Twenty-three years later, Gordon Gekko is back. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps stars Michael Douglas, Shia LaBeouf and Josh Brolin in the sequel to the 1987 hit, Wall Street. Obviously much has changed in the financial world since the first movie, but the plot starts where the original left off — with Gordon Gekko (Douglas) finally leaving prison in 2002.

Gekko, once the most influential man on Wall Street, was imprisoned for insider trading. Now, the world has seemed to have passed him by. His children have abandoned him, his wealth has been stripped and the world of finance has turned into a global system run by large investment banks. Although his monetary wealth is now gone, his wealth of knowledge proves to be even more valuable as he recreates his identity, reestablishes the relationship with his daughter, Winnie (Carey Mulligan) and lends a hand to his soon-to-be son-in-law, Jake Moore (LaBeouf). Moore is a young hotshot stockbroker who loses his job as a result of the financial collapse.

Trying to preserve both his relationship with Winnie and his financial stability while seeking revenge for his losses, Moore takes aim at one of the world’s wealthiest investors, Bretton James (Brolin), whom he blames for the loss of his livelihood. The movie holds true to one of the most famous lines from the original — “Greed is good” — but shows that it can come with a price. It questions whether people can ever change or be motivated by something other than the bottom line of money.

Oliver Stone directed both Wall Street films, and as in many of his projects such as W. and World Trade Center, he mixes historic and political events with his storyline. Given the state of the United States’ economy, this film couldn’t have come at a better time. All of today’s most pressing economic topics are touched upon: bank collapses, failing housing markets, Chinese investment, alternative energy — the list goes on. Even though the details shown in the film are obviously fictional, they provide entertainment that strikes a chord with the audience.

The core subject matter of the story may be timely, but Gekko proves to be timeless. From his witty, dry, egotistical one-liners, to his style of clothing and lavish lifestyle, Douglas delivers again with arguably the best character of his career. LaBeouf also takes another large step in his young acting life. Following his role in Transformers, it was clear that he had the talents to headline an action blockbuster but the question of whether he deliver in a serious dramatic role was unanswered. He answers the critics and embraces his position as the clear main character. Although Douglas starred in the original, it is LaBeouf who steals this show.

Wall Street offers everything we look for in a movie today: great acting from both young and old stars and a story relevant to current times. Buying stock can be risky in today’s economy, but Money Never Sleeps is a sure pick.

Colton Tooley, a 19-year-old mathematics major from Austin, Texas, fired several shots with an AK-47 rifle at different points around campus before fatally shooting himself in a library. Photo courtesy of the Texas Department of Public Safety.

At the University of Texas, Austin yesterday morning, a male student wearing a ski mask opened fire with an AK-47 at multiple spots across campus before he proceeded inside a UT library, where he shot and killed himself on the sixth floor.

Police officers reportedly chased the gunman while he was shooting, but “no shots were fired by any members of law enforcement, and [the police] have not identified or found any injured third-parties,” said Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo during a press conference yesterday morning.

An official with the Travis County Medical Examiner’s office confirmed yesterday afternoon that the gunman was 19-year-old Colton Tooley, a sophomore math major from Austin, Texas.

Until early yesterday afternoon, police were searching for a possible second suspect but ended the investigation around 2 p.m., concluding that the gunman acted alone.

Campus police chief Robert Dahlstrom told the Associated Press yesterday that the initial confusion about multiple suspects was a result of the gunman firing shots in multiple locations.

Tooley began firing the rifle near the Littlefield Fountain — near the site of the UT clock tower, which was the site of a deadly campus shooting in 1966 — around 8:10 a.m., according to a University of Texas press release.

In response, the 50,000-student campus was placed on lockdown yesterday until early afternoon.

At 11:20 a.m., the emergency website read, “The university is closed. The university is locked down. All organized classes for today, September 28, are cancelled. If you are off campus, stay away. If you are on campus, lock your doors and do not leave your building. Law enforcement are searching for a second suspect.”

Acevedo said students and faculty followed the necessary protocol in this emergency situation.

“The students did their part,” Acevdedo said. “They cleared the streets; they cleared the grounds in a very quick manner.”

Students continued to receive automated text messages and e-mails throughout the day from the University of Texas’s Emergency Information Center.

