See the Milwaukee Brewers in Action

Whether you are a sports nut or just want to go out with your friends, a Milwaukee Brewer’s baseball game is where the action is at. Watch Ryan Braun smash homeruns out of Miller Park while enjoying some famous nachos or brats. The Milwaukee Brewer’s season lasts into the end of September which gives you some time to organize an outing. Make sure to go on a Friday night and bring your student ID. This gives you a nice discount on your ticket purchase. The seats will be in the nosebleeds, but who cares, you’re watching the Milwaukee Brewers.

Shake your maracas at Mexican Fiesta

Want to experience the fun of Mexico while at school in Milwaukee? Now is your chance at Mexican Fiesta located on the Summerfest grounds near the Lakefront. From August 27th to August 29th you can enjoy an authentic Mexican cuisine, relax and enjoy a mariachi band while sipping on some Tecate, and even watch a real Lucha Libre wrestling match. The best thing about Mexican Fiesta is the Hot Wheelz Auto Show. Contestants display their modified and tricked out cars for all to see. You can get more information on Mexican Fiesta on their website at www.mexicanfiesta.org.

Hit up Bradford Beach before it freezes over

School may be starting but the weather is still hot and sunny, which means one thing: the beach.

Bradford Beach is Milwaukee’s best place to go swimming, catch some sun rays, and play some beach volleyball with your friends. The beach also makes running and playing ultimate frisbee much more exciting. Bradford Beach is only slightly over a mile east of campus, easily accessible via bus and is open seven days a week for your enjoyment. Get out there before the temperature plummets!

Oktoberfest

While you are at Marquette, you need to visit the famous Oktoberfest in Glendale. Easily accessible with your bus pass, the festival features authentic German cuisine, dances and much more. If you are over the age of twenty-one, the plethora of alcohol in frosty mugs will satisfy your thirst. Oktoberfest takes place the four weekends after Labor Day so you have no excuse to miss it. Find out how to get tickets at www.bavarianinnmilw.com/Events/Oktoberfest.html

Brady Street

Once you get a little too used to hanging around Wells and Kilbourn every Saturday night, you may want to drive down Farwell and hit the East side for a little fun. You can find a delicious Italian cuisine providing a little bit of class. Or if just want to look at some interesting scenery, there’s always a student from UW-Milwaukee hanging around. Brady Street is a nice switch from Wisconsin. You can keep the college atmosphere, but there’s also good food and a lot more people. And unlike the rest of the events, it’s open all year round.

Marcus Amphitheater

Most people only think of the Summerfest grounds for Summerfest, if the fact that the “Summerfest grounds” has become the standard name for Henry W. Maier Festival Park didn’t give it away. Luckily, the Marcus Amphitheater does not only have concerts during Summerfest so make a point of checking out when your favorite bands are there. Granted there are not too many great bands which come while Summerfest is in session and keeping in mind we all have different tastes, make sure you check out a schedule just in case your favorite band is there. Or you can at least keep this information in mind if you want to pre-order Summerfest tickets.

Paintball Dave’s

If you want a little adventure and a chance to harness your hunting skills, you should visit the oldest indoor paintball field in the entire world. Figures it would be in Milwaukee. If you don’t have your equipment, that’s fine since it’s included anyways. There are group discounts if you want to talk your o-staffer into taking your group some place no one else will think of. Dave would be much obliged. And if your o-staffer doesn’t think it would be a good idea, you can organize it yourself. After all, you need an adrenaline rush at least once in a while. It’s not like you’re going to get that at Jazz in the Park. Nothing against jazz of course, but it’s more of a parents’ weekend activity. Paintball is all the other weekends including Lil Sibs’.

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attended Marquette Division I sporting events. The stat sheets for our teams are blank for now, but have the potential to be filled in with mind blowing achievements and numbers that will make the history books. There are so many things taking shape in Marquette athletics that give us high hopes for each of our Marquette teams’ respective seasons. We have a lot to look forward to this year in Marquette sports. As you begin a new chapter in your life on campus after your summer vacations, you can’t help but get that “Blue and Gold” fever. So look out, freshmen, it’s contagious!

Even though our men’s basketball team has not started their season yet, Coach Buzz Williams is drawing up the battle plans for what we hope will be another outstanding and exciting season. The team led by senior star Jimmy Butler, the young and talented Vander Blue and the rest of the team, have all been working hard to build a team chemistry that will keep us atop the Big East Conference once again this year.

With a handful of talented new faces for these young Warriors, the sky is the limit for our success this season. Look forward to being part of the sea of blue and gold in the seats of the Bradley Center come November.

