Thursday, March 16, 2006

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, MARCH 16, 2006

Volume CXLI, No. 35

www.browndailyherald.com

An independent newspaper serving the Brown community since 1891 ITS A WRAP Diane von Furstenberg, designer of the wrap dress, discusses the challenges and joys of a working woman ARTS & CULTURE 3

RHODY ON THE RIPTA post- takes you on a ride to examine the highs, lows, tales and woes of the Ocean State INSIDE

Bookstore supporters rally against outsourcing

BY ROSS FRAZIER SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Approximately 150 Brown students, faculty and staff along with East Side residents and merchants turned out for a half-hour rally yesterday to support preserving the independence of the Brown Bookstore.

The rally, which was held on the Angell Street side of the building, was organized by the Save the Bookstore Coalition, which was formed by Brown graduate students in response to a March 3 finding by the Bookstore Review Committee that operation of the bookstore should be outsourced to an external vendor.

Rally leaders signed people up for the coalition’s mailing list, handed out tshirts and distributed signs before calling up various speakers.

Those at the rally cited various reasons for their support of the bookstore’s inde-

pendence. “From what I’ve heard, Barnes and Noble is going to raise prices and is not a good deal,” said Randall Rose GS, one of the rally’s organizers.

“This is real important to me as an independent bookseller that we have another one in Providence because I’m going to retire one of these days and there aren’t going to be any left,” said Sarah Zacks, owner of Books on the Square, which is located in Wayland Square. “I doubt I’ll be able to sell my bookstore, and then Brown will be the last one left. It would be really sad for me to see my friends and all those folks out of jobs,” she said.

“I’m a grown-up. I know what happened to the (Harvard) Coop. It’s not the Coop anymore, and Brown Bookstore is not going to be the Brown Bookstore anymore — and that’s going to be a shame for the community,” Zacks said. see BOOKSTORE, page 7

Jacob Melrose / Herald

Yesterday evening, about 150 members of the College Hill community protested outsourcing the Brown Bookstore to a private vendor such as Barnes and Noble.

OUT OF THE SHADOWS Lance Williams ’72 makes up half the duo that uncovered Barry Bonds’ rampant steroid use SPORTS 12

BY SIMMI AUJLA SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Members of the class of 2006 have been in Providence longer than Chief of Police Dean Esserman. In three years, however, Esserman, along with Mayor David Cicilline ’83, has reduced overall crime rates and worked to improve the public image of the Providence Police Department.

Overall crime rates between 2003 and 2005 dropped 14 percent from crime rates between 2000 and 2002, PROVIDENCE according to PPD statistics. Murders decreased TODAY: Fourth in a series by 21 percent, while incidents of both rape and aggravated assault increased by 1 percent. Robbery decreased by 20 percent, burglaries by 22 percent, motor vehicle thefts by 15 percent and larcenies by 12 percent.

Deputy Police Chief Paul Kennedy credits community policing with the turnaround.

New strategies for preventing crime Before Esserman implemented changes, lieutenants commanded all officers who worked the same hours. Esserman broke the city into nine patrol districts to encourage officers to think in terms of neighborhoods rather than shifts. “People are now responsible for geography, not a shift (for a specific amount of time),” he said.

The decentralization of responsibility allows officers to learn more about the neighborhood in which they work, Kennedy said. Esserman hoped this knowledge would help officers fight crime throughout Providence, he added.

Kennedy emphasized the importance of statistics in detecting crime trends and pinpointing potential trouble spots. At weekly meetings, command staff share problems in their districts and analyze statistical in-

The College Republicans and intellectual diversity

BY ROSS FRAZIER SENIOR STAFF WRITER

It’s not easy being a Republican at Brown, but a sense of humor helps. That might be why Professor of Economics George Borts responded to a Herald inquiry about conservatives on campus with FEATURE his own question: “Do you have a microscope?”

You may have to look hard to find them, but Republicans do exist at Brown.

The College Republicans is certainly not the largest or highest profile group on campus. Though the organization has a mailing list of over 300 students, President Evan Pettyjohn ’06 said only 25 to 30 of those come to meetings, and only 10 or so come regularly. But Pettyjohn suspects there are a lot of “closet conservatives” at Brown.

Pettyjohn said conservatives get various reactions from the University comsee REPUBLICANS, page 4 Editorial: 401.351.3372 Business: 401.351.3260

sunny 42 / 23

Local police cope with recent spike in violent crime, reputation of corruption

ResLife extends deadline, sets second lottery segment Responding to an apparently inordinate number of students who missed the deadline to enter the housing lottery, the Office of Residential Life has extended the entrance deadline, according to an e-mail posted on its Web site. Students who enter the lottery by March 20 will still have the opportunity to select housing, though not until all students who entered on time have selected first.

The e-mail, sent yesterday by Assistant Director of Residential Life Rosario Navarro to all individuals who did not enter the lottery, points out that while most students did successfully enter the lottery, ResLife received several complaints that changes to the lottery, coupled with the 9 a.m., March 13, deadline, caused confusion. As a result, instead of putting those students on the housing waitlist, ResLife will give them a second opportunity to select housing, albeit in a different segment with fewer options.

TOMORROW

New policing strategies, stronger neighborhood presence help lower crime

Lonely on the Right

BY CHLOE LUTTS SENIOR STAFF WRITER

TODAY

sunny 44 / 24

The second segment will start immediately after the end of the normal lottery, which will run from March 20 to March 22, according to the e-mail.

According to Justin Glavis-Bloom ’07, chair of the Residential Council’s Lottery Committee, ResLife staff held a two-hour “emergency meeting” yesterday before calling Glavis-Bloom and ResCouncil Chair Brendan Hargreaves ’06 to ask for their opinions.

“There were a lot of students who approached ResLife and e-mailed me — more so than in previous years,” Glavis-Bloom said. “We all agreed there was a problem and that this was a good solution.”

“Our office is confident that the lottery information was thorough and accurate and that the information was disseminated in multiple formats including our Web site, posters, information sessions and e-mails,” Navarro wrote in the e-mail. “However we recognize that some students may have missed the deadline.” ResLife officials could not be reached for comment last night.

Glavis-Bloom said it was unclear ex-

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

formation, he said.

Lieutenant Paul Campbell, the District 9 commander who directs the police substation on Brook Street, said the creation of special units, such as a robbery squad, a drug task force, a gun task force and a gang unit, have also helped limit crime problems.

In the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, the PPD started a homeland security division, Kennedy said.

“We have identified (trouble) areas within and around the city,” he said. “(Terrorism) is one of the things we take very seriously here.”

The PPD’s license enforcement unit checks nightclubs for overcrowded conditions, Kennedy said. In 2003, 100 people died in a fire at The Station, a nightclub in West Warwick, R.I. The gun task force has been particularly successful in removing guns from the streets of Providence, another means by which the department hopes to preempt incidents of violent crime.

But violent crime — which is defined as murder, non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape and robbery — has increased in the past three years, Kennedy said, and there has been a spike in homicides in the past year. Although he could not explain the increase, he said factors such as the health of the economy and see POLICING, page 6

DARFUR AND THE HOLOCAUST

Min Wu / Herald

New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine lectured on the importance of immediate action and individual lobbying to aid the crisis in Darfur last night in Salomon 101. The talk was part of the 3rd Annual Conference on the Holocaust. actly how many students missed the deadline because some students who do not enter the lottery are seeking offcampus housing or transferring out of Brown.

According to the e-mail, the lottery application will be posted online again today at 5 p.m and must be turned in

by Monday, March 20 at 5 p.m. Lottery numbers for new entrants will be posted in Wayland Arch the following day.

News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com

THIS MORNING THE BROWN DAILY HERALD · THURSDAY, MARCH 16, 2006 · PAGE 2 Jero Matt Vascellaro

TO D AY ’ S E V E N TS ASSESSING AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT All day, (Watson Institute) — A one-day conference that will feature a panel of distinguished speakers including Britain’s ambassador to the United Nations, high-ranking U.N. officials and diplomats speaking on African development.

“REVOLUTION IN THE VALLEY” 4 p.m., (CIT 477) — Andy Hertzfeld ‘75, who helped design the Macintosh computer, will give a lecture on the folklore and history of Apple and sign copies of his book.

“DARFUR DIARIES” 7 p.m. , (List 120) — Part of the Human Rights Film Festival, this one-hour film chronicles the history, hopes and fears of the people in Darfur.

“SHE, ZE, AND HE: EXPLORING GENDER AND SEXUALITY” KICK-OFF EVENT 8 p.m. , (Salomon 001) — Maggid Jhos Singer, a transgender musician, Jewish spiritual leader, meditation teacher and storyteller, and Anne Fausto-Sterling, professor of biology and women’s studies, will hold a panel discussion followed by a reception.

