Mayor’s State of the City Gives Students Insight to the Future

Terrie Phillips
Staff Writer

On Thursday, March 8, 2007, Mishawaka Mayor Jeff Rea spoke with students at Indiana University South Bend, giving them the State of the City Address. 
 
Rea spoke on the City of Mishawaka and the future plans to expand the city and bring more commerce.  He wants to make the city more of a home town.  “We are working together to build the best hometown available,” said Rea.
 
The City of Mishawaka is putting efforts to better city services such as the police department, fire department and water works.  “We purchased a new public safety communication system.  It is going to really help us prevent crime.” 
 
“The treatment plant is currently treating flows that are at its design capacity of 12 million gallons per day.  The expansion is saving the dual purpose of providing capacity for continued growth in the community and will cut annual combined sewer overflow (CSO) volume in-half,” according to State of the City of Mishawaka 2007, www.mishawakacity.com/Text%20Inserts/SOC2007II.pdf.

The city is now home to 50 thousand people, according to Rea.  The city has seen great change over the years.  “Years ago we were an industrial center, then we became a little more diversified, then we saw a shift in retail, now we have shifted to medical.”
 
According to www.mynewhospital.org, St. Joseph Regional Medical Center is planning to build a $355 million facility at Edison Lakes.  “Multi-story towers will provide 254 in-patient private rooms and baths with a hotel style ambience.  A business center will be available to patients and visiting family members.  Set on 90 acres, the new facility, located less than 10 miles from the current SJRMC campus, will include a park area with ponds and walkway.”
 
Rea is anticipating the arrival a Ruth’s Chris, a high-end steak house. With the arrival of this restaurant, Rea hopes some more national names will also come to Mishawaka. 
 
Mishawaka is also developing more green space for the residents to enjoy.  “Several years ago we took control of the former Uniroyal facility.  The city took control in 1998, in early 2000 we started demolition,” said Rea.  “We constructed a great new park,” said Rea.  The park includes a three mile river walk. 
 
With new development coming to Mishawaka it is a constantly changing city.  The city plans to continue to build more neighborhoods.  “We are working on a neighborhood transformation,” said Rea.
     
Rea is also working on the budget, doing things to help stretch citizen tax dollars by taking perks away from city workers, such as not allowing police to use there police car for personal use, and charging city workers for health insurance. 

SGA@Work March 29th

Brandi Miller
Staff Writer
      
At Friday’s meeting the SGA unanimously approved the appointment of Senators Jessica Jackson and Kristina Niere to the Smoking Committee.
     
The Senate also approved up to $200 to the Election Committee for signs and snacks for the upcoming SGA elections in April. 
     
Cole Belt was unanimously approved as the Justice replacing Joe Spencer who resigned earlier this month.
     
The Budget Committee presented the Budget Report for 2008, which included cuts in many departments funding including the stipends given to the SGA members. The new budget was unanimously approved by the Senate and now goes to President Marcus Vigil to be signed and then sent to Chancellor Reck for approval.
     
The next SGA meeting will be on March 30 in SAC 225 at 4 p.m.
     

The Easter Bunny Cometh

Terrie Phillips
Student News Editor

On Saturday, March 24, 2007, the Easter Bunny visited kids at the second annual Easter Egg Hunt sponsored by Student Alumni Association (SAA). 
 
The event featured Ramona Renee the Rabbit, played by Kelsey Skeats; a magic show performed by Steve Vaught; and face painting by Jason Cytacki and Alex Eakins.  The event also featured a decorated egg contest, a candy count contest and coloring. 
 
SAA split the children into three age groups: 9 to 12, lead by Jarrod Ewald; 4 to 8, lead by Angie Huff; and month olds to 3, lead by Jeanie Metzer.  Each group was led into a different area of the campus. The hunt was held outside. 
 
“This is fun, but is really hot,” said Ramona Renee the Rabbit.  “It has been really fun today. I enjoy working with the kids.  Hopefully I’m not scaring the kids.”

 “It was very nice,” said Nan Wahll, a grandmother.  Deandre, 11, holding a basket full of eggs, said “It was fun.” 
 
There were 1,066 hidden eggs, with one golden egg per group. The golden egg contained five dollars and Willy Wonka candy. 
 
The event lasted from 1:30 to 3 p.m., and 200, including adults, were expected to attend. Others helping at the event were Laralee Reed, Tasha Browning and Cyndi Seafross. 
 