University of Texas President Bill Powers, posted on the school’s website at 12:06 p.m. that occupants on lockdown in University buildings should “continue to follow instructions from the UT Police regarding when [the occupants] may leave the building.”

In an e-mail on behalf of the University of Virginia, Director of Emergency Preparedness Marjorie Sidebottom stated, “Any time there is an incident such as the one at University of Texas, Austin, we look at our own systems.”

Sidebottom said the University has multiple warning systems that can rapidly deploy a variety of warning messages, including e-mails, text messages, LCD and LED displays and the Homepage emergency information.

University Police Chief Michael Gibson emphasized that the University of Texas incident demonstrates how crucial it is to “have a wide range of ways to communicate accurate information to members of the community so they can protect themselves.”

This is not the first time that the Austin campus has dealt with a shooting. Aug. 1, 1966, yhen-student Charles Whitman ascended to the observation deck of the UT clock tower located in the middle of the school’s campus before shooting on passersby on the ground. Whitman killed 16 individuals and wounded 32 others before being taken down by authorities.

The University of Virginia has not seen any incidents of such serious nature in its history. Charlottesville resident Joseph Flasinski entered Gilmer Hall April 10, 1975 with a .22 caliber pistol with two hostages, his estranged wife and a psychology department secretary. Flasinski aimed shots over a hostage’s head and out the window at a University police officer, but did not manage to cause any injuries. He later told police officers that he had intended to commit suicide.

In the wake of yesterday’s shooting incident at the University of Texas — in which a student opened fire and then killed himself — gun control is once again at the forefront of public dialogue, and results from a recent study about gun use show that Virginia could be a focal point in the ongoing debate.

The study — which was released Monday and conducted by Mayors Against Illegal Guns using data from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — reveals that in 2009, Virginia was the source of a disproportionately large percentage of firearms that were used in crimes in other states.

The data stated that there were 43,254 firearms that crossed state lines before being recovered last year, and of this total, 2,557 were from Virginia. Only two other states, Georgia and Florida, claimed higher numbers of guns used for crimes that occurred in other states. Virginia was also listed in the report as the state with the seventh-highest crime gun export rates in 2009.

In a press release Monday, MAIG stated that to “understand why some states supply more interstate crime guns, the coalition’s report examined the relationship between state gun laws designed to deter illegal firearms trafficking and a state’s export rate.”

The study has generated varied responses across Virginia’s gun control community.

Josh Horwitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, said Virginia’s gun restrictions need revision.

“The biggest gap is the gun-show loophole,” Horwitz said. “This allows people to go to gun shows and purchase firearms without required background checks or forms.”

As governor of Virginia during 1990-94, Doug Wilder instituted stricter state gun regulations. Most famously, in 1993, he passed the “one-gun-a-month” law, which limited the number of firearms that could be acquired by an individual.

A partial repeal of Wilder’s law was proposed this year because individuals who are in favor of stricter gun control “cannot prove that guns purchased at gun shows are used in crime,” said Del. Bob Marshall, R-Loudoun County. One of the cosponsor’s of the ultimately unsuccessful bill, Marshall said most of the guns used in crimes are actually stolen from people’s homes.

“The sales from gun shows are not any appreciable amount of subsequent illegal acts involving guns,” he said.

Nevertheless, the MAIG report stated that it is common for states with more lenient gun laws to be the source of the guns recovered in out-of-state crimes. The study, which examined 10 specific gun laws concerning sale, distribution and possession regulations, found that Virginia has only four of the 10 laws identified to suppress illegal gun trafficking best.

“Virginia needs to enact a comprehensive set of anti gun-trafficking laws,” Horwitz said. Bills have been introduced in the past to enact more of these laws, but the General Assembly has prevented them from passing, Horwitz said.

“It could pass in the Senate; Speaker Howell needs to show some leadership and get this through the House,” Horwitz said.

Marshall said he believes these findings will inspire new gun legislation in the state but that he is confident they will not pass.

Horwitz, however, emphasized just how urgent he believed this situation to be.

“Virginia guns are killing people at an astonishing rate in Virginia and, now we know, around the country,” Horwitz said. “And that’s just unacceptable.”