M for Massive Yifan Luo

MENU SHARPE REFECTORY

Chocolate Covered Cotton Mark Brinker

VERNEY-WOOLLEY DINING HALL

LUNCH — Grilled Ham and Swiss Sandwich, Savory Spinach, Artichoke Pepper Calzone, Vegan Tofu Raviolis with Sauce, Sweet Potato Fries, Turkey and Wild Rice Soup, Pineapple Upside Down Cake, and Cheesecake Brownies

LUNCH — Vegetarian Six Bean Soup, Minestrone Soup, Hot Roast Beef on French Bread, Baked Macroni and Cheese, Summer Squash, and Cheesecake Brownies

DINNER — Roast Turkey with Sauce, Mashed Sweet and White Potatoes, Stuffing, Carrots Vichy, Vegetarian Gnocchi a la Sorrentina, Baked Potatoes, and Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Frosting

DINNER — Vegetarian Six Bean Soup, Minestrone Soup, Turkey Cutler with Herb Lemon Sauce, Pasta Spinach Casserole, Roasted Butternut Risotto with Leeks, Sauteed Broccoli with Garlic, and Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Frosting

Homebodies Mirele Davis

RELEASE DATE– Thursday, March 16, 2006

C Times R O SDaily S W Crossword ORD Los Angeles Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis ACROSS 1 WB sitcom about the Hart family 5 Troubling haze 9 Sell illegally 14 Like some vaccines 15 1962 doo-wop classic “Duke of __” 16 Revise 17 Regular time to go shopping 19 “Cool!”

20 UK fliers 21 “Car Talk” airer 23 Elvis’s middle name 24 Saver’s strategy 28 “The Federalist Papers” coauthor 29 Dijon thirstquencher 30 God with arrows 31 Piercing cry?

34 Dot 38 Be in a bee 39 Ready-made graphic 41 Chess piece 42 Dwight rival 44 Account 45 Put to work 46 Chap 48 French explorer of the Mississippi 50 Apocryphal words from Deep Throat, and what the first words of 17-, 24-, 39- and 60-Across do 55 Fleur-de-lis 56 Sinn Fein ally, briefly 57 Wood shaper 58 Snake transports 60 Catalog insert 65 Cookout choice 66 Play-of-color stone 67 Elbow-wrist joiner 68 Loopy fabric 69 Seed containers 70 Survive DOWN 1 CD finale?

2 Distinctive period

3 Streaked hooter 52 Permanent pen 37 Place for a pad 4 Acid neutralizers 39 Parting word pal?

5 Complete group 40 Printer’s 53 Scout unit 6 Loony purchase 54 Silent film star 7 Reddish-brown 43 Standout player 59 Much of a sunset primate photo 45 Small number 8 Idea carved in 47 MADD concern 61 Family man stone 49 Do some 62 Golf great from 9 Word with Pedro ballooning Johannesburg or Pablo 50 Original 63 “M*A*S*H” roles 10 Make a killing 51 Get on one’s 64 Part of a place 11 Gaming soapbox setting trailblazer ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE: 12 Pretend 13 Fork feature 18 Young salamanders 22 Short circuit?

24 Revealed 25 Shed item 26 Native Alaskan 27 Seattle-toSpokane direction 28 Pueblo site 32 H&R Block hiree 33 Oscar winner Berry 35 Dreyfus defender 36 Gymnastics gold medalist Patterson 3/16/06 xwordeditor@aol.com

Freeze Dried Puppies Cara Fitzgibbons

Silentpenny Soundbite Brian Elig

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Editorial Phone: 401.351.3372

The Brown Daily Herald (USPS 067.740) is published Monday through Friday dur-

Business Phone: 401.351.3260

ing the academic year, excluding vacations, once during Commencement, once

Robbie Corey-Boulet, President

please send corrections to P.O. Box 2538, Providence, RI 02906. Periodicals postage

during Orientation and once in July by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. POSTMASTER

Justin Elliott, Vice President Ryan Shewcraft, Treasurer

By Lynn Lempel (c)2006 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

3/16/06

David Ranken, Secretary

paid at Providence, R.I. Offices are located at 195 Angell St., Providence, R.I. E-mail herald@browndailyherald.com. World Wide Web: http://www.browndailyherald.com.

Subscription prices: $179 one year daily, $139 one semester daily. Copyright 2006 by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.

CAMPUS NEWS THE BROWN DAILY HERALD · THURSDAY, MARCH 16, 2006 · PAGE 3

TWC confirms changes to MPC program for next year

Drop in positions is smaller than original projections

BY SARA MOLINARO CONTRIBUTING WRITER

The number of Minority Peer Counselors for the 2006-2007 academic year will fall from 25 to 20, the Third World Center confirmed Wednesday. The reduction coincides with a proposal to remove MPCs from the Residential Peer Leaders system and place them under the jurisdiction of the Third World Center and the Office of Campus Life and Student Services.

Two of the 20 MPCs will serve as MPC Coordinators, while the rest will be regular MPCs. When the MPC Steering Committee unveiled possible changes to the program at a March 8 information session, members indicated the total number of MPCs could fall to just 10.

The lower number of MPCs was the most contentious part of last week’s information session, and a majority of questions and concerns raised by the students at the session addressed the issue. This reduction is due to the MPCs moving out of the RPL system and thus losing funding from the Office of Student Life. After the change, all funding for the program will come from the Office of Campus Life and Student Services and the TWC. Eldridge Gilbert ’05, a former MPC Coordinator, reacted strongly to the reduction.

“The idea that MPCs will not be a part of the RPL structure has been discussed for some time, but in all my years I never thought that the consequence of moving out of the RPL system would be to drop 10 people from the roster,” he said.

Gilbert called the drop in numbers “a slight to the Third World community,” and said it will make the job of an MPC much harder while decreasing the level of diversity resources on campus.

In a letter to alums dated March 9, Karen McLaurin ’74, associate dean of the college and director of the Third World Center, wrote, “There is no effort to downsize the TWC or cut our budget.”

McLaurin addressed reasons for the reduction, stating, “The number of 10 MPCs was initiated by me as the appropriate number to begin this new program platform. This number has been in-

terpreted as a diminishment of services which was neither my intention nor the case.”

Instead, the MPC Steering Committee was told when the proposal to remove MPCs from the RPL program was first being conceived that any changes should provide a higher level of service than what is currently available, according to David Greene, vice president for campus life and student services.

“With 20 students committed to 100 percent of the activity, you get a much higher level of support,” Greene said, referencing the fact that many MPCs say 85 percent of their job currently mirrors that of a Residential Counselor.

The proposal to move MPCs out of the RPL program is an attempt to shift the focus of the position away from first-year unitrelated responsibilities to serving a larger segment of the Brown community. This proposal has not yet been officially approved, Greene said.

Greene spoke positively of the new system, stressing in particular that having 20 MPCs instead of the 10 originally proposed will better serve the Brown community.

Cassie Owens ’09 agreed with the new proposal and with the increase in the number of MPC positions allotted for next year.

“The proposal sounds really, really good,” she said. “There are a lot of messes that will have to be worked out, but that’s true with any new program.” She added that the new program would have difficulty operating with only 10 counselors.

Rakim Brooks ’09, however, was more hesitant about the proposal. “I’m personally dissatisfied with why MPCs moved out of the RPL program,” he said, explaining that the move out of the RPL system means the MPC program will lose a lot of funding and resources in terms of personnel and administrative support. He also expressed disappointment at the drop in the numbers of this year’s MPCs from 30 to 25.

“The fact that they were willing to reduce the numbers to 10 (at first) reflects the fragmentation of the Third World community. … I don’t know if Brown has less commitment to the Third World community, or if there’s less funding than there used to be,” he said.

Famed fashion designer recounts ‘wrap’ around success

BY LYDIA GIDWITZ CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Heralded as one of the most successful and influential fashion designers of the 20th century, Diane von Furstenberg P’92 spoke ARTS & P’91 about her life and CULTURE career last night in a filled-to-capacity List 120.

If, as she says, “every woman’s story is about strength,” then her own story is no exception.

In a discussion titled “Turning a Passion for Life into a Penchant for Business, the Second Time Around,” von Furstenberg — the famed designer of the iconic wrap dress — detailed her successes and failures in the fashion industry.

During her wedding engagement, von Furstenberg interned at Italian apparel factories, learning about fabric, cut and design, she said. When she moved to America to be with her husband, she knew it was important to take samples with her and try to sell them, she said. Even though she was married, Furstenberg explained, “I wanted to be independent. I wanted to have my own life.”

After failing to find a place in several fashion firms, von Furstenberg took charge of her own company, knowing all she needed was a showroom and a sales person. She did invoicing, packaging, designing and selling all out of her living room while raising two young children, she said.

“I was an inexperienced young woman who wanted to be in the driver’s seat — in charge of my life,” she said.

She found almost immediate success. In 1974, Mary Eisenhower, the granddaughter of President Dwight Eisenhower, was photographed wearing von Furstenberg’s wrap top, a ballet-inspired shirt with no buttons that was wrapped around the body.

The next shipment of these tops sold out immediately, she said. Using the same design, von Furstenberg created her most notable success: the iconic wrap dress, a jersey dress that is wrapped around the body and takes the shape of its contours.

The success of the dress, arguably, is in how it flattered the body while being versatile and pragmatic; it gave women confi-

Meghan Boudreau / Herald

Fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg P’91 P’92 discussed her second foray into the fashion business in a lecture titled “Turning a Passion for Life Into a Penchant for Business: The Second Time Around” in List 120 yesterday. dence. Von Furstenberg said she “was creating something that was helping other women.”

