Choice lies between highway or

railway expansion

CLARK FOYThe Oklahoma Daily

The transportation stimulus package re-cently issued by President Barack Obama is fu-eling a debate over wether Oklahoma should invest in highway infrastructure or high-speed railways. Oklahoma received $465 million as part of the federal stimulus package for trans-portation projects. Of that money, $357 million is being put towards the state highway system.

Obama’s new stimulus has allotted about $8.1 billion to spend on the high-speed rail

and mass transit systems, but states still are waiting on the guidelines to apply for the fund-ing, according to Gary Ridley, director of the Oklahoma Department of Transportation.

Ridley said the state will not make a deci-sion on whether to apply until the guidelines are released, which he hopes will be in June.

“I think that as time goes on and population density increases, you will see more move-ment for mass transit of some kind,” Ridley said. “Everyone needs to understand with mass transit, it has to be convenient, depend-able, affordable and subsidized.”

Despite a growing population density, con-struction the new I-40 cross-town continues, an expressway that may replace a portion of the unused Union Station in Oklahoma City.

This, according to Tom Elmore, executive director of the North American Transport Institute, is a step in the wrong direction.

“Here’s the reality: No state is, at this mo-ment, more “shovel ready” than Oklahoma for advanced rail development,” Elmore said in an e-mail. “State government here owns nearly 900 miles of railway, mostly radiating out from the last grand urban rail passenger center in the West remaining unused today with all its original yard space intact.”

This potential, Elmore said, can be tapped to boost the economy. A new high-speed rail transit through Oklahoma would create more jobs, lower highway maintenance costs and

State trying to decide direction of transportation funds

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FRIDAY MAY 8, 2009

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Two cases of swine fl u

have been confi rmed in

Cleveland County

DANE BEAVERSThe Oklahoma Daily

Cleveland County officials an-nounced the first cases of swine flu Thursday, and OU officials say they are monitoring the situation but are not yet changing plans for com-mencement ceremonies or future study abroad programs.

OU press secretary Jay Doyle stated in an e-mail “we continue to monitor and evaluate the situation,” after the news that two cases of swine flu had been confirmed in the county was

broken on OUDaily.com Thursday afternoon.

Shari Kinney, administrator of the Cleveland County Health Department, said Thursday that of-ficials believe the exposure of the two residents to the rest of the county’s population has been limited.

“One [female with swine flu] is a high school student and one is an adult female and both of them, when they became ill, stayed home. They saw their physician and they have both recovered,” Kinney said.

Kinney said she expects to see more cases of the virus confirmed in Cleveland County, and there have been more cases of seasonal flu this year than in previous years.

OU moves with caution as swine fl u hits the state

Proteins used to fi nd,

kill cancerous cells

CADIE THOMPSONThe Oklahoma Daily

An OU professor is build-ing biochemical treatments for breast cancer that would speed up the process of targeting only cancerous cells and increase the efficiency of treatment.

Roger Harrison, chemical en-gineering professor, has studied for more than 10 years how to use proteins to treat cancer, and has recently developed two different forms of therapy that find and tar-get only cancerous cells through-out the body. His treatments are designed to not only find and kill tumor cells, but also to prevent the cancer from spreading.

“With current treatments, you have a cancer drug and that can-cer drug goes all throughout your whole body, so it has toxic effects on normal cells,” Harrison said. “But this therapy won’t go in the normal part of your body; it will just bind to the tumor. The idea is to have it be locally where it’s needed in the tumor.”

Harrison’s research still is in the preclinical stage, though.

Dr. Shubham Pant, a hematol-ogy-oncology specialist with OU Physicians, also is involved in tar-geted cancer treatment and said he has seen a positive response from patients who have used tar-geted therapy for breast cancer.

He said in trials, women who received targeted treatment with chemotherapy lived longer than women who did not.

Targeted cancer therapy re-search currently is more focused on treating breast cancer patients because of the cancer’s preva-lence, Pant said.

According to the American Cancer Society in 2009, an esti-mated 27 percent of the 713,220 cancer cases in women are cases of breast cancer. That is over 192,500 cases of breast cancer in the United States.

“Women have been the driv-ing force behind breast cancer research,” said Pant. “They have a great voice in the community. It’s the women who take control of their disease and it really helps us out in a big way.”

Although Harrison specifically is focused on using his research to treat breast cancer, he said in the future his research could be used to treat other cancers.

Both of Harrison’s treatments involve using targeted enzymes, but one treatment requires pro-

drug therapy and the other in-volves nanotubes and photody-namic therapy.

The targeted enzyme in both treatments is Annexin, which only attaches to cancer cells.

In the treatment that involves pro-drug therapy, where a drug is put into the body but remains ineffective until it is triggered by an enzyme, Annexin is fused with another enzyme called Methioninase to form one pro-tein. Methioninase is the enzyme that triggers the pro-drug and converts it to a toxic cancer treat-ing agent. Methioninase also works to kill the tumor by cutting off its access to essential amino acids.

The other treatment requires the targeted enzyme Annexin as

well, but in this treatment the en-zyme is attached to nanotubes. Nanotubes are simple rod-like structures made up of carbon molecules and bonds, and are used to transmit heat from infra-red light to the cancer cells. The heat kills the cancer cells, and causes blood to clot, which cuts off the tumors’ blood supply, kill-ing the tumors.

Although targeted cancer treat-ment is a growing medical trend, the enzyme and pro-drug therapy Harrison is working on could offer a more efficient, speedier treat-ment of cancer cells.

One of the problems with using pro-drug therapy to treat cancer is how the drugs are delivered.

PROFESSOR STRIVES FOR NEW BREAST CANCER TREATMENT

Student advisory board says

changes to minutes are in

violation of state law

LEIGHANNE MANWARRENThe Oklahoma Daily

A student-run advisory board has ac-cused the staff of the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education of attempt-ing to censor their annual report and vio-lating Oklahoma’s Open Meeting Act.

Rosie Lynch, University of Tulsa sociology senior and advisory board chairwoman, along with three other board members and the president of the Oklahoma Student Government Association, signed a letter to the regents’ chancellor and stated the situation was “completely unacceptable.”

The letter’s authors accused Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Kermit McMurry of altering the minutes, re-cords and actions taken during the April 19 Student Advisory Board meeting without students’ knowledge.

Lynch said McMurry omitted approx-imately one page of the original report and said she was told McMurry made the changes to make the students look better.

Calls to McMurry were not immedi-ately returned.

State regents spokesman Ben Hardcastle said the changes were made to a draft, not the final report, and that it is normal to pass drafts back and forth with changes.

Lynch said the advisory board did not intend to attack McMurry’s character but they felt his actions concerning the report were wrong.

“I appreciate [McMurry’s] years of work with other students but we felt it was not right that he removed passages from the report without telling us,” she said.

In the letter, the advisory board ac-cused McMurry of being disruptive dur-ing meetings and sometimes sleeping through them.

