The Wake

For more than six years, director Quentin Tarantino has been quiet. The long break, following his underrated last movie Jackie Brown, ended with a 222-page script for a two-part film that was originally intended to be one movie.The long-awaited film Kill Bill brings back that in-your-face, mouth-dropping sense of grotesque realism that all Tarantino films embody. Yet, this time, Tarantino bends the rules by using a different form of expression: hyper-martial arts.The 110-minute film is packed with dark humor, samurai swords, high-flying martial arts combat, gory decapitation, an amazing animé cartoon and a sweet story of revenge. Even during the …

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Several University of Minnesota students marched with tens of thousands of activists in Washington Saturday against the Bush administration’s policies in Iraq.“Students realize that the war is destructive to them in every way possible,” said Caneisha Mills, a Howard University student who helped organize the event.Mills said that money spent on Iraq should instead go to keep rising college tuition rates down, fund health care, create jobs and promote child care.Police estimated that between 10,000 and 20,000 students, veterans, youth and seniors attended the event, organized by Act Now to Stop War and End Racism and United for Peace and …

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The University of Minnesota is playing favorites instead of sharing its wealth with folks at the bottom, said some Twin Cities students in late October.The accusation comes as the school absorbs a 15% cut to its overall budget. Now it plans to find almost $319 million in revenues and cuts in the next biennium to balance its ledgers.“I don’t believe that we can balance this budget unless everybody pulls on the oar,” said University President Robert Bruininks to a group of students.Student tuitions and fees are expected to go up by more than $139 million in fiscal years 2004 and …

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The Mafia Club doesn’t sit around in three-piece suits. Its members don’t tote around guns, rope or wire, either. They do kill people though–figuratively speaking.The Mafia Club is a group of students, currently all Frontier Hall freshmen, who gather in Coffman room 305 every Wednesday from 8-10pm to play the party game “Mafia.” The game is best played with eight or more people. Players are labeled as mafia, civilian, police officer, or as a moderator nicknamed “God.” During the game, only the mafia knows the other mafia members. The rest of the players only know their character’s identity. The game …

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Lauren Aurelius, Maggie Boeck and Rachel Willems, seniors at the ‘U,’ have been friends since their freshman year in Territorial Hall. Aurelius, Boeck and Willems live with four more of their close friends in a cozy upstairs complex on 6th Street in Dinkytown. So far, they say it has been a great experience having seven friends under one roof, but that might change.Due to the recent “housing sweep” by the Minneapolis City Inspections Department, the tight-knit group of seven might be two less if the city has its way.“(According to city zoning), we are over-occupying this house,” Aurelius said. “There …

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The ‘U’ campus is full of shady legends: one in five students claims to live in Bob Dylan’s old apartment; a labyrinth of steam tunnels supposedly runs underneath campus; and, of course, rumors of ghosts and haunted houses run through the student body like a streaking frat boy on Thirsty Thursday.Hadley Anderson believes in ghost stories, though. In fact, she lived with a ghost for a semester. And she swears she’s not crazy.Anderson, a senior studying French and global studies, first met the ghost last semester. Soon after moving into her Dinkytown apartment in January, she started hearing some …

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The clerical workers on campus are not striking alone. Across the country, 98,000 workers are involved in labor disputes over health coverage, according to Ken Jacobs at the University of California Los Angeles’ Institute for Labor and Employment. According to a report issued by the nonpartisan Washington-based Center for Studying Health System Change, health insurance premiums have gone up more than 10% each of the past three years. This fact, combined with the cyclical economic downturn, has caused employers to shift costs aggressively to employees. Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, said that he is concerned the shift in …

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I think I’ve figured out why people drink: there’s a lot to hate about this world.’Hate’ sounds a little bleak. Maybe it’s better to say there’s a lot to hide from. Drinking’s just an acceptable way to escape from the more pressing life issues. And it’s excusable. Think about it: if something doesn’t get done, saying “I was going to mow the lawn, but then we started drinking…” is somehow more excusable than a simple “I didn’t feel like mowing.” Why is that?I thought about that while we toured the West Bank bars a few nights after my 21st birthday. …

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When night falls, Coffman Memorial Union begins to look like a shopping mall that’s about to close for the evening. The gates come down on all of the storefronts. A vacuum hums along the dining room carpet. Lone security guards make their rounds through the often-empty corridors. Perhaps beer could turn this humdrum vacancy into a 1980’s Budweiser commercial, one of those ads that they don’t make anymore because they were just a little too unrealistic. This is a debate that has been pouring through the halls of Coffman for years: should alcohol be sold in the university’s student …

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“Gutter Punk”
Hard Times Cafe
1821 Riverside Ave.
The Hard Times Cafe is the kind of place where you would ask for your drink in a dirty glass…if you were a 1940s gangster, that is. The music’s a little too loud, they smoking is allowed and black coffee is cheap. “It’s a hole in the wall,” said Katie Tharp, a junior at the ‘U.’ She comes to Hard Times because it’s open 22 hours a day and she likes the “tons of cheap vegan food. There is a downside, Tharp, 20, admits: she often gets asked out by 60-year-old men …

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A wave of splashes rippled through the pool at the University Aquatic Center Saturday, October 18 as the men’s water polo team took control of the ball early in the first period of the Division Championships 4th place game versus Iowa State. Amidst the splashes, Iowa’s defense couldn’t hold up captain Chris Hasling. He ducked his head in the water, quickly swam around the defense and went for the kill. The ball flew past the Iowa goalie and Hasling had the game’s first goal.Minnesota had the upper hand throughout, defeating Iowa 5-3 to claim fourth place in the Division Championship. …

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Flash lights popped and fans cheered. The glowing lights of Elizabeth Lyle Robbie Stadium shined on the freshly cut grass still showing mower lines.And as the men’s soccer club posed for pictures at midfield after a 3-1 victory in its last regular season game against the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, players tried not to get caught up in the moment. Instead they shifted their focus from the regular season to a much grander stage: the national tournament.But this year’s squad is different than those of the past. With a host of new players, including some that have never played in …

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Those who don’t know the athletic endeavor that is sailing, might at the mention of the sport, conjure up images of smarmy gentry sipping martinis at dockside and occasionally taking the dingy out for a spin.Once you meet the University Sailing Club you will get to see the sport for what it really is: a lot of work and even more fun.“Our practices run three days a week until it basically snows,” senior co-captain Kelly Nichols said. “But it’s a lot easier to practice on the lake in the fall before the water freezes, than it is in the spring …

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Viktor Adamcsek is no stranger to winning in national and international soccer competition. The University of Minnesota men’s club soccer team hopes its 24-year-old midfielder’s past experience and success will lead to future wins for the Gophers.Adamcsek, who is originally from Budapest, Hungary, has played in an estimated 27 national and international games. As a teenager, he played for the Hungarian Youth National team. His high school team even won the USA Cup in 1997. Viktor met his future host family at the Cup and they offered him a place to stay if he wanted to study abroad. Viktor came …

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There are no trophies, no medals and no award ceremonies involved. All that’s on the line for the intramural flag-football championship is pride and a t-shirt. It was the Spartans and Juice box battling it out for the championship on the dirt of Bierman fields on a chilly October 26th night. Juice Box lost twice during the regular season, both ending on the last play of the game. So when the A-League Championship came down to the last play, anxiety filled the winter air. And that anxiety soon turned to disappointment after a converted extra point gave the Spartans …

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