Although the rain came as a nuisance to students Monday, more precipitation is needed to replenish diminishing groundwater reserves in the Rivanna area. Photo by Toby Loewenstein.

Although students may have felt they were caught in a deluge in between classes Monday, Charlottesville is approaching drought conditions, and local farmers are feeling the effects.

In a recent press release, the Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority announced that the area has received 1 inch of total rainfall since Aug. 1, which falls well short of the 5-6 inches expected. Rivers and streams are running low and have dropped dramatically during the past month.

Environmental Sciences Prof. Robert Davis said Charlottesville had received less than .1 inches of rainfall before Sunday. The next day’s rain, in contrast, brought an addition 2.5 inches.
Nevertheless, this still does not seem to be enough. The record snowfall from last winter has helped to ensure that groundwater levels are manageable, Davis said, but groundwater reserves are becoming depleted. A long period of rainfall will be necessary to restore reserves.

National Weather Service forecaster Michael Rusnak said Lake Chesdin, the main water supply for central Virginia, was “dangerously low.” The region had to implement a mandatory water restriction for the last two weeks and emergency water restriction the past two days.

Low rainfall has greatly affected the farming community in and around Charlottesville.

“It has been challenging mostly because of the lack of water, and the heat makes it difficult to get production where it needs to be,” said Alan Moore, head of sales at the Local Food Hub, a community-supported nonprofit organization based in Charlottesville that bolsters small family farms. He added that overall crop yields are down because many crops grow slowly during times without rainwater.

If rainfall suddenly and rapidly picks up, however, some crops could actually be harmed, Moore said. For example, fruits such as apples and grapes can crack if they are suddenly exposed to heavy rainfalls after a period of dryness.

Leslie Jenkins, a farming partner at Planet Earth Diversified, said many of her crops were unable to withstand the storm last weekend because of the previous lack of precipitation. In short, the long dry spell has simply caused problems.

“This is the first year that our well has gone dry,” she said.

Tom Martin of Poindexter Farms called the dry spell “awful” and said it has had many negative effects on his crops. He reported that he was only able to produce 72 cans of blackberry jam, even though he had expected enough berries to produce 300. In addition, his neighbor’s farm lost more than half of its corn crop, he said.

In fact, a dry spell could have led to disaster for his cattle if they had not used rotational grazing, Martin said.

Davis said Monday’s heavy rainfall aided in the replenishment of the ground water reserves, but the soil will need to see slow and steady rainfall to recuperate fully.

Still, signs of hope could be on the horizon. For example, Davis said, the remnants of a tropical storm could bring several more inches of precipitation to the area tomorrow. In addition, the time of year will inevitably have an effect on weather conditions.

“We are approaching the cooler fall season, and our risk assessment modeling is clearly telling us that we have the water storage to get through the winter of 2010-11, so there are no near-term plans to seek drought restrictions,” stated Tom Frederick, executive director of the Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority, in the press release.

Members of Student Council have expressed satisfaction with the success of their water distribution system, which premiered at Saturday’s VMI football game.

Although the program was established last year, Saturday was the first home football game at which the heat index was expected to reach 90 degrees, the designated point at which the program calls for water to be distributed.

Athletic Affairs Committee Co-Chair Ben Powell reported that student volunteers handed out nearly 6,000 bottles, the cost of which Council paid to the athletic department, Council President Colin Hood said.

“We were nervous going into it because it was such a large-scale operation, but everything worked perfectly the first time,” Powell said.

Overall, students seemed pleased about the program — which was initially born out of concerns that cups of water at the stadium were too expensive — and the ready accessibility of the bottles near the student section.

That is not to say, however, that the initiative did not encounter any “hiccups,” as Powell said. He added, though, that these issues should be remedied easily in the future.

For example, as third-year College student Jennifer Tummarello noted, some students simply wiped off the stamps that were intended to indicate they had already received bottles. They then would go back to the station for another.

To address this issue, Powell said Council is considering using permanent markers to identify students better in the future.

Another issue that arose was with trash disposal, as hundreds of plastic bottles were left strewn about the hill and student section. The recycling bins, especially those near the student section, were overflowing by the end of the game, and many students resorted to laying their bottles next to the bins.