After the wrap dress, “my name really became a brand,” she said. She sold five million dresses and was on the cover of Newsweek in 1976.

However, with production numbers as high as 25,000 wrap dresses a week, von Furstenberg said, “there was a point where they wanted no more.”

And so at age 30, von Furstenberg said she found herself with millions of dollars worth of inventory without any idea of what to do. Through licensing, however, she absolved her obligations to sell the excess merchandise, she said.

After mismanagement by her partners, she sold her company in 1983. “I just thought I should do the creative, the designing (and) the marketing,” she said. “A man with a suit should really run the business,” she said.

After dabbling in several endeavors — opening a small couture shop in New York, a publishing house in Paris and writing several coffee table

books — von Furstenberg decided to return to fashion.

“My brand had disappeared,” she said. “It was in the hands of different companies, distribution had gone down, the product had gone down.”

Yet she wished to return to fashion because her clothes had a message behind them.

“A woman wears my clothes and something happens,” she said. “Something special happens — you become you all of the sudden.”

Noting that her old line was popular again — this time in vintage stores — she returned to fashion with her new line, the self-titled Diane von Furstenberg. Now in its sixth year, the line is still receiving accolades from consumers and critics alike and has stores in New York, Miami, London, Paris, Los Angeles and Hong Kong.

“I stopped hiring a man in a suit and hired a young woman,” she said.

Von Furstenberg was brought to the University by Women in the World, a student group concerned with women’s challenges of balancing family with work.

PAGE 4 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, MARCH 16, 2006

Republicans continued from page 1 munity. There are plenty of students who are either curious or accepting, he said, but “other people write us off as bigots or idiots.” He added, “They assume there is no reasoned defense of conservative opinions.”

This happens because “they have never heard them,” said Zack Drew ’07, former vice president of the College Republicans.

Brown can be an ideological bubble for some, Pettyjohn said.

“If you don’t make a concerted effort here — if you are a Democrat or a liberal — to find that opposition,” you are not going to find it, he said.

Pettyjohn is passionate about the belief that liberals are doing themselves a “disservice,” as he says 50 percent of America is conservative and liberal stu-

dents are bound to encounter conservative ideas in the world beyond College Hill.

John Tomasi, associate professor of political science, said some people think the reason universities are so liberal is because “the Right is wrong and the Left is correct … and universities track the truth.” He added, “The most polite word I can think of” to describe that argument is “implausible.”

Yet not all Brown students prefer a homogeneous environment. Tomasi said students’ intellectual curiosity often triumphs over their existing ideas, and they explore other political viewpoints. “Brown students, in my experience, are incredibly eager to learn about political ideas that they may not necessarily defend themselves,” he said. He added, “The Right is so unexamined at Brown that it has become cool to consider.”

Pettyjohn seems to fit To-

Fill in the grid so that every row, every column and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 through 9.

Solution, tips and computer program at www.sudoku.com.

masi’s description. He came to Brown in part because of its liberal reputation. He said he did not want to assume his ideas were entirely correct and knew challenges could prove some views wrong while strengthening others.

The College Republicans primarily seek to “spread conservative ideals and increase dialogue on campus,” Pettyjohn said. But are they succeeding?

Borts said he sees conservatism on campus “only when I look in the mirror.”

There used to be a greater conservative presence on campus, Borts said, but on-campus “conservatism died out in the ’60s (due to) generational change in the faculty and administration and external current events that were deeply disturbing,” including the Vietnam War. “It always changes,” Borts said of political currents on campus, adding that he wouldn’t be surprised if “a bunch of kids running around naked in Sayles Hall” inspires a conservative reaction.

The College Republicans was resurrected just five years ago, after becoming “pretty much nonexistent” in the late 1990s.

This semester, the group is “getting better organized and stronger,” Pettyjohn said.

“In the last year, we have gained support,” according to Drew, who cited President Ruth Simmons’ encouragement of intellectual diversity and initiatives such as the Kaleidoscope lecture fund.

The creation of the Kaleidoscope Fund, established to bring a diversity of viewpoints to campus, was “partially our in-

fluence,” Drew said. The Republicans hopes to bring Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, to campus this semester, though members fear the fund will decline the request because it partially funded a lecture sponsored

by The Herald earlier this month

by Jay Nordlinger, managing editor of National Review. Drew said the idea of Nordlinger and Lowry redundant is like saying Howard Dean, Noam Chomsky and the Reverend Jesse Jackson all delivered the same message when they came to campus.

In general, though, Pettyjohn said the College Republicans’ relations with the administration were “great last year,” which he suspects was partially due to “pressure from conservative alums.” He called the Kaleidoscope Fund a “band-aid solution,” arguing, “one lecture is not the same as a balanced atmosphere.” Tomasi agreed that the Kaleidoscope Fund is an inadequate solution to the problem of intellectual diversity on campus.

Drew said it is “hard to counteract” the many endowed lecture series that bring “liberally minded people” to campus. But he expressed appreciation for Simmons, saying, “I think she believes in intellectual diversity.”

In the end, Pettyjohn said, the Republicans “don’t feel like we are smothered.” “We speak up in class. … We try to do as much as we can, and we are going to be doing more.” This spring, the Republicans will face the Brown Democrats in a debate over government wiretapping. As for the controversy that defending their positions creates, Drew said, “that’s the

best part.”

In response to Borts’ allegation that the on-campus conservative presence is microscopic, Tomasi pointed out another student group — “a fast-moving amoeba worth watching, the Students for Liberty are a group that is … interested in the intellectual underpinnings of conservatism.” In addition, Tomasi’s own Political Theory Project attempts to broaden political debate on campus.

“The range of ideologies that are discussed at a great university should reflect the range of ideologies throughout the country,” he said. If this range is only as great as the range of ideologies discussed at Harvard, Yale and Princeton universities, Brown is failing its undergraduates in the same way they are, Tomasi added.

Stephen Dewey, president of the Harvard Republican Club, said his organization has roughly 1,000 members, 40 of whom attend regular meetings. Of the conservative presence at Harvard, Dewey wrote in an e-mail to The Herald, “Republicans hold our own on campus. We make a substantial contribution to campus debate, and have some influence over student opinion.”

The Brown College Republicans are currently launching a capital campaign to solicit funding from alums, Drew said. Pettyjohn said the goal of the campaign is to make sure the group still exists in 10 years so that he and Drew can donate to it. “The failure of other groups has been that they didn’t last,” he said.

With a laugh, he said, “we’re John the Baptist — the messiah is yet to come.”

CAMPUS NEWS THE BROWN DAILY HERALD · THURSDAY, MARCH 16, 2006 · PAGE 5

‘Small core’ of BMSA members works to broaden campus outreach

BY NATHALIE PIERREPONT CONTRIBUTING WRITER

In October, the Brown Muslim Students’ Association helped raise over $2,600 in the “Fast-a-Thon,” a charity event held during Ramadan, the ninth month of the year in the Islamic calendar, during which practicing Muslims fast from dawn until sunset. The event served two purposes, according to Saad Yousuf ’08, the group’s public relations official. In addition to raising money for earthquake victims in Pakistan, the event allowed non-Muslims to “personally experience the life of a fasting Muslim for a day,” Yousuf said.

This event exemplifies BMSA’s efforts to bring Muslim traditions

to the Brown community. As part of that effort, Lamia Khan ’08 said the group extended what was formerly Islam Awareness Week, usually held in March, to encompass a month’s worth of programming this year.

BMSA’s objective is not only to “cater to the needs of the Muslim community,” but also to try to educate the rest of the campus about Islam, said Kahn, the group’s current president. Because “Brown is really openminded and supportive” of the diversity around campus, “more awareness is always better,” she explained.

BMSA’s listserve exceeds 100 students, including Muslims and non-Muslims, but there are

about 20 core members who attend nearly every BMSA event, a substantial number of whom are first-years, according to Khan.

“We’re pretty small in terms of active members, but different people are involved with different components of the club,” Khan said.

The varying levels of commitment do not pose any problems for the group, according to Malika Ali ’09. Group members “help each other achieve whatever goals we all individually have.

We don’t try to enforce any sort of standard,” Ali said.

The group brings together members from all over the world see BMSA, page 9

Police search hospitals following attempted robbery of first-year

BY SIMMI AUJLA SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The Providence Police Department has been searching local hospitals for the suspects of the attempted mugging of Ben Donahue ’09 on Monday night, according to a PPD incident report.

Donahue, who fended off two men who accosted him and demanded money while he was

walking from the Olney-Margolies Athletic Center to Perkins Hall, said the PPD brought a suspect in to headquarters for questioning Tuesday. But Donahue has not been called downtown to identify the suspect, he said. PPD detectives did not return calls seeking comment.

Mark Nickel, director of University communications, told the Providence Journal in a March 15

article that Chief of Police Mark Porter would release a campus advisory because of the incident.

However, as of press time, no advisory had been sent out to the Brown community. Following two robberies earlier this semester, email crime alerts were sent the day after the incident. No information pertaining to Monday’s incident was posted on the Department of Public Safety’s Web site.

