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newsVol. XXXII, Issue 15 |Tuesday, July 12, 2011

SAB Gets a Cash Injection

While Clubs Take a Hit

The Student Activities Board(SAB), the event-coordinating wing ofthe Undergraduate Student Govern-ment (USG), has received an additional$130,887, a 32.4 percent increase overlast year, while the club budgets havebeen cut by $208,062, an 18.3 percentdecrease from last year’s final budget.Nearly 70 percent of all clubs saw a cutin their budgets and SAB now has$534,887 to spend on campus events.

USG officers saw immense promisein SAB throughout the last two semes-ters, which was the organization’s firstyear after the controversial 2010 Estab-lishment of Student Life Act that re-structured SAB and put former USGTreasurer Moiz Khan in charge of eventplanning.

“They successfully put on big pro-grams clearly demonstrated by Aziz[Ansari], Best Coast and obviouslyBruno Mars,” said current USG Treas-urer Thomas Kirnbauer, who draftedthe budget alongside last year’s treasurerJackie Mark and a six-person budgetcommittee. “We want to keep the status

quo because we feel that SAB has donea pretty good job,” he added.

“If you give them $1,000, that does-n’t help them. This money will helpthem go,” Kirnbauer said. The addi-tional money SAB has received is aimedat supporting a Fall event as large asBruno Mars, but on the Staller steps.

USG’s 2011/12 Original Budget, re-leased on sbusg.org on June 1, is provi-sional and will be changed after budgetrevisions this Fall, which any club canapply for.

This process, called Fall revisions,takes rollover money from the previousyear’s club budget that wasn’t spent andappropriates it to clubs that apply foradditional money. With the Clubs andOrganizations’ Original 2010/11 Budgetat $929,053, many clubs will be await-ing the chance to apply for a budget re-vision and Kirnbauer estimates that thatfigure will rise back up to seven figures,where it was last year in both the finaland original budgets of 2010/11.

“We are pretty confident that ourFall revisions will mend any woundsthat occurred,” Kirnbauer said. WhileUSG officers are stressing that one mustcompare original budgets to get a bettersense of the change, the Clubs and Or-

ganizations’ budget still decreased by$175,771, or 16.2 percent, from lastyear’s original budget and eventually re-ceived only an additional $32,290 totheir roughly $1.1 million budget, a 2.9percent increase, after Fall revisions.

It must also be noted that a per-centage of the decrease in club budgetsis due to the removal of the individualResidence Halls from the overall Clubsand Organizations budget, which ac-counted for $38,000 of both the originaland final budgets of last year. Those lineitems were merged into one budget thatcan be found under USG Agencies,Services, and Organizations under theResidence Hall Association. The reviseddecrease in the new budget for Clubsand Organizations, with the removal ofthe Residence Halls budgets, would be

15.5 percent if comparing to the Final2010/11 budget and 13 percent if com-paring to the Original 2010/11 budget.

This year’s budget contains anotherpoint of interest concerning SAB. Thespreadsheet indicates that SAB’s Origi-nal 2010/11 budget was $270,000 andthat it received an increase of $134,000when the budget was finalized in theFall. That would equate to a 98 percentincrease in its budget if one comparedonly original budgets from 2010/11 to2011/12.

Kirnbauer says that those numbersrepresent a lapse in the spreadsheet andthat the new, restructured SAB wasnever put through the budget process inthe Spring of 2010; rather it was giventhe full $404,000 in the Fall using left-over money in USG’s budget. “It’s prob-

By Nick Statt

Clubs and Organizations Student Activities Board

The Stony Brook Press 3News

The NY-SUNY 2020 bill, passed onJune 24, championed by SUNY leadersand President Stanley will quell cries fora predictable tuition plan, offer moreneed-based scholarships for studentswhose providers make less than $75,000a year and award tuition credit to stu-dents eligible for TAP, New York State’sTuition Assistance Program, so thatthey will be unaffected by the increase.

Supporters of the bill, including as-semblyman Steve Englebright, say theannual increases of $300 in tuition overthe next five years will allow students toplan ahead rather than face a large spikein tuition in the middle of their educa-tion, as has occurred in the past. Thirty-five percent of the revenue from thetuition increases will be set aside forneed-based scholarships, though mid-dle class students who aren’t eligible forneed-based financial aid may be mostaffected, Englebright said in a phone in-terview.

Wealthy patrons of Stony Brookhave offered to set up grant programs tohelp keep Stony Brook affordable for allstudents in the future, though nothinghas been negotiated thus far, accordingto Englebright.

Supporters of the SUNY 2020 billsay the rest of the revenue will keepSUNY university centers affordable byincreasing class offerings and facultymembers so that students can graduatein four years. But that only has thechance to happen if the bill can preventAlbany from committing what Assem-blyman Englebright called “backdoorlarceny” when the revenue from the tu-

ition increases falls back into Albany’sgeneral fund rather than remainingwithin the SUNY system. To addressthat problem, the NY-SUNY 2020 billincludes a provision known as theMaintenance of Effort that keeps statesupport for SUNY operating expensesat or above what it is for the 2011-2012school year, unless Governor Cuomodeclares a fiscal emergency.

“We have an arms-length agree-ment to proceed with the understand-ing that the governor won’t let thathappen,” Englebright said. “The gover-nor seems to have a good grasp of howimportant it is that that agreement notbe violated.”

