the daily texan 03/12/10

THE DAILY TEXANwww.dailytexanonline.comServing the University of Texas at Austin community since 1900Friday, March 12, 2010

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SPRING BREAK WEATHER

SPORTS PAGE 7

Beatdown by Baylor eliminates Horns

How it all started...

Drilling technique may cause quakes

Senate withholds support on 10-semester limit

Irish dancers ‘step’ toward St. Patrick’s Day festivities

Bobby Longoria | Daily Texan Staff

Middle school students Kimberly Corser, left, and Emma Matus prac-tice dance drills during a performance rehearsal at the Irish Dance Center on Thursday.

Maxx Scholten | Daily Texan Staff

Yijiao Zhuang, administrative director of the UT Senate of College Councils, addresses Senate members in the Glenn Maloney Room of the Student Services Building on Thursday.

By Priscilla TotiyapungprasertDaily Texan Staff

Donning black jazz pants and a T-shirt with a Celtic design, mi-crobiology senior Katrinia Don-nellan practiced her dance steps with 15 other people Thursday evening at the Irish Dance Center. Her mother, who is also the in-structor, guided them through the rehearsal, her Irish accent resonat-ing in the studio.

Donnellan, the president and founder of UT’s Inis Ealga Irish Cultural Organization, said Irish dancing has always been a part of her life, thanks to her mom. Every St. Patrick’s Day, perform-ing traditional Irish step danc-ing makes up most of her hol-iday festivities, and next week will be no different.

By Aziza MusaDaily Texan Staff

A plausible connection exists between the oil-drilling waste-water disposal processes and a series of 19 earthquakes that oc-curred nearly a year ago in north-east Texas, according to a study released Wednesday.

Four researchers, two from UT and two from Southern Method-ist University, studied the earth-quakes, which occurred near

the Dallas-Fort Worth metro-plex area. The earthquakes took place between October 2008 and May 2009. Residents could feel the impact of eight earthquakes, the other 11 were “non-felt.” The strongest earthquake recorded had a relatively small magnitude of 3.3.

The disposal process refers to water used after drilling for oil. In order to extract oil from the ground, engineers use hydraulic

fracturing, in which a high-pres-sure fluid — usually water — is pumped into a well. After the high-pressure water is pumped in, it will push fluids such as oil and gas back up to the well, said Paul Bommer, senior lecturer in the UT Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering.

Bommer said wastewater from oil wells is composed of fresh and salt waters as well as residue from gas and water

mixtures. Because the waste-water is too salty to drink and would be considered pollution if dumped into rivers, engineers have drilled other wells in geo-logic formations that already have saltwater and dispose of it at these formations.

In more than 150 years, there have been no local earthquakes felt by the people of Dallas in

SXSW stays course, continues growth

By Alex Geiser Daily Texan Staff

Hundreds of people will hit the streets of downtown Austin this weekend for South By Southwest, the 10-day festival showcasing music, film and interactive conferences held in mid-March.

What started as a music-only festival has since expanded to include film and interactive events. People and artists in the three industries can mingle and learn from each other during the conferences held in the Austin Convention Center and showcase their work at the festivals held throughout Austin.

The BeginningLouis Black, editor and co-founder of

The Austin Chronicle, launched SXSW with Chronicle publisher Nick Barbaro in 1986. The men got the idea from co-

worker Roland Swenson and booking agent Louis Meyers. The four of them worked together to put on the first SXSW in March 1987. Although they were only expecting around 150 people to partici-pate, Black said more than 700 came.

“It was meant to be a regional event for five or six states,” he said. “But it was national almost immediately.”

Black suggested they name the festi-val after Alfred Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest,” though he gave no reason-ing behind his decision.

Although Meyers left Austin in the early ’90s to head the Folk Alliance in Nashville, Tenn., the other three are still involved with the event. Swenson, who had previously managed bands and music clubs, became the managing di-rector for SXSW and continues to be one

By Rachel BurkhartDaily Texan Staff

The Senate of College Coun-cils voted unanimously Thurs-day to not support a task force recommendation that would impose a 10-semester limit on students pursuing most under-graduate degrees.

In December, the Second Task Force on Enrollment Strategy was charged with finding ways to im-prove the University’s gradua-tion rate. The task force present-ed its recommendations to Presi-dent William Powers Jr. in Febru-ary. The University currently has no policy regarding the number of semesters a student may take to complete a degree.

The average time for degree completion at the Universi-

ty is eight and a half semesters whereas the national average is only eight semesters, according to a 2003 report. The Universi-ty’s six-year graduation rate of 70.5 percent is equivalent to the four-year graduation rate of its best competitors, according to the Senate resolution.

Lauren Ratliff, president of the Senate, co-authored the Sen-ate resolution with Senate Pol-icy Director Drew Finke and Curriculum Committee Chair David Liu. She said most of the resolution’s language was gen-erated by presidents of the Uni-versity’s 19 college councils.

“We acknowledge that there’s a problem with the graduate

LIMIT continues on page 2

OIL continues on page 2IRISH continues on page 2

Mary Heard | Daily Texan file photo

Brothers Alejandro and Javier Escovedo reunited with the other members of True Believers at South By Southwest in 1994.

Joe Buglewicz | Daily Texan file photo

Above, Kathryn Calder of The New Pornographers performs at Stubb’s BBQ during SXSW in 2006. Below, Jack Antonoff, lead vocalist and guitarist of Steel Train, plays the last song of the set at Auditorium Shores during SXSW in 2007.

Founders of entertainment festival reflect on past as Austin gears up to host events

March 1987

Check out more SXSW history on page 6Jason Sweeten | Daily Texan file photo

Friends Roland Swenson and Louis Jay Meyers approach Austin Chronicle editor Louis Black and publisher Nick Barbaro with the idea of holding a music conference and festival.

November 1986

Swenson, Meyers, Black and Barbaro hold the first SXSW on Thursday, March 12. Thanks to an advertisement and story in Billboard mag-azine, 700 people show up — 550 more than expected.

SXSW continues on page 6

Check out our new Web site!Launches March 17!

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Busting out my spring break tank top.

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OIL: Causal link can’t be seen, but relationship is ‘plausible’

Associate dean appointed to fill provost position

Come Wednesday, Irish melo-dies will fill Sixth Street. Danc-ers will show off the fast rhythm of their steps, and both the Irish and non-Irish alike will clink their beers together in celebra-tion of Ireland’s patron saint.

Although St. Patrick’s Day is considered an excuse for many Americans to start drinking at noon, it is also a day for Donnel-lan and other Irish-Americans to get in touch with their heritage.

Donnellan and fellow danc-er Jane Hornsby, a geophysics junior, coincidentally founded their organization on St. Patrick’s Day last spring.

“When [Hornsby and I] came here, we were expecting more Irish cultural groups on campus since there are some pretty big or-ganizations in Austin,” Donnellan said. “There really weren’t any, so later we decided to start one.”

Every other Tuesday, members try out Irish dance steps, but Don-nellan hopes to expand the scope of the meetings by bringing in someone to lead a Gaelic work-shop and local Irish music artists.

Donnellan and Hornsby have performed at past UT events, in-cluding Madrigal Dinner and World Unite.

“When people think of Irish dancing, they think of some type of Lord-of-the-Dance river danc-ing,” Hornsby said. “It’s not like that at all.”

Hornsby, who has been danc-ing since she was 6, described traditional Irish dancing as a high-energy activity that is most-ly legwork with no arm motions. In contests, competitors dance in either hard shoes — which make the tap sound — or soft shoes.

Female dancers often wear bright, billowing dresses and vo-luminous, curly wigs for perfor-mances. The bouncing curls add to the aesthetics, she said with a laugh.

Donnellan said Irish dancing is an art that has been passed down through her mother’s side of the family. Her grandfather, Maitiú Ó Mhaoiléidigh, founded the World Irish Dancing Cham-pionships in 1969 in Ireland. The Inis Ealga Irish Cultural Organi-zation is named after the dance school her grandfather opened. “Inis Ealga” is a poetic name for Ireland meaning “the noble isle,” Donnellan said.

After spring break, the organi-zation plans on hosting a céilí, or Irish dance party.

In the meantime, both Donnel-lan and Hornsby, along with oth-er dancers in the organization, will perform at several events next week, including the St. Pat-rick’s Day festival, hosted by Fadó Irish Pub and Restaurant.

For the 13th year in a row, the pub will shut down a section of Fourth Street for 12 hours of mu-sic and celebration. More than 3,000 people showed up last year for craic, which is an Irish term for laughter and good fun, pub manager Keith McGrory said.

Many of the present-day tra-ditions originated in the United States, not Ireland, said Donnelle McKaskle, the founder and artis-tic director of the Celtic Cultural Center of Texas.

Originally on St. Patrick’s Day, people attended Mass and then had a feast, McKaskle said. The Irish pride parades began with immigrants in New York, and many popular Irish songs were born in American pubs and vaudeville shows, she said.

Even the signature dish of corned beef and cabbage, a com-mon dish eaten on the holiday, has an American twist, McK-askle said. While bacon was tra-ditionally eaten in Ireland, poor

Irish immigrants who lived in the U.S. could not afford bacon, so they adopted corned beef from the Jewish-American com-munity as a cheaper alternative, she explained.

“It’s not really a secular holi-day in the U.S.,” McKaskle said. “Everyone here gets to be Irish on St. Patrick’s Day, luckily.”

part because of the lack of ac-tive faults in the region, said Cliff Frohlich, UT’s associate direc-tor of the Institute for Geophys-ics and one of the authors of the study. He said that while a con-nection between wastewater dis-posal and a higher number of earthquakes is plausible, there is no way to prove the causal link between the two.

“All we’ve really shown is in a place where earthquakes shouldn’t have occurred, they have been near a disposal well,” Frohlich said. “It’s possible they were related [as the quakes were] close in time and space to the dis-posal well, and people have seen these types of earthquakes else-where. If [a magnitude 3.3] earth-quake happens right under your house, it might have knocked something off of your wall.”

Bommer said that if under-ground conditions met criteria to induce an earthquake, the cre-ation of a man-made quake is theoretically possible.

“[In the Dallas-Fort Worth area], the way the reservoir is accessed is by a long, horizontal well,” Bom-mer said. “A horizontal well may have up to 10 fractures, and for any one fracture, I might pump 1.5 million gallons of water.”

Of the hundreds of disposal sites in the area, however, only this one has produced man-made, harmless earthquakes be-cause the amount of water is so large it can fill two Olympic-sized swimming pools.

“If earthquakes are occurring, if you know they’re small, it’s not a bad thing, [and] you live with them,” Frohlich said. “We want to understand them better to be sure that they’re not dangerous or to avoid them.”


Geophysics junior Jane Hornsby dances under the watchful eye of her director, Eimir Ni Mhaoileidigh. Hornsby helped co-found the Inis Ealgon Irish Cultural Organization at UT.

