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thelookoutLansing Community College’s Independent Student Newspaper since 1959

March 7 - 27, 2011

Volume 52, Issue 12www.lcc.edu/lookout

Every out as coach; season uncertain

Major program cuts coming to LCC

Assistant coaches also dismissedDominick MastrangeloSports Editor

After placing Softball Coach Bob Every on paid administrative leave be-cause of potentially serious NJCAA softball violations Feb. 1 and doing the same to Every’s assistants Feb. 8, LCC fired Every Feb. 22.

The softball season has been suspended, but LCC

Director of Public Rela-tions Ellen Jones said team mem-bers interest-ed in salvag-

ing the season should contract the athletic department.

Every’s assistant coaches

See Every, page 7

Nathan Wilson News Editor

LCC President Brent Knight, Pro-vost Stephanie Shanblatt and the LCC Board of Trustees suspended the Interpreter Training Program (ITP) for sign language on Feb. 24.

According to an LCC press release,

ITP has been placed “on hold pend-ing state certification issues,” but it has not been permanently closed.

LCC will continue to offer sign language courses, according to the press release.

ITP is separate from the Sign

See ITP, page 2

Interpreter training program silenced for now

Black History finale ignites DartNathan WilsonNews Editor

The Grand Finale took place Feb. 24 at Dart Audito-rium to celebrate Black His-tory Month and highlight talent within the black com-munity.

The program began with an entertaining performance by Lee Taylor and the Djem-be Drummers calling on the spirits of ancestors.

Other performers includ-ed Dr. Allean Lang, Queen

Darlene Rhodes, Ronnie Ford and many more.

“We have had a phenom-enal Black History Month,” said Antonio Manning, student chairperson of the Black History Month Com-mittee.

“We had a Health Fair, which was coordinated by … Dr. Ivy Collins-Tagger. … We’ve had hip-hop poetry on Fridays. We’ve got the movie festival,” he said.

See Finale, page 2

Photo by Michael Caterina

Movin’ and groovin’: The Galilee Baptist Church male chorus performs at the Grand Finale Feb. 24.

Photo by Courtney BakerCuts unwelcome: Lenore Coscarelli (right) protests the proposed closing of the Inter-preter Training Program during the Board of Trustees meeting Feb. 28.

Sarah SandersEditor In Chief

The culinary program at LCC was tar-geted Feb. 24 for possible elimination.

Faculty and students alike were in-formed of the possible cuts, effective May 2012, via an email from the provost’s office.

College administration claimed the de-cision came down to roughly two factors: outdated equipment and lack of high-wage jobs.

“With culinary there was primarily one factor that was involved in that decision: We know there are jobs, (but) a lot of the jobs are not very high-paying … cutting vegetables and cooking soup,” LCC Pro-vost Stephanie Shanblatt said.

While faculty agree with college ad-ministration that the kitchen does need an upgrade, Chef William Nicklosovich said members had been told this demand would be met in the past.

See Culinary, page 2

Sarah SandersEditor In Chief

LCC announced plans to possibly elim-inate the automotive tech program Feb. 24. The plan was announced through an email sent from the provost’s office.

“There were several considerations. We did not just look at one thing to make the decision and I want to make that very clear. It wasn’t just one factor that came to the decision; it was a holistic view that took many things into consideration,” Provost Stephanie Shanblatt said.

Ryan Oberlin, a high performance ma-jor, said despite the program’s continua-tion through May 2012 he would be un-able to graduate, falling just one class shy of his degree if the program is eliminated.

He said he is offended by the admin-istration’s claim that automotive tech degrees do not amount to high-paying, high-skill jobs currently in high demand.

See Automotive, page 2

Automotive classes could stall at LCC

Culinary courses on the chopping block

Every

NEWS2 March 7 - 27, 2011www.lcc.edu/lookout

“We’ve had great support from the college.”

Chantelle Henry read a poem entitled, “A Sister’s Heart” to the audience, de-scribing “what a black wom-an’s heart goes through.”

Taylor acknowledged many African-Americans who have been critical to the development of technology (Granville Woods), educa-tion (Carter G. Woodson), health (Daniel Hale Wil-liams) and society as a whole.

Curlada Eure-Harris and Dr. Willie Davis, Jr., Ph.D., were recognized with awards during the pro-gram for their community achievement and public ser-vice.

The Grand Finale also included African dancing by LCC students while the

Djembe Drummers provid-ed an exciting beat.

Words Without Worship, a faith-based dance group, performed an interpretative praise dance during the fi-nale.

Dr. Stanley Chase, Ph. D., senior vice president emeri-tus for Advancement, Exter-nal and Government Affairs Division, spoke about diver-sity.

He explained he had been given the task by LCC Presi-dent Brent Knight and the Board of Trustees to help develop a Diversity Plan for LCC.

The initiative is designed to create a culture of inclu-sion. Chase said. “Together we can achieve, and togeth-er we can be what we want to be.”

Language Interpreter pro-gram, which has not been suspended and is still ac-cepting students.

Students currently en-rolled in programs to be suspended or eliminated will be allowed to com-plete their degrees and certificates if they can be accomplished by the end of spring semester 2012.

Lenore Coscarelli, an in-structor in the Department of Communication, spoke during the LCC Board of Trustees meeting Feb. 28 and made a passionate plea to restore ITP.

“How are we going to get qualified interpreters if you close? … How will we survive without interpret-

ers?” Coscarelli said. “Now that LCC has the best inter-preter training program in the state, you want to close it?”

Christopher Greene-Szmadzinski, who teaches sign language at LCC, ex-plained that 51 percent of interpreters in Michigan have graduated from LCC.

“We’re a very prolific program. We have a long history of training the best and the brightest in-terpreters in the state of Michigan,” he said. “If that suspension continues, we will not be able to gradu-ate more interpreters. ... We have a severe need for interpreters.”

Nicole Beauchamp, an

LCC student who wants to become a sign language in-terpreter, has been putting together videos with stu-dents expressing support for ITP. She moved away from her hometown to at-tend LCC and screen into the program.

“If they close it down, I’m going to have to trans-fer schools,” Beauchamp said. “I would hate to trans-fer again and start all over because so far I’ve made so much progress.

“I am asking everyone, I ask all students, teachers, certified interpreters, grad-uates of LCC’s ITP, mem-bers of the deaf community … to make a short one- to five-minute video sharing

your feelings and concerns about the ITP being sus-pended,” Beauchamp said.

She said she wants to make a montage of the videos and send them to President Knight and share them with the com-munity.

Greene-Szmadzinski suggested it would be ben-eficial if students sent let-ters to the president and provost regarding the im-portance of ITP.

“Students who are cur-rently in our program or are interested in our pro-gram should continue tak-ing their classes and con-tinue working toward their degree,” Greene-Szmadz-inski said.

“To me, if a person can come and take some classes, go out and get a job, make about $40,000 or $45,000 a year, be able to buy a house, keep food on the table, keep clothes on everybody’s back, to me that’s successful,” Program Coordinator Marvin Arg-ersinger said. “Plus, they stay in the community. Tax dollars stay here. They don’t have to go out of state to get a job.”

According to Argersing-er, the program’s graduates are stereotyped as people lusting after an auto mar-ket that is no longer viable. He said the reality is auto-motive tech jobs are in high abundance as people are keeping their cars longer, consequently repairing them more often.

The automotive pro-gram at LCC recently won first place in a contest at Autorama, a car show in Detroit, for a fully battery-operated truck, built com-pletely by students.

College administration has claimed its focus mov-ing forward is to ensure students are taking the time to graduate with a degree; due to many stu-dents’ choice to avoid the core courses and take only the vocational course work.

