Aw what a lovely first day of classes..and yea uh, 2 students got shot last month.

In our first Internet sweep of Temple news we have discovered that in that last month two Temple students have been shot in separate incidents, the first one killed and the second ending up in critical condition.

On August 17 : "Mamadou Makadji, 22, of Mali, was shot in the chest after 1 a.m. Monday in Elmwood Park, Homicide Captain James Clark said. The Temple University student died a short time later at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania." -Associated press This was in southwest philly, and the article states he was killed due to a language barrier that hindered him from communicating with his murderer.

On August 20: "Police believe Yow robbed the 24-year-old student on Aug. 20 as the student was walking along Girard Avenue near 13th Street. Yow shot the student in the stomach and stole his iPhone, police said. The student was in critical condition after the shooting but his condition has since stabilized, police said."- Inquirer Yow has been arrested.

Careful out there peeps, just give up your wallet, it ain't worth it.
In other news, today was the first day of classes and there were 2 major things we noticed...

1) As with every new year, campus is more packed than ever. The line for J and H reached all the way down to the revolving dorm doors as of 1:00 p.m. In some places, such as by the Bell tower where construction pinches space, walkways were barely capable of holding the before and after class crowds. Yay for over enrollment

2) But the weather was nice and it's syllabus week, so nobody gave a shit.


In Temple News News:

Make sure you hit the news stands tomorrow to check out the first edition of the year of the Temple News. They ran a quality, award-winning rag last year and there's no reason why this year should be any different.

Their blog, the Broad & Cecil, made a funny today as they called out Peabody's new blog, the Peabody "Palet" for a pretty awful speeling error. The image they used for extra laughs is pretty priceless (and ballsy) and worth checking out.

Sports: There were no sports today, but athletics did run a "stadium advisory" for Thursday's gridiron battle against the Wildfats. It's got a whole bunch of stuff, but bottom line is that the Phillies are playing at home too, so if you're driving, you're gonna be kind of screwed. Not a big deal for us SEPTA users, but if you're or a commuter or have family or friends coming in, might want to park up here and take pub. transportation down.

That's all for tonight, check back in the morning for your daily lookout. If you have homework to do, that really sucks.

Sounds like someone's got a case of the new semesters

With this post, daily updates will resume so check back often. If we're a little rusty, sorry, we might have a summer hangover for a week or two.


Monday:

Weather: High 60's low 70's and partly cloudy by day, mid 60's and clear by night.
Temple Today highlights:

Adios center city shuttle: Yea, no more bus shuttle to center city. A victim of budget cuts no doubt, students must now take a different form of transportation to center city.

Class of 2013 smarter than you, also, probably whiter: As the influx of suburban kids continues to grow with the Temple party scene, so raise the admissions standards. 1109 SAT and 3.4 GPA average this year, both records. Local abercrombie and fitch stores rejoice.

Freshman also rewarded with cultural passport: A new "PEX Passport" is also available to freshmen, providing them with discounts to a bunch of local museums, theaters, and other artsy stuff. Abercrombie and fitch stores rejoice. Upperclassmen scowl.

Sports: nada

The week ahead:
Weather: Phuckin' awesome. Tue: 75/58 sunny, Wed: 76/61 M. sunny, Thurs: 78/62 sunny, Fri: 81/63 sunny.

-All week: if you want to be oriented with the IBC, staff members will assist you, as long as you make an appointment. "That's a weight. And uhh..that's another weight." Is that also a weight? "No...that's the water fountain." Oh.

Tuesday:
Study abroad info session: 12:30-1, Tuttleman 200. Wanna study abroad? Don't know how? Bingo.

Wednesday:
Spain study abroad info session: 3-4. Wanna study abroad in Spain? Don't know how? El Bingo.

Thursday:
- Men's football vs. Vilenova in the Mayor's Cup. Lincoln Financial Field, 7 p.m.
- Poets and writers series: TUCC 222, 8-10. Poet Linh Dinh will be doing some readings. Din din followed by Linh Dinh? Nah, I think I'll go watch some football.

Friday:
- Men's futbol vs. Vilenova at Ambler sports complex, 3:30 p.m.
-Net night at the Pav, 7-10. Watch as the b-ball players start a new year of scowling at you as they are kicked off the courts.

Cool, check back Monday night for ya news.

Back to school, back to school, to prove to your Dad you ain't no fool.

Welcome back to Temple, and the Cherry and What, for the 09-10 school year. Odds are you have bittersweet feelings about going back to school: ready to party but, well, not ready to be doing school work again. If this is the case, just refer back to your college training. Party your ass off this weekend, and worry about that shit on Monday.

