By Najib Aminy

The Stony Brook Men’s Baseball team fell to Hartford, losing two straight in a double-header on Saturday, April 12 and falling 0-3 in the series. The Seawolves lost 5-3 in game one and trailed 6-1 in the second. Having lost three straight games, the Seawolves’ record is 15-14, flirting above .500 and is 4-3 in conference play. Hartford bounced up to 12-14 and 6-1 in conference play.

Game one of the double header proved to be a close contest as Stony Brook had control of the lead with a score of 3-1 at the bottom of the third. Hartford fought back, tying the game up at the top of fourth inning, eventually leading 5-3 at the top of the seventh. Despite Junior centerfielder Michael Tansey’s (Valley Stream, NY) three hits, two runs and one RBI, the Seawolves fell short, losing their second game to Hartford in the series. Senior Gary Novakowski (Prospect, CT) recorded the loss, tainting his record to 4-2 for the season. Novakowski allowed four runs and eight hits in five innings of play.

The second game of the double-header was not much different. For Stony Brook, nearly every at bat was a pop out or a grounder resulting in an out. Though having seven hits in the game, the Seawolves left runners on base nine times throughout the game, and were thus unable to produce any runs. Hartford led 5-1 in the bottom of the sixth until Tansey hit an RBI single, allowing Freshman second baseman Chad Marshall (Paris, ON) a run to prevent the shutout.

Stony Brook Sophomore pitcher Matt Harloff (Valley Stream, NY) recorded his second loss of the season—now at 0-2—allowing five runs and six hits in three innings of play. Hartford pitcher Peter Moraski recorded the win pitching in all seven innings and only allowing one run, boosting his record to 2-1 for the season.

The men’s baseball team will travel for the next couple weeks, facing Hofstra, Vermont, Maine and finally coming back home against Fairfield on Wednesday, April 30.

By Najib Aminy

After losing a close conference game to the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, the Stony Brook Men’s Lacrosse team bounced back, winning two conference games against Vermont and Hartford, 13-9 and 11-7 respectively.

On Saturday April 12, the men’s lacrosse team looked to increase their conference record with another win against the defeated Hartford Hawks, who have yet to record any wins for the season. As the twilight sky lit the stadium, the Seawolves were, surprisingly, fighting off a possible upset by the Hartford Hawks.  The Hawks kept the game very close, only to fall behind on a 5-0 run in the fourth quarter.

The majority of the game was a back and forth tug of war between both teams, in which defense was the deciding factor. Trailing 7-6 going into the fourth quarter, Freshman attack Jordan McBride (New Westminster, BC), Senior attack Bo Tripodi (Hauppauge, NY), Senior midfielder Owen Adams (Norwalk, CT) and Freshman midfielder Kevin Crowley (New Westminster, BC) worked together along with their team to outscore the Hartford Hawks 5-0 in the fourth quarter, preserving the win.

Sophomore defenseman Steven Waldeck (Levittown, NY) and Senior defenseman Nick Maturro (West Islip, NY) combined to pick up a total of 11 groundballs capitalizing on the Hawks’ turnovers. Notable goal scorers were McBride, who recorded a Texas hat trick by scoring a team high four goals, along with Crowley and Adams each scoring three goals. In addition to his three goals, Crowley had three assists, leading the team with six points.

With a packed crowd of nearly 1,000 fans, the Stony Brook Men’s Lacrosse team continues to excel, as their record is now 6-4 and 2-1 in conference play. Of the four games lost this season, each deficit was no more than three goals. The Seawolves will travel on the road and play Binghamton on April 19, and the following week will face Hofstra at home on April 26.

By John Martell

It is no secret that the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), set up by globalist kingpin David Rockefeller, exists to push for a world government. Carroll Quigley, mentor to Bill Clinton and member of CFR, says himself, “The Council on Foreign Relations…believes national boundaries should be obliterated and one-world rule established.” In an effort to make this a reality, they have used incrementalism as a way to gain gradual acceptance of their plans.

