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Come and join us for some great food and
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Also Conning ...
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Page 4 • Thursday, October 28, 1999
Aggielife
■ Battalion
Nine Dutch roommates com
ALMERE, Netherlands (AP) —
Ruud absent-mindedly sweeps the
kitchen floor. A few minutes later,
he takes out the trash. Bored, he
lights a cigarette and sits down to
strum his guitar.
And a million Dutch viewers,
roughly one in 15 people, watch
every tedious move.
This is “Big Brother,” a new tele
vision and Internet show that is en
joying unprecedented popularity
and controversy with its unique ap
proach to reality TV: nine strangers
confined for 100 days in a house
packed with surveillance gadgetry,
all for a shot at fame and a
$120,000 prize.
“This type of show appeals to a
certain sense of voyeurism in all of
us, like listening in on a nearby con
versation or walking past a house
and glancing in the window,“exec
utive producer of “Big Brother”
Paul Romer said. "There is some
thing magical about being able to
listen to and watch other people.”
Drawing its name from George
Orwell’s classic novel 1984, the
show takes the idea of an om
nipresent Big Brother to the brink of
the new millennium by isolating
and continuously monitoring the
participants from mid-September to
New Year’s Eve. There are nightly
updates on TV and live Webcasts
via an Internet site that has been
swamped with more than 11 million
hits since the show began.
With 24 cameras and 59 micro
phones placed throughout the
house, even the bathroom is utterly
devoid of privacy.
There is a twist to this carefully
constructed Orwellian world:
Every few weeks, the participants
nominate one or more of their fel
low housemates to leave the
Almere homestead, about 20 miles
east of Amsterdam. The show's
viewers have the final say on who
gets the boot and on Dec. 31 will
select a winner from among the fi
nal three survivors.
While admitting the setup is “a
little cruel,” Romer said psycholo
gists regularly were consulted dur
ing the show’s three-year develop
ment, and the participants’ last
names have been withheld to pro
tect their identities.
Despite the show’s competitive
nature, Romer stressed the partici
pants were instructed to “just be
themselves.”
raterr,
BY M
“They also know
that in the end
there can be only
one winner.
said. “It’s very
like being in a whole Mu
“Big Brother” is profc
Endemol, a Dutch entenj
company, and airs on it
oriented Veronica netwoii
that it has snagged40ps
viewers in the 20-34agelj
other stations arescramt)ii|i
in on the action.
One rival networkevet
own celebrity reporterpaijjM/n hour later
behind enemy lines, haniij eir minds,
candy and beer to the sups The Kappa Si
Brother” inhabitants.
CBS recently announced
air its own “reality adventa'
summer. “Survivor’
strangers to an
in the South China Sea,4
will gradually be voted oft
n October of 1
disappeared ir
tion, Texas wl
ought terror b
tal Wicked WO'
house in the
Micah Dortch
da junior spee
lot of research 1
We went on t
ers until a single winneritaj tas,” he said.
— Paul Romer
Executive director
of “Big Brother”
“It is very much a mix of group
psychology versus the individual,’’
he said. “As a group, they must
work together to survive and get
things done. But they also know
that in the end there can be only
one winner. You can feel and see
these two ideas competing with
each other.”
Martin, 32, was the first to feel
the wrath of these contradicting
forces. After a failed attempt to
thwart a budding romance between
Bart, 23, and Sabine, 25, Martin’s
popularity took a nosedive, and he
was voted out after less than two
weeks on the show.
Even for a loser, there are perks.
Martin entered the house an
anonymous citizen and left a
celebrity sought after for interviews
and TV appearances.
claim a $1 million prize,
A Swedish version oil
began with a dark inckfe
opening season of “Etijsj
Robinson” in 1997, the is
testant declared a tarn
,«1 suicide a momhata £ a , ™n' y|
mg home.
The idea of a real-lifes
new. MTV’s “The Real K
"Road Rules” series’la-
peeking into not-so-private
eight seasons. The phem
has been lampooned by He
in The Truman ShowM
“ Big Brother” has it
i hough Tiie NeiherlanJil^jp—-y-gj'
of Psychologists branded®
“irresponsible and inief
while others calleditatype
tal torture. Now, mostciii
ply call it dull.
