Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Daily Herald the Brown

vol. cxliv, no. 5 | Tuesday, January 27, 2009 | Serving the community daily since 1891

Thayer St. Chipotle scrapped

c l earan c e sa l e

By Matthew Klebanoff Staf f Writer

By Joanna Wohlmuth Metro Editor

Plans to open a Chipotle Mexican Grill on Thayer Street fell through last fall when a Rhode Island Superior Court judge determined that zoning permits had been granted to the restaurant improperly, according to court documents obtained by The Herald.

METRO

inside

The Providence Zoning Board of Review approved Chipotle’s plan to open a restaurant at the corner of Euclid Avenue and Thayer, but appeals were filed by two property owners — Stonehenge Partners, LLC, which owns Johnny Rockets, and G. Dale Dulgarian, who owns the Avon Cinema and Andreas Restaurant properties among others — questioning the validity of the Zoning Board’s decisions.

The judge ruled that the board should not have granted Chipotle permission to have an outdoor seating area in front of the restaurant because such seating violates ordinances requiring that the new building not be set back from the sidewalk.

Chipotle, a restaurant known for the size of its burritos and its use of natural ingredients, decided not to pursue further development on the 2 Euclid Ave. location, said David Shwaery, who owns the property and is president of the Thayer Street District Management Authority.

“Now I have to find a company that is willing to rent (the property) that is of equal quality … that respects the street, the University and the residents,” Shwaery said. “I thought we found the right company when we had Chipotle, but apparently that didn’t satisfy everyone.”

Special permission from the Zoning Board was also required for Chipotle to open on Thayer due to a lack of on-site parking, since Providence zoning ordinances demand that restaurants have one parking space for every four seats. The lack of parking was a major objection made by residents and business owners concerned about overcrowding, said Will Touret, president of the College Hill Neighborhood Association. But ultimately the Superior Court judge decided that sufficient parking was provided by the restaurant’s plan.

Ensuring that new dining and retail establishments meet zoning regulations remains an ongoing concern of Thayer Street property owners and East Side residents, Dulgarian said.

“Zoning is supposed to be the tool of intelligent land use.”

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Simmons signs on to science lobbying effort

Kim Perley / Herald

The company that owns the Providence Place mall has decided to sell the property to help pay off a $27-billion debt.

See Metro, page 5

Before taking the oath of office this month, President Barack Obama received a letter urging him to increase scientific research funding as part of his proposed economic stimulus package.

The letter was endorsed by President Ruth Simmons and the heads of 18 other universities, as well as a host of other scientific leaders.

“Institutions of higher education offer the promise of opportunity through education, innovation and advancements in knowledge, particularly during the most challenging of economic times,” Simmons said in a statement issued through a spokesperson. “It is therefore, essential, that any stimulus package include funds to support these activities, from increased student aid to robust investments in university based science research.”

According to the signatories, funding for research is an “ideal economic stimulus” because it creates jobs, can be spent immediately

and represents an investment in the national infrastructure, which is vital to the country’s future.

“While some might argue that the current economic crisis should push such plans into the future,” the letter states, “we believe, to the contrary, that the stimulus package provides a vital opportunity to begin rebuilding American science.”

The letter-writing effort was led

by Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel, professor of physiology and psychiatry at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, according to a Columbia press release.

The writers claim the “health and vitality of the American scientific enterprise is seriously threatened,” as federal funding for non-defense research has fallen every year since 2004.

“I think it’s very important that Brown and President Simmons be advocating for this increased funding for research because it’s something very important for our country,” Vice President for Research Clyde continued on page 2

Students feeling after-effects of fall housing crunch

By Sarah Husk Senior Staff Writer

This semester, students may find themselves a little stuck — wherever they’re already living, that is.

While the coming of the spring semester often means more vacant rooms and increased opportunities for students to switch residences, room changes this semester are harder to come by.

Last fall’s housing crunch, which saw students placed in converted kitchens and lounges, is responsible for the current semester’s rela-

tively tight housing situation, said Richard Bova, senior associate dean of residential life. Last semester’s overcrowding, he said, was due to