2 Vol.
XXIX, Issue 8 | Wednesday, February 13, 2008
news
Blackjacked
By Najib Aminy
The reflective lettering of RSP was
seen through the night, the dim blue
lights radiated every so hundred feet,
and the giant construction sign re-
minding students to keep their doors
locked. All of these are efforts aimed to-
ward maintaining security here at Stony
Brook University. Yet even with the
presence of patrol cars, the feeling of
safety and security on campus has been
shattered by a series of worrying inci-
dents, including those of last Monday
night. On February 9, a group of stu-
dents had their poker party crashed
around 1 a.m. and held up by two un-
known individuals at Eisenhower Col-
lege in Kelly Quad.
For Loretta Levin, a sophomore
from New Hyde Park, a night of hang-
ing out with friends and having a good
time quickly turned sour as the un-
locked door to the suite was opened “by
a tall dark man with a big jacket wearing
a ski mask.” Immediately after intrud-
ing into the room, the individual turned
off the lights and demanded money. Ini-
tially, the intrusion was met with laugh-
ter as the occupants of the room
thought little of the situation. The
laughter soon ceased as the individual
pulled out what appeared to Levin as a
gun. “One of the guys in the room said
that gun was not real and was a CO2
gun, so the intruder pistol whipped him
in the face.” A CO2 gun is bee-bee gun
with an orange tip, to signify its inau-
thenticity. A removal of the orange tip
is a violation of federal law.
As the demands for money went
unanswered and unresolved, the sus-
pect became more agitated with every
passing second. When one of the resi-
dents who happened to be in the room
opened his door to see what was going
on, the suspect told him to get back into
his room and close the door. It was then
that Levin noticed that there was an-
other individual in the room and who
had a light brown complexion was
standing by the suite entrance door. Re-
alizing that there was no money to be
taken, the suspect wielding the alleged
weapon flipped the poker table over,
took off his ski mask and walked out of
the building with his accomplice.
Levin said that there were two
women and five men in the common
room of the suite, one suitemate in his
room, and two women and one man on
the balcony of the suite. Being that the
blinds were not completely closed, the
students on the balcony leaped off and
ran to the RSP station to describe what
Upcoming Campus Events
Singles Awareness Day
February 14th, Everywhere.
they had just witnessed. In addition,
Resident Assistant Maui Ralte had
grown suspicious that something was
not right after she noticed a propped
door. After she closed the door and
went in to check what was going on in
the room, she noticed the two individu-
als walk out of the door and head out-
Dwight Eisenhower is a dead president, meaning that heʼs bigger than hip hop.
side.
Christian Beauchamp, one of the
three students on the balcony, had seen
the two intruders scatter into the woods
as they waited for what Levin said was a
black Mercedes. After the intruders left,
Levin and her group of friends waited
for nearly three hours until around 4
a.m. for detectives to arrive. Levin did
say that the police response was quick,
in that as soon as she left the room and
went down the hall, she saw police pres-
ence. Overall, nothing was stolen, and
no injuries were sustained that needed
medical attention.
“We were lucky that it was a fake
gun, you never know, the second guy
wasn’t involved and no one was really
hurt,” says Levin about the whole situa-
tion. Ashley Boston, a freshman from
Forest Hills who lived on the same floor
of Eisenhower, says she was told by RSP
to go back into her room and to lock her
door as she was on the phone. “I was
freaking out, me and my roommate
were just thinking about why we would
have to lock the doors, we thought
someone was raped or something, be
we didn’t think armed robbery. We
couldn’t fall asleep until like 4:30 be-
cause we were scared,” says Boston.
Levin mentions that security can defi-
nitely be improved, mentioning how the
RSP at entrances do little to check in
students as well as how there are no eye-
holes for the doors in the suites. In
terms of the RSP desk, Boston says that
“they should do a better job. I feel like
some of them just sit there and anyone
could walk in the building. But to be
honest there are a lot of different ways
into Eisenhower, where there isn’t RSP,
Najib Aminy
so anyone could come in.”
In addition to the problems with se-
curity, there is concern over how stu-
dents were informed of the situation. It
was not until the next morning that stu-
dents received an email from Chief of
Police, Richard Young, stating that there
was an attempted robbery in which
there are strong leads. However, for stu-
dents in the building around that time,
If you see something, then call The Stony Brook Press so we can get lots of news leads.
there was much confusion about what
was going on. Boston felt it was impor-
tant to tell students. “I didn’t know any-
thing was going on in my building, and
I could have been walking around or
something, and that is scary.” Levin
agrees and is surprised that the text
message system that was used earlier in
the year for a gas leak was not enforced.
“We did get a lot of text messages about
the gas leak, but nothing about the inci-
dent. I feel that lack of informing stu-
dents was a bad idea, especially being
that it was about student’s safety,” says
Levin.
Assistant Chief of Police Doug Lit-
tle was unavailable for comment, but
according Chief of Police\ Richard
Young, “we already have a comprehen-
sive on-campus security system in
place, including card-access-controlled
doors and electronic monitoring of ex-
terior doors in the Residence Halls,
video cameras, and safety patrols. We
have also increased the number of pa-
trols during nighttime and early morn-
ing hours.” However despite the
electronic doors, “one can simply wait
for someone to walk in the building,
rather knock as someone is passing by,”
says Levin.
Young adds that “the safety and
welfare of our students is our foremost
concern.” However the officials’ con-
cerns seem inadequate when incidents
endangering students’ security repeat-
edly occur. One is left to wonder what
it will take to bring serious change and
improvement in the protection of stu-
dents at Stony Brook.
Najib Aminy
The Stony Brook Press News 3
Greg: “Billy Zane, you know, he played the bad guy in Titanic.” Rob: Billy Zane was the iceberg?”

Novosti-Kratochki
young republicans, and esteemed guests, including Mrs. Cheney.
Compiled by Alex Berkman and Laura Cooper, Best Friends The former governor who is characterized as the “conservative’s conser-
vative,” spoke to the crowd about his plans for the future- including his plan to
make the Bush tax cuts permanent, and his vow to protect the sanctity of human
Crime Continues on Campus life. However, towards the end of the speech, Romney shocked the crowd of
The Seawolves Marketplace was robbed at knife-point early last week. The well-wishers when he said that he would step aside to “unite the party” behind
incident was kept low-key as no information was released to campus media. No Sen. John McCain.
information was released during the press conference about the robbery in Eisen- McCain, described by one Fairfield College student as “a liberal, who
hower College. Investigation into the matter continues. wants to give amnesty to immigrants and take away from our moral and ethical
Rock Out with your Rooster Out values,” is highly disliked among conservative activists. Though the Arizonian
Get ready to rock or cry (you emo fools). The Student Activities Board is host- senator gained more delegates than Romney, he is most often seen as a moderate
ing the Stony Brook Battle of the Bands on Friday Feb. 15 at 8 p.m. in the SAC Au- republican and to those with concrete views on how conservatism should be- is
ditorium. Leather and mohawks are optional. an imposter in the Republican Party.
Stop Making Sense, Smashing Success “I don’t think McCain can carry on the traditions of the Republican
Party,” said Nathan Shapiro- a College Republican from Stony Brook University.
Features Editor Jon Singer held his second bi-annual viewing party of the Talk-
These thoughts inspired
ing Heads’ film Stop Making Sense on Thursday, Feb. 7. The film was preceded by
groups of conservatives to create
the newest episode of Lost and ended with a hearty goodbye and plans for next
makeshift signs out of cardboard stat-
time. Please join all of us as we enjoy a viewing of the other Talking Heads’ film,
ing “Republicans against McCain.”
True Stories before the end of the semester.
Their presence sparked quite a bit of
Romney Withdraws, Conser vatives Up in Arms. friction between Republicans who be-
Five hundred conservative activists packed the Omni-Shoreham hotel in lieve in McCain’s candidacy, and those
Washington D.C. this past weekend. Students from all 50 states crammed into who would vote for Hillary Clinton
reception halls, and woke up earlier than the sun rises to hear conservative au- over McCain.
thors, politicians, and most notably, the president, vice president- as well as the Yet, for some, McCain is their
republican party presidential nominees for the upcoming 2008 election. All four choice, “I’ve supported McCain for
remaining nominees addressed the crowd, however, at the beginning of the con- nine years,” said Stony Brook Univer-
vention it was clear that one candidate had the majority of support- former sity freshman Jonathan Pu, while
Mass. Governor, Mitt Romney. wearing his McCain 2008 shirt he re-
“He’s the true conservative,” John, a student from Texas A & M Univer- ceived at the event, “its time to reach
sity said. across the aisle and make this country
This notion was mimicked by conservative author, Laura Ingram, who work.”
introduced the governor as just that, to a crowd of screaming, sign wielding

Abbiamo Vinto! In a victory for opera fans every- the Met, Peter Gelb, stated his desires to turn college students into opera lovers.
By Alex H. Nagler where, the Staller Center was chosen as a “By sending our live HD transmissions directly into performing arts centers and
new venue for the Metropolitan Opera universities, we are creating Metropolitan Opera satellites throughout our na-
Company’s Live HD broadcasts. Met tion. This is a central part of our initiative to keep opera alive and vibrant in the
Opera Live in HD is broadcast on the Main Stage, having had its initial run with 21st Century.”
Giuseppi Verdi’s “Macbeth” on January 12 as the opera unfolded live 60 miles The schedule of remaining operas is as follows:
away at Lincoln Center. In a released press statement, the General Manager of An encore performance of “Manon Lescaut” by Giacomo Puccini will
be on March 8 at 1 p.m. “Peter Grimes,” Benjamin Britten’s opera of a man
driven to take his own life by fate and society, will be on March 15 at 1:30 p.m.
“Tristan and Isolde,” by Richard Wagneris on March 22 at 12:30 p.m. Rent fans
rejoice as Puccini’s “La Bohème” comes to Staller on April 5 at 1:30 p.m., fi-
nally settling the fact that Mimi should die at the end. The season wraps up with
an encore performance of “La Fille Du Regiment” by Gaetano Donizetti on
May 3 at 1:00 p.m.
Tickets are $15 for students and worth every penny.

Alex H. Nagler e Si, pel ciel marmoreo giuro!

Adina is cute, Adina is

hot. But interested in
me? She is not. -Chris
 4 Vol. XXIX, Issue 8 | Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Editorial Board
Executive Editor
editorials
Bryan Hasho
Managing Editor
The Stony Brook Press Endorses Baraka
James Laudano
Associate Editor
For Democratic Nomination
Alex H. Nagler
bloodthirsty, blade-wielding mutant can Well, without giving away too much, the
Business Manager
Adina Silverbush We here at The Stony Brook Press bring. answer is a resounding “Yes!”
pride ourselves on having some of the As a former servant of the Emperor As someone who has experienced
Production Manager most informed and politically-con- of Outworld, Shao Kahn, Baraka was nothing but violence for the past sixteen
Jesse Schoepfer
scious readers on campus. You have, ideally placed to learn the nuances of years, it’s safe to say that Baraka would
News Editors undoubtedly, heard of this whole “pres- running the most powerful realm/na- be eager to strive towards world peace
Najib Aminy
Alex Berkman idential election” that’s been in the news tion in the world. Baraka has also so that he could finally just sit down and
of late. It is just as sure that you have worked together with the necromancers relax. And if the evil terrorists didn’t co-
Features Editor seen other publications throw their sup- Shinnok and Quan Chi, both sworn en- operate, Baraka would simply decapi-
Jonathan Singer
port behind certain candidates. For ex- emies of Shao Kahn, displaying his in- tate them with his “blade fury head
Arts Editor ample, The Stony Brook Statesman and nate ability to cross the political divide, swipe” move. And once that was done,
Andrew Fraley
The New York Post have each thrown display true bipartisanship, and appeal and the extra money saved from ending
Photo Editors their support behind Senators Barack to all manner of Americans, something the war was available, what would come
John ‘Caboose’ O’Dell Obama and John McCain. Well, not to most candidates can only dream of next? Healthcare, naturally. What about
Roman Sheydvasser
be outdone by such prestigious publica- achieving. immigration? Well, as a hideous freak
Copy Editors tion, we here at The Press have also de- At the close of Mortal Kombat: Ar- mutant, Baraka knows what it’s like to
Nick Eaton
Katie Knowlton cided to throw our considerable support mageddon, Baraka’s strength grows to be shunned and unwelcome where he
into this greatest of political battles. almost god-like prowess, and he crowns goes. That’s why he would greatly ex-
Webmaster For the Democratic nomination, himself Emperor of Outworld after a pand the measures for illegal immi-
Chris Williams
The Press supports Baraka. Baraka, a bloody coup d’etat. We realize this vio- grants, individuals normally shunned
Audiomaster member of the nomadic race of mutants lent tendency plays contrary to many and outcast like himself, to become
Vincent Michael Festa known only as Tarkata, is most famous Democratic voter’s hearts. We also re- naturalized citizens.
Ombudsman for his numerous appearances in the alize that there are many pressing ques- So, come November, vote Baraka
Sam Goldman popular video game series Mortal Kom- tions you must be asking yourself right for a better, safer, and wealthier Amer-
bat. With his trademark sword arms now, questions such as: Would a violent ica. Either that, or lose your head to his
and sharp-toothed grin, Baraka brought Tarkata such as Baraka be eager to end psychotic Tarkata army from Outworld.
a badass, “kill-you-if-you-mess-with- the war in Iraq? Would he expand
Minister of Archives
Alex Walsh me” attitude to the series that only a healthcare? Could he fix the economy?
Distribution Manager
David K. Ginn
Layout Design by

Staff
Jowy Romano

Kotei Aoki Karl Von Lemonfucker, Esq.

Ross Barkan Newsy McRealperson
Shaun Bennett Cat Lund
Andrew Bernstein Tia Mansouri
Sze Chun Chan Mariana Martins
Whiskers T. Clown Leeza Menon
Jessica Cordero James Messina
Caroline D’Agati Jamie Mignone
Alisha D’Andrea Steve McLinden
Joe Donato Dana Murray
Michael Felder Rob Pearsall
Joe Filippazzo Jon Pu
Amelia Fischer Nirmala Ramsaran
Jamie Freiermuth Kristine Renigen
Ilyssa Fuchs Berta Rezik
Rob Gilheany Dave Robin
Joanna Goodman Joe Safdia
Stephanie Hayes Natalie Schultz
Marta Gyvel Scott Silsbe
Mo Ibrahim Rose Slupski
Elizabeth Kaplan Amberly Timperio
Alexander Kahn Lena Tumasyan
Olga Kaplun Ben Van Overmeire
Jack Katsman Marcel Votlucka
Shirley Strum Kenny Brian Wasser
Antony Lin Matt Willemain
Cindy Liu Ed Zadorozny

The Stony Brook Press is published fortnightly during

the academic year and twice during summer session
by The Stony Brook Press, a student run non-profit or-
ganization funded by the Student Activity Fee. The opin-
ions expressed in letters, articles and viewpoints do not
necessarily reflect those of The Stony Brook Press as a
whole. Advertising policy does not necessarily reflect
editorial policy. For more information on advertising and
deadlines call (631)632-6451. Staff meetings are held
Wednesdays at 1:00 pm. First copy free. For additional
copies contact the Business Manager.
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Baraka: The Unifier, The Decapitator
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Email: sbpress@gmail.com
The Stony Brook Press
editorials
The Stony Brook Press Endorses Kaine For Republican Nomination
In these dangerous times, our
country needs a leader who has the
foresight to guide America through
the tangled web of foreign threats
and domestic divisions. We need a
president with strength beyond that
of the common man. That is why
we believe that the ideal candidate
for the Republican nomination is
Kaine.
Like many Americans, Kaine is
an imperfect product of the
Jackal’s attempt to clone Spider-
Man. However, Kaine’s cellular
degeneration only served to am-
plify the powers he inherited from
the original Peter Parker. Kaine’s
enhanced Spider-Sense gives him
occasional premonitions. These vi-
sions of the future would provide a
Kaine administration with a reli-
able guide for decision-making. In
5
America-hating left-wing
pinkos have often criticized Presi-
dent Bush’s decision to invade
Iraq, challenging him to go fight
his own war. With nearly double
the proportionate strength, speed,
and agility of a spider, and a stick-
ing ability strong enough to scar
the flesh of those he touches, Presi-
dent Kaine effectively could fight
his own war. That is an option
Americans should always keep on
the table. What world leader would
resist America’s negotiating posi-
tions, knowing he has to give his
denial to the scarred and masked
face of a mentally unbalanced su-
perhuman killer?
In addition to his strength on
foreign policy, Kaine would uphold
conservative values in America. Marvel Comics
His frequent battles against the The only true future-seeing Conservative in the race.

November, Americans will face a Jackal and Ben Reilly (a successful

choice between a candidate who
can see the future and a candidate
who can’t see the future. The
choice is clear.
Spider-clone) show that he would
oppose federal funding of research
on human cloning, and his obses-
sive desire to protect his “brother”
Peter Parker, by any means neces-
sary, demonstrates the emphasis he
places on family values. Having
brutally murdered and disfigured
several enemies, he can be as-
sumed to favor the death penalty
for criminals.
Kaine: tough on crime, tough
on cloning, tough on non-future-
seers.

letters
Ha!
Good going in the recent editori-
als fending off that fucker who’s seen
“Zeitgeist” a hundred times. Con-
spiracy is a fool’s game, and it’s not
news. Nope, not since the Spanish-
American War, now it’s just policy.
Kudos!
Well, since you ask, I’m just
peachy. How’s about that drink you
owe me, The Press? No, I wasNOT
hitting on your sister that time, and
of course I still think you’re sexy, so
let’s just talk about it later, okay?
Baby?...
I love you, baby
Jamie Mignone

Dear Stony Brook Press,

everyone manages. As for some
other lingo, nothing is every “fig-
Greetings mates!
ured out” it’s always “sorted out”
England is great, lots of bloody
and my favorite phrase is “I can’t
drinking and fit women. Basically
be asked” which is basically the
if you don’t start drinking by 11
reply to doing anything which in-
am you will probably be called a
volves moving, i.e. “I want to go to
wanker or a twat, at least 3 times
the shop and get some food but I
before noon. On another note wel-
can’t be asked at the moment I’m
come to England where the
way too fucked.” Anyways, hope
weather sucks most of the time, it
all is well in the world of the Press.
rains almost everyday! But things
Miss you all. Ilyssa
couldn’t be better, the Brits love to
party and spend most of the week
PS. You owe me a t-shirt!! Size
drinking, I’m not sure how anyone
medium
gets work done but somehow
 6 News
“Food” For Thought
“Eat my sperm”
--Roman Dark Water
SB Student’s Vote In Super Tuesday Primaries
By Jake Conarck
Last Tuesday, Stony Brook students
joined their fellow New Yorkers in vot-
ing for their party’s respective nominees
for president.
Barack Obama convincingly won
the vote at Stony Brook’s on-campus
polling station, located in the SAC,
scooping up 239 of the 385 votes cast in
the Democratic primary, claiming 62%
of the total. Hillary Clinton won 136
votes, giving her 35% of the total vote.
John McCain won 20 of the 45 total
votes cast, or 44%, in the Republican
primary to handily win on the Republi-
can ticket.
Although the number of voters ap-
pears low, the turnout was decent for a
closed presidential primary. Under a
closed system, only registered members
of a party can vote for their nominee.
Overall turnout at Stony Brook was 430
out of 1,631 total eligible voters, or 26%.
In addition to the 430 votes cast, 125
students filed provisional ballots, claim-
20
Vol. XXIX, Issue 8 | Wednesday, February 13, 2008
ing they are eligible to vote, despite not
being on the Board of Elections voter
roll.
e New York Public Interest Re-
search Group launched a voter registra-
tion campaign last fall to ensure that
students had the chance to register for
a party and be able to vote in the pri-
mary.
“Our voter registration efforts have
paid off,” said Jonathan Green, project
coordinator for Stony Brook’s chapter of
NYPIRG. “Many of our student volun-
teers recognized students who we reg-
istered last fall out at the polls on Super
Tuesday.”
NYPIRG also headed up a “Get Out
e Vote Drive” on primary day, hand-
ing out Dum Dum lollipops with a note
that read, “Don’t be a dum dum, re-
member to vote.”
“e campus turnout and overall
energy on Tuesday was amazing,” said
Green. “e student body was remark-
ably receptive.”
Although Republicans turned out in
much smaller numbers than Democ-
rats, some did not appear too worried at
the vast difference in party turnout on
campus.
“It doesn’t surprise me,” said Erik
Schmalenberger, a registered Republi-
can. “Young people are usually liberal.”
Political science and psychology
professor Howard Lavine believes the
difference is due to geography, rather
than more a more general attitude
among young voters. “I think you’d
have a different result at the University
of Alabama.”
e youth vote is on the rise this
election. During the last presidential
primary in 2004, only 149 students
made it to the on-campus polling site.
Compared with those numbers, there
was triple the amount of votes on-cam-
pus in the Democratic primary this year
(there was no Republican primary in
2004).
Obama has been staying competi-
tive, relying on both independent vot-
ers and the increasing youth turnout tto
help him to victories in the early voting
states of Iowa and South Carolina as
well as winning the majority of Super
Tuesday voting states.
“Barack Obama is a candidate that’s
generating a lot of excitement,” said
Lavine. “Positive emotion is particu-
larly important in guiding attitude
change, elections are about attitude
change.”
Although Obama managed to win at
Stony Brook with a nearly two-to-one
margin, these results are a mirror re-
flection of how Suffolk County as a
whole voted, breaking nearly two-to-
one for Clinton.
“I just think she has the experience
necessary to run the country,” said Ste-
fan Josephs, a senior economics major.
“I also think she has a better chance to
win the general election.”
Although Clinton won New York by
about eighteen points, Obama won the
youth vote across the state by thirteen
points, according to e New York
Times.
“It’s very impressive that Obama got
so many youth out. He’s the only one
who’s been successful in doing that,”
said sophomore political science major
Aarti Sheth. “He did something right.”
The Stony Brook Press News 7
QUOTE: “But college is like Salem, all these bitches be so smokin.” —MC Chris