Viewing the Cost of War with “Eyes Wide Open”

Adam Gallippo
Student Life Editor

Last Monday it was impossible not to notice the rows of empty shoes, boots and sandals adorned with flowers and nametags.
     
The event, “Eyes Wide Open: Beyond Fear, Toward Hope,” is a traveling exhibit created by the American Friends Service Committee and brought to our campus by the IUSB club, Students for Common Sense. The exhibit illustrates the cost of war in Iraq by displaying the empty footwear of dead U.S. and Iraqi military personnel.

Students for Common Sense, an organization started just last fall, is no stranger when it comes to controversy. Whether it was their screening of “An Inconvenient Truth” or traveling to Washington, D.C. to protest the war in Iraq, Students for Common Sense will continue to draw both support and criticism. All truly significant events do.

While walking around the exhibit, IUSB student Devin Megyese was shocked to see the number of children’s shoes on display.

“I heard this exhibit was to display the dead U.S. and Iraq military people. I guess they really take the word infantry to heart,” said Megyese. “It’s incredibly sad to see that so many children would be used to fight in a war. As a child, there’s no way they can grasp what they’re being instructed to do. When will it be over?”
     
The magnitude of the event drew all forms of local media coverage as both television and print journalists descended on IUSB as the war in Iraq will continue to be a hot topic.
     
For many, it was difficult to feel anything other than sadness and confusion while examining the exhibit. While some felt the display was a grizzly reminder of why we need to leave Iraq, others felt it, if seen by the enemy, would provide encouragement for them to continue.
     
“It emboldens [the enemy]. They’ll think the group members are allies in the war against America,” said IUSB student Chuck Norton in Margaret Fosmoe’s South Bend Tribune article, “War exhibit draws support, criticism at IUSB.”  Norton continued, “We didn’t ask, ‘When will the war be over?’ after Pearl Harbor. It’ll be over when the Iraqi leadership can stand on its own.”
     
Following the IUSB display of “Eyes Wide Open: Beyond Fear, Toward Hope” the exhibit moved to Notre Dame’s campus.
     
     
     
      

Women’s History Month Events Continue: Education and Empowerment

Terrie Phillips
Student News Editor

On Wednesday, March 21, 2007, in SAC 223-225 at 5:30 p.m., as part of the Millennium Campaign, three professors spoke with an audience on the subject of education and how it empowers around the world.

The first speaker, Dr. Susan Cress, Associate Professor of Education, IU South Bend, spoke on the numbers of children that go uneducated and UNICEF’s efforts. Cress talked about how to bring education to children. “Start at the beginning when talking about education,” said Cress.

According to Cress, to bring education you have to consider the factors that play into the lives of the children you are trying to educate. “Are families able to find food?” said Cress. Factors include: a safe environment, warm clothing, hunger, shoes, proper healthcare and shelter, just to name a few.

The next speaker, Dr. Marsha Heck, Associate Professor of Secondary Education, IU South Bend, spoke on the resources necessary to bring education to those unable to get it themselves. “There are 130 million children from ages 5 to 11 that do not have the ability to go tot school,” said Heck.

She continued to discuss the issues in New Orleans and war torn countries like Iraq. How issues like war, after effects of natural disasters, and poverty affect the amount of children able to go to school and the quality of education they receive.

The final speaker, Dr. Kwadwo Okrah, Director of the Center for Global Education, IU South Bend, discussed how we need to consider other countries needs and resources when bringing education to them. For example, an abundance of computer science graduates in a country with only 40 computers can cause a brain drain within that society.

He talked about teaching them skills they need to know to grow and survive in their environment. “If we don’t take care we will maintain the status quo,” said Okrah. He also discussed the definition of empowerment in politics, culture and economics.

After the speakers finished, the discussion continued with questions and comments.

“Confidence never went out of style”

Eric A. Gingerich
Staff Writer

There must be a fine line between being too ballsy and just ballsy enough. Of course the word itself, meaning bold, confident, feisty or determined, implies you’re either ballsy or not. After all, bold is bold and feisty is feisty; presumably there can’t be middle ground. You’re not a little bit determined. You are determined full force with all your heart. Otherwise, what’s point?

