CAPS - University of Washington-Seattle Campus

Aug

18

Album Review: All We Grow by S. Carey The Daily of the University of Washington - Latest News It’s nearly impossible not to compare Sean Carey’s debut All We Grow to the work of the band he normally drums for — indie-folkers Bon Iver. But for Carey’s sake, the inevitability of that comparison isn’t completely fair. The man has done plenty to try and separate himself on this record from the heart and soul of Bon Iver singer-songwriter Justin Vernon. Upon the first couple of listens, All We Grow is tough to grasp. It’s mostly slow and delicate, likely the same as the recording process. At just under 40 minutes, the album genuinely feels much, much longer. However, giving it some time and wading through all its complex layers uncovers an emotional setting that may not have broken through to your ears during the first few listens. There are even some surprises, showing that Carey didn’t just go directly to his strengths here, although one wouldn’t know without a little background information. The slight jazz elements that come across in the music stem from Carey’s love for the genre. Furthermore, he applies these elements to near-perfection during the album’s best moments, namely the two most upbeat (a somewhat-misleading term in this case) songs — “In the Dirt” and “We Fell” — of the nine-song collection. “In the Dirt,” the one exception to the tough-to-grasp talk, delivers the first time it radiates from your headphones (clearly the way to listen to the lush environments Carey’s crafted). Along with the brisk piano, the percussion stamps out an atmosphere that fits Carey’s subdued vocals flawlessly. “If you doubt / that I’ll be there / don’t despair / don’t you dare,” he sings repetitively, though it’s the music that is the main focus throughout All We Grow. A song like this may not conjure a mood as uplifting as its lyrics, but it’s the most reliable journey in a sea of real adventures. It was expected that there would be more songs along the lines of “In the Dirt” and the jolting instrumental “Action,” especially involving sounds similar to those songs’ percussion parts. He does hold a performance degree in classical percussion, after all. Even just a few more efforts of this type could have gone a very long way in breaking up the doldrums. Opener “Move” doesn’t go anywhere until the 1:20 mark, which would be fine if it were longer than three minutes, while “Rothko Fields” is a rather pointless two-minute instrumental. Maybe worst of all, three otherwise-quality songs on the tail end — “In the Stream,” “All We Grow” and “Broken” — feel like they take a lifetime to get through. Given you’ll make the effort, there’s just enough here to recommend All We Grow. It’s an ambient album that’s clearly had a lot of love put into it. Then again, if you have the need for something more trustworthy, an umpteenth listen to Justin Vernon’s sensational performance on Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago most certainly suffices. Hey, like I said, it’s nearly impossible not to compare the two. Reach reporter Bryden McGrath at arts@dailyuw.com.

Aug

18

Chow Time The Daily of the University of Washington - Latest News What it is When someone named Tara told me about Tara Thai’s grand opening on the Ave last week, we wondered if the restaurant would live up to the name. So I set off to eat at this family-owned restaurant, wondering if I’d ever find a restaurant boasting my own name. Something that everyone should know: Even though Tara Thai is located where AppeThai was formerly, it’s got a new set of owners. The food and taste Tara Thai’s menu is pretty substantial for a small restaurant and manages to keep its prices relatively low. They’ve got a generous selection of appetizers, soups, curries, noodle dishes and even salads, among other things — the standard fare for any Asian restaurant on the Ave. I ordered the tom kah with chicken ($4.25), a coconut-base soup with mushrooms, lemon grass, onions, lime leaves, galangals and cilantro. It’s supposed to be a creamy soup with a little bit of kick to it — comforting, yet rich. While Tara Thai’s tom kah soup had a lot of chunks of chicken, mushrooms and onions in it, I was disappointed. The soup base was too salty and oily for my liking. Also, the mushrooms weren’t fully cooked — they had that raw crunch to them, sort of what I’d imagine biting into Styrofoam would be like. For my entrée, I ordered the eggplant ginger in black bean sauce with beef ($7.50), which I actually enjoyed. The combination of the eggplant, which was sautéed with onion, bell pepper, basil, ginger and mushrooms in a black bean sauce, worked well for my taste buds. Usually, black bean sauce tends to overpower dishes — the sauce becomes too salty and overwhelming. But in this egg plant dish, the sauce was perfectly balanced. Also, something else that’s worth mentioning: the beef, which was sliced into thin pieces, wasn’t over- (or under-) cooked, and its tangy marinade complemented the fresh vegetables. Overall, Tara Thai serves large portions, especially for such decent prices. Customers can order a generous bowl of curry (with rice) for $7.50. To put the portion sizes in perspective, at Tara, you get more than one scoop of rice. The atmosphere and service The ambience is normal for the Ave. The restaurant seems clean, air-conditioned, and has bright, cheerful paintings on the walls. The restaurant is family run, and the employees are attentive. The verdict As far as Thai restaurants on the Ave go, I’d have to say that Tara Thai is above average. Although it’s definitely up to par (or even better) than the Thai places that are nearby, Tara Thai does little to distinguish itself from all the other Asian restaurants in the U-District. It serves the traditional Thai dishes, as well as some non-traditional Thai dishes, like orange chicken, spring rolls and chicken wings. Overall, the restaurant gives the name “Tara” a good rap. The place serves some good chow. Reach reporter Kat Chow at arts@dailyuw.com.

Aug

18

Emmert requests early exit The Daily of the University of Washington - Latest News President Mark Emmert has asked to leave his position at the UW to take over as president of the NCAA a month early. According to The Seattle Times, the Board of Regents conducted a special conference call Monday to address the request, voting unanimously to allow Chairman Herb Simon to negotiate the terms of Emmert’s departure, which could be moved up to Oct. 1. The discussion itself was closed to the public because it involved an employee’s contract. Emmert was set to leave the UW on Nov. 1. Under Emmert’s current contract, the president would have to pay the UW a fee of one month’s worth of his base salary, or $51,666, for failing to give the Board of Regents six months’ notice before his departure. The Times reported that Simon could renegotiate Emmert’s contract to waive that fee. President Emmert’s base salary is currently $620,000; he makes a total of $906,500 in compensation. The previous NCAA president made nearly twice as much — $1.72 million per year. Norm Arkans, associate vice president of Media Relations, said that he didn’t know why Emmert wanted to depart earlier, but added that the decision made sense. “Obviously he’s been appointed to the [NCAA] and doing some things,” Arkans said. “They’re ready for him to be there … now that everything’s done, [Emmert] and the regents are thinking about getting this done October 1. It makes sense — the school year starts in October … it’s just a more workable time.” Emmert has already taken over several duties as NCAA president, reorganizing the senior management group and outlining priority areas for when he finally begins his new job in October. Simon declined to discuss the negotiations or Emmert’s reasons for leaving, saying that he was required by law to keep the matter confidential until negotiations are completed. However, Simon added that the contract negotiations would be completed and made public within the next week. At the same meeting, the Board of Regents voted to hire Dallas-based consulting firm R. William Funk and Associates to advise the presidential search committee. The firm, which has advised many search committees for major university presidents, convinced Emmert to leave Louisiana State University and take over as UW’s president in 2004. Emmert was not available for comment. Reach reporter Tiffany Vu at news@dailyuw.com.

Aug

18

Husky Card now your ticket to football games The Daily of the University of Washington - Latest News The Husky Card allows students to buy food, purchase books, check out library items, and now, for the first time ever, it will act as an entrance ticket for students to Husky football games this fall. Gone are the sheets of Dawg Pack tickets that previously were to be picked up by students at the Husky Ticket Office. Starting this fall football season, Husky Cards will be swiped at the student entrance of Husky Stadium, and a card scanner will allow entry to the stadium. “It’s really easier on the student,” said Scott Tester, assistant director of Ticket Operations. “Registered students can order them online, and they got the Husky Card in their hands already.” Tester said students aren’t the only ones benefitting from the change. The Husky Ticket Office will save money and time by not printing out physical tickets and staffing a separate will-call workforce for student-ticket pickup. Everything will be on the Husky Card, something all registered students carry. In order to gain access to football games, a Dawg Pack season-ticket holder will have to purchase season tickets beforehand and be a registered student for fall quarter. This information will show up immediately on the scanner at the entrance. An usher will stand by to match the Husky Card to the student’s face. In the past, students would sometimes sell or give away their paper tickets to a friend, and ticket ushers would need to match the name on the ticket with a student’s Husky Card. Tester says that he hopes having tickets on the Husky Card will lessen the chance of students giving away or selling their tickets. He still expects students to pass around their Husky Cards to enable others to gain access to the stadium — a prohibited act — but is optimistic that this new system will reduce that. The idea of switching tickets over to the Husky Card had been in the works for a few years. After a software contract ended and the Ticket Office decided to change software, the idea of switching up student-ticket entrance methods also was discussed. “A lot of schools around the country are moving in this direction,” Tester said. “As a student, if you lose your Husky Card, you can’t get food, you can’t get books, you can’t get into the library. We kind of used that concept and put football tickets on [the Husky Card] that way.” Tester hopes that the move will help students take better care of their tickets, and also thinks that implementing this new system will encourage students to keep a better eye out for their Husky Cards. “To be honest with you, students will lose their Husky Cards less,” Tester said. “They’ll understand more that they need to keep track of it. If you lose it, you can’t eat. Hopefully that holds true with football tickets.” Dawg Pack ticket sales are right on track with last year, and Tester says they expect to sell out a week or two before the first home game on Sept. 11 when the Huskies host Syracuse. Reach News Editor Taylor Soper at news@dailyuw.com.

