Monday, March 3, 2008

The Brown Daily Herald M onday, M arch 3, 2008

Volume CXLIII, No. 27

Since 1866, Daily Since 1891

Following Clintons, Obama draws thousands at RIC rally Senator hits R.I. before Tuesday primaries

By Nandini Jayakrishna Senior Staf f Writer

Though Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., might not make a “perfect president,” he will spend ever y day of his presidency thinking about the problems of average Americans, the candidate told a thundering crowd of thousands at the Rhode Island College Recreation Center Saturday afternoon.

Obama was in Providence to campaign before the state’s primar y on Tuesday, following the visit of Sen. Hillar y Clinton, DN.Y., who attended a rally at the same venue last Sunday. About 5,000 people were allowed inside the recreational center, and several thousand attended the rally outside the center. Before entering the building, Obama briefly addressed those who couldn’t enter but had waited all morning despite the cold and rainy weather.

Rahul Keerthi / Herald

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama spoke to a crowd of of about 5,000 people at Rhode Island College on Saturday.

Responding to some critics’ assertions that he is running for president because of a long-held ambition, Obama said he is running because of “the fierce urgency

First-gen. students help peers

By Colin Chazen Contributing Writer

As the first student in her family to attend college, Ashley Anderson ’10 didn’t have anyone at home to tell her what a registrar does or to help her fill out a grant application.

After dealing with the bureaucracy of the Office of Financial Aid and making it through the application process, Anderson and a core group of five other first-generation college students are forming a student organization to help support future first-generation students.

The students met last year at a panel discussion for first-generation students organized by Linda Dunleavy, associate dean of the College for fellowships and prelaw advising.

“I’d always felt that my experience was very unique,” said Anderson, who said she was surprised to meet so many other first-generation students. “We had remarkably similar experiences.”

The most common challenge they faced was navigating the financial aid process and understanding its terminology, said Anderson and Julie Pridham ’10, another member of the group. The first-generation group plans to create tip sheets about financial aid to distribute to students at A Day on College Hill and during Orientation. Anderson also said she had difficulty relating to family members who’d never experienced college. continued on page 6

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ARTS & CULTURE

Rites and reason Two upcoming student plays explore the Cuban and Iranian revolutions

www.browndailyherald.com

of now” — a phrase he borrowed from Dr. Martin Luther King. “I believe in such a thing as being too late,” he said of his decision to run in this presidency rather

than wait until he is older.

While the crowd chanted his campaign’s popular refrain, “Yes, we can,” Obama emphasized that real change comes from the grassroots — not from the highest level of administration. Real change, he said, requires that divisions of race, region and religion be forgotten.

The senator delineated his position on several foreign and domestic issues. Ending the war in Iraq, fighting global warming and reforming health care and education demand immediate action, he said.

Obama criticized Clinton for voting in favor of the war and lauded former Rhode Island Sen. Lincoln Chafee ’75 for opposing it despite being a Republican.

Chafee, who is currently a visiting fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies, left the Republican Party this summer and endorsed Obama in early February. continued on page 6

Chelsea stumps for mom on Thayer

By Scott Lowenstein Metro Editor

Viva Bar was packed last Friday night with the usual mix of students and 20-somethings, along with a few unexpected guests — some children, several senior citizens and Chelsea Clinton, who was in the bar to stump for her mother, presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. Clinton, poised but losing her voice after a day-long tour through the Ocean State, took questions from the audience for about 45 minutes, touting her mother’s legislative experience and efforts at bipartisanship in the Senate.

Chelsea Clinton’s visit comes in advance of the state’s primary contest this Tuesday. In Rhode Is-

land, Hillary Clinton has a 15-point advantage over her rival, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., according to a University poll released last Monday.

Clinton answered most questions with detailed explanations of what her mother has accomplished or would accomplish in

METRO office. She also said Hillary Clinton is “the only candidate running who will tell you how she’s paying for everything.”

Clinton highlighted President Bush’s budget deficit, which she said “affects our ability to do everything and anything.”

When asked about “a woman’s right to choose,” Clinton replied

her mother wants abortion to “be safe, legal and rare,” and added that other issues like unequal pay across race and gender would also be an important priority under her mother’s presidency.

Clinton also explained her mother’s commitment to “ending the war yesterday,” “green-collar jobs” — jobs in environmental initiatives such as alternative energy — and involving the United States in multilateral agreements like the Kyoto Protocol.

She pointedly compared her mother’s plan for universal health care to that of rival Obama, only referring to him as “the man she is running against.” Obama’s plan mandates health-care coverage continued on page 4

Shutkin ’87 tells students to enjoy being ‘unsettled’

By Emmy Liss Senior Staf f Writer

After Bill Shutkin ’87 broke up with his high-school girlfriend during his junior year at Brown, he enrolled in a tap-dancing class.

He fell in love with the woman teaching the class, a sophomore fiction writer. “She totally rocked my world and completely unsettled me,” he said. But in unner ving him, she expanded his horizons and opened his eyes, he said.

That experience characterizes his time at Brown, Shutkin said in the keynote address of the Career Development Center’s “Career Week” on Saturday. Shutkin told a nearly full

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CAMPUS NEWS

Andrews Dining Hall that he arrived at the University clueless. “I had no sense, not only of who I was, but also of my place in the world.” Growing up in odd, uninspiring 1960s and ’70s suburban Connecticut, Shutkin “longed for a sense of inspiration and vision,” he said.

Brown woke him up from his “deluded and soporific state,” he said. “In unsettling me, it involved me. It was an unfolding.

That was the power of Brown for me then.”

Shutkin retur ned to the source of his inspiration to deliver the opening remarks of the Career Conference Roundtable, Saturday’s all-afternoon event, continued on page 4

curbing cutting Nawal Nour ’88 approaches the tough intersection of culture and health

11

OPINIONS

Courtesy of brown.edu

After four years, Plan re-examined Academic Enrichment plan gets new focuses

By George Miller Senior Staff Writer

At the fourth anniversary of its adoption, the Plan for Academic Enrichment — a comprehensive statement of the University’s goals — is being reexamined on every level. A review of the Plan, the first full evaluation since its inception, was released last month after a meeting of the Corporation, the University’s highest governing body.

The study calls on the University to improve on initiatives included in the original plan, such as providing support for faculty. It also recommends that the University add new focuses to the plan, such as encouraging growth in the Graduate School, raising Brown’s global profile and continuing fundraising to support all the initiatives.

Titled “Phase II,” the review was almost a year in the making. It includes input from the faculty, staff, graduate students, the Undergraduate Council of Students and “anybody who had thoughts,” said Richard Spies, executive vice president for planning and senior adviser to the president. Spies and Assistant to the President Marisa Quinn wrote the review, which includes a statement from President Ruth Simmons, who has made the plan a cornerstone of her presidency.

Simmons and the Corporation called for the review last spring. The Corporation endorsed the document at its meeting last month.

“Any time when an institution is growing rapidly, there’s always a reassessment process that has to go on,” Secretary of the University Albert Dahlberg said last month.

Supporting faculty The University is nearing the original Plan’s goal of creating 100 new faculty positions, which would increase faculty size nearly 20 percent from 2001. But the infusion of new faculty has not been matched by support for graduate programs, research and departmental budgets, faculty members said in a report included in the review.

“Absorbing this expanding faculty has placed considerable pressure on stagnant departmental budgets, static or declining staff and graduate student pools, and in some areas physical facilities,” the Faculty Executive Committee said in its report, which was included in the Plan’s revision. “There is a genuine unease that if this situation is not corrected soon, the tremendous advances made to date will evaporate and the investments will fail.”

Spies acknowledged that infrastructure has not kept pace with hiring new faculty.

Bill Shutkin ’87

contessa endorses Kevin Roose ‘09.5 visits a Thayer Street psychic for some election clairvoyance

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

continued on page 4

tomorrow’s weather More rain, as relentless as presidential stumps, and certainly as tiresome

showers, 49 / 38 News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com

T oday Page 2

Monday, March 3, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Menu

But Seriously | Charlie Custer and Stephen Barlow

Sharpe Refectory

Verney-Woolley Dining Hall

Lunch — Rosemary Portobello Sub Sandwich, Beef Noodle Soup, Comino Chicken Sandwich, Clam Strips on a Bun with Tartar Sauce

Lunch — Meat Tortellini with Sauce, Cheesy Zucchini Casserole, Italian Marinated Chicken, Potato Vegetable Chowder with Ham

Dinner — Vegan Garden Chili, Tomato Rice Pilaf, Chicken with Sundried Tomato Crust, Beef Pot Pie

Dinner — Grilled Mustard Chicken, Sweet and Sour Tofu, Chinese Fried Rice, Mediterranean Salmon Stir Fry

Dunkel | Joe Larios

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

Vagina Dentata | Soojean Kim

© Puzzles by Pappocom RELEASE DATE– Monday, March 3, 2008

Los Angeles Times Daily oCrossword Puzzle C r o ssw rd Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

ACROSS 1 __ pump: waste disposal device 5 Brief and pithy 10 Unruly groups 14 On a cruise ship, say 15 Select group 16 Start of a speculative comment 17 Play the toady 19 A, B or C 20 Stable serving 21 Burns’s partner 22 Select group 23 Like the league’s top players 25 Superman portrayer Christopher 27 Barry Humphries alter ego Dame __ 29 Artfully avoids 33 Animal catchers 36 Brilliantly clever 39 Lobbying group for seniors 40 “It’s not easy bein’ __”: Kermit’s lament 41 Small fruit pie 42 Middle Ages stoneworker 44 Rural skyline features 45 Be about to cry 46 Reverberate 48 Online surfers, e.g.

51 Went on the lam 55 Land with pyramids 58 Crude carrier 60 Friend 61 Air show stunt 62 Wise counsel 64 “There’s __ where that came from” 65 High points 66 Pre-deal payment 67 Phone co. helper 68 Unit of stock 69 Teacher’s handout DOWN 1 “Borat” creator __ Baron Cohen

2 What you generally drink, with “the” 3 Actress Streep 4 Golfer’s goal 5 Nonstick skillet surface 6 Israeli carrier 7 It has a bed and banks 8 Weapon for David 9 Poet’s “eternally” 10 Unblemished find for a collector 11 Orchestral reed 12 Second in a Greek series 13 Floral part 18 Gridiron gains 22 Calling company 24 Life of the party, e.g.

26 First starter home?

28 What the snooty put on 30 Aspiration 31 Continental currency 32 Defunct fliers, briefly 33 Only president who was also chief justice

34 Not often seen 35 Sector 37 Prefix with classical 38 Cowboy Autry 40 Stare slackjawed 43 “It’s a __-see!”: “Don’t miss it!”

