. If we were to look

at that document, what would

the name be on it?

Dahvie Vanity: Well, my

real name is Jesús David Torres.

And what year?

1984. I’m twenty-fi ve.

So why the name Dahvie

Vanity?

Well, “Dahvie” is “David”

in Spanish - “David” is my

middle name…“Vanity” kind

of came through my obsession

with mirrors. Everywhere I’d

go, I’d always look at my own

refl ection.

I’d like you to talk about

your image and where vanity

fi ts into that.

Other people express their

art form through music or litera-

ture or things like that. I express

my art form through visual, you

know…I’m really huge into

Visual Kei and Harajuku and

Gothic Lolita and things like

that, so that’s where a lot of my

image came from. I’m obsessed

with Japanese magazines and

the 80’s and things like that…

and vampires.

When I see someone who

has a very stark image or is

very stand-out, part of me has

to wonder – is it all about at-

tention?

No, it’s about the music.

I’ve always been like this. I’ve

always been obsessed with Ed-

ward Scissorhands and things

like that. I kind of became my

obsession with things like that.

“Crunkcore” is a young

term – groups have started to

combine the throat shredding

vocals of screamo with the elec-

tronic beats and subject matter

of crunk. brokenCYDE is the

notorious archetype of this em-

bryonic pattern. While Blood

On The Dance Floor isn’t as

overtly crunked as some other

groups, the strong parallels be-

tween them and others in the

movement allows the band to

be included alongside the cat-

egory.

Would you identify

[Crunkcore] as a movement

or a scene?

It’s a movement, because

there’s a bunch

of people, it’s

not just a trend.

People really

live their lives

like this.

What’s the

lifestyle?

The Crunk

movement is

more like, “We

just want to

party and have

a good time”

and things

like that. But

I don’t like to

put myself in a

trend or a cate-

gory. I’m super

universal.

How do

you think you

fi t into this?

Well, of

course we’ve

got the techno

dance beats

going on, but I

do a little bit of

hip-hop. We’re

kind of like the

random Goth

kids of this tour

- but we’re not

Goth.

Oppo-

nents of Crunk-

core have been

notably vocal

about their

disdain. Buddy

Nielson, front-

man of the pop-

ular and scene

respected post-

hardcore band

Senses Fail,

took time out

of his shows

to lambast

brokenCYDE,

who, without

Buddy’s con-

sent, were put

on tour with

his band. I ask

Dahvie about

the backlash.

I think

people just

need to grow

up and be ma-

ture about it.

They’re making it worse…I

sing in one of my songs, “Haters

make you famous.” Whether it’s

good publicity or bad public-

ity…it’s advertising. Let them

hate.

Well why do you think

they’re hating in the fi rst

place?

It could be jealousy. Seeing

a band that’s getting that suc-

cessful so fast…

What about Buddy from

Senses Fail? Would you say

that he’s jealous?

I think there’s a lot of un-

necessary hate. I’m not here to

bash Senses Fail…I like those

guys…but it’s like…let’s just

all get along.

One of the common com-

plaints about Crunkcore is the

superfi ciality of its lyrics. Dah-

vie explains that his message

to listeners is,

“Live it up,

love it up…just

party on.” I ask

him if such a

message is vir-

tuous.

Just be safe.

You’ve got to

be smart.

The one

song you

didn’t per-

form tonight

was “Bitches

Get Stitches.”

Lyrically, you

say, “Stop

the hate, con-

g r a t u l a t e , ”

and, “You can

talk your shit,

you’re only

making me

famous.” Who

are you talk-

ing to?

I’m talking

to all the haters.

That song is to

make people

feel good about

themselves…

to let everyone

know that, if

someone is go-

ing to hate you,

fuck ‘em.

If someone

makes you fa-

mous by talk-

ing hate about

you, is that a

good kind of

fame? Is that

the kind of

fame that you

want?

I don’t nec-

essarily want

fame, it kind of

just happens…

But it’s the old

saying - every

publicity is

good publicity.

Couldn’t I

say the same

thing about

Hitler? Hit-

ler’s really

famous. He’s

really famous

for being re-

ally bad.

But I think most of my fame

is not from me being bad. I

didn’t kill six million Jews.

That’s true. And forgive

the allusion.

I think I saved a thousand

kids. I think I made a thousand

kids feel good about themselves.

When you’re writing a

song and when you release

something, are you making

an effort to give the fans what

they want?

Yeah. I really try to push my

music to where I don’t com-

pletely change, but I’m giving

what the fans want.

What the fans want – is

that what’s best for them?

When you were a kid and

you wanted to eat cookies

for dinner, and your parents

wouldn’t let you…if your par-

ents, you know, were there to

do what you wanted and to

give you what you were look-

ing for, then you would’ve eat-

en cookies for dinner.

But then cookies would get

old! It would be the same old

damn cookies!

But the principle is… is

what the fans want what’s

best for them?

Totally.

Really?

The thing is, I’m always

evolving…I think every Blood

On The Dance Floor record has

progressively changed and even

gotten better. So, you know, we

are going to change. But, like,

we’re not going to change to

where they can’t recognize us.

Where do you see this

scene going?

I think it is going to get big-

ger. It is going to change…It’s

still new, it’s still young, and

it’s still developing, so I think it

still has a longevity… You don’t

want to just be a trend. What

you want to do is you want to

become a timeless act…You

want to be remembered.

Do you think you’re going

to be remembered?

Of course. Absolutely.

Whether the fetal entity that

is Crunkcore will become a leg-

endary revolution or a forgot-

ten accident is long from de-

termined. It combines the most

grating elements of Screamo

with the most abject traits of

Crunk, birthing a devil child

that is therefore twice as base

as either - for it to survive its

criticism would be a feat alone.

However, despite the current

gauntlet, these bands are selling

tickets. But unless they want to

join Disco in its shamed crypt,

the Crunk Kids will have to

hone their sound and deepen

their message. As it is, their

grave has already been marked,

and whether they know it or not,

they’re the fastest ones digging.

To hear the full interview,

check out fupaper.wordpress.com

!"#$%&'% ()$%!"!$*% +,(+-$*%./0%.112

Halloween around these parts can be dangerous. the paper is

no feardozer, no--we’d love to personally install a kitten shower

(that’s a shower head that pelts kittens) in each of your residenc-

es so that you could hide from the cold, unmerciful realities of

the outdoors. But goshdarnit, Fordham, there comes a time when

kitten showers just don’t do justice to the Truth. Because there

are so few kitten showers in the world. I’ve gone off on a tangent

about kitten showers, but what I’m really trying to say is that

… when a kitten is fl ying towards your naked unwashed trunk,

you don’t have time to think about things like, “hmm, I wonder

whether gang initiation week is a hoax…”

I’m not sure if it is. But you might as well play it safe.

Here are some ideas on how to

Still Have Fun Even Without Getting Stabbed

This Halloween…

542 West 27th Street

New York NY, 10001

Blood Manor can make your Texas Chainsaw Massacre

dreams come true without leaving the Empire State. Located at

W 27th and 10th Ave, the haunted house is chock-a-block with

hanging corpses, escaped mental patients, and zombie strippers

eager to chase you down the weaving black halls. While the

sights and sounds may cause you to scream, cry, and pee your

pants (we won’t tell anyone), you defi nitely won’t get stabbed

at Blood Manor because, as was so helpfully described by

“ftwizz” on Yahoo Answers, “people could get majorly injured

and that would lead to lawsuits.” Tickets are 25$ at bloodmanor.

com.

7% chance of getting stabbed

6th Avenue South of Spring Street & above Canal

Interested in witnessing tens of thousands of people parade

down Sixth Ave in crazy costumes or would you yourself like

to parade down Sixth Ave in a crazy costume? Then head to the

36th Annual Village Halloween Parade this Saturday evening.

In addition to the costumes, the parade’s two million specta-

tors are treated to: Dozens of live bands! Troupes of dancers

and circus performers! A fl eet of giant rod puppets! Hell, it was

named “Greatest Event on Earth” by Festivals International for

October 31. Fun and, ever importantly, free, the Village Parade

should be your choice for public lewdness this Halloween.

35% chance of getting stabbed

210 North Broadway, Sleepy Hollow, NY 10591

I know everybody wants to dress up like the Mario Bros.

or some sort of “sexy” something-or-rather and go out and get

completely sham-wowed, but if you’re at all interested in any

sort of traditional festive activity, head over just a few miles

northwest to Sleepy Hollow in Westchester country Friday,

October 30th, for their annual haunted hayride. Learn about the

history of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman on a three

hour tour of the beautiful lower Hudson Valley. Gates open at

6PM at Sleepy Hollow High School and the ride will be from

7PM until 10PM. However—Freshmen be warned—you have

to be at least 10 to ride by yourself, and I’m not sure whether

they’re talking about actual age or mental age.

the odds are overwhelmingly in favor of you getting

stabbed.

by Nick Murray

STAFF ‘MERKIN

In the thirty-seventh of the

eighty-three photographs that

comprise Robert Frank’s 1958

book The Americans, the pho-

tographer stands in front of a

screen door in McClellanville,

South Carolina. His fi gure, cam-

era raised, blocks the incoming

sun, and through his silhouette

we can see into the room behind

the door. It’s an empty barber-

shop. Are

those li-

quor bot-

tles or hair

p r o d u c t s

sitting on

the win-

dowsill?