Assemblymember Deborah Glick, asponsor of the original NY-SUNY 2020legislation, said in a phone interviewthat she agreed to the final bill only afterthe inclusion of the maintenance of ef-fort provision and the tuition credit thatwill be awarded to SUNY’s poorest stu-dents, and she did so reluctantly. Heroriginal proposal was a three-year billthat increased tuition by $200 the firstyear and $150 for the two years after.

As part of the NY-SUNY 2020Grant Challenge program, the bill offersthe four university centers a total of $35million dollars to support long-termeconomic and academic proposals.Stony Brook’s plan, which President

Stanley presented in Albany weeks ago,includes the construction of a new med-ical research building, 245 new facultymembers and public-private partner-ships. The grant challenge initiative isexpected to attract funding from privatesources that could as much as doublethe original $35 million.

In a statement made in response toStony Brook’s NY-SUNY 2020 presen-tation, Governor Cuomo said, “I amcommitted to the project and will makesure that my administration concen-trates their efforts in making this a real-ity. Stony Brook’s plan of actionaddresses the major issues on Long Is-land and throughout the state.”

With SUNY 2020, Compromise was KeyBy Carol Moran

ably just how much they allocated to theold SAB,” he explained. “When I was inthe Senate, there was an appropriationsbill for $404,000. The previous treasurerwho did that spreadsheet just mighthave put it that way.” Former TreasurerJackie Mark could not be reached forcomment on the topic of SAB’s linestructure in the budget.

USG President Mark Maloof hasyet to replace Moiz Khan, this pastyear’s Student Programming Agency di-

rector who runs SAB alongside the VPof Student Life. With no SPA director,the organization is in the hands ofDuran Hill, USG’s current VP of Stu-dent Life, with Kirnbauer acting asSAB’s treasurer and VP of Communica-tions and Public Relations Farjad Fazlias secretary. Not only does that putSAB’s leadership in question, but itclouds the future of the now half-mil-lion dollar organization’s efficiency,considering that it went over budget last

year. “The reason why SAB goes over

budget is the end of the year concert,”Kirnbauer explained. “I’ve had a lot ofdiscussions with Administration withwhat we can do better in the future andI think the big problem was that we re-ally had one person in SAB kind of run-ning the show,” he added, referencingKhan’s assumption of responsibilities asSPA Director. Kirnbauer said that Mal-oof is looking for an SPA Director who

is fiscally responsible, “…but we reallyneed to stick to a process,” he added.

Kirnabuer will be releasing SAB’sfull 2010/11 spending history onsbusg.org later this month, therebymaking the activities of one of StonyBrook’s fastest growing, and controver-sial, pillars of campus life fully trans-parent.

SAB Gets a Cash Injection cont.

The Stony Brook Press is published fortnightlyduring the academic year and twice during sum-mer session by The Stony Brook Press, a studentrun non-profit organization funded by the StudentActivity Fee. The opinions expressed in letters, ar-ticles and viewpoints do not necessarily reflectthose of The Stony Brook Press as a whole. Ad-vertising policy does not necessarily reflect edi-torial policy. For more information on advertisingand deadlines call (631)632-6451. Staff meetingsare held Wednesdays at 1:00 pm. First copy free.For additional copies contact the Business Man-ager.

The Stony Brook PressSuites 060 & 061

Student UnionSUNY at Stony Brook

Stony Brook, NY 11794-3200(631) 632-6451 Voice(631) 632-4137 Fax

Email: editors@sbpress .com

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editorialsVol.XXXII, Issue15|Tuesday,July12,2011

Editorial Board

Executive EditorNick Statt

Managing EditorCarol Moran

Associate EditorEvan Goldaper

Business ManagerSiobhan Cassidy

Production ManagerMark Greek

News EditorsInquire Within

Features EditorAlyssa Melillo

Arts EditorAlexa Rubinstein

Multimedia EditorVincent BaroneUla Gradowska

Copy EditorLauren DuBois

Sports EditorVincent Barone

Social Media EditorKenny Mahoney

OmbudsmanCarolina Hidalgo

Layout Design byJowy Romano

Staff

Sam Aldenton

Michelle Bylicky

Lionel Chan

Natalie Crnosija

Mike Cusanelli

Eric DiGiovanni

Brett Donnelly

Amanda Douville

Lauren DuBois

Sarah Evins

Andrew Fraley

Colleen Harrington

Samuel Katz

Nicole Kohn

Iris Lin

Andi Liao

Erica Mengouchian

Frank Myles

Howie Newsberkman

Vanessa Ogle

Carlos Parreno

Gabriel Panadero

Jessica Rybak

Emily Torkel

Matt Willemain

About Us

Write for e P!Meetings Every Wednesday at 1PM, Union Building 060

The Future of FunThere’s no doubt that Stony

Brook, with its 16,300 undergraduates, isa large school. It’s also unquestionablethat Stony Brook’s students are a diversegroup, with varied interests and outlookson life. So we at the Press find it strangethat the current Undergraduate StudentGovernment (USG) budget for the 2011-2012 academic year does not seem to re-flect this. Of the approximately 130USG-funded clubs and organizations,roughly 70 percent received some type ofcut, and the exceptions to this trend arestartling.

The Student Activities Board(SAB) has received a 32 percent budgetincrease over last year’s final budget, giv-ing them just over half a million dollars.It is obvious that this money is targetedat one specific purpose: allowing SAB toplan another concert not unlike lastspring’s Bruno Mars show. The percentincrease equates to $130,887, easily al-lowing for one more concert. BrunoMars cost $140,000 plus additional fees,although we have argued in the past thatthis was inefficient spending for such anevent. But of course, the Bruno Marsshow was admittedly popular, attractingaround 3,700 people.