The men’s and women’s soccer teams start off their season just as we students start off our semester. Take advantage of the “Bird Cage” down at Valley Fields and cheer them on. The likes of Calum Mallace, Scott Miller and the rest of our men’s soccer squad will not disappoint. Look out for Natalie Kulla, Lindsey Page and all of our women’s soccer squad. With their impressive style of play they may well be the toast of the conference. These two teams and their seasons look quite promising. You do not want to miss a single corner kick.

Bond Shymansky is set to lead the women’s volleyball team through another successful season. With a talented team, loaded with weapons like Nikki Klingsporn, Rabbecka Gonyo and Ashley Beyer-to name a few, the Al McGuire Center should be a hot spot for all Marquette Athletics enthusiasts to catch some great games and see them display their dominance. They have a lot to live up to because of the high standards they set last year. The team finds themselves sitting in fourth place in the Big East coaches’ poll to start off the season.

The women’s basketball team will provide some great entertainment for us this year. Pay close attention to this talented group of women and their head coach, Terri Mitchell, as she begins her 15th season. Angel Robinson and Tatiyiana McMorris, two of the many talented players on the team, are without a doubt getting their team ready to turn some heads this season, whether it is from behind the arc or at the rim.

When their season rolls around, be sure to pack “the Al” to let them see our support.

Look forward to the cross country, track and field, golf, men’s and women’s tennis teams and their performances as well. They are loaded with talent and will give our University an even more respectable name in today’s collegiate sports world through their hard work, leadership and athletic talent. Be sure to keep tabs on all our athletes. Year after year they make us proud!

So, freshmen, you have been accepted and are attending a high quality university and so it is expected that you have a high quality pride for our “Blue and Gold.” Show the rest of the students, the University and the entire world that you have what it takes to be a Marquette fanatic. Wear your blue and gold with pride and show up to as many games and events as  possible. Fill the bleachers, be loud, and take advantage of the top quality of play from your Marquette Athletic teams, whether it be down by the river at Valley Fields, in the heart of campus at the Al McGuire Center, or the one and only Bradley Center just a few blocks away. Most of all do whatever it takes to show that WE ARE MARQUETTE!

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Welcome to Marquette!

I hope you enjoy your first edition of The Warrior. We are an independent news source on campus, founded in memory of our school’s old nickname and mascot. We are devoted to delivering our campus news which is fair and uncensored.

In the early 1990s, Marquette changed its nickname from “Warriors” to “Golden Eagles.” It was the opinion of intellectual elites that Native American nicknames were offensive and derogatory.

Despite an ESPN poll taken which showed that the vast majority of Native Americans think the exact opposite and the fact that Native Americans have fought to keep these “offensive” nicknames, the university clearly knew what was best for them.

School nicknames are chosen because of some quality the school would like its athletes to emulate, such as strength or bravery. That is why a former Milwaukee baseball team was called the “Braves,” and also given a Native American logo.

So, like us, many students and alumni were unwilling to buy the university’s story. Pride in the old nickname resurfaced six years ago when the university commissioned a study on the athletic nickname. For about a year, Marquette administrators considered returning to the Warrior nickname, and conducted numerous focus groups, studies and surveys regarding the school’s moniker.      

But in the end, decided to change the Golden Eagles’ nickname to “Gold.”

A storm of protest resulted, so the university reverted to Golden Eagles.

Throughout the whole ordeal the university refused to even suffer votes supporting the Warrior name, ignoring popular opinion. Even though the nickname did not return, the spirit behind the movement stayed. The students still make a point of chanting “Let’s go, Warriors!” at the start of every game.

But the story does not end with the chants at the Bradley Center. A group of intelligent, hard-working students decided to speak up for what they believed in and refused to be censored by the university for voicing their opinion. And what better way to do that than with a student-run newspaper, independent of the university?

This year we plan on keeping their legacy alive, and we hope to keep it going for many more.

We have a great line-up of stories for freshmen in this special edition of The Warrior. We are kicking off a new feature in The Warrior called “Office Hours” – in which a professor gives an opinion about an issue they feel passionate about– with a piece by Dr. John McAdams, an Associate Professor in the Political Science Department.

We have also detailed various activities freshmen can do on and off-campus. Within this issue, we feature different restaurants you’ll want to check out in Downtown Milwaukee. And for those without cars, don’t lose your bus pass! Otherwise, a night on the town may be more expensive than you wish.

Be sure to check out your introduction to sports at Marquette. And whatever you do, don’t forget to see the reasons why we’re better than our arch-rival, the University of Wisconsin – Madison. I know! It’s a no-brainer. But we just thought we should remind you.