Lights Out!
By Nick Eaton
Broadcasters earn most of their prof-
its by selling advertising spots to compa-
nies. ey increase these profits by
boasting larger audiences, therefore in-
creasing demand for the spots and with it
the price of the advertisement. It is no
surprise that broadcasters will tune their
content to the eyes and ears of the public.
at old adage; “if it bleeds, it leads,”
seems to fall into play here. Above all,
with the exception of publicly funded
channels such as PBS, television is a busi-
ness. e idea is to increase the viewer
base and to cater to that base with ap-
pealing television shows and news sto-
ries. is doesn’t sound too far from the
realm of politics, and it’s not. In fact, the
media’s influence in political affairs is all
too apparent. Starting from the 1960 de-
bate between John F. Kennedy and
Richard Nixon, the television spread its
influence across the world of politics by
shaping policies, foreign affairs and scan-
dals in a way that mimics
the excitement of the fic-
tional programs people
watch so religiously.
ough only
a murmur in
the main-
stream, the
m e d i a
“blackout” of
the 2008
presidential
campaign has
brought
about a frenzy of
activity in the alter-
native news circuit. Rang-
ing from local periodicals to blogs such
as the Daily Kos, independent journal-
ists and activists from both sides of the
aisle have taken up the battle cry of the
underdog. e general contention is that
the news media purposefully molded the
election by excluding candidates who did paign website entitled “Where Is John?”
not fit into the soap opera that the broad- e page highlights unbalanced media
casters were attempting to create. On the coverage of the candidates and cites nu-
Democratic side, the belief is that the merous sources where, though tied for
news outlets were pushing for an second with Hilary, Edwards was never
Obama/Clinton show- mentioned. e Jed
down in order to stir Report, a leist blog,
controversy and piled together
fervor. On n e w s
the Re- archives
publi- from
c a n Google
side, Ne ws.
candi- e re-
date sults
R o n only
Paul seem to
w a s confirm
used as a the allega-
line of failure. tions of a cor-
When Giuliani polled porate media
worse than Ron Paul, it was used as a blackout. Before the Iowa caucus, John
point of mockery. Rather than regard- Edwards’ inclusion in “multi-candidate
ing all candidates equally, a political hi- headlines” is a mere 15.4% compared to
erarchy was created undemocratically by Obama’s 90.4% and Hilary’s 97.9%. Aer
the media. In politics, the media is re- the Iowa caucus, upon placing second
garded as three things: the gatekeeper, and beating Hilary Clinton, Edwards’ in-
the watchdog and the clusion drops to 14.9%, crushing any
scorekeeper. In this momentum the candidate would likely
case, the gatekeeper is have garnered from this victory.
seen to have re- In light of this, the Fairness Doctrine
fused candi- has been brought up numerous times.
dates and e Fairness Doctrine stated that the
informa- coverage of topics of public concern
A license permits broadcasting,
tion that must be fair and balanced. In other
but the licensee has no constitu-
did not words, in terms of politics, if one candi-
tional right to be the one who holds
meet the date is given an hour to speak on air, the
the license or to monopolize a...fre-
guide- other candidate must be granted equal,
quency to the exclusion of his fellow
lines, the free air time. e Fairness Doctrine
citizens. ere is nothing in the First
watchdog began to be dismantled in 1984 by the
Amendment which prevents the
is seen to FCC’s new chair, Mark S. Fowler. Fowler,
Government from requiring a li-
have focused a former member of Reagan’s campaign,
censee to share his frequency with
on race and gen- believed that broadcasters were “market-
others.... It is the right of the view-
der issues rather than place participants” and not “community
ers and listeners, not the right of the
policy differences and FISA controversy trustees.” It is from that point on that
broadcasters, which is paramount.
in the House and the scorekeeper is seen media outlets were no longer held to bal-
— U.S. Supreme Court, uphold-
to be in cahoots with the star players. anced political standards that ensure fair
ing the constitutionality of the Fair-
e most prominent “victim” of this discourse and informed news reports.
ness Doctrine in Red Lion
broadcaster negligence is John Edwards,
Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 1969.
who recently added a page to his cam-

Death and Destruction at Super Tuesday!