But is that enough? One eventplanned by one organization cannot pos-sibly appeal to every student on campus,and though 3,700 guests would translateto the equivalent of 22 percent of the un-dergraduate student body, not all of theattendees were Stony Brook students.But even if Bruno Mars was a total suc-cess, which is a difficult question we’veexplored before, it raises just as many is-sues as it tries to solve concerning eventplanning on our campus, which is stillunarguably plagued by the stigma thatnothing worthwhile ever happens here.

For one night, soon to be two nights,there was something to do, but that’s notenough when each semester is sixteenweeks long. One could argue that thisadditional money will help SAB planmore small-scale events, like ChristianFinnegan or Best Coast, but it’s quiteclear that USG has its sights set on one-upping itself with bigger and betterevents any chance it can get. So we findit unlikely that our campus will see a no-ticeable increase of such events.

As for the nature of the increase,why tackle the problem by concentratingso much money into one place? If thesefunds had been spread out among theother clubs, Stony Brook would be ableto get a variety of small guests and eventsthat, while never attracting 3,700 stu-dents, would always interest some peo-ple. Case in point: last year, a new clubcalled the Fine Arts Organization (FAO)planned two successful art shows, theMAMAs, which attracted a fairly largenumber of students from around campuswith a budget of only $650. This year, theclub has already faced a 26 percentbudget cut to $475, severely hindering itspotential to expand, or even perform atthe same level as last year. USG willargue that FAO can simply apply for a re-vision, but again, that is a significantstress applied to the organization and itsleadership. On another hand, why could-n’t USG keep the money aside to allowfor more new clubs to develop and fillsome obvious voids in our campus lifeenvironment?

It could be a bleak year for clubs andorganizations, and it needs asking if ahandful of “fun days” is worth this stepbackwards. Quite simply, throwingmoney at one organization is no way torun any college campus, let alone one

like Stony Brook that thrives on its com-plex microcosms born from our im-mense diversity.

There’s a basic problem with slash-ing student organization budgets acrossthe board to boost the already tremen-dous funding available to one centralconcert-planning group, a group thatwas already the scene of a controversialpower grab. It’s a fundamentally unde-mocratic way to approach event plan-ning and organizing. Of course studentlife is enriched by the large events withhigh-profile headliners that most col-leges boast, and we at the Press have ed-itorialized in the past, complaining aboutthe lack of such events. But funneling somuch money out of clubs and into theSAB not only stifles countless smallerevents, but in a very material way it takesthe power to participate in event pro-gramming away from other students.

SAB’s budget from two years ago,about $200,000, might not draw a head-liner willing to catch a grenade for StonyBrook, but it ought to be enough to puton a number of excellent events, becausefrankly it’s an awful lot of money. USGTreasurer Thomas Kirnbauer, who de-scribed cutting the budgets of most clubsas keeping “the status quo,” said of rais-ing SAB funding, “If you give them$1,000, that doesn’t help them.” For mostsmall clubs and organizations, however,losing $1,000 can make a huge differenceon their ability to program events. Andfor a new club looking to get started,$1,000 can be the difference between ex-isting or not, as FAO exhibits perfectly.And it’s the wealth of small clubs oncampus that provide the diversity ofcampus events ensuring that StonyBrook’s many and varied students findcampus life rewarding.

5The Stony Brook Press

Hate what you see? E-mail your letters to editors@sbpress.com

6

featuresVol.XXXII, Issue15|Tuesday,July12,2011

Google, the friendliest businessthis side of the Sombra Corpo-ration, has placed its final bid

for the complete and total dominationof our lives. Not content to monitormerely everything we search, everyonewe email, and everywhere we go,Google has decided that it must takecontrol of how we waste time and so-cialize over minutiae. Yes, I am ofcourse speaking of that most hallowedof all industries: social networking. Ad-mittedly, Google has tried to steal thecrown from Facebook before, withGoogle Buzz. If you don’t rememberthat, you’re not alone. This program al-lowed you to see brief status updatesfrom your Gmail contacts, and is re-

membered by basically no one otherthan me (and that’s only because I keptconfusing it with my favorite Pokémon,Electabuzz). Google, however, finallybelieves they’ve found the solution tokilling Facebook once and for all, andeveryone’s been significantly more ex-cited for this one than they were for allof Google’s other products combined.Chances are if you haven’t been havingan actual social life, you’ve heard of thisventure, inexplicably called Google+.

Currently, Google+ is in invitation-only beta, but if you happen to have anygeeky friends, they’ll be happy to hookyou up. Though I’ve always been a lateadopter to social media—I didn’t get aMyspace page until two years ago—I

was intrigued by Google+ because mytechie friends wouldn’t shut up about it.And if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’splacating my techie friends, because if Ilose them, I’ll have no one to fix mycomputer or come over for N64 Night.

So how do I feel about Google+?Four days later, I’m still trying to figurethat out. It’s clear that Google+ has a lotof good ideas. The most obvious one isthat it forces you to sort your “friends”into circles, which are groups like“Friends,” “Acquaintances,” and “Fam-ily.” Though Facebook had this optionas well, the fact that Google+ forces youto use it makes it very easy to filter whosees what messages and who doesn’t,which has let me keep my family fromknowing about my secret Dungeonsand Dragons habit. This also lets youavoid having to read messages from an-noying people, whom I plan on sortinginto a separate group and blocking.

I also enjoy that there are fewer adsthan on Facebook, which is a useful sideeffect of the fact that Google alreadygets tons of money from its other serv-ices. It also has none of the stupidgames, apps, farms, horoscopes and allthose other things that most peopletend to block from their newsfeeds. Myfriend Paul assures me that this willmake Google+ run faster, which issomething to look forward to, but at themoment, there’s no real proof of this.