UCS discusses options for bookstore, football postseason play

BY STEPHANIE BERNHARD SENIOR STAFF WRITER

At its general body meeting last night, members of the Undergraduate Council of Students meeting listened to a report by the chair of the Bookstore Review Committee and discussed a possible reversal of the current ban on postseason football play in the Ivy League.

Elizabeth Huidekoper, chair the Bookstore Review Committee and executive vice president for finance and administration, and Walter Hunter, vice president for administration, spoke about their concerns and hopes for the future of the bookstore.

“Everybody wants to maintain the good pricing that we get, as well as the high quality,” Huidekoper said. She suggested that outsourcing the bookstore to a large company such as Barnes and Noble College Booksellers or Follett could improve the efficiency and ambience of the store.

“Everyone feels that the layout and use of space isn’t what it could be,” she said.

Huidekoper said she understands the concern of many students and community mem-

bers, who fear outsourcing the bookstore would have a negative effect on the local economy and the independent atmosphere of the store. She maintains, however, that the benefits would outweigh — and eventually overcome — the downfalls.

UCS Vice President Zachary Townsend ’08, a member of the committee, agreed that the bookstore needs improvements that only experienced booksellers can provide.

He said Barnes and Noble has “an expertise that we don’t necessarily have. ... They have economies of scale that we simply don’t have.”

UCS and UFB Representative Cash McCracken ’08 asked what would happen to the current bookstore staff if the operation were outsourced.

“We would insist that (Barnes and Noble or Follett) re-hire them, probably for at least a year,” Hunter said. He added that when universities have outsourced their bookstores, the great majority of the original staff has stayed on indefinitely.

When Huidekoper and Hunter concluded, UCS turned to a discussion of “A Resolution to see UCS, page 8

PAGE 6 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, MARCH 16, 2006

Policing www.browndailyherald.com

continued from page 1 the availability of drugs often affect rates of crimes like murder and rape.

Three times as many rapes per 100,000 people occur in Providence as do in New York City, according to 2003 statistics from City-Data.com.

Still, Kennedy said, there are fewer incidents of violent crime today than there were 15 years ago, in part because the crack cocaine epidemic of the late 1980s and early 1990s has subsided.

“We had a lot of senseless violence (then),” he said. “Drugs are still involved with a lot of our crimes, but not at the same level,” he added.

The long-term decrease in violent crimes since the early 1990s is a national trend, as statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice show. In 1991, there were 48.8 incidents of violent crime for every 1,000 Americans, while in 2004 there were only 21.1 such incidents.

Rebuilding the PPD’s reputation In January 2000, a white officer, Michael Solitro III, fatally shot a black off-duty officer, Cornel Young Jr., who had pulled out a gun to break up a fight outside a restaurant. The on-duty officer, who had only been on the police force for 12 days when the incident happened, mistook the off-duty officer for a suspect. The case became controversial because many Rhode Islanders, including the victim’s family, believed Young Jr. would not have died if

he had been white.

From 1998 to 2002, the Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted a probe of corruption in City Hall and discovered that officers had been cheating on written exams in order to get promoted, according to the Providence Journal. One officer, Lewis Perrotti Jr., received answers to a test before it was administered from a close friend of then-Chief of Police Urbano Prignano Jr., who retired in 2001.

Prignano denied any involvement, but the case and others like it undermined the credibility of the PPD. Since then, the department has reached out to Providence community leaders to rebuild its reputation in addition to reducing crime.

“One of the things (Esserman) was hired to do was change the culture here,” Kennedy said. “People are now accountable for their action — it’s a totally different police department,” he said.

Campbell called the improvement in fair testing and promotions “a total turnaround.”

“There had been a lot of political interference in the police department, in terms of hiring and promotion,” Cicilline told The Herald.

“That is gone,” he said.

Kennedy said good relations between the community and the police department have strengthened since Esserman took office.

“I think that the trust from the community is back here — (the relationship) was strained at times,” Kennedy said.

The PPD substation on Brook Street provides visible evidence of the department’s stronger relationship with Providence neighborhoods. The University donated the space for the Brook Street substation and spent $70,000 on renovations.

When a spate of robberies hit

the neighborhood in October of 2004, the PPD “deployed a lot of their resources to address the problem in College Hill,” said Walter Hunter, vice president for administration. On a visit to the substation at that time, he recalled seeing approximately 25 officers prepared to patrol the campus. “This is one of the results of enhanced collaboration (between PPD and the Department of Public Safety),” he said.

The University pays the department for officers who serve as additional patrol on campus, Hunter added.

The department has strengthened collaboration with programs outside of the law enforcement arena as well, Kennedy said. Partnerships with Family Service of Rhode Island, the Probation and Parole Unit of the Rhode Island Department of Corrections and the Providence Public School District are crucial to preventing crime in Providence, he said.

The PPD has helped DPS deal with disturbances caused by Hope High School students on campus, said Mark Porter, chief of police and director of public safety at Brown.

Porter said the PPD’s relationship with DPS has improved especially over the last two years.

“We’ve become more of a partner,” he said. Porter added that the PPD has invited him to its weekly meetings since he arrived at Brown last April.

“It’s a much more solvent relationship than probably most of your other college police have,” he said of DPS’ relationship with the PPD. The rapport between the Boston Police Department and the Public Safety Division at Northeastern University, where he worked for 12 years, was much less “fluid,” he added.

THURSDAY, MARCH 16 , 2006 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD PAGE 7

Bookstore continued from page 1 Ward 1 City Councilman David Segal was scheduled to speak at the rally but did not attend.

Jonna Iacono GS, president of the Graduate Student Council, read a resolution recently passed by the GSC. Following Iacono, Karen McAninch ’74, a business agent for the United Service and Allied Workers of Rhode Island, spoke to the crowd.

“Universally, I hear that college bookstores run by Barnes and Noble charge more for books, do not show as lenient return policies and so on,” McAninch said. “This proposal appears to be supported by top administrators. Perhaps they do not have the best interests of the students, staff and community at heart,” she said.

“This must not be allowed to die, any more than the Bengal tiger or the great horned owl should be allowed to die,” said Adjunct Professor of Literary Arts Robert Coover in a speech to the crowd. “This bookstore is our bookstore. It’s not perfect, but it’s ours, and these are our people. To hand it over to a corporate superpower would be a betrayal of Brown’s innermost principles.”

One bookstore employee, who asked not to be named, told The Herald she came to the rally because she is concerned about her job security.

“Working for a corporation is not good — period. We could lose our jobs. They say we’re going to keep our jobs, but they could use us and just get rid of us. And we’re not a part of Brown. We’re not a part of the Brown community anymore,” said the employee, who has worked at the bookstore for more than a decade.

“Even before this whole review committee started — and I think many of us that work here feel the same way — we’ve always been pro-independent bookstore,” said Susan Schlesinger, an assistant buyer at the bookstore. “We really take pride in the fact that we work in an independent bookstore in an academic setting.”

Schlesinger said the staff was informed about a year ago that a committee was being formed to look at different options for running the bookstore. Schlesinger said they were told there would be a decision in the fall, though the committee did not end up releasing any findings until March 3.

“It became very worrisome.

Morale was very low for a very long time,” Schlesinger said.

Chris Hu ’06, a member of Brown’s Student Labor Alliance said the SLA is trying to get the University to stop selling apparel made in sweatshops, and if the bookstore is outsourced that effort will be even more difficult.

“I’ve been using this bookstore for most of my professional life, and I like it. I like having it here,” Professor Emeritus of Mathematics Michael Rosen said.

“I wasn’t surprised (at the report) because it’s come up before, and these things have a way of re-appearing,” Rosen said. “I’ve always had reasonably good relations — not perfect — but I like the idea of an independent bookstore being here,” he added.

Several protestors commented on the apparent low turnout of undergraduates at the rally.

“I expected more turnout, especially from the undergraduates,” Fulya Apaydin GS said.

Sian Roberts GS, co-chair of the Save the Bookstore Coalition, however, told The Herald, “I am very pleased with the turnout.

This was great.”

Roberts said the coalition had utilized the resources of several undergraduate organizations, including the Brown Green Party and the SLA. She has also spoken with Undergraduate Council of Students President Sarah SaxtonFrump ’07, offering to present information about the coalition’s efforts to UCS. It is not yet clear if that will occur.

“We haven’t had any undergraduates on our organizing committee, so we haven’t felt totally tapped into that group,” Roberts said.

“I have a feeling most of the undergraduates didn’t know about it. … I’m not sure how well this was publicized,” Rosen said.

“For a cold windy night when all the University has gone home for the day, and the rest of the workers and local community is just getting home from work, it’s a pretty good turnout,” Schlesinger said.

“I think we had a pretty good cross-section of the community show up,” Alex Zevin ’06 said. “I think the bookstore needs to be improved, and there are problems with it but I think outsourcing is the worst thing they could do. It’s a point of individuality for Brown that it have its own independent bookstore and not one run by a corporation.”