A less

subtle pho-

tographer

w o u l d

have be-

gun or

e n d e d

his book

with this

p i c t u r e ,

ham-fi stedly acknowledging its

symbolism, but Frank places it

in the middle of the collection.

Here, it conjures up a range of

emotions. Although the door’s

refl ection makes the image fair-

ly complex, one is struck by its

sparseness, all the while trying

to assemble the sections into a

coherent image. The chair is

empty, the house behind does

not look very inviting, and the

closest thing to a person is the

photographer’s black shadow.

Twelve pictures later, Frank

shows us an equally lonely pho-

tograph of a Detroit assembly

line. The picture’s many work-

ers fi ll the gaps left between

machines, wires, and raw ma-

terial. The grain of the photo-

graph has the same distorting

effect as the screen door in the

McClellanville picture. Not one

worker’s face is visible. In this

sense, it is fi tting that the title is

not “Workers on an Assembly

Line,” but, sardonically, simply

“Assembly Line.”

The short version of the

story behind The Americans

is this: in early 1955, Robert

Frank, with recommendations

from respected photographers,

including Walker Evans, Ed-

ward Steichen, and Alexey

Brodovitch, won a fellowship

from the John Simon Gug-

genheim Foundation to travel

across the country taking pho-

tographs of “what one natural-

ized American fi nds to see in the

United States that signifi es the

kind of civilization born here

and spreading elsewhere.” He

started the journey’s fi rst leg al-

most immediately, driving from

his home in New York City to

Detroit. Soon after returning,

he set out again, this time down

to Savannah. Later that year,

Frank embarked on his longest

run. Beginning in Indianapolis

he traveled west, making it as

far north as Butte, before travel-

ing down to San Francisco and

along the Pacifi c coast. When he

reached Los Angeles, he turned

back and headed toward per-

haps the most American city in

the country—Las Vegas—then

made his way to his conclusion

in Florida.

Earlier this year, the Na-

tional Gallery of Art organized

an exhibition chronicling this

trip, and at present the exhibit

resides at the Metropolitan Mu-

seum of Art. Looking In: Robert

Frank’s The Americans com-

piles not only vintage prints of

all the photographs, but also

ephemera, including the Gug-

genheim application rough

drafts he wrote with Evans, con-

tact sheets, and working prints.

The contact sheets reveal much

about Frank’s method and ver-

satility. At times he was studi-

ous, at one point circling a cov-

ered car in Long Beach trying to

fi nd the angle that would reveal

the subject’s poignancy, while

other shots came from a more

freewheeling style, pictures of-

ten taken regardless of the view-

fi nder. The book’s most famous

image, a segregated trolley car

in New Orleans, came this way,

the car running opposite his pri-

or subjects.

Ultimately, this exhibition,

celebrating the fi ftieth anniver-

sary of the publishing of The

Americans, is not just about

photography but about his-

tory—how we write it, what it

means, and what it says about us

today. In one sense, the pictures

seem to come from a different

world. The clothes, the cars,

and just about everything seems

dated, and

even the

idea of

a cross-

c o u n t r y

attempt to

fi nd the

e s s e n c e

of Amer-

ica has

b e c o m e

p l a y e d

out, partly

due to the

perfection

Frank and

K e r o u a c

ach ieved

in their trips. On the other hand,

Frank took these pictures only

fi fty years ago. Does time really

march this fast? Apparently, it

does; although, as the saying

goes, the more things change,

the more they stay the same.

Somehow, Frank captured this.

He shows a society moving for-

ward—new buildings, new

machines, new cars—but not

necessarily progressing, as the

wide-eyed black man looking

out from that trolley window

reminds us.

And then, what does The

Americans mean today, after

9/11? For better or for worse,

that event lies in the back of

our minds as we make our way

through these eighty-three

photographs. Considering

this, is it okay to feel nostalgic

for these photographs? Surely,

Frank does not give us much

to feel nostalgic about or any-

thing even close to sentimen-

tal, but there is still something

beautiful about many of the

images. Perhaps this feeing

does not come from a long-

ing to rekindle the bygone era

but the desire to go back to it

and do the last fi fty years right.

No Vietnam, no assassinations,

no George W. Bush, but better

conditions and wages for the

workers on that Detroit assem-

bly line and true equality for the

man in the trolley. When you

look at Frank’s pictures, you

want these things so badly it al-

most hurts. Hopefully, they will

be here to welcome the book’s

one-hundredth anniversary, at

which point a new generation

will again marvel at this won-

derful work.

!"#!$%&'()*'(++,' #-%'./.%&' ./0%'12'''

Summer was pretty sweet, huh? But now the leaves are

browning, withering, and dying, and there’s a chill blowing

across your neighborhood. People who think they have more

class than they actually do will break out their peacoats and

scarves, myself included. All in all, you’re gonna feel pretty

collegiate for a couple of weeks, before winter jams its hor-

rible, icy fi nger into you and leaves you unable to do even

the most basic things, like walk alllllll the way to FMH when

it’s like, totally thirty below out. You better stay in and get

caught up on Melrose Place. But maybe, just maybe, you

realize that this is the last couple of weeks when you can trek

all the way down to the city, rage your face off, and not freeze

your little knickers getting there, only to sweat profusely

when you arrive. So, if I were you, here’s what I’d hit up

-SW

Who: Dethklok, Mastodon

When: Thursday, October 29th @ 6:30 p.m.

Where: Hammerstein Ballroom

How Much: $35

Why: Dethklok may be the product of a late night Cartoon Net-

work cartoon, but Mastodon is widely respected as being one of

the best metal bands to come up in our generation, and Dethklok

isn’t as shitty as them being a cartoon would make them sound.

Sometimes you just want to bang your head.

Who: Justice (DJ Set)

When: Thursday, October 29th @ 10 p.m.

Where: Webster Hall

How Much: $40

Why: Forty bucks is pricey, but the French house duo of Justice

is simply amazing. They are strong recording artists, and Cross

was a good album, but Justice’s real strength is in remixing other

peoples tunes (listen to their remix of “Electric Feel”)and should

put on a killer DJ set. I’ll see you there.

Who: Deer Tick (as the Sex Pistols)

When: Halloween @ 9 p.m.

Where: Brooklyn Bowl

How Much: $5

Why: People either like or dislike the band Deer Tick, people

either like or dislike punk rock. If you like Deer Tick and punk

rock, you’ll probably love this show. If you dislike both Deer

Tick and punk rock, you’ll probably hate this show. I dunno, it’s

fi ve dollars, decide if you want it more than a chicken roll.

Who: Weezer, Matt & Kim, PT Walkley

When: Halloween @ 6:30 p.m.

Where: Hammerstein Ballroom

How Much: $38

Why: Matt & Kim have been described as a darling indie duo

so many times I believe it’s on their business cards, but they

are fantastic, and, I mean, Weezer’s brand of poppy nerd-rock is

pretty damned infectious. Why not dress up and go out?

by Mickie Meinhardt

STAFF I THINK I LOVE

YOU

In 1963, Maurice Sendak

summed up our childhoods in

10 sentences with his book,

Where the Wild Things Are.

The fantastic illustrations and

sense of adventure appealed to

any child who has ever dreamed

of being ruler of an imaginary

land, and the book has been

beloved by millions ever since.

The big question was, would

Spike Jonze, with his October-

released movie adaptation, sin-

gle handedly crush what Sendak

so wonderfully built?

Everyone’s inner child can

breathe a sigh of relief. No,

Jonze did not butcher the heart-

felt memories of millions. He

succeeded where so many have

failed and produced a book-

turned-movie that I could not

fi nd a single fault with. Not an

exaggeration. Where the Wild

Things Are without a doubt

lived up to its hype and fulfi lled

the anticipation that increased

a bit more each time the trailer

was played.

Jonze stuck to the plot – not

hard to do when the book only

has 10 sentences – but did in-

evitably have to add some back-

ground. Max remains just Max,

a disgruntled young boy with no

last name. But we fi nd out that

his parents are recently divorced

and his mother is a working

mom, absent during most of the

day and with a new boyfriend at

night. Max has a sister named

Claire just on the brink of teen-

age-dom and thus feels her-

self too old to “play with” her

younger brother. The combined

lack of sympathy leaves Max in

hurt, confusion, and loneliness,

and he lashes out and runs away,

fi nding a boat in the woods and

sailing through treacherous

waters to the land of the Wild

Things. As in the book, Max

faces down the Wild Things

with his boundless child’s cour-

age and is appointed their king.