Powell said this issue is not entirely problematic because it makes it easier to pick the bottles up but he added that Council will look into getting more bins for future games. In addition, the athletic department hires contracted independent organizations to pick up the bottles within Scott Stadium after the game, Powell said.

Powell also expressed concerns about the peak in the volume of water distributed around kickoff and halftime. Because demand spiked at these times, not many bottles could cool off properly before being handed to students. But the committee is working on a system to ensure that a higher quantity of bottles can be cooled more quickly, he said.

“I thought that it went fantastic,” Director of University Relations Dan Morrison said. He said the success of the program was a positive sign not only for the athletics department but also for the individuals behind the publicity efforts.

Powell agreed overall, adding, “[It] was a tremendous success.”

Freshman forward Brian Span scored the second goal of the game for the Cavaliers Tuesday night against Longwood. Span has now scored three goals on the season and is tied for second on the team in goals scored. Photo by Scott Miles.

For the third straight Tuesday, the No. 3 Virginia men’s soccer team defeated an out-of-conference opponent 2-0 at Klöckner Stadium.

This time, Longwood was the team on the losing end of the shutout. The Lancers never built a sustained attack in their attacking third, pulling off just three shots while the Cavaliers racked up 20.

Sophomore forward Will Bates opened the scoring for Virginia during the 15th minute of play. Junior forward Brian Ownby found Bates streaking into the box with a cross from the left flank.

At halftime, Virginia was dominating possession, while the Lancers were struggling to string multiple passes together in attack. Longwood did not manage to take a single shot during the first half, even as the Cavaliers managed 14. Disappointingly for the home side, Bates’ goal early in the half would be the only scoring effort for the first 45 minutes.

“I would have felt better at halftime [if the score had been] 2-0,” coach George Gelnovatch said.

During the first minutes after halftime, Virginia endured a flurry of Longwood attacks as the visitors managed their first two shots. But the defense held, and an individual effort from freshman forward Brian Span put the Cavaliers up 2-0.

The forward made a cut from the right side of the pitch along the top of the 18-yard box before his quick left-footed shot slipped inside the lower-right corner of the goal.

“I got a good ball from [sophomore defender] Sean Murnane,” Span said. “I got the ball through the defenders and I took a shot and luckily it went in.”

Gelnovatch was please with the right attacker’s performance.

“I think there’s more to come [from Span],” he said. “He’s getting better each game, [becoming] more comfortable, and he looked great out here tonight.”

After the goal in the 60th minute, the pace of the game slowed. With an eye on Friday’s matchup against No. 2 North Carolina, Gelnovatch gradually substituted five of the starters to conclude the match.

“There’s a lot of good things about this game, the width, the passing, our crossing was really good. Another goal [and it] would have been a perfect game,” the coach said of his team’s performance.

The Cavaliers will welcome the Tar Heels at home at 7 p.m. Friday.

Last week, in these very pages, my colleague Will Van Wazer lied to you. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Will argued that college football is superior to its professional brethren. But fear not, loyal readers, for I am here to right the wrong and set the record straight — professional football is without a doubt better than college football, and I can prove it.

It all comes down to parity and playoffs: Professional football has them and college doesn’t. I know recently BCS-busters like Utah, Boise State and TCU have made headlines, but they are the exception rather than the rule. College football is monopolized to the point that several schools have attempted to bring the issue to Congress to increase parity in the sport. Since the creation of the BCS in 1998, 12 of the 13 champions have started the season ranked in the top 10 of the preseason polls. The 13th, LSU in 2003, started the year ranked at a lowly 16th position. Why bother playing the games at all if 110 out of the 120 division 1 college football teams don’t have any chance at winning the championship before the games even begin? How can anyone defend a sport that eliminates more than 90 percent of its teams before they even strap on the pads just because some coaches didn’t write their name on a poll in August?

And name me another sport that can have two national champions, like college football did in 2003 with LSU winning the BCS title and USC taking the AP Poll. No sport should let computers decide its champion and risk such a controversy. That would be as if the Saints won the Super Bowl at the end of last season but the writers at ESPN decided the Colts were more worthy and gave Indianapolis the trophy. The nation would erupt in riots and the entire national government would be at risk — or at least a lot of blogs would get fired up. Champions should be decided on the field, not by some computers.