NCAA continued from page 12 of the hardest games to call. I’d wear a David Ortiz jersey before I ever picked UConn to lose before the Final Four. The Huskies are bigger, stronger, faster and have more facial hair than anyone in the NCAA. A second round match-up of the defending champion, No. 3 North Carolina, and No. 6 Michigan State is a tough, tough call. Raising the stakes of that particular choice is the fact that both teams have an excellent chance of beating No. 2 Tennessee, one of the weaker two seeds in recent memory.

Ross: UNC versus MSU is an interesting match-up, but I don’t see a team as young as the Tar Heels getting too far in the Big Dance. Look for Tennessee to drop out early, and everyone should anticipate Illinois-UConn in the Sweet Sixteen. Dee Brown and his ’05 runner-up Illini are hungry — they’ll give the Huskies a good game.

In the Minneapolis bracket, I really don’t see any surprises. Certainly nothing as surprising as when you got into Brown, spud. The top four seeds could very well all survive to the Sweet Sixteen. But hold the presses when Ohio State’s balanced offense hangs tough and beats Villanova in a nail-biter.

Tom: After the tournament everyone will be saying “Yo!” Yoakim Noah that is, the 6’11 center from No. 3 Florida. The Gators have an excellent chance to make it to the Final Four if they can get past Ohio State, which nearly lost to Penn State in the Big Ten Tournament.

Ohio State pops more threes than an all-white high school team, and living and dying by the three will catch up with you in a long tournament. Villanova looks a lot less scary after being upset by Syracuse in the Big East Tournament, and Ray Allen, er… Allan Ray’s health is in question after hurting his eye. I like Boston College, a jump shot away from beating Duke on two separate occasions, to meet Florida in the Elite Eight. The Gators will pull it out, though, and advance to the Final Four with a

couple of tight games that result in numerous heart attacks from the older Sunshine State population.

Ross: My Final Four consists of Duke, Kansas, UConn and Ohio State. Redick, Sheldon Williams and the precocious post play of Josh McRoberts turn Kansas’ stagecoach back into a pumpkin, while UConn rides on past Ohio State to the national championship.

Speaking of, call me Rudy Gay, but do you think I have a shot with J.J.? He’s even cuter than any of your wide-eyed firstyear lady friends I’ve met to date. Sigh.

Tom: What’s going on? I’m sorry I fell asleep after the third paragraph when I realized we couldn’t make any good Rudy Gay jokes. My Final Four looks like this: Dukies easily beat the Zags and Florida can’t ball with UConn’s front line of Josh Boone, Hilton Armstrong and Gay. Duke

and UConn meet in the national championship to set up a meeting of the two national powerhouses. UConn rolls, out-muscling Duke inside and hiding all the vowels from Coach K before the game.

Ross Trudeau ’06 plus Tom Trudeau ’09 equals crazy delicious.

PAGE 8 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, MARCH 16, 2006

Williams continued from page 12 source.”

Fainaru-Wada stressed that the BALCO case was not necessarily a sports story. The sto-

ry was mainly a drug case, the type of work that Williams had done for the majority of his career. In fact, it took Williams some time before he was fully comfortable with the sports reporting involved in the case, his background as an assistant Little League coach and a baseball

fan notwithstanding.

Focusing mainly on human sources for his reporting, Williams also pointed to Bell as a crucial figure in the case. Bell’s extensive description of her relationship with Bonds and her observance of his drug abuse fit with the rest of the evidence the reporters had gathered and was not challenged

by Bonds’s lawyer.

“At first, I wasn’t sure we could even get a story because I assumed that Bonds would just deny the whole relationship,” Williams said.

“But she had all this documentation. … The key facts of the case are not in dispute.”

Another of Williams’ key sources was Victor Conte, the head of BALCO and the scientist behind much of the doping that took place there. Conte, who pleaded guilty to charges that he distributed steroids, was described to Williams by his own lawyer as someone with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. He had a hand in his own demise and that of the athletes with whom he associated.

“He liked, and wanted, the attention of these athletes,” Williams said. “Part of the evidence (that led to the grand jury investigation) was things he said to

Olympic athletes that attracted the attention of the feds and the people that police these sports for doping. The athletes were appalled that their names were out there.”

On the eve of the book’s release, Williams and FainaruWada have seen little backlash in terms of the veracity of the book’s evidence. Instead, much of the anger has been directed towards the writers for publicizing the rampant doping.

“Originally, those people that were angry with us for the story accused us of making it up,” Williams said. “Now, they acknowledge that these players were using performance enhancing drugs, but they say that we should stop reporting on it.”

Rohrdanz and Williams often discuss their work experiences during their morning runs, and Rohrdanz said he believes the BALCO story had an affect on Williams that prior stories did not.

“It has been very intense compared to the other stories Lance has written,” he said. “He took time off from work and rented an office just so that he could write.”

Fainaru-Wada agreed, describ-

ing the work as all-consuming. The two were constantly working, gathering as much information as they could before another writer could steal their story, he said.

In the end, both men were shocked and a bit saddened by the extent of the scandal. Neither could imagine the scope of baseball’s dirty little secret prior to their reporting, and both were stunned at the way the story evolved.

“It’s been an educational process for both of us,” FainaruWada said. “With Lance having been a big sports fan who didn’t have the background in working with athletes that I had, I think it was perhaps more troubling for him than me.”

The story, still ongoing even with the book set to be released next week, is likely to have longlasting repercussions on Major League Baseball in the near future and on baseball history forever.

“I was a fan,” Williams said.

“I was completely shocked by what we found out and it took me some time to adjust to the reality (of the situation). As a reporter it’s a great story, but as a sports fan I was not prepared for the reality of doping in both Olympic sports and baseball.”

UCS continued from page 5 End the Ivy League Ban on Football Postseason Play” headed by Brian Becker ’09, a UCS class representative. Becker said committees at all the Ivy League schools are currently discussing the issue.

Two members of the Brown football team spoke about why they believe their team — and the others in the Ivy League — deserve the chance to go to the playoffs.

“We lose tons of football recruits every year because we can’t go to the playoffs,” Nick Hartigan ’06 said. He noted that every other athletic team at the University can go on to postseason competition, and he sees no reason why the football team should be treated differently. He dismissed the suggestion that allowing playoff competition would take away from athletes’ study time.

“We do this for 14 weeks of the year; adding another few weeks shouldn’t matter,” he said. No vote on the issue was taken at the meeting.

The rest of the meeting was devoted to internal announcements, updates and suggestions.

Student Activities Chair Sara Gentile ’09 motioned to constitute the religious magazine Ziggurat as a category I group, the bird-watching group Brown Boobies as a category II group, the political activist organization Common Ground as a category III group and Operation Iraqi Freedom as a category I group. All motions passed without objection.

Townsend and UCS President Sarah Saxton-Frump ’07 spent a few minutes relating details of a recent meeting with President Ruth Simmons. They said that, after a drawn-out discussion, Simmons decided she would take over the process of organizing a three-week period in January during which Brown students could take courses. However, Saxton-Frump and Townsend were unable to elaborate on specific plans.

THURSDAY, MARCH 16 , 2006 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD PAGE 9

BMSA continued from page 5 practicing different sects of Islam to varying degrees. “We’re too diverse to be culturally focused,” said Ali, a secretary of the group’s executive board. But, she said, “A Muslim is a Muslim.”

Khan said members join the club for different reasons. “Everyone has their own interest and expectation of what they want out of the club,” Khan said. For example, before coming to Brown, Khan said she always wanted to learn more about her religion, “and I can do that by talking to other Muslims.”

To accommodate the Brown Muslim population’s religious needs, BMSA provides Jumuah prayers every Friday, which Khan said is standard for a mosque. The group also holds Isha prayers every evening and weekly Tajweed classes for learning how to read and interpret the Koran. Muslims “need to understand the Koran properly because excerpts of it are so often taken out of context,” especially in light of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Ali said.

Praying in congregation followed by group discussions is important in Muslim communities,

according to Khan. BMSA provides an environment for such discussion.

However, these services and classes are never exclusively for Muslim students.

Ali explained that she has non-Muslim friends who have attended some services or have visited the BMSA’s room in the basement of Champlin Hall “just to hang out.” “We try to be so open because we want people to feel comfortable in our environment,” Ali said.

Ali said she likes how at Brown, “everyone gets a chance to get out of their comfort zones, their bubbles … I think that’s what makes an educated society.”

The atmosphere of the group is often informal. “We hang out a lot — it’s not all about religion,” Ali said. For example, a short reading from the Koran was the only religious component to “Henna Night,” a get-together to apply temporary body art called mehendi, and “Eid Remix,” a party with music and karaoke held around the holiday Eid ul-Adha.

The appointment of Rumee Ahmed as Muslim University Chaplain in January has been a “big convenience because it provides us with a link to the administration,” Khan said. BMSA, however, continues to be run by the student executive board.

Cambridge scholar wins Templeton Prize

BY K. CONNIE KANG LOS ANGELES TIMES

John Barrow, a University of Cambridge cosmologist who has researched and written extensively about the relationship between life and the universe, on Wednesday was awarded the 2006 Templeton Prize, worth about $1.4 million, for progress in spiritual knowledge.

Barrow, a professor of mathematical sciences who held research fellowships in astronomy and physics at the University of California, Berkeley, is the sixth scientist to have won the award, considered the Nobel Prize for religion.