The letter stated, “If our idea was deemed controversial, the vice chan-cellor would talk down to us in a similar condescending manner, reminding us not to go off ‘half-cocked’ and ‘without real research.’”

The authors of the letter accused McMurry of questioning the board members’ intelligence and research, said Nicholas Harrison, OU graduate student and advisory board vice chairman.

Hardcastle said it is unfair of the

State Regents accused of censorship

THE UNIVERSITYRIDAY MAY 8, 2009

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AMY FROST/ THE DAILY

Roger Harrison, chemical engineering professor, sits in the lab inside of Sarkey’s Energy Center Thursday.

CANCER CONTINUES ON PAGE 2

FUNDS CONTINUES ON PAGE 2

FLU CONTINUES ON PAGE 2

REGENTS CONTINUES ON PAGE 2

21

1

OKLAHOMACOUNTY

PONTOTOCCOUNTY

CLEVELANDCOUNTY

CITY OF NORMAN

OUDAILY.COM

DOCUMENT Read the letter sent to the State Regents online.

CONFIRMED SWINE FLU CASES

GRAPHIC BY AMANDA TURNER

THE

students to make accusations against McMurry’s professionalism.

The state regents will be presented the advisor y board’s original

annual report at their May 29 meet-ing, Hardcastle said.

“We are happy to see that the orig-inal report that we spent over three hours voting on is what is going to be presented to the state regents,” Harrison said.

Lynch said she hopes to see better

communication between the state regents and the advisory board in the future.

“We are not being rebellious stu-dents, we just felt the whole situa-tion was not right,” she said. “I hope in the future they will communicate with us .”

increase downtown traffic.The project would be expensive, estimated at about $2

billion. Plans have the line running from Tulsa to OKC to Dallas. Some plans have the railway expanding in the fu-ture as far north as Kansas City, Missouri, and as far south

as Houston.Ridley said ODOT has no intention of destroying the

Union Station, but the construction of the I-40 cross-town would require demolition of a small portion of the station. This small portion, according to Rep. Wallace Collins, D-Norman, would make a huge difference.

“When [ODOT] says they won’t destroy it, they really mean they won’t destroy the whole thing,” Collins said. “They’ll leave a track or two and 1000 feet of rail siding. That’s really not very much.”

In pro-drug therapy, cancer fighting agents usually are directly applied to the tumor, but because tumor cells are hard to reach, it can take a while for the drugs to treat the cancer, Harrison said.

But the pro-drug therapy Harrison is working on would start treating the tumor cells im-mediately because the protein that triggers the pro-drug attaches directly to the cancer cells and also begins to break down the barriers surrounding the tumor cells.

“The pro-drug has got to go across multiple barriers, but ours circumvent all that,” Harrison said. “All it’s got to do is just bind to the protein that is attached to the cancer cell and it starts to work. It’s a new way of delivery is what it is. A more rapid way of delivery for cancer treatment.”

But even with advancements like Harrison’s, it’s unlikely che-motherapy completely will be out of the picture in the future, Pant said.

He said chemotherapy com-bined with the progress of tar-geted therapy will help treat the

individual needs of breast cancer patients.

“Chemotherapy plays a very good role, not all chemotherapy is toxic,” Pant said. “Maybe it can’t completely replace chemothera-py, but what I think will happen is we will find subgroups of women who do not benefit from chemo-therapy, but only targeted treat-ment and some that won’t benefit from targeted treatment but only chemotherapy.”

Pant said he praises the work of researchers like Harrison who use basic science knowledge to engi-neer therapies that can be brought to the clinic to treat patients.

But even then, a researcher’s job isn’t finished because cancer reacts differently in everyone, so data goes back to the researcher and they work to figure out new solutions, he said.

“The cancer cell is a very smart person; it’s like a moving target,” Pant said. “You have to constantly keep learning, it’s hard to kill one type of cancer and then it comes back a completely different kind of cancer. But it’s an exciting time; it’s a time when people are pulling up their sleeves and fighting this, but there is still so much to do.”

2 Friday, May 8, 2009

The Daily has a long-standing commitment to serve readers by providing accurate coverage and analysis. Errors are corrected as they are identified. Readers should bring errors to the atten-tion of the editorial board for further investigation.

CORRECTIONS

In Thursday’s ‘Weekend Update,’ The Daily incorrectly stated the price of a student ticket to the University Theatre’s produc-

tion of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. A ticket costs $12 with a student ID.

In Thursday’s edition, The Daily erroneously reported the Faculty Senate would vote on a measure to change the policy for making-up classes. Faculty Senate Chairwoman Cecilia Brown said, “The policy is still very much in flux and will not be voted on during Monday’s meeting.”

OUR COMMITMENT TO ACCURACY

“I would say at the rate that people are being tested that we will probably see more cases that are confirmed,” she said. “But just to put it in perspective, we don’t test every person who has flu-like symptoms, so we would expect to maybe have some cases confirmed.”

Oklahoma health officials confirmed an-other case of swine flu Thursday. A Deer Creek High School student in Edmond — 45 miles from Norman — was diagnosed with swine flu, bringing the total number of cases in Oklahoma to four.

The first case was confirmed Tuesday in a Pontotoc County woman who did not require hospitalization and has since recovered.

OU’S PLANSGoddard Health Center has not seen

any suspected cases of the swine flu virus, said Maggie Pool, OU Health Services

spokeswoman. Doyle said Thursday the swine flu situation

is “evolving” and officials will monitor it.“As of today, campus activities are proceed-

ing as normal,” Doyle stated in an e-mail. “Discussing potential responses to hypo-thetical situations serves no purpose,” he said Tuesday.

Doyle said the university has a plan if the swine flu worsens, but declined to release de-tails of the plan.

“If the situation warrants, we can activate our plan,” he said.

STUDY ABROADMexico closed its schools and universities

last week because of the outbreak, but most re-opened Thursday. However, all of the OU stu-dents studying abroad at the six partner uni-versities in Mexico had already returned home by the time the schools reopened, according to Jack Hobson, assistant director of program de-velopment in the study abroad office.

Hobson said credits for the students will be assessed on an individual basis because most

students studying in Mexico didn’t finish their semesters abroad.

He said study abroad officials are still en-couraging students to apply to study abroad in the future and that Mexico is still on the list of safe places to travel in the future.

He said study abroad officials will monitor the World Health Organization’s recommen-dations in relation to travel to Mexico.

“We are assessing it internally and we will make a decision in the next couple of weeks,” Hobson said.

Millie Audas, director of OU’s study abroad program, sent an e-mail last week to all stu-dents studying abroad, encouraging students to follow guidelines issued by the WHO and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and to keep in contact with both their partner institutions and the OU study abroad office.

GRADUATION PLANSOklahoma State University officials an-

nounced Wednesday that they would forgo traditional handshakes for graduates at this year’s commencement ceremonies because of

health concerns related to the swine flu. Other universities around the country are doing the same.

