February brought the second Notre Dame Queer
Film Festival and the fourth performance of the Vagina Monologues
and plenty of talk about whether either event should take place
at a Catholic university. Bishop John D'Arcy of the Diocese of
Fort Wayne-South Bend wrote letters criticizing both. Among those
writing to The Observer, some complained that the events
promoted behaviors in conflict with Church teaching. Others defended
free expression and free academic inquiry. The atmosphere was
especially heated when the Monologues' author, Eve Ensler,
who was attending the performances at Notre Dame for the first
time, went to the South Dining Hall for a luncheon and was reportedly
met by about 15 protesters. The Monologues is an episodic
play based on the experiences of women interviewed by Ensler.
Some of their often- explicit recollections are harrowing, many
are intended to be humorous. Benefit performances take place internationally
around Valentine's Day as part of efforts to raise awareness of
issues like genital mutilation and other forms of violence against
women. The film festival screened films by gay and lesbian artists
and included two panel discussions with writers and directors.
. . . The producers of the upcoming movie version
of The DaVinci Code have hired Father Richard McBrien,
Crowley-O'Brien Professor of Theology, to consult on the script.
Tom Hanks has been signed to play the lead character, who in the
best-selling novel airs a number of provocative theories, including
that Jesus was married to Mary Magdelane and His divinity was
fabricated centuries after He lived. . . . Notre Dame
men have had the Bengal Bouts for nearly 75 years. The
women now have their own charity boxing tournament, the Baraka
Bouts. The men's boxing tournament, begun in 1931, raises money
for the Holy Cross Missions in Bangladesh. The women's tournament
debuted in fall 2004 by raising $7,172 for Holy Cross mission
schools in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. "Baraka" is Swahili
for blessing prosperity or opportunity. . . Is Rudy a
turncoat? In an e-mailed newsletter last fall, Daniel
"Rudy" Ruettiger '76, now a motivational speaker, told of visiting
with former President George H.W. Bush at Texas A&M last football
season and being on the sidelines during the second half of the
A&M home game against Colorado. He said he was asked if it
was ever this loud at Notre Dame. Rudy said, "No, not like this.
This is great." Rudy is in a business venture with Texas A&M.
. . . Former long-time history professor Sam
Shapiro, who gained notoriety by opposing U.S. policies toward
Cuba, has died at the age of 77. He taught at Notre Dame from
1964 to 1992. . . . Freshman Dan Kish from Mishawaka
died in January from complications during surgery to implant a
heart pacemaker. The 19-year-old had received a heart transplant
while in high school and was said to need another. His brother
Jeff is a senior and his brother Tim graduated in 2004. . . .
Senior Charlie Ebersol survived
a November 28 crash of a chartered plane that took the life of
his younger brother and seriously injured his father, NBC Sports
Chairman Dick Ebersol. The plane carrying the Ebersols crashed
as it attempted to take off from an airport in Colorado. The plane's
pilot and flight attendant were also killed. Charlie Ebersol suffered
injuries to his back and a burn on his arm. . . . In late
December, after the end of the semester, the pilot of
a single-engine plane made a miraculous emergency landing on Indiana
933, the busy commercial road that separates Notre Dame from Saint
Mary's. The plane, bound for White Plains, New York, was 10 minutes
out of the South Bend when its engine failed. It was too far away
to make it back to the airport. The athletic fields at Notre Dame
and the Indiana Toll Road were considered as emergency landing
areas, but they, too, were found to be too far away. At the last
instant, before the plane dropped low enough to hit buildings
and trees, the pilot made a sharp turn and guided the plane under
power lines and onto a section of 933 in heavily trafficked Roseland.
A utility pole tore off one third of one wing and a second wooden
pole ruptured the fuel tank, but the impact didn't generate any
sparks to ignite the spilling fuel. No one was injured. The plane
had an open stretch of highway on which to land because traffic
happened to be stopped at a signal at the instant the plane touched
down. . . . For the first time ever, Notre Dame
made it to first place in the all-sports Directors' Cup contest
earlier this year. The Irish were in first place after the fall
sports completed their seasons. The competition, formerly known
as the Sears Directors' Cup, is now sponsored by the National
Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics. . . . The
latest Princeton Review rankings of the Best 375
Colleges places Notre Dame 19th in the category Great Campus
Food. . . . A number of campus organizations
raised money for tsunami relief, and they raised a ton: $173,000.
It went to Catholic Relief Services. . . . The list of
Notre Dame alumni serving as presidents of colleges and
universities that appeared in the winter issue of this magazine
left out at least one name. Sister Diane Steele, SCL, '93M.A.,
'01Ph.D. She became president of the University of Saint Mary
in Leavenworth, Kansas, in 2001. . . . First came the
Undertones, the all-male a capella group that was a spinoff
of the Glee Club. The University now has a female a capella group
called Harmonia. The 16-member group, formed three years ago,
has been working on its first CD. . . . This
past semester saw the demise of another popular student
bar, the Boat Club downtown on Hill Street. The Boat Club had
long been regarded as a haven for underage drinkers, and it finally
met its doom after multiple police raids. The bar was memorialized
at the Keenan Revue by senior Matt Kinsella and sophomore Carl
Gioia in a song parody done to the tune of Don McLean's "American
Pie." The chorus went: "Bye, bye, Mr. Underage Guy/You were thinking
you'd go drinking till the morning was nigh/No more Thursday nights,
drinking bad Keystone Light/thinkin' this might be the year that
it died." . . . Former Irish running
back Reggie Brooks '99 is back at Notre Dame. Not as
a player or coach but as a computer specialist. Early last year
he began working in the Office of Information Technologies as
a configuration management specialist. He also provided commentary
on a local radio station's football post-game-show last season.
After gaining more than 1,000 yards his rookie year with the Washington
Redskins, Brooks played just three more seasons in the NFL, the
last with Tampa Bay. He says he decided to call it quits after
becoming disenchanted with the pro game, especially the business
side of it. . . . ND's Warren Golf Course, north
of campus at the corner of Juniper and Douglas roads, has been
certified as an Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary. The course is home
to 110 species of birds. Bird watchers flock to the course each
May for the Bird Open, an event held the same day at golf courses
around the country. . . . Golfweek
magazine rates the Warren course as the nation's 12th-best
collegiate golf course. No. 1 is Williams College's Taconic Golf
Club in Williamstown, Massachusetts. . . . Among the recent
changes to the retail landscape near campus, the Malabar
Indian restaurant at the intersection of Edison and Indiana 23
has become a coffee shop, and the large Spiece jeans and athletic-shoes
store at Grape and Douglas roads has been turned into a bowling
center. . . . The Turtle Creek Apartments complex
just east of campus has been sold for $11.8 million. The buyer
was Apartment Investment and Management Company, the nation's
largest owner and operator of apartment complexes. An official
of the company said AIMCO planned to spend $500,000 on improvements.
. . . After being mostly absent in recent years,
a duo of less-than-serious candidates for student body president
and vice president made it onto the ballot this year. Sophomore
Alec White and junior Erik Powers touted their Plan for a Brighter
Tomorrow, which called for increasing the wattage of every indoor
light bulb on campus.
(April 2005)