Really, that’s the whole problemwith Google+. Currently, I have 247friends on Facebook, and though I don’tcare about all of them, I certainly speakto, or at least stalk, a percentage. OnGoogle+, I have 12, and I feel like I’llregularly speak to five of them. My feedpage changes just once a day: perhapsthe guy who sat next to me in JRN103will upload a photo, or the Press’s sportseditor will post a link. On Facebook,there’s a constant influx of information,and though most is worthless, it’s usu-ally a fun time waster to parse throughit. And without Facebook’s power ofstupid links, maybe I’d have never foundthat Neil Patrick Harris / Phineas andFerb crossover video, and we all knowthe world would be a worse place with-out that. Similarly, I could upload pho-tos and video to Google+, but whybother when Facebook already containshundreds of them?

The whole issue is that in order tosway over these thousands of peoplewho’ve been using Facebook since highschool, Google+ has to offer somethingFacebook doesn’t, and a streamlined in-terface doesn’t seem like enough toforce people to pack up and move. Per-sonally, I’d wait until Google+ opens tothe public. At the moment, it’s just anovelty compared to the ultimate kingof novelties that is Facebook.

Google: It’s All About Us...I Mean You

By Evan Goldaper

The Stony Brook Press 7Features

The Press Presents: Our Guide to Google+

Circles are an ingenious idea on Google’s part. Instead of“friending” someone, you add them straightaway to one ofyour neatly organized circles. Google offers friends, family, ac-quaintances and following circles, but you can also create yourown, like “Annoying Girls” or “Dudes at Like Cars TooMuch.” And, of course, you can browse each of these feeds in-dividually, filtering out the nonsense from your (Internet) life.Also, before posting, you can choose with which circles toshare your information with. Now you can post about gettingwhite-boy-wasted without your family circle, or work circle,for that matter, finding out. Yeah, this stealthy social network-ing is possible on Facebook, but Google seems to have stream-lined the process of surreptitious social network sharing.

Google is really trying to throw its weight around with Sparks, whichprovides web feeds of specific topics like cycling, fashion or soccer.Users can post articles or videos into these topics, which work kindof like RSS feeds, or share something that they’ve found with theircircles. And don’t worry, dudes that like cars too much, there is asports car feed.

A ‘hangout’ is the super silly term Google uses for video chatting.How it works is that someone in your circle can start up a videochat and anyone who they made the hangout available to can vir-tually drop by at any time for a cyber chill session. And so, socialnetworking takes yet another step closer to imitating real life. Prob-ably the best part of this feature is when you leave the video chatand Google posts to your circles’ feeds in bold: “John Doe hungout.”

For the record, yes, the “+1” is equivalent to the “like” button on Facebook,except that Google organizes your +1’s on your page, just in case you for-get what you plus’d at 3 a.m. aer you’ve been staring at your computerscreen for five hours straight. You know you have work in the morning, butwhat the hell, right? You miserable dog, you.

Pluses show up under posts in a way very similar to how “likes” do on Face-book, with a line of everyone who plus’d the post. It’s kind of annoying thatit’s called the “+1” button. I’ve recently been trying to incorporate the termas a verb into my vocabulary, and it’s even more annoying to say than talk-ing about something you liked on Facebook.

Compiled by

Vincent Barone

8

arts&entertainmentVol. XXXII, Issue 15 |Tuesday, July 12, 2011

The summer of comic book moviescontinues. Now 3/4 of the way through,and with DC Comics’ only contributionquietly on its way out of theaters, itmight be a good time to reflect on thestate of the comic book movie industryas a whole, while touching upon thevery average Green Lantern.

Ryan Reynolds’ classic humor isprevalent throughout, which may ormay not be a good thing if you enjoysmug one-liners that occasionally breakthe 4th wall. Reynolds plays RyanReynolds, but he also portrays Hal Jor-dan, ace pilot and douchebag. He ischosen as the bearer of the ring ofpower, and is tasked with taking it backto Mordor. He spends most of the filmas a talking head super-imposed on anunfortunate glowing costume with anequally terrible and ill-advised digitalmask. Joining him is a subdued BlakeLively as his love interest/fellow pilotCarol Ferris, in the continuing series ofactresses who are too pretty to actuallyhave their character’s jobs. (See: NataliePortman as an astrophysicist in Thor.)

The eternally snaggle-toothed MarkStrong plays a perfect Sinestro, as anygood comic book fan knows, the para-doxical ally destined to be GL’s greatestvillain. Unfortunately, he probably won’tbe able to portray his character as the

antagonist he rightfully deserves to be.With a low showing at the box-office, asequel is not guaranteed at this point.The film has only made $139,883,956foreign and domestic, as of July 8th, andwith a budget of $200 million, that’s a

bad combination if you want to followthe ice-cold romance of Jordan and Fer-ris any further.

From the first scene, the film re-peatedly forces you to question howmuch effort was put into the special ef-

Green Lantern Was...A MovieBy Mark Greek

The Stony Brook Press 9Arts & Entertainment

fects. The $200 million must have beenstashed away to buy another IMAXcamera for the upcoming Dark KnightRises, because it definitely wasn’t putinto GL. The quality of the effects variesfrom decent to pretty bad. Fans of sim-ilar films should be able to recognize thecheesy, rubberlike movements typical ofCG figures with human heads, namelyCrispin Glover’s Stayne character fromTim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. Andmuch like that debatable travesty, thereis an annoying villain with a giant head;although this one is done with practicalmakeup. Hector Hammond (Peter Sars-gaard), a faithfully recreated villainfrom the original comic, becomes in-creasingly disgusting as time goes on,and his transformation is one of the fewthings done well. Sinestro’s purple faceis also practical, and a highlight of theFX in the film. Despite successes likeAvatar and A Christmas Carol, we mightnot be at the point where computer gen-erated graphics can beat good old-fash-ioned latex and corn syrup, (with a littlebit of digital cleanup of course).

