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NEWS 3/13/08 7:00pm

Top-seeded UTEP ends Rice's hot streak in C-USA quarterfinals

By Justin Hudson

Going into the Conference USA quarterfinal with No. 24 University of Texas-El Paso, the women's basketball team had done everything right. The Owls (14-18, 6-10 C-USA) were peaking when they needed to, having won four in a row. They had handily defeated East Carolina University 69-55 in the opening round of the tournament, holding their opponent to its lowest output since December. And as the contest against the Miners (27-3, 16-0 C-USA) entered the final stretch of the second half, the Owls had not buckled - unlike in the squads' previous meetings - and looked poised to make a run at a fifth-straight conference final.But just when they needed it most, the Owls' luck ran out in the second half when UTEP guard Jareica Hughes, the eventual C-USA Tournament MVP, turned in a performance for the ages: Hughes put in 29 of a career-high 33 points in the second half to lead the Miners to a 80-71 victory that brought Rice's season to an end.

NEWS 3/13/08 7:00pm

Vapid Penelope provides timeless empowerment

By Jackie Ammons

Penelope is not practical. She has the face of a beautiful wood nymph and the voice of a fairy, but also the pronounced nose of a pig. She lives in a modern world of high technology subdued by 1950s clothing and milk trucks that hearken back to the early twentieth century. Like its principal character, the movie Penelope is neither practical nor provocative enough for thrill-seeking audiences but is perfect for a quiet, simple afternoon viewing.Afflicted by an ancient family curse, Penelope (Black Snake Moan's Christina Ricci) follows the demands of her aristocratic parents (Monster House's Catherine O'Hara and Corpse Bride's Richard E. Grant) that she cover her pig's nose and ears to hide her secret from the public. Unfortunately, the only way to break the curse and restore her features is to find the one man who will love Penelope for who she is. To discover him, she depends on the help of a sassy new friend (Rendition's Reese Witherspoon), a sensitive musician (Atonement's James McAvoy), a haughty blue blood (Pride and Prejudice's Simon Woods) and a midget reporter (Underdog's Peter Dinklage).

NEWS 3/13/08 7:00pm

Women's tennis keeps win streak rolling with victory over UCF

By Rhodes Coffey

Winning streaks are a funny thing. They are both media darlings and fan favorites, but they can find lessened importance if the teams that own them play sloppily and without fire. However, after its sweep of spring break opponents to stretch the winning streak to six matches, no one can accuse the women's tennis team of playing without desire. Over the past two weeks, No. 75 Rice has downed No. 69 California State University-Northridge, the University of Texas-Pan American and the University of Central Florida, its first Conference-USA foe of the year.After improving its record to 12-4 on the spring season and 9-1 at Jake Hess Tennis Stadium, the team will host Abilene Christian University this Friday at 3 pm. While Abilene Christian - Rice head coach Roger White's alma mater - may be Division II, they are seventh in the country and have lost only one of the last ten matches. They also feature the doubles tandem of Irene Squillaci and Aina Rafolomanantsiatosika, the second-ranked team in D-II.

NEWS 3/13/08 7:00pm

Revamped Hello Hamlet! raises theatrical bar

By Solnick

The pressure of high expectations is a powerful motivator. Gleaned from 40 years of tradition and amidst the bustle of Beer-Bike festivities, this year's production of the original Rice play Hello Hamlet! delivers a polished diamond of a show, jam-packed into two hours of comedic pleasure and Monty Python-like humor. Director Caitlin Miller's attention to detail pays off in a show that is not merely a reproduction of the original script written by George Greanias (Wiess '70) in 1967, but a revamped and edited version, with almost a third of the songs modified to keep the jokes relevant and the audience engaged. While some musicals drag with a large load of song and dance numbers, this Wiess Tabletop Theater production does just the opposite. The fast pace of the show flows seamlessly with the good-humored parodies of famous musical numbers, ranging from Les Misérables to Fiddler on the Roof.

NEWS 3/13/08 7:00pm

Self-proclaimed gadfly: College system strains university bond

By Evan Mintz

Ideally, the college system is a great system. Students leaving their homes, often for the first time, can find a nurturing new community within their colleges. But one cannot live in the nursery forever. However, the Rice housing scheme seems to disagree - Rice does not provide housing for students who wish to leave the confines of the college system.It may seem inconceivable to many students that their peers would want to leave the alma mater they love so dearly, but all it takes is a few minutes in the Rice Memorial Center to find students who want to graduate from their colleges but still attend the university as a whole.

NEWS 3/13/08 7:00pm

Massengale paces swimmers to second place

By Tracy Dansker

Since the Conference USA Championships were her last meet as an Owl, Brittany Massengale - the sole healthy senior on the swim team - was anticipating an extra dose of emotion. But as the meet wound down, there was too much excitement surrounding Rice's second-place finish for her to shed a tear for herself. For the second year in a row, Rice finished its dual season with a 10-4 record and took second place behind Southern Methodist University, which scored 926 points to the Owls' 635 and took the title for the third consecutive year."SMU had a better team this year than they did last year . but we definitely separated ourselves from the rest of the conference," head coach Seth Huston said. "We were putting a lot of people in the top eight in the finals right there like SMU always does, but we were doing it more so than in previous years."