Obviously, this word, ballsy, is slang–vulgar slang at that, perhaps of British origins, and, as far as I can tell, it originated sometime during the 1950s and ‘60s. I imagine a cocky, beat-up young rapscallion wrestling the word balls to the ground and pinning the suffix –y to it. Clearly, you can see its stereotypical masculine roots. Yet, in my opinion, it transcends all this brutish nonsense and is a quality we should strive to be regularly.

I’m not completely sure what happened but I’ve been feeling more and more ballsy everyday. In a smallish way I recently stormed Random House’s intimidating and prestigious building on Broadway in New York. While there, I met a girl who shattered this very image of the unapproachable and self-important city. A day later, back in New Jersey, I approached a young lad of probably 18 years (he had braces!) for his phone number. I had no intention of getting his number; I simply felt courageous.

I never pictured myself doing these things, not until recently anyway. And now, because I have experienced them, it seems I possess a strange power to do more or less anything. Sure, I might not have tangible proof my newfound courage—I don’t have the job; this girl, well, you just never know; and the young lad, he was for humor and practice. Material things eventually vanish anyway. Instead, we keep essences. In the end, those ethereal qualities like courage are what matter.
     
And when these qualities enter your system, they are hard to shake. You feel ballsy. You are feisty. You get ideas, big ones, ones that would have scared you a year ago, ones you would have certainly ignored way back when. But now, you cannot rid them. They are stuck until further notice; until you can unleash them into the world. These ideas cultivate that strange power, and it builds and builds until you feel like a tiger.
     
But you are not a cruel-hearted killer tiger; you simply have that fierce tiger appeal about you. Of course, maintaining this vigor in our overwhelming world seems difficult. Things are intimidating. Beauty is threatening. Prestige is daunting. At every turn, someone or something will break your spirit. The trick is to become positive, upbeat, friendly. The trick is to have a quiet confidence—the kind that rejects the smug appearance and material gloss a loud confidence holds firm. But the real trick is simple: Refuse discouragement despite all else.

Chinese Festival in Quiet Lounge

Brandi Miller
Staff Writer

A new club has recently formed on the IU South Bend campus. The Chinese Friendship and Culture Organization (CFCO) was founded by Zhibin (Daisy) Tian, a communications major who emigrated here from China. Tian, along with three officers and faculty advisor, Dr. Ying Li of the Business Department, will be hosting a Cultural Exhibition in the Quiet Lounge next to The Grille on March 29 from noon to 1 p.m.

At the exhibition they will talk about traditional Chinese dance, which will include video clips. They will also discuss the Chinese traditional holidays and festivals. The exhibition will celebrate the Chinese New Year, which is different from the American New Year because the Chinese go by a lunar calendar instead of the traditional American calendar.

The next exhibition, The Mid-Autumn Festival, will be held in September.

According to Tian, she started the CFCO because she “feels that Chinese students here are very lonely. They are all away from their friends and family and because we do not celebrate Christmas we wanted to be able to get together and make friends.”

The purpose of the group, according Tian, to is to provide friendships to students at IUSB and to introduce Chinese culture to everyone. Membership is free and the group hopes to meet once a month

They are looking for a volunteer to build their website, and are always recruiting new members.

If interested, contact Zhibin Tian at atztian@iusb.edu.

Electromagnetic Radiation

Lucy Rzeszutek
Environmental Justice League

Mobile phones and mobile towers have been a grave concern as numerous emerging studies continually and consistently show possible health effects.  Proximity, duration, and intensity of the Electromagnetic Radiation (EMR) output determines how sick or electrically sensitive one becomes.  As cell phone use continues to spread like wildfire and as cell towers pop up in our backyards unbeknownst to us, we don’t have time to wait and see whether or not or just how much of our brains are being fried and bodies harmed. 

Cancer clusters or hot spots are dotting the St. Joseph County area.  EMR abounds and as the radiation increases, brain tumors, cancers, and diseases also increase.  Symptoms such as tiredness, forgetfulness, numbness, sleep interferences, headaches, sharp pains, and more fall under the long list of electrical sensitivity.  As more and more people are bombarded with this unseen radiation, younger and younger people are afflicted.

