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Construction projects on campus are moving forward. The old library building has been partially demolished, and the future expansion to the science building, John Brooks Williams Natural Sciences Center – South, is progressing.
“Everything is on sched-ule,” university spokesperson Mischelle Diaz said.
Construction on the new science building started eight months ago, and the library
renovation started in Sept. Both buildings will be avail-able for use in fall 2013.
“Nothing out of the normal construction practices hap-pened,” Associate Vice Presi-dent of Facilities Michael Pe-terson said.
Although demolition had already begun, groundbreak-ing for the renovated library, which will be called the Mun-day Library, took place on Nov. 1.
Peterson said the first two concrete floors of the new science building have been poured, and the site utilities have been set.
The two construction sites show that St. Edward’s Uni-versity is growing, but Diaz said what students can see now is not everything.
“The constructions … are the second phase of our mas-ter plan,” Diaz said.
This Master Plan leads uni-versity growth through 2015. The library project and the science building’s expansion are only the Master Plan’s first steps.
The Master Plan also proposes several impor-tant changes for the coming years. Beginning next fall, the
HILLTOP VIEWSSt. Edward’s University • Wednesday, November 28, 2012 • Volume 32 • Issue 11 • hilltopviewsonline.com
7 | LIFE & ARTS
Shoppers waited in line for as long as 19 hours to shop at the new H&M.
The founder of the newly established Club Tennis team is ranked nationally.
Op-ed piece nostalgic for cancelled TV shows like “Arrested Development.”
10 | SPORTS 14 | VIEWPOINTS
Theft increases, police recover stolen property
LIBRARY | 4
During the month of No-vember, the St. Edward’s University Police Depart-ment [UPD] recovered about $10,000 worth of property, according to Alice Gilroy, crime prevention officer at UPD.
“[Theft] has been happen-ing in different places around campus. There’s always an uptick in the holiday season,
as bad as that sounds,” Gilroy said.
One student recently ob-served a suspi-cious person walking near a dorm in the early morning. UPD detained the man and found he was riding a stolen bike. The man later admitted to cutting the
locks of several other bikes. On Nov. 14, UPD found
three cut bike locks and bikes
hidden among some trees. Officers suspect these bikes were placed to be picked up later by thieves.
Gilroy attributes these re-coveries to the joint efforts of students and UPD officers.
“That was just quick ac-tion on the part of the stu-dent, and the officers follow-ing their leads,” Gilroy said. “They didn’t just sit on it and think about it, they took di-rect action and called us.”
However, officers can not
recover all stolen objects. In November, a student was walking through the parking lot between East Hall and Theresa Hall when a woman ran up behind her and stole the student’s bag off her shoulder.
“She was just walking around minding her own business, and this girl ran up behind her ... and grabbed her purse with her laptop and stuff in it,” Gilroy said.
Since the victim was unable
to read the license plate num-ber on the car the thief used to get away, UPD was unable to retrieve the student’s bag. Gilroy said this kind of crime on campus is rare.
“I’ve worked [with UPD] four years, and I think that’s the first time we’ve had some-one physically assaulted and robbed on campus,” Gilroy said.
Gilroy said preventative
AWARENESS | 3
Jenna [email protected]
Jacques Mercier [email protected]
Construction projects moving forward to completion next fall
“She was just walking and this girl ran up behind her... and grabbed her purse with her laptop and stuff in it.”-Alice Gilroy, UPD
Photo by Renee CornueConstruction progress on the new science building includes recently poured concrete floors.
2NEWS WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2012 • HILLTOP VIEWS
This semester, Jo’s coffee shop on campus has made punch cards available to stu-dents. The Customer Appre-ciation Cards enable students to get a free drink from the coffee bar after purchasing 10 bar drinks.
Students agree that this development brings an incen-tive to purchasing coffee at the store. But as of right now, the level of awareness seems relatively low.
"It needs to be more pub-licized, for sure," junior Mi-chael Darling said.
Darling also said that this punch card system provides a definite incentive for stu-dents to purchase coffee, but since it does not currently apply to products other than bar drinks, he thinks that the punch card system should be expanded to include all coffee shop products.
For students who regularly indulge in caffeine fixes, the punch card system is a wel-
come addition."For people like me who
drink coffee religiously, it's a
definite incentive to purchase more coffee," senior Andrew Weber said. "I didn't know about it at all, though. At the very least, they should put up flyers or posters, or a small flyer at the register about [the cards]."
With this new develop-ment in mind, it is impor-tant to note what makes the on-campus Jo’s different from the other locations on South Congress Avenue and Sec-ond Street.
Jo’s is another in a line of coffee franchises that have occupied the room at the cor-ner of the Ragsdale building. It replaced Texenza in 2010, and with the new ownership came new features.
“The most striking differ-ence [from Texenza] to me is quality,” Kara Casteel, manag-er of the on-campus Jo’s and former Texenza employee, said. “We have a higher qual-ity of product in general, and this year we’re now doing the
customer appreciation cards. Hopefully we can order some site-specific ones soon.”
At the other Jo’s locations, customers can get 10 per-cent discounts by using an Austin goLocal card. The St. Edward’s University location equivalent is a 10 percent dis-count if students use Topper Tender.
Another difference between the St. Edward’s Jo’s and oth-er Austin locations is that the Jo’s on campus is a college lo-cation. Therefore, it has a bit less freedom than the other Jo’s locations in Austin.
“The South Congress Jo’s is different because it’s not on campus,” Casteel said. “They host a lot of events such as open mic nights and Hot Rod rallies. We want to in-corporate some of what they do so that students can enjoy what they have on campus.”
To this end, the St. Ed-ward’s Jo’s makes itself open to any student organization
that wants to host an event.“I want to bring some of
the atmosphere of the South Congress Jo’s to St. Edward’s,” Casteel said. “This campus is so conducive to the arts. I want students to feel like this is their coffee shop … I would love to support events."
The coffee shop is a popular place for the Penniless Poets event, an opportunity for stu-dents to share their poetry with others.
Occasional open mic nights also find a home at Jo’s. Cur-rently, there are about three to six events hosted at the coffee shop per month, ac-cording to Casteel.
Casteel urges any student who wants to host an event to talk to the University Pro-gramming Board to arrange logistics.
For students interested in attending an event, the next open mic night is on Nov. 29.
While there is no French language prerequisite for students to participate in the study abroad programs in Angers, France, students and faculty said language barriers were largely a non-issue in their experience.
Although students are not required to take a language before studying abroad in Angers, all students take French language classes dur-ing the program, whether for the summer or for a semester at the Catholic University of the West, UCO.
The summer program dif-fers from semester-long pro-grams in that any student may study in Angers with
no previous background in French. Students studying in the fall or spring semes-ters are required to at least take French I while living and studying in Angers.
Since 2010, three students from St. Edward’s Univer-sity have participated in the semester-long exchange pro-gram, meaning they were enrolled at the host univer-sity taking courses alongside UCO students. More stu-dents study abroad in Angers through faculty-led programs that enables participants to take classes taught by St. Edward’s professors with a group of fellow Hilltoppers.
“Although it was harder to understand the locals, many people in our group were familiar with the language,”
senior Missy Christman said. Christman studied in An-
gers last summer without any previous formal French lan-guage instruction.
“It may be considered rude to the locals if you don’t speak French, but I got to learn about the French cul-ture while taking a CULF class and visiting local mar-kets," Christman said.
William Nichols, a global studies professor, has taught courses in Sevilla, Spain each semester since 2005. Because of his experience living in other countries, he was asked to help lead the program in Angers during the fall semes-ter of 2009. Though fluent in Spanish, Nichols does not speak French.
“Of course the more lan-
guage you have, the more you are able to interact. I’d apolo-gize for not speaking French and they’d apologize for not speaking Eng-lish,” Nichols said of his interaction with people in Angers.