The first step, with the European Union, and now North America, was trade blocs, then misnamed protectionist “free trade” zones, then the physical merging of key infrastructure - military, legislative, and other bodies. This whole process is done with a blind eye from Congress and the mainstream media, with the exception of CNN’s Lou Dobbs. It is also being done with the full approval of all the Presidential Candidates of both major political parties, with the exception of Ron Paul.

CFR President Richard Haass believes “states would be wise to weaken sovereignty in order to protect themselves,” and that “Globalization thus implies that sovereignty…needs to become weaker.” Admiral Chester Ward, former CFR member and Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Navy has stated, “The main purpose of the Council on Foreign Relations in promoting the disarmament of U.S. sovereignty and national independence and submergence into an all powerful, one world government. Once the ruling members of the CFR…have decided that the U.S. Government should adopt a particular policy…the very substantial research facilities of the CFR are put to work to develop arguments, intellectual and emotional, to support the new policy and to confound and discredit, intellectually and political, any opposition.”

Corporations have influence or control over all the Presidential candidates, Congress, and the mainstream media.  It is the corporate goal to accelerate the flow of both cargo and people across this country’s Northern and Southern borders. They want an international NAFTA superhighway even if it means using eminent domain to steal people’s ranches and farmland. Another dream is to have a workforce consisting completely of illegal immigrants who they can underpay off the books and save money on wages, taxes, and benefits. Their goals are sadly being accomplished as the Bush administration fails to enforce this country’s border laws, even in the wake of 9-11 and terrorist threats.

We’ve had a record three million illegal immigrants migrate into this country in the last year, yet all you hear the Bush administration talk about is our “security.” So instead, they’ve decided to take away our Constitutional rights. The Bush administration has signed agreements at the Security and Prosperity and Partnership meetings that are physically creating a North American Union under our eyes, all without public discourse or open debate.

Despite their name, the North American Free Trade Agreement and the NAU - just like the EU are not free market institutions. They are protectionist communities who compete with other trade blocs like the European Union and soon-to-be Asian-Pacific Union. While tooted as free market to get the approval of conservatives, the NAU is anything but a free market. In laisez-faire economics, no institutions exist to hinder the free flow of goods from one place to another. The NAU, like the EU, would have an external tariff, making imported goods more expensive and hurting the free choice of the consumer, in order for governments and corporations to generate enormous profits.

“The secret organizations of the world power elite are no longer secret. They have planned and are now leading us into a one-world Communist government. The combining of national government started with the European Union….and now a European Parliament that is feverishly passing laws that override the laws of the member nations…a [European] constitution was drafted but rejected by many member nations. Never mind, they implemented it anyway. Now its North America’s turn….the President has attended secret meetings and signed at least two agreements. Money from our treasury is being spent [to create] a new currency, the Amero, and a new Constitution, modeled after the Soviet Union’s Constitution…Our rights will not be inalienable but they will be granted by government, who can also take them away. You will have a [North American] ID Card with a Radio Frequency Identification Chip in it.” -Stan Jones, U.S. Senate Candidate, Libertarian Montana

It is important to note that every Presidential candidate (besides Ron Paul) is a CFR member, the Obamas, John Edwards, and the Clintons included. A Democratic Party administration will not save us from the oncoming but not inevitable North American Union. It is not inevitable if we join the informed uprising – the “Ron Paul Revolution” of people who will not simply demand but physically become the leaders who will adhere to the Constitution and who will swear an oath to protect National Sovereignty, and of course never join the CFR and reject its undemocratic goals.

By Zack Fair

For three weeks, I toiled away in my room.  Sweat-stained Hanes contained rolls I had been trying to get down.  The diet of McDonald’s number two meals and Taco Bell’s chalupas did not help, but while I bookmarked Goons with Spoons, running a guild takes up too much time to cook like that sweet Rachel Ray.  I was up all night on my seventh bottle of Bawls, cardboard and duct tape strewn all over the room.  My costume would be the star of the show.