However, his stay on the is-

land lasts several days, rather

than just a night, and through

the lengthy period of time the

Wild Things are shown to have

their own very real problems –

problems that seem to embody

Max’s own levels of confusion,

fear, and sorrow. In the end,

Max’s anger at his family melts

into homesickness, and he re-

turns to his worried mother and

a slice of chocolate cake, leav-

ing the entire audience in tears.

The fi lm is a far cry from

the Disney/Pixar animations

that dominate children’s fi lms,

which is part of why it’s so un-

believably moving. Kids will

love it for the same reasons they

love the book – who, as a six

year old, wouldn’t have wanted

to be king of the wild things?

But adults will appreciate it for

the artful approach to such dark

undertones: the pangs of loneli-

ness and pure adolescent sorrow

that drive Max to fl ee his home.

The ideas of divorce or a distant

older sibling are ones most of us

can identify with, and the pain

both Max and the Wild Things

experience in looking for a

friend and fi nding no one there

is heartwrenching: one of the

fi rst questions posed of the new

king is, “Can you keep out all

the sadness?” to which Max re-

plies, “I’ve got a sadness shield

that will keep out all the loneli-

ness.” Each of the Wild Things

has a distinct personality repre-

senting Max’s varying internal

problems, with Carol, the cen-

tral Wild Thing, most closely

representing Max’s quick tem-

per and deep feelings. The mu-

sic, too, seamlessly intertwines

the magical with the emotional;

Jonze commissioned Karen O

of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs to do the

entire soundtrack, and the result

is a light-hearted, folky mix

full of humming, cheering, and

whistling, complimented with

purely instrumental, heartfelt

tracks. The backup (the band is

formally titled “Karen O and the

Kids”) is comprised of members

of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the Li-

ars, Deerhunter, and the Ra-

conteurs, as well as a chorus of

children: a fantastic collection

of indie, punk, and electronic

rock artists that, combined, pro-

duce a whimsically beautiful

soundtrack that perfectly com-

pliments the fi lm.

Though told from a child’s

simplistic outlook, the fi lm is

by no means emotionally juve-

nile. Yet somehow it is this as-

pect, which would appear to be

nothing but praise-worthy, that

has caused criticism. Though it

is a PG-rated children’s movie,

many have been asking if it was,

in fact, made for kids; it is in all

actuality less a kid’s movie than

a movie about being a kid, about

kids’ angst and adventure and

imagination all bundled into a

wolf suit with a crown on top.

It’s defi nitely child-appropriate,

though perhaps a bit scary at

times, but the main concepts are

fully adult – poignantly regress-

ing each of us to what it’s like to

be a kid. I fi nd any criticism to

be nothing short of condescend-

ing; fantastically woven, from

costumes and setting to anima-

tion and soundtrack, it’s a fi lm

that fi nally lives up to it’s ex-

pectations. As Max wonderfully

and simply puts it, “Let the wild

rumpus start!”

!"#$%&'% ()$%!"!$*% +,(+-$*%.'/%.001

For Fordham students who tire of travelling an hour plus south to enjoy the city outside the Bronx,

the northernmost tip of Manhattan above Harlem is a neglected treasure. Inwood, Fort George / Fort

Tyron, and Washington Heights offer quirkily winding streets; soaring hills of San Francisco propor-

tions; classic, original New York architecture; a healthy dose of nature; and an expansive diversity,

making for an eclectic mish mash of retail and cuisine.

In a paltry 20 minutes, the Bx12 select will take you over the University Heights Bridge to 207th (a

Fordham Road-esque retail fi asco) and Broadway, in Inwood. You can walk north on Broadway into

the Marble Hill section of the Bronx over the Broadway Bridge, a futuristic drawbridge which offers

comfortable pedestrian access and gritty, hodge-podge views over the narrow Harlem River.

Mosey back down Broadway to the 215th Street Steps, one of several massive sets of concrete

stairs leading to the higher-elevated (and at times, wealthier) terrace of northwest Manhattan. If you’re

willing to make the hike up, take a stroll on the quaint pathways and hidden stairways of Isham Park.

Northern Manhattan contains endless acres of parkland, untainted woods that stubbornly resist urban

infringement, spilling foliage and ivy over stone walls and brick buildings. The manicured lawns of

Parks Central, Prospect, McCarren, etc., pale in comparison.

Nearby, the beautiful, old single homes of red brick on 217th Street appear bizarrely plucked from a

small Western European town. Prance back down those stairs for truly exceptional carrot cake at Carrot

Top Pastries on 214th and Broadway. A tangle of Irish pubs await you to the south.

Below Inwood is the Fort George / Fort Tyron area. Cross commercial Dyckman Street to near the

Cloisters, the Met’s satellite enclave of Medieval European art and architecture on Fort Tyron Park.

Creeping up to the top of Washington Heights, tackle another epic staircase west of Broadway on 187th,

and be rewarded at Vicky’s Coffee Shop, a classic, small-town America diner. Walk all the way west to

enjoy sweeping, picturesque views of the Hudson and the GW. Enjoying the area’s intense concentra-

tion of gorgeous Art Deco architecture, navigate all the way east to Yeshiva University between 186th

and 182nd. Marvel at the ornate façade of the Jewish university’s regal Zysman Hall and perhaps meet

up with a student or so for some interreligious dialogue!

181st will take care of any inexpensive retail needs. There, you’ll fi nd another point of access to the

Bronx at the Washington Bridge, but rather than bus it, walk. The Old Croton Aqueduct Trail, which

traces the old aqueduct from Westchester to midtown, crosses into Manhattan here. The High Bridge,

the trail’s majestic pedestrian walkway across the Harlem River, is closed, but you can use the this

route instead. The trail provides a lovely path between Fordham Road (entry just west of the 4 train)

and Manhattan.

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I drew a picture of us together

A pathway under Isham Park offers views

of these curvaceous old apartments.

This stylish mom and pop shop across from

Vicky’s carries all the necessities of life.

Flocks of rooftop pigeons pepper the

sky in Inwood. Plunges in elevation in northern Manhat-

tan make for grand street vistas.

by Lindy Foltz

CHIEF COPY EDITOR

!"#!$%&'()*'(++,' #-%'./.%&' ./0%'1,'''

I believe in telling stories.

The quietest member of a Big

Loud Irish Family, I’ve been

raised on tales in which the point

isn’t who won the fi ght but how

his eyes were bullets, how the

bar fl oor stuck to my best Sun-

day shoes, how my heart shook

like the old apartment next to

the train tracks. As someone

who can hardly verbalize what

I ate for lunch without speaking

in circles, getting distracted, and

completely losing my audience,

the ability to lasso a crowd with

words is a skill I not only appre-

ciate but also deeply admire.

So when I stumbled upon

The Moth Story Slams about a

year ago, I was hooked.

The Moth is a non-profi t that

hosts live storytelling events,

originally in NYC and now in

major cities around the U.S.

Poet and novelist George Dawes

Green founded the Moth “to

recreate in New York the feeling

of sultry summer evenings in

his native Georgia where he and

a small circle of friends would

gather to spin spellbinding tales

on his friend Wanda’s porch.”

Basically, he wanted to recreate

the loveliest of things in a town

hardly known for its loveliness.

Green began inviting friends

over to his apartment to tell sto-

ries, and a following quickly

developed, pushing the Moth

out of a cramped apartment

and into slightly-less-cramped

coffeehouses and bookstores.

A decade later, the Moth is a

New York Times Style Section

worthy phenomenon and a con-

sistent source of NPR features.

I fi rst heard a recording from a

Moth show on “This American

Life” and since have subscribed

to the Moth podcast, which pro-

vides me with one free Moth

recording per week.

I have heard tales

from a Queens cop,

a Burning Man

enthusiast, a Bol-

lywood star, a Ma-

lian reporter, an

Iraq vet, and even a

Fordham grad who

thought the best

way to improve

his poetry (and, of

course, win over a

girl) was spending an evening

in a NYC prison.

I vowed to attend a live

taping of The Moth as soon as

I landed here at the end of Au-

gust. Then I forgot. I vowed to

attend before the end of Sep-

tember. I forgot again. Last

Thursday, though, I fi nally got

it together enough to hop on

the D train and head to Housing

Works Bookstore and Café, the

Moth’s home the third Thursday

of each month. I was familiar

with the area around Housing

Works (the store is located a

block from Broadway and La-

fayette on the D) and also with

the awesomeness that is Hous-

ing Works (a non-profi t chain

of bookstores and thrift shops

dedicated to fi ghting AIDS and

homelessness) but had never

actually stepped foot inside of

the bookstore. Arriving at 7:04,

only four minutes after doors

had opened, I realized I would

have at least ten additional min-

utes to ponder what Housing

Works was like as I stood in the

half-a-block long line.

The Moth Story Slams cost

$7 to attend, a fee very rea-

sonable for almost three hours

of unique live performance. I

didn’t even feel confl icted as I

handed over my fi ve, one, and

ten dimes. Instead, I immedi-

ately focused on the look of

Housing Works: the spiral stair-

cases, the mahogany-paneled

balconies, the thousands of

books lined up around its cav-

ernous walls. Already the place

was packed. The balcony was

teeming with well-dressed cou-

ples fl irting over imported beer

and plastic cups of red wine.