SUMMER RECAP...
"So dude, didn't my tuition jump by like $5,000 or something?"

Nah, there was an effort to hold up Temple's state appropriation by a local state rep that you can check out here, but the Temple community kinda laid the smack down on him(TTimes) and now we're pretty much in the clear. If there are any problems, we'll keep you updated.

"Ok cool..so what else did I miss this summer? "

Well not too much really. There has been a lot of construction going on around campus, lots of pot holes and scaffolding everywhere. The turf field was resurfaced, or actually is being resurfaced as they still have some work to do. No official word yet but there are some rumors going around that it might be delayed a little bit into the semester.

In sports, Dionte Christmas unfortunately went undrafted (rivals.com) and wasn't too impressive in a number of NBA teams' summer leagues, so his NBA chances aren't looking to good for this year. However, Adam Dimichele, Temple's QB and pretty much only play maker for the past 3 years has been doing great with the Eagles, and despite Vick being picked up, has really uped his stock for them or another NFL team.

WELCOME WEEK
Ah yes the annual welcome week festivities, with more stuff than you can shake a stick at, but none that you want to touch with a 10 foot pole. Here is a list of everything going on, but we'll save you some time with our C&W picks:

Thursday: 10 p.m. showing of star trek at the reel.

Friday & Saturday: Temple Fest on Liacouras Walk from 1-5. There might be some free shit to be found amongst the multitude of tables trying to convince you to do something

Saturday: Work hard, Play hard by helping out with FreshServe, the annual north philly clean-up event at Geasey Field at noon, and then see The Dream and Keri Hilson fo' free at McGonigle at 10:00 p.m.

Sunday: Mitten Hall. 7:00 p.m. 100 foot banana split. Fuckin' yum.

Temple Football:
Yes, we're supposed to be pretty good this year. Yes, they say that every year. Yes, it could just be a bunch of BS again. No, it might not be. We'll find out Thursday, Sep. 3 when the Owls play VanillaNova at the Linc at 7 p.m. in the inaugural Mayor's Cup. Word has it that Mayor Nutter was supposed to flip the coin at the start of the game, but could not afford to bring a coin due to city budget cuts. Come on Owls, put a hurtin' on nova and make us believers.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia:
The gang is coming to the Tower Theater, located at 69th and Ludlow, on September 17 to do a live version of "The Night Man Cometh." Check that, TWO SHOWINGS of the night man cometh. The first one sold out so fast that they decided to do an encore. Tickets go on sale this Friday at 10 at livenation.com, so make sure you get them fast. If you don't know what Always Sunny or the Night Man Cometh is, you probably aren't reading this blog. You also aren't reading this blog if you're Charlie, because you never learned to read.

That's all for now, we'll probably do one more post over the weekend before resuming daily postings on Monday. Take care, get drunk, and we'll see ya in the semester.

First post: tomorrow night

Check back on the evening of Wednesday, August 26 for the C&W's first post of the new semester

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, performing "The Night Man Cometh" live in Upper Darby

Freakin' sweet. The regular cast of It's Always Sunny is doing a live performance on "The Nightman Cometh" at the Tower Theater in Upper Darby on Thursday, September 17th at 8:00 pm. Tickets go on sale today at 10 a.m. so you might wanna act fast.

Yea...ummmm....BUST

Once again the youth proves to be completely unreliable when it comes to political activity.

Shame on you lazy owls, shame on you.

The Tuition War Escalates

Oooooooh shiiiittttt. They dropped the big one. If you only want the main details, skip straight to the bottom of this post.

The newest chapter in this summer's/recession's ongoing tuition development is titled "175 Million Witheld from Temple's Budget," or perhaps "Tuition may Increase $5,000."

This is what happened: Temple University Health Systems (yes, owned by Temple but has its own President and CEO and all that) decided to close Northeastern Hospital located in Port Richmond. The hospital, due to its location in not-so-beautiful Philadelphia, was losing money big time, apparently to the tune of $15 mil a year. So they decided to close it.

The dispute occurred when a group of state reps, led by state rep. John Taylor, fought to keep the hospital open as they felt it ripped a big hole in the local community in which their constituents reside. Not only that, but they said that they feel Temple officials acted arrogantly, ignoring their appeals to sit down and discuss the whole thing over a cup of joe.