Aug

18

Music on the brain The Daily of the University of Washington - Latest News “Snowball,” a dancing cockatoo on YouTube, inspired Aniruddh Patel to study the relationship between music and movement. Patel, a senior fellow at The Neurosciences Institute, and other researchers from across the world will address this and similar topics on campus next week. The UW is the location this year for the 11th-Annual International Conference for Music Perception and Cognition, which takes place from Aug. 23 to Aug. 27. The conference is held biennially and rotates between the United States/Canada, Europe, and Asia. This is the first time it has been held at the UW. UW music professor and conference organizer Steven Demorest said there has been an explosion of research in the past decade on how music affects people emotionally and physiologically. “There’s a lot of research activity going on in a couple of areas in particular,” Demorest said. “We’ve had a lot of activity going on in music and emotion.” The conference will address issues including the question of whether, when you listen to music, do you actually experience the emotion, or is it simply recalled? Harvard professor Gottfried Schlaug is giving the keynote address on Monday, titled “Singing: when it helps, when it hurts, and when it changes brains.” “They’ve known for years that while stroke victims can’t speak, they can sing songs with lyrics,” Demorest said. The new research suggests that stroke victims can partially or even fully recover their speech abilities by using singing as a form of therapy. UW lecturer Ward Drennan has been studying how to evaluate the effectiveness of cochlear implants in allowing people to hear music. “I have some samples that simulate what it sounds like to have a cochlear implant,” Drennan said. “It kind of sounds like you are listening to music underwater.” The progress has been slow in developing technology that allows deaf people to hear music in the same way those with normal hearing do. For people who become deaf later in life, Drennan said, the ability to accurately hear music depends on whether they have heard the song before. “If it’s new music or if they’ve never heard it, it’s hard for them,” Drennan said. He emphasized, however, that the accuracy of the sound is not the only factor that affects how people experience music. “Music is in the ears of the beholder,” Drennan said. “How well people hear music and how well people with cochlear implants hear music doesn’t necessarily determine how much they enjoy music.” Other topics addressed at the conference include music’s effects on cognitive skills, social psychology, personality, language, memory and emotion, as well as a slew of other concepts. The price to attend is $425 for general admission, $275 for students. Reach contributing writer Thomas Cloud at development@dailyuw.com.

Aug

18

A Night In and A Night Out The Daily of the University of Washington - Latest News A Night In The movie Captain Stanley has just captured Charlie Burns and his younger brother Mike. It is 1880s Australia, and the hands of “civilization” are just beginning to mold the country in the image of the “modern” world. But one man stands in the way of progress: Charlie’s older brother Arthur, a savage and brutal outlaw. So Captain Stanley offers Charlie a proposition: He has nine days to kill Arthur Burns. If he does not, his younger brother will hang at the gallows. The Proposition is an incredible film of uncompromising violence and moral complexity. It stands as one of the greatest westerns made in recent years, and may even have a claim as one of the best ever made. It transcends the genre as easily as Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven and John Ford’s The Searchers. Blu-ray info The Blu-ray version’s contrast looks great, and primary colors pop well. The clarity of the fine detail is outstanding, but the lossless audio mix is less impressive. While not bad by any stretch of the word, the center of the film is very dialogue-driven, and so the sound presentation is naturally brought to the front for clarity. Because of this, the segments of violence that bookend the film sound flatter and less explosive than perhaps they should have. But compared to The Proposition’s DVD counterpart, the Blu-ray version is an extraordinary improvement. Special features The disc comes with a few neat special features. There is an audio commentary with director John Hillcoat and writer/composer Nick Cave, deleted scenes, a photo gallery and a making-of featurette. The full nine-part documentary, Inside the Proposition, is available on the Blu-ray while the DVD version contains only five of the nine parts. If you like westerns or fascinating character studies, be sure to check out The Proposition. The film is an excellent example of tone and theme, and certainly has the ability to make even the most desensitized viewers squirm. A Night Out Although it is set in Australia, The Proposition directly explores a number of ideas that followed in the wake of America’s westward expansion, namely the rise of “civilized” communities and the forging of history. The Frye Art Museum is currently exhibiting Northern Latitudes: The Frye and Alaska, a significantly less-violent exploration of Alaska’s history through paintings and historical photographs. In addition to the art, a number of historical materials are on display as well. Most notable to those who visit, though, is the six-minute, silent newsreel made in Skagway circa 1918. Northern Latitudes is also a celebration of Alaska’s role in the development of the Frye Art Museum itself. Ida Kay Greathouse, a longtime director of the museum and someone whose efforts culminated in the opening of the museum’s Alaska Wing, acquired many of the paintings. Other paintings are on loan from Braarud Fine Art, located in La Conner, Wash. Reach reporter Robert Frankel at arts@dailyuw.com.

Aug

18

No problems thus far for Nickelsville The Daily of the University of Washington - Latest News Nickelsville residents are starting to settle into their new home at the University Congregational United Church of Christ parking lot, even if it’s much hotter than the last time they were in the U-District. Minister Catherine Foote said that the 60 members of the mobile community, who arrived Aug. 14, are settling in well and that there hasn’t been any negative feedback thus far about their stay. “Reception has been very positive so far,” Foote said. “We’ve had the experience before, hosting Nickelsville during the winter of 2008, so it’s helped make it work out a lot more efficiently this time.” She said that she received an anonymous call earlier this week praising the church’s decision to once again host the community. One of the concerns that arose last time Nickelsville sprung up around the UW was the lack of available bathroom facilities for the temporary tenants. Local businesses expressed complaints that some of the homeless residents were abusing business restrooms. Foote said that the church took these concerns into consideration and have supplied temporary bathrooms and extended their open shower hours to provide better access for Nickelsville residents. However, Harmony Tseng, manager of the Washington Square apartment complex next to the church, on 16th Avenue Northeast and Northeast 45th Street, said that the presence of Nickelsville has made some tenants uncomfortable. “Every time they have this program, our residents feel a little insecure that they’re gallivanting around at night,” Tseng said. Senior Kali Brandt, a resident of Washington Square, said that she has noticed an upswing in the number of homeless individuals around the Ave and the U-District, but that it isn’t that big an issue. “I completely support the church hosting them, and I’m totally fine with it,” Brandt said. “They don’t cause a problem, and I haven’t heard anything other than the stereotypical general dislike.” The church held a meeting Aug. 17 to discuss living conditions and to let the encampment residents voice their opinions about Nickelsville. Many residents present at the meeting hold positions in Nickelsville, like Michelle Vestal, head of security, and Peggy Hotes, liaison for Veterans for Peace. There are other positions, such as tent masters and head kitchen coordinators. The residents also meet every day at 6 p.m.; Sunday meetings are mandatory. James Heiden, who has been with Nickelsville for three months, made it clear when he stated why this encampment is needed. “Why is Nickelsville needed? In one word, survival,” Heiden said at the meeting. “Too many people are dying in the streets to exposure of violence.” Daren Norrington, another resident, said he hopes Nickelsville one day becomes permanent, and added that the community is eco-friendly by way of recycling waste and using recycled material for building permanent housing. The Nickelsville community has been working with Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn to find a more permanent location before the winter, when temperatures fall and tents fail to provide adequate warmth. Foote said that their presence in the U-District is, she hopes, one of their last stops before a solution is found and that University Congregational had planned to host Nickelsville again if the need arose after their winter stay last year. “We said that if somebody comes back to ask us for help in the future, we wanted to approve it ahead of time,” Foote said. “We raised a third of the funds necessary to host Nickelsville after they left in winter 2008, and within a week of their request were able to unanimously approve their stay with the church board.” If Nickelsville residents stay for their self-allotted maximum period of three months, Foote said that it will cost the church around $27,000 in fees and lost parking revenue. Reach reporter Nick Visser at news@dailyuw.com.