St. Patrick’s Day Events:March 17

Fadó Irish Pub and RestaurantWhere: Fourth Street, from Colorado to Lavaca streetsWhen: Pub doors open at 6 a.m.; street festival begins at noonWhat to expect: Two stages, Celtic rock bands, a U2 cov-er band, music and dance performances from both lo-cal groups and groups from Ireland, pints and tradition-al foodCover: Free

Celtic Cultural CenterWhere: Cover 3 restaurant and sports barWhen: 2 p.m. to 10 p.m.What to expect: Gaelic work-shops, children’s storytelling, Irish dance troupes, hurdling and Gaelic football with the Celtic Cowboys Sports & Social Club, musicians from Ireland and traditional foodCover: $8 online, $10 at the door; children under 13 free of charge

Irish Dance Center Performance Schedule3 p.m.: Mother Egan’s Irish Pub, a benefit for St. Baldrick’s Foundation 4:30 p.m.: Fadó 7:30 p.m.: Cover 3

By Hannah JonesDaily Texan Staff

Daniel Slesnick, associate dean for research, facilities and information technology in the College of Liberal Arts, was ap-pointed the University’s new vice provost of resource man-agement Wednesday.

Current Executive Vice Pro-vost Stephen Monti, who has worked at the University for 43 years, announced his retire-ment last week. He will work closely with Slesnick to ensure a smooth transition.

Monti said Slesnick’s appoint-ment was an excellent choice made by the institution, and they have already started working to-gether. Slesnick will work half the time in the provost’s office while still teaching through May. Dur-ing the summer, he will work full time in the provost position.

“He has a desk set up right next to mine in my office,” Monti said. “We will work to-

gether on things and he will come to all the meetings that his schedule allows to immerse him in the process.”

In his new position, Slesnick will deal with budget issues as well as facility and space devel-opment.

“[Slesnick] is a good ad-ministrator,” Monti said. “He has worked with facilities and budgets and has good com-mon sense.”

Slesnick received his bache-lor’s degree in mathematics at the University of Washington and his doctorate in economics at Harvard University.

In 1982, Slesnick started at the University as an assistant eco-nomics professor and became an associate professor in 1986. Sle-snick has been a tenured profes-sor since 1993.

In 2007, Slesnick became asso-ciate dean for research, facilities and information technology in the College of Liberal Arts.

rates at UT,” she said. “But we don’t think that a strict punitive rule is the best way of address-ing that issue.”

The task force recommend-ed that all students meet with an adviser at least once per semes-ter, but Ratliff said the Universi-ty does not have enough resourc-es to fulfill the mandate.

The resolution asked for clar-ification regarding the appeal process, expectations for student

progress and options for correc-tive action.

“This is a good initial re-sponse,” Ratliff said. “We’re go-ing to follow this up by asking more specific questions and put-ting pressure on the provost’s of-fice to really address these ques-tions.”

The Senate of College Councils supported all of the task force’s other recommendations, includ-ing those that maintain the stu-dent-faculty ratio and review the financial aid application process.

IRISH: Groups ‘tap’ holiday traditions

LIMIT: Semester cap does not solve rate issues, Senate says

campus watchSo they cut to the chaseBurdine Hall, 2505 University Ave.

Theft: A silver Marin mountain bicycle was stolen from a building sign located on the south side of the building. The owner was able to find her cut lock laying near the building sign. Loss value: $750.00. Occurred on: 3-09-10, between 12:30 PM and 3:30 PM.

Unscheduled photo shootDKR Texas Memorial Stadium, 405 E. 23rd St.

Criminal Trespass Warning: A non-UT subject refused to heed sev-eral warnings from a UT staff mem-ber about taking pictures during a closed practice session. The subject then entered onto the playing field

and ran towards another UT staff member asking to have his picture taken with that staff member. The subject was intercepted. During the investigation, the subject was issued a written Criminal Trespass Warn-ing and was escorted from the area. Occurred on: 3-09-10, at 5:47 PM.

Triple-ply pillow is soft enoughPerry-Castaneda Library, 101 E. 21st St.

Public Intoxication / Criminal Trespass Warning: A non-UT subject was reported as being “passed out” inside a third-floor men’s restroom. Officers discovered a subject resting his head on a roll of Charmin toi-let paper. Officers detected a very strong odor of alcohol on the sub-ject’s breath. After being awakened from his slumber, the subject in-formed the officers that he was in-side the Austin Public Library and had taken some prescribed medica-tion that had made him sleepy. The subject admitted he had been drink-ing, but could not remember how much he had consumed. The sub-ject was taken into custody for pub-lic intoxication and was transport-ed to Central Booking. During a search, the officers discovered the subject was in possession of a half-full 370 milliliter bottle of whiskey and a 16-ounce can of lager.

Compiled by UTPD Officer Darrell Halstead

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Issue StaffReporters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aziza Musa, Hannah Jones, Rachel Burkhart. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Shamoyita Dasgupta, Karishma Hossain, Collin EatonPhotographers . . . . . . . . . . . . Jeff Heimsath, Danielle Villasana, Bobby Longoria, Maxx ScholtenSports Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ryan Betori, Sameer Bhuchar, Kate GuerraLife&Arts Writers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Meller, Katherine Kloc, Carlo Castillo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Emily Royall, Madeleine CrumColumnists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Justin Sedgwick, Emily GrubertPage Designers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Varangi VoraCopy Editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Elyana Barrera, Nolan Hicks, Sydney FitzgeraldLife&Arts / Sports Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ashley MorganWire Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Megan GottliebComics Artists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Edgar Vega, Katie Carrell, Claudine Lucena, Hannah Chung . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Michael Bowman, Victoria Elliott, Connor Shea, Ryohei YatsuVideographers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Alan McQuinn

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Athenian youths riot, demand ‘real jobs’

School board sets early fall deadlinefor ‘drastic’ plans

By Elena BecatorosThe Associated Press

ATHENS, Greece — Clashes be-tween riot police and rock-throw-ing, masked youths broke out during a demonstration Thursday in central Athens by tens of thou-sands of striking workers protest-ing austerity measures that the Greek government has said it has no choice but to implement.

The debt-ridden country is un-der intense pressure from both markets and the European Union to reduce its deficit from 12.7 per-cent of economic output in 2009 to 8.7 percent this year. Last week, Greece introduced a harsh $6.5 bil-lion austerity package that cut civ-il servants’ wages, froze pensions and raised consumer taxes.

The new cutbacks, added to a previous $15.24 billion austerity plan, sparked a wave of strikes and protests from labor unions whose reaction to the initial mea-sures had been muted. Thursday’s 24-hour general strike grounded airline flights, halted public trans-port, suspended news broadcasts and left public hospitals working with emergency staff.

Demonstrators took to the streets of Athens, banging drums and chanting slogans such as “no sacrifice for plutocracy,” and “real jobs, higher pay.”

“The fight must be constant un-til the stability pact — these un-popular measures passed by the government — is overturned,” demonstrator Olga Raptou said.

An unofficial police estimate put the Athens crowd at about 20,000; organizers said the actual number was much higher.

Clashes broke out soon after the march began, with riot police firing tear gas and stun grenades to disperse masked youths who smashed pavement, marble steps and building facades to use as pro-jectiles to throw at police.About 200 black-clad youths in crash hel-mets and ski masks fought spo-radic street battles with the police

through central Athens, smashing shop, bank and hotel windows and bus stops, setting trash bins on fire, and punching and kicking motorcycle police.

While public anger has grown, it has been mitigated by a gener-al understanding that something must be done to pull the country out of a crisis that has made its cost of borrowing skyrocket.

An opinion poll published last weekend, just after Parliament approved the measures, found Greeks split — with 47 percent op-posing the austerity package and

46 percent supporting it. “It is to be expected that there

will be reaction to these mea-sures. We took very difficult de-cisions that were very unpleas-ant, and they personally upset me a great deal,” Deputy Prime Minister Theodore Pangalos said Wednesday. “But we cannot do anything differently.”

Prime Minister George Papan-dreou’s Socialists enjoy a com-fortable majority with 160 of Parliament’s 300 seats and easi-ly pushed the measures through Parliament on March 5.

“We have made a choice which could lead the country to a radi-cal clean up of the past,” Pangalos said on Mega TV. “We will find the way forward and we will not turn back. And no one can obstruct this given that a large section of Greek society supports us.”

The government says the cuts are its only way to dig Greece out of a crisis that has hammered the euro and alarmed international markets, inflating the loan-depen-dent country’s borrowing costs.

But unions say ordinary Greeks are being forced to pay

a disproportionate price for past fiscal mismanagement.

“They are trying to make work-ers pay the price for this crisis,” said Yiannis Panagopoulos, lead-er of Greece’s largest union, the GSEE. “These measures will not be effective and will throw the economy into deep freeze.”

Papandreou, who has been on a four-nation tour to drum up support for his austerity pack-age, said that he understood the reactions to the measures, but that demonstrations could harm Greece’s image abroad.

By Maria Sudekum FisherThe Associated Press

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kan-sas City school officials prom-ised Thursday to shut down nearly half the district’s schools by the start of classes in the fall without offering details of how they intend to implement the complicated plan in just a mat-ter of months.

The drastic project also calls for cutting hundreds of jobs and shuf-fling thousands of students — changes that officials say are need-ed to keep the district from using up what little is left of the $2 bil-lion it received as part of a ground-breaking desegregation case.

The school board narrowly approved the plan Wednesday night, which calls for closing 29 of the district’s 61 schools, elim-inating about 700 of its 3,000

jobs and moving students from the shuttered buildings to other schools.

Superintendent John Coving-ton has said the district would be bankrupt in 18 months with-out the cuts.

At a news conference Thurs-day, Covington thanked the school board for approving the plan and said he would give the board details about putting the plan in place in about a week.

He added that the transition plan itself would cost $25 mil-lion, and that he would “be looking at ways to generate” that money “from additional savings that we will be recom-mending to the board.”

Covington said transition teams would be in place in the schools that are closing to help children and staff deal with the

changes. He said the changes would likely involve staggered start times and class times for middle school students attend-ing school with high school stu-dents in the fall.

Some of the district’s build-ings, including its downtown headquarters, would be sold. Other would be “repurposed,” and used as parks, he said.

“We have until August to get

this done, and there’s no doubt in my mind that there’s enough time between now and the open-ing of the school year to make it all happen,” the superintendent said. “We’re confident it will work.”

Ed Zurga | Associated Press

Members of the Kansas City school board listen to citizens during a meeting in Kansas City, Mo., on Wednesday. The school board voted to close nearly half the district’s schools.

Nikolas Giakoumidis | Associated Press

Rioters clash with police during a demonstration in Athens against the Greek government’s austerity plan Thursday. Street riots have erupted as more than 30,000 people demonstrated during a nationwide strike.