Nichols be-lieves that be-cause Angers is a smaller city, the locals may be more forgiv-ing of foreigners who do not speak French.
“We do not want to create barriers for students to study abroad in Angers,” Nichols said.
Avoiding barriers is the reason for the absence of a
French language requirement said Esmeralda Hoang, an international education coor-dinator for the Office of In-
ternational Education.“We want to give the op-
portunity to any student. We don’t want to hinder the possibility for a student to
experience studying abroad,” Hoang said.
Hoang also believes that by studying in another country, a student can learn the lan-guage much more quickly.
Taelor Russel, a global studies major, resided in apartments while living in Angers. Russell experienced the French way of life by im-mersing herself in the culture with other French and bilin-gual students.
“I don’t feel like I was cheat-ed because I’m not fluent in French,” Russell said.
For more information on studying in Angers, visit the Office of International Edu-cation.
Bridget [email protected]
Language barriers not problematic for some in Angers program
Adam [email protected]
Campus coffee shop introduces punch card discount incentive
Photo by Amy BarrientosStudent organizations can host events in Jo’s coffee shop.
“We don’t want to hinder the possibility for a student to experience studying abroad.”
- Esmerelda Hoang, international education coordinator
3NEWSWEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2012 • HILLTOP VIEWS
Gilroy said preventative measures against theft can include anything from lock-ing room doors to walking in groups at night.
“[The victim] was alone. If she’d been with somebody it probably wouldn’t have hap-pened, but she was just walk-ing by her dorm and felt per-fectly safe,” Gilroy said.
Jana Soares, a resident as-sistant for LeMans Hall, said security awareness is impor-tant inside resident halls.
“As soon as you notice someone in the building that’s not a resident of the building, report it to your RA or RD,” Soares said.
Gilroy said theft can still occur without people physi-cally breaking into a building.
“Some of the thefts occur when people let somebody piggyback in on the front door ... We’ve had people wake up with people in their room. We’ve had people walk in and see people in their room,” Gilroy said.
Soares said common sense can be the best tool to pro-mote safety in the residence halls.
“Keep your doors locked, keep your keys with you, don’t leave your things out in the lobby,” Soares said.
Students can take further action to protect their pos-sessions. Gilroy said engrav-ing items and knowing serial numbers can help recover the item should theft occur.
“We can’t prove that it’s not their property unless we know what the stolen prop-erty number is. We have to let people go with stolen property sometimes because there’s no way to identify it,” Gilroy said.
Gilroy said the most effec-tive defense against crime on campus is awareness and prompt action.
“The best thing we’ve got going for us ... is the student and faculty and staff help, keeping their eyes open and calling us when they see sus-picious stuff,” Gilroy said.
Students can call UPD to report suspicious activity or a crime.
“We have such a nice cam-pus,” Gilroy said. “It’s rela-tively safe because everybody works together to keep it that way.”
KNOWINGYOUR SGA
Meal plan prices will increase next year, said a speaker at a recent Stu-dent Government Asso-ciation forum.
A guest speaker attend-ed the SGA public forum in which several new acts of legislation were passed. Additionally, several new acts of legislation were passed.
The Nov. 22 event began with the director of auxil-iary services, Mike Stone, who presented about the upcoming increases in meal plan rates for 2012-2013. Due to a projected increase in food and drink prices for the year, students’ meal plan rates will increase by a small amount.
“We changed the meal plan structure in 2011-2012 in order to ensure sufficient funds to sustain a campus cafeteria,” Stone said. “This will take the burden off of on-campus residents to sustain our cafeterias. There are fore-casts for food and drink price increases which means that operation prices are going to in-crease.”
The school will continue to require all enrolled stu-dents to purchase a meal plan. The commuter plan will be the smallest.
“This plan is a way to minimally change the plan
due to food price increase pressures and take the burden off of on-campus residents, who have to purchase the meal plans in order to sustain opera-tion,” Stone said.
St. Edward’s meal plan is cheaper than most schools, said Stone.
“Most schools have a much higher cost for their meal plans, and we believe that we have found a way to revise our meal plan to fit with these new food p r i c e s , ” Stone said.
A f t e r this pre-sentation, v a r i o u s new acts of legislation were brought to the table. The first act was to estab-lish a committee for an of-ficial class ring tradition.
“This will be the final step in this process and solidifying our position in regards to the develop-ment a unified class ring tradition. This develop-ment of an official class ring will create a new tradition for St. Edward’s campus and increase the symbolic and social capital of the University’s community,” SGA senator Harrison Hadland said. “It looks like we will be doing a partnership with Balfour and have a com-
mittee to help with de-signing the class ring. The eventual goal is to have this implemented soon.”
The vote for this act was passed unanimously.
Another act introduced was named Student Tem-porary Area for Testing Excellence or STATE. This act would aim to cre-ate a study area for stu-dents during finals week.
“This bill would help
with the general planning of a study space for final exams coming up. This bill … would help finance this study space because of the lack of study space at the library,” SGA sena-tor Le’Darrion Allen said.
This bill was also voted in unanimously.
Other bills introduced revolved around helping other student organiza-tions.
The SGA public forums are open to all students who want to learn about campus events and put questions to SGA officers.
Meal plans, study spaces topics of forum discussion
Awareness, quick action key to minimizing crime on campus
Adam [email protected]
“This development of an official class ring will create a new tradition for St. Edward’s campus.”
- Harrison Hadland, SGA senator
Continued from page 1
Photo by Veronica AdamsUPD has recovered several stolen bikes over the past month.
4 NEWS WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2012 • HILLTOP VIEWS
Alumni Gym will be reno-vated to bring the building up-to-date.
“The restrooms need to be updated, and there is no air conditioning,” Diaz said.
The University Federal Credit Union gave $1.7 mil-lion for this renovation. As a result, the new gym will be named the University Federal Credit Union Alumni Gym.
Peterson said that start-ing next year, the university will remodel the Our Lady Queen of Peace Chapel.
Also, Mang House will be demolished and replaced with a new Campus Ministry building separated from the chapel by an all-faiths medi-tating garden. During the construction, Campus Min-istry will manage its numer-ous activities from the third floor of Doyle Hall.
The Master Plan also in-cludes projects such as renovations to East Hall — replacing paint, carpets, showers and fire sprinklers — and to some of the apart-ment buildings. These chang-es are projected to take place over the summer.
Over winter break, the area around the root base of Sorin Oak will be expanded to pro-tected the tree.
While the campus is under-going this period of change,
students, faculty and differ-ent university services can expect some constraints.
Kirsten Taylor, a student who goes to class in Fleck Hall, feared the construction projects would interfere with her commute.
“I thought that at first it would be a hindrance getting to class ... But it’s not a big deal at all,” Taylor said.
However, the construction does limit the number of parking spots on campus.
“It’s unfortunate that we don’t have a library,” Taylor
said. Nonetheless, current library services are still avail-able on the third floor of Doyle Hall.
Diaz said that even though these changes can cause tem-porary inconvenience, they are all part of a larger agenda to improve the campus
“It can be a little bit disrup-tive, but it really will enhance the way students can live and learn here,” Diaz said. “We are trying to build places that create a sense of place for stu-dents.”
The Nov. 14 issue con-tained factual errors. The Global Student Exchanges graphic on pg. 1 conveyed that 33 students from St. Edward’s University stud-ied abroad at the Catholic University of the West in Angers, France. Rather, 3
St. Edward’s students par-ticipated in the student ex-change program in Angers, not including students who have studied in France un-der faculty-led programs.
The story “Romantic comedy set in 1950s pro-vides a charming evening”
contained two misnomers. Actor David Stahl was listed as George Stahl. The article also stated that Matt Garcia played character Bo Decker. Rather, David Cameron Allen played Bo Decker.