Aug

18

Photo essay;Back in town The Daily of the University of Washington - Latest News icklesville comes back to the University Disctrict again this year, and the campers will be staying in the parking lot that the University Church provided for about 3 months.

Aug

18

UW professor emeritus awarded with conservation ‘Nobel Prize’ The Daily of the University of Washington - Latest News The International Cosmos Prize has only been awarded 18 times, carries a cash value of nearly $500,000 and seeks to recognize the work of people striving to fulfill the award’s theme: The Harmonious Coexistence of Nature and Mankind. UW professor emeritus Estella Leopold fits that description perfectly. Leopold, 83, was given the prestigious International Cosmos Prize late last month, an honor awarded to one person or team every year. Leopold has been a UW faculty member for 34 years and has dedicated her life to research in paleobotany, the study of fossil plants and vegetation, and conservationist work. “It’s basically the Nobel Prize for conservation, so it is incredibly prestigious and amazing,” said Caroline Stromberg, a fellow paleobotanist at the UW. “For those of us who know Estella and know about her work, it is incredibly deserved, and we are all happy that she got it. It’s something very outstanding to get.” In the late 1960s, Leopold lobbied for the creation of a national monument in Florissant, Colo., where 6,000 acres remain untouched by any human development or construction. It is there that more than 1,500 different fossilized species have been found. “There was this little valley, about 12 miles long and 6 miles wide, called Florissant, just east of Pike’s Peak,” Leopold said. “It lays at about 7,000 feet, and it’s an old lake bottom rather in exact condition to the lake it was 30 to 40 million years ago.” With a natural love for paleobotany, Leopold and her team of paleontologists were determined to discover more information when they first came upon the valley. “The fossils were imprisoned in volcanic ash back then, with the volcano drowning the lake in ash in periodic explosions,” she said. “Being paleontologists, we went down and studied this, and the park service began talking about making it a national monument.” The battle for making Florissant Fossil Beds a national monument took about six years, with Leopold’s grassroots group Defenders of Florissant fighting to protect an area that others were eager to develop. “It’s a really beautiful place, and it’s good for school kids and the general public to know something about where we came from,” Leopold said of the Florissant Fossil Beds. “34 million years ago, this is what the country looked like.” Leopold and a small group of activists acquired a court injunction to stop real-estate development in the area, with Congress eventually acting and President Richard Nixon signing a bill that created the 6,000 acres of the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument. Few people have succeeded in creating one national monument, but Leopold had a part in two. After Mount St. Helens erupted 30 years ago, Leopold was part of the push to create the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument to allow vegetation in the area to grow back naturally, rather than planting exotic plants, in order to see how plants and animals would return after such a massive disturbance. The monument now serves as a laboratory for the study of ecosystems after catastrophic events, and also is a hub for research, recreation and education. Such dedication to conserving lands and an interest in researching fossilized plants and vegetation came from Leopold’s childhood. As the daughter of Aldo Leopold, the author of A Sand County Almanac, Leopold and her four siblings would go to the Wisconsin River every weekend with their father. It was there that Aldo Leopold’s children began their ecological restoration work, while also running free in the woods. It was her father’s principle of the land ethic — the idea that there needed to be harmony among all members of the biotic community — that directed Leopold’s career path and interests. Those who know Leopold speak of her continued passion for research and nature. “She is still one of the most enthusiastic and joyful scientists I know,” said Richard Olmstead, a professor of biology at the UW and an herbarium curator at the Burke Museum. “When something comes to her attention that is exciting, she still has the attitude of a graduate student, which is remarkable for someone to retain that level of excitement for her work for so long.” Leopold plans to donate half of the prize money to The Aldo Leopold Foundation, and she will be using the rest of the money for a new microscope in her lab. Dee Boersma, UW biology professor, echoed a sentiment that many seem to share. “She is terrific,” Boersma said. “She is very humble, and she is extremely committed to making and leaving the world a better place.” Reach reporter Evelyne Kolker at news@dailyuw.com.

Aug

18

Weirdest World News: You choose, and editorial cartoons The Daily of the University of Washington - Latest News A Massachusetts man came into a hospital fearing he had cancer, and instead received news that inflammation in his chest was being caused by a sprouting pea plant. Doctors were successful in removing the unexpected sprout, and he feels fine now. (Huffington Post) An Arkansas radio personality experienced a wardrobe malfunction that cost her her job. She wore a hat from the University of Florida, her alma mater, to an Arkansas football press conference and was fired for her choice of headwear. (USA Today) Two zebras of Northern California took a five-hour weekend walk through the suburbs. While being loaded into a truck, the zebras were frightened by dogs, which sent the exotic animals running. Both zebras were found safe, one in the downtown area and one in an apartment-complex pool. (AP)

Aug

18

What's in a word The Daily of the University of Washington - Latest News When I was in high school, I had a teacher who was quite strict when it came to his students’ grammar. He would scour our papers, picking out tiny mistakes in our word choice and syntax. It bothered me at the time, but looking back, I think it helped prepare me for writing at a college level. Still, there was one “rule” he was fond of that still bothers me to this day. Whenever we had to describe a single person without referring to the gender of that individual, he would have us write “s/he.” Here’s an arbitrary example of this rule in action: If one were to give a gift to another, for example, s/he could avoid offending him/her by asking him/her what s/he wanted beforehand. In other words, you have to put a slash between the letters every time you want to use a gender-neutral pronoun. If you find that confusing, I don’t blame you. Trying to make sense of that sentence is like bathing cats. It can be done, but once it’s over, you discover that the pain wasn’t worth the effort. For one thing, “s/he” has no equivalent in actual speech. I suppose one could say “he or she,” but after a while this phrase gets cumbersome. Besides, if we want to say “he or she” every time we don’t know one’s gender, then why don’t we just write out “he or she” instead of creating this unholy hybrid of pronouns? I suspect that the answer to that question has something to do with the politics of gender. Before the feminist movement, the default pronoun to use was “he.” This led to some ridiculous sentences, such as the following line from a nutritional encyclopedia: “like other mammals, man has, until the past two generations, reared his young almost exclusively on his own milk.” Thankfully, few people say things like that anymore. Gone are the days when men felt they could speak for the whole human race. The way we use language says a lot about how we view the world. Still, it’s unfortunate that many people, especially in our generation, have started using the word “they” to replace “he” in common usage. Whatever it says about gender equality, it erodes the unique meaning of “they” to use it with regard to a single person, rather than several. This isn’t just an academic concern. English already has fewer pronouns than other languages you’re likely to learn in high school. In Spanish, for example, the words tú, vos, usted, ustedes and vosotros all have shades of meaning that English lumps together into a simple “you.” I’m not suggesting that we bring back “thee” and “thou,” but we could at least staunch the flow of ambiguity that comes from a dearth of acceptable pronouns. We don’t need to make our existing words more equivocal; we just need another word to convey the gender-neutral meaning. Some have suggested that we create a new word from scratch to solve this dilemma. Attempts have been made periodically throughout the years to do just that, but they’ve always fizzled out. It’s not hard to see why. Who wants to say, “who put hiser milk in hiser fridge,” like one newspaper in 1850 suggested? It’s painful to read, much less verbalize. The unfortunate truth is that English in its current form is ill-equipped to deal with our changing perspectives on gender. I hope someday we will have a way of succinctly describing a person without referring to the gender of said individual. Until then, we writers will have to dance around the rules of grammar to avoid this annoying linguistic idiosyncrasy. Reach columnist William Ray at opinion@dailyuw.com.

Aug

18

Star Wide Receiver Recruit Williams Commits to UW The Daily of the University of Washington - Latest News PUBLISHED: August 28, 2010 at 1:18 A.M. For newest Husky football recruit Kasen Williams, the announcement of where he would attend college was a family affair. Williams, who sat with five hats on the track bordering his home field at Skyline High School in Sammamish, Wash., allowed his father Aaron — who played wide receiver for the Huskies from 1979 to 1982 — to make the announcement for which fans all around the country were waiting. “Dad, do you want to help me out?” Williams asked a couple seconds after the crowd roared in anticipation, only to have his father take off his very own jersey — which was hidden under a jacket — and give it to his son to denote the team for which he will play in college. And with that, the 6-foot-2, 200-pound wide receiver ranked fourth at his position in the country by Scout.com, made the decision most had anticipated. Thursday night, ESPN.com’s Greg Biggins said if Williams did not choose the Huskies it would “be one of the biggest recruiting shockers in years.” Williams was considering offers from Cal, LSU, Florida, Notre Dame, and the UW before narrowing down the list to two undisclosed teams earlier this week. Rumors say the decision was down to Cal and the UW, though Williams has not officially said as much. Williams becomes the 17th UW commit and the decision comes less than two weeks after the signing of Austin Seferian-Jenkins, the tight end from Gig Harbor who is considered third best at his position by Scout.com. Now, coach Steve Sarkisian and his group will set their sights on Brett Hundley, a top-tier quarterback from Chandler, Ariz. who could help the team top off one of its best recruiting classes in Washington football history. He also becomes the fourth commitment from Skyline High School in the past two years, including the third of his class. Williams will join safety Evan Zeger and defensive end Connor Cree, both of whom have already committed, at UW next fall. Williams is also a decorated track and field star who won the triple jump at last year’s state championships and came second in the high jump, and starts for Skyline’s varsity basketball team. Reach reporter William Dow at sports@dailyuw.com.

