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Tribe sweeps Denver, Air Force 7-0

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__College falls to no. 29 Colorado 3-4, breaking 11-match winning streak__

p. The women’s tennis team traveled to Colorado Springs over spring break to compete in a series of matches. After beating the University of Denver March 11 and the U.S. Air Force Academy March 12, both by a score of 7-0, the Tribe fell to no. 29 University of Colorado March 14 in a close match of 3-4. This was the team’s first loss after a record-setting 11-match winning streak.

p. The match started with the doubles teams. The no. 1-ranked duo of senior Megan Moulton-Levy and sophomore Katarina Zoricic beat their Colorado Buffalo opponents, 8-2, for their 30th win this season. The two other doubles teams of freshmen Ragini Acharya and Magdalena Bresson and freshman Lauren Sabacinski and sophomore Klaudyna Kasztelaniec lost at the number two and three positions.

p. Ranked no. 96 nationally, Acharya quickly evened the score at 2-2 with her almost perfect match at the number three singles position. This is the freshman’s 16th-straight victory this season. Colorado reclaimed the lead at the number four position before the Tribe won two matches at the number two and six positions, bringing the match in favor of the Tribe, 3-2. This left first-ranked Moulton-Levy and fifth-ranked Bresson to determine the fate of the match. After three long sets for both girls, Colorado defeated the Tribe, 4-3.

p. Despite the women’s loss to the Buffalo, they approached their next opponent with an open mind, defeating no. 14 Wake Forest University 5-2 March 21. This was the Tribe’s eighth win over a ranked team and third over a top-25 team. The Tribe took Salem, N.C. by storm and opened the match by winning the doubles matches in the first and third positions. The Tribe claimed matches at the first and second singles positions, putting the team ahead 3-0. The Demon Deacons came back and won two matches, but the College took care of business at the number three and six positions to secure the victory and improve the Tribe’s season record to 12-1.

p. The College will play its first home match in a month and challenge no. 60 University of Pennsylvania this weekend. The match is scheduled for tomorrow at noon on the Busch Courts. The Tribe returns to CAA play Wednesday, hosting Old Dominion University at 4 p.m.

College to host USA Collegiate Championships

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__Tribe looks to defend last year’s title__

p. Tomorrow at Kaplan Arena, the gymnastics program will host the 2007 USA Gymnastics Collegiate National Championships. The event begins with the team finals at 2 p.m. Saturday and continues with the individual finals at 2 p.m. Sunday.

p. Special guest and former Olympian Blaine Wilson will be in attendance and available for questions and autographs the entire weekend. Admission is free with a student ID.

p. This championship has been sponsored by USA Gymnastics since 1987, but this is the first year the Tribe has hosted it.

p. The College is the defending champion and will challenge schools such as the U.S. Air Force Academy, U.S. Naval Academy, James Madison University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the varsity level, and University of Washington, Arizona State University and the University of Texas at the club level this weekend.

p. “Our toughest opponent will be the Midshipmen from Navy,” senior Co-Captain Dave Ridings said. “We have been neck and neck all season.”

p. The College is ranked first in the USAG Collegiate Division and 14th nationally. The Tribe is also going into the championship having won the past five consecutive years. The Tribe’s Andrew Hunt is the high bar and parallel bar champion from last year’s competition.

p. Despite a challenging season, including multiple injuries, the team has stayed strong. Junior captain Aaron Ingram is still very confident in the team’s ability to perform.

p. “We may be small and under-funded, but we have loads of heart, and I am confident against any competitor who thinks they are up to the challenge,” Ingram said.

p. The Tribe has high hopes for keeping the championship title at home.

p. “Every member of the team has the drive, enthusiasm and talent to bring another championship to [the College],” Ridings said.

