Growing up we were all pretty envious of Batman’s pretty sweet ride, and who wouldn’t be? It’s like a more ostentatious James Bond car, but with some attitude. So, let’s look at how Batman has always had a pretty sweet ride.
1. The Lincoln Futura Batmobile- This was the car Adam West and Burt Ward used in their comical crusade against their Villains in the 60s. I don’t think the dynamic duo was going anywhere quickly in this car, it is a Lincoln after all, but Holy Hotrod Batman, was it cool.
2. The Tim Burton Batmobile- Frankly, I think this thing is just awesome. It’s one of my favorite iterations I’ve seen of the batmobile. It looks like the deviant off-spring of a Ferrari and an H.R. Giger painting… Only Tim Burton.
3. 90s Cartoon Batmobile- Alright, this, in my opinion, is by far, my favorite take on Batman’s iconic ride. It has style cues taken from just about any car between the 1920s and the 1950s, but it also has the state of the art gadgets Batman needs when dealing with people like The Clown Prince of Crime. Like the series it was featured in, this thing is timeless, and downright badass!
4. The 90s Movies- While Tim Burton got Batman started in the early 90s, the movies atrophied after he jumped off the project. Batman’s ride did too. It went from looking dark, sexy, and intense to Ostentatious, and uninspired. Good thing the Bat kept this thing parked.
5. The Tumbler- Now, I know the new Batman series (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight) is meant to be realistic, but I don’t see a Batmobile. It’s more like a Humvee-Tank that compliments Christian Bale’s raspy, shouting Batman voice. I personally am not a fan of this ride, and I really wasn’t to sad to see it morph into a motorcycle in the Dark Knight. Call me a bronze-aged guy, but I prefer Batman’s ride to have style cues of a Bat, not the Terminator.
The 90s Cartoon with Kevin Conroy as Batman, and his Batmobile was hands down, my favorite one. thoughts?
The ARH is looking for help from students for improvement, and positions for next semester.
They could be new lyrics to an old tune: “How you gonna keep ‘em down at the dorm after they’ve seen the bars?”
With one more reading, The Iowa City City Council is poised to pass the so-called 21-ordinance for Iowa City bars. It would restrict people under 21 from being in downtown bars after 10 p.m. The city council is under pressure to curb student binge drinking, and proponents of the ordinance say it’s a step in the right direction.
But it’s an unpopular idea with students under the age of 21 who frequently go out to the bars on Thursday nights or weekends to socialize. Students have argued to the UI student council that preventing underage students from entering a bar after 10 p.m. will simply make them go to house parties or other places in Iowa City to find alcohol and drink.
Enter the Associated Residence Halls
With thousands of under-aged drinkers under their roofs, campus dorms are ground zero for the movement opposing the 21 ordinance. It’s not that the UI doesn’t try to keep dorm residents sober and out of trouble. Activities sponsored by the University have always been in place around campus to offer alcohol free alternatives to hanging out at the bars. The Associated Residence Halls group has sponsored events in the dorms to promote these alternatives. While some students attend these events, many, like 19 year old sophomore Yani Anastis, are skeptical.
“Kids are definitely not going to do that,” said Anastis, who lives in the Currier residence hall. He doesn’t believe there are many activities at the dorm that could compete with going downtown to hang out on the Ped-Mall with friends on a bar crawl.
“No one wants to stay in the dorms during a Friday night, and there’s not much to do around. It’s just kinda hard,” said Anastis. He said he goes out to bars at least once a week , usually on the weekend. What non-alcoholic fun could the dorms offer to keep him entertained? “I’m not too sure,” said Anastis. “I can’t really think of much.”
The Associated Residence Hall organization admits that it struggles to keep students interested in their events, and they’ve recently begun talking about plans to beef up their programs to keep students coming back for more. ARH member Mark Schwenker works with all the other members of ARH and the student governments in each residence hall. He says ARH members have started to talk about the 21 ordinance, and they are trying to create a contingency plan if it passes next week.
“ARH is working with all of the individual hall governments on preparing for the 21 ordinance. Discussion with any others outside of residence hall government has not occurred,” said Schwenker.
The Next Course of Action
While the Associated Residence Halls hasn’t actually sought the advice of students outside their group, there are flyers being distributed at the residence halls’ dining facilities encouraging students to get involved in ARH, and to become members. Students I talked to had ideas, but they were not positive these would make any sort of difference in terms of curbing the appeal of a house party with alcohol. “Maybe more movies, cause back home we’d do that. I don’t know – it’s Iowa - so people are going to go around the rules,” says Samantha Nasca, an under-age student who lives in Rienow Hall.
