Thursday, Sept. 4, 7:30 p.m.: Court documents filed today in Charlottesville General District Court confirmed reports that Peter Lalich, starting quarterback for the Virginia football team, has been cited for violating the terms of his probation.
Lalich was placed in a pre-conviction probation program earlier this summer after he was arrested for underage possession of alcohol. An anonymous source close to the case reported that the specific violation relates to Lalich’s refusal to take a mandatory drug test. Rich Murray, University associate athletics director for public relations, declined to comment.
Lalich’s court date is set for the morning of Sept. 26.

     Our university has been blessed (or cursed) these last two days with an evangelical who has delivered fire and brimstone sermons condemning the majority of our student population for fornication, homosexuality or any religious belief that varies from his own. Obviously this man hasn’t made much traction among students who have heard him, but the response of most of the students who stopped to listen to him has me very disappointed in our University.
     Students responded by yelling at him, attempting to drown him out by screaming obscenities and “99 bottles of beer on the wall,” and even pantomiming acts of violence towards him. Is that the level of debate that we’ve learned here? Could no one quote (or even paraphrase) some natural philosophers to him, or make any logical counter-argument? Obviously no argument can sway a fanatic, but the point of counter-argument would have been to sway a third party. In the real world our ideas will be competing against other ideas that, like the ones we’ve seen these last two days, are intolerant, illogical and dangerous.
     Studying in college should equip students to be able to counter these arguments and prevail in the open market of ideas that defines America. Anger and yelling will not make the cut, as the proselytizer’s poor performance at our University has proven. So to those students who yelled and jeered without logic let me ask, is that the best you’ve got?

Matthew Cancian
CLAS IV

The Cavalier Daily first examined subprime loans and the credit crunch as a whole March 13, 2008. Only three days later, venerable investment bank Bear Stearns became the first major victim of the crisis. In the months following, though, the S&P 500 Index — a major benchmark of the broader economy’s performance — jumped over 150 points to close at 1426.6 May 19, indicating a good amount of optimism. From then until now, though, the index has fallen more than 10 percent. But the drop hasn’t been a steady one — from July 15 to 23, the market rebounded more than 4 percent, with the vast majority of that occurring in just two days. Simply put, investors just don’t know how long this downturn will last or what will come next.
The trouble all started when low interest rates allowed for easy borrowing, which artificially propped up home prices and spending. Various financial institutions flourished as they assembled mortgages into products so complex that no one realized the tremendous risk within. Homes served as the collateral behind many of the securities, so if the housing bubble were to burst, the prices of the securities would plummet.
Whether the lenders and banks knew they were acting dangerously is up for debate — New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is currently investigating potential fraud committed by several brokers in a niche security market. Either way, home prices did fall, the securities lost their value and lenders ended up too scared to lend lest they make the same mistake again.
Borrowed money is what funds investment by businesses. So, when that source of funds dries up, business slows, workers get laid off and overall, people’s confidence in the economy decreases. Financial services companies — banks in particular — especially depend on cheap borrowed money that they can then lend out at higher interest rates. Regional banks — small-town savings and loan institutions that concentrate in a specific area of the country — have been hit especially hard after lending to fund previously overvalued construction projects.
“The credit crunch has morphed into a banking crisis,” Commerce Prof. Robert Webb said. That is, worry has condensed from a broad feeling of despair about the lending environment to one more concentrated on a series of Depression-style bank failures. The public got a taste of that in the middle of July when California-based IndyMac Bank failed and was seized by the federal government. Luckily, institutions like the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation were devised after the Great Depression to protect deposits and to ensure there would never be a repeat. Nevertheless, fear remains about how much stress the system can sustain should too many banks throw in the towel.
Recent sharp downturns in the equity values of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have further depressed confidence. These two government-sponsored enterprises essentially guarantee or own half of all mortgages in the U.S. market, serving as middle-men to ensure the market operates smoothly. But, with all the turmoil surrounding mortgage lending during the past year, investors have fled from the two companies. Since the beginning of this year, Fannie Mae’s stock price has fallen almost 83 percent to a mere $6.84 as of August 29’s close.  Freddie Mac trades at $4.64, down nearly 87 percent for the year. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson has been debating whether government intervention would be a feasible solution. While a government backing of the struggling mortgage giants would stabilize markets, it would mark a government intervention into the economy of unprecedented scale and scope.
Aside from the financial sector, though, the biggest fear is that the banking crisis could make the jump “from Wall Street to Main Street” ­— as is so often stated — to start a full-blown recession. After a slight contraction in the last quarter of 2007, gross domestic product grew just less than 1 percent in the first quarter of this year. In the second quarter, the growth rate jumped to 3.3 percent, making it tough to argue that the economy is mired in a recession. A popular rule of thumb says a recession occurs when GDP growth is negative for two consecutive quarters, which has not happened yet in this downturn.
“There are signs that the crisis is not over, but so far the evidence is that we’re not in a recession yet,” Webb said.
The official definition of a recession, though, is much less definitive. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, a recession is characterized by “a significant decline in activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, visible in industrial production, employment, real income, and wholesale-retail trade.”
The Federal Reserve published the Beige Book — a summary of economic conditions — yesterday. According to the report, “the pace of economic activity has been slow in most districts. Many described business conditions as ‘weak,’ ‘soft,’ or ‘subdued.’”
There has been no recession declaration as of yet, but as Commerce Prof. Richard De Mong pointed out, “NBER often tells us that we are in a recession after we have come out of that recession.” As for now, he added, “I cannot give a precise answer as to whether we are, or are not, in a recession.”
The signs remain mixed. Wildly inflated oil prices have hurt both the consumer, who now has less money to spend on things other than gas, and business, which has to spend millions more to fuel trucks and factories. However, home-improvement retailers Lowe’s and Home Depot — companies at the intersection of the housing and retail markets — posted better than expected results earlier this month. While sales and profits decreased at both companies, the results beat expectations and could indicate that troubles are beginning to fade.
Overall, though, no one is ready to make a call one way or the other.
“The outlook certainly remains cloudy,” Webb noted.
Though this downturn has lasted much longer than originally expected, it remains to be seen how much farther — and lower — it can go.
David Victor-Smith is the president of the McIntire Investment Institute, a student-run equity fund.

The Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival begins Sept. 7 — with a concert featuring a violin and an amplified cardboard tube in Old Cabell Hall. Over the course of the next two weeks the festival will offer concerts featuring chamber music by such distinguished composers such as Beethoven, Mozart and Brahms as well as arrangements by modern composers such as pianist Eric Moe.  
The festival got its start about nine years ago, and in its beginnings, it used the Jefferson Theater downtown. While the Jefferson is being renovated, the University has been lucky enough to act as host, giving students a more intimate opportunity to experience its music. Directors Tim Summers (violin/viola) and Rafe Bell (cello), who have been to a variety of music festivals, thought there was a vacuum to fill in Charlottesville’s music scene. With the Chamber Music Festival, Summers and Bell hope to add another dimension to the diversity of Charlottesville music.
Though Charlottesville is not the booming metropolis many of the festival’s performers have played in, it provides a friendly atmosphere uniquely suited to the intimacy of chamber music, which often features small, informal groups playing music to entertain themselves as much their audiences.
“It is as at least as much fun to rehearse as to perform.” Summers said. “To have friends come to Charlottesville, where we could spend time making music in a beautiful and comfortable place, and in the end performing for an audience amongst whom we could find many friends, seemed very attractive.”
The core group of performers for the festival mostly consists of friends Bell and Summers have made over the years through their involvement in various music ensembles. The highest concentrations of musicians come from the Mahler Chamber Orchestra — in which both Bell and Summers play — and Juilliard.  
Many of these performers and contributors are coming from Europe, but it is the very American idea of improvisation, born of jazz, that influences much of the modern contributions to this year’s festival. Summers, in his construction of the program, put a lot of thought into this idea of improvisation as a way to provide a better understanding of classical music. The amplified cardboard tube ­— conceived by percussionist and festival performer David Cossin — played with the violin, is the epitome of this concept of improvisation in classical music. “I thought that using violin/cardboard tube in a free way would make a good sort of invocation for listening.” Summers said.  
Summers has also gleaned inspiration from former festival performers — friend and violinist Stephen Nachmanovitch and Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto. Kuusisto’s style was especially inspirational for this performance, Summers said. He described Kuusisto’s style as “Finnish jazz-folk-whatever,” which is a description that seems to be particularly appropriate to the theme of improvisation in this year’s festival. Summers’ concept for this concert will balance these improvisations with classical chamber music pieces composed by the greats.
During these few weeks in September, Old Cabell Hall will play host to a collection of concerts that promise to be a pleasure to all attendees, no matter their musical background. The festival will be an appropriate mix of intelligent improvisation and beautiful classics, played in the unique environment that is Cabell Hall. The concept of chamber music as music for friends, by friends, will make its home in Charlottesville to be enjoyed by students of the University and members of the community alike.
The Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival runs Sunday, Sept 7 through Sunday, Sept 21 in Old Cabell Hall.