College shuts out G. Washington

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__Tribe moves to no. 42 in Division I Fila/ITA rankings after defeating no. 49 Louisville__

p. The men’s tennis team improved its national ranking to 42nd in the Division I Fila/ITA rankings after shutting out George Washington University March 9 before spring break and defeating no. 49 Louisville University March 11. The Tribe reached its highest ranking in three years after the doubles teams of junior Alex Cojanu and freshman Keziel Juneau, ranked 25th nationally, and sophomore Alex Zuck and freshman Richard Wardell won the doubles point early in the match against George Washington, just before the College swept all of the singles play for a final score of 7-0. This match marked Head Coach Peter Daub’s 200th win of his 14-season career coaching the Tribe. In the next match, against Louisville, the Tribe lost the doubles point but won four of the six match-ups of singles play to pull ahead for a 4-3 win.

p. The College began competition at the prestigious Blue Gray National Tennis Classic in Montgomery, Ala., March 15, playing three teams ranked within the top 50 in the nation. The first opponent the Tribe faced was no. 33 North Carolina State University. The College lost after it gave up the doubles point in a tie-breaker and N.C. State won the first three singles matches. The remaining matches were suspended as N.C. State was already the victor. The Tribe defeated Louisville for the second time in a week, 4-0. The match was suspended after the Tribe won the first four singles matches.

p. The final match, played Sunday against no. 34 Middle Tennessee State University, ended in another win for the Tribe, with play ending at 4-2. Starting with the early lead thanks to the doubles point, the Tribe easily won the first singles play, followed by two other wins to answer Middle Tennessee State’s two-win surge. The lone senior for the College, no. 79 Colin O’Brien, clinched the victory, winning his match and improving his season record to 17-11 in singles play.

p. The Tribe returns to play at the 46th annual Rice Invitational in Houston, Tex., today against Middle Tennessee State. The College will then face off against no. 17 Rice University tomorrow and no. 49 University of Oklahoma Sunday. The Tribe’s record currently stands at 14-7.

The trouble with tradition

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“Tradition” probably rivals the word “the” for use in campus tours — name an issue at the College and no one, from politicians to press, can go very long without mentioning it. Or the darling prospectives sitting at home in their bedrooms pouring over copies of “Insiders’ Guide to the Colleges”? They’re bound to find a paragraph or two featuring some student at the College gushing about the freshman march through the Wren Building as if it ranked up there with the Second Coming. We most assuredly have a love affair with tradition.

p. But it’s this preoccupation which has tied up students and alumni in arguments over such sundry things as Campus Drive’s name change, the feather plucking, the Sex Workers’ Art Show and, yes, the Wren cross controversy. What is troubling about these debates is their unfailing reliance on what seems to be regarded as a hallmark of our school: tradition itself. Too often, the mantra of “this is the way things have always been” is invoked as if it automatically shields a certain practice from scrutiny.

p. That’s not to say there haven’t been decent arguments on either side of a number of controversial issues, but rather that they’re being overshadowed by a bunch of preposterous claims about “established values.” While there’s nothing wrong with making value judgments per se, serious argumentation requires more evidence than a reference to tradition can provide. With more and more people asking “why,” using “because that’s the way things have always been” is holding up less and less.

p. The College is nothing if not intellectual and we’re being ignorant if we think we can avoid the rigor of crafting more serious defenses by simply citing the status quo. The NCAA’s decision which resulted in our defeathering exemplifies when a tradition makes sense. The reasonable defense of our feathers — as reflections of academic and regional heritage — was largely drowned out by cries of “Um, that’s retarded. We’ve been doing things this way for as long as we can remember and nobody really cared.” Notice the difference.

p. This brings us to the more contentious issues at the intersection of tradition and ideology featuring “The Vagina Monologues,” the Wren cross and the Sex Workers’ Art Show, the last of which I recall reading somewhere was part of a liberal plan to destroy our moral norms. Since the Wren cross was exhausted as a topic long ago, let’s muse on the norm-bustin’ Sex Workers’ Art Show. By and large, the criticism it received was for being yet another attack on traditional values. Values, however, prove difficult if not impossible to cite in a reasonable discussion barring those with universal acceptance (one assumes there aren’t many folks out there fighting for the right to murder).