By Jonathan Singer
In a room full of Republicans, James
Dowling claims to stand out in the
crowd. “I’m probably more conservative
than most,” said Dowling, as MSNBC’s
Tim Russert battled Fox News’ Bill
O'Reilly for his attention in two flat
screen televisions. While the consensus
of the evening showed support for John
McCain, Dowling, a heavyset twenty
something (he rejects the unlimited hors
d’oeuvres), is the sole backer of Ron
Paul.
On the night of Super Tuesday, ap-
proximately 200 Islip town Republicans
gathered at the Holbrook Country club
to watch election results. At $30 per per-
son, the event also served as a fundraiser
for the Republican Party. While Dowl-
ing abstained from enjoying the limit-
less supply of beer (he drove to the event
alone), other members of the G.O.P. en-
joyed drinking Coronas while debating
the feasibility of building a fence on the
US – Mexico border.
Frank Tantone, a local attorney and
the event’s organizer, said he hoped to
create a “Super Bowl type atmosphere”
by supplying guests with “score sheets”
to track the four candidates’ progress.
“In Islip, our Republican Party has had
some tough times in recent years,” says
Tantone. For the first time in forty years,
the town’s supervisor is a Democrat.
Side events included a silent auction
and a raffle for vintage buttons. Some of
the political pins date from before Rea-
gan beat Carter. “A lot of them are too
old for me,” says John Lacy, a young Re-
publican from Saint Anthony’s High
School. e newly registered voter ini-
tially chose Rudy Giuliani, but aer the
former New York City mayor dropped
out of the race, Lacy was torn between
John McCain and Mitt Romney. While
Giuliani has endorsed McCain, Lacy’s
vote ultimately went to Romney. “He’s
more conservative than McCain,” says
Lacy.
 8 Vol. XXIX, Issue 8 | Wednesday, February 13, 2008
features
“Personal CO2 Emissions”Cause Global Warming
By Marcel Votlucka
Until now, it was assumed that in-
dustrial pollutants, fossil-fuel use and
electricity production were the major
contributors to global warming. But a
recent study turns conventional wis-
dom on its head; the simple act of
breathing is apparently the largest con-
tributing cause of global warming.
"It's really quite astounding, it's been
under our noses all this time," says Kim
Sun-Park, head researcher at the Insti-
tute for Climate Change Research in
Seoul, South Korea. "One simple
human activity – breathing and exhal-
ing – releases massive amounts of car-
bon dioxide, a poisonous greenhouse
gas, into the atmosphere each day. You,
me, six billion people on Earth take
part in this activity, and yet we hardly
realize we're doing it!"
Dr. Park's team used supercomput-
ers and biometric data to calculate the
amount of carbon dioxide released per
person in the course of normal activity.
ey compared that figure with the
EPA's official per capita estimates of
common air pollutants such as ozone,
carbon monoxide, methane, sulphur
dioxide, and lead. Even allowing for a
liberal margin of error – and excluding
CO2 emissions from wild and domesti-
cated animals – they found that "per-
sonal CO2 emissions" outnumber
industrial sources per capita 3:1.
e Korean study's findings have
been corroborated by researches at
Duke University. Dr. Gail Praeger was
amazed. "I was amazed when our data
showed a direct correlation between
rapid population growth, personal CO2
Net Execs Vie For 2012 Campaign Reality Show
By Nick Eaton
Executives at NBC, Fox and CNN
are in a frenzy over the latest nugget of
genius from producer J.J. Abrams’
golden toilet. Known for the hit televi-
sion show Lost and the epic, albeit un-
orthodox, monster film Cloverfield,
Abrams plans to introduce his fan base
to an altogether less interesting, though
incredibly relevant, fantasy world: poli-
tics. Setting itself apart from “reality”
television, which simply captures the
most interesting aspects of a celebrity’s
life, POTUS (an acronym for “President
Of e United States”) boasts a 24/7
streaming video feed on its website,
viewer feedback scroll in live time and
text message voting capabilities of
Inside the Features section-
Satires!
Page Ocho
emissions, and global temperature in-
creases over the past fiy years. Indus-
trialization didn't make much of an
impact one way or another."
We asked Stony Brook students
what they thought of the findings. "It's
like, you know, wow!" says freshman
Sandy Collins. "Like, the more global
warming the better! I can soooo totally
work on my tan all year round now!"
But senior Dustin Ramirez disagrees.
"is is just another example of capital-
ist oil companies funding false studies
to divert attention from their Earth-
raping greed!”
Just holding your breath
for 15 minutes a day can
help reduce CO2
emissions
Activists on the Le and Right had
much to say about these astounding
findings too. Hippy Mothers for
Choice unveiled an "Abort a Baby, Save
the Planet" campaign at a conference in
San Francisco last week. Ken Mathers
of the Saving American Christian Fam-
ilies Coalition commented, "Global
warming is a sign from God that the
unsaved are going straight to Hell! All
we need now is a couple billion more
babies, and the planet will choke on
CO2, causing the Rapture. Maybe
those godless procreating heathens in
India are okay aer all. Praise the
Lord!"
Indeed, the Duke University and
Korea studies link rapidly increasing
populations in developing and ird
World nations with the increase in per-
American Idol proportions.
ough all of the details haven’t
been worked out, the project is partially
motivated by the success of the website
“Vote For e Worst,” which encour-
aged people to vote for the least popular
American Idol candidate in order to sab-
otage the show. A source at Bad Robot,
Abrams’ production company, charac-
terized the idea by saying “Peoples’ neg-
ative impulses are far stronger than
their positive ones. More oen than
not, Americans have a better idea of
who they definitely do not want to be
President than who they favor. In the
vein of Survivor, at different stages
viewers will be able to eliminate candi-
dates not by voting for their favorite but
by voting their least favorite candidates
off of the show.” Candidates who are
voted off of the show are not prohibited
Steam Tunnel Casualty... From 1973
Page 9
sonal CO2 emissions, and conse-
quently, global warming rates. China
and India in particular are named as
culprits, each with populations of over
a billion and rising.
Kumar Patel, ambassador to India,
was outraged. "We are simply appalled
at these findings. ey mean to blame
us instead of First World imperialist na-
tions because it's more convenient,
rather than accept their own responsi-
bility. ey insinuate that there's a con-
spiracy for massive influxes of babies in
India in order to increase CO2 levels,
which in turn causes global warming,
which will cause sea levels to rise and
flood our neighbor Bangladesh unless
they agree to our latest free trade agree-
ments….um…don't put that on record
OK? India is not to blame. If I wasn't a
vegetarian Ghandi devotee I'd punch
your nose for suggesting it!"
Meanwhile, President Bush com-
mented at a press briefing last week,
"So, uh…does this mean I can unilater-
ally opt out of the Kyoto Treaty aer
all?"
e public is sure to be quite di-
vided over these recent findings but
Congress appears to be united in its
support of the Reducing Airborne Per-
sonal CO2 Emissions Act (R.A.P.E.),
which sets a cap on the amount of car-
bon dioxide individuals may produce
through rationing oxygen consumption
and encouraging air conservation
measures.
"Just holding your breath for fieen
minutes a day can help reduce personal
CO2 emissions that cause global warm-
ing," says Sheila Butinsky [D-Califor-
nia], one of the bill's sponsors. "Despite
what critics might say about potential
brain damage and all that nonsense,
from continuing their campaign, but
lose out on the incredible opportunity
for free press coverage 24 hours a day
seven days a week.
Granted, the text message voting
doesn’t directly affect the results of the
election, but media coverage has a great
deal of influence over the knowledge
voters have. Andrew Jacob, a sopho-
more at Stony Brook University, feels
that the show would extend political
clout to the disenfranchised and the
lazy. “People who are too busy to regis-
ter to vote and Americans under eight-
een will be able to participate…It’s just
more democratic and stuff.” Andrew
went on to voice concerns about illegal
immigrants participating in the voting
process but stated that such a circum-
stance would only be a minor setback
and does not change his support for the
Bhutto Blam-o
Page 10
we're just emulating existing practices
to conserve water or electricity in order
to protect the environment. is bill
aims to reduce personal CO2 emissions
by 35% over a ten year period, thereby
reducing global temperatures by
.00000000000000000000000000897%."
e lone dissenter was presidential
contender Ron Paul of Texas, who was
quickly brought to the back and shot.
Al Gore was unavailable for comment.
Comedian and environmentalist
Bill Maher has a comical, albeit skepti-
cal, take on the matter. "Why does no-
body consider farts? C'mon people,
just the aggregate total of beer farts dur-
ing the Super Bowl alone creates
enough greenhouse gases to melt one of
those ice planets those gooks at NASA
discover every day. Why not just cancel
the friggin' Super Bowl? You get rid of
a stupid inane game, beer farts, and
save the planet at the same time!"
Reputable scientists have long
claimed, however, that a lit candle or
two can eliminate the global warming
risk posed by beer farts.
Surely there is much debate in store
for years to come regarding global
warming and the implications of this
study. But Dr. Park, who headed the
Korean study in question, cautions,
"Our findings should be taken with a
grain of salt. e evidence for global
warming is still incomplete, the causes
and implications for climate change are
not yet fully understood. It's a lot more
complex than many scientists and
politicians would like you to think. e
debate is still not over."
He concludes, "So, I think we need
to do further research before we start
jumping on crazy theories and disaster
predictions."
show.
In addition to the Truman Show
style surveillance, paid actors and cho-
reographed situations will occur with-
out the knowledge of the candidates.
Unlike scripted reality shows, the par-
ticipants will be ignorant of any previ-
ously orchestrated events and will react
according to impulse. e show may
even include irrelevant, though fun,
physical challenges in the realm of Guts
and American Gladiators. Says an in-
side source: “We hope to bring some ap-
peal to the world of politics. In light of
the media blackout of candidates like
John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich and
Ron Paul among others, it will be nice
to have an equal opportunity outlet for
election information.”
The Stony Brook Press
Sin Nombre - Veronica Pena
By Emma Kobolakis
“Sin Nombre” means “Without
Name,” the title of Veronica Pena’s in-
stallation. The name is apt, as there is
no one word to sum up her piece. There
are no cameras allowed. Not in this red,
wet womb that smells of damp cotton.
There is nothing to beckon the visitor
inside; the usual plate-glass gallery
doors are taped over in gray. The only
encouragement comes from a paper
“Open” sign.
Once the doors are shut, the dark-
ness is permeated immediately by the
voices of students on the outside. Any
peace the artist has tried to create is
shattered, making it hard to focus on
what’s presented. It’s a shame, because a
decent amount of focus is precisely
The Death Of Sherman Raftenberg
By Victoria Shimmons and Nick Eaton
In this month of February, the
month of black history and Chinese
New Year, distracted by the heat of a
presidential election, and the chill of
the winter air, Stony Brook students
have overlooked another event: the
death of Sherman Raftenberg.
On the February 7th, 1973, the 18
year old freshman from Valley Stream
was returning to his dormitory with
four friends after class at roughly
10:45 p.m. They came to a steam vent
in the faculty parking lot near the
Earth and Space Science Building; a
steam vent that was normally pro-
tected by an eight foot chimney pipe.
That night, the pipe was lying on
its side, exposing a hole that
was two feet, three inches
in diameter that the
university failed
to recognize
as a hazard.
Responding to
a dare made by
one of his friends,
Raftenberg at-
tempted to jump
across the vent from a
flat-footed stance. Unfor-
tunately, his attempt was un-
successful, and Raftenberg
plummeted twenty five feet into
the unbelievably hot steam. The
young engineering student boiled to
death in a mere seventeen seconds.
Setauket, St. James, and Ronkonkoma
rescue units responded. At about a
quarter after 11, two members of the
what’s needed to decipher the display.
The room is dominated by a cloth-
covered structure, the gestures of which
are articulated with strings affixed to
the wall. It calls to mind an old bent
witch, arms stretched in summoning.
The walls themselves are red and sticky,
as is the floor. It’s hard not to think of
being bathed in blood. At first, the fig-
ure in the back escapes notice. It’s nec-
essary to creep through twine to reach
it, a papier-mâché nude woman
slumped in a corner. She’s evaded the
strings, the cloth, and has taken refuge
in the darkest part of the gallery. Fur-
ther upwards, back to the entrance,
there is what appears to be an abstract
portrait of the same woman.
A litany of questions immediately
come to mind, the first of which is this:
Sin Nombre? Who, or what, is supposed
Setauket Fire Department attempted
to rescue the student, but failed. At
2.30 a.m., Raftenberg’s body was re-
covered from six inches of boiling
water. The cause of death, determined
by Suffolk Medical Examiner Sidney
Weinberg, were burns that covered
his whole body and steam inhalation.
Raftenberg’s death started a
mass campus reaction. About
forty students picketed the
administration building
with signs reading
“Negligence
Murder”, and
about
five
hun-
dred
met in the
Union to discuss
the dreadful inci-
to remain nameless? Is
it the woman-figure, or
the entire spectacle?
Though the elements
are inharmonious, the
result is a symphony of
thought, with no single
conclusion. The deep
red, the low lights, the
effect on the senses are
all a clever passion play,
but the references to a
womb and the vulnera-
bility of a concealed fe-
male are far more
compelling. What truly
is to be gained from
this work is one’s own
intepretation, unique
and certainly without
name.
dent. Others created fliers
attempting to make
aware other campus
hazards includ-
ing unsafe
parking
lots
and
poorly lit
roads and
walkways.
More than
three decades later, one
cannot help but consider
campus safety. In fact, just last
semester, along side the very same
building, steam could be seen rising
from cracks in the asphalt with scald-
ing hot boiling water foaming out.
Passing this area every day makes one
uneasy and the slow response time
evokes even more worry. Eventually,
Features 9
From Verónica y el hombre payaso,
emiga.art.sunsy.edu/veronicapena
the hole was blocked off by wooden
saw horses, eventually excavated, and
the pipe repaired. As we passed, I
recall one of the workers saying
something to the effect of “stay
in school kids, you don’t want
to be doing this. It’s danger-
ous stuff.” Why then,
could a self-identified
uneducated steam
pipe worker identify
a hazard that our
brilliant admin-
istration could
not?
Only
one
campus
organiza-
tion remem-
bers this day
annually: the Science
Fiction Forum. It was
upon originally tracking down
the steam pipes in an attempt to
map them out that the SFF exposed
us to the legend of Sherman Raften-
berg. Though taken in stride due to
the very unbelievable nature of the
event, a trip to the Melville library
and a look at some microfilm brought
to us the truth of this cover-up.
There is a Raftenberg scholarship, but
no mention of the reason behind its
name. So while you eat your choco-
lates and recall the astounding efforts
of civil rights’ activists, remember he
who has been purposefully snuffed
out of history. His name was Sher-
man Raftenberg.
10 Features
Food For Thought
I have always wanted to become a Kentucky Colonel.
Bhutto & Pakistan
By Aamer Nauman Qureshi
-e very idea that Benazir Bhutto,
a name I had heard all my life, was dead
was a slap in the face. I never supported
the socialist ways of her political party
and at times I found what she was say-
ing in the media just downright stupid
– but it was a massive tragedy, not only
for her family and supporters, but for
Pakistan as a whole. She first took
power shortly aer former President
Zia-Ul-Haq (a man those who’ve seen
Charlie Wilson’s War might be slightly
familiar with – he also hanged her dad
on trumped up/false charges in 1979)
died in a mysterious plane crash near
my hometown of Bahawalpur back in
1988. She was the first woman in his-
tory to lead a Muslim state and seemed
to be a secular leader for Pakistan, a
country which had been run by brutal
Islamic laws under her predecessor. She
didn’t accomplish much in her first 20
months of being the Prime Minister,
mainly because that’s how long she
lasted. She was sacked by then Presi-
dent Ghulam Ishaq Khan for corrup-
tion charges. Her second term of Prime
Minister ended the same way, with her
being sacked for more corruption
charges, making her total years spent as
Prime Minister equal to five. She went
into self imposed exile in 1998, shortly
before General Pervez Musharraf over-
threw Nawaz Sharif ’s government and
assumed power.
Pakistan’s stance on the U.S. hasn’t
always been so self-destructively sup-
portive. When the Soviet-Afghanistan
war broke out, the United States gave
massive amounts of aid which went
through Pakistan, as well as financing
the Zia government. Once the Soviets
withdrew, the aid stopped and the U.S.
backed off completely, angering many
Pakistani officials who felt the super-
power had gone back on its promise to
rebuild Afghanistan. e country faced
massive tribal wars and bloodshed until
the Taliban came and conquered Kabul
in 1996, during Bhutto’s second tenor
as Prime Minister in Pakistan. Bhutto,
like many Pakistani officials, believed
that the Taliban might be a stable force
in Afghanistan aer the years spent in
lawlessness. e Inter-Service Intelli-
gence (ISI) of Pakistan provided train-
ing, aid and support for them – as did
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emi-
rates (the only three nations who rec-
ognized Afghanistan under the
Taliban’s rule). When Pakistan joined
the “War on Terror” in 2001, the deci-
sion was furthered by Musharraf sack-
ing half of the ISI and many army
Vol. XXIX, Issue 8 | Wednesday, February 13, 2008
officials that wouldn’t relinquish their
support for the Taliban. It’s a well
known fact that now these ex-ISI oper-
atives are aiding the extremists to the
west and have created their own rogue
agency which plans to ‘Talibanize’ the
rest of Pakistan.
Ask the poorer class of Pakistan, to
whom Benazir and her father Zulfiqar
Ali Bhutto are nothing short of martyrs,
who killed her and they’ll respond in a
heartbeat that it was Musharraf. Ani-
mosity towards the President took on a
whole new role in 2007, and this was
just the icing on the cake. Bhutto ac-
cused the government of not providing
her proper security aer the first assas-
sination attempt on her aer returning
to Pakistan on October 18th, 2007. e
Diplomacy? Thatʼs for girls!
government countered that she had
handpicked her own people and was
well aware of the risks involved in her
public appearances, yet she made a fatal
error in her last moments.
Leaving Liaquat Bagh, in
Rawalpindi, aer a powerful speech
made to thousands of her supporters,
she was ushered into her vehicle
flanked by her security personnel. She
stood up out of the sunroof to wave to
her supporters who had flocked around
the car. en a gunman struck, firing
four shots out of a pistol before running
from the scene while an accomplice
detonated charges on his person, injur-
ing Bhutto further and killing 20 by-
standers. Recently this theory has been
disputed by Scotland Yard, who believe
that the same man blew himself up aer
firing the shots and that it wasn’t the
bullets that killed her but the force of
the bomb blast aerwards. Ironically,
Pakistan’s first Prime Minister, Liaquat
Ali Khan, was assassinated by a gun-
man in 1951 in roughly the same spot.
Furthering the tragic irony is that the
father of the doctor who tried to save
Bhutto’s life in a nearby hospital had
tried to save Khan’s life. e exact
causes of her death are still not known,
and can never be determined as no au-
topsy was carried out due to Islam’s rule
that a person must be buried fewer than
twenty-four hours aer death.
Riots broke out nationwide, even in
my small town where nothing ever hap-
Photo Cred: Zahid Hussein/Reuters
pens. Countless shops, vehicles, trains,
banks and other private properties,
which the angry mob somehow con-
nected to the government, were
torched. Protestors clashed with riot
police on the streets and even when the
rest of the country had calmed down
the city of Karachi in Bhutto’s native
Sindh carried on. Finally, when
Musharraf ordered that any violent dis-
play of aggression by any protestor
must be countered with nothing short
of live rounds, the riots calmed. Once
the three day national mourning period
had ended, people tried to make sense
of it all, leading to some of the most
widely believed conspiracy theories I’ve
ever heard.
ere’s the theory that President
Musharraf did her in. is doesn’t make
much sense to me because the timeline
to her death was in his favor in a way.
All throughout 2007, Musharraf ’s pop-
ularity rating has been plummeting and
increased domestic and international
pressure made him give him his spot as
the Chief of the Army, making him a
civilian president. Instances like the
siege of the Red Mosque in the nation’s
capital, Islamabad, and the rising Tal-
ibani force in the west clearly show a
rise of Al Qaeda in the lawless region.
e Chief Justice took it upon himself
to demand that the President answer
where over 100 Pakistani nationals have
disappeared to since 2001. It is com-
mon knowledge that he was talking
about the people Pakistan apprehended
and handed over to the United States
on terrorism charges, many of them are
probably in Guantanamo Bay. e steps
taken against fighting terror and main-
taining stability in Pakistan have not
been democratic at all, with rigged elec-
tions and whatnot. e one thing
America realized was that if Pakistan
was to face down Al Qaeda, it would
need Musharraf to do so, democrati-
cally elected or not. is may seem
strange to you but Pakistan thrived
economy wise from 2001 to 2006 under
his leadership – with the right spend-
ing of U.S. aid of course. As a resident
Pakistani, I could see the changes being
implemented in the modernization of
the place. e tyrannical Hudood laws,
while still in the rulebooks, were not
implemented, at least in the civilized
areas. Bhutto herself promised to rid
the nation of them in 1988, but didn’t
do so aer getting elected. e fact of
the matter is that Pakistan has never
had a “rags to riches” inspirational story
like that of Bill Clinton, who rose from
humble beginnings to become the Pres-
ident. In Pakistan, politics is about
money and feudal lords. ose who are
rich, better those who are born rich
from a feudal family, run for office and
their friends then force their peasants
to vote for them. A feudal lord in Pak-
istan can command the will of 500 peo-
ple if the plantation is big enough. Also,
bribery and blackmail prevails in the
“democratic” process with many candi-
dates buying their way through to the
top. Once they get there, the pattern
usually points to corruption and a huge
amount of bribe taking and kickbacks.
Bhutto and her husband, Asif Ali
Bhutto continued on next page
The Stony Brook Press
Here I gooooo... turn the page
Bhutto continued from previous page
Zardari (known as Mr. Ten Percent in
Pakistan due to his enormous corrup-
tion), had evidence against them pro-
vided by Switzerland and Poland and a
huge amount of wealth accumulated by
what they “earned” in her five years of
office. True democracy has never really
worked here, and it brought the coun-
try to the point where it considered a
failed state in 1999 before Musharraf
took over. So for Bhutto to come back
and claim that Pakistan needs democ-
racy to fix its problems and have the
support of the same people she squan-
dered from earlier is just ludicrous.
e U.S. went ahead and sent her
back to Pakistan because she would
definitely win the 2008 elections due to
her popularity there. e reason for this
If we charged $13.50 for each copy of this newspaper, then we would be able to show you that the flag of the Pakistan Peoples Party is red, black and
green with a white star and cresent.
seemed to be that she would share
power with Musharraf while being the
Prime Minister and then use the popu-
lar support to rally people against the
rebels in the west, all while validating
Pakistan’s “democracy” to its people
and other countries. ey made
Musharraf drop all corruption charges
against her and allow her back into the
country. Al Qaeda seemed to realize
this plan and thus tailed her wherever
she went with assassins/suicide
bombers who would strike whenever
the chance arose. When she stood up in
her vehicle that day, she was vulnerable
to the attack.
Her death leaves Pakistan in a pre-
carious position. e elections, which
could make or break the country, are
scheduled to go ahead on the 18th of
February. Bhutto’s party will get a lot of
sympathy votes for whoever they elect
to run as Prime Minister. Her son, Bi-
lawal Bhutto-Zardari, 19 (who was
originally Bilawal Zardari, the name
change aer her death reflects how
deep seated dynastic politics are in Pak-
istan), has been chosen to lead the
party once he comes of age. At the mo-
ment he’s studying at Oxford University
in the U.K. and it’s been speculated that
the cost of providing him security from
attack will be a million pounds a year.
Her husband is now running the party
as the co-chairman. Musharraf is facing
ever increasing opposition to his rule
and the militants in the west are bat-
tling Pakistani troops. I’m not sure how
things will turn out, but I do know that
if Pakistan is to survive this ordeal it
will need Musharraf in power. e
United States needs him too, as his in-
fluence in the army is the only thing
that could prevent Al Qaeda from ob-
taining one of Pakistan’s nuclear war-
heads. Benazir’s family, like the Gandhi
and Kennedy families, has seen its
share of tragedy. Her father was exe-
cuted by Zia-Ul-Haq in 1979, allegedly
on America’s orders. In his final mem-
oirs, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto recalled how
aer he had sanctioned Pakistan’s nu-
clear program Henry Kissinger had
threatened that the United States would
destabilize his government and “make
a horrible example” of him. His
youngest son, Shanawaz Bhutto, was
found dead in his apartment in south-
ern France in 1985. Another son, Mur-
taza Bhutto, was gunned down in 1996.
Some allege Benazir ordered his killing
to prevent a major ri in her party, as
she was Prime Minister at the time. Her
own niece, who was a critic of her rule,
recently lamented how dynastic politics
will be the ruin of the People’s Party if it
is to carry on; she was speaking specifi-
cally about Bilawal’s naming as her suc-
cessor.
It’s hard to believe that in late 2005
the thing on everyone’s mind was how
to invest in more business and expand
their profit horizons. e southern port
of Gwadar was a huge project which
had just started to seriously show
promise. e troubles first began when
militants started targeting the con-
struction of the port, killing many Pak-
istani and Chinese engineers who were
stationed there. Musharraf ’s biggest
error was to strike a deal with Baitullah
Mehsud’s organization in 2006, think-
ing that it would calm down the sepa-
ratist Waziristanis. Instead of this, they
regrouped and planned ahead, became
a lot more organized and then slowly
began their mission of overthrowing
Musharraf ’s regime and installing a
