Special Projects

Beer Bike restrictions imposed

As students greet the morning sun to prepare for Beer Bike festivities tomorrow, they will also greet a new Beer Bike policy that has prompted many questions from members of the community. For the first time, colleges will be limited to a single 24-foot flatbed truck to carry balloons into what is unofficially known as the largest water balloon fight in the world.The issue was first brought up in November at a meeting of all Beer Bike coordinators across the university. After the decision to limit the number of trucks was made, its reception was mixed.

Rain keeps men indoors

With rain falling from the early morning on, then-No. 31 Rice's contest against then- No. 51 Duke University and then-No. 75 University of Southern Mississippi never stood a chance at being played at Jake Hess Tennis Stadium. As puddles precluded the Owls' first home matches since the beginning of the semester, the teams headed elsewhere to play for what was, for all intents and purposes, Rice's ninth- and 10th- straight road matches of the year. Since the Owls had a .500 record in the eight road matches leading up to last weekend, it should come as little surprise that the team left the weekend with a Friday loss to the Blue Devils and a Sunday victory against the Golden Eagles.

Baker Shake's Tempest is stormin' good

Last year, Baker College's annual Shakespeare production presented one of the Bard's bleakest plays, Richard III, a violent story of scheming and self-destruction. For Baker Shake's 2009 presentation, the troupe demonstrates its versatility by turning to The Tempest, a light-hearted adventure that features spontaneous dancing, mischievous fairies and a whimsical love story. Fortunately, this show is just as great a success as last year's. The Tempest is, from beginning to end, a total delight.As always, William Shakespeare has constructed a complex plot to keep the audience on its toes. In The Tempest, the rightful Duke of Milan, Prospero (J. Cameron Cooper, Brown '02), has been usurped by his cunning brother, Antonio (Martel College senior Robert Anderson), and exiled to an enchanted island in the middle of the Atlantic. There he lords over a realm of magical spirits and raises his daughter Miranda (Wiess College freshman Margay Dean), preparing to exact revenge on Antonio.

New restrictions hinder spirit of Beer Bike

There are no Rice traditions that compare to Beer Bike. Not Rice baseball, not O-Week and most definitely not pumpkin grades. Thus, you will understand why we are more than a tad perturbed that the planners of this year's Beer Bike have changed the format of this year's parade, limiting all colleges to only one truck (see story, page 5). We take exception to this decree, made without student vote and with little student consent outside of each college's coordinators, for a multitude of reasons. First, and perhaps foremost, is the reasoning that the restriction of trucks will somehow prepare students and coordinators for the pending arrival of two new colleges. This reasoning is flawed - how will imposing restrictions on this year's students prepare them, or the coordinators, for the addition of Duncan and McMurtry? How will fewer trucks ready us for next year's increase? The only reason that this may help us is that coordinators will have to deal only with finding one truck, which may have been a planned imposition for next year, as Duncan and McMurtry, the two largest colleges, would, most likely, have filled the most trucks with those plastic pellets of pain. (Or, for the pessimistic, Duncan and McMurtry could possibly lack the college cohesiveness that necessitates the filling of balloons, putting them at an obvious disadvantage, but we digress).

This week's Editorial Cartoon

Midwest trip challenges women

The women's tennis team did not kick off its spring break the way it hoped, falling victim to two heartbreaking losses to beatable teams in Western Michigan University and Ohio State University. Instead of giving their ranking a much needed boost, the Owls dropped to 9-6 on the year. The losses may have had something to do with the locales because instead of soaking up the spring break sun on the beaches, the women suffered through freezing temperatures in Kalamazoo, Mich. The unranked Owls froze against the 61st-ranked Broncos, falling 4-3 in a close match that highlighted their weaknesses in doubles and inexperience with close matches as their youngest players, sophomore Jessica Jackson and freshman Alex Rasch, each fell.