p. The more practical point of contention was that the art show glorified or glamorized the sex industry, a business which has objectified women and reinforced the “male aggressor” stereotype leading to, as One in Four is fond of pointing out, a higher incidence of rape. But, as mentioned, most detractors ignored this path and instead chose to call the show a disgusting affront to traditional values without offering any further argument. Unless you’re looking for a messy debate about faith in religious tenets, all argument must inherently stop when moral norms come up. Just how deep does the question “Why do you believe adultery is wrong?” really go?

p. Why do we hold the Yule Log ceremony? Why did we have feathers in our logo? Why does the Wren Chapel have a cross? These things and others are all part of campus tradition, but the important thing is that we can explain them. Tradition without occasional scrutiny, on the other hand … well, try to find the sense in that.

__Andrew Peters, a sophomore at the College, is a Staff Columnist. His columns appear every Friday.__

Thinking inside the box

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For some reason, when I heard about the recent decision to install the Wren cross in a glass case, the first thing that came to mind was Marcel Duchamp’s infamous 1917 attempt to display a urinal as a piece of art by signing it, titling it “Fountain,” and sending it to an exhibit.

p. (I know: it might seem like I just equated the Wren cross with a urinal. If it’ll get your friends to read the column, feel free to quote me out of context on that. Otherwise, bear with me for a bit.)

p. Ninety years apart though they may be, the two controversies have much in common — what has happened with the cross is curiously similar to what Duchamp attempted with his “Fountain.” In each situation, an object’s value was shifted because of an implicit societal agreement that certain types of presentation endow specific significance to things. If the urinal were to be displayed in a space that we had designated as an art museum, it would have been regarded as art, which is a horrifying proposition to any classicists. Likewise, the Wren cross’s momentous move to a glass box — and let’s not forget that accompanying plaque — almost magically confers upon it the status of an historical artifact, while temporarily robbing from it the status of a contemporary Christian icon. All it would take for the cross to restore itself as a religious symbol is a move from its clear container to an altar. The cross itself would undergo no transformation, would be no more or less visible, but its entire meaning would shift out of a communal understanding.

p. Philosophers, sociologists and semioticians have been studying these signs and symbols for decades; their increasing presence in our lives is one of great interest to postmodern thinkers. Jean Baudrillard, a French philosopher who died earlier this month at age 77, theorized in a somewhat post-Marxist vein that society was governed by the way it had come to value objects — that they were not merely commodities but consumer fetishes, signs and symbols to which arbitrary values had been assigned. These objects became simulacra — simulations or representations of meaning whose sheer abundance, strength and appeal have made them supersede what they stood for. In simpler terms, it’s the imitation becoming the genuine article. We have built a new kind of life, posited Baudrillard, upon these simulacra, so that we live in what he dubbed the “hyperreal,” where what is real is what was once an imitation.

p. By placing the cross in a chapel, it was bestowed religious significance. When it was removed, the ensuing controversy was because of what it represented: the cross had become Christian history itself. To remove it was to remove Christian history. Thus, the symbol had become what it initially represented. The physical sign of the ideology and the ideology itself had become so inextricably merged that the sign was all that mattered.

p. This latest development is simply a clarification. That it has been greeted with mostly praise and acceptance is a testament to how strong the system of simulacra has become in our society. We assign meanings to objects so often that the objects themselves become as inviolable as what they stand for. This is, in a sense, the ultimate materialism.

