Posts
Ash Wednesday, the start of the Lenten season of the Christian calendar, is tomorrow. Students wishing to observe this formally will have two opportunities on campus, one at 12:35 and one at 4:35, both in the West Meditation Chapel. Each service will last approximately 20 minutes.
Students wishing to observe off-campus have several opportunities as well. Holy Rosary Catholic Church will have services at 12:05 PM and 7 PM. Also at 7, First United Methodist on Florida Street will be hosting a community service featuring area ministers.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
Vandalia Submissions due SOONEST
Submissions to the Vandalia are due no later than March 6! All categories still are taking submissions-- fiction, nonfiction, poetry, art, photography, everything! You are eligible to submit to the Vandalia if you are a current student or faculty member at WVWC.
Send to vandalia@wvwc.edu as a MS word attachment. Make sure you give your name and contact information in the body of the email, but that your name doesn't appear on the document itself.
Be bold! Submit!
Send to vandalia@wvwc.edu as a MS word attachment. Make sure you give your name and contact information in the body of the email, but that your name doesn't appear on the document itself.
Be bold! Submit!
Pancake Breakfast for Relay for Life!
Wesleyan's Relay for Life committee will be hosting a Pancake Breakfast on March 14 at Horizons Church from 8 AM until noon.
The cost is $5 for adults, $3 for children, and $4 for Wesleyan students with ID. All of the proceeds from this event will be donated to the American Cancer Society at the Relay for Life.
Horizons Church is located next to Tennerton Elementary School. To get there, go towards Maroma's Mexican Restaurant (State Route 20), but turn left at the public library. Go up the hill and take the first left. The church will be directly in front of you.
Be sure to look for more information in your e-mail as the date draws closer. Come out to support a great cause!
The cost is $5 for adults, $3 for children, and $4 for Wesleyan students with ID. All of the proceeds from this event will be donated to the American Cancer Society at the Relay for Life.
Horizons Church is located next to Tennerton Elementary School. To get there, go towards Maroma's Mexican Restaurant (State Route 20), but turn left at the public library. Go up the hill and take the first left. The church will be directly in front of you.
Be sure to look for more information in your e-mail as the date draws closer. Come out to support a great cause!
Monday, February 16, 2009
Obama's First 16 Days
President Obama has sat in the Oval Office now for 16 days and he has already made drastic changes to America and Her future. While watching the coverage of the Inauguration Parade one could not help but wonder if President Obama thought he had better places to be and more important things to do than watch a parade. President Obama said from the beginning that he wanted to get to work “fixing” America and it has shown during his first 16 days.
During President Obama’s second day in office he signed three Executive Orders, or a type law that the President has Constitutional authority to make with out Congress’s approval. The first three Executive Orders all dealt with the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. The First order dealt with closing the base and the proper and timely review and disposition of detained individuals. The second and third were made to review the detention policies at the base and to ensure that lawful interrogations were happening on the base.
These three Executive Orders, in many people’s eyes, were much needed. While some were pushing for reform at the base, many were pushing for closure in light of recent accusations by prisoners about poor treatment, facilities, interrogation tactics, and torture.
The President also signed three major Presidential Memorandas. The first two dealt with the President’s administration; the first set in motion a potential freeze on the Senior White House Staff’s salary and the second was a commitment by the President that his office and his administration would strive to have a transparent and open government. These two memorands were big steps in the President’s public relations by upholding one campaign promise, the open government, and a more recent promise to do what ever he can to help the economy and tax payers.
The third memoranda dealt with the Mexico City Policy, which has over turned or reinstated by every President since President Ronald Reagan. The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 prohibits nongovernmental organizations (NGO) that receive federal funding from using the funds to pay for abortions as a family planning method. President Ronald Reagan expanded this act in 1985 to include any NGO that provided advice, counseling, or information to patients on abortion or lobbied a foreign government to legalize abortion, this became known as the Mexico City Policy. President Clinton revoked the policy in 1993, President Bush reinstated it in 2001, and now President Obama has followed tradition and revoked it. This was President Obama’s first step to changing America’s stance on abortion and trying to uphold Roe vs. Wade.