“We really don’t have

any problems placing our students here,” Argers-inger said. He added many of the students do not com-plete the program but are able to be employed with-out the associate degree.

The same cannot be said of the collision repair pro-gram according to Dale Franks, professor and pro-gram coordinator.

“One hundred percent of the students in two of my courses are currently working on an associates degree,” Hardy said.

Collision repair is also being looked at for elimi-nation or being blended into a different format, ac-cording to Shanblatt. What this means for automotive and collision repair stu-dents and faculty is still not known at this point.

College administration wants to see the format for the program better suited to result in credentials for its students.

Argersinger said he is not opposed to looking at options for the automotive program, but said it would be a disservice to the com-munity to see it go com-pletely.

While administration is looking to what it calls a more “academy-style format,” what exactly that will look like is still unclear.

“There were not plans to put the kitchen in there,” Shanblatt said. “We have looked at other options, but every time we do and we cost it out, the cost is very signifi-cant.”

Many students cur-rently in the program are so upset about its pos-sible elimination they have begun a petition to

persuade the LCC Board of Trustees to rule against it on March 28, 2011.

“The students found out, and they were in my class – they were so en-raged, so sad," Chef Nick said.

"We were trying to calm them down because we don’t want that approach. I don’t like to stir the pot. I like to keep it really dip-

lomatic."The students have

created a Facebook page that can be found at http://www.face-book .com/home.php#! /p a g e s / K e e p - L a n s i n g -Communi ty -Co l l eges -Culinary-Department-Open/156577124399846.

According to Chef Nick, the National Restaurant Association announced

there will be a need for 20,000 jobs within the cu-linary field in 2011 alone.

While he said this in-cludes everything from a restaurant to a hotel and more, he did say, as a graduate from the LCC program himself, he does not consider teaching the art of culi-nary a low-wage, low-skill job.

Finale

ITP Automotive

Continued from page 1

Continued from page 1 Continued from page 1

CulinaryContinued from page 1

Cook it up: Culinary Arts major Nick Costello cooks up a dish dur-ing the Gour-met American Cookery class.

Photo by Michael Caterina

March 7 - 27, 2011www.lcc.edu/lookout

NEWS3

Sarah SandersEditor in Chief

Officials of the five-week truck driving pro-gram at LCC havebeen notified that admin-istration has plans to eliminate the program effective May 2012.

Faculty members were told of the pro-posal on Feb. 24 via an email from the pro-vost’s office.

The administration’s complaint includes an unbalanced budget and a lack of impact on the local economy due to small class sizes.

According to faculty within the program, by-and-large the pro-gram produces gradu-ates who can almost be guaranteed jobs.

With a 98.5 percent completion rate and 95 percent of the gradu-ates currently working in the field, said John Theroux, a truck driver for over 50 years and a

current faculty member.Theroux said the

program has the third highest graduation rate in the college.

Theroux and three other faculty members interviewed by The Lookout said they were surprised to hear the truck driving program’s budget was not break-ing even.

They added there is a disparity in what they had been told in the past and what they were told at the Board of Trustees board meet-ing on Feb. 28.

“As far as these green jobs, they aren’t there yet,” Theroux said. “Hopefully there will be but why invest the mon-ey if they aren’t there yet? We have programs that fill current needs.

“Trucking will be a part of the green thing,” Theroux said.

The truck driving program has discussed plans with the auto-

motive tech program to convert one of the trucks to run off of pro-pane or natural gas as a project for students.

Currently the trucks run on bio-diesel, ex-cept during winter when temperatures are too cold for the fuel to stay usable.

“The bottom line is this is a viable occupa-tion, this is an occupa-tion that a person can be proud of, and this is a program that can train people and put them in jobs,” Theroux said.

“We were all happy with what we did in our chosen profession. We have no regrets,” faculty member Brian Hanford said.

They are eager to bal-ance the budget for the program if college ad-ministration agrees to allow the program to continue to service the community, according to Lead Support Sandy Walsh.

Aviation cuts up in the air

Truck driving program en route to elimination

Sarah SandersEditor in Chief

LCC announced plans of possibly elimi-nating aviation flight from the college’s list of programs on Feb. 24 in an email from the provost’s office.

The email said avia-tion and all other programs on the list of those to be elimi-nated were evaluated based on whether they amounted to high-skill, high-wage jobs in high demand during the Michigan’s current economy.

LCC Provost Stepha-nie Shanblatt said one of the biggest concerns is “whether or not LCC is able to mount a pro-gram of quality with the current constraints that we have.”

The proposal is be-ing discussed amongst faculty and college ad-ministration until the end of March, with final decisions made by the LCC Board of Trustees.

The monthly board meeting took place Feb. 28.

With attendance overflowing due to both cuts and other separate issues, Dart Auditorium ran foot-age for those unable to obtain seats in the Ad-ministration Building’s board room.

While faculty with-in the aviation flight program claim that an all-time high demand within the flight in-dustry is to take place within the next five years, administration claims there are only 30 annual jobs offered to flight school gradu-ates state-wide.

According to LCC Chief Flight Instruc-

tor Kevin Johnson, that number is more like 147. He added, howev-er, the number of jobs is based on those of-fered from companies based in Michigan.

Delta Airlines, for instance, is based out of Georgia, though of-ten pilots live outside of the city their airline calls home.

“We are looking at huge growth in the flight industry with-in the next 10 years,” Johnson said.

Johnson said the amount of jobs na-tionwide totals 40,000 within the next five years, a total which surpasses the amount of students eligible to graduate nationwide within that time frame.

“Pilot hiring in Janu-ary 2011 was the high-est its been in the Unit-ed States in 20 years,” said Johnson.

“What we are saying is if you can gut it out for the next six months to a year this program will be successful for decades to come. Don’t trade years in the fu-ture of financial suc-cess to ease your finan-cial pain right now.”

While much of the fo-cus has been on budget costs, and the Aviation Department admitted-ly is over budget, they claim to have a budget plan that would allow the program to break even.

One main concern ac-cording to administra-tion is the future costs of this program needed to stay current with the technologies involved within the aviation field.

The college spent $700,000 to buy a flight hangar in Mason late last month. Presi-

dent Brent Knight had signed a lease for the building in June 2009, before the Board of Trustees approved the acquisition.

The purchase was made to end a subse-quent lawsuit that re-sulted after LCC failed to pay rent on the building.

“If they close the program now they will never see a return from that investment,” John-son said.

Currently the pro-gram is drawing from its endowment fund to update some of the electronics on the eight aircrafts they are cur-rently flying.

Shanblatt said she is not clear if 100 per-cent of the funding was coming from the en-dowment, but Johnson confirmed it is.

While Johnson ad-mitted changes must be made in order to make the aviation program affordable for LCC, he said he believes that it would be a great loss to the community if LCC were to eliminate the program.

“Our take on this is-sue is that we want to make sure that the administration makes whatever decision they make with complete information. It’s not that their analysis is a bad thing, but we think it is incomplete,” John-son said.

Johnson said one thing is certain: There will be students who have invested money and time into the pro-gram who will be un-able to graduate due to the disappearance of course offerings, no matter the action taken by college administra-tion.

A bumpy road ahead: Lina Nowlan lands a plane at LCC’s Aviation Center at the Lansing Airport. LCC is proposing to cut the entire Aviation program and no longer offer courses.

File photo by Michael Caterina

March 7 - 27, 2011www.lcc.edu/lookout

NEWS4

IN BRIEFNEWS

— Infallible Rhetoric —

While protests con-tinue to rage across the Middle East, a different kind of dem-onstration is taking place in Wisconsin over a bill targeting unions.

Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal would limit unions’ collective bar-gaining power and force public workers to pay more for ben-efits and pensions.

I think it is fair to allow the unions to retain their bargain-ing rights to pensions and benefits, consid-ering teachers are not paid enough.

However, I disagree with the teachers’ methods to protest.

An estimated 1,000 teachers are “calling in sick,” closing down over a dozen schools, rallying around the Capitol and costing the Madison district millions of dollars. Their behavior re-minds me of fourth

graders throwing a tantrum.

I would be far more supportive of the teachers if they didn’t organize a “sickout” and chose to protest after school instead.

As for the teachers, you should be grate-ful to have a job in this disastrous econ-omy.

To be blunt, no mat-ter your job, if you consistently call in sick when you ob-viously aren’t, you should be fired.

It is naïve to think that teachers will not receive pay during their protest. Appar-

ently, doctors min-gling in the crowds are passing out fake medical excuses to protestors calling in sick.

If teachers provide these fake physician notes, they may still receive pay as a result of current collective bargaining rules in place.

That being said, I suggest the teachers stop whining like the children they teach, and instead resume educating them.

So while Wisconsin Democrats have fled the state to avoid vot-ing on the bill, and teachers are calling in sick, I continue to work without com-plaint.

I don’t have a pen-sion or a union mem-bership, but at least I get a paycheck.

That’s something to be grateful for, in Michigan of all plac-es.

Epidemic of stupidity

Nathan WilsonNews Editor

LCC’s American Marketing Association (AMA) hosted its an-nual Business Network Mixer and Etiquette Dinner Feb. 23 at West Campus.

Faith Hancock, the vice president of Profes-sional Development, or-ganized the event with the help of AMA. Among the sponsors present were Case Credit Union, Auto Owners Insurance, Two Men and a Truck and Biggby Coffee.

During the dinner, LCC teacher Vickie Blattner instructed the attendants on proper dining etiquette, includ-ing arriving early to a lunch interview, using silverware wisely and avoiding fidgeting.

“The best thing, espe-cially when you’re in a business situation, is to take very small bites,” Blattner said, “because you’re constantly going to be asked questions …”

She emphasized the importance of social in-teraction over an inter-view, not the food.

Malinda Barr, who also teaches at LCC,

spoke about networking skills.

“Networking is the most crucial piece of growing a business,” she said.

Barr suggested busi-ness professionals wear a name tag on their right, carry business cards and have a firm handshake.

“The first handshake is crucial and if you don’t fix it right then, that’s all they (network-ers) remember,” Barr said. “Have a good handshake that dictates who you are, not who you’re shaking hands with.”

Shelley Davis Mielock of Mieshel Image Con-sulting coached the au-dience on professional

image. She explained people

may form an impression of another individual in as little as 100 millisec-onds, basing 55 percent of their impression on appearance, 35 percent on body language and only seven percent on verbal communication.

Four simple rules for dressing include clothes that complement one physically, reflect per-sonality, are appropriate for the occasion and are current or fashionable.

The dinner concluded with a presentation by Krista Jo Potter of AMA Saves Lives, a campaign to spread organ dona-tion awareness. To reg-ister as an organ donor, visit lccama.com.

Dinner decorum: Networkers and guests dine at the AMA Etiquette Dinner on West Campus Feb. 23.

Photo by Nathan Wilson

AMA serves up talent at annual etiquette event

The second annual LEGO-Palooza will take place at the Impression 5 Science Center on Saturday, March 12 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Families will have the opportunity to build robots and other structures with LEGO blocks, LEGO Duplos, marbles and other materials.

The cost is $10 per member child and $15 per non-member child. Adult members are free and non-member adult admission is $5 each.

LCC is providing free Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) training to individuals eligible for Workforce Investment Act (WIA) Dislocated Worker services and those interest-ed in pursuing a career in this field.

Training begins on Tuesday, April 19 and runs until May 31. The sched-ule for lecture and lab is Monday, Tuesday and Thursday from 1:30 to 9 p.m. at LCC.

Clinical instruction is Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from May 18 through 31 from 3 to 9:30 p.m. at Ingham County Medical Care Facil-ity.

The Regional Science Olympiad (RSO) will take place on Saturday, March 19 from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. at LCC. RSO is a sci-ence competition consisting of 46 events where teams of 15 students compete in constructing robots, bridges or electric ve-hicles. They can also compete in test taking events involving fossils, amphibians and reptiles. For more information, contact the Sci-ence Department at 517-483-1092.

LEGO-Palooza returns to Impression 5

LCC offers free certified nursing assistant training

Program analysis may eliminate LCC programs

LCC hosts Regional Science Olympiad

LCC released its program analysis Feb. 24, in which the provost and deans rec-ommended a number of changes in 74 programs. According to an LCC press re-lease, the recommendations are designed to equip students for good paying 21st century jobs.

The review may merge, suspend or eliminate some programs including aquatics, aviation flight and many more. Nine programs may be eliminated, and recommendations include eliminating 17 degrees and 36 certificates of achievement.

Students currently enrolled in the pro-grams to be suspended or eliminated would be allowed to complete their de-grees or certificates if they can finish by the end of spring semester 2012.

March 7 - 27, 2011www.lcc.edu/lookout

FEATURES5

Shauna StockenStaff Writer

In collaboration with the Physical Fitness and Wellness Department at LCC, the Body by Design Club is offered to any LCC student en-rolled in at least one credit hour.

Body by Design is a club offered to promote a healthier lifestyle through physical fitness and exer-cising.

The club does not have an adviser or set meetings that members must attend; however, the weight room has member-only hours. Members are allowed to come and go as they please during the set times.

“It gets you off the couch and it’s a way to take a break from home-work and releases stress,” said Damon Klecker, a first-year club member.

“This weight room is more sophisticated than anything I have used be-fore. It also has a friendly environment.”

Added Russell Earls: “My favorite (piece of equipment) is the squat machine.”

Yearly weight room memberships can be held by any community member or student. Join-ing the Body by Design Club through LCC offers many additional benefits.

“It’s cheap, and there are not a lot of people in the weight room,” said Elijah Tinkle, a club member for the past year.

In addition to member-only hours in the weight room, the 16-week fee as a member of the Body by Design Club is $35. The cost is $70 for a first-time weight room member-ship for a non-student or Body by Design club

member. Throughout the LCC

school year, the Body by Design Club welcomes new members. Regis-tering for the club can be done at visiting the weight room during club hours.

The club is located in GB 192. The member-only hours of the club are Monday through Friday noon to 2 p.m., Monday through Thursday 5:40 to 7:30 p.m., and Friday 4 to 6 p.m.

“If I return to LCC in the fall, I would join the club again,” said Earls, a club member for the past nine months.

The club has roughly 70 members it accom-modates, not only with an open atmosphere but with the weight room’s equipment selection such as free weights, bikes and treadmills.

Bulk up with Body by Design Club

Nathan WilsonNews Editor

William Nicklosov-ich, better known as Chef Nick, and pastry chef Rachel Limban won several awards for LCC in the second an-nual Girl Scout Cookie Bake-Off at the Radis-son Center Hotel in downtown Lansing on Feb 22.

During the event, chefs competed to cre-ate the best dessert from Girl Scout Cook-ies to auction for fund-raising benefits. The proceeds benefitted Girl Scouts who can-not afford to pay their dues or go to camp.

“We took the Thin Mint Girl Scout Cook-ies and created choco-

late thin-minted truf-fles, which we took to the benefit at the

Radisson,” Nicklosov-ich said.