Each of the hundred-or-so chairs

set up in front of the small stage

was full, as was each step on

the staircase. I resigned myself

to the corner next to the coffee

bar, my view of the performers

surprisingly not obscured by the

large column ten feet in front of

me and my hearing only slightly

damaged by the constant whir-

ring of the espresso machine. I

even had a ladder on which to

comfortably lean.

The host tapped the

microphone and began ex-

plaining Housing Works

and The Moth to the

crowd. She stated that ten

audience members, all of

whom had entered to per-

form earlier in the evening,

would be drawn randomly

from a hat, perform, and be

graded “Olympic ice-skat-

ing style” by three teams

of judges.

The theme of the evening,

the host announced, was Desti-

ny. Performers spoke of destiny

in disguise—romance novels

and taxidermied deer—saving

them from drug addiction and

9/11, respectively. Three spoke

on the signifi cance of their

names defi ning their destinies

and one described learning what

was certainly not her destiny: a

career in sports. One man told

an elaborate, statistics-heavy,

fairly offensive story about

his destiny to date fat bisexual

women, and a woman talked

about a four-foot tall grade

school alum she bedded in a

North Carolina motel. A power-

ful looking man shared his tale

of beating cancer but acquiring

“Depression, a large black crow

that swoops down upon my

chest and whispers bad thoughts

to me in the dark.”

The hands-down winner of

the evening, though, was Adam

Wade. Wade displayed an arms-

fl ailing enthusiasm for storytell-

ing, the phrases shooting out of

his mouth like over-eager can-

nonballs. More than anything,

he was human; he made me care

that he lost his sixth grade girl-

friend because of a juvenile de-

linquent who wanted to either a)

be his girlfriend or b) fl ush his

head in the toilet at all times.

This was his fi fteenth Moth

win and I’m sure it will soon be

documented on adamwade.com,

his website displaying video of

each of his Moth performances.

I can’t highly enough recom-

mend a trip to the Moth, wheth-

er you are content to observe or

brave enough to put your name

in the hat to perform. Themoth.

org lists all opportunities to at-

tend a Story Slam each month

and also links you to videos of

past performances and where to

download the podcast. If you’re

looking to check out the Moth

and also aren’t going to murder

me on the subway, I’ll be head-

ed back to the Slam at the Nuy-

orican in a couple weeks. Hope

to see you there.

Marissa Caroll

STAFF SPELLBOUND

Something referred to by

such a cryptic and indistinct title

as ‘The Mexican Suitcase’ may

conjure up images of a tattered

suitcase full of cocaine, guns

or some other type of delight-

ful contraband. However, in the

case of a package delivered to

Manhattan’s ICP (International

Center of Photography, not In-

sane Clown Posse) in December

of 2007, thinking this would

just make you a culturally in-

sensitive and vaguely racist

(you were totally thinking that,

weren’t you? Asshole…). In

actuality, the Mexican Suitcase

refers to a cache of 126 rolls

of fi lm taken by Robert Capa,

Gerda Taro, and David Sey-

mour during the Spanish Civil

war that was delivered to the

ICP (founded by Robert Capa’s

brother, Cornell) and has been

undergoing rigorous restora-

tion for nearly two years. These

photos, thought for over half a

century to be lost, compliment

much of Capa’s revolutionary

work during the Spanish Civil

War and show an important par-

adigm shift partially responsible

for the current state of modern

war journalism.

Almost as interesting as

the photographs themselves is

the convoluted and roundabout

journey that they took to New

York. The rolls of fi lm con-

tained in the Mexican Suitcase

disappeared from Capa’s Paris

studio at the beginning of the

Second World War and were

thought by Capa and his col-

leagues to be either destroyed

or confi scated in the Nazi oc-

cupation of France. However,

in 1995, Jerald R. Green, a

professor at CUNY Queens

College, received a letter from

a Mexican fi lmmaker stating

that he had come into posses-

sion of the mysterious nega-

tives by way of his aunt, who

inherited then from her father.

Her father, Gen. Francisco

Aguilar Gonzales, was a dip-

lomat stationed in Marseilles

during the Spanish Civil War to

aid antifascist refugees fl eeing

the Iberian Peninsula. Through

rather nebulous and shifty

means, Gen. Gonzales gained

possession of the negatives, be-

lieved to have been transported

from Paris to Marseilles by Ca-

pa’s friend and fellow photog-

rapher Imre Weisz, and subse-

quently transported them back

to his home in Mexico City.

The fi lm stayed here for nearly

fi fty years, until their transpor-

tation to the ICP in 2007.

When the staff of the ICP

learned of the correspondence

between Professor Green and

the Mexican fi lmmaker (who

remains anonymous), they im-

mediately contacted the fi lm-

maker, requesting the return of

the negatives for restoration,

archiving, and exhibition pur-

poses. Though contact was

established, matters were left

open-ended, and no commit-

ments were made on the part of

the Aguilar-Gonzales family re-

lating to the relinquishing of the

fi lm. The fi lmmaker scheduled

meetings with ICP representa-

tives that he never attended,

and he eventually completely

broke off contact for unknown

reasons.

The state of the fi lm re-

mained unknown for several

years after this mysterious ter-

mination of communication be-

tween the fi lmmaker and

the ICP. However, when

the ICP was organizing a

show of both Capa and Ta-

ro’s work (including work

from the Spanish Civil

War era), offi cials decided

to give one fi nal attempt at

obtaining the fi lm with the

hope that some of the work

could be incorporated into

the exhibitions. The ICP

enlisted the help of schol-

ar Trisha Ziff, a resident

of Mexico City, to track

down and negotiate with

the elusive fi lmmaker.

After a several weeklong

manhunt, Ziff fi nally located

the fi lmmaker and began what

would turn into almost a year’s

worth of negotiations and plead-

ing on the behalf of the ICP.

Ziff eventually convinced the

fi lmmaker to give the work to

the ICP and hand-delivered the

packages to New York in De-

cember of 2007.

Since their arrival, the

negatives have been undergo-

ing a labor intensive and care-

ful restoration under the eyes

of conservation experts and

are expected to be fi t for ex-

hibition in late 2010. In their

preliminary appraisals of the

work, the restoration experts

have come across images of the

damage done to Madrid during

the war and the mass exodus of

antifascist refugees across the

Pyrenees to France, as well as

images of such notable fi gures

of the era as Ernest Heming-

way and Federico Garcia Lorca.

These photographs represent

not only an amazing step for-

ward towards a better fi rsthand

understanding of the Spanish

Civil War, but also a better un-

derstanding of the history of

professional photography and

photojournalism. The work of

Robert Capa revolutionized the

way in which military confl ict

was brought into the public eye.

By embedding himself and his

camera in combat alongside

Spanish, American, and British

soldiers in a number of confl icts

(including the D-Day invasions

in Normandy), Capa changed

war journalism from an obser-

vational science to a participa-

tory art. Now, with the arrival

of these negatives, Capa’s meth-

ods and innovation can be better

understood.

By Sean Kelly

STAFF SUITCASE OF

BLOW

!"#$%&'% ()$%!"!$*% +,(+-$*%&./%&''0

more like Edgar Allan

NO...anyone?...anyone?

...fuck my miserable

life

Instead of putting together a features page showcasing essential horror movies to look for this Halloween (anything but Saw VI), we here at the paper decided to give a nod to some of the greatest names to grace the horror genre. ! e picks, of course, are no surprise. ! ough Edgar Allan Poe, Alfred Hitchcock, and

Vincent Price may have never crossed paths (unless you count the several movie adaptations of Poe works Price starred in, like ! e House of Usher), they have produced some of the greatest works of horror ever.

Each practiced drastically di" erent arts. Poe and Hitchcock are creatively responsible for their works of horror, whereas Price gained notoriety for his unique screen presence as an actor, his performances rife with idiosyncrasies and propelled by his eerie monotone. And, of course, Hitchcock and Price worked behind

and in front of the camera respectively, while Poe preceded them both as a nineteenth century author.! e careers of these three men deserve to be explored extensively, but the paper has compiled only some examples of their work. Free from the taint of mod-ern day torture-porn and slasher # lms, Price, Hitchcock, and Poe represent our obsession with the macabre and our willingness to indulge that obsession.

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Janet Leigh,

moments before

her demise

Price, about to dispatch

some vampire fi ends

Poe, unable to understand what the big

deal is over marrying a thirteen year

old child.

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#-%'./.%&23'$40'543#

by the paperSTAFF OF MILLIONS

SEVERAL

We here at the paper, being

a pack of dirty, liberal,

environmentalist, tea-drinkin’,

scarf wearin’ pinkos, love us

some good old controversy. At

the moment, right down the

road from our own Rose Hill,

there is a battle being fought

between community members

and building contractors over

the Kingsbridge Armory, one

of New York’s most interest-

ing and unique buildings. Built

in the early days of the 20th

century, the Armory housed a

National Guard regiment and

features one of the largest drill

halls in the world (180,000

square feet!).