President Obama did also take some action dealing with the economy. He met on Tuesday January 27th; President Obama met with leaders of the House to work on passing his $825 billion stimulus package. He mainly focused on trying to make the vote as bipartisan as possible by talking to many Republican leaders. Currently the Senate is looking at passing a different version of the stimulus bill than the House did, which might cause confusion to some. However, if that happens what will take place is a conference of the two versions with members of both chambers participating and then both chambers would also have to vote on the conferenced version. President Obama has said that he hopes the bill will be on his desk to sign by mid-Friday.
President Obama has a long way to go on his agenda; after all he is only 16 days into his new job. However, so people have been asking me why is there so much focus on a President’s first 100 days? Well it started in 1932 when Franklin Roosevelt became President. In those days the economy and the nation was in the midst of the Great Depression and people wanted to see fast action. In Roosevelt’s first 100 days he was able to get Congress to pass 15 major bills. So now a days it is seen as a way to judge how fast acting and how productive a President can be. And President Obama only has 84 days left.
--Megan Hakes
Disclaimer: The facts cited in this article come from whitehouse.gov and cnn.com. Comments can be left here on the blog, or sent directly to pharos@wvwc.edu, where they will be forwarded to Ms. Hakes.
The Pharos acts both as a source of news and as a forum for free expression for the West Virginia Wesleyan community. The Pharos and its staff operate with editorial freedom and responsibility. The views and editorials printed with The Pharos reflect the opinions of the individual writers and not the college or The Pharos staff as a whole. Material in the paper and its online format, the Pharos Blog, is selected, edited, then produced.
During President Obama’s second day in office he signed three Executive Orders, or a type law that the President has Constitutional authority to make with out Congress’s approval. The first three Executive Orders all dealt with the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. The First order dealt with closing the base and the proper and timely review and disposition of detained individuals. The second and third were made to review the detention policies at the base and to ensure that lawful interrogations were happening on the base.
These three Executive Orders, in many people’s eyes, were much needed. While some were pushing for reform at the base, many were pushing for closure in light of recent accusations by prisoners about poor treatment, facilities, interrogation tactics, and torture.
The President also signed three major Presidential Memorandas. The first two dealt with the President’s administration; the first set in motion a potential freeze on the Senior White House Staff’s salary and the second was a commitment by the President that his office and his administration would strive to have a transparent and open government. These two memorands were big steps in the President’s public relations by upholding one campaign promise, the open government, and a more recent promise to do what ever he can to help the economy and tax payers.
The third memoranda dealt with the Mexico City Policy, which has over turned or reinstated by every President since President Ronald Reagan. The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 prohibits nongovernmental organizations (NGO) that receive federal funding from using the funds to pay for abortions as a family planning method. President Ronald Reagan expanded this act in 1985 to include any NGO that provided advice, counseling, or information to patients on abortion or lobbied a foreign government to legalize abortion, this became known as the Mexico City Policy. President Clinton revoked the policy in 1993, President Bush reinstated it in 2001, and now President Obama has followed tradition and revoked it. This was President Obama’s first step to changing America’s stance on abortion and trying to uphold Roe vs. Wade.
President Obama did also take some action dealing with the economy. He met on Tuesday January 27th; President Obama met with leaders of the House to work on passing his $825 billion stimulus package. He mainly focused on trying to make the vote as bipartisan as possible by talking to many Republican leaders. Currently the Senate is looking at passing a different version of the stimulus bill than the House did, which might cause confusion to some. However, if that happens what will take place is a conference of the two versions with members of both chambers participating and then both chambers would also have to vote on the conferenced version. President Obama has said that he hopes the bill will be on his desk to sign by mid-Friday.
President Obama has a long way to go on his agenda; after all he is only 16 days into his new job. However, so people have been asking me why is there so much focus on a President’s first 100 days? Well it started in 1932 when Franklin Roosevelt became President. In those days the economy and the nation was in the midst of the Great Depression and people wanted to see fast action. In Roosevelt’s first 100 days he was able to get Congress to pass 15 major bills. So now a days it is seen as a way to judge how fast acting and how productive a President can be. And President Obama only has 84 days left.
