T HE D AILY R EVEILLE WWW.LSUREVEILLE.COM Volume 113, Issue 100 Tuesday, March 3, 2009 Sports ...................... 7 Classifieds ............... 14 Opinion ................... 12 Index THURSDAY CLOUDY 74 58 WEDNESDAY SUNNY 72 54 TODAY MOSTLY SUNNY 62 41 7:20 a.m. 8:20 a.m. Noon 3:20 p.m. 4:20 p.m. 5:20 p.m. Broadcasts Weather Baton Rouge drivers have grown accustomed to the red glow of brake lights and blaring horns in traffic as the sun goes down over the Mississippi River. And now Baton Rouge traf- fic is a nationally recognized problem. While drivers nationwide spent an average of 13 fewer hours stuck in traffic in 2008 than during 2007, Baton Rouge saw a 6 percent increase in overall In an emergency, sometimes no news can be good news. But University administrators are challenging that mindset with the help of last Thursday’s emergen- cy text messaging test. FirstCall, the University’s emergency text messaging ser- vice, reported nearly 1,600 mes- sages failed to deliver, and 158 messages were unaccounted for during the text message test — something Sheri Thompson, IT communications and planning officer, said marked a general improvement compared to prior tests. “Generally, we saw improve- ment except for in one area,” Thompson said. “We have not ever done a purge of people who are not with LSU. We haven’t cleaned anything out yet. That will hopefully make our data a bit more clean.” Thursday’s message was sent LSU football coach Les Miles is trading the football field for the racetrack this weekend. Miles will be the grand mar- shal at the International Hot Rod Association’s Mardi Gras Nation- als drag race that takes place Fri- day through Sunday at the State Capitol Raceway. Stars of the three professional racing classes, Top Fuel, Pro Mod- ified and Pro Stock, will come to the raceway to compete for an indi- vidual class purse, as well as points to become the world champion at the season’s end. The Nationals was given a Mardi Gras theme, and on Satur- day, IHRA plans to have a parade with floats, beads and a crawfish boil. “Mardi Gras is such a Loui- siana tradition,” said Larry Crum, IHRA media and publicity manag- er. “We wanted to bring that kind of excitement and flair to the race.” The Mardi Gras Nationals is also hosting an LSU Student Night beginning at 6 p.m. Friday. Students who show their LSU ID will get admission for $10. General admission for Friday night is $35 for adults. All tickets include free parking and a pit pass, which takes fans backstage to watch the drivers tune their vehicles and get auto- graphs, photos and merchandise. “We know how big LSU is By Mary Walker Baus Contributing Writer By Lindsey Meaux Staff Writer By Lindsey Meaux Staff Writer Nowhere Fast BR problems worsen as traffic congestion drops around country LSU student night scheduled for Friday IHRA to hold first drag race in La. in 20 years RACING TECHNOLOGY Second text test showed improved results photo courtesy of Larry Crum The IHRA is hosting Mardi Gras Nationals at the State Captiol Raceway starting Friday. FLYING HIGH Tigers receive highest AP ranking since Dec. 2006, page 7. lsureveille com Log on to see Chancellor Martin reading to first graders. SNAPSHOT Recent plane crashes increase anxiety about air travel, page 3. NEWS MESSAGE, see page 6 photos by JARED P. L. NORMAND / The Daily Reveille Cars travel through the intersection of E. Parker Boulevard and Highland Road on Monday during peak traffic hours. TRAFFIC, see page 5 NATIONALS, see page 6
Transcript
THE DAILY REVEILLEWWW.LSUREVEILLE.COMVolume 113, Issue 100 Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Sports ...................... 7
Classifi eds ............... 14
Opinion ................... 12
Inde
x THURSDAYCLOUDY
74 58
WEDNESDAYSUNNY
72 54
TODAYMOSTLY SUNNY
62 41
7:20 a.m.
8:20 a.m.
Noon
3:20 p.m.
4:20 p.m.
5:20 p.m.Broa
dcas
ts
Wea
ther
Baton Rouge drivers have grown accustomed to the red glow of brake lights and blaring
horns in traffi c as the sun goes down over the Mississippi River.
And now Baton Rouge traf-fi c is a nationally recognized problem.
While drivers nationwide
spent an average of 13 fewer hours stuck in traffi c in 2008 than during 2007, Baton Rouge saw a 6 percent increase in overall
In an emergency, sometimes no news can be good news. But University administrators are challenging that mindset with the help of last Thursday’s emergen-cy text messaging test.
FirstCall, the University’s emergency text messaging ser-vice, reported nearly 1,600 mes-sages failed to deliver, and 158 messages were unaccounted for during the text message test — something Sheri Thompson, IT communications and planning offi cer, said marked a general improvement compared to prior tests.
“Generally, we saw improve-ment except for in one area,” Thompson said. “We have not ever done a purge of people who are not with LSU. We haven’t cleaned anything out yet. That will hopefully make our data a bit more clean.”
Thursday’s message was sent
LSU football coach Les Miles is trading the football fi eld for the racetrack this weekend.
Miles will be the grand mar-shal at the International Hot Rod Association’s Mardi Gras Nation-als drag race that takes place Fri-day through Sunday at the State
Capitol Raceway.Stars of the three professional
racing classes, Top Fuel , Pro Mod-ifi ed and Pro Stock , will come to the raceway to compete for an indi-vidual class purse, as well as points to become the world champion at the season’s end.
The Nationals was given a Mardi Gras theme, and on Satur-day, IHRA plans to have a parade with fl oats, beads and a crawfi sh boil.
“Mardi Gras is such a Loui-siana tradition,” said Larry Crum , IHRA media and publicity manag-
er. “We wanted to bring that kind of excitement and fl air to the race.”
The Mardi Gras Nationals is also hosting an LSU Student Night beginning at 6 p.m. Friday . Students who show their LSU ID will get admission for $10 . General admission for Friday night is $35 for adults . All tickets include free parking and a pit pass, which takes fans backstage to watch the drivers tune their vehicles and get auto-graphs, photos and merchandise .
“We know how big LSU is
By Mary Walker BausContributing Writer
By Lindsey MeauxStaff Writer
By Lindsey MeauxStaff Writer
Nowhere FastBR problems worsen as traffi c congestion drops around country
LSU student night scheduled for Friday
IHRA to hold fi rst drag race in La. in 20 years RACING
TECHNOLOGY
Second text test showed improved results
photo courtesy of Larry Crum
The IHRA is hosting Mardi Gras Nationals at the State Captiol Raceway starting Friday.
