Within sight of the finish line of Sunday’s Louisiana Marathon, on the steps of the state Capitol, Gun Rights Across America held its second annual Stand Your Ground rally. At every State Capitol in the United States, people gathered to show their support through the grassroots effort to promote the Second Amendment and to take a stand against what they see as the infringements of the right to bear arms. In Louisiana, some sat on the seats of motorcycles and listened, others stood holding signs and others leaned on stroll- ers while holding the hands of their children. “[The right to bear arms] is a personal fundamental consti- tutional right for all of us,” said U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La. “But we are all here because we know very well that that right is under assault.” Vitter said the crowd needed to be vigilant and active in tak- ing a stance against the “assault” on the Second Amendment. A member of the crowd shouted in agreement. “The good news is that we had a rally similar to this last year and because of that rally and thousands of others across the country, we beat back one of the biggest assaults on that right in decades,” Vitter said. Vitter did not mention any specific legislation. He said he supports the protection of the Second Amendment because it allows citizens to protect their other rights. An American flag fluttered in the breeze behind the podium. John Eppinett, a Marine and event attendee, said people should be able to carry handguns openly on the Capitol’s grounds. Instead, a knife hung from Eppi- nett’s belt, because of the law’s restriction on guns, he said. The event started with a Reveille e Daily VOLUME 118, ISSUE 74 ENTERTAINMENT: Sublime tribute band Badfish to perform at the House of Blues, p. 9 BASKETBALL: Tigers face a tough road ahead starting tonight, p. 5 The Daily Reveille @lsureveille thedailyreveille lsureveille.com Tuesday, January 21, 2014 CRIME POLITICS Several injured in Tigerland brawl Reese Perkins Contributing Writer At least 50 people were in- volved in a brawl at Tigerland around 2 a.m. on Sunday, accord- ing to the Baton Rouge Police Department. BRPD spokesman Cpl. Don Coppola Jr. said the brawl, which occurred on 1115 Bob Pet- tit Blvd. near Reggie’s, was the outcome of “a verbal altercation that escalated into a physical altercation.” Though police officials have yet to release information re- garding the cause of the brawl, eyewitnesses claim the fighting broke out in front of a Nacho Mama’s food truck. Officers were quick to re- spond to the brawl and eye- witnesses claim there was a police helicopter surveying the scene of the altercation, which Coppola said is not un- common in response to large area incidents. FIGHT, see page 15 GUN RALLY, see page 15 Stand Your Ground rally promotes gun rights Back to the Roots LSU Forestry Club celebrates Louisiana Arbor Day Members of the Forestry Club proudly count themselves among students seeking an un- usual educational experience, and festivities honoring Louisiana’s state-wide Arbor Day, which oc- curs at a different time than the national Arbor Day in April, gave them a chance to show off their special skills. Members of the Forestry Club participated in the celebra- tion by providing demonstrations of traditional logging skills at the Barton Arboretum, an extension of the LSU Rural Life Museum grounds Saturday. Niels de Hoop, associate professor in the School of Re- newable Natural Resources and faculty adviser to the club, said the demonstrations give stu- dents an opportunity to convene and showcase the unique talents many forestry students develop. “A lot of these activities of sawing and chopping go back to the old days of logging,” de Hoop said. “These days, much of log- ging is done by heavy machin- ery, but we want to keep these traditions alive.” Even though the log- ging industry has evolved over the years, de Hoop said it’s Deanna Narveson Staff Writer LAUREN DUHON / The Daily Reveille Supporters of gun rights listen to speakers Sunday at the Gun Rights Across America rally in front of the Louisiana State Capitol building. Read our columnists’ head to head about gun rights, p. 13 ARBOR DAY, see page 15 ANGELA MAJOR / The Daily Reveille [Top] Marlee Montgomery, 14, participates in axe throwing Saturday during Louisiana Arbor Day at Barton Arboretum. [Right] Forestry junior Christian Rossi saws a piece of wood during a demonstration Saturday. William Morris Contributing Writer
Transcript
Within sight of the fi nish line of Sunday’s Louisiana Marathon , on the steps of the state Capitol, Gun Rights Across America held its second annual Stand Your Ground rally.
At every State Capitol in the United States, people gathered to show their support through the grassroots effort to promote the Second Amendment and to take a stand against what they see as the infringements of the right to bear arms.
In Louisiana , some sat on the seats of motorcycles and listened, others stood holding signs and others leaned on stroll-ers while holding the hands of
their children. “[The right to bear arms] is
a personal fundamental consti-tutional right for all of us,” said U.S. Sen. David Vitter , R-La. “But we are all here because we know very well that that right is under assault.”
Vitter said the crowd needed to be vigilant and active in tak-ing a stance against the “assault” on the Second Amendment . A member of the crowd shouted in agreement.
“The good news is that we had a rally similar to this last year and because of that rally and thousands of others across the country, we beat back one of the biggest assaults on that right in decades,” Vitter said.
Vitter did not mention any
specifi c legislation. He said he supports the protection of the Second Amendment because it allows citizens to protect their other rights.
An American fl ag fl uttered in the breeze behind the podium.
John Eppinett , a Marine and event attendee, said people should be able to carry handguns openly on the Capitol’s grounds. Instead, a knife hung from Eppi-nett’s belt, because of the law’s restriction on guns, he said.
The event started with a
Reveille� e Daily
VOLUME 118, ISSUE 74
ENTERTAINMENT: Sublime tribute band Bad� sh to perform at the House of Blues, p. 9
BASKETBALL: Tigers face a tough road ahead starting tonight, p. 5
The Daily Reveille @lsureveille thedailyreveille lsureveille.comTuesday, January 21, 2014
CRIME
POLITICS
Several injured in Tigerland brawlReese PerkinsContributing Writer
At least 50 people were in-volved in a brawl at Tigerland around 2 a.m. on Sunday , accord-ing to the Baton Rouge Police Department .
BRPD spokesman Cpl. Don Coppola Jr. said the brawl, which occurred on 1115 Bob Pet-tit Blvd. near Reggie’s , was the outcome of “a verbal altercation that escalated into a physical altercation.”
Though police offi cials have yet to release information re-garding the cause of the brawl, eyewitnesses claim the fi ghting broke out in front of a Nacho Mama’s food truck.
Offi cers were quick to re-spond to the brawl and eye-witnesses claim there was a police helicopter surveying the scene of the altercation, which Coppola said is not un-common in response to large area incidents.
FIGHT, see page 15
GUN RALLY, see page 15
Stand Your Ground rally promotes gun rights
Back to the RootsLSU Forestry Club celebrates Louisiana Arbor Day
Members of the Forestry Club proudly count themselves among students seeking an un-usual educational experience, and festivities honoring Louisiana’s state-wide Arbor Day, which oc-curs at a different time than the
national Arbor Day in April, gave them a chance to show off their special skills.
Members of the Forestry Club participated in the celebra-tion by providing demonstrations of traditional logging skills at the Barton Arboretum , an extension of the LSU Rural Life Museum grounds Saturday.
Niels de Hoop, associate professor in the School of Re-newable Natural Resources and faculty adviser to the club, said the demonstrations give stu-dents an opportunity to convene and showcase the unique talents many forestry students develop.
“A lot of these activities of sawing and chopping go back to
the old days of logging,” de Hoop said . “These days, much of log-ging is done by heavy machin-ery, but we want to keep these traditions alive.”
Even though the log-ging industry has evolved over the years, de Hoop said it’s
Deanna NarvesonStaff Writer
LAUREN DUHON / The Daily Reveille
Supporters of gun rights listen to speakers Sunday at the Gun Rights Across America rally in front of the Louisiana State Capitol building.
Read our columnists’ head to head about
gun rights, p. 13
ARBOR DAY, see page 15
ANGELA MAJOR / The Daily Reveille
[Top] Marlee Montgomery, 14, participates in axe throwing Saturday during Louisiana Arbor Day at Barton Arboretum. [Right] Forestry junior Christian Rossi saws a piece of wood during a demonstration Saturday.
William MorrisContributing Writer
The Daily Reveille
CORRECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS
POLICIES AND PROCEDURES
The Daily Reveille holds accuracy and objectivity at the highest priority and wants to reassure the reporting and content of the paper meets these standards. This space is reserved to recog-nize and correct any mistakes which may have been printed in The Daily Reveille. If you would like something corrected or clarified please contact the editor at (225) 578-4811 or email [email protected].