CORRECTIONS
Library and science buildingconstruction advances on time
Continued from page 1
Photo by Renee CornueThe library renovation is part of a master improvement plan.
HILLTOP VIEWS
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5GAMESWEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2012 • HILLTOP VIEWS
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LIFE & ARTSWEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2012 • HILLTOP VIEWS 6Beloved holiday tradition Trail of Lights returnsBryanna [email protected]
Weekly ‘Flix Fix takes the legwork out of wading through thousands of film choices on Netflix, bringing you the most truly bizarre, quirky and out-right amazing gems instant streaming has to offer.
The thing about lesbian films is that they usually are not great. They usually are not terrible, either. For what-ever reason, be it a low budget or a lack of mainstream inter-est, lesbian films never seem to live up to their potential.
“I Can’t Think Straight,” a 2008 film starring Lisa Ray, as Tala and Sheetal Sheth as Leyla, is no exception. The film tells the story of Tala, a wealthy Jordanian woman
who is preparing to wed her fourth fiancé, and Leyla, a British woman from a Mus-lim Indian fam-ily who is dating Tala’s best friend Ali.
The two wom-en meet through Ali and become fast friends, eventually real-izing that their relationship is more than just a friendship. Ley-la’s younger sister becomes suspicious of Leyla's relationship with Tala even before anything sexual hap-pens between the two – Le-yla’s love for Tala is obvious.
The two women must deal with various factors prevent-
ing them from being together openly: their male significant others and their parents, who
obviously do not know their daughters are gay.
Since Leyla and Tala come from different backgrounds, they must deal with their families’ traditions and ex-pectations in different ways.
While a story of two ‘straight’ women falling for one anoth-er is nothing new in the world of lesbian cinema, Tala’s and Leyla’s backgrounds are what make this story unique.
“I Can’t Think Straight” has a lot of potential, but the film is not executed as well as it could have been. The lead ac-tresses are great, but the act-ing from the supporting cast lacks realism. Leyla’s mother reads like a caricature of a British Indian woman, and Tala’s upper-class Middle Eastern family is equally out-landish. Also, the actress who plays Tala’s youngest sister Zina appears to be white, not Middle Eastern.
While there was nothing terribly wrong with “I Can’t Think Straight,” the film
probably would have been better if it had a bigger bud-get. Most of the film's short-comings were obviously due to lack of resources. Despite
the interesting story, the cin-ematography was cheesy at times, and the supporting cast was equally cheesy.
Chloe [email protected]
Austin has celebrated Christmas with the beloved Trail of Lights for almost half a century. However, a lack of funding led to a two-year hia-tus for the tradition.
Starting Dec. 16, the Trail of Lights at Zilker Park is back and free to the public.
Thanks to a collabora-tion with RunTex, Forefront Austin and Austin Parks and Recreation, the Trail of Lights will be back and better than ever.
The trail costs about $1 mil-lion, according to the event's website. Due to this, many corporate and individual do-nations are required to fund
the massive undertaking. While the city will not be
allocating any money, spon-sors such as H-E-B, Dell,
Samsung, Seton Healthcare Family and Vista Equity Partners have come forward to help fund the Trail of
Lights.Many individual donors
have also stepped up to bring back the tradition they grew up with.
The Trail of Lights dates back to 1965, but then it was called Yulefest. It was not until 1992 that it became known as the Trail of Lights.
An eight-day event running for the public from Dec. 16-23, the Trail of Lights will kick off with a 5K run start-ing at 6:30 p.m. on Dec. 15.
The following day will be the Grand Opening, from 6:30 to 10:30 p.m.
The rest of the event will play host to a different theme every evening the event runs. Examples include Military Appreciation Night, Unique-
ly Austin Night and Heritage Night.
School Spirit Night takes place on Dec. 20. Students are encouraged to come out wearing their school colors.
On Caroling Night, Dec. 21, the goal is to break the world record for most carol-ers singing.
There will also be Santa/Elf Night where visitors are to come sporting a Santa hat or elf ears then later closing the event is the Grand Closing.
If the return of the Trail of Lights is not enough, H-E-B is also doing something new. Recently, the company has adopted a literacy initiative with the hope of encouraging parents to read to their kids – every child that attends will
receive a free book.Like past years, the event is
free and promises to provide a lot of food and drinks, as well as fun performances.
The new and improved Trail of Lights has also placed a huge emphasis on volunteerism, philanthropy and non-profit work in this year's event.
The Trail of Lights Vil-lage, sponsored by Dell, will be a large tent on the Zilker grounds housing 23 differ-ent central Texas non-profits throughout the three days.
The organizations provide interactive activities to get their message out and in-crease their reach in the com-munity.
Courtesy of Enlightenment ProductionsThe lesbian relationships depicted in the film are controversial.
Wikimedia CommonsA large light tree is the most iconic Trail of LIghts installation.
British film explores taboo cross-cultural lesbian relationship
“Since Leyla and Tala come from different backgrounds, they must deal with their families’ traditions and expectations in different ways.”
WEEKLY ‘FLIX FIX | “I Can’t Think Straight”
7LIFE & ARTSWEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2012 • HILLTOP VIEWS
H&M opens at The Domain to a crowd of over one thousand
It is 5 p.m. on a Friday night. A mother, her daugh-ter and her niece have arrived at their sleeping place for the night.
Armed with blankets, the three shoppers spent the 50-degree November night on the ground at The Do-main. These were not des-perate circumstances. They chose to sleep outside that night to wait in line for the opening of a new clothing store, H&M, that would not occur for another 19 hours.
Cousins Marisa Guevara, 15, and Briana Hernandez, 16, from Pflugerville, Texas were the first of 1,100 peo-ple in line when the doors opened to H&M on Nov. 17.
For being first in line, Gue-vara and Hernandez received t-shirts, wallets and $75 gift cards to the inexpensive Swedish clothing store.
“We came for the style,” Hernandez said.
This is H&M’s fourth loca-tion in Texas. There are cur-rently two in Dallas at and one in Houston. Recently, a third store was announced to be opened in Dallas. H&M began in 1947 by Erling Pers-son and now has 2,700 stores in more than 40 countries, according to the website.
The U.S. is H&M’s second largest market, behind only Germany. The H&M com-pany plans to open stores in Bulgaria, Latvia, Malaysia, Mexico and via franchise in Thailand in the coming years.
According to Nicole Chris-tie, the spokesperson for H&M U.S., the new store opening in Austin is “quite an accomplishment.”
Christie, who has worked
for the company for 12 years, was very optimistic about the Austin location’s achieve-ments.
“We consider Austin a fashion market,” Christie said. “We think it’s going to be a very successful store.”
The wide selection of the H&M brand is Christie’s main praise.
“We have everything,” she said. “We have clothes for la-dies, men, teens and kids. It’s a family store.”
Female shoppers could find opening offers at $10 for blouses. Colorful sweat-ers could be bought at just $24.95 each and shoes for as low as $12.95. Upstairs in the men’s section, sweatshirts were sold for just $12.95.
“If you want to buy some-thing that you think is cur-rent, you don’t have to spend a bunch of money on it,” Brandon Fried, 24, said.
Fried is a long-time fan of H&M and although he got there three hours early, was not one of the first 500 and therefore did not get any prizes.
“Of course we heard about the giveaways and tried to
make it but … we barely got there,” Fried said. “They’re go-ing to have good deals today and we waited in this long of a line, might as well keep waiting.”
According to Fried, waiting in line became tense at times.
“We’ve had a couple people try to cut in front of us in line,” Fried said. “I just said ’You know we’ve all been waiting here for hours.’”
Not all of these line-cutters responded well.