Taliban government in Pakistan. e
people of Pakistan would certainly not
want that, regardless of what you think,
as these sentiments are only shared by
around ten percent of the population.
Features 11
E-mail The Press at
sbpress@gmail.com
Conspiracy eor y List:
1. Musharraf Killed Bhutto to pre-
vent her from challenging his rule
when she was elected Prime Minis-
ter.
2. e U.S. killed Bhutto in order to
destabilize Pakistan. Some in the
army seem to believe this. ey
claim that the US lined up 6000
troops on the Afghani border to
sweep in and get all the nukes once
anarchy took over aer her death.
3. Her husband killed her. Zardari
and Bhutto were known to not get
along. Some said a divorce was near
and they never stayed in the same
house together. In her death,
Zardari leads the party.
4. India killed her. is theory has
no proof other than the fact that
some Pakistanis still view India as
their deadly enemy to the east.
5. e world plans to divide and in-
tegrate Pakistan into other coun-
tries. e province of Punjab will go
to India, the N.W.F.P. to
Afghanistan, Balochistan to Iran
and Sindh will break off and be-
come its own country. ose who
believe this point to the ‘proof ’ that
Sindh is becoming more and more
detached from central Pakistani
politics, especially now that their fa-
vorite daughter is dead.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index
.php?context=va&aid=7705
e rest are quite open to westerniza-
tion in many forms. e fact that the
militants are threatening to bomb DVD
and music stores doesn’t sit well with
many.
Although Musharraf has been try-
ing, it does seem that somewhere down
the line his sycophants got to him and
he made one critical error after an-
other. 2007 has been the most violent
and destabilizing year in the nation’s
history. Suicide bombing after suicide
bombing has claimed the lives of
around 1000 people and injured 2000.
Whatever Benazir’s intentions were
once coming to power, she did make
the common man think about the ris-
ing tide of Talibanization in the west
and worry about it. Now the country is
so caught up in challenging Mushar-
raf ’s rule that they’ve forgotten the
most immediate threat Pakistan has
faced since the war that spawned
Bangladesh from East Pakistan in 1971.
Personally, I’d like stability before an-
other corrupt and meaningless democ-
racy in my country. If fascism can
accomplish that, then by all means let
it happen.
12 Features
Food For Thought
Suzy, would you like to meet for a cup of coffee next Wednesday? Call me, 516-641-2772
Stony Brook, In The Beginning
By Mitchel Cohen
It was in September 1965 that I
went off to college. The State University
of New York at Stony Brook was a new
school then, and I was a kid filled with
all the bravado and fears of leaving my
parents’ apartment in Brooklyn’s Marl-
boro Housing Projects. Future Mets
pitcher John Franco was but a baby liv-
ing in the building next to mine. Sandy
Koufax lived down the block near
Lafayette High School, as did Joe Pepi-
tone — my neighborhood’s claims to
fame.
This was before all the anti-war
demonstrations, riots, and drug busts,
before Stony Brook became famous as a
“radical“ and “hippie“ school, and be-
fore I became something of a radical
legend on Long Island. It started with a
phone call at 7 AM I snapped the lever
on the back of the alarm clock.
“Riiiiiiing.“ 7 AM, dammit! Who
the hell could that be?
I hit the snooze button on the top
of the clock. Still, the “Riiiiiiing.“
My roommate Tony Sparandara’s
voice wrestles with Lyndon Johnson’s
drawling monotone. “Ah want ta see
you kill those gooks, run’m down wher-
ever they are.“ I’m running through the
New York City sewer system, Lyndon
Johnson in hot pursuit (and behind him
a battery of television cameras),
swirling a sabre above his head.
“Mitch, it’s your mother,“ Tony’s
saner voice wins out. “C’mon Mitch,
wake up, your mother’s on the phone ...
again.“
“Who died?“ I ask her, my first
groggy response.
Four weeks on campus and already
she’s called early in the morning six
times. I’d actually just gotten to sleep
two hours before.
“Oh. Nobody died. I just think that
maybe you should use two at a time.“
There are nightmares that climb out
of bed without their clothes on. Who
knows where they started? They walk
out on their own, stagger into the street,
and are halfway down the block before
you catch up with them. “The Trojans,“
mom mumbles. Her voice trails off
down a distant sewer.
Lyndon Johnson re-emerges, lead-
ing an army of alligators. They wear lit-
tle American flags stapled to their
scales. Inside of them, hundreds of U.S.
soldiers slog through the muck, hup –
two - three - four, hup – two - three -
four, Trojan gators, past the Vietnamese
defenders.
“Mitchel ... Mitchel ... are you
Vol. XXIX, Issue 8 | Wednesday, February 13, 2008
awake?“
“Huh? Oh, mom. What were you
saying?“
“I just think you should maybe use
one inside the other.“ Oh, man. Seven
in the morning. I have a biology class in
an hour. How could she ... ?
“Don’t worry, I’ve been washing
them out,” I tell her.
Early, yeah, but even then the sar-
casm bubbled up almost instinctively.
“Been using sterile soap and re-using
them. Saves money.“
Oh, sure. My dad had made me buy
the condoms, which we called prophy-
lactics, over the summer before leaving
for my freshman year at Stony Brook on
Long Island. And a traumatic experi-
ence that was, too. What size should I
get? Who would see me?
By now that experience has been
replayed enough times in coming-of-
The author as a young Stony Brook student.
age movies, so I don’t have to get into it
here. But use them? Did she really think
any girl would even talk to me, let alone
have sex with me? I’d blown up the Tro-
jans and had hung them around the
room — okay, I kept one in my wallet
for years waiting for the appropriate
moment — and she’s worried that I’m
going to get someone pregnant!? “Yeah,
mom, I’ll wear’em to the dance tonight.
Don’t call so early anymore,“ I said for
the sixth time in four weeks.
Stony Brook, though, didn’t have
“dances,” it had “moods.” Live bands like
the Chambers Brothers performed in
the lobbies and cafeterias every few
weeks. I’d slip into the shower at odd
hours when no one else was around, put
on some preppy clothes (even some
cologne dad gave me), and prance
around in front of the mirror, mimick-
ing the suave way the popular guys in
B-2 hall would ask women to dance.
By the time I’d get downstairs to G
Lobby, however, the panic would take
over. Standing at the edge of that week’s
“mood,” my legs invariably turned to
jelly, far worse than anything I’d experi-
ence giving political speeches before
huge audiences in later years. After the
mood, the guys on my hall would jab-
ber away about “scoring.” “She goes
down like a bunny,” Stu Siglain would
say, and another would respond, “she
may be a dog, but I wouldn’t kick her
out of bed.” In yer dreams, sweetheart.
Of course, none of them had ever
slept with a woman; it was all macho
bravado, but I didn’t know that. A cou-
ple of my hall mates would be even
more crass: “Hey babe, wanna dance,
come to the bathroom for a little `69’?“
I couldn’t believe it when, on occasion,
Photo Credit: Getty Images
a woman would actually dance with
them and not slug them in the jaw! It
was 9th grade torture all, over again
where, partially hidden from the
teacher’s view, Stuart Kessler would take
his dick out in art class and order Janet
or anyone else around to “touch it. Go
on, touch it.“ And Janet would actually
go out with the jerk! How could she?
Just like 9th grade, I’d hug the sides
of the lobby like a shadow, unable to ask
someone to dance. The calendar may
have read “September, 1965,“ but, cul-
turally, the 1950s were just coming to an
end when I entered Stony Brook as a
math major fresh from the agar-agar of
Stuyvesant High School.
Most of the guys on my hall were
very popular. They’d dance the entire
night, laughing, telling tall stories in
crowded G lobby. They’d taunt me by
trying to trick some girls into being
alone with me, but I’d always manage to
get out of it at the last minute, whining
that I had to study. “Sure, tell us another
one, Mitchel,“ my other roommate, Ray
Bonner, who was a sophomore and lead
singer in a folk-rock ban, The Sun-
downers, would say.
I was the hall mascot. At sixteen, I
was the youngest student in the school,
the only one on my hall against the war
on Vietnam and, for a time, the only
Jew. Gullible, trusting ... and scared.
Here I was, sharing a room with two
utter strangers. I was so scared of being
away from home that I’d even made
Dad drive me to Stony Brook a few
hours early on opening day just so I
could get to my dorm room first and
claim the single bed.
Why had I chosen Stony Brook?
That’s what University President John
Toll wanted to know as he handed me
my B.A. ten years later at my gradua-
tion, after numerous battles with him
and his administration, arrests, demon-
strations and riots. I told him I had gone
to “college recruitment night“ my last
year at Stuyvesant High School in 1965
with my dad. I had my heart set on
going to Dartmouth. Why? Because I
liked the smooth way the name
sounded, sort of like Vermouth.
Sounded cool. How does anyone ever
choose anything? And there, on the
third-floor room 309 in Stuyvesant
High School, Mr. Molloy of Stony
Brook Admissions talked about how
young Stony Brook was, how non-alien-
ating, and how, because of its youth,
there were no rigid traditions. “You’ll
each have a chance to leave your mark
on it,“ he said.
And, yes, we all want to be mean-
ingful. I told all that to John Toll, how
Molloy’s little speech about “leaving
your mark“ had convinced me to come
to the Brook, where “leave my mark” I
did, and he spit up his punch. I then
proceeded to rip up my diploma right
there in front of him on the stage, say-
ing, “This is what your diploma means
to me.“ The roomful of parents gasped.
But that was ten years later. Rewind
back to the beginning: September, 1965.
As I said, I was the hall mascot. My hall
mates tortured me; every prank they
could think of, they played on me.
So gullible! So young! My hall
mates threatened to lead a naked girl
(how they’d gotten her to volunteer, I
never found out) into my room and
lock the door. Hysterical, panic-
stricken, I hid for hours. Besides, I told
In The Beginning continued on next page
The Stony Brook Press
Want your club/organization to blah blah blah who fucking cares...
And here it is!
myself, it’s against the university’s pari-
etal rules. Girls and boys were permit-
ted in one anothers’ rooms only on
Friday and Saturday nights from 7 PM
to 1 AM, and Sunday afternoons from
2 to 6. I was a good kid. I followed or-
ders. I wasn’t going to break any rules.
I had never cut a single class in high
school. But here, after three or four
weeks of studious discipline, I found
myself spending more and more time
moping, writing poetry instead of going
to class, and playing “hearts“ all night in
the lounge with my hall mates, trying to
fit in, to be one of the guys.
Some of my hall mates would go on
to achieve all sorts of notoriety. Ray
Charmatz was a drummer on-and-off
with the Fugs and had a drum set in his
room. Mancini (to this day, I don’t think
anyone ever called him by his first
name) ran the 100-yard dash in 9.8 sec-
onds — the school record. My second
day there, his roommate, Swami, dis-
covered I was Jewish. Big deal, I
thought. But Swami came crashing
through my locked door, all 6 foot 4
inches of him, splintering it to shreds,
threatening to kill me should he get me
out from under the bed where I was
hysterically screaming for help. Fifteen
guys jumped on him and tied him up so
he couldn’t move. Of course, I, at 5’9“
and still to grow five more inches dur-
ing the next two years and never having
shaved in my life, then became a verita-
ble shining knight about to vanquish
the entangled philistine, kicking and
taunting him — until he broke through
the ropes.
Swami chased me out of the room
and across the campus. My sneakers
flew me from sure-fire Hollywood
death. Nothing in Leave It To Beaver
prepared me for such overt, violent
anti-semitism - though I’d had plenty of
experience with it growing up . The city,
in its infinite wisdom, decided to plop
down the Marlboro projects my family
moved into when I was eight right
smack in the middle of a hostile Italian
neighborhood. I tore across the campus
with Swami in hot pursuit, through the
muddy forest that would later be torn
down to make way for the Administra-
tion building, through the beautiful
woods behind H Quad that would later
be torn down to make way for the State
Department of Environmental Conser-
vation building, woods that never
seemed to end, woods that, while they
lasted, preserved my sanity and, on at
least one occasion, saved my life.
I had an idea that if I made it across
the huge athletic field to the railroad
station, I would be safe. Something
about trains has affected me all my life;
they have always protected me, inspired
me, and snatched me away at just the
right moment. I raced across the field
and hopped that Long Island Railroad,
always this poet’s most creative ground,
fleeing Swami, the goy school Stony
Brook, fleeing those pro-war Protestant
goldfish - swallowers, fleeing back into
the protective arms of my Brooklyn (oh,
why didn’t I go to Brooklyn College,
where I’d also been accepted, and be-
come a lawyer?), to my loving parents,
my own room and full refrigerator.
Back in Beaver Cleaverville, after a
weekend of mom and dad promising
regular weekly visits, they drove me
back to the Long Island Railroad. I
stared tearfully into their reflections in
the windows waving goodbye, and the
train Rockefellered out of the Flatbush
Avenue station on its way back to
Auschwitz.
In Stony Brook, there were long
spaces between the bombs that in Viet-
nam were becoming a moment – to -
moment occurrence. There were nights
when I could see the stars, their thin,
bright arms bending around the uni-
verse in a reassuring hug. There were
nights of invented passions, vivid
dreams.
The person who saved me, unbe-
knownst to her, was my French teacher
Susan Schwartz. I wonder if teachers
have any idea of their impact. Back
then, if a teacher wrote an article for the
school paper or propounded their views
on any topic under the sun, it carried
considerable weight.
Susan Schwartz was amazing. The
following year she became a founder of
the local chapter of Students for a Dem-
ocratic Society. SDS would soon be-
come the largest radical student group
in U.S. history, but I didn’t know that
until later. Meanwhile, she was all I
could think about towards the end of
my freshman year. I dreamt about her
before I knew her politics. What is it
about these French teachers that makes
them so sexy, that makes young males
like me fantasize about running off to
Paris to be an émigré writer with Henry
Miller? But it was when I read her arti-
cles in The Statesman, the student news-
paper, that I knew Susan Schwartz was
the lady to my Macbeth, although I
couldn’t understand half of what she
wrote politically and nothing at all of
what she said in French. The passion
poured through.
I had two roommates (“tripling“)
for my first two years at Stony Brook —
a practice that gave rise to the first
demonstrations on campus a year later.
One roommate, Tony, a freshman like
myself, could shoot the eyes out of the
basketball hoop from the corner, so it
made me proud to associate with him
whenever possible. He introduced me
to the other first-year students in the
hall. My second roommate was a soph-
omore, a rivetingly suave nineteen year-
old upperclassman. It is amazing, how
pronounced the age difference becomes
when you’re forced to live together.
I devised all sorts of schemes for
getting rid of him. But nothing much
happened until I woke up one morning
with a black tongue.
“The plague,“ I instantly thought,
trying to apply the theoretical knowl-
edge I’d just acquired in Biology 101. I
looked in the mirror to be sure. Yes, my
tongue was black, no doubt about it. I
ran out of the door just in time for Stan
across the hall to smirk, “And what have
you been keeping in your mouth?“ This
In Stony Brook, there were
long spaces between the
bombs that in Vietnam
were becoming a moment
to moment occurence
was a stupid reference to homosexual-
ity, I knew instinctively, as I felt my ears
redden with combined embarrassment
and rage even though it didn’t make any
sense. I flashed back to 7th grade class
in Seth Low Jr. High School: for a week,
Herbert Steinberg, at the desk next to
mine, grabbed at my crotch concealed
by the desks. When knocking his hand
away didn’t work, I finally punched
him. Fortunately, the teacher knew me
well enough by then, and he changed
my seat. But here’s Stan, in college, con-
veying a “knowing“ wink to his room-
mate the surfer, dressed in his new wet
suit, balancing himself atop a surfboard
suspended across two bunk beds.
Aghast, I made the mistake of hightail-
ing it to the infirmary.
The nurse in the infirmary grinned.
“And what have you been keeping in
your mouth?“ she asked, to my conspir-
atorial horror. The doctor said, “Say Ah-
hhhhhhh.“
“Blechhhhhh,“ I choked.
“I dunno,“ he mumbled, “mebbe
paint.“ I looked at his wall a second to
make sure he really held a license to
practice and then darted out the door.
The campus was in turmoil. Hun-
Features 13
E-mail The Press at
sbpress@gmail.com
dreds of people on the mandatory meal
plan were getting sick. According to The
Statesman, “some people thought food
poisoning to be a cause,“ pointing to the
delicious Sunday night SAGA special.
The head of SAGA food service
quickly reported the conclusions from
his “thorough investigation,“ which, of
course, absolved the company of any
connection to the illness. (I say “of
course“ now, looking back. But at that
time, we were not suspicious of author-
ity figures or corporate flunkies who
were paid precisely to mislead us and
save the company’s profits!) A parody of
his investigating techniques spread
through the dorms: “Hullo, G-Quad?
This is your captain speaking. Did you
poison any of the food last night? No?
Good.“ Thorough investigation com-
pleted. He cited that well known au-
thority on health, Doctor Marsh - the
one who’d examined my tongue.
The Statesman, ever the adminis-
tration’s lapdog, editorialized, “we do
not challenge the opinion of the med-
ical experts. “(“Black paint,“ do I
hear?)” Stories about ’green frank-
furters, stale chicken, and bad lasagna’
remain stories and have not been sub-
stantiated in fact.“ Except I, like hun-
dreds of others, ate those green
frankfurters, stale chicken, and bad
lasagna. In fact, I had three helpings —
the mandatory meal plans at Stony
Brook were always “all you can eat,“
whoopdee-doo! When you’re hungry,
it’s already paid for, and there’s nowhere
else to eat, you just pour on tons of mus-
tard and ketchup to conceal the green
meat. Who would know the difference?
The wretched food created an up-
roar. The Stony Brook bi-weekly cham-
pionship potato and hamburger-mortar
wars are now legendary. But even these
pale before the havoc created by the big
- I mean, the big issue of my freshman
semester: people cutting on cafeteria
lines.
It wasn’t as if people were mean or
didn’t want to allow others to eat. They
just wanted to get down there first to
choose from a wider range of ammuni-
tion. Who wanted to be limited to
short-range powdered mashed-potato
lumps and whipped cream when there
were long-range deadly macaroni-
glued-artificial-cheese-product ICBMs
to fire?
By December of 1965, The States-
man was devoting its entire editorial
page to fanatical letters by irate line-
dwellers who often had to wait over an
hour in line outside the cafeteria as
monitors hired by SAGA checked their
meal cards and bleached the food. The
Old guy. Next page.
14 Features
Food For Thought
Last semester, I took a journalism class where every Tuesday we had to bring in a vocabulary word that we found in a newspaper. Well, you
are reading a newspaper right now, and abluted is a good vocublary word.
Tadah!
campus was becoming polarized. There
were anal retentives (like myself) who
waited on line, arguing the events of the
day, reading, collectively listening to the
new Tom Lehrer record on the phono-
graph in the lobby — we didn’t have
stereos or TVs in our rooms back then
— and preparing crib sheets for up-
coming tests, and there were radicals
who cut in. Candidates for student of-
fice hotly debated the issue. The entire
disbursement of a budget of $200,000 -
the job of an elite student government -
hinged on the candidate’s position on
this issue. And they were at one anoth-
ers’ throats. “Capital punishment for the
line-cutters and the ethnics,“ was a
harsh, though familiar cry.
“Ethnics“ were Peter Nack and his
crew, three or four boys and one girl
who dressed only in jeans and grew
their hair long — down to their collars.
“Just like a girl“ and “Can’t tell the dif-
ference,“ were a common snarls. The
Beatles’ influence, along with that of
Bob Dylan, was just beginning to crawl
its way along the railroad tracks out to
Stony Brook. The ethnics all lived in H-
Quad my first semester and gravitated
around a rock ‘n roll group at university,
Soft White Underbelly. This group
would later emerge, under the manage-
ment of Sandy Perlman, one of the first
ethnics at Stony Brook and a founder of
Crawdaddy magazine, as Blue Oyster
Cult.
I didn’t know what to make of
them. They were all scrungy and gave
the appearance of being dirty (to my
virgin eyes). “They’re fags,“ was the
common snarl. But they intrigued any-
one who spent more than a minute in
their presence - not a usual occurrence
because everyone tried to avoid being
called a “fag“ and stayed away. Their
loss.
All that just added to the ethnics’
mystique. They all played guitars and
debated about philosophers who hadn’t
yet made it to our texts. One of the
names I’d heard over and over again was
someone named Mario Savio, who’d
talked about “putting our bodies into
the gears of the machine“ and shutting
it down. Others, too — Nietzsche, Tom
Hayden and, increasingly, Karl Marx.
The “ethnics“ were the first people on
campus to oppose the Vietnam war.
How I longed to hang out with them . .
. and how afraid I was. Finally, I bought
a ticket from Maddy, the ethnic “chick,“
to attend a Pete Seeger anti-war concert
at Carnegie Hall. But then I changed my
mind (they never understood why; I
was afraid to go with them.) Maddy re-
fused to refund my money. Over the
phone I pleaded, screamed, and ulti-
mately cried; I had to scrape for even
Vol. XXIX, Issue 8 | Wednesday, February 13, 2008
the $2 back then. (Some things never
change.) I called her the worst thing I
could think of: “You . . . you ethnic!” But
I had no choice: go to the concert or for-
feit the ticket. I opposed the war against
Vietnam but was fighting another war
within myself. Weren’t we all?
The ethnics always cut in cafeteria
lines or snuck in through the back door.
“Fuck this shit,” they’d say . . . in public!
Hard to believe, but curse words in pub-
lic at that time were unheard of.
The situation could not keep going
on in this way without coming to a
head. In February 1966, a student who’d
cut in line was found guilty by the dorm
judiciary of “Conduct unbecoming a
university student.“ Kathleen told a
small group at dinner what happened
next. “They placed me on disciplinary
censure and assigned me to work for no
pay for two weeks in G cafeteria. What
a sweatshop! The boss ordered me
around - I had to do whatever he said or
I’d get thrown out of school.“ When she
told the story once again a month later
at Stony Brook’s first SDS meeting, she
added, “Polity [the all-male student
government] works hand-in-hand with
the administration and the private cor-
porations.“ At the time, it was quite a
forceful leap, the kind of sharp analysis
which was soon to become a hallmark
of SDS, based on assumptions that set
its members apart from the rest of the
campus.
Towards the end of 1965 and into
the following year, students began to
question the denial of student rights,
tripling in the dorms, and the terrible
food. Only a few of us had heard of the
Free Speech Movement the year before
in Berkeley, but Tom Lehrer’s “Vatican
Rag” shocked us with its audacious
satire and inspired us to act. When we
learned that student government was
not permitted to do anything without
the approval of the Dean of Students,
they called a secret meeting. The Dean
of Students was to know nothing about
it.
All day, members of student gov-
ernment slinked around campus, pass-
ing the secret message to their
conspiratorial comrades. “The time is 8
PM tonight, in the office, in South Hall
[later to be renamed Gray College],“ the
Polity president whispered to his treas-
urer in the woods that used to exist be-
hind the Humanities Building. He held
his index finger to his lips, buttoned his
trench coat, and went off to inform the
next member. It was quite a feat of dar-
ing. Imagine, refusing to inform the ad-
ministration of a meeting of the student
government!
Lo and behold, the meeting came
off and a committee was formed to
draw up a petition of student grievances
which, over the next two weeks, erupted
into the first massive campus-wide
protest. The topics were endless: health
hazards on campus, lack of decent med-
ical facilities, shoddy construction of
buildings, tripling in the dorms, de-
mands for student input into curricu-
lum and faculty tenure committees, and
lastly, questions concerning the Selec-
tive Service System — the Draft! — and
the university’s apparent readiness to
provide information about students to
JST or SSK: Pick your poison.
draft board officials, breaking all confi-
dentiality.
These were probing times, when
simple questions had the potential to
stir up a hornet’s nest of confusion, un-
certainty, and anger. Secrecy was very
important. It enabled students to plan
together — for the first time! — with-
out fear of administrative reprisals. But
even more important, it allowed stu-
dents to talk to each other over topics
that concerned them without the ad-
ministration setting the agenda, inter-
fering in the process, and deflecting
criticism.
The administration had often
thwarted criticism by planting its fa-
vored students in those meetings, who
would then serve as provocateurs and
spies. They’d challenge every common
sense plan to get anything done and dis-
rupt the student gatherings before
they‘d gotten a chance to meet with
each other and realize they were not
alone, a realization that became of great
importance in the formation of the
women’s liberation movement just three
years later.
But The Statesman, ever the om-
nipresent ear of the administration,
spilled the beans and almost ruined the
secret plans. For years it had reprinted
the administration’s press releases ver-
batim as objective news stories. (Years
later it would run ads for students to
scab on striking AT&T workers; for
companies being boycotted in support
of striking farm workers; for the mili-
tary, as millions rose up against the
Vietnam war. Yet it was always seen as a
“liberal” paper, which gave many of us
our first inkling of how “liberals” be-
have and why it was important to con-
sider ourselves “radicals,” not liberals.)
In 1966, as the student movement
began to rise up, the “student“ paper
supported the judiciary’s sentencing of
Kathleen for “conduct unbecoming a
university student.“
The Statesman even carried editori-
als giving faculty tips on how to catch
students who cheated on tests. Not once
did The Statesman examine why stu-
dents might feel the need to cheat. Not
once did The Statesman perceive that
tests are designed to set students against
each other, to hoard knowledge instead
of sharing it, to compete at the expense
of fellow classmates for grades bestowed
by god-like teachers enforcing a per-
verse system of rewards and punish-
ments designed to reinforce white
middle-class values and obedience to
authority, upon which this country is so
dependent.
The professors at Stony Brook
avidly accepted The Statesman’s advice,
notwithstanding their growing liberal
pretensions. Scratch a liberal and find
an incipient fascist with “wholesome“
values. They smoked pipes, even used
the word “whore“ from time to time
(which came rather naturally to many
