Articles - THE RECORD

@THE MOVIES “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”

w/ Peter Zimbicki

Alright, round two for the movie reviews and I really gotta start seein’ better movies. This week, thanks to a couple of friends, the movie I saw was Texas Chainsaw Massacre: the Beginning starring Jordana Brewster, Taylor Handley, Andrew Bryniarski, R. Lee Ermey, Heather Kafka and directed by Johnathan Liebesman… man we shoulda seen Open Season.

Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy lots of shitty movies, especially in terms of horror flicks, but this one’s really just not worth the drive over to the theater. The movie starts out with a nauseatingly obvious montage of I think blood, cutting up stuff, maybe some people and generic newspaper headings and dates. Not a great start but my friends and I were still optimistic. The beginning scene involved a slaughter house’s manager being killed with a hammer and it was a welcomed though sort of surprising stint of violence. Well after that, we were all psyched up for a good time, but that good time never came.

Despite the expected sexism, racism, homophobia, blah, blah, this movie still just didn’t do it. From what I can remember, the story line is the exact same as the previous crappy Texas Chainsaw, but with different crappy actors. Although The Beginning does keep you anxious for the entire 90 minute fiasco, it’s less because you’re scared for the characters and more that you’re just ready for it to be over. Now I had expected that the amount of gore might balance out the low points of the film but again I was left disappointed. Although people did get killed and beaten, it really wasn’t so cool or gross. There was a lot of indirect gore: on the walls, dripping off the table, out of focus, in the dark and not disturbing enough to make me happy. And to top it all off there was a little half a rape just to fuck it all up even more.

So to sum it all up, this movie wasn’t all that good, and not nearly bad enough to be fun. If you like boring, dumb, stupid, boring movies maybe this is the movie for you, if not you should head out today, October 13, for some John Cena butt kickin’ action!

Well until the next time, Peter Z.

I promise next time will be good.

And if anyone is planning on seeing this movie, or any other movie you should head on down I-675 to the Fairfield Commons Mall and over to the Hollywood 20. There you’ll find a huge list of real movies that you can see. Tim Hoelle and his friendly and helpful staff will assist you with all of your movie and concession needs, including hot buttered popcorn and big chocolate bars. The Regal Hollywood has all the newest hits and great dark rooms to view them in, so head on over for an escape from the real world and a trip into fun.

@THE VIDEO STORE “A Prairie Home Companion�?

w/ F/ Stop Fitzgerald

Shot in High-Def video by auteur director Robert Altman, A Prairie Home Companion is the big budget version of what Garrison Keillor has staged for years…his very last show. This time, though, he augmented actual folksy singers and performers with actors who do a better job. To be fair, there are several cameras on the set at any time during these performances performed “live,�? as it were, so the regular radio personalities had little chance at competing with the seasoned camera targets; GK himself appeared the most natural, even though he (maybe)played a caricature of himself.

Since the movie plays out as a false history (and not documentary style at al), it’s no wonder why certain fantastic and outrageous elements were incorporated. A woman in a white trench coat walking around backstage turns out to be a ghost, originally killed by Garrison’s maiming of a joke about penguins. She comes to symbolically kill off the show, as well as its oldest patron, and finally the Axeman who is responsible for the troupe losing its Theatre. This last hit is anticlimactic revenge, for in the end the show goes on and ends, the set is striked and Guy Noir plays a sad piano lullaby, which transitions to a diner scene with the main cast talking about “putting the show on road�? and such, when all of a sudden…

Protest and Oppose Censorship of the Record

To the Antioch Community:

As adjunct faculty serving as a mentor to students on the Antioch Record staff, I protest and oppose the Lawry administration’s censorship of the Record. I am advising the students to resist all censorship and intimidation.. And I urge members of the Antioch community to support the Record in affirmation of freedom of speech.

Censorship is — of course — grossly unacceptable. It is unethical and immoral. Censorship, or any infringement of people’s rights of free discussion, free expression and free inquiry, violates the most basic values of democracy and community, not to mention liberal arts education.

That students at Antioch College are denied free speech is shocking and absurd.

Censorship of the Record began with its September 22 issue. In a letter to the faculty dated September 20, college president Steve Lawry announced that the dean of faculty, Andrzej Bloch, had been empowered to censor the Record, and that a new board would soon be appointed to “take overall responsibility for the Record.�?

In an attempt to justify its censorship of the Record, the administration has made false and inflammatory statements. A letter sent September 18 to faculty and staff, signed by three administrators (Lawry, Bloch, and Rick Jurasek), characterized a feature in the Record (“Question of the Week�?) that was clearly satirical — and clearly protected by the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech — as “a crime�? that put the Record in “high-risk legal territory.�?

This is not true. As a newspaper editor and publisher for 33 years, I can assure the community there is no way that the Record, or any other newspaper in America, would be at legal risk for printing this material. (Record staff confirmed this in a consultation with the Student Press Law Center in Washington, D.C.)

Not true, also, is the charge made by Lawry, in his September 20 letter, that the Record’s “generally poor editorial judgments�? and “the persistent presence of anti-social and aggressive speech and prolific use of obscenitites�? in the Record “systematically degrade and dishonor�? Antioch College.

It is not the Record, but the administration’s censorship of the Record — its denial of basic rights of freedom of speech to members of the Antioch community — that degrades and dishonors Antioch College.

The Record is an essential part of the Antioch community. It is rooted in the values of the community, and it speaks in the voice — or the many voices — of the community. It’s a good newspaper. Despite deep cuts in the Record’s funding, the editors have assembled a large staff of talented, enthusiastic, hard-working students. They have provided the community with a diverse mix of interesting, lively, well-written news and opinion.