But the Armory will soon

receive a massive facelift, in the

form of a giant shopping center

to be installed within the cav-

ernous citadel. It’s an example

of de-urbanization, much like

the new Gateway Mall built

near Yankee Stadium (David

Gonzalez at the Times wrote a

great article comparing Gate-

way to Fordham Road), and has

many questioning the practical-

ity of a giant shopping center

in an area known for its sur-

plus of shopping outlets. Many

folks, including the paper, feel

that the Armory could be better

used. Here are just a few of our

suggestions:

Off Campus Housing

Okay, so how many tens

of millions of dollars are we

spending on building those new

residence halls on the west end

of campus? Please. The con-

struction is unsightly, inconve-

nient, and most likely not going

to be fi nished on time. I’m sure

that the questionnaire statistics

that the Administration loves to

slobber over say that Fordham

students want “apartment-style,

suite-based” dorm rooms or

some shit, but why not just pro-

vide them with some subsidized

living space off campus? It’s a

new step toward Jesuit suprem-

acy in 2016, it’s the saving of a

Bronx landmark, it’s a little bit

country AND a little bit rock and

roll. Walsh Hall, still as ugly as

it was when it was built in 1980,

has just over 200,000 gross total

square feet. The main drill hall

alone, as mentioned in our list’s

lovely introduction, is almost as

big as the largest residence hall

on campus. How hard can it be?

Some sheetrock, some plaster, a

few hundred sets of dorm room

furniture and an alumni bene-

factor’s name on the front, ba-

da-bing, bada-boom, and we’ve

got off-campus housing. The

space for amenities is already

there, as our National Guards-

men once enjoyed in-house

sports and fi tness facilities, as

well as a basement shooting

gallery. And wasn’t Fordham

always lacking in the gun range

department? How shameful.

The architecture even seems to

fi t the post-modern gothic/stone

façade look that Fordham tries

so hard to achieve. It was really

just meant to be.

By MAX SIEGAL

NEWS CO-ED-

ITOR

Garrison dur-

ing zombie out-

break

Scenario: A

large batch of

swine fl u vac-

cine causes a

gross neurore-

ceptor mutation

along with heav-

ily increased

metabolic rate,

turning 95% of

all people into

super strong su-

per hungry super

fast zombies.

It’s the day

of the gradua-

tion ceremony

and everybody

is out on Eddie’s

Parade for the

commencement

speech, which

is given by none

other than Ford-

ham’s own Denzel Washington.

He’s about to give advice to the

class of 2010 when almost every

member of the friends and fami-

lies of the graduating class starts

yelling at the top of their lungs

and passes out. Us Fordham stu-

dents are in shock, not knowing

exactly how to react. Slowly,

they all regain consciousness

in perfect unison. Relieved but

still shaken the class of 2010

tends to their loved ones, until it

becomes clear that something is

very wrong with them.

Their eyes are entirely

white, and they are breathing

incredibly heavily and contort-

ing their body. Suddenly, they

turn on us, grabbing us by the

throat and trying to bite into our

necks! Most of us pry ourselves

out of their hands, and over

the loudspeaker Denzel says,

“HEAD FOR KEATING!” We

try to barricade ourselves in but

fi nd out that it’s been locked

from the inside. “OKAY,” he

shouts, “To the Armory!” We

battle through the streets down

Fordham Road until we get to

Kingsbridge, garrison the tow-

ers in the Armory, and hold out

for weeks.

It turns out one of the sev-

eral preservatives Sodexo uses

in its cookies interacted with the

vaccine, neutralizing the muta-

tive agent.

By DICKABOD CRANE

STAFF PEDAGOGUE

A Pinkberry

Did you know that there are

currently 13 Pinkberry fran-

chises in New York City? And

not ONE in the Bronx! Look no

further for constructive, benefi -

cial use of space, dear armory.

What could benefi t the Bedford

Park nayb more than an LA-

based luxury frozen yogurteria

(nay, not a sexually transmitted

disease, but a purveyor of fi ne

frozen yogurt!) with a cult fol-

lowing of Coach product-wield-

ing, velour-clad low-fat desert

fi ends? There is nary a better

option in sight, I say.

A retailer approved by the

National Yogurt Association

would be a blessing for any

community. According to Pink-

berry, their product “is packed

with live and active cultures”

and “calcium and protein, which

helps support a healthy immune

system and may help regulate

digestion.” Who needs jobs

with a living wage and benefi ts

and adequate educational spac-

es for youth? Inject some of that

tang-o-licious, frosty goodness

into any community, and hello,

health and prosperity!

Pinkberry products can

be consumed by either straw,

spoon, or sometimes fork, and

the selection of yogurt fl avors

and the plethora of toppings

can be manipulated into liter-

ally thousands of combina-

tions. Talk about options and

fl exibility, people. Want a com-

munity to consume food con-

scientiously by eating seasonal

ingredients? Well, Pinkberry

only offers pomegranate frozen

yogurt SOME of the time. Aim

to minimize carbon emissions

from transportations? The new

Pinkberry Armory would save

Bronx residents that daily 45

minute commute into Manhat-

tan to get their fi x of that gelati-

nous, syrupy ambrosia. Move

over roasted nut guy, Pink-

berry yogurt is the new snack

of choice in the

Boogie Down.

By ROSALIND

FOLTZ

CHIEF COPY

EDITOR

A Casino

The Bronx

needs a casino.

The 11 minute

car ride or 25

minute subway/

bus ride to Yon-

kers Raceway

to waste away

in the company

of the smoke-

withered drunks

that make gam-

bling their life

is just getting

too tedious. The

level of anxi-

ety I encounter

on that arduous

and seemingly

infi nite ride,

thinking about

the free coffee

(and the look on the women

with the tray after I decline to

tip her), the cigar-smoking old

men who haunt my dreams at

night and whose image I’ll cer-

tainly grow into one day, the

maddening headache I get after

only seconds of hearing 8,000

bells dinging at once, the awe in

watching the shriveled remains

of elderly women blowing 400

dollars a spin at the slot ma-

chines, and the thrill of watch-

ing tiny men hilariously dragged

behind horses like some modern

chariot race is just too much to

handle. I need something closer.

Turning the old armory into

a casino would not only bring

endless amounts of money to

the area, but it’d be a depraved

Xanax to the anxiety of the

endless trek to Yonkers. I need

someplace local where I can

travel with peace of mind and

put money into a machine, an-

noyingly push a button, watch

things light up, and stare as my

money slips away nickels at a

time. I want immediate, walk-

ing distance gratifi cation where

I can get addicted to gambling

and watch awful Jimmy Buf-

fet impersonators at the same

time. I’ll be 21 eventually, and

the free mini mixed drinks that

I pine for could now be in my

backyard if the Carmory (that’s

casino-armory) is built. I’ve got

some money right now, and I

urge you, Bronx community,

give me a place to lose it. A

place that looks like a castle.

By CHRIS SPRINDIS

ASSISTANT EXECUTIVE

EDITOR

Bismuth

It seems that a number of

my fellow paperers have got-

ten some fi berglass in their na-

sal spray regarding the poten-

tial commercialization of their

beloved Armory. Well, I’m still

trying to fi gure out why they

don’t actually put armor in the

Armory – I’m talking legit shin-

ing armor here, with breastplates

and chainmail, and maybe even

a little Under Armor and Ar-

mor All for good measure. But

if making sense isn’t anyone’s

modus operandi, then it won’t

be mine either. What should go

in that there Armory? I say Bis-

muth. Lots and lots of Bismuth.

Bismuth is the 83rd element,

and it’s about the coolest thing

that could possibly exist. For

starters, bismuth looks savagely

resplendent. If you don’t know

what bismuth looks like, stop

reading now, get to a comput-

er, and search for “bismuth” in

Google Images – no, really, do

it. A rainbow inside-out crystal

staircase? SERIOUSLY?! What

other element looks like that?

Aesthetics aside, bismuth

performs some insanely pain-

fully awesome chemical func-

tions. It’s used in nuclear reac-

tors (bismuth pertains to nuclear

stuff; ergo, bismuth is cool), it

can be used to make bullets (bis-

muth = bullets = freedom = Am-

urika), and it puts the “Bismo”

in Pepto Bismol. The bismuth

in Pepto Bismol actually mix-

es with sulphur in your body,

forming the compound bismuth

sulfi de. This compound gives

you a dark tongue and black

poop. Now, it’s actually not pos-

sible to register the superhuman

level of awesome contained

in that sentence from a single

reading, so I will repeat it twice

more. This compound gives you

a dark tongue and black poop.

This compound gives you a

dark tongue and black poop.

So forget the mall – I want

bismuth alloys, bismuth emul-

sions, and bismuth crystals

eighty feet high. Nothing else

is so stunningly mesmerizingly

mind-explodingly magnifi cent

to warrant the Armory’s dedica-

tion – especially not that piti-

able metal Antimony.

