April 12, 2005

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LANCASTER EVENT CENTER
Shallow Exploration Drillers Clinic Held This Week

A dirt floor at the Lancaster Event Center will offer new opportunities as the 40th annual Shallow Exploration Drillers Clinic April 12-14.

Started by UNL geologist Duane Eversoll, then with the roads department, and Dick Putney, of the Mobile Drilling Co., in 1965, the clinic is expected to draw about 150-200 people from about 30 states. Shallow exploration drilling refers to drilling of 200 feet or less and mostly involves exploration drilling for siting of roads or buildings.

The format is informal and on a level appropriate for technicians, he said. Because of the dirt floor in the events center, a new feature this year involves demonstrating large drilling rigs on-site and indoors. The clinic is co-sponsored by UNL's Conservation and Survey Division and the Nebraska Department of Roads.

NEBRASKA DEPARTMENT OF ROADS |
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NEBRASKA UNION, 3:30PM
English Creative Writing Program, African and African American Studies, Women's Studies Program Lecture - 'The Sacred and the Feminine: African Responses to Julia Kristeva and Catherine Clement'
Molara Ogundipe, University of Arkansas,
Pine Bluff.

N172 BEADLE CENTER, 4PM
Center for Biological Chemistry and Redox Biology Center Seminar - 'Control of Cellular Cysteine Levels: Roles of Cysteine Dioxygenase and Glutamate-Cysteine Ligase'
Dr. Martha H. Stipanuk, Cornell University

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BASEBALL |
6:35PM
Nebraska Cornhuskers vs North Dakota State Bison
HAWKS FIELD, HAYMARKET PARK

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EAST CAMPUS UNION, DAILY 10AM - 5PM
'Live' Fossil Preparation At NU State Museum

Kansas City-based artist Jessa Huebing-Reitinger thought her husband, James, had gone buggy. Two years ago, as the couple struggled to scratch out an existence, James started prodding his wife toward painting insects. He saw the multi-legged creatures as a perfect blend of her subject matter - which at that time included mechanical compositions commissioned by corporations and rainforest scenes just for fun.

Fast-forward to today and the couple has transformed that vision into Project InSECT (International Spectrum of Enormous Crawling Things), a traveling art exhibit bent on educating others on the benefits of the small creatures. Their sojourn stretched to UNL last week, as Project InSECT set up shop for a month-long stay in the East Union. During their time in Lincoln, Jessa plans to start, complete and donate a painting of Nebraska's endangered Salt Creek Tiger Beetle to UNL.

Their hope is that the seven-plus foot tall paintings hanging in the East Union will strike a chord - or at least conversation - from those passing by. "A lot of people see insects as disgusting little things that need to be killed," James said. "But, when you see them at this size, you can't help but appreciate them." In their travels, the couple estimates that about 70 percent of those who stop and talk see the point of the exhibit. The remaining 30 percent simply won't have anything to do with their subject matter.

"This is truly a remarkable thing to bring to the university," Leon Higley, an entomology professor who met the couple at a conference and worked to get them to campus, said. "It sounds kind of hokey, but I believe this will help people recapture a fascination they had with insects as a kid." Higley, Jessa and James are all excited to be joining forces to educate people on the Salt Creek Tiger Beetle. Endangered at the state level, the beetles are only found in salt marshes north of Lincoln. Their numbers are believed to be below 1,000.

The work in the East Union will run over the next three weeks, with Jessa painting from 10 am to 5 pm, Monday through Friday.

PROJECT INSECT
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MARY RIEPMA ROSS MEDIA ARTS CENTER
Continuing This Week at the Ross: Moolaadé, The
Assassination of Richard Nixon

UNL's Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center
presents Moolaadé, the Grand Prize in the Un Certain
Regard section of the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, and director Niels
Mueller's debut feature film The Assassination of Richard Nixon, starring
Sean Penn.

Extending the strong feminist consciousness that marked his previous triumph Faat
Kiné (as well as such earlier classics as Black Girl and Ceddo),
81-year-old Ousmane Sembene directs Moolaadé as a rousing polemic
directed against the stillcommon African practice of female circumcision. Though
the subject matter might seem weighty, this buoyant film is anything but--Sembene
places the action amid a colorful, vibrant tapestry of village life and expands
the narrative well beyond the bounds of straightforward, socially conscious realism
employing an imaginative array of emblematic metaphors, mythic overtones, and
musical numbers.

In The Assassination of Richard Nixon, Sean Penn gives
yet another remarkable performance as troubled soul Sam Bicke. As
the Watergate scandal is breaking and President Nixon can be seen
all over the television and newspapers, Bicke struggles to earn
money as an office furniture salesman as he tries to win back his
estranged wife, Marie (a brunette Naomi Watts). He has grand plans
of starting a mobile tire store with his friend Bonny (Don Cheadle),
but he is so blinded by truth and honesty that he stands in the
way of his own potential success. His rage continues to build as
he sees another man spending time with Marie and the kids until
he cannot control it any longer and resolves to kill Nixon, whom
he blames for all of society's ills. Based on true events, the film
also deals with the racism and sexism that was rampant in the early-to-mid-1970s.

More information is available at the Ross website.

MRRMAC | MOOLAADÉ | THE
ASSASSINATION OF RICHARD NIXON |
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