FLYING HIGHTigers receive highest AP ranking since
Dec. 2006, page 7.
lsureveillecom
Log on to see ChancellorMartin reading to fi rst graders.
lsureveilleSNAPSHOT
Recent plane crashes increase anxiety about air
travel, page 3.
NEWS
MESSAGE, see page 6
photos by JARED P. L. NORMAND / The Daily Reveille
Cars travel through the intersection of E. Parker Boulevard and Highland Road on Monday during peak traffi c hours.
TRAFFIC, see page 5
NATIONALS, see page 6
Nation & WorldTHE DAILY REVEILLE
PAGE 2 TUESDAY, MARCH 3, 2009
WORLD NEWS
RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — As top dip-lomats pledged bil-lions of dollars for war-ravaged Gaza on Monday, ordinary people here — from merchants to housewives — said they’d rather have open borders than handouts. Even some tunnel smugglers who profit from Gaza’s blockaded borders say they’d rather import le-gally through open crossings than risk Israeli bombing raids and shaft collapses. “I want a cease-fire and open borders. Crossings are bet-ter than tunnels,” said 22-year-old smuggler Abu Mahmoud, leaning over a shaft as workers tried to clear a 300-foot stretch of tunnel that had collapsed under an Israeli airstrike.
Gaza wants open borders, not handouts
Raul Castro ousts top Cubans loyal to Fidel CastroHAVANA (AP) — President Raul Castro abruptly removed some of Cuba’s most powerful officials Monday, putting a personal stamp on the government in the biggest shakeup since he took over for his ailing brother Fidel Castro a year ago. The changes replaced some key Fidel loyalists with men closer to Raul, including the longtime foreign minister and the secretary of the Council of State. They also reduced the enormous powers of a vice president credited with sav-ing Cuba’s economy after the fall of the Soviet Union.
NATION, STATE AND CITY BRIEFS
Regional stocks battered, Dow below 7,000(AP) — Shares of Louisiana and Mississippi companies took a battering Monday as the Dow Jones closed below 7,000 for the first time in more than 11 years. Several regional companies hit 52-week lows, especially in the petroleum sector. Benchmark crude oil for April deliv-ery fell $4.61 to settle at $40.15 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In the petroleum sector, Cal-lon Petroleum Co. fell 14 cents, or 11.7 percent, to close at $1.06. Stone Energy Corp. dropped 56 cents, or 14.1 percent, to $3.40. PetroQuest Energy Inc. was down 79 cents, or 24.4 percent, to a 52-week low of $2.45. McMoRan Exploration Co. shed $1, or 21.8 percent, to close at a 52-week low of $3.59. Energy Partners Ltd. gained 3 cents, or 11.1 percent, to 30 cents.
M. SPENCER GREEN / The Associated Press
Traders hold up their hands Monday in the S&P 500 futures pit near the close of trading at the CME Group in Chicago.
Gov. Jindal defends message of GOP speech
Louisiana holds nation’s No. 1 incarceration rate
(AP) — Widely panned for his national TV address, Gov. Bobby Jindal offered his first defense of the speech Mon-day, saying he sticks by the message, while acknowledg-ing shortcomings in his delivery. “Look, I get that people thought I could have spoken better. I get that. That’s fine ... What’s important to me is the content. I’m a policy guy. You guys know that. I’ve always been a policy guy, always will be a policy guy. The ideas are important. The substance is important,” Jindal told reporters in the state Capitol, a day after returning from a family vacation.
(AP) — One out of every 55 Louisiana residents is be-hind bars, a higher incarceration rate than any other state, according to research released Monday by a Washing-ton, D.C., nonprofit group. One in 26 Louisiana adults is under correctional control, if probation and parole are included, the group found. The Pew Center for the States study of 2007 U.S. Census data found that Louisiana’s incarceration rate spiked by 272 percent since 1982. That rate of increase is far from the nation’s highest of 357 percent in North Dakota.
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 e-mail [email protected].
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THE DAILY REVEILLEB-16 Hodges Hall • Baton Rouge, La. 70803
bcm Dinner & TnT wOrshipEvery Thursday night. Dinner (free) at 7:15pm. TNT Worship Service at 8:00pm. The BCM is at the corner of Highland & Chimes. All LSU students invited! lsubcm.org
Genesis TuTOrinG-free!Monday-Thursday 5-9pm in 326A Student UnionFor more information call 578.4339
shOwTime AT The cOTilliOn AuDiTiOnsWCA Activity CenterMarch 4th, 5th,s and 9th 6:30-8:30pm
Place your occurrence today! Deadline: 2 business days be-fore occurrence is intended to run. Occurrence must be placed by noon.
THE DAILY REVEILLE PAGE 3TUESDAY, MARCH 3, 2009
The LSU Environmental Con-servation Organization invaded Washington D.C. on Thursday with 21 students, two minivans and one mission — to make the University more environmentally sustainable.
Students joined more than 10,000 other students from around the country to participate in Pow-ershift ’09 — a youth conference demanding government action to re-claim the economy and environment through climate and clean energy policy, according to the Powershift Web site.
“The conference will give us skills training to organize effective campaigns on campus, learn how to have quick meetings, talk to the media and learn to be leaders,” said Rachel Guillory, Sierra Student Co-alition campus organizer.
These skills help ECO make a larger impact on campus after they get back today and work on sustain-ability efforts, Guillory said.
They also allow ECO to avoid having a few leaders run everything then graduate and leave the organiza-tion without a stable support, Guil-lory said.
Not even the weather stopped University students from demanding action as they took part in a rally on the Capitol lawn during Monday’s snowstorm.
“We’re standing in three feet of snow to avoid three feet of sea level rise,” Guillory said.
ECO worked to achieve their main goal of networking during Powershift, said Meredit Soniat, ECO co-president.
“Louisiana lacks environmen-tal awareness so networking with people on the same page as us allows us to see what other universities are doing and see what we can follow,” Soniat said.
During Powershift, ECO joined up with more than 100 students from across Louisiana to start a joint effort for environmental action,
Guillory said. “It was the highlight of the whole
weekend,” Guillory said. “We even had students from Penn State and Michigan that are from New Orleans come just to see what we can do.”
One of their plans is to follow-up on their lobbying of Louisiana congressmen when Congress goes into recess in April, Guillory said.