Aug

11

Eye on the prize The Daily of the University of Washington - Latest News Ethan Buhr, a first year postdoctorial student, knows that “there is a line between trying to take on too much for a research project to be feasible” and “trying too little and having a project be boring.” That comfortable medium was discovered this year through his eye research project on how changing seasons affect eyesight and general health — and Buhr was selected as a $20,000 Fight for Sight grantee. Upon hearing the news, Buhr was grateful — and a bit reassured. “It is a very good confirmation that our project seems reasonable,” Buhr wrote in an e-mail. “That a great organization like Fight For Sight is willing to contribute these funds to our work is very validating that we are on the right track.” Buhr, alongside advisor Russell Van Gelder, plans to use the money to help pay for shared resources at the university and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Specifically, the technologies used will allow Buhr to monitor the expression of all known genes simultaneously. “We know that cells in the eye and in the circadian-clock region of the brain are measuring day length, and we know that the absence of the melanopsin protein affects this plasticity,” Buhr wrote. “Beyond that, any of many cellular pathways could be responsible or, at least, involved. By using microarray gene chips, we can scan the activity of all of these genes from a ‘summer’ mouse and a ‘winter’ mouse and arrange our data analysis to only detect differences between the two.” Buhr studied circadian rhythms as an undergraduate and graduate student. “I have always been very impressed with the precision of daily rhythm within our bodies and of all animals,” Buhr wrote. His graduate studies emphasized the daily expression of genes in cells throughout the body and the way in which the cells synchronized themselves to the rest of the body. Now, Buhr is taking a closer look at how vision is linked to seasons — notably, seasonal depression. And Seattle seems like a prime location to test this to Buhr. “Seasonal depression and seasonal sleep changes are primarily the result of the modulating quantity and possibly spectral quality of light in temperate climates,” Buhr wrote. “This is especially evident in cities like Seattle where our summer days are very long and our winter days very short.” Beyond just mere fascination, Buhr felt compelled to explore this process through research because he felt it was untouched territory within the ophthalmology field. “I think that the synchronization of our bodies to our environment is a very under-appreciated biological process,” he wrote. “I suspect most people only really think about it when they have missed a night of sleep or travel across multiple time zones. … However, much research shows that chronically changing one’s circadian schedule can be detrimental to one’s health. The changing seasons is a natural way in which many species slowly adapt to changes in their environment and adapt their behavior accordingly.” The execution of the research involves an elaborate process: A microarray of “gene chips,” sticky DNA fragments in known locations on a small glass slide, are used. All of the RNA is then removed from cells to allow it to stick to the corresponding sequence on a small glass slide. The non-binding RNA is rinsed off and, at that point, DNA fragments that have pieces of RNA stuck to them are made visible. Buhr wrote: “If a gene was active in the cell, then the specific RNA would be produced, and at that position on the array, a double-stranded match would be measured. If a gene was inactive at that time, only the single-stranded DNA probe would be seen on the array. This can be done simultaneously for all known genes on a single microarray chip.” The offered grant is for one year, which, he believes, is enough time to wrap up his project. “After this time we will have collected and analyzed the data from the initial sets of experiments,” Buhr wrote. “This will surely give us many beneficial insights into the non-visual adaptation of the eye to changing light cycles.” But “done” is hardly applicable in science if you ask Buhr. “As with all of science, it is never ‘done,’” he wrote. “This will give us many more ideas and avenues to explore for the extended future.” As a scientist who has utilized resources at the University of St. Thomas and Northwestern University, he can easily compare and contrast the quality of the UW’s program. St. Thomas’ resources, Buhr recalls, were fairly limited as a result of the expansion of the biology department. And Northwestern’s resources were similar to that of the UW’s. When it comes to faculty for Buhr, though, there is no comparison. “I am not being boastful in saying that the research program in ophthalmology and visual sciences at University of Washington is one of the best in the world,” he wrote. When Buhr gets as close to “done” as it gets, he plans to venture further into his studies, taking a broader look at the whole system to pin “responsible pathways.” One eye on the microscope and another on the prize, $20,000 has marked the beginning of a new chapter in Buhr’s scientific quest. Reach Lifestyles Editor Colin Gorenstein at lifestyles@dailyuw.com.

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11

Improved, anxious Huskies begin fall camp The Daily of the University of Washington - Latest News It’s been nearly 36 weeks since the Washington football team dominated then-No. 19 California, 42-10, to end their 2009 season on a high note, with many wondering what year two of the Sarkisian era would bring. Now, after eight months, a time span that included the announcement of Jake Locker staying for his senior year and the signing of top-tier recruits, such as Sean Parker and Kevin Smith, the Huskies began fall camp August 9 in Seattle, with less than a month until their 2010 campaign begins at BYU. “From the coaching staff, to our players, to the community of Seattle, I think we are all anxious for this 2010 season,” head coach Steve Sarkisian said during and August 5 pre-camp media press conference. The team had its first practice Monday and will have fall camp every day — with the exception of Aug. 22, its only day off — until Aug. 28. The practice schedule includes six two-a-day practices. At the media press conference, Sarkisian explained why he thinks this is a better team going into fall camp than it was last season. He started off by talking about the final two games of last season, when the Huskies defeated both Washington State and Cal by a combined 72-10, including a 30-0 shutout of the Cougars, the UW’s first shutout in more than 50 years. “The Cal game was our most complete all season,” Sarkisian said. “To finish [the last two games] 72-10, it sent us off on a really good note.” The way the Huskies finished off the season not only left a good impression on fans, coaches and players, but highly touted recruits as well. “That catapulted us into a tremendous recruiting season,” Sarkisian continued. “The class we brought in is one that is dynamic with playmakers.” Newcomers at fall camp include Parker, who was one of the nation’s top safeties out of high school, and Sinoe Potoa’e, a 6-foot-2, 285-pound defensive tackle out of Lakes High School. In all, the UW signed five four-star recruits, according to recruiting site rivals.com. Fresh off an impressive recruiting class, Sarkisian noted last spring as a time when this team really improved. “We battled,” Sarkisian said of spring practices, which saw players like freshman Nick Montana and Deontae Cooper show off their skills. “I was really encouraged with the spring, and I thought we played better team defense.” The Huskies didn’t stop there. This summer, strength-and-conditioning coach Ivan Lewis made this team stronger and faster. It’s not just in the 40-yard-dash numbers or how much players can bench press; the physical improvements are apparent firsthand. “Ivan Lewis and his crew did what they did, and we look like a really good football team now,” Sarkisian said. “I don’t know if I can say that a year ago, but today, as I start to bump into our players, we are a better looking football team today than we were a year ago.” Practices this fall will be open to media and the public, with the exception of practice on Aug. 27, which is closed to everyone. Visitors can enter through the northeast corner of Husky Stadium, and are not allowed to use cameras or cell phones while watching practice. Fall camp concludes Aug. 28, with regular practices starting up Aug. 30. The Huskies open up their 2010 campaign Sept. 4 at BYU. Reach News Editor Taylor Soper at news@dailyuw.com.