Nicklosovich also competed against stu-dents he had taught at LCC.

“It’s kind of an honor to go up against the students that you once taught,” he said.

Other participating businesses in the com-petition included Mich-igan Brewing Compa-ny, Grand Traverse Pie Co. and Sweetie-licious Bakery & Café.

“We were asked to do 250 sample-size bite truffles, which we did, and one centerpiece truffle,” Nicklosovich said.

The centerpiece was

auctioned off at $125 for charity, while most of the other truffles went for $65 each.

Nicklosovich and Limban won first place in People’s Choice, first place in Most Creative and second place in Judges’ Choice. They accepted the awards on behalf of LCC.

“There were prob-ably 200 people at the event,” he said. “They had politicians, state representatives, quite a few well known peo-ple … to help support the community, which is wonderful when our community comes to-gether.”

Nicklosovich also ex-

pressed concern over LCC possibly eliminat-ing the Culinary Pro-gram.

“LCC will be making a huge mistake: It’s a great loss,” he said. “I did read in the paper that they’re basing it on the cost of remod-eling the new kitchen, and the rumors are … they would need millions of dollars to do this. We’re saying that there’s no way we would need that much money.

“I think with the board meeting last night (Feb. 28) that it actually opened a lot of eyes to see what we truly have to offer.”

Girls Scout Cookie desserts land LCC three awards

Photo by Michael CaterinaPumpin’ iron: Russell Earls does a few curls during the open gym time for Body by De-sign Club members in GB 192.

Top cookie: Chef Nick and Rachel Limban show off the awards they won at the Girl Scout Cookie Bake-Off Feb. 22.

Courtesy photo

Club membership gives students access to weight room at a reasonable price

March 7 - 27, 2011www.lcc.edu/lookout

SPORTS6

Remember when Ron Artest was punching fans in the face during games? Man, those were the days.

At that point it appeared that the National Basket-ball Association was all but dead. It turns out that con-clusion was dead wrong. Pro basketball is back, and it is not going anywhere anytime soon.

LeBron: The man, the myth, — and if you are from Ohio — the traitor. James set an example for every young man that comes out of high school with big dreams of one day reaching the NBA.

James could have played for any college he wanted to and still decided to play in the NBA. After all, aren’t kings supposed to act swiftly and accurately? The NCAA thanks you, your Highness.

And then we have Kobe Bryant: the alleged rapist, Mr. Hollywood. As if Shaq leaving town was not dra-matic enough, now we had to hear about how many karats of gold the “I’m sorry I sexually assaulted a hotel employee. It’ll never happen again,” ring had. It’s a shame Phil Jackson has to deal with such bad

publicity. Eleven NBA Championships, folks, you can start bowing now.

In the midst of all this negative publicity the NBA has gotten, there are a few shining lights that still stick out to me.

The NBA produces some of the best role models for kids I have ever seen. Blake Griffin is awesome. He’s young, he’s talented and loves the game, you can tell. Tim Duncan is a man of very few words too, not typical for someone who works in Texas, but perfect for the NBA’s reputation.

It’s too bad I never got to see the Pistons play out here. I hear they used to be really fun to watch in the days of Rashid Wallace and Chauncey Billups.

Rumor has it city offi-cials in Detroit are think-ing of moving the Pistons downtown again, and cre-

ating an arena where both they and the Red Wings can play. That would be pretty cool.

This season the NBA has been beyond eventful. A red hot off-season filled with rumors about where LeBron James would end up after he left Cleveland kept fans reminded that October was just around the corner.

Lebron went to Miami or … oh wait … how did he put it? Oh yes … “took his talents to South Beach” to join forces with rising superstar Dwyane Wade. I think there was some guy from Toronto who came along too. ... No dummy, Vince Carter is out chilling at the old folk’s home oth-erwise known as the Phoe-nix Suns.

Carmelo Anthony final-ly got out of Denver. I won-der where he’s headed. … Oh, that’s right. And by the way, keep an eye on Amare Stoudemire, I’d love to see Dwight Howard try and dunk on my man A-Stoud.

The NBA shows a lot of potential going forward.Now if we can just keep our hands off the fans, we should be alright. Go Knickerbockers.!

Basketball is back;this time for good

Tourney loss ends Lady Stars’ seasonErik StiemStaff Writer

After ending the regular season with four straight victories, including a 66-65 victory over conference co-champs Kalamazoo Val-ley Feb 19, the Lady Stars had plenty of momentum heading into the NJCAA Region XII playoffs.

Seven teams from the conference made the single-elimination play-offs. With the fifth seed in the playoffs, the Lady Stars had to travel to Jackson’s (fourth seed) home court.

For the third time in three tries this year, Jack-son Community College was too much for the LCC women to handle.

The Jackson Jets beat the Lady Stars by at least 20 each time they played them, winning by a score of 122-92 in this match-up.

The 30-point loss was the biggest defeat of the season for the Lady Stars.

SoQuitta DeShazor scored 24 points and grabbed 10 boards for the Lady Stars in the loss. Denay Kelley also put up an impressive line with 23 points, 12 rebounds and seven as-sists.

The high-powered of-fense of Jackson proved to be too much for the Lady Stars.

Jackson regularly plays 17 girls, enabling them to keep up an in-your-face pace for the duration of a game.

Meanwhile, injuries had limited Lady Stars’ coach Ervin Brunson to only use eight players in the game.

The Lady Stars finished 8-8 in conference play and ended with an overall re-cord of 17-9, an improve-ment from last year’s 12-15 finish.

With a healthy team and many of the players return-ing, it is promising that the Lady Stars will progress even further next year.

Jackson defeats LCC 120-92, leaving Stars at 17-9 overall

Photo by Michael CaterinaPhoto by Michael CaterinaTop shot: Sophomore Tornisha Jones puts up a layup dur-ing the Stars’ 58-49 victory over Kellogg CC.

Tough defense: Freshman Denay Kelly has a shot blocked during the Stars’ 58-49 victory over Kellogg CC.

— A New York state of mind —

Pat Malloy, Jerry Murphy and Jeff Kegler were in-formed of their termination Feb. 27 via a letter from the college.

Among more than 25 charges against Every, ac-cording to information ob-tained from the Lansing State Journal via a Freedom of In-formation Act request, are:

* Striking a player with a closed fist;

* Helping student-ath-letes find roommates;

* Assisting student-ath-letes with tuition and living expenses;

* Overpaying student-employees who were on the softball team.

Every denied ever strik-ing a player, and said, in a prepared statement: “I may have committed a few violations of the NJCAA policies ... but I never in-tentionally broke any rules or tried to give our team a competitve advantage.”

“Nothing matches up,” Malloy said Feb. 28 after the LCC Board of Trustees meeting. “I’d do anything to turn the clock back, get a little due process and get this thing cleaned up.”

The due process Malloy referred to is exactly what 20 people who signed up for public comment at the meeting were seeking.

Destiny Manning was one of seven current soft-ball players who stood at the podium at the same time and read a statement they had prepared, plead-ing for the reinstatement of their coaches.

“The girls who are here haven’t been heard at all,” Manning said during a break. “This whole process is just so messy.”

Season on hold

LCC suspended its women’s softball season Feb. 22 after the majority of the players on the team ap-parently indicated they did not want to play for inter-im coaches Gordie Hetrick and Tom Smith.

Rachel Malmquist, a cur-rent Stars outfielder, said the softball team was called into a meeting with the ad-ministration Monday, Feb. 21. At that meeting she said the players were given an

ultimatum. The girls had to decide

whether to play for new in-terim coaches Hetrick and Smith, or not participate in the season at all.