ECO benefi ted from Power-shift greatly, and the only problem seemed to be driving back through
the weather, Guillory said. “We don’t know how we’re
going to get home,” Guillory said. “The issue is our safety. None of us are used to driving in the snow.”
When they do return, the mem-bers of ECO look forward to ap-plying what they learned to the up-coming Unplug energy competition, Guillory said.
Cramped seats, turbulence and the thought of fl ying 35,000 feet in the air in a large, heavy object is something many anxious travelers fi nd unpleasant.
One of the safest modes of transportation is air travel, but with two major airline crashes already this year, some travelers, especially those who fear fl ying, may be feeling nervous when tak-ing to the skies.
The crash of Continental Air-lines Flight 3407 killed all 49 pas-sengers on board and one on the ground when it crashed into a house in Buffalo, N.Y., on Feb. 12, ending a two-year period without a single airline pas-senger death in the U.S . The crash happened nearly a month after US Airways Flight 1549 crash-landed in the Hudson River on Jan. 15 . All 155 onboard survived .
Both crashes were widely publicized by media outlets, caus-ing some travelers to feel nervous about fl ying despite statistics showing that fl ying is one of the safest modes of transportation.
Tom Davis, assistant profes-sor of psychology , said there are several theories behind why peo-ple have fears or anxiety about fl ying. A bad experience with fl y-ing, observing or hearing some-thing negative happen with fl ying or a combination of both can also cause anxiety for some people, Davis said.
“You’ve seen all these things on the news, you’ve heard that negative information,” Davis said. “For someone that has a little bit more of an anxious temperament, they’re hearing all those negative things … they get on the plane, and they hit a little turbulence. That might be enough for some-one altogether to develop a pho-bia.”
While there is a varying num-ber when it comes to the odds of dying in a plane crash, research by the National Safety Council found it is more likely for a person to die falling out of bed or from tripping while walking than to die
in a major airline crash . It is also far more likely for a person to die in a car or on a bicycle than in a plane .
Statistics also show safety on U.S. airlines has improved as the number of plane departures rose over the years. Less than 0.5 fatal accidents per million scheduled departures have occurred since deregulation, according to the National Transportation Safety Board .
Davis said, however, that hearing such statistics or com-ments about fl ying being the saf-est form of travel does not always help those who feel nervous about
fl ying.“If hearing
that would’ve helped you, it would’ve helped you the 10th time, the 11th time, the 100th time,” Da-vis said.
Davis said specifi c informa-tion is more help-
ful, and people who feel nervous about fl ying should learn more about fl ying, such as the proce-dures of fl ying and the sounds heard during a fl ight. Treatment is also an option for those who are anxious about fl ying.
Some University students, however, don’t feel any more ner-vous about fl ying after the recent plane crashes.
“Airplane pilots are more trained than motorists. It’s their job,” said Rebecca Warner, Eng-lish literature senior . “Flying is safer than other forms of travel.”
Erica Boyd, biological scienc-es sophomore , said she believes planes are safe, and plane crashes could happen to anyone.
“It’s not going to keep you from fl ying,” Boyd said.
ENVIRONMENT
ECO lobbies for energy policy in D.C.Students rally on Capitol lawnBy Peter HubbsContributing Writer
OH, THE PLACES YOU’LL GO
KIM FOSTER / The Daily Reveille
Chancellor Michael Martin reads to fi rst grade students at Buchanan Elementary on Monday to celebrate Dr. Seuss’ birthday during Read Across America Day.
TRAVEL
Recent plane crashes cause travel anxietyStatistics show odds of accidents unlikelyBy Brianna PaciorkaContributing Writer
The LSU Post Office moved to a new location behind the Fac-ulty Club on Raphael Semmes Road because of Student Union construction.
The start of construction on the Union’s northeast quadrant caused the relocation of the post office to portables behind the Fac-ulty Club, said Shirley Plakidas, Union director. The post office moved during Mardi Gras break, and Plakidas could not give an ex-act date as to when it would re-turn to the Union.
“It had to be moved because when building starts on the north-east part of the Union, they have to work in the ceiling of the post office where the plumbing is,”
Plakidas said. “The post office still had their portables from when they used them during the hurri-cane, so the post office brought them over to use when they were moved.”
All of the post office boxes are spread out among the porta-bles in numerical order, Plakidas said. The post office counter is in the first trailer.
University Auxiliary Services decided to move the post office behind the Faculty Club because of its proximity to the Union and convenience for students, said Kimberly Roberts, marketing co-ordinator for University Auxiliary Services. Cyprus Drive near the old Tiger Park and the north side of Middleton Library were also possible locations.
“We’re glad it’s near the Union because people come to the Union. It’s in the center of cam-pus,” Plakidas said.
The new location, however,
has confused some post office patrons. Plakidas said although both the post office and Univer-sity Auxiliary Services posted fli-ers, and the University sent out a broadcast e-mail Feb. 19, some people did not hear about the re-location.
“It came as a bit of a shock to them, but once people found out about the new location, everything
was OK,” Plakidas said.Alisa Porch, LSU Post Office
clerk, said she hasn’t heard any complaints from students about the new location.
“Students have mentioned how much nicer it is here,” Porch said. “So far today, it’s been less busy. Some people still aren’t sure where the post office is and have asked.”
Marshall Hunter, finance senior, said the new location hasn’t been an inconvenience.
“It’s not out of my way be-cause I live on campus,” Hunter said. “It’s right across the street from the Union and only takes 10 seconds more to walk here.”
FACILITIES
Union construction cause for move
Post office housed in new location behind Faculty Club
traffi c congestion last year, ac-cording to the 2008 Inrix Nation-al Traffi c Scorecard, an annual report of traffi c congestion.
Baton Rouge, with a popula-tion rank of 67 in the U.S., ranked 33rd for the worst traffi c conges-tion in the nation.
But the excessive traffi c con-gestion may be a sign of good news for the area.
“Although nobody loves traf-fi c, in this particular case, it could be a positive [from an economic perspective],” said Scott Sedlik, vice president of marketing for Inrix. “It means that consumers are going to the malls. They’re making trips to the stores. Busi-nesses are building products and shipping products.”
The national 30 percent de-crease in traffi c congestion is at-tributed to the sluggish economy and rising unemployment rates, Sedlik said.
Don Red-man, Louisiana AAA spokesman, said Louisiana’s economy — and traffi c patterns — are defying the national trend.