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Interview: Michael Cera, Anna Kendrick, and director Edgar Wright of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World The Daily of the University of Washington - Latest News Scott Pilgrim vs. the World opens in theaters Friday. The movie, based on the graphic novel series by Bryan Lee O’Malley, stars Michael Cera (Superbad, Juno) in the title role battling his love interest’s seven evil exes. The Daily, along with Sara Fetters of MovieFreak, Tyler Foster of DVDTalk and Brian Zitzelman of Examiner Seattle, participated in a roundtable with Cera, actress Anna Kendrick (Twilight, Up in the Air) and director Edgar Wright (Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead). How did the soundtrack come together? Was there a plan from the start to get those kinds of bands? EW: It sort of developed – there was definitely a snowball effect in getting amazing artists on across the board, but basically when I was first talking about it, I've been very lucky to be friends with Nigel Godrich for maybe ten years, and this was the first thing that came up that we always wanted to do something together, and this was the first thing that came up where, you know, there was going to be a big musical element to the film. Both of us are pretty hard on fictional bands in films, with a couple of exceptions, so we wanted to make it seem really real, or really diverse, so it was Nigel's idea to get different bands to play the different artists. We talked about bands that were similar to Sex Bob-omb, and even met some of them, but it actually came to, in some of the cases, getting artists to kind of play a part themselves. So getting Beck to do the Sex Bob-omb songs was amazing because he could actually – I think he enjoyed it because he could return to his fuzzier, kind of low-fi roots that he started with as his first demos, and first album. And then, you know, because it's set in Toronto, just having the Canadian royalty of Metric and Broken Social Scene is just amazing. And then it just started to spread after that. Like the Patel Bollywood song, I was a big fan of Dan the Automator's album Bombay the Hard Way, which is all Bollywood songs, so we got him to do that. MC: Wow, I haven't heard that. EW: Oh, it's great. It's amazing. It's just all remixes of Bollywood music. … The irony is, the first draft of the script had a running joke in it where you never heard the songs. Or you'd hear a little bit of an intro, and then Knives would say, "That's the most amazing song I've ever heard!" [laughs] … That was a long answer. I feel like I just ate up half of the roundtable. I'm sorry. [laughs] I know you started work on the script before the comic was done, and the movie sticks very close to those first volumes that were written when you started writing. Do you think if the comic had been done, do you think it might have seemed like a more daunting task to turn it all into one movie, like it might have been too much? EW: The books, in some small way, got affected by the film, and even the final book is slightly about Bryan returning to Toronto, because he'd moved away from Toronto and went back when we were filming, and Scott Pilgrim does exactly that in the last book, and that was his reference for being like a way of coming back to Toronto. So, I think that actually we've kind of arrived at the same ending from different directions, and Bryan was involved the whole way. Michael, you tend to be best known for being a little understated in your comedy. What was the fun challenge of playing somebody so boisterous, kind of obnoxious? [laughs] I mean, that's what Scott Pilgrim is in the books – he's screaming his emotions all the time. MC: Well, it was so much fun – and a little scary at first. At first, when I was reading the script, I was thinking, ‘How am I going to say some of these lines?’, because it's hard to imagine the tone of the film when you're reading the script. Then when we got together and started rehearsing, Edgar showed me everything he had to show, and gave us as much of a sense of the movie as we could get before actually starting it. Then it started to become a little more clear in my mind of what it was going to feel like. Acting with the other actors was really helpful, too. But it was a blast to get to do that. What I love about this film so much is that it is a true ensemble, even though you're at the heart of it for the whole film. The cast that you were able to assemble here is quite extraordinary. Were you surprised at all with who kept saying, "Hey, yeah, I want to be a part of this, I want to work with you on this film"? What was it like for you two [Cera and Kendrick] getting to come to work every day and getting to see different faces? EW: It was amazing. I can honestly say I cast everyone I wanted to cast and got to cast. I'd say 50 percent of the people I was either a fan of, or had seen in other things. So Michael I knew from "Arrested Development.” Actually, the first time we talked, Superbad hadn't even come out, so I cast Michael for Scott Pilgrim on the basis of "Arrested Development" alone. I hadn't even seen Superbad or Juno yet, because we started talking about [the movie] three years ago. And Anna I saw in Rocket Science. But that was before Anna was cast in the film, before Up in the Air, and even before the first Twilight, is that right? … And other people like Chris Evans, Brandon Routh and Jason Schwartzman definitely were in my mind as I was writing. Following up on that, the exes that came into the movie – this is for Michael and Anna – what was it like working with that talent? I know you guys have been around a lot of great actors, but Chris Evans coming in – and Jason Schwartzman is hilarious. AK: Well, I don't know, but for me personally, it was two things. One, I got to know a lot of the cast outside of filming. I never filmed with Chris or Jason – I mean, I knew Jason before, but I just sort of met Brandon Routh and Chris [Evans] separately – we never really filmed, but everyone was really lovely. But I think I can sort of say, within a kind of young actor community, a lot of these people are kind of royalty, you know – really well-respected. Not just the Chris Evans’s and the Brandon Routh’s, but Mark Webber and Alison Pill and Kieran Culkin. Maybe the rest of the world hasn't seen Pieces of April or Igby Goes Down, but the cast certainly had, and I think there was lots of mutual respect going into it. MC: Definitely. EW: I wanted to make a film that would make it easier to play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. [laughs] I think if Kevin Bacon were in the film as well, we might have a winner. Knowing that the book is very personal to Bryan – I know it's kind of pieces of his life, and I'm sure he was around and everyone met him a bunch of times, and things like that. Was there anything that you may have extracted from the book that you could tell was personal to him and wanted to preserve in the movie? EW: I think he found the whole experience very surreal. He would pretty much sit on set with a bemused smile. [laughs] Because, for example, aside from the emotional aspects of it that have significance to him, even something like Scott and Wallace's apartment is – he took a picture just walking around his neighborhood. He took a picture like of a little door that was somebody's kind of – it was like a storage space underneath their house. He took a picture of that, drew that as Scott and Wallace's apartment, and then six years later, we get back to that neighborhood, and he had the photo, but he could not remember the address of the place. … And it took us about three hours [to find it], because they'd repainted the door. And then we recreated it. … If you're reading something … you kind of read into it your personal experiences and stuff. And I certainly felt like a Scott Pilgrim type when I was a teenager. All kind of romantic engagements would be dealt with in absolutes. Any new girl I met would be the most amazing girl I've ever met and every break-up would be the worst thing that had ever happened, it's the end of the world. So I can totally empathize with Scott Pilgrim's completely naive blind optimism and overreaction and exaggeration of everything. The books have a very "read-at-your-own-pace" feel to them. There are so many in-jokes, you can read a page and take ten minutes to do it. How did you transfer that, with all the little in-jokes – like, how difficult was it to find the right pacing where, the comic you can take your time. You're giving them, this is how long this joke lasts, here's this in-joke, here's how quickly we have to get to the next one, or the next emotional beat. How difficult was it to find that right feel? EW: It's certainly like a balancing act to – I think certainly with comedy, I just don't want to ever talk down with the audience. … And if you don't get everything, or even if you missed a joke and stuff, then it's absolutely all yours to watch again. … I thought about that a lot with the action as well, when I used to read Marvel comics as a kid, I would sometimes do exactly that. I would read the comic, read all the speech bubbles, and then when it got to a fight scene, so you've got like a double-page spread in Spider-Man of a fight scene, I would go pow-pow-pow-pow-pow, next! [laughs] And then later you would go back and go, "Holy s---, Todd MacFarlane's amazing!" But the first time I would read it, I would rip through it in fifteen minutes flat, and then go back and appreciate the artistry and stuff. So we will be re-releasing the film slowed down. [laughs] MC: The slowed-down cut! EW: The slowed-down cut will be in cinemas at Christmas. Somebody did that with Psycho! They did this thing at, I think it was at the Tate in London. It was called Psycho 24/7, and they slowed down Psycho to the point where it would take a day to watch. MC: Come on. EW: Yeah! MC: That's really slow. [laughs] EW: But it was like being in a gallery! Because you could stand there for an hour, and just watch one shot of Janet Leigh's face. MC: It must have been amazing whenever there was an edit between shots. It'd be so significant, you'd be like "whoa!" So, I was curious, especially for you two [Cera and Kendrick] on this, now that the films been getting screened, and people are getting a chance to see it, at least, press screened and promo screened, and stuff like that, there has been sort of an argument that's been presented that it's a generational film, in that if you weren't a video game child of the '80s, maybe the late '70s, or then through now, then you're not going to like the film, because you're not going to relate to it. AK: I think that's silly. I think that's just sort of silliness. When I saw this film coming together when I first saw it, it wasn't completely finished. But I was already so excited to show my mom and dad. And obviously, yes, they're biased or whatever, but like, my dad really loved Kill Bill, except for the violence! [laughs] So, I don't know, who wouldn't like a really funny, fast-paced, colorful movie? And yeah, there are video game references, but if you don't get that that little ding-dong noise that happened was from Sonic the Hedgehog, it doesn't make you feel left out. MC: Totally. AK: Because the jokes don't revolve around video games or comic books, they're just enhanced. It's done with a wink and a nod. MC: That's true. Yeah, there's nothing in the movie that's depending on the viewer's previous knowledge of anything. You can kind of just watch it and it's a film that tells a story, I think. I was kind of wondering, Michael, if there was any pressure being Scott Pilgrim. I think I read that you read the graphic novel beforehand. MC: A little bit. But that was before we went in and started rehearsing. Edgar felt so confident, I think, and I just followed his lead on that. There is that one shot of Anna during that first fight, where she looks confused, for a split second, and that's the only reference [of Scott Pilgrim being an unreliable narrator]. EW: Which Anna improvised, actually! A couple people have pointed out that the defining moment of the film is that she basically plays the audience. AK: I know, just, I was the only actor who hadn't already filmed a fight scene, so, by the later fight scenes, they're all kind of bored! They had already shot the [spoiler] fight scene, so they're all kind of, "ugh, this again?" [Cera and Wright laugh] And so I kind of felt you have to let the audience know, "Yeah, it is that confusing, but just go with us."

