Monday, October 20, 2008

The Brown Daily Herald M onday, O ctober 20, 2008

Volume CXLIII, No. 94

Since 1866, Daily Since 1891

Corp. addresses U.’s finances, but no major moves U. rededicates

by Michael Bechek News Editor

Members of the Corporation convened on campus Friday and Saturday for their first meeting since the economy took a sharp turn for the worse last month, discussing academic programs and addressing financial concerns but announcing no major decisions.

The University’s highest gov-

erning body — which meets three times annually and typically discusses a wide range of issues at each gathering ­— addressed budgetary and fundraising issues related to a slumping economy at this weekend’s meeting. It also focused on academic programs and was briefed by the provost on Friday.

Allison Ressler ’80 P’09 P’10, the treasurer of the Corporation and the chair of the committee

that oversees fundraising, alumni affairs and public relations, said the economy had been given “significant attention” in the meetings of every committee she attended — including those that oversee the University’s budget and the investment of its endowment.

Economic circumstances often impact the University’s strategic plans, she said, adding that the budget committee had completed

a “detailed review” of the University’s capital projects, financial statements and debt situation and presented its report to the whole body.

“You budget, and then things change, and you have to adapt to that,” she said. “All of our capital projects ... are going to be dependent on us prudently determining

interests. “Of all the places I’ve been, it’s probably the most well-suited to do both anthropology and gender studies.”

“The anthropology department suffered under my (lawsuit) for a long time,” Lamphere added, but now the department has “a whole continued on page 4

continued on page 4

continued on page 6

Lamphere’s $1 mil. gift creates gender studies professorship

By Isabel Gottlieb News Editor

Courtesy of Kay Warren

Louise Lamphere, second from the left, bottom row, among her colleagues in the anthropology and sociology department in the early 1970s. Lamphere was party to a 14-year lawsuit against Brown that caused significant changes to its hiring policies.

$1 million donation.

The gift establishes the Louise Lamphere Visiting Professorship, a two-year joint appointment for young or untenured professors to teach in women’s studies and another department, such as anthropology.

Among anthropologists of the 1970s, Lamphere was known for including women’s issues in her re-

search. Lamphere said she sees the professorship as a way of ensuring that gender studies remains part of the curriculum at Brown.

Lamphere chose Brown for her gift, she said, not just because of her long history with the University — overall, she spent 18 years teaching at Brown — but also for the University’s ability to match her academic

Mt. Sinai program lets med students broaden studies

B i z a r r e cha r it y f e s ti v al

By Hannah Moser Contributing Writer

Courtesy of Rebecca Jacobson

The Poopstock Fundraiser raises money for the Mali Health Organizing Project and the Merasi School in India.

3

ARTS & CULTURE

GREEN BECOMES a CIRCUS The Bread and Puppet takes over the Main Green to perform political satire

www.browndailyherald.com

5

CAMPUS NEWS

Class is cancelled Course cancellations increased this year, but so did course additions

By Gaurie Tilak Senior Staf f Writer

Workers are still putting the finishing touches on Pembroke Hall, but a full Alumnae Hall commemorated its rededication at a ceremony Friday night.

The renovated Pembroke Hall is the new home of the Cogut Center for the Humanities and the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women.

“I make no apologies for being an alarmist,” said keynote speaker Pamela Rosenberg, who said the populace needs a renewed emphasis on studying humanities. Not enough people are learning for the sake of learning, said Rosenberg, general director of the Berlin Philharmonic orchestra and member of the external advisory board for Cogut Center for the Humanities.

Throughout the evening, Rosenberg proclaimed the importance of the study of the humanities, a task being undertaken jointly by the Cogut and Pembroke Centers.

“I feel a grave concern that we are living in a society that operates in a vacuum,” she said. “There’s so little awareness of cultural context.”

But Brown defies that trend, she said. “When you’re on the (Brown) campus, you can become almost wildly optimistic that what I’m talking about will be widely enacted.”

Named after the alma mater of Roger Williams in England, Pembroke Hall was the first building erected for the women’s college at Brown. Its first dedication was in November 1897, according to Encyclopedia Brunoniana.

‘Closing a circle,’ prof. gives to U.

In 1968, a young anthropologist named Louise Lamphere took an assistant professorship at Brown, where she said she was the only woman in the department and one of only about 25 women on the faculty.

Six years later, after finding out she had been denied tenure, Lamphere hired a lawyer and eventually filed a class-action lawsuit for sexual discrimination that would lead to one of the largest changes in hiring policy in the University’s history — and one of its most expensive lawsuits, running up more than a million dollars in legal fees over the course of 14 years.

In May, 31 years after the original settlement, Lamphere gave her former employer and legal opponent a

revamped Pembroke Hall

11

OPINIONS

Elana Siegel ’11 knows many people divide doctors into two camps, a la “Grey’s Anatomy”: one brilliant and precise but aloof, the other less renowned but down-to-earth and attentive to his patients’ needs.

“I want to be both,” she said.

Siegel is an applicant for the Humanities and Medicine Program through the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. This program, inaugurated in 1989, allows students to pursue a career in medicine without sacrificing their interests in the social sciences –– requiring only one year of biology and one year of chemistry. Applicants do not have to take organic chemistry, math or physics, and they are forbidden from taking the MCAT. Mount Sinai’s Web site describes the ideal Humanities and Medicine candidate as a student who has “demonstrated an interest and ability in the

Conservative Corp Graham Anderson ‘10 argues in favor of a governing body that acts conservatively

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

12 SPORTS

sciences and math in high school, taken a minimum of science/math courses in college, and have personal attributes that show promise for becoming a compassionate and humanistic physician.”

Mary Rifkin, the program’s director, said the program looks for many of the same attributes as any other medical program, including GPAs and the SAT. But they also place a lot of emphasis on the intangible qualities of a student. Rifkin said they want applicants to explain their plan and how the program will make a difference in their lives. HM students should be leaders, have a passion and show a sustained dedication to service, she said.

Five or six Brown students apply to the program every year, and usually one is accepted, Andrew Simmons, associate dean of the college for health and law careers, wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. continued on page 4

Losing Focus Men’s soccer falls to Harvard, 4-1, giving the Crimson first place ranking in the Ivy League

News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com

T oday Page 2

Monday, October 20, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

We a t h e r

Vagina Dentata | Soojean Kim

TODAY

TOMORROW

sunny 61 / 41

partly cloudy 63 / 38

Menu Sharpe Refectory

Verney-Woolley Dining Hall

Lunch — Broccoli Noodle Polonaise, Asian Vegetable Blend, BBQ Beef Sandwich, Asian Noodle Bar, Polynesian Chicken Wings

Lunch — Chicken Parmesan Grinder, Swiss Broccoli Pasta, Italian Marinated Chicken, Hamburgers, Spicy Black Bean Burgers

Dinner — Rotisserie Style Chicken, Italian Couscous, Baked Sweet Potatoes

Dinner — Roast Pork Calypso, Asparagus Quiche, Coconut Rice, Ziti

Brown Meets RISD | Miguel Llorente

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

Dunkel | Joe Larios

Epimetheos | Sam Holzman

© Puzzles Pappocom RELEASE DATE– Monday, October 20,by 2008

Los Angeles Times Puzzle C r o sDaily s w oCrossword rd Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

ACROSS 1 Deep gorge 6 “I want it all!” types 10 Trojan War hero 14 One of the Minor Prophets 15 Playing a fifth qtr., say 16 Bad habit 17 Cowboy Gene 18 Precious 19 Like mature cheeses 20 Practical joke item that gets you wet 23 Comics scream 24 Campaign fund feeder 28 Bank heist units 32 Mickey Mouse creator 35 Sch. in Troy, NY 36 Golfer Sorenstam 38 Two-grade system 40 “Me, too!”

41 Lower, as lights 42 Cellulose fiber 43 Leave the bondsman in the lurch 45 From what place 46 Self-esteem 47 GM monitoring and tracking subsidiary 49 Turned blonde, say 50 Rocket booster’s push 52 Rock’s __ Leppard 54 Spend it all 61 Seep 64 U.S. accident investigator 65 “You’re the One __ Want”: “Grease” song 66 The old you 67 Oxen collar 68 Hot after-school drink 69 Henhouse 70 A slob makes one 71 This puzzle’s theme, familiarly

DOWN 1 Niger neighbor 2 60 minutes 3 Italian vineyard region 4 Belgrade native 5 “I wouldn’t rule it out” 6 Baseball’s Matsui 7 Universal donor’s type, briefly 8 Soccer score 9 Shoots from a low-flying plane 10 Salt’s “Halt!”

11 Irish dance 12 King beater 13 Signed primitively 21 Castor’s mother 22 Responds to a doctor wielding a tongue depressor 25 Nook’s partner 26 Each 27 Cultivated 28 Stove nozzle 29 “I’ve seen __!”

30 Enchant 31 Ninny 33 Like cried-over milk 34 “Apocalypse Now” setting, briefly

37 Put the __ on: squelch 39 Dancer Astaire 41 Put down, in the ’hood 44 Slow, to fast 45 Small songbird 48 Pueblo homes 51 Deplete 53 “Get the ball, Rover!”

55 Pawnee ally

56 Admonishing sounds 57 “Get lost, fly!”

58 City SSW of Dallas 59 At the summit of 60 “Buenos __” 61 Like NASDAQ trades 62 “I caught you!”

63 Animal housing

Alien Weather Forecast | Stephen Lichenstein and Adam Wagner

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Fizzle Pop | Patricia Chou

xwordeditor@aol.com

10/20/08

T he B rown D aily H erald Editorial Phone: 401.351.3372 Business Phone: 401.351.3260

University community since 1891. It is published Monday through Friday during the aca-

Simmi Aujla, President

once in July by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. POSTMASTER please send corrections to

Ross Frazier, Vice President Mandeep Gill, Treasurer Darren Ball, Secretary

By Lila Cherry (c)2008 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

10/20/08

The Brown Daily Herald (USPS 067.740) is an independent newspaper serving the Brown demic year, excluding vacations, once during Commencement, once during Orientation and P.O. Box 2538, Providence, RI 02906. Periodicals postage paid at Providence, R.I. Offices are located at 195 Angell St., Providence, R.I. E-mail herald@browndailyherald.com. World Wide Web: http://www.browndailyherald.com. Subscription prices: $319 one year daily, $139 one semester daily. Copyright 2007 by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.

A rts & C ulture Monday, October 20, 2008

Page 3

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Traveling flutist joins ‘Flute Concerto’ R.I. premiere

By Rafael Chaiken Contributing Writer

The Rhode Island premiere of Christopher Rouse’s “Flute Concer to” was the centerpiece of a performance Saturday evening by the Brown University Orchestra.

Repeated Sunday afternoon, the Sayles Hall concert featured flutist Carol Wincenc and also included works by Strauss and Wagner.

REVIEW The program opened with Richard Wagner’s “Overture to Rienzi,” an 1842 work that highlighted the brass section. A swelling and receding solo trumpet was a motif in the piece, which also included brass fanfares. While the first section was alternatively majestic and ominous, the second half, centered on a march theme, was somewhat repetitive. Based on the stor y of a 14th centur y Roman ruler, the opera that the overture comes from, “Rienzi, der Letzte der Tribunen,” is seldom performed because of its six-hour length.

The overture was followed by Richard Strauss’ “Also sprach Zarathustra,” an 1896 symphonic poem

for orchestra and pipe organ. Inspired by one of Nietzsche’s books, the work is best known today for its use in “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

On Friday night, a screening of the film in Sayles was combined with a performance of the piece.

“Zarathustra” explores the conflict between “nature” and the “inquiring spirit of man,” Paul Phillips, the orchestra’s music director, explained in the program notes. The 30-minute tone poem began with three notes by the trumpets, two bold orchestral chords and a timpani solo. The three-note rhythm appeared repeatedly in the piece, albeit in modified forms.

Showcasing the strings, Strauss included solos for the violin, viola and cello. His work progressed through dramatic melodic sequences before ending with soft bass pizzicato.