“The general concerns of the state of the econ-omy has people staying closer to home,” Red-man said of the national trend. “What we have found is that it’s the state of the economy that has people driving more so than just the price of gasoline.”
Concerns of job security have a seemingly direct effect on people’s travel decisions, Red-man said.
The Scorecard aggregates data collected from automobiles with on-board Global Positioning Systems and from Departments of Transportation and Develop-ment throughout the country to identify the 100 most congested cities and the 1,000 worst traffi c bottlenecks in the country, Sedlik said.
Six Baton Rouge traffi c bot-tlenecks, or points of traffi c con-gestion, were ranked in the 1,000 worst bottlenecks nationwide, ac-cording to the Scorecard.
The intersection of I-12 east-bound and Millerville Road is ranked 441st among the 1,000 worst traffi c bottlenecks. The in-tersections of I-12 eastbound and O’Neal Lane, I-10 eastbound and I-110, I-10 westbound and Blue-bonnet Road, I-12 eastbound and South Sherwood Forest Blvd. and I-110 southbound and Govern-ment Street round out the Baton Rouge bottlenecks ranked among the nation’s 1,000 worst bottle-necks.
“Unless you have the funds
to update your infrastructure, people are going to be stuck in traffi c,” said Mark Lambert, communications director with Louisiana’s Department of Trans-portation and Development. “Our infrastructure is terribly behind the needs in Louisiana ... All of it comes down to a matter of money.”
For every gallon of gasoline purchased by consumers, Lam-bert said the state gets $0.16 for infrastructure improvement. For instance, a 12-gallon tank would provide the state with $1.92.
“Price of gas has gone up tremendously,” Lambert said. “When gas costs more, you con-serve. It’s almost counterintui-tive.”
The state receives the same amount of money per gallon — $0.16 — regardless of the price of gas, Lambert said.
A project to widen I-12 is scheduled to begin construction in the next month, according to
the Louisiana Department of Transpor ta t ion and Develop-ment. The $100 million project will widen I-12 to six lanes in both directions.
Another proj-ect will widen I-10 to six lanes
from the I-10 and I-12 split to about 1,500 feet past Siegen Lane. The project will cost about $85 million, Lambert said.
Lambert attributed the Mis-sissippi River Bridge as the cause for problems on I-10, I-12 and I-110.
“Everything narrows down to two lanes,” Lambert said. “You start restricting the traffi c fl ow.”
Brian Wolshon, civil and environmental engineering pro-fessor, said traffi c problems are an example of “supply and de-mand.”
“Whenever you make an im-provement and traffi c starts to move better ... People recognize that, and it attracts more traffi c to that particular location,” Wolshon said.
The intersection of Highland
Road and West Parker Boulevard is a locale Wolshon said is a prime example of demand outweighing supply at peak traffi c hours.
“What you have here is you just have the old situation of three pounds of cars in a two-pound bag,” Wolshon said. “That’s a case where there’s not a whole lot of capacity improvements you can make there.”
down there,” Crum said. “We want to get students involved. With the economy the way it is, we wanted to help students out, giving them something to do. We hope the LSU community comes out.”
Nicolas Duchamp, political science senior, said he thinks giv-ing students a discount on ticket prices is a great idea that supports education by supporting students.
“Having discounted prices is a way to help their company, but it’s a way to help students do what they enjoy,” Duchamp said.
Gary Carter, the general man-ager of the State Capitol Raceway, said the idea for the LSU Student Night was a collaborative idea between the Raceway and IHRA, hoping to give students the oppor-tunity to come to the event even on a tight budget.
“Just like LSU football has its tailgaters, the racers bring their motor homes and families,” Cart-er said. “It’s a family-type event where people can be outdoors and watch a car go from 0 to 300 mph in seconds. The Top Fuel cars gen-erate as much force as an earth-quake.”
In addition to the LSU Student
Night taking place Friday of the event, Les Miles will stand as the grand marshal, opening the Mardi Gras and racing festivities Sat-urday with his family at his side. Miles used to drag race as a young man growing up in Ohio.
“I can pop a clutch as good as the next,” Miles said in an IHRA news release. “I enjoy the speed and the mechanical strategy.”
In addition to the professional racers, the Mardi Gras Nationals will host the sportsman competi-tors and the “Night of Fire” on Sat-urday, which features the ground-shaking jet semi of Bob Motz and the blazing jet bike of Kevin Mar-tin.
“It’s exciting to see a big semi with a jet engine on the back of it shooting flames 25 feet,” Crum said.
This is one of the Raceway’s first big events since its new owner took over about three years ago.
The track, which was built in 1968, used to host the Cajun Na-tionals drag race back in the ‘70s and ‘80s, but it fell on hard times when bigger tracks opened around the country. Carter said the Loui-siana lifestyle of being outdoors gave the track owners and sup-porters confidence to “bring back
something to this area that had been lost.”
Now the Raceway can seat 8,000 people, but because of the pre-event interest shown, Carter said they may only have standing room for the Mardi Gras Nation-als.
“It’s all about having a dream of something that was lost and try-ing to recover it,” Carter said. “It’s kind of like the old field of dreams — do it, and they will come.”
by the LSU Police Department at 9:02 a.m. and was received by 9:10 a.m., according to ITS data. Thompson said the time lapse of eight minutes is an improvement compared to prior tests.
“The more devices you have receiving the messages, the lon-ger it’s going to take,” Thompson said. “There’s nothing really in-stant about instant messages in times of crisis ... Most infrastruc-ture are not for text messaging. They’re for phone calls.”
The FirstCall system was previously tested Sept. 26.
The University switched to FirstCall, a Baton Rouge-based firm, after the company, ClearTXT, stopped providing emergency communications, Thompson said.
To sign up for emergency text messages, students must log on to PAWS and select the “Cam-pus Community” option and then the “Emergency Text Message” option.
Trent Johnson was announced as one of 10 fi nalists for the 2009 Jim Phelan National Coach of the Year award Monday.
The LSU coach grinned and offered a two-word
comment about possibly winning the award.
“Next question.” Johnson has led the Tigers to
a 25-4 record, including 13-1 in Southeastern Conference play, in his fi rst season at LSU. The Tigers won only 13 games last season.
But he consistently defers the credit.
“I’m proud of where [the players] have taken themselves,” Johnson said. “They’re the ones
who chose to listen and be recep-tive to what we were trying to do as a staff.”