“Someone called me a bitch,” Fried said. “I’m not ashamed though … they al-ways walk away.”
Once finally inside, shop-pers found themselves in a sea of people in the two-story store with a 700-person ca-pacity. It was like bumper cars trying to weave in be-tween people and employees and clothing racks and acces-sory tables.
The chaos of the opening was a turn-off for some shop-pers.
“It was good, just over-whelming,” Asha Nelluvelil, 21, said. “It got to the point where it was just get some-thing and get out.”
Brooke [email protected]
Not surprisingly, Vogue Magazine picked up on the utility of camouflage prints in 1943. Before this, the camo print was used solely for literal camouflage pur-poses in war, and was then transformed into a reoccur-ring and popular fashion trend.
This season, camouflage has made its return by re-turning from the battlefield and becoming couture. In other words, now is the time to raid your grandfather’s hunting gear and transform it into something fashion-able and wearable.
I got my first taste of this season’s camo a couple months ago when I went shopping at Zara. I found a fantastic camo jacket with bedazzled jewels covering
the collar. I instantly fell in love with how chic it looked, especially when camo has the potential to look like it belongs on your brother’s action figure t-shirts and pa-jama bottoms.
After I saw the jacket, I started to see camo subtly making its appearance in fashion blogs, malls, on-line shops and magazines. I then began to wonder how I could incorporate camo into my wardrobe, and for a good price. As much as I want to splurge on that impeccable Zara jacket, it unfortunately doesn’t fit in my budget. It may be time for a thrifting adventure soon.
Now, I have always been a bold print kind of girl. I love the transition from the summer solid bright colors to the bold dark fall prints, which can be found in al-most every form of clothing.
But rather than something dainty and delicate, camo offers a look that is edgy, yet effortlessly classic. Pair a camo jacket with a simple outfit like a pair of black skinny jeans and a top, or even pair it with a dress for a more girly feel.
Of course, camo is not just for the ladies out there. Guys, incorporating the bold print into your ward-robe this season is nothing to shy away from. Try lay-ering a camo jacket over a sweater and finalize the en-semble with a pair of com-bat boots.
So if you are a bold print lover like me or are just wanting to try something new, leave the solids behind this fall and adopt this fash-ion statement that has his-tory, meaning and infinite potential.
Topper Trends | Camo
Katie [email protected]
The winter trend of camo is not just for your little brother
Photo by Brooke BlantonSome shoppers waited for 19 hours for the opening to H&M.
Photo by Katie BrownCamouflage is no longer just for soldiers, but a bold print that can be dressed up this year.
8 LIFE & ARTS WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2012 • HILLTOP VIEWS
With the holiday season just around the corner, some Austin area stores have be-gun prepping their stores with holiday cheer.
In preparation for the sea-son, 2nd Street District is holding its second annual Holiday Window Walk com-petition. Students from St. Edward’s University, Texas State University and the Uni-versity of Texas at Austin, submitted design renderings for the various shops down Second Street.
This year, the theme was Classic Children’s Books and Fairy Tales.
The University of Texas only allowed their second and third-year graduate students from the Master’s program to participate in the competi-tion. According to Michelle Habeck, their competition faculty adviser, the competi-tion benefited the students’ graduate studio course. How-ever, Texas State has under-graduate students participat-ing like St. Edward’s.
“It sets the bar high. It makes our program more vis-ible,” Assistant Professor of Scenic and Lighting Design Kathryn Eader said. “I am thankful for this experience for my students.”
Though the event’s ad states that the participants are the-atrical design students, stu-dents from St. Edward’s do not all have a design empha-sis. The students are mem-bers of the United States Institute for Theatre Tech-nology, USITT.
Though the competitors are not officially affliated with the university, design professors and instructors have guided the students throughout the
process. Alongside Eader, Theatre Technical Director Joe Carpenter and Theatre Costumer T’Cie Mancuso have helped the students re-alize their potential.
Last year, students from St. Edward’s were the only ones to compete in the first ever Window Walk. A team con-sisting of junior Alyssa Dil-lard, senior Andrew Hatcher, senior Devon Brownlow and _____ Jessica _____ with their design called “The 12 Days of Princemas.”
“The main thing about de-sign is having the confidence to believe that your design is good,” Dillard said. “That’s a lesson you learn as you get older. It’s a lot of good real world experience.”
Senior Skyler McIntosh said student designers could cater design for specific stores. For example, Dillard says she wanted her Jumanji themed design specifically for the Lofty Dog pet store. The designers had the chance to meet with storeowners to discuss their designs as well as find the specific mea-surements of the windows. Though the storeowners can give input on the designs, the designers have total creative liberty over the window.
The designers are prepared for evolving and transitioning their renderings into physical window designs.
“The biggest thing is to stay with the integrity of the design. It is a collaboration and negotiating,” McIntosh, who is the chair of the St. Edward’s chapter of USITT, said. “Part of the magic of design is that you don’t want to see how it works. It is easy to draw pictures, but when it comes to suspending a mer-maid with 200 CDs, how do you do it?”
As part of the competition process, student designers could pitch up to three de-signs to Julie Sutton-Mc-Gurk, _______. From those designs, retailers pick from those submitted designs and the winners were announced through email.
St. Edward’s students won spots in 11 of the 19 win-dows. With such an amazing coup, the students are now physically preparing their window designs. They had to include a budget with a maximum of $500 along with their submissions. Members from USITT will help the designers create their pieces.
Installations officially start Nov. 30.
“[This] is a real chance to be a professional designer,” McIntosh said. “The designs must be professional and not bubblegum. The design chic [has] to match the street at-mosphere and reputation of Second Street.”
According to the event website, “over $8000 in schol-arships generously provided by Silicon Labs and The Downtown Austin Alliance.”
Half of any potential earn-ings from the competition will go to the student while the other will go towards to the USITT fund for their annual conference.
Winners will be picked by both community voting and guest judges on Dec. 15 dur-ing the retail district’s event Deck the District.
The windows will be on dis-play from Dec. 8 to Jan. 2. To help a St. Edward’s student win the competition, vote at 2ndstreetdistrict.com. Vot-ing begins Dec. 8 and ends on Dec. 15.
[slapdash] “It gives you wings”
“They always forget to mention the sugar crash...”
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1. Andrew Hatcher (‘13) / “Snow White” @ Austin MacWorks, 450 W. 2nd2. Skyler McIntosh (‘13) & Devon Brownlow (‘12) / “Little Red Riding Hood”, W. 2nd & Guadalupe3. McIntosh & Brownlow / “Little Mermaid” @ DuO, 225 W. 2nd4. McIntosh & Brownlow / “Alice in Wonderland” @ Wee, 4171/2 W 2nd5. Kristina Tijerina (‘13) / “The Secret Garden” @ Con’ Olio, 215 Lavaca6. Lara HinCapie (‘14) / “Rapunzel” @ Etcetera, etc., 411 W. 2nd7. HinCapie / “Princess and the Pea” @ Plain Ivey Jane, 408 W. 2nd8. Alyssa Dillard (‘14) / “Jumanji” @ Lofty Dog, 403 W. 2nd9. Zach Miranda (‘13) / “Hansel and Gretel” @ St. Barnard Sports, 401 W. 3rdN/A. Eileen Chaffer (‘12) & Gena Castillo (‘12) / “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”
Photo Illustration by Hannah SmithThe stores exhibiting St. Edward’s students’ work pepper the Second Street retail district.
Student designs exhibited in second annual Window WalkLesli [email protected]
9LIFE & ARTSWEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2012 • HILLTOP VIEWS
Austin receives an influx of tourists during Formula One raceMitch [email protected]
Austinites are used to large festivals and massive influxes of people. Austin City Lim-its, South by Southwest and dozens of other indie mu-sic and film festivals pepper the city throughout the year. However, these festivals usu-ally attract hipsters, college students and starving artists.