The Daily Reveille (USPS 145-800) is written, edited and produced solely by students of Louisiana State University. The Daily Reveille is an independent entity within the Manship School of Mass Com-munication. A single issue of The Daily Reveille is free. To purchase additional copies for 25 cents, please contact the Office of Student Media in B-34 Hodges Hall. The Daily Reveille is published daily dur-ing the fall and spring semesters and semi-weekly during the sum-mer semester, except during holidays and final exams. Second-class copies postage paid at Baton Rouge, La., 70803. Annual weekly mailed subscriptions are $125, semester weekly mailed subscrip-tions are $75. Non-mailed student rates are $4 each regular semes-ter, $2 during the summer; one copy per person, additional copies 25 cents each. Postmaster: Send address changes to The Daily Reveille, B-39 Hodges Hall, LSU, Baton Rouge, La.,70803.
The Daily ReveilleB-16 Hodges Hall • Baton Rouge, La. 70803
Comet-chasing probe wakes up, sends signal back to European agency
BERLIN (AP) — Waking up after almost three years of hibernation, a comet-chasing spacecraft sent its first signal back to Earth on Mon-day, prompting cheers from scien-tists who hope to use it to land the first space lander onto a comet.
The European Space Agency received the all-clear message from its Rosetta spacecraft at 7:18 p.m. (1818 GMT; 1:18 p.m. EST) — a message that had to travel some 800 million kilometers (500 million miles). The probe triggered a series of “Hello World!” tweets in different languages.UN withdraws Iran’s invite to attend Syria talks after threatened boycott
GENEVA (AP) — A last-minute U.N. invitation for Iran to join this week’s Syria peace talks threw the long-awaited Geneva conference into doubt Monday, forcing U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon to rescind his offer after the opposition threat-ened to boycott.
With the invitation withdrawn, the main Western-backed Syrian opposition group said it would at-tend the talks, which it said should aim to establish a transitional gov-ernment with full executive powers “in which killers and criminals do not participate.”
Fatalities reported in Omaha plant explosion, rescue efforts halted
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Omaha’s fire chief said Monday that people have died in an explosion and par-tial building collapse at an ani-mal feed processing plant, but he would not give a specific number of deaths.
Interim Omaha Fire Chief Bernie Kanger said crews have stopped rescue efforts and will start a slower recovery effort to retrieve victims.
The International Nutrition plant is unstable, so rescuers must work deliberately to ensure their safety, he said.Silicon Valley offices see electronic vehicle charging station shortages
PALO ALTO, Calif. (AP) — An in-creasing number of electric-vehicle driving employees at Silicon Valley companies are finding it hard to ac-cess car-charging stations at work, creating incidents of “charge rage” among drivers.
Installation of charging ports at some companies has not kept pace with demand, creating thorny work-place etiquette issues, the San Jose Mercury News reported.
Peter Graf, chief sustainability officer for German company SAP, says the company’s 16 charging sta-tions are not nearly enough.
LAKE CHARLES (AP) — The trial for 74-year-old William Felix Vail on a second-degree murder charge in the death of his wife, Mary Horton Vail, 50 years ago will be held in Calcasieu Parish.
The American Press reports that Judge Robert Wyatt denied this past week a defense motion for a change of venue. Wyatt said he believed unbiased jurors could be found in the parish and that me-dia coverage has not been overly extensive.
Prosecutors say Vail allegedly killed his wife in October 1962. He claims she drowned in the Calcasieu River while they were running trotlines.Veterans cemetery nears completion, scheduled to open later this year
SLIDELL (AP) — Muddy roads will soon give way to asphalt and bare ground transformed with sod and landscaping as construction of the Southeast Louisiana Veterans Cemetery near Slidell enters its final stages.
NOLA.com | The Times-Pica-yune reported the $8 million cem-etery is scheduled to open in April. The site is on the north side of In-terstate 12 next to the Louisiana National Guard’s Camp Villere.
Plane crash survivors found on remote mountain in Transylvania after search
BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Five passengers on a small plane that made a forced landing Mon-day on a remote mountain in Tran-sylvania were found alive after a massive search, but the pilot and a student later died, authorities said.
The plane was transporting medics from Bucharest to west-ern Romania to harvest organs for transplant when it was forced to land at an altitude of 1,400 meters (4,595 feet) because of heavy fog and low visibility, said aviation chief Aleodor Francu.
DaNIEl REINhaRDT / The Associated Press
A European space agency scientist stands at an airworthy copy of space probe ‘Ro-setta’ Monday in the ESA control center in Darmstadt, Germany.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
aNGEla MaJOR / The Daily Reveille
Mike the Tiger dances Saturday during a timeout at a game in the PMAC. Submit your photo of the day to [email protected].
Gay marriage still faces challenges in red states despite legal wins
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Hours after federal judges struck down bans on same-sex marriage in Utah and Oklahoma, activist Evan Wolf-son and his colleagues reached out to gay rights groups in the deeply conservative states with both con-gratulations and a reminder: Court wins alone won’t be enough.
Wolfson knows the perils of judges forcing social changes on a population that isn’t ready for them — he filed the first successful gay marriage lawsuit in the 1990s in Hawaii.
NaTI haRNIk / The Associated Press
Firefighters stage outside the International Nutrition plant in Omaha, Neb., Monday, where a fire and explosion took place, leaving multiple people dead.
Decades-old murder trial planned in Calcasieu Parish despite motion
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The University Society of Physics Students hosted a con-ference this weekend to promote networking and solidarity be-tween undergraduate women ma-joring in physics.
The three-year-old South Central Confer-ence for Under-graduate Women in Physics is held annually in conjunction with seven other events around the country. This year, the Univer-sity drew in students from Arkan-sas, Mississippi, Texas, Florida and Illinois.
“We held this conference to bring young women in under-graduate physics together, and to show them they’re not alone,” said Mette Gaarde, University physics professor and chair of the conference. “These young wom-en don’t want to be defined by their gender. They think of them-selves as physicists, so that is the purpose — trying to get these stu-dents together, and trying to get them to interact with each other, and with the professional women here.”
Gaarde said women on av-erage represent less than 24 percent of physics undergradu-ates in the United States. The conference serves primarily as a place for young women to net-work with each other and with employers seeking to hire un-dergraduate interns and future graduate employees.
Programs featured at the conference included laboratory tours, career and graduate school panels, networking sessions, a writing workshop and talks by prominent physicists from around the country.
Among the most recognized speakers was Gabriela González, a University physics professor who was selected as the Ameri-can Physics Society’s Woman Physicist of the Month. González was recognized for her work with the Laser Interferometer Grav-itational-Wave Observatory, or LIGO, as both a scientist and a spokesperson.
As a scientist, González is currently trying to detect gravi-tational waves. Physicists under-stand them to exist as ripples in space-time, as predicted by Ein-stein’s theory of relativity, but have yet to detect them.
González leads a working group to improve the diversity of physicists in her collaboration, and in the field in general, as
LIGO’s spokesperson.“The general philosophy
is that we have to create a good climate,” González said. “We do a lot of outreach. We go to high schools, elementary schools, and we try to show young energetic girls that there are role models in physics.”
Another goal of the confer-ence was to increase the num-ber of women who remain in the field after they obtain their
bachelor’s de-grees. The event featured more than 24 under-graduate research presentations, in-cluding one from the Society of Physics Students’ president Hannah Gardiner, who helped run the event. Gardiner, a
physics senior, said she conducts research on the nuclear processes that form stars and studies the causes of the Big Bang. The con-ference was a breath of fresh air, she said.
“We had a lot of help from the boys,” Gardner said. “But there’s only one other girl who’s a senior in my major. It’s really nice to see that there are other girls who do this too. It’s nice to know that we’re not alone.”
The Daily Reveille page 3Tuesday, January 21, 2014
EVENT CALENDAR
JANUARY
21
7:00 PM
8:00 PM
9:00 PM
Coffee with Campus Life - LSU Student Union
Portraiture: Style and Ornament - LSU Museum of ArtStorytime - Livingston Parish Library
Signpost to Freedom - Hill Memorial Library
Gregory Agid Quartet - The MaisonLSU vs. University of Missouri Basketball - PMACThe Artist's Way Workshop - Bluebonnet Branch-EBR Library
New Orleans Pelicans vs Sacramento Kings - NOLA ArenaTeam Trivia - George's Place
Todd Waits & The Pigpen - Hi Ho Lounge-LA
Bill Kirchen - The Blue MoonPo.10.Cee - Banks Street Bar & Grill
TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2014
For more information on LSU events or to place your own event you can visit www.lsureveille.com/calendar
12:00 PM
6:00 PM
9:30 AM
10:00 AM
LSU 2014 MLK & BHM Commemorative Celebration
Friday, January 24, 20143:00 PM
Lod Cook Alumni Center 3838 W. Lakeshore Dr.