p. Resting proudly in its glass case, the cross is a copy of an earlier copy that had come to replace its original. (My apologies: the preceding is one of those sentences that requires a lot of rereading.) Without signing any formal agreements, the public at large has accepted that, so long as the cross stays in the box, it means only that the chapel has Christian roots, not that it is specifically Christian in the present. The present tense does not exist in the glass box. It’s easier for everyone that way. Theoretically, if you could somehow manage to climb inside the box, visitors would regard you not as an actual human being, but a preserved representation of what it meant to be human when the College was founded. It could be a pretty neat attraction, if properly organized.

p. Of course, a lot of humor arises from all this talk of signage. Artists found Duchamp’s admission so heinous because it was a widely used joke formula put into actual practice — removing objects from their conventional settings and putting them in places where they don’t, by our agreed standards, “belong.” Duchamp seemed to be making a mockery of the institution of museums, just as some said removing the cross would weaken or undermine the chapel as an institution.

p. Hopefully, this cultural analysis sheds some amount of light on the situation, though it can’t be said to affect anything other than your awareness. It is for this reason that people like me, wasting precious editorial space with highfalutin talk of glass boxes, usually end up living in cardboard ones.

__Dan Piepenbring, a junior at the College, is a Staff Columnist. His columns appear every Friday.__

Multiple voices respond to ad

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Lecture. That’s what professors do, right? Lecture. Perhaps lecturing is how many professors (and students) wanted college to be. We, however, value discussion — multiple voices. When we read Professor Delos’s “message” to men published in the Feb. 23 issue, we felt pressed upon and silenced. Considering that lectures are a singular, aggressive voice declaring the view of one, we find it troubling that he makes claims to value our sexual community as a whole. In the spirit of multiple voices, we have collaborated to write an open letter — an unpaid advertisement — to our fellow students. We have a collected sense of anger, but we shall address specific issues that resonate on an individual level.

p. Sarah: While Delos speaks to the “men” of the community, he speaks for the “young ladies” of the community as well. As a woman heavily invested in the intellectual pursuits of our college, I found his advertisement terrifying. Where do I even begin? Pointing to my “higher biological investment in reproduction,” Delos denies the contribution of women to the campus: intellectually, professionally, spiritually — the list goes on.

p. Delos’s paternalistic outlook on sexuality is archaic at best and ignorant at worst. His voice is chorused by a surprising variety of people as recently evidenced by the outbursts against the Sex Workers’ Art Show, which serves as a touchstone to illustrate how key members of the community seek to control sexuality through silence.

p. Instead of regulating sexuality in general, Delos removes women from the equation, giving only men the power to make sexual choices and giving women the “privilege” of having those choices imposed upon them. Sexuality, for women, is not an entirely reproductive act. To think so limits expressions of female sexuality, which run as diversely from non-vaginal sex to abstinence.

p. Nathaniel: Delos spoke to me as a man, so I shall speak to him as one. His ad narrows the discourse on sexuality and removes the opportunity for conversation. As a queer-identified man, I have taken many opportunities to explore a range of sexual expression, yet Delos seeks to restrict that exploration. As much as Sarah points to the continuum of female sexuality, I urge men to look beyond Delos’s views and take hold of their sexuality.

p. Delos speaks of “manliness,” yet he defines this troubling term solely through sexual choices. “Manliness” extends beyond sexual choice. I would hope that men of the campus community would define themselves in more constructive terms than simply through sexual encounters with women.

p. Sexuality, in itself, is not threatening, neither to the moral fabric of society nor to the individual. What is threatening is silence and imposed power. When he removes women’s voices from the sexual conversation, it is strikingly similar to the silence of women in sexually coercive situations. My fellow men: to combat the imposed power of Delos and others like him, start a conversation.

p. Us: By no means do we claim to be experts on everything about sexuality or sexual “virtue.” Delos cites scientific views on sexuality, and, while we do not devalue these studies, we have framed our discussion in humanistic terms. “Humanistic” reverberates with a variety of implications (feminist, queer, progressive) and speaks to a communal desire for genuine equality, communication and understanding. When Delos condescends to “discuss these issues with any campus group,” we hope equality, communication and understanding can be achieved. However, we have our doubts.

p. We are limited to 700 words. Delos had the financial and professional resources to purchase a full page ad. We are students. Delos, and others like him, has the nominal authority of a Ph.D. and age. We are, however, members of the community to which Delos speaks. Therefore, we urge members of the community to recognize the authority they hold and to engage in difficult dialogue about these difficult issues.

p. We opened with a question about lecturing and we end with an answer: Yes. Professors lecture, but community members respond.