NEWS 3/13/08 7:00pm

ASB participants trade beach parties for volunteering

By Jocelyn Wright

While some students were spending their spring breaks at the beach or on the ski slopes, about 100 others decided to devote their time to volunteering with Alternative Spring Break, a program in which teams of college students in communities do short-term community service projects addressing issues such as racism, homelessness, poverty and the environment. This year, there were 10 ASB trips organized by students appointed to be site leaders and coordinated through the Community Involvement Center.All trips required that participants pay a $250 registration fee. The rest of the money for the trips was raised through individual fundraising by each student group.

NEWS 3/13/08 7:00pm

There's no use crying over spilt carcinogenic milk

By Siegel

If you think milk "does a body good," think again. As consumers, we have fallen prey to a conspiracy of epic proportions. The truth is that milk is no panacea; it is no health food. In fact, it just may kill you.According to the renowned nutritionist Dr. T. Colin Campbell of Cornell University, the dairy industry has infiltrated "virtually all segments of our society - from research and education to public relations and politics - to have us believing that cow's milk and its products are manna from heaven." Milk has found its way into the government-endorsed healthy diet pyramid and is Santa's favorite drink. The truth, however, is a bit less wholesome. Milk causes cancer. Really.

NEWS 3/13/08 7:00pm

SA, RUPD take strides with collaboration

 

Rice University Police Department caused quite a stir when it implemented its laptop-retrieving policy at the beginning of last semester - in which officers picked up items left unattended within Fondren Library and stored them at police headquarters - to prevent thefts from occurring. But many students reacted negatively to this, saying that RUPD did not inform students when they recovered their items or where they were stored.At the present time, Rice does not have a centralized lost-and-found location. If someone were to lose an item, he or she would have to check many different lost-and-found locations such as the ones in Fondren Library, RUPD headquarters and Rice Memorial Center.

NEWS 3/13/08 7:00pm

Marfa: West Texas ghost town doubles as desert oasis

By Norbergs

There's a fair chance you've never heard of the town of Marfa, Texas, population 2,121, approximately 600 miles west of Houston. But in certain circles, this small town is a big deal. In the 1970s, the artist Donald Judd, best known for his minimalist sculptures, purchased a former military fort in this then-unremarkable tumbleweed town and began transforming the grounds into what is today an art space for permanent and temporary exhibits and a home to a series of artists in residence. Around this compound, now known as the Chinati Foundation, has grown a veritable artistic and otherwise bohemian oasis in the West Texas desert. The Hotel Paisano, built in the 1930s, is Marfa's oldest claim to fame as part of the setting of the movie The Giant, starring Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean. Despite its seeming anachronism, it still impresses with its Spanish villa-styled architecture and lush interior - the bar is as hopping as it was during the famous movie's filming and turns out a mean margarita, too. The only other bar recommended by locals was the lounge in Thunderbird Motel. Luckily, we ventured past its imposingly sketchy exterior, an unbroken concrete wall and unlit neon "lounge" sign, to find a surprisingly cool room, its high walls painted dark blue and covered in larger-than-life-sized portraits of Marfa locals. The "Snake Bite" sounded like an intriguing drink, but the bartender at the time was apparently only filling in for a friend and said that he frankly had no idea what was in it. This hang-up was amusing rather than annoying, and seemed to personify this quirky town's laid-back and welcoming spirit.

NEWS 3/13/08 7:00pm

Bike-o-saurus rex

 

Jones College freshman Ryan Le and Jones junior Daniel Hodges-Copple push Jones junior Daniel Antworth off to the races during Mock Beer-Bike Wednesday night, while Professor of Political Science Richard Stoll prays fervently in the background.

NEWS 3/13/08 7:00pm

Serendipitous musings: Beer-Bike tradition as quirky, unique as Rice

By Amanda Melchor

As the Ides of March approaches, students steel themselves for an especially important and momentous event. Summer job and internship searches? Child's play. Midterm exams and papers? Who worries about those? I am talking about what could arguably be the most memorable and vital annual event at Rice, comparable in magic and joy only to Christmas, and, quite possibly, a law or med school admissions letter: I am talking about Beer-Bike.Not only is it a tradition unique and specific to Rice, but Beer-Bike also provides students with a way to rally and connect together as residential colleges and a university as a whole, regardless of major and age - even the Graduate Student Association participates. The event's evolution marks the growth of the university as a whole, and the excitement is like nothing ever seen before. The energy and anticipation in the air replaces the usual enthusiasm and excitement you find at other universities that have exceptional varsity sports programs and makes the experience available to sports fans and bookish types alike.