Rouse’s “Flute Concer to” comprised the second half of the program. Commissioned for Wincenc in 1993, the five-movement piece draws on Celtic traditions, in which the flute is a prominent instrument.

During the concer to’s first continued on page 6

Meara Sharma / Herald

Bread and Puppet’s Sourdough Philosophy Circus delivered political commentary mixed with wild antics.

Theater troupe serves up political satire

By Caroline Sedano Senior Staff Writer

For half her life Lydia Stein ’09, a 30-year-old Resumed Undergraduate Education student, has called Bread and Puppet — a radical, political art and theater community — her “family.” This week she was able to share that family with Brown and the Providence community when she coordinated and performed in Bread and Puppet’s Sourdough Philosophy Circus on the Main Green.

A large crowd gathered to watch

All-female ‘Taming’ entertains in the cold

By Anita Mathews Contributing Writer

For many college students, their first exposure to William Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew” comes from its modern adaptation, the movie “10 Things I Hate About You.” In the

REVIEW film, Heath Ledger plays Patrick Verona, a brooding teenaged version of Petruchio — an arrogant man paid to woo the unbearable Katharina, the shrew to which the title refers.

Over the weekend, Shakespeare on the Green’s performance of Taming of the Shrew tackled another unusual portrayal of Petruchio. The part was played by a woman, Kirsten Ward ’12. In fact, all 11 roles were played by women, and the entire crew was female as well.

The play revolves around the marital quests of the two Baptista sisters — the incorrigible Katharina (Herald Contributing Writer Tasnuva Islam ’11) and the docile Bianca (Jennifer Harlan ’12), who is fervently courted by several suitors. The plot develops misogynistic overtones in part through Petruchio, who marries Katharina and succeeds in subduing her until she is a wholly acquiescent wife.

This production was an admirable feat for a play that has only two female characters and is often considered controversial for its sexism.

Director Sara Molinaro ’09 said she chose to use an all-female cast to counteract those notions of sexism and portray the play as more of a love story. Molinaro, also a former Herald Metro editor, said she found it to be more of an advantage than a challenge. “At the risk of sounding sexist, I found that women operate more on a consensus.”

Molinaro stayed faithful to all aspects of the plot, including scenes that involved romantic interaction be-

Meara Sharma / Herald

Kirsten Ward ’12 and Tasnuva Islam ’11 perform in “The Taming of the Shrew.”

tween characters. Shana Tinkle ’11, who played Grumio, said that the cast made a point of getting comfortable with one another throughout the rehearsal process.

To add to the challenge of portraying intimacy with only female actors, the play was performed outside in the cozy setting of the garden behind 135 Thayer St. Despite the distinct chill in the fall air, a small but enthusiastic audience showed up dressed to withstand the elements.

Though the stage was small, the costumes simple — most of the actresses sported Converse shoes — and the set unassuming, the cast brought plenty of energy to the performance and the characters were engaging enough to overshadow the modesty of the production.

From the very first scene, Tranio, played by Sofia Ortiz ’11, brought elements of cleverness and wit to the dialogue, while Lilia Royanova ’11 as Hortensio had no trouble conveying the bawdiness of certain Shakespearean lines. Katharina and Petruchio made a great pair, evenly matched in

stubbornness and audacity — until, of course, the shrewish Katharina is tamed. In terms of acting, however, Ward was more powerful in her portrayal of Petruchio’s bold nature than Islam of Katharina, an appropriate asymmetry of strength, perhaps, considering Katharina’s ultimate submission and loss of power.

The audience favorite, however, was surely Tinkle as Grumio, the token jester-like character that is Petruchio’s valet, and as the merchant who becomes complicit in the various deceptions going on in the Baptista household.

Tinkle made the audience members laugh with the exaggerated and mischievous delivery of her lines, and kept them chuckling as she climbed trees and engaged in other capers in the background.

On the whole, Molinaro, assisted

by Karin Freed ’09, pulled off a production that stayed true to Shakespeare’s plot, yet turned his original gender dynamic on its head with its unconventional casting, making for an enjoyable and unique performance.

the show, full of Bread and Puppet’s distinctive style of masks, costumes, political satire, singing and stilts.

“I figure that Bread and Puppet would be very well received at Brown because my sense of Brown students is that they are really bright, really motivated to do good work, to make life better for a lot of people and make the world a better place,” Stein said.

Created in the early 1960s by Peter Schumann in New York City, Bread and Puppet aimed to use art as political expression and protest.

Using puppets as big as 15 feet tall, the group performed on streets and in parks with the message that art should be cheap and accessible to everyone. In 1970 Bread and Puppet relocated to a farm in Glover, Vermont, where they performed an annual show called Our Domestic Resurrection Circus for up to 60,000 people. The group has since scaled back its events, doing smaller weekly shows in the summer and traveling around New England during continued on page 4

Page 4

Years later, Lamphere endorses a ‘new vision’ continued from page 1 new vision.”

Lamphere said she was also inspired by President Ruth Simmons’ leadership, and first approached Simmons about the gift. Lamphere, whose family inheritance has allowed her to make charitable donations, has also given gifts to the University of New Mexico, where she currently teaches.

Lamphere was the first female assistant professor in what was then a combined anthropology and sociology department. After early work on the Navajos, she became interested in the women’s movement and began working gender issues into her research.

She advised a Group Independent Study Project, taught a course on women’s issues and published a book called “Women, Culture and Society,” just before her department decided not to grant her tenure.

“There’s so much mainstreaming of (gender studies research) today that was extraordinarily controversial in the early 70s,” said Kay Warren, professor of international studies and anthropology.

Warren, who founded the Program in Women’s Studies at Princeton in 1982, described 1970s academic feminism as a time of “fervor and excitement, new research (and) perspectives.”

“Everything was so exciting,” Warren said. “This stuff really mattered; these feminists, we were passionate people.”

But Lamphere said she thought that her research on gender issues at Brown was not being taken seriously.

“I felt this new work of mine on women was being dismissed, and that was discriminatory,” Lamphere said.

Lamphere felt the department was unappreciative of her research. When a male colleague, whom she thought less qualified, was granted tenure and Lamphere was denied it, she decided to fight.

“Well, I’m going to sue,” she remembers thinking.

The process started with an internal grievance procedure. Lamphere then hired a lawyer and, along with three other female faculty members who had been denied tenure or fired, filed suit against the University for sexual discrimination.

The eventual settlement, in 1977, granted tenure to Lamphere and two of the three other professors in the suit.

More importantly, it established what came to be known as the “Lamphere Decree” — a legal requirement for the University to increase the number of tenured female faculty to 74.

The consent decree and a monitoring committee appointed in part by Lamphere “was a form of a watchdog,” she said, to ensure fair procedures for hiring and tenuring.

The University appealed unsuccessfully in 1987, then again, successfully, in 1991, for the decree to be lifted.

By the time the decree was lifted, the number of tenured female faculty had increased five-fold.

According to a 1991 book, “The Search for Equity: Women at Brown University, 1891-1991,” only 2.5 percent of tenured faculty and 8.5 percent of untenured faculty were women in 1976. In 1991, the year before a court lifted the consent decree, 16 percent of tenured faculty and 43 percent of junior faculty were female.

These numbers positioned Brown as a leader among its peers. Faculty homogeneity was especially pervasive in the Ivy League. A Jan. 24, 1993 New York Times article — printed one year after the Lamphere Decree

Students accepted into Mt. Sinai humanities program continued from page 1 Applicants are generally sophomore undergraduates, though some juniors can apply. Applications were due Oct. 15, and those selected for interviews will be informed at the end of November. Between 30 and 35 of approximately 300 applicants will be accepted in late December, with time to plan for the spring semester.

Students apply in their sophomore or junior year because otherwise they might have taken the science classes that would disqualify them from the program.

Siegel said she came to Brown definitely considering a pre-med track, “but without the blinders.” After talking to Simmons at a concentration fair last year, Siegel decided Humanities and Medicine was the program for her. “I don’t see it as a way of getting out of my organic chemistry,” she said. “It’s about fulfilling my medical career in a way that I want to.”

Siegel, whose coursework has covered global health, has extensive community health experience. She attended the Waterford Kamhlaba United World College of Southern Africa in Swaziland, where she spent time working in orphanages where most of the children were HIV positive. Last summer, she helped an NGO in Uganda conduct surveys about malaria, HIV and tuberculosis.

Siegel said she doesn’t see herself ultimately practicing medicine, but would probably practice for 10 or 20 years with the goal of working internationally in community health

Monday, October 20, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

and development.

Herald Sports Columnist Ellis Rochelson ’09 remembers the day he found out about his acceptance to Mount Sinai: Dec. 27, 2006. “I was checking my e-mail about every two minutes that day,” he said.

Rochelson, a theater arts concentrator, said he didn’t think of becoming a doctor until he was a freshman at Brown. He then started down the pre-med track until he heard about Mount Sinai from a fellow student in a psychology class who had been accepted into the program.

Rochelson said the program offers a unique opportunity to work with the community in East Harlem, which has dire health care needs, especially concerning obesity and hypertension. He said the program encourages humanistic studies because “too many doctors were coming out cookie-cutter.” Rochelson said he likes Mount Sinai’s emphasis on humanistic medicine and relating to patients as people, “not just a collection of organs.”

Though he called Mount Sinai’s program “a backdoor into medical school,” Rochelson says the 25 to 30 HM students share the same course load with the about 100 regularly admitted students. An eight-week program at Mount Sinai over the summer prepares the accepted HM students for medical school with classes in organic chemistry and physics. Rochelson spent mornings this summer shadowing doctors of different specialties, an experience that he said “really solidified my decision to become a doctor.”

was vacated — reported that women comprised only 7 to 13 percent of Ivy League professors.

“The more prestigious the institution, the fewer women there are,” the article stated.

Lamphere, meanwhile, went on to have a distinguished career in anthropology. She moved to the University of New Mexico after being denied tenure but in 1975 returned to Brown, where she still had personal connections, and stayed — in a tenured position — until 1986. Lamphere later served as president of the American Anthropological Association and wrote or collaborated on seven books.

Warren said Lamphere’s gift was “a wonderfully optimistic statement.”

“She could have given money to any institution, but picked Brown,” Warren said. “There is something about closing the circle and righting a wrong that’s very powerful over time.”

In recognition of the gift, the anthropology department is hosting a conference on Oct. 25 in Lamphere’s honor about the past and future of gender studies.

“The conference is our way of thanking Louise for her tremendous generosity,” Warren said. “I thought there was no way better than to organize a reflection on the history of gender studies at Brown.”

The conference will feature professors who were at Brown in the 1970s reflecting on changes to the field of gender studies since then — “a history that’s sort of hidden because we’ve gone so far in the interim that we’ve forgotten the early roots,” Warren said.

“Its also very powerful over time to remember one’s youth and activism, and see that out of those struggles, a really important change in the academy developed, and it really worked.”

Revamped Pembroke Hall will house two centers continued from page 1 Chancellor Thomas Tisch ’76 started the ceremony with a short introduction followed by a video presentation about the building’s renovation and the collaboration of the two academic centers which now inhabit it.

The video featured commentary from Michael Steinberg, director of the Cogut Center, and Elizabeth Weed, director of the Pembroke Center, who described the union of the two centers as an “arranged marriage.”

The building’s exterior was restored to reflect its original design while the interior was completely changed to a more modern style, Weed said.

“We wanted a lot of common public space where the participants in the two centers could come together,” she said.

While some rooms in the building still maintain the dark wood that was characteristic of the original Pembroke Hall, the common lounges have all been fitted with glass doors and large windows which allow light to pervade the building’s interior.

“The idea was to bring together the Cogut Center and the Pembroke Center because we have very close academic connections and we’re both very strong in the humanities,” Weed said.

President Ruth Simmons addressed the crowd, who donned formal wear for the dinner event.

She beckoned the building’s architect, Toshiko Mori, from the crowd to receive the audience’s enthusiastic applause.

“You really suffered in this project,” Simmons said to Mori.

“I have to avow how impossible we were in the project, but you stuck with us.”