of them; they didn’t use the word “fuck“
until Country Joe and the Fish made it
cool), and talked in bigger words than
our high school teachers; but overall,
their perspective was no different. They
debated the merits and demerits of the
draft for years, satisfied with their ver-
bal jousting even though the grades
they gave people determined which stu-
dents (the “dumb ones“) would be
drafted into the army and which others
(the “smart ones“) would be able to
avoid the draft and go on to become
doctors, lawyers and college professors
instead of corpses. They transformed
the university into their ideal from
Plato’s Republic, where everyone sits
around mulling over the fine issues of
the day as if they are exercises in logic
and not part of the life and death strug-
gles sweeping the world.
Why did people cheat? Hell, they
wanted to live! Every guy I knew
cheated in order to stay out of the draft.
Every woman I knew also cheated — to
get into graduate school. But since our
class rank, which determined who was
draftable and who was graduate school
material, was determined relative to
This is getting old.
The Stony Brook Press
...
everybody else in the class, when one of
us managed to stay out of the draft, it
meant that the person ranked below
that one would lose out. Hello Vietnam!
Obviously, individual cheating was
not an adequate solution. It reinforced
the competitive atmosphere. But, damn!
I didn’t want to be the one drafted. I’d
hate to see my hall mates — Steve, or
Mike, or any of my other friends go to
Vietnam, but it was a choice between
them or me. Almost everyone except
the ethnics felt this way.
How readily we’d cut one another’s’
throats to save our own. How insidious,
the way the whole system is set up to
foster that. And how phony the tears
when, as happens from time to time, the
cutthroat competition gets out of hand
and “the wrong people start getting
hurt.
Some were unable to see the sys-
tem’s fingerprints in the insanity, which
would require them to expose and go
up against the system itself. They’d in-
stead invent enormous circumlocutions
to arrive at the real culprit: the Victim.
“It’s human nature,“ Herbert Weisinger,
Dean of the Graduate School, cynically
informed me. “There’ve always been
wars, and there always will. People are
inherently selfish. The role of education
is to minimize individual greed and
teach people to reign in their impulses.
The more educated, the less likely to go
to war.“
Dean Weisinger used this liberal
(and wrong) argument on me a few
years later when I was about to reject
my draft card, for by then he was
against the war and didn’t want to see
me go to jail. (Relations between us be-
came strained when other students and
I broke into his office in 1969 and pil-
fered the secret Department of Defense
research files hidden there, but I’m
jumping ahead of my story.) Of course,
every survey shows that, contrary to
popular belief, anti-war sentiments are
held overwhelmingly by poor and
working - class people, who also end up
doing most of the killing and dying on
the front lines. The better-educated and
wealthier folks found ways of staying
out of war, not necessarily opposing it,
utilizing their privilege to send others in
their place.
But these were the early years.
What an unexpectedly vehement re-
sponse we got to that first simple peti-
tion! Oh, how nostalgic the same
administrators would later wax about
the “gentleness” of those early years, be-
fore their intransigence brought on
more militant events. “My god, if they’d
just circulate a petition instead of this
lawlessness, the way they used to in the
old days!“ And then they’d take little
pills for their nerves, and other pills to
regulate their strained hearts, and call
in the cops.
Popular teachers passed through
Stony Brook’s hands like fondlers of
presidential genitalia pass through the
White House. Leftist and unorthodox
creative professors invariably fell victim
to the dread “publish or perish,“ a viru-
lent infection brought about by the
strenuous (and exhausting) competition
for the research dollar, which material-
ized only upon delivery of such com-
pelling monographs as “The sexual
impotency of the Drosophila
Melanogaster, pictorially exhibited on
page 1,117 of C.F. Beard’s Why Insects
Share Common Neuroses with Homo
Sapiens, and its implications for the
stresses among Navy personnel exposed
to Anti-Ballistic Missile Syndrome.“
A number of professors had begun
to obtain grants based upon research on
marijuana and other drugs. If it weren’t
for the growing use of marijuana the
policy-makers so despised, think of all
the professors who would have gone
barefoot and hungry for lack of grant
money! You’d think they’d at least share
some of it with us! That would be the
moral thing to do. Although marijuana
was not yet in widespread use, The
Statesman, always on the ball, decided
to pick up on this theme. It began a se-
ries of articles on the use of marijuana
with a disclaimer: “The purpose of this
series is neither to condemn nor con-
done the use of drugs, but to promote
open constructive discussion of the
problem.“ Of course, many people felt
that the anti-marijuana laws were the
problem, not the people smoking it, and
that these laws reflected a growing atti-
tude on the part of government to legis-
late personal morality. But The
Statesman, while claiming objectivity,
masked a most definite bias. In the
name of “objectivity,“ truth became ir-
relevant and the values inculcated into
us from birth became the measuring
rod for virtue.
Continuing its ghastly mimicry of
the administration, The Statesman edi-
torialized on the upcoming Polity (stu-
dent government) elections. “We urge
the freshman class [my class]...to set the
pace and lead those oblivious students
out of the desert of lethargy and into the
oasis of vitality.“ The words just melt in
your mouth. The class of 1969 was
probably the deadest class in the history
of Stony Brook. By the time 1969 rolled
around, they didn’t graduate, they
buried it.
Stony Brook was a wooded paradise
to a city boy like myself in 1965. The ar-
chitecture was, and still is, neo-penal. G
and H - quad, the old library, Humani-
ties, Old Chemistr,y and Physics, Biol-
ogy, and Engineering were the only
buildings that existed in my first year
there. What used to be almost com-
pletely wooded land is now reduced to
several clumps of trees—still beautiful
and striking in autumn! — cemented
over for parking lots, laboratories, and
police cars. Stony Brook is the largest
polluter in the area, not only of the air
but of Port Jefferson Harbor, where it
leaks its wastes. By 1976, when the New
York State Department of Environmen-
tal Conservation bulldozed one of the
few remaining forests on campus to
build their new conservation building,
I was certain they were not only devi-
ous and manipulative but that they had
lost their minds as well.
Dr. John Sampson Toll (who later
became President of the University of
Maryland) was sworn in as President of
Stony Brook in March 1966, and we
crammed the gymnasium waiting with
baited breath to hear the man who was
to lead Stony Brook through the late
‘60s and ‘70s with his hope of turning it
into “The Berkeley of the East.“ Little
did we know that this man had done
top security work for the U.S. govern-
ment during World War II at Los
Alamos, New Mexico, where, as a physi-
cist, he helped develop the atom bomb.
Other glories that this man would
achieve included being National Chair-
man of the Boy Scouts of Amerika, to
name just one of his arrowpoints. Read
his statement of February 27, 1968 (my
nineteenth birthday!) to catch the devi-
ous ways his mind worked: “In order to
protect its regular academic program,
the University, on occasion, may find it
necessary to restrict normal privileges“
like freedom of speech and assembly.
But all he said back in 1966 was that he’d
have the mud cleaned up, the roads
cleared, and the dangerous lighting
problem taken care of immediately, so
that by 1980, the University would be
“the Berkeley of the East,” one of the top
five institutions of higher learning in
the nation.
John Toll gave many forewarnings
of things to come. In 1973, he traveled
to Brazil, then a fascist state, and visited
Brasilia, the city built out of the jungle
by slaves (literally!), prisoners, and con-
centration camp inmates. John Toll is-
sued a press release, terming Brasilia “A
modern miracle — the city of the fu-
ture.“ Most radical students looked at
John Toll’s Stony Brook and saw he had
visions of Brazil way back in 1966. They
began proselytizing for services and re-
forms under the slogan “Now, Not
1980!“ “Dump Toll“ bumper stickers
proliferated; incoming freshmen, thrust
into the vortex of what was to become
the most activist campus in the New
York area, made President Dump (as
Toll was quickly dubbed) a major sym-
bol of their discontent. The Polity
Features 15
Council voted several times for Toll’s
resignation, and even the conservative
Faculty Senate voted three times to cen-
sure Toll, under pressure from student
protesters.
In 1967, and again every year
through 1972, John Toll, under constant
pressure from SDS, the Organization
for Progressive Thought, the Red Bal-
loon Collective, and other safety-con-
scious student demonstrators, agreed
each year to have the mud cleaned up,
the roads cleared (and hopefully re-
banked in the proper direction), and the
dangerous lack of adequate lighting re-
paired, among other demands.
One of the main problem areas
pointed out to him was a dangerous
stretch behind the Chemistry building,
which had no lights and manholes that
were often uncovered. Year after year,
John Toll hedged his promises. Year
after year students tried every peaceful
means to attain a safe campus. And then
in February 1973, Sherman Raftenberg,
a freshman at Stony Brook, fell into an
open steam shaft in an unlit section be-
hind the Chemistry building. Sherman
was boiled to death. I saw his body
when it was finally removed. It looked
like a hundred-pound sausage.
You’d think that after all the
demonstrations and all the demands,
the history of negligence that led to the
death of a student would have triggered
some soul-searching about what led to
such a tragedy, and elicit a bit of re-
morse. But not Stony Brook! After a
lengthy court fight in which the Uni-
versity opposed a large settlement,
Sherman’s parents, who had little
money of their own with which to bat-
tle the University and the State behind
it, were awarded just $23,000 as com-
pensation for the death of their son,
barely enough to send their other kids
through school. None of them chose to
attend Stony Brook.
Finally, after seven years, it took a
death to get some fences put up, some
lights installed. They were up all over
campus the next morning. But it was
one day too late.
——————————————-
Mitchel Cohen is a Stony Brook
alumnus (began in 1965, received BA in
1975, and was arrested for antiwar ac-
tivities and banned from campus on
several occasions). He was a founder of
the Independent Caucus of SDS and the
Red Balloon Collective, and today is as
active as ever in the antiwar movement,
with the Brooklyn Greens/Green Party
and with the No Spray Coalition
(against pesticides: www.nospray.org).
His new books of poetry, “The Perma-
nent Carnival” and “One-Eyed Cat
Takes Flight,” were recently published
and are available from Mitchel at
mitchelcohen@mindspring.com.
16 Features
Food For Thought
My friend works at a movie theater in Los Angeles. One day, Sinbad comes to the theater to see Hot Fuzz. “Man, I love these guys!” says Sinbad. “You don’t
know how many times I’ve seen Shaun of The Dead!” In response, my friend told Sinbad, “You don’t know how many times I’ve seen Jingle all the way!”
TEXAS HELD’ UP
I love the game of Texas
Hold’em Poker. All my friends know
it. If I’m not playing through Face-
book, I go out of my way to find a
game on campus sponsored by a stu-
dent club raising money for charity.
Last semester, I played three tourna-
ments over the Thanksgiving and
Christmas holidays with good results
while having to re-buy in the game
with $5.000 worth more of chips. I
have fun playing the game while
needy children eat, be cured, or wear
new coats for the cold months ahead.
Everyone wins. Acey-deucy, raisy-
daisy.
So what a way to start the se-
mester. On Monday night, a group of
poker-playing students from Kelly
Quad were held up by three would-be-
robbers for money. The robbers fail to
take any money since the students did-
n’t play for real money, and instead
one student is assaulted before the rob-
THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS
Thanks to an era of lawsuits, fin-
ger-pointing, lack of responsibility,
fear, and political correctness, we
should soon be entering a new war in
America: the war on Christmas!
That’s right! Later this year, ac-
tivists, lefties, righties, mean-streaks,
and mountain-climbing fruit-nut-
yogurt-and sprout eating motherfuck-
ers with shaved heads and tambourines
will soon wage war on a holiday be-
cause we as Americans have to correct
what is already right and we can’t leave
any stone unturned or corner
unchecked.
No more leaving cookies for Santa,
as it promotes America’s obesity epi-
demic. He’s huge as he already is.
No more Rudolph the Red-Nosed
Reindeer because what about the other
reindeer? They don’t have songs
named after them. We can’t have egos
and individualism now, can’t we? Oh,
speaking of reindeer:
No more depictions of Santa’s
reindeer pulling Santa’s sleigh. That’s
cruelty to animals! PETA, PETA! See
that?! (It’s probably all witchcraft,
too.)
No more “wasselling” (who came
Vol. XXIX, Issue 8 | Wednesday, February 13, 2008
bers flee off-campus.
Now that made me think.
From now on for every game
held on campus, sponsored by a club
or casually held in any dorm, students
looking for and playing a game on
campus may now have to look over
their shoulder and guard their pots and
wallets for fear of being robbed.
And just recently I was think-
ing about taking a ride out to Atlantic
City over the summer to take part in a
real tournament because the notion is
real ridiculous: to make a living out of
playing cards. But where there is
heavy money involved, so is crime. It
just is.
I have heard stories of poker
players and entire rooms being robbed
or held up in private or low-key poker
rooms. Players handling big money
usually wind up in any degree of dan-
ger if not careful of their safety or pri-
vacy.
Amarillo Slim (born 1928),
up with such a word? Because I’m not
a Rolling Stone or Spin music critic
who uses weird out-of-place French
words just to make myself look smart
and elitist), or, going door to door
singing Christmas carols. The RIAA
and the music industry will soon en-
force very strict copyright and very
heavy penalties on those who sing “Jin-
gle Bells” or “Silent Night” without the
expressed written consent of the artists
and their labels. Money, money, I tell
you!
No more sledding downhill. Let us
all go to New York legislation and ban
sledding because it prevents un-needy
lawsuits stemming from injuries and
faulty, defective sleds made in Tonga
or Kuwait or wherever they are from.
No more calling the snowman
“snowman” because hearing the word
“snowman” now makes us think of
drug dealers and Tony “Scarface”
Montana kingpins. Bad for the com-
munity!
No more houses decorated with
hundreds of thousands of lights like it
was 42nd Street, New York, 1985. One,
Greenpeace would love to tell you of
all the light pollution going around and
it distracts the eyes and airline pilots
legendary hustler, poker legend, and
1972 World Series Of Poker Cham-
pion, is still being confronted and held
up for his money. He is almost 80
years old.
But these students weren’t
playing for money, and still they were
held up.
I was thinking that in any case,
the robbers would know at least some-
one in that game, and it would be the
only way to scope the games out. Then
again, it was a random incident. Poker
games would be so numerous on cam-
pus because it’s a very big student pas-
time. Even so, the student clubs who
organize the games may also be in
danger because there is charity money
involved.
Not at all am I saying that the
games should be shut down for the
sake of everyone’s safety, I am not the
entire poker community. Nor do I want
the poker community to be in fear at
every game. Fact is, these games will
who are trying to land. Second, those
bastard evil electric companies want yr
money to give to the government to
fund the making of bombs and using
them to blow up villages somewhere In
Bhutan. OK, I think I gone just a little
bit too far…
No more Santa saying “ho ho ho!”
anymore. It’s degrading to women
everywhere, and Imus screwed it up for
all of us.
No more gingerbread men and gin-
gerbread houses (and SUV’s as well).
Let us think of the destruction of per-
sonal property all over the world due to
hurricanes, tsunamis, and tornadoes.
No more “Merry Christmas!”, be-
cause it’s not just about one people and
one religion, so “Happy Holi-
days!”…oh, wait…you can’t say that!
Because it’s not about everyone. We
live in America with Christian values
and “only” Christian values, so no
“Happy Channukah” and “Festive
Kwaanza”, either.
No more presents because what
about the under-privileged children all
over the world who don’t have any?
How about instilling Socialist values
where we take away the wealth of pres-
ents from the top 10% and redistribute
happen and are going to. If charity
money is involved, why not have one
officer to just be there and make sure
the safety of the poker players are in
good hands? Games at the dorm?
Count your lucky stars that RSP knows
its residents apart from the visitors and
knows how to handle another situation
where poker player students could end
up in trouble. Just only an idea or two
Or maybe I’m overreacting.
Because I love the game so much I’m
pretty much rambling on + on + on
about how to save it (if need be) before
the USG or anyone else on campus de-
cides to shut it down, if ever. The idea
of robbery is a realistic scenario that
hopefully Stony Brook’s poker players
should think about and take into con-
sideration their safety and well-being,
with the club’s game organizers and
student community putting in their
share of safety and security.
Good luck.
them to the other 90%? Hey, if Chavez’
Venezuela is doing it, why can’t we?
Let the few anti-capitalists make a real
difference, shall we?
No more portrayal of elves for fear
of offending the little people.
No more telling children that Santa
doesn’t exist. We can’t afford to hurt
our children’s feelings with the truth,
and telling the truth to our children is
bad. Bad, bad, bad!
And let’s not even get started with
children sitting on Santa’s lap…
Fact of the matter is, no matter how
you slice it, this year there will always
be someone out there who will be some
sort of ultimate crusader of Christmas
because somehow, somewhere these
insecure grinches are not happy with
the way Christmas is to them, no mat-
ter what or how big their personal con-
viction. And looking back at it all, will
they realize just how stupid all this will
be?
Oh, and uh…Merry Christmas,
Happy Chanukkah, Festive Kwanzaa,
Winter Solstice…at least not until De-
cember.
The Stony Brook Press
Want your club/organization to be featured in a future Club Spotlight?
Death and Destruction At Myst!
By Jon Singer
Sharply dressed in jeans, a track
jacket, and metro-style sunglasses,
Chris is dancing by himself. “I can’t be-
lieve there’s nobody on the dance floor,”
he says. It’s Friday night, and Chris is
doing what he calls “break dancing
standing up,” moving his body around
whilst checking himself out in the mir-
ror. Out of the speakers come familiar
pop rap songs with the bass turned up
to 12. And the beer comes in plastic
cups.
At Myst, a nightclub on Main Street
in Smithtown that the average beatnik
has never heard of, it’s 18 to enter and
21 to drink. Cheap paper wristbands in-
dicate one’s age to the bartender, while
the DJ plays a mix of club beats and
popular rock songs that are remixed to
sound like club beats. Apparently there
are techno versions of “Living on a
Prayer,” “Sweet Home Alabama,” and
“You Shook Me All Night Long.” “ey
remix rock songs into club beats,” says
Chris. “ey don’t butcher it.”
On this particular Friday night,
Chris is responsible for packing Myst
with patrons. While Chris’ parents
think he works late nights at Target, he
is actually a club promoter. Just mention
Chris’ name at the door (if you can get
e average patron is
dressed in a manner that
could be called “guido”
passed the surly bouncer), and part of
your five-dollar cover charge goes into
Chris’ pocket.
Chris admits that the money he
earns from club promoting is not that
much. But, as he points out, he gets into
the club for free, and, he adds, it raises
his social status. With three dozen
names on his guest list, Chris has gained
many contacts in the industry, making
Myspace an invaluable tool in the world
of clubbing. “Whoever doesn’t have My-
space should get it,” says Chris. His
website of choice is linights.com.
Drinks at Myst cost five dollars for a
pint of beer. is is hardly the price of a
drink at a Manhattan nightclub. Al-
though the neon sign outside the club
advertises Rolling Rock, Jessica, the bar-
tender, has never heard of the brand.
“No one orders it,” says Jessica. Another
way Chris saves money is by following a
straight edge lifestyle. at means no
wasted money on five dollar drinks. “If
I’m not drinking, then I can’t be called a
drunk,” says Chris. Physical fitness is a
key aspect of Chris’ life. At times, he is
capable of running seven miles a day,
and that’s what keeps him in shape so he
can dance all night.
By 11:45, Chris looks quite awk-
ward. He’s literally the only person on
Features 17
E-mail The Press at
sbpress@gmail.com
the dance floor, and it’s painfully awk-
ward. “Why is he staring at himself?”
asks one girl, as Chris checks out his
own moves in the mirror. But perhaps
that’s speaking too soon. By 12:15, the
space is saturated with bodies, all danc-
ing to a song by the popular rap artist
Ma$e (he’s not dead). By this time,
Chris now has his fair share of potential
dance partners, and he has no problem
grinding with any girl who cares to
come up to him.
e average patron is dressed in a
manner that could be called “guido” or
“skank,” but it’s not the job of this pub-
lication to judge based on outward ap-
pearances. “It’s the hip scene,” says
Chris, who leaves the club sweating at
1:30. On this particular night, he trav-
els alone (observing journalists don’t
count), but he one day hopes to bring a
date with him. And he couldn’t turn
around if he wanted to: on the door of
Myst, the sign says, “all exits final.”
 The Stony Brook Press
The King of Kong: A Fistfull of Quarters
Sweeney Todd: A Bloody Mess
By Alex H. Nagler
“Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd.
His skin was pale and his eye was odd.
He shaved the faces of gentlemen who
never thereaer were heard from again.
He trod a path that few had trod. Did
Sweeney Todd. e demon barber of
Fleet Street.”
ese opening words of multiple
Tony Award Winner Stephen Sond-
heim’s masterpiece “Sweeney Todd”
were not heard in Tim Burton’s brutal-
ization of the movie by the same name.
e aptly titled “Ballad of Sweeney”
does not appear in the movie or on the
soundtrack. And this is just the start of
everything that went wrong in
Sweeney. Burton did to Sondheim’s
masterpiece what Todd did to Pirelli. It
smells like piss. Piss with ink.
I’m going to confess to being a bit of
a purist when it comes to Sweeney. If
there is any musical I can attest to hav-
ing an intimate knowledge of, it would
be this one. I can sing nearly the entire
score and actually recorded “Johanna”
and “Not While I’m Around.” So, when
I first heard they were making a movie
version of the musical, I was excited.
en I saw who was attached. Burton
and Depp. e Willy Wonka, Night-
mare Before Christmas, Corpse Bride
team of Hot Topic renegades.
Depp is a good actor, much like
Burton is a good director. Depp’s power
to immerse himself in the character he
plays and emerge unrecognizable is
amazing. Burton’s commitment to
telling a story is remarkable and wor-
thy of applause. Captain Jack Sparrow,
Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, Willy
Wonka. All of these characters are
unique to Depp and he plays them all
masterfully, bringing life to them and
turning all of them into singular figures
separate from Depp. He does a won-
derful job with all of them.
But not when there’s a lush score at
stake- not when Sweeney is at stake.
en Depp fails. He simply cannot vo-
cally cut the parts as other famous
Sweeneys (Len Carou, Geoge Hearn)
have. I know that casting a big budget
movie with a cast of unknowns who
posses superior voices does not make
sense compared to casting the lead
roles as major actors with so-so voices,
but this is a light opera we’re talking
about. Using actors who can’t cut the
score just doesn’t do it justice.
Now, onto the score itself. Using my
copy of Sweeney Todd Live at the New
York Philharmonic (as complete a
recording as there will ever be) as my
The Billy Mitchell Show
guide, let’s see what’s missing. “e Bal-
lad of Sweeney Todd” has been axed in
all its different forms, leaving only a
rich, instrumental shell in its place. e
trademark steam whistle that marks the
beginning, end, and any particularly
bloody murders has been removed.
“Ah, Miss,” sung by Anthony (in the
THIS is what Sweeney is made of, not Sissy Boy Depp
movie played by the lackluster and emo
Jamie Campbell Bower) as he looks
into Johanna’s (Jayne Wisner, far too
shrill for this part) window is gone.
“Pirelli’s Miracle Elixir” has no chorus
parts to it, but Sacha Baron Cohen
made an admirable attempt to hit a
high note and shed his Borat persona
in favor of the sole bright costume of
the production. e Judge’s (wonder-
fully played by foghorn voiced Alan
Rickman) version of “Johanna,” in
which he whips himself to orgasm as he
prays for forgiveness from God for lust-
ing aer Johanna has been cut, but
many productions do just this for obvi-
ous reasons. “Kiss Me,” a duet between
Anthony and Johanna, was scrapped
alongside its quartet accompaniment of
“Ladies in their Sensitivities”, a much
more sinister duet between the Judge
and the Beadle (the always delightfully
slimy Timothy Spall). And this is just
the material axed in the first act.
Act Two opens with “God, at’s
Good,” sung by the chorus, Mrs. Lovett
Donkey Kong: The Animated Series
(the always bizarrely attractive Marla
Singer… uhm, Helena Bonham
Carter), and Toby (poorly played by a
sometimes drunk Ed Sanders, who’s
only fieen. Toby is normally played by
a twenty-something, but more on that
later.) Once again, no chorus part in a
piece where the chorus is an essential
part. “e Letter,” a song where the
chorus sings the words of Todd has
been eliminated, as has “Parlor Songs,”
where the Beadle plays traditional
organ music before getting his throat
sliced. Finally, the last rendition of “e
Ballad of Sweeney Todd,” possibly the
most important version of it in the mu-
sical is gone, leaving an odd sense of no
closure as Toby stands over the bodies
of Todd and Lovett, his mad scene hav-
ing been removed for reasons un-
known.
I hated Todd. It should be obvious
from the fact that I’m listing everything
that’s missing that I didn’t see Depp’s
deep and brooding performance as
anything overly special or enough to
redeem the movie in my eyes. I would
have gladly sat for another hour if it
had allowed the full musical to come
out.
Oh, and about Toby. Why am I so
incensed over a fieen year old playing
the part? Simple. Toby, according to the
libretto, is a boy of sixteen to twenty
Arts & Entertainment 19
1,050,200
and mentally handicapped. e exact
words are “simple minded,” but his de-
votion to Mrs. Lovett and his deep mis-
trust of Todd make it lyrically obvious
that he’s a bit retarded. at, and my
Mom was friends with the traveling
cast (1984) Tobias, who was told by
Sondheim himself that Toby was men-
tally challenged.
At the end of the musical, Toby, hav-
ing deduced that Sweeney has been
murdering people and using them as
pie stuffing, and having just witnessed
him waltz Mrs. Lovett into the oven,
goes mad and kills Todd with his own