“'Big Brother’ is all
emptiness — and everyte
millions of people,
cape,” Joost Zwagermare
a recent commentary l»
newspaper De
Grades
Continued from Page 3
“I just cannot comprehend science," Shaffer
said. “I was getting depressed because my grade
was going down, and 1 couldn’t do anything tostop
it. I’m glad I only had to take one class in science,
so the damage done wasn’t so bad.”
When worry over grades gets in the way of ex
tracurricular experiences, problems arise. Dr. Jay
Malon Southerland, vice president for student af
fairs, said A&M students generally handle the strain
of both sides of the student-life coin well.
“We really have done both academics and lead
ership experience in tandem,” Southerland said.
“Hindsight says we have done really well on both
counts, but being a student — and being in school
— is of primary importance.”
A major litmus test for academic expectations
are the achievements of the freshman classes which
are recruited every year.
A&M recruits above-average students,so acade
mic competition follows.
“What you have here is success breeding suc
cess,” Southerland said. “As the institution be
comes more well-known, more students are at
tracted to the University.”
So many students were attracted to A&M last
spring that 3,000 applicants who met the minimum
requirements for admission were turned down.
Forty-seven percent of incoming freshmen were
from the top 10 percent of their graduating classes,
with an average SAT score of 1180 and an average
ACT composite score of 25.2.
Wehrly said, this, combined with A&M’s ap
proach to determining one’s overall grade-point ra
tio, can create intense academic pressure.
A&M has policies that make receiving a good
giade a little tougher than at other institutions,”
akeup artist an
guy who use
Dortch said
e changed si
“Some of the
permanent fi
the research
w stuff.
Dortch said t
ile experience
event.
“This is the
d every year
?as helping u:
really sper
.ccessful pro
The one-anc
acres behin
Wehrly said. “For example, when youretiiwl
here, your average for the course is
the averages from every time you’vett
course before, not just the best grade you p
grade you got last time you took the class/
Serrano said some unique symptomspeii*
the high-grade junkie.
“It’s not that 1 think I’m not learningther
ial,” Serrano said. “I spend a lot of timf
classes. At the time of the test, 1 getreali»
After the test, I’m relaxed and thinking oil
answers I couldn’t think of inside the testt
You think, ‘I have to make a good grade;Ilii
make it,’ and it distracts you.”
Wehrly said students who succeed usual
those who take professors’ advice and strive
derstand the required material insteadofnr
good grade their goal.
“I’d rather the students learn both wha
they think they need to know,” he said.“I
learn what I’d like them to learn, theywilldo
I’m not wedded to a grade distribution.”
Even the Faculty Senate concerns itself w
dents’ grades.
“We ask ourselves, ‘Should we havethef
system we use now, or add a plus and
use numerical grades?”’ Wehrly said. “St
ty would rather go pass/fail.”
There is hope for the grade-obsessed
“Two weeks ago, I changed my mind
said. “I was not going out, not going topat»
anything. Now. I’m trying to relax a
slowing down.”
Shaffer said his outlook on college lifecfc
when he decided grades were not everythin
“Look around you before you getoutofAl
he said. “If you get caught up in believing
are everything, you miss everything that yoi
ly shouldn’t be missing. The world won’ll
cause of a ‘C.’”
r
Buy
ent
(
No
907-A 1
Come
Of hoi
— ORIGINAL—
Now Orleans jazz dominates the syllabus of this one night
only offering thanks to the music of the Preservation Hal
jazz Hand. Students ate encouraged to sit hack, relax and let
these jazz sounds transport them to the French Quarter. Please
note, jazz 101 administers no tests and assigns no homework.
Offered hy MSC OPA.S, Preservation Hall jazz hand
should he attended for enjoyment purposes only.
^ LEGENDARY import
/50ml 80°
$,
10.29
With
Not goo
C8.9i
To register for Jazz TOT, call the MSC Box Office at
8454234 or visit our website at opas.tamu.edu.
Peter Lieuwen hosts a Patricia S. Peters hagniappe Lecture in
the MSC Forsyth Gallery at 6-.30 PM. Thanks to the OPAS
Guild, It’s FREE.
m e x
Brya
Preservation Hatt Jazz Band
Rudder Auditorium
Friday, October 29 at 7 TO PWl
MSC
OPAS
750ml 80'
l$ 3.19
Knob
Creek
Buy 1 IV
Sample at the
Longmire location
Friday, 4-8 p.m.
Open 7
Sun - Tin
Fri - sat
Owner: Jerry Joyner ‘53
This weeks specials
good 10/2 S-10/30
750ml 100°
*-19.99