44 Glass fragment 47 Pressed-pants feature 49 Household scurrier

Opus Hominis | Miguel Llorente

50 Letter after rho 52 Weigh in on the subject 53 Sergeant Friday’s request 54 Rapid 55 Sailor’s saint 56 Sticky stuff 57 Olden days 59 Ogler’s look 62 Airline to Sweden 63 Wine container

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Dreaming in Focus | Max Abrahams

xwordeditor@aol.com

3/3/08

Free Variation | Jeremy Kuhn

By Joy C. Frank (c)2008 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

3/3/08

If you do one thing on College Hill today...

Go play Rock Band and Guitar Hero 3 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., Grant Recital Hall

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A rts & C ulture Monday, March 3, 2008

French actor Blanc entertains at Cable Car

By Andrea Savdie Assistant Ar ts & Culture Editor

On Saturday afternoon, French actor, director and screenwriter Michel Blanc — the featured guest of the 11th annual Providence French Film Festival — entertained an audience with his lighthearted charisma in a nearly full Cable Car Cinema. The panel discussion followed screenings of two films starring Blanc, Isabelle Mergault’s “You Are So Beautiful” and Andre Techine’s “The Witnesses.”

The theater was packed for the screening of “Witnesses,” which tells the story of a group of freethinking friends whose unconventional yet blissful lives are affected by the AIDS outbreak in 1984 Paris.

Married couple Sarah and Medhi — played by Emmanuelle Beart and Sami Bouajila, respectively — are in an open relationship that is perhaps even spiced up by their extramarital affairs. As Medhi experiments with his sexuality, Sarah tries, often unsuccessfully, to love her newborn baby.

Meanwhile, their friend Adrien — an older gay doctor played by Blanc — takes handsome, young newcomer Manu, played by Johan Libereau, under his wing and falls in love with him. Adrien attempts to channel his passionate and sometimes self-destructive devotion to Manu, who is in love with another man, toward raising AIDS awareness in the Parisian community.

Divided into three parts, the film explores the before, during and after of the characters’ battle with the virus as it suddenly infiltrates their circle and forces them to confront their tensions and mortality.

Because the question-andanswer session directly followed the screening of “Witnesses,” the audience’s mood was somber, but Blanc broke the tension with his answer to the first question. Now

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

that he had acted, directed and written scripts, an audience member asked, “What next?”

“Dead,” Blanc joked. “And I’m not the only one.”

Blanc told the story of his rise to fame — he started out in a “cafe theater” comedy group called Le Splendide, which he explained is “something like standup.” He then struggled to change his popular comic image and break into more serious roles, a 30-year process that he jokingly described as “very easy.”

Blanc then answered a series of questions about “Witnesses.”

Techine had been telling him for about 10 years that he wanted to work with him, Blanc said, and finally, about two-and-a half-years ago, he approached Blanc with the script for “Witnesses,” which Blanc described as “very touching, very clever, very deep.”

“It’s a film about war,” Blanc said, referring to both the fight against the virus and the struggle to learn how to actually live life.

“All the characters, except the young boy (Manu) are trying to avoid living. Emmanuelle (Sarah) has a baby but doesn’t want to be a mother. Adrien’s in love, but the love is in his head; he doesn’t want to live it,” he said. “Death wakes everybody up.”

An audience member praised the film’s portrayal of humanity and relationships for avoiding sentimentality and stereotypes and expressed his appreciation for Blanc’s role, which he said he found particularly relatable.

Blanc made the audience laugh with his clever responses. When an audience member asked him what else he wants to accomplish before he dies, he asked, “Are you free until tomorrow?” As one of his reasons for preferring film to theater, he said that in film, “You’re not onstage when they boo you.”

The panel took a turn toward the

Student playwrights draw on heritage for Rites and Reason

By Ben Hyman Staf f Writer

Courtesy of brown.edu

French actor, director and screenwriter Michel Blanc. end and became more of a heated discussion as the audience began comparing French and American cinema and addressing why there isn’t more distribution of French film in the United States. An audience member criticized Americans for being unable to understand “the French soul” and for disliking films with subtitles.

Another audience member argued that the problem wasn’t foreign film, but rather Americans’ general taste in film. “I don’t think Americans want to watch serious American films,” the person said.

Blanc took a conciliatory approach by saying that it is understandable that not all Americans would want to watch French film.

“We make very different films,” he said, to which an audience member responded, “Thank you for doing that.”

Still, Blanc added, the real distinction is between independent and commercial cinema and not between foreign and American film. While commercial cinema is an industry that asks, “What would you like to see?” he said, independent cinema does the opposite and often shows audiences what they don’t want to see.

Over the next two weeks, Rites and Reason Theatre, the arts branch of the Department of Africana Studies, is presenting two new plays that reflect on historical events in Iran and Cuba.

“Ariel,” written by Gina Rodriguez ’08 and directed by Liz Morgan ’10, addresses the hopes and subsequent disillusionment of a soldier in the Cuban Revolution.

“Blowback,” written by Benjamin Struhl ’09 and directed by Sevita Qarshi ’10, examines the relationship between the United States and Iran. “Ariel” runs March 6 to March 9, and “Blowback,” March 13 to March 16.

The plays draw on a range of stor ytelling devices from acting to music and dance to the use of sound itself. In “Ariel,” for example, the interplay of noise and silence is complicated by the presence of static and sound distortion, which Rodriguez views as a metaphor for the stalled and warped dreams of a socialist Cuba. The play is particularly topical in the wake of Fidel Castro’s recent resignation as Cuban president.

“My goal is to provide a leftist critique of a revolution that the Left adores,” Rodriguez said. “I’m working towards that as a Cuban-American, and as my father’s daughter, and as an artist and academic.”

“Blowback” also addresses revolution and its after-ef fects.

The play’s first act traces the history of an American family back in time from 2001, through the Iranian Revolution in 1979, to the 1953 coup

that reinstated the Shah. The second act changes direction, shifting its focus to members of an Iranian family and following its narrative from the coup to the present.

Though Qarshi tried not bring too much of her personal history into the directing process, she did find that her Afghan heritage could be an asset in working on “Blowback.” She helped the actors portray Iranian characters by basing her direction on observations of her own family members, she said.

Both “Ariel” and “Blowback” are being developed through the Research-to-Performance Method.

Created in the early 1980s by Rites and Reason founder George H. Bass and Rhett Jones MA’72 PhD’76, professor of Africana studies, RPM is one of the distinguishing features of Rites and Reason’s approach to theater. In RPM playwriting — a sequence of classes in the Africana studies department ­­— students begin the writing process by delving extensively into a chosen topic and adapting their research into a play.

“The RPM system is really great,” Struhl said. “I’m sorry more theater isn’t this way. The emphasis is on exploration and learning and also having a good time.”

“It requires patience,” said Elmo Terry-Morgan ’74, associate professor of Africana studies and theater, speech and dance. As the principal instructor in RPM playwriting, Terry-Morgan chose to produce “Ariel” and “Blowback” not only for the quality of their writing and handling continued on page 6

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Monday, March 3, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Former first daughter Report: faculty growth requires support drops by Viva Friday continued from page 1

continued from page 1 only for children.

Clinton praised her mother as a parent, after being asked why she is taking a more public role in her mother’s campaigning efforts than she has in the past. But, she added, “I am not here out of gratitude. I am here because I fundamentally believe that we need change.”

Despite the audience’s serious questions, the atmosphere in the bar was mostly light. When two drinks spilled around her, Clinton called spilling water the night’s “motif.”

“Maybe soon I will be pouring water on my head,” Clinton said, before quickly taking the comment back. “That would be weird.”

An attendee asked for anecdotal evidence of Hillary Clinton’s sense

of humor on the campaign trail, to which Chelsea Clinton replied, “My mother laughs every day.” Her mother was glad the writers’ strike was over, she said, so the candidate and former President Bill Clinton could watch new episodes of the television show Grey’s Anatomy, which they both love.

Viva’s owner, Andy Mitrelis, said he was honored to host a Clinton at his restaurant, where Chelsea said she had eaten as a high school student visiting Brown. “I do love the Clintons,” Mitrelis said.

“I didn’t know what to expect, but I think she did a great job,” said Jeremy Feigenbaum ’11, a volunteer at the event who registered attendees to canvass for the senator. “She had really good command of the issues.”

“It’s one thing to recruit them here” and another to support them, he said. “We’ve got some catching up to do.”

It’s not sensible to “race ahead” and continue hiring at a high rate while leaving other initiatives behind, said Ruth Colwill, associate professor of psychology and chair of the FEC. The faculty report called for slowing the hiring of additional faculty, or hiring less-experienced faculty, as options to help solve the problem.

Still, Spies said, most people involved with the review thought faculty growth had been good for the University. “Nobody disagrees with that,” he said.

In their report, professors also expressed dissatisfaction with what they called a “star system” that characterizes the recent growth in hiring. They argued that the University invests too much in bringing big-name faculty to Brown and not enough to support of those faculty already here. But that concern is not widespread among faculty, Colwill said.

One critical support structure for faculty is the Graduate School, which the review acknowledges received short shrift in the original Plan.

“We probably underestimated the degree to which the Graduate School had to grow,” Spies said.

The revised Plan marks growth of the Grad School as a specific goal, particularly in the Ph.D. programs.

The school is currently crafting numerical targets for that growth, Dean of the Graduate School Sheila Bonde said — growth that will, in turn, require support for additional graduate students.

Undergraduate life The preliminary report of the Task Force on Undergraduate Education, released in January, takes its directives from the Plan and in turn forms the basis for the review’s analysis of undergraduate

education.

The Corporation enacted one specific goal of the Plan — improving financial aid packages for undergraduate students ­— at the same meeting in which it endorsed the Plan’s review.

The review also calls for improvements to advising, as did the task force report. But it also questions the quality of undergraduates’ residential experiences.

The review sets a goal of having 90 percent of undergraduates live on campus, an increase from the 80 percent who currently do so. It calls for building rooms more attractive to upperclassmen, such as apartment-style housing. An increase of 10 percent in housing would mean making room for 600 new beds, according to the review of the Plan.

But that plan will depend heavily on when financing becomes available, since plans for a new dorm have been sidelined by other building priorities, such as new athletic facilities and a student center. Still, administrators know that Brown will have a new dorm, Spies said — they just don’t know when.

“A truly global university” Brown’s internationalization agenda has undergone huge changes since the Plan’s birth and occupies a much more prominent place in the updated Plan. What began as an inquiry into how Brown could raise its international profile has now become a set of plans endorsed by the Corporation, said David Kennedy ’76, vice president for international affairs.