It’s an insane concept. Nine people on stage at one time play incredibly heavy music. Those who aren’t playing instruments wrestle/fight/mosh onstage, creating an atmosphere that’s purely chaotic. The lead vocalist spews lyrics of anger, begging the crowd to get on his level. Is this blasphemy? Is this madness? Nope, this is Slipknot.
The nine-piece heavy metal band from Iowa released their new album, All Hope is Gone, Aug. 20. Their previous three albums, along with their unforgettable live performances, have put Slipknot on the top of the hard rock universe.
Slipknot is anything but your normal heavy metal band. For one, there are nine people in the group, each member wearing a mask that is washed just once or twice through two years of touring. They also like to refer to themselves by number. For example, the band refers to Corey Taylor, the lead vocalist, as No. 8. As if the band members weren’t crazy enough, Slipknot also has one of the more rabid fanbases in rock, dubbed “The Maggots.” Personally, I thing it’s a lot better than calling people “Parrot Heads,” but that’s just me.
All Hope is Gone begins with the hard-hitting thrash anthem “Gematria (The Killing Name)”. In this track, and throughout the album, the percussion section of Slipknot gets to show off its chops. Their primary drummer, Joey Jordison (No. 1), along with percussionists Shawn “Clown” Crahan (No. 6) and Chris Fehn (No. 3), provide dizzyingly heavy thunder that fits the band like a glove. “Gematria” is a declaration of the band’s goal: to take over the world of heavy metal. Taylor screams in the song, “The time of the nine has come / Get out of the way or you will suffer as one.” It’s hard to be clearer than that.
All Hope is Gone contains many noticeable instances in which Taylor introduces melodic singing between his usual gutteral growlings. The mixture works on some songs better than others. The album’s second single, “Psychosocial,” has Taylor proclaiming in the chorus that “the rain will kill us all,” reminiscent of Travis Bickle in the Martin Scorcese film Taxi Driver.
The song “Snuff” is a stand out track on the album. Not only does the track feature all melodic singing, it doesn’t sound like anything Slipknot has done before. While I don’t want to say Slipknot is going mainstream, I will say some songs have become more accessible to listeners other than The Maggots.
While the growling/melodic singing mixture works in many spots on the album, it doesn’t work on all of them, especially “Gehenna.” In the chorus, Taylor tries to hit a note that he just can’t hit — it’s out of his range, but he tries anyway. It’s painful to listen to, sort of like a kid learning to play the intro to “Stairway to Heaven” on guitar.
Following the trend that began on their last album, Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses), the new album features many guitar solos by talented axe-men Jim Root (No. 4) and Mick Thomson (No. 7). Songs like “Psychosocial”, “Dead Memories” and “Butcher’s Hook” show the shredding skills of Slipknot’s guitar corps.
For all of the metal heads, rockers and maggots out there who love something to bang their head to and sing along with, All Hope is Gone will be right up your alley.