The international phenom-enon known as the Formula One United States Grand Prix, also known as F1, came to Austin on Nov. 18 for the very first time, bringing with it a very different type of cli-entele.
Foreign royalty, A-list celeb-rities and racing champions took over the city in a way that Austin has never known.
Austin played host to the Prince Albert II of Monaco,
iconic filmmaker George Lu-cas and racing legend Mario Andretti — and that is just the short list.
Formula One is not the NASCAR style of racing
commonly thought of in the United States. Since For-mula One is incredibly high profile and expensive, the dif-ferences are vast.
To begin with, NASCAR uses a relatively bulky stock car that is limitedly custom-izable. Winning depends primarily on speed and en-durance through a long race.
F1 cars embody the height of automotive technology. They are light, low to the ground and look like the cars of which 11-year-old boys dream at night. Winning an F1 race requires strategy, pre-cision and intelligence.
NASCAR races consist of hundreds of laps on an oval track. No matter where the race takes place, drivers can expect the same track.
F1, however, races on intri-cate and treacherous tracks with sharp turns and hard
curves and no two circuits are the same.
The F1 track in Austin, for-mally known as the Circuit of The Americas, CoTA, is unique in that it is the only U.S. location in the 2012 F1 season. It is, in fact, the only F1 racetrack currently in the country.
The winner of 2012 United States Grand Prix and first champion of Austin's Circuit of The Americas track was Englishman Lewis Hamilton with British Formula 1 Team McLaren Mercedes. Hamil-ton won the last Grand Prix held in the United States in Indianapolis in 2007.
CoTA is actually southeast of Austin, about 9 miles from Austin-Bergstrom Airport.
The track is 3.4 miles long, can hold approximately 120,000 people in the stands and covers 375 acres.
CoTA was nearly filled to capacity for its first event with 117,429 people in at-tendance.
With more tourism, more money is bound to come into the state.
According to Angelos An-gelou of Angelou Economics, the event may add more than $500 million to the economy over the course of the week-end. $30 million of which comes from sales tax alone.
CoTA estimates that the event will bring in even more money by reaching up to $500 million annually. The 10-year impact of the track is estimated by CoTA at over $4 billion.
The event did not stop at the track, however. F1 fes-tivities took over downtown with Austin Fan Fest.
Austin Fan Fast hosted an impressive line-up of interna-
tional stars including Aeros-mith, Flo Rida, Lupe Fiasco, Enrique Iglesias, Ghostland Observatory and Juanes.
The festival also hosted many free shows for local musicians like Quiet Compa-ny, The Rocketboys, Danny Malone and Wild Child.
In addition to music, Austin Fan Fest had interactive ex-hibits, F1 show cars, gaming and more scattered around downtown.
While it seems that F1 race culture and Austin culture may seem at odds with each other, the track and the races are here to stay. Fortunately, the city seems to have found a way to embrace F1 and make it a unique, original and “weird” event that can not only stimulate the economy, but open Austinites up to a world of racing never before known in the United States.
Photos courtesy of Circuit of The Americas
Courtesy of Circuit of The Americas
Lewis Hamilton was the first winner of Austin’s CoTA track.
SPORTSWEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2012 • HILLTOP VIEWS 10
Even though spina bi-fida has restricted freshman Dylan Baggett to a wheel-chair since birth, he has never let his disability hinder him from accomplishing any-thing. In fact, he has taken the opportunity to do just the opposite.
“My disability has opened my eyes to things I probably would not have done if I were born without a disability,” Baggett said.
Not many students can call themselves founders of a club sports team, and Baggett took that distinct accomplishment a step further when he be-came the first on this campus to use a wheelchair. Baggett is the founder of St. Edward’s University Club Tennis team, one of Campus Recreation’s most recent additions to the ever-growing roster of club sports.
Baggett has played tennis for as long as he can remem-ber and plays competitively across the country against others in wheelchairs, but he also competes against non-disabled players for fun. In these types of matches, the non-disabled player gets one bounce and the player in a wheelchair gets two. The United States Tennis Asso-ciation ranks Baggett 82nd in the country in the wheelchair tennis division.
Last semester, Baggett met with Director of Campus Recreation Andy Lemons to propose the club tennis team. He wanted to contribute to the students at St. Edward’s and give himself a means to play more often. Campus Recreation approved the club, and there are now about 10 members. However, the club is unable to meet. Cur-rently, the on-campus tennis courts are not handicap ac-cessible, and there is no fea-
sible way for Baggett to get on the court.
“There is basically a giant ditch in the way,” Baggett said. “I think the problem has been brought up in board
meetings, but nothing has re-ally been done about it.”
There is also the additional question of whether or not these courts will be available for club sport use. The courts’
recent renovations have raised many questions about accessibility and playtime.
The courts’ current inac-cessibility has not stopped Baggett from playing, though, just as his love of the outdoors does not stop with tennis. Baggett is an avid nature photographer and loves to kayak through national parks. Baggett is also the Austin chapter director of the non-profit organiza-tion Turning Point, a group that organizes sporting and outdoor recreation events for people with disabilities.
According to Baggett, grow-ing up in Nacogdoches on 50 acres accompanied by fre-quent camping trips sparked his love for the outdoors.
Baggett’s passion for nature lends itself to many aspects of his life, including his time in the classroom. The fresh-man is an environmental sci-ence and policy major and wants to pursue sustainable
business consulting. Baggett also tries to be a
role model for people facing similar adversity. He meets with people who, because of a car accident or other reasons, have recently been restricted to a wheelchair.
“They think their life is over,” Baggett said. “Then I say something like let’s go whitewater kayaking.”
Once the tennis club can meet, Baggett wants to start off doing regular hitting ses-sions because many of the members have limited experi-ence playing tennis. After the club works on skills, if there is interest, Baggett would like to see the team compete in intercollegiate tournaments.
Baggett’s says that he is treated really well at St. Ed-ward’s and in general.
“Most of the time people are especially nice to me. Oc-casionally I get patronized, but generally everybody likes me,” Baggett said.
Club sport founder nationally ranked for tennisShelby [email protected]
Courtesy of Dylan BaggettBaggett loves tennis, outdoor photography and kayaking.
Following a tough loss to the University of Arkansas Fort Smith (UA-Fort Smith) in the Heartland Conference Championship game, the St. Edward’s University volley-ball team ended the 2012 fall season with a second-place finish in conference. The Hilltoppers lost the game at Fort Smith on Nov. 17 in four sets: 17-25, 28-26, 21-25 and 16-25.
UA-Fort Smith is ranked 23rd in the nation for Divi-sion II volleyball, and senior setter Mary McNamara said the Hilltoppers knew it would be a tough match.
“A lot of us knew stepping on the court that this could be the last game, but no one even wanted to think about that. It was ‘hey we’re going to go win this game,’” McNa-mara said.
Overall, the St. Edward’s volleyball team finished the 2012 season with an over-all record of 18 wins and 10 losses.
Following the tournament, sophomore outside hitter Mary Koehler and senior li-bero Michelle Hundt both earned spots on the Heart-land Conference All-Tour-nament Team. Seven players from the entire Heartland Conference placed on the team, including three players
from UA-Fort Smith, one from Texas A&M-Interna-tional and one from Dallas Baptist.
Despite the recent loss, both Head Coach Sean Do-nahue and McNamara agreed that the season was success-ful because the Hilltoppers achieved goals the team set at the beginning of the season.
“I felt it was a good season. We definitely kept improv-ing each and every match,” Donahue said. “We were in the finals of the conference tournament, which was one of our goals.”
Donahue and McNamara both said the team strives to create a strong feeling of uni-ty between the players, both
on and off the court.“We really created a family
feel with this team,” Donahue said.