Those goals include recruiting students and faculty from overseas as well as strengthening the Watson Institute for International Studies and the international relations program.

Kennedy also recognized the importance of language studies in achieving the University’s internationalization goals. The FEC noted in its report that language classes are larger at Brown than they are at peer institutions. Kennedy said he

is working with Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron on the issue.

The faculty also called for more support for faculty traveling to lectures and symposiums, a key method of raising Brown’s profile overseas.

Kennedy said he is investigating how to pay for more travel.

“You have to be able to keep in touch with your global peers,” he said.

Looking ahead The Plan’s goals have been intimately tied to the Campaign for Academic Enrichment, which, as of Dec. 31, has raised $1.14 billion out of its goal of $1.4 billion by 2010, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. Of that $1.14 billion, about $500 million in unrestricted cash will go toward the Plan, with another $120 million going to causes other than primary Plan objectives, the report says.

But since certain aspects of the Plan, such as growth of faculty and graduate students, will require additional funding in the coming years, the review notes that fundraising is more important than ever.

“Rather than winding down fund-raising upon completion of the Campaign, we will need to increase the level of fund-raising and build on the success of the Campaign to move to an even higher level of philanthropic support,” the review says.

Beyond support for faculty and graduate students, the construction of new facilities called for by the Plan will consume a large chunk of the Campaign’s funds.

Brown must spend at least $600 to $700 million on facilities between 2011 and 2016, the Plan says, including $175 million for a new dorm and $100 million for a new research building in Providence’s Jewelry District.

The only way to continue to make progress is to keep the money flowing, Spies said.

“We have to continue to raise funds to support the Plan at a pretty high level,” he said.

Nonprofit partner says Brown woke him up continued from page 1 which brought students and alums together to discuss career paths.

Shutkin joked that though he was competing for an audience with a speech given by Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., at Rhode Island College, “I’d like to think Barack would have attended the career fair.”

Shutkin is currently a par tner of the Innovation Network for Communities, a national nonprofit that works in the areas of economic development, energy, land use and transportation.

He is also the interim executive director and trustee of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, a network of sustainable businesses, according to the CDC’s Web site.

Shutkin has written several books and taught at Boston College Law School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

This summer, he will become the first director of a new interdisciplinar y program in sustainable development and growth at the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Shutkin’s professional career has been characterized by a sense

of “non-linearity.” He often worked on many things — pursuing his masters in histor y, working toward his law degree, authoring a book, working for a social justice group — all at once.

“It was Brown that set this career of many hats in motion,” he said. “I think, looking back, that Brown was the perfect breeding ground for these new opportunities.”

Opportunities to improve the world abound in the fields of environmental issues, economic development and social justice, which have recently come together in an “unprecedented” manner, Shutkin said.

“The ecological mandate that ever ything is connected is starting to play out,” he told The Herald. “Opportunities are there in ways they never have been.”

Shutkin said he views Brown students as “99 percent more qualified” than their peers to take on the new world of social entrepreneurship, since the University demands its students think creatively and independently.

“It’s the iconoclastic culture,” he said. “It’s the New Curriculum.

You create your own boundaries with a healthy respect to tradition.”

He also touched on Brown’s

ability to combine the classroom and the community. “Learning and doing need to happen simultaneously,” he said.

Brown is also an opportunity to “let yourself grow into yourself,” he told The Herald. There will be pain, uncertainty and hardship, he said in his speech, but “deep breaths, patience and perspective are great gifts and qualities.”

Shutkin said his career of sustainability has been about “creative destr uction,” about positively transforming the human condition and moving it to a better, more sustainable place.

The path he is on now is something that would have been “unimaginable” when he graduated from Brown 20 years ago, he said.

“It’s not just new careers, but a new mental mindset,” he said.

He urged students to become comfortable with dynamism and realize that, sometimes, a troubling direction is not as despairing as it seems.

“A great piece of wisdom is to have perspective,” he said.

Shutkin said he noticed in the Career Week pamphlet a category of career paths listed as “nontraditional.”

“Non-traditional?” he asked. “Is there anything else at Brown?”

C ampus n ews Monday, March 3, 2008

Ne

ws

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i n

B

Alum asks mothers to rethink dangerous custom

r i e f

By Devin Gould Staff Writer

Nawal Nour ’88 treats the repercussions of a practice not often seen here — female circumcision. An obstetrician and gynecologist at

FEATURE

Courtesy of brown.edu

Caitlin Cohen ’08 called an award from USA Today “flattering.”

Senior scores USA Today recognition Out of nearly 500 students, Caitlin Cohen ’08 was selected as one of the top 40 undergraduates for USA Today’s annual All-USA College Academic Team, for her work on community organizing in Mali. Her award is not a scholarship, but rather a recognition for her project to improve health in the slum of Sikoroni, located outside the city of Bamako in Mali.

Chosen by a panel of judges, Cohen and the other selected undergraduates were honored for their “academic excellence and community service throughout the country and around the world,” said USA Today Editor Ken Paulson in the Feb. 17 USA Today article, “Great heights: These undergrads set on solving problems.”

In 2006, Cohen co-founded MHOP, the Mali Health Organizing Project, after spending the previous summer working on AIDS research in Bamako through the Global Alliance to Immunize Against AIDS, she said. The project’s main goal “is to allow slums to create their own health care solutions, and ultimately see both the government and the slum invest in health and development without outside assistance,” according to the MHOP Web site.

Although there is no direct financial support for MHOP from the University, the Swearer Center is providing the funds to maintain Cohen’s position as program director for two to three years after she graduates in May. Cohen will continue as co-director of the project for one year. Cohen said she was “grateful” for the Swearer Center’s help, as well as the student-led organizing and faculty support MHOP has received.

Cohen’s recognition has lent the project more attention and “various funders are looking at MHOP’s model of community-based effort,” she said.

The award was “flattering,” she said. “It’s nice to get the pat on the back.”

—Zunaira Choudhary

Dems and AASA meet to discuss politics Last Thursday an unlikely group of students gathered in Wilson 301 at 8 p.m. The Brown Democrats and the Asian American Students Association held a joint general body meeting also attended by representatives from Students for Hillary and Students for Barack Obama.

Gabe Kussin ’09, president of the Brown Democrats, said he could not recall any comparable meeting in the past.

The meeting — sweetened with some cookies from the Meeting Street Cafe — opened with a viewing of two YouTube videos about Asian-American participation in politics.

“We must leave politics to politicians, and politicians are white,” said a Korean-American girl in a DeclareYourself.com video about Asian and Pacific Islander Americans. “Thank you for not voting.”

It was followed by a video clip from a CNN special that examined Asian Americans’ overwhelming preference for Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., who beat Sen. Barack Obama, D-Il., by an almost 3-1 ratio among Asian Americans in the Feb. 5 California primary.

The discussion that followed touched on such topics as what values Asian-American voters hold and how gender and race are perceived in Asian and Asian-American culture.

The AASA approached the Brown Democrats, Students for Hillary, Students for Barack Obama and the Brown College Republicans and proposed a meeting to discuss Asian Americans and politics, said Hee Kyung Chung ’09, co-chair of the AASA. Chung said the Brown College Republicans did not respond to the requests for a meeting.

Marc Frank ’09, president of the Brown Republicans, said he was not aware of any communication from the AASA. “We thought it would be a timely topic,” Chung said. She added that she thought discussions about race and politics tended to focus on the black vote, especially because of Obama, this election season.

“I feel like Asian Americans are often excluded from this discourse,” she said.

“I’m excited about how this can go forward,” Kussin said. He said he is interested in coordinating more events with other cultural groups on campus as the election draws nearer.

—Sophia Li

the Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital, she helps women who have been circumcised and tries in a culturally sensitive manner to dissuade them from doing the same to their daughters.

Nour lived in the Sudan, Egypt and England before moving to the United States at the age of 14. She knew many women and girls who faced the challenges of female genital cutting. After graduating from Brown with an undergraduate degree in development studies and international relations, she studied at Harvard Medical School. There, Nour did her own research on female genital cutting, since it was not a part of the Harvard curriculum in gynecology.

Nour usually counsels pregnant women, many of whom are African immigrants, struggling with the complications that can result from genital cutting. For women who have been subjected to the most serious form of genital cutting, Nour sometimes performs reconstructive surgery.

Nour asks circumcised women in the first trimester of their pregnancies if they would circumcise a daughter. Though it is illegal to perform female circumcision in the U.S., Nour said she knows of mothers who have taken their daughters back to their native countries to be circumcised.

Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology John Buster said this

Courtesy of Jusin Ide, Harvard News Bureau

Nawal Nour ’88 tries to convince her patients not to circumcise their daughters.

aspect of the practice in particular was shocking. “What amazes me is that women do it to other women,” he said.

Nour said she does her best to convince women not to have their daughters circumcised. “The biggest question is: Why do they continue?”

Nour said. She said she listens to each of their reasons for having their daughters undergo the custom and then questions them. “I can go through step by step challenging them.” For example, when a mother says that female genital cutting is a necessary Islamic ritual, Nour uses her knowledge of the Koran and the Hadith, a collection of holy texts in Islam, to counter the idea.

Engin Akarli, a professor of history and a practicing Muslim, confirmed Nour’s evaluation. “It is certainly not Islamic,” Akarli said.

Instead, he said, genital cutting is a

regional practice, pervasive in countries such as Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia. In these places, women of all religious backgrounds may be circumcised, including Christians and Jews, he said.

Nour said the primary reason parents decide to continue the practice with their children is that “they actually care for their daughters,” since parents may think a circumcised girl will more easily find a husband. Nour cannot definitively refute this claim, though she informs them about the health risks of female circumcision.

“I can’t guarantee that they are going to get married” if they forgo the custom, Nour said. “I can only quote studies that show that men now prefer uncircumcised girls.”

When she can convince women not to have their daughters circumcontinued on page 6

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Monday, March 3, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Playwrights dramatize revolutions Nour ’88 confronts myths continued from page 3 of research material, but also for Rodriguez and Struhl’s commitment to the process of RPM. Rodriguez and Struhl have been writing and revising their plays over the course of many semesters, continuing to make changes throughout the rehearsal period. Moreover, the process of revisions will not end after the plays open at Rites and Reason or even after they close. RPM treats performance less as a culminating presentation than as one more step in the play’s evolution, a chance for the playwrights to get more feedback.

Audience members at each performance are given sur veys in which they can respond to the plays. In addition, the per formances will continue the Rites and Reason tradition of “folkthought” — a conversation between the audience and the production team that takes place following the Sunday afternoon performances.