Graduation Office director Becky Heeney said there are no plans to modify OU’s com-mencement ceremonies as of now.

“At this time, the plan is to move forward as we always have,” Heeney said. “We’re not doing anything differently than we have in the past.”

She said officials will continue to evaluate the situation.

“I think it goes without saying that, first and foremost, the safety of our graduates and guests is very important to us,” she said. “We’re certainly going to take all the information under consideration.”

Heeney said no deans or faculty members have expressed reservations about shaking hands at commencement ceremonies.

Kinney said she is not recommending that OU officials or graduates refrain from shaking hands, but that they should make sure to wash their hands and take other sensible health precautions.

FluContinues from page 1

CancerContinues from page 1

RegentsContinues from page 1

FundsContinues from page 1

CONGRATULATIONS! to the following University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center faculty members who were honored April 27 at an awards ceremony.

A TRIBUTE TO THE FACULTY

PRESIDENTIAL PROFESSORSHIPSDarrin Akins, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, College of Medicine

President’s Associates Presidential Professor

Laura Ann Beebe, Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, College of Public HealthPresident’s Associates Presidential Professor

Thomas Hennebry, Department of Medicine, College of MedicineRobert Glenn Rapp Foundation Presidential Professor

Dean Myers, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, College of MedicinePresident’s Associates Presidential Professor

Muna Naash, Department of Cell Biology, College of MedicineEdith Kinney Gaylord Presidential Professor

GEORGE LYNN CROSS RESEARCH PROFESSORSHIPJoan Walker, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, College of Medicine

DAVID ROSS BOYD PROFESSORSHIPMary Zoe Baker, Department of Medicine, College of Medicine

REGENTS’ PROFESSORSHIPRobert McCaffree, Department of Medicine, College of Medicine

REGENTS’ AWARD FOR SUPERIOR RESEARCH AND CREATIVE ACTIVITYChinthalapally Rao, Department of Medicine, College of Medicine

REGENTS’ AWARDS FOR SUPERIOR TEACHINGGary L. Loving, College of Nursing

David M. Thompson, Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, College of Public Health

REGENTS’ AWARD FOR SUPERIOR PROFESSIONAL AND UNIVERSITY SERVICE AND PUBLIC OUTREACH

S. Terence Dunn, Department of Pathology, College of Medicine

PROVOST’S RESEARCH AWARD FOR SENIOR FACULTYShrikant Anant, Department of Mediciney, College of Medicine

PROVOST’S RESEARCH AWARD FOR JUNIOR FACULTYXin Zhang, Department of Medicine, College of Medicine

FACULTY GOVERNANCE AWARDKevin Haney, Developmental Dentistry, College of Dentistry

PATENTSPaul L. DeAngelis, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, College of Medicine

Wei-Qun Ding, Department of Pathology, College of MedicineRichard F. Harty, Department of Medicine, College of Medicine

William H. Hildebrand, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, College of MedicineHsueh-Kung Lin, Department of Urology, College of MedicineBradley P. Kropp, Department of Urology, College of Medicine

James F. McGinnis, Department of Opthalmology, College of MedicineAnne Pereira, Department of Pathology, College of Medicine

Paul Weigel, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, College of Medicine

Anant Akins Baker Beebe Dunn Haney Hennebry Loving

McCaffree Myers Naash Rao Thompson

The University of Oklahoma is an equal opportunity institution.

ZhangWalker

ENGINEERS SHOW OFF CAPSTONE PROJECTS

Aerospace and mechanical engineering seniors had the chance to put their skills on display at the Engineering Capstone Design fair Thursday afternoon outside Felgar Hall.

Representatives from area companies attended to judge projects and meet the soon-to-be graduates.

“This gives our students the opportunity to make connections with the corporate commu-nity and future employers,” said Megan Denney, aerospace and mechanical engineering spokes-woman.

Compan i e s r ep r e sen t ed i n c l uded Halliburton, Kimberly-Clark Corporation, Tinker Air Force Base and Schlumberger Limited.

Projects ranged from human powered cars and homemade weather radars to aircraft com-ponents and oil drilling equipment.

The fair was not only to allow seniors to be recognized by corporations and make job con-nections, but also to grade projects as part of their capstone classes.

— Ricky Maranon/The Daily

POLICE REPORTS

Names are compiled from the Norman Police

Department and OUPD. The reports serve as a

record of arrests and citations, not convictions.

Those listed are innocent until proven guilty.

POSSESSION OF A CONTROLLED DANGEROUS SUBSTANCEJesse Gregory Caruso, 33, 2500

W. Main St., Wednesday

POSSESSION OF ALCOHOLBenton Mathias Heinzelmann, 19,

2657 Classen Blvd., Wednesday

MUNICIPAL WARRANTChantelle Laree Lindsay, 19, 2404

Hunting Horse Terrace, Wednesday

Bradley Shayne Walden, 22, 100

36th Ave., Wednesday

COUNTY WARRANTBlake E. Luscan, 38, W. Lindsey Street, Wednesday

OTHER WARRANTKenneth Edward Mauldin, 23, 100

24th Ave. SW, Wednesday

PUBLIC INTOXICATIONCory James Truby, 24, 4339 Willowisp Drive,

Wednesday, also molesting property

PHOTO COURTESY OF AME DEPARTMENT/MEGAN DENNEY

Members of the Sooner Racing Team discuss their year-long project with industry profes-sionals during the Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Senior Capstone Design Fair in front of Felgar Hall Thursday. Fourteen capstone groups presented their projects to industry professionals for judging.

Religious monument may violate

church-state principle

TIM TALLEYAssociated Press

OKLAHOMA CITY — The Oklahoma House voted overwhelmingly Thursday t o p l a c e a m o n u m e n t o f t h e Te n Commandments on the grounds of the State Capitol, setting aside concerns that it may violate constitutional principles that require government to stay neutral on religious belief.

Without debate, House members voted 83-2 for the bill on the National Day of Prayer in which televangelist and Oklahoma na-tive Oral Roberts addressed the state Senate. A public prayer service was conducted a short distance from the state Supreme Court chamber, and religious-themed displays and kiosks were set up in the Capitol rotunda.

“It wasn’t planned,” said Rep. Mike Ritze, R-Broken Arrow, author of the Ten Commandments bill. “I think it’s divine, really.”

The measure authorizes installation of a 3-by-6-foot monument on the Capitol grounds that would be identical to a gran-ite monument of the Ten Commandments on the grounds of the Texas State Capitol in Austin.

Ritze, a physician, said his family will pay the estimated $10,000 cost of the project and that no state funds will be used.

“It’s privately funded,” he said.The Texas monument was the focus of a

landmark 2005 U.S. Supreme Court deci-sion that found it did not violate the First Amendment’s prohibition against establish-ing a state religion. The court said the key to whether a display is constitutional hinges on whether there is a religious purpose behind it.

