Monday, February 2, 2004

by Josh Hausman
Gazette Weatherman

Summary: This week will feature much ‘warmer’ weather. Not that that
takes much after the last two weeks! Highs should be above freezing
every day, and perhaps even well above 40 on Wednesday. Lows will
generally be in the 20s and 30s. Unfortunately, along with the warmer
weather will come precipitation. Freezing rain and then rain is likely
on Tuesday, with some snow possible on Thursday night.

by Jonathan Ference
Living & Arts Editor

Some will remember the passion many Swarthmore students felt in the
heated Boston Red Sox ­ New York Yankees match-up in the American
League Championship Series last fall. Though exact correlations have
not been proven, students from the New England states who felt their
hearts drop out of their chests in October were offered a second chance
to get excited for a big game, in the form of a Super Bowl match-up
between the New England Patriots and the Carolina Panthers. Though many
area fans were surely disappointed by yet another failed bid by the
Philadelphia Eagles, the Super Bowl remains such a cultural phenomenon
that students gathered across campus to watch.

The Super Bowl does more than offer gratification to fans of the two
teams playing in it; it also serves as a showcase of advertisements,
features an endless parade of halftime musical performers, and even has
spawned some of the most famous diversions by other networks to draw
viewers during halftime, Lingerie Bowl this year, anyone? And this
year’s game was not one to disappoint the various groups of students
gathered around campus as the Patriots capped an improbable season with
a last-minute win, 32-29, over the Panthers.

A brief, non-scientific survey of the Swarthmore campus revealed
various pockets of students gathered to watch the game. At the end of
the first quarter, this author’s brief peek in the Delta Upsilon
fraternity house (hey, I didn’t want to miss too much of the game!)
revealed a moderate sized crowd gathered for the SAC-funded party. The
centerpiece of the action, though, seemed to be Willets’ Mephistos
Lounge and Emiliano Rodriguez and Tevye Kelman’s “Meatfest”. Though the
lights were dark, what appeared to be well over fifty or sixty people
gathered to follow the action on a large projection screen. The lounge
was so packed that students were stacked three deep at the opening,
trying to catch a glimpse of the action.

As far as team allegiance goes, a few Panthers fans definitely
seemed to be present in Mephistos. An equally loud cheer, however, went
up when the Patriots converted a 4th-and-1 with nine minutes remaining
in the second quarter. Another vocal crowd gathered in the Mertz first
lounge; the majority of fans there were Patriots supporters, though a
couple of fans explained that their team had been left out, so they
were just interested in a good game. Jesse Robbins ’07, who identified
himself as “someone who just likes to root against the majority”, was
the only vocal Carolina supporter in the room, and he nearly had his
day when the Panthers tied the game at 29-29 with just over a minute to
play.

Despite these and other gatherings around campus, for many students,
the night was life as normal. At the beginning of the second quarter,
students were working as usual in a quiet Parrish Parlours, and there
was a line for the Target shuttle. McCabe seemed only marginally less
busy than normal; students questioned about the Super Bowl in the
library seemed aware that the game was going on, but just didn’t really
have any desire to watch it. Said one student: “This is Swarthmore;
there’s always going to be work to do.” Others adopted the policy of
going about business as normal with breaks to check in for the score.

As an aside, this author would like to call attention to his quote
in the Daily Gazette’s Friday, January 30, 2004 issue, where he
referenced: “the Patriots’ incredible offense that finds a way to win.”
No matter whether you were hanging with the brothers at DU, being a
speck in the sea of humanity in Willets, relaxing with some friends in
a dorm lounge, or just being oblivious, you heard it in the Gazette
first. Enough said, hope you enjoyed the football.

*****

** ReaL FooD **

MoNdaY
* mozzarella salad (V!) *
* chicken minestrina soup *
* thin crust olive pizza (V!) *

TueSDaY & WedNeSdaY
* roasted vegetable soup *
* pasta with sundried tomatoes (V!) *
* roquefort-stuffed pork chops *
(with rosemary roasted potatoes)

** DeSSeRtS **

MoNday
* chocolate brownie torte *
(with white chocolate mousse & caramelized bananas – wow!)
* cappuccino brownies *
(with white chocolate sauce!)

TueSday
* sassy spice cake *
* caramel apple cheesecake *

WedNeSdaY
* apple cake *
* mocha walnut torte *

*****

* At least 56 people were killed and 235 wounded in two Iraqi
suicide bombings yesterday, the deadliest attack in Iraq in over six
months. The attacks, which were performed simultaneously, took place in
the offices of the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union
of Kurdistan, the country’s two main Kurdish parties. Among the dead
were a number of senior officials from both parties. The two attackers
wore explosives wired to their bodies and were dressed as Muslim
clerics. The offices were open to guests due to the Muslim holiday of
Eid al-Adha. No terrorist group has claimed responsibility as of yet.