College football can produce some great rivalry games, but for every Ohio State versus Michigan nail-biter in November, there are 10 games like week one’s Oregon-New Mexico 72-0 thriller. The first two to three weeks of every college football season see big-time programs pay little schools hundreds of thousands of dollars to come get the snot knocked out of them on national television. The minute someone can successfully convince me San Jose State has any business sharing the field with No. 1-ranked Alabama, I’ll mow Scott Stadium with my toenail clippers. I’m not arguing that college football can’t be fun or entertaining, but at some points it’s just painful to watch. Until it undergoes a serious reorganization process, there is no way it is better than pro football.

Whatever college football lacks in parity, professional football makes up for in abundance. From 2003-09, every NFL season has seen at least one team go from 5-11 or worse to make the playoffs the next season. Additionally, almost every year, at least five or so teams make the playoffs after missing it the year before — last season saw six such cases. In the NFC South alone, since the division’s creation in 2002, the team that finishes last has gone on to win the division the following year. In college football, that would be the equivalent of Vanderbilt winning the SEC this year — the Commodores are 1-2, and somehow I don’t see them knocking off Florida or Alabama anytime soon.

This parity is even possible in the pro game because the players are simply better. The NFL has 32 teams and about 1,696 players. Division 1 college football has 120 teams and upwards of 125 players on each team. That’s almost 15,000 football players, of which only 1.7 percent are drafted. If less than two out of every 100 college football players are good enough to make it to the pros, how can college football be better? Even some Heisman trophy winners — presumably the best of the best in college football — can’t hack it in the NFL. Want proof? Look all the way down the Houston Texans depth chart, and there at the bottom, if you squint your eyes, you might be able to see Matt Leinart’s name.

For the record, pro football can be very romantic in its own right. I counter your Byron Leftwich story with Emmitt Smith playing with a dislocated shoulder and leading the Cowboys to a division title against the Giants in 1993. And yes, although we do have some players like Ricky Williams who may not have their entire heart in the game, we also have guys like Ronnie Lott who had his own pinky cut off so he could keep playing. And while you’re bragging about a dinky little celebration in Harrisburg, please allow me to show the estimated 800,000 people who crammed Canal Street to watch the Saints’ Super Bowl parade last year.

Let’s be realistic: The NFL is just flat-out better. I know for sentimental purposes some people may like college football more, but it’s really an inferior game. Saturday afternoons on campus are definitely spectacles in their own right, but when it comes down to it, pro football is better where it counts: on the field and in the league offices. Professional football is better-run and produces a better product — ergo, it is simply better. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I hereby rest my case.

Of course, I reserve the right to completely change my opinion if there’s a lockout next year.

It’s nearly 5 a.m. Do you know where your kids are?

New York Jets coach Rex Ryan might not be able to answer this question with a ‘yes’ — and he might just cuss you out for asking. I am, of course, talking about the arrest of Braylon Edwards early last Tuesday morning after the wide receiver blew a .16 on a breathalyzer. After issuing an apology the next day, Edwards received a slap on the wrist from the team’s upper management by having to sit out the first quarter of last Sunday’s game against the Dolphins in Miami.

During the days following his arrest, Edwards’ biggest challenge had nothing to do with the problems your average Joe would face after a DUI and instead lied in whether he should shave his “Urban Amish” beard. In the end, he did decide to shave, thus preventing himself from showing up in Miami resembling a drunken homeless man.

At said game, Mark Sanchez hooked up with Edwards for a 67-yard touchdown during the third quarter that put New York up for good. What a great way to learn some accountability less than a week after his arrest. On top of this, Edwards did a dance in the end zone after getting flagged for excessive celebration the week before. Just another lesson he failed to learn.

Jets legend Joe Namath agrees with me, as he expressed his opinion last Thursday that the penalty was not sufficiently harsh. Although I am glad “Broadway Joe” and I are on the same page, he has had his fair share of similar problems. As a young quarterback during the early days of the Super Bowl era, Namath had a good run of partying all night and, according to teammates, would show up to the locker room with the aroma of booze still on his breath. After being pulled over numerous times, Namath was finally arrested for drunk driving in August 1983. Namath has hardly slowed down — he made headlines again in 2003 after hitting on a sideline reporter during a Sunday Night Football broadcast while allegedly intoxicated. Like many athletes of his time and ours, it is clear that Namath has not learned much about accountability that many of us without celebrity status have been forced to learn.