“The folkthoughts are the most important part of RPM,” Rodriguez said.

As a community theater, Rites and Reason directors draw from both Brown and the Providence community, and casts ever yone who auditions. This means that experienced per formers from

both worlds get to work with each other, and new actors can learn from their colleagues. “It ends up being a crash course of sorts,” Terry-Morgan said.

The same is true for Terr yMorgan’s RPM classes, which pool first-time playwrights and advanced RPM students in the same section so that writers of all levels can learn from each other.

“My concept with teaching is that everyone is a teacher, and everyone is a student,” Terry-Morgan said.

“Ever ything is in development,” he added. “We’re all human. We’re all in the process of becoming.”

Though behind in polls, Obama draws many continued from page 1 Obama said he would not just end the Iraq war but would like to end the “mind-set” that led the country to war in the first place.

He explained his health care plan, saying it will provide every American with care and subsidize it for those who cannot afford it.

All people under the age of 25 will be covered under their parents’ health care plans, he added.

Obama also promised to take tax breaks away from companies that ship jobs overseas and give them to middle-class and workingclass Americans instead.

“If you work in this countr y, you should not be poor,” he said.

As president, Obama said he would make college more affordable by providing a $4,000-per-year tuition credit for most American students.

But he said students would have to “give something back in return” by doing community service, such as by joining the Peace Corps.

“We invest in you, you invest in America, and together we’ll take the country forward,” he said.

Obama said Clinton often attacks him for being “a hopemonger.”

“It’s true that I talk about hope a lot,” he said. “I was born to and raised by a single mom and my grandparents. They didn’t have money ... fame or fortune. They gave me love, and they gave me an education and they gave me hope.”

About 60 Brown students volunteered at Saturday’s rally, said Max Chaiken ’09, chapter coordinator for Brown’s Students forBarack Obama and Herald opinions columnist.

Chaiken said he was surprised but encouraged to see that thousands came out to support the Illinois senator.

“It’s exciting that Barack came to Rhode Island,” he said. “He’s really starting to build a national name for himself that wasn’t anticipated a few months ago.”

A Feb. 23 poll conducted by Rasmussen Reports, a private public opinion company, showed that 15 percent more prospective voters say they will vote for Clinton than Obama in the Rhode Island primary.

But Chaiken said polls have

been wrong in the past and that the rally’s huge turnout shows that Clinton’s lead could come from Rhode Island’s large population of seniors who tend to support her.

“It’s going to be close in Rhode Island,” he said.

Ann Thacher ’70, a supporter at the rally, said she believes Obama is the candidate who most likely would beat Sen. John McCain, RAriz., in the November election.

“He’s young and different and doesn’t carr y as much baggage with him,” she said.

Thacher said the diverse group of people at the rally ser ved to “regenerate her energy.”

Carl Farmer, another supporter, said he was inspired by Obama’s “brilliant mind” and his “bottom-up” approach to bringing about change.

Farmer said the “dumbest argument (he has) ever heard” is that Obama does not have enough experience to lead the country.

“Do I have to be polite?” he said. “Our Vice President (Dick) Cheney has the most experience of anyone in the government and if anyone thinks that that has made him a good vice president, they’re smoking something weird.”

behind dangerous practice continued from page 5 cised, Nour said she still worries that they may reconsider the practice following their pregnancy, since circumcision usually does not occur until six to 12 years after birth.

Nour said it’s important to understand female genital cutting as a cultural tradition, but also to realize that it can cause severe medical problems. Between 100 million and 140 million females across the globe have undergone genital cutting, according to the World Health Organization.

The immediate problems associated with female genital cutting include infection and death; in the long term women can suffer from chronic pain, infection, scarring and infertility.

Buster said the complications are not only physical. “There are some terribly huge psycho-social issues involved with this,” he said. But, he

added, “it’s not done as punishment.

It’s done routinely.”

“Most of the women I work with don’t consider themselves mutilated,” Nour said. The use of terms like “genital mutilation,” she said, are counterproductive to the ultimate goal of ending the practice because they disregard the values of the cultures that practice the custom. She prefers the terms “genital cutting” or “circumcision.”

Nour wants the practice to end but understands that it is rooted in certain cultures’ traditions. “If everyone has done it — your mother, your aunt, your grandmother — it’s hard to tell them to stop ‘just because,’ ” Nour said. Nevertheless, she said it’s crucial that the practice be abolished, even if “it’s something that’s going to take a long time and the whole community is going to need to agree.”

First-generation student group provides mentoring continued from page 1 “My parents don’t know not to call me five times a day during finals,” Anderson said.

But the group focuses not only on students who are the first in their families to go to college, but also the experience of being a low-income student at a wealthy institution.

“I had more issues with being low-income than first generation,” said Shane Reil ’09, another group member.

For Anderson, coming to Brown from her hometown of Longview, Wash was a huge cultural adjustment.

“Ever yone had these opportunities that to me were shocking,” Ander said. She recalled that during her freshman year, one student who lived next to her interned with

NASA, while another neighbor attended elite boarding schools in several different countries.

When the University announced its new financial aid policies Saturday, Anderson spoke to her mother, who said she couldn’t believe the change.

“We’re considered at the Ivy League poverty level,” her mother told her.

Anderson and Pridham said that the greatest challenge came before they even arrived at Brown.

“It’s the whole application process,” Pridham said.

Anderson didn’t realize the difficulties she’d faced before coming to Brown. “I thought it was normal to travel to the next town to take the SAT,” she said. “Then I got here and met people who’d had tutors, advisers, counselors.”

The group hopes to pass on some of the lessons they’ve learned by working with the Providencebased nonprofit College Visions.

Founded by Simon Moore ’00, College Visions advisers help Providence high school students research colleges, write essays and complete financial aid applications, according to a Feb. 7 article in the Providence Journal.

College Visions also helps educate students who have been accepted to college but don’t know what to expect, said Anderson, who volunteered as an essay proofreader with the organization last year.

Above all, the group wants to let students know that if they come to Brown, they won’t be “the only first-generation student,” Pridham said.

They are currently writing a constitution and hope to become an official student group sometime this semester.

Interested students can contact the group at first_gen@listser v. brown.edu.

Thanks for reading

W orld & n ation Monday, March 3, 2008

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Colombian military operation sparks tension BOGOTA, Colombia (Los Angeles Times) — Ecuador recalled its ambassador to Colombia on Sunday and Venezuela mobilized troops, armor and fighter jets, a day after Colombia’s army killed a leftist rebel commander in Ecuadorean territory.

Ecuador “rejects the presence” of Colombian soldiers, according to a statement from its Foreign Ministry. There also were unconfirmed reports that Ecuador was moving additional troops to defend its northeastern border with Colombia.

Saturday’s killing of Luis Edgar Devia Silva was a “violation of territorial integrity and legal system of Ecuador,” the statement said. Silva, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia’s No. 2 leader, was better known by the nom de guerre Raul Reyes.

Although Colombia formally apologized for entering Ecuadorean territory, it said in a statement Sunday that FARC rebels had fired on Colombian forces from Ecuador and that its military “acted in legitimate defense.”

Meanwhile, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he was sending 10 tank divisions to the border with Colombia and mobilizing fighter jets to defend against a possible incursion. On Saturday, he threatened Colombia with war if its armed forces entered his country, on the opposite side of Colombia from Ecuador.

“God save us from war,” the leftist Chavez told his weekly television audience Sunday, after observing a moment of silence for Reyes, “but we are not going to allow them to violate our sovereignty.” Chavez also described the Colombian military operation as a “cowardly act” and hurled insults at Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.

Colombia has fought a 40-year war with the FARC, the nation’s largest rebel group. The FARC has always used lightly-patrolled jungle border areas of Ecuador and Venezuela to regroup and resupply. But aggressive military action ordered by Uribe in recent years has driven rebels over the borders in greater numbers, analysts say.

The Colombian army killed Reyes in a mission that the Colombian Defense Ministry said began on the Colombian side of the Putumayo River but ended about one mile inside Ecuador, where Colombian soldiers recovered the 59-year old rebel’s body as well as his laptop computer.

Experts inside Venezuela and Colombia believe Chavez to be tolerant, even accommodating, of FARC insurgents, for whom Chavez frequently expresses his admiration. The FARC this year has released six of the hundreds of hostages it holds to Chavez representatives inside Colombia.

But Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa is said by Colombian and U.S. officials to be concerned about the growing presence of rebels and the violence and drug trafficking they have brought with them. Reyes was thought to live in a semi-permanent camp on the Ecuadorean side of the border.

On Saturday, Correa’s response to the Colombian incursion was muted.

He lamented the loss of life and acknowledged that FARC rebels often “infiltrate” Ecuador, but said nothing critical of Colombian troops.

On Sunday however, Correa’s government took a harder line, demanding an explanation and apology. Word that Ecuador was sending troops to its border came from Chavez during his TV show, but there was no confirmation from Ecuador.

Cesar Montufar, a political scientist at Simon Bolivar Andean University in Quito, said Correa may be engaging in “double-speak.”

“At the same time that Correa talks like a nationalist and is very concerned with sovereignty, it’s evident that he also has had good collaboration with the Colombians in the drug war and has improved relations with the United States,” Montufar said. “Correa’s position has been very pragmatic.”

Correa and his predecessors have walked a delicate line in dealing with the presence of Colombian rebels, not wanting to publicly repudiate the FARC for fear the rebels will retaliate. Officials have complained that Ecuador’s army is ill-equipped to counter a guerrilla-style war.

— Chris Kraul

Iranian president makes visit to Baghdad

By Borzou Daragahi Los Angeles T imes

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iran’s president began a historic visit here Sunday, decrying the presence of foreign troops and subtly criticizing American allies.

In meetings with Iraq’s leaders, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad outlined his nation’s plans to consolidate economic ties with Iraq, speaking within earshot of roaring U.S. helicopters taking off from Landing Zone Washington in the nearby Green Zone.

Nearly five years after the U.S.led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, Ahmadinejad’s visit underscored the realignment of Iraq from a country that once fought Iran in a grinding war to one increasingly within Tehran’s economic, political and cultural orbit of influence.

In his public appearances, Ahmadinejad conveyed a message of friendship and warm ties between Iran and Iraq despite the presence of 160,000 U.S. troops here.

“Iran and Iraqi are two friendly nations,” Ahmadinejad said at one of several appearances before the media. “Both have common history and civilization. Both of them have deep, intimate sentimental and social relations.”