According to Leif Salford, he and his colleagues have shown in repeated studies that “radio frequency electromagnetic fields open the blood-brain barrier of rats so that large proteins, which may carry poisons, can enter the brain” as stated in the book, The Invisible Disease:  The Dangers of Environmental Illnesses Caused by Electromagnetic Fields and Chemical Emissions by Gunni Nordstrom.  According to Dr. Henry Lai, “cell phone radiation causes damage to DNA in human blood cells,” as written in the book by Dr. George Carlo and Martin Schram called Cell Phones:  Invisible Hazards in the Wireless Age.  Many more credible scientists, doctors, and experts have shown that there are adverse health affects to electromagnetic radiation.  To name several, they are Olle Johansson, Don Maisch, Louis Slesin, Janet Newton, and Blake Levitt.

Being that there is a repeated risk exhibited, fervent action is needed now to ensure the safest and optimal surroundings for the people of St. Joseph County.  Cell towers should not be built near schools, homes, and places of employment.  We cannot afford to be guinea pigs, mice, or monkeys on which this ‘experiment’ is performed unmonitored and unchecked while we suffer the consequences, Therefore let us educate one another and do something about this immediate and serious threat to our well being. 

Contact the legislation and Board of Health to take action on the community’s behalf and find out why so many people are getting cancers, tumors, and other illnesses. 

Kevin Kane Returns with “Lighthouses”

Andy Hostetter
Staff Writer

Kevin Kane is the former singer/songwriter for one of Canada’s biggest bands of the early 90s, Grapes of Wrath. He is releasing his first “full band” solo album, How To Build A Lighthouse, which he produced in June, and was kind enough to give the Preface a sneak preview of the album and insight into its making.

“A friend and I were looking at a poster of that famous picture of the guy standing on the balcony of an old stone lighthouse while this massive wave crashed around it.  I said ‘How the hell do you build something like that?’  I wonder if anyone’s written a book: How To Build A Lighthouse.”  I thought that title somehow suited the album, of trying to make something one feels is necessary despite the odds and obstacles,” Kane said.

The album is a blend of moody ballads and droning vocal-riff filled rockers. “Last to Know” opens the album with a downhearted story of being, as the title states, the last to know. Its muted guitar parts role through the song, and Kane’s voice gives the song a light-hearted depressive mood. “No Postcards” and “Somebody Needs a Hug” follow in the same vein, while “No Black Dots” and Kane’s cover of Pink Floyd’s “Arnold Layne” are absolute hard rockers. Kane assures the cover is not a tribute to the recently diseased Floyd manic Syd Barrett. “That was the second take – just some Syd fans bashing it out after the “real work” was over.  It was recorded in November 2005, so it wasn’t recorded because of his death but because he’s one of my all-time favorite musicians and inspirations,” Kane said.

The album’s most shinning moments are its softer tracks. “Late Night” and the album’s closing, “Sputnik,” are beautiful sorrowful pieces of ballad gold. The echoing guitar parts alone are enough to make you cry. Kane’s lyrics are sung with such sincerity and conviction, and his voice sounds heavenly. The cello part on “Nothing Left” accompanies the song perfectly, and goes from soft and smooth to chaotic and shrill during the bridge.

“Closer” is the album’s deepest and most heartbreaking track. It’s a blend of emotionally downing guitars ranging from icy to warm. Kane’s vocal arrangement is perfect. “My favorite recording that I’ve done so far is ‘Closer,’” Kane said. “I had a long time to think about it. It took me 10 years to finish – not to write, but to finish it the way I wanted it to be finished. I really feel like I got it right with that one.” And he’s absolutely right; 10 years of work has made “Closer” a perfect pop song.

What’s most amazing about How To Build A Lighthouse is its range of musical influences. From his GOW days to present, Kane has always combined his influences into one unified original piece. On this album, however, he’s found a way to combine everything from the Beatles to Radiohead. Yet it’s still hard to pin down the exact genre. When asked, he hesitated and answered, “Saddish folky psych-pop?” Close enough.

Kane might not have made as big of an impact here in the States as he has elsewhere, but this album has the potential to give him the credit he deserves. It’s a notch up creatively than anything he has ever done. “Playing solo for me has made me look at music more like watchmaking – it’s more about nuance and detail than energy,” Kane said.

I asked Kane whether or not he considered his new album to be his return. He replied with, “I suppose.  Life can be complicated sometimes and there are things that can require one’s attention.  This has been in the works for some time and its finally coming
together.” The album is indeed a reflection of those words. It is a true piece of art. He has once again proven he’s one of the greatest songwriters of our generation.

For more information and song samples visit www.kevinkane.net and myspace.com/kevin_kane.