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Lessons in photography and nature The Daily of the University of Washington - Latest News The best in both photography and nature will be realized this weekend as the Burke Museum continues its exhibit of the International Conservation Photography (ICP) Awards with a day of lectures from local Northwest photographers. The lectures, led by photographers John Greengo, Mark Turner and Paul Bannick, will run on Saturday, Aug. 14 beginning at 10:30 a.m. They will cover photography topics in conjunction with the exhibit, including photography techniques and their relation to nature. The lectures will run as part of the ICP Awards exhibit, which has run since June 19 and will continue until Sept. 6. The exhibit showcases the best in conservation photography from around the world with all work from recipients of respective ICP Awards. The set of lectures follow this theme of conservation photography, among them Turner’s work with wildflowers and Bannick’s avian photography. “The goal is to encourage people to ask questions about nature and appreciate [it],” says MaryAnn Barron Wagner, communications director for the Burke Museum. “The purpose of the event is to encourage beginning photographers to shoot nature.” The event is designed to introduce conservation photography to those interested, and is open to all skill levels. “The exhibit itself should be an inspiration to photographers who are interested in nature,” Wagner said. Greengo, one of three photographers headlining the event, expressed a similar view. “It’s a great photography competition, and great way to celebrate and communicate through photography,” he said. He also commented on the prime photographic setting the city of Seattle offers to those starting out. “It’s important to appreciate and utilize the local area you have for nature. Seattle has great parks for photography.” Canon and Kenmore Camera will also be in attendance, offering demonstrations of their latest photography equipment. The event is free for Burke Museum members and UW students, and $9.50 for others. Reach contributing writer Cameron Ellis at development@dailyuw.com.

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Movie Review: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World The Daily of the University of Washington - Latest News From the 8-bit Universal logo that begins the film, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is easily one of the most stylistic movies of the year. Whether or not style translates into a great movie is in the eye of the beholder — and quite possibly their age. Director Edgar Wright, responsible for previous action-comedy winners Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, has taken Bryan Lee O’Malley’s popular graphic novels and stayed true to the source material — video game references and all. What’s more is that Wright’s fantasized depiction of Toronto, complete with crazy edits and, my personal favorite, vegan police, actually feels right out of a video game. It’s a nerd’s world that challenges the viewer not to get caught up in its zaniness from the very start. Speaking of nerd, especially the sort of awkward-yet-charming type, Michael Cera (Juno, Superbad) is, of course, in the lead role. He plays Scott Pilgrim like he does most — if not all — of his other characters, which works out just fine since Cera is one of the best young comedic actors out there. What no one is used to seeing is Cera in over-the-top fight scenes straight out of a cartoon. See, Scott Pilgrim, 23-year-old bassist of the garage band Sex Bob-Omb, has fallen for Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) in the love-at-first-sight kind of way. Which brings up a problem: Besides the fairy tale explanation, we’re not given much reason why he’s head over heels for her. But it’s a nice storytelling device, so I digress. Ramona has seven evil exes, better known as “The League of Evil Exes,” all seeking revenge for losing her. They range from the macho (Chris Evans, playing a villain for once) to the lesbian (Mae Whitman) to the geeky (Jason Schwartzman). Our hero encounters all seven of them, meaning that most of the fights simply bog down the film. Because seriously, while Cera plays the eye-candy fight scenes well, does anyone really feel Scott Pilgrim is in danger of losing? Despite the fight scenes, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World soars on the fast-paced quirkiness of its brilliant script and supporting cast. Along Scott’s journey, he needs advice or help from his gay roommate (played by scene-stealer Kieran Culkin, brother of Macaulay), sister (Anna Kendrick), bandmates and his ex-girlfriend/stalker (Ellen Wong). The truth is, Scott Pilgrim might not click for a lot of people over age 35. Somewhere in their life the ideas of “pee bars,” 1-UP’s and soundtracks filled with Beck and Broken Social Scene were likely replaced with real-life issues like paying the rent or mortgage. But our generation is still texting uncontrollably, still wishing we had superpowers and still imagining ways to keep us from being bored. So, in that way, even with its flaws, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is one for the generation of multitaskers, gathering all our favorite things: comics, love, music, snarkiness and video games — light on seriousness, heavy on the not boring. Reach reporter Bryden McGrath at arts@dailyuw.com.

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New team to take field The Daily of the University of Washington - Latest News The UW’s Husky Stadium Advisory Committee Aug. 6 unanimously selected developer Wright Runstad & Company, headed by a former committee member, to lead a $250-million renovation of the aging stadium after three years of development proceedings. The deal, which the UW athletic department says was nearly $30 million less than the second-cheapest proposal, will include the complete demolition and reconstruction of the lower bowl and south-side upper stands, and is designed to both bring fans closer to the action as well as improve sightlines. Likewise, the department says the stadium will add a “state-of-the-art football operations facility” and premium seating, and will more or less maintain the current seating capacity. If all goes as planned, construction will take place after the 2011 season and will be completed in 2013. During the interim, the Huskies will likely play at Qwest Field. After failing to get funding from the state during the past four years, the $250 million will be funded mostly from non-taxpayer dollars, with a majority of the money generated by the UW Athletic Department through ticket sales and Tyee Club-related revenue. The developer was chosen by the committee more than three years after its April 2007 inception. The group, created by President Mark Emmert and entrusted with an advisory role in the renovation process, was originally comprised of faculty, student leaders, athletic administrators and business interests throughout the community. Despite a plan and means, the committee hit a troubled patch in 2008 after the state Legislature refused to provide funding for the renovation process, which was receiving development bids at that time. The administration had hoped to be able to use tax dollars to partially fund what was once billed a $415-million reconstruction. When it was rebuffed by both local and state lawmakers, the UW went back to the drawing board. The committee took a relative timeout in 2009, but reissued another request for proposals last May to take advantage of lower construction costs during the recession. Proposals were to be submitted by July 14, and a little more than three weeks later, the committee announced its selection. Wright Runstad & Company, the winning bidder, was founded and is headed by former UW-alumnus and Board of Regents President Jon Runstad. Runstad is listed on the UW athletic department’s website as an original member of the Husky Stadium Advisory Committee. Carter Henderson, the director of public relations for the UW athletic department, said that Runstad resigned from the advisory committee on April 19. On May 14, his company was able to submit a bid on the project, one which was ultimately accepted unanimously. The details of the other two plans have not been made public by UW officials. UW Athletic Director Scott Woodward, in a statement released by the UW, said the company was selected because it “provides the best overall value for the project.” It was selected from three final proposals that were narrowed down earlier last month. Though the plans are likely to be approved, for now, they are recommendations to Emmert. Pending approval, the UW will begin negotiations with the contract team. In a statement released by the university, Emmert expressed his gratitude for the committee’s “time and diligence in evaluating the submitted proposals,” and also said he is “excited that a unanimous decision has been reached, and [he looks] forward to reviewing the proposal.” The committee also selected 360 Architecture to design the stadium, Turner Construction Company for construction, and MKA for structural and civic needs. Turner was the construction manager for Qwest Field, the stadium completed in 2002 that now houses the Seattle Seahawks and Seattle Sounders FC. Reach reporter William Dow at news@dailyuw.com.