“It was such a hard deci-sion to make.” Malmquist told The Lookout. “We were all completely torn.”

According to the LCC press release, only six of the 13 members of the team said they were uncondi-tionally committed to play-ing this season.

“We’re pretty much standing up for what we

believe in,” said Katie Hahn, an infielder for the team. “We feel we should finish the season with the coaches that signed us to play. ... That’s the main rea-son why we actually came here. We knew we had a good coach.”

What’s next? Ten LCC softball play-

ers spoke to the media at a press conference held at the law offices of Farhat and Story in Lansing March 2.

The press conference was called by Every, who was not able to attend af-ter being “checked into the hospital on a doctor’s recommendation,” accord-ing to his daughters, Jodi Parker and Kellie Farhat.

Farhat read a statement from Bob Every to report-ers, players and assistant coaches at the conference.

“I am asking my play-ers to return to the team and play out the season,” the statement read. “I am also asking the college to reinstate my three assistant coaches. … This will make the transition going for-ward much easier on the players.”

The statement said Ev-ery will no longer seek

reinstatement to his posi-tion as coach of the softball team. However, of the 27 allegations against Every, only two pertain to his full time job as an administra-tor, the statement said.

Every’s statement said he will contest those alle-gations and seek reinstate-ment of his physical fitness administrative position.

Hahn read a statement from the 10 team members present:

“At this time our team would like to sit down with the college and negotiate getting back our season,” Hahn said. “We would like to get our assistant coaches back at the very least. We just want to play ball.”

PR Director Jones com-mented on the situation March 2.

“Regarding the team, if any player has changed their mind about playing this season, we encourage them to contact the athletic director immediately so that we can explore any options that may exist,” Jones said.

LCC Athletic Director Scott Latham did not re-turn calls regarding the possibility of reinstating the softball season.

The team was originally scheduled to play its first game March 26 at Jackson.

March 7 - 27, 2011www.lcc.edu/lookout

SPORTS7

EveryContinued from page 1

Future uncertain: Bob Every looks around the room at the board meeting Feb. 28. Every has been let go as the head softball coach but is seeking reinstatment for his full-time position.

Photo by Courtney Baker

Dominick MastrangeloSports Editor

The last week of Febru-ary started out rough for the LCC men’s basketball team.

With the NJCAA Region XII Tournament looming larger and larger as the week went on, the Stars knew they had to finish the season in a crisp fash-ion, and they did just that.

After a 70-63 loss at home on Feb. 19 to Kalam-azoo, the Stars went on to win their next three games and finish the season with a winning record in the conference (12-4).

In the loss to Kalama-zoo, sharpshooter Colin Ward knocked down sev-en three-point field goals to continue his February hot streak.

Ward was good for 25 of the Star’s 63 points in what would be their last loss of the season. Head Coach Mike Ingram said he was not shaken by the loss.

“We’ll be alright,” In-

gram said confidently. “We just had a bad game. What’s important is that we don’t lose our intensity.”

Intensity would not be hard to find in the Star’s next three games. LCC headed next to Grand Rapids Community Col-lege Feb. 21 to take on the Raiders and earned a 72-60 victory.

LCC point guard Nate Duhon stole the spotlight, recording 12 points and dishing out seven assists.

Duhon has had a repu-tation for unselfish behav-ior this season.

“Some of the guys on this team can really shoot it,” Duhon said as he ad-dressed reporters after the game. “I’m not worried about my stats; all I want is that W.”

Duhon would get his wish as the Stars came home to record their 12th and final conference vic-tory in their last regular season game of the year. On Sophomore Night, Feb. 23, LCC romped Kellogg Community College 89-56.

With the spotlight burn-ing bright, sophomore guard Michael Martin scored 19 points, nabbed five steals and was on the receiving end of two elec-trifying alley-oops.

Martin said this was a perfect way to end his sea-son.

“This just feels so great, man,” Martin said after his final regular-season game

as a Star. “LCC has been such an awesome place to play. This gym will be with me forever.”

Martin would get one more chance to play at Gannon, as the Stars took to the floor on their home wood March 1 in the first game of NJCAA Region XII tournament. And as the seeding would have it, familiar faces from Bat-tle Creek were back and thirsty for revenge.

LCC beat Kellogg once again, this time to the tune of 85-74 to advance to the tournament semifinals.

Martin stole the show again, recording a game-high 23 points. Kellogg’s Ronald Bracy blocked LCC’s Martin four times in the game, as well as scoring 21 points. The two leading scorers both left all they had on the court.

“LCC is real good team,” Bracey said after the hard loss. “I have all the respect in the world for these dudes; I think they definitely can win it all.”

The Stars were sched-uled to play at Ancilla College on March 4 in Plymouth, Ind., to take on Muskegon Community College. If the Stars beat Muskegon, they would play in the Region XII Tournament Champion-ship Game on March 6.

Check Issue 13 of The Lookout for results, stats and reaction to the Stars’ bid for championship glory.

March 7 - 27, 2011www.lcc.edu/lookout

8

Men’s basketball makes playoff run

SPORTS

For two: Freshman Marcus Cain puts up a shot during LCC’s 89-56 victory over Kellogg Community College.

To the hoop: Sophomore Michael Martin moves past Kellogg Community College defend-ers as he goes for a layup during LCC’s 89-56 victory Feb. 23.

Photos by Michael Caterina

March 7 - 27, 2011www.lcc.edu/lookout

9

March 7 - 27, 2011www.lcc.edu/lookout

10 ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Shauna StockenStaff Writer

I am a journalist in the works. It’s my biggest pas-sion. Due to my journalism obsession, I am unable to separate my personal in-terest from emotional bias when reading any text by Nora Ephron.

My problem is determin-ing whether Ephron’s novel I Remember Nothing is truly the greatest book I have ever read, well next to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, or if the novel only fulfills an enthusiasm for journalism some readers such as myself possess.

Ephron’s witty style of writing, insight on life and comfortable feel-good atti-tude is what I believe makes her writing appealing to a larger and more diverse au-dience, beyond the crowd of writers and journalists.

Ephron, 1969 graduate of Wellesley College in Massa-

chusetts, landed her first job as a mail girl at the News-week paper in New York.

She eventually became a reporter writing feature stories on people like The Beatles. Ephron welcomed The Beatles at the airport when they arrived in New York and followed them throughout their first trip in the United States.

In her book I Remember Nothing, Ephron writes about her experience with The Beatles on the Ed Sulli-

van Show, as well as her re-actions to the Beatlemania among teenage girls.

Ephron’s novel is geared toward an older female audience. The novel be-gins with the topic of her memory loss and continues with chapters on overcom-ing failure and obstacles in life, like her first and second divorce.

The book concludes with the realization from Eph-ron’s chapter titled, “The O Word,” that “at some point I will be not just old, older, or oldish—I will be really old.”

Her novel is written in a series of several short es-says with a keen wit that makes her such a charming and humorous author to read.

Because the novel is writ-ten in a series of short es-says, readers can enjoy her novel in any random order or by reading one chapter at a time without forgetting the novel’s plot.

Never heard of I Remem-ber Nothing? What about Ephron’s movies? Ephron has written and directed multiple hits that include Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail, My Blue Heaven, Be-witched and, her most recent film, Julie & Julia.

Open my new addiction

When I was a kid, if I wasn’t watching TV, I was playing video games. (Se-riously, I never left my house.)

Unfortunately, my real gaming only started when I bought my PlayStation 2 because my parents never had a high respect for vid-eo games (which is weird because they seemed to hold TV in high regard).

