Tragic News - Important Message

I recently was saddened by a news story in which an eighth grade boy was murdered by a classmate. I wasn't sure if or how I would cover it here, and have been giving it some thought for a couple of days.

But then Ellen DeGeneres mentioned it today and she put it more eloquently and in a better perspective than I ever could.

Here's is what she said, and hopefully you agree with her message as much as I do. Ellen also has more information and links to organizations that can help on her show's website (which I've linked to her name above).

Do It For the Sake of the Program

My semester began last week and it has been non-stop. Teaching three different courses on three different days, two of which I’ve never taught any version of before, has been a stressful and hectic endeavor. Some days I enjoy it and some days I’m dead tired and wishing it was over. But at the same time I’m hearing from students in all three classes about how much they’re enjoying themselves, so I guess I’m doing something right.

But that’s why I haven’t had the time to comment on the biggest scandal to hit Indiana University athletics in years. I’d say that it even rivals the firing of Bobby Knight because anyone that was living in Bloomington at the time, such as myself, saw it coming a mile away. But now IU men’s basketball is rocked with controversy and possible NCAA sanctions for the first time since 1960.

And it’s all thanks to Coach Kelvin Sampson.

I just had a feeling that it was a mistake when IU hired him two years ago. He had a history of making illegal telephone calls and NCAA infractions from his days as the coach at the University of Oklahoma. But IU took a chance on him. I now wonder if they’re regretting the hiring.

Today Sampson’s fate will be revealed. If he’s kept on a program that has been noted for it’s clean and fair play will now have a sullied reputation. The IU men’s basketball program will be thought of as cheaters, and that is something that will be difficult to shake. Chants of cheater will be heard from the stands at every away game. Is that what the players need to hear?

I don’t want to take away the fact that the Hoosiers are having a great season, but Sampson is going to end up taking them down. He needs to go. Be it by firing (which all signs are seeming to point to) or resignation, Sampson should no longer be leading this team.

Fire him now in order to save IU men’s basketball in the long run.

80th Annual Academy Awards - Predictions

We are currently just under two weeks from the 80th annual Academy Awards. This year the ceremony will be held on Sunday, February 24 and it is when the best of the best in film are honored for their achievements for the movies released during the 2007 calendar year.

For the last two years I have made predictions about who I thought would win, and last I improved my record over the predictions I made for movies from 2006. Last year I predicted 13 categories correctly out of the 21 categories I predicted; for 2005's films I only predicted 10 correctly. Let’s hope this trend continues and I can do even better this year.

Also as I have done in previous years, I will not be predicting the categories for Best Animated Short Film, Best Live Action Short Film, and Best Documentary Short Subject. These are categories that I know absolutely nothing about and can not even harbor a guess as to which films will win.

Here are the nominees for this year’s Oscars with my predictions seen in red.

Best Picture
Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

Best Director
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton
Jason Reitman, Juno
Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Best Actor
George Clooney, Michael Clayton
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Tommy Lee Jones, In the Valley of Elah
Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises

Best Actress
Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Julie Christie, Away from Her
Marion Cotillard, La Vie En Rose
Laura Linney, The Savages
Ellen Page, Juno

Best Supporting Actor
Casey Affleck, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Charlie Wilson’s War
Hal Holbrook, Into the Wild
Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton

Best Supporting Actress
Cate Blanchett, I’m Not There
Ruby Dee, American Gangster
Saoirse Ronan, Atonement
Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone
Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton

Best Adapted Screenplay
Christopher Hampton, Atonement
Sarah Polley, Away from Her
Ronald Harwood, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Ethan Coen & Joel Coen, No Country for Old Men
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood

Best Original Screenplay
Diablo Cody, Juno
Nancy Oliver, Lars and the Real Girl
Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton
Brad Bird, Ratatouille
Tamara Jenkins, The Savages

Best Foreign Language Film
12 (Russia)
Beaufort (Israel)
The Counterfeiters (Austria)
Katyń (Poland)
Mongol (Kazakhstan)

Best Animated Feature
Ratatouille
Persepolis
Surf’s Up

Best Documentary
No End in Sight
Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience
Sicko
Taxi to the Dark Side
War/Dance

Best Art Direction
American Gangster
Atonement
The Golden Compass
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
There Will Be Blood

Best Cinematography
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Atonement
The Driving Bell and the Butterfly
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

Best Film Editing
The Bourne Ultimatum
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Into the Wild
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

Best Costume Design
Across the Universe
Atonement
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
La Vie en Rose
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Best Makeup
La Vie en Rose
Norbit
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End

Best Original Score
Dario Marianelli, Atonement
Alberto Iglesias, The Kite Runner
James Newton Howard, Michael Clayton
Michael Giacchino, Ratatouille
Marco Beltrami, 3:10 to Yuma

Best Original Song
“Falling Slowly” from Once, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova
“Happy Working Song” from Enchanted, Alan Menken & Stephen Schwartz
“So Close” from Enchanted, Alan Menken & Stephen Schwartz
“That’s How You Know” from Enchanted, Alan Menken & Stephen Schwartz
“Raise It Up” from August Rush, Jamal Joseph, Charles Mack & Tevin Thomas

Best Sound Editing
The Bourne Ultimatum
No Country for Old Men
Ratatouille
There Will Be Blood
Transformers

Best Sound Mixing
3:10 to Yuma
The Bourne Ultimatum
No Country for Old Men
Ratatouille
Transformers

Best Visual Effects
Transformers
The Golden Compass
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End

Losing More Laughs

Last March I lamented the loss of some of my favorite comic strips. The Boondocks, Fox Trot, and Big Top had all come to an end. And now I come to find out that another comic strip that I’ve become attached to in order to fill this comic void ran its last strip this past Saturday. Lucky Cow is no more.

Cartoonist Mark Pett has decided to pursue other ideas in other forms instead of continuing with Lucky Cow. The humorous happenings in a Lucky Cow fast food franchise actually got funnier as the strips kept coming in. With Claire trying to avoid work, Leticia the vegetarian working to sell the burgers, and Neil the loveable idiot, there were many characters to enjoy.

Yet another bit of fun taken from our everyday lives. What’s going to be left on our comic pages? The unfortunately unfunny stalwarts such as B.C., Cathy, or Shoe?