NEWS 3/13/08 7:00pm

BakerShake's Richard III a true thriller

By Brian Reinhart

Shakespeare's play Richard III begins and ends with tremendous swordfights and bloody deaths, but the intense psychological drama that plays out in between is even more gripping in this new production by the Baker Shakespeare company. A strong cast featuring numerous Rice alumni and employees excels in the chilling Baker College performance.The play itself depicts the scheming of Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Baker associate Joseph Lockett, Hanszen '91), a physically deformed nobleman whose ambition is to become King of England. He is determined to do so by any means and cruelly divides the other nobles into rival factions before killing them all. Richard's motives are not made clear until he has already murdered several of his foes, adding an element of psychological mystery to the play's early stages.

NEWS 3/13/08 7:00pm

Senior testing included in new national accreditation measures

By Sarah Rutledge

Seniors who dreamed that their last semester of college would be filled with constant parties, easy classes and the occasional contemplation of their future may have to adjust that fantasy this year due to accreditation assessments, which began last week. Though Rice was reaffirmed for accreditation in 2006 - all colleges and universities are evaluated every ten years for the title - due to new measures by the federal government, universities across the country are undergoing an examination process to test what seniors have learned in their time at college.

NEWS 3/13/08 7:00pm

Rice-Baylor scholar earns national recognition, $2,500 from USA Today

By Jocelyn Wright

Wiess College junior Steve Xu became one of 20 undergraduates nationwide to join USA Today's 2008 All-USA College Academic First Team. The group of selected students consists of undergraduates throughout the country who excel in various fields.USA Today featured the 20 winners who took home $2,500 in prize money. Xu estimates that between 550 and 600 undergraduates applied for the team this year.

NEWS 3/13/08 7:00pm

Men's first win of 2008 will have to come in fall

By Kushagra Shrinath

On the same night that one Houston basketball team won its 20th game in a row, another dropped its 20th consecutive contest. The men's basketball team's season came to an end Wednesday in a disappointing yet telling way, as Rice dropped a 59-50 contest against the University of Southern Mississippi in the first round of the Conference USA Tournament in Memphis, Tenn. The defeat ended what could be claimed as the program's worst season in its history - not only did the Owls (3-26, 0-16 C-USA) become the first team ever in C-USA not to win a single conference game, but they failed to win any games at all in 2008.However, the dismal record may be a bit deceptive. Prior to their season-ending loss, the Owls lost three hard-fought games during spring break. After trailing by more than 16 points in the first half, the Owls closed to within two points late in the second half before folding 68-60 to the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Fla. Later in the week, senior forward Patrick Britton scored a career high 40 points on 14-18 shooting, but the Owls lost 75-68 to East Carolina University at home.

NEWS 3/13/08 7:00pm

Willy Week jacks reach outside of the box

By Sarah Rutledge

Although spring break may have allowed students a relaxing respite from school, Willy Week, which began Monday, more than made up for the previous week's lack of activity. Mock Beer-Bike, the Beer Debates and Willy's Picnic may have enhanced the Willy Week experience, but colleges were the real stars of Willy Week with the many jacks they executed across campus.Late Sunday night, members of Martel College sprayed WD-40 in trashcans filled with water balloons at Brown College to pop the balloons.

NEWS 3/13/08 7:00pm

Commentary: Softball uses forgotten play as means for success

By Casey Michel

The game of baseball has many great moments any fan loves to see - a do-it-yourself triple play, a successful "daylight" pickoff move or a squeeze like the one our very own Jimmy Comerota executed to perfection against UH. Not only do these plays result in gleeful grins from fans in attendance (and, if we're lucky, Wayne Graham), but since the years of yore, baseball writers have scrounged for nicknames to describe them for the next morning's newspaper readers. From "basket catches" to "worm-burners," all were cleverly coined yet all were easy to picture.But despite following the game since I was a diapered little dude, there was one phrase which had origins outside my experience - the "Baltimore Chop." Cleaving downwards with the bat, a batter aims to bounce the ball off the area around the plate and sky it into the air while the impatient fielders squirm underneath. Rarely is this play utilized; rarer still is its success. Those who unleash the Chop are few in number and must be quicker than a chameleon's tongue on smack, i.e. Ichiro or Jose Reyes.

NEWS 3/13/08 7:00pm

Women's track uses potent team effort to defend indoor title

By Natalie Clericuzio

Even though track and field is not always recognized as a conventional team sport, the members of the women's track and field team were anything but individualistic in defending their league title two weeks ago at the Conference USA Indoor Championships. Despite placing first in only two events, Rice used 15 top-three finishes to pull out a nearly twenty-point rout to best second -lace University of Texas-El Paso 133.5-114.5 at University of Houston's Yeoman Field House.The Owls will get a chance to rest this week - none of the members earned a spot in the NCAA Indoor Championships. However, more Owls were on the provisional list than in previous years: Senior distance runners Callie Wells and Lennie Waite, senior pole vaulter Rachel Greff, senior sprinter Desarie Walwyn and sophomore Sarah Lyons all posted provisional qualifying times during the season.

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