It’s certainly not a ChristopherNolan epic, but Green Lantern accom-plished the modest goal it set for itself:Taking a lesser-known DC characterand making an acceptable film. Havingsaid that, DC has to work on its consis-tency. Superman Returns failed criticallywith a major character and (at least boxoffice-wise) GL doesn’t look like it’s

going to challenge The Dark Knight any-time soon. But Batman is the mosthuman of any hero this side of the Pun-isher, therefore his world was easier toreplicate in a believable way. Marvel’sSpider-Man was successful in this re-gard, keeping a naturally human char-acter in a rich and realisticenvironment. Green Lantern’s gaudypower is limited only by his imagina-tion, and giant translucent green objectsare not easy to ground in reality. Direc-tor Martin Campbell does a decent jobof creating a decent universe for this tooccur in, by basically limiting humaninteraction in the film to Jordan, Ferrisand Jordan’s nerdy friend who doesn’thave enough screen time to even de-serve a name credit. The characteriza-tion is shallow, and the ever-present“son trying to live up to his father’s rep-utation” archetype is not employed inany refreshing or original way.

It succeeds in being adequate, andwon’t challenge the stranglehold thatMarvel has had in the film industrysince X-Men re-established it in 2000.Comic book movies had been on adownward spiral, typified by awful se-quels like Batman and Robin and Su-perman IV The Quest for Peace (Yes, TheThird Movie Had Richard Pryor In ItAnd Wasn’t The Last One, We Under-stand How Depressing That Is). Marvelbrought it back with a substantial set ofreleases that bookend any decent con-

tributions from DC (Pretty much ex-clusively The Dark Knight). After excel-lent releases like Thor and X-Men FirstClass, Green Lantern has failed conclu-sively to make a dent in the one-sidedindustry this summer. And with Cap-tain America: The First Avenger ready tomop up come July 22, Marvel has hand-edly whipped their “DistinguishedCompetitors” again.

The Dark Knight is the exception,not the rule, and if DC ever hopes to re-claim the widespread success that haseluded them for so long, they have tofollow its example: humanize the maincharacter, give him flaws and make themovie more about the environmentthan the character himself. GreenLantern was wholly spent establishing

his origin, and it may have been diffi-cult to shy away from the cocky, screen-hogging, A-hole character thatReynolds portrays effortlessly, but theworld around Hal Jordan seemed emptyand lifeless. Batman basically had acameo in the second Nolan film, whichallowed a strong villain like The Jokerto come to the forefront and steal theshow. If by some miracle the Guardiansof the Green Lantern Corps. use theiralmighty Oan energy to interfere andget this a sequel, hopefully these faultscan be rectified. But, much like theprospect of The Flash movie beinggreenlit now, it’s probably not going tohappen.

10 Vol. XXXII, Issue 15 |Tuesday, July 12, 2011Arts&Entertainment

Michael Bay’s Transformers: DarkOf The Moon gets right down to busi-ness after the title shot, opening withthe sultry legs of Carley Spencer (RosieHuntington-Whiteley) as she climbs upto her room, where her new boyfriendSam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) awaits,scantily clad in her panties and his over-sized dress shirt.

I see you, Bay. What better way isthere to make us forget about MeganFox than hiring a talented actre—er,Victoria’s Secret model?

As all the teenage boys in the the-ater ogle Bay’s new eye candy, we learnthat Witwicky, after saving the worldfrom utter robo-domination twice, ishaving difficulty finding a job, which isquite amazing. After several miserableinterviews, however, Witwicky doesmanage to snag a position in a mail-room. So with the world as his debtor,we have our hero working a positionequivalent to a job at Chuck E. Cheese’s.Right.

Fifteen minutes in and I alreadywanted to cry. The next 140 were just aspainful. The characters spoke only inclichés; the leading couple (LeBeouf andWhiteley) was as dull as it gets. One ofthe giant Decepticons could havethrown Whiteley into orbit and therewould have been nothing to make theaudience care for her character at all.LaBeouf ’s bouts of rage, which werezany and sort of endearing in the firstfilm, are now just tired and annoying.

One of the biggest problems withthe Transformers series is the difficultyto relate or feel for any of the Autobots.With their hulking 30-story frames andlack of any kind of facial expressions, Ijust cannot find it in me to care for theCybertronian race. Just the fact thatBumblebee doesn’t have a voice of hisown fails to make him endearing—evenwith that sick paint job.

Speaking of sick paint jobs, Trans-formers teetered on the lines of a Fastand the Furious movie—cars, chicks, ex-plosions and an absolutely asinine plot.In fact, Whiteley’s boss actually uses hisexpensive car’s looks as a metaphor forher hotness in one scene. It’s pretty

bizarre, actually.It’s also peculiar that the Decipti-

cons chose Chicago, of all places, as thenexus for their world takeover. WhyChicago? Maybe that’s the reason whyWitwicky and a handful of his gung-homilitary pals were the only people thateven tried to prevent the end of thehuman race. Where was the full-on U.S.military assault? Suffice it to say thatnobody cares about Chicago, which, Iassume, is why the Decepticons’ plotwasn’t taken seriously by the rest of theworld—let alone the United States.Sorry guys, you should have gone forNew York or Paris.