Sure, there’d be plenty of Clouds, but Zack cosplayers? (Cosplayers dress up as their favorite character from cartoons or video games)  No, I’d be the only one, seducing all the con honeys with my forty-eight-inch Buster Sword.  I pulled a muscle in my back measuring out the sword to perfection, and when Mom came in with an ice pack, I could see her hesitate.  The wall scrolls dripped with humidity, but my rig ran cool with quad core processors and four gigs of RAM.  My mom sprayed me down with Febreze, and the cool touch of the ice pack on my back warmed my black heart.

If only I could find a woman like my mom at this con.  I imagined meeting a Yuna or Tifa while my mom massaged the small of my back, and the touch of a woman stretches my Hanes ever so little.  When she left, I browsed through the Deviant Art for FFX-2 hentai and made a deposit into an empty McNugget box.  The image of three cactuars penetrating Yuffie from every direction left my mind as I unstuck myself from the chair and return to my work.

A few days later, I found myself amongst my kind, in my element. I explored the Dealers Room and picked up a sealed copy of Bible Black and a pin bearing the image of Knuckles the Echidna. I checked up on my guild in one of the computer labs, and then, after a few sticks of Pocky, I was ready to head out.

I-Con—my time to party—anime dance party.  I passed out from an overzealous fog machine and the sweet stench of 5,000 pounds of nerd in the room.  My last vision was of an overweight Edea Kramer as I hit the ground and felt my Garnier Manga Head hair spikes stab into my temple.
I awoke in a secret den of furries. A fox and a horse told me to drink down some Red Bull, and like the recipient of a Phoenix Down, I was alive again. I saw steam pipes all around me, alas, the furry underground I-Con lair!  I realized my Zack costume is gone and replaced with a Knuckles suit.

The room was stale with the stink of yiffing.  I looked to my left and saw a pink donkey—not my type, but she was still a fine piece of ass. I choked, as I glimpsed, to my right, a sweet Amy Rose.  Oh, how I’d love to cream in her rabbit.  A single tear fell from my face as I saw her arms around Sonic, and in lonely frustration, I ran out.  I wandered the endless tunnels for hours, chaffing in every crevice of my fur suit.  At last I found a ladder out.

A group of students suddenly surround me.  Pink collared shirts and gel-laced hair contrast with giant muscular physiques.  They tore off my mask and asked me what I was supposed to be, and when they noticed my suit’s glory hole they beated on me like a meat piñata.  A blow to the head sends me reeling, and the last thing I see is a white light and Sephiroth reaching out for my hand.

By Najib Aminy

To the person who dislikes anime, science fiction and costume fornication, I-Con is not the place to be. With hundreds of peculiar fans dressing up as their beloved characters, it appeared as though Halloween came early this year. However, amid the sword-dueling ninjas, the medieval women and—yes—Moses, there was one of American culture’s greatest supernatural fighting legends, Ernie Hudson, the ghost buster.

Entering the athletic complex, my eyes opened to a world of devotion and extremism with which I was unfamiliar. One could say that those who dress up for I-Con are similar to the fans who paint their chests at sporting events; regardless of this conjecture, my one purpose in attending this carnival of eccentricity was to meet the man who defeated the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man—the man who had slain an army of diamond-protecting animated chimps and a hippo—the man who was a detective in a neighborhood of sexually frustrated housewives.

Walking down the stairs, I was a bit star-struck when I saw Ernie Hudson for the first time. I was surprised to see the sixty-three-year-old legend signing autographs and greeting fans as if they were old acquaintances. Ernie Hudson is well known for playing Winston Zeddemore in Ghostbusters I and II, Sergeant Albrecht in The Crow, Captain Munro in Congo and Detective Ridley in the popular Desperate Housewives. As I learned later on, during a question-and-answer session Hudson held, this ghost buster was one cool character, on and off the set.

