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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 26, 2015)
NEWS The Battalion I 3.26.15 4 TWO LOCATIONS TO DONATE AT! (973) 315-4101 I (979) 314-3672 4223 Wellborn Rd 700 University Dr E., Ste lit Bryan, IX 77801 | College Station, TX 77840 THE TEXAS A&M STUDENT MEDIA BOARD INVITES APPLICATIONS FOR Editor-in-Chiief BATT The Independent Student Voice of Texas A&M since 1893 Fall 2015-Spring 2016 (The fall and spring editor will oversee print and digital editions, and serve Aug. 16,2015, through May 14,2016) Qualifications for editor-in-chief of The Battalion are: REQUIRED • Be a Texas A&M student in good standing with the University and enrolled in at least six credit hours (4 if a graduate student) during the term of office (unless fewer credits are required to graduate); • Have at least a 2.25 cumulative grade point ratio (3.25 if a graduate student) and at least a 2.25 grade point ratio (3.25 if a graduate student) in the semester immediately prior to the appointment, the semester of appointment and semester during the term of office. In order for this provision to be met, at least six hours (4 if a graduate student) must have been taken for that semester. PREFERRED • Have completed JOUR 301 or COMM 307 (Mass Communication, Law, and Society) or equivalent; • Have at least one year experience in a responsible editorial position on The Battalion or comparable daily college newspaper, -OR- Have at least one year editorial experience on a commercial newspaper, -OR- Have completed at least 12 hours in journalism, including JOUR 203 (Media Writing I) and JOUR 303 (Media Writing II) or JOUR 304 (Editing for the Mass Media), or equivalent. Application forms should be picked up and returned to Sandi Jones, Student Media business coordinator, in Suite L406 of the MSC. Deadline for submitting application; 5 p.m. Tuesday, April 7, 2015. Rudder gets 'Intergalactic' twist PROVIDED Intergalactic Nemesis combines a graphic novel with music and radio play to create a performance that will be held Thursday in Rudder Auditorium. Intergalactic Nemesis, a Hue multimedia show that combines radio play, Hue music and a graphic novel, is set to bring its story of space battle and alien monsters to Rudder Auditorium at 7p.m. Thursday. The Battalion life & arts reporter Jack Riewe spoke with creator Jason Neulander to discuss the live action graphic novel. THE BATTALION: Can you de scribe the plot of Intergalactic Nemesis? NEULANDER: Intergalactic Nem esis is a pulp-inspired sci-fi story set in the 1930s and it features Pulitzer Prize winner Molly Sloan and her assistant Timmy Mendez, and also there's this mysterious li brarian. They're up against this evil mage magician named Mysterion the Magnificent who seems to be on the bad start to a descending invasion from the planet Zygon. THE BATTALION: It has been nearly 20 years since Interga lactic Nemesis got started. Can you take us back to the begin ning of how this idea came to be? NEULANDER: It all kind of started as a radio play. We just got some friends together in a coffee house in downtown Austin. At the time I was just running a computer com pany when we released the play, and it got so popular every few years we would come back to it just for fun. But in 2010, I decided to leave the computer company I founded and focus specifically on Intergalactic. It just turned into something that got to be ongoing. I got invited to bring the original versions of the project to our performing arts center in Austin, The Long Center for Performing Arts. Getting that invitation is just a huge, huge 2,400 audience. I just felt like that was too big of a cinematic experience to watch a radiolab being performed. So, just in a flash of amnesia, I thought of putting projecting comic book artwork on a screen to be enlarged so I could fill up a room that big. By sheer coincidence my friend had just bought a projection sys tem and they were nice enough to let me use it. It was kind of a wonderful serendipitous meaning in the summer of 2009. It took about 15 months to get the art work made, there are over 1,250 individual comic book images we constructed before the show and in September 2010 we started and that was that. THE BATTALION: So this started out as a radio play, then morphed into what it is today. To those who don't really know what a radio play is, can you describe it in your own words? NEULANDER: Think of it as in a movie state of mind. You've got actors doing voiceovers for the characters, you've got sound ef fects creating this kind of sound scape ambience that specific noises like punches, or footsteps or whatever. Then you've got this cinematic score that goes along with that kind of elevates the kind of emotions of the whole thing. Then there's the narrator who helps provide the visual descrip tion. So in the graphic novel we get rid of the narrator — we get rid of the whole verbal stuff and we replace that with the actual things and situations performed by the comic book panel. THE BATTALION: And you are planning a sequel? NEULANDER: We have two sequels already, but those are al tered. The first one is called Robot Planets Rising, and the second one is called Twin Infinity. Twin Infinity just premiered in Septem ber and the way we do it is we go to a venue with the first one and if that goes well we go back with the second one and if that goes well we go back for the third one. We return to probably about half the venues. THE BATTALION: Is it true that you have a sound effect for everything? And you use house hold items? NEULANDER: There are hundreds of sound effects for the shows and a lot of them are made with household items. One of my favor ites is the sound of a train. We use a train whistle and a box of maca roni and cheese to get shaking in a certain way and I swear it sounds just like a train running down the tracks. Century Club gifts of less than $5 a month help current students explore professional programs to further their education. PAID ADVERTISEMENT You deserve a factual look at... Three Deceptive Myths of the BDS Movement Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) advocates use inspiring human rights language to condemn Israel—but are their accusations