Sufjan Stevens writes score to Natalie Portman short
The maestro behind such state-themed chamber pop classics as 2003’s Michigan and 2005’s Illinois is currently slated to write musical accompaniment to an upcoming short directed by Natalie Portman. The film, called Eve, is a 22-minute affair starring Lauren Bacall and Ben Gazzara. Portman, an admitted fan of Sufjan’s work, said she contacted him directly for help (apparently, Portman was very pleased with the outcome). According to Stevens’ label Ashmatic Kitty, the soundtrack will consist of several brief piano instrumentals. There is still no news as to Stevens’ next full-length.
—by ethan hamlin

Frankenstein haunts Rotunda
Attention all ghosts, ghouls and horror movie buffs! As part of an ongoing exhibit running through October, the Rotunda Dome Room is home to a collection of Frankenstein memorabilia. Brought to U.Va. by former University student Shannon Gorman, the exhibit contains various images and objects that mark popular culture’s reactions to Mary Shelley’s classic tale. From movie posters to comic books, Frankenstein masks to breakfast cereal, the exhibit — titled “The Monster Among Us: ‘Frankenstein’ from Mary Shelley to Mel Brooks” — is sure to provide even the most monster-obsessed fan a visual treat.
—by stephanie garcia

Dark Knight still breaking records…
As the most viewed film of the summer, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight has offically hit the $500 million mark, putting it $100 million behind Titanic, the most successful film of all time (without inflation, of course). Not only hailed as a potential Oscar-winner, Dark Knight has held movie-goers’ attention since its July release. With the appeal of Heath Ledger’s epic performance, Christian Bale in a tights, and the fast-paced action scenes, Dark Knight has claimed the top of the box office. While technically, with inflation, Gone With the Wind is the greatest money-maker of all time, a second-place spot for Dark Knight is a sure sign of success.
—by stephanie garcia

The release of Intimacy, Bloc Party’s latest studio effort, may lack the hype that surrounded the band’s first two albums, but the fans are still anticipating the raw energy and tight songwriting that has set Bloc Party apart from their English indie peers during the last half decade. Unfortunately, this time the fans will be disappointed.
Intimacy’s “One Month Off” might fill the catchiness quota for a lesser band, but compared to “Helicopter” or “This Modern Love” — two infectious highlights from the band’s debut Silent Alarm — the song feels lacking. Intimacy might be considered a success if it were judged against the pitiful standards of most modern rock, but compared to Bloc Party’s previous accomplishments, it feels like an utter disappointment.
The IDM-minded might appreciate the sonic experiment of Intimacy — songs like “Zephyrus” feature dreamy synths and drum-machine loops, and the album opener “Ares” flirts with Big Beat rhythms — but to this reviewer, the band’s studio trickery feels like a crutch for weak songwriting. I’d much prefer the catchy punk-rock melodies of Silent Alarm and Weekend in the City to the tuneless repetition of tracks like “Mercury” and “Biko.”
These criticisms are not meant to overly shortchange the highlights of the new album, however. As previously mentioned, “One Month Off” is the closest Intimacy gets to “Helicopter” territory, and “Trojan Horse” isn’t too far from the mark either. Both combine punk-rock energy with compelling melodies that catch the listener’s ear. “Ion Square,” the long and moody track that closes the album, takes its somber lyrics from the e.e. cummings’ poem “I Carry Your Heart with Me,” and the eerie timbres and languid rhythms of the track seem to fit the words perfectly.
Of course, these album highlights sound even better than they should when compared to such boring numbers as “Signs” and “Better Than Heaven.” The first is all texture, resting mostly on a whispery synth line that isn’t too interesting even before it’s repeated dozens of times. “Better Than Heaven” has a little more energy, but it’s similarly repetitive and not melodically interesting enough to sustain its 4.5 minutes.
Probably in an acknowledgement of the problems the recording industry has been facing actually selling plastic discs, Bloc Party and their record label have given Intimacy a non-traditional release. They’re currently selling a digital version of the album in MP3 format on the Bloc Party official Web site, while the physical version won’t reach stores until October.
This kind of experimentation with the business model seems like a good idea. The band can offer the album to the die-hard fans now (who would be the most likely to search out an album leak before an official release) and save the traditional discs for fairweather fans and the less technologically minded folks until the fall. This kind of experimentation seems necessary and just might work.
Now compare that to the sonic experiments Bloc Party and their producers have taken on Intimacy, most of which come off as tedious attempts to veil weak songwriting. It’s a sad day when a good band shows better judgment with business strategy than music.