Mayor officiates Mexico City’s first legalized gay marriages

MEXICO CITY — Two glowing brides in white gowns made histo-ry Thursday as they wed under Lat-in America's first law that explicitly approves gay marriage.

Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Eb-rard was officiating five same-sex marriages in one day, despite harsh criticism from the Roman Catholic Church and a campaign against the measure launched by President Fe-lipe Calderon's conservative Nation-al Action Party.

Mexico City's legislature ap-proved the first law explicitly giv-ing gay marriages the same status as heterosexual ones in December. The legislation also allows same-sex couples to adopt children.

Thursday's weddings follow sev-eral other gay marriages in Latin America, although they're the first approved under legislative authority.

In December, two Argentine men were wed in a civil ceremony by a sympathetic governor and with court approval. In 2007, a couple in Mexico City celebrated a "same-sex union."

The legal approval has been close-ly watched in the U.S. where same-sex marriage is legal in the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, Iowa, Maine, Vermont, Connecticut and New Hampshire.

Federal prosecutors are attempt-ing to overturn the law, which Mexi-co City legislators argue simply gives same-sex couples the rights that het-erosexual couples have.

Massachusetts rescuers attempt to save 16 beached dolphins

WELLFLEET, Mass. — Rescu-ers have been hip-deep in mud in a desperate effort to rescue 16 white-sided dolphins stranded on Massa-chusetts' Cape Cod, but at least two of the animals have died and the outlook for eight others is grim.

The International Fund for Ani-mal Welfare says 10 of the dolphins became stranded in an area of Well-fleet known as Drummer Cove. Six others beached just south of there at Lieutenant Island.

Atlantic white-sided dolphins are common in the waters off the Cape. Scientists are not certain what causes marine mammals to become strand-ed, though one leading theory is that the animals become confused after chasing prey into shallow waters.

Compiled from Associated Press reports

Mysterious crash leaves pilot dead, hangar engulfed in fire

CHANDLER, Ariz. — A World War II-era plane crashed Thursday while attempting to land at a small suburban Phoenix airport, killing the pilot and catching a hangar on fire, authorities said.

Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said the sin-gle-engine P-51D Mustang crashed at about 1:20 p.m. at Stellar Airpark.

Gregor said the circumstances of the crash were unclear, but FAA in-vestigators were en route to the air-port.

Authorities evacuated nearby hangars after one caught fire follow-ing the crash. The blaze was quickly extinguished, and fire crews sifted through the debris to determine if there were any other victims. None were found.

Witnesses said the plane ap-peared to be coming in too fast for its attempted landing. It touched down short of the runway and cart-wheeled into the hangar, they said.

Friday, March 12, 2010 OPINION4THE DAILY TEXAN

Please remember to recycle this copy of The Daily Texan by placing it in a recycling bin around campus or back in the burnt-orange stand where you found it.

SUBMIT A FIRING LINEPlease e-mail your Firing Lines to firingline@daily-

texanonline.com. Letters must be more than 100 and fewer than 300 words. The Texan editorial board re-serves the right to edit all lettersfor brevity, clarity and liability.

RECYCLE!

OVERVIEWS

LEGALESEOpinions expressed in The Daily Texan are

those of the editor or the writer of the article. They are not necessarily those of the UT admin-istration, the Board of Regents or the Texas Stu-dent Media Board of Operating Trustees.

Columns must be less than 700 words. Send columns to [email protected]. The Texan reserves the right to edit all columns for clarity and liability.

SUBMIT A COLUMN

By Justin SedgwickDaily Texan Columnist

GALLERY

GALLERY

Editor in Chief: Jillian SheridanPhone: (512) 232-2212E-mail: [email protected] Editors: Jeremy Burchard David MutoRoberto Cervantes Dan Treadway Lauren Winchester

Texas’ unpredictable energy systemBy Emily Grubert

Daily Texan Columnist

VISIT OUR NEW WEB SITE

The Daily Texan Online will get an entire new look over spring break. The site will launch on March 17. The site was built and designed by UT students and will be entirely con-trolled by Texan staff.

The site will have in-creased capacity for mul-timedia content such as photoblogs and videos. Check it out at dailytex-anonline.com.

EDITOR’S NOTICEThe editor’s e-mail has

been down for the past several days. It should be fully functioning within two days.

Since the Texan will not be publishing over spring break, the e-mail should be fully functioning in time for you to contribute firing lines and guest col-umns. The e-mail is [email protected].

Preserve free parkingThe various businesses, property owners and church-

es that make up the University Area Partners want to get rid of the estimated 500 free parking spots. Un-der its plan, 400 of those spots would be paid parking while the remaining 100 would require a permit. Some of the funds would be used for improving West Cam-pus streets and sidewalks, but according to the Austin American-Statesman, 70 percent of revenue from park-ing meters will be used to pay for and maintain the me-ters. That leaves a paltry 30 percent for improving and beautifying West Campus sidewalks. So far, it’s not clear how much money the meters would generate.

If enacted, the parking changes in West Campus will force students to park in private garages or move their cars to neighborhoods farther north. Both outcomes would benefit only the members of the UAP.

The landlords and apartment managers who would directly benefit from increased usage of the private parking garages that are currently not at full capacity sit on the UAP. It’s no surprise that students opt for free street parking when they can find it, considering that parking in a garage can cost up to (and sometimes more than) $100 a month, parking anywhere at UT requires a permit and rows of parking meters already dot Guadal-upe and Dean Keeton streets.

Good thing the external Student Government mem-bers on the UAP, Rebekah Mata and Santo Brocato, are encouraging feedback. In his column Thursday, Broca-to offered an e-mail address ([email protected]) for feedback, and in a March 10 Daily Texan arti-cle, he mentioned the possibility of student forums. The plan has not been approved or finalized, making now the perfect time to speak out. After all, students should be vocal about what they want for their neighborhood.

Keep diversity in Texas curriculum The State Board of Education continued deliberating

amendments to state social studies curriculum Thurs-day. The Republican-dominated board — which has made national headlines recently for its shameless at-tempts to correct what many of its members perceive as a liberal bias in public education by flooding curricu-lum with references to conservatism and Christianity — is expected to vote on a slate of proposals today before a final vote in May.

The board has most notably sought to counter the in-clusion of the American progressive movement’s ac-complishments, such as the New Deal, in Texas curric-ulum by adding references to — as one of its guidelines states — “the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s.”

But Thursday’s discussion turned to the subject of race, with a majority of the board — led by the seven-member conservative bloc — pushing back against five members’ attempts to include specific references to His-panic and black Medal of Honor recipients.

“I think we need to realize that America has come a long way, and we’re not trying to single out by gender or by race or anything like that. I think we should look at what these people have done that is historically sig-nificant,” said Barbara Cargill of The Woodlands, one of the archconservatives who has helped characterize the board as eager to block anything hinting at the richness of cultural diversity in America from appearing in cur-riculum.

We applaud the students from a coalition of groups who marched to the Capitol on Wednesday to protest the board’s attempts to whitewash Texas public educa-tion, and we hope voters — who booted conservative firebrand Don McLeroy in last week’s Republican pri-maries — keep the future of Texas schoolchildren in mind when casting votes for positions on the board in November.

Texas has been doing the energy thing for a long, long time, and a lot of the kinks in the system have been worked out — or at least considered. Compare this situation with what happens in states that have newly commer-cial energy and don’t have a history of deal-ing with it: It’s kind of like handing a puppy a Nintendo. Fun, but the puppy isn’t equipped to understand how or why.

Texas, on the other hand, is experienced enough and enthusiastic enough about en-ergy that it’s well-positioned to harness its many resources. Not only does it have oil and coal; it has gas, shale gas, tight gas, offshore gas, proximity to deep offshore gas and mind-blowingly exciting opportunities to take ad-vantage of these.

Then there’s nuclear. The South Texas Proj-ect Electric Generating Station, a nuclear plant located in Bay City, is trying to add two new reactors to its complex. You may know that the U.S. hasn’t built new nuclear in a long time — the South Texas Project’s application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was the first such application in 29 years.

Carbon capture and storage is also a pop-ular topic (not with me, because I don’t like the side effect of increased coal mining). Texas not only has many oil fields that could benefit

from carbon dioxide flooding, but it also has a lot of rock and salt formation that are suit-able for storing carbon.

Then it has solar, biomass, algae opportu-nities and wind – oh my, does it have wind. And maybe even offshore wind! And a pro-gram for building transmission systems that can actually support this wind! Indeed, Texas’ approach to building transmission meant to enable greater wind penetration is exempla-ry and has been imitated a few times across the country.

In 1999, Texas became the first state in the country to adopt a Renewable Portfolio Stan-dard, a requirement that the state derive a certain amount of its energy (usually as elec-tricity) from renewable sources. Because the wind industry has taken off so dramatically in Texas, the standard has been revised up-ward over time, and the current goal of 10,000 megawatts of installed renewable capacity by 2025 looks almost silly compared with the 2009 year-end 9,410 megawatts of installed wind capacity and 320 megawatts under con-struction.

And all of this overlies a backdrop of a massive experiment in competitive electric-ity markets. In most places across the coun-try, people are unable to choose their electric-ity supplier. Actually, this is true in Austin as well, since we have a municipal utility. In much of Texas, though, electricity supply has become competitive. Utilities offer green-on-ly electricity, cheap-only electricity or electric-ity that comes with a chocolate on your pil-

low on Sundays and so on. The interesting part? People are actually responding. A few other experiments in competition have taken place in the U.S., but Texas is unusual in the number of citizens who are actually switch-ing away from default providers.

So, the experimentation continues. In isola-tion, many of Texas’ initiatives are massive-ly complicated and interesting. Together, they are the type of system you kind of want to watch from between your fingers. Many of the technologies and structures being played with are incompatible with each other: Build-ing nuclear plants that need to run at a mini-mum level all the time doesn’t really help pro-vide the grid flexibility wind needs. But it’s a whirlwind of (hopefully) creative destruction, with new systems being tested in a giant, furi-ously stirred pot.

Sometimes Texas’ approach of throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks seems crazy and entirely untenable, particu-larly when things fail that might stick if there were fewer things in the air. But we keep throwing. And some things do stick, and peo-ple seem to like picking the fallen pieces up and throwing them back.

So keep an eye on Texas, with its pumpjacks and windmills, carbon-capture-and-storage research and lawsuits challenging that green-house gases pose health threats. It can simul-taneously be an infuriating and amazingly vi-vacious system.

Grubert is an energy and earth resources graduate student.

My to-do list following graduation: Backpack around Europe, finish my theater adaption of “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” and find a job to pay off my thousands of dollars of student debt. This list had been set in my mind ever since my first class here at UT (except for the Bueller musical, which was inspired during sophomore year with the revelation that “Twist and Shout” would be excellent for a theatre-in-the-round-type setting).

I was unaware that another crucial task had been excluded from my list: Find suitable health care after I would no longer be eligible for my University and parental coverage.