In all, the completely dreadful dia-

log and mangled plot made the two-and-a-half-hour long movie seem like itlasted for days, hitting every cliché be-fore the curtains closed.

Still, despite these gripes, themovie’s over-the-top special effectshelped rake in $37.315 million on open-ing day and, 9 days later, it became thefastest film to reach $500 million mark.

Okay, so Bay’s recipe for a box of-fice hit—1) hot girl, 2) neat effects, 3)action scene, 4) another action scene, 5)repeat—works again. Humph. But, hon-estly, how many more car-to-giant-robot transformation scenes do peoplereally want to see?

Michael Bay...Still Making Money Somehow

By Vincent Barone

11 Vol. XXXII, Issue 15 |Tuesday, July 12, 2011Comics!

IT’S SUMMER!

Eat Some Hotdogs

By Vincent Barone

12 Vol. XXXII, Issue 15 |Tuesday, July 12, 2011Arts & Entertainment

Imagine your favorite teacher fromseventh grade, if you had one, and thinkabout the reasons why you liked them.Were they great because they guidedyou so well in the pursuit of knowledge?Are the sole reason you attend collegetoday? Well, then you never had Eliza-beth Halsey.

In this summer’s Bad Teacher,Cameron Diaz plays a foul-mouthedmiddle school teacher who doesn’t careabout anything except snagging a richhusband. However, after gettingdumped by her fiancé, Elizabethswitches gears and starts raising moneyto get a boob job, all while trying to woothe wealthy new teacher in school, ScottDelacorte (Justin Timberlake), fightingoff the advances of the poor but en-dearing gym teacher Russell (JasonSegel), and eventually trying to beat outmain competitor Amy Squirrel (LucyPunch) for a nearly $6,000 bonus forachieving the highest scores on statetests, money that Elizabeth is not onlycertain will pay for her surgery, but willwin her Scott as well.

The movie has both high and lowpoints, but overall it allows the audiencethe chance to laugh. It’s refreshing to seeDiaz in a role that allows her to be a lit-tle bit less wholesome (actually a lot lesswholesome), and more bad-ass in anon-Charlie’s Angels kind of way. Hermethods of teaching, which includethrowing her students in front of amovie so she can sleep off hangovers,taking sips from her secret mini-bottlesof booze and getting high, are unbeliev-able, but still funny because they’re so

unexpected. Likewise, when she startsgetting serious about her job, she’s stillunorthodox, either smacking the kidswith dodge balls when they answerquestions wrong, calling them incom-petent morons or telling them straightup that they’re losers.

Elizabeth’s fellow teachers in Segeland Punch are also great to watch.While Russell is still that sweet and en-dearing schmuck that Segel tends toplay in most movies, he too exhibits badbehavior, and has a fondness for drugs.

Amy is the overly-enthusiastic teacherwho thrives at being number one, butwhen she starts to feel herself lose con-trol, she also begins to cross over to thedark side in hopes of exposing Elizabethas the fake she is.

Sadly, the same cannot be entirelysaid for Timberlake’s Scott. His charac-ter is still a child in a lot of ways, whichmakes him funny, but Timberlake does-n’t do much with his role. Humor, atleast the raunchy kind that is prevalentin movies like this, doesn’t seem to behis forté, and he pales in comparison tohis co-stars. The film also suffers a littlebit from some excess humor. When acomedy turns up the raunchy comedyfactor with sexual references and druguse, things like bathroom humor tendto not only detract from an otherwisefunny script, but destroy the movie’sotherwise decent flow.

Overall, the film is definitely one ofthe better ones to see this summer, be-cause it does make its audience laugh,which is its basic job, but also becauseit allows us all to think back and wonderif this is really what our teachers (andmaybe professors?) are like behind ourbacks. If that’s so, it’ll be difficult to everthink of them the same way again.

She Really is a Bad TeacherBy Lauren DuBois

The Stony Brook Press 13Arts & Entertainment

I don’t pretend to know a lot aboutmusic. Sure, I’ve been awkwardly shuf-fling back and forth on stage in a smat-tering of bands since my teenage years,holding instruments as cool as the gui-tar and as lame as the trombone. How-ever, my more musically-inclinedfriends would tell me that my taste inmusic stems from my inability toprocess and understand “good music.”This, perhaps, is why I’ve spent most ofmy life listening to 20-somethings yellabout their ex-girlfriends and drugabuse in a genre known today as “punk.”With this in mind, take it with a grainof salt when I say that on a recent tripto the Looney Tunes record store, Istumbled across possibly one of thegreatest musical accomplishments of2011.

As I casually flipped through thenew arrivals to the used CD section,one disc in particular caught my atten-tion. On the cover was a crudely-drawnblack and white image of a man withparts of his face melting off, standingamongst a pile of garbage. On the sidewas indecipherable scribbling that ap-peared to be kanji, the Japanese lan-guage’s writing system. The back coverwas just as good, featuring a 25-songtrack list with titles like “No One Givesa Shit,” “Semiconscious Godsize Dumb-ass” and a price tag which read ‘3.99’.There was no force on earth that would

keep me from leaving thestore without this.