Simmons also thanked the features and design committee that oversaw the efforts to design and renovate Pembroke Hall, as well as Craig Cogut ’75 and Nancy Buc ’65 for their contributions to the renovation project.

Coinciding with the reopening of the Pembroke Center, the University recently received a $3 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for doctoral programs in the humanities, Simmons said.

Rosenberg concluded the event in Alumnae Hall with her speech, “The Urgency of Context.”

Rosenberg, who studied history at the University of California at Berkeley, said she went to college because there was so much to learn. But she worries that some students no longer have that drive.

“We are a ver y insular, usfocused, nation,” she said.

Though technology allows access to more information, students are not taking advantage of the opportunities to learn more, she said.

Rather, the access to technology is responsible for the gradual wearing away of “personal and collective attention spans.”

“I fervently hope that society at large will develop a sense of urgency and a need for the type of searching and learning that takes place at Pembroke Hall,” Rosenberg said.

Bread and Puppet fun, whether three or 30 continued from page 3 the rest of the year. During its visit to Rhode Island last week, Bread and Puppet performed six different shows, including a Wednesday performance in Sayles Hall, and made appearances at various Providence locations over the weekend.

The show on the Main Green began with a buoyant, folksy song played by a band dressed in white chef hats and black handlebar mustaches made of paper. An exuberant group of performers ran out from behind one of Bread and Puppet’s signature painted school buses wearing the troupe’s customar y all-white outfits. The show featured members of the Bread and Puppet company as well as volunteers from Brown and the community.

Ben Lichtner ’12 was one of the volunteers. He said he worked with the company for a couple hours that morning in order to appear in the show.

“Getting ready was a lot of fun,” said Lichtner, who had heard about the opportunity from a poster. “I think the show especially appealed to a place like Brown because of the political twists.”

Like many circuses, the Sourdough Philosophy Circus was composed of a series of acts. The bits ranged from poignant political protest to purely silly antics, all of which left the large audience laughing and clapping for the entire show.

The first skit featured the “Official Federal Cookbook,” constructed of large pieces of cardboard painted black and white with

childlike words and pictures. The “book” included illustrations reading “Illegal Alien Mashed Potatoes” and “Freedom Pie.” “The Democracy Appetizer” earned laughs for being “ser ved before a four-year fast,” as one performer exclaimed.

This simplistic and vibrant style of art is what draws many to the theatrical performances.

“It’s not just the work they do but the way they revolutionized the way to make art,” Stein said, adding that immediately after seeing Bread and Puppet at age 15 she wanted to become involved. “When I first saw them, I realized they used really cheap materials and they were training lots and lots of people of any age to perform ... they were still making really beautiful theater and art.”

As one actor read the “cookbook,” other troupe members stood to the side yelling, chanting, dancing, jumping around and giving the deceptively serious content a more lighthearted and fun feel. This multi-level humor is one reason the audiences at most Bread and Puppet events span all ages.

“The kids enjoyed it even if they probably didn’t understand it,” said Sheryl Kopel from Pawtucket, who brought her two children to the performance. “The show was great because it could engage kids with the silliness and the costumes, and the political satire kept the adults engaged. I thought it was appropriately heavy and enjoyed the whole thing.”

Other skits included a dance done on stilts, the “Vermont Se-

cessionist Sheep Choir,” and the “Read Between the Lines Zebra,” who jumped rope with the help of his two trainers, Phony and Baloney. The Dancing Bear Sisters attempted to solve the economic crisis with toilet plungers, an actress in a papier mache-and-cardboard mask performed a “media spin dance” to the accompaniment of rustling newspapers and, in one of the funniest scenes, the actors did Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” dance as zombies.

Most of the scenes had political undertones that generally expressed frustration with the current administration’s policy decisions.

Some of the acts were particularly chilling. In one recurring skit, actors announced how much money had been spent on the war in Iraq since the show started — by the end, $12,348,101.22, according to the troupe’s estimate. In the finale, they displayed a large sheet of cardboard on which they had painted the number of Iraqi citizens killed in the war.

This mix of art and activism is one of the main reasons Stein has been involved in Bread and Puppet for so long and why she felt the performance would be beneficial for Brown students.

“I’m hoping Bread and Puppet gives Brown students another way of thinking about doing good work in the world,” Stein explained. “Not necessarily through NGOs, studying economics or public policy. That all plays a big role, but it’s inspiring to me to think that you can reach people without (needing) a lot of money.”

C ampus n ews Monday, October 20, 2008

Ne

w s

Page 5

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

i n

B

r i e f

Drive for Haitian storm victims extended For the past two weeks, the Haitian Students Association has been collecting food, clothing and school supplies to assist victims of the recent storms in Haiti.

The drive was successful enough that it has been extended for at least two more weeks, according to Deborah Saint-Vil ’10, copresident of the club.

“I’m really excited,” Saint-Vil said about the unexpectedly large number of contributions to the drive.

While the group has not yet totaled the amount, Saint-Vil was impressed with the volume of contributions in one of the boxes in Faunce House on Saturday.

Haiti was hit by three hurricanes and one tropical storm in August and September. The storms left about 800 dead and hundreds more missing or injured. The island’s cities and infrastructure were devastated as well, leaving many people homeless and creating massive food shortages.

The World Bank and the Red Cross, among other organizations, are providing humanitarian aid and funds to help rebuild Haiti.

“It was natural that the group at Brown should do something significant,” Saint-Vil said. She and the three other co-presidents of the HSA decided that collecting supplies for hurricane victims would be the most effective way for the group to contribute.

The HSA is collaborating with Students of Caribbean Ancestry and several other organizations for the drive. They have included the Providence community in their effort and hope to soon set up donation boxes in local high schools in addition to the one already in the Wheeler School, Saint-Vil said.

The collection boxes are located in high-traffic areas such as the Sharpe Refectory, Faunce House, the Gate, Josiah’s and the Third World Center.

Saint-Vil, like many students in the HSA, has family in Haiti and said everyone on the island is “always affected in some way” by natural disasters like these.

— Rachel Starr

One type of Quahog survives dead zones Little oxygen? No other thriving marine life? No problem — at least for the hardy quahog, according to one Brown researcher.

Andrew Altieri, a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, published a study on coastal dead zones in the journal Ecology this month.

Dead zones are coastal areas with low oxygen, a phenomenon Courtesy mass.gov known as hypoxia, which is often caused by water pollution, Altieri said. When oxygen levels drop, most marine species die or flee. “Until now, most research on dead zones has focused on negative consequences,” Altieri said. But “one species can actually benefit from dead zones.”

According to Altieri’s study on the Narragansett Bay, the quahog clam not only adapts to hypoxia, but also thrives in this environment because it provides a “predation refuge,” he said.

Altieri said he is often asked if he is advocating for dead zones. His answer is a firm “no.” The great majority of coastal marine species would benefit from a reduction in hypoxia, he said, which has caused “a major crash in the ecosystem.”

“The success of that species is hiding the fact that large portions of Narragansett Bay are devoid of most of the species that we commonly associate with Narragansett Bay,” Altieri said. “Quahogs are really the only species remaining in those areas, which leaves the fish vulnerable to collapse.” Even though species of clam alone is valuable from an economic standpoint, “we’ve left ourselves vulnerable to just losing the fishery altogether,” he said.

To reduce coastal dead zones, homeowners near water can decrease pollution from their property by upgrading household sewage facilities. Those who own powerboats or sailboats with toilets should also dump the tank into a proper receptacle on shore rather than into the bay, according to Altieri.

On a city or state level, a government-created centralized sewage system line would benefit the coastal marine environment, Altieri said.

Rhode Island isn’t the only place that risks losing marine life as pollution creeps in. In other coastal areas, like the Gulf of Mexico, the main source of waste is agricultural runoff, such as excess fertilizer. This makes the problem an interstate issue, since pollution can be carried from farms in the Midwest to the ocean and other bodies of water.

“Reducing the current impact of humans would allow the ecosystem to return to a more natural, pristine state,” Altieri said.

Course cancellations up from last year

By Christopher Baker Contributing Writer

Course cancellations are up this year, as 106 courses across 30 departments were canceled for this semester — up from 91 courses cancellations last fall, according to Registrar Michael Pesta.

While cancellations have increased, 87 new courses were added after the Course Announcement Bulletin was published, bringing the net loss to only 19 courses. According to the Pesta, 900 courses are being taught this fall, up from last year’s 899.

The Department of History had 17 cancellations after the CAB was published, the most of any department.

Canceled courses include HIST 1420: “Twentieth-Century Russia” and HIST 1740: “Civil War and Reconstruction.” Seven courses were added, though, including HIST 1973D: “Reading the Soviet Poster” and HIST 1860: “European Women’s History.” The department also added more seminars to keep class sizes small, according to Kenneth Sacks, professor of histor y and chair of the department.

The Departments of Modern Culture and Media and East Asian Studies and the Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions each saw more than six cancellations.

Department chairs attribute the cancellations to personnel turnover.

“We let the (registrar) know as early as we can –– in December, for instance –– that we think we’re going to have these courses offered,” said East Asian Studies Department Chair and Associate Professor of History Kerry Smith.

While depar tments declare which courses will be taught far in advance, circumstances can arise that force cancellations.

In the histor y depar tment, Sacks cited the large number of prestigious fellowships awarded to professors last year as the sole cause of the department’s course cancellations, calling it “one of

Chris Bennet / Herald File Photo

A student peruses the Course Announcement Bulletin in the Friedman Study Center. Nine hundred courses are being offered this fall. those perfect storms of a year.”

“We did our best to replace as many essential courses as we could,” he said. “We think we got it pretty well covered this year.”

In the Taubman Center, a postdoctoral fellow was supposed to teach two courses but then accepted a tenure-track position, Marion Orr, director of the Taubman Center and professor of political science, wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. The Taubman Center had 11 cancellations and added three new courses this fall.

Additional course cancellations may be due to preliminary listings in the CAB. Smith said courses in the bulletin are sometimes placeholders for courses whose subjects have yet to be determined by the department. “We need to let students know that something’s coming,” Smith said.

In the East Asian Studies department, for instance, EAST 1300: “Monsters and Ghosts” had been taught by a now-departed visiting professor and was listed merely as a place-holder for the courses new Assistant Professor of East Asian Studies Samuel Perry is currently teaching –– a class on Japanese and Korean culture and another on Japanese fiction.

Language courses in the East

— Suzannah Weiss

Much obliged for your readership.

Asian Studies department were also affected. CHIN 0150: “Advanced Beginning Chinese,” an intensive course for students with some familiarity with the language, was canceled when Senior Lecturer in East Asian Studies Meiqing Zhang went on leave this summer, forcing several students into 100 or 300-level courses.

Frederic Lu ’11, a Herald copy editor, said he was surprised “because the notification came ver y late and consisted of just an e-mail.”

After taking a placement exam, Lu was placed in a 300-level course but decided to take the 100-level “Basic Chinese” to work on his pronunciation.

“I admit that I’m a little disappointed that Chinese 150 was canceled because it was designed to be more suited for Chinese-Americans, but I’m learning a lot from Chinese 100 as well,” he said.

Another student found herself in a similar situation. “I can speak and understand colloquial Chinese, and since the class was supposed to be geared for people like me, I regret that circumstances didn’t allow for me to take it,” LeeAnn Chen ’11 wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.

“I was extremely looking forward to taking this class.”

Page 6

Monday, October 20, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Orchestra premieres Rouse concerto

2 4 H ou r s o f laugh s

continued from page 3

Kim Perley / Herald

movement, which Wincenc described as an “aria,” a beautiful flute melody was played almost continuously over gentle strings.

Suddenly, the second movement interrupted this calm. Wincenc was given a workout, playing rapid notes that sounded almost like nervous conversation accompanied by a chaotic orchestra.

The hear t of the piece was the third movement, an elegy for James Bulger, an English toddler slain by two 10-year-old boys while Rouse was composing his concerto.

With its lengthy bassoon solos, anguished flute and stirring strings, the movement is a statement of how music can portray tragedy.

Rouse’s final two movements mirror his first two. In the “Scherzo,” Wincenc’s playing sounded jazzy at times. The last movement was another serene aria, this time ending with quiet yet unsettled tubular bells and harp.