McNamara said the team worked hard to foster a com-munity atmosphere that would last after this season.
“We had a lot of seniors ... a lot of young people and only one junior. A lot of our attitude was that this was our last season to give everything we have got. It is not just about us, and it is about the team in general. How can we create that for the teams next year even if we are not going to be there?” McNamara said.
With six graduating seniors, the volleyball team signed five players to join the team in the
fall of 2013.“For next year, we have al-
ready committed five on early
sign-in. Will we pick up a sixth or not, we do not know yet,” Donahue said.
Kristina [email protected]
Hilltop Views ArchiveThe Hilltoppers are graduating six seniors after this season.
Bittersweet end to season does not stop volleyball ambitions
11SPORTSWEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2012 • HILLTOP VIEWS
Hornussen is a traditional Swiss sport that had been played in countryside of Switzerland for over 300 years. The sport requires both incredible aim and the ability to see a small black puck as it whizzes through the air at speeds over 125 miles per hour.
The word ‘Hornussen’ is often translated to mean ‘farmer’s golf.’ The sport got this name because it was pri-marily played by Swiss farm-ers as a pastime, according to ESPN. Do not let the name fool you, though. Hornussen and golf are nothing alike. Hornussen is not really like any other sport, even though, to the untrained eye, it seems to have a grab-bag mixture of sport-like components.
Explanations of Hornus-sen liken it to everything
from golf to baseball to ten-nis and even cricket. The reality is, though, that Hor-nussen is nothing like any of those sports. It is something completely different and in a world totally its own.
Hornussen is played with a small black puck called
the hornet, which sits on a tee at the end of a curved metal track called the bock. The batter must swing a long flexible club — which looks like a blend of a whip and a golf club — along the bock and hit the hornet as hard and far as possible. The
number of points the hitter scores is determined by how far the hornet travels.
That is just the offensive side of Hornussen.
On the playing field, the players of the opposing team must try to hit the small black hornet out of the air with paddles called schindeln. If they manage to knock the hornet out of the air, this keeps the hitter from scoring. If the hornet hits the grown unimpeded, the hitter is awarded the appropriate number of points.
An average game of Hor-nussen lasts between three and four hours. The game lasts until every player has hit the hornet four times.
The game is broken into two innings. Unlike baseball, the home team hits first and the visiting team hits after them, according to The Tele-graph. Each player gets to hit the hornet twice per inning.
Imagine 32 to 38 players hit-ting the hornet four times each. If you do the math, that comes out to anywhere from 128 to 144 hits per game. No wonder it takes so long to play a game.
According to a local Swiss Hornusser in an interview with ESPN, Hornussen is a sport that needs to be watched in person to really be appreciated, which means that it is highly unlikely that you will see a Hornus-sen match on any of the 20 different ESPN channels. However, there are plenty of videos of this wacky looking sport on the Internet if you have the urge to check it out.
There may yet be a chance of seeing a game in person. Since the game made it big in Europe, over 20 teams have popped up all over the United States.
Kelsey [email protected]
Column as I see ‘Em is your weekly fix for all things NFL. Here are the selected games for week 13.
ThursdayNew Orleans at Atlanta
Look for Atlanta to com-pletely shut down the Saints this time around and shut down any chance of New Orleans making the playoffs. Falcons by 10.SundayJacksonville at Buffalo
Neither team has a high percentage to make the play-offs, but Buffalo still has the advantage here. Bills by 7.Seattle at Chicago
Chicago suffered a tough loss to San Francisco, but still hold a one game lead in the NFC north. Look for them to extend the lead against Seattle. Bears by 10.San Francisco at St. Louis
Colin Kaepernick emerged as a star for the 49ers, but now they have a choice to make at the quarterback po-sition. 49ers by 21.New England at Miami
After a dominant perfor-
mance against the laughable Jets, New England can coast for the rest of the season to their first place playoff posi-tion. Pats by 21.Arizona at NY Jets
See above. Cardinals by 10.Indianapolis at Detroit
An intense game between two teams with viable post-season chances. Look for the Lions to surge towards the playoffs. Detroit by 10.Minnesota at Green Bay
Green Bay took a beating against the Giants, exposing their terrible defense to the league. Look for Green Bay
to only slightly improve in their attempts to shut down Adrian Peterson. Packers by 7.Houston at Tennessee
Houston has a cakewalk this week after pulling out a lucky win against the Lions on Thanksgiving. Texans by 21.Carolina at Kansas City
Neither team has a chance to make the playoffs, but Cam Newton will have a good game against the terri-ble Chiefs defense. Panthers by 7.Tampa Bay at Denver
Peyton Manning, at age 36, is playing some damn good football. This could be the year he takes the Bron-cos to the Super Bowl. Den-ver by 20.Cincinnati at San Diego
Cincinnati now has the same record as Pittsburgh, which has to be a surprise to most. San Diego is no longer relevant in the playoff picture, and will not deter Cincinnati from winning. Bengals by 7.Pittsburgh at Baltimore
Both teams had a rough last game, the difference be-ing that the Ravens won. Af-
ter Pittsburgh gave up eight turnovers to the Browns, the Ravens will have no prob-lem doing the same. Ravens by 14.Philadelphia at Dallas
Neither team has been very impressive this whole season, look for this game to be no different. Eagles by 3.MondayNY Giants at Washington
Giants are surging in No-vember, something new to that team. RG3 can beat the Cowboys, but not the Super Bowl caliber Giants. Eli and the G-men by 20.
Nolan [email protected]
NFL predictions for week 13Column as I see ‘em
Swiss sport combines whips, paddles and pucksSPORTS CALENDAR
WOMEN’S BASKETBALLThurs. 11/29 | 5:30 p.m.vs. UA - Fort SmithSat. 12/1 | 2:00 p.m.vs. NewmanTues. 12/4 | 5:30 p.m.vs. Northwood (Texas)
MEN’S BASKETBALLThurs. 11/29 | 7:30 p.m.vs. UA - Fort SmithSat. 12/1 | 4:00 p.m.vs. NewmanTues. 12/4 | 7:30 p.m.vs. TAMU - Kingsville
CONGRESSMEN ULTIMATESat. 12/1 | 8:00 a.m.Autism Speaks Charity Tournament
DANCE TEAMSat. 12/1 | 7:00 p.m.Second Annual Christmas Spectacular
Wikimedia CommonsHornussers hit a small black puck with a whip-like club.
SPORTS COMMENTARY
12SPORTS PHOTO ESSAY WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2012 • HILLTOP VIEWS
Volleyball Competitive Champion: How I Set Your Mother
Volleyball Recreational Champion: Hunt Hall
Flag Football Champion: Le HuntsonSoccer 7’s Champions: Unreal Madrid
Dodgeball Champions: The Doont Baigs Tennis Singles Champion: Jason Callahan
Basketball 3’s Champion: Team Run
intramurals Champs
Photos courtesy of Jordan Yuson
VIEWPOINTS WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2012 • HILLTOP VIEWS 13OUR VIEW
Puerto Rico’s statehood would benefit the U.S.
As Austin’s downtown entertainment district con-tinues to grow, so does the worry of increased crime.
To try and combat this crime increase, Austin Police Department, APD, created the Public Order Initiative to crack down on violent crime and property violations. Un-fortunately, their main target was downtown’s homeless population.
Like most major cities, homelessness is a reality. Homelessness should be met with understanding and in-novation, rather than by criminalizing the victims.
“All the ordinances like this do is stack more things on homeless people that they can’t pay,” said Ken Martin, executive director at Texas
Homeless Network. “I think the criminalization of home-lessness is not the way to go.”