Ahmadinejad’s visit, scheduled to end Monday, was largely billed as a mission about business. According to Iraqi and Iranian officials, private subjects of conversation included the expansion of trade ties, the creation of cross-border industrial zones, the exchange of technical expertise, the integration of banking systems and the launching of joint investment projects in the oil, electricity, transport and heavy industry sectors.

Iran-Iraq trade already totals $8 billion a year. Tehran is now offering Iraq a $1 billion loan in goods and services provided through Iranian

companies. Most of the Iranians in Ahmadinejad’s entourage were experts in the fields of economy and energy, rather than security, said Mohammad Marandi, the head of North American studies at Tehran University.

“The more two neighboring countries are integrated economically, the less will be the chance of war breaking out between them,” he said.

The visit was protested by some Sunni Arab groups that resent the influence Shiite Muslim and ethnically Persian Iran has amassed in Iraq in recent years. Sunnis dominated Iraq under Saddam.

The Kirkuk Iraqi Front, a Sunni grouping in northern Iraq, released a statement likening Iran to “a poisoned dagger in the chest of Iraqis.”

The visit comes as the United Nations Security Council prepares to take up another U.S. and European proposal to slap sanctions on Iran for pursuing sensitive nuclear technology that can be used for a weapons program.

“Iran needs a window through which it can rise in the world,” said Amer Hassan Fayadh, a professor of political science at Baghdad University. “It finds in Iraq the best window through which it can appear (strong) to the world, especially at a time when it is looking to get out of crises and bottlenecks in its relationships with the international community.”

The Iranian president mostly steered clear of controversial remarks, though he took a swipe at the U.S. “The Americans have to understand the facts of the region,” said Ahmadinejad, speaking at a news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. “Iraqi people do not like America.”

He blamed the U.S. for the vio-

lence and Iraq and rejected allegations made by American and Iraqi officials that Tehran contributed to Iraq’s chaos by providing weapons and training to militias.

Ahmadinejad also chided Sunni Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan for not fully embracing Iraq’s Shiite-led government. Not a single Arab country has positioned a full ambassador to Iraq.

The visit was loaded with pomp and ceremony highlighting its historical significance of the event, far more formal than President Bush’s clandestine visits here. Iraqi martial bands blared as Ahmadinejad strode up a red carpet to the home of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

Iran and Iraq fought an eight-year war during the 1980s that left up to one million people dead. But there was no sign of lingering animosity during the visit. Iran sheltered many Shiite leaders of the current Baghdad government during Saddam’s rule.

At a joint appearance before dinner with Abdelaziz Hakim, the head of Iraq’s main Shiite political party, and other Shiite leaders, the Iraqi and Iranian entourages were virtually indistinguishable. All were middle-aged men sporting neatly trimmed stubble on their faces and wearing dark suits and open-collar white or blue shirts, the fashion of Shiite Islamists in the Middle East.

U.S. troops, who usually form the bulk of protection forces for highprofile guests in Iraq, were absent.

The U.S. militar y made clear it would not be involved in protecting the Iranian president.

—Staff writers Tina Susman and Raheem Salman in Baghdad and special correspondent Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran contributed to this report.

Russian voters hand Medvedev overwhelming victory

By Peter Finn Washington Post

MOSCOW — After 24 hours of voting across 11 time zones, Russians handed Dmitry Medvedev an overwhelming victory in the presidential election Sunday despite a lackluster campaign that was more coronation than contest from the moment President Vladimir Putin endorsed him in December.

With nearly two-thirds of the ballots counted early Monday, Medvedev had 69 percent of the vote, according to the Central Election Commission. That percentage nearly matches Putin’s tally in 2004 and infuses Medvedev’s victory with the numbers to claim a clear mandate for the next four years.

As expected, Medvedev crushed the anemic challenges of three opponents who never had a chance to debate him and were drowned out by a deafening media drumbeat that Medvedev was “Putin’s choice” and that his victory would ensure the continuation of the popular president’s policies.

The two appeared at a concert in Red Square late Sunday, and Medvedev pointedly spoke first.

“We can maintain the course proposed by Putin,” Medvedev told the crowd. “I am certain that we have every chance to do this. We will continue to move ahead together.

We will win.”

Putin congratulated his protege and noted that “such a victory carries a lot of obligations.”

The election commission reported that about 64 percent of Russia’s 109 million voters had cast ballots at 96,000 polling stations, a record for a presidential election.

Medvedev was trailed by Communist candidate Gennady Zyuganov, who had 18 percent of the vote. Earlier in the counting, ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky had 10 percent and Andrei Bogdanov, an ostensible liberal, 1.5 percent.

“I voted for Medvedev because Zhirinovsky is ridiculous, Zyuganov is too old and I don’t know who Bogdanov is,” Viktor Fomenkov, 53, a machine operator in Moscow, said after casting his vote. “And Medvedev is the right hand of our president. I believe in him. I believe he will continue the line that our president started.”

Opposition figures such as Garry Kasparov, the chess grandmaster and Putin opponent, said they boycotted the vote, calling it a farce. Potentially vocal opponents, including former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, never got on the ballot.

The opposition charged that regional officials were under government instructions to ensure a healthy majority for the Kremlin’s man and that public employees were pressured to vote for Medvedev.

Zyuganov, alleging widespread irregularities, said he would probably

challenge the vote in court.

Putin, 55, has said he is willing to serve as prime minister when Medvedev in May becomes the third man to move into the Kremlin since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The campaign failed to clarify how the two will share power, and whether Putin’s new role is a temporary station to help Medvedev consolidate his position or a mechanism to allow Putin to continue to dominate the country.

At a news conference early Monday, Medvedev said confidently that Putin would become prime minister and that the division of labor was clearly defined by the constitution, with foreign policy in the hands of the president.

Under the constitution, the president is by far the most powerful figure in Russia. But a Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, backed by his popularity and a parliament that owes allegiance to him, not Medvedev, could be a daunting rival for the new president should the two clash.

“Conflict between Putin and Medvedev is more than possible, not because of their personal relations, which are good, but because of this complicated and controversial configuration of power,” said Nikolai Petrov, an analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center. “The presidency is a colossal instrument, but it will take time for Medvedev to take any independent steps.”

Page 8

M. icers win one, lose one, head to playoffs continued from page 12 and Hurley beat the goaltender to put the Bears up 1-0. The Dutchmen also got a five-on-three opportunity later in the period, but Rosen stopped all four of their shots to maintain Brown’s lead.

Rosen continued his brilliant performance in the third period, stopping all 11 Union shots, and with 5:03 left to play, Garbutt scored his second goal in two games to seal the win for the Bears.

Garbutt finished the regular season with a team-high nine goals, to go along with 11 assists, while Prough’s six goals and 16 assists made him the team leader in assists and points.

With the split this weekend, Brown finishes the regular season at 6-19-4, with a 6-13-3 mark in the Eastern College Athletic Conference.

After a disappointing beginning to the season, Brown finished respectably,

Monday, March 3, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

with a 5-5 record in its last ten games, all against ECAC opponents.

The Bears, seeded 12th, will face off against sixth-seeded Quinnipiac in Hamden, Conn., starting on Friday in a best-of-three first-round series in the ECAC playoffs.

Brown struggled against Quinnipiac this season, losing 6-3 and 3-0 in their two match-ups, but the Bears will be able to focus solely on preparation for the Bobcats all week long in practice instead of preparing for two teams as they usually do each weekend.

“They’re a very explosive offensive team, with a lot of talent and a solid goaltender. They can do some damage on the offensive end, and on the power play,” said Head Coach Roger Grillo. “We’re going to have (to) be especially good on our power play and our penalty kill, so we’ll work on that in practice, and make sure the boys are ready come Friday night.”

M. hoops seniors play last home games continued from page 12 Bears’ night: With 2:10 to play in the half, forward Scott Friske ’09 banked in a three-pointer as the shot clock expired to give the Bears a 40-10 lead. He shook his head as he ran back to play defense.

“Yeah, I totally meant to do that,” he joked after the game. He had his best game of the year, with 13 points and five rebounds.

Friske hit a layup on the next possession to give the Bears a 32-point lead, prompting the group of elementary school-aged kids behind the basket to chant, “Up by thiiiirty-two! Up by thiiiirtytwo!” The Bears would go into the halftime up 44-14, after hitting 65 percent of their field goals.

Second-half play was a bit more even, as Brown outscored Penn, 31-29. The Bears flirted with a 40-point lead, but never broke the barrier. Robinson used the last few minutes of the game to play his reserve players in the 75-43 win.

The wins “mean a lot,” McAndrew said. “Penn and Princeton players are the powers of the Ivy League. (Their players) think they’re better than you because of the names on their jersey.”

Robinson credited his team’s matchup 2-3 zone defense for sticking close to Penn’s shooters, who shot just 39 percent for the game. He was also impressed with McAndrew, who scored a gamehigh 16 points, and Huffman, who had 14.

“It’s so hard (for your seniors) to play well on senior night,” because of the added pressure, Robinson said.

Miller, who spoke in a hushed voice after the game, was clearly

disappointed with his team, but did find a bit of consolation in seeing Huffman and McAndrew, two players he recruited, do so well.

“I care a whole lot for these guys,” the former Brown coach said. “McAndrew and Huffman are … up there with anyone in terms of commitment to the game. That’s the greatest compliment I can give them. That’s why they’ve had the year that they’ve had.”

On Friday, the Bears handled Robinson’s alma mater, Princeton, though it took a late run to do so.

After a back-and-forth first half, Brown led 30-27, with Huffman scoring 12 of his game-high 18 points in that period.

But with the Bears trailing 43-38 with 11:57 remaining in the game, Brown went on a 19-2 run, powered by three-pointers from the weekend’s MVPs, Huffman and McAndrew, and points from Sullivan, Chris Skrelja ’09 and Adrian Williams ’11. The Tigers missed nine shots in that span while committing two turnovers.

Before Princeton broke the run at the 3:27 mark, Brown had a double-digit lead. It dwindled slightly in the last minutes, but the Bears hit free throws down the stretch for a 64-57 win.

After the game, Robinson said he had thought his team would have a letdown after last Saturday, when the Bears lost what amounted to a championship at Cornell. But he was thrilled with the team’s defense, which held the Tigers to 40 percent shooting from the floor, compared to Brown’s 45 percent.

A good example of this was guard Lincoln Gunn, who had a particularly awful night, missing all 10 of his field goal attempts and scoring

no points.

McAndrew, an Ivy League Player of the Year contender, had 14 points for the Bears, while Skrelja had his third double-double of the season, with 11 points and 12 rebounds. Matt Mullery ’10 had a career-high 14 points — but the Bears took a blow when he went down with an injured knee midway through the second half.