Any film that features a song called “Rock Me Sexy Jesus” as a key part of its plot is likely to create high expectations of non-stop hilarity. Hamlet 2 makes a lot of promises but doesn’t deliver. Despite an immensely talented cast, experienced filmmakers and a whole lot of enthusiasm, Hamlet 2 fails to live up to its potential.
Dana Marschz (Steve Coogan) is an unsuccessful drama teacher in Tucson, Ariz. who is known for directing his own adaptations of Hollywood movies. After the school board cuts his funding, Dana decides to take drastic action to save his passion and livelihood. He writes a sequel to Hamlet, which features Jesus in a starring role as well as musical numbers and a dash of time travel. Soon the production is under attack from school administrators and angry parents, and Dana and his rag-tag group of students must work together to make their dreams come true.
The majority of the film is wrapped up in Dana’s struggles at home and at work. Dana himself is an absurd Michael Scott-type who fancies himself the hero in something like Dead Poets Society. Indeed, Dana constantly references these classic inspirational teacher flicks while trying to deal with his class, the standard mix of teens from the wrong side of the tracks and sheltered white kids. The film tries to treat the well-used story line as satire, but it’s too self-conscious to make it work. The students are caricatures, and the references are a little too tongue-in-cheek.
It seems the filmmakers spent all their creative energy on the play-within-the-film, which takes up far too little screen time. After what feels like an eternity, Hamlet 2 (the play) goes up, and unlike so much of the film, it doesn’t disappoint. The play is a strange mix of Grease, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and an elaborate theme park light show. The reactions the play inspires are just as amusing. The fun of the last quarter of the film vastly outshines the rest.
Even with a plot that is only occasionally interesting, a film with such a cast should have been more entertaining. Coogan is a prolific comedy actor, who most recently starred in box-office topper Tropic Thunder. He bumbles and curses his way through the film in a way that’s more amusing than laugh-out-loud funny. Dana is vivid and pathetic and likeable enough, but he’s not terribly memorable. Among the drama students, Skylar Astin and Pheobe Strole are standouts. These former cast members of the Tony award winner Spring Awakening deftly handle the roles of teacher’s pet and perky racist, respectively. Catherine Keener plays Dana’s wife, Brie, a foul-mouthed former pot dealer, and Amy Poehler is a rabid ACLU lawyer. They are extremely talented comedic actors but they are criminally underused. How anyone can cast these women in a film and not include them in every single scene is one of life’s great mysteries.
With such a cast, Hamlet 2 should be much funnier than it actually is. The basic concept is clever but it gets muddled in half-baked parody that veers too close to those genre spoof movies for comfort. Unless you’re a huge Steve Coogan fan, you should just wait till the DVD is released and fast-forward to the “Rock Me Sexy Jesus” scene.

Despite the numerous moments of brilliance found in The Verve’s first three albums, many people still have trouble recalling any of the group’s songs other than the epic “Bittersweet Symphony.” While the anthemic single was one of the best songs of the 1990s, to reduce the band to that one bit of music would be an insult to the myriad other great songs they have created.
Punningly titled Forth, the group’s long-awaited fourth album picks up right where Urban Hymns left off 11 years ago — swirling, distorted, noisy (yet beautiful) prog rock that is unlike anything else on the radio today.
Clocking in 10 tracks at a little more than 60 minutes, the disc contains only one song shorter than 5.5 minutes. Yet even for a listener with a short attention span, the album’s first half does not drag at all, especially with the one-two punch of the first two songs. The opener, “Sit and Wonder,” is a slow build that sets the stage for the rest of the album and reaffirms why lead singer Richard Ashcroft’s drawling voice is known as one of the best in rock.
Next comes “Love is Noise,” the album’s first single and set-closer for their live shows this past summer. Despite a driving beat that makes the song as close to a dance floor anthem as The Verve will ever get, the opening line “Will those feet in modern times / Walk on soles that are made in China?” displays exactly the sort of intellectual lyrics that has made the band a favorite of musicians like Chris Martin.
“Rather Be” is another favorite that will surely be appreciated by fans of The Verve’s past albums. This is the Verve that we know and love — a spiritual, groovy throwback to the sound of the late ‘80s British music scene. The song also contains a piano bit leading up to the melody that can’t be described as anything other than just plain pretty.
Around the middle of the album, however, comes the only sequence that can feel a little slow-moving for those listeners not used to overly long songs. Of course, for bands that could be described as “progressive” or “psychedelic,” 6- or 7-minute songs are hardly excessive — think of the half-hour-long jams of Coheed and Cambria. “Judas,” the album’s fourth song, does not come to life until around the 4-minute mark, and until then the track feels a bit drowsy.
Things don’t pick up for a few tracks. Next up, the appropriately titled “Numbness” makes you feel just that — the painfully slow track is clearly the weakest of the album. “I See Houses” doesn’t do much to pull the album from its funk, either.
Finally, the longest song of the album things begin to turn around. “Noise Epic” ironically starts out a bit quiet in the beginning, but the slow jam soon turns up-tempo. Eventually, you get a dance groove that makes you want to bob your head to the driving bass line and barely audible vocals that come to a climactic end after around 8.5 minutes. This is easily the strongest track of the album, though its length would keep it from ever being a single.
The final three songs are a good way to come down from the bigness of this album. “Valium Sky,” the eighth track, is a mere 4.5 minutes. The final song, “Appalachian Springs,” is upbeat and hopeful, which seems to be the theme of the album — that the group can rebound from their tumultuous past (including two breakups) stronger than ever.
With such a long break since their previous record, The Verve clearly proves with Forth that they’ve still got it, to say the least. Here’s hoping that whatever personal issues the group has dealt with in the past are over and done with, and we fans will be able to hope for more music like this in the future.