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The next big thing? The Daily of the University of Washington - Latest News How much longer can The Lonely Forest be considered one of the Pacific Northwest’s best hidden treasures? Over the past few years, the Anacortes, Wash., quartet — consisting of singer/songwriter/guitarist/keyboardist John Van Deusen, guitarist Tony Ruland, bassist Eric Sturgeon and drummer Braydn Krueger — has been building plenty of buzz. Both 2007’s Nuclear Winter and last year’s We Sing the Body Electric! were met with plenty of praise locally. Then last September, fans packed the Experience Music Project Sky Church at Bumbershoot to hear the much-talked-about hooks and melodies for themselves. The pop-rockers followed it by headlining a night at the Showbox at the Market in late November 2009 and playing Sasquatch! earlier this year. Yet it was only the beginning. The Lonely Forest’s hard work officially paid off when producer extraordinaire and guitarist of Washington’s own indie-rock darlings Death Cab for Cutie, Chris Walla, signed the band to his new label Trans, under major label Atlantic. He also produced the band’s new material. “Having him approach us was really surreal, but now he just kind of feels like a best friend,” Ruland said. “He’d have the tiniest little suggestions, and it made everything that was maybe not making perfect sense to me make perfect sense after that.” Walla told The Stranger in February that, “I wouldn’t have made the offer if I didn’t feel like it was something that could work. It’s a little bit of a leap of faith for all parties, but [The Lonely Forest] know I’m really committed to this, and I trust they are going to continue to work and write songs.” Now the band’s new EP is due out Sept. 14, with one of its track’s premiering on Stereogum last week. “Live There” turns out to be a gorgeous, sincere love letter to the Northwest, as Van Deusen sings, “Give to me miles of tall evergreens / and the smell of the ocean and cool mountain breeze.” “Even the sounds that we get with our instruments have a lot of Northwest influence in them; it’s not just lyrics,” Van Deusen said. “As an underlying theme, it’s all over the album actually.” UW junior Anthony Ghazel, a loyal listener whose old band once opened for The Lonely Forest, recalled when he first got into their music at a show on Orcas Island. “It was so awesome seeing John throw his piano bench around and Braydn smash the drums,” he said. “Their ability to make pop music while still incorporating actual musical talent and creativity is really outstanding, because most pop music these days is garbage.” Ghazel describes their 2007 album Nuclear Winter as “one of the most interesting rock albums” he’s ever heard. “It’s thrashy, loud and surprisingly full for being only a three-piece band at the time,” he said. Arrows, the new full-length album, should be out early next year. The band recorded it at Sound City in Van Nuys, Calif., where Fleetwood Mac’s classic 1977 album Rumours was mixed and Nirvana’s Nevermind and Tom Petty’s Damn the Torpedoes were recorded. “For me, Tom Petty and Nirvana are two of my biggest influences of all time, so I found when we were there, almost every night I’d listen to Nevermind or the end of Torpedoes just to remind myself that we were in the room where those records happened,” Ruland said. “And it just was constantly blowing my mind.” This Saturday, The Lonely Forest will play KEXP’s free Concerts at the Mural series at Seattle Center. And next month the band will embark on a three-month national tour in support of Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s on the first leg and Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin on the second leg. They will be playing Neumos in Seattle on Nov. 11. That’s proof that one of the Pacific Northwest’s best hidden treasures likely won’t be hidden much longer. Reach reporter Bryden McGrath at arts@dailyuw.com. Arts Editor Kristen Steenbeeke contributed to this story.

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A Night In and A Night Out The Daily of the University of Washington - Latest News A Night In The movie The Departed won the 2007 Oscar for Best Picture, as well as an Oscar for its direction under Martin Scorsese. The film tells the tale of the Irish mob in Boston, and the police force out to stop it. Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson), the head of the criminal syndicate, decides that he could use a source on the inside. So he sends a mole into the Boston Police Department: the most trusted young man in his employment, Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon). Little do Costello and Sullivan know that the police have sent their own mole to infiltrate the mob (Leonardo DiCaprio). Soon, both men become consumed by their false identities — a problem made worse when each man is instructed to discover the identity of the other. Blu-ray info The film comes to Blu-ray presented in widescreen and looks fantastic. The image retains the look of film, and the colors are clean and vivid. Fine detail and clarity are both sharp, even in dark or muted scenes. The Departed makes an excellent case for HD with its image quality. The audio doesn’t quite live up to this standard, however, as the lossless mix is surprisingly front-centric, even for a dialogue-heavy film. The mix does kick in during the gunfights, but while it’s still a great mix, it just doesn’t take much advantage of the resources it has available. Special features The Departed is, sadly, a bit short on the goodies for a film that earned Scorsese unprecedented amounts of both critical and commercial praise. There is no audio commentary, but two fetaurettes are included: the first discusses how screenwriter William Monahan combined the script for Infernal Affairs (the Hong Kong film upon which The Departed is based) with the real-life story of gangster James “Whitey” Bulger; the second examines The Departed in the context of some of Scorsese’s other films. There are a few deleted scenes, each with an introduction by Scorsese himself, and the theatrical trailer. The Departed is an immensely enjoyable film for action lovers and organized crime enthusiasts alike. It’s a multilayered epic, and a thrilling one at that. A Night Out Looking for a good time out? Just ask the boys in The Departed: The pub is where it’s at. You can find your own pub experience at Kells Irish Restaurant & Pub. With live music every night starting at 9 p.m. and a fantastic collection of beer, wine and spirits, what’s not to enjoy at Kells? You can stop by on Wednesdays and Thursdays to see the Corner Bhoys, or pop in earlier in the week to see Liam Gallagher. The artists play a lively collection of Irish and American tunes while you enjoy your drinks. Consider eating before you go, because the food is rather overpriced and the portions are a bit small — although the Irish whiskey cake sounds amazing. Kells is located at 1916 Post Alley, near Pike Place Market. Reach reporter Robert Frankel at arts@dailyuw.com.

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No more nighttime noise The Daily of the University of Washington - Latest News Those planning on causing a ruckus around the U-District after a night at the bars could now face a harsher punishment. A bill passed unanimously by the Seattle City Council on Aug. 2, and signed by Mayor Mike McGinn shortly thereafter, allows officers to issue citations within downtown and commercial zones to people who “cause or make unreasonable noise,” or threaten or fight another person. The legislation prohibits such actions between midnight and 5 a.m. and can result in up to a $250 fine. The ordinance was first recommended by the Nightlife Advisory Board, a committee assembled in December of 2007 to advise the City Council on “policy issues related to the City’s promotion, development and sustainability of the nightlife industry in Seattle.” In a report to the board two years later, they specifically advised a crackdown on “fighting and drunk and disorderly conduct,” which this ordinance plans to combat. The ordinance is a portion of the Seattle Nightlife Initiative, which is planned to design a comprehensive policy approach to managing the Seattle nighttime economy. The legislation applies citywide, so the U-District isn’t the only neighborhood affected by the bill. Greater University Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Teresa Lord Hugel, however, said she believes nighttime disorderly conduct is more of a problem downtown. “I would say that there are a lot of noise problems out on the Ave and occasional fights, but that is not the norm,” Lord Hugel said. “I will say this is one of the frequent times when [the City Council] comes up with something and we just get swept into it.” Detective Renee Witt from the Seattle Police Department said enforcement will be gradual, and they will “try and not write citations as much” as people become educated about the new law, but says that “at some point, citations will be written, and it will definitely be enforced.” Lord Hugel doesn’t see behavior changing much because the offense still requires an officer to be present to issue a citation, but she does think certain businesses should warn their patrons of the new legislation. “I think at any neighborhood bar, I’d want to tell my patrons, ‘Hey, this could happen, please be careful,’” she said. “I think that would be a soft approach and is something I’d be more supportive of.” Reach reporter William Dow at news@dailyuw.com.

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Paccar Hall designed to promote teamwork The Daily of the University of Washington - Latest News When George Shaw and his team of architects sat down to design Paccar Hall, James Jiambalvo, the dean of the Foster School of Business, asked them to create a building that would foster collaboration and teamwork. The three-story atrium that runs from one end of the $96-million building to the other is meant to do just that by bringing people together in a central meeting space. Twenty-eight breakout rooms that line the atrium, each equipped with a 42-inch LG screen and computer-compatible hookup, are designed to provide students with an opportunity to work together in small groups. “That’s what I am most excited about,” said Curtis Howell, a student and TA in the business school. “In Balmer Hall, it was loud and you couldn’t gather in small groups to work.” Paccar Hall wraps around the existing business buildings, creating a central courtyard with the glass top of the Foster Business Library as the focal point. Classrooms are intended to promote teamwork, with U-shaped seating arrangements that allow students to interact with their teacher and peers simultaneously. Paccar also contains a 250-seat, U-shaped auditorium designed to accommodate the 400-500 speakers that visit the business school each year. “The best part of Paccar is the third-floor terrace that looks out over the Quad in front of Denny Hall,” said Bob Dillon, construction manager and head of the building project. The university employed architecture firm LMN Architects, led by Shaw, to design the new business building. LMN is responsible for the Seattle Public Library and the Vancouver Convention Center, both of which received LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification. Paccar has also received silver-rating LEED certification. “To attain a silver-level certification is an impressive accomplishment,” said Rick Fedrizzi, CEO of the U.S. Green Building Council. LMN used carbon offsets to make the construction process completely carbon neutral. Other “green” features include a water-treatment system that delays and filters storm run-off, a displacement-ventilation system that only cools parts of the building where there is human activity, and high-efficiency toilets that save thousands of gallons of water each year. The building is 135,000 square feet (the size of three football fields) and about one-and-a-half times larger than its neighbor building, Denny Hall. However, Shaw explains that Paccar isn’t as big as it seems. “By breaking it into sections, the proportions and scale match older buildings around it, and does not overshadow Denny Hall or other neighboring buildings.” Other more subtle design aspects of Paccar are meant to achieve Jiambalvo’s goal of becoming the “top business school in the country.” For example, the use of steel instead of hollow aluminum allows for more glass and less metal, permitting the north-facing glass to optimize more natural light and blur the distinction between outside and inside. Another feature is the audio/video system that is installed in every room in the building. Instead of bidding on an AV system in 2008 during the initial planning process, the contractors held out until November 2009 to get the most up-to-date equipment available, including touch screens, two projectors per classroom, and cutting edge audio and acoustic systems. Almost all of the $96 million needed for the project were donated by private groups, allowing the UW to complete the project without raising the cost of tuition. “The donors are happy because they get a chance to advertise and get their name out on campus, and the students get a new building without paying for it,” Howell said. “I would much rather this than have it paid for with tax money.” Paccar is scheduled to be completed in time for autumn quarter. Reach contributing writer Nicolai Wallace at development@dailyuw.com.