Downtown entertainment districts like Sixth Street are in close proximity to shelters like Austin Resource Center for the Homeless, or ARCH, which serves not only the homeless but also refugees
and low-income families. Local businesses are com-
plaining of rowdy behavior from some homeless indi-viduals, and in return APD is pushing this initiative.
At this point in Austin’s growth cycle, it is implau-sible to relocate either the entertainment district or the
homeless shelters.ARCH has been operating
in downtown since 2004, and was partially funded by the City of Austin.
To move it to another lo-cation would leave a lot of homeless in greater need of temporary shelter, food and other resources than they al-
ready are.“The city built ARCH, and
if the didn’t want homeless people there, why did they build it there in the first place?” Martin said.
Furthermore, it would be impossible to create a new venue or part of town that can draw in as many people as Sixth Street does every weekend.
Since Sixth Street is a large identifier for Austin, local government should not total-ly banish the less fortunate to make way for everyone else.
The better solution for low-ering crime rates in down-town is to create ways for both homeless people and entertainment-goers to re-main peaceful and respectful. Targeting only the homeless will not help.
Increased police officer presence during downtown’s
busiest hours would be benefical, but they should be there to keep the peace and not to arrest.
Another helpful strategy might be to increase capacity at downtown shelters, or to create new ones.
“We’ve proven over and over that what works to get people off the streets is to provide permanent support-ive housing,” Martin said.
Instead of helping cre-ate a dialogue about how to decrease homelessness in Austin, this Public Order Initiative will create a false stereotype that all homeless people are violent or disrup-tive.
The Public Order Initiative is not a bad idea in theory, but if it is carried out to just tar-get the homeless, it is unfair and unbalanced.
Crime initiative unfairly targets Austin’s homeless populationSara [email protected]
A number of notable changes occurred after the 2012 elections, with several states legalizing same-sex marriage and marijuana.
However, another outcome could affect the number of states that make up the future United States of America.
For the first time, after a non-binding referendum, the majority of Puerto Ricans voted in favor of statehood.
However, analysts have discovered that the issue of Puerto Rico’s statehood is more complicated than this majority vote would indicate.
Puerto Rico is a common-wealth of the United States. According to the U.S. Su-preme Court’s Insular Cases,
a commonwealth is “a territo-ry ... belonging to the United States, but not a part of the United State.”
Puerto Rico voters were asked to vote on two issues. On the first issue, 54 percent of voters opposed the status of Puerto Rico as a United States Commonwealth. And on a second issue, 61 percent voted for statehood as the best alternative, 33 percent voted for a sovereign free as-sociation, and 6 percent vot-ed for independence, accord-ing to CNN Politics.
Even if this referendum is an indication of what the ma-jority of Puerto Ricans want, the island still will not be able to achieve statehood without
Congress intervening.According to Puerto Rico’s
Secretary of State, Kenneth McClintock, the common-wealth’s economic, social and political turmoil greatly con-tributed to the recent major-ity vote for statehood.
Moreover, because of the increasing exodus, 58 per-cent of Puerto Rico residents live on the mainland of the United States, according to McClintock.
However, ballot complica-tions might have made the vote inconclusive. Many vot-ers did not believe the ballot was clearly defined.
Those who would have vot-ed for the status quo, either disagreed with the ballot’s
wording or failed to com-prehend it. They ended up voting against their intended cause.
One-third of all votes cast on the question of an alternative status were left blank. If you consider these anti-state-hood votes, the results in favor of Puerto Rico’s statehood would be less than 50 percent, ac-cording to Luis Agrait, a professor at the University of Puerto Rico.
The results of this refer-endum are inconclusive, but they expose Puerto Rico’s de-
sire for change.Puerto Rico’s status as an
unincorporated territory
seems unfair. Puerto Rico exists under
U.S. federal laws, but its residents do not have to pay some federal taxes. Also, Puerto Rico has a nonvot-ing representative in the U.S.
Congress.If Puerto Rico became a
state, an extra $20 billion in federal funds could help the economy.
Also, the Puerto Rico’s companies do not pay busi-ness taxes. These stipulations would disappear if Puerto Rico became a state.
Puerto Rico has been under United States control since 1898. In 1917, the island’s residents became American citizens, able to join the mili-tary, but not vote in presiden-tial elections.
Extending the status of statehood would not only be fair decision, but also a prof-itable one for both Puerto Rico and the United States.
“The results of this referendum are inconclusive, but they expose Puerto Rico’s desire for change.”
Photo by Renee CornueAustin Police Department’s Public Order Initiative targets Downtown’s entertainment district
14VIEWPOINTS WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2012 • HILLTOP VIEWS
A couple years ago, it seemed like people dis-played their latent racism during Halloween.
Every year, some guy would dress up like Lil Wayne including his tear-drop, his grill, his dreads and his black skin. They would dig up some blackface paint and smear it all over their faces.
But that was only during Halloween.
Despite the thousands of terribly insensitive ex-amples, the most troubling displays of ignorance are in recent fashion shows and music videos by beloved ce-lebrities and innovators.
In late September, Dolce & Gabbana debuted their spring 2013 line at Milan Fashion Week. Amid the vibrant colors, detailed pat-terns and interesting tex-tures was one repeated im-age: the mammy figure.
Hanging from the ears of models and printed on the outfits was the image of the mammy, the stereotypical caricature of a female Afri-can servant.
From her incredibly dark skin to her massive lips to the fruit on her head, this image was a mammy.
After a literal decade of anticipation, No Doubt re-leased their new studio al-bum on Sept. 25. On Nov. 3, the band released the video for their newest single “Looking Hot.”
Fans watched as Gwen Stefani sang in the desert dressed as a Native Ameri-can woman. Meaning she was wearing a bikini while riding a white horse then later posing in a teepee with
a wolf.At one point, in the video
her band mates tied her up in the town square as if they were going to publicly shoot her for being Native Ameri-can.
It is one thing to be dressed as Native Americans, but to have Gwen Stefani tied up was quite offensive.
The video has since been pulled.
On Nov. 4, Victoria Secret fashion show was pre-taped. The show will not officially be aired until Dec. 4; how-ever, the company has al-ready had to remove one of their featured looks from the broadcast.
In some weird attempt to honor Thanksgiving, model Karlie Kloss strutted down the runway in a fringe bikini adorned with turquoise jew-elry and a gigantic feather headdress placed sassily on her head.
The feather headdress is actually one of the most sa-cred regalia in Native Amer-ican culture. It is a symbolic adornment that must be is earned.
This ceremonial piece was worn exclusively by men
who were regarded as the most respected and power-ful in a tribe.
Both Victoria’s Secret and No Doubt have issued pub-lic apologies. Essentially, both claimed to not realize their images were offensive.
Here’s the thing: feigning unawareness over the dis-play of racism and ignorance of their product does not absolve them of their racism.
Claiming that they did not know just reinforces that they have no respect for any culture/race/sexual orien-tation/religion other than their own.
If their frame of reference is only within their homog-enous group then they are just ignorant.
Not all consumers look the same. To assume that their only demographic looks like them is not acceptable.
Also, anyone who tries to claim that none of these situations depict racism, or that people are too sensitive these days, has obviously never been discriminated against.
No one is overreacting. Not enough people are re-acting.
Lesli [email protected]
Wikimedia CommonsKarlie Kloss is a world famous American fashion model.
Of all the new television shows that premier each year, only a few get picked up for subsequent seasons. Ordi-narily, the shows that get cancelled were not that good in the first place. Sometimes, the wrong show gets can-celled. After a being put on hiatus in early 2012, NBC comedy “Community” is scheduled to premier again in Feb. 2013. Here are the top five more shows that should have never been cancelled in the first place:
5. How To Make It In America (2010-2011)
“How To Make It In Amer-ica” was an HBO original show that tried to capture the wide-eyed bravado of the hipster generation. Although the show only lasted two sea-sons, it was not a failure.