The ruling was seen as validation of thou-sands of Ten Commandments displays out-side county courthouses and other public buildings around the nation if their primary purpose is to honor the nation’s legal, rather than religious, traditions and if they do not promote one religious sect over another.

R i t z e ’s m e a s u r e s a y s t h e Te n Commandments display will be placed near other monuments on the Capitol grounds and that it does not signify the state “favors any particular religion or denomination thereof over others.”

Ritze said there is historical prec-edent for erecting displays of the Ten Commandments.

“The Ten Commandments basically goes back 3,500 years,” he said. “We need to have something to remind us everyday of where we get our history and our law.”

If the monument is challenged legally, the Attorney General’s Office or the Liberty Legal Institute, a nonprofit group based in Texas that advocates religious freedoms and First Amendment rights, will defend the display, according to the bill.

Ritze said he does not know if the monu-ment will be the subject of a court challenge.

“Who knows,” he said. “I understand their concern about it being unconstitutional.” But the Supreme Court already has ruled on the issue, he said.

HOUSE PASSES TEN COMMANDMENTS BILL

Friday, May 8, 2009 3

NATION BRIEFS

ANALYSIS: SLOW RECOVERY NO HELP FOR OBAMA’S PLANS

WASHINGTON — Barack Obama’s budget, unveiled with fanfare on Thursday, fails to deal with his biggest money problems.

A molasses-slow economic recovery will make it hard to find the huge sums he’ll need to reach his biggest goals — fi x-ing health care, confronting climate change and overhauling the tax system — without much deeper cuts than he’s proposing in other programs.

GM DRAWS CLOSER TO BANK-RUPTCY IN FIRST QUARTER

DETROIT — General Motors drew closer to bankruptcy Thursday, acknowledging that its revenue fell by nearly half as car buyers worldwide steered away from showrooms for fear that the auto giant would not be around to honor its warranties.

The company lost $6 billion in the fi rst three months of the year. The results were bad enough to bring a warning from Chief Financial Offi cer Ray Young, who acknowl-edged the difficulty of climbing out of a steep decline even if the company cuts costs. —AP

If you are unfamiliar with tallbikes, I’ll give you a brief overview. Take two (or more) bike frames, weld one on top of the other, and run an extra long chain from the sprocket of the top one to the hub of the bottom one.

They’re great for a high-elevation ride to class or the occasional joust. If you see a tallbike on campus (includ-ing mine), it’s likely the work of my friend Sam Martin.

Riding a tallbike on cam-pus provides several advan-tages over the traditional plebeian walking or recum-bent cycling.

Of course, the air is better up there. Bemused pedestrians are more likely to get out of your way, and you’re sure to win the admiration of children.

Tallbikes are also great for killing conversa-tions. The dialogue ends as the participants

stop to gaze wide-eyed at the tacked-togeth-er bike frames.

I’m sure however they resume the talk, it will never be the same as it was. I wonder how many conversations have been the ca-sualty of my tallbike.

Despite the benefits, I guess the in-creased risk of a fatal crash is enough to deter most from engaging in this form of transportation.

Nonetheless, a tallbike grants its rider a type of extrasensory perception, permitting snap judgments of another’s character and psychological assessment of the humanity passing by.

The physical and vocal reactions of the people five feet below reveal the most basic part of their being. Caught off guard, they re-veal themselves without the usual pretenses and social inhibitions.

A typical reaction I get is “I love your bike” and other similar compliments.

Clearly these good-natured individuals

are only on campus to take a break between being a Big Brother and working at the food shelter.

We need more of these well-intentioned people around, and I do my best to emulate them.

Another reaction I get is the disdainful “why would you do that?” or “what’s the point?”

With these snarky comments, I can only gather that these people are utilitar-ians who see no usefulness in any activity outside the most strictly pragmatic. These social Darwinists are what’s wrong with America: They’re heartless and devoid of any creativity.

Even less reputable characters get outright offensive. They’ll encourage their “broseph” to do physical harm to me. Some even make threatening gestures.

While their purpose is to intimidate me, they are more likely to receive a kick to their conveniently placed heads if they are ever

brave enough to make good on their threats.These tough guys are clearly covering up

for their own personal insecurity. They take the mere presence of such a fantastic piece of amateur engineering as an affront to their own egos.

The benefit of all of this is that I know just who to avoid whenever I dismount. I also know who is a potential friend.

Instead of the usual slow and cumber-some process of talking to and actually get-ting to know someone, I can make decisions about a person’s personality in the few sec-onds we are near each other.

If you’re not into tallbiking but you still want some of the perks, just choose any other activity that grabs people’s attention, prefer-ably one that increases your elevation—per-haps walking on stilts to class or welding a car on top of another.

Tallcars anyone?

Joshua Wadlin is an entrepreneurship senior.

I believe the word “should” must be ex-communicated from all dictionaries. It’s the devil in language form.

I don’t despise the word itself, because those letters arranged in this particular order did nothing to hurt me.

But the meaning we’ve projected onto this seman-tic construction, I detest.

In fact, I feel sorry for the word itself; it got a bad rap.

It could just as easily mean something cool like snorkeling or soda pop,

but no. I’ve come to conjecture that the word “should” fuels the contemporary American Dream.

We’re a land of guilt. Like the Little Engine that Could (“Should Should Should Should Should Should Should,”), it just trucks along, goes to work, takes coffee breaks, goes back to work. All because it should.

Think about how many times a day you say or hear that word, and what effect it takes on your thoughts and actions.

Who’s telling you that you should?

Why?I want to know where this whole notion

came from — I should do this, or that.I think it goes back to institutionalized

religion.But, at the end of a school year, when ev-

eryone should be studying, that point would be useless to make.

It’s amazing how a simple change in your diction can affect your mood, especially dur-ing stressful times like finals week.

I’ve been trying to replace should phrases with possibility phrases.

For example, instead of “I should be doing this,” I say, “I could do this or that.”

It just makes life a little sunnier and hopeful.

At this period for many graduates, this could be key to emotional survival. You should not do anything. You can do some-thing, whether it’s this, that or anything between.

So, you could try putting should on your bad word list for a trial run for the last week of school.

I’m not saying you should, but you could.

Lindsey Allgood is a professional writing senior.

Ray Martin, opinion editordailyopinion@ou.edu • phone: 325-7630 • fax: 325-6051

COMMENTS OF THE DAY »In response to a Thursday news story about a measure that could make classes more dif-ficult to cancel.

YOU CAN COMMENT ATOUDAILY.COM

“First, not all students have computers, so making the classes online would not be fully effective. Secondly, scheduling make-up classes is ridiculous. Finding a time where even the majority of the class could make up would be impossible. Most professors are able to cram sufficiently in the next actual class period to

make up for the lost classes. I don’t see the need to change in this situation.”