The defl ection of praise is routine for Johnson, who shovels
the accolades off to his players af-ter each game.
The Tigers remained the SEC’s lone ranked team this week and climbed to No. 11 in the As-sociated Press Top 25 on Monday after defeating Florida and Ken-tucky last week.
The ranking is LSU’s high-est since being No. 9 in the fourth poll of the 2006-2007 season.
Sports THE DAILY REVEILLE
TUESDAY, MARCH 3, 2009 PAGE 7
February is a pretty good month.
You’ve got awesome holidays, like Valentine’s Day, Presidents’ Day, Groundhog Day and Flag Day in Canada.
I’m going to propose another holiday for the short month: The Johnson/Chancellor Day of Coaching Excellence and O u t s t a n d i n g Achievement.
Wo m e n ’s coach Van Chancellor and men’s coach
Trent Johnson had great Februar-ies.
Both of their teams posted winning records and made strong cases for their inclusion in the NCAA tournaments.
This gives cause to celebrate. The women’s team has been
the biggest thing popping at the PMAC, and it must make Chancel-lor happier than wearing a Snuggie before practice.
The Lady Tigers posted a 6-2 record in February to follow up their pretty decent January.
The ladies fi nished the month on their longest winning streak of the season—fi ve games—and cemented themselves among the Southeastern Conference’s best teams as they enter the conference tournament this weekend.
Almost no one predicted this
LSU was riding a 12-game winning streak last season heading into its 5-hour, 15-inning matchup against the University of New Or-leans in May.
LSU coach Paul Mainieri re-members the game all too well.
“We’re going to do everything we can to avoid another 15-inning game,” Mainieri said. “That was a great ballgame last year, but it was a long one, and it certainly drained
our pitching staff. We’re going to hope that we win the ballgame but do it in just nine innings this year.”
This season No. 1 LSU (7-0) is riding a 24-game regular season unbeaten streak into New Orleans.
LSU junior second baseman Ryan Schimpf said the team isn’t worried about its streak.
“Our goal is to win our next game, and that’s what we are try-ing to do,” Schimpf said. “We just want to win and play a solid ball-game.”
Mainieri will again be play-ing against something close to his heart. Last weekend against Cen-tral Florida it was former assistant coaches, and tonight it is UNO
baseball.Mainieri played second base
for UNO from 1978-1979, helping the Privateers win two Sun Belt Conference Championships.
Mainieri said he also played in the inaugural season at Mae-stri Field, scoring the winning run against Oklahoma in the fi rst game in the stadium.
“I fell in love with Louisiana when I was at LSU my freshman year, but the years I spent in New Orleans sure enhanced my love for this state and that city,” Main-ieri said. “As much as competing against Terry [Rooney] this week-
T.J. talks, Tigers listenTHE 6TH MAN
BASEBALL
BENJAMIN OLIVER HICKS / The Daily Reveille
LSU coach Paul Mainieri presents former LSU assistant coaches and current UCF coaches Terry Rooney (right) and Cliff Godwin (left) on Friday night at Alex Box Stadium with their 2008 College World Series rings.
Basketball coaches deserve holiday
JOHANATHAN BROOKS
Sports Columnist
Tigers take 24-game unbeaten streak on road against UNOMatulis to start on the mound for LSUBy Andy SchwehmSports Contributor
STREAK, see page 10
HOLIDAY, see page 9JOHNSON, see page 11
MAGGIE BOWLES / The Daily Reveille
Senior guard Garrett Temple defends Florida’s Erving Walker on Feb. 24 during the Tigers’ 81-75 win against the Gators. LSU clinched the Southeastern Conference title Saturday against Kentucky.
MAGGIE BOWLES / The Daily Reveille
Coach Trent Johnson yells from the sidelines Feb. 24 during the Tigers’ 81-75 win against Florida.
Johnson fi nalist for coach of the yearBy Amos MoraleSports Contributor
lsureveille.comLog on to see a video of Trent Johnson’s press conference
THE DAILY REVEILLEPAGE 8 tuEsdAy, mArch 3, 2009
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Da-vid West was big again for New Orleans, scoring 30 points with 10 rebounds to lead the Hornets to their fifth straight win, 98-91 over the Philadelphia 76ers on Monday night.
West was chosen the Western Conference player of the week only hours earlier on the strength of his 28.5 points and 10.5 re-bounds in four Hornets’ victories. The new week brought more of the same stellar production. West scored the Hornets’ first 12 points as they raced to a 13-point lead. New Orleans is on a season-high winning streak.
Chris Paul bounced back from a two-point first half to fin-ish with 16 points and 12 assists. His 3-pointer with 70 seconds left made it 95-89 and the Sixers could not recover.
Led by West, the Hornets won for the seventh time in nine games since the All-Star break.
The Sixers lost for the sixth time in eight games since the All-Star break and continue to slide down the Eastern Conference standings. Their 14-4 run last month had them in the hunt for the fourth seed and now they’re closer to eighth.
Andre Iguodala scored 30 points and Andre Miller had 28 for Philadelphia.
Iguodala swished a 20-footer to bring Philadelphia within one early in the fourth period. Paul assisted on two straight baskets for some breathing room and West made a short jumper to give him 30 points and New Orleans an 84-75 lead.
Rasual Butler, who had 16 points and 10 rebounds, hit the Hornets’ eighth 3 of the game and they were back ahead by double digits.
The Sixers don’t play again until Saturday and need the break to figure out how to start winning again. But they did have some fight in them, coming back from
13 down to tie the score at 25 in the second quarter.
They could have done more to stop West.
West, who scored 32 points in Sunday’s win at New Jersey, shouldered the offensive load early when he made six of his first seven shots. When he scored his ninth basket midway through the second quarter, a Sixers fan yelled out, “Will you double-team him, please?!” He scored 22 points in the half to help New Or-leans lead 46-45 at halftime.
Notes: New Orleans’ An-tonio Daniels was whistled for a technical foul in the second quarter. ... The Hornets are on their longest winning streak since March 30-April 12 of last season. ... The Sixers are 11-11 against the West.
March is a time most college basketball fans dream about, signify-ing one of the most exciting times of the sports calendar.
University students begin their own form of March Madness today as basketball intramural playoffs be-gin at the University Student Recre-ation Complex.
The single elimination tourna-ment, which runs through March 12, will be split between the outdoor UREC courts and University High School’s gymnasium.