Last week’s “retro�? issue of the Record, full of articles and pictures the staff selected from Records published down through the years, brilliantly illuminated Antioch’s long and passionate commitment to the struggle for human rights, social justice, and freedom of expression. And fun — the Record brightly illuminated Antioch’s bold, free spirit.

The Record, far from dishonoring Antioch College, honors Antioch in the most essential, meaningful way — by expressing, and embodying, Antioch’s spirit. At the heart of Antioch is the free spirit of Antioch, and all attempts to suppress it must be opposed.

Sincerely,

— Don Wallis

Fighting the Loss of Friends

By Madeline Helser and Kathryn Leahey
Community Meeting

Last Saturday marked the final day of school here at Antioch for four first year students, Brock Kalbfleisch, Alan Fiser, Cary James, and Daniel “Stubby” Carroll, who were all expelled for a violation of our college’s drug and alcohol policy.

Continue reading Fighting the Loss of Friends

Cores Emphasize Community Service

Photo by Aidan O’Leary

New program raises some concerns but provides needed assistance to disadvantaged communities

By Ed Perkins

Antioch’s introduction of Core Learning Communities last reach revolutionized education within our institution. The core communities mix three disciplines with three professors, but focus on a common theme, and ideally, cores relate fields of study not ordinarily connected. Members of the faculty feel that these communities have been a terrific addition to the Antioch experience and give students an opportunity not found anywhere else. For the fall of 2006, these core communities added a new twist. American Identities, Sense of Place, and Cool are requiring students to complete community service within the greater community of the Dayton area.~~Most of these community service sites are located in urban areas, such as Dayton and Springfield, OH. They deal primarily with Appalachian, African-American, and Hispanic communities. Examples include the K-12 Gallery in Dayton, the Precious Gifts Daycare Center in Springfield and the Adelante tutoring program in New Carlyle.. Antioch has always been a leader in hands-on learning and learning by doing. The community service programs are another example of Antioch students’ interaction with the real world and real people.

The community service programs also allow students to practice for the Co-op programs which are central to Antioch’s style of education. By figuring out the logistics of getting to and from a job site, and learning how to deal with a new workplace, Antioch hopes to give students a preview of their Co-Op experience. Hopefully, students will be able to learn problem-solving skills that they can apply on Co-op. Jean Gregorek, one of the professors involved with the service programs, says that they will “bring the complexities and difficulties of cross-culture interactions home in a way reading can’t�?.

Although the faculty has a lot of faith in the community service programs, problems persist. Logistically, some students will have a difficult time working out transportation to their sites. A student familiar with the Dayton/ Yellow Springs area who has an automobile will not have much difficulty getting to and from their service site. On the other hand, a student from out of state with no automobile will have to organize carpooling or other arrangements. While Antioch is supposed to coordinate such transport, there has been some confusion with doing so. Even with the schools help, organizing transportation seems to be an extra burden placed on students from out of state or a lower economic bracket who do not have the luxury of keeping an auto on campus. Professor Dennie Eagleson, one of the leading advocates of the service program, acknowledges that this might be a problem in an area with “no public transportation�? and feels that the “logistics are difficult, but not impossible, to overcome.�? It is also a problem that students without cars or money will face throughout life, and Antioch hopes that by forcing them to confront such problems, they will learn how to deal with them in the future.

Federal Work Study Programs, or FWSP, also put an additional burden on some students, depending on their economic background. Although some FWSP’s can also count towards community service, not all of them can. This means a student required by financial aid to do a FWSP will have less options than a student not required to. Some might say that all this puts students receiving less financial aid who own cars in an advantaged position. A student receiving more financial aid appears to have more logistical problems with their community service.

There persists the superficial concern of calling required service ‘community service’. It could be perceived as an incorrect characterization to call a student required to do community service a volunteer. This would seem to be a mild insult to someone who volunteers on their own, without a professor making them do so. Many people have full schedules and still volunteer out of the goodness of their heart, not to receive college credit.

In spite of these concerns, there are advantages to the community service program. Most of the sites in the program deal with disadvantaged communities. A host of them work with children or single mothers in these communities. These are people on the margins of our society, and sites doing their best to help them with limited funding and resources. While some might have issues with the program, few would doubt that the additional help is needed. Professor Eagleson said that one of the main goals of this program is to make students “understand what challenges these organizations face�?.

The high education value of the community service experience provides another benefit to the program. A student could read all the books and pour over all the statistics about a particular group or community, but they amount to nothing without firsthand experience. It is also hollow to read about a problem without having witnessed its effects. Hopefully, students who have never lived within these communities will learn about their day-to-day lives. As Eagleson says, “We are not studying people from a distant academic place, but instead coming face to face with their reality.�? The students will witness their problems, and how they cope with them. They may make lasting bonds to the community that will remain strong past their time at Antioch. Hopefully, they will become personally attached to the people and places they serve, and will feel emotionally tied to them. Therefore the students will have genuine concern for these communities. In this regard, the community service program will live up to Antioch’s commitment to make the world a better place.

Whenever an institution tries something new, there will be hopes as well as concerns. As this program progresses, it will be interesting to keep an eye on it. The Record plans on doing more articles about this in the future. They will be more focused on the specific sites, and the people working there, than on the program as a whole. Hopefully, these future articles will give us greater insight, and demonstrate first hand any problems or benefits that this program generates. In the past, Antioch has been referred to as a bubble. This program brings students outside that bubble, and in doing so some will bring the greater community back with them. After all, the planet is bigger than just Yellow Springs. As Dennie Eagleson says, “the world is our laboratory�?