--Megan Hakes
Disclaimer: The facts cited in this article come from whitehouse.gov and cnn.com. Comments can be left here on the blog, or sent directly to pharos@wvwc.edu, where they will be forwarded to Ms. Hakes.
The Pharos acts both as a source of news and as a forum for free expression for the West Virginia Wesleyan community. The Pharos and its staff operate with editorial freedom and responsibility. The views and editorials printed with The Pharos reflect the opinions of the individual writers and not the college or The Pharos staff as a whole. Material in the paper and its online format, the Pharos Blog, is selected, edited, then produced.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
A Note from Wesleyan's Gay-Straight Alliance
Jennifer Jones, Convener of Wesleyan's Gay-Straight Alliance, writes:
Thursday, February 12th marks the first anniversary of the school shooting that claimed the life of openly gay, gender nonconforming eighth-grader Lawrence King at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard, CA last year.
15-year-old Lawrence "Larry" King was shot in the head at the E.O. Green School in Oxnard, California, reportedly for being gay. He was in the eighth grade. King's killer, 14-year-old Brandon McInerney, apparently targeted the student because he was openly gay and sometimes dressed in women's clothes.
The GSA hopes everyone will take a moment to reflect on this event. To learn more about the GSA, contact Jennifer Jones. Her information is available from Wesleyan's online directory.
Thursday, February 12th marks the first anniversary of the school shooting that claimed the life of openly gay, gender nonconforming eighth-grader Lawrence King at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard, CA last year.
15-year-old Lawrence "Larry" King was shot in the head at the E.O. Green School in Oxnard, California, reportedly for being gay. He was in the eighth grade. King's killer, 14-year-old Brandon McInerney, apparently targeted the student because he was openly gay and sometimes dressed in women's clothes.
The GSA hopes everyone will take a moment to reflect on this event. To learn more about the GSA, contact Jennifer Jones. Her information is available from Wesleyan's online directory.
Monday, February 09, 2009
I Admire Your Pictures Very Much: A Review of "The Wrestler"
The Wrestler is a heartbreaking film about loneliness and pain. The film’s hero, Randy “The Ram” Robinson, is a tragic hero, overcome by his own desire for escape. From the very beginning, the film tells a predictable story, but it is also an inevitable story, a story that constantly picks up speed as it moves along toward its final frames. The last twenty minutes of the film are staggering in their intensity and sadness.
The character of the Ram is, as he says in his own words, “an old, broken down piece of meat.” In the 1980s, he was an all-star professional wrestler. In the twenty years since, his career has left him damaged. He resorts to working in a supermarket and wrestling in independent wrestling circuits on the weekends to make his money. He has a strained relationship with his daughter, portrayed by Evan Rachel Wood, and, in his spare time, he hangs out at a strip club trying to woo a middle-aged dancer, portrayed by Marisa Tomei.
The film is, first and foremost, a character study. It is about a man who has pushed everything in his life away, a man who has lived his life “burn[ing] the candle at both ends.” The Ram cannot distinguish between fantasy and reality, insisting people refer to him with his stage name even when he is not onstage. He gives up in the face of his problems, succumbs to his demons of violence and drugs. Real life is hard, painful, and sad. It takes work to raise a family, to satisfy a lover, to keep one’s health. The Ram retreats into the fantasy of the ring when faced with the obstacles of life, preferring the cheers of an audience over the love of those that truly care about him.
Mickey Rourke plays the Ram. A washed-up wrestler, the Ram’s life mirrors Rourke’s real life, and Rourke certainly must pull from some very dark demons of his own to achieve his perfect portrayal of the character. It is a performance that, in its understatement and honesty, recalls the best of Brando, the best of DeNiro.
Wood and Tomei also turn in stellar performances, albeit their characters are both a bit underdeveloped, especially in Wood’s case. She only appears in a few scenes for few minutes of the film; however, in her scenes Wood perfectly conveys to the audience the anger and hate and disappointment her character feels toward her father.