KTRU Pick of the Week: Bishonen Idolpop Genocaust

When a small waif of an album, or rather half-CD, marked with only "Bishonen Idolpop Genocaust," found its way into the KTRU station, most people did not know what to make of it. The album had the design of a robot and the sound of something that, to the normal ear, would be pure madness. For some time the fate of the album was thrown in the air as the music was so foreign that it seemed everyone was simply afraid of it.Bishonen Idolpop Genocaust hails from Huntsville, Texas, and plays a style of synth electronic music that is reminiscent of old eight-bit video games, so long as they had a high-pitched screaming vocalist accompaniment in Japanese. The native Texan group identifies itself as "Electro/IDM/J-Pop," and the members certainly utilize their identified range to the fullest extent.

Kelley leads golf team to sixth place

At 22 games under .500 with only four scheduled tournament left, the golf team's chances of becoming eligible for the NCAA Championship might seem a statistical impossibility. But teams only need to finish with a .500 record, and since they earn one win for every team they finish ahead of in a tournament and one loss for every team they finish behind, the Owls still have a shot.

Craig leads swimmers to third place finish

The swim team may have finished the regular season with a few more losses than last year, but that did not stop the Owls from making their mark at the Conference USA Championships. Rice finished the meet, held from Feb. 25-28, in third place with a total score of 595. Rice fell to Southern Methodist University (857.5) and crosstown rival University of Houston (623) Although they had come in second place at the C-USA Championships the past two years, the women were not upset with their third-place finish.

Men's basketball moves on in C-USA

It is never too late to save the best for last. The 10th-seeded men's basketball team played the part of Cinderella at the Conference USA tournament on Wednesday, upsetting fifth-seeded Marshall University 60-59 just one week after losing by 14 to the Thundering Herd (15-17, 7-9 C-USA) in Huntington, W.V. The victory means the Owls (10-21, 4-12 C-USA) will face Tulsa University on Thursday in the quarterfinals of the C-USA tournament, which is held in Memphis, Tenn. Tulsa (10-9, 12-4 C-USA), the second seed, had a first round bye after finishing second in the conference to the University of Memphis.

Pink Panther 2 funny for all the wrong reasons

Movies can sometimes be so terrible that they end up being funny. Such is the case with the recently-released film The Pink Panther 2, in which Steve Martin's character, Inspector Jacques Clouseau, embodies all that is ridiculously preposterous and leaves the audience asking why they are laughing during this horrible, over-the-top comedy.As the second installment of the reboot of the classic 1960-70s Pink Panther series starring Peter Sellers, The Pink Panther 2 features Steve Martin (Baby Mama) in the role of the Clouseau, the bumbling British detective whose goal in life is to preserve, protect and defend the treasured Pink Panther diamond. Aided by his trusty sidekick Ponton (Ca$h's Jean Reno) and girlfriend Nicole (Lars and the Real Girl's Emily Mortimer), Clouseau is a part of the dream detective team (including Beverly Hills Chihuahua's Andy Garcia) that protects all of the world's most valuable treasures from the infamous villain, The Tornado.

MRC's "COM(MAN)D" t-shirt slogan incites sexist views

The Hanszen College Men's Resource Center (MRC) has been selling "MAN" shirts both to raise campus awareness and to raise funds for its Hu(man)ity Campaign to help "young men in the Fifth Ward Enrichment program become responsible adults and productive members of the community." I thought it a perfect example of the kind of socially conscious civic engagement projects Rice students should engage in - that is, until I saw a shirt with the slogan "COM(MAN)D" with the word "man" displayed in a larger font and bracketed within the whole word.Understandably, the MRC was probably trying to make a statement by using funny or enticing slogans as part of its campaign. Most of the slogans are indeed so, such as "WO(MAN)," "(MAN)GO" and "BRO(MAN)CE," but this particular slogan, "COM(MAN)D," is particularly offensive and potentially misleading.

Blanket tax system unfairly conducted

Last month was a bad time to be a blanket tax. In the Student Association general election, every proposed blanket tax increase failed. In fact, the only amendment that did pass was the removal of University Blue's tax.It is conceivable that the failure of the tax increases resulted from a faltering economy, leading students to be more frugal with their fees. But I believe that this trend also indicates a general shift away from the elective blanket tax here at Rice.