A faculty member at the Juilliard School, Wincenc has performed widely in America and Europe.

Her appearance at Brown was sponsored by the Lawton Wehle Fitt Endowment for Artists-in-Residence, run through the Creative Arts Council.

Proceeds from the concert went to the University Music and Instrument Fund. The orchestra’s next performance will be on Dec. 5, when it will play music by John Adams, Alban Berg and Johannes Brahms.

Chris Duffy ‘09, a Herald contributing writer; Will Guzzardi ‘09; Sandra Allen ‘09; and Herald Sports Columnist Ellis Rochelson ‘09 — all of long-form improvisation group Starla & Sons — take part in a 24-hour improv show held over the weekend.

Economy weighs heavily in Corporation meeting, but few details emerge continued from page 1 we’re in a position to go forward.”

Cornelia Dean ’69, a member of the advancement committee Ressler chairs, said Corporation members were “very concerned” about recent developments in the economy. “The people in the University who deal with money are having to cope with these changes,” she said.

Still, the Corporation did not announce any major decisions after it adjourned Saturday afternoon — as it did, for example, after its February meeting, when it approved a sweeping expansion in financial aid.

The specificity and quantity of major announcements after a given meeting do not necessarily reflect the importance or depth of the Corporation’s discussions at that meeting. “Most of our decisions are not made based on a single meeting,” Ressler said.

But the lack of any major actions officially taken by the Corporation was apparent in President Ruth Simmons’ summary e-mail to the community, which offered a vague characterization of the Corporation’s discussions and could highlight as major news only a fundraising goal for financial aid that has been public for at least a month.

“The meeting focused on operating, investment and academic priorities in view of recent global financial events,” wrote Simmons, who chairs the Corporation’s Board of Fellows.

In her e-mail, Simmons praised the Corporation’s endorsement of a plan to raise an additional $100 million for the endowment for financial aid — on top of the nearly $300 million that has been raised so far — but that plan was publicly

advertised more than a month ago in the Brown Alumni Magazine.

That initiative, which will aim to reach the new goal of $400 million for financial aid by the formal conclusion of the Campaign for Academic Enrichment at the end of 2010, will be led by Richard Barker ’57 P’03 P’05, the Office of Advancement announced in the magazine advertisement.

Dean said the Corporation continues to see financial aid as “a very high priority” despite an economic situation that is “not rosy.”

“People are very committed to the goals that the University has set out,” she said. “Thinking about how to meet them in this new economic climate is complicated and difficult.”

Friday afternoon, Provost David Kertzer ’69 P’95 P’98 briefed Corporation members on academic news and issues at the customary “strategy session” that precedes the Saturday morning business meeting. He was joined by Dean of the Faculty Rajiv Vohra P’07 and three members of the faculty, who discussed academic departments in their respective fields.

The primar y purpose of the briefing, which was also attended by alumni fundraising leaders, was to “give the Corporation and the leadership of the Campaign (for Academic Enrichment) a sense of the academic strengths at Brown,” Kertzer said, but several of the administration’s concerns were also brought up for the trustees’ consideration.

Those included the need to better “nurture and maintain” prized members of the faculty, the importance of endowed professorships to aid that goal and the urgency of pushing

ahead with the planned $70-million brain sciences facility temporarily known as the Mind Brain Behavior Building, Kertzer said.

Other issues, such as the need to expand the size of the Graduate School to keep pace with the growth in faculty, were not addressed to a great extent because they had been discussed at length at recent meetings, he said.

While economic developments can affect the University’s ability to carry out its goals, Kertzer said, members of the Corporation agreed that “nevertheless, we need to keep our eyes on the ball here.”

Professor of Neuroscience John Donoghue PhD’79 P’09, the director of the Brain Science Institute; Professor of Mathematics Jill Pipher; and Professor of History Michael Steinberg, the director of the Cogut Center for Humanities, spoke about developments and issues in their areas of study.

The Corporation meeting was not entirely without incident, as members of Students for a Democratic Society engaged in a noisy protest outside University Hall Saturday morning. The student group has demanded more community participation in the body’s meetings and access to its minutes, which are sealed for 50 years under current policy.

At its meeting Saturday, the Corporation also formally accepted a number of large gifts to the University, including $7 million for the Creative Arts Building, $3.7 million for the Nelson Fitness Center, $3 million for an endowment that will support Andrew W. Mellon Graduate Fellows in the Humanities and $2.25 million for undergraduate scholarships.

SDS tries to enter meeting

By Chaz Firestone Features Editor

Corporation members peering out the window of University Hall’s third floor Saturday might have been surprised to see a similar meeting taking place on the grass.

Protesting what they feel is an opaque and exclusive board of governors, Students for a Democratic Society parodied the annual fall meeting of the University’s highest governing body by having some of the group’s white male members — along with a “token female” and a “token minority” — lead a mock discussion.

But the theatrics really started when five group members dashed across the Main Green holding a ladder, which they attempted to use to climb through a window into the meeting.

Department of Public Safety Sgt. Kevin Andrews tackled the ladder before the protesters could prop it against the building’s facade, but the excitement was enough to divert other officers’ attention away from University Hall’s doors as 20 protesters stormed the building, allowing eight to make it inside.

Amid chants of “Let them up,” and “We know you see us,” the eight protesters tried to negotiate their way into the meeting, according to Vice President for Public Affairs and University Relations Marisa Quinn and SDS member Atilio Barreda ’12, who was one of the eight to make it inside.

Quinn and Barreda said the protesters demanded to present an agenda and a petition in front of the Corporation, but Senior Vice President for Corporation Affairs and Governance Russell Carey ’91 MA’06 told the students that the meeting was closed.

When SDS members asked to speak with a member of the Corporation, Chancellor Thomas Tisch ’76 briefly left the meeting, telling the students he would accept their petition and their concerns, but that they could not enter the meeting.

The students then left the

building to a round of applause from the crowd of about 30 outside.

Barreda said the protest was successful but that more work needs to be done in order for SDS to meet its goals, including earlier access to the body’s minutes and greater community involvement in its decisions.

“We’re just going to continue fighting,” he said.

“Until we have nothing less than complete control of our school, there’s no compromise.”

Quinn said no disciplinary action has been taken against the protesters, but an investigation is underway to determine whether the protest violated the University’s Protest and Demonstration Guidelines.

The guidelines prohibit “protests or demonstrations that infringe upon the rights of others to peaceful assembly,” but it is unclear whether the group’s actions constituted a violation of these guidelines.

“It is possible that there would be sanctions against the organization or the students,” Quinn said.

“There are more effective means to engage in discussions of ideas and perspectives.”

Students not a part of SDS disagreed on whether the protest was effective or if they agreed with the group’s aims.

Ruben Izmailyan ’09 said he thinks other students respect that SDS has opinions, but that Saturday’s action seemed like “protesting for the sake of protesting.”

“I think they might have certain valid opinions but the confrontational way they try to get their points across does not resonate well with most of the student body,” Izmailyan said.

Amrin Khander ’11 said she agreed with some of SDS’ concerns. “One thing I don’t agree with is that students should have the final say,” she said. “I don’t think students are old enough to make decisions like that for our peers.”

— With additional reporting

by Colin Chazen

w orld & n ation Monday, October 20, 2008

Page 7

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Nat

i o n

i n

B

r i e f

Palin takes over for Fey on ‘SNL’

Katherine Frey / Washington Post

Regino Romero, of Lorton, Va., struggles to pay for his family’s everyday needs.

Inflation, stagnating pay squeeze workers

By Michael Fletcher Washington Post

WASHINGTON — If money were not so tight, Regino Romero would use the basement of his Lorton, Va., town home some other way. But with his former wife gone, his paycheck flat and his bills rising, he sees no option but to rent the place out.

The cash — $400 a month — helps, but it is not enough. So Romero also is offering for rent one of his home’s three bedrooms for $350 a month.

Bringing tenants into the home he shares with his three school-age children is a last resort for Romero, who once saw the middle class as tantalizingly within his reach. But with the economy sputtering, inflation increasing to levels not seen in nearly two decades and his family life in flux, he is struggling to survive economically. Although he has worked full time for nearly 14 years as a Hilton hotel cook, he feeds his own family with help from a local food pantry.

“It would be hard for me to work another job, because I have custody

of the children,” said Romero, 42.

“If you don’t take care of the kids, they are going to be on the street.

So I have to be here when they are home. But I know my salary cannot pay for everything for my children and myself.”

Romero’s dilemma is not unlike that of many low-wage workers struggling to cope in an economy that has left them behind. A national survey by The Washington Post, Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University found that large percentages of low-wage Americans struggle to pay for life’s staples. Eight in 10 find it hard to pay for gasoline or save for retirement, while more than six in 10 said it was tough to afford health care. And roughly half said they were having difficulty affording food and housing.

Workers are more productive than ever, as the output per person has hit new highs in the past eight years. But rather than funding wage increases for most employees, the fruit of that new efficiency has largely bypassed all but the people in the best-paying jobs, as inflation-adjusted incomes for

typical Americans edged downward from 2000 to 2007.

Now, as the global financial system strains to absorb its biggest shocks since the Great Depression, the once faraway world of Wall Street is making things worse for low-wage workers.

Even before last week’s dramatic declines on Wall Street, credit markets had tightened, making borrowing more expensive — or impossible — for people and businesses whose credit histories are less than stellar.

Already, most lenders are requiring higher down payments for mortgages and more collateral for other loans.

Tighter credit means less spending and fewer jobs. Inevitably, those at the bottom of the income ladder are most vulnerable to all of those changes.

“Low-wage workers have had a difficult balancing act in terms of matching their expenses with their limited incomes,” said Margaret Simms, director of the Urban Institute’s LowIncome Working Families Project.

“They are very limited in their ability continued on page 8

Lower oil prices may deflate change efforts

By Steven Mufson Washington Post

WASHINGTON — Just four months ago, a conference here on electric cars drew four times as many people as expected. District fire marshals ordered some of the crowd to leave, and the atmosphere was more like that of a rock concert than an energy conference. A brief film depicted an electric car owner driving off with a beautiful woman to the strains of “The Power of Love” while her original companion struggles to pay for gasoline. The audience cheered.

One discordant note in the series of enthusiastic speeches came from Bill Reinert, one of the Toyota Prius designers. He cautioned that designing and ramping up production of a new car takes five years.

“If oil goes down to $60 or $70 a barrel and gasoline gets back to $2.50 a gallon, and that very possibly could happen,” he said, “will that demand stay the same or will we shift back up?”

It didn’t take five years to hit those numbers. One type of oil shock has given way to another. Even more swiftly than the price of oil rose, it

has tumbled to the range that seemed far-fetched when Reinert spoke and oil was more than $130 a barrel. Now that drop threatens a wide variety of game-changing plans to find alternatives to oil or ways to drastically reduce U.S. consumption.

“Declining oil prices can give us an artificial and temporary sense that reducing oil consumption and energy consumption is an issue we can put off,” said Greg Kats, a managing director of Good Energies, a multibillion-dollar venture capital firm that invests in global clean energy.

The credit crisis is compounding that threat by making it more difficult to finance capital-intensive projects, whether they are new auto assembly lines or solar panels or wind turbines. General Motors has been touting the Chevy Volt as the first mass-marketed, plug-in hybrid vehicle. GM, which has been holding merger talks with Chrysler, believes the project will help justify federal financing. It hopes to deliver the car by the end of 2010.

Tesla Motors, a maker of a handful of pricey electric sports cars, had planned to unveil a cheaper sedan next year. But on Thursday it delayed

the new model because of trouble lining up financing. It also said it would close two offices and has replaced its chief executive.

The uncertain future of electric cars points to a sticky aspect of the global oil equation. The price of oil can change rapidly, but responses that would cut petroleum use take time. As oil prices climbed, major automakers including GM, Mitsubishi, RenaultNissan and Toyota moved ahead with plans to produce plug-in vehicles. But the first of those cars won’t be ready for a couple of years. What the price of oil will be then, and what consumers’ appetite for plug-in cars will be then, is anybody’s guess.