Teams were required to have at least a .500 winning percentage and a 2.0 sportsmanship rating in order to qualify for the playoffs.
Matt Boyer, assistant director of leagues and tournaments, said every team is eligible to play in regional tournaments, but the UREC tradi-tionally selects the winners of the playoffs to represent the University.
This year is different because this weekend’s deadline to submit teams for the regional tournament will have already passed before the UREC can announce a champion on March 12.
“The deadline [to enter teams in the regional tournament] is actu-ally this coming weekend … so we can’t determine who our top teams are yet,” he said.
The Super Bowl and Mardi Gras break have caused the UREC to delay the playoffs.
The Sunday league’s regular season was scheduled to start on Feb. 1 but had to be pushed back a week because of the Super Bowl.
The playoffs would have started last week but the UREC was forced to move it to this week because of the Mardi Gras holiday.
Boyer said the delay makes him unsure whether the University will have representatives in the regional tournament.
The UREC will decide if any teams are eligible.
“If they want to go, they can talk to us, but we won’t just say they are going automatically,” he said. “It’s pretty much up to them to find their own way.”
He said the UREC would cover the entry fee, but teams would be re-sponsible for their own travel, hotel and food expenses.
Boyer said the regular season ran smoothly for the most part.
“There hasn’t been a whole lot of issues,” he said. “There were a few cold nights in the beginning, but for the most part people are enjoying it. It’s a different environment to play in than the typical hardwood floors and nice comfort of a gymnasium.”
from a team who lost eight seniors last season.
Chancellor has to be doing something right to achieve this high level of success from a team with 10 underclassmen.
I guess he’s not a Hall of Famer for nothing.
Meanwhile, Johnson’s men had a pretty fantastic February as well. In their eight matchups last month, every team who stepped onto the floor against the Tigers was sent home with a check in the “L” column and a bruised ego.
The winning ways contributed to LSU’s first SEC Western Division and overall title since 2006.
Johnson is paying off in a very big way.
LSU is predicted as a No. 5 seed in ESPN’s Joe Lunardi’s latest bracketology and have only moved up since appearing as a bubble team not too long ago.
The month featured some pretty epic performances from specific players. Junior Forward Tasmin Mitchell scored 41 points and grabbed 11 rebounds in a double-overtime thriller against Mississippi State, and Marcus Thornton was
the model of consistency in scoring excellence with an average of more than 25 points per game in the month.
As a result, LSU has moved to No. 12 in the latest Associated Press Poll — even though I still don’t consider them the twelfth best team in America. They’re good, but they aren’t that good.
All in all, these coaches have already locked up the SEC Coach of the Year honors, and that’s why they need something bigger.
I’m not saying they’re on the level of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr. in the sense that these men also have days named after them, but they’re both at least better than Christopher Columbus.
He didn’t really do anything special besides “discover” land that was already inhabited.
Let’s make this consistent across the board in terms of relevance.
I’m going to get on the phone and make some calls to Gov. Bobby Jindal and see if we can’t get this ball rolling as soon as possible.
end, I have to separate my own personal emotions [tonight]. My loyalty is to my players and with this university I represent now.”
The Tigers went 1-2 against the Privateers last season. LSU lost the first two games of the series, 8-6 and 6-5, at home and away, re-spectively.
The last time LSU beat UNO (4-4) without going to extra in-nings was March 27, 2007.
“I don’t have to inspire our guys to bear down on Tuesday night,” Mainieri said. “They know UNO is a good ballclub. They lost a lot of guys from that team last year, but Tom Walter is one of the very best coaches in the country, and I’m sure they will be ready to go.”
Mainieri has a career 5-9 re-cord against the Privateers, includ-ing a 2-3 record at LSU. UNO coach Tom Walter has a career 3-6 record against LSU.
“They’ve had the upper hand on us so far, and they deserve all the credit for that,” Mainieri said. “We were hoping to get another shot at playing them in the regional last year, but it didn’t work out be-cause they were eliminated before we had the chance to play them and even up the score.”
Tonight’s game will be the first road trip of the Tigers’ season.
LSU junior first baseman Sean Ochinko said the team is prepared to hit the road.
“We’re ready to go out on the road and play hard,” Ochinko said. “We played the first seven hard,
and we are going to try and keep doing what we are doing.”
The game will also begin a six-day swing of five games, but Main-ieri said he is not worried about his pitching rotation.
“I’m excited about it,” Main-ieri said. “I like the idea of play-ing five games in a week because it forces everybody to use their whole pitching staff, and the more the players play, the better they get.”
Southpaw freshman Chris Matulis (1-0) will get the start on
the mound against UNO in place of senior Nolan Cain, who is nursing a sore throwing shoulder.
“It will be a big start for him,” Mainieri said. “I was hoping that I could wait another week before throwing him into that kind of environment, but Nolan Cain is down.”
The Tigers were 10-3 against Louisiana opponents last season.
First baseman Sean Ochinko hits a single during the Tigers’ game Feb. 20 against Villanova.
THE DAILY REVEILLE PAGE 11tuEsdAy, mArch 3, 2009
But the Tigers said they are still focused on the regular season games they have ahead of them.
“We want to finish these two games,” said senior guard Garrett Temple “We don’t want to be 13-3 we want to be 15-1.”
One of the players Johnson has been deflecting praise to has been senior guard Marcus Thorn-ton.
Thornton earned SEC Player of the Week honors this week af-ter scoring a combined 55 points, grabbing 14 boards and dishing out 7 assists against Florida and Kentucky.
Thornton was also named the National Player of the Week by ESPN’s Andy Katz.
“Marcus Thornton might have quietly become the top contender for SEC Player of the Year,” Katz said in a news release.
Gamecocks coach also a finalist
Johnson joins South Carolina coach Darrin Horn as the only other SEC coach to be a finalist for National Coach of the Year.
Horn’s Gamecocks are tied with Tennessee for first place in the SEC East after preseason pre-dictions had them finishing fifth.
South Carolina hosts the Vol-
unteers on Wednesday in a game that could be a chance for the Gamecocks to pad their resume and make the NCAA tournament.
Horn said Monday his team knows what they are playing for.
“I think we are playing to beat Tennessee,” Horn said on the SEC coaches’ teleconference “Those other things are completely be-yond our control.”