__Nathaniel Amos and Sarah Klotz are juniors at the College.__

‘300’ stabs at stylized gore, lore

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Hollywood has unleashed a masterpiece of hero lore on the world in the form of Zack Snyder’s epic “300.” The film’s tagline sums it up perfectly: “Prepare for glory.” It’s about unabashed courage and self-sacrifice in the name of freedom. It’s sad and it’s inspirational, but, mostly, it’s wicked cool. Based on Frank Miller’s (“Sin City”) graphic novel of the same name, the film stylistically echoes its comic book origins. What proves so extraordinary is that it manages both literary exaggeration and — despite what has been said by paranoid politicos — an impressive measure of historical integrity.

p. The film’s hero is King Leonidas of Sparta — an actual ruler rumored to be a descendant of Heracles — and it covers the famous Battle of Thermopylae, in which a band of (you guessed it) 300 Spartan soldiers and a handful of allies stand off against hundreds of thousands of Persian invaders. Though every Spartan man has a body that would shame the most idealized sculpture, this reviewer argues that it would be hard to exaggerate Spartan militarism. So hard, in fact, that this film fails to do so. Strangely, “300” has suffered the abuse of ignorant, politically obsessed critics who insist that this clash-of-civilizations story is merely Western propaganda. Perhaps the most absurd and extreme example of this is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s irritation with this “government-sponsored” attempt to demean the Iranian people. This laughable criticism, proposed both in the US and out of it, is indicative of the sort of controversy the film has incited. The idea that liberal Hollywood could ever be the puppet of a Republican administration is beyond ludicrous. And the charges of “silly” exaggeration and Western chauvinism can be answered with a simple history lesson.

p. It’s about time that a movie about heroes actually looked like a movie about heroes. Bowing to Miller’s graphic novel, Snyder allows the heroes to look like gods and forces the villains to resemble the monstrosity of their actions (see the deformed traitor). Just as Disney’s Mulan fought huge, brutishly exaggerated Huns, so too does Leonidas fight deformed, stereotypical Persians. It may not be politically correct to cover Persian elites in gold, show them in their harems, portray their king Xerxes as a narcissistic would-be deity, disclose that Xerxes beheaded unsuccessful generals or reveal that theirs was an army of slaves forced on a mission of conquest — but it’s true. Call it what you will (clash of civilizations or isolated incident), but this is merely a highly stylized version of how it actually happened. Spartans look like hardened bad boys because that’s what they were. The film portrays the agoge system faithfully — even mildly. Spartan boys underwent a harsh boarding school of violence and were turned loose on the countryside. However, rather than merely survive the attacks of wild animals (such as the wolf in the movie), they were expected to return with a dead peasant. Also, at least three of the most brazen quotes in the movie were real. Herodotus tells us that, when told to surrender arms, Leonidas said, “Come and get them.”

p. Much could be written on the undeniable cinematic beauty of “300.” Snyder describes the graceful battle sequences as a kind of “ballet” of violence. And before modern viewers condemn, trivialize or even glorify this as a video-gamey gimmick — which they seem set upon doing — we should stop and remember that there was a time when battles literally saturated the ground with blood. Limbs flew, elephants (sometimes) charged, spears impaled and heads rolled in the warfare of antiquity. It almost seems laughable that critics would dismiss “300” as a gore-fest when it would be impossible to accurately portray the brutality of ancient warfare and keep the film tame enough to achieve an R-rating. What better way, then, to convey the swords-and-sandals savagery we love in “Rome” and “Gladiator” than to stylize it? Better to see comic-bookishly tasteful decapitations and pretty scarlet splashes than the spilt intestines, maimed sufferers and cloven skulls found in Homer and Virgil. The gloomy, grainy look of the film (which was shot almost entirely in front of a blue screen) lends it an old, mysterious air and is punctuated by the Spartans’ brilliantly red cloaks. Standing in the rocky mountain pass awaiting the morning’s violence, the soldiers look more like somber mystics. A film about macho warriors becomes a haunting defense of liberty.