By SEAN BANFIELD

STAFF WISENHEIMER

few things taste as delicious as squandered

historical landmarks

wooooooooot

!"#$%&&% '($%!"!$)% *+'*,$)%&-.%&//0

AKLO

Music of the Lovecraft

Mythos

by Elena Lightbourn

I can’t quite remember what

led me to discover AKLO: Mu-

sic of the Lovecraft Mythos, but

as soon as I took a look at the

creepy-ass album art, I knew it

had to be good... and by good I

mean prime Fearwax material. I

couldn’t recall the slightest idea

of what exactly the Lovecraft

mythos was, but, after a little

Facebook chattin’ and Wiki-

pedia research, I learned that

it’s an expansive collection of

stories written/inspired by H.P.

Lovecraft, regarded by many as

one of the most infl uential hor-

ror authors of the 20th century.

According to the AKLO web-

site, www.aklo.net, “the ideol-

ogy of AKLO is that the unex-

plored sonic potentialities of the

Cthulhu Mythos are as limitless

as its literary ones.” Hmm…

sounds interesting.

Unfortunately, I could only

listen to samples from each of

the AKLO albums containing

moments from several tracks.

They aren’t even available on

iTunes (gasp!) but the CDs can

be purchased off the AKLO

website for $15 each (or illegal-

ly downloaded

by means of

UTorrent and

the like, none

of which I

have).

The fi rst

AKLO album,

Beyond Mad-

ness, features

tracks with

names like

“Brain Cylinder” and “Swamp

Cult.” Most of the sound ef-

fects are synthesized but are

overall very dark, ominous, and

atmospheric. A few moments

of listening to this somewhat

indescribable music just might

make you feel like you’re going

insane… which, now that I look

back at the title, makes perfect

sense. Seriously, though, if I lis-

tened to this in the dark, in the

right state of mind, it could po-

tentially be terrifying.

The second, “eagerly await-

ed” AKLO album, Unnamable,

seems just as haunting as, if not

more than, Beyond Madness,

featuring tracks like “Eulogy

for Humanity.” From what I can

tell from the sample, this album

incorporates substantially more

discernible instruments into

its music than its predecessor.

Dark tribal drumming, disso-

nant violins, and more echo-y

atmospheric sounds dominate

the sample for quite some time.

Then, a calm, but haunting,

oboe-and-piano duet punctured

with bird calls, which probably

could make up a track in itself,

transitions into what sounds like

moaning monstrous beings (not

the kind you’d get on your usual

haunted house mix… these ac-

tually sound like they’re ac-

tively seeking out my soul). The

sample ends, and I’m left want-

ing to hear more.

If I ever get the chance

to, I’d defi nitely listen to the

AKLO albums in full. In fact,

it’s probably some of the creepi-

est music I’ve ever heard and

makes me want to pick up one

of Lovecraft’s books to under-

stand its inspiration. The AKLO

website suggests the use of its

music as “an ideal soundtrack

for horror roleplaying” so, if

you’re into that

kind of thing,

it’s a great buy!

Also, if you’re

a person who

loves setting up

haunted houses

or freaking

yourself out

while high, the

AKLO albums

would be per-

fect for you.

FOVEA HEX

Neither Speak Nor Remain

Silent

by Lenny Raney

Halloween means many dif-

ferent things to many different

people. To some, Halloween is

about trick or treating and little

children dressed as ghosts. To

others, it’s about dressing as

revealing as is socially accept-

able and getting hammered. To

a nerd like me, however, Hal-

loween is about the mysticism

and intrigue of its pagan origins.

The history of the holiday is fas-

cinating, and beneath the friend-

ly ghosts, bags full of Willy

Wonka products, and jack-o-

lanterns lies the remnants of an

ancient Celtic pagan ritualistic

celebration of the dead, meant

to signify the end of lighter days

(summer) and

the beginning

of darker (win-

ter).

T h u s ,

instead of

g i m m i c k y

“ H a l l o w -

een” themed

albums, or

the ostensi-

bly chilling

soundtracks to horror fi lms, I

fi nd myself drawn to Celtic and

pagan music around this time of

year. An interesting recent fi nd

of mine is the band Fovea Hex,

the otherworldly project of Irish

singer/songwriter Clodagh Si-

monds. Released in 2006, Nei-

ther Speak Nor Remain Silent

is a collection of three EPs that

could be best described as an

intersection of Eno-esque am-

biance and pagan/Celtic senti-

mentality. These kinds of proj-

ects tend to be risky; it is far too

easy to come across as pedes-

trian and imitative. Thankfully,

Simonds genuinely sounds like

a hooded ancient mystic stand-

ing atop a pedestal in front of

a large triskele carved into the

side of a mountain, whisper-

ing chanty, minimalistic, and

trance-inducing incantations

into the tomb of a fallen warrior.

The title track, found on Al-

lure EP, is strictly ambiance in

the purest sense, sounding like

an outtake from Brian Eno’s

Apollo. Quiet synth moans and

various found sounds of wood-

land creatures pepper an ever

present and effervescent sound

best described as wind dis-

creetly howling in through a

cave. Unsurprisingly, both Rog-

er and Brian Eno lended their

production talents to this proj-

ect. In fact, the caliber of the

contributors to Neither Speak

Nor Remain Silent is outstand-

ing. In addition to the broth-

ers Eno, prog legends Robert

Fripp (King Crimson) and Ste-

ven Wilson (Porcupine Tree)

as well as fi lm score composer

Carter Burwell (whose most re-

cent projects include In Bruges

and Where the Wild Things Are)

were involved. One might think

that with all of this star power

on board, Si-

monds, who

was previ-

ously in 80’s

folk-rock outfi t

Mellow Can-

dle, and her

creative input

might get lost

to the process.

Fortunately for

the listener,

that is not at all the case. For

example, in the outrageously

beautiful “Long Distance,” also

on Allure EP, she is entirely

in control. Approximately one

minute and forty-fi ve seconds

in, Simonds sings “I walk for

hours and watch the sunlight

play” with a level of profound

pathos that could only be found

in a very personal and authentic

artistic creation.

So, this Halloween, after

you’ve fi lled your pillowcase

with Tootsie Pops and candy

corn, after you’ve ground the

stench of cheap alcohol and

sweat from dancing deep into

your sexy maid costume, and

after you’ve developed retina

burn from all of the fl ashes from

all of the pictures you’re going

to see on Facebook the fi rst of

November and instantly regret

taking, try something different.

Find these albums, put them

on your MP3 player, go to a

rooftop, and listen to some of

the most eerily beautiful music

ever made while laying back

and staring out into the speckled

blanket of infi nite possibility.

Happy Halloween, Ford-

ham! This issue we have some-

thing a little bit different for

you, and without further ado,

the paper would like to pres-

ent Fearwax! Instead of regu-

lar reviews, the staff selected

their favorite spooky, scary, or

otherwise Halloweeny albums.

As such, there will be no rat-

ings, as every album here is

a perfect fi ve out of fi ve. For

your reading pleasure, we have

reviews of some chilling music

inspired by the Cthulhu uni-

verse and the rest of the Love-

craft mythos, Scott Walker’s

The Drift, Irish ambient artists

Fovea Hex, French Satanist/oc-

cultist Moëvöt, UK psychedel-

ic punk rockers The Deviants,

and French chamber group

Les Fragments de la Nuit. We

are also changing up ill-legal

downloads to include more

Halloween favorites. Enjoy!

SCOTT WALKER

The Driftby Charles Hailer

The story of Scott Walker’s

descent from profi table boy

band superboner to demon

wracked recluse is the stuff

of legend. For those not in the

know, Scott Walker once had a

fan club second only to that of

the Beatles, but he had spent his

entire cultural capital in the 60’s

singing about death, gonnorhea,

fascism, and Igmar Bergman

fi lms, only to bottom out in the

70’s and emerge from a boozy

abyss to defi ne himself as a

haunted auteur of tortured wails

and creepy clanging. Since re-

emerging, Walker has released

three solo albums since 1983,

each one more impenetrable

and blood curdling than the last.

His most recent, The Drift, is

the single most terrifying album

ever recorded; free of teenaged

angst or guy-liner melodrama,

it’s hard to imagine that the al-

bum was even made by a human

being.

I once ran an amateur haunt-

ed house and scored it with

Scott Walker’s The Drift. The

album’s symphony of oozing,

fl eshy sounds reverberated per-

fectly off of the cotton cobweb

covered cement walls, striking

maximum terror in the hearts

of those brave enough to enter.

After the ghostly gallop of the

opening track, “Cossacks Are,”

the man’s demons take the

reigns and the nearly thirteen

minute long “Clara” begins the

album’s formidable body count.

With industrial hum and whis-

pered abstractions suddenly

giving way to queasy strings,

pounding percussion, and an

orchestra of detuned guitars,

the soul of this album is fi rst re-

vealed. The color of the noise is

blood red and pitch black at the

same time, perfect for a those

down for a more macabre Hal-

loween experience.