It is crucial that college students begin plan-ning for health care before they find themselves in an unfavorable situation that threatens their well-being. For those at UT, University Health Services provides an extensive range of facilities catering general medical appointments, minor surgical procedures, mental and emotional coun-seling and numerous other options pertaining to whatever need you have.

I took these services for granted since I luck-ily encountered few health conflicts in the past. The UHS facilities are still open to recent grad-uates who are in the process of finding post-college employment or trying to attend some sort of graduate school. But once your path is set following graduation, these services will be long gone.

The majority of my health care coverage is pro-vided through my parent’s employers. And, like many upperclassmen, I will soon be completely independent, lacking adequate health coverage until I find a program that fits my needs. Like many students, I have no idea what types of pro-grams will best suit my needs.

Students could rely on whatever post-colle-giate options follow, whether it be immediate employment or graduate school. This may be fu-tile, however, since graduate school or employ-er plans have the tendency to fall short, espe-cially when compared with the superb services provided by UT. The seemingly eternal social-ized health care debate in Congress is still only a prospect and with partisanship dividing con-gress, the issue could not be resolved in a timely manner with students’ graduation timeline.

There are numerous privatized health care op-tions that college graduates can pursue as well. It is though that these options that students can immediately afford the premiums, deductibles and co-payments involved with such plans (let alone know what these terms actually mean.)

After researching my post-collegiate health coverage situation, I became frightened that I might find myself in the emergency room with no plausible method of being able to afford whatever procedures I need to undergo. Thus it is crucial for students to support the proposed socialized health care system that has been long debated.

This federalized coverage isn’t communist-contrived or whatever claims the opposition may attach to the issue. Rather, it is a great option for those who do not have any sort of graduate, em-ployer or privatized opportunities. I applauded my friends who hail from Canadian provinces on their country’s lower drinking age. They insist-ed that I be jealous of their socialized health op-tions.

UT students, and all college students alike, need to be aware and prepared for whatever health coverage conflicts they may face in the real world following graduation.

It is second on my to-do list, only surpassed by my need to justly adapt Mr. Rooney’s tyrannical disdain over Ferris’ kindred spirit for the stage.

Sedgwick is a UT student.

Health care options are important to graduates

NEWS Friday, March 12, 20106

Roped on highAssociate dean appointed to fill provost position

gether on things and he will come to all the meetings that his schedule allows to immerse him in the process.”

In his new position, Slesnick will deal with budget issues as well as facility and space devel-opment.

“[Slesnick] is a good ad-ministrator,” Monti said. “He has worked with facilities and budgets and has good com-mon sense.”

Slesnick received his bache-lor’s degree in mathematics at the University of Washington and his doctorate in economics at Harvard University.

In 1982, Slesnick started at the University as an assistant eco-nomics professor and became an associate professor in 1986. Sle-snick has been a tenured profes-sor since 1993.

In 2007, Slesnick became asso-ciate dean for research, facilities and information technology in the College of Liberal Arts.

progress and options for correc-tive action.

“This is a good initial re-sponse,” Ratliff said. “We’re go-ing to follow this up by asking more specific questions and put-ting pressure on the provost’s of-fice to really address these ques-tions.”

The Senate of College Councils supported all of the task force’s other recommendations, includ-ing those that maintain the stu-dent-faculty ratio and review the financial aid application process.

of the front men while Black and Barbaro mostly deal with logis-tics, Black said.

Through the years, SXSW has had an array of celebrities give the conferences’ keynote speech-es. This year’s interactive con-ference will include a keynote interview with Evan Williams, CEO and founder of social-net-working site Twitter — which he launched at SXSW Interactive in 2007 — and soul singer-song-writer Smokey Robinson will speak at the music conference.

Interactive GrowthBlack said the music and film

events have grown substantially since the festival’s inception, but the most interesting and profound growth has been with SXSW Inter-active, which showcases online in-novations and video games from Friday to Tuesday.

“Interactive, in the last three years or so, has probably been the biggest of its kind in the world,” Black said.

Beth Krauss, spokeswoman for the Austin Convention and Visi-tors Bureau, said registration for the interactive conference is up al-most 40 percent from 2009, sur-passing the 10-percent increase from 2008 to 2009.

“It used to be that music was the biggest, but now interactive is growing much more,” Krauss said.

She said people have begun to use personal media for professional purposes, such as marketing them-selves to companies, which has con-tributed to the heightened interest.

According to a 2009 report by independent consulting firm Grey-hill, SXSW events injected $98 mil-lion into the Austin economy.

Unofficial ShowsElizabeth Skadden, an artist and

UT alumna, said she started going to the music portion of SXSW in 1997 because she was too young for most of the music showcases held in bars. After turning 21, she said she started going to the music showcases but began taking more of an interest in the free, unofficial music shows that SXSW attracts.

“I like the free shows because the bands play for longer, and there were more bands that I liked in a row,” Skadden said. “It was a lot of friend’s bands, and they would all play the same day.”

Todd Patrick, an organizer and promoter of independent music shows in New York City, has put on the best free and unofficial SXSW shows for the past four years, said Geneva Hopson, a studio art fresh-man at UT. Earlier this year, Patrick announced that he would be put-ting on a three-day show in Mex-ico, dubbed the MtyMx All Ages Festival of Art and Music, as an al-ternative to SXSW.

“I definitely thought that there would be some kind of void, just because those shows are so fun and have become a standard,” Hopson said.

Hopson bought a bus ticket to Monterrey with her friends for Saturday, March 20, the first day of the Mexico festival. Since then, Patrick announced that he would be putting on unofficial SXSW shows next week leading up to the music festival in Mexico.

International AppealAs free shows gain popularity,

so does international interest in SXSW-sanctioned events.

The event now has offices in Ireland, Germany, Australia and Japan to help people register for SXSW in Austin.

Tracy Mann, spokeswoman for MG Limited, the public relations firm that markets SXSW interna-tionally, said overseas interest be-gan to increase in 2000.

Mann said about 5 percent of the current registrants are from outside of the U.S. She said they come to SXSW to make con-nections for potential Ameri-can record releases, find booking agents for U.S. tours and to meet the best in the business.

“Austin has a lot of elements of what foreigners think of as American, like the movies and the American cowboy,” Mann said. “But then they come here, and they find out Austin is a su-per progressive city and people are friendly and outgoing.”

Today’s FestivalDespite drawing attention across

the nation and around the world, Black said SXSW has stayed true to its original purpose of helping art-ists showcase their work and learn more about the business.

To help accommodate the music segment of the festival, City Coun-cil changed the outdoor-venue per-mit ordinance Feb. 11, said city planner Clara Hilling. Hilling said the permits, which normally ex-pire the day after an event, are now good for four days. She said she has received 33 requests for a per-mit for next week. The permit or-dinance will expire June 30 unless City Council votes to continue it.

SXSW Interactive will be held Saturday through Tuesday; SXSW Film will be held today through Saturday, March 20; and SXSW Music will from Wednesday to Sunday, March 21. Every Sunday following the music conference of SXSW, industry heads, entrepre-neurs and festival badge holders come together in a vicious softball game, full of cheating and barbe-cue, Black said.

“From the very beginning, it was one of the smartest things we did,” Black said, referring to the barbecue. “We are bringing to-gether all these people in a unique circumstance.”

SXSW over time...1993

1994

1995

1997

1999

2006

2007

2009

SXSW: Interactive conferences drive growth for festival

Hydrogeologist senior Alan

Andrews climbs down a rock face in Barton Creek on Thursday. Andrews has

been boulder-ing for five

years and has been sport

climbing for more than a

month.

Bobby Longoria

From page 1

6 S/L

Sports Editor: Blake HurtikE-mail: [email protected]: (512) 232-2210www.dailytexanonline.com SPORTS

THE DAILY TEXAN

7Friday, March 12, 2010

By Austin RiesDaily Texan Staff

As expected, the Longhorn baseball team has relied heavi-ly on pitching this season to take control of games while waiting for hitting to follow along.

It happened in Houston last weekend after the Horns failed to muster a single run to accompany Brandon Workman’s near-flaw-less eight innings on the mound. They came back Sunday against Missouri with a 12-hit, eight-run performance, trying their best to imitate the Horns’ pitching staff in their success.

“Offensively we want to be con-fident and hit like our pitching staff,” first baseman Tant Shepherd said after Sunday’s win against Missouri. “They come out every day and know they are going to do good and throw strikes.”

Still, the Longhorns haven’t been able to consistently perform at the plate over the past week and a half. They needed a pair of bases loaded and two out balks to beat UT-Pan American 3-2, and they had to have some late-inning he-roics from pinch-hitter Paul Mon-talbano on Tuesday to take down Texas State 4-3.

“They found a way to grind it out and fought against adversity,” head coach Augie Garrido said. “We’ll find our niche hitting and have a run at the plate, but right now these close games are about building confidence.”

Texas’ pitching staff is leading the way right now with a com-bined ERA of 2.10 and a defense that has only committed six errors in 12 games.

“We all knew it was about pitching and defense,” Garrido said. “Disch-Falk is a defensive

Sports Over the BreakMen’s basketballMarch 13: Big 12 championship gameMarch 14: Selection SundayMarch 18: NCAA Tournament begins

Women’s basketballMarch 13: Big 12 semifinalsMarch 14: Big 12 championship game

Selection SundayMarch 20: NCAA Tournament beginsFirst/second rounds at Frank Erwin Center

BaseballMarch 13: Doubleheader vs. Iowa, 12:30 p.m., 3:30 p.m.March 14: vs. Iowa, 1 p.m.March 16: at Rice, 6:30 p.m., HoustonMarch 19: vs. Nebraska, 6:05 p.m.March 20: vs. Nebraska, 2 p.m.March 21: vs, Nebraska, noon (All games vs. Nebraska at Disch-Falk Field)

SoftballMarch 16: at North Texas, 2 p.m., DentonMarch 18: vs. Arizona State, 1:15 p.m. vs. San Jose State, 5:45 p.m.March 19: vs. Cal State Fullerton, 8 p.m.March 20: vs. Michigan, 1:15 p.m.March 21: vs. Louisville, 11 a.m.(All games in Fullerton, Calif.)

Men’s TrackMarch 13: NCAA Indoor Championships, Fayetteville, Ark.March 19-20: Hurricane InvitationalMiami, Fla.

Women’s TrackMarch 13- NCAA Indoor Champion-ships, Fayetteville, Ark.March 19-20- USC Trojan Invitational,Los Angeles

Men’s & Women’s SwimmingMarch 12-14: NCAA Zone Diving,College Station

Men’s TennisMarch 13: vs. Michigan, 4 p.m.,March 21: vs. Pepperdine, noon(All games at Penick-Allison Tennis Center)

Women’s TennisMarch 19: vs. Kansas State, 1 p.m.March 21: vs. Kansas, noon(All games at Penick-Allison Tennis Center)

Men’s GolfMarch 12-14: Southern Highlands Collegiate Masters, Las VegasMarch 17-18: National Invitational Tournament, Tucson, Ariz.

