The Wake

I Spit on Your Grave (more accurately portrayed by its original title, Day of the Woman) has been one of the most controversial films in history. Siskel and Ebert did all in their power to have this 1978 film pulled from theaters. In England, among other countries, it was illegal at one point to own a copy of this film. People were actually jailed for this infraction. The film is still banned in Australia.Why does so much controversy surround I Spit on Your Grave? The reason is because the film succeeds. It set out to show the absolute horror and …

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“You should get tested,” my girlfriend said.“I know,” I reluctantly answered.Actually, I answered reluctantly for a few months. I knew I should be tested for STDs but something about it scared me. Mainly, the thought of somebody sticking a Q-tip inside the urethra of my penis. I read articles about the procedure. I read first hand accounts of guys who were tested for STDs and it sounded excruciating. Traditionally, the testing procedure involved a nurse inserting a Q-tip inside the penis and swirling it around several times until a specimen could be extracted. With that specimen, doctors could …

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A note from your campus editor:Spring break can mean many things. Some students spend time dodging prostitution peddlers while others rest at the keys of their computers. Staff writers of The Wake’s campus section have written about their experiences from this past spring break. Watertown, MN On Monday of spring break, I held baby lambs while my mom castrated them. According to Mom, only the best 10 percent of lambs “miss the cut,” if you will. While the elite rams are free to wander the farmyard, cruisin’ for ewes, the neutered lambs are left to …

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Check your wallets, students. Registration at the University of Minnesota is right around the corner and while the price of classes might drain your funds you might have to use that extra beer money to help pay off some hidden costs. No, it’s not about the student service fees or the fees from elusive groups like MPIRG. It’s about the cost of materials necessary to actually participate in class. Materials like textbooks and lab manuals might end up costing an arm and a leg, but some classes require other special materials just to complete assignments. Photography, art and graphic …

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The room is crammed with a rainbow of blues, greens, reds, oranges, yellows, purples and every color in-between, complete with an “underwater world” corner and two-foot-high tables. It’s so different from the “grown-up” world, which usually does its best to elbow out color and shroud everyone in somber expressions and black power suits.“What’s your name?” 3-year-old Xaviera asked me moments after my arrival. After she lost interest in a new person, she ran away to play racecar with the other children. They are a mosaic, like the colorful room, each a unique piece with a unique background that forms a …

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“What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” Ever heard that line? It’s the one and only commandment in Sin City. Because if Hugh Hefner and Heidi Fleiss had a baby, it would be christened under one name only…Vegas, baby, Vegas!!! I thought about South Padre Island, considered Cancun and contemplated Panama City Beach for Spring Break, but one place always came up aces in my mind: Las Vegas. Maybe it was the Travel Channel’s Top-Ten-Bathrooms-in-Vegas special or The World Poker Tour pulling me and my wallet to a Disneyland for adults. Whatever the case, gambling has captured the interest of many …

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In his 15th year as head men’s tennis coach at the University of Minnesota, David Geatz has proven himself as a premier coach in the Big Ten. He led the Gophers to five Big Ten championships, was Big Ten Coach of the Year three times and helped clinch numerous births in the NCAA tournament. This year is not one of large successes for the Gophers, but with Geatz at the helm, Gopher fans can look forward to a team that will not give up. Players will continue to work hard and put in their time during the off-season to prove …

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Many of us traveled to the sandy beaches of Florida or the scorching sun of Arizona for Spring Break to take in the beautiful scenery including some of the best golf courses in the country. Those states may have the courses, but snowy Minnesota is home to one of the nation’s best golf teams for the last two years. And one of its best players. Justin Smith, a 21-year-old senior from Franklin, Pa., is the No. 7-ranked college golfer in the nation. The intercollege-programs major is taking half of his courses in communications, and …

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The Skeewaksur Club formed on the University of Minnesota in November 1966 which allowed groups of students to gather and go downhill skiing in Minnesota. Though the club’s members may not have know it back then, they were laying the groundwork for what now is the Center for Outdoor Adventure (COA) on the Twin-Cities campus. Until about a year and a half ago, COA operated solely out of the St. Paul Gym where students could plan trips, rent equipment and climb the walls. But now to better serve the entire student body, COA is constructing a $100,000 office …

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To declare that marriage is simply, by definition, between a man and a woman is to shroud prejudice. To say that marriage is deeply rooted in heterosexual tradition gains no moral ground either – after all, slavery was rooted in just as much tradition.I certainly don’t believe everybody opposing gay marriage is a bigot or homophobe. I do, however, think if they could step back and imagine what their lives would be like if they were denied this basic right, they might start to reconsider their stance.The very nature of the way we see love and affection is altered by …

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St. Patrick’s Day is coming up quick
Celebrate until you are sick
Drink green beer on a dare,
Wear a clover in your hair,
Dance like you don’t give a frickThough I’m not Irish, for the past three years, I have celebrated St. Patrick’s Day religiously. And by religiously, I mean drinking beer and dancing around madly with my friends. Though St. Patrick’s Day was originally meant to honor the patron saint of Ireland – born in Wales in A.D. 385 with the given name Maewyn – it has become a holiday in which we all are encouraged to let …

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Dear Fees Committee,We have met before. Most likely you do not remember me, as I was a fawning journalist at the time (and a fawning journalist still). I was asked by my friend and co-worker Tom Ford to cover one of your spring meetings while he took a midterm. My job was to get the latest updates on the state of student groups’ fiscal allocations by your committee, a group whose initial votes creates an impact, but not a final say, on the prosperity of student organizations at the University of Minnesota. Tom went on to great success at the …

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It’s shaping up to be an interesting year in American electoral politics. Underneath all the noise screaming out of the television, we seem to have a Democratic candidate who flaccidly stands on the issues “for the good of the average American” before retreating to his summer beach mansion financed by his fortune and that of his wife, the heir to the Heinz Ketchup fortune. However, he does look slightly like a shaven Lincoln-esque character, so that seems like a plus. Kerry rails against the “special interests” yet he is as much a product of lobbyists in the banking and financial …

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What is a definition? For example, how would the words, “sexual relations” be defined by the majority of people? Webster’s Dictionary defines “sexual” as “pertaining to sex,” and a “relation” as a “connection.” So a “sexual relation” be something like, “two people coming together to commit an act which is sexual.” I believe so, and I believe the majority of people in this country would come up with a similar definition to mine. But who, or what, is the final arbiter that gives unequivocal meaning to words, ideas or even institutions? What if suddenly our basis from which all our …

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I can’t sing, dance or act.Scratch that. Physically, I can do all three. I sing along to the radio when I’m driving. I do a little tap dance in the kitchen when I think my roommates aren’t looking. And we’ve all pretended we’re the next Gwyneth Paltrow or Tom Cruise.But anything beyond that and I’m out of my league.So what possessed me to audition for the “Rocky Horror Show”? I didn’t kid myself - I knew I wouldn’t get a role. I did it out of moral support more than anything else. One of my roommates, Michaela, wanted to audition …

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