Baton Rouge, LA Keynote Speaker: Kimberle Crenshaw
MLK Performing Arts Night Thursday, January 23, 2014
6:00 PM, Royal Cotillion Ballroom, LSU Student Union
EVENTS
LSU Libraries Civil Rights Film Series,
Tuesday January 21, 2014Signpost to Freedom: The 1953
Baton Rouge Bus BoycottNoon - Hill Memorial Library Lecture Hall
(Film clips and discussion)6:30 PM - Hill Memorial Library Lecture Hall (Full �lm
showing) Full �lm series details at
http://www.lib.lsu.edu/sp/subjects/createdequal
Integration exhibit opens at Hill Memorial Library
in undergraduatephysics together and to show them they’re not
alone.’ Mette Gaardephysics professor
‘‘We are all Louisianacitizens; we are all Americans, and we
need to live like that.’Maxine CrumpCEO and president,
Dialogue on Race Louisiana
A new exhibition opening today at Hill Memorial Library showcases the historic trail to ra-cial integration and the progres-sion of civil rights at the Univer-sity and in Baton Rouge.
The goal of the exhibition is to reveal the various perspectives of integration and civil rights at the University, said Jennifer Abraham Cramer, director of LSU Libraries’ T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History.
The exhibit, “The Relent-less Pursuit of ‘Equal’: Inte-grating LSU,” will remain open until March 29. It will offer firsthand narratives told by con-temporaries of the Civil Rights Era, such as A.P. Tureaud, a New Orleans attorney who was a key figure in desegregation, Cramer said.
The exhibition will also dis-play historical items and docu-ments from the Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Col-lections at Hill Memorial Li-brary. These items include stu-dent applications, University documents and newspapers from the era.
The interactive listening stations will offer dialogue de-scribing the 1953 Baton Rouge bus boycott, integration at the University and the strug-gle for the equality of civil rights in East Baton Rouge,
Cramer said.She said law documents and
newspapers only reveal part of the history of civil rights. The entirety of the University’s civil rights history can be revealed through these oral histories, Cramer said
“The goal of the exhibit is to reveal the vari-ous perspectives,” she said. “It can supplement the record and add to it.”
Cramer said the goal of the exhibition is to show how far so-ciety has come in civil rights and how far is left to go.
Maxine Crump, CEO and president of Dialogue on Race Louisiana, said the greatest area of civil rights in need of improvement is how people perceive racism.
“Racism is an American con-struct that determines five color groups and ranks them, while re-serving full rights and privileges for those who are white,” Crump said.
Crump was one of the first African-American students to at-tend the University, and she was
also the first African-American student to live in a University residence hall.
Crump said Baton Rouge is a racially divided city, and as long as Baton Rouge is di-vided by Florida Boulevard, residents will continue to have racial segregation.
If most of the resources and businesses are south of Florida Boulevard, Af-rican-Americans would choose not to live north of it, Crump said.
The Uni-versity needs to become an en-vironment that does not foster any kind of race discrimination, Crump said.
“LSU needs to become the university of Louisiana,” Crump said. “We are all Louisiana citi-zens; we are all Americans, and we need to live like it.”
Paul Dietzel II, a 27-year-old Republican congressional candi-date and University alumnus , tried to keep things fresh at his 2014 Campaign Kickoff by playing up his youth and potential for “bold, new ideas.”
The rally, which took place Friday at the Renaissance Baton Rouge Hotel , featured former Re-publican presidential candidate Herman Cain , who tried his hardest “to make some noise” for Dietzel at the event.
Dietzel , grandson of Paul Di-etzel , the fi rst LSU football coach to win a national championship, is running to represent Louisiana’s 6th Congressional District, which includes the city of Baton Rouge. The district’s current represen-tative, Republican Bill Cassidy , plans to run for U.S. senator later this year against Democrat incum-bent Mary Landrieu .
Dietzel stressed the need for candidates like himself, who could connect with younger voters while maintaining their principles.
“Conservatives need more dynamic communicators who can reach out to the next generation of voters,” Dietzel said.
When asked about the state of higher education in America, Diet-zel again advocated for new ideas from young leaders in government.
“Higher education is com-pletely broken in this country,” Di-etzel said. “We can’t be controlled by ways of thinking from the past.”
Alice Reynolds, liberal arts junior, said she does not believe Dietzel’s age hinders him as a can-didate, and instead thinks voters should concentrate on the policies Dietzel is striving for.
“What matters is whether or not you can do the job,” Reynolds said.
Anna Pikus, computer science sophomore, said it is up to candi-dates to prove themselves, and she sees Dietzel’s youth as a potential positive for his campaign.
“When you’re younger, you have a different outlook on things,” Pikus said.
Dietzel also highlighted his business credentials throughout the event, emphasizing his role in
founding Anedot.com, a website that gives political campaigns and non-profi t organizations the ability to collect and manage donations.
“He has an understanding of what success looks like,” Cain said.
Dietzel took aim at President Barack Obama and Congress dur-ing his address, accusing them of “waging a war on young Ameri-cans” by bankrupting the current generation.
When it was time for Cain to take the stage, the former Godfa-ther’s Pizza CEO energized the crowd and urged the audience to take their country back.
“We need to send Paul Di-etzel to Washington,” Cain said, “because it’s time to make some noise.”
Following the rally, Cain revealed a few of the reasons he endorsed the candidate.
“He has integrity, Christian faith and intellectually, he’s sharp,” Cain said.
Some students who may think Patrick F. Taylor Hall is made up of typical lecture halls and engineering classrooms may not know about the driving simu-lator on the second fl oor .
Sherif Ishak, professor and undergraduate coordinator of the University’s civil engineering program , and graduate research assistant Julius Codjoe are work-ing on starting a new research project with the simulator.
The new project will exam-ine V2V, or vehicle-to-vehicle , research.
“No one has used a simulator for this yet,” Codjoe said. “It isn’t mainstream yet.”
Ishak said V2V research looks at how vehicles could ex-change information between one another when said vehicles are connected to Wi-Fi .
Ishak said V2V communica-tion is different from the large number of traffi c and map appli-cations such as Google Maps and Mapquest .
Web applications can give an idea of congestion and traf-fi c problems, but not immedi-ate information, he said. V2V communication allows for immediate reporting.
Ishak said he is hoping to create an upstream to down-stream fl ow of information to
accomplish that immediate reporting.
“For example, if you were on Highland driving toward I-10 , you would be able to get informa-tion from somebody driving on College ,” Ishak said.
Codjoe and Ishak both said a device making this pos-sible would display a map to the driver.
“Give it a few years time, and they’ll come up with portable devices to plug into your car and make V2V active,” Codjoe said.
The new research idea is not currently funded but has been well-received by the Louisiana Transportation Research Center , Ishak said.
The driving simulator was an investment, costing a total of $271,000 in 2010 , according to Ishak. The majority of fund-ing, $247,000, came from the Louisiana Board of Regents , the Civil and Environmental Engineering department and the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Develop-ment . The University funded the remainder.
The University has already conducted two research proj-ects about distracted driving and driving in extreme weather conditions using the simulator.
The fi rst of the projects studied how texting, phone conversations and conversa-tions with passengers affected a driver’s behavior.
“Analysis showed phone conversations were not as dis-tracting compared to driving with tasks,” Codjoe said. “Texting had
signifi cant effects.” Codjoe said the dialing
process was the most destructive, causing drivers to diverge from their respective traffi c lanes.
The second project primarily tested how drivers could perform under hurricane conditions.
“We used models of wind force and direction to estimate if and when a driver would no longer be in control of his or her vehicle,” Ishak said.
Codjoe said he decided to come to the University for his Ph.D. instead of the University of Florida because of the research opportunities the driving simula-tor provided.
“It is a great tool for interdisciplinary research,” Ishak said. “It can help attract more re-search funding from the state and federal government.”