When it came time tocheck out, my good friendDan behind the counter ex-claimed “So, you’re buyingthe new Wormrot album?”“The new what?” I replied.He took the disc from myhands and turned it on itsside, at which point the for-merly unreadable characterssolved itself like a templetrap in an Indiana Jonesmovie, vaguely spelling outthe name “Wormrot.” “Yeah,Japanese grindcore,” he toldme. For those unfamiliar,grindcore is what happenswhen thrash metal bandsdecide they’re not fastenough and too melodic (Iwould later discover thatWormrot hails from Singa-pore, if anyone cares).

When I got back to my car, I imme-diately popped Dirge into my stereo.The first track is a subtle introductionto the mayhem that is sure to ensue,with long, ringing chords from an in-credibly detuned guitar (so detuned, infact, that there is no need for bass guitarin this three-piece band). The tracksthat follow are full of the grindcoretropes we know and love, includingridiculously fast blast beats, ear-splittingpig squeals, and brutally heavy guitarwork. Honestly, I’m not even sure howto talk about it, as it would have taken a

keen eye on my car’s dashboard to beable to tell when each track actuallychanged. One minute, you’re looking attrack three, and before you know it,you’re on track seven, with only the mi-nutest changes in chord patterns, drumbeats, and incomprehensible screamingto discern one song from the next.However, after a few listens it becomeseasier to distinguish each track, and aglance at the laughably bad lyrics book-let (yes, there are actual, English lyrics)can help identify the songs.

So what is there left to say about an

album I bought as a joke for four dol-lars to annoy my girlfriend? It’s almostscary to admit, but I’m really starting tolike it. I’m not sure if it’s the intensescreaming, balls-in-your-throat speed,or sheer novelty of listening to it, butDirge was most certainly worth thepocket change I paid for it.

(Note – You can head over to Ear-ache Records’ website and downloadthis whole album for free athttp://www.earache.com/misc/down-loads/wormrot/. I highly recommendit.)

Accidental GrindcoreBy Kenny Mahoney

LMFAO’s new album Sorry forParty Rocking, which features their sin-gle “Party Rock Anthem,” continues toproduce ridiculous songs that are socatchy that you will find yourself “shuf-fling” at your next summer pool party.The duo from Los Angeles, Redfoo andSky Blu, show off their hip-hop andelectro skills in their second studioalbum.

Sorry for Party Rocking includesfeatured artists and DJs. For example,the bonus track “Reminds Me of You”features Calvin Harris and a vocal remix

of his song “Awooga.” (Although CalvinHarris’s original “Awooga” wins the su-perior award.) There is a bonus track to

“Party Rock Anthem” thatis remixed by Benny Be-nassi, which is definitelybetter than the original,mostly because I have apersonal bias for Benassi,but also because the remixhides some of the popsound. LMFAO calibrateswith Busta Rhymes, show-casing their rhyming skills,which resemble the BeastieBoys in “Take it to theHole.”

Like their first albumParty Rock, this album dis-

plays a continuous theme of partyingand drinking, including a song about

women showering with champagneafter partying “in da club awll night”—see “Champagne Shower.” A new themeon this album, however, is LMFAO rap-ping about hot dogs as a late night“disco food.”

Party Rock was a good kick-off toLMFAO’s career, and it led to Hip HopNation and Grammy nominations. ButSorry for Party Rocking shows more oftheir personal sounds and creativeskills, which is refreshing because thebiggest news surrounding LMFAO rightnow is that they’re assisting the one andonly Kanye West with his upcomingsolo album. But if Mr. West trusts them,this may just be the beginning for theLA-based duo.

LMFA-No Aren’t SorryBy Siobhan Cassidy

14

opinionVol. XXXII, Issue 15 |Tuesday, July 12, 2011

At around1:45 in the after-noon on July 5, Isat in my livingroom in front ofthe television,tuned in to CNN.The weather wasbeautiful, and Ivery well could

have been outside enjoying it. But in-stead, I had my eyes glued to the screenas I waited anxiously for the verdict ofCasey Anthony’s trial to be announced.

My heart was pounding with antic-ipation, and slight excitement, duringthe moments right before the court an-nounced Anthony’s fate. I knew for surethat she was finally going to be con-victed for the murder of her daughter,and justice would be served for littleCaylee.

Then, the verdict was read: An-thony was found not guilty.

My jaw literally dropped. How inthe world could that jury acquit her?Lack of scientific evidence aside, it’svery clear Anthony murdered herdaughter. Not reporting Caylee missingright away, constantly telling her par-ents she was with a nanny, and then outof nowhere saying she hadn’t seen herfor 31 days…Anthony likely murderedher daughter, and she must havethought not reporting the death wouldsteer her clear of becoming a suspect.

As a woman who would like to be amother someday, I don’t believe An-thony’s behavior over the last threeyears exhibited that of an innocentwoman wrongfully accused of murder-

ing her child. If she was innocent,wouldn’t she be concerned with findingout who really murdered her daughter?Why did her mother, Cindy Anthony,have to report Caylee missing? Would-n’t Anthony herself have reported hermissing within a few hours and thenmourned Caylee’s death instead of par-tying and getting “Bella Vita” tattooedon her shoulder?

Sure, she made an effort to accuse awoman named Zenaida“Zanny” Fernandez-Gonza-lez, a supposed nanny, ofkidnapping Caylee, but thataccusation fell through be-cause it was determinedthat Fernandez-Gonzalezhad never met Anthony orCaylee. Accusing a womanwho never had any contactwhatsoever with her daugh-ter is rather careless in myeyes, especially if she wastrying to avoid beingcaught, but she might havejust been paranoid andtried to avert attention awayfrom herself.

Although the evidencein Anthony’s trial was testedwith ground-breaking sci-entific methods, Caylee’s

decomposed remains and the singlestrand of hair found at the crime scenewere not able to determine a cause ofdeath or turn up any sort of DNA toprove that Anthony killed her.