razor, singing the “Patty Cake” song as
he does it. “Razor! Razor! Cut, cut, cut
cadougan, watch me grind my corn. Pat
him and prick him and mark him with
B, and put him in the oven for baby and
me!” On the “me,” Todd’s throat is
sliced as the shrill factory whistle, also
missing from the movie, sounds for the
last time.
Finally, Toby has gone mad. An-
thony and Johanna, having fled Todd’s
razor and returned with the police,
walk in and find the corpses of the Beg-
gar Woman and Todd along with Toby.
“You will pardon me, gentlemen, but
you may not enter here. Oh no! Me
mistress don't let no one enter here, for,
you see, sirs, there's work to be done, so
much work. ree times. at's the se-
cret. ree times through for them to
be tender and juicy. ree times
through the grinder. Smoothly,
smoothly...” ese words, the genius of
Tony-winning book writer Hugh
Wheeler, are how the dialogue portion
of the musical ends. From there, it
segues into the final reprise of the Bal-
lad, where the dead come alive once
more and sing of revenge. To get rid of
Toby’s final mad scene unfairly under-
cuts his character and waters down his
interpretation.
I hated this version of Sweeney
Todd. e train ride home from the city
I had to play nothing but the Live ver-
sion to get the bad taste of Burton’s
work out of my mind. By paying twelve
bucks to see this piece of tripe, I acci-
dentally gave Burton my vote of confi-
dence and other directors the idea that
watering down scores to make musicals
fit their own minds. Well, in the words
of a different Sondheim musical, “Yes! I
gave you my vote, my sacred demo-
cratic trust, and you know what you
did? You pissed all over it!...Well, what
the hell. Guys like you, you piss all over
everything. You piss all over the coun-
try. You piss all over yourselves. You
piss all over me...”
Alex H. Nagler doesn’t look forward to
seeing Sweeney gear at Hot Topic.
20 Arts & Entertainment
Billboard’s Top 4 Albums
1 The Fuckers
Self Titled
iRate: Mac World and Portable Sex
By Justin Meltzer
Hello, and welcome to another
exciting installment of iRate, the Mac
column for Mac addicts and afi-
cionados alike. In this issue we have
a lot to cover what with Mac World
and a butt-load of upgrades and all,
so let’s get going.
First let’s talk about the new iPod
Touch software upgrades. The soft-
ware package, consisting of pretty
much the same applications iPhone
owners have always been privy to,
will be included on all the new
touchs. The five applications include
mail, maps, weather, notes, and
stocks, and if you already have a
Touch they’ll only cost you a cool
$20. Not really worth it when you
can just jailbreak the iPhone for free.
But don’t let Steve know I said that.
The upgrades also came to the
iPhone with version 1.1.3, and in-
clude multiple person texting, new
map user interface, and the amazing,
fantastic, super duper ability to move
icons on your home screen. You’ll
know when to move them by holding
down on any icon and then they’ll
begin to wiggle. Glory! Thankfully
the iPhone upgrade is free, and only
costs $0.
Next up is the new wireless
router slash hard drive system that
goes along with the Leopard feature,
“Time Machine,” which apple is call-
ing the “Time Capsule.” Ideally the
hardware works by giving one the
ability to backup their computer
from anywhere within range of the
Time Capsule. At $299 for the 500
GB and $499 for the 1 TB these can
be seen as good deals… but not re-
ally.
After about a year since its debut,
the Apple TV is back and better than
before. The software has been com-
Vol. XXIX, Issue 8 | Wednesday, February 13, 2008
2 The Normal Guys
The Social Dean’s List
pletely revamped and along with a
new user interface, very welcome
price drop, and the ability to work
without the need of a networked
computer. The new Apple TV coin-
cides just in time with the new
iTunes feature to rent movies. So
now instead of buying digital ver-
sions of the same movies you already
own on DVD you can instead rent
the same movie you already own on
DVD for only $2.99 for old movies
and $3.99 for new releases. These
movies can also be played on any
computer, iPhone, or iPod that plays
video. You have thirty days to press
play and twenty-four hours to watch
it once play is pressed. Or if you want
to be more fancy shmancy and you
3 Booger Patrol
The Green Album
have an Apple TV, you can rent the
movie in high def (don’t get to ex-
cited it’s only 720p) for only a dollar
more than their standard definition
counterparts. What’s really great
about the rentals is that Apple man-
aged to get every major studio on
Gizmodo
board to lend to their archive. Not
too shabby.
Up next is the big showstopper at
this year’s Mac World, the MacBook
Air; Mac’s take on the ultra portable.
While the machine looks great and is
easily the thinnest laptop by far, the
real question is whether its lack of
features, and high price make the
computer worth purchasing. Now if
you happen to have $1799, literally
burning a hole in your pocket, so bad
4 The School Lunch Pogrom
Slave Sounds
that you’ve needed to seek medical
attention concerning the use of your
outer thigh in relation to the 2nd de-
gree burns placed there by your siz-
zling money, then this is the
computer for you. However, if you
need a computer that is faster, has
more hard-drive capacity, more
ports, a fully incorporated disk drive,
is less money and heaven forbid is
(gasp) thicker, then I must advise
you to look elsewhere, perhaps a half
an inch to your left if you are brows-
ing the online Mac store, for exam-
ple.
While the machine is gorgeous,
has a lot of special features, and you
don’t “necessarily” need a disk drive,
I just can’t recommend this computer
to anyone who’s thighs aren’t chaffed
and in need of ointment. And for
those interested in the solid state
drive MacBook Air that is slightly
faster for $3098, then my prayers are
with you. Godspeed, young man!
Last, but not least, is the slew of
very recent, very sexy iPod updates.
The new iPod Nano is looking pretty
in pink (no relation to Molly Ring-
wald) and still costs the same as the
current Nanos. More interesting are
the Touch and iPhone memory up-
grades. For $499 you can now either
get a 16 GB iPhone or a 32 GB iPod
Touch. For one hundred dollars more
the capacities has thus been doubled
from the last iteration of each device.
Not too shabby.
Well that’s all for this installment
of iRate. And may I give props to
Apple for being concerned for the
environment and moving forward
with the eco-friendly packaging in
the MacBook Air and within the Air
itself. Bravo in making the world a
better place, and taking more of your
loyal customers’ money for your 14
billion-dollar money room collec-
tion.
The Stony Brook Press
In Thru The Back Door 4 Rhymes, Is Fantastic
Studio: Vouyer Media
Director: Vince Vouyer
Cast: Maria Bellucci, Lana Croft,
Jenny Hendrix, Savanah Gold, Audrey
Elson, Tatiana Kushnev
Genre(s): Anal, Asian, Cumshots,
Double Penetration, Gonzo, Group
Sex, Straight, Toys
Condoms: No
The name of the game here is
hardcore anal sex and this fourth in-
stallment in the In Thru The Back
Door series by Vouyer Media will
likely impress fans of the genre. Wit-
nessing the first scene alone is enough
to allow for a quick dismissal of any
preconceived doubt the viewer might
feel about the film when it comes to its
overall worth and production quality.
It would appear that director Vince
Vouyer has gone to great lengths to en-
sure that this sequel is the best in the
series and the flick really does give
fans of anal sex a lot to celebrate.
This movie is pretty straightfor-
ward. As the title suggests, eager view-
ers can expect to see a lot of hot
women who love taking it up the ass.
This collection of vignettes is free
Bore My Asshole 3: The Wild and Crazy Adventures of John Strong
Title: Bore My Asshole 3
Studio: Red Light District
Director: John Strong
Cast: Sascha, Maria Bellucci,
Claudia Downs, Lana Croft, Audrey
Elson, Lana Laine, Italia Christie, John
Strong, Mr. Pete, Tony T.
Genre(s): Anal, Asian, Blowjobs,
Cumshots, Double Penetration,
Gonzo, Group Sex
Condoms: No
Bore My Asshole 3 teams an en-
thusiastic cast of starlets with a direc-
tor who has an excellent
understanding of what fans of anal
have come to love about the genre.
The film’s roster of talent generates the
sort of excitement that every porn fan
hopes for and all film directors scram-
ble to capture on camera.
Lana Croft is unbelievably stun-
ning and it’s no wonder that her image
adorns the cover of this DVD. This
from tedious set-ups and pre-sex inter-
view yammering with the starlets. In-
stead you’ll find very believable
scenes chock full of energy and intense
backdoor action.
Lana Croft kicks off the movie
and will leave you speechless. Within
seconds you’ll be reeled in by this
pretty little Asian’s spunk and good
looks. Our young starlet is blessed
with natural breasts that are perky as
can be and her ass is practically flaw-
less. She proves early on that she can
really work a dick. Lana gives great
head and has no problem expressing
herself vocally while getting plowed.
The acting in this vignette was incred-
ibly convincing and everything flowed
nicely.
Audrey Elson and Tatiana Kush-
nev offer amazing performances as
well, but when compared to 30-year-
old Maria Bellucci, the two young
hussies fall short in the experience de-
partment. This stunning brunette has a
great pair of legs and a stacked chest.
Her scene opens with the introduction
of two well-hung gentlemen who show
up to cater to our older starlet’s every
kink. There’s plenty of anal sex to go
sexy starlet provides the eye candy in
the film’s opening scene and helps to
set the mood for the rest of the movie.
Lana’s spot features plenty of ass wor-
ship and is probably one of the best
segments in the entire flick. Not to be
Meanwhile, Maria
realizes that two cocks
are better than one...
completely outdone, Audrey Elson
takes on John Strong and Mr. Pete in
the next scene and what ensues is one
hell of a display. Our young starlet’s
skills are put to the test as she’s forced
to please both of her well-endowed
partners who give it to her nice and
rough. Her scene made for some dy-
namite viewing and comes complete
around and the scene draws to a close
after Maria receives a dual facial.
Our cover girl Jenny Hendrix puts
on a wild performance. She begins by
telling the director that she’s only been
in porn for a short while, but the way
she dominates her vignette will give
skeptics enough ammunition to shoot
down this particular façade no matter
how inconsiquential it may seem.
Jenny bends every which way and
heads into each sexual position like a
real pro. At one point she instructs
Sascha (her male lead) to cum but it
turns out that he’s not nearly through
with her yet. What ensues are several
additional minutes of rough anal sex,
probably the best in the film overall.
In the end, Sascha’s sizeable load
proves to be too much for Jenny to
handle. After he gets off, you see
Jenny struggling to keep it all in her
mouth. Excellent!
At this point you may be asking
yourself how this skin flick can get
any better. Well, as it turns out, Vince
Vouyer has one last trick up his sleeve
in the way of a bonus scene featuring
Savanah Gold. Savanah is an English
lassie with enormous breasts and one
with ass spanking and some excellent
double penetration.
There’s also some exceptional per-
forming on the part of Claudia Downs.
This blonde bombshell has full natural
tits and piercing green eyes. She starts
off by servicing both of her partners
who proceed to forcibly insert their
throbbing cocks down her throat, mak-
ing for some truly intense and unruly
moments. Claudia moans and screams
throughout the course of her scene and
it was great to see her run through a
full range of emotions during the
shooting.
The film’s last two scenes feature
some on-screen time with Italia
Christie and Maria Bellucci. Italia is a
decent-looking brunette dressed in
pink. She’s got a rather large nose, but
if you can look past that particular flaw
of hers you’ll be delighted to know
that the sex in her scene was way
above average. Meanwhile, Maria re-
Arts & Entertainment 21
of the best bubble butts this reviewer
has seen in quite some time. Her scene
is a little short but it really compli-
ments the movie nicely.
In Thru also includes your usual
bonus extras like brief interviews with
the movie’s starlets, film trailers and a
large photo gallery section but nothing
too exciting there. All in all, this flick
definitely gets the thumbs up!
alizes that two cocks are better than
one and ends up getting drilled by
John Strong and Tony T. The sex in
this scene was okay, there wasn’t any-
thing exceptional about her perform-
ance and if there was one scene worth
skipping over it would have to be hers.
Overall, the action in Bore My
Asshole 3 is pretty cut and dry. Direc-
tor John Strong does a great job in
pulling this film together and com-
mands some particularly excellent per-
formances, and that alone is
deservedly commendable.
Aside from the feature presenta-
tion there’s nothing remotely appeal-
ing about the film’s bonus features.
Extras include the usual photo gallery
and behind-the-scenes footage that has
since become a staple in every Red
Light District release. Pretty boring
stuff there, really.
22 Arts & Entertainment
Top 15 Most Anticipated Films of 2008
By Douglas Cion
Welcome back my friends to a new
year which like all proceeding years…
ends. e Super Bowl is out of the way,
hockey and basketball suck and base-
ball doesn’t begin until April, so now
my friends we have plenty of time to re-
flect on our future in entertaining our-
selves. A new year is upon us and in a
few weeks aer the Oscars on February
24th, a new year for Hollywood will
begin as well. We can look back at 07
and praise the highs like Juno and No
Country for Old Men. We can also
smash our heads into our desks to for-
get about the lows… ya know, like Nor-
bit and Daddy Day Camp. But that is
all in the past (including a summer
packing about 11 3-quels behind its
punch) and it is time to look onto a
brighter future that will contain fresh
ideas and new, unique stories. Now
that we are all done laughing; Yes, we
got ourselves another year that is jam
packed with sequels, remakes and
adaptations from novels and comic
books. Aer hours of relentless re-
search I took part in during the com-
mercials of American Gladiators; a few
colleges, a few volunteers and I were
able to establish a nice list that should
prepare you for what to expect in this
“Great 08.”
15. Step Brothers stars Will Ferrell
and John C. Riley and is directed and
written by Adam McKay. McKay has
co wrote Talladega Nights and Anchor-
man and has written for “Saturday
Night Live” for years. By him teaming
back up with Ferrell to make another
Will Ferrell Movie, it seems little can go
wrong which history has proven. Fer-
rell’s Semi-Pro may be making more
noise on the radar at the moment but
that is because it will be out in theaters
much earlier then Step Brothers. Con-
sider the idea of Farrell and Riley, ar-
guably the recognizable faces of “Goofy
Comedy,” as two rich step brothers
competing against one another to sim-
ply just out do one another. I like to
think this may have a little more then a
film about an imaginary basketball
league in which Farrell owns the team
he plays for.
Release Date: July 25
Vol. XXIX, Issue 8 | Wednesday, February 13, 2008
14. Mamma Mia is following in the
footsteps of its predecessors like Hair-
spray, Phantom of the Opera, and Rent.
ere is this big debate about making
theater musicals into film musicals, but
for some reason, there is no consis-
tency. Sure, people like musicals, and
people like even more that they can pay
10 dollars to see it on screen rather than
pay 50 dollars to see it on Broadway.
Hairspray was a blockbuster in 07 and
Across the Universe had the legs to last
in some theaters for almost 12 weeks,
so we know that musicals are possible
money makers. Qith an all star cast
containing Pierce Brosnan and Meryl
Streep in a story that can basically be
summed up by watching an episode on
Maury, but not in that trashy kind of
way, I predict this film to be the Hair-
spray of 08.
Release Date: July 18
13. Revolutionary Road is what
everyone has been waiting for, the re-
uniting of Kate Winslet and Leonardo
DiCaprio. Directed by Sam Mendes,
the brilliant mind who directed Amer-
ican Beauty and Jarhead, this adapta-
tion from the novel written by Richard
Yates will take us back to the 50’s. I
don’t know what it is about our Leo but
he just seems to fit any role that takes
place in the past. is film already has
Oscar buzz surrounding it, and a keen
strategy by releasing it at the end of the
year.
Release Date: December 19
12. Body of Lies which will reunite
the Oscar winning director with his
prize pig Russell Crowe, who will co
star in this political drama with
Leonardo DiCaprio. In 07, when
Crowe teamed up with Denzel Wash-
ington in American Gangster, the box
office was able to do all the talking. e
star power alone combining these two
powerful actors, as well Scott’s recog-
nizable name and style will truly be a
film that turn heads and meets expec-
tations.
Release Date: October 10
11. Hellboy II: e Golden Army is
the first “comic book” film we will en-
counter on this list. Whether you want
to believe it or not, the Hellboy fran-
chise is very much respected and en-
joyed in the comic book industry. Be-
side Ron Pearlman coming back to his
role, you also have Guillermo Del Toro
directing this sequel, as he did the first
installment. Del Toro is a hell of a di-
rector-forgive the pun-which he has
proven through Pan’s Labyrinth and his
genius behind the camera has made
him a force in the creativity depart-
ment. Having been released in 2004
and now that it has been shown on FX
about 342 times, many are intrigued,
and many will go to see what is in store
for our loveable gang of freaks who
make up the Bureau of Paranormal Re-
search.
Release Date: July 11
10. e Incredible Hulk comes right
aer as the next “comic book” film but
with a much larger purpose-me with
these countless puns e idea behind
this Hulk is to save the franchise from
its reputation which Ang Lee had made
as the Mockery of Marvel. With Louis
Leterrier (both Transporter Movies) di-
recting and Edward Norton taking over
the role as Bruce Banner, I predict this
film will rejuvenate the franchise, tak-
ing it back to “Incredible.”
Release Date: June 13
9. e Chronicles of Narnia: Prince
Caspian is the long waited, over-due,
follow up to the first epic in 2005. You
have Andrew Adamson returning as di-
rector and all the familiar faces will be
back to reclaim their roles, as well as
Ben Barnes taking the role of the super
hunk in Narnia, Prince Caspian. ere
is very little I can say about this film
that most do not already know. e
people who will go see this and the peo-
ple who will not have already decided
upon hearing about this next install-
ment.
Release Date: May 16
8. e Pineapple Express is Judd Ap-
atow’s next masterpiece which will be
following up Superbad and Knocked
Up. Would you believe that Seth Rogan
is staring in this?!? As if this is not a
recipe for success in itself, this one is
classified as a “stoner” movie and by
bringing in James Franco. (the guy
from Annapolis, Fly Boys and some
other movie where he wants to kill spi-
ders) as Rogan’s spaced out side kick.
My question is how can this film screw
up? I predict will have a very successful
box office gross for an R-rated film.
Release Date: August 8
7. Star Trek XI will bring the fran-
chise back to the big screen this year.
Directed by J.J. Abbrams, coming off
his success with Cloverfield, this one
will give those guys a 2 and ½ hour
break from their Warcra and allow
them to venture back into the real
world where I am sure they will be
shocked that movie tickets now cost 10
dollars. You know something, I have
never watched a single episode on TV
and I have never seen any of the movies
but any idiot can tell you that there is a
massive demographic that will flood
the theaters to see this one. Some peo-
ple just like it.
Release Date: December 25
6. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood
Prince is the next installment of proba-
bly the most successful franchise in the
film industry ever. is will be the
sixth one with the fourth director but
its okay kids, David Yates was the one
behind Order of the Phoenix. Seriously
though, it’s the next Harry Potter
movie. Need I say more?
Release Date: November 21
5. Iron Man is shaping up to be Mar-
vel’s bread and butter of 2008. e mar-
keting behind this film is genius. From
what I have seen, the movie looks out-
standing and yet I have the feeling I did
not see any of the “good” stuff. e big
thing with Iron Man is that Marvel has
to knock this one out of the park.
Granted Spider Man 3 was as success-
ful as it was and Fantastic Four 2: Rise of
the Silver Surfer did bring in profit, but
many were unsatisfied with the actual
movies. I for one loved both, but I do
not make up the entire film going pop-
ulation. I predict that Iron Man will
make up for the last two “bad” ones
from 07. Jon Favreau is the perfect di-
rector for this one and Robert Downey
Jr. has embodied the character of Tony
Stark better then any other actor in
Hollywood could ever do.
Release Date: May 2
4. Bond 22: Quantum of Solace
brings back the infamous ‘Bond…
James Bond,’ played by Daniel Craig
Movies! continued on next page
The Stony Brook Press
Movies continued from previous page
once again. Casino Royal, released in
2006, gave the Bond Franchise a much
needed boost aer the falling out of the
Brosnan era. Royal, which served as a
prequel to all previous Bond movies
showed the path of the man becoming
an agent which allowed the audience to
gain a realistic sense of the film, some-
thing the previous films were unable to
do. e sequel, entitled Quantum of
Solace may sound like something out of
an Organic Chemistry text book but
the only chemistry I will be focusing on
is between Craig and the luscious, un-
familiar actress named Gemma Arter-
ton as she takes on the role of the new
Bond Girl named Agent Fields.
Release Date: Novemember 7
3. e Sex and the City Movie is
what I predict the highest grossing R-
rated movie of this year. Ladies, you
have been waiting to see if Carrie and
Mr. Big will finally tie the knot, and
gentlemen, they have also been waiting
to drag you to this one. Although I dis-
agree with your entire ideology, Can-
dace Bushnell, I cannot argue with
success. is show was one of the
biggest series on HBO, and by having
Michael King direct (Producer of the
TV series), this film will follow the path
of the show and be just as successful.
Release Date: May 30
Bang Camaro Rolls Into Williamsburg
By Matt Willemain
Maybe someone told Bang Ca-
maro that the key to live metal per-
formance was volume and they got
confused and decided to cover all
their bases—in addition to bone-
shaking sound, they’ve filled the
stage with as many motherfuckers
as can conceivably claim to be “with
the band,” But the trick—building
on top of four guitars and drums
with a posse of up to twenty lead vo-
calists—works for the Boston based
A good olʼ rocking melee.
2. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of
the Crystal Skull has been almost 20
years in the making, serving as the fol-
low up of the last Indiana Jones install-
ment, e Last Crusade of 1989.
Speilberg’s Indiana Jones franchise can
be summed up by one word: Iconic.
Harrison Ford will be cracking his
whip, putting on his hat, and taking his
Centrum as Indiana. His son, who is
making his debut in an Indiana Jones
movie, will take the audience on a
grand adventure filled with action and
peril. Did I forget to mention that Shia
LaBoeuf will be playing this role? You
know, that kid that came from the Dis-
ney Channel and became one of the
biggest names in Hollywood by staring
in smashes like Herbie: Fully Loaded
and I Know Who Killed Me. Oh wait…
that is the other kid who came from the
Disney Channel who is also just as fa-
mous but not for her acting. LaBoeuf
sealed his name with 2 huge hits in 07
with Transformers and Disturbia. e
past will meet the future and it doesn’t
hurt to have one of the best directors of
all time calling the shots.
Release Date: May 22
1. e Dark Knight was originally
my number two pick but with the un-
timely death of Heath Ledger, there is
more publicity surrounding this movie
then any other this year. Being recog-
rockers. The strutting, shouting
army on the stage breaks down the
division between band and audience
and creates the feeling of one big
party. How can so many people, so
sure that we’re all having such a
great time, be wrong?
The self-titled debut album is
solid, but Bang Camaro’s perform-
ance February 2 at the Music Hall of
Williamsburg proved that their stuff
is best appreciated live: The stage
bravado resonates with the excite-
ment of a packed hall, and raucous
Andrew Fraley
nized as ‘e best Batman film of the
franchise,’ Batman Begins in 05 jump
started the franchise aer the disgust-
ing portrayal of the Caped Crusader in
Schumacher’s Batman Forever and Bat-
man and Robin, which nearly caused a
simultaneous stroke for all loyal Bat-
man fans. Christopher Nolan will re-
turn as director as well as Christain
Bale, who will be strapping on the Bat
Suit once again. It is still shocking
when I think about Ledger actually
having passed away early this year.
From what I have seen in the trailers,
this man embodied e Joker, the most
diabolical and recognized villain in the
Batman franchise. Rumor is spreading
that he may be honorably nominated
for an Oscar next year because this per-
formance is truly masterful. Some-
where right now, Heath is smiling and
laughing… and I hope it is the same
smile and laugh he used for the charac-
ter. My prediction for this film in its
entirety is that there will be not one dull
moment throughout the narrative and
that it will also shatter the box office
gross that Tim Burton’s original Bat-
man has as the highest grossing Batman
film.
Expected Release Date: July 18
Other Predictions for 2008:
Close calls:
1. Valkyrie: Tom Cruise + WWII
shredding goes down smoother with
a few drinks. The set’s only weak-
ness was its depth—Bang Camaro
needs more material. As this is their
first national tour, building on the
broad attention generated by the in-
clusion of anthemic tracks “Push
Push (Lady Lightning)” and “Plea-
sure Pleasure” as bonus content in
the Harmonix games Guitar Hero 2
and Rock Band, respectively, we can
hope that the future will see a filling
out of their repertoire.
Promises are implied when a
band’s (in this case the instrumental
core) takes to the stage to the theme
from Arnold Schwarzenegger’s
1982 epic Conan The Barbarian.
Those promises were kept. The
band’s PR claims “indie sensibili-
ties,” but they’re burdened by none
of the ironic sneering you might ex-
pect to plague indie rockers taking
us back to the metal well—we get
nothing but unmitigated rock, punc-
tuated by exuberant solos and ele-
vated by give-or-take twenty dudes
jumping around spitting water into
Arts & Entertainment 23
Nazis = Major publicity and Major
Profit.
2. Hancock: Will Smith as a home-
less superhero in an action comedy
coming out July 2.
3. Forbidden Kingdom: Martial Arts
spectacle teaming Jackie Chan with Jet
Lit.
4. Wall-E: Cars meets E.T. Will be
the animated smash of the year deliv-
ered by Pixar.
5. X Files Sequel: For some reason,
this show has a following that will not
go away.
Sleeper Hits:
1. Speed Racer: Wachowski broth-
ers’ next adaptation which may cause
seizures.
2. You Don’t Mess with Zohan:
Adam Sandler throwing in the towel for
“dramedies” and returning back to
“goof comedy” with the help of Judd
Apatow.
3. Charlie Bartlett: American Pie
meets Juno.
4. Baby Mama: Tina Fey’s PG 13
version of Knocked Up combined with
Juno.
5. e Happening: M. Night Shya-
malan really needs a bounce back.
6. Punisher - War Zone: DVD sales
from e Punisher proves this film has
a following.
scintillating clouds of mist amongst
the stage light.
Bang Camaro’s music can be
sampled at either bangcamaro.com
or the bands myspace page—unsur-
prisingly—myspace.com/bangca-
maro.
Andrew Fraley
You know he likes his band.
24 Comics Vol. XXIX, Issue 8 | Wednesday, February 13, 2008