RowingMarch 19-21: Longhorn Invitational, Lady Bird Lake

By Sameer BhucharDaily Texan Staff

The fine line that separates the best of the Big 12 from the worst got even thinner for the Texas Longhorns.

The No. 5-seed Longhorns suf-fered a scare from the No. 12-seed Missouri Tigers on Thursday but managed to squeak out a 64-59 victory in the first round of the Big 12 Tournament.

The feisty Tigers came into the tournament with an embarrass-ing 2-14 Big 12 record and an un-dersized lineup. By all accounts, Texas was faster, stronger and taller than its opponent. Some-how, though, the Longhorns blew an early 14-point lead and were down by one at the half.

“We knew they ’d p lay hard,” junior Kathleen Nash said. “We didn’t come in here ready enough.”

The Longhorns found them-selves in a scoring rut for the be-ginning of the second half. Texas clumsily tried to establish an in-side game against the smaller Ti-gers, but as a result they turned the ball over 19 times.

In the end the Horns pulled everyone on the team together to win.

“Coach said before the game that everybody has a role on this team,” sophomore Ashley Gayle said. “This team is 10 pieces, and everyone has a job.”

Those pieces all brought just enough to the board to get the win. Every player on the active Longhorn roster scored at least two points, and all but one post-ed a rebound. Leading the Texas charge was senior Brittainey Ra-ven. Raven, sporting a No. 13 on her jersey in honor of freshman Lauren Flores, who is out for the season with an injury, had a sol-id performance with 11 points, five rebounds and two steals for the night.

Fellow senior Earnesia Wil-

liams scored nine points and be-came the 35th Longhorn in histo-ry to record 1,000 career points.

“Erni is our warrior, and she was again tonight,” Texas head coach Gail Goestenkors said. “I’m really happy for her. I wanted her to end on a good note.”

The Tigers countered the Long-horns’ team-oriented play with a single-player charge led by the hot hand of Amanda Hanneman. She kept the Tigers in the game,


First-baseman Tant Shepherd walks back to the dugout after striking out in Tuesday’s 4-3 win over Texas State at UFCU Disch-Falk Field.

Longhorns outlast Tigers, advance to second round

Horns continue to struggle at the plateBASEBALL

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

By Kate GuerraDaily Texan Staff

After slingshotting their way through Wednesday night’s doubleheader against UT-El Paso, the No. 14 Long-horns barely escaped the grasp of the UT-Arlington Mavericks on Thursday night, winning 3-2 in 10 innings.

Erin Tresselt allowed two runs on four hits in four in-nings of work for Texas. A shaky start for the Longhorn defense allowed the Maver-icks to score on an error with the bases loaded, followed by a walk with the bases loaded. Third baseman Na-dia Taylor was able to gun down a runner at home, and Tresselt got the final two outs of the inning.

Though the offense sput-tered through most of the game, it certainly didn’t lose its power. Designated hitter Lexy Bennett hit her sixth home run of the season, pushing the Longhorn’s home-run streak to 18 games. Senior pinch hit-ter Tallie Thrasher also banged one over the fence in the sec-ond inning.

“I’ve really tried to embrace the role the coaches have put me in this season,” Thrash-er said, speaking of the limit-ed number of at bats she’s had in the 2010 season, which has resulted in tremendous offen-sive production.

Freshman right-hander Blaire Luna (9-2) allowed only one hit in six innings, and se-nior Loryn Johnson hit what ended up being the game-win-ning RBI with a double in the top of the 10th inning to score outfielder Courtney Craig.

No doubt, Texas is happy with any win, but the rigorous away schedule might be catch-ing up with the team. Head coach Connie Clark, however, said the tough schedule only prepares her team more.

“It is a challenge, especially with schoolwork and trying to balance your time,” freshman outfielder Taylor Hoagland said. “I think we’re getting a little bit more acclimated to it. We all know what we need to get done, and we do it.”

The good news is that the student aspect of the players’ workload will be lightened for the next week with the be-ginning of spring break. And it gets better — after a stop in Denton to play North Texas on Tuesday the Longhorns will be spending their break in Fuller-ton, Calif., from March 18-21.

Depending on how you look at it, the good news might end there. Texas will have to compete against high-ly ranked teams such as No. 5 Michigan, No. 10 Arizona State and No. 20 Louisville. For the

PLATE continues on page 8

EXTRA continues on page 8OUTLAST continues on page 8

Ed Zurga | Associated Press

Junior guard Kathleen Nash, right, defends Missouri forward Amanda Hanneman in Thursday’s 64-59 tournament win.

By Laken LitmanDaily Texan Staff

Texas and Baylor’s bad blood reached its boiling point Thursday night. In the Longhorns’ 86-67 loss — their fourth straight to the Bears — players on both teams broadcast their internal feelings for one another.

Four minutes into the game, Dami-on James got into a verbal altercation with Tweety Carter. LaceDarius Dunn intervened in an attempt to break them up, but that just ruffled more feathers. J’Covan Brown, who was on the bench at the time, started mouthing off at Bay-lor players, and he and Dunn were each handed technical fouls.

Dunn had accumulated a total of three fouls at this point, so Baylor coach Scott Drew was forced to bench him for the rest of the half.

Despite Dunn’s absence, the Bears were able to handle Texas quite nicely. Ekpe Udoh was unstoppable, leading Baylor with 12 points in the first half.

The rift between the teams continued when James and Carter exchanged a few more words before each team went into their locker rooms at the break.

Dunn only picked up one more foul, and Baylor surged in the second half. By the end of the first three minutes of the half, the Bears were up 51-41. The Long-horns were rattled and couldn’t string passes together. They gave up two turn-overs in those first few minutes and end-ed the game with 11.

Texas was down by 15 points when Brown made his first official appearance, and things looked like they were about to turn around for the Horns. Brown took hold of the reigns, moving swiftly through traffic and shooting good jump-

ers. He cut the lead to 10 points with 14 minutes left.

Brown then helped get Texas within five points of Baylor as he drove inside for layups and passed inside to Dexter Pitt-man. With 8:11 to go, Texas had closed in

on Baylor’s lead, 64-59.Unfortunately for the Longhorns,

Udoh and Dunn had no time for a Texas run. The two responded, and a killer trey by Dunn widened the Bears’ lead, 74-63, with five minutes left.

Udoh ended with a career-high 25 points and eight rebounds. Dunn fin-ished with 19 points and nine rebounds.

Texas’ loss will have important impli-cations on its NCAA tournament seed-ing, which will be announced Sunday.

7 SPTS

SIDELINE

SPORTS BRIEFLY

Horns eliminated from tournament

Extra-inning heroics send Texas past UTA

BAYLOR 86TEXAS 67

Amelia C. Warden | Associated Press

Texas forward Gary Johnson, right, and Texas center Dexter Pittman, left, battle for a rebound in Thursday’s 86-67 loss to Baylor in the second round of the Big 12 Tournament.

SOFTBALL

Men’s golf team takes a break before Las Vegas tournament

Heading into this weekend’s Southern Highlands Collegiate Mas-ters, head coach John Fields just wants his team to relax and have fun. After all, it is spring break, not to mention the fact that the tourna-ment is being held in Las Vegas.

“We need to enjoy ourselves on the course this week, and I really mean that. Don’t get stressed, just go play,” Fields said.

This mantra of playing with a clear mind has been the theme and backbone of the team’s success all season long. Another common theme, as Fields can attest, has been the incredibly tough competition in all of the events that the Horns have participated in thus far.

“If you’re going to win in the postseason, you need to go against the best teams in the country on a regular basis — teams whom you will be competing against at the NCAA Championships,” Fields said. “So, to do anything other than that for this team would be counterproductive, and our guys know that.”

In Vegas, some of the competi-tion that the fourth-ranked Long-horns will be going up against in-cludes No. 1 Oklahoma State, No. 6 Florida, No. 7 Texas A&M and No. 12 UCLA. They will be look-ing to notch back-to-back first-place tournament finishes when they hit the road for Nevada, with the Puerto Rico Classic title from a couple of weeks ago already un-der their belt.

In recent years, the course at Southern Highlands hasn’t been too friendly to the Horns. Four play-ers, including junior Bobby Hud-son, have gotten familiar with it and are looking to capitalize on this ex-perience. A little bit of fun along the way couldn’t hurt, either.

– Andy Lutz

SPORTS Friday, March 12, 20108

Teams battle at championships

making a career-high seven 3-point-ers for 21 points.

Goestenkors said she didn’t put it past the scrappy Tigers to give the Longhorns a run for their mon-ey. They were playing with heavy emotions as this was their coach’s final game.

“I feel for Cindy [Stein], I real-ly do,” Goestenkors said. “She is a great coach. Her team kept fight-ing, and I would not expect any-

thing less but a Cindy Stein team.”With the victory, the Longhorns

will play their archrival, No. 4-seed Texas A&M, today — a team that Goestenkors has never beaten.

“[Texas A&M’s] athleticism and physical style of play will take you out of your sets,” Goestenkors said. “They’ve let their style of play frus-trate us in the past, and they are go-ing to be really tough. We have to handle their pressure and physical-ity and take care of the ball.”

ballpark. The offense will catch up as it moves along.”

Texas will have its chance at the plate this weekend with a four-game series against Iowa. The Horns play a game tonight, a dou-ble-header Saturday and finish up with a game Sunday afternoon.

The Hawkeyes are coming to Austin swinging the bat well, hit-ting .320 as a team with a .469 slugging percentage, seven home runs and 66 runs scored.

The Horns hope to continue their dominance on the mound, starting with Taylor Jungmann to-night. Jungmann (2-0) leads Tex-as with a 0.83 ERA in 21.2 innings and 26 strikeouts. Jungmann’s last start was a no-decision in the Horns’ 2-1 victory against Rice.

“Taylor is a thinker and has his own style,” Garrido said. “He picks the hitters he wants to face and pitches he wants to throw. He has a plan and he knows how to use it.”

With the double-header, Cole Green and Brandon Workman are scheduled to start Saturday with freshman Hoby Milner finishing up the series Sunday.

Texas is 2-0 all-time against Iowa, but the two haven’t played each other in 80 years. And like Tuesday — and almost every oth-er opponent Texas has faced this season — the Hawkeyes are com-ing in with something to prove.

“Everyone we play doesn’t have much to lose, and there is a great advantage in that because you play so much more relaxed,” Garrido said.

By Jim PagelsDaily Texan Staff

After two grueling months with meets every weekend, the Texas men’s track and field team will put it all on the line today at the NCAA National Indoor Track and Field Championships in Fay-etteville, Ark.