Doing something about the amount of gasoline Americans use is essential to defusing future oil shocks.

The American motorist is among the most profligate in the world. More than one out of every nine barrels of oil produced worldwide ends up in the gas tanks of cars in the United States.

The amount of petroleum burned

by U.S. motorists exceeds the entire crude oil output of Saudi Arabia, and that has propped up demand — and continued on page 8

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin this weekend gave up positioning herself as the Washington outsider for one evening, becoming the latest in a steady stream of politicians to step briefly into and out of “Saturday Night Live.”

But Palin had two shots on-screen and took both as a bystander, not committing to either sketch.

The potentially provocative pairing of Palin and the show’s guest host, Josh Brolin, star of Oliver Stone’s new movie about President Bush, never happened. The producers kept Brolin well away from Palin all night.

They also kept her away for all but a moment from Tina Fey, the former “SNL” writer whose drop-dead Palin parody has helped shape the national debate about the little-known vice presidential candidate.

(Fey’s “I can see Russia from my house” gag skewered what critics say is the candidate’s lack of foreign policy knowledge, while her fluteplaying “talent portion” of the vice presidential debate has become an unshakable image of John McCain’s running mate.)

Instead, in the opening sketch, Palin stood backstage with the show’s executive producer, Lorne Michaels, watching Fey/Palin onstage at a faux news conference, telling a gaggle of faux reporters how happy she was to be in front of “the liberal elite media and the liberal regular media.”

“Lauren” — she called Michaels “Lauren,” demonstrating she doesn’t really know who he is, which is a good thing if you do not want to appear to be too cozy with the liberal media elite — “I just don’t think that was a realistic depiction of the way my press conference would have gone,” Real Palin told Michaels, wondering why they couldn’t have instead gone with the “30 Rock” sketch she wrote. Fey created, writes and stars in that low-rated NBC prime-time comedy series, which is exec-produced by Michaels.

“Not enough people know that show,” Michaels deadpanned.

The fearless Alec Baldwin, Fey’s “30 Rock” co-star, then walked up to Michaels and pretended to mistake Real Palin for Fey, telling Michaels in Palin’s presence: “You can’t let Tina go out there with that woman. She goes against everything we stand for. .... This is the most important election in our nation’s history. You want her to go out and stand there with that horrible woman?”

Michaels introduced Baldwin to Palin. Baldwin, not missing a beat, told Palin, “You are way hotter in person,” and they went off, arm in arm, for a tour of the set.

— Washington Post

Grandfather of kidnapped boy is arrested LAS VEGAS — The grandfather of a 6-year-old boy who was kidnapped from his home here was held in a Southern California jail Saturday as authorities continued to investigate his relationship with the Mexican drug dealers who allegedly kidnapped his grandson.

Clemons Fred Tinnemeyer, 51, was arrested in Riverside, Calif., by FBI agents late Friday. Las Vegas Metropolitan police said he stole millions of dollars from the drug dealers, leading them to abduct Cole Puffinburger on Wednesday.

Authorities continued to scour northeastern Las Vegas for signs of Cole and released the name and photo of a man they believed was involved in the abduction. They asked the public to contact police if they spot Jesus Gastelum, whose age and residence are unknown, and added that they had a third person in custody whom they did not identify but were interviewing about the case.

“As we start putting the pieces together, we’re certainly optimistic it’s leading us in the right direction,” Las Vegas Police Capt. Vincent Cannito said at an afternoon news conference here.

The brazen kidnapping -- three armed Latino men broke into Cole’s home, tied up his mother and her boyfriend and ransacked the house -- is a troubling migration of what has become a regular hazard in Mexico. There drug cartels abduct rivals or innocent bystanders for huge ransoms. In the United States such incidents are far rarer, though authorities in Arizona have been worried about increasing numbers of organized kidnappings of illegal immigrants and their smugglers in Phoenix.

The victims in these cases are often legally compromised. But the image of Cole, a bespectacled, tow-headed youth, has galvanized the community.

Police on Saturday called off the Amber Alert they had issued following Cole’s disappearance, saying it has served its purpose, but urged people to remain vigilant. “We implore the rest of this country, this community, to continue that effort,” Cannito said.

Though Cole may be innocent, police said Tinnemeyer was not. They said the former carpenter, whom neighbors say moved to Las Vegas from Wisconsin about 15 years ago, was tied to methamphetamine trafficking. Neighbors said they had long wondered why a steady stream of cars pulled into his driveway at all hours.

— Los Angeles Times

Quahog?

Page 8

Monday, October 20, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Low-wage Ethnic lines seem indelible in Black Sea’s disputed region workers scraping by

By Tara Bahrampour Washington Post

continued from page 7 to deal with an emergency.”

More than half of those surveyed in the poll said their incomes had either gone down or stayed the same over the past few years. With their spending power falling, half said they had tapped savings or retirement accounts.

The decline in income during the past eight years, a period of generally robust economic growth and healthy business profits, is one of the most troubling mysteries of the new economy, and it has steadily eroded the standing of those not at the very top of the income ladder.

In some ways, Romero counts himself fortunate because his job includes benefits that are becoming increasingly unusual for low-wage workers: medical and dental coverage, sick time and vacation, as well as an employer-funded pension plan.

The survey found that three out of 10 respondents lacked health insurance and a similar portion does not get paid vacations. More than four in 10 reported having no retirement plan or paid sick leave.

Romero said that if he had to pay any more than he does already for benefits, it would be disastrous for his family. Since he and his wife separated, they have been stretched nearly to the financial breaking point.

Romero finds himself constantly thinking of ways to save money, or earn more. It is a trait common among low-wage workers: The poll found that six in 10 think of money at least once a day. But as much as he focuses on ways to accumulate some money, life’s demands always seem to require more spending.

The squeeze had gotten so tight that Romero applied for food stamps earlier this year, the first time he has turned to the government for help.

But he was rejected because his income of nearly $27,000 last year put him just beyond the income criteria.

He turned to the food bank at the Lorton Community Action Center, a nonprofit social service agency that serves 350 families a week. “The majority of the people we serve here are working,” said Maryam Ulomi, the center’s director of emergency services.

The financial struggles leave Romero at a loss for what lies ahead.

His daughter Veronica graduates from high school next year and wants to go to college, but Romero has no idea how he’ll pay for it. Also, his mortgage rate will reset in 2012, and he doesn’t know how he’ll pay for that, either.

Still, he remains hopeful. He is active in Calvary Road Baptist Church in Alexandria, where Veronica works periodically as a $7 an hour babysitter and where his other children, Jason, 7, and Lezlie, 9, have attended camps free of charge. “I always believed that if you give good examples for the children, you are going to have good children,” he said. “That’s why I keep them in the church. I think it teaches them respect.”

Lately, he has been thinking anew about taking a second job or working extra hours, as six in 10 of the poll respondents have done to make ends meet. “Maybe I can get something flexible,” Romero said. “Delivering pizzas or delivering newspapers.

Something that would give me some money, but allow me to get home quickly if I need to.”

GALI, Georgia — The old women in the horse-drawn cart tensed up as they approached the border.

“You watch, they’re going to yell and curse at us,” one of them murmured as they reached the crossing from undisputed Georgian territory into the only district of the breakaway region Abkhazia that is still populated mostly by Georgians.

“They’re going to ask us for money,” the woman said before she got down and was escorted out of earshot.

The sum that Georgians such as the cart’s passengers must pay guards to enter Abkhazia, where they live, has gone up recently, the women said, making it harder to travel to the Georgian-controlled side, where they shop, go to the hospital and visit relatives.

For the 50,000 or so Georgians living in Gali district, the recent war between Russia and Georgia has cast new uncertainty over an already shaky existence. In August, ethnic Abkhaz celebrated when Russia recognized their land, along with South Ossetia, as independent countries.

Tougher frontier controls are one sign of the sometimes triumphant confidence the Abkhazian authorities now display.

“The checkpoint is on the border of an enemy state that wants to destroy us,” said Ruslan Kishmaria, the district’s governor. “In the future, we will be looking at each person individually to see if we will let them into the country.” He denied that the cost of crossing had gone up.

The argument over whether Georgia has a legitimate claim to Abkhazia goes back to communist and even czarist times. When the Soviet Union collapsed a decade and a half ago, tensions here erupted into a vicious separatist war that sent ethnic Georgians fleeing and locked Abkhazia into political limbo. In most of Abkhazia, displaced Georgians have never returned, but in this southernmost district, many did.

The district’s capital, also called

Tara Bahrampour / Washington Post

Nino Mirtskhulava, 18, center, and her mother (not pictured) plan to get out of Gali. The recent war between Georgia and Russia has heightened uncertainties for the 50,000 or so Georgians in the Gali district of the disputed region of Abkhazia.

Gali, is not the prosperous town of supermarkets, hotels and wide, smooth roads that residents describe from the days when Soviet Black Sea tourism brought in money. Unlike the fixed-up towns of northern Abkhazia, where few Georgians remain, the roads here are rutted, abandoned buildings are draped in weeds, and commerce and city services are skeletal. Many young people have left, and people who stay maintain an uneasy relationship with the local government and the Abkhaz and Russian troops.

In interviews, several Gali residents complained that Abkhaz soldiers often demand cash, as well as a significant portion of their hazelnut crops, as “taxes.” As members of a minority, the Georgians said, they have no one to appeal to and no choice but to pay.

While Georgian language is still taught in some schools, along with Russian, Abkhaz and English, it is illegal to hang up a sign in the Georgian script.

Asked why, Kishmaria said, “We hate the Georgians. Why would we want to use their language?”

Georgian residents cited pressure from the Abkhaz government

to give up their Georgian citizenship and take Abkhazian passports. “It doesn’t matter what kind of passport I have — I am Georgian,” said a middle-aged woman named Aza, who like many Gali residents said she was afraid to give her full name.

Citing a population shortage, the government is trying to draw in as many ethnic Abkhaz as it can. After a vicious war caused the exodus of about 250,000 Georgians in the early 1990s, an estimated 70,000 to 90,000 ethnic Abkhaz remained, along with a significant number of ethnic Russians and Armenians.

Officials offer incentives such as houses and dual citizenship to ethnic Abkhaz returning from abroad — including descendants of people forcibly moved to Turkey in the 19th century by the Russian czars.

About 90 percent of Abkhaz people here have taken dual Russian citizenship. But for people who are not ethnic Abkhaz, dual citizenship is not allowed, and Georgian citizenship is frowned on.

“To have a huge district populated with noncitizens, that’s a problem,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Maxim Gunjia. “It is in our interest that they become citizens” of Ab-

khazia.

If they do, many say, it won’t be from a sense of newfound patriotism.

“If somebody takes Abkhaz citizenship, it’s because they’re afraid,” said Nargiza Kvaratskelia Pavlovna, 55, a Georgian who was displaced in the early 1990s war and returned two years later to find her house burned.

“We have a dog’s life here. ... We can’t even tell the truth.”

For now, Gali residents say they will harvest their crops and wait to see what happens. On a warm October day, the district capital’s outdoor market teemed with people buying peppers and melons and corn. Children practiced traditional dances in a darkened and crumbling theater, and teenagers strolled by the remains of a cafe where, in July, a bomb killed several people.

However, Nino Mirtskhulava, 18, who recently returned from a year abroad in Huber Heights, Ohio, as an exchange student, said Gali feels like a dead end. “We don’t have movies to go watch, or a bowling alley. We have no restaurants where we can sit,” she said. In a few days, she said, she and her mother would be moving to Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital.

Demand for alternative fuels may decrease as prices drop continued from page 7 prices.

Yet U.S. cars are among the least fuel efficient in the world. “The U.S. dependence on oil imports is based on waste, not on needs,” said Paolo Scaroni, chief executive of Italian oil giant Eni. Electric cars aren’t the only answer. More efficient cars, whether better combustion engines or hybrids like the Prius, may be a cheaper way to achieve big fuel savings.

