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NEWS 3/26/09 7:00pm

Week-long support of protection for women well-received

By Jocelyn Wright

After five days of promoting female safety, the Stop Violence Against Women Week ends today with a lecture by Nobel Peace Laureate Rigoberta Menchú at the Rothko Chapel. Rice Amnesty International Vice President Julia Lukomnik coordinated the week, which combined events hosted by Rice Amnesty International and the Rice Women's Resource Center to promote awareness and prevention of violence against women. According to the UN, one in three women is abused sometime in her lifetime.

NEWS 3/26/09 7:00pm

Sunday's Sports Update: Reckling leads Rice past Memphis

By Meghan Hall

Freshman Matthew Reckling got the start in the rubber game of Rice's conference series against Memphis this weekend. After a loss on Friday and a win on Saturday, the Owls came out on top Sunday 9-5 to take the series, improving their record to 17-7 (4-2).Reckling threw a career-high 5.1 innings and also notched the first win of his Rice career. He had a no-hitter through three innings and didn't allow Memphis to score until a solo home run by junior Shawn Ablett to lead off the fifth.

NEWS 3/26/09 7:00pm

Bikes-for-cars for grad students

By Jaclyn Youngblood

Trees are not the only thing spring has turned green around Rice. A new green initiative spearheaded by Graduate Housing Manager Abeer Ali Mustafa and Associate Vice President of Housing and Dining Mark Ditman has brought 35 bicycles to graduate students living at the Rice Village Apartments.Students who sign up for a 12- month housing agreement and agree not to register a car at the apartments are eligible to receive one of 33 free bicycles. The other two bicycles have been set aside for temporary use by those students who have a car but still want to bike occasionally, Mustafa said.

NEWS 3/26/09 7:00pm

Tuesday's sports update: Homestand ends with Sam Houston shellacking

By Meghan Hall

The third-ranked Owls finished up a nine-game homestand Tuesday night with a 9-3 win over Sam Houston State University. The Owls currently sit at 22-7 (7-2 Conference USA) and are second in the C-USA standings behind East Carolina University, which they face this weekend on the road. The Owls struck first in the bottom of the second, when back-to-back singles by freshman Daniel Gonzales-Luna and junior Jimmy Comerota prefaced a sacrifice fly by sophomore Michael Fuda.

NEWS 3/26/09 7:00pm

Bikes-for-cars program almost perfect

By Staff Editorial

Since the Thresher's main mode of communication still takes place via dead trees, it may seem a touch ironic that we would espouse the Rice Graduate Apartments' attempt to go green (see story, page 1). With the installation of the bikes-for-cars program, Rice has taken the environmental ball and run with it, all the way to a sustainable future.The meat of the program is commendable - trading cars for bikes will eliminate both congestion and carbon emissions - but a few details need to be tweaked in order for this program to reach its fullest potential. First, the cost of the bikes, $750, is an exorbitant amount. As we are all aware, we are in the midst of the Great Recession, meaning that any inordinate expenditures should be axed before they reach their final stages. While we understand that the bikes are LEED certified, there are times when you must make sacrifices for the health of the pocketbook. If you halve the price tag of these bikes, you will still receive a quality bicycle and double your potential consumer base. You could even consider giving the tenants a voucher for a bicycle instead of selecting one for them, although that may limit discounts.

NEWS 3/26/09 7:00pm

Knowing Review

By Faheem Ahmed

If given the opportunity to sit in the DeLorean from Back to the Future, I wouldn't go back in time to bet a million dollars on the Giants winning the Super Bowl, and I wouldn't tell my dad to invest stock in Google. Heck, I wouldn't even warn people about impending national disasters. What I would do is gun that baby to 88 mph to the year 1996 and assassinate Nicholas Cage. Why 1996, you ask? That was the year The Rock was released, the last decent movie ever made by the over-the-hill loser. Since then, Cage has unleashed a torrent of crappy films, ruining comic book franchises (Ghost Rider), forcing us to acknowledge horrible hairstyles (Con-Air, Bangkok Dangerous ... dude, you're bald, get over it) and worst of all, making hot women look like coked-out hookers (Angelina Jolie in Gone in 60 Seconds). It's been thirteen years, dammit! Enough is enough, Cage. Either you retire from acting, or I call a national boycott on your garbage movies.Seriously, America. When will you learn? Knowing actually was No. 1 in the box office this past weekend, raking in over $24 million. The only thing I know about Knowing is that it sucked. That's my entire review. I wasted $8.50 - thank you, student discount - and almost two hours watching this steaming pile of crap that vaguely resembled cinema. But believe it or not, the first twenty minutes of the movie really was not that bad.