After dominating the indoor season for four years, the Long-horns lost a lot of their key con-tributors and came into the 2010 season ranked outside the top 50. As the season progressed, the Longhorns have proven that they belonged in the title hunt, but their work was not enough to

overcome the stiff Big 12 compe-tition. The team finished in a dis-appointing sixth place at the con-ference championship last week.

“I hate to use the term ‘rebuild-ing’ because we’ve been very competitive all year,” coach Bub-ba Thornton said. “But there are certainly plenty of [freshmen] that are scoring points for our team.”

The Horns will send five ath-letes and a relay team to the meet. They look to extend their streak of seven consecutive top-10 finishes at the indoor national meet.

Pole vaulter Maston Wallace, shot putters Jacob Thormaehlen and Hayden Baillio, long jump-er Marquise Goodwin and Kei-ron Stewart in the 60-meter hur-dles all qualified.

Wallace will make his third ap-pearance at the indoor nation-

al meet after finishing third as a freshman and 10th last year.

Others have not had as much experience. This marks the first appearances in a national meet for Thormaehlen and three quali-fying freshmen on the team.

One team member represent-ing the class of 2013 is Stewart, who produced a 7.95 qualify-ing time in the 60-meter hurdles in January but missed almost a month to deal with a hamstring injury. Back at 100 percent, Stew-art clocked a 7.71 to finish fourth at the Big 12 Championships, moving him into eighth place on the national list.

The five individual athletes will be joined by the distance medley relay team of Logan Gonzales (1,200 meters), Danzell Fortson (400 meters), Tevas Ever-

ett (800 meters) and Patrick Todd (1,600 meters). The medley is just one of 11 teams that advanced to the national meet.

Being on the national stage has its perks. For the first time this season, the Horns will be broad-cast live as ESPN360.com streams portions of the meet. ESPN2 will also air a 90-minute highlight show at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday.

By Ryan BetoriDaily Texan Staff

Two weekends ago, the Long-horns placed a disappointing seventh at the Big 12 cham-pionships. With five confer-ence championships to their name since 1996, the poor per-formance was uncharacteristic. Now, as Friday’s NCAA Cham-pionships in Fayetteville, Ark., approach, the team is looking to get back into its usual champi-onship form.

“Whatever happened yes-terday, you have to move on,” head coach Beverly Kearney said about the team’s outlook.

Although the Big 12 champi-onship may be in the past, some of the problems that hindered the team at that meet linger. The Longhorns are still short on depth — only four individuals and one relay team will make the trip to Fayetteville.

“We just have less room for error, so we’re going to have to maximize on what we’ve got,”

Kearney said about overcoming this shortage of competitors.

Luckily for Kearney and the Longhorns, history is on their side. The team is currently rid-ing a seven-year streak of top-10 finishes. More importantly, they have finished fourth the past two years with teams that only consisted of three individ-uals and one relay.

This past success, which has come without a lot of depth, can partially be at-tributed to the d i f f e re n c e i n scoring systems between the na-tional and con-ference meets.

According to redshirt junior Betzy Jimenez, the conference meet awards the most points for placing a lot of athletes, but the national meet awards the most points for placing these athletes in top positions. So, the Long-horns’ concerns about depth can be overcome if each individ-ual places well.

“At nationals, it’s about quali-ty, not quantity,” Jimenez said.

Jimenez, a distance special-ist who will be competing in the 3,000-meter and the mile, missed all of the 2009 season due to in-jury. If this weren’t enough, a re-cent illness forced her to miss a week of practice prior to the Big 12 championships. With her ill-ness now under control and her health intact, Jimenez says

she’s ready to let loose.

“When you battle all these obstacles, it just makes you want i t tha t much more,” Jimenez said. “I’m ready to go out and have some fun.”

Joining Jime-nez will be se-nior shot putter Jordyn Brown,

junior long jumper Chantel Ma-lone, and sophomore sprint-er Angele Cooper. Malone and Cooper, along with Judy Nwosu and Stacey-Ann Smith, also make up the 4x400-meter relay team that will be competing.

Brown, the team’s only indi-vidual All-American, will bring the most experience to the meet. She heads into the meet ranked 13th, but she placed fourth at last year’s national championship.

Though not as seasoned as the senior shot putter, Malone and Cooper have also been test-ed on the national stage. The two were both members of last year’s outdoor 4x400-meter na-tional championship team. Ma-lone will come in as the reign-ing Big 12 long jump champion, and Cooper placed second in the 400-meter at the conference championship.

“We can’t hold ourselves back by thinking too much,” Cooper said. “We’ve been practicing ev-eryday for this. Now it’s just time to go out there and fight for Texas.”

Relay team, five Horns compete in Fayetteville for track championships

MEN’S & WOMEN’S TRACK & FIELD

Girls look forward after disappointing finish in Big 12 championships

WHAT: NCAA Championships

WHERE: Fayetteville, Ark.

WHEN: Friday at 10 a.m. & Saturday at 11 a.m.

WEB: ESPN360.com

ON AIR: ESPN2

WHAT: NCAA Championships

WHERE: Fayetteville, Ark.

WHEN: All day Friday & Saturday

WEB: TexasSports.com

‘‘Whatever happened yesterday, you have to

move on.”

— Beverly Kearney Head coach

OUTLAST: Horns face ‘physical’ Texas A&M in second round

EXTRA: New season begins for Longhorns with a big win

Longhorns, it is just the next seg-ment of their goal-oriented season.

“We segment our year out, and this will end a segment for us,” Clark said. “We talked about a few items in the games [Wednes-

day] but then, right away, focused on ending the segment and finish-ing strong.”

The Longhorns take the win against the Mavericks into a four-day break. Tuesday’s game against North Texas in Denton will begin at 2 p.m.

From page 7

From page 7

From page 7

PLATE: Pitching continues to dominate opposing batters

8 SPTS

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400 Condos-Townhouses

REDUCED!Available June 1st. PER-FECT for Graduate stu-dents. 2/2 Condo. GREAT VIEW! NEWLY DECORAT-ED paint/carpet, NEW appliances, W/D, pool, 5mins UT/shuttle.1000sq, $1250/mo. water pd. Call 352.284.0979

420 Unf. Houses

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Nice 4Beds/2Baths for $1,800/mon. 5Beds/2Bath for $2,000/mon. Cel-ling fans, Central AC/Heat. Wash/Dryer. 3009 Cherrywood Rd. Owner Pays water & Yard Care. Pre-Leasing for August. John/512-809-1336

HOUSE FOR RENT

Hyde Park; 602 Fair-fi eld; Close to UT & bus line. 3-4 renters; appli-ances; lg yard; quiet neighborhood; NO Pets; NO Smokers; bur-lar alarm; great land-lady; Call 414.708.8898; 262.569.9303

BARKLEY HOUSES

Pre-leasing houses in the UT area. Each unit is turn of the century to 1940’s vintage with char-acter and style. Owner managed.

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LARGE 3BR/2BA FOR

AUGUSTHYDE PARK: CA/CH, All Appliances (incl. W/D), Hardwoods, Ceiling Fans, Two Living Areas, Screened-in Porch, Two-Car Garage, Fenced Back Yard, Pets OK, $2,100/mo.

WEST CAMPUS: Hard-wood Floors, Garage, All Appliances (incl. W/D), Fireplace. $1,900/mo.

512-231-1007

REAL ESTATE SALES

130 Condos-Townhomes

CLOSE TO CAMPUS

3/Bedrooms, 2.5/Baths, Two-Covered Parking. Over 2000sqft, nicely updated, quiet complex, great roommate plan. 1st time homebuyer tax-credits, FHA Approved, $129,999 Call Ritch Haenke, REALTOR, Re-alty Austin 512.633.3909, www.sunchasecondo.com x ID 2901438

UT AREA CONDO BY

OWNERFor Sale by Owner! Condo located in the UT area. Here is the link to the virtual tour: http://www.studio12austin.com/2101NLamar1/.

Roll your mouse over the thumbnail photos at the bottom to see the “360 tour” photo of the living room and the photo gal-lery. It is roughly 2000 sq. ft. with 3 bedrooms, 2 Ω baths. All bedrooms are located on second fl oor.

Only 7 units are in this charming complex called La Terraza at 2101 N. La-mar Blvd.

This condo faces Pease Park and is situated just north of MLK on Lamar Blvd and just south of the Caswell Lofts on La-mar which are sold out.

Exterior ñ dark green and dark red colored stucco walls and red tile roof. Interior completely refurbished in 2007.

Jen Air appliances, gran-ite counter tops, maple wood fl oors downstairs/stairs, carpet and ter-razzo tile upstairs, new ceiling fans, new lighting fi xtures, new sinks and hardware, new front door with speakeasy window, 5 different paint colors chosen by one of Aus-tin’s top interior design-ers, plantation shutters on all windows, glass enclosed bath in master bedroom, slate porch, new AC compressor and evaporative heating unit. Two parking spaces come with this condo.

Please call for an appoint-ment. 512-263-5544. $485,000. IMPORTANT. REALTORS - do not call me to get a listing. I am selling this as the owner. Realtors should only call with a bona fi de, quali-fi ed buyer who is ac-tively seeking a home to purchase.

x ID 2898199

ANNOUNCEMENTS

560 Public Notice

IT’S THE END OF THE

WORLD(as we’ve come to know it)

Very soon, one titanic person prophesied by all the major world religions will speak to everyone. He will inspire humanity to see itself as one fam-ily & to rebuild the world based upon the prin-ciples of cooperation, sharing, justice, broth-erhood, & love. He will not endorse any religion over any other, nor will He work as a religious fi gure.

Under His inspiration, mankind will wipe the scourges of political corruption, war, hunger, poverty, & environmen-tal degradation, from the face of the Earth.

Read all about it! www.Share-International.org

KEYBOARDS & FEMALE VOCALIST

needed asap for RECOV-ERY band. Music/Come-dy rehearse weekly 512-442-9511

EDUCATIONAL

590 Tutoring

CAN YOU TUTOR

a child of 13yr Old? I seek an experienced teacher to tutor my 13yr old daughter, She’s home schooling 7th grader, shy but well behaved. All classes would begin be-tween 9AM - 7PM, each lesson last 60 mins and All Instructions will take place at the local library or my home, 3 days a week within fl exible hours. Subjects include: Mathematics, English Reading & Science. “$45 per hour”. If Interested, send your resume by emailing to “[email protected]

610 Misc. Instruction

BUSINESS CHINESE

Learn Business Chinese or

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EMPLOYMENT

766 Recruitment

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810 Offi ce-Clerical

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820 Accounting-Bookkeeping

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350 Rental Services

870 Medical

130 Condos-Townhomes370 Unf. Apts.360 Furn. Apts.

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Editor’s Note: This is the second in a weekly series exploring day-and-week-end trip destinations across Texas.

By Emily RoyallDaily Texan Staff

“Greetings from Marfa!”I lowered the glossy postcard

from my eyes, the vintage block letters decorated with kitschy il-lustrations of small-town monu-ments dissolved to reveal the real setting of Marfa, Texas: nowhere.