We had a Super Nin-tendo, but we only owned a couple Mario and Mortal Kombat games, which my brother was always much better at.

Because of this, I never experienced many of the classics so many people hold in high regard.

My cousin had Super Mario 64, but I only played it, like, twice. Same with Golden Eye, but with a different cousin. And, um ... I’ve never liked Zelda. I know I’ll probably be hanged for that one, but it’s true.

So once I had reached an age where I could work for

money, right around the beginning of the sixth gen-eration of video games, I started saving for my Play-Station 2.

The choice of a PS2 was actually a pretty long sto-ry fueled by an ongoing, heated debate between my brother and me that lasted until we bought our sepa-rate consoles.

I had always been a fan of the original PlayStation because of the variety of games, but he claimed the Xbox would have superior games, to which I said only time would tell.

In the end, I’m not sure which was superior. My brother was right that it ended up with a cou-

ple truly superior titles (Knights of the Old Re-public, The Elder Scrolls, Halo, Fable), but it didn’t have as much variety as the PS2.

However, there is one series that I would trade all the rest for (alright, except Oblivion), and that series is Ratchet and Clank.

I LOVED Ratchet and Clank. I played through every single game so many times that I earned every skill point, every gold bolt, everything.

I literally could not ac-complish anything else in the games, yet I still played them because they were that good.

Then Sony sent me a demo disc with an error that formatted the memo-ry card if the console was turned off while playing Viewtiful Joe 2.

Everything I had worked for was gone.

So I got a life.I still play video games,

though, mostly by myself, and almost entirely on my

computer, which I built by myself.

Shooters are infinitely better on PC. I’ve just got-ten into the Orange Box (Yeah, I’m behind), and it’s amazing.

I love mmorpgs (pro-nounced phonetically) – City of Heroes is the best, hands down.

Also, league of Legends is one of the best games on the internet right now (Yeah, I know it’s not a mmorpg.)

My biggest gaming achievement on PC is Oblivion. I’ve spent well over 200 hours on that game, and the last 100 or so I spent modding it.

I integrated every ma-jor, semi-compatible mod for Oblivion into my last game.

And after spending two months doing nothing but coding, cracking and play-ing, I can say that thanks to the modding community, Oblivion is the best game ever.

Wanna fight about it?

I walked into the the-ater to watch I Am Number Four expecting a hokey, Disney-esque movie like The Race to Witch Moun-tain, but after a couple scenes, my cynical expec-tations fell away.

I Am Number Four cer-tainly won’t be named the best movie this year, but it was pretty alright.

Other than the main characters, the acting was a little sub-par. Whether a pause seemed a little too long to be natural or a line seemed a little to forced or scripted, the discrep-ancies detracted from the story.

The special effects were another issue – other than the teleportation anima-tion, which was freaking awesome even if it looked kind of similar to Jumper.

The body animations were the biggest problem. Whenever John (Num-ber 4) used his power to speed another person up, whether he was running or throwing someone into the air, it looked like someone hit the fast for-ward button on a VCR. Very clunky.

And the bright glow-ing lights that came from John’s body went totally

unexplained throughout the movie. Apparently when they first showed up, they made his hands really hot, but then they seemed to stop that and instead powered up his punches.

At another point, they worked as laser beams, but apparently they can also heal people, and somehow Number 6 knew this before ever meeting John.

Then there was this mat-ter of the box that appar-ently John was supposed to inherit “when the time was right.” I would think that when it starts flash-ing with bright, alien lights, the time was prob-ably right, but apparently I was wrong, and the box was never opened in the

entire movie.However, these nit-

picky discontinuities only added to the fun.

The story was entertain-ing, though maybe a little too familiar, and the ex-plosions were awesome.

The main actors, though new, were all pretty good – and definitely attractive.

Alex Pettyfer and Cal-lan McAuliffe played strong, contrasting lead males while Dianna Agron (who looks strik-ingly similar to LCC TV’s Nicole Sclafani) and Te-resa Palmer did the same on the female side.

Just an aside, I’m glad that Hollywood is final-ly putting more diver-sity in the attractiveness department. In I Am Number Four, McAuliffe and Agron fill the classi-cally beautiful roles, but Pettyfer and Palmer fit into more of a “rugged beauty” category. When was the last time you saw a ruggedly beautiful woman in a movie? Like, never.

All things considered, I Am Number Four isn’t a great movie, but it is defi-nitely fun enough to en-joy and poke fun at with a couple friends.

Number four was A-OK

Photo by popculturezoo.com

Video games definitely awesome— Shouting a Nuance —

Photo courtesy of maggiereads.blogspot.com

Puzzle solution can be found at www.lcc.edu./lookoutThis week’s puzzle is sponsored by:

King Crossword

March 7 - 27, 2011www.lcc.edu/lookout

A&E11

In the Kitchen withChef Nick

Nicklosovich Raspberry Chocolate White Cake

Arts & Entertainment

IN BRIEFHigh School: Sterling HeightsMajor: Current Theatre Student with Psychology Bachelor’sFavorite Movie: One Flew Overthe Cuckoo’s NestFavorite Actor: Jack LemmonFavorite Food: Liver and Onions

High School: Williamston Major: Theatre Alumnus

Favorite Movie: The Princess BrideFavorite Actor: Gary Oldman

Favorite Food: Cheese

Michael Hays

Alec J. Nagy

Actor SpotlightS

Cake Ingredients:1 cup white sugar 1/2 cup butter 2 eggs 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 cup milk

Directions1. ) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9x9 inch pan or line a muf-fin pan with paper liners.

2. ) In a medium bowl, cream together the sugar and butter. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Combine flour and baking powder, add to the creamed mixture and mix well. Finally stir in the milk until batter is smooth. Pour or spoon batter into the prepared pan.

3. ) Bake for 30 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven. For cupcakes, bake 20 to 25 minutes. Cake is done when it springs back to the touch.

Whipped frosting : 1 pint heavy whipping cream, whipped until thickened1/4 cup powder sugar2 teaspoons vanilla extract Mix all together and whip until thick

Center filling :1/2 cup raspberry marmalade preserves Topping:Fresh raspberries and chocolate syrup for color

*Photo by Michael Caterina and recipe provided by

HMFS 263 Gourmet American Cooking.

Lee RumlerA&E Editor

LCC professor Andy Callis directed Samuel Beckett’s comic master-piece Endgame Feb. 18, 19, 25 and 26 in LCC’s Black Box Theatre, and it was ex-cellent.

The play’s plot revolved around a single man’s final hours after the world had ended.

It begins with protago-nist, Hamm (Michael Hays), sitting in a chair, covered in a blanket. His semi-loyal servant, Clov (Alec Nagy), makes the rounds, following the same pattern he has for a long time.

Soon, Clov lifts the lids off the trash cans, and Hamm’s parents, Nagg and Nell, are introduced.

As the play continues, the audience learns just how desperate the four’s situations are. Hamm can-not stand. Clov cannot sit. The outside world is apparently a wasteland where nothing can survive.

Nagg (Jonas Greenberg) and Nell (Mary Wardell) are so close to death that Hamm and Clov keep them in the garbage cans, changing the sand they live and defecate in only periodically. They subsist on dog biscuits and mem-ories.

The play’s metaphors to life’s wretchedness are overwhelming. Callis said that Beckett was a little morbid, but watching the characters’ endless, pur-poseless rituals being so obviously juxtaposed to the purpose of human life

made even the most opti-mistic audience members depressed.