ESKIMO JIM BY DAVID K. GINN

The Stony Brook Press Comics 25
26 Games Vol. XXIX, Issue 8 | Wednesday, February 13, 2008

1) Currently with the Philidelphia
Phillies, he has previously served on the
Boston Red Sox, Anaheim Angels and
most famously the Minnesota Twins
2) Inspired to make horror movies after
filming a segment for Mister Rogers’
Neighborhood in which the titular neigh-
borhood denizen undergoes a tonsillec-
tomy
3) Roman Catholic Archbishop of San
Salvador, El Salvador from 1977-1980
4) Achieved fame as the director of a se-
ries of zombie movies laden with allegor-
ical social significance
5) A southpaw on the mound, but a
switch hitter
6) Played memorably on the silver screen
by Raul Julia, who cried with characteris-
tic passion, “In the name of God, I order
you to stop the killing!”
7) A graduate of Carnegie Mellon Uni-
versity, his work shows a special love for
the Steel City
8) Gunned down mercilessly, while say-
ing mass, by a professional political mur-
derer trained by the United States Armed
Forces at a facility (notorious for teaching
the soldiers of US client states to kidnap,
torture and murder) which was closed
down by Congress after eleven years of
protest, but which opened the next day
under a different name and continues to
operate today
9) Over nine years in the major leagues
compiled a career ERA of 4.30
10) Inspired the name I gave to the truly
huge daddy longlegs who lives in my
shower

Go For It, Man! King Me!

I’m so depressed, I don’t know what to do...