Throughout high school and

in my early Fordham experi-

ence, Scott Walker’s Tilt was

the perfect program music to

project my emo by way of Eno

teenage troubles and nurse my

nascent pretension before I gave

up on whining and learned to

dance (kind of). When The Drift

brought Walker’s spooktacular

croon back into my life in 2006,

I realized that Walker’s jarring

sonic juxtapositions and preoc-

cupation with modernist murder

!"#!$%&'()*'(++,' #-%'./.%&' ./0%'(1

#-%'./.%&23'"-45565%0/5'7!895!/7'543#

DJ JAZZY JEFF & THE FRESH PRINCE -

“NIGHTMARE ON MY STREET”

TALKING HEADS - “PSYCHO KILLER”

THE WHO - “BORIS THE SPIDER”

ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW -

“THE TIME WARP”

MOGWAI - “1% OF MONSTER”

WARREN ZEVON - “WEREWOLVES OF

LONDON”

CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL -

“WALKING ON THE WATER”

THE MISFITS - “HALLOWEEN” & “HAL-

LOWEEN II”

“FIVE LITTLE PUMPKINS” NURSERY

RHYME

EDGAR WINTER GROUP - “FRANKEN-

STEIN”

ROBERT RICH & B. LUSTMORD - “HID-

DEN REFUGE”

EDVARD GRIEG - “IN THE HALL OF

THE MOUNTAIN KING”

MATT POND PA - “HALLOWEEN”

KOOL KEITH & TIM DOG - “MAN WITH

NO FACE”

THE DEVIANTS

3by Alexander Gibbons

This eerie nugget fell into

my lap after my roommate Sal-

vador returned from raiding his

grandparent’s basement in Con-

necticut. The cover features a

nun touching a popsicle to her

lips in a provocative manner

accompanied by a young boy

doing the same but collapsed

by her feet. Deviants 3 is not a

scary album by nature. I don’t

think its intentions are to scare,

different from some of the other

albums on this list, but it sure is

spooky. It sure is.

The Deviants were a psy-

chedelic-rock band from the

UK. They began as “The Social

Deviants,” and later changed to

become simply “The Deviants.”

The end of their career came

when three of the band’s four

members ditched the lead vo-

calist Mick Farren and formed a

new group, “The Pink Faries.”

Deviants 3 was released in 1969

by Sire. I know little about the

band’s career or discography.

Deviants 3 is my fi rst and only

encounter, and a weird one at

that.

The fi rst song, “Billy the

Monster,” is a proper example

of the creepy overtones that

run through-

out the album.

It’s a very

goofy song,

with lyrics like

“Watch out

Billy, as you

walk around/

there’s ugly

people living

underground”

i n t e r p l a y e d

with a low,

raspy voice uttering “Billy” and

a high falsetto following with

“the monster.” Still, “Billy the

Monster” is very, very creepy,

reminding me of the 1997 fi lm

The Butcher Boy, in which the

title character, a young boy, cre-

MOËVÖT

Abgzvoryathreby Sean Patrick Kelly

“The horror! The horror!”

-Joseph Conrad, Heart of Dark-

ness

This album is horrifying.

Ambient, low guitar; scratchy,

guttural vocals; and ethereal

chanting all come together in a

whirling maelstrom of general

discomfort and uneasiness and

make for an album that could

provide the soundtrack to either

a black mass in the French Ar-

dennes or a slow descent into a

Lovecraftian madness. Moevot

was a one-man dark ambient

project from the early 1990’s

consisting solely of Vordb Ba-

thor Ecsed, prominent member

of Les Legions Noires. Les

Legions Noires, a French black

metal collective active in the late

80’s and early 90’s in Brittany,

produced some

of the most ter-

rifying, unset-

tling, and eerie

music ever re-

corded utiliz-

ing very lim-

ited resources,

lo-fi recording

techniques and

hand distribu-

tion amongst

friends and close workers.

For this particular solo

project, Vordb Bathor Ecsed

explores exactly how terribly

unnerving a clean guitar and

vocals can be. Though not

much information exists relat-

ing to the album’s production

ballad lyrics can be an absolute

fucking blast, in the same way

a really great horror movie can

be. This is the crown jewel of

creep-rock (if I can be so glib

as to make up a genre), the ulti-

mate Halloween soundtrack this

side of those cheap-o effects

tapes they used to sell at drug

stores and Tubular Bells.

In 2006 director Stephen Ki-

jak made a documentary about

the creation of The Drift, giving

the world the fi rst fi lmed inter-

view footage with Mr. Walker

since 1983, revealing the man

to be a normal

looking middle

aged Ameri-

can, complete

with a baseball

hat and male

pattern bald-

ness. Scott

Walker might

not be the half

-dead hunch-

back living in a

haunted house

on a hill like that I’d like him

to be, but good God he makes

some scary sounding music.

ates mayhem wherever he goes.

“The People Suite,” the

album’s fourth song, features

a walking bass line behind a

twangy guitar riff that sounds

more appropriate to Working-

man’s Dead with darker lyrics:

“We are the people who creep in

the night/We are the people who

hide from the light.” It’s an awe-

some song, confi rming the fears

of conservatives everywhere

and evoking images of boozy

wretches ambling through the

night, turning girls into sexed-

up mamas and boys into cack-

ling fi ends.

Hence, “The

Deviants.”

It’s a little

bit Yardbirds,

a little bit An

A m e r i c a n

Werewolf in

London. May-

be it’s not ob-

jectively scary,

but for me it

sounds like it

would go very well with a hor-

ror movie, the sort of music

that could be played in Buffalo

Bill’s lair or something. Basi-

cally, yeah, I’m saying that Buf-

falo Bill would totally vibe off

of this album, which brings to

mind, perhaps, some similari-

ties between myself and Buffalo

Bill, but that’s topic for a differ-

ent conversation.

Check out this album. De-

spite its potential to be played

in a serial-killer’s lair, it is most

defi nitely a delightful listen.

or its creator’s life, perhaps that

makes it all the more cryptic and

f r i g h t e n i n g .

First off, this

album sounds

as if it was re-

corded by a

prisoner locked

in the keep of

a French cas-

tle during the

Black Plague

who somehow

got a hold of

some reasonably priced analog

recording equipment. The mu-

sic exudes pestilence, death,

forest creatures, leprosy, feudal-

ism, capital punishment, coarse

black bread, tough stewed mut-

ton, and a veritable cornucopia

of other nasty aspects of me-

dieval life. When listening to

this music, all happy thoughts

dissipate and run for cover like

a group of cockroaches when a

lamp is turned on. The ambi-

ent chanting reaches the ears

like the sound of a baby cry-

ing after seeing its favorite

teddy bear eviscerated by the

family dog, and if one listens

closely enough, one will tend

to behave in a manner similar

to the aforementioned tot. Lis-

tening to this album makes you

scared of things that you did not

know could ever be construed

as scary, and surprises you in a

way akin to going out for a steak

dinner and instead being served

a plate of feet wrapped in bible

pages. This is the sort of music

that, if played for infants during

gestation, would cause them to

be born shrieking with the head

of a goat.

Don’t download or buy this

album. You will wet your bed

and most likely the beds of sev-

eral others. Also, repent.

LES FRAGMENTS DE

LA NUIT

Musique du Crépusculeby Dickabod Crane

Chamber music isn’t exactly

the genre most frequently asso-

ciated with Halloween. Normal-

ly, when one thinks of chamber

music, they immediately think

of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven,

or Schumann. However, there is

indeed a very strong contingent

of chamber music enthusiasts

all around the world keeping the

genre alive and well. France’s

Les Fragments de la Nuit are

certainly part of this crowd, and

their 2008 release, Musique du

Crépuscule, is one of the better

chamber music releases of the

last couple of years.

They make wonderfully

beautiful violin-driven clas-

sical melancholia. It is richly

textured and craftily structured.

The majority of the songs are

between two and three min-

utes, never overstaying their

welcome. Album opener “Eveil

des Fées” features an ethereal

harmony between vocals and

violins. The atmosphere is very

nocturnal, characterized by mi-

nor keys and mournful chord

progressions. On “La Ronde des

Fées,” proceedings are sped up

a bit, but the theme remains the

same. Wistfulness and a sort of

morose sense

of wonder per-

vade the entire

album. The

frantic “ Entre

Ciel et Fer”

features repeti-

tive staccato

piano playing a

la Philip Glass

overlayed with

several violins

sawing away intently at arpeg-

gio on top of arpeggio of busy,

but all the while melodious, eu-

phony.

The album then settles into

“La Chambre des Fées,” a

rather lovely

acapella song,

that sounds

something like

a pack of fe-

male wolves

with perfect in-

tonation having

choir practice

in a haunted

house. The

following song, “Soleils Noirs

pour Lune Blanche,” is also

rather subdued, and is vaguely

reminiscent to Chopin’s noc-

turnes at times. One of the lon-

ger songs on the album at 4 min-

utes, this, as with most chamber

music, will certainly reward the

patient listener. Nuances in the

form of quiet swells and well

placed crescendos and decre-

scendos really make the song’s

impact all the more pronounced.