NEWS 3/26/09 7:00pm

Commentary: Graham is true leader within hedges

By Casey Michel

Patrick McAnaney has just changed over to Student Association president, Chris Del Conte is in his third year as Rice's Athletic Director and David Leebron has guided our university for nearly a half of a decade. But none of these men have ever held court like Wayne Graham.

NEWS 3/26/09 7:00pm

Beer Bike safety depends on efficiency

By Wen Wen

It is said that Beer Bike security is the most "sucky" on-campus volunteering experience that one could possibly find. Yet for people who are "forced" to do security, knowing how to outwit all the rules and regulations is of vital importance. After all, you don't want to miss out on this annual festival consisting of weeklong water balloon filling, campus-wide underage drinking, sporadic cheer battles and, unofficially, the largest water balloon fight in the world.Rule No. 1: The Beer Bike coordinators will tell you that you should never show up drunk. Well, the truth is that you just can't show up obviously drunk. And the best way to avoid that is to start drinking as early as possible, so that you can avoid any hangovers or puking during security hours. Early bird catches the worm.

NEWS 3/26/09 7:00pm

SA passes new bylaw

By Margeux Clemmons

The Rice Student Association voted to pass a by-law amendment to the SA Constitution Monday, instating the SA president as one of two undergraduate representatives to University Council beginning in the 2009-'10 academic year. The University Council, one of Rice University's advisory groups for the university president, serves as a method of communication between President David Leebron and the rest of the university. The University Council is comprised of Faculty Senate members, the faculty speaker and deputy speaker of the Faculty Senate, two graduate representatives and two undergraduate representatives.

NEWS 3/26/09 7:00pm

Friday's Sports Update: Owls fall to Tigers thanks to defensive blunders

By Meghan Hall

Although Rice outdid Memphis in the hit column-17 to 14-the Owls fell short to the Tigers, dropping the first game of a three-game conference series 10-7 Friday evening at Reckling.Trouble started early for the 15-7 Owls, currently ranked second by Rivals.com and fourth by Baseball America. The Tigers scored two runs in each of the first three innings, while the Owls were only able to put up single digits.

NEWS 3/26/09 7:00pm

My First Time spills the beans on relationship stories

By Erika Kwee

"It was like taking my mom's car up and down the driveway ... while no one was looking." Thus begins the slew of awkward sex analogies that pepper the script of My First Time, directed by Wiess College junior Tiffany Kim, who is putting on this unusual Off-Broadway show with the help of eight fellow students and funding from the Dr. Bill Wilson Student Initiative Grant.The overall presentation of the show is sharp, beginning in darkness as an awkward tune plays in the background. In between periods of snappy one-liners ("I lost my hymen in a bike accident") and longer monologues, the stage projector serves to intersperse random fun facts about sex. Did you know that the average French person loses their V-status at 16.8 years? Germany is 16.2! And the United States is ... well, you can just ponder on that for a while.

NEWS 3/26/09 7:00pm

Friday's Sports Update: Green Wave no match for high-scoring Owls

By Meghan Hall

Rice must have still been on a run-scoring high from last Wednesday's thrilling comeback against Dallas Baptist, for the team opened with a bang against conference rival Tulane in the opener of a three-game series Friday night. The 19-7 (5-2) Owls are ranked as high as second by Rivals.com and fourth by Baseball America.The offense lately has been rolling: in nine of Rice's last 11 games, they have had at least 13 hits. The magic number tonight was 15 hits, which the Owls used to top Tulane 11-3.

