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VOLUME 106 ISSUE 170 WWW.ALLIGATOR.ORG THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012
Today
We Inform. You Decide.Not officially associated with the University of Florida Published by Campus Communications, Inc. of Gainesville, Florida
Students fast through fi nals for Ramadan:Muslims cannot eat or drink while the sun is up, pg 5. Texting-related injuries on the rise:About 1,000 people went to the emergency room in 2011, pg 5.
New offensive coordinator Brent Pease
and the Gators will have a power-oriented
running game in 2012.See story, page 18.
Microsoft Offi ce free for students:Students can download it online, pg. 3.
91/73FORECAST 2OPINIONS 6AVENUE 8
CLASSIFIEDS 13CROSSWORD 15SPORTS 18
� HE ATTENDED UF FOR TWO YEARS IN THE 1990s.
KELLY PRICEAlligator Contributing Writer
Fewer than 60 paces away from the Turlington Preacher and his “Je-sus saves” cross, Dennis Kane danc-es.
He struts and sways on the plaza, one day in a neon blue miniskirt with a yellow and magenta V-neck, another day in a red crop top and black Daisy Dukes.
“What is your name?” asked an old woman who later leaves with the preacher.
“Dennis,” he said.“I will pray for you, Dennis,” she
said as she walked away.Kane, 36, stood with his toned
legs crossed together tightly on Tur-lington Plaza, his hands on his hips and white headphones over his ears.
He says “hi” to passers-by at ran-dom. He says he wants to make eye contact with everybody.
He preaches a doctrine of love.“Me and that guy have the same
mission in life,” Kane said of the nearby preacher. “We’re both trying to inspire people. The bottom line is, can’t we all get along?”
He said that when he started dancing there during Summer A,
people gawked and laughed. Now they expect it.
From 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Kane waves his arms and sways his hips on the plaza. He listens to the Backstreet Boys, U2, Lady Gaga, Sufjan Stevens, Hanson, Angels and Airwaves or maybe Alicia Keys.
A tour guide laughed awkwardly as her group walked past Kane danc-ing. She made it clear to her visitors that “anybody can do anything” in the free speech zone.
Raised in Carrollwood, outside Tampa, Kane came to UF in 1993 but dropped out after two years. He said the engineering courses “drove me crazy — a lot of crazy.”
After that, he said, he had a stint in the Army before moving to San Diego in 1999, where he was a bike taxi driver.
He wouldn’t talk about his cur-rent employment situation, saying his “income source is a bit of a politi-cal hot potato.”
He used to fl ash the peace sign at the University of California, Los An-geles, in an area similar to Turlington Plaza. During the Fall 2011 semester at UCLA, he earned the nickname “Peace Guy.”
He said he began wearing wom-en’s clothes in January and began dancing at UCLA that semester.
“People automatically assume I’m
Turlington Plaza dancer spreads love, equality
SEE DANCER, PAGE 4
ERIN JESTERAlligator Staff Writer
Roxanne Woltil can’t wait to get her hands on a box of Trader Joe’s Triple Ginger Cookie Thins.
In the past, the 22-year-old elemen-tary education graduate student had to wait for her sister, who lived in Wiscon-sin, to send her crisp cookies and other treats from Trader Joe’s, a specialty gro-cery store. Naples is home to the only Trader Joe’s in Florida.
But according to an agreement on fi le with the Alachua County Clerk of Courts, the store signed a 10-year lease agreement on a space in Butler Plaza in May.
On Wednesday, offi cials from Trader Joe’s said they were not able to comment or to say when the store would open.
According to the company’s website,
a Trader Joe’s is set to open in Sarasota on Sept. 7.
Trader Joe’s is famous in other parts of the country for its specialty food items, including Two Buck Chuck wine and kosher meats, as well as a loyal cus-tomer base.
Woltil said she’s just glad to have more choices — and, of course, easier access to ginger cookies.
“I was excited for something differ-ent and new in Gainesville,” she said.
Contact Erin Jester at [email protected].
Trader Joe’s will soon make its home in Butler Plaza
David Carr / Alligator Staff
Dennis Kane, 36, dances on Turlington Plaza on Wednesday afternoon. From 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. stu-dents can catch Kane waving his arms while listening to music on the plaza.
SAMANTHA SHAVELLAlligator Staff Writer
After meeting with Alligator representa-tives last week, UF has decided to continue removing Alligator racks from campus.
The Alligator must remove 19 of its orange racks by Wednesday, which makes up 80 per-cent of the newspaper’s circulation. Several more racks must be consolidated. Alligator newspapers will be moved into university-owned black modular units.
During the meeting last week, Alligator attorney Tom Julin proposed postponing the rack removal until retired economics profes-sor David Denslow could complete an impact study analysis. Julin also proposed moving current racks and adding new ones.
In an email addressed to Julin, UF general
counsel Amy Hass wrote that decisions about distribution locations are based on safety, secu-rity, sustainability and aesthetics.
She also wrote that the university will not censor the paper, a concern Julin voiced at the meeting.
The removal is the sec-ond phase of a project to remove all independently owned racks from campus. The is scheduled to be com-pleted in January 2013.
In response to the deci-sion, the Alligator has fi led
for a preliminary injunction to postpone re-moval of the racks. It had not been reviewed as of Wednesday evening.
Contact Samantha Shavell at [email protected].
UF decides to continue with removal of Alligator racks
LOCAL
“I was excited for some-thing different and new in
Gainesville.”Roxanne Woltil
UF grad student Hass
