T H U R S D A Y APRIL 11, 2002
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Volume CXXXVII, No. 48
An independent newspaper serving the Brown community since 1891
www.browndailyherald.com
New student group aims to bring talk of conservative politics to the table BY ANDY GOLODNY
Campus conservatives are creating a new student group they say will allow a little-heard segment of the Brown population to have a say on political issues. On Monday night, the Undergraduate Council of Students approved category one status for Brown’s budding chapter of the Young Americans for Freedom. The YAF is a national conservative campus organization founded in 1960. “I want to start the process of creating a conservative community at Brown, and the first step is to give conservative students who feel under siege a space where they can voice their feelings,” said Herald columnist Stephen Beale ’04, a founding member of Brown’s YAF. Beale said one of the group’s “primary goals” is to invite conservative commentator David Horowitz to campus next fall. “The lack of conservative speakers here is atrocious, and I was very upset that the college Republicans did not invite him to speak here last year,” Beale said. “We want to create a conservative culture here which is presently lacking,” said Nicholas Kammer ’02, another founding member of the group. Beale also wants to use the new group as a springboard for restarting the Brown Spectator, a conservative campus publication that published from 1986 to 1991. The Brown YAF plans to engage liberal campus activists in discussion. see FREEDOM, page 6
Students, Univ. support services organize second annual Disability Awareness Day event BY CRYSTAL Z.Y. NG
The second annual Disability Awareness Day challenged students and faculty Wednesday to discuss and learn about mental and physical disabilities and accessibility issues for disabled students. Elyse Chaplin, coordinator for Disability Support Services, said Brown has approximately 370 students with mental and physical disabilities. She said students created Disability Awareness Day last year to raise awareness about disability issues. In the lobby of Salomon Hall, crafts, food and information booths offered interactive lessons about disabilities. A panel on disabilities featured students and included a performance by musician and storyteller Tim Van Egmond. Marcy Feibelman ’03.5, a member of the day’s planning committee, said the event created awareness and campus dialogue about disabilities. Feibelman has had a recurring disk injury since high school and said she realizes “how much more challenging this is for someone who has to go through this every day of their life.” Chaplin said the day helped “provide a vehicle for students with disabilities to share their stories and what has been helpful to them at Brown to increase access around campus.” She said her goal for Disability Awareness Day was to increase awareness of issues that affect people with disabilities and to work toward universal accessibility. Keally Dewitt ’04, who said she has clinical depression, said it was important to discuss disabilities with community members to increase awareness. “There’s probably a general bias towards disabilities in general. We need to add the issue to Brown’s diversity
Maria Schriber / Herald
Providence Mayor Vincent Cianci is the possible subject of a new Tribeca Productions motion picture.
Movie in the works on Cianci’s life, despite mayor’s reluctance to star BY ELENA LESLEY
Plans for a motion picture about the life of Mayor Vincent Cianci may soon be realized, despite the Providence icon’s reluctance to have his checkered past adapted for Hollywood’s big screen. The movie rights to a yet-to-be released book about Mayor Vincent Cianci’s reign in Providence spanning three decades have been sold to Tribeca Productions, said Mike Stanton, the book’s author and a Pulitzer Prize-winning Providence Journal reporter. “Renaissance Man: The Life and Times of Buddy Cianci and An American City,” which Stanton said he will send to Random House for editing at the end of the year, examines Cianci’s life through the prism of Providence’s history. “They say that all history is biography,” Stanton said. “I thought, what better person to tell the story of Providence through than Buddy Cianci?” The folks at Tribeca Productions agreed. The company assigned Pawtucket native Michael Corrente, director of “Federal Hill” and “Outside Providence,” to work on the screenplay version, the Boston Globe reported. Stanton said he feels those at Tribeca “share my passion for the subject.” Although not a Providence native, Stanton has had plenty of time to develop a love for his adopted city. A Journal employee since 1985, Stanton said he became
fascinated with Providence’s transformation from “a dying old factory town dominated by organized crime” to a tourist destination. Cianci says that in the 1970s, mayors were supposed to be social workers — today, they’re expected to be entrepreneurs, Stanton said. “Cities are hip again,” he said. Despite Stanton’s interest in Cianci, the mayor says he is not pleased with the forthcoming novel and potential movie. “I think it’s an attempt to be mercenary and to make money on my story,” Cianci told The Herald. “The city has become a theme park for journalists.” But the Globe reported that Cianci may be arranging “his own, more lucrative, book deal.” Cianci would not comment on this matter, saying only that he hoped any books or movies made about his life “would be accurate and not sensational.” Although Stanton said he expects his book to come out sometime next year, he’s not sure when Tribeca will start production on a potential movie. He said no schedule is set because both the book and movie will likely follow Cianci’s upcoming corruption trial. After all, “we still don’t know the ending yet,” he said. Herald staff writer Elena Lesley ’04 can be reached at elesley@browndailyherald.com.
see DISABILITY, page 6
I N S I D E T H U R S D AY, A P R I L 1 1 , 2 0 0 2 Mayor Cianci’s tourism study recommends new citywide marketing stragegies page 3
Oklahoma prof. Ortiz discusses recent growth of Latino fraternities page 5
Coalition of Concerned Students earns “Muzzle Award” for stealing copies of The Herald page 5
TO D AY ’ S F O R E C A S T Bret Cohen ’03 says leftists should abandon support for regressive tax structure column,page 15
Men’s lacrosse defeats Harvard, keeps Ivy League title hopes alive page 16
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