Aug

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Pakistan floods are an opportunity for the US The Daily of the University of Washington - Latest News Massive floods hitting northern Pakistan have been causing devastation throughout the region for a week now. For the thousands of people who have been displaced by this flood, this is nothing short of a catastrophe. For the United States, though, this flooding represents one of the best opportunities that we have to improve our image in a region that generally despises Americans. This process certainly won’t be easy. For one thing, the scale of the flooding is enormous. To put this disaster in perspective, more people died in Pakistan last week than U.S. soldiers have in neighboring Afghanistan during the nine years we’ve been at war. Hina Rabbani Khar, Pakistan’s minister for economic affairs, perhaps put it best in a tearful interview on state television. “We were not prepared for this kind of disaster,” lamented Khar, as The New York Times reported Monday. Pakistan’s weak government compounds the problem. The country has been plagued by poor governance in the years since the British granted them independence. While India and Bangladesh have become relatively successful democracies, Pakistan has been controlled by military dictators intermittently throughout its history. In just the past 15 years, Pakistan has been afflicted by military coups, civil unrest and crushing poverty, which compound the problem of poor governance. Successive natural disasters, like the 2005 Kashmir earthquake that killed approximately 79,000 people, have only exacerbated these issues. While there are plenty impoverished nations in the world, Pakistan also has the unfortunate distinction of being one of the last strongholds of Taliban and al-Qaida militants. The combination of crushing poverty and the perception that the United States is at war with Islam have combined to make Pakistan an expedient place for terrorists to recruit. Given all this, it’s not hard to see why then-Senator Hillary Clinton called Pakistan the “world’s most dangerous country” in 2007. All of this talk about the woes of Pakistan might lapse into cliché were it not for the fact that Pakistan’s problems have solutions. Certainly, the issues facing Pakistan are complex; we will never be able to address them all in one fell swoop. But many of them could be helped if the United States only chose to intervene with our military — not through warfare, but as a humanitarian mission. Such efforts have been successful in the past. When a huge tsunami struck Indonesia in 2004, the United States responded by sending an entire battle fleet to help with recovery efforts. We should make a similar stand to help support Pakistan in this time of natural disaster. The United States is already taking some steps in the right direction. U.S. military helicopters have been evacuating people out of the flood zone. But there is still an opportunity to do much more. Even if it didn’t benefit us in any way, the scope of this disaster would impose a moral obligation on us to help this struggling nation get back on its feet. But this mission would benefit us; if we can convince the Pakistanis that we aren’t at war with Muslims, we can undercut the current of public opinion that allows terrorists to operate freely in Pakistan. For those two reasons, the U.S. government should be at the forefront of a humanitarian mission to help Pakistan rebuild its country, just as it rebuilds America’s image in the eyes of Muslims everywhere. As the saying goes, there is opportunity in a crisis, and the United States shouldn’t miss this chance to utilize it. Now is the time to show the Muslim world that the United States is not their enemy. Reach columnist William Ray at opinion@dailyuw.com.

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Prized Gig Harbor recruit chooses UW The Daily of the University of Washington - Latest News PUBLISHED: August 16, 2010 at 8:30 P.M. That didn't take long. Just weeks after cutting 2007 Parade All-American tight-end Kavario Middelton, the Washington football team received a verbal commitment from the nation's top-rated tight-end, as Gig Harbor High School senior tight end Austin Seferian-Jenkins announced today that he will be attending the UW beginning in the fall of 2011. The 6-foot-7, 260-pound Gig Harbor senior is rated as the top tight end in the country by rivals.com, and the No. 3 tight end by scout.com. Last year, as a junior, Seferian-Jenkins caught 62 passes for 1,152 yards and 11 touchdowns. Seferian-Jenkins, who is considered by many as the top high school prospect in Washington, had offers from the likes of Florida, LSU, and California. After a recent trip to Austin, Texas to visit the University of Texas, it was reported that he had narrowed his choices down to UT and the UW before today's decision. His announcement is a reflection of changing times with the Washington football program. Once an 0-12, Pac-10 cellar dweller, the Huskies have turned the tables, in large part due to head coach Steve Sarkisian and his staff, who will enter their second year this season. For Sarkisian, to be able to have a player like Seferian-Jenkins choose the UW over powerhouses like Florida, Texas, and LSU says a lot about Sarkisian's recruiting skills and the improving image of the UW football program. The Huskies kick off their 2010-11 season Sept. 4 at BYU.

Aug

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Staff Editorial: How informed will the 5,000 voters be? The Daily of the University of Washington - Latest News The ASUW Board of Directors hopes to register 5,000 student voters in local districts for the upcoming elections as they return to school in the fall. But with past electoral statistics in mind, this effort may not seem to have much legislative sway over the next two years. When all the votes were tallied after the 2008 general election, 43rd District Rep. Frank Chopp (D-Seattle), the House Majority Leader who represents the U-District, defeated his Republican competitor Kim Verde — who is running again this year — by more than 46,000 votes. Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott won Seattle by more than 23,000 votes, and no statewide race was settled by fewer than 60,000, with the majority being far more. We think the value of registering these students is education. If the ASUW follows through with its plans to bring candidates to campus and provide students with multiple sources of information before the election, we think the civic education will create an informed student body that will become more involved in Olympia. That being said, we think it’s easier to register students to vote than it is to educate them to make informed decisions in the elections. We’re concerned that some of the students registered in this fall rush may not take advantage of the election information and forums that the ASUW says it will provide. The ASUW plans to have canvassers promoting registration on campus, and intends to work with campus housing to reach students. The effort has been in the works since before the ASUW elections, but ASUW leaders will be working within a tight time frame, with only four days between the first day of fall quarter and the deadline for voter registration. Once the registration deadline has passed, organizers will have less than a month until Nov. 2, the day by which all ballots must be postmarked. We ask that the ASUW aim to register not only 5,000 students, but 5,000 informed students, by making information on the candidates and issues as easily accessible as registration. Because 5,000 votes wouldn’t have the mass to sway any election in 2008, and are not anticipated to do so in the 2010 midterm elections, we believe that the actions of the ASUW should extend beyond enlisting young voters, and focus on educating them. Board members need to educate students on where candidates stand with regard to each of the ballot initiatives. In order to fulfill their civic duty responsibly, voters must be equipped with the facts, and we believe that the ASUW has a great opportunity to spread the word. One solution might be handing out election literature to students who register. We recognize that many of the students who put off registration until the final days may not be too politically savvy, which is why we request the ASUW use education to dissuade them from voting for a candidate solely because her last name means “green” in Spanish, or because it will allow them to get cheap alcohol at the Safeway on Brooklyn. We believe the ASUW should embrace this opportunity to make a legitimate effort toward greater civil engagement, to inform and promote a lifetime of participation rather than a one-time vote grab. Their plans to educate students through forums and online information seem to be passive efforts to educate students, and we want to make sure that this matches their active push for registration. This is the opinion of The Daily’s Editorial Board: Editor-in-Chief Lexie Krell, Opinion Editor Colin Gorenstein, News Editor Taylor Soper, Arts Editor Kristen Steenbeeke, Copy Chief Maddie Hall and staff reporter William Dow.