There is an underlying level

of mystery to much of this al-

bum. The group’s founders,

Ombeline Chardes and Michael

Villarr, both hold day jobs as

fi lm soundtrack composers, and

this becomes abundantly clear

as the album progresses; there is

a certain level of theatrics to this

album that one feels must have

originated out of a love for the

cinema. In fact,

I wouldn’t be

surprised if this

release helps

catapult their

names and ca-

reers across the

pond to the big

leauges. The

emotion and

atmosphere in-

voked in Musique du Crépus-

cule are vivid, palpable, and

incredible.

!"#$%&'% ()$%!"!$*% +,(+-$*%&./%&001

In his twenty fi ve years as

NBA commissioner, David

Stern has often been an object

of scorn due to his alleged ma-

nipulations of professional bas-

ketball. Whether facing rumors

of fi xing the 1985 NBA Draft or

having the refs throw the play-

offs every year in favor of his

favorite team of the moment,

Stern has acquired a reputation

as a man who uses his power

far beyond what is ethically ap-

propriate to satisfy his own per-

sonal desires. But it is the role

he played in the trajectory of the

success of a major league other

than his own that has probably

been his most curious contribu-

tion to the world of professional

sports.

Prior to becoming NHL

commissioner, Gary Bettman

worked in David Stern’s front

offi ce for more than a decade.

When he made the jump from

NBA to NHL in 1993, hockey’s

popularity had been snow-

balling in the US. A series of

events in the prior several sea-

sons, culminating in the 1994

Eastern Conference Final be-

tween the Devils and Rangers

and the Ranger’s eventual Stan-

ley Cup victory, had caused

hockey to be more popular that

basketball.

But that didn’t last. The

1995 season was strike-short-

ened, killing a considerable

amount of interest among fans

even when play eventually re-

sumed. Although many hoped

the league would make a quick

recovery, this turned out not

to be the case, as the NHL has

since lagged behind the other

major pro leagues, to the point

that it is an afterthought among

most casual fans.

I digress back to David

Stern for a moment. Gary Bet-

tman’s stupidity and suckiness

during his reign as league chief

has led some to believe that

there were devious reasons be-

hind Stern pushing Bettman to

the NHL. The conspiracy goes

that Stern, seeing his biggest

competition currently beating

his league, looked into his of-

fi ce, picked the least capable in-

dividual, and lobbied for him to

attain that league’s highest posi-

tion. Doing so would solve the

two-pronged problem of getting

a dumbass out of his circle and

running his rival straight into

the ground.

Whether these were Stern’s

intentions or he genuinely

thought Bettman would be a

good fi t is irrelevant at this

point, because he certainly

hasn’t been. Among his many

moronic decisions as league

boss, the most notable has been

the expansion and transfer of

franchises. One of his primary

goals has been to expand hock-

ey’s American fan base beyond

the northern states. It’s not a

bad idea, but one that Bettman

executed horribly. It is unclear

if his intentions were to push

teams out of Canada, but that’s

what happened. Bettman’s

decision to establish teams in

places where the residents had

never seen snow quickly shoved

prices upward, and the smaller

market Canadian teams of Win-

nipeg and Quebec, despite hav-

ing devoted fan bases, were

forced to move.

And while the move from

Quebec to Denver has worked,

the other transplanted Cana-

dian team,

the Win-

nipeg Jets,

hasn’t done

so well.

Instead of

moving to

a larger city

that would

show in-

terest in

hockey, the

Jets owner-

ship instead

moved to

Phoenix, a

second-tier

city where

people rare-

ly see water,

let alone ice.

The team’s

early years were reasonably

fi nancially and competitively

successful, featuring stars Jere-

my Roenick and Keith Tkachuk

and a logo that looked like it

had been designed by a crack-

addled Picasso. Things were

off to a good start, and it looked

like the hockey team in the des-

ert just might make it.

This hasn’t exactly hap-

pened. The Coyotes have

sucked since the early 2000s,

leading the team to sputter fi -

nancially. The last few years

have been highlighted by nu-

merous arena problems, a lack

of consistency in general man-

agement, and Wayne Gretzky’s

completely ruining his credibili-

ty as a coach or owner. Periodi-

cally, a rumor would fl oat

around that some wealthy

person wanted to invest

in the Coyotes, but these

would all be squashed

based on the reasoning

that no rich person, no

matter how stupid, was

that fucking stupid.

So it came as no sur-

prise when the Coyotes

fi led for bankruptcy in

May of this year. What

was a shock was that

Phoenix’s ownership had

agreed to sell the team to

Canadian billionaire Jim

Balsillie, who planned to

move the team to Ham-

ilton, Canada. Although

this was met with tremen-

dous enthusiasm in Canada and

garnered support among Ameri-

can hockey fans, Bettman hasn’t

warmed to the idea. Phoenix’s

sale to Balsillie was challenged

by the NHL on the grounds that

the league has spent tens of mil-

lions to support the franchise

and therefore has more of a say

in owner-

ship and re-

location de-

cisions than

the owners

do. The ex-

p l a n a t i o n

for this po-

sition has

appeared to

be nothing

more than to

keep a fran-

chise out

of Canada.

The NHL

Board of

Governors

also voted

against Bal-

sillie’s ap-

proval as an

owner, claiming that he lacked

good character and integrity.

Even if Balsillie has truly ter-

by Eamon Stewart

STAFF STEW-ART

God, I love violence. I’m sorry. I know in our pacifi ed, neu-

tered society the idea of infl icting pain (or better yet, watching

pain be infl icted), is a barbaric reminder of our animal roots and

that as a cultured society we should work to progress beyond our

vulgar urges. Or, conversely, howabout go fuck yourself? Pro

football exists both because of the incredible feats of athleticism

performed on the fi eld and because it satisfi es our national Barca-

lounger bloodlust. Golf features tremendous feats of athleticism,

but golf is boring to watch. So my Role Model of the Week

is Dante Wesley. The Carolina Panthers cornerback straight up

exploded Tampa Bay Buccaneer Pro Bowl punt returner Clifton

Smith. I mean he murdered that fucker. Go YouTube it, I’ll

wait. Wow, that was some shit, huh? I guess full on superman

spear-tackling a guy in the neck while the ball is still in the air is

“illegal” or something, but goddamn. Wesley ended up getting

suspended without pay for the next game, but I think I speak for

both of us when I say, “Totally worth it.” There is, however, a

downside to all of this. Smith was knocked completely out, and

because the hit in question took place with only ten seconds left

in the half and was more or less completely meaningless, Wes-

ley putting Smith’s life, health, and career in danger is kind of a

“dick move.” Wesley was ejected, and Smith didn’t return in the

second half. The hit lead to both teams clearing their benches and

coming to near West Side Story levels of gang violence, which

was fortunately (tragically?) averted. That’s the other edge of

sports violence: you are allowed to hit anyone on the fi eld (aside

from the quarterback) as hard as you can, so long as you do it at

an approved moment. Wesley may very well have just mistimed

a completely clean hit, but he ended up getting ejected and miss-

ing a game. It’s a tragedy we pay these guys millions of dollars

to infl ict blah blah blah… I love violence. I’m sorry.

rible character, this is a league

that associates with luminar-

ies like Mike Milbury, Claude

Lemieux, and Todd Bertuzzi,

suggesting that the reasoning

given against Balsillie isn’t

based on anything relevant to

hockey.

It was assumed that this

ownership clusterfuck would

have been solved before the

beginning of the NHL season,

but knowing the American legal

system and its fi ne tradition of

working speedily, this was not

to be the case. It was also as-

sumed that Balsillie had a really

good shot at buying the Coy-

otes, given that his bid to buy

the team was about $80 million

more than the NHL’s, not in-

cluding the extra $40 million he

said he would pay to buy out the

lease on the Glendale Arena, the

team’s dilapidated home. Judge

Redfi eld T. Baum apparently

did not see things Balsillie’s

way. The court instead ruled

last week to reject both bids,

which essentially amounts to

Balsillie being shoved out while

the league maintains its right

to decide ownership of a fran-

chise. The Coyotes will stay

in Arizona for this season, but

their future is uncertain beyond

that. What is likely to happen is

that Gary Bettman and his board

of invalid bloodsuckers will do

their damned best to shop this

dead-in-the-water franchise un-

til some moron with the money

and total lack of brain cells de-

cides that buying a hockey club

famous for disorganization and

having no fans is an enticing in-

vestment. Bettman is likely to

succeed, and in doing so he will

continue to make a mockery out

of the sport’s highest league.

!"#$%&'"(%$$%&)How the NBA Commissioner’s Special Friend is Ruining the NHL

Gary Bettman:

ASS

Oh Bubbles, you’re mixed up

again.

“If he dies, he dies”