On the surface, John Boorman’s 1972 flick Deliverance is a twisted, turbulent tale about four Atlanta businessmen on an unforgettable canoe trip in the backwoods of Georgia. Like several movies made during that distinct decade in American history, however, the plot is mere camouflage for a scathing social commentary — much of which still can be applied to modern American society.
Nowadays, even the closest of neighbors can be enemies. Perhaps we have differing political views, or our differing methods of lawn maintenance have strained our relationship. Maybe there was, and still is, no neighborly relationship to be found. Deliverance explores these themes of disconnection and alienation by pitting a quartet of big city power players (Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox) against their rural Georgian counterparts.
The four visitors have decided to go on a canoe trip down the Cahulawassee River as it is about to be flooded by construction on a new lake and a dam. Prior to embarkation, the group stops at a gas station, where they greet their “lower-class” neighbors with heavy disdain. Condescending remarks fly, and both parties seem to know their places perfectly well.
These two seemingly different collections of people have more in common than they even know themselves, however. One of the most pivotal aspects of Deliverance is its uncompromising examination of the similarities between men at their most raw, natural states. What drives men to do what they do when surrounded by nothing but the bare elements — when politics and the front lawn are taken out of the mix?
As it turns out, the only real crucial difference between these Atlanta businessmen and their hillbilly compadres is modernization. Compared to their counterparts — still clinging on to the backwoods life of their ancestors — the big city men are made out to look almost like bullies. It’s their own ambition that is driving the Cahulawassee River to be flooded over — the dam is needed to power new air conditioners, and the lake is going to be a fun retreat for the Southern elite.
The river’s destruction ties into another focal point of the movie — the environment. The theme of man versus nature is complex — often too complex — to effectively convey on screen, but Boorman is up to the task here. The fate of the Cahulawassee is constantly in the minds of viewers and reflected in the violent fate of the men who travel along its banks. Here is where one of our four men is famously, violently sodomized and made to “squeal like a pig.” It’s where the quartet is confronted with a psychological Rubik’s cube about what to do with a dead body — a brutal byproduct of the sodomy.
Considering the fate of the Cahulawassee and the reasons behind its destruction, the rape scene is made to reflect other issues at hand. These metropolitans are contributing to the destruction of the natural world, and, as the movie progresses, nature takes its toll on these men as well. These critiques are still relevant today — look no further than Hurricane Gustav for evidence.
There are many engaging subtexts that lurk just under the surface of Deliverance — cultural clashes among neighbors, man’s journey down trauma’s whitewater river, our struggle with nature. You, as a reader and viewer, should actively engage and check out the film firsthand. Sure, Deliverance plays with your mind — it was made in the ‘70s, for goodness sake. It forces you to look beneath the bizarre storyline and examine what Boorman is trying to tell us about American society. In between frantic news coverage about the next tropical hurricane’s whereabouts, you could be in for a revelation.