- DELAYED

4 Friday, May 8, 2009

Meredith Simons Editor-in-ChiefNijim Dabbour Managing EditorJamie Hughes Assistant Managing EditorMack Burke Night EditorRay Martin Opinion EditorZach Butler Photo Editor

Dane Beavers Senior Online EditorWhitney Bryen Multimedia EditorSteven Jones Sports EditorLuke Atkinson Life & Arts EditorJudy Gibbs Robinson Editorial AdviserR.T. Conwell Advertising Manager

The Oklahoma Daily is a public forum and OU’s independent student voice.The opinion page is produced by a staff of columnists and cartoonists who are independent of The Daily’s news staff. Letters to the editor are welcomed. Letters should concentrate on issues, not personalities, and should be fewer than 250 words, typed and signed. Letters may be cut to fit. Students must list their major and classification. OU staff and faculty must list their title. All letters must include a daytime phone number. Submit letters to dailyopinion@ou.edu or in person Sunday through Thursday in 160 Copeland Hall.

Guest columns are encouraged. They can be submitted to the opinion editor via e-mail at dailyopinion@ou.edu. Comments left on OUDaily.com may be reprinted on the opinion page.’Our View’ is the opinion of majority of the members of The Oklahoma Daily’s editorial board.Editorial Board members are The Daily’s editorial staff. The board meets Sunday through Thursday in 160 Copeland Hall. Columnists’ and cartoonists’ work is representative of their own opinions, not those of the members of The Daily’s Editorial Board.160 Copeland Hall, 860 Van Vleet Oval

Norman, OK 73019-0270 phone:405-325-3666

e-mail:dailynews@ou.edu

contact us

OUR VIEW STAFF CARTOON

STAFF COLUMN

STAFF COLUMN

JOSHUAWADLIN

LINDSEYALLGOOD

The swine flu hysteria has reached Cleveland County – The Daily reported two cases here on Thursday.

We d o n ’ t t h i n k t h i s should cause administra-tors to make silly rules for-bidding hand shakes, and we certainly don’t think it should cause them to cancel commencement.

Oklahoma State University announced the former rule for its commencement cer-emonies. If we were un-fortunate enough to live in Stillwater, maybe it would make sense for administra-tors to do the same. But we aren’t, and OU shouldn’t fall victim to the same para-noia that has afflicted the Cowboys. If the administra-tion is concerned, it should hire workers or recruit vol-unteers to hand out hand sanitizer as students enter the ceremonies. Disinfectant hand wipes would do the trick, too.

So far, every case of swine flu in the Sooner State has

been kept at bay. People who have contracted the virus have stayed at home and re-covered on their own. And only two cases in the U.S. have resulted in fatalities. One of those was a young child who had the disease when he came here from Mexico.

Those numbers don’t warrant orders that forbid students from touching each other at the ceremony they’ve anticipated for four years or more.

We don’t necessarily want students who have flu-like symptoms to show up, cough all over everyone, shake hands and spread their virus to the entire graduating class. These people should use discernment in how they conduct themselves.

But so should the admin-istration. It shouldn’t deprive students of the most impor-tant event of the semester because of a virus that’s in-fected four out of three mil-lion Oklahomans.

Remove ‘should’ from vocabulary

Refl ections from the top of the bike

Don’t let swine fl ukill commencement

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

CAC OMISSION UNFORTUNATEI want to congratulate and thank Mr.

Jared Rader for a very thorough and well-written article about CIA Veteran Michael Scheuer that appeared on the front page of The Oklahoma Daily on May 4, 2009.

The article went into great de-tail on Scheuer’s comments and his background.

However, I was very disheartened to find absolutely no mention of either CAC (Campus Activities Council) or Speakers Bureau.

The article makes it appear that Scheuer’s visit to campus simply hap-pened automatically; this was certainly not the case. CAC Speakers Bureau was the organization that brought Scheuer to campus and planned the entirety of the event.

I hate to sound bitter over such an omission, but the members of Speakers Bureau worked extremely hard to make this event happen, and are deserv-ing of at least a mention - particularly when the article went into such detail describing Scheuer’s viewpoints and lecture.

Without CAC Speakers Bureau, there

would not have been an event about which to write.

The omission of CAC Speakers Bureau seems even more glaring given that the other prominent article on that day’s front page.

The article discussed a weekend educational conference, and duly cred-ited the Oklahoma Educational Studies Education as the force behind the conference.

It would be unfair to accuse Speakers Bureau of not publicizing its connection to the event, as every publicity method we employed (including a press release sent in advance to The Oklahoma Daily) mentioned our organization.

An earlier “Campus Brief ” about this event in the paper credited our organization.

However, for some reason, the article contained no such thing.

Speakers Bureau is very glad that our event was so well received, but we are a little dismayed that our own univer-sity newspaper did not think it fitting to give due credit to the organization that made the entire event happen.

Matthew Cox, Speakers Bureau incoming

chairman

A.J. Stafford - Psychology junior

Steven Jones, sports editordailysports@ou.edu • phone: 325-7630 • fax: 325-6051

Friday, May 8, 2009 5

SOFTBALL

SOONERS READY FOR BIG 12 TOURNAMENTAARON COLENThe Oklahoma Daily

The 10th ranked softball team already has claimed the regular season Big 12 title. Now the team is preparing for the postsea-son tournament this weekend in Oklahoma City.

The Sooners (38-13, 14-4) are winners of their last seven games, six of those being Big 12 contests. Their last loss was a 4-2 defeat on April 11 against the Kansas Jayhawks in Lawrence, Ks.

OU could potentially face the Jayhawks in the Sooners’ first game of the tournament, as they await the winner of Friday’s game between Iowa State and Kansas.

OU swept Iowa State in a two-game series in late March, outscoring the Cyclones 20-7 in the series, which was played in Norman.

Senior first baseman Samantha Ricketts said the team has some preferences for their weekend opponents.

“In the first game maybe Kansas but we’ll take either one because Iowa State has been playing really well too,” Ricketts said. “And we definitely want Texas in the second game. We have a little grudge there.”

For Ricketts and senior pitcher D.J. Mathis, this postseason marks their last chance to make it to the College World Series and make a run at a national championship.

“It’s all or nothing, being a senior, and as close as we’ve come to the World Series we have the mindset this year of ‘we’re getting in no matter what.’” Mathis said.

Mathis said she is feeling fine heading into the postseason after pitching several complete games recently.

Head Coach Patty Gasso said for Mathis it has been her mental toughness that has kept her going this season.

“It’s up and down; one day she will be

feeling fine then the next she might not even be able to lift her arm,” Gasso said. “But she is really taking mind over matter right now.”

Gasso emphasized that the freshmen pitchers would have to step up and support Mathis this postseason.

“This is their learning year, and that shows in some of their numbers,” Gasso said. “But there are signs of greatness as well as signs of not-so-greatness. We’re defi-nitely going to need them.”

Ricketts believes the success of the pitch-ing staff recently has taken a lot of pressure off the hitters, and allowed them to perform better.

“It just gives you a lot of confidence to know that you don’t have to score eight runs to win a game,” Ricketts said. “It’s also a lot more fun to be out there playing behind a pitcher who is pitching the way they know how, so the atmosphere is more relaxing.”