A tumbleweed lethargically rolled by.

Marfa, with a population of roughly 2,121, occupies the high desert plains of Presidio County in West Texas. Its curious name sup-posedly comes from Marfa Strog-off, a character in Jules Verne’s novel “Michael Strogoff.” Origi-nally established as a railroad wa-ter stop in the 1880s, the tiny Tex-as town bloomed in the early 20th century, and was home to the Mar-fa Army Airfield during World War II. But the war’s end left a va-cancy in Marfa, and the town de-teriorated with old age and crip-pled infrastructure.

I shoved the postcard back into a cramped glove box, and a feeling of disappointment crept through my shoulders as the dust settled around my trail-bitten Honda. The dryness of this place started to sink into the steel frame of my car and the marrow of my Cheetos-fed bones. So I quietly pulled into the parking lot of the first neon-lit sign I saw: the Thun-derbird Hotel.

An attractive 20-something was manning the desk. He noncha-lantly glanced at me from behind his Ray-Ban sunglasses, sporting a trendy V-neck shirt and polished smirk. It was clear that this kid was not from the boonies. Instead, he appeared to be an educated young hipster, here, smacking his gum be-hind a hotel desk in the middle of the desert. Slightly miffed, I signed my receipts, exchanged formali-ties and carried a little white key to what I thought would be a musky West Texas room.

Replacing the stale room and peeling wallpaper of my expec-tations was an incredibly fash-ionable suite, which upon further examination contained all the real versions of what IKEA furni-ture pretends to be. I marveled at the irony of such fine objects ex-isting in this barren place. Pok-ing around the room, I discov-ered distinctively arranged tubes of vegan bodywash, a minibar complete with hyper-hip Ameri-can Spirits and a flat-screen tele-vision. There was even an iPod radio on my nightstand. I eased into the comforts of stylish living and stared up at an abstract art print hugging the wall — finally, some confirmation of what I had come for.

Marfa happens to be an elite cultural hub, known internation-ally for its art museums, galler-ies and film festivals. Marfa got its start as a fine-arts destination in 1971 when Donald Judd — a fa-mous minimalist artist — bought the Marfa Army Airfield and con-verted it into his home, studio and exhibition space. Judd’s initiative attracted a steady stream of fol-lowers and quickly converted the dying community into a well-kept secret of privileged social circles. Since his death in 1994, the China-ti Foundation carries on his lega-cy and is considered to be Marfa’s fine-art headquarters.

Awakening with some confi-dence, I ventured to the Chinati Foundation, which is located at the

site of Judd’s home and studio, to catch its morning tour departing punctually at 10 a.m. The China-ti Foundation consists of a series of barracks and warehouses pri-marily housing the works of big-name minimalists such as Donald Judd, Dan Flavin and Claes Old-enburg. Touring the museum is quite a commitment; visitors are encouraged to tour the first half of the exhibition, break for lunch and return for another round. For the average visitor, minimalist ab-stractions of artwork intended to be “meaningless” (as profoundly explained by my tour guide) can seem redundant after a few hours, so I’d recommend high-tailing it for the second half.

Your newly found free time

would be best spent eating in Mar-fa. Lunch or dinner here affords a number of incredible options. The Brown Recluse, offering coffee, breakfast and brunch, is tucked away into an adorable, tidy house. Come here expecting to engage in lively conversation with young art connoisseurs, and be sure to bring a dog-eared sketchbook of some kind just to fit in. If you’re looking for something fashionably fast, check out the Food Shark, a mo-bile trailer delivering tasty “Medi-terranean-by-way-of-West-Texas” cuisine. Don’t count on it, though — the Food Shark is a sporadic event, long awaited by locals who seem to be the only ones to know when it will appear.

After lunch, a good stroll around

downtown Marfa is in order. The downtown square dis-

plays some awesome West Tex-as architecture harking back to the ‘20s and ‘30s. Many of these buildings are occupied by pris-tine art galleries that keep com-pletely random hours. Look for Fancy Pony Land, Galleri Urbane and Ballroom Marfa. Eventually you’ll discover some galleries so cool they don’t even have a name. When approaching an unnamed gallery, simply knock and wait to be received by an attendant (prob-ably wearing Ray-Bans) to show you around.

If you’re a fan of literature, be sure to stop at one of the best bookstores I’ve ever seen to date: the Marfa Book Company.

Nightlife in Marfa is a stretch unless you’re visiting during the Marfa Film Festival or the Chi-nati Foundation Open House, or you’ve found out Ben Kweller just so happens to be playing a show at some warehouse next door.

But never fear — the town is famous not only for its arts and music but also its supernatural phenomena. The “Marfa lights,” which are little glowing spheres of green light zooming across the horizon, have been seen dotting the barren landscape for decades. Scientists have been unable to de-termine the cause of this marvel, and skeptics continue to debate its existence.

Scout’s honor: The Marfa lights are real. If you don’t believe me, ask for the testimony of a local who will direct you 10 miles out of town to a designated viewing spot. Gaze into the distant sunset, and behold the unexplainable.

Visiting Marfa is quite a sur-real experience and is certain-ly worth traveling the exten-sive ribbon of road it takes to get there. Though the irony of a cul-tural center existing in the womb of the Texas desert is Marfa’s punchline, the town offers a va-riety of unique experiences.

Just be sure to wear your Ray-Bans.

Why don’t we do it on the road? Marfa

Hill St.

Texas St.

Oak St.

Mesa St.

El Paso St. San Antonio St.

El Paso St.

Dallas St.

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Austin St.

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Illustration by Thu Vo | Daily Texan Staff

Lincoln St.Lincoln St.

Hill St.

Hill St.

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Texas St.Texas St.

Oak St.Oak St.Oak St.

Mesa St.

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El Paso St.El Paso St.El Paso St. San Antonio St.

El Paso St.El Paso St.

Dallas St. Dallas St.

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Austin St.Austin St.Austin St.

Dallas St. Dallas St. Dallas St.

Dean St.

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Dean St. Waco St.

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Spring St.Spring St.Spring St.

Aparejo St.Aparejo St.Aparejo St.Aparejo St.

El Paso St.El Paso St.El Paso St.

Russell St.Russell St.Russell St.

Nevill St.

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Bonnie St.Bonnie St.

Katherine St.Katherine St.

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Hill St.

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Plateau St.Plateau St.Plateau St.Plateau St.

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Salorosa St.Salorosa St.Salorosa St.

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Illustration by Thu Vo | Daily Texan Staff

Chinati Foundation1 Cavalry Row

www.chinati.org/

Ballroom Marfa108 E. San Antonio St.

ballroommarfa.org

Thunderbird Motel600 W. San Antonio St.thunderbirdmarfa.com

Galleri Urbane203 E. San Antonio St.

galleriurbane.com

Fancy Pony Land203 E. San Antonio St.

fancyponyland.com



The Brown Recluse111 W. San Antonio St.

brownreclusemarfa.com

COMICS Friday, March 12, 201010

10 COMICS

8 5 3 2 4 6 5 9 6 2 9 3 55 7 9 4 4 2 5 1 4 93 4 9 1 2 8 5

Yesterday’s solution

5 1 2 4 8 6 9 7 36 7 9 2 3 1 5 4 88 4 3 5 9 7 2 6 12 3 5 7 1 8 4 9 67 9 1 3 6 4 8 2 54 6 8 9 5 2 3 1 71 5 7 8 2 9 6 3 43 2 6 1 4 5 7 8 99 8 4 6 7 3 1 5 2

LIFE&ARTSFriday, March 12, 2010 11


11 ENT

Be Sure To Pick Up Your COPY OF THE TEXAS

TRAVESTY

MARCH 23

ON

STANDS

By John Ross Harden Daily Texan Staff

Throughout the 10-day festival, South by Southwest will feature roughly 300 films entered in vari-ous categories, ranging from big-budget headliners to music vid-eos. The films, which are slated to run at seven theaters around the city, were selected from thou-sands of entries to create what is to be, according to the Web site, the “most exciting lineup yet.”

Whether a film is a highly an-ticipated blockbuster making its world premiere, or a single per-son’s accumulation of tiresome hours behind a computer screen, SXSW is sure to bring unforgetta-ble films to Austin.

Here are some of the films that should be making a lot of noise

this week (by order of the film’s first screening):

“Kick-Ass”As this year’s first premiere

headlining the film festival, “Kick-Ass” is ideal for starting the film festival on a good note. The movie chronicles the adven-tures of a typical, nerdy teenag-er as he refuses to abide by soci-etal norms and pursues his pas-sion for fighting crime, just like the heroes on TV. However, he has no superpowers. Through a series of random incidents, the self-proclaimed teen hero, Kick-Ass, creates a national phenom-enon of average people realizing their dreams of becoming super-heroes only to be confronted with

the complications faced by real heroes shortly afterward. This co-medic journey is certainly going to be a large hit, not only during SXSW but throughout the nation as well.

“Kick-Ass” will be premiering at Paramount Theatre tonight at 7 p.m.

“Leaves of Grass”When the red carpet rolls out

for “Leaves of Grass” tonight, you’ll be surprised at who will be walking down it as part of the cast of this year’s stoner comedy. Starring Ed Norton, the film tells the story of two estranged broth-ers (both played by Norton) who, after an unusual murder claim, are brought together in a small Oklahoma town. What transpires

next is fairly similar to the sto-ry in “Pineapple Express”: angry drug lords, twisted humor and, of course, lots of pot. “Leaves of Grass,” directed by Tim Blake Nelson, is also boosted by perfor-mances by Keri Russell and Su-san Sarandon, both of whom are able to provide occasional laughs to a giddy audience.

“Leaves of Grass” will be premier-ing at Alamo Drafthouse South La-mar tonight at 9:30 p.m.

All films playing at SXSW give screening-entrance priority to: first, a badge holder; second, the film-pass holders; and lastly, to “walk-up” guests. If you plan on being a “walk-up,” arrive at your selected film screening at least 45 minutes early and expect to pay a $10 admission fee.

By John MellerDaily Texan Staff

Every day for the music por-tion of SXSW, there are hun-dreds of free parties, concerts and events that don’t require any official pass to the music fes-tival. You just have to know how to find them.

Here’s a list of our top-five day shows requiring an RSVP beforehand (all 21 and up, un-fortunately). After RSVPing, just show up early enough and you’ll be on your way to enjoying free music, food and booze.

This list is just the beginning — check out more complete lists of SXSW parties at Web sites such as Do512.com, the Austini-st SXSW Party Guide (austini-st.com/sxswist), and donewaiting.com’s SXSW blog.

Levi’s Fader FortThe Fader Fort has established

a reputation as SXSW’s most con-sistently great day party. They have free drinks and great music all day, every day, during SXSW Music. Most importantly, those “special guests” could be an un-expected surprise. Last year, Kanye West played an unan-

nounced, two-hour show on the last night with Common, Erykah Badu and Kid Cudi. We’re excit-ed to see who they’ll bring out this time.

