The Wake

Cinema buffs rejoice! For you have a safe haven, a sanctuary, a place to call your own, and you might not of even known it. But you better get there soon, because it might not be around too much longer.The Oak Street Cinema prides itself in showing classic, repertory, independent and foreign films. They also are a venue for the annual Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival held every spring. However, suffering from financial troubles and (low?) attendance, the theater’s future looks bleak. The theater had to shut down from June 12 until Labor Day because of low attendance due to construction. According to a March 2007 City Pages article, the theater and the land it sits on were put up for sale this past spring, which could also put the theater’s future in jeopardy. …

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Adem Rudin is an okay-looking dude. His beard is trimmed, his hair under control. This is a fairly new development. When Rudin came to the U as a freshman he was overgrown and frightening, an intimidating beast of a man overflowing with hair in all directions. He struck onlookers as a man destined either for greatness or for a street corner with a hand-made sign. Rudin made the first step towards his destiny when he joined the UMN Solar Vehicle Project. But a step in which direction?Rudin signed up for the solar car team in October of his freshman year. Although at first the work seemed a little abstract, when Rudin saw the car in action for the first time he knew that solar car was what he wanted to do. He threw himself into …

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Just because you’re not good at something doesn’t mean you can’t do it anyway.The preceding sentence isn’t the slogan for the intramurals program run by the University Department of Recreational Sports, but perhaps it would be fitting. Just because you weren’t putting up 40 points per game on your high school basketball team or breaking historical rushing records on the football field your senior year doesn’t mean you can’t take part in such sports recreationally in college. By signing up for an intramural sport, you’ll be provided with a fully structured experience, including schedules, playing fields and referees. For these reasons, taking part in intramurals is a superior option to setting up your own pick-up games. After all, you won’t have to worry about the t-shirt you were using to mark the end-zone blowing away …

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I didn’t know what to expect. I hadn’t been to campus in about two weeks, at least not since classes had ended. Would it be a desolate wasteland? Would it be a sort of after-school yuppie wonderland? A hipster sidewalk sale? I had no way of knowing. The one thing I wasn’t expecting, though, was exactly what I saw. As I gazed down 14th avenue, it hit me: Dinkytown was breathing. After months of classes, stress, and drama, Friday afternoon felt like an exhalation; a body of nervous energy in repose. Despite its calm exterior, not all is well in Dinkytown. The venerated campus hangout has been undergoing changes that have put some individuals on edge. The arrival of more restaurants and chains, as well as the marginalization of independent business and local culture have …

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Freshman year is a time of confusion; a time when even the brightest of young America lose their way. These days, people tend to equate intelligence with street smLiterary. This is an incorrect assumption! Our more “seasoned” collegians know this to be an “all-to” common mistake. They remember the days fondly and laugh. Fortunately, it is at this tender age that one often turns a misdirection into an opportunity for exploration - taking in a spontaneous walk up a less-traveled street, dropping into a new café, or just sitting on a bench and watching the world go by.In this “freshman cycle” of complete naivety/brilliant discovery, you begin to detect trends with people on campus. One might say that certain “personalities” appear more frequently than others, but in completely different individuals. Is this to say that …

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Overworked, underappreciated and now under attack. In the past few months, European honeybees, responsible for pollinating many crucial crops as well as producing honey and wax have been rapidly disappearing, oftentimes vacating entire hives.Unbeknownst to most, many aspects of our day-to-day lives are dependent on the work of these bees. Anyone familiar with the food pyramid knows the importance of foodstuffs like fruits and vegetables, of which many require honeybees for pollination. European honeybees also pollinate countless varieties of flowers. AP Science Writer, Seth Borenstein additionally points out that cattle feed on alfalfa, a plant pollinated by honeybees. All of this information contributes to the fact that if the honeybee disappearances continue, it could theoretically also reduce much of the meat available for the human diet, in addition to the countless varieties of produce and …

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Communication in the U.S. today is a problem. Groups of people have trouble communicating with other groups that they work with. One student group is changing that. “Through this group, students learn to break down preconceived notions of other professions and can even become friends,” says Tracy Hanson, student president of CLARION.The student group CLARION was formed in 2002 by two students who wanted a way for medical students and students in public health, pharmacy and nursing to connect. They believed that if students from different fields could find a way to come together, it would make it easier for them to work together after graduation. “Often times when the students enter the real world, they have a hard time communicating with each other, Hanson says.”.The group is located in the Center …

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Living in a dorm feels like being stuck on a huge ocean liner. You’re confined to a stuffy cabin, the winds sound like dogs fighting against your window and since the kitchens already got your money, the food gets increasingly more apathetic. It’s similar to staying at an all-inclusive hotel, where the drinks are watered-down and the fried ice cream is simply a scoop of vanilla stuck in a defrosted puff pastry. By the end, your family is sick and you’re surviving on sugary cereal. All students who are living in University housing without a kitchen in their room are required to have a meal plan, which can be used at any of the dining halls. Many students go for a plan of 150 meals and $100 of FlexDine, at a rate of $1,347 per …