We hope this special edition of The Warrior finds you well. These next four years just may be some of the best years of your life. Never waste a single day here. You’ll find out all too quickly that you’ll wish you could have had a few of them back. Enjoy your first semester!

by Adam Ryback

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Freshmen,

Welcome to Freshman Orientation! You are going to enjoy these few days, although a lot of what you will enjoy will not be the planned events (most of which you will skip) but just hanging around, seeing the campus and the city, and getting to know your fellow students.

But choose among the official events carefully, and you will find some valuable resources.

But there is one problem: you are going to be subjected to some politically correct indoctrination. And if your social attitudes don’t conform to those preferred by the University bureaucrats that run the program, you might get put on the spot.

Marquette: On Stage

The indoctrination is centered on a set of monologues on Friday morning’s program called “Marquette: On Stage.” The stated purpose of the monologues is to heighten the “awareness” of students about certain “social issues” they will face.

A Secret Program

What will be the nature of these monologues? The bureaucrat who runs Freshman Orientation, Julie Murphy, flatly refuses to reveal the nature of the monologues. So what are they hiding?

In fact, this is a regular part of Freshman Orientation, so it’s not hard to find out what goes on. It varies a bit from year to year, but the pattern is pretty fixed.

Some of the monologues are innocuous enough: one from an actor playing a student who is pressured to drink when out with friends, another from a woman with “body image” problems, and one featuring a student who has problems with depression.

But some of the monologues are from politically correct “victim” groups. A gay guy complaining that people look at him in a funny way, or a black guy who believes a woman is uneasy when he gets on an elevator with her. Indeed, there are likely to be two or three ethnic minority monologues, each with a grievance.

So how is this biased? Mainly because only politically correct victim groups are presented as facing problems with intolerance and lack of acceptance. There will be no monologue from a white student who is derided as the bearer of “white privilege” (something that happens with some frequency at Marquette). There will be no monologue from a future cop who has to listen to leftie professors talk about how police are “racist.”

There will be no monologue from a student who is demeaned for conservative religious values – perhaps derided for believing that sex outside marriage is wrong or opposing gay marriage.

But intolerance of students who support Catholic teaching is indeed a problem on campus. This past spring, there was a huge uproar about Marquette’s refusal to hire an outspoken lesbian as Arts & Sciences Dean. Just looking at protesting students, one might think that all undergraduates wanted the lesbian dean.

But a fair number were silenced by the intolerance of pro-gay students. One Marquette senior complained on an online discussion forum: “Who would post what they actually think as their Facebook status? The answer is sadly very few, because to do so is to be labeled as an anti-gay bigot . . . and a blind follower of an ‘intolerant’ religion,” and further, “fear of labels silences the traditional Catholic voice.”

But you aren’t going to see a monologue reflecting this student’s view.

But It Gets Worse

OK, so you are forced (this program is mandatory) to sit and watch a bit of political correctness. So what?
Unfortunately, the monologues are just the beginning. Students are then herded into small groups and then required to “take a stand.” Students are asked a question about how they feel on some issue, and then required to move to one side of the room or the other, depending on their opinion. Julie Murphy claims the purpose of the exercise is to “show students that students come from multiple perspectives and multiple backgrounds.”

But that’s just not so. The real purpose is to single out and pressure students who have dissenting (non-politically correct) opinions.

Some of the questions will be innocuous, and students will split roughly equally. They will be asked to agree or disagree “I feel comfortable living in a city” or “I would feel uncomfortable if a homeless person approached me.”

But other questions are more politically loaded, such as “because of past oppression people of color should
have more scholarship opportunities.” Or “there is no such thing as bisexuality.” Or “I feel race is not an issue in 2009” (obviously, asked last year).

Or “Being gay is a choice people make.” (Think for a moment how biased that last question is. While lusting after one’s same sex rather than the opposite sex may be pretty much fixed at any point in a person’s life, having homosexual sex most certainly is a choice.)

Most of these issues have been addressed in “Marquette: On Stage,” so students know the politically correct answer and disproportionally take the politically correct side. One source told us “because they are freshmen, and because they are a little bit intimidated,

I feel a lot of students aren’t standing on the side they would stand on if they were by themselves or were with friends.” And further: “I know when I was a freshman it was very difficult for me to stand on the side that I thought was morally appropriate. . . .”

This, of course, has nothing to do with education, which would present both sides of contentious issues and not pressure people. It’s more like Stalinist thought reform.

So what should you do if you don’t agree with the politically correct crowd? Moving to the politically incorrect side of the room would be good. Refusing to move from the middle and saying “you have no damn right to demand to know what I think” would be good. And liberal students who care for free thought and expression might follow the latter course too, refusing to cooperate with indoctrination, even indoctrination in views they happen to agree with.

John McAdams is an Associate Professor of Political Science, who also runs the Marquette Warrior Blog, www.mu-warrior.blogspot.com.

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