Commentary: After absence, Griffey's return well worth wait

There are things in life that should not happen. We see them in children's books or on the Hallmark Channel, but never in our dirty world of grime and struggle. Life is incomplete, which means that it's imperfect, which means that these Kodak moments we see in cinema or find in literature do not come to fruition. But that is life. This is sport.

Men's track places third overall at C-USA Championship

Going into spring break, the men's track and field team was primed to put the finishing touches on the masterpiece that was the 2009 indoor season, but a third-place finish at the Conference USA Indoor Championships had the Owls feeling like the last movement ended on a sour note. Despite several outstanding performances, Rice had several minor injuries and mishaps that ultimately led to their diminished performance at conference.

Tuition swells yet again for undergraduates

Rice University undergraduate tuition will increase by 4.9 percent, or $1,470, for the 2009-2010 academic year, reaching $31,430, and Housing and Dining fees will increase 4.5 percent, or $480, to total $11,230, President David Leebron announced at the Student Association's Rice Financial Forum Wednesday night. Rice's percentage increase of undergraduate tuition is the same as the increases at Washington University, Vanderbilt University and Cornell University, but one percentage point or more higher than the changes at Princeton University, Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, according to Vice President for Finance Kathy Collins' survey of undergraduate tuition changes at schools in the Association of American Universities. However, Collins highlighted Rice's financial aid packages as a difference between Rice and other universities.

Rice hosts post-career workshop for Dynamo

As the Houston Dynamo professional soccer team prepares to start its fourth season against the Columbus Crew on March 21, many of its players are preparing for life after their playing days. Members of the team attended a sports business seminar held in Rice Stadium's "R Room" on Tuesday afternoon, discussing the topic. The seminar, hosted by Dr. Clark Haptonstall, Dr. Jimmy Disch, Dr. Jason Sosa and Tom Stallings of the Sport Management department, focused on providing the players with a crash course in handling interviews, as well as an introduction to the opportunities that exist in the sports industry for former athletes.

Fond farewells

We would like to bid a fond farewell to Dylan Farmer and Lily Chun, our outgoing Editors-in-Chief. Dylan, we'll always miss your constant wrist-cracking, your videos of kangaroos attacking their handlers and your penchant for rooting for those pitiable Spurs. Lily, your ability to get things done was unparalleled, much like your love of Coffeehouse cookies, which you rarely seemed to want to share. The Thresher's third-place finish could not have been possible without the two-headed efforts you put forward this year, and your previous efforts as Sports and News editors, respectively, paved the way for better content in print as well as online.Likewise, we wish the best for Amanda Melchor, our outgoing Opinions editor; Julie Armstrong, our outgoing-A&E-editor-turned-soon-to-be-A&E-blog-editor; Sarah Mitchell, our outgoing business manager; Tim Faust, the outgoing half of our Backpage team; Joseph Ramirez and Thomas Yeh, our outgoing Advertising managers; and Nick Schlossman, our outgoing Copy editor. The office will not be the same without you.

Mayors discuss successes, lessons post-Ike

Six months after Hurricane Ike hit Houston and Galveston, the two cities are still struggling to recover from the damage, and elected officials are taking a chance to reevaluate preparations made before the storm. On Wednesday, the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy and Texas Monthly cosponsored the forum "Life After Ike: The Future of Houston and Galveston," where mayors from both cities considered what went right and wrong during Ike and what they learned.

Bike track accident necessitates improvements

We all care about Beer Bike. Of this, there is no doubt. But when it comes to the safety of our bikers, we must grip the brakes and call for an end to dangerous practices.This danger came in full force before spring break, when a Will Rice College freshman collided with a car stopped on the bike track on the west side of Rice Stadium (see story, page 1). While it was clearly an accident, this collision was also clearly preventable, and we hope to cajole those responsible into implementing a few safety measures.