However, no matter how depressing, the beauty of Beckett’s language and the accuracy to which that lan-guage was performed was undeniable.

Hamm’s several so-liloquies resounded with painful meditations on his life’s end, and Hays’ inter-pretation was so painful, so believable. During the entire play, he tries to tell a story, and after he fin-

ishes, he decides that is enough. Though nothing has changed, he chooses to allow the end to come.

Endgame truly showed some of the best talent Lan-sing and LCC have to of-fer. Every actor performed phenomenally, and their words flowed from the soul.

The stark lighting and stage design highlighted the bleakness of the play’s atmosphere.

And Callis’ directing seamlessly integrated the various talents into one of the best plays I’ve ever had the pleasure of viewing.

Better than unhappiness

Chad Badgero will direct Pen-tecost, a play written by the Tony Award winner David Edgar at Dart Auditorium. The play will run Fri-days and Saturdays, March 25 and 26 and April 1 and 2 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, March 27 at 2 p.m. Tickets will cost $5 for faculty, staff, alumni and students and $10 for the gen-eral public.

The Capital Area Women’s Life-style Magazine is hosting an 80s flashback party at the Washington St. Armory on 2500 S. Washington Ave. The event will run 7 p.m. to midnight Saturday, March 19. Tick-ets are available online or by call-ing 517-203-0123. Prices are $40 per couple, $25 per single and $10 per student.

Covert, a Flint-based five-piece funk, bluegrass, jazz, Americana, gospel and soul band, will perform at Mac’s Bar Saturday, March 12 at 10 p.m. The show is for those age 18 and older. Admission is $7.

Nationally touring metal bands Bitter End, The Carrier, Hardside, Powertrip and local band What Counts will perform at Mac’s Bar March 14. The concert will begin at 6 p.m. and admission cost $10 at the door.

Edgar comes to Dart

80s flashes back to Lansing

Covert band sways Mac’s

Hardcore rocks Mac’s

Check out The Lookout online at issuu.com/lcclookout

Winder production: Characters Hamm, left, and Clov bicker about petty things in Samuel Beckett’s End-game performed by the LCC theatre program in Feb-ruary.

File photo by Courtney Baker

Review

Nathan WilsonNews Editor

LCC offers several resources for vet-erans attending the community college who may need additional support.

Beverly Baligad, J.D., the director of Student Compliance, explained the first step for college veterans is to visit the Veterans Services Office at enroll-ment services in GB 203.

The staff can help student veterans

begin the certification process, link up with enrollment services and receive benefits.

“If they’re having difficulties after they’ve gotten to campus … if they’re suffering from some post traumatic stress disorder, they (staff) can link them up to the counselors that are spe-cific to the veterans,” Baligad said.

Craig Prether and Gilbert Hill are LCC counselors specific to veterans.

According to Baligad, the Depart-

ment of Veterans Affairs can also con-nect students to advising “if they’re looking for a course of study, like a vet has paramedic experience but they want to become a nurse.

“How would they do that and link the two experiences together?” Baligad rhetorically asked. “The ad-viser could help them.”

American Red Cross also contrib-utes services to veterans by guiding them to community resources.

According to Veteran Affairs, ap-proximately 400 veterans have been certified during the 2011 spring se-mester.

Another effort to help veterans is taking form in a student organiza-tion designed to help them connect on campus.

Rebecca Beard, Ph.D., C.P.M., di-rector of purchasing and a military veteran, has accepted the position of adviser for the group hopefully set to launch in fall 2011.

“That’s the one thing I am passion-ate about,” Baligad said. “I really want students not to feel like they’re out here floundering alone … There are other vets on campus that they can hook up with, that they can talk to and understand what they’ve been through.”

According to Baligad, one of the big-gest difficulties veterans encounter, besides the horrors of war, is trying to adjust to a setting where the economy is weak and opportunities are limited.

Another resource available to veter-ans is Give an Hour (GAH), a nonprof-it organization focused on the psycho-logical needs of veterans.

Licensed mental health profession-als donate an hour of their time each week to provide counseling for troops and their family members.

Community volunteer opportu-nities include volunteering at soup kitchens, donating money and con-veying GAH’s message to the military community. To volunteer, visit http://www.giveanhour.org.

March 7 - 27, 2011www.lcc.edu/lookout

FEATURES12

An Oscar is awarded to nominee winners. An Os-car is a gold silhouette of a man, which gives lifelong prestige to whomever wins the award.

This year’s Academy Awards began with a par-ody of the movie Inception as the host of the awards traveled through a per-son’s dream. The hosts for the evening included ac-tress Ann Hathaway from Love and Other Drugs and actor James Franco from 127 Hours.

Hathaway and Franco traveled through a dream sequence based on many movies from the past year. After appearing in

The first Annual Academy Awards were held at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in 1929.

This year the 83rd Annual Academy Awards show was aired on ABC from the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles on the evening of Feb. 27.

The Academy Awards show is a night to honor American and foreign films made within the last year. The award categories include awards for the best film, best actor and actress, and a mul-titude of other categories.

the movie Back to the Fu-ture, the hosts traveled from 1980s to the current time period. They use the famous time-traveling DeLorean to make it from the dream to the award stage.

After the movie in-troduction, Hathaway and Franco introduced the first speaker of the night, two-time Acad-emy Award winner Tom Hanks.

Hanks presented the first award of the night, Art Direction, to pro-duction designer Robert Stromberg and set direc-tor Karen O’Hara, for their work in the movie

Alice in Wonderland.Shaun Tan won the

best animated short film award along with partner Andrew Runemann for their film, The Lost Things.

“Our film is about a creature that nobody pays any attention to so this is wonderfully ironic,” said Tan after winning the award.

The film Inception won four Oscars in diverse categories. The first Os-car Inception received was awarded to Wally Fisher for best cinematogra-

phy. The second Oscar for sound mixing was awarded to Lora Hirsch-berg, Garry A. Rizzo and Ed Novick. The award for best sound editing was awarded to Richard King. Its last award was given to Peter Bebb for best visual effects.

Natalie Portman and Colin Firth were both the 2011 recipients of the larg-est honor either a male or female actor or actress can receive in the film industry. Portman was awarded an Oscar for best

actress in a leading role as the queen swan in the film Black Swan. Firth was awarded an Oscar for best actor in a leading role for his character as the king of the Duke of York in The King’s Speech.

Along with Firth’s Oscar, two others were awarded to The King’s Speech. The best screen play was awarded to Da-vid Sedier and best direct-ing was awarded to Tom Hooper.

Guest speakers for the evening included celebri-

ties such as Morgan Free-man, Reese Witherspoon and Oprah Winfrey. En-tertainment for the night not only included the opening skit by Hathaway and Franco but multiple musical performances.

Randy Newman, the Oscar winner for best original song performed “We Belong Together” from Toy Story 3. Singers for the evening included Florence from Florence and The Machine, Mandy Moore, Gwyneth Paltrow and Celine Dion.

Shauna StockenStaff Writer

Academy Awards honors Hollywood’s best

LCC offers support to college veterans

Photos cour-tesy of blog.quickflix.com and olympia.comIllustration by Kaitlin Lutz

And the Oscar goes to: Actress Ann Hathaway from Love and Other Drugs and actor James Franco from 127 Hours host the 83rd Academy Awards, Feb. 27 at the Kodak Theatre in Los Ange-les.

File photo by Michael Caterina

Veterans remembered: Guests gather at the unveiling of the Veterans Memorial in the HHS building Nov. 11, 2010. The memorial integrates audio and video to commemorate the soldiers.