* NASA has managed to fix Spirit, its Mars rover, after it developed
communication problems 10 days ago. Spirit, which landed on January
3rd, was exploring the surface of Mars when it broke down. The problem
was due to issues with Spirit’s flash memory, which caused it to reset
every hour. To fix the problem, scientists deleted thousands of files
from the flash memory. While Spirit is now stabilized, NASA will
reformat the flash memory on Monday and reinstall all software in order
to prevent further mishaps. Spirit’s companion rover Opportunity
touched down on Mars on Saturday; this is the first time in history
that two robots are concurrently exploring the same planet.

* Security concerns from the Homeland Security Department led to the
cancellation of numerous flights on Sunday. The Department’s spokesman
said that Flight 1519, from Washington to Houston, was cancelled due to
“threat reports about that particular flight.” While the flight was to
arrive in Bush Intercontinental Airport, only 27 miles away from the
Super Bowl’s Reliant stadium, officials claim the cancellation was not
related to the game. Five other flights, all foreign US-bound flights,
were also cancelled, citing the US government’s indication that there
were fresh reports of al-Qaida interest in targeting US-bound planes.

*****

Sixteen Feet performance
Mephistos Lounge, 8:00 p.m.

SWIL Movie Night: The Animatrix
Science Center 101, 10:00 p.m.

*****

SPORTS UPDATE

by Alex Glick
Sports Editor

The Garnet men’s basketball team suffered a 97-54 loss to the
Franklin & Marshall Dips at home on Saturday. F & M continues
to lead the conference with a 16-2 record overall and is undefeated in
the CC with 11 wins.

F & M took an early lead and was able to keep it throughout the
game, using strategic maneuvering, passing, and defense. Dillon McGrew
’07 sunk a smooth 3-pointer 2:35 into the half to bring the score to
4-3 in favor of the Dips, but this would be the Garnet’s only basket to
counter the Dips first 25 points. 5:46 into the half, the Garnet
brought in five new players to replace their starters, but they were
also unable to score.

The Garnet, armed again mostly with their starters, began to pick up
the pace during the final 10 minutes of the first half. Unfortunately
for Swarthmore, F & M continued to show powerful offense, and the
half ended with a score of 50-18.

The home team played better in the second half, getting an
additional 36 points, but the Dips were able to get off more shots and
sink more of their attempts and therefore earn their 43 point victory.
All of F & M’s starters reached double digits in scoring during the
game

The Garnet’s offense was led by Matt Gustafson ’05 and Jim Dalton
’06, each with 13 points, and McGrew, who scored 10. Jacob Letendre ’04
added 5 points, and a team high 7 assists and 3 steals. Gustafson’s two
big blocks brought out some of the biggest cheers from the season high
322 people in attendance at Tarble Pavilion.

The Garnet (8-10, 5-6) returns to action on Wednesday night at 7:30
p.m. in front of the home crowd against Johns Hopkins.

*****

by Alex Glick
Sports Editor

The Gettysburg Bullets took the win this weekend at the Ware Pool by
a score of 133-72 in the Garnet’s last home match of the regular season.

The Garnet got off to a great start with a win in the 400 yard
medley relay. Martyna Pospieszalska ’06, Michele Hom ’07, Katie Schmidt
’07, and Melanie Johncilla ’05 earned Swarthmore the first victory of
the day in a time of 4:12.65.

Schmidt helped Swarthmore gain its only other victory of the
afternoon with a win in the 50 freestyle. The fast-paced race was a
close one, with Schmidt reaching the finish line in 26.00, just 0.1
seconds in front of one of her Gettysburg opponents.

Although the Garnet was able to come up with some solid showings in
many of the other events and come up nearly victorious in many races,
they were not able to earn any other first place finishes and fell to
the Bullets in the end.

Swarthmore (6-2, 3-2 in the CC) return to the pool on Saturday at
1:00 p.m. at Dickinson in Centennial Conference action.

*****

by Alex Glick
Sports Editor

The men’s basketball team faced the same fate as the women on
Saturday, with an identical 133-72 loss against Gettysburg in a
Centennial Conference meet.

The home crew had the fans roaring after capturing a victory in the
400 medley relay in a race that was evenly matched until the end.
Anders Taylor ’07, Andrew Koczo ’07, Michael Auerbach ’06, and Jason
Horwitz ’07 swam their best to a win in 3:46.18, just two hundredths of
a second ahead of the second place Bullets.

But like the women’s squad, the Garnet men were only able to come up
with one more victory. Swarthmore placed 1-2-3 in the 200 breaststroke,
which saw Eric Shang ’04 cross the line first, with Brian Rose ’06 in
second, and Rob McKeon rounding out the top three. All in all, it did
not seem to be the Garnet’s day in the pool, though they had many
strong second and third place finishes.

Swarthmore, now 3-5 and 2-2 in the conference, looks for its next
victory on Saturday at 1:00 p.m. against Dickinson.

*****

Today:
Badminton hosts Albright, 7:30 p.m.

Tomorrow:
There are no contests scheduled for tomorrow.

*****

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost wholly on
whether you are at the right or wrong end of the gun.”
–P.G. Wodehouse

*****

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