A Tiger player fell on Mullery’s knee after he blocked the Princeton player’s shot, the 6-foot-8 Bruno forward said. Mullery added that he would have an MRI Monday.

Mullery had been starting at center for MacDonald, who has missed eight out of the past 10 games after suffering a concussion.

Forwards Friske and Chris Taylor ’11 took his spot for the rest of the night and on Saturday.

Robinson blamed the Bears’ slow start partly on himself. The coach, who is usually unafraid to stand and shout at referees and his players, had been quietly sitting on the sidelines for the past three games. He said he had been sick for the past week and hadn’t been able to rest because of coaching and campaigning for his brotherin-law, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, in the morning, before work.

“When I’m animated, they’re animated,” Robinson said, half-jokingly. “But when I don’t feel well, they don’t play well.”

Robinson will have a chance to rest this week, though perhaps only after Rhode Island’s primary elections on Tuesday.

The Bears will travel to Dartmouth on Friday and end their regular season at Harvard on Saturday.

Monday, March 3, 2008

W. hoops suffers weekend ‘heartbreaker’ against Ivies continued from page 12 years in a row. Brown was able to keep her from taking over in the first half, and O’Neal said this was a huge factor in Bruno’s early success. But the Bears were unable to shut her out in the second half.

Although Brown quickly responded to Cowher’s attack and evened the score at 36, the Tigers were not done yet. A 15-2 run put them ahead 52-42 with 7:32 left. For the remainder of the game Princeton held the advantage, despite Brown’s multiple attempts to take back the lead.

Six consecutive points by Alexander brought the game to within 11 at 61-50 with under three minutes to play and Bruno got as close as five with just a minute left. But with four points off free throws in the last crucial seconds of the game, Princeton stayed ahead for good.

“It was a heartbreaker,” O’Neal said. “We came out so hard, and we came out with the lead and for them to come back was really tough.”

In Brown’s second game of the weekend, the Bears expected an easy game against Penn, having already beaten the Quakers earlier in the season.

“We were just sluggish,” Alexander said. “We thought we didn’t have much to prove to Penn.”

The Quakers took advantage of Brown’s slow start and gained an early 10-0 lead. Penn is the only team Brown has defeated in the Ivy League, but it was apparent from the beginning that the Quakers were ready for the Bears this time.

“We beat them at home,” O’Neal said. “But they just came out a little

Page 9

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bit harder. They really wanted this game.”

Brown fought back and, after a jumper from O’Neal with 7:46 remaining in the first half, the Bears took their first lead of the game at 16-15.

Under a minute later, O’Neal struck again, giving Bruno its largest lead of the night at 18-15.

For the remainder of the game, though, Brown struggled to keep up with Penn, especially forward Carrie Biemer, who led all players with 16 points.

“I don’t think we matched up solidly inside,” said Head Coach Jeannie Burr. “Their leading scorer was able to find open looks.”

The Bears tied the score with four minutes left before the break, but the Quakers finished off the half on top with a score of 28-26.

Penn started off the scoring in the second half and never looked back.

The Quakers kept the lead the whole time and were ahead by as many as 14 points. Brown’s best attempt to come back came after an O’Neal three-pointer, which brought the Bears’ deficit to just one at 32-31. But Penn quickly dashed Bruno’s hopes with back-to-back three-pointers. The Quakers ended the game ahead by 11, at 56-45, winning their first game at home since Nov. 28.

O’Neal led the scoring again for the Bears with 14 points, while the Quakers had three players in double digits.

The Bears return to the Pizzitola Center this weekend for their final games of the season when they host Harvard and Dartmouth and will try to finish the season on a positive note.

M. tennis sweeps Bucknell, BU on Friday continued from page 12 his match 6-2, 6-2, and No. 2 Noah Gardner ’09 breezed past his opponent 6-0, 6-0. Garland officially grabbed the win for the Bears at No. 4 singles when he defeated his opponent, 6-3, 6-2.

It was a surprising new lineup in this match, with young players being called upon to step up to the challenge of singles play while Lee, Kohli and Jon Pearlman ’11 have been nursing chronic injuries. At No. 3 singles, Au proved he could play at this high position grabbing the win 6-1, 6-1, followed by fellow freshman Posner winning his No. 5 singles match, 6-0, 6-2. To finish the shutout, the sophomore walk-on Simmons, at No. 6 singles, clinched his match 6-2, 6-2, making him undefeated for the season.

“Hopefully I continue to play well so that I can represent the team in coming matches,” Simmons said. “I look for ward to stepping up to any future challenging matches that come Bruno’s way.”

The Bears easily took their second match of the night, defeating Bucknell in a shutout despite dropping the only match of the day in doubles.

At No. 1 doubles, the usually

successful pairing of Kohli and Pearlman didn’t prove successful this time around, losing a close match in a tiebreaker, 8-7 (7-5).

Bruno still took the doubles point — No. 2 pairing Garland and Gardner won 8-2, and Au and Simmons clinched the point with an 8-4 victory at No. 3.

Bruno never looked back as the Bears took all six singles matches, not giving up a single set to the Bisons. At No. 1 singles, Lee set the pace with a 6-4, 6-1 win, followed by Pearlman at No. 2 singles, 6-4, 6-2.

Kohli at No. 3 singles struggled in the first set but kept it close, eventually winning 7-5, and dominated his second set, 6-0. Having already grabbed the match, the remaining singles players didn’t feel as much pressure to perform, but they continued to dictate the quick pace of play over Bucknell. Ratnam grabbed his No. 4 match, 6-0, 6-3; Garland followed at No. 5, winning 6-4, 6-2; and Posner finished out the singles play, clinching his victory, 6-3, 6-3, at singles No. 6.

The Bears have less than a month before Ivies begin, but their vast improvements from week to week are not going unnoticed.

“I was very proud that our guys fought very hard and played very tough through the match,” Head

Coach Jay Harris wrote in an email to The Herald. “That shows a marked improvement from just two weeks ago.”

They only have a couple of days until they face their next opponent, East Tennessee State, but Bruno has been prepared for them since their trip down to Wake Forest a couple of weeks ago.

“We had the chance to see East Tennessee State, and we know they are a team that makes you hit a lot of balls each point,” Posner said. “We are looking at improving our attacking game, taking control of the points and shortening them — we need to be dictating the play.”

The team may be strategizing, but Harris pinpoints the amount of effort the Bears puts into the match will be what determines the victory.

“We need to put together another great effort like the one we had on Friday,” Harris said. “If we can do that, along with holding onto the pride of our home court, I guarantee then that good things will happen.”

This Tuesday will tell what good things will come, as the Bears next take on the East Tennessee State Buccaneers at 5 p.m. at the Pizzitola Center.

Front page headlines from The Herald March 1, 1968: Pembroke Gate to Feature Dual Poetry Readings Debate Team In MSU Tourney J.W. Lewis to Discuss Red China The War Comes to Brown

E ditorial & L etters Page 10

Monday, March 3, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Staf f Editorial

Starting again On Tuesday, Rhode Island will matter. With the candidates and their families streaming through the state nearly every other day, this election is important to us as residents. But it’s even more important to us as young people.

We were in middle and high school when the Twin Towers fell, and we’ve been feeling the shockwaves ever since. In the last seven years, we’ve seen our country torture, eavesdrop and otherwise betray our national principles. As we’ve grown up, the press has looked the other way, and people have silently assented to fighting a misguided war in Iraq. Americans have been hiding when we should have spoken up; we have retreated to polarized, ideological strongholds when we should have been searching for solutions. It’s been so long since we have deserted those strongholds for a national conversation about anything substantive that we can hardly remember what such a conversation sounds like.

As our generation comes of age, we sense the fear and polarization are beginning to fade. While we remember Sept. 11, it no longer controls people’s policy preferences as it once did. Thousands of first-time voters are going to the polls and voicing their opinions. The United States, for the first time since 1928, selects from a slate of candidates with no presidential or vice-presidential incumbents. On Brown’s campus, signs are popping up as students ready to enter voting booths in a national election for the first time. In so many ways, the burdensome past is gone, and we can feel the excitement as our generation realizes it’s finally our turn to write a new chapter in our nation’s history.

All three major presidential candidates have replaced chest-thumping with calls for reconciliation. Those who are too fearful to continue our national tradition of welcoming outsiders have been eliminated from the race. Candidates who attempt to dictate people’s personal lives have been outmaneuvered by those talking up health care, the economy and foreign policy.

On the ballot are an experienced, intelligent policy wonk with a steady hand; a conflicted, irreverent maverick with remarkable pragmatism and a young, energetic dreamer with much possibility. Unlike the current president, each candidate has a shot at rebuilding a consensus about where we, as a nation, are going.

This is not to say any old choice will do. The seriousness of the candidates and their devotion to policy makes it all the more important that voters research their options and carefully consider their values. The United States, even five decades from now, will be shaped by this election.

If you want to be a part of it, it’s time to canvass, write letters, vote and speak your mind.

Government has a long way to go, but the idea that it is an obstacle to problem-solving rather than a place where we can meet to improve ourselves is finally starting to die. Sure, there’s still the gamesmanship, the lofty rhetoric and the aimless bickering, but the promises don’t seem so empty this time around.

T he B rown D aily H erald Editors-in-Chief Simmi Aujla Ross Frazier editorial Arts & Culture Editor Robin Steele Asst. Arts & Culture Editor Andrea Savdie Higher Ed Editor Debbie Lehmann Features Editor Chaz Firestone Asst. Features Editor Olivia Hoffman Metro Editor Rachel Arndt Metro Editor Scott Lowenstein News Editor Mike Bechek News Editor Isabel Gottlieb News Editor Franklin Kanin News Editor Michael Skocpol Opinions Editor Karla Bertrand Opinions Editor James Shapiro Sports Editor Whitney Clark Sports Editor Amy Ehrhart Sports Editor Jason Harris Asst. Sports Editor Benjy Asher Asst. Sports Editor Andrew Braca Asst. Sports Editor Megan McCahill

Senior Editors Taylor Barnes Chris Gang Stu Woo Business Darren Ball General Manager General Manager Mandeep Gill Susan Dansereau Office Manager Alex Hughes Sales Manager Lily Tran Sales Manager Public Relations Director Emilie Aries Jon Spector Accounting Director Claire Kiely National Account Manager University Account Manager Ellen DaSilva Darren Kong Recruiter Account Manager Credit Manager Katelyn Koh Ingrid Pangandoyon Technology Director

Steve DeLucia Production & Design Editor Chaz Kelsh Asst. Design Editor Copy Desk Chief Catherine Cullen Adam Robbins Graphics Editor

Letters Attack on Chafee unmerited To the Editor: In response to Sean Quigley’s recent column (“There are Yankee Republicans, and then there is Lincoln Chafee,” Feb. 27): I find it unfortunate to read this sort of random musing-cum-attack on Watson Institute visiting fellow Lincoln Chafee ’75. We are lucky at Brown to have a former politician such as Senator Chafee, who brings a rare depth of political knowledge and conscience on critical issues including the Middle East, the Iraq War and global warming.