� e Daily Reveillepage 4 Tuesday, January 21, 2014
3350 Highland RoadBaton Rouge, LA 70802
Free Wi-Fi, Exquisite Pastries
TECHNOLOGY
Driving simulator used for research
Renee BarrowContributing Writer
CHARLOTTE WILCOX / The Daily Reveille
Herman Cain speaks Friday at a rally to support the congressional bid for Paul Dietzel at the Renaissance Baton Rouge Hotel.
When Missouri comes to Baton Rouge to square off against the LSU men’s basketball team tonight, it’ll fi nd a Tiger squad that has seen more ups and downs this season than any time in recent memory — and it’s only January.
Consistency has been a problem for LSU this season. The Tigers fol-lowed up a brutal beat down at the hands of Tennessee with a win on the road against South Carolina, only to lose in overtime to Ole Miss and dole out a crushing win against Vanderbilt the next week.
“Something everybody on this team likes to do is win,” said senior forward Shavon Coleman. “We don’t ever have it in our mind that we’re going to lose. We go out and try to
SportsTuesday, January 21, 2014 page 5
If LSU still plans to make good on its preseason goal of returning to the NCAA Tournament for the fi rst time since 2009, it needs to start notching signature wins against quality opponents.
And with Missouri visiting the PMAC on Tuesday night, there’s no
time like the present.It’ll take far more than a win
against Missouri to ensure a trip to the Big Dance, but another home loss to an unranked foe could put LSU in too deep a hole to dig itself out.
Recent struggles have caused LSU to backslide after looking like a solid lock for a tournament berth early in the season. The Tigers were knocked off the bubble in ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi’s latest version of Bracket Math.
After the LSU women’s bas-ketball team picked up a critical win at then-No. 5 Tennessee in its Southeastern Conference opener, the Lady Tigers were upset by Tex-as A&M in their conference home opener, dimming LSU’s chances of a regular season title in the league.
But, after the game, Texas A&M coach Gary Blair reminded everyone that the road through the
SEC this season will be a bumpy one.
“If you are going to win this league, you’re probably going to have four losses, more so than any other year,” Blair said. “LSU, Tennessee and Kentucky have all lost their home opener, and those might be the three best teams in the league.”
Blair’s comments have only become more accurate as LSU has found itself in one of the toughest conferences in the country. The SEC is currently tied with the At-lantic Coast Conference for most teams in the AP top 25 with six.
At the moment, the SEC is led by the teams picked to fi nish
4th and 7th — A&M and South Carolina — in the SEC preseason media poll in October. Teams such as Tennessee and Georgia, which were picked to fi nish in the top half of the conference at the start of the season, fi nd themselves far behind their predicted fi nish.
The Lady Tigers’ 3-2 record has them mixed with a group of seven teams at the top of the con-voluted conference standings.
“It’s extremely competi-tive. Everybody comes here and you don’t look at anybody’s re-cord prior to that game,” coach Nikki Caldwell said. “You don’t
CHARLOTTE WILLCOX / The Daily Reveille
Alex Box Stadium played host to a number of former Tigers and MLB players Saturday for the 2 Seam Dream Foundation Cancer Awareness Day. The event featured an autograph session, home run derby, silent auction and a softball game.
TIGERS BAT FOR CANCER AWARENESS
SEC rises as dominant conferenceWOMEN’S BASKETBALL
SEC DOMINANCE, see page 7
THE SMARTEST MORANJAMES MORANSports Columnist
Who: LSU (11-5, 2-2 SEC) vs. Mizzou (14-3, 2-2 SEC)When: 6 p.m. tonightWhere: PMACWatch or listen at home: ESPNU, 98.1 FM
LSU TIGERSvs.
MISSOURI TIGERS:
MAJOR MATCHUP
TOUGH TESTS, see page 8
Mike GegenheimerSports Writer
VIDEO: Check out a video for the LSU Swimming and Diving team’s Senior Day at lsureveille.com.
Lady Tigers lead tough divisionTommy RomanachSports Contributor
Tigers’ success rests on upcoming games
LSU, Missouri face off in battle of the tigers
THE ROAD AHEAD
BATTLE OF TIGERS, see page 8
ANGELA MAJOR / The Daily Reveille
The Tigers begin a four-game stretch against SEC opponents versus Missouri at 6 p.m. tonight in the PMAC.
Follow @Rome_TDR for analysis and @TDR_sports
on Twitter for live game updates.
When LSU junior Myles Lewis thought about where he wanted to play collegiate golf, the search found its answer about 80 miles away from home.
The Jesuit High School alumnus claimed three individual state championships and helped lead the Blue Jays to Class 5A state championships in 2010 and 2011. The Times-Picayune twice named Lewis New Orleans Metro Player of the Year .
A l t h o u g h other Southeast-ern Conference schools attempted to court Lewis for his services, he ultimately chose to represent his home state’s uni-versity.
“I decided to come to LSU be-cause of the facilities they had to offer in order to bring my game to the next level,” Lewis said. “Coach [Chuck] Winstead was a big reason I decided to commit here as well, and LSU being so close to home was just a bonus for me.”
In two years of service for
Winstead and the LSU men’s golf team, Lewis has represented the Tigers on the SEC Academic Honor Roll and earned two var-sity letters. After appearing in six tournaments in his freshman campaign, Lewis started 11 tour-naments as a sophomore.
“The collegiate level of com-petition is substantially greater than prior levels,” Lewis said. “The tournaments we play in are full of talented kids that have the potential to make a career out of
it if they put the work in.”
The team has begun prepa-rations for the spring season’s first tournament next month at The Prestige at PGA West in La Quinta, Calif. Al-though Lewis and the team are ex-cited to get back to competition, all squad mem-
bers know where they must make their biggest strides.
“Of course we want to win the SEC and national champion-ships, but this year we are trying to get as much out of practice as possible,” Lewis said.
After their season opener in California, the Tigers will next
compete in the Querencia Cabo Collegiate in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Lewis and his team-mates recognize LSU’s com-mitment toward resourcing a top-tier golf program, and he believes the team must main-tain concentration to properly perform.
“We have a very, very talent-ed group of golfers here at LSU and the athletic department, our coaches, and we all know this,” Lewis said. “We need to focus on getting our games ready to play in those tournaments be-cause of their strong fields be-fore getting too excited about the locations.”
As the game of golf has brought Lewis west down I-10 to Baton Rouge and beyond, Lewis said his favorite experiences are while traveling with the team.
“It’s a great experience and there is never a dull moment with these guys,” Lewis said. “We just have to put in the work needed in order to win these tournaments so the traveling can be that much more fun.”
The Daily Reveillepage 6 Tuesday, January 21, 2014
MEN’S GOLF
LAUREN DUHON / The Daily Reveille
Junior golfer Myles Lewis practices his swing Monday at the University Club golf course.
ready to play in those tournaments because of their strong fields before
getting too excited about the locations.’
Myles Lewisjunior golfer
Lewis, Tigers look ahead to spring tournaments
look at the standings or where you’re ranked because it is a dif-ferent level of competition in this conference.”
LSU experienced one of its most diffi cult stretches over the weekend, traveling to Missouri on Thursday and Vanderbilt on Sunday. The long hours of travel certainly showed when the Lady Tigers fell behind by as much as 20 against Vanderbilt and eventually lost 79-70.
Strength of schedule prior to conference play has propped up some SEC teams through diffi cult conference play.
A&M began conference play 5-0 after a non-conference sched-ule that included Texas, St. John’s and No. 13 Penn State. Mean-while, after going 13-0 in a non-conference schedule that included just one road game, Arkansas has started 2-4 in the SEC.
Blair said the high level of competition has been more than
appreciated by fans in the confer-ence, and their spirit is not some-thing seen everywhere.
“When the games are over, people pull for each other. … We had a lot of compliments from the LSU crowd after the game,” Blair said. “And sometimes in the Big 12, it wasn’t quite that way all the time.”
Although already playing A&M, Vanderbilt, Tennessee and Florida, a gauntlet still awaits LSU. The Lady Tigers still must play road games against A&M and Kentucky as well as home games against Tennessee and South Carolina.
� e Daily Reveille page 7Tuesday, January 21, 2014
The Southeastern Conference will be represented well in Super Bowl XLVIII on Feb. 2, as both the Broncos and the Seahawks have 12 former SEC players on their rosters.
Denver return specialist Trin-don Holliday will be the sole for-mer Tiger to see the fi eld in the Super Bowl, as Seattle rookies Spencer Ware and Tharold Simon are on the Seahawks’ injured re-serve and physically unable to per-form lists, respectively.