In the show, main charac-ters Ben and Cam scour the underbelly of New York City desperately trying to launch their own fashion line. Each episode, Ben and Cam make one mistake after another all in the name of the American Dream.
Even though it was a critical success, “How To Make It In America” was not a profitable hit for HBO.
4. Pushing Daisies (2007-2009)
“Pushing Daisies” was one of those special television series that does not come around often, but when it does, people pay attention. It starred Lee Pace as a pie maker named Ned who could bring people back to the life
by touching them.For the brief period it was
on ABC, “Pushing Daisies” was the perfect combination of humor and real-life dilem-mas.
Quirky, fast-paced wit is alive and well, so it would make sense to bring “Pushing Daisies” back from the dead.
3. Freaks and Geeks (1999-2000)
“Freaks and Geeks” was a teen comedy-drama that fol-lowed siblings Lindsay and Sam Weir, who respectively were the freak and the geek, and their friends through one awkward, hilarious year of their high school career, from 1980 to 1981. The show was produced by Judd Apatow and starred James Franco, Seth Rogen and Jason Segel, among other future stars.
Despite gaining a cult fol-lowing, “Freaks and Geeks” was cancelled after 12 epi-sodes.
“Freaks and Geeks” was one of TV’s wittiest portraits of high school life.
2. My So-Called Life (1994-1995)
“My So-Called Life” starred Claire Danes in her break-through role as 90s high schooler, Angela Chase. The show follows Chase and her kooky best friends through the plights of high school.
An undeniable product of the 90s, Chase seemingly crawled out of a grunge mu-sic video, dancing around her room to the Violent Femmes free from her tortuous lust for Jordan Catalano.
And like any 90s teen, she pondered why everyone around her was so phony.
Bringing “My So-Called Life” back now might seem
anachronistic, but, honestly, the 90s are in and angsty high school drama never goes out of style.
1. Arrested Development (2003-2006)
“Arrested Development” aired at the right time in the wrong place. A seemingly perfect parody of post 9-11 life in America, the quirky and complex sitcom followed the once-prosperous Bluth family after the family com-pany fell apart.
“Arrested Development” featured established actors like Jason Bateman and nar-rator Ron Howard, and it also gave rise to Michael Cera, who got his start play-ing George Michael Bluth.
The show was cancelled after three seasons due to chronically low ratings, de-spite critical acclaim.
After years of rumors that an “Arrested Development” movie was in the works, “Ar-rested Development” is re-turning in 2013 for a special season on Netflix. While this is some consolation, an online exclusive is no replace-ment for the real thing.
Jonathan [email protected] [email protected]
Musicians and designers make culturally insensitive decisions
The top five television shows that should not have been cancelled
Kevin Sullivan/L.A. Times Out/KRT
Jessica Walter plays Lucille on “Arrested Development.”
15VIEWPOINTSWEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2012 • HILLTOP VIEWS
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Hilltop Views is a weekly student newspaper published by the School of Humanities and serving the community of St. Edward’s University. The opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of the university, whose mission is grounded in the teachings and doctrine of the Catholic Church.Letter Policy: Hilltop Views welcomes all letters to the editor. Letters may be edited for space, grammar and clarity. Letters will be published at our discretion. Anonymous letters will not be printed.
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Those that predicted Re-publican presidential nomi-nee Mitt Romney to have a landslide in the Electoral Col-lege were wrong. Incumbent President Barack Obama won the Electoral College with 332 votes compared to Romney’s 206, and Obama won the popular vote with 51 percent of the vote.
Th r o u g h o u t the entire cam-paign, the media and candidates hyped this elec-tion to be very close, but the re-sults were anything but that.
The Electoral College went to the man with the popular vote, but this has not always been the case.
One of the most recent elec-tions that the popular vote
and the Electoral College vote were divided between the two candidates for presi-dent was 2000. The candi-dates were Democratic Vice President Al Gore and Re-publican Governor George W. Bush.
Gore won the popular vote with 48.4 percent while Bush won the Electoral College
with 271 votes. Bush won because he carried Florida by 537 votes after numerous recounts and a one-time de-cision by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Many pundits predicted
that the 2012 election would end with a situation like 2000. That did not occur, but it could in future presidential elections.
One proposal that circum-vents the Constitution is the National Vote Interstate Compact which would let states select electors for the Electoral College based on the national vote.
The proposal has been passed by eight states and the District of Columbia, but would not go into effect until a combined total of state elec-toral votes is 270, the amount needed to win the White House.
Currently there are only 132 combined electoral votes.
While the National Vote Interstate Compact needs states to change their own laws, other proposals require a Constitutional amendment to implement a national pop-ular vote.
These proposals would
most likely fail because some states do not want to give up their power that they hold on presidential elections.
According to a Gallup poll conducted in 2011, 62 per-cent of Americans would want to switch from the Elec-toral College to a national vote.
If it is the will of the people, then elected officials should listen to them and attempt to change the Constitution.
Despite people supporting a national vote it will most likely not become the law of the land.
If it was to be proposed, the bill would most likely die in Congress.
Ultimately, the Electoral College will stay in place for the foreseeable future, but states can adopt the National Vote Interstate Compact to reflect the popular vote. Swing states should not de-termine who is president, the majority should.
When big party nights and holidays are around the cor-ner, many college students are thinking about which party to go to or what outfit to wear for the night.
However, what no one thinks about is that some-times a night of fun can end up in a night of tragedy.
Everyone wants to go to “the place to be” for the night. In Madrid, Spain on Halloween night, it was DJ Steve Aoki’s Halloween concert where over 10,000 people attended the event hosted at the Ma-drid Arena venue.
What started out as a night of fun ended in tragedy as three 18-year-old women
died and two were hospital-ized after they were crushed in avalanches.
The 17-year-old injured, Belen Langdon del Real, passed away that Saturday morning.
All four women went to the party for the same purpose: to have fun.
However, no one thought of the consequences a party of this size would result in.
Throughout the night, there was alcohol, drugs, underage drinking and not enough space in the venue to hold that many attendees.
Sometimes even downtown Austin gets that crowded. There might not be over 10,000 people on Halloween night, but there are definitely bars where it is hard to walk
through or even catch your breath.
There have been times when touching the floor is not even an option and you end up being carried out in the crowd.
Although this tragedy hap-pened in Spain, it got world-wide coverage. It is sad to think that it had to get to the point where four young women lost their lives in or-der for authorities to take action and implement regula-tions.
Most college students do not care about regulations or laws. When the weekend and holidays come along, there are only certain things that young people think about.
What students should be worrying about is how safe
the place they are going to is, making sure they eat before they drink, limiting the num-ber of drinks they should have and always having a plan B in case of an emergency.
It is easy to get caught up in the party environment where you just want to go where everyone goes and want to drink as much as everyone does.
But, by doing that you are also putting yourself at risk. Is it worth attending “the party of year” when you know the outcome could be danger-ous?
Remember to always think twice about your safety and think twice before attend-ing certain parties, no mat-ter how much fun the parties may sound.
Electoral College fails to reflect majority
Tragedy in Spain proves a night of fun can quickly turn deadly
Jacob [email protected]
Beatriz [email protected]
Wikimedia CommonsSteve Aoki is a world-renowned electro house muscician.
“The Electoral College went to the man with the popular vote, but this has not always been the case.”
16 PHOTO ESSAY WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2012 • HILLTOP VIEWS
Journey of FaithA group of students attended the peer-led Grounded Retreat hosted by Campus Ministry Nov. 9-11. The retreat was held at the Rocky River Ranch in Wimberley on the Blanco River. Students were challenged to examine and reflect on their journey of faith as they took time to be still.
- Photos by Emily Blasdell