NEWS 3/26/09 7:00pm

A Word with your Wardrobe: Thinking Pink

By Deanne Nguyen

I've been doing some spring break thinking, not on spring fashion, but fall. Fall 2009 to be exact. Backwards, sure - but so is the fashion world.As I discussed two weeks ago, New York fashion week for next season was pretty bleak overall, and the European circuit wasn't looking too good, either. After flipping through London's show and starting on Paris's offerings, I stopped and asked myself, "Deanne, what are you doing? It's March. It's going to be six months-plus until anyone in Texas even notices it's autumn. Stop brooding over a hypothetically black future and step into spring. Let's talk about all the stuff that a floral season promises: sugar, spice, everything nice that starts with an 'S' and ends in femininity."

NEWS 3/26/09 7:00pm

After highly-attended 100Days, 30Nights looms on horizon

By Jaclyn Youngblood

If you did not get all of your spring semester thrills out at 100Days, fear not: 30Nights is just around the corner. The party is set for Wednesday, April 8 from 9 p.m.-2 a.m., event coordinator Dylan Guyer said. Guyer, a Brown College senior, said the event will be held at one of downtown Houston's newest dance clubs, Element.

NEWS 3/26/09 7:00pm

Current students deserve parking priority

By Katy Mulvaney

If you're anything like me, getting a parking spot along the first row of West Lot can pretty much make your week. One of my dreams, unlikely to be fulfilled now that my time at Rice is coming rapidly to a close, is to someday get the spot right by the single gate.However, this past week my goals were not nearly so high, and they were still dashed. With the parking gates thrown open to the world at large, I was lucky if I could find a spot between the first and second bus stop.

NEWS 3/26/09 7:00pm

Congratulations deserved

By Staff Editorial

We would like to extend our congratulations to a pair of very deserving staples of the Rice campus. The first is Wayne Graham, the unofficial leader of the Rice campus. Where Graham goes we follow - all the way to 800 wins.Secondly, we would like to extend our congratulations to Rice's Emergency Medical Services program for its fourth service excellence award. We cannot begin to express all of our gratitude for the services REMS perform, from hand-making splints to easing our bodily qualms to providing pop quizzes about the current president. They make Rice that much safer, and for that we are indebted.

NEWS 3/26/09 7:00pm

Cult behavior from residential college system crosses the line

By Margie Diddams

More about the residential college system at Rice upsets me than I could fit in a single article. Treasonous words, I know. But look, for a moment, beyond the "just like Harry Potter" nonsense.Though dorm assignments are arbitrary, students are immediately encouraged to favor their college above others. During O-Week, incoming freshmen run around campus in hoards, chasing, insulting and screaming at fellow students for their new college identity. "Jacks," midnight pranks determined by college leadership, inconvenience, humiliate and often injure residents of other colleges.

NEWS 3/26/09 7:00pm

Hanszen grabs another trophy in donations competition

By Catherine Bratic

Although Will Rice College swept all of the Beer Bike races, they fell short in one contest on the morning of Beer Bike: the College Battle giving campaign. With an overall alumni, senior and parent participation rate of 8.5 percent, Hanszen College beat out the other eight colleges to win the College Battle campaign, which supports the Annual Fund. Baker College came in second with a participation rate of 8.2 percent, and Jones College took third with a 7.2 percent contribution rate.

NEWS 3/26/09 7:00pm

Complete Works fills Big Room with laughs

By Yan Digilov

They laughed. They cried. They screamed in horror. At times, audience members watching Sid Richardson College's production of The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged) even considered switching seats to avoid yet another flying projectile, bodily fluid or "human" head.The attempts of director Jacob Lindsey, a Sid junior, along with his small acting troupe of Brown College junior Colin Karlsson and Sid sophomore Graham Johnson, left the actors on stage in the spotlight for the entirety of the show, taking only the occasional break to die or change into a bigger wig. But their energy allowed this absurd rendition to deliver on the promise of its title, providing nonstop laughs as the actors colorfully butcher some of the English language's most cherished works.

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