p. Finally, the casting makes the movie. Having previously played epic protagonists like Beowulf and Attila, Gerard Butler (“Phantom of the Opera”) shines as Leonidas. His roar terrifies and inspires and he offers us a paradoxically contemplative man of action. Lena Headey (“Brothers Grimm”) does justice to the noble Queen Gorgo by accurately representing the hardness expected of Spartan women. The film’s villain, played by Dominic West (“The Forgotten”), is delightfully despicable, and, last but certainly not least, David Wenham’s (“The Two Towers”) indelibly unique voice narrates the entire film. He weaves this tale of glory so movingly that the viewer is reminded of the stirring epitaph that can still be found at the battle site: “Go, tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, / That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.”

__Five Stars__

‘Friday Night Lights’ shines for NBC

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“Friday Night Lights,” the NBC drama chronicling the life and times of the Texas town of Dillon and its beloved high school football team, the Panthers, has separated itself from the rest of what is a rather bleak network television landscape this year.

p. Before anyone points out the fact that the guy who writes for the sports section is choosing to review a show about a sports team, let me emphasize that “Friday Night Lights” is not a show about football. This show is about characters whose lives, yes, may be centered around football, but, as the show quickly makes clear, reducing them to merely football players, coaches and fans would be a gross oversimplification.

p. It takes quite a lot to crack the top of my list of favorite TV shows. I have previously kept “24,” “Lost” and “The Office” in firm standing. However, with its outstanding debut season, “Friday Night Lights” has quickly solidified itself as my favorite show on network TV.

p. For all great shows, excellence begins with writing. This show’s writers do a great job of giving enough face time to every one of its characters. Much like “The West Wing” did in its early seasons, the show works in all of the characters without throwing in superfluous plot lines.

p. The cast, from top to bottom, is exceptional, anchored by Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton, who play Coach Eric Taylor and his wife Tami, respectively. Their strong performances have a trickle-down effect on the entire cast, leading to scene-stealing performances by countless supporting members of the cast, most notably Adrianne Palicki as the smokin’ hot, disenchanted troublemaker Tyra Collette, Liz Mikel as Corrina Williams, the hardworking single mother of the football team’s star running back and Brad Leland as the meddling, charmingly unethical Buddy Garrity.

p. Each character is very likable in his or her own way. The closest thing the show has to a villain is Garrity, whose acts of adultery and recruiting violations become very hard for the viewer to defend at times, but he always wins us back over with his hilarious antics (in a recent episode, he used a pencil to trace over the imprints on a notepad left by Coach Taylor’s pen, so that he could find out where the coach was having dinner, then, upon being caught, proudly told the coach that he had learned the sophisticated trick from watching “Matlock”).

p. For all my fellow sports fans out there who have grown sick of the unrealistic sports scenes in movies like “Jerry Maguire,” rest assured: “Friday Night Lights” passes the sports realism test. The occasional broken tackle may cause you to suspend disbelief, but the “football talk” dialogue is spot-on, and most of the action scenes are as well. That being said, the writers also do a good job of providing just the right amount of football scenes. There’s usually enough to get a good taste of the action, while still never making the game itself the focal point of the episode.

p. The show’s plot lines have been good as well, covering a wide range of issues, from the former star quarterback’s dealing with a spinal cord injury that has left him paralyzed from the waist down, to race-related issues, to steroid use, to teen sex. The writers’ ability to consistently blend all these elements with the football backdrop is something to behold.

p. “Friday Night Lights” is sad without being sappy, meaningful without being hokey, funny without being corny and has quietly become the best show on network television today. But, unfortunately, like too many other great shows (i.e. “Arrested Development”) of recent years, it has been facing risk of cancellation due to poor ratings. So, please, don’t give NBC the chance to cancel it. Watch this show. You’ll get hooked. I promise.