Before moving on, I will take the time to mention O.J. and Kobe … ‘nuff said. Although O.J. finally got what was long coming to him, these instances are provide yet more examples of how we idealize our athletic heroes to a ludicrous degree.

During the past decade, a slew of athletes immediately stand out in my mind as lawbreakers who seemingly learned little to nothing from their pasts. In fact, all of the names appearing on my list are football players — what an interesting trend. Chances are high that these are the guys who were at the top of the social food chain throughout high school and college and had many things handed to them — especially if they played for Southern California.

The most press regarding one of these incidents probably resulted from the infamous Michael Vick dog fighting operation. I respect that Vick did his time and has worked hard to reestablish himself, even with just a year-and-a-half having passed since his sentence ended. But that does not exonerate him for thinking he was above the law because he was an elite football player. There was also the shooting incident at his birthday party this past summer — though, to be fair, he was apparently not involved.

My remaining examples don’t get so much credit. For a few years, Adam “Pacman” Jones found his way into the news all the time. One week he was beating strippers, biting ankles and shooting people. The next, his car was seized during a cocaine bust. It is true that Jones was suspended by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell for the entirety of the 2007 season while he did time in prison, but he is now back to the gridiron. Although he has not appeared in headlines of late, he has showed again and again that he cannot learn his lesson. I wonder how many of us would be able to return to our day jobs with such ease after these kinds of altercations.

This brings me to a suspension with “big” implications for this year’s NFL season. We all know Ben Roethlisberger’s story, and I do not mean the motorcycle accident he endured despite not having a valid motorcycle license. I am referring not to his first, but his second, alleged sexual assault. Last March, police officials in Milledgeville, Ga., began investigating the alleged sexual assault of a 20-year-old student in a nightclub restroom. As the student claimed — while she was drunk in the hospital that night — “a boy kind of raped me.” But Big Ben hired the same lawyer who defended Ray Lewis during his murder trial, and less than a month later, it was announced that no charges would be brought. Hooray for Big Ben! His punishment will be a very small, six-game suspension — wait, scratch that, Goodell lowered it to just four games after Roethlisberger begged for forgiveness.

The most horrific of all these stories is Donté Stallworth’s manslaughter. The newly reinstated wide receiver was drunk one night in March 2009 in Florida when he struck a 59-year-old man with his car and killed him. Stallworth received a 30-day jail sentence and was suspended from the NFL for the 2009 season. Now he is back in the NFL and all is fine. You would think whoever was out tearing up Miami Beach with Stallworth that night would be scared to death about driving drunk, right? Well, then you’d be surprised to learn that he was partying with none other than Braylon Edwards.

The No. 20 Virginia men’s golf team opened its season in impressive fashion, finishing 10th at the Ping-Golfweek Fall Preview. Junior Ben Kohles led the Cavaliers with a sixth-place finish, notching his 10th top-10 finish at Virginia. Kohles finished 4-over on a course that will host the NCAA Championships next spring. Freshman Ben Rusch, who shot a 14-over, was Virginia’s second-highest finisher, landing in 38th place. The Cavaliers will now head to Tampa, Fla., for the Gary Koch Invitational, scheduled for Saturday and Sunday.

Meanwhile, the No. 11 women’s golf team experienced similar success at the Golfweek Conference Challenge, finishing first overall for the first time since March 2009, when Virginia won the LSU Golf Classic. Sophomore Brittany Altomare headed the charge, topping the leaderboard with a 4-under. Altomare shot a 2-under on the final day en route to earning medalist honors and becoming the fourth-ever Cavalier to win a tournament. Not far behind Altomare was senior Calle Nielson, who finished strong on the final day with 3-under and 4-over overall to claim eighth place and the 15th top-10 finish of her career. Sophomore Lauren Greenlief tied for 11th with a 5-over. The Cavaliers will return to action at the Tar Heel Invitational Oct. 8-9 in Chapel Hill, N.C.

—compiled by Ben Gomez