Even though the jury found An-thony not guilty, I do believe that manyof the jurors, if not all of them, did notthink she was innocent. In fact, I believethat if Anthony was to be sentenced tolife in prison rather than death by lethalinjection, she would have been foundguilty. Because there was reasonabledoubt, and the fact that the deathpenalty is a controversial issue, I thinkthe jury in this trial did not want to beheld responsible for the wrongful exe-cution of Anthony if it was found some-time in the future that she was innocent.

Alan M. Dershowitz, a law profes-sor at Harvard, makes a valid point inan article he wrote for the Wall StreetJournal about the trial’s verdict. Der-showitz wrote that while Anthony wasfound not guilty that does not mean shewas found innocent, as many people as-sumed right away. Instead, the verdictsimply means there was not enough ev-idence to prove her guilty at this time.

“… [A] criminal trial does notsearch for truth,” Dershowitz wrote.“Scientists search for truth. Philoso-phers search for morality. A criminal

trial searches for only one result: proofbeyond reasonable doubt … The verdictin the Casey Anthony case reflected thelack of forensic evidence and heavy re-liance on circumstantial inferences.”

Although the verdict is decided, Ithink Anthony’s case is far from over. Ibelieve, and hope, new scientific evi-dence will turn up that will prove An-thony guilty in the murder of herdaughter. From this point on, Anthony’slife will never be the same. This case willcome back to haunt her in many ways,and the public will surely never forgetit, just like it hasn’t forgotten the O.J.Simpson trial.

The whole country knows that evenif Anthony didn’t murder her daughterwith her own hands, she definitely hadsome kind of involvement with it, evi-denced by the civil defamation case nowunderway concerning the kidnappingnanny Anthony invented to mask thedisappearance of her child. For the sakeof little Caylee, we can only hope thatone day more truth will surface and An-thony, although protected in criminalcourt through the constitutional rightDouble Jeopardy, will at least be con-victed of taking the life of an innocentyoung girl in the minds of the countlessAmericans who were emotionally in-vested in this case.

Casey Closed

Alyssa Melillo

The Stony Brook Press 15Opinion

It was thespring of 2011—the flowers wereblossoming, StonyBrook was doingrenovations so in-coming freshmandon’t immediatelythink the school isugly and I was on

commutting at the time. Even though Ilive about two and a half hours awayfrom school by train, I didn’t let that bea deterrent to living as comfortably andluxuriously as I could at a fraction of theprice.

However, I didn’t accomplis this bycouch surfing at all my friends’ placesbefore they kicked me out.

There is a storage facility called ASpace Place Storage in Centereach at 21Hammond Road that is a bike ride awayfrom campus. At the time I wasn’t surehow many miles it was away from cam-pus: maybe four or five. But I was sureit’s a bike ride’s distance because that’show I got there (Google maps now tellsme it’s about six miles away).

What inspired me to use the facil-ity was an article I had read when I wasyounger about an NYU student livingin the library for a few years beforebeing kicked out. Now, I’m no drifter,but the idea of living without limits andbeating the system has always been ap-pealing to me.

Once I passed by the storage facilityon a bike ride to the mall, ideas startingflashing through my head and I could-n’t resist stopping in and asking somequestions at the front desk. After a

friendly negotiation, I got a chance tolook at a 5x5 storage unit…I mean a 5x5chill place.

At first, I was a little shy about usingthe space for what I truly wanted be-cause as much as I think being a drifteris cool, I didn’t want locals to think Iwas a vagabond. So I left some stuff likea Nintendo 64, some crates of clothes,just some conservative stuff. Once Istarted getting more comfortable with

the space, I started thinking bigger.Entrenched in my newly-found,

grandiose property, I started leavingbottles of water and packs of snacks. Ina way, I turned a storage unit into ahalfway house. On one exhausting bikeride to the mall, I had to make a pit stopfor a bike pump and a Gatorade becauseI got a flat tire and I was thirsty. Then, Istarted not bringing my book baghome, leaving some books in storage

and some at home.My back thanked me,

and whenever I dropped mybooks off at the facility, asnack or two became myhabitual pleasure. It was re-ally everything you have athome – clothes, food andcomfort, minus the bed. I’venever heard of a house youcan’t sleep in, so I wouldn’tcall it that. It was more like ahybrid between a locker anda home.

Now, I can see how thiswould not appeal to every-one and might not evenqualify as a positive experi-ence. However, the point isthat you can get inspiredenthusiasm and apparentconvenience out of any-

thing. All it takes is a little creativity.We all know Stony Brook is a com-

muter’s school and if you aren’t gettingscholarships, I know exactly how costlyit can be in this economy. So don’t stress- try to cut a few corners and make yourown niche. Long island isn’t for every-one. You don’t have to do it as cool as Ido, but pick and choose the way youwant to customize your living experi-ence.

If you find that the spray-on tans,excessive amounts of diners, the lovelyghost town of a campus that is StonyBrook on the weekends and Long Islandaccents too overbearing, stay at homeeven if you live more than an hour away.

If you live in one of Stony Brook’scramped dorms, you can still find greatuse in a facility like the one I found.And it helps so much more if you don’twant to carry stuff in between homeand school. Come on, who needs totake that college fridge all the way backevery semester ?

*Note: don’t try to sleep in a storageunit. A lot of units are airtight. I alsodon’t recommend anyone actively live ina unit either.

One Man’s Space Is Another Man’s Home

Alexander Niculescu