Degradation of hip-hop makes some fans wonder where the music went

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I miss hip-hop. I miss its beauty, its uniqueness, its essence. I miss its depth and originality. I miss its poetic imagery and its narration. “Hip-hop is dead,” rapper Nas claims, and our generation watched it die. It was wrapped in artistic grooves and pulsating beats, but slowly unraveled itself through overtly sexual and violent themes. The constant beatings of commercialism and materialism led to its deterioration and untimely demise. Now we are left with stereotypical repetitions of money-making anthems and misogynist lyrics that leave women bending over to shake their ass every five seconds.

p. Over the past few years, hip-hop has gone through a massive change in its values and subject matter. When hip-hop emerged in the late 1970s in the Bronx, it was the beginning of a cultural movement. Positive images and themes of unity, political expression and African-American culture were the main elements of this art form. Various DJs and rappers broke onto the scene, starting with one of the first hip-hop singles called “Rapper’s Delight” by The Sugarhill Gang. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five soon followed with “The Message,” a critical look at the societal struggles and hardships from living in the ghetto. One can’t forget when Run DMC broke into the mainstream wearing Adidas. These musical artists were hip-hop icons, and the many that followed attempted to emulate and personify greatness.

p. Now, hip-hop is not even remotely close to where it used to be. Its existence is fleeting; it doesn’t attain the same level of vitality and innovation. I don’t see any Chuck Ds or Eazy Es rolling down the street, wanting me to join a hip-hop revolution. I can’t hear the abstract fusion of jazz and hip-hop from A Tribe Called Quest. “Scenario” is being drowned out by imitator rappers shouting absurdities like: “Throws Some D’s,” “Ghetto Revival” or “Hallelujah Hollaback” (who the hell wants to revive the ghetto?).

p. Mainstream hip-hop missteps on the materialistic side and has left me stranded. Recurring images of gold chains, overpriced cars and several loose “bitches” permeate American society and culture. Stereotypical representations of black youth are sprawled in every direction, because my hip-hop generation would rather “Walk It Out” than gain “Knowledge of Self (K.O.S. Determination).”

p. The negativity and disconnection of hip-hop is in full frontal view, while socially conscious rappers The Roots, Common and Lupe Fiasco are buried beneath temporary hits and pushed further underground. Refined lyricism is replaced with contagious beats and catchy rhymes with no profundity, and the tremendous lack of creativity and individuality makes hip-hop predictable.

p. The hip-hop genre is suffering, and we need something to revitalize and cleanse it. Hip-hop needs to throw away those CDs that pose as dental brochures on how to keep your grillz clean and get-rich-quick schemes. Hip-hop needs to abandon the allusions to Scarface, refrain from throwing champagne on scantily clad women and, instead, stimulate minds with positive change and intellectual flows. Its voice is stifled and, frankly, I’m tired of having to learn a new dance every two weeks.

p. Hip-hop — it used to be great. It wasn’t on the corner counting stacks; it was conversing with the people, talking to me. It had an attitude that breathed confidence. It was pure and fresh. Damn … I “Used to Love H.I.M.”