March 7 - 27, 2011www.lcc.edu/lookout

DISTRACTIONS13SUDOKU

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An Ordinary Life

Desktop Blues

Everything on this planet evolves. Stars evolve from clouds of dust collapsing under gravitational attrac-tion to each other.

Likewise, the metamor-phism of sedimentary rocks can result in a realignment of mineral constituents, re-crystallization or even new chemical compositions. In this way rocks and stars evolve, from one substance to another.

If inanimate objects like stars and rocks are able to evolve, how can one be so sure living beings do not?

What is interesting about evolution is that it affects every science we study in school – geology, astrono-my, biology, etc.

Some still believe that evolution is the process by which mankind evolves di-rectly from monkeys. These same individuals are also pressing lawmakers to al-low intelligent design equal representation in the class-room.

Needless to say, if they had spent half the time they did creating arguments against evolution as they

had spent learning some-thing about it, they might not be so quick to shirk it off as “just a theory.” For that matter it is not, however, “just a theory,” it is a scien-tific theory.

Scientific theories must be held as true in general con-sensus amongst scientific experts. They must also be testable theories which can produce consistent reliable results used as evidence.

Some would say the earth is too vast and perfect to not have been designed by a creator of some sort or an-other, even pointing out the fact that life only exists here.

It is this very fact that ex-plicates how evolution is the working force behind the matter. Everything that

enables life on this planet is the reason that life was able to evolve on this planet.

To say it was designed for us makes me wonder why God decided to create little ecosystems miles below sea level.

As these various species, the majority of which are still unknown to us, have only recently been discov-ered by humans after all these years – Why would God create something for us that we had no way of knowing about until now?

Charles Darwin used a beautiful metaphor in his book Origin of Species that described the likeness be-tween a great tree and the great ancestral map of all living things:

“As buds give rise by growth to fresh buds, and these, if vigorous, branch out and overtop on all sides many a feebler branch, so by genera-tion I believe it has been with the great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its ever branching and beautiful ramifications.”

March 7 - 27, 2011www.lcc.edu/lookout

OPINION14—Everyone should read George Orwell—— The Collected Klutz—

Creation: an intricate designFor anything in life

there has to be a creator – I am not just talking about the world and the human race. If you think about it, everything in existence has a maker, an architect, a designer; someone made it.

Sir Isaac Newton want-ed to make this very point to his atheist friend, so he had an accomplished artisan fashion a small-scale model of our solar system.

Following is an excerpt from The Truth: God or evolution? by Marshall and Sandra Hall concern-ing Newton:

“When his friend saw the excellent craftsmanship he said, ‘My! What an exqui-site thing this is! Who made it?’ … Newton replied, ‘No-body. What you see just hap-pened to assume the form it now has.’ … ‘Of course somebody made it, and he is a genius, and I would like to know who he is,’ his friend replied. Newton then spoke. … ‘This thing is but a puny imitation of a much grand-er system whose laws you

know, and I am not able to convince you that this mere toy is without a designer and maker; yet you profess to believe that the great orig-inal from which the design is taken has come into being without either designer or maker! Now tell me by what sort of reasoning do you reach such an incongruous conclusion?’ “

That is why I believe there has to be some greater power that creat-ed us, God. In fact, I can-not believe that we are just on this earth by mere chance.

Evolution is the athe-ist’s attempt at figuring out how and why we came to be on this earth; even atheists were (and

still are) searching for the meaning of life. Trying to prove that we came from nothing by random chance isn’t going to help us. It would just prove that there is no reason for our existence. Doesn’t that make you feel hap-py?

Think about how in-tricate the earth and all the living organisms on it are. Earth, because of its atmosphere and many other factors, is the only planet in our solar system that humans can exist on.

Look at the complex-ity of just one DNA mol-ecule, which helps make up our blueprint. Some-thing as complex as our genetic makeup could not have just come out of nowhere by chance. It had to have had a creator.

“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal pow-er and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” — Ro-mans 1:20

Evolution: not just a theory

The followinig columns are in response to the letter to the editor titled, “Thoughts on Creation” on pg. 15.

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In our own words | Staff Editorial

LCC officials recently reviewed the various academic programs and weeded out those they didn’t feel fit their “ed-ucation for high-skill, high-wage, high-de-mand jobs” prerogative.

Some of the programs the administration is discussing eliminating are aviation, automo-tive and sign language.

It leads one to ask, however, what is the demand like for pilots, sign language interpret-ers or automotive repair technicians these days? Furthermore, what are we doing as a college to fill a niche within Lan-sing?

The current market is looking pretty good if you are looking for a job as a pilot, after you obtain the proper train-ing, as they have a huge shortage and stand to only increase that short-age in years to come.

As far as automotive repair, we think every-one knows that cars need to be fixed, tuned up, etc., time and time

again — so no worries there. Judging by one staff member’s recent car repair bill and the fact that she certainly could not have done it herself, we think this is a high-skill, high-wage job – either that or she was overcharged.

Given that the price of the automotive classes is not cheap, we would assume (being that the infrastructure for the program is already in place) the college has the opportunity to make smaller adjustments as opposed to eliminating the program to get the budget back in working order.

As far as sign lan-guage goes, given that MSU no longer has its program, we think it would be beneficial for LCC to continue having ours.

In fact, we think this program best serves LCC’s niche in Lansing. It is the best way to get a good education afford-ably in the middle of the mitten, after all.

The fact it has the only interpreter program in the area would only help recruit more stu-dents to LCC.

Though LCC is not a vocational college through and through, the focus for the past decade or so has been on our vocational offer-ings.

The Lookout is con-fused as to why the col-lege would say some-thing about eliminating programs that do not amount to “high-skill, high-wage, high-de-mand jobs,” when its actions seem to negate that very idea.

Based on the programs officials are planning to eliminate, it would seem we are eliminating several options for LCC students who don’t plan on transferring to four-year universities.

For all the details on some of the programs under review right now, or those that have of-ficially been cut, check out pages one, two and three.

program cuts are leaving students with no certificates

The thought: I am a creationist. This is for two reasons: One is my belief in God and the Bible as the inspired word of God, and the second reason is that I am a scientist too.

I have studied at great length and my honest belief, based on the evidence, is that life could not have evolved as it has by a random process.

People believe in evolution for two reasons: One is that evi-dence to the contrary is never introduced in the classroom. In other words, a student educated in the public classroom is not given full and objective science. Science does in fact sup-port creation in many ways.

The other reason people hang on to evolution is that they do not want to be accountable to a higher authority. They want to call their own shots. They want to develop their own moral framework.

Craig PretherLCC Counselor

Thoughts on creationIn response to: Issue 11, The Diversity of Wormology

APARTMENT FOR RENT295 Arbor Glen Drive, East Lansing. Five miles from downtown LCC campus. Two bedrooms, $880 per month. Price includes air conditioning, dishwasher, parking, washer, dryer and water. Smoking and pets allowed. Contact Megan at 517-351-5353.

SPORTS CARDS WANTEDI love baseball cards from 1970 or before. Will pay cash for cards I need, or for large lots. Particularly in need of Detroit Tigers in excellent or better shape. Call 517-483-1291.

PINBALL MACHINEFOR SALEGame Plan 1979 “Sharpshooter” solid state game. Old western theme. Very fast and fun. Four players. $525. Call 517-589-5273 and leave a message.

PLACE YOURAD HEREAdvertising in The Lookout’s classified section is inexpensive and effective. The cost is just $8.50 for 20 words or less. Additional words are 50 cents. Call 483-1295 to place an ad or for more information.

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March 7 - 27, 2011www.lcc.edu/lookout

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