Politics, prepositions

English professor Jim Farrelly and Christopher Kelley, visiting assistant professor of political science at Miami University, talked political words and meanings May 2 on a WMUB-FM call-in show. The conversation included irritation, aggravation, straight talk, Winston Churchill, sentence-ending prepositions, hubris and nemesis. Conspicuously missing from the show: Lockbox. Strategery. Nuke-ular.

Farrelly, who teaches classes in film and popular culture, noted that the race for the Democratic nomination has reminded him in recent weeks of a hit 1946 Broadway musical starring Ethel Merman.

"Barack Obama's 'Yes, you can' — really, 'Yes, I can' — immediately got me thinking of Annie Get Your Gun and Annie's — Hillary Clinton's as-yet unexpressed — 'No, you can't,'" he said.

He volunteered the following slightly edited version of Irving Berlin's original lyrics for the first verse:

I'm superior, you're inferior;
I'm the big attraction, you're the small;
I'm the major one, you're the minor one;
I can beat you shootin [off my mouth!], that's not all.

Anything you can do, I can do better ...

by Maureen Schlangen 5-7-08

Addicted to song

Kelsey Faludy gets knocks on her 3 Middle Marycrest dorm door daily: "I voted for you."

It's not just friends and dormmates voting for Faludy's song, "Nicotine." It's thousands of MTV fans who have flocked to Addicted To Noise to hear new artists and vote for their favorites.

Faludy, a first-year vocal performance major, wrote "Nicotine" after a trip to New York City. In the refrain, she captured the feeling of late nights, caffeine and people wrapped up in their own lives: "Girl, you're too busy for my pity. You suck the life from me like you do nicotine."

Voting closes May 5, with winners getting time before record executives and a chance to be featured in an MTV show.

She's been singing since she could speak, but many of her friends didn’t know about her artistic ambitions until this contest. "I was focusing on my schoolwork," she said from her cell phone a bit breathless as she walked out of one final on her way to two more.

by Michelle Tedford 5-01-08

Words to live by

Inspired by a dying Carnegie Mellon University professor's upbeat words, UD theologian Dennis Doyle came up with a dozen reflections he'd impart to students in a "last lecture."

Topped by a philosophy of St. Augustine, these are words to live by:

1. Love God and do what you will.

2. Realize that life is about human relationships.

3. Be yourself in a way that attends to your relationships with others.

4. Live authentically within the context of a religious tradition.

5. Remember that what you do is important and that it makes a difference.

6. Stick to your guns in such a way that you know that you might be wrong.

7. If someone is irritating you, try to disconnect your buttons.

8. If contrary things appear to both be true, try for a while to live within the tension.

9. Reach out to people on the margins.

10. Don't be afraid to reach out to others for help.

11. Never commit suicide.

12. Examine critically what your society regards as "success."

by Teri Rizvi 5-01-08

Fines dining

Sitting next to the front desk at Roesch Library last week:

* Thirty-six canned goods
* Salt and pepper shakers
* One box of lasagna mix
* Three packets of chicken-flavored pasta
* One bag of noodles

Residential assistant Beth Ann Saracco brought it all to erase her fines.

"Library fines from OhioLink add up quickly," she said.

During National Library Week, one can of food for St. Vincent de Paul equaled $1 worth of fines. This was a great deal.

"I bought an assortment of vegetables costing 50 to 80 cents and saved a few bucks," said senior Claire Yerke. "I had so many fines."

UD staff member Christopher Strasbaugh planned on donating seven canned goods because of his $6.75 in late fees.

"I tried to renew an OhioLink book two days too early, and two days later I forgot to renew it," he said. He also forgot the canned goods. The library reduced his fines on a promise to bring them later.

At the end of the year, many students are cleaning out their pantries. "Not everyone thinks about donating," said Dianne Hoops, circulation specialist at Roesch Library. The library's extra incentive resulted in more than 570 items for the hungry.

by Liz Sidor ’08 and Rania Shakkour ’07 4-28-08

Trash in half

Move-out piles of trash should look smaller this year. The biggest winners may be area thrift shoppers, who could see about 65 tons in donated clothing, shoes, appliances, furniture and household items.