The Sooners will be facing the pressure of being the top seed in a single-elimination tournament where bad game could send them home early.

Ricketts said the team has to be careful not to come out flat.

“It’s something you have to watch out for. It happened last year with us coming out and losing that first game,” Ricketts said. “It’s up to us to keep going hard in practice to get ready.”

Gasso said the team has to keep its mo-mentum from the current winning streak if they want to succeed in Oklahoma City.

“I think what we reiterate the most is get-ting that rhythm back,” Gasso said. “We took our time off and now it’s back to work.”

OU will play its first game at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at the ASA Hall of Fame Stadium in Oklahoma City. Should the Sooners win, they will play again at 7:30 p.m. that same day.

MERRILL JONES/THE DAILY

Senior pitcher D.J. Mathis prepares to release a pitch against Texas A&M April 19 in Norman. The Sooners won the game, 3-1. The Sooners won the Big 12 regular season title, and will compete this weekend in the Big 12 tournament in Oklahoma City.

SPORTS BRIEFS

FLORES A FINALIST FOR POYJunior second baseman Amber Flores has

been named one of ten fi nalists for softball’s national player of the year award.

Flores tops the team in batting average at .417. She also boasts 53 RBIs and 55 runs scored in the season.

Flores has drawn 44 walks and been hit by 17 pitches this season and her on-base percentage is .595.

Flores’ slugging percent-age is sitting at .864 on the year.

Flores is the only Big 12 player to be named a fi nalist. Five different con-ferences are represented on the list.

DYE IN 30TH PLACE AFTER DAY ONE OF REGIONAL COMPETITION

Senior golfer Kendall Dye shot a fi rst round 76 (+4) at the NCAA Central Regional tournament in Columbus, Ohio Thursday afternoon.

The score was good for 30th place in the contest. However, she is three strokes out of the top ten and just one stroke from being in the top 25.

During Dye’s round, she had back-to-back birdies and was one-under-par after four holes and was at even par after ten.

— Daily Staff

AMBER FLORES

KENDALLDYE

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Previous Answers

2 87 3 1

5 1 9 72 3 8

8 75 4 9

2 6 5 15 8 4

3 9Instructions:Fill in the grid so that every row, every column and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 through 9. That means that no number is repeated in any row, column or box.

Previous Solution

Monday- Very EasyTuesday-EasyWednesday- EasyThursday- MediumFriday - Hard

8 7 2 6 9 4 3 1 51 9 4 5 8 3 6 7 25 6 3 2 7 1 9 4 89 8 6 7 5 2 1 3 47 3 1 4 6 8 2 5 92 4 5 3 1 9 8 6 74 2 9 1 3 5 7 8 63 5 7 8 2 6 4 9 16 1 8 9 4 7 5 2 3

Friday, May 8, 2009

TAURUS (April 20-May 20) -- Try to keep your ego out of the picture if a less-than-clever friend has something good going for him or her. You’ll look bad trying to take the spotlight off your pal

GEMINI (May 21-June 20) -- Should you fi nd yourself involved in something rather frustrating, it will be better to walk away until you pull yourself together. If not, you could lose all that you’re trying to accomplish.

CANCER (June 21-July 22) -- Although you are usually self-confi dent about who you are and what you can do, you can still be intimidated by anyone you deem to be greater than you. You’re especially vulner-able at this time.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) -- Endowing others with qualities they don’t have or abilities they don’t possess gives them power over you. Don’t expect to make any intelligent moves when you’re in that frame of mind.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) -- Keep in mind that even if the boss isn’t always right, he or she is still in charge. Being unduly resentful of the direc-tives from this individual will only harm you and your work, not undermine him or her.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23) -- If you are driven by purely material motivation, you might get what you want. However, you’re likely to ask yourself if it was worth it. Don’t do anything you are not proud to have your name on.

SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 22) -- Because you might be a bit headstrong, avoid people who are extremely forceful and assertive. Should two willful powers clash, what transpires will not be a pretty scene.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 23-Dec. 21) -- If you’ve hired someone to do a complicated job, it might be wise to keep a close eye on the work. There’s a chance this person’s interpretation of what you want is not the same as yours.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) -- Don’t be so stupid as to get drawn into a sticky situation that’s taking place between two friends. It won’t matter who is right or wrong; you’ll be in trouble regardless of whose side you take.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) -- Your attainments will be governed by the price you’re willing to pay for success in your endeavors. However, even if you give maximum effort to your projects, the cost might be too steep.

PISCES (Feb. 20-March 20) -- No matter how tempted you are, don’t make impulsive revisions in long-standing plans. Impromptu thinking isn’t likely to hold a candle to that which you’ve thoroughly thought through.

ARIES (March 21-April 19) -- Having faith in yourself to achieve what you want is es-sential. Unless you shake off the butterfl ies in your stomach, this could turn out to be a wasted day.

HOROSCOPE By Bernice Bede Osol

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Friday, May 8, 2009 7

FRIDAY FACE-OFF

Who has the best shot at a title next season?FOOTBALLMEN’S GYMNASTICS

I s this even debatable? Every ounce of my body is leaning toward

football on this topic. OU has a great over-

all athletic program with many dominant teams.

Obviously, the basket-ball teams — both men’s and women’s — were competitors for the na-tional championship this year. But after losing Blake Griffin and the Paris sisters, respectively, it seems like a long shot for either to chal-lenge for the gold.

The baseball team is a top-20 team but is not ex-actly considered a heavy favorite to win the big game. Softball, however, may have the talent to do so, but still is incomparable to the football chances.

And of course, you can’t forget the always dominant gymnastic squads.

However, football will be the most dominant of the campus athletics this upcoming season.

They have arguably the top team in the na-tion with t a l e n t from top to bottom. S o m e a na l y s t s h av e a l -r e a d y g o n e a s far to say that quar-

terback Sam Bradford and defensive tackle Gerald

McCoy are the country’s best players on offense and defense, respectively.

After a somewhat difficult non-conference schedule, they start a Big 12 slate that includes the only team that can really challenge OU this season: Texas. It’s arguably the two best teams in the nation on a neutral field. Win this game and it’s basi-cally clear sailing to the title game.

At Kansas, at Nebraska, a n d a t h o m e a g a i n s t Oklahoma State are OU’s

only real remaining tests.And with the big game

basically already set as Florida versus Big 12 win-ner, OU has a clear tunnel ahead and control their destiny.

Thus, whether they lose one game to Texas or fin-ish the season undefeated, the national championship chances are looking great for the football team.

Certainly the greatest chance on this campus.MJ Casiano is a broadcast and

electronic media sophomore.

W ith OU having one of the premier athletic programs in the country, many of the school’s sports are

capable of competing for a national cham-pionship year in and year out.