Pittsburgh’s Jamie Dixon, Connecticut’s Jim Calhoun , Memphis’ John Calipari, Wash-ington’s Lorenzo Romar, Kansas’ Bill Self, Butler’s Brad Stevens, Illinois’ Bruce Weber and North Carolina’s Roy Williams are the other finalist for National Coach of the Year.
commodores head to the Pmac
Vanderbilt heads to Baton Rouge after a rollercoaster week.
The Commodores lost to Georgia last Wednesday and then picked up a victory at home against South Carolina on Saturday.
“I was proud of the way we responded to our performance at Georgia and how we played at South Carolina,” said Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings.
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Don’t think of the pink el-ephant! Err ... chimpanzee.
During a timeout at a Hornets game the other day, the team’s dance troupe, named the Honey-bees, danced as they usually do. Only this time they danced to Sir Mix-A-Lot’s old booty-shaking hit “Baby Got Back,” and the dance troupe was apparently trying to prove to all the families in the Hive that they do, indeed, got back.
As they shook their barely clad bottoms for a full minute and everyone in the arena felt slightly uncomfortable, it was clear this was meant to be innocent fun.
It was more than apparent that, somehow, no one in the Hornets or-ganization considered this might be slightly inappropriate and, frankly, kind of weird.
It was overlooked.Someone could have called
them “whores” and made the Hon-eybees promise never to dance pro-vocatively again.
But that person would have made a fool of himself — conduct-ing himself exactly like Al Sharp-ton did in light of a controversial cartoon released by The New York Post.
The cartoon, published Feb. 18, depicts a policeman shooting a chimpanzee while another officer says “They’ll have to find some-one else to write the next stimulus bill.”
Critics, most notably Sharpton, claimed the cartoon played with old racial stereotypes and was both in-appropriate and offensive.
Rupert Murdoch, CEO of News Corp., the Post’s parent com-pany, said it was playing off the chimpanzee that was caught and shot by police after recently maul-ing a woman in Connecticut.
Cartoonist Sean Delonas — who the NAACP wants fired — said the allegation was “absolutely friggin’ ridiculous,” reported CNN.
Murdoch offered two apolo-
gies, but Sharpton wants more — he’s being vague about exactly what constitutes “more.”
He claimed, “Let us make no mistake about it: We have seen two apologies in one week — really one and a half apolo-gies — which is unprecedented, but clearly not far enough,” ac-
cording to CNN.And now it is a pink elephant
for an issue that was probably just a mistake, granted a fairly bad mis-take.
In a short story by Orson Scott Card, a man is cloned, then each clone is sentenced to death until he can offer an acceptable apology for his treason against the state. He never can, because the state continues to kill him with each
unacceptable apology.Mountains out of molehills is
one thing, but Sharpton is making planets out of ant piles.
Not to mention the fact that former President George W. Bush was routinely depicted as a chimp.
And the only thing someone coming out against this cartoon can do is crash down on his head. There are places where racism ex-ists clearly, blatantly and with more consequences than hurt feelings. The editorial cartoons in a joke of a newspaper is not one of those plac-es. All this will do is gain publicity for Sharpton, which is undoubtedly what he wants.
It will not shed light on racism, especially since the cartoon prob-ably isn’t meant to be racist.
Even if it was, there are bigger battles for the NAACP and Sharp-ton to fight. Far more Americans have seen the cartoon than would have seen it before he spoke up. In all honesty, many wouldn’t have
seen this before Sharpton talked loud enough for his voice to end up in a college paper like The Daily Reveille.
Sharpton created a pink el-ephant, and now he is continuing to peddle his horrid creation, which will do nothing more than lessen his credibility. If the cartoon was meant to spread racism, then Sharpton has given it legs to stand on.
Whether that dead chimpanzee represented our president or the ac-tual deceased chimpanzee doesn’t matter.
All that matters is most of America will now think it repre-sents our president.
Top-notch work, Sharpton.
Travis Andrews is a 21-year-old English major from Metairie.
This cartoon image appeared in the New York Post’s Page Six on Feb. 18. The cartoon, which refers to Travis, the chimp who was shot to death by police in Stamford, Conn., after it mauled a friend of its owner, drew criticism on media Web sites and from civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton.
OpinionPAGE 12 TuEsdAy, mArch 3, 2009
THE DAILY REVEILLEThe 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 Communi-cation. 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 Reveil-le reserves the right to edit letters and guest columns for space consideration without changing the origi-nal intent. The Daily Reveille also reserves the right to reject any letter without notification of the author. Writers must include their full names and phone numbers. The Daily Reveille’s editor-in-chief, hired ev-ery semester by the Louisiana State University Media Board, has final authority on all editorial decisions.
EdITOrIAL POLIcIEs & PrOcEdurEs QuOTE OF ThE dAy“I do believe the [Democratic] Party has a bunch of elephants
running around in donkey clothes.”
Rev. Al SharptonAmerican political activistOct. 3, 1954 — present
(U-WIRE) With the official an-nouncement that The Rocky Moun-tain News will print its final edition today, those who aspire to fill the shoes of gutsy men and women who write the rough draft of history feel an overwhelming disruption in the force.
For our newly unemployed brethren at the Rocky we offer our sincerest condolences — and for us, the closure comes as another jarring indication of the field’s mounting struggles, which are outweighed only by the importance of the free press.
The fall of the Rocky, a Colora-do mainstay and watchdog for more than 150 years, represents something more, for it is the public — not us notepad-wielding weirdos — who will suffer the wrath of the news me-dia reaper.
As newspapers and journalism as the fourth estate lie beaten, so does democracy as we have come to enjoy it.
As Thomas Jefferson once said,
“Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.”
Information is power. And the newspaper is the conduit through which the people organize and exe-cute their power. For this, journalism must persevere, and it will in some unforeseen permutation of the word.
While the press remains free in a Jeffersonian context, the framers of the constitution could not have foreseen a world in which news me-dia was so beholden to its advertis-ers — companies who, upon the mainstreaming of the Internet, have abandoned the greatest example of dissemination of truth and protection of democracy for blogs and Yahoo! “news.”
Is a press really free if it is so easily maimed by the whim of Wall Street and inflated conglomerates? And how does the answer impact those to whom we are truly beholden — you, the public?