The University of Tennessee is the most represented team, with
fi ve players between the two ros-ters, most notably Denver quarter-back Peyton Manning.
The high number of SEC play-ers in the Super Bowl should come as no surprise, as more than 26 per-cent of fi rst round draft picks since 2006 played in the conference.
And if the 2013 NFL Draft is any indicator, this trend can be expected to continue, as an un-precedented 63 SEC players were selected, more than double the number of any other participating conference.
James Carpenter - AlabamaChris Clemons - GeorgiaK.J. Wright - Mississippi St.
· 1,046 return yards in 2013 along with two returns for touch-down – one of which went for 105 yards
· Kick/punt returner
· Played at LSU from 2006-09 and amassed six touchdowns while playing for the Tigers
� e Daily Reveillepage 8 Tuesday, January 21, 2014
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LSU dropped back-to-back home games against Rhode Island and Tennessee earlier this month. The Tigers then hit the road, barely holding off an awful South Caroli-na team before losing a heartbreak-ing game in overtime at Ole Miss.
A comfortable win against an outmanned Vanderbilt team on Saturday stopped the bleeding, but it’s not the kind of victory a tour-nament team would list high on its résumé.
Conveniently for LSU coach Johnny Jones, the next stretch of schedule will offer plenty of op-portunities to author the kind of wins that look good come Selec-tion Sunday.
Sandwiched around a trip to Alabama, LSU will play three of its next four games at home against teams that Lunardi pegged as ei-ther solidly in the fi eld or just off the bubble.
If LSU can navigate this stretch at 3-1 or better, it would climb up the Southeastern Con-ference standings and give itself a fi ghting chance heading into February.
That’s what makes beating Missouri so paramount. A loss could quickly spiral into another home losing streak with No. 14 Kentucky and Arkansas coming to town next week.
All three teams, Arkansas in particular, are more vulnerable away from home. LSU must start taking advantage of playing key games in the PMAC while it can. The road will only get tougher from here if it lets these opportuni-ties slip away.
“Road” is the operative word in that sentence.
Next month, LSU will make return trips to Kentucky, Arkan-sas and a presumably healthier Vanderbilt as well as paying a visit to No. 6 Florida.
It’s unrealistic to expect LSU to break .500 in those fi ve road games, especially if it can’t take care of business at home these next two weeks.
Quality wins are much easier to pull off within friendly confi nes. So if LSU can’t start rattling off wins this week, there’s no reason to think it ever will this season.
Considering all the preseason hype that surrounded this team, a tournament-less March would have to be looked at as a disap-pointment. Jones brought in talent and created excitement, and fair or not, that hype will always be cou-pled with raised expectations.
The expectations may have been a bit high for such a young roster, but the lack of progress as the season goes forward is troubling.
The offense has been madden-ingly inconsistent because it lacks any kind of offensive identity in the half-court. It fl ashed its capa-bilities from time to time, but the Tigers’ propensity for offensive dry spells show up in their record.
LSU has talent, but talent alone can’t carry a team in March.
Only wins can do that.
James Moran is a 21-year-old mass communication senior from Beacon, N.Y.
Head basketball coach Johnny Jones speaks to a referee Saturday during the Tigers’ 81-58 victory against Vanderbilt in the PMAC. The Tigers will take on Missouri at 6 p.m. tonight in the PMAC.
win everything, but we just have to keep on building and going with it.”
One of the leading causes for LSU’s struggles this season is a tendency to turn the ball over with what LSU coach Johnny Jones re-fers to as “home run plays” instead of just “trying to get on base.”
The Tigers rank 10th in the Southeastern Conference with a negative .5 turnover ratio, and with 239 turnovers through 16 games, only South Carolina has lost more possessions than the Tigers. The Gamecocks also have one more game under their belt.
Jones said a certain number of turnovers are to be expected with the type of quick system the Tigers run, but 14.9 turnovers per game isn’t what he had in mind.
“About 11 or 12 is what I’m comfortable with,” Jones said. “Too many right now and then there was the one game we had 20 something. About 11 or 12, if you’re playing well enough, you can get by with. Especially when you play fast, you’re going to take chances.”
Jones could’ve been refer-ring to either Northwestern State or Memphis this season when the Tigers gave up the ball 22 and 24 times, respectively. Both were highs for the season at the time.
Missouri won’t bring an im-posing defense to the PMAC on Tuesday — at least in regards to turnovers — as Mizzou is sec-ond to last in the SEC with a .8 assist-to-turnover ratio and is third to last with a negative 1.6 turnover margin.
Jones expressed concern about Missouri’s length and size coming into the game, knowing it will force LSU junior guard An-thony Hickey — who is ninth in the country and fi rst in the SEC with 3.25 assists for every turnover he registers — and his teammates to give up possession.
“I make a turnover here and there, but it’s not always my fault sometimes,” Hickey said. “Since I’ve been here, I kind of know what’s going to happen from expe-rience. If I do make a mistake, I try not to make it again.”
Hickey claims nearly a full assist lead on his next closest competitor in the SEC for assist-to-turnover ratio, but fortunately for the Tigers, the No. 2 spot also resides in Baton Rouge with senior guard Andre Stringer.
“Obviously we’re going to give up some [turnovers],” String-er said. “But we don’t want that number to be high each and every night. We need that number at least under 10. It can’t be at 15 or some-thing like that. If we can do that on a consistent basis, we can live with those.”
POLL: Do you think the men’s basketball team will make the NCAA tournament? Vote online at lsureveille.com.
Members of the University’s Physical Theatre Club seamlessly fuse skill and spectacle to tell sto-ries through body language.
They incorporate aerial silk work, trapeze art, dance, mim-ing and even stage combat into their routines, according to Caila
Gowland , co-vice president and theater
senior.“The way the club works is
kind of free fl owing,” Gowland said. “Physical theater really en-compasses a lot of things. You go at your own pace and learn what you want, and the offi cers help you if you need it.”
Founded in 2009 by re-cent University graduate Ryann Pinkerton, the club itself is mot-ley, too. With more than 60 mem-bers, including theater students,
English majors and even biologi-cal engineering majors, people of any skill level are invited to join. Beginners are often taught to work with silks, which are ultra-strong fabrics fastened to the ceiling that members use to perform acrobatic moves in midair.
Gowland said the silks can hold up to 2,000 pounds, and the offi cers take every precaution to ensure no one gets hurt.
“We have two lists, a begin-ners list and an advanced list, and you have to perform the beginner
moves before you can progress,” Gowland said. “The fi rst thing we do is teach you to hold yourself in a ball. Then you learn the eggknot, which is a knot you make with the silks and then fl ip to sit into.”
Advanced techniques include trapeze work, supervised by in-structor Elise Duran , and drops, which involve falling from the silks in a series of elaborate, controlled maneuvers.
“The hardest one is the triple
page 9Tuesday, January 21, 2014 Entertainment
In a dark venue, as songs such as “What I Got” and “Santeria,” fl ow from a stage, people might think Sublime is performing right then and there. But what they’re actually hearing is Badfi sh , a Sub-lime tribute band that has devel-oped the kind of following usually reserved for mainstream acts.
Badfi sh will be performing at the House of Blues in New Orleans on Friday for the fourth time since the band began touring in 2002.
Badfi sh performed its fi rst show in front of 500 people in the group’s home state of Rhode Island. Thirteen years later, the band is still touring and playing the songs of its favorite band.
The four-member group had no idea it would become as
successful as it has. Fans of Sub-lime would drive all over the state to hear the music they loved so much. After attending the show, many called Badfi sh the “rebirth” of Sublime.
The name of the band is a trib-ute to Sublime in itself. “Badfi sh” is a song from Sublime’s 1992 al-bum “40oz. To Freedom.”
Badfi sh went on to sell out countless theaters and clubs in the U.S. The band expands its tour dates every year, but always makes a trip to Louisiana , said Joel Hanks , bass guitarist and original member of Badfi sh.
“We always try to make a stop in either New Orleans or Baton Rouge every year,” Hanks said. “We try to explore and always try to fi nd some great food.”
Hanks said New Orleans has a certain appeal, and he loves
performing at the House of Blues under the “amazing lighting.”
The band exclusively per-forms songs from before Sublime’s revival, Sublime with Rome, began making music.