The football team earned a spot in last season’s national championship game in Miami, where it was defeated by Florida. Jeff Capel’s basketball squad, which lost to North Carolina in the Elite Eight of this year’s NCAA tournament, was only two wins away from playing for a national title.

So which Sooner sports team has the best chance to win a national championship next season?

That would be the men’s gymnastics team.

For starters, we know they are capable of winning it all. They’ve done it before. And in quite convincing fashion.

Head coach Mark Will iams’ men have won five of the last eight national

championships, the most recent coming two seasons ago in 2008.

It’s become essentially a foregone conclu-sion every year that the men’s gymnastics team is going to compete for the top spot. Has anything changed to make you believe they won’t be in the same position next season?

The Sooners finished third at the national title meet two weeks ago be-hind champion Stanford and runner-up Michigan.

Sophomore Steven Legendre, widely consid-ered one of the best gym-nasts in the country, will be back for another year. In fact, many people be-lieve Legendre is as good as, and may even be better than, former Sooner Jonathan Horton, who represented the United States in last summer’s Olympics.

While the team is losing six seniors this year, its track record of national champi-onships and top-five finishes proves that Williams is bringing in new talent just as quickly as he is graduating it.

As for the football team, having made it to the national championship game this past January gives a person good reason to believe next year’s team is going to pretty successful.

But judging by the players from this year that won’t be returning next season, you have to think there is going to a bit of a drop-off.

Of course, OU will still be one of the fa-vorites to be playing in the last game in January, but the question is which team has the best chance to win the national title next year, and just getting there is not the same as winning it.

Recently, Stoops’ squads haven’t been able to do that.

The men’s gymnastics team has. Five times.

Eric Dama is a journalism sophomore.

ERIC DAMA

MJCASIANOAMY FROST/THE DAILY

Sophomore Steven Legendre chalks up the bars before he competes on the parallel bars during the meet against Texas on Jan. 31 in Norman.

ZACH BUTLER/THE DAILY

Sophomore quarterback Sam Bradford hands the ball off to sophomore running back DeMarco Murray in the team’s 45-31 win Oct. 18 in Norman.

Hazing?Not on our campus.

Report incidents at:

325-5000All calls are anonymous.

The University of Oklahoma is an Equal Opportunity Institution.

Friday, May 8, 2009

TAURUS (April 20-May 20) -- Try to keep your ego out of the picture if a less-than-clever friend has something good going for him or her. You’ll look bad trying to take the spotlight off your pal

GEMINI (May 21-June 20) -- Should you fi nd yourself involved in something rather frustrating, it will be better to walk away until you pull yourself together. If not, you could lose all that you’re trying to accomplish.

CANCER (June 21-July 22) -- Although you are usually self-confi dent about who you are and what you can do, you can still be intimidated by anyone you deem to be greater than you. You’re especially vulner-able at this time.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) -- Endowing others with qualities they don’t have or abilities they don’t possess gives them power over you. Don’t expect to make any intelligent moves when you’re in that frame of mind.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) -- Keep in mind that even if the boss isn’t always right, he or she is still in charge. Being unduly resentful of the direc-tives from this individual will only harm you and your work, not undermine him or her.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23) -- If you are driven by purely material motivation, you might get what you want. However, you’re likely to ask yourself if it was worth it. Don’t do anything you are not proud to have your name on.

SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 22) -- Because you might be a bit headstrong, avoid people who are extremely forceful and assertive. Should two willful powers clash, what transpires will not be a pretty scene.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 23-Dec. 21) -- If you’ve hired someone to do a complicated job, it might be wise to keep a close eye on the work. There’s a chance this person’s interpretation of what you want is not the same as yours.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) -- Don’t be so stupid as to get drawn into a sticky situation that’s taking place between two friends. It won’t matter who is right or wrong; you’ll be in trouble regardless of whose side you take.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) -- Your attainments will be governed by the price you’re willing to pay for success in your endeavors. However, even if you give maximum effort to your projects, the cost might be too steep.

PISCES (Feb. 20-March 20) -- No matter how tempted you are, don’t make impulsive revisions in long-standing plans. Impromptu thinking isn’t likely to hold a candle to that which you’ve thoroughly thought through.

ARIES (March 21-April 19) -- Having faith in yourself to achieve what you want is es-sential. Unless you shake off the butterfl ies in your stomach, this could turn out to be a wasted day.

HOROSCOPE By Bernice Bede Osol

Copyright 2008, Newspaper Enterprise Assn.

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I sat at The Mont one Sunday afternoon, strug-gling against the nausea to keep down a meal I just ate and a beer that I currently was drinking. The source of the acute stomach problem could be found just a table away as a group of yuppie parents, obviously upper class, just past the age of baby boomers, sat living a cliché of a biker gang. At that moment a realization hit and stopped me dead in my tracks.

Our current living status has become a disgustingly grue-some caricature of some of the most important, original and authentic times in our history. Rather than conform to bourgeois types, a majority of our gen-eration now buys thrift store clothing costing just as much, if not more than Ed Hardy or Lacoste will ever rob you for. In the past, the difference or originality in a person was measure more by their thoughts and action than their clothing.

People simply consume good movies, music, ideas and philosophies of the past and half-heartedly regurgitate them back up into something that is so bastardized that it creates a stylized state of idi-ocracy where people say, do and create things that appear original but have no meaning, and are simply original for the sake of being original.

Hippies no longer are people who stand for any-thing. They’re merely people who just really want to smoke weed and live in some mor-bid honor of the past. And, in-stead of actually organizing, grouping together, making a statement or even attempting to get anything done, they’re either too lazy, apathetic or they fall back on what they conceive is their rightful place in the history of hippidom which they’ve turned into a

cliché.Women who seek to look

eclectic come off as being either color blind or pos-sessing a closet that’s a mix-ture of mismatched clothing ensembles combined from their mother and grandma’s wardrobes.

The constant health insan-ity of our generation has bore

the fruit of jogging shorts which are paraded around in every size, shape and color on a daily basis. This makes it harder than ever to distin-guish blond A from blond B and C. Men can’t do much bet-ter. Already seem-ingly dressed for their mid-life crisis, young men assume

the uniform that can only be born from a yuppie father or a distorted mental view of what a respected college boy should appear like. Our cam-pus mirrors the fashion rival-ry portrayed in The Outsiders, to a much less epic, but more vomit inducing scale.

All one can do is either drink the images away, which could just make you part of the problem, or strive to be unaffected, unchanged, un-altered from this waste strewn across the cultural urban battleground, and hope you can either form or be part of an independent counter culture to oppose the exist-ing counter culture that has become nothing but a neces-sary required antithesis to the mainstream, and in doing so has become the mainstream itself.

And so, I sat there at The Mont, knocking back drink after drink, hoping that the alcohol would soon tune out the high-pitched laughter of leather clad housewives, when it then became com-pletely and utterly clear.

The day for the Neo-Counter Culture has arrived.Brand Rackley is a journalism

senior.