__Genice is a sophomore at the College.__

New book on slang: I don’t think so

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In her new book, “Slam Dunks and No-Brainers: Pop Language in Your Life, the Media, and, Like … Whatever,” Leslie Savan, an advertising critic and Village Voice contributor, claims to explore the phrases that have entered popular usage since their inceptions. At first it seems like a fascinating idea, but under the incredibly biased and wandering hand of Savan, it turns from fascinating to insipid to ironic to annoying.

p. Savan begins by listing almost every cliched word and phrase she knows — pages and pages of them. After all that complaining, she suddenly admits to using them. “Some phrases … are just so ingrained that I figure, Why fight them?” Perhaps because you’re writing a book about how those phrases have polluted the English language? Unfortunately, you don’t get the best of both worlds; either fight slang or quit your bitching.

p. At least Savan is honest; she states outright that she is prejudiced: “There are some pop locutions that I like and others I bristle at every time.” She says that she enjoys the term “road rage” (which makes few if any appearances in the rest of the book), but that she hates “I don’t THINK so,” which somehow manages to appear several hundred times. Either Savan is trying to annoy the reader by beating a dead horse or she actually likes the phrase, like some sort of guilty pleasure.

p. She goes on to provide a definition of pop language that serves not to clarify, but to muddle and confuse. “Pop language is, most obviously, verbal expression that is widely popular and is part of popular culture. Beyond that, it’s language that pops out of its surround [sic]; conveys more attitude than literal meaning, pulses with a sense of an invisible chorus speaking it, too; and, when properly inflected, pulls attention, and probably consensus, its way.” Um, what? How is that different from slang, and why does it matter?

p. Savan begins the book with a discussion on black vernacular and how it has affected the English language overall for hundreds of years. She attributes the reversal of word meanings (i.e., “bad” meaning “good”) to slaves having to talk covertly in front of white overseers. She also postulates that whites use “black language” like “back in the day” and “old school” to sound more multicultural and in-tune with black society.

p. “Today, the language of an excluded people is repeated by the nonexcluded in order to make themselves sound more included.” According to Savan, this is what led to the humorous McDonald’s ad campaign of 2005. In an attempt to sound more urban, McDonald’s used the phrase, “I’d hit it,” to describe its double cheeseburgers. The slang term means, “I’d have sex with that cheeseburger.” McDonald’s quickly and quietly dropped the ad.

p. One of the problems with the book is that Savan feels the need to list as many examples of pop language as she can; pages and pages are used up with short examples of a term’s usage, many of which were apparently overheard by her or said by one of her friends — unverifiable and possibly made up to suit her needs. For instance, she lists dozens of times in which the phrase “I don’t THINK so” was used in the television sitcom “Friends.” It’s overkill to the extreme; no one needs to hear about every single time Chandler made a funny.

p. Another shortcoming of the book is the crippling lack of original ideas. Most of Savan’s information — rather the information she didn’t hear herself from a friend — is quoted from other books and articles. Very little of this book is her own research or theory; it reads more like a very long high school research paper. The few times she actually ventures to discuss her own personal theories, they come across as unimportant and superficial. She departs from her ramblings at one point to reveal something “possibly stupid, possibly stunning:” many popular TV shows have the letter “S” in their titles. “‘Seinfeld,’ ‘The Simpsons,’ ‘The Sopranos,’ ‘The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,’ ‘SpongeBob SquarePants,’ … ‘The Larry Sanders Show,’ ‘Mr. Show.’” Actually, those last two didn’t do so well. And just because some popular shows contain the most used letter in the alphabet doesn’t mean it is a requirement for success; look at “Lost,” “Gray’s Anatomy,” “Desperate Housewives,” “The Office,” “House” and “Family Guy.” Her revelation is as far from stunning as could be.

p. Ultimately, the book is a rambling complaint about the phrases, TV programs, people and politics she doesn’t like. “Slam Dunks and No-Brainers” lacks focus and purpose: no coherent message prevails, and the reader is left wondering what exactly Savan is trying to accomplish with this book. The prose is also cluttered, each sentence weighed down by pop words as she tries to point out the irony in using pop words. If at this point you’re thinking you shouldn’t bother reading this book: “Duh.”

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