Badfi sh plays the music its band’s members loved to listen to growing up. This is because they want to stay true to the songs that inspired their group, which were performed by Sublime with its lead vocalist, the late Bradley Nowell .
“In 1997, everyone I knew was listening to Sublime ,” Hanks said. “At every party, Sublime was just everywhere. We just decided that since we liked the music, we should just have fun and play it.”
Being a tribute band doesn’t mean Badfi sh’s career has been easy. Members of the band have
Sublime tribute band to perform at House of BluesJoshua JacksonEntertainment Writer
MUSIC
photo courtesy of MIKE FARLEY
Sublime tribute band Bad� sh will play Friday at the House of Blues in New Orleans. BADFISH, see page 11
For movie fans, the Oscars is one of the most important nights of the year. But for many, it can be hard to keep up with the vari-ous fi lm nominees.
The Prytania Theatre in New Orleans gives moviegoers an-other chance to see some of the year’s biggest contenders on the big screen with its annual Acade-my Awards fi lm series, where the theater plays some of the most talked-about nominees in the weeks leading up to the Oscars ceremony.
The fi lm series offers a plethora of the year’s cinema hits, from popular blockbusters like “Captain Philips,” starting Jan. 31 , and “The Wolf of Wall Street,” starting Feb. 21, to indie darlings like “Her,” now playing, and “The Great Beauty,” starting Jan. 31.
Eric Ramstead, general man-ager of the Prytania, said events like this are important, especially with fi lm and fi lmmaking becom-ing a more signifi cant aspect of Louisiana life.
PRYTANIA, see page 11
Oscar film series coming to Prytania
FILM
Will KallenbornEntertainment Writer
Panya KrounContributing Writer
Students take to the skies with the Physical � eatre Club
SILKS, see page 11
Hanging Out
� eater prepares Oscar viewers
TAYLOR BALKOM / The Daily Reveille
Devin Williams, theatre sophomore, suspends herself on aerial silks Friday in the Music and Dramatic Arts building.
To celebrate the history of civil rights in the South, the “Created Equal” fi lm series kicks off on Tues-day at the Hill Memorial Library.
The series came from a grant the National En-dowment for the Humanities cre-ated to showcase these fi lms, said Paul Hrycaj, an instruction and reference librar-ian with the LSU libraries.
“We saw that there was a grant for it that the Na-tional Endowment for the Humani-ties was advertis-ing having to do with civil rights, and knowing that here in the South we’re very much involved with the civil rights movement, we decided it was something we should do,” Hrycaj said.
After applying and getting the grant, the fi lm series was created and is now ready to be viewed. The se-ries focuses on fi ve different fi lms, including one that was added by the LSU Libraries.
“The program started with four documentary fi lms that were support-ed by the National Endowment for the Humanities, and they’re all pertaining to civil rights,” Hrycaj said. “We decided that there was a fi lm that was re-lated to civil rights that was done lo-cally called ‘Sign-post to Freedom,’ which focuses on the Baton Rouge bus boycott, so we added that to the series.”
The fi lm se-ries consists of
more than just screening the fi lms. On the days of the screenings, there will be a discussion in the afternoon with University professors talking
about the fi lms.“Typically, around noon we’re
going to have a discussion on the fi lm,” Hrycaj said. “We’re going to tear down the highlights of the fi lms and display those and use them as the basis for discussion.”
In addition to showcasing the fi lms, different locations will screen the fi lms, including screenings on and off campus at places such as Baton Rouge Community College, Southern University , the West Baton Rouge Museum, the Hill Memorial Library and other buildings around campus.
The fi lm series will end with a general discussion about the fi lms at the Shiloh Baptist Church.
“We’re looking forward to that as a capstone event with the series,” Hrycaj said.
The “Created Equal” fi lm series begins tonight with the discussion and screening of “Signpost to Free-dom.” For information regarding times and dates for future screenings, visit the LSU Libraries website at lib.lsu.edu/sp/subjects/createdequal.
� e Daily Reveillepage 10 Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Erth’s Dinosaur Zoo Live is in-vading the Manship Theatre on Jan 21., bringing to life the prehistoric creatures that once roamed the earth.
Through the performance, peo-ple can go back in time and meet prehistoric creatures, such as baby dinosaurs, huge carnivores and her-bivores that have been extinct for 65 million years.
“[It’s] an hour of entertain-ment and education that is focused on dinosaurs, and it involves several interactions within the show … Di-nosaurs are extremely lifelike and mesmerizing,” said Catherine Ma-jor, marketing and publicity head of Erth.
Children will be able to care for the dinosaurs while learning about the animals and how they lived. Families can learn how to feed and interact with the dinosaurs through this experience.
People can get up close and per-sonal with the creatures. The exhibit will give people the opportunity to see the science of paleontology, which is the study of prehistoric life. Children can see a day in the life of paleontologists through this exhibit.
The idea for the show comes
from work that Scott Wright, the exhibit’s artistic director , has done at museums around the world. Erth is a visual and physical theater com-pany from Sydney, Australia. Erth is known for its shows and works, which are made to be as realistic to the period as possible. The show includes many creatures from the prehistoric time period, such as the baby Dryosaurus.
The Erth team has traveled worldwide with its performances, and now Dinosaurs Zoo Live will be making a stop in Baton Rouge, which will offer people a chance to experience the lives of dinosaurs fi rst-hand.
The show has also been special-ized for the U.S. by including a tric-eratops that Major says is huge, yet extremely peaceful.
“I hope all kids will be really interested in dinosaurs and earth his-tory and learning about the earth to-day,” Major said.
Erth Dinosaur Zoo Live will be at the Manship Theatre on Jan. 21. Tickets are $20 and can be pur-chased at manshiptheatre.org .
‘Created Equal’ film series plans to create discussion
UPCOMING SHOWINGS IN THE EQUAL FILM SERIES:
Tuesday, Jan. 21Film: “Signpost to Freedom” Discussion: Noon , Hill Memorial
Library Lecture Hall Screening: 6:30 p.m. - Hill Memorial
Library Lecture Hall
Monday, Jan. 27Film: “Slavery by Another Name” Discussion: Noon , Hill Memorial
Library Lecture Hall Screening: 6:30 p.m. - Barnes &
Noble on LSU’s campus, SecondFloor
� e Daily Reveille page 11Tuesday, January 21, 2014
come and gone over the last 13 years . Hanks said his experience with Badfi sh has been hands on.
“I’m actively involved in all parts of the business,” he said. “I do a lot with the agents and book-ing the tour dates. We rotate songs, but sometimes we don’t even use setlists. There’s a lot to do when running a business, and that’s par-tially what Badfi sh is.”
Badfi sh has met the original members of Sublime on multiple occasions. The band has had a close relationship with former Sub-lime drummer Bud Gough.
Badfi sh has even played shows with Sublime , which Hanks said is “an amazing experience.” The approval from former Sublime members continues to motivate Badfi sh while on tour.
“One of the original mem-bers is a good friend of ours,” Hanks said. “When Sublime fi rst
reformed as Sublime with Rome we got to meet them. We’ve even met Bradley Norwell’s wife and son.”
Badfi sh has replicated Sub-lime’s sound, but not the band’s mannerisms. The band doesn’t try to become Sublime when they put on a show. Badfi sh attempts to carry on the memory of Sublime through its tours while maintaining an individual identity.
Badfi sh will be performing on Jan. 23 at the House of Blues in New Orleans . Tickets are $15 for general admission and $18 the day of the show. Tickets can be pur-chased at the House of Blues box offi ce or at ticketmaster.com.
“There are so many fi lm fa-natics in Louisiana, ” Ramstead said. “They appreciate the stuff that we do, so it’s important to get it out there.”
Ramstead said the Oscars are a huge event, and that it is impor-tant to their fans that they com-memorate it.
“It’s like the Super Bowl for movies,” Ramstead said. “A lot of our customers don’t want to go to the multiplexes, and some of these fi lms don’t get a good run, so we try to pick up as many of the nominees as we can in the weeks leading up to the awards.”
The theater strives to cater to fi lm buffs and offer experiences viewers can’t get anywhere else.
Ramstead said they try to get fi lms that have not yet played at the Prytania , and they have more success with rarely seen fi lms like ”Nebraska,” starting Feb. 14, than movies like “12 Years a Slave,” which had a success-ful run at the theater earlier in the year. The series also offers view-ers the chance to see all of the Os-car nominated short fi lms in one place, something many may not get the chance to do elsewhere
In addition to the Academy Awards series, the theater is also offering a Best Picture series, where customers can see some past winners of the Best Picture award, including “The Godfa-ther, ” “Casablanca” and “Annie Hall.”