Some firms are creating substitute fuels such as ethanol derived from corn or diesel derived from algae. Biofuel players range from the oil majors, such as BP and Royal Dutch Shell, to ethanol giants VeraSun Energy and Poet, to tiny firms like Solarzyme, which started in its founders’ garage five years ago and is now testing an algae catalyst in a large commercial vat. Many firms are working on cellulosic ethanol, derived from organic materials such as grasses or wood chips, but those factories are still in the pilot or demonstration stage.

Almost all of those alternatives rely on federal subsidies or are counting on lower costs as technology evolves. The cheaper oil gets, the bigger those technological improvements need to be to compete.

The electric car has the potential for making a bigger impact than

alternative fuels because it would be powered by the electricity grid, which relies on a mix of coal, nuclear, natural gas and renewable energy sources. Moreover, recharging an electric car is much cheaper than refueling a gasoline car.

Its proponents say the electric car has transformative potential that other transportation alternatives lack. “We want customers to see the Volt as the game changer it is, not only for the technology, but also for business, and maybe more importantly for the way the world drives,” said Troy Clarke, president of GM North America.

“Reducing our oil dependency meaningfully in the U.S., under any scenario, requires radically improving the efficiency of our vehicles,” says Saurin Shah, a vice president at investment firm Neuberger Berman who expects an explosion of hybrid and plug-in cars by 2030. He predicts hybrid and electric cars will replace conventional vehicles as swiftly as electric locomotives replaced steamdriven ones.

But because their batteries are expensive, plug-in cars are going to cost as much as $8,000 more than conventional gasoline cars.

The lower the price of gasoline, the longer it is going to take for fuel savings to make up for the car purchase premium. That is one reason why Democratic presidential candidate

Sen. Barack Obama has proposed a $7,000 tax credit for consumers who buy electric cars. Republican presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain favors a $5,000 tax credit for cars with ultra-low emissions.

Ultimately the future of all alternatives to oil comes down to money.

That’s why one of the most intriguing promoters of electric cars isn’t an automobile person at all.

Shai Agassi, once a contender for the chief executive slot at international software giant SAP, says that the right business model will put electric cars in the fast lane.

He wants to make owning an automobile more like owning a cellphone. In exchange for signing up for refueling service, he would give you an electric car for free. You could plug it in at public parking spaces or at home. You’d pay for electricity with a card, like a phone calling card. During long trips, motorists could pull into recharging stations resembling car washes and swap a battery running low on juice for one fully charged in just a bit more time than it takes to fill a tank with gasoline and check the oil.

Agassi’s plan will get a test drive in Israel and Denmark, whose governments have pledged support.

Agassi’s Silicon Valley-based firm Project Better Place has raised $200 million venture capital from the likes of Morgan Stanley, VantagePoint

Venture Partners, Wolfensohn & Co. and oil refiner Israel Corp. RenaultNissan chief executive Carlos Ghosn has promised to deliver tens of thousands of electric cars by 2011.

“We started with the following question: How do you run an entire country without oil?” said Agassi.

The cost of installing half a million recharging stands and 120 battery swap stations would come to $5 billion, he said, considerably less than Israel’s annual bill for oil imports — at least earlier this year.

Falling oil prices, however, make Agassi’s plan a tougher sell. With gasoline at $7 a gallon, he can recover the cost of the car he gives away through his recharging stations. The price at the pump, combined with heavy taxes, was higher than that in Israel and most of Europe this summer. But this week, prices fell even in countries with heavy fuel taxes; in Britain, prices fell as low as $5.40 a gallon.

Keeping electric car projects going could be even tougher for the big automakers in the United States, where fuel taxes are much smaller.

“If you have to spend X dollars and your profitability has just gone into the black hole and you’re having issues getting financing and just keeping the lights on, are you going to spend a lot of money on a highrisk product?” asked analyst Shah.

“Probably not.”

Monday, October 20, 2008

Page 9

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Fortified fence will further separate families

By Ashley Surdin Washington Post

Harvard trounces w. soccer continued from page 12

BORDER FIELD STATE PARK, Calif. — Each face would be overlaid with the rusted chain links of the U.S.-Mexico border fence, but Jorge Ibarra snapped the photos anyway.

There was his cousin, holding up her baby boy for the family to see.

There, his aunt, wiping her eyes under the shade of her parasol. And there, his grandmother, her face filled with joy as she touched her daughter’s fingertips through the fence with her own.

Ibarra, 17, of National City, Calif., shot the family photos on a recent Sunday afternoon here, where the 2,000-mile line separating the United States and Mexico sinks into the Pacific Ocean. For years, MexicanAmerican families have flocked to this beachside park to see, touch, hear and feed loved ones through the modest openings of the fence.

But the days of such reunions are numbered. Starting this month, construction of a more fortified barrier along the southern edge of the park and the three miles to the east will begin as part of the federal government’s crackdown on drug and document smuggling, illegal crossings and violence in the surrounding area.

Two 15-foot-high fences will flank the current one, forging a 90-footwide stretch for a paved border patrol road and stadium lights, according to Angela de Rocha, a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol spokeswoman. The gap will transform the dynamics of the gatherings here, preventing touching and close conversation. With only distant glimpses to offer, it may mark an end to many, if not all, such visits.

“We don’t know when they’re going to do it,” said Ibarra, standing with his sister, mother and young nephews. “So we’ve been trying to come every weekend.”

The $60 million construction project comprises the western portion of the San Diego Border Infrastructure System, a 14-mile, federally mandated initiative that dates to 1996.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., secured funding for the fence and thousands more Border Patrol Officers to combat rampant smuggling of illegal immigrants and border gangs who raped, robbed and murdered along portions of this border north of Tijuana.

Some construction was completed, slicing the numbers of illegal immigrants, bandits and drug smugglers who traversed the border, Hunter said.

But until this year, litigation has delayed construction of these three miles. Environmental groups opposed flattening terrain by lopping the tops off two mesas and pouring 5.5 million cubic feet of dirt into a canyon known as Smuggler’s Gulch, an area prone to narcotics smuggling.

In 2005, when Congress gave Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff the power to waive all regulations that govern border construction, the project was cleared

a direct kick from 25 yards out that soared to the far, upper corner of the goal above an outstretched Hogue’s reach.

With the score at 2-0 and only 20 minutes remaining, the Bears were clearly pressing to score.

With Brown pushing upfield, the Crimson goalkeeper had to make key saves off shots by Cunningham and Lesbirel.

The nail in the coffin came

Ashley Surdin / Herald

Wendy Castro, of Tijuana, Mexico, shows off her son to family members at Border Field State Park in southern California.

to proceed.

A newly erected mesh enclosure in the 418-acre park has squeezed visitors into a smaller space, sending them down to the beach or a small strip on a bluff. Most prefer the bluff near the 1851 border monument, the Italian marble obelisk that marks the end of the Mexican-American War and Mexico’s ceding of the land that now forms the southwestern United States.

This is where visitors come now, against the backdrop of Tijuana’s Bull Ring, with umbrellas or folding chairs slung under their arms.

They bring photo albums. They share updates and laugh. Many say nothing for long periods, standing, eyes closed, foreheads against the fence, fingers intertwined through the links.

But the scene is not as harmless as it looks, said Lloyd Easterling, assistant chief with the Border Patrol. Drugs and false documents are passed through the fence’s holes — holes that are repeatedly repaired and sliced open — while thieves cross illegally to burglarize nearby communities.

“It’s going on in secret but in a very open area, right under people’s noses,” Easterling said.

Easterling said agents are compassionate toward visitors and families. Many have relatives of their own living in Mexico, he said. But with smuggling and assaults increasing, he said, securing the border is a necessity.

Since October of last year, agents have apprehended more than 150,000 people, more than 45,000 pounds of marijuana and 654 pounds of cocaine in the San Diego area alone, according to the U.S. Border Patrol. Hunter said the illegal activity and violence in bordering Tijuana, where escalating drug wars have killed scores of people in a matter of weeks, has scared people away from visiting the otherwise beautiful destination.

“Nobody gets to enjoy this park.

There are tons of gangs there. They are passing narcotics through the wire. Because of the historic rapes and murders there, people are afraid to go out after dark,” he said. “Once we fence the park, people will be able to enjoy it again.”

The characterization clashed with what San Diego Spanish teacher Daniel Watman has known.

Take notes here:

“For 10 years, I’ve never seen one iota of violence,” said Watman, who also heads the Border Meetup Group, a band of people who participate in poetry readings, yoga, and language exchanges along the fence.

“I don’t think it’s dangerous at all.”

Watman said most people no longer bring food to the fence. “They stopped a lady who was passing tamales through the fence to her grandkids,” he said.

Some remain unaware of the construction, such as one 35-year-old garment worker from Los Angeles, who declined to give his name.

He had driven three hours to visit his wife at the park, a routine they had recently started.

“Now that I’ve barely laid eyes upon her, they’re going to push me back,” he said in Spanish. It wouldn’t be worth coming anymore, he said, if he could not talk to or touch her.

His 5-year-old daughter stared up at him from the other side of the fence, her small fingers curling around its links. What would he say when she asked why she could no longer see him?

He looked down at her. “Because of the wall.”

when Har vard midfielder, and leading scorer, Melanie Baskind netted another ball, increasing the score to an insurmountable 3-0 Harvard lead.

“This was not a 3-0 game,” Pincince said, referring to the teams’ relatively even play.

This loss puts the Bears in sixth place within the Ivy League with an Ivy record of 1-2-1. Brown’s next Ivy contest comes on Oct. 26 at 1 p.m. against Cornell (19-1, 0-4-0).

Volleyball takes down Penn continued from page 12 ’09 is playing with back pain and libero Annika Gliottone ’12 is out with an injur y as well. Spencer McAndrews ’12 filled in at the libero position on Friday night but struggled a little in practice before the Saturday game, so Short went with Annie Matuse-

wicz ’11 instead.

“We have to pick up the slack and practice on our consistency,” Meyers said.

The team will begin a two-week road trip starting next Friday in New York when it takes on Columbia. The Bears will travel to Ithaca to play Cornell the following day.

Harvard shuts out m. soccer continued from page 12 Har vard capitalized on four of them.

“There were moments where we played some of the best soccer we played all year,” Rhett Bernstein ’09 said. “We passed the ball exceptionally well, moved it around. For all 90 minutes, we didn’t play to our potential.”

The Bears are putting the loss behind them because the team still has five games left in the season, four of those in Ivy League play.

They will travel to Hartwick on Tuesday night for their last nonconference game of the season.

There is only one way Brown can push for ward to finish out the season strong, according to Walls.

“It starts at 7 a.m. practice tomorrow morning,” Walls said.

“We’re going to go hard for five games. We’re all in it together — we’ve been a team from day one.

We’re going to continue to carry on as a team the same way we have the whole season.”

Herald eye exam!

E ditorial & L etters Page 10

Monday, October 20, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Staf f Editorial

Failure to act or to inform?

The members of Brown’s highest governing body met last weekend, and boy, did they ever have a lot to talk about. Tumultuous financial markets, a crunching financial aid budget, several large construction projects that have yet to get off the ground, a Medical School with plans to expand and the recently completed internal review of the College’s advising and curriculum should have all been on the agenda.

If only it were so. Come Sunday, when news was released on the Corporation’s decisions, we discovered that as it turns out, there apparently were no real decisions — at least not public ones.

To its credit, the Corporation reaffirmed its commitment to financial aid in a time when budgets are going to be tight, but did so by announcing a fundraising initiative that was advertised in the Brown Alumni Magazine a month ago. If, in the midst of a financial crisis, all the University’s governors can do is re-announce something and call it new, we’re concerned.

Not surprisingly, finances seem to have been the big topic last weekend. But with respect to Brown’s budget, we were hoping to see more information on what the biggest challenges are, what sort of cuts may have to be made and what capital projects may have to be postponed to help keep finances stable.

Especially on capital projects, we expected some progress. The Creative Arts Center has been raking in gifts, but we don’t hear of a plan for construction. Same with the Nelson Fitness Center. We’ve been hearing conflicting plans on what Brown will do with the Urban Environmental Lab, and it appears little progress has been made on finding a large donor for the planned Mind Brain Behavior Building. And, for all the talk of expanding Alpert Medical School into the Jewelry District (including a $100 million gift to help fund the effort), we didn’t hear of any discussion of taking these plans forward.