Darren Aronofsky is the film’s director. His films are usually dark and full of spectacle, and while The Wrestler is dark thematically, it is anything but spectacular in terms of visuals. Aronofsky employs a minimalistic, handheld approach to the film, giving it all a very stripped down, gritty atmosphere. The camera is often placed behind the Ram. It follows along with him through the ring, the strip club, the supermarket, paving the way for some wonderful tracking shots. The honesty of the camerawork matches the honesty of the actors’ emotions. There are no gimmicks here, no tricks or special effects. It’s all very real, very quick and on-the-spot, the camera responding to the situation as opposed to the situation being controlled by the camera. A feeling of spontaneity exists in the film, as does a feeling of truth.
The film’s writer, Robert Siegel, said in one interview that he is very heavily influenced by films of the 1960s and 1970s, films that feature such isolated characters as Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver and Joe Buck from Midnight Cowboy. The Ram can take his place among such characters, a man who, unable to deal with the complications of life, isolates himself from life. By the end of the film, he invests himself wholly in the fake world of wrestling. He stands in front of his fans, putting on a showman’s façade and asking for their applause. In truth, deep down, he is a man that is hurting and dying, a man that has given up on life.
--Jeff Webb
The character of the Ram is, as he says in his own words, “an old, broken down piece of meat.” In the 1980s, he was an all-star professional wrestler. In the twenty years since, his career has left him damaged. He resorts to working in a supermarket and wrestling in independent wrestling circuits on the weekends to make his money. He has a strained relationship with his daughter, portrayed by Evan Rachel Wood, and, in his spare time, he hangs out at a strip club trying to woo a middle-aged dancer, portrayed by Marisa Tomei.
The film is, first and foremost, a character study. It is about a man who has pushed everything in his life away, a man who has lived his life “burn[ing] the candle at both ends.” The Ram cannot distinguish between fantasy and reality, insisting people refer to him with his stage name even when he is not onstage. He gives up in the face of his problems, succumbs to his demons of violence and drugs. Real life is hard, painful, and sad. It takes work to raise a family, to satisfy a lover, to keep one’s health. The Ram retreats into the fantasy of the ring when faced with the obstacles of life, preferring the cheers of an audience over the love of those that truly care about him.
Mickey Rourke plays the Ram. A washed-up wrestler, the Ram’s life mirrors Rourke’s real life, and Rourke certainly must pull from some very dark demons of his own to achieve his perfect portrayal of the character. It is a performance that, in its understatement and honesty, recalls the best of Brando, the best of DeNiro.
Wood and Tomei also turn in stellar performances, albeit their characters are both a bit underdeveloped, especially in Wood’s case. She only appears in a few scenes for few minutes of the film; however, in her scenes Wood perfectly conveys to the audience the anger and hate and disappointment her character feels toward her father.
Darren Aronofsky is the film’s director. His films are usually dark and full of spectacle, and while The Wrestler is dark thematically, it is anything but spectacular in terms of visuals. Aronofsky employs a minimalistic, handheld approach to the film, giving it all a very stripped down, gritty atmosphere. The camera is often placed behind the Ram. It follows along with him through the ring, the strip club, the supermarket, paving the way for some wonderful tracking shots. The honesty of the camerawork matches the honesty of the actors’ emotions. There are no gimmicks here, no tricks or special effects. It’s all very real, very quick and on-the-spot, the camera responding to the situation as opposed to the situation being controlled by the camera. A feeling of spontaneity exists in the film, as does a feeling of truth.
The film’s writer, Robert Siegel, said in one interview that he is very heavily influenced by films of the 1960s and 1970s, films that feature such isolated characters as Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver and Joe Buck from Midnight Cowboy. The Ram can take his place among such characters, a man who, unable to deal with the complications of life, isolates himself from life. By the end of the film, he invests himself wholly in the fake world of wrestling. He stands in front of his fans, putting on a showman’s façade and asking for their applause. In truth, deep down, he is a man that is hurting and dying, a man that has given up on life.
--Jeff Webb
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