“We’re trying to encompass
all aspects of the awards ceremo-ny,” Ramstead said.
The series culminates in an Oscar-watching party hosted by the New Orleans Film Society. The event offers attendees the opportunity to see the red carpet on the silver screen. The night includes a mock red carpet, pop-corn, hor d’oeuvres and fi lm triv-ia complete with prizes.
Check prytaniatheatrene-worleans.com to see movie times or to buy tickets online.
star drop,” Gowland said . “You fl ip three times sideways and two times downward. It’s crazy.”
More experienced members of the club perform in the Physi-cal Theatre Showcase, an hour-long event held at least once every semester.
Mark Gibson , Gowland’s co-vice president, said he incorporates stilt-walking, juggling and even parkour into the routines he per-forms at the showcase.
“I’m a fi re-breather too,” Gib-son said, though he admitted he could not perform his craft without a permit.
The routines featured in the showcase are organized by the club’s offi cers, led by president Matthew Reed.
“It lets us take something from scratch and create a new work,” Reed said. “The routines are usu-ally three to fi ve minutes long, and
you pay what you can for tickets.” The club’s current fi nancial
goal is to raise $8,000 so they can hang silks in the Shaver Theatre.
The showcase premiered two years ago, and the club has worked to improve it every semester since.
“It’s crazy the amount of peo-ple who are fi nding out about it,” Gowland said.
She attributes the club’s grow-ing membership to the success of the showcase.
She may be right, but Gibson’s explanation is a little simpler.
“It’s so much fun.”The Physical Theatre Club
meets in room 160 of the Music and Dramatic Arts building every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 10:30 a.m.
Kelsey Bopp, environmental engineering senior, hangs upside down Friday in the Music and Dramatic Arts building.
Tomorrow, the University’s Student Government will meet to decide wheth-er everyone’s favorite guilty pleasure should be allowed on campus. No, I’m not talking about binge-watching Netf-lix and eating ice cream from the carton, I’m talking about tobacco use.
The state passed a law that requires public post-secondary education institu-tions to develop smoke-free policies for its campuses by August of this year. SG has taken this one step further, gaug-ing the interests of the LSU community in making the ban apply to all tobacco products.
I’m not a smoker, but I’m also not opposed to others smoking around me. Even if I was, I would realize that when attending a school with 30,000 students, my personal opinion of smoking would be irrelevant.
The nation has reached an all-time low in the number of incoming college freshmen who are smokers, according to a survey of American freshman by the Higher Education Research Institute — down from a spike of 12.7 percent in 1998 to 2.6 percent in 2012. So at this point, the ruling theoretically affects a small portion of University’s students.
Arguments against tobacco often focus on the negative effect it has on the user. Proponents of this line of reason-ing occupy LSU’s campus and believe that enacting this ban would be a move to better the health of students.
These advocates should also push for the removal of McDonald’s, Papa John’s and Chick-fi l-A. One in 10 Amer-ican adults suffer from Type 2 diabetes and three in 10 college students suffers from obesity, with the vast majority not eating enough fruit or vegetable serv-ings a day.
I’m not here to debate the affect that tobacco has on the human body — that’s not my job. However, there are several other things on LSU’s campus that pres-ent major risks to overall student health.
Take for instance the hit and run that occurred on Dalrymple Drive last semester. Should we ban driving on campus?
You probably immediately an-swered a resounding “no” to that because you’d realize how inconvenient that would be for both students and faculty members.
Second-hand smoke affects
non-smokers’ health, but doesn’t my driving affect other students’ health in a more lethal way?
Wouldn’t the ubiquitous ashtrays attached to trash cans on campus just taunt the smokers who would then have no use for them anymore? Or should we waste money fi lling the ashtrays in with cement or potting plants in them?
The tobacco ban would be use-less. There’s no way to police smok-ers or dippers on campus. Even if there was, it would be an obvious waste of the LSU Police Department’s time and resources.
This would lead to what I think is the most annoying implication of the to-bacco ban — peer enforcement.
In a nutshell, this means that pesky students who are personally offended at others’ dipping or smoking will attempt to enforce the ban by themselves — or, what these people already do to smokers and dippers on campus.
People’s personal preferences for what they fi nd annoying should not in-fl uence the law. If this was the case, I’d lobby to ban kids in tie-dye shirts skate-boarding through the Quad. Effectively enforcing the tobacco ban is nearly impossible. It is also a baseless move to make LSU’s campus fi t in with the 1,182 other American universities that have gone entirely smoke-free. It’s like
an after-school special, with LSU sub-mitting to peer pressure.
Upon researching this issue, I stum-bled upon the term “nonsmoker’s rights” for the very fi rst time. Is there something about smokers and dippers that make them unworthy of their own rights?
Everyone has their faults that are bothersome to others, but why should we be punished for them? I could an-noyingly click my pen throughout the entirety of my spring semester courses. The liberty I have to do that shouldn’t be infringed upon because of others’ dis-dain for it.
SidneyRose Reynen is an 18-year-old fi lm and art history freshman from New Orleans.
� e Daily Reveille
Opinionpage 12 Tuesday, January 21, 2014
� e Daily Reveille The Daily Reveille (USPS 145-800) is written, edited and produced solely by students of Louisiana State University. The Daily Reveille is an independent entity within the Manship School of Mass Communication. Signed opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the editor, paper or University. Letters submitted for publication should be sent via e-mail to [email protected] or delivered to B-26 Hodges Hall. They must be 400 words or less. Letters must have a contact phone number so the opinion editor can verify the author. The phone number won’t be printed. The Daily Reveille reserves the right to edit letters and guest columns for space consider-ation without changing the original intent. The Daily Reveille also reserves the right to reject any letter without noti-� cation of the author. Writers must include their full names and phone numbers. The Daily Reveille’s editor-in-chief, hired every semester by the Louisiana State University Media Board, has � nal authority on all editorial decisions.
Editorial Policies & Procedures Quote of the Day“There’s nothing quite like
tobacco: it’s the passion of decent folk, and whoever lives without
tobacco doesn’t deserve to live.”Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Molière
playwrightJan. 15, 1622 — Feb. 17, 1673
Editorial BoardKevin Thibodeaux
Morgan SearlesWillborn Nobles III
Gordon BrillonMegan Dunbar
Editor in Chief
Managing Editor
Managing Editor, External Media
News Editor
Opinion Editor
WEB COMMENTS
Being completely honest, and not to agree or disagree with what you’re saying, but this sounds like something I’d see on the Hannity show or some other show on Fox News, using that last term very lightly of course.– Misanthropist
In response to Ryan McGehee’s column, “Opinion: President Obama exceeding his
constitutional powers,” readers had this to say:
Wow, Misanthropist ... and what factually do you � nd incorrect about this? In fact why don’t you tell me any facts Fox News has wrong (not opinion, you seem a little slow so let me tell you that Hannity, Maddow, Beck etc. are NOT news reporters, it is opinion ... just like anyone else) ... so any facts you see as NOT supporting the opinion above?
– victoria
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Let Them SmokeProposed tobacco ban unnecessary, unfair
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Student Government is seeking student input in whether to ban all tobacco on campus. In SG’s poll, approximately 60 percent of students voted not in favor of the ban.
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There are never as many high-profi le protests in Baton Rouge as there are in other major U.S. cities. Even during the height of the Occupy movement, the Ba-ton Rouge attempt was never more than the butt of many jokes.
People here just don’t seem to get angry enough to go out and protest. That is, until you threaten their gun rights. On Sunday, that’s just what happened.
The gun advocacy groups Gun Rights Across America and Guns Across America 2 held a pro-gun rally on the steps of the state Capitol in downtown Baton Rouge.
While the crowd appeared to not have been more than 60 people, they did seem, however, to be fully committed to the cause of promoting gun rights, which I applaud.
The right to keep and bear arms should not be restricted or made more diffi cult to exercise by either the federal government or by any state. The text of the Second Amendment clearly states those rights “shall not be infringed.”
Opponents of gun rights rant and rave about the murder rate in this country, but it is shown time and again that when law-abiding citizens are well-armed, innocent lives are saved.