In a statement prepared for Wednesday’s news conference in New York, where the announcement was made, the British scientist said astronomy has transformed the “simple-minded, life-

averse, meaningless universe of the skeptical philosophers” into something profound.

Astronomy, he said, “breathes new life” into so many religious questions that arise from humanity’s quest for meaning.

“We see now how it is possible for a universe that displays unending complexity and exquisite structure to be governed by a few simple laws — perhaps just one law — that are symmetrical and intelligible,” Barrow said.

Such laws, he added, “govern the most remarkable things in our universe — populations of elementary ‘particles’ that are everywhere perfectly identical.”

“It is to this simple and beautiful world behind the appearances, where the lawfulness of nature is most elegantly and completely revealed, that physicists look to find the hallmark of the universe.”

Ballroom continued from page 12 “The atmosphere is really competitive. We spend a lot of time practicing and preparing,” Tsukrov said.

Competitors are eliminated from each event over the course of several rounds, so the winning teams can repeat the same dance as many as six or seven times.

Dances are divided into American style and International Style, which differ in technique and step patterns.

Under American style are the standard and Latin styles of dance. Under the International style are the Smooth and rhythm dance styles.

The standard and smooth include dances like the waltz, tango and foxtrot. The rhythm and Latin include dances such as the cha cha and rumba.

Each routine lasts from 70 to 100 seconds. Dancers can be disqualified if they dance “out of syllabus,” meaning that if they are in the Bronze category, the dancers must use the steps from the Bronze syllabus only.

While the Brown squad brought a whole contingent of members, among the few highlights of the competition were the performances of several of the team’s elite dancers. Alexandra Lubensky ’09 and Sandy Trinh ’09 came in fourth in the bronze international cha cha.

Hans Sprecher ’08 and WenChuan Dai ’06 finished fourth in the silver American rumba/

cha cha. Michael Graves ’06 and community member Lyuda Latanas danced to a sixthplace finish in the Gold American bolero/mambo, while Alex Vasserman GS and Masha Pindrus of Tufts came in fifth place in the Gold international Viennese waltz.

The team practices five nights a week, but its mission statement is clear: “The number one goal of the (ballroom dancing) team is to spread the love of dancing.” Along these lines, one practice pairs veteran

competitors with newcomers.

“At Brown we focus on social dancing and interacting with the community,” Tsukrov said.

“At schools like Tufts and Harvard, they work with one or two partners all year, so they only learn to lead and follow one person. But we switch partners every dance so that we learn to dance with a whole spectrum of people. We didn’t always do well in competitions because of that, but now almost everyone gets into at least one final (round in competition).”

EDITORIAL/LETTERS THE BROWN DAILY HERALD · THURSDAY, MARCH 16, 2006 · PAGE 10

STAFF EDITORIAL

Community policing Since Dean Esserman took over as the Providence Police Department’s chief of police in 2003, the department has instituted several measures to make Providence a safer city. Prominent among these is the concept of community policing, which is designed to enhance the connection between officers and the communities they patrol.

In relation to College Hill, the PPD has developed a closer relationship with Brown’s Department of Public Safety, setting up weekly meetings with Chief of Police and Director of Public Safety Mark Porter and establishing a substation on Brook Street to increase its on-campus visibility.

Despite these and other efforts, violent crime in Providence, which includes incidents of robbery, has increased over the past three years, according to Deputy Police Chief Paul Kennedy.

Though these figures reflect city-wide crime, it would be misguided to assume that Brown is somehow separated from this larger trend. Indeed, strings of crimes on College Hill in October 2004 and June 2005, combined with two on-campus robbery attempts (one successful) in the past week, underscore the fact that such incidents can — and do — hit close to home.

In some respects, the University has acknowledged this for quite awhile, as evidenced by the donation of space for the PPD’s Brook Street substation, for which it also spent $70,000 in renovations. More recently, DPS has agreed to provide The Herald with more extensive weekly incident summaries, demonstrating a desire to provide information that can help keep students and their property safe. We believe, however, that DPS could do more both in collaborating with the PPD and addressing safety issues specific to College Hill.

The attempted robbery of Ben Donahue ’09 on Monday night serves as a prime example. After the incident, PPD officers brought Donahue to the department’s downtown headquarters and had him look through mug shots to identify suspects. Since then, officers searched area hospitals looking for men being treated for injuries similar to those Donahue said he inflicted on his attackers.

It is clear that an investigation is ongoing, yet DPS has thus far failed to take advantage of a vital resource that could expedite an arrest — the eyes and ears of the Brown community. This resource is perhaps more useful than the firearms DPS officers now carry.

Unfortunately, the process through which DPS administers campus-wide crime alerts remains unclear. We maintain that a crime alert should be sent out whenever community members can help aid an investigation, regardless of whether weapons are involved.

It is reasonable to assume — particularly when two robbery attempts occur in quick succession — that a student, faculty or staff member who happens to be in the right place at the right time might stumble upon something law enforcement personnel might overlook.

JOSEPH NAGLE

LETTERS Fighting back is not cool To the Editor: On Tuesday, The Herald reported that a Hap Ki Do student was mugged on his way home from class and successfully fought off his attackers (“Student thwarts would-be robbers near Waterman and Hope streets,” March 14). I teach the Hap Ki Do class here at Brown and I am pleased that my student was able to defend himself so successfully, and especially pleased that he came away from the incident unscathed. However I am also concerned with the way it was reported in The Herald. In addition to covering the details of the situation, the article had an undercurrent message that “fighting back is cool.” The reality is that fighting back is dangerous and should only be done as a last resort.

I teach my students how to fight, but I also carefully teach them that the best self defense is “don’t be there.” This means if you find yourself in a bad situation, the best choice is simply to run away.

Fighting back is something which you do only if forced, not as a choice, and fighting, no matter how

skilled you are, is always more dangerous than running away. For example, note that the article mentions that it was not known whether either assailant was armed, only that no weapon was drawn.

So in closing, while I am both pleased and proud that my student was able to defend himself when forced, I also want to be certain that other students do not take this as encouragement to fight back when assaulted. Fighting back is not cool. It is something you do only if you have no choice and even then just until you can escape a situation. If you are assaulted, run. If you are cornered, do only what is necessary to get away — something as simple as handing over some cash.

No, it doesn’t sound nearly so cool, but it is much safer.

Mark Abbott Hap Ki Do Instructor March 15

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD EDITORIAL Robbie Corey-Boulet, Editor-in-Chief Justin Elliott, Executive Editor Ben Miller, Executive Editor Stephanie Clark, Senior Editor Katie Lamm, Senior Editor Jonathan Sidhu, Arts & Culture Editor Jane Tanimura, Arts & Culture Editor Stu Woo, Campus Watch Editor Mary-Catherine Lader, Features Editor Ben Leubsdorf, Metro Editor Anne Wootton, Metro Editor Eric Beck, News Editor Patrick Harrison, Opinions Editor Nicholas Swisher, Opinions Editor Stephen Colelli, Sports Editor Christopher Hatfield, Sports Editor Justin Goldman, Asst. Sports Editor Jilane Rodgers, Asst. Sports Editor Charlie Vallely, Asst. Sports Editor PRODUCTION Allison Kwong, Design Editor Taryn Martinez, Copy Desk Chief Lela Spielberg, Copy Desk Chief Mark Brinker, Graphics Editor Joe Nagle, Graphics Editor

PHOTO Jean Yves Chainon, Photo Editor Jacob Melrose, Photo Editor Ashley Hess, Sports Photo Editor Kori Schulman, Sports Photo Editor BUSINESS Ryan Shewcraft, General Manager Lisa Poon, Executive Manager David Ranken, Executive Manager Mitch Schwartz, Executive Manager Laurie-Ann Paliotti, Sr. Advertising Manager Susan Dansereau, Office Manager POST- MAGAZINE Sonia Saraiya, Editor-in-Chief Taryn Martinez, Associate Editor Ben Bernstein, Features Editor Matt Prewitt, Features Editor Elissa Barba, Design Editor Lindsay Harrison, Graphics Editor Constantine Haghighi, Film Editor Paul Levande, Film Editor Jesse Adams, Music Editor Katherine Chan, Music Editor Hillary Dixler, Off-the-Hill Editor Abigail Newman, Theater Editor

Andrew Kuo, Night Editor Amy Ehrhart, Natalia Fisher, Copy Editors Senior Staff Writers Simmi Aujla, Stephanie Bernhard, Melanie Duch, Ross Frazier, Jonathan Herman, Rebecca Jacobson, Chloe Lutts, Caroline Silverman Staff Writers Justin Amoah, Zach Barter, Allison Erich Bernstein, Brenna Carmody, Alissa Cerny, Ashley Chung, Stewart Dearing, Hannah Levintova, Hannah Miller, Aidan Levy, Taryn Martinez, Kyle McGourty, Ari Rockland-Miller, Chelsea Rudman, Kam Sripada, Robin Steele, Spencer Trice, Ila Tyagi, Sara Walter Sports Staff Writers Sarah Demers, Amy Ehrhart, Erin Frauenhofer, Kate Klonick, Madeleine Marecki, George Mesthos, Hugh Murphy, Eric Perlmutter, Marco Santini, Bart Stein, Tom Trudeau, Steele West Account Administrators Alexandra Annuziato, Emilie Aries, Steven Butschi, Dee Gill, Rahul Keerthi, Kate Love, Ally Ouh, Nilay Patel, Ashfia Rahman, Rukesh Samarasekera, Jen Solin, Bonnie Wong Design Staff Adam Kroll, Andrew Kuo, Jason Lee, Gabriela Scarritt Photo Staff CJ Adams, Chris Bennett, Meg Boudreau, Tobias Cohen, Lindsay Harrison, Matthew Lent, Dan Petrie, Christopher Schmitt, Oliver Schulze, Juliana Wu, Min Wu, Copy Editors Chessy Brady, Amy Ehrhart, Natalia Fisher, Jacob Frank, Christopher Gang, Taryn Martinez, Katie McComas, Sara Molinaro, Heather Peterson, Sonia Saraiya, Lela Spielberg

Don’t hold your tongue!