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What do graffiti, feminine hygiene and globalization have in common? Not much, except they’re all on the menu at the Women’s Student Activist Collective’s weeklong The Revolutionary Art Thing, or RATH for short. From Monday, April 16 to Sunday, April 22, the Collective will attempt to inspire serious discussion and perhaps even social change within the university community. RATH this year zooms in on community art and includes discussions, films, how-to seminars, live music, appearances by local artists and more.“It’s a week dedicated to looking at art as social change,” senior and three-year member Kelly McCarthy says of RATH. “The point is to try to raise awareness about our group … so [students] can get involved in a setting that’s really creative and comfortable [to have] discussions about race or gender or other issues that …

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If you ever need to assemble Walter Mondale, Al Franken and about 183 other people in a pinch, just call Senator Amy Klobuchar.On Monday, April 2, Klobuchar came to the University of Minnesota campus as part of a new program series from the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance (CSPG), drawing a crowd of almost 200. The series, called “Connecting With Government,” will bring a number of Minnesota’s elected officials to the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute to speak at Cowles Auditorium. After a short introduction by Political Science Professor Larry Jacobs, Klobuchar took the stage. She started her speech with a couple of jokes, loosening up the audience with a story of her first lunch in Washington D.C., where she mistook a bowl of Thousand Island salad dressing for a …

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Democracy Matters, a student organization on our campus, is fighting for fair elections locally and throughout the state. Founder Jim Forrey believes that getting money out of politics is the only way there can be fair and open elections.Democracy Matters is a non-profit and non-partisan national organization that works toward electoral reform. The U of M chapter is the local chapter of this national organization. The group currently has 20 active members. The U of M chapter first started in the fall of 2004 by then freshman Forrey.Forrey thinks that issues like the war in Iraq can be traced to big business and money in politics. The problem of money running politics is sometimes overlooked because other popular issues like health care reform take center stage, Forrey says. When the wealthy elite run …

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Hannah Storm, anchor for The Early Show, got a taste more bitter than coffee in her mouth the morning that she reported the news about the supposed discovery of Jesus Christ’s bones. Titanic director James Cameron, a statistician and some hopeful anthropologists were sure that a group of bones labeled “Jesus, Mary and Joseph” belonged to the Christian messiah and his family. “Well,” Hannah concluded, her voice full of a high school girl’s locker-room-gossip passion, “I think we can all agree that religion is a matter of faith and not science.” As I watched the show over my bowl of Special K, I found myself bothered on multiple levels. For one thing, why had I only heard about Jesus’ bones on the type of crappy morning news show that has news tickers like, “New HPV …

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Religion has always been a provider of inspiration to Western art. During the last week of March, Twin Cities artists were given the opportunity to showcase those inspired words.The 2007 Spiritual Art Festival and Juried Art Show was hosted by St. Boniface. Every night between March 25-29 people came from around the Twin Cities area to the northeast Minneapolis church to view the artwork.58 pieces from local Minneapolis artists cover the walls of the St. Boniface chapel. Every medium imaginable was represented, from conventional canvas paintings to stained glass and photography. The works came from amateur and professional artists alike. “All Night, Every Night,” a painting by Erick Pearson, was a boldly colored and outlined representation of the Day of the Dead, a celebration of the soul’s passing into another …

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Fearless Filmmakers, a screening featuring an array of Minneapolis artists and independent filmmakers, was held near campus last week at The Oak Street Cinema. This single-screen movie theater was packed to the walls with an illustrious array of amateur filmmakers and freelance artists including Justin Pierre, the lead singer of the band Motion City Soundtrack, who contributed to the event with his first short film Karen. Ranging anywhere from mockumentary to animation, from the satirical to the dramatic, this event showcased a collection of up-and-coming filmmakers. Benjamin Martin, a 24-year-old graduate of Minneapolis College of Art and Design, submitted the only animated short to be featured in this event. Pulling dialogue from previously unedited phone conversations with telemarketers, Martin transposes our perception of the relentless telemarketer experience into a comedic art form. …

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On Tuesday, Mar. 20, the Bell Museum of Natural History’s Café Scientifique hosted a talk at the Bryant-Lake Bowl Theater focused on the history and evolution of birth control in the United States in honor of the 40th anniversary of the pill. John E. Troyer, who teaches in the Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature department at the U, introduced Elizabeth Jansen and warmed up the audience of approximately 50 people by asking several questions related to the topic of the night. One of the questions was “What common household device was the most widely used contraceptive from 1930-1960? Birthday balloons, cling wrap, Lysol disinfectant, or a sponge?” The answer, much to the surprise to the audience, was Lysol disinfectant that was marketed during that time as a feminine hygiene product.The early idea of contraception …

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