So, like an angry parent cutting their child's allowance, these reps tabled Temple's annual appropriation, $175,000,000, while passing Penn State and Pitt's appropriations through to the third and final round, where it will do battle with a final boss, reportedly Dr. Robotnik or possibly King Bowser.

So to answer some FAQs:

1. No, the money isn't officially gone yet, although if that money is still unappropriated when state budget time comes around it is likely to get snatched up.

2. Yes, this is a giant pissing match among adults that is screwing all of us "hard-partying, lazy, rude, ungrateful" kids.

3. Yes, it would be nice if we could cut Temple's budget by $175,000,000 when we get stonewalled transferring credits in, going to see advisers, or using meals when, ya know, we're hungry.

4. But still, if the state actually leaves Temple out in the cold, we will effectively become a private institution. And that would suck.

5. But dude, didn't Temple already like, promise not to increase tuition? Not really, that's kind of misleading thing. Temple set a low tuition increase of 2.9 %. Then the state was going to slash about 30 mil, and Temple reconvened and then said that they were sticking to the 2.9% BUT RESERVED THE RIGHT TO RAISE IT IF THE STATE CUT FUNDS. Considering the state was only talking about 30 mil then, and is now talking about the full 170 mil, that would certainly raise tuition.

But Cherry and What?, how much do I stand to lose? Well official numbers haven't been released, and the e-mail from Temple is also a little misleading. The numbers being thrown around are a 45% tuition increase, or $5,000. That's $5,000 a year, not a semester. So if you're an in-state student paying roughly $6,000 a semester, you would now pay $8,500. Same goes for out-of-state or out-of-country (33,000 students, paying 5,000 more a year= $165,000,000)

So what now?

Well hopefully both sides act like adults, which would mean Temple officials agreeing to have public and transparent meetings with the state reps, and the state reps passing Temple's bill to the final stages so the money couldn't be touched, to be ultimately passed when a satisfactory end is met.

What can you do?

Well TSG and others have hopped all over this mess so you have plenty of options. The following is lifted from a message from TSG VP Jon Desantis, and has instructions and a letter to contact your state reps. Yes, I did it, and it really only took 3 minutes.

"This proposal is very time sensitive and is schedule to voted upon tomorrow. We are asking EVERY TEMPLES STUDENT who is a PENNSYLVANIA RESIDENT to email their state representative tonight or tomorrow morning in opposition to this proposal.

How do you do this?

1. Go to http://zip4.usps.com/zip4/welcome.jsp to determine your complete (9 digit) zip code (i.e. 19121-1203
2. Go to http://www.house.state.pa.us/ and in the upper right hand corner, input your 9 digit zip code. This will tell you who your state representative is
3. Click on your STATE REPRESENTATIVE'S name (not state senator)
4. Scroll down the page until you see a link saying, in some fashion, "Click here to email/contact member"
5. Fill out the required address information USING OUR HOME ADDRESS (not school address.)
6. In the field that says message, concern, or some variety of that, copy and paste the below message.
7. Click submit or send.



I am writing to you to express extreme concern about the state's appropriation to Temple University. As a Temple student, I depend on Temple for providing both an excellent and affordable education. If the state appropriation was removed in its entirety, tuition would increase 45% or nearly $5,000 for a Pennsylvania residents. Not only will this adversely affect students now, but it will saddle graduates with increased debt for years to come.

Our Board of Trustees, in light of the difficult economic climate, approved a record low tuition increase of 2.9% and dedicated an additional $7 million to student financial aid. Due to these actions, millions of dollars in the University's operating budget have been slashed in favor of supporting students' ability to attend.

Please support Pennsylvania's appropriation to Temple as it truly makes a tremendous difference in my life."

Temple's website is also providing a similar style letter writing tool, found here.

Finally, there is a march from the SAC to Rep. Taylor's office tomorrow at 2, which can be found here.


OVERVIEW
+ Pissing match between state rep John Taylor and his gang, and Temple University Health Systems(Temple) over closing of Northeastern hospital.
+ Rep used his best punch, tabling Temple's 175 mil annual allocation, while PSU and Pitt's passed through to the next round.
+Money isn't gone yet but might not hang around for long.
+If this happens, your SEMESTER tuition goes up $2,500, totaling $5,000 a year (33,000 students x $5,000= $165,000,000) and Temple is pretty much a private institution.
+ What to do: A) Piss and moan, B) Cry C) Use TSG's and Temple's letter writing tools D) March to state rep's office today E) Transfer(dropout) F) Both A,B, and E. G) Both C and D

Answer G is the correct answer.

Check back to the C&W for developments.