Hudson entered the room with a swagger that boasted a reserved, yet friendly, manner. “So, yeah…what’s up,” asked Hudson, breaking the ice, as he leaned back in his chair and raised his feet onto a table. Hudson was asked many questions that resulted in him talking about everything from being a ghost buster to his view on religion, as well as the heroes he looks up to.

Hudson explained that it was an elevator talk that introduced him to the movie Ghostbusters. “I was on an elevator and Ivan Reitman got on. He produced a movie I did called Space Hunter. That long silence down the elevator [was broken when Ivan said] he was doing a project called Ghostbusters. But he said there was nothing for me. I am like ‘Ok, whatever.’ But then I found out there was a part for me.” So Hudson tried out for the role, after two months of trying to set an interview, and took part in one of the greatest movies in American cinematic history.

When asked if he failed to initially appreciate the tremendous success of the movie, Hudson said, “No, no. I think I appreciated it. I think when the movie first came out, it was so huge, and I really expected certain things to happen. And it took me a while to realize that, you know, it’s never going to be what you think it is, so drop your expectations. It’s all good.” The movies were huge; according to the-source.com, while the first Ghostbusters grossed a worldwide total of $215,500,000, the second eclipsed that with $291,632,124.

Hudson was very nonchalant in describing his role in the movie, simply saying that he was just an actor. “It is very hard for any actor to understand his place in all this and ask, ‘How popular am I? Am I more popular then this actor or that actor?’ To me, it is just a job; that is what it really is. None of it has really been life-changing.” Hudson went on to explain that he was very fortunate, also saying that it was a blessing to still be working after so many years of acting. When asked if he still believes in “UFOs, astral projections, mental telepathy, ESP, clairvoyance, spirit photography, telekinetic movement, full-trance mediums, the Loch Ness monster and the theory of Atlantis,” Hudson replied just like he did in the movie twenty-four years ago. “If there is a steady paycheck in it, I’ll believe in anything.”

Hudson also joked when asked about being so mellow. “Yeah, after you go through Ghostbusters and all that disappointment, then you learn how to go, ‘You know what? Hey, whatever.’ You survive that. You just go, ‘Hey, whatever.’” Clearly joking, Hudson created a placid feeling in the room, as he was so calm and friendly.

When asked about the Statue of Liberty scene in Ghostbusters II, Hudson talked about how many members of the cast felt honored to be filming at Ellis Island. He said that many people were excited, as their grandparents had come here many years ago. “I was like, ‘my grandparents didn’t stop at Ellis Island.’ I knew what it was about, but part of me was like, ‘hell naw!’” Hudson then talked about taking his kids to the Statue of Liberty. What was supposed to be a homecoming for Hudson turned sour as a fan recognized the famous ghost buster and made sure everyone on the ferry ride to Ellis Island knew about it. In fact, as the boat docked, the ecstatic patron made sure everyone at the docks knew as well. “So I never left the dock, and my wife took the kids to see the Statue of Liberty. So we don’t talk about that,” said Hudson, laughing.

Asked about being the token black ghost buster, Hudson replied that he was not too fazed by it. “I think it is important for movies to reflect the society that we are a part of. It annoys the hell out of me—like Woody Allen movies (and I like Woody Allen)—but it was like, ‘What New York is that? There are no black people, Hispanics or Asians,” said Hudson. He then went on to joke about black characters who seem to be included purely for the appearance of sensitivity to race-consciousness, saying, “I think it’s great, but I never look at a character like, ‘oh, thank God, they have a black character.’ I am always happy to play a black character because I always have a shot at a job.”

Somehow, religion was brought into the conversation, and Hudson revealed his beliefs on sin. “The thing about religion is the sin thing, and I am like, ‘why don’t we drop the whole sin thing and replace it with mistakes?’ I work in a business where we can do a lot of takes, and if it doesn’t work, we can forget ‘bout it. Just do it over again.” Hudson said he believes in a superior being but does not invest too much into it. As he says, “We all sense something greater than what we see. There is something along the lines of what we don’t know. The end of the world, and God appearing—even if we don’t believe it, there is something going on—something intuitive. You can deny it, but you know there is something beyond this physical thing.”