Newspaper closing marks end of an eraBy the Editorial BoardRocky Mountain Collegian, Colorado State
The phrase ‘pink elephant’ is not a racist term, I promise
FROM THE NEW YORK POST
OpinionTuesday, march 3, 2009 PaGe 13
THE DAILY REVEILLE
WALK HARD
Proposed tax amnesty plan rewards criminal activityWith economic woes facing
much of the country, lawmakers are looking for ways to raise a quick buck.
Louisiana is facing its own cri-sis because of the downturn in the national economy — a $1.3 billion crisis.
In response to the revenue short-age, Gov. Bobby Jindal announced in a Feb. 19 news release plans to implement a tax amnesty program.
If only former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle were from Lou-isiana, he might be a cabinet officer.
Under the program, if a delin-quent pays his entire tax bill, all the penalties and half of the interest will be waived. The taxpayer will still be responsible for 50 percent of the in-terest.
The administration expects to collect up to $150 million through this program.
The revenue collected will not be used to shore up the budget, though. Instead, it will be used to “pay off state debt, make one-time investments and reduce the backlog in our construction program,” ac-cording to the release.
This is not the first time the state has offered a program allow-ing people to come clean with their taxes.
This will be the fifth such pro-gram since 1985. The most lucra-tive, launched in 2001, brought in $192 million.
A tax amnesty plan brings to mind discussions of another type of amnesty.
In 2007, the U.S. Senate voted on legislation offering illegal im-migrants an opportunity to remain in the country and ease their path to full U.S. citizenship.
The Comprehensive Immigra-tion Reform Act of 2007 eventu-ally failed to pass the Senate, largely
because of the anger expressed by conserva-tives towards the authors and supporters of the bill.
The most common criti-cism was the worry that peo-
ple who broke U.S. laws were being rewarded for their criminality.
Illegal immigrants are able to avail themselves of taxpayer-subsi-dized health care and education at no cost.
While legal immigrants and other citizens are forced to pay taxes to support these services, their illegal counterparts are not so encumbered.
Not only would the legislation allow illegal immigrants to remain here, it would offer them a path to citizenship unavailable to others who went through the system legally.
There was an advantage to be-ing a criminal.
Similarly, citizens who don’t pay their taxes are rewarded while law-abiding citizens foot the bill.
If one citizen does not pay his taxes, it means the revenue gained from others’ taxes must stretch fur-ther. When fewer taxes are being collected, there is less money to fund government expenditures. The aver-age taxpayer gets less for the money he hands to the government because someone else felt it unnecessary to pay his taxes.
Delinquent taxpayers hurt their neighbors.
But now, instead of being forced
to pay the penalty for their criminal activity, these citizens are being re-warded. They were able to use the services offered by the state of Loui-siana at no charge.
The state estimates roughly $297 million is owed in back taxes from July 1, 2001, through Dec. 30, 2008, the period for which amnesty will be offered.
That’s almost $300 million of
services either cut from the budget or underfunded.
The ones who suffer because of this delinquency are the people of the state.
The governor’s plan may bring in needed revenue — at a price.
Citizens who have not paid their taxes will get a break because of the amnesty plan, and it should raise some much-needed funds for
the state. But those of us who were responsible and paid our taxes are the ones subsidizing the program.
Drew Walker is a 24-year-old phi-losophy senior from Walker.
There was a time where interac-tions between men and women were so simple.
Back when marriage negated the need to purchase an actual punching bag and housewives were invariably treated like undomesticated animals.
Through the ardent work of pro-gressive women’s rights agencies, women have witnessed significant social progress through the abroga-tion of many repressive laws.
But based on a few incidents that have taken place in today’s social cli-mate, one could certainly argue the egregious treatment of women hasn’t waned as much as we had hoped.
On Feb. 12, television entre-preneur Muzzammil Hassan, 44, went to a police station in Orchard Park, N.Y., to report his wife, Aasiya Zubair Hassan, was dead.
Authorities discovered the body had been decapitated and left in his Bridges TV office. Hassan was im-mediately arrested and indicted for second-degree murder.
Ironically, Muzzammil Hassan
founded the Muslim-American tele-vision station to combat negative ste-reotypes by casting Islamic people in a more positive light.
Reports indicated Mrs. Hassan had filed for divorce earlier in the week and concomitantly obtained an order of protection from her hus-band. Hassan’s case is currently be-ing reviewed by the Buffalo judicial system.
A similar tragedy occurred six months prior in England.
In October, Wayne Forrester, 44, was sentenced to life in prison for savagely murdering his estranged wife.
Forrester told police he killed his wife because he noticed she changed her Facebook status from ‘married’ to ‘single’ a few days after he moved out.
The day before the murder, For-rester called his wife’s parents and complained her Facebook status “made him look like a fool,” ac-cording to the BBC.
Investigators said Forrester
was intoxicated and high on cocaine when he assaulted the mother of two in her sleep. Autopsy reports claim
the victim was severely beaten and stabbed multiple times in the head and neck.
F a c e b o o k users typically a c k n o w l e d g e such over-sen-sitive feelings
as comical. But evidently these new facets of media can extract the worse from people.
And then, of course, there’s Chris Brown.
By now almost everybody has heard about Brown’s alleged beat down of girlfriend Rihanna on the eve of the Grammy Awards.
Days after the incident, photos surfaced online depicting Rihanna’s excruciatingly swollen face moments after the violent exchange. Rumors speculate the altercation emanated
from the female singer’s alleged in-fidelity.
Later that night Brown turned himself into Los Angeles Police and was released on $50,000 bail. MTV reports now indicate the two stars ap-pear to have reconciled.
While radio listeners might ar-gue Rihanna’s music inflicts more physical agony than Brown’s fist ever could, their violent encounter represents an ongoing struggle in society.
Between one-third and one-half of adult women are beaten by their husbands or lovers at some time. Yet only 14 percent of American women acknowledge having been violently abused by a husband or boyfriend, according to the U.S. Bureau of Jus-tice.
These surveys also indicate nearly half of these violent crimes against women aren’t even reported to the police.
Relational tension between the sexes isn’t anything new.
But when these egocentric
power struggles transform into abso-lute tragedies — as evidenced — it’s time for women to take heed.
The University offers self-de-fense classes that physically empow-er female students while educating them on a variety of safety maneu-vers. Educational class like R.A.D. teach women important defense techniques that could potentially prove to be life saving.
To compensate for the inanity of many males, women must be willing and able to physically lay down the law when necessary.
That’s why the time to take pre-ventive action is now.
Scott Burns is a political science and business sophomore from Ba-ton Rouge.
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