Quigley is concerned with being conservative, sorting out the Republican Party’s ideological dilemmas, resurrecting Calvin Coolidge, etc. Be my guest, I’d

say. It merits mention, though, that Chafee quit that party last summer.

While it’s refreshing to read diverse viewpoints in The Herald, including conservative ones, I’d just ask as one student to another for a little more common sense and respect for elders. In my view, we ought to engage Chafee more positively and intelligently, partisan commitments aside, and see what we can learn from the struggles of a Rhode Island political scion turned foreign policy critic, who is also a classicist and one our own as a Brown graduate.

Matthew Lieber GS Mar. 1

photo Rahul Keerthi Meara Sharma Min Wu Ashley Hess

Photo Editor Asst. Photo Editor Asst. Photo Editor Sports Photo Editor

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Joanna Lee, Jessica Calihan, Steve DeLucia, Designer Rafael Chaiken, Stephanie Craton, Alex Rosenberg, Copy Editors Sophia Li, Alex Roehrkasse, Andrea Savdie, Night Editors Senior Staff Writers Sam Byker, Nandini Jayakrishna, Chaz Kelsh, Sophia Li, Emmy Liss, Max Mankin, Brian Mastroianni, George Miller, Alex Roehrkasse, Caroline Sedano, Jenna Stark, Joanna Wohlmuth, Simon van Zuylen-Wood Staff Writers Stefanie Angstadt, Caitlin Browne, Marisa Calleja, Noura Choudhury, Joy Chua, Sophia Lambertsen, Cameron Lee, Christian Martell, Anna Millman, Evan Pelz, Leslie Primack, Marielle Segarra, Melissa Shube, Catherine Straut, Gaurie Tilak, Matthew Varley, Meha Verghese, Allison Wentz Sports Staff Writers Peter Cipparone, Han Cui, Lara Southern Business Staff Diogo Alves, Steven Butschi, Timothy Carey, Jilyn Chao, Pete Drinan, Dana Feuchtbaum, Patrick Free, Sarah Glick, Soobin Kim, Christie Liu, Philip Maynard, Mariya Perelyubskaya, Paolo Servado, Saira Shervani, Yelena Shteynberg, Robert Stefani, Lindsay Walls, Benjamin Xiong Design Staff Jessica Calihan, Aubrey Cann, Serena Ho, Rachel Isaacs, Andrea Krukowski, Joe Larios, Joanna Lee, Alex Unger, Aditya Voleti, Pete White Photo Staff Oona Curley, Alex DePaoli, Erik Maser, Kim Perley, Quinn Savit Copy Editors Ria Ali, Paula Armstrong, Kim Arredondo, Ayelet Brinn, Aubrey Cann, Rafael Chaiken, Stephanie Craton, Erin Cummings, Katie Delaney, Julianne Fenn, Jake Frank, Anne Fuller, Josh Garcia, Jennifer Grayson, Rachel Isaacs, Joyce Ji, Jenn Kim, Tarah Knaresboro, Ted Lamm, Alex Mazerov, Seth Motel, Lisa Qing, Alex Rosenberg, Madeleine Rosenberg, Elena Weissman, Jason Yum

Clarification An article in last week’s Herald (“Sophomores may be able to squat in dorms,” Feb. 25) implied the deadline for lottery groups to turn in their forms is March 4. The forms are due on April 3.

Corrections The name of the author of an article in Friday’s Herald (“In R.I., a new fight for same-sex rights,” Feb. 29) was misspelled. The author’s name is Rachel Arndt.

Due to an editing error, an article in Friday’s Herald (“Emergency alert system loudly makes it debut,” Feb. 29) referred to Buttons Downard as male. Downard is female.

C O R R E C T I O N S P olicy 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.

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O pinions Monday, March 3, 2008

Page 11

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

The failure of (non)-intervention ZACK BEAUCHAMP Opinions Columnist The history of large-scale military interventions by the United States since 1945 reads like a Who’s Who list of worst modern foreign policy decisions. In addition to the obvious blunders in Vietnam and Iraq, President Clinton’s woefully executed troop deployments in Somalia, culminating in the Mogadishu disaster chronicled in the film Black Hawk Down, and our current half-hearted effort in Afghanistan are particularly noteworthy.

Perhaps even more dismal than the United States’ record of failed military interventions is its history of disastrous non-intervention.

Beginning with a failure to enter World War II earlier and a refusal during the war to bomb concentration camps (which some Holocaust historians believe would have saved hundreds of thousands of Jews from the death camps), the United States has a shameful record of ignoring horrific injustice in the name of “national security.” These failures range from the well publicized (the United States turning a blind eye to genocides in Rwanda and Darfur) to the less famous (Bush I’s abandonment of Kurdish and Shi’a rebellions against Saddam Hussein that he initially encouraged, which resulted in the indiscriminate slaughter of thousands of civilians).

These two parallel histories of failed intervention and non-intervention point to an interesting paradox in American foreign policy: When the United States should intervene militarily in other countries, it doesn’t, and when it shouldn’t use force, it does. This puzzle can be explained by looking at the justification used by the American government for its position.

In each of the above examples, the govern-

ment claimed that its action or lack thereof was justified by concern for “America’s best interests.” The implicit position taken by this stance, that American interests are somehow more important than any other potential concern, is both morally bankrupt and, ironically, harmful to America’s security. If the United States wants to make any real headway in addressing global problems, its leaders need to abandon the narrow provincialism that has dominated American views of international relations and start thinking like members of a global community.

Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan dramatically illustrate the failure of the national security

and that Ho Chi Minh’s movement presented essentially no threat to the United States and actually deserved to have won out over the various corrupt dictatorships that ruled South Vietnam.

Because the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were less clearly based on national security justifications, it is less immediately apparent that the “American interests” paradigm was a primary engine of American failure. But in these cases, the prioritization of American national interest determined the way that the wars were fought rather than the fact that they were fought in the first place. Both wars were pursued according to a military strategy labeled

If American policymakers want to retain the United States’ important role in international politics ... they have to abandon the belief that American national security trumps all other concerns. mindset. Of the three, Vietnam is the most straightforward example. American leaders, swayed by a paranoid and apocalyptic vision of the threat posed by Vietnamese communists, felt that American security interests could not permit Vietnam to “fall to communism.” Had the conflict been viewed from the perspective of the Vietnamese people rather than an American politician, it would have been quite clear that Vietnamese communism was much more about nationalism than Marxist ideology,

“the Rumsfeld doctrine,” which holds that wars in the 21st century will be waged more effectively by airpower and technology than large deployments of ground forces. In order to show the power of this new military strategy, and hence that the United States would still be the ascendant military power in the new century, the Rumsfeld doctrine was used as the basis for planning both the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions. The result has been two drawn-out occupations that have been unsuccessful in

large part because of a lack of American troops.

Of the two, only the occupation in Afghanistan is salvageable, and even then will require significantly more work and cost significantly more lives than it should have. Had the United States thought more about the best way to create a stable Afghanistan rather than its own military power, then it would have committed a sufficient number of ground troops to prevent such damaging consequences as the rise of warlordism and the resurgence of the Taliban.

Perhaps even better in illustrating the devastating consequences of the “America first” paradigm are the cases where the American government refused to act. The most tragic such example was the genocide in Rwanda. In 1994, ethnic Tutsis were murdered at a rate of at least 8000 a day by Hutu supremacists who had taken control in the country (the genocidal campaign lasted for 100 days, bringing the total death toll to 800,000). The United States refused to act on national security grounds, despite General Romeo Dallaire, commander of the United Nations forces on the ground, publicly stating that “without U.S. equipment, (the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda) can do virtually nothing.” Indeed, President Clinton, who calls Rwanda “one of (his) great regrets,” has now stated that a commitment of 5,000 US troops could have saved 500,000 Rwandan lives.

Numerous other examples testify to the moral bankruptcy of non-intervention on national security grounds and the failure of interventions justified on those same grounds.

Taken together, these trends suggest a more general conclusion: If American policymakers want to retain the United States’ important role in international politics and its moral integrity, they have to abandon the belief that American national security trumps all other concerns.

Zack Beauchamp ‘10 has a membership card for the global community

Third eye blind

BY KEVIN ROOSE Opinions Columnist Is it just me, or has this presidential election been going on forever? I mean, what is it, March? And we won’t know who wins until November? That’s a long time — seven months, according to a recent CNN/Gallup poll — and I’m just not that patient. I don’t even like waiting in line for chicken fingers at the Ratty, and I’m supposed to sit through eight months of overhyped stump speeches aimed at two dozen undecided voters in Ohio?

I’m not down with that. Luckily, I don’t have to be. There is one woman, right here in Providence, who already knows the results of November’s election. Her name is Contessa, and she’s College Hill’s resident psychic. And unlike cutting in the chicken finger line, going to see Contessa won’t require me to mumble something about low blood sugar while other students glare at me and call me a douchebag.

So the other day, I decided to pay her a visit.

Contessa, a large, grave woman with a marked Mediterranean accent, reads palms and tarot cards on the corner of Thayer and Meeting streets, above Johnny Rockets. The first thing that confused me about her psychic studio is that it has a doorbell. I mean, really, shouldn’t she know?

Anyway, I rang, and she let me into her apartment: a sparsely-decorated place with brown leather sofas, a big-screen TV tuned to Channel 10 (which remained at full volume during my entire session) and a single table in the back corner that houses her cards, crystal balls and other assorted psychic wares.

Contessa wasted no time undermining

herself. “Did you come alone?” she asked. She followed up with: “Where are you from?” and “Do you go to Brown?” Come on, Contessa.

It’s like you’re not even trying.