In no circumstance does a criminal walk up to a convenience store, see a “no guns allowed” sign, and change his mind about robbing it. The only thing that would prevent it is either the immediate proximi-ty of a police offi cer, or a well-armed store clerk.
There are also those who argue that the purpose of the Second Amendment is to protect the rights of hunters. Nowhere in the text of the Second Amendment does it once mention “hunting.”
The true purpose of the Second Amendment is to protect people from tyrannical governments.
Yes, you read that correctly. Should the time ever come that the
natural rights and God-given liberties pro-tected by the Bill of Rights come under as-sault by a state or the federal government, the people have the right to form “well regulated militias” and take arms against said government.
Which brings me to my fi nal point about semi-automatic rifl es, or as the me-dia has inaccurately dubbed them, “assault rifl es.”
Demonized because of a handful of mass shootings, semi-automatic rifl es are small to medium caliber fi rearms that can fi re one bullet per trigger pull. They most certainly are not machine guns, which are only attainable by citizens after receiving a Class 3 permit from the Bureau of Al-cohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
There have been many calls by Demo-cratic lawmakers, such as Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, in the wake of the mass shootings of the past two years to further restrict the sale and ownership of these rifl es.
What these rifl es do is give private citizens comparable capability with cur-rent military and other federal hardware. They are what make the Second Amend-ment effective.
Some, however, claim that the Found-ers could have never foreseen these weapons, and that by “arms,” they meant muskets.
I hate to break it to you, but one of the fi rst semi-automatic weapons, the puckle gun, was invented in 1718, a full 71 years before the Bill of Rights was written in 1789.
If the Department of Homeland Secu-rity gets to purchase 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition , I should be able to go out and buy a semi-automatic rifl e.
The next time you see a Patriot or pro-gun rally, don’t summarily dismiss it as a bunch of “gun nuts.” These are the people fi ghting for your right to defend your other rights.
Ryan McGehee is a 21-year-old political science, history and international studies senior from Zachary.
� e Daily Reveille
OpinionTuesday, January 21, 2014 page 13
This weekend, a handful of protestors gathered on the State Capitol steps to op-pose stricter gun laws in Louisiana and the U.S. As if that’s what Baton Rouge should focus on right now, while homelessness, poverty and education remain larger issues than the government supposedly taking over our Second Amendment rights this week.
There’s also misguided thinking be-hind protesting against stronger legisla-tion, despite the fact that larger issues exist.
The argument that seems to stick around is that the belief that good guys with guns stop the bad ones, and I’d like to address that fi rst.
If you’re marching around claiming the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with one, there’s some internalized, cracked-out, Code of Ham-murabi living going on in your head.
An eye for an eye was never proper punishment, and acknowledging that in-volves a deeper look at the true criminality and ideas of justice.
Also, what kind of good guy just hap-pens to carry around a semi-automatic rifl e in a non-war zone? Keep in mind this is a weapon engineered to kill as many people as possible without needing to reload.
The basic point people seem to miss is that it’s not fascist to require people to carry out their lives in some kind of safe manner.
The line between safety and govern-ment control of an entire people is blurry to some, but that doesn’t mean Louisi-ana should issue lifetime concealed carry permits and repeal state regulations on semi-automatic rifl es.
But that’s just what the state has done since the Newtown shootings. In fact, state legislation around the country has loos-ened on gun regulation, and that’s more than a little concerning.
However, this is not an unstoppable movement. As evidenced by Sunday’s ral-ly, it’s a handful of angry men looking to stymie another British attempt at reclaim-ing colonies or something.
If government takeover through legal or illegal means is their main worry, the thought that a couple of men armed with their precious semi-automatic rifl es hidden behind their bookcases could do anything about it is ridiculous.
If it’s a robber taking their new plasma television, anything besides an intimidating-looking shotgun is overkill.
And for personal defense, handguns are acceptable. I’ve never heard of a woman pulling out a semi-automatic rifl e in a back alleyway to scare off a potential attacker.
I’m sure it would be effective as a scare tactic, but it’s also impractical. The idea is to keep an attacker away from oneself in the fi rst place, which isn’t
something gun legislation can help.It’s time for everyone to accept that
semi-automatic weapons and lifelong con-cealed carry permits are too much to allow.
We need to have truthful conversations about what kind of restrictions make sense instead of getting fi red up about minute-to-minute issues and fl ashpoint rallies.
I’m sure there’s some middle ground between those who are afraid of guns and those with a militia-worthy arsenal in their garages.
Maybe we could start with community shooting range days to increase awareness of gun safety. Alongside that, we could set up teams to evaluate what aspects of guns are necessary for self-defense versus total government dominance.
Whatever happens, greater conversa-tion is our biggest strength. As soon as we put aside fundamental differences and re-alize others hold viewpoints as justifi ed as our own, we can begin to have fact-based discussions.
And maybe then standing our ground won’t be the most important thing. Maybe we can concede a little bit of it.
Megan Dunbar is a 20-year-old English senior from Greenville, SC.
HEAD to HEAD
Should gun rights be more restrictive?No. � e 2nd Amendment protects gun ownership.Yes. We should discuss rights, not abundance of guns.
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important for students pass-ing through the program to stay in touch with forestry’s roots.
“For the students, this is primarily a fun activity, but it is also important because skills like these bring together those of us in this profession,” de Hoop said. “Our students can travel to any school with a forestry program and they do the same things we do here. It gives us a common base.”
Hayden Carter, forest man-agement sophomore, said being a part of the forestry program has allowed him to pursue an educa-tion in a fi eld where he has a real passion.
“I grew up in a family where we were always out in the woods
chopping stuff down,” Carter said. “So having a major where I can saw and chop and work with my hands, it is just a great experience.”
While the Forestry Club is primarily comprised of for-est management majors, there are students who joined to fi nd an outlet for their love of the outdoors.
Virginia Spencer, renewable natural resources sophomore, said she didn’t grow up learning forestry skills, but heard about the club and joined because she loves the outdoors.
“When I joined, I did not expect to be cutting logs and throwing axes, but the whole thing has been a blast,” Spencer said. “I love being outside, so really this was just a perfect fi t for me.”
Spencer said the club provides an opportunity for students who want to expand their University experience beyond a classroom.
“I don’t think enough people really appreciate the outdoors,” Spencer said. “It seems that no-body wants to be outside any-more. They are always distracted by phones or TV. They’re too busy to enjoy the world around us. The club is just a way for us to be outside and do what we love.”
� e Daily Reveille page 15Tuesday, January 21, 2014
THE Daily Commuter Puzzle by Jacqueline E. Mathews
FOR RELEASE JANUARY 21, 2014
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Of those involved, sev-eral were injured, said BRPD spokesman Cpl. L’Jean McK-neely. The extent of the inju-ries is unclear, though some of those involved required medical attention later that night.
One witness, who said he was attacked randomly during the brawl and suffered a fractured nose and required stitches in his mouth, claimed in a Twitter con-versation that many of the people involved in the altercation were not University students.
At this time, no arrests have been made and there are current-ly no suspects, Coppola said.
group prayer and the singing of the national anthem by TV and radio host Johnny Rowland . Seven people then stepped up to the podium to speak about the Second Amendment , including Vitter , host of “Freedom Forum ” Tom Parker and Senate Candi-date Col. Rob Maness .
Alex Velasquez , a gun rights activist who immigrated to the U.S. in 1976 , told the attendees to embrace their families, to pre-pare for anything and to be bold in their actions and prayers.
Between speakers, Rowland sang country music songs that contained anti-big government and pro-gun rights lyrics.
Maness , who is endorsed by the lobbying organization Gun Owners of America , said the Sec-ond Amendment is the insurance policy for freedom, and if elected to the senate, he would say no to any government initiative for stricter gun control.
“We’re pro-liberty, pro-prosperity, pro-certainty and
we’re pro-Constitution of the United States,” Maness said. “This Constitution is worth our sacrifi ce.”
Keith Edwards , an event at-tendee, held a sign with Web-ster’s defi nition of fascism printed on it.
“I believe that the federal administration has overstepped its bounds,” Edwards said. “In 2009 , I carried [a sign] that had the defi nition of communist but I think over the last four years that has changed.”
Denham Springs resident Rylan Grimmer , who openly car-ries a handgun, said he wished there had been more emphasis on responsible gun ownership and training at the rally.
“My weapon is for protec-tion and for helping people,” Grimmer said. “I’m an average citizen who is prepared to help another citizen.”