BRAND RACKLEY

Neo-counter culture is here

8 Friday, May 8, 2009

Luke Atkinson, L&A editordailyent@ou.edu • phone: 325-5189 • fax: 325-6051

LAURA PEDENThe Oklahoma Daily

Norman is making its way up to Vegas style. Who knew?

The Scott Risk Hair Studio was original-ly based in Las Vegas, Nev., but due to the state of the economy, the salon decided to relocate to Norman.

"Las Vegas is currently the most vacant city,” said salon manager Marilee Latham. “Before the economy went downhill, ev-erything was good in Las Vegas. I have family in Norman, and I decided it would be a great opportunity to move the busi-ness where the economy hasn't really hit yet."

Scott Risk Hair Studio has been in Las Vegas since 2002. The salon remained until the recent move, and it opened in Norman the day after Thanksgiving.

The salon, located on 1636 24th Avenue N.W., offers cutting services for both men and women, blow outs, hair extensions, hair treatments, hair straightening, hair color and makeup application.

The hair studio has made a number of changes from the salon in Las Vegas to the new salon in Norman.

"We have all brand new, state of the art equipment. Our blow dryers hang from the ceiling to avoid tendonitis in the hair stylists. We also have new infrared hair dryers," Latham said.

The salon features two main product lines, Milbon and B the Product. Brandon Martinez is the designer of the B the Product line. He has been in television shows like Blow Out, Salon Diaries, Split Ends, L.A. Ink and the Biggest Loser.

For those that are environmentally friendly, Scott Risk Hair Studio uses Kadus hair color, which is made in the Black Forest in Germany.

"We're green; we have the least amount of ammonia than any hair color in the world," Latham said.

The salon prices are very reasonable considering the fact that the salon has styled a number of different celebrities including the Pussycat Dolls, Paris Hilton and several Victoria Secret models.

The salon expects a clientele consisting of celebrities as well as non-celebrities in Norman.

"We have goals of styling Reba McEntire – since she is from Oklahoma – but we have a lot of University of Oklahoma students come into the salon as well," Latham said. "Not only do we have cus-tomers from around the area, we also have people coming from Dallas, Texas, Kansas and Missouri, too."

Scott Risk Hair Studio has great expec-tations for its new salon location.

"We have plans of doing a Scott Risk hair line and a Scott Risk Hair Academy,” Latham said. “We also plan on opening other salons in surrounding cities, in-cluding Dallas."

Their stylists for the new location come from all over the United States, includ-ing Georgia, Oklahoma, California and Michigan.

Not only is the Scott Risk Hair Studio here to style the Norman area, they also are here to donate.

"Scott is really into philanthropy,” Latham said. “We've donated to United

Way, YMCA, Southwest Publishers and Norman schools. We like to do a lot of giv-ing since we feel like we get back so much from the community.

When asked what she will miss most about the Las Vegas location, Latham jok-ingly answers with, "not the traffic." The salon is pleased with the decision they have made to relocate.

"With the way Vegas' economy is, we're really happy to be here. It was meant to be," she says.

Those looking for a new salon may want to stop by the new location on 24th

Avenue N.W. If one is unsure about the salon and wants to check out the atmo-sphere beforehand, there is a perfect op-portunity available.

On May 20, at 7:00 P.M., there will be a party at the salon launching Brandon Martinez's B the Product. Martinez will be at the salon along with Cane from Project Runway.

As for styling, hair cut prices range from $45-$75 for women and $35-$45 for men while hair color services range from $65-$95 for all over color and $100-$150 for highlights.

It doesn’t exactly go where no man has gone before, but the new “Star Trek” film certainly has the “boldly” part

down, resulting in a massively entertain-ing kick-off to the summer movie season. (Wolverine who?)

The cerebral quality of the original se-ries almost has wholly been jettisoned here in favor of sweeping galactic battle scenes, but it works more often than not, with director J.J. Abrams’s (TV’s “Lost”) vi-sion tending toward the extra-large scale.

“Star Trek” is both a reboot and an ori-gins story – sort of. We’re introduced to Kirk (Chris Pine, “Smokin’ Aces”) and Spock (Zachary Quinto, TV’s “Heroes”) before they join Starfleet; Kirk’s a brash Iowa farm

boy and Spock’s a Vulcan pariah, thanks to his half-human composition. We watch as they make their respective ways up the ranks, eventually ending up on the Starship Enterprise together, but this isn’t exactly the beginning of the same old “Star Trek” story.

Instead it’s a revisionist history, thanks to a plot that leans heavily on time travel elements, and actually ends up serv-ing the film rather well, although it’s hard not to be skeptical at first.

Despite the alternate universe in which the film operates, the whole gang still is around, including Dr. Leonard McCoy (Karl Urban, “Pathfinder”), Sulu (John Cho, “Harold and Kumar”), Scotty (Simon Pegg, “Hot Fuzz”) and Uhura (Zoe

Saldana, “Vantage Point.”)The crew’s mission deals with defeating a rogue Romulan

spaceship, captained by the evil Nero (Eric Bana, “Munich”), that’s hell-bent on destroying entire planets by virtue of a massive device that creates a black hole at the planet’s core.

Bana plays a flat villain at best, and despite it being central to the plot, the conflict with the Romulans is easily the film’s dullest aspect. Fortunately, there are plenty of other exciting elements, as both Kirk and Spock struggle to find their place, and often clash, and each of the crewmembers is looking to establish him- or herself.

The film gets a nostalgic shot in the arm thanks to the in-clusion of the wonderful Leonard Nimoy, playing Spock from the future, in what’s much more than an extended cameo. Fans will love seeing Nimoy don the pointy ears for the first time in almost 20 years, but his vital role in the film gives it a soul that might’ve been lost amidst Abrams’s admittedly im-pressive CG-fest elsewhere.

“Star Trek” opens up a realm of new possibilities for the franchise, with an enthusiastic cast – Pine and Quinto seem to have a good handle on the Kirk/Spock relationship and Pegg and Cho inject some very welcome humor – and a seemingly even more enthusiastic director in Abrams.

This installment ought to satisfy fans and the uninitiated alike. It’s a visual feast with a capable story, and it’s one of the most purely entertaining summer blockbusters of recent memory.Dusty Somers is a journalism junior.

DUSTYSOMERS

‘Boldly go’ to see summer blockbuster

PHOTO PROVIDED

A young Captain Kirk watches the U.S.S. Enterprise be constructed in J.J. Abram’s “Star Trek”. The film is in theaters now.

FILM REVIEW

STAFF COLUMN

« BEAM ME UP

Need to satisfy your inner Trekkie? Check out a Q&A with director J.J. Abrams online at OUDaily.com.

OUDAILY.COM

FORMER CELEB STYLISTS OPEN SHOP IN NORMAN

MERRILL JONES/THE DAILY

Scott Risk cuts a client’s hair Thursday at Scott Risk Hair Studio on 24th Avenue. Risk has designed hair for several celebrities, and recently opened up a salon in Norman.