But I was determined to get answers about the election, and I wanted to give Contessa’s clairvoyance the benefit of the doubt. Unfortunately for me, she has a policy about questions: They’re only allowed at the end of a session, after she’s read your palms (cost: $10 for one hand, $20 for both). Contessa sat me down at her corner table and began to examine my hands. (I paid $10 extra for the double-palm reading when she said that it would be a “much

This is true, actually. I do have good health, thank God, and most of my family members enjoy fairly rigorous immune systems. I was wondering if Contessa might have a gift after all. She continued: “I see that you are very sensitive, and you let your emotions show readily. But you’re not suspicious of people, and you don’t let your fears take over.” Now, maybe she was having an off-day, but all of this was just wrong. Aggressively wrong, in fact. The kind of things people say to me on Opposite Day. Still, even though Contessa is more Oprah than oracle — sort of a talking fortune cookie

There is one woman, right here in Providence, who already knows the results of November’s election. Her name is Contessa, and she’s College Hill’s resident psychic. more thorough examination,” which I might have taken as a sexual come-on if she had been winking at me instead of watching Eyewitness News over my shoulder.)

“Ooh,” she said, pursing her lips and staring at my wrist. “You’re going to live a long time. Good health. You come from a healthy family.”

— I liked her positive encouragement. When she asked about my career plans, and I told her I wanted to be a writer, she exclaimed, “Go for it!”

Next, she turned to love and money. “You’ll marry a woman with blonde hair and blue eyes, and you’ll have two children,” she said.

“You’ll never be rich, and you’re not going to

win the lottery, but you’ll be able to support your family.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her that: a) as a Brown student, my chances of marrying a shiksa are worse than Ralph Nader’s chances of taking the oath of office, and b) as a guy who wants to write for a living, winning the lottery is about the only hope I have of supporting a family.

After a few ominous predictions that made her sound like a Shakespearean ghost (“On the 19th of next month, you will receive a letter containing good news”), Contessa announced that it was the end of my palm reading. Time for my questions.

“Who will win the presidential election?”

I asked.

“The black guy,” she said after a long silence. “What’s his name again?”

“Obama?”

“Yeah, him. He’s going to be the president.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. And he’ll be a good one, too. Maybe he’ll reverse some of the damage Bush has done. Fix the country a little.”

Now fully aware that Contessa’s only political acumen came from watching the nightly news (and not very closely at that), I asked her a few more questions, thanked her profusely, and walked back out onto Thayer Street $20 poorer, feeling oddly satisfied with my first psychic experience. Contessa might not be able to see the future, but at least she can see the present.

Kevin Roose’s ’09.5 drag queen name is Claire Voyant

S ports M onday Page 12

M. hockey ends regular season with shutout

By Benjy Asher Assistant Sports Editor

After a last-minute 2-1 loss to Rensselaer on Friday night, the men’s hockey team finished its regular season on Saturday with 2 a 2-0 win over RPI 1 Union, as goalie Brown Dan Rosen ’10 0 recorded his Union 2 first collegiate Brown shutout. The weekend marked the last home games for the team’s five seniors: Paul Baier ’08, Sean Hurley ’08, Chris Poli ’08, Jeff Prough ’08 and David Robertson ’08.

Though the Bears held a 24-12 advantage in shots over Rensselaer and had four power play opportunities, the game remained scoreless through the first two periods. In the first minute of the third period, Brown earned another power play, and this time the team did not squander its opportunity. Assistant captain Prough fired a shot on goal, which was deflected, but Ryan Garbutt ’09 was there to get to the loose puck and knock it past the goalie to give Bruno a 1-0 lead with 19:02 remaining in the game.

The Engineers got off 12 shots in the final period, but the Bears were able to cling to their one-goal lead until just over two minutes remained in the game. With 2:04 remaining, Rensselaer’s Peter Merth got the puck on the right side of the rink and sent a slap shot off Rosen’s leg pad and into the net to tie the game. In the ensuing series of possessions, the Bears rushed the net, but after an errant shot, the Engineers countered with a rush of their own. Just 31 seconds after the first goal, Brown caught a bad break, when a Rensselaer shot from the slot deflected off the skate of Matt Palmer ’09 and past Rosen to give the Engineers the deciding goal

With only two games left in the season, the women’s basketball team is looking to pick up at least one more win 57 to gain some Brown Princeton 67 momentum for next sea45 son. Its away Brown 56 games this Penn weekend, however, did not help Bruno’s chances. The Bears lost to Princeton on Friday night, 67-59, and to the University of Pennyslvania on Saturday, 56-45, dropping them to 2-24 on the season.

Though the women’s basketball team ended the weekend with two losses, the team started out with some intensity. The Bears came out of the gates fast and took an early lead against the Tigers. Captain Annesley O’Neal ’08 led the team in scoring with a career-high 16 points, followed closely behind by Ashley Alexander ’10 who added 14.

“We were all just really anxious,” O’Neal said. “I just think that we were really working well together.”

Alexander started off Brown’s scoring run after netting a jumper followed by a free throw, putting Brown ahead 12-10, 12 minutes into

M. basketball sweeps Penn and Princeton

By Stu Woo Senior Editor

Ashley Hess / Herald

Jeff Prough ’08 assisted on all three goals the Bears scored this weekend in the final two home games of his career. He finished the season with 6 goals and 16 assists.

in their 2-1 victory.

“They had a two-on-one, and Palmer played it perfectly,” Rosen said. “He got between them to block the pass ... but the puck hit his skate, and went to the right as I slid to my left, and by the time I dove back, the puck was already in the net.”

In the opening period of Saturday’s game against Union, none of Brown’s 15 shots found the back of the net, but Rosen had seven saves of his own to keep the score tied. Rosen finished with 28 total saves in the shutout.

“For the most part, we limited their

Strong start but weak finish for w. basketball

By Whitney Clark Sports Editor

Monday, March 3, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

the game.

Bruno was ahead by as much as nine points before the break and led for the majority of the half. In the last minute of play the team was ahead by eight points after a layup and a shot from the charity stripe

by Natalie Bonds ’10. But the Tigers came within six at the half, 26-20, on two free throws from Krystal Hill, who led all scorers with 19 points.

The Bears lost their initial intensity in the second half, however, and allowed Princeton to slowly creep back into the game. Brown’s turnover rate, which has haunted the team all season, combined with the Tigers’ improvement in shooting percentage, from 31.8 percent in the first half to 48.1 in the second, led to the Bears’ ultimate defeat.

Following a Brown basket to open the half, Princeton started its second-half rally and went on an 8-0 run, tying the game at 28.

Helping the Tigers’ comeback was Meagan Cowher, whom the Bears neutralized in the first half but who scored nine points in the first 10 minutes after the break and finished with 16.

Prior to the game, the Bears really focused on defense, particularly on marking Cowher, Princeton’s weak side guard who has been named First Team All-Ivy three continued on page 9

momentum, whereas on Friday night we got caught in our own zone for long periods of time,” Rosen said. On Saturday night, “we played the game very smart and handled their pressure well. We were a lot sharper mentally on Saturday night.”

In the fifth minute of the second period, the Bears found themselves with a 49-second two-man advantage, and 30 seconds later, Bruno had the lead. Prough found Hurley open at the bottom of the right faceoff circle, continued on page 8

The lasting image from the weekend’s men’s basketball games, if it wasn’t the scoreboard that read “44-14” Princeton 57 at halftime 64 o f S a t u r Brown day’s match 43 against the Penn 75 University Brown of Pennsylvania, was probably the seniors’ send-off later that night.

With 2:40 left in the Bears’ blowout, Head Coach Craig Robinson had one of his players foul to stop the game in order to properly give Damon Huffman ’08 and Mark McAndrew ’08 their due.

The team captains, in their last game at the Pizzitola Center, smiled glowingly and waved to the crowd, which gave them a standing ovation. As they walked off the court, they then got hugs from Robinson and the rest of the team.

It was a fitting tribute to the duo, which led the Bears to an impressive 75-43 win over Penn after helping them to a 64-57 comeback victory against Princeton Friday night.

“I couldn’t be happier,” Huffman said Saturday, before listing why: He won his last home game, beat his former coach, helped tie the team’s record for wins in a season (17) and became Brown’s all-time career leader in threepointers made (216).

The only blemish in the seniors’ weekend was Cornell (20-5, 12-0 Ivy), which wrapped up the Ivy League title Saturday night by beating Harvard. That means the

Bears (17-9, 9-3 Ivy) will finish the season in second place.

It also means that All-Ivy senior guards, as well as injured center Mark MacDonald ’08, will end their college careers without a league championship or NCAA Tournament trip.

Still, with two games left in the season, Huffman and McAndrew said they are as motivated as ever.

They want the Bears to set the basketball program’s season win record. They’re also hoping to play in a postseason tournament, such as the National Invitation Tournament or the newly created College Basketball Invitational, which will take 16 teams.

“If we go 19-9 and we have a big win like this over Penn, maybe you make (the NIT selection committee) say, ‘Huh, maybe we should get Brown into the NIT,’ ” Robinson said.

On Saturday, the Bears quickly made their case for postseason play against Penn and their head coach, Glen Miller, who headed Brown’s program from 1999 to 2006. Brown defenders, playing their matchup 2-3 zone, pestered Penn shooters who went just 6-for-19 from the floor in the half.

Meanwhile, almost everything was dropping for the Bears. Peter Sullivan ‘11 scored 13 of his 16 points in the first half, with many points coming off cuts to the basket set up by screens.

“We were up 23 to 5 and that set the tone,” Huffman said. “I think we knew and they knew that they weren’t going to get back in it.”

One play that epitomized the continued on page 8

Bucknell, BU no match for m. tennis

By Meagan Garza Contributing Writer

Ashley Hess / Herald

Without dropping a set, Saurabh Kohli ‘08 won both his singles matches this weekend against BU and Bucknell, helping to boost Brown’s record to 8-5.

With so many injuries plaguing the Brown men’s tennis team, the prospect of facing an easy opponent — or two — was a welBoston U. 0 come one. The 7 Brown Bears had no trouble taking both matches Bucknell 0 this past Friday 7 Brown at the Pizzitola Sports Center, dropping only one doubles match in 18 matches of the day en route to consecutive 7-0 wins over Boston University and Bucknell.

The first match against Boston University was an easy victory, as the Bears took the doubles point quickly in under 30 minutes. At No. 1 doubles, Basu Ratnam ’09 and Chris Lee ’09 won 8-2, followed by Kendrick Au ’11 and Sam Garland ’09, with an 8-1 win at No. 2 doubles.

The young pairing of Cody Simmons ’10 and Charlie Posner ’11 at No. 3 doubles proved equally successful, grabbing a third victory for the Bears, 8-2.

The Bears didn’t seem worried heading into singles play, with the momentum entirely in their hands — nor did they need to be, as Bruno didn’t drop a set to their opponent.

The co-captains led the way to victory: No. 1 Saurabh Kohli ’08 grabbed continued on page 9