The PureVolume HouseThe PureVolume House is also

a venue well known for its free drinks, and this year, their lineup is pretty good as well. Taco Bell will be providing free catering, so if you’re into 99-cent tacos, you’re in luck. But hey, free food is better than no food at all.

Stereogum RangelifeThis party features the only

day-show performance of Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard. Combined with the perfect pop of Morning Benders and the fantas-tic folk Wye Oak, this party has an outstanding lineup.

Filter Magazine’s Showdown at Cedar Street

Filter Magazine’s three-day concert series will be held at a fantastic SXSW venue, Cedar Street Courtyard, featuring a ter-rific lineup. Show up early for free

barbecue every day at 11 a.m.

Austin CarnivilleThis party is at an especially in-

teresting location – the Mexican American Cultural Center south of Cesar Chavez Street. The line-up is heavy with respected DJs and hip-hop, so if you want to dance, this is the place for you.

WHAT: Levi’s Fader Fort

WHERE: 1101 E. Fifth St.

WHEN: Wednesday through Saturday, March 20; Noon-9 p.m.

RSVP: apps.thefader.com/pages/rsvp/levi-s-fader-fort-2010

PERFORMERS: Harlem, A-Trak (with special guests)

WHAT: Stereogum Rangelife

WHERE: The Parish, 214 E. Sixth St.

WHEN: Saturday, March 20; 1-5 p.m.

RSVP: stereogum.com/rangelife

PERFORMERS: Ben Gibbard, Wye Oak, The Morning Benders

WHAT: Filter Magazine’s Showdown at Cedar Street

WHERE: Cedar Street Courtyard, 208 W. Fourth St.

WHEN: Thursday through Saturday, March 20; 11 a.m.-6 p.m.

RSVP: filtermagazine.com/sxsw

PERFORMERS: Dr. Dog, Local Natives, Frightened Rabbit and others

WHAT: Austin Carniville

WHERE: The Mexican American Cultural Center

WHEN: Thursday through Saturday, March 20

RSVP: austincarniville.com

PERFORMERS: Major Lazer, Diplo, GZA and others

WHAT: The PureVolume House

WHERE: 504 Trinity St.

WHEN: Friday through Saturday, March 20; various times

RSVP: purevolume.com/thehouse

PERFORMERS: Jakob Dylan and Neko Case, Andrew W.K., The xx (DJ set)

MOTHER: Ensemble members consider recording live album

Free parties bring music to pass-less

‘Kick-Ass’ �lm headlines diverse movie lineup

Akiko Meyers in the College of Fine Arts, as well as her time spent practicing in her childhood, have been beneficial while playing in the band.

“I’m studying in the music school, learning performance with Anne Akiko Meyers and play-ing with her,” Brill said. “But fun-nily enough, I started playing vi-olin when I was 5 years old with ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.’”

Brill said that the “chamber-pop” nature of Mother Falcon is its big draw — a group of classical, mostly string instruments, playing pop songs in an unexpected way.

“I think we’ve tried to take [the music] in a few different directions, and I think we’ll be experimenting even more in the future,” she said.

Rita Andrade, Brill’s roommate and violist for Mother Falcon, said that she has known Gregg since she was 10 years old and was re-united with him once she moved back to Austin after her high school years in California.

“I was in Cali all summer long and then went out with the guys to record for Still Life near the end,”

said Andrade, who is also a music performance junior. “But I’ve been playing with Mother Falcon since summer ‘08.”

She said that despite the sheer number of people in the band, they typically don’t have argu-ments because they try to commu-nicate creative differences before it becomes a problem.

“We’ve never gotten into head-on arguments, but I think we are all very subtle when we want to say something,” Andrade said with a laugh. “But we’re real-ly good at communicating things and not leaving things unsaid. It’s also hard for us to write music be-cause there’s so many opinions and people want to improvise and not maintain a structure, so what we started doing is splitting up into smaller groups.”

But before all the seriousness sets in, the band is sure that this will be a perfect weekend to let loose.

“We’re going to play some re-ally fun music. We haven’t dis-cussed the set list yet, but we’ll be in a good mood, and we’ll give an inspiring performance,” Brill said. “Mostly, we’ll just have fun.”

From page 12

Life&Arts Editor: Ben WermundE-mail: [email protected]: (512) 232-2209www.dailytexanonline.comLIFE&ARTS

THE DAILY TEXAN


Group carries pop to new level


Mother Falcon is a symphonic group that plays an eclectic mix of orchestra and pop music. The band tries to embody surreal emotions and nostalgic feelings.

By Francisco MarinDaily Texan Staff

Before the SXSW madness fills the streets of downtown Austin with public relations agents, bloodthirsty bands and faux American Apparel models, at least one band will be taking the opportunity to chill out this weekend.

Austin’s very own Mother Falcon makes charmingly sweet indie pop somewhere on the spectrum between Beirut and Calexico, rivaling them in emo-tion and depth. Their most re-cent album, the Still Life EP, was released Feb. 20 and featured five effervescent, jangly tracks that combine the virtuosity of Andrew Bird while embracing the pop sensibilities of Sufjan Stevens.

The band will play alongside other luminaries of Austin mu-sic this weekend at the Skanky Possum publishing house in East Austin, and — in the true, laid-back style of our fair city — there will be barbecue, beer and plenty of live music to re-lax with.

“[The Still Life EP] turned out to be totally awesome, much more than we could even imag-ine,” said Isaac Winburne, an English sophomore at St. Ed-wards University and saxo-phonist for Mother Falcon. “There were so many people, it was hard to get it done in that amount of time. Me and [Mother Falcon saxophonist] Matt Puck-ett spent the majority of last se-mester producing it and master-ing it. The cool thing is, we did everything — even the artwork — which is why it’s even more exciting for us.”

Mother Falcon’s live shows are typically extravagant and

sonically rich, and bandlead-er and Mother Falcon founder Nick Gregg said that it would be nice to see what a live album would sound like.

“[Still Life] came out pretty awesome,” Gregg said. “But we do want to try a live recording because we haven’t tried that yet.”

Guitarist and recent high school graduate Claire Puckett shares Gregg’s goal of recording a live album.

“There’s no way to capture the way we sound live, I think,” she said. “I think some of the ener-gy might be lost, but some really great composition is brought out in our recordings.”

Yun Du, a violinist in Mother Falcon as well as a business se-nior at UT, said there are about

19 people who are in constant rotation in the band. The num-ber of people in the band makes it a necessity to keep track of their whereabouts.

“I basically handle the admin-istrative tasks in Mother Fal-con — booking shows, keep-ing track of sales, taking care of money, making sure members get to practice,” Du said. “And in terms of who plays at shows, it depends on who’s in town and who’s available. There is sort of a core songwriting group: Nick Gregg, Tamir Kalifa, Claire Puckett and Isaac Winburne.”

Clara Brill, violinist and UT music performance junior, said that her experiences working with the world-renowned Anne

12 LIFE

Editor’s Note: This is the second in a three-part series on lo-fi, female-fo-cused groups out of Los Angeles play-ing at SXSW. The third part will be published online.

By Francisco MarinDaily Texan Staff

Dum Dum Girls front woman Dee Dee (real name Kristin Gun-dred) isn’t nearly as intimidat-ing as she might seem on her re-cordings. On “Hey Sis,” for exam-ple, Dum Dum Girls sound like an English-speaking, female ver-sion of Les Rallizes Dénudés, the hollowed-out vocals echoing with malice across negative space.

But tonight, Dee Dee sounds re-ally sweet. She is sleepy, soft-spo-ken and asserts she is tired. She’s also incredibly nice.

She and her bandmates — Frankie Rose, Jules and Bambi — make the sort of scuzzy-yet-melod-ic lo-fi pop that’s become a staple in Los Angeles, as evidenced by the blown-out popularity of The Smell and artists such as Nite Jewel and Best Coast.

The Daily Texan spoke with Dee Dee before her SXSW shows about her take on Austin.

Daily Texan: Where are you speaking from, and what have you been up to today?

DeeDee: Today, I did some work, and now I’m at Kinko’s — my hus-band is making a flier for a show he’s [disc jockeying].

DT: What show?DD: It’s a band called Dirty

Beaches, from Montreal.DT: Awesome. I think they’re

playing at SXSW also. Speaking of SXSW, are you excited to come to

Austin?DD: Yeah,

I’m so excit-ed. We’re leaving Fri-day night.

D T: S o what do you

usually do while you’re

here?DD: Well, every time I’m in Aus-

tin, it’s so hot I want to head to — I think it’s a river, but I tend to go vintage shopping. And I always end up at Whole Foods getting lost for three hours.

DT: You might be talking about Barton Springs. It’s perfect when the sun’s out. So, I saw a recent feature in the L.A. Times about you and a few other bands. How do you feel about the “Queen of L.A. Lo-Fi” ti-tle being bestowed on you?

DD: Yeah, that was really fun-ny. I was so flattered that they even had me on some part of their radar, but I mean I’ve always tried to play out to people — you can lump me in with L.A. music and the lo-fi scene, but I really only existed in my house. And now that we’re a live band, we’re not totally L.A.-centric; we’ve played more in New York now than L.A. I’d like to say we’re more of a tri-coastal band.

DT: What’s the third coast?DD: Well, Austin’s not really on

the coast ... but you know what I mean.

For the rest of the interview with Dee Dee, including a discussion on tube amps and Patti Smith records, check out dailytexanonline.com.

WHAT: Other Music Party

WHERE: Thursday at 5 p.m.

WHEN: French Legation Museum

WRISTBAND?: No

WHAT: New York Night Train Party

WHERE: Saturday, March 20 at 7 p.m.

WHEN: Spiderhouse Cafe

WRISTBAND?: No

Austin’s Mother Falcon hopes to impress at South By Southwest

LIFELIFELIFELIFELIFELIFELIFELIFELIFELIFE

MOTHER continues on page 11

Lo-� singer anticipatesWhole Foods, shopping

WHAT: Austin Carniville

WHERE: The Mexican American Cultural Center

WHEN: Thursday through Saturday, March 20

RSVP: austincarniville.com

PERFORMERS: Major Lazer, Diplo, GZA and others

WHAT: SXSW/Pregnancy with Mother Falcon, Sip Sip and Speak

WHERE: Skanky Possum, 2925 Higgins St.

WHEN: Saturday at 2 p.m.

WEB: j.mp/motherfalcon

TICKETS: Free; donations suggested

WHAT: Austin Music Awards with Mother Falcon, Black Joe Lewis and Will Sexton

WHERE: Austin Music Hall

WHEN: Saturday, March 20; doors at 6:30 p.m.

WEB: austinmusichall.com

ON THE WEB:Check out more SXSW coverage

@dailytexanonline.com

the daily texan 03/12/10

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