accurate? Siqysorters of BDS make three stirring demands: Stop Israel’s colonization, occupation and apartheid in Palestine. But how valid are these three accusations, and what are the real goals of the BDS movement -Un- Israel and the Palestinian people? Above all, does BDS really seek peace? What are the facts? Boycott, Divestment and .Sanctions advocates shrewdly use human rights rhetoric to inspire followers. But anyone tempted by this appeal must ask two questions: 1) How true are BDS’s accusations against Israel, and 2) what is BDS’s political agenda? If we examine the hard facts, we see that BDS is actually based on false myths and a disguised purpose. Myth #1: Israel is colonizing Palestine. While BDS paints the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in polarized terms, in fact it is one of the world’s most complex, emotionally fraught disputes. BDS portrays Palestinians as the region’s sole “indigenous” people, while in truth Palestine has two indigenous peoples—Jews and Arabs. Jews have lived uninterruptedly in the Holy Land for more than 3,000 years, since the time of biblical Abraham. Israel does not insist it is the only heir to Palestine, but BDS advocates assert Jews have no right to a state there. This denies the Jewish people the right to national liberation. Since colonialism is “the control of one nation by 'transplanted people of another nation,” and Jews are natives to Palestine, Israel cannot be termed a colonial force. Myth #2: Israel is occupying Palestinian territories. It’s simplistic to argue that Palestine “belongs” entirely to either Jews or Arabs. Ownership of these territories is disputed—\t can only be determined by negotiations. While Israel does not deny Arab rights to a state in Palestine, BDS opposes Jewish self-determination. When Israel declared a state in 1948, it was attacked by five Arab armies whose intention was to expel the Jews. In 1967, Arab armies again attacked Israel, but Jordan, Egypt and Syria actually lost to Israel territory they had controlled. In fact, none of the land Israel currently “occupies” in Israel or its ancient lands of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) was ever part of an Arab state. While Israel maintains security in parts of the West Bank, it is to protect Israelis from terror attacks that have killed thousands. More pointedly: As late as 2007 Israel offered Palestinians 95% of the West Bank, as well as a capital in Jerusalem, as an incentive for peace, but the Palestinians rejected this offer. While smart diplomacy will surely be needed to resolve the territorial issues that divide Arabs and Israelis, it is intellectually dishonest to declare Israel an occupier. Myth #3: Israel is an apartheid state. Apartheid was “an official policy of racial segregation, involving political, legal, and economic discrimination in .South Africa against nonwhites.” In fact, Israel is by far the most diverse nation in the Middle East—one whose population is 21% Arab and includes the region’s largest Christian population. Israel’s Jews hail from Ethiopia, Yemen, Morocco, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, as well as every European nation and Latin America. Unlike any other Middle Eastern nation, equal civil rights of all ethnic groups in Israel are protected—and they include freedom of speech, assembly, suffrage and sexual orientation. No ethnic group is segregated. Political office is open to every ethnicity: Israeli Arabs are members of the parliament and supreme court. Economic discrimination is forbidden, and when it occurs, as in the U.S., the courts oppose it. In short, Israel bears no resemblance to South Africa. It is an exemplar of liberty for minorities. What do the BDS leaders really want? While the U.S., Western European powers, Israel and the U.N. Security Council have embraced a “two-state solution” as the basis for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, BDS leaders, like AH Abuminah, argue for a one-state solution in which Arabs outnumber Jews. When BDS talks about occupation, it refers not to disputed West Bank territories, but to all of Israel. BDS has consistently opposed Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, calling them “collaborationist.”' In fact, the leaders of BDS openly confess their goal is not peace, but conquest. No wonder BDS founder Omar Barghouti admits, “If the occupation ends . . . would that end support for BDS? No. it wouldn’t—no.” This explains why BDS insists on the “right of return” not for the estimated 50,000 living Palestinian refugees of Israel’s 1948 War of Independence, but for their five million descendants a bizarre definition of “refugee” applied to no other people. Of course, such an influx of foreign Arabs into Israel would swamp the Jewish state, conquering it demographically. “We do not support the boycott of Israel.” Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas For all its emotive appeals, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions effort is based on falsehoods—a hijacking of human rights values. Even Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has acknowledged that BDS is counterproductive, proclaiming, ‘We do not support the boycott of Israel." Indeed, anyone who truly desires peace between Israelis and Palestinians must oppose this pernicious movement. This message has been published and paid for by F1AME Facts and Logic About the Middle East P.O. Box 590359 ■ San Francisco, CA 94159 Gerardo Joffe, President James Sinkinson, Vice President FLAME is a lax-exempt, non-profit educational 501 (c)(3) organization. Its purpose is the research and publication of the facts regarding developments in the Middle East and exposing false propaganda that might harm the interests of the United States and its allies in that area of the world. Your tax-deductible contributions are welcome. They enable us to pursue these goals and to publish these messages in national newspapers and magazines. We have virtually no overhead. Almost all of our revenue pays for our educational work, for these darifying messages, and for related direct mail. 147 AggieNetwork.com I B/AggieNetwork I □ ©AggieNetwork To receive free FLAME updates, visit our website: www.factsandlogic.org