Sustainability coordinator Joel Brand is hoping to reduce by half the approximately 130 tons of material typically hauled off campus at year's end. The donations go into the trucks, donation boxes, bins and barrels of the Salvation Army and St. Vincent de Paul Society, which provide emergency shelter, drug and alcohol rehabilitation and other services.

Students also will be able to donate nonperishable food to UD’s Summer Appalachia Program, which does nine weeks of service in Magoffin County, Ky. There, the students staff a children’s day camp, volunteer in a teen center and visit a local nursing home. The pre-law fraternity Phi Alpha Delta is placing boxes in residence halls and Kennedy Union for unused school supplies to be donated to Dayton's Fairview Elementary.

Move-out takes place April 27-May 5 in residence halls and the student neighborhoods, but by April 23, 207 pounds of clothing had already been collected.

by Maureen Schlangen 4-25-08

Art + Science

It’s not a distorted Marilyn Monroe in sophomore Katherine Norris’ "Pop Art," but anacorn (shown left). “We were supposed to bring stuff in to look at under the microscope,” Norris said of the Art + Science minicourse. “I was walking back to my dorm in the fall and I noticed it. It was fuzzy inside and I put it in my bag.”

While leaves and pieces of mulch also ended up in her bag, Norris was particularly fond of her acorn. “I liked it when I zoomed in really close,” she said. “It had really interesting stands, almost like hair.”

The minicourse allowed students with science and art backgrounds to experiment with microscopic images as inspiration for work in printmaking, photography and ceramics.

Norris, who entered UD as a chemistry major, focused her coursework in environmental science. “As a chemistry major your classes are pretty set. You don’t have the opportunity to take printmaking,” said Norris, now an interdisciplinary studies major.

Senior Kristen Lauer, a biology and fine arts major, took microscopic images of plastic-coated fiberglass to make her prints, "Untitled" (right).  Both her artwork and her majors exemplify unpredictability. “You don’t always know how it will turn out,” Lauer said.

by Johnnie Kling ’09 4-23-08

Flyers chasing their Olympic dreams

Two Flyers ran this morning in the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials in Boston, a day before the Boston Marathon. What was on the line? The top three finishers make the Olympic team heading to Beijing this summer.

Ann Alyanak, head women's cross country coach and assistant track and field coach, finished in 2:34:46, a personal best by nearly four minutes. In today's strong field, it earned her seventh place overall. The difference between her and first-place finisher Deena Kastor? Just 11 seconds per mile over the 26-mile course. Four seconds per mile separated Alyanak and the third-place finisher, Blake Russell.

Alumna Melissa Rittenhouse ’98, who was featured in the spring issue of UDQ along with Alyanak, finished in the top 100 with a time of 2:50:17. After yearly improvements as a distance runner at UD, RIttenhouse earned MVP honors her senior year. Following a post-graduation break from competitive running, she took up the sport again in graduate school. She qualified for the Olympic trials with a time of 2:45:16 in the 2006 Austin Marathon.

by Matthew Dewald 4-20-08

No free day

Classes may have been canceled, but it was hardly a day off for students who showcased their academic accomplishments during the annual Stander Symposium, April 8-9. At the Horvath Exhibition, they discussed sculptures of women with chain mail hair. At the evening arts celebration in Frericks, woodwind players danced through their scales while professor emeritus Herb Martin recited poetry. At the Stander Cup, students played four-square and solved sudoku puzzles as they exercised their minds and bodies in RecPlex. And at the research presentations and poster sessions, students wrapped years of study on Alzheimer's, nanomaterials and gender analysis of road trip novels into infinitely exciting three-minute presentations for crowds of students and faculty. Click the image above to see the sights and hear the sounds of Stander.

by Michelle Tedford 04-17-08