Black to move, kill Whitey White to move, checkmate that shit

The Stony Brook Press The “Live Life to the Fullest, Fuck Old Men” Department 27

10

1
28
opinion
“Dear Steven Englebright”
Honorable Steven Englebright, Member
of Assembly
Legislative Office Building Room 712
Albany NY, 12248
CONSTITUENT LETTER ADVO-
CATING IDENTIFICATION OF
STATE CRUSTACEAN
Dear Sir or Madam,
I write to you today, as a constituent,
to encourage you to introduce a bill to
name the New York State Crustacean.
As it is a commonsense proposal, I am
confident that, with your support, such
a bill could easily be passed in both
houses by unanimous consent. I make
my case as follows:
Ask any of New York's many tow-
headed schoolchilders to identify our
mighty state's motto, slogan, bird, ani-
mal, variously fresh and saltwater fishes,
animal, insect, flower, tree, song, reptile,
beverage, colors, fossil and gemstone.
To a man they will gaze up, eyes eagerly
searching for approval as they bark, "Ex-
celsior! I Love New York! Eastern blue-
bird! Beaver! Brook trout, Striped bass!
Ladybug! Rose! Sugar Maple! ‘I Love
New York’! Snapping turtle! Milk!
Blue & Gold! Sea scorpion! Garnet!" If
you review your records of our past cor-
respondence you will recall I suggest the
statewide Regents exams as an appro-
priate venue for this exchange. Consid-
ering this hypothetical tableaux, I trust
Jury Duty
you share with me an unspoken appre-
ciation for that constellation of special
Imagine
that you mur-
dered someone a
few weeks ago.
You know that it
was self-defense
but you have to
David Robin
find a lawyer to
prove that you are
not guilty of mur-
der or you will spend a long time in
jail. Who in the courtroom does the
lawyer have to convince so that you
don’t end up making license plates in a
dark room for the rest of your life?
The judge is only there to be the “ref-
eree” of the courtroom. The court
clerk does paperwork and swears peo-
ple in. The court reporter types up a
record of the events that take place in
the courtroom. The court officers es-
cort the jurors and keep the court-
room safe. Who is left in the four
off-white walls of the courtroom? The
Vol. XXIX, Issue 8 | Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Inside the Opinion section-
Crustacean Now!
Page 28
icons that define us as New Yorkers, and
divide us from common Rhode Island
filth. (Coffee milk can eat a big fat
dick.)
I know that you know just how cut-
throat and fast-paced the world of state-
token legislating can be. I’m sorry for
the painful memories this must stir
within your breast, but I have no choice
but to go “there”. I know that your office
once carried legislation to define, as our
state song, Billy Joel’s “New York State
of Mind” until the devastating discov-
ery that the song had already been
claimed by Michigan. at they would
turn their backs on KISS just to stick it
to the Empire State only betrays Michi-
gan’s low character. e lesson here: the
greatest haste is critical in these affairs.
We must, as always, remember the
snapping turtle.
I can intuit that a certain uneasy
peace, a ‘Cold War’, now holds in this
bitter provincial rivalry—an interstate
commerce in one-upmanship and cru-
elty that no Constitution defines a reg-
ulator for—but this quiet masks a
terribly insecurity and the possibility of
sudden hostilities. An overlooked the-
ater of war beckons with a wealth of re-
sources, glittering like so many garnets,
under the flag of no state.
If you sleep peacefully at night you
must not know that during the go-go
80’s two states, “Loseranna” and Mary-
land, declared state crustaceans. I can
only assume that state legislators from
the other 48 were too coked out of their
minds to read the newswire. If you have
jurors. This diverse group of twelve ju-
rors and two or three alternates are
going to decide your life. These people
have never met you before but they are
going to affect your life more than
your friends ever have.
Every U.S. citizen has to fulfill
jury service more than once during
their life, assuming that they live long
enough for the white and blue enve-
lope to come through their mailbox
multiple times. A person is supposed
to serve jury duty every six years, at
most. The names are chosen from a
random list of people with drivers li-
censes, permits, or New York State
Identification Cards. Unfortunately,
when the names for people serving
during a week in September were cho-
sen, my name came up. While my Dad
didn’t serve on a jury until he was 32, I
was summoned at only 20 to willfully
serve. I had the excuse that I was
going to school because when I re-
Obama Now!
Page 29
a pulse in your veins and the love of
New York in your heart I know you are
thinking one thing and one thing only
as you read these fateful words: how
many good crustaceans are there? Are
there fiy—enough to go around? You
know, and I know, that there are not.
Recall the words of Miyamoto
Musashi, the Sword-Saint, writing in
the seventeenth century. “Alternately,
advance with as strong a spirit as possi-
ble, and when you reach the enemy
move with your feet a little quicker than
normal, unsettling him and over-
whelming him sharply.” Honorable
Member of Assembly Englebright, you
too must move with your feet a little
quicker than normal. What would the
beaver do? He would immediately dra
legislation as I recommend and he
would circulate that shit with a cover
letter writ in language as sweet as the
fruit of the sugar maple.
I have done the intellectual heavy
liing for you; I didn’t not want to pres-
ent to you a conundrum not wrapped in
a solution-riddle. For the sake of
brevity, I will be concise as I take you
through my thoughts, a tour intended
so that you have no need to second-
guess my final decision. My first choice
was the obvious one: our state crus-
tacean should be the Maryland blue
crab. But the Maryland blue crab is al-
ready taken! Your honor, this is exactly
what I am talking about! e clock is
ticking! I thought second of the sea
scorpion—that sounds like a crus-
tacean. But I think you will agree that
ceived my notice, I was actually a day
away from returning to Stony Brook
for the Fall Semester. This excuse
worked, but only for a short time pe-
riod. One day, I received the dreadful
call from my mom that my notice
came again, and I would have to serve
over winter break. What a way to
spend my month off.
Believe it or not, having Jury
Duty for one week over my long five
weeks off wasn’t that bad. I entered the
courtroom expecting the worst, and
came out with new friends and an in-
teresting experience. I actually enjoyed
serving on the staple of our Constitu-
tion. However, not everyone else
shared my experience. A few of the
people on the jury were bored and just
wanted it to end. I can’t blame them
because our judge, who looked like
Alf, was boring and loved to hear him-
self talk. The other people in the wait-
ing room were also bored,
Jury Duty Never!
Page 28-29
the sacred list my hypothetical school-
childer recited, above, already contains
all the redundancy New Yorkers can
bear. (Michigan—there simply are no
words!) e third choice, then, was the
charm.
Stevesie, you must move immedi-
ately to institute Al D’Amato as the New
York State crustacean. Al D’Amato is
the largest land-living arthropod in the
world—his grandeur is only meant to
adorn the mantle of the Empire State.
Al D’Amato is sometimes called the
robber crab because he is rumored to
steal shiny items such as pots and sil-
verware from houses and tents, a fitting
parallel to New York’s own Wall Street,
where the pots and silverware from
around these United States oen collect.
Al D’Amato has an excellent sense of
smell and can detect interesting odors
over large distances. e smells of rot-
ting meat, bananas and coconuts catch
his attention especially, as potential
food sources. Similarly, New Yorkers
can smell a bargain.
I would write more, but I know that
the urgency of my missive must be
burning a fissure inside your gut. I leave
you now to the necessary action. e
people of the state of New York, as rep-
resented in Senate and Assembly, will be
heard.
Sincerely,
Represented McRealpersonton
PS I live and love in your district on the
real!
uncomfortable, and praying that they
would be able to go home without
serving on a Jury. Should these people
have the responsibility to decide the
lives of our peers?
The first day that I had to ap-
pear at the Queens Country Court-
house on Queens Boulevard, I was put
on a criminal case. The defendant had
five charges against him, including
tampering with a witness, his wife, and
violating a restraining order. Eight ju-
rors were picked on the first day, while
the other four and two alternates were
picked on the second day. Many of the
jurors happened to be college stu-
dents, some even attending Stony
Brook. I’m sure that the jury is usually
more diverse but for some reason, we
had a younger group. Some of jurors
didn’t mind being there but a few of
the college students were completely
bored and really wanted the case to
end, even though we were making $40
The Stony Brook Press
a day. The case lasted five days and
was completely stretched out by the
judge. Even the court officers fell
asleep during the trial. The delibera-
tion took one whole day and by the
end, some jurors were swayed by the
majority of the group because they re-
ally wanted to go home. This is when I
realized that we have a problem here.
I’m definitely not saying that
we should end Jury Duty. The estab-
Dum Spiro Spero
lishment of the jury is one of the
ere aren’t
that many things
that would inspire
me to walk from
Bryant Park to
Columbus Circle
on a chilly Sunday
Alex H. aernoon in Janu-
Nagler ary. I might do it if
there was a female
involved, or free stuff, or even theater
tickets. But for a candidate in a presi-
dential election? Never thought I’d do it.
However, for Barack Obama, I made an
exception. And was it ever worth it.
is walk in the city wasn’t my first
adventure into Obamaland. I’m also in-
volved with the Long Island Democrats
for Obama as their Stony Brook repre-
sentative and have been a supporter of
Obama since before he announced his
candidacy last February. You may have
seen me over the past two weeks dis-
tributing flyers and annoying you while
you walked past the SAC, reminding
you to vote on February Fih, other-
wise known as “Super” or “Tsunami
Tuesday.” I’m the guy (along with my
fellow Obama supporters who include
Adam Peck, Editor of e Statesman,
proving the adage that politics makes
strange bedfellows) who put up the
posters on the walkway between the En-
gineering buildings. e goal of these
events was to remind students of the
importance of voting and to raise
awareness of Barack Obama. e youth
vote is something Obama’s been able to
depend upon, having used it to win
Iowa at the start of January, and it’s been
propelling his campaign ever since.
At Stony Brook, Senator Obama
won the campus handily, netting 239
votes to Senator Clinton’s 136. is
amounts to 62% of the voting Democ-
rats, who ended up being 28% of the
registered turnout, a percentage in line
with the national average for the youth
vote. On the other side of the aisle, a
scant 45 votes were cast, but this is an
defining factors of Democracy. With-
out a jury, I believe that the system as a
whole would be doomed. However, I
feel like there should be a change in
the system. The disinterested group
was mostly college students, so raising
the age to start jury duty would lead to
a more mature group of jurors. How-
ever, there is always the chance that
someone won’t want to miss work at
their Wall Street job, and they may end
up being just as bored as the college
article about Barack Obama and the
Democrats, not the Republicans, so I
won’t deal with them here.
While he may have lost Congres-
sional District One (and every other
district in New York) and the popular
vote by nearly eighteen points, Obama
is something special and unique, the
likes of which this country hasn’t en-
countered in a while. Every few
decades, a figure arises in a presidential
campaign who makes people want to
believe in the good America can do for
the world and in the hope of a better to-
morrow. e last time the Democratic
Party saw that was with the Kennedy
brothers. We saw it with JFK first, and
then when Bobby Kennedy tried to re-
claim his brother’s mantle. Both were
tragically shot down in their prime, but
their messages remained long aer their
deaths. Before them, FDR spoke to a
Then tell me, future boy, whoʼs the president of the United States in 2011?
generation in fear of a depression and a
war.
Now, in 2008, we have seen the rise
of Obama, a first-term senator from the
state of Illinois. While some may decry
the fact that he’s new to the national
stage, note that in his first term, he’s al-
ready made progress on ethics reform
and government transparency. He man-
students. Another option would be to
make jury duty more comfortable for
the juror. I doubt that the City of New
York would ever spend money on this
but it may be essential to keeping the
court system useful. I’m not saying
that there should be plush recliners in
the courtroom because this would
never happen and the choice of seating
isn’t the problem. If the waiting time
and length of the day we’re shortened,
jurors would be more comfortable and
aged to get the Federal Funding Ac-
countability and Transparency Act of
2006 passed along with Senator Tom
Coburn (R-OK), creating a website to
track the recipients of excessive and un-
called for federal funding, or “pork.” He
also worked on the Honest Leadership
and Open Government Act of 2007,
successfully requiring the mandatory
disclosure of federal earmarks in ex-
penditure bills. Couple this with his ca-
reer in the Illinois State Senate, where
he worked on such ethics and civil
rights reforms such as getting all police
interrogations videotaped.
Twenty-two states voted last Tues-
day, and aer winning more states and
more delegates on Tuesday, Obama has
the national momentum and is looking
forward to a month of competitions
that favor him. While Senator Clinton
may still have the delegate lead thanks
Xinhua
to “Super Delegates,” that lead dwindles
daily as more come out of the works and
endorse Senator Obama. Many people
forecast he will take the lead midway
though the month, possibly as soon as
next Tuesday when Maryland, Virginia,
and Washington D.C. have their con-
tests. Financially, he is able to draw
more revenue than Senator Clinton, uti-
29
opinion
would be of better service to the state.
I also believe that jurors should be
paid a higher wage. $40 a day sounds
alright to the average college student,
but people with “real” jobs don’t want
to get paid five dollars an hour to re-
enact Law and Order. Our precious tax
dollars would need to be used to enact
these improvements but they would be
beneficial for society as a whole.
Everyone has the right to a fair trial.
lizing the Internet to an effect that
Chairman Dean had never accom-
plished, nearly beating the money-
bombing ways of Congressman Ron
Paul (R-TX) by raising six million dol-
lars in the twenty-four hours following
Tuesday.
I’m not going to get into Obama’s
policy points, despite the fact I love a
good wonky policy article. I’m talking
about the fact that this man inspires
hope in people in a political system that
has been bogged down by the divisive
politics of the past seven years. Just lis-
tening to his speeches for a few mo-
ments lets you see what people love
about him. Here’s a text version of the
end of his victory speech on Tuesday. It’s
even better to listen to it, but I’ll let him
finish explaining why I personally feel
he should be the nominee and the next
president.
“We are the hope of the father who
goes to work before dawn and lies
awake with doubt that tells him he can-
not give his children the same opportu-
nities that someone gave him. Yes, he
can. We are the hope of the woman who
hears that her city will not be rebuilt,
that she cannot somehow claim the life
that was swept away in a terrible storm.
Yes, she can. We are the hope of the fu-
ture, the answer to the cynics who tell
us our house must stand divided, that
we cannot come together, that we can-
not remake this world as it should be.
We know that we have seen some-
thing happen over the last several
weeks, over the past several months. We
know that what began as a whisper has
now swelled to a chorus that cannot be
ignored, that will not be deterred, that
will ring out across this land as a hymn
that will heal this nation, repair this
world, make this time different than all
the rest. Yes, we can. Let's go to work.
Yes, we can. Yes, we can. Yes, we can.”
Alex H. Nagler would end with
the Cabaret-inspired line “Don’t tell
Momma, I’m voting for Obama,” but his
Mom voted for Obama, too.
30
opinion
Born in 1776, All Y’all Been Suckin Our Dix
America, the
land of the free,
home of the brave,
birthplace of
greatness. It is not
only a privilege to
be an American,
Najib Aminy
rather an honor to
represent the
greatest group of
human beings ever to walk the face of
the Earth. Despite our huge success and
influence around the world, it is very
shocking and surprising to see other
countries express distaste and ridicule
towards the blessed United States.
However, ignorance causes many peo-
ple around the world to go blind to the
truth. That of course being America is
the sole reason why World War III has
not started, why polar bears are still
alive, and most importantly why soccer
is so popular.
Simply, we as Americans tolerate
more than any other country, due in part
to being held at the podium for all the
world’s eyes to look up to. It serves
right to deal with the billions of critics
who claim that Americans are no good
yanks that have no idea what is going
on with the world. Well, first and fore-
most, that kind of comment makes little
to no sense, as there are Americans who
don’t like baseball. But we tolerate
even a comment like that because we
are accepting of other people’s views,
of their beliefs, even if they don’t make
any sense. The nature of the common
American is that they are patriotic,
kind, honest, self-loving, humble, and
very intelligent. I mean, where did that
light bulb idea come from? Oh yeah,
that’s right, America (thank you
Thomas Edison for being an Ameri-
can).
The question is, why do we tolerate
other countries, people, ideas, beliefs,
if we as Americans don’t have to? If
anything, we can leave those ideas, for
say, immigrants to deal with. It’s not
like we want to waste our time thinking
about things we don’t have to think
about. But the answer lies in our grass
roots: Roots that have been seeded by
our founding fathers, watered by our
ancestors, and given light by our most
recent generations. As a result, Ameri-
cans are the blooming flowers in which
the rest of the world is lost in its beauty.
Is it our fault that we were just born
with success and greatness? No, and I
think being proud to be an American
and letting everyone know is doing jus-
tice to our past.
July 4th, 1776, the mark to the end
of the Dark Ages for the World and hu-
manity as a whole. Declaring inde-
Vol. XXIX, Issue 8 | Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Inside the Opinion section-
America, Fuck Yeah
Page Here!
pendence from that whore of a mother
England was not only a smart decision,
but as we now have figured out, a great
decision. Thirteen colonies united
against the heavily numbered red coats.
Reminds me of David versus Goliath,
being that, oh yeah we kicked Britain’s
ass! As a result, their dental hygiene has
never fully recovered and they talk
funny.
As the Constitution was ratified in
1790, America began its baby steps to
soon being the 10th wonder of the
world. During this process many peo-
ple have benefited. For one, African
Americans were given the opportunity
to jump onto boats and live a com-
pletely different life to which they were
accustomed to living. They not only got
to work, but they were outside nearly
everyday (keep in mind there was no
such thing as tanning salons back then).
On top of that, many African Americans
were fed and clothed, and at night, they
would congregate and sing songs.
Sounds like camp!
In addition, Indians had the travel-
ing experience that even Carmen San
Diego would envy. Not only did they
get to walk for hundreds of miles (a
great work out), but also they had their
own land. Land which they got to share
with their whole extended family. It
was like a giant family reunion, but
every day. Pass the mashed potatoes!
The Industrial revolution also
helped out a bunch of people, especially
kids. For some, school was a time when
many people just spent the day trying
to master the art of coloring in between
the lines. For many, this task was either
too arduous or not challenging enough.
As a result, many of these kids skipped
school and college and went straight to
work. This is where they spent 13 to 14
hours of interacting, learning the im-
portance of a hard earned dollar, and
becoming a man. Women, well they just
sat at home waiting for Papa and son to
come home while working hard to
make sure dinner was perfect that night.
The Industrial revolution also made
everyone aware how much more awe-
some America was becoming than say
their own countries.
In fact, to mark America’s 100th
birthday, France, before it got all prissy
on us, gave us the Statue of Liberty rec-
ognizing how much better we were than
them. Ever since, the 151-foot large
woman has been a sexual attraction of
promise, hope, and opportunity. It was
this statue that welcomed millions upon
millions of immigrants into America.
And soon after, these immigrants
worked day into night. They would go
back home to their luxurious apart-
The Truth About Professors
Page 31
ments and condominiums that was big
enough for not one, not two, not even
three, but four families. That my,
friends is, the lifestyle suited of the rich
and famous.
Contrary, with every sad his-
tory lesson taught in class, there is al-
ways an explanation that is never
taught. This explanation is also called
the truth. For example, the Great De-
pression was just created for the sole
purpose to give writers something to
write about as well as to create plays for
us to be entertained years later. The
fifties and up was a time for both
women’s rights (hah!) and equality for
colored persons. The fact that we as
Americans had to fight over giving peo-
ple rights, well that was silly stuff,
being an American by itself is all that
you need to live life by. If you are un-
happy with how you are treated, go to
Canada. That is what it’s there for, for
all the traitors, unpatriotic, selfish, pa-
thetic, no good, useless, ex-patriots.
The sixties and seventies, drugs, please.
These were just times of releasing some
stress, being the greatest does take its
toll on people. Thus these two decades
were a time of just letting loose, being
free, and being one with the mind. The
eighties, Two words: Ronald Reagan.
Ever since, America has yet to find a
shirt for Uncle Sam that can contain its
muscles with out ripping.
However none of this would hap-
pen if it were not for our winning war
record. Hmmm…. Lets see.
The American Revolution: Britain
had their fannies kicked.
Moral of the story: Don’t tax our
tea.
The War of 1812: An alleged tie,
but because Andrew Jackson kicked ass
in New Orleans, America won.
Moral of the Story: Andrew Jack-
son cares about black people.
Mexican-American War: Please, no
contest. Three and Oooh yeah we kick
ass!
Moral of the Story: Forgive and
forget. (think about it)
Civil War: We were facing our-
selves because we got tired of kicking
other countries asses. So technically we
won. 4-0
Moral of the Story: Abraham Lin-
coln cares about black people.
Spanish American War: Spain, the
piñata country that gave us a shit load
of land.
Moral of the Story: Save Cuba
once, shame on us. Never save Cuba
again. Their cigars aren’t even that
good anyway.
World I and II: We came, we saw,
we conquered, and gave it all back.
Moral of the Story: It is virtually
impossible to win a war without Amer-
ica.
The Korean War: Communism- 0
America- a lot!!!
Moral of the Story: Apparently we
care about Koreans too.
Vienam: We lost*
Moral of the Story: *they cheated,
digging holes into caves is nowhere in
the rulebook. So technically we are still
undefeated.
Cold War: Chairman Khruschev
turned back his ships, what a pussy. (8-
0? I am losing count)
Moral of the Story: USSR, stands
for United States Still Rules!!!!!
Desert Storm: Supposedly the war
ended in 1995, but we won a lot earlier.
Moral of the Story: David versus
Golaith can happen only so many times.
Operation Enduring Freedom: It is
still going on, but please, who do you
think is going to win?
Moral of the Story: Enduring free-
dom is a bitch, but some one has to do
it.
Iraqi Freedom: “Mission Accom-
plished”
Moral of the Story: Unlike the Pa-
triots of New England who have tar-
nished the name “patriot,” we stay
undefeated.
So I guess one could insinuate that
America is like the New York Yankees
of the world. (Only the 26 teams that
won the World Series. The other teams
sucked.) We are just so damn good that
everyone wants to root for us, but they
choose not to because for some odd rea-
son, they like to be wrong. The rest of
the world is also wrong in our view of
politics and foreign policy. We as
Americans feel it is our duty to educate
the world of our views. Is it wrong to
change the world, even if it doesn’t
want to change? Not when it is for the
good of humanity.
For example, many question our
feet being covered in the oil of the Mid-
dle East. Well if that area was abundant
of gold, diamond, or any other valuable
mineral, our feet would be covered with
The Stony Brook Press
I don’t know...Fucking Henry?
that too, not because of its value, but
simply because it is there and we are
trying to better the lives of people
whose lives need bettering. All we try
and do is better the world and we get
criticism for it. Is that fair?
Our economy is supposedly re-
ported as going into a recession. Well
let me tell you, our dollar is the green-
est thing since grass. Other countries
use different forms of currency such as
pounds. Really, pounds. That is dis-
gusting. Sorry but I prefer paying for
my Big Mac and large fries with a pic-
ture of our beloved president George
Washington. In addition, nothing makes
my day like finding Abraham Lincoln’s
copper face up, a sign and reminder of
the American hope. In fact, America is
the number one exporter of democracy,
freedom, opportunity, and dreams, all
things money cannot buy nor do we
charge.
Then there is global warming, and I
am sure many have heard of Al Gore.
Well he is a sore loser and is trying to
make up for it by showing a flashy
movie about polar bears and ice. Well,
word to the not so wise, it is impossible
to have a sequel to March of the Pen-
guins, so nice try Mr. Gore. If anything,
we as Americans are spearheading the
movement towards a healthy world by
innovating ways of ethanol fuel and
what not. It are these foreign market car
companies that are corrupting the world
with cars that allegedly parallel park
themselves. Well here in America, we
drive our cars, we don’t let our cars
drive us.
In terms of culture, well, one could
say we are the pioneers of it. I think it is
safe to say that America is the birth-
place of art. Just look at Mount Rush-
more, is that not the greatest sculpture
ever? Paintings, well just look at the
portraits of George Washington, I am
just lost in its beauty. Mona Lisa you
Uncle Sam
Fuck Nikolai Volkoff
Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, and
Donatello practically based their art on
their visions of America, in hopes of
being engrained into their culture. For-
tunately, they are now synonymous
with the Ninja Turtles.
Music, well Beethoven does not
have shit on us. We are the creators of
the Blues, Jazz, Hip Hop, and every-
thing else in between. All other coun-
tries look for us to see who our next
American Idol is. In fact, they should
rename the show American Idol and
change it to World Idol being that
America is idolized by everyone in the
world. Some of the world’s greatest
singers come from America, such as
Sinatra, Scatman John, Satchmo, Elvis,
Michael Jackson (of the 80’s, the US
does not tolerate touching little chil-
dren, not cool), Madonna, U2 (they are
really American), the Beatles (Britain,
save it), and possibly the greatest of all
time, Huey Lewis.
Our movies, well one of our
movies is the equivalent of a thousand
Bollywood movies, even if it is Gigli.
Our television shows, well perfect ex-
ample, The Office UK versus The Of-
fice US. Yeah, no contest. In fact, our
television might as well as be graced as
eclipsing the success of the complete
works of Shakespeare, both in quality
and content. With shows like Seinfeld,
House, Flavor of Love I, II, III, Amer-
ica’s culture is simply impeccable.
Another reason why America is
great is because of sports. Name a sport,
we have probably kicked the World’s
ass in it, whether in the Olympics or on
some other kind of platform. Hockey,
“do you believe in miracles?” because I
sure as hell don’t, being that I was ex-
pecting the US to win anyway. Base-
ball, yeah its called the World Series for
a reason, because only the best play in
America. Sadly this sport is trying to be
duplicated in other parts of the world
like Japan and the Dominican Repub-
lic. That is why Mark McGuire was bet-
ter than Sammy Sosa, he was
American. Basketball, well I mean have
you ever watched Space Jam? Need I
say more? If Michael Jordan can single
handedly defeat a group of aliens while
representing America, then I don’t
know what he can’t do (yes I do, play
baseball, yeah I just went there).
NASCAR, nothing more American
than guzzling down a six-pack and
watching the logos of American com-
panies whiz by at overly excessive
speed. Sadly this sport is being infested
by foreigners who have grown weary of
Opinion 31
-Jon “D-Kong” Singer
and Field, well I don’t have enough fin-
gers to count how many records we
hold, I just know it is a lot. And then
soccer, what it is really called. Football
is reserved for our football, the one that
is actually a sport and defines manhood.
If you are a guy and don’t watch foot-
ball, well, Canada is due north, and well
I would recommend talking to a psy-
chologist. Soccer, hah, we don’t even
play it and we still have managed to
win a World Cup, a female one. It just
seems that we as Americans excel at
everything.
So next time, when someone asks
you where you are from, do not hesi-
tate. Do not say Italy, or my mom is
English and my dad is German. Rather,
stand up if you are sitting, and stand up
taller if you happen to be standing, and
proudly say, I am from America. For it
is America, where the flag still stands
for freedom in which no terrorist or lib-
eral tree hugging hippie can take away.
It stands for people knowing they are
free. In which they would gladly stand
up next to you and I and defend her still
today. America has done nothing but
help the rest of the world, and even
through its critics, we as Americans
continue saving the world from vio-
lence, poverty, and ignorance.
As Americans, we fight for the
rights of every man and woman (I
guess), fight for what is right, and fight
for liberty. It is we who feel strong
about right and wrong, and it is we,
Americans, who don’t take trouble very
long. We have something very deep in-
side of us, the courage that keeps us
free. It us with our patriotism, our gen-
uine kindness, our superior intelligence,
and our respected humbleness that we
are looked up to. As Hulk Hogan best
said it, “train, say your prayers, eat your
vitamins, be true to yourself, true to
your country, be a real American.” I am
proud to be a real American.

The “Truth” About Professors. Yep.

may ask, I simply respond Mona who? driving Indy cars and what not. Track

College is a time of dis-
covering new ideas, finding out
your interests, going to class,
going to parties - and preparing
yourself for the ‘real world.’ This
means different things to differ-
ent people, but no matter what, it
Christopher Oliveri
involves a great deal of politics.
Sometimes people think it’s un-
usual to judge and be judged but
it’s a part of everyday life - and often you won’t know
the drama is there until it’s too late.
In a court of law, a prosecuted individual will
be judged based on how he reacts to (or doesn’t react
to) the events around him. Consider, if you will, Stony
Brook’s legal system, where those that happen to look
different from us—adult professors—hold an unusual
amount of legal power not found even in any standard
‘real world’ system. Yet they teach us this ‘real world’
deal in underhanded jabs at power.
Indeed, students are at a disadvantage. A pro-
fessor or some other authoritarian figure may seek to
judge a student’s personality and deem him a danger,
a threat and read too much into what he or she says.
They use checklists such at The Hare Psychopath
Checklist to frame, expose, and humiliate.
But how would it work? I can say right now
that you think outside of the box; am I calling you an
emotionless psycho? Can I use such effective gossip to
exclude people socially, call them stalkers, and at best
get innocent people jailed?
If anything, they tend to act in secrecy; one
could crucify a student for some technicality (that
usually does not breach the Student Conduct Code,
either), but only covertly by making him stand out.
This creates an opportunity to spread gossip - and this
trick has been used many times to gradually sway the
opinions of school councilors, psychologists and even
the law when dealing with ‘potential troublemakers.’
Ironically, those departments that are most
guilty of causing this sort of stigma tend to be those
that are the smallest. Afraid of losing face with ad-
ministration, small departments have formed a sort of
pact to prove themselves the most upscale, and ‘wor-
thy of receiving funding.’ It is this sort of thinking that
prompts them to covertly stigmatize student after stu-
dent - a sort of quota they’re required to meet.
Remember, even if they’re nice to you, even if
they give you a generously high grade, beware that it’s
because we’re at the cusp of the professors’ knowl-
edgeable, judgmental egos - and we might not even
know it until it’s too late.
 I am addicted to the popular video game Donkey Kong. We
have a copy of Donkey Kong in The Press office, allowing me
to play the game whenever I want.
If you are a cute girl, then you should come down to The
Press office (Union 060) and we could play Donkey Kong to-
gether.

One day I found myself in

Manhattan wearing a suit. I
wanted to wear a big suit, but I
couldn’t find a tailor who
would fit me for one. So I had
to wear a regular sized suit.
It was a nice June day out-
side and I wanted to see a
movie. I walked way down-
town to the cinema on Houston
Street. When I got to the the-
ater there were other people in
suits walking into the building.
Then Anne Hathaway shows
up, and a bunch of photogra-
phers take her picture. When I
got up to the door a big dude
asked me who I was with. I
told them I was with The Stony
Brook Press, and then I
showed him one of our busi-
ness cards.
If you want to see movies
with Anne Hathaway and are a
cute girl, then you should come
down to The Press office and I
can teach you how to see
movies with Anne Hathaway.

Last year I went to a rally for Darfur. Lupe Fiasco was

signed on to perform at the event. But when time came for Fi-
asco to take the stage, the rally’s organizer addressed the
crowd, saying that Lupe had laryngitis and could not perform.
He then read a written statement from Lupe Fiasco, where he
said that although he had laryngitis, nothing could silence his
voice on Darfur.
If you like Darfur, listen to Lupe Fiasco, and are a cute girl,
then you should come down to The Press office and we can lis-
ten to his song about skateboards together.

THE STONY BROOK PRESS

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