Send a guest column. opinions@browndailyherald.com

CO R R E C T I O N An article in yesterday’s Herald (“Plus/minus fails key test,” March 15) as well as a staff editorial (“An N/C for plus/minus,” March 15) incorrectly reported that there are three student members on the College Curriculum Council. There are four students serving on the council. All four voted against the proposal to add pluses and minuses to the University’s grading system at the March 14 meeting of the CCC. CORRECTIONS POLICY The Brown Daily Herald is committed to providing the Brown University community with the most accurate information possible.

Corrections may be submitted up to seven calendar days after publication.

C O M M E N TA R Y P O L I C Y The staff editorial is the majority opinion of the editorial board of The Brown Daily Herald. The editorial viewpoint does not necessarily reflect the views of The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Columns, letters and comics reflect the opinions of their authors only.

LET TERS TO THE EDITOR POLICY Send letters to letters@browndailyherald.com. Include a telephone number with all letters. The Herald reserves the right to edit all letters for length and cannot assure the publication of any letter. Please limit letters to 250 words. Under special circumstances writers may request anonymity, but no letter will be printed if the author’s identity is unknown to the editors. Announcements of events will not be printed.

A DV E RT I S I N G P O L I C Y The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. reserves the right to accept or decline any advertisement at its discretion.

OPINIONS

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD · THURSDAY, MARCH 16, 2006 · PAGE 11

The Father, the Son and the Holy Toast When the word of God simply isn’t enough, religious iconography is a delicious treat

BY ADAM CAMBIER OPINIONS COLUMNIST

Ever since the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published a page covered with editorial cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed, the world has been embroiled in a raging conflict between proponents of respect and advocates of free speech. At the time of this writing, several dozen people have died as a result of the controversy, and the protests have given little sign of slowing down.

Despite the deadly consequences of the Danish cartoons, though, the protests have brought to mind an entirely different problem.

The Muslim prohibition of images of Allah or Mohammed means that nobody knows what either of them is supposed to look like. When one contrasts this tenet with the multitude of Western images of God in all his long-bearded glory and Jesus as a long-haired man with flowing white robes, it becomes clear that this lack of knowledge as to the appearance of the Prophet closes Islam off to a lucrative market: religious iconography.

We need look no further than Christianity to understand how valuable this industry can be. Ever since people of the cloth discovered the Shroud of Turin, which allegedly bore an imprint of the recently deceased Savior’s body, they’ve been trading objects that in some way resemble the primary figures of Christianity. Some icons, of course, have been grander than others. For instance, the majestic Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City was constructed on the spot where

an image of the Virgin Mary appeared on the inside of a man’s cloak when it was filled with roses. Unfortunately, most instances of divine appearance on an item are decisively less impressive. The image of the Virgin was once rather inexplicably found in a stain on a highway underpass in Chicago, which became an impromptu pilgrimage site. Mary also made an appearance on a grilled cheese sand-

in the case of the latter three, delicious — objects has been a fantastic source of revenue and alms for its discoverers and their communities. Unfortunately, Islam’s adherence to something as piddling as the direct word of Mohammed himself has closed them off to precious economic flow. Sure, Muslims have found their fair share of holy incursions into ordinary food objects, but they aren’t nearly as

A cinnamon bun bearing an uncanny resemblance to Mother Teresa was stolen around Christmas last year from a Nashville bakery where it had been a renowned tourist attraction. wich, which was promptly sold on eBay for $28,000. A man in Ontario found the image of Jesus himself scorched into an overcooked fish stick, leading the fishy treat to be dubbed “the Son of Cod.” A cinnamon bun bearing an uncanny resemblance to the recently beatified Mother Teresa was stolen around Christmas last year from the Nashville bakery where it had been a renowned tourist attraction.

Clearly, each of these divine — and,

engrossing. An Indian woman once cut open an eggplant to find the meandering line of seeds inside spelling out the word “Allah” in Urdu script. Sadly, even this culinary miracle isn’t particularly original.

Several other eggplants with variations of the same message have been found: some in Arabic, some saying “Allah exists” and some even inscribed with sacred Hindu symbols.

Although it’s a decent start into the

world of rapturous foodstuffs, the Muslims who discovered these anointed aubergines violated a basic law of supply and demand. People will be less willing to pay more for a holy object if there are replicas: would the online casino that purchased the aforementioned grilled cheese sandwich have paid a full $28,000 if Mary had graced another sandwich with her image? I certainly doubt it. Even worse, the eggplants’ owners committed a grave sin in the disposal of their relics.

After brief stints at local mosques, the eggplants were divided and consumed by the faithful in their respective communities. Any good economist knows that to throw away such a moneymaker instead of keeping it for increased profit is pecuniary suicide. With their years of experience, Christians have clearly lived by this rule: even though cinnamon buns are far superior in taste and texture to eggplants, the owners of the so-called “Nun Bun” prevented themselves from consuming their divine delicacy, leading to a greater ultimate gross for themselves.

In the end, the world of Islam has a lot to learn from modern Christianity.

Sure, its quaint devotion to its religion is adorable, but it’s just not raking in the dinars. With the current cartoon controversy, there’s been enough destruction at the hands of Mohammed’s followers. It’s time for loyal Muslims to step into the real world and get down to business.

Adam Cambier ’09 is the mastermind behind the Nun Bun robbery.

Byzantine Bush bubble bursts In early 2005, the Bush steamroller shriveled and died; neither Left nor Right seem to know the road ahead

BY MICHAL ZAPENDOWSKI OPINIONS COLUMNIST

Despite still being composed of largely the same faces with the same ideological bent, the Bush administration has undergone some of the most radical transformations of any executive regime in U.S. history. These transformations shed light not only on the current political situation in America, but also on politics in general. It’s important for both the Left and Right to prepare for the fight ahead as the Bush administration begins to slide into the lame-duck ossuary. In that sense, this column is intended as a sort of political obituary.

When George W. Bush took office in 2001, many were ready to dismiss his presidency before it began. To detractors, he was an ignorant amateur who stole the White House thanks to his presidential lineage, the Supreme Court appointments of his predecessors and the effective exploitation of his cowboy image by political guru Karl Rove, whose inflated reputation was due largely to a discrediting of Bush’s own political talent.

He was a playboy president who liked to take vacations and chase armadillos, while shadowy patriarch Dick Cheney, both more professional and more experienced, ran everything from his nominally “vice” presidential office. To supporters, he was a “good ol’ boy” whose most significant hallmark would be cutting taxes and whose willingness to delegate most of the actual decision-making to a coterie of experienced advisers was one of his greatest strengths.

Were it not for the intervening period of Sept. 11, 2001, the Patriot Act, the war

in Iraq and two overwhelming political victories in 2002 and 2004, the Bush administration’s current dilapidation might have seemed like a natural conclusion of its ‘light-weight’ beginnings. However, in the intervening period (roughly spanning from late 2001 to early 2005), the playboy president became the horned demon of the Left and the spiritual savior of the Right to a degree virtually unequaled by any contemporary leader.

quickly become an unstoppable political steamroller, but its foundation always remained shaky, its external confidence balanced by an internal weakness that rested on that same “armadillo chasing, tax-cutting” foundation that characterized Bush before Sept. 11. When the going got rough in Iraq, this internal weakness caused a political implosion. The so-called war president turned out to be a playboy president at heart.

The Bush Administration’s external confidence was balanced by an internal weakness that rested on that same “armadillo chasing, tax-cutting” foundation that characterized Bush before Sept. 11.

While the transformation of the early lame-duck Bush presidency into a political steamroller had a clear starting point (Sept. 11), its subsequent return to lame-duck status owes to a combination of complex factors. The Bush oligarchy clearly had both the confidence, the ability and the electoral support to

The left-wing activists who demonized him are naturally happy to seize on this, but the right-wing activists who can no longer count on the Bush White House to deliver are largely admitting this, and distancing themselves. The Democratic Party seems too internally divided to truly capitalize on this moment even though

its archenemy has become a lame duck and corruption scandals are dogging the congressional GOP. Meanwhile, the Right, with no clear source of leadership ready to quickly fill the void — and none likely to appear before the primaries of 2008 — is likewise left in a sort of purgatory. The result for both sides is a political vacuum.