The heroes Hudson looks up to are the people who are always there: the average guy who does what he has to do to get by. “The guy who gets up and goes to work and takes care of his family, and then his kid, at eighteen, says ‘fuck you, Dad!” He laughed and went on to say, “Or the guy with the wife who says, ‘I should’ve done this and this and this’—just the guy who shows up. Not the guy who just goes and gets some cigarettes and you never see him.”

Hudson spoke about how he wished for people to value themselves. “I wish people really got how special they are and that they didn’t feel they had to do something to earn that.” It is a problem he has experienced with his friends and many of the people with whom he has dealt. “You don’t have to earn it, it is already there. But it is not there unless you see it. Once you see it, then you don’t have to worry about taking anything from anybody else to make you whole.”

Hudson has a few films coming out, as well as a video game. His upcoming movies include The Man in the Silo, which will come out later this year, and Dragonball, based on the cartoon show DragonBall Z. Hudson collaborated with his Ghostbusters costars to make the eponymous video game, which is due to come out later this year, and which was named one of the years’ most-anticipated video games according to Image Games Network (IGN).

To meet an actor—it is ok. To meet a movie star—it is a little better. To meet a person who is just so cool and content with life as a whole—it is rewarding. Ernie Hudson is more than a ghost buster—he is an inspiration; the epitome of coolness.

By James Laudano

Kristina Wong wants to make you uncomfortable. After all, it’s when we’re uncomfortable that we really start thinking. It was with this in mind that she brought her one-woman show, “Wong Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest,” to Stony Brook’s Wang Center on April 10.

“Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” is about the high rates of anxiety, depression and suicide among Asian-American women. Described as “swear-to-God-not-autobiographical,” the show is centered on Kristina’s presentation of why Asian-American women suffer from such issues and what, if anything, can be done. Like many similar shows focusing on a dark subject, Kristina strives to raise awareness and exercise the topic’s demons through comedy. Her humor is invasive, yet, at its core, mostly innocent. When explaining the concept of the climax of a dramatic story, she faked an orgasm for a solid minute, leaving the audience shifting in their seats and nervously laughing. Even when Wong sought to drive an important point or message home, she was able to mix in a bit of light-hearted humor, keeping the audience on their toes and in anticipation of her next move.

Perhaps the most memorable aspect of her show was the way she kept the audience involved in the flow and narrative of the performance. Wong would stop her lesson-style monologues to chat (or sometimes argue) with a member of the audience. (In fact, The Stony Brook Press’ own Arts Editor, Andrew Fraley, was the target of one such tangent, in which Wong pleaded with Fraley for the chance to touch his “white-people” hair.) At other points in the performance, she urged (or, dare I say, forced) the audience to stand up and sing “We Are The World”, or chant an improvised song she cooked up during one of her more frenetic moments on stage. This aggressive, in-your-face style was a refreshing change from most shows and helped keep the audience both engaged, uncomfortable and completely aware of the very serious messages she presented.

Following the performance, the audience and three panelists, including Kristina, participated in a question and answer session regarding the central themes espoused in the show. The panel served as a more stripped version of the performance, allowing Kristina and the audience to tackle some of the issues in a more direct fashion.

“It was amazing. The performance just struck home so much,” said Yina Chun, a sophomore and editor of the Asian-American E-Zine here at Stony Brook, after the show. The rest of the audience seemed to echo her sentiments.

Kristina’s website, www.kristinawong.org, serves as a venue for her booking, upcoming shows, blog and similar. The layout and content of the site follows the same sort of charming humor that made “Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” so appealing. Later in April, Kristina will be performing in both Queens and Manhattan if you want to catch her. Dates and venues are available on her site. Either way, let’s hope that the next time she’s in the area she pops in for a visit to Stony Brook and, once more, makes us uncomfortable.