We understand the Corporation addresses issues over time. Members don’t generally drop into Providence, make big decisions and then book it. But at the same time, its striking lack of public action at a time when the University needs to decide how to navigate the current economy does little to give concerned students confidence in Brown’s direction.

The continued commitment to financial aid is laudable, but ultimately insufficient for an institution that has for years ambitiously pursued growth on a number of fronts. We need to know more about its plan to adapt.

It seems that either the Corporation is failing to act or failing to inform.

Either case would certainly bolster the claims by some student groups lobbying for more access and transparency. We hope to hear further details on the body’s actions in the coming days.

T he B rown D aily H erald Editors-in-Chief Simmi Aujla Ross Frazier

Executive Editors Taylor Barnes Chris Gang

Senior Editors Irene Chen Lindsey Meyers

editorial Ben Hyman Hannah Levintova Matthew Varley Alex Roehrkasse Chaz Firestone Nandini Jayakrishna Scott Lowenstein Michael Bechek Isabel Gottlieb Franklin Kanin Michael Skocpol Ben Bernstein James Shapiro Benjy Asher Amy Ehrhart Megan McCahill Andrew Braca Han Cui Katie Wood

Business

Arts & Culture Editor Arts & Culture Editor Higher Ed Editor Higher Ed Editor Features Editor Metro Editor Metro Editor News Editor News Editor News Editor News Editor Opinions Editor Opinions Editor Sports Editor Sports Editor Sports Editor Asst. Sports Editor Asst. Sports Editor Asst. Sports Editor

production Production & Design Editor Steve DeLucia Asst. Design Editor Chaz Kelsh Copy Desk Chief Kathryn Delaney Copy Desk Chief Seth Motel Graphics Editor Adam Robbins

Darren Ball General Manager Mandeep Gill General Manager Shawn Reilly Office Manager Alex Hughes Sales Director Emilie Aries Communications Director Jon Spector Finance Director Claire Kiely Local & National Sales Manager Ellen DaSilva University Sales Manager Philip Maynard Local & Recruiter Sales Manager Katelyn Koh Asst. Finance Director photo Meara Sharma Min Wu

Photo Editor Photo Editor

post- magazine Matt Hill Rajiv Jayadevan Arthur Matuszewski Colleen Brogan Kelly McKowen Patrick Martin-Tuite Bob Short Monica Huang Kristen Olds

Managing Editor Managing Editor Features Editor Features Editor From the Hill Editor Film Editor Music Editor Layout Editor Layout Editor

Steve DeLucia, Designer Rafael Chaiken, Frederic Lu, Ellen Cushing, Younhun Kim, Lauren Fedor, Copy Editors Colin Chazen, Anne Simons, Brian Mastroianni, Night Editors Senior Staff Writers Mitra Anoushiravani, Colin Chazen, Chaz Kelsh, Emmy Liss, Brian Mastroianni, George Miller, Melissa Shube, Anne Simons, Sara Sunshine, Gaurie Tilak, Caroline Sedano, Jenna Stark, Joanna Wohlmuth, Simon van Zuylen-Wood Staff Writers Zunaira Choudhary, Leslie Primack, Connie Zheng, Christian Martell, Alexandra Ulmer, Lauren Pischel, Samuel Byker, Anne Deggelman, Nicole Dungca, Olivia Hoffman, Cameron Lee, Debbie Lehmann, Sophia Li, Seth Motel, Marielle Segarra, Kyla Wilkes, Juliana Friend Sports Staff Writers Peter Cipparone, Nicole Stock Business Staff Maximilian Barrows, Thanases Plestis, Agathe Roncey, Allen McGonagill, Ben Xiong, Bonnie Kim, Cathy Li, Christiana Stephenson, Corey Schwartz, Evan Sumortin, Galen Cho, Han Lee, Haydar Taygun, Jackie Goldman, Jilyn Chao, Kathy Bui, Kelly Wess, Kenneth So, Lee Chau, Lyndse Yess, Margaret Watson, Matthew Burrows, Maura Lynch, Misha Desai, Stassia Chyzhykova, Webber Xu, William Schweitzer Design Staff Jessica Calihan, Amy Kendall, Joanna Lee, Rachel Isaacs, Angela Santin Ceballos, Marlee Bruning, Rachel Wexler, Maxwell Rosero, Katie Silverstein, Shara Azad, Jessica Kirschner, Jee Hyun Choi, Heeyoung Min, Andrea McWilliams, Anna Samel Photo Staff Alex DePaoli, Eunice Hong, Kim Perley, Quinn Savit, Justin Coleman Copy Editors Rafael Chaiken, Ellen Cushing, Younhun Kim, Frederic Lu, Lauren Fedor, Madeleine Rosenberg, Kelly Mallahan, Jennifer Kim, Tarah Knaresboro, Jordan Mainzer, Janine Lopez, Luis Solis, Ayelet Brinn, Rachel Starr, Riva Shah, Jason Yum, Simon Leibling, Rachel Isaacs

FRANNY CHOI

Letters Meal plan column is off To the Editor: A recent column (“The meal scam,” Oct. 15) expressed frustration with the costs of the meal plan but overlooked several important factors.

Many universities charge a lot for meal plans. The recent global surge in food prices has not helped the situation.

It’s important to note that when converting the meal credits to dollars, Lafer used $5.75 as the conversion rate. However, meals in the Ratty and the V-Dub cost $8.85, $11.55 and $13.60 for breakfast, lunch and dinner, respectively. Therefore, Lafer’s figures were a bit skewed.

Lafer asks why “meal plans are not entirely Flex pointbased.” There’s a simple answer. Points can be used at any eatery or cart on campus. If everyone had only points, lines at the Blue Room would be substantially larger and, considering how busy it already is, it would be nearly impossible to serve that many people without turning our student workers into house elves.

Brown Dining Services is a non-profit organization, which that they have no motive to rip students off. The money you pay for your plan allows BDS to offer an array of dining options each day. Brown could always decide to copy schools like Middlebury: open the Ratty from 7am-7pm and that’s it. If you don’t eat during those hours, too bad. Oh, did I mention that they don’t have an option to drop their meal plan either? That would substantially cut operating costs, and would lower the

cost of the meal plan, but something tells me that students wouldn’t be any happier. Many students don’t realize how lucky they are to have so many options at current prices. We are spoiled.

BuDS also employs more students than any other on-campus organization, and can do so while offering competitive wages. Since all non-student employees are unionized, cutting the cost of the meal plan would most likely fall on the backs of the student work force, probably in the form of reduced wages, fewer shifts (making each remaining shift more difficult), or simply getting rid of student labor altogether.

Lafer also said in his article that “it seems more cost-effective to simply ditch them [meal plans] and eat off-campus.” For students without a car and a willingness to cook for themselves, the meal plan is more cost effective. Something tells me you can’t get a double cheeseburger, French fries and soda from Johnny Rockets for $5.50. Likewise, try getting soup and a bread bowl from Au Bon Pain for $4.50. There are no cheap restaurants on or near to campus, so the meal plan is usually the best option.

Students should be happy to have what we offer here at Brown. Next time you think of complaining about high costs, take a look at our economy, world food prices and the surrounding area in general, and reassess your evaluation.

Alfred Yannucci IV ’10 Oct. 16

Corrections An article in last week’s Herald (“Maeda speaks of authenticity,” Oct. 17) said Roger Blumberg is a Rhode Island School of Design professor. Blumberg is an adjunct lecturer.

Two graphics accompanying a story in last week’s Herald (“Students behaving better?”, Oct 16) appeared to provide information on the number and type of non-academic violations. In fact, those graphs referred to the number of alleged violations.

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.

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

L etters to the E ditor P olicy Send letters to letters@browndailyherald.com. Include a telephone number with all letters. The Herald reserves the right to edit all letters for length and cannot assure the publication of any letter. Please limit letters to 250 words. Under special circumstances writers may request anonymity, but no letter will be printed if the author’s identity is unknown to the editors. Announcements of events will not be printed. advertising P olicy The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. reserves the right to accept or decline any advertisement at its discretion.

O pinions Monday, October 20, 2008

Page 11

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Washington vs. Jerusalem ZACK BEAUCHAMP Opinions Columnist Political junkies, never fear: The end of our long Presidential contest on Nov. 4 may be the beginning of another fascinating race.

However, you won’t see the terrain of this election on John King’s big map. It’s taking place in Israel, and it provides an illuminating contrast to our own system.

The long and short of the Israeli situation is this: The current Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, was forced to resign after details of his involvement in a shady housing deal became public.

In the Israeli parliamentary system, the resignation of a Prime Minister triggers a primary in the dominant party to see who gets the top spot. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni won the primary (held on Sept. 17).

She now has until November 3rd to convince a majority of ministers in Israel’s parliament (the Knesset) to vote her into office to avoid having to run again in a general election.

To get the backing she needs in a system where party members are in lockstep with their leadership, Livni needs to make deals with the leaders of smaller parties that secure their support in exchange for political concessions. Right now, Livni’s fortunes hinge on the cooperation of Shas, a religious party that represents a large segment of Israel’s ultra-Orthodox minority.

Shas’ primary concern is maintaining and

expanding privileges for its highly religious constituents. This shows in its main demand, a massive increase in aid to families with large numbers of children (ultra-Orthodox families are significantly larger than most Israeli households).

Though negotiators for Livni’s Kadima party have yet to accede to Shas’ demands in their entirety, the threat of facing an election they would most likely lose could trigger a total capitulation.

Shas, then, is in the enviable position of

The American hard right wishes it had it so good.

Unlike Shas, American hardliners cannot achieve their goals by running as a third party and demanding concessions from whoever comes out on top — the structure of American politics makes that impossible. Instead, they need to hitch their star to one of the Big Two (given their views, it’s gotta be the Republicans) and prove themselves useful enough electorally for the party to push their agenda once they gain power.

The far-right in the United States is in a far more precarious situation than its brethren in Israel. political kingmaker. Their sizeable number of Knesset seats and alliance with other religious parties gives them enormous clout in the coalition-building process. Their willingness to ally both with the centrist Kadima and the dominant right wing party Likud, unlike most of the other small parties, makes Shas a crucial bloc of swing voters. Add in its fanatically loyal base of ultra-Orthodox voters and it looks like Shas and its allies will be the Deciders in Israeli politics for the foreseeable future.

This strategy worked well enough in 2004.

Four years later, it’s looking like their luck is running out.

What seems to excite the far right this election — Sarah Palin, attacks on Obama’s character, culture warrior rhetoric — is anathema to the rest of the country, and not just because they’d rather hear about the economy.

Palin’s appeal to hard right Republicans, her outsider status, comes with a concomitant lack of knowledge that terrifies independents and moderate Republicans. While character

assassination may whip the fringe into a “kill him!” frenzy, it convinces the rest of the country that Obama, not McCain, is the candidate with real solutions.

And so-called “values” issues declined significantly in relative importance for most Americans even before the economic meltdown. The qualities that appeal to the Republican “base” are exactly the traits that have made the Republicans so extraordinarily unpopular with the rest of the country.

This means that the far-right in the United States is in a far more precarious situation than its brethren in Israel. While out-of-themainstream groups in Israel can achieve their political goals by rallying the base and shrewd negotiation, equivalent factions in the United States are hamstrung by a two-party, winnertake-all political structure. To successfully push your agenda in the United States, you have to be an asset to one of the major parties, and right now, the Republicans simply can’t hold the right wingers and almost anybody else. Something’s got to give.

The far-right might have a Shas-like future were the American political system more like Israel’s. But it’s not, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that contorting to the whims of the Dobson crowd is dragging the Republican Party further and further away from the American mainstream. The sooner the Republicans realize this, the sooner they’ll take the albatross off their neck, and the more likely it will be that they remain a viable party for the rest of the 21st century.

Zack Beauchamp ’10 probably won’t be invited to James Dobson’s Christmas party this year.