The residence halls coordinators are well aware that students will still leave the dorms if the 21 ordinance is passed and find a way to party the night away with an alcoholic beverage in hand. But with a “zero tolerance” of alcohol in dorm rooms, the ARH’s Schwenker says they will continue issuing fines to students who break the rules. The dorms are committed to being “dry.”
The Plan So Far
While ARH is just beginning to consider what to do in order to offer alternative activities for students, it may be too early to say what will actually happen. “One idea is to provide more late-night events for residents going from about 11pm-2am,” said Schwenker. ARH believes that if students are able to have an enjoyable time at an event that goes later into the night, there won’t be as much interest in leaving the dorms to go looking for other activities in Iowa City.
However, students are doubtful about any plans the dorms come up with. “Nothing’s going to top going out,” said freshman Hannah Thompson, who lives in Rienow. When asked how to appeal to students like Hannah, who opt for Iowa City’s night life over the residence hall events, Schwenker said, “I ask how can we make it interesting. ARH is asking itself, ‘what makes residents want to go downtown?’”
Looking Ahead
The ARH is also aware that it needs more money to sponsor events that are more frequent and consistently fun for students. How to raise those funds is another problem. Ideas include reallocating housing contract money, or even applying alcohol fines to sponsor “dry” social events. However, students seem ambivalent towards the efforts made by ARH.
The Iowa City City council’s final reading of the 21 ordinance is scheduled for Thursday, April 6. If it passes, it goes into effect June 1. However, it could be repealed later next fall. Dorm resident Samantha Nasca was clear. “I hope it gets repealed in November,” she said.
Iowa City, Iowa- “It was the first time I had traveled on a plane, driven a rental car, drove in the mountains alone. I was staying in a stranger’s house, and I can’t put into words how much I loved that experience.” This was the world Holly Hines enthusiastically dove into after taking a job assignment at the Daily Iowan. But this assignment wasn’t like any other story you may have read in the paper. Holly was writing an investigative story on internet addiction, and she won an eleventh place finish in the prestigious Hearst Awards for excellence in reporting and writing for college journalists.
Holly Hines is a senior at the University of Iowa, but her major in journalism is something she just picked up last semester. Initially, Hines was going to school as an English and Art major, but last spring she applied for the Daily Iowan because she needed a job. “I was looking for a writing job, and a friend of mine suggested I get a job at the DI to learn how writing jobs work,” said Hines. Initially Holly was not as confident as she is today because the writing style was so different from the poetry, short stories, and other prose she wrote as an English major. However, once she got into the swing of reporting and doing interviews she fell in love with it. “I continued doing the DI during the fall and winter semester, and I liked it more,” she said.
Holly’s enthusiasm, passion, and motivation to excel in journalism would pay off when she was assigned to handle the story that would win her a Hearst Award. The story began as an idea being offered by the editors Holly worked closely with in the newsroom. She found the story interesting because like the story’s subject, Ben Alexander, Hines took interest in internet addiction because she had a friend who played the popular online video game, “World of Warcraft.” But unlike her friend, Alexander’s gaming had become unhealthy.
Hines was fascinated by the subject. “I’ve always had an interest in mental health stories. I had done a few over the summer.” Through the next months Hines would work alongside Daily Iowan Chief editor Kelsey Beltramea, and University of Iowa journalism professor Steve Berry in crafting her story. “The best thing,” says Beltremea, “was she just joined in the Fall, and it was her first story of any significant length.” These intimate meetings between Hines, Beltramea, and Professor Berry focused on the painstaking work of crafting the story so it could be the best possible. “I gave her a few reporting and interviewing tips and made some writing suggestions after she wrote an opening and outline and then again after she wrote a draft. But her editors, primarily Kelsey, I believe, did the heavy lifting on the editing,” said Berry.
Favorite Movie: K-Pax
Favorite Food: Pancheros
Favorite Book: “The Yiddish Policemen Union” by Michael Chibon
The day Hines’ article was published it received a great deal of attention from people all across the internet. The article was linked to news aggregator sites such as www.fark.com for people to read and discuss on the site’s forums. The traffic on the Daily Iowan website jumped that day as well. “Top stories tend to get three to seven thousand hits a day, but Holly’s had at least 11,000 hits that day,” said Beltremea.
Many “World of Warcraft” fans responded somewhat defensively to the article the day it was published, claiming they didn’t have an addiction problem. “We tried our best to make it come across as a story and not an attack,” said Hines.
As for the future, Holly still has another year at the University of Iowa to finish up the classes necessary to complete the journalism program, and she plans to get an internship at the Cedar RapidsGazette. “Afterwards I’m not sure, we’ll see if any opportunity springs from The Gazette. If I have the opportunity to stay with The Gazette I will,” she said.
Journalism has been a great outlet for Holly to utilize her enthusiasm and drive to produce a very thorough story. “Holly, I believe, has a bright future in journalism,” said Berry.