The effects of this vacuum are felt all over the world. In the domain of foreign policy, those who would pretend to redefine the international system (by establishing American hegemony, sidelining the U.N. and invading Iraq) have found that the global transition from the Cold War is not yet complete. Their effort was misguided or premature; and everything remains undecided. The death of the Bush administration, far from marking any definitive conclusion, is but a chapter in this transitory tempest.

So who will step in to fill this vacuum in the world, as well as in U.S. politics?

History shows that in times like these, it will not be compromise that triumphs.

Whoever it is will be well organized, have a clear vision and be unafraid to wield power. The fact that one of the most organized, unabashed and powerful forces in world politics — the American Right — is in disarray, its overarching foreign policy vision discredited, means we now face an important turning point. This political vacuum will not be decided over the next few years, but the next few decades.

Michal Zapendowski ’07 needs a political vacuum to clean the mess in his apartment.

SPORTS THURSDAY THE BROWN DAILY HERALD · MARCH 16, 2006 · PAGE 12

Williams ’72 reveals Bonds’ ‘Shadows’

BY STEPHEN COLELLI SPORTS EDITOR

Let the record show it was not Commissioner Bud Selig who cleaned up Major League Baseball’s steroid problem. It was actually two reporters from the San Francisco Chronicle, Lance Williams ’72 and Mark Fainaru-Wada.

Williams and Fainaru-Wada co-authored a book titled “Game of Shadows,” which will be released on March 23. The book, featured on the cover of last week’s Sports Illustrated, details their investigation of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative — known to most sports fans as BALCO — and is the culmination of more than two years of reporting that appeared in the Chronicle.

Williams and Fainaru-Wada interviewed more than 200 individuals and pored over 1,000 pages of documents to learn how Olympic athletes such as Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery and baseball stars Jason Giambi and Barry Bonds used designer steroids and other drugs to gain an unfair competitive advantage.

Though Williams’s reputation as a reporter is first-rate, journalism was not something he pursued at Brown until his last year on campus, in the fall of 1971.

After spending his junior year abroad in England, Williams was very interested in pursuing a career in English. But, at the time, he fancied himself a professor rather than a reporter.

“While I was at Brown I didn’t think I wanted to do what I am doing now,” Williams said. “I took a type of expository writing class in my last semester … taught by a professor named Roger Hinkle. He recommended that I go to graduate school at (the University of California, Berkeley) for journalism.”

A friend on campus also recognized his potential as a journalist. Paul Rohrdanz ’72 befriended Williams because Williams often spent time visiting friends on Rohrdanz’s floor in Slater Hall.

“There was a paper he wrote senior year, it was a review of a play by a Brown professor (of literary arts), James Schevill,” Rohrdanz said. “It was performed down at (the Trinity Repertory Company) and it was about the politics of the time. Lance wrote a review for one of his classes, and I said right there, ‘This is a guy who wants to publish.’”

When Williams and Fainaru-Wada broke the BALCO story in the fall of 2003, neither writer imagined their work would eventually culminate in a book or even become an ongoing national story.

“We had just begun an investigative reporting department at the Chronicle, and

I had a new partner, Mark, who had come over from sports and was interested in new projects,” Williams said. “At first, we thought it was just a federal raid on some vitamin company down by the airport that the feds wouldn’t talk about.

“Soon, it became clear that we had this story on our hands that nobody seemed to know how to cover, involving illegal supplements and elite athletes. I’m supposed to be good at finding out about people, so that’s how I became involved. I had no idea it would become this big,” he said.

Coming from a sports background, Fainaru-Wada had experience in covering athletes, including Bonds, from the standpoint of a beat reporter. Williams, on the other hand, was a veteran investigative reporter who had experience in reporting on a variety of controversial and challenging stories. In his time at the Oakland Tribune and the San Francisco Examiner, Williams covered a wide range of stories, including the downfall of the Black Panthers’

political power in Oakland, crack cocaine’s journey from Latin America to the streets of the Bay Area and the patent office at the University of California, Berkeley and its unethical practices to generate additional income from copyrighted products.

Fainaru-Wada praised Williams’ skill at working with sources as one of the key elements in bringing the steroid scandal to light. Without Williams’s ability to get such crucial testimonies from sources such as Kim Bell, Bonds’ former girlfriend, the story would have suffered immensely. “(Williams) is very methodical and smart at developing sources and gathering information,” Fainaru-Wada said. “He played a hugely significant role in getting information from Kim Bell. Through her, we ended up with the main story on Bonds, the behind-the-scenes look at when he actually begins using these drugs. He was totally responsible for cultivating her as a see WILLIAMS, page 8

Ballroom dance team waltzes into mainstream

BY SARAH DEMERS SPORTS STAFF WRITER

Dan Petrie / Herald

Magaret Puelle ’09 and Jay McCarthy GS are members of the ballroom dancing team. The team has grown enormously since its inception in 1991 and now boasts 180 members.

NCAA Tournament elicits 65 different opinions March Madness. It is a time of desolation. Brother pitted against brother, friend against friend, babies … havin’ babies. It’s Awesome, baby, with a capital A. Let the Tr u d e a u brothers inform you why the ROSS AND TOM TRUDEAU Big Mac is TRU STORY a safer bet than G-Mac, that you need to check out the chronic-what?-cles of Redick and why it’s cool to be Gay in America this March.

Tom: On the seventh day, God created the jump shot, and he called it J.J. And it was pure. He blessed Redick with a swagger, perfect mechanics and the best coach in college basketball history. Duke might

Courtesy of Brad Mangin

An upcoming book, “Game of Shadows,”

by San Francisco Chronicle reporter Lance Williams ’72 details the Barry Bonds steroid scandal Williams has covered since 2003.

have coasted to the Elite Eight in any bracket, but it caught a huge break with the draw this year. Its biggest challenge will likely be fourth-seed LSU. No. 5 Syracuse might have won the Big East Championship, but it has struggled all year, and its lack of depth might lead to a secondstraight first-round exit. On the other end of the Atlanta bracket, the Texas Longhorns are as strong a two seed as you’ll find. They have great shooters and possibly the best big man in the NCAA, LaMarcus Aldridge. Look for the one and two seeds to meet in the Elite Eight.

Ross: Oh man, who do I love more, Gerry with a G or J.J.? I’m also going to give Duke a pass in this weak bracket, but mostly on the merit of rumors of Redick’s prowess on the Beirut table. ’Cuse made it as high as it did due to Gerry’s last-second heroics … twice. Don’t count on the Orange to do anything.

Moving down to the Oakland brack-

et, UCLA is coming off an easy, breezy, beautiful, Cover Girl PAC-10 tournament championship and will miss the chance to avenge an early-season loss to No. 1 Memphis — watch for Kansas to knock ’em down in the Elite Eight. Give Oakland to the underrated Jayhawks.

Tom: Down, down, down — Memphis is goin’ down. Youth held back the Jayhawks early on, but Kansas has now won 15 out of 16. Pittsburgh has experience at point guard and center in Krauser and Gray. Either team has a great chance of upsetting the top-seeded Tigers. And it seems like everyone in the country was waiting to call Gonzaga overrated, but they’re only a three seed, and it’s tough to bet against Adam Morrison and company. Watch out for the Zags in the bottom half of the draw.

The D.C. bracket features a couple see NCAA, page 7

Amidst the rise of “Dancing with the Stars” and the acceptance by the Olympics committee of DanceSport as a recognized competitive event, ballroom dancing has exploded in the popular consciousness and created debate about its legitimacy as a sport. To members of Brown’s ballroom dancing team, it’s obvious which side to take in this debate.

“I think it should be a competitive sport,” said co-captain Jennifer Kuo ’07.

“It’s like figure skating in that it requires athletic ability but also the expression of an artistic side.”

Skeptical? Try this: Put on some music.

Take your first step forward, transferring the weight on your heel to the ball of your foot. Rise onto your toes at the end of the first beat and through the second and third beat. Lower your foot back down at the end of the third beat and continue to do this for the remainder of the song.

This is the rise and fall of the foot pattern in a waltz. The other 19 dances the squad knows are perhaps even more complicated. The diagrams for which foot goes where and which toe does what at each beat of the music are just as intricate as any football or basketball playbook. Ballroom dancers must possess coordination, physical prowess and the ability to execute many different routines in many different dance denominations.

“It is just as much of a sport as gymnastics or figure skating because of how you grade it and how physically taxing it is,” said co-captain Dina Tsukrov ’08.

Since it was started in 1991 with eight members, the ballroom dancing club has expanded to include 180 members. The team is now headed by a world-champion dancer from England, Russell Monk.

The team participated in its largest competition of the year last weekend, the Harvard Invitational Ballroom Dancing Competition, one of four meets the team will travel to this semester. The event featured 1,000 dancers from 41 different schools competing in five levels — newcomers, bronze, silver, gold and open — of 19 different dances. see BALLROOM, page 9 BROWN SPORTS SCHEDULE THURSDAY, MARCH 10 M. TENNIS: at Blue/Gray Invitational (Montgomery, Ala.)