Why students hate the Corporation right now

BY Graham Anderson Opinions Columnist To put it bluntly, I do not think the Corporation is bad. Recent insinuations that the Corporation is an archaic governing body with no place in the Brown of the 21st century are misguided and idiotic. The Corporation has existed from day one of the University in 1764 and has fulfilled its core purpose — usually quite well it must be concluded — of ensuring the continued existence and welfare of Brown.

That said, one would be hard-pressed right now to find a student on campus who would say, “The Corporation — I love them! I like how they operate, I fully agree with the decisions that they make, they fully represent all of my interests and a world without the Corporation is a world that I wouldn’t want to be a part of!”

For all of my cynicism towards Students for a Democratic Society, their recent actions have effectively drawn attention to problems with the Corporation which are rooted in very relevant realities.

A successful executive body, especially one that contains democratic elements within, must spend most of its time resisting change.

Whenever some member gets a new harebrained idea, which happens quite often, a good executive must be able to say no.

A good executive, when change is necessary, must implement such reform logically and gradually. The critical part of this function is to resist changing too often or too radically.

In general, I believe that change should

come from below, as ground-up movements are at the heart of a healthy democracy. The great majority of the most positive reforms in Brown’s history have originated directly with the students or the faculty, not the administration or the Corporation.

The Corporation should be a force of resistance to change at Brown — an abnormally, even disgustingly, conservative organization in what has always been a liberal and progressive institution. If not, what prevents the students and faculty from constantly demanding immediate changes that fail to serve the long

with and indeed are quite angry about. We are baffled because these changes did not result from student demands or faculty anger.

Understandably, we students perceive these changes as disconnected, conniving and hidden behind closed doors.

Imposing change from above is a good way to metaphorically flip the bird to those below you, especially if the value of such changes is questionable.

A primary source of recent cynicism towards the Corporation is the Plan for Academic Enrichment. We did not matriculate

The Corporation should be a force of resistance to change at Brown — an abnormally, even disgustingly, conservative organization in what has always been a liberal and progressive university. term interests of the University?

Nonetheless, something has gone very wrong recently. The biggest recent changes at Brown have originated not from the faculty or the students, but from the decisions and assent of the Corporation. These are changes that current students do not agree

at Brown because we perceive it as a place needing “academic enrichment.” That would be stupid. The ver y name of the initiative reeks of disconnect.

Having read the plan, I can hardly argue with the proposals in it. Nonetheless, it leaves Brown’s current students feeling helpless.

The plan was designed and approved before we were students, and we will spend our years here putting up with its growth pains while the students who follow us will take advantage of its benefits. We feel the immediate effects of the plan as the sound of saws in the morning, and our parents feel the effects in the constant demand for more money.

The irony is that we never protested University Hall asking for a minor and underused strip of grass between Olive and Waterman streets, the construction of which required moving a 19th century mansion housing one of the largest academic departments on campus — but we sure got it! And you can bet we noticed the men working on J. Walter Wilson’s new glass facade day-and-night, weekends and holidays in the past weeks to finish just in time for the October Corporation meeting. How horribly expensive that overtime pay must have been!

Students see this as evidence that the Corporation can move boulders without lifting a finger. But when students urgently need a reform on campus, it is like talking to a brick wall. The power dynamic has gone horribly wrong and this is why the Corporation has become a subject of attack recently.

The Corporation needs to get out of the business of concocting the sort of change they think Brown needs, and instead act as the conservative anchor, resisting change at Brown. Leave the business of proposing reforms to the students and the faculty, and stop us when we get too radical.

Graham Anderson ’10 hopes that someday they’ll take pity and let him on the Corporation.

S ports M onday Page 12

Monday, October 20, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Crimson stops m. soccer

By Katie Wood Assistant Sports Editor

The men’s soccer team (8-3-1, 2-1-0 Ivy) fell to Harvard (6-3-0, 3-0-0) on Saturday night, giving the Crimson sole possession of Harvard 4 first place in the 1 Ivy League. There Brown were points where the team looked the best it had all year, according to David Walls ’11, yet there were times throughout the course of the 4-1 loss when the players’ heads were not in the game.

“We had some mental lapses at bad times,” Walls said. “We didn’t concentrate in important times of the game when they were attacking.”

The Bears began the game in an offensive attack mode as they recorded the first eight shots of the game, including the first three on goal. In the first 20 minutes of action, Harvard goalie Austin Harms made three strong saves, two coming on Brown headers inside the box.

“I think we controlled the ball well at the beginning of the game,” Ian Smith ’11 said. “We had a lot of opportunities to get a jump on them early on. They created some opportunities and were able to score on them.”

Harvard capitalized on a turnover

by Brown and scored the game’s first goal, on the Crimson’s first attempt, in the 25th minute. Andre Akpan kicked one in from the left side of the box, recording his fourth goal of the season. Alex Chi recorded the assist on the goal. Chi was at it again as he added another assist to his night when Harvard scored in the 42nd minute, giving the Crimson a

W. soccer shut out by Harvard

2-0 lead going into the half.

“If we had scored on a couple of the chances we had early on, the game would have been totally different,” Dylan Sheehan ’09 said. “We still maintained a decent level of play despite being down two goals.”

The Bears kept a positive attitude going into the half. In its last Ivy League game against Princeton, the team broke out offensively with three goals in the second half, after trailing 1-0 at halftime. This time, the team managed only one goal, coming in the final minute, as Harvard pulled out two more goals to take the game, 4-1.

Harvard came out firing in the half’s opening minutes, as Akpan narrowly missed a header. After the Bears cleared the rebound, Walls followed up with a shot that sailed to the right of the post. Shortly after the attempt, T.J. Thompson ’10 moved to the top of the box and sent a shot to the goal, where Harms made a diving stop to save it.

Michael Fucito, Sheehan’s fellow finalist for the Lowe’s Senior Class award, put the ball into the left corner of net in the 64th minute to put Harvard up, 3-0. Fucito currently leads the Crimson with seven goals on the year. Harvard scored its final goal several minutes later, increasing its lead to four.

Austin Mandel ’12 scored the Bears’ only goal in the last minute of play off a pass from Darren Howerton ’09.

The Bears outshot the Crimson 16-11 for the game, but each team recorded six shots on goal, while continued on page 9

By Jason Wade Contributing Writer

said. “We played ver y good defense. We were able to stop their attack.”

But the strong defense disappeared the next day against Princeton, who entered the game after its first Ivy League loss of the season, to Yale the night before.

Though Princeton was a tougher opponent than Penn, the Bears universally thought the defeat on Saturday was not a result of the Tigers winning, but of the team handing the win to them.

“We played poorly today,” Meyers said after the Princeton game.

“The defense let way too many balls drop.”

As a result of the weak defense, the Tigers hit .420 in three games with 47 kills. In contrast, the Bears hit only .163, with 29 kills, as the defense failed to provide opportunities for the offense.

“We had a lot of hesitation today,” Williamson said. “The defense’s balls were not to the right place, so that makes offense difficult too.”

But the team played better at certain times during the match that were not reflected in the overall statistics. The Bears had a great start in the first game, leading halfway at 12-9. The team had its best offense in the first game, hitting .367, but was still not good enough to overcome Princeton’s .441.

The team’s struggle on Saturday was partially due to the recent injuries that plagued two of the Bears’ starters. Hitter Lyndse Yess

The women’s soccer team (5-5-4, 1-2-1) looked closely matched with Harvard (7-3-3, 3-1-0) throughout most of Saturday’s Harvard 3 game, but Brown’s 0 inability to capitalBrown ize on offense in addition to a couple of defensive errors put the team in an early hole from which it could never climb out. Despite a strong effort from the Bears, the Crimson emerged with a 3-0 win.

Entering Saturday’s game, Bruno held a three-game unbeaten streak and was hoping to carry momentum from a 5-0 win over Sacred Heart. Har vard, meanwhile, was 2-1-0 in the Ivy League, making this a statement game if either team hoped to hang on with Princeton, Penn and Columbia as Ivy League championship contenders.

Brown maintained possession of the ball for the first 15 minutes of Saturday’s game, taking four unsuccessful shots in that time, three of which were fired by tri-captain Lindsay Cunningham ’09.

While the majority of the action took place near the Harvard goal, it was the Crimson who scored first, just a minute after tri-captain goalkeeper Brenna Hogue ’10 was run into inside the penalty box. At the 17:42 mark, Brown’s defense tried to clear the ball up the left flank, but a Harvard player intercepted it and lofted the ball into the net, scoring on Harvard’s first shot of the game.

“There was a good portion of the game that we controlled,” Head Coach Phil Pincince said. “We had some individually okay play, but I don’t think we ever found fifth gear.”

The Bears appeared to have tied the game late in the first half, only to have the goal negated by a foul call against Brown. Not having heard the referee’s whistle prior to the goal, the crowd erupted when Bridget Ballard ’10 headed the Bears’ corner kick past the Harvard goalkeeper. Frustration amongst the crowd resulted and continued throughout much of the game.

The Crimson carried a 1-0 lead over the Bears into halftime, but a much more even game ensued after the teams took the field for the second half. Both teams attempted 12 shots, and both goalkeepers managed three saves. Brown had several near misses throughout the half, the first of which came when Joyce Chun ’11 nearly tied the game in the 67th minute. Her shot from 20 yards out soared just high of the goal, as did most of Brown’s subsequent attempts.

“I don’t think we did anything wrong today,” tri-captain Jamie Mize ’09 said. She did, however, note a lack of “focus and intensity,” saying those aspects are “key to us winning.”

“We didn’t pick it up like we should have in the second half,” Marybeth Lesbirel ’12 said.

Less than two minutes after Chun’s attempt, Harvard was given

continued on page 9

continued on page 9

Justin Coleman / Herald

The men’s soccer team was defeated by Harvard this weekend in a game that gives the Crimson sole title to first place in the Ivy League.

Volleyball splits again, struggling on Saturday

By Han Cui Assistant Spor ts Editor

Inconsistency continued to plague the volleyball team (10-8, 2-4 Ivy) last weekend, as Brown again failed to pick up consec2 utive wins. After Penn Brown 3 defeating Penn in a five-game match, 25-20, 19-25, 25-17, Princeton 3 17-25, 15-10, the Brown 0 team’s defense collapsed on Saturday as Princeton swept the Bears in three games, 25-19, 25-14 and 2516. For the second weekend in a row, the Bears failed to perform at as high a level on Saturday as they had on Friday.

“For some reason, we just don’t play well on Saturdays,” captain Natalie Meyers ’09 said.

The Bears opened the weekend on Friday night against Penn at the Pizzitola Center. The two teams exchanged points for the game’s first eighteen points before Bruno separated itself with a 10-1 run to position itself with a comfortable lead at 19-10. The Bears’ offense out-hit the Quakers .265 to .161 to help the team win the first game, 25-20.

Brown started the second game strong with a 16-12 lead halfway into the game. But the Quakers went on a 13-3 run of their own and came from behind to win the second game, 25-19. Penn’s offense dominated the second game with 19 kills and a .410 clip, compared to the Bears, who recorded 11 kills while hitting only .176.

Justin Coleman / Herald

The volleyball team has faced problems with consistency, losing to Princeton after defeating Penn last weekend.

The momentum changed again in the third game in favor of the Bears. Behind the two hitters, Megan Toman ’11 and Brianna Williamson ’11, the Brown offense proved to be unstoppable in the third game. Toman recorded a double-double with a team-high 19 kills and 11 digs, along with three aces to clip a .378. Williamson narrowly missed the tripledouble with 17 kills, 10 digs and seven assists, with the second-best hitting percentage at .372.

“Ever y position contributed

in (the Penn) game,” Williamson said. “We had every aspect of the game going for us.”

The Quakers made one last push to win the fourth game, 2517, to push the match into the fifth game. The two teams were tied early at 3-3, but six errors later in the game proved to be fatal for the Quakers, and the Bears won the final game 15-10. In that game, Bruno edged Penn in hitting, by a margin of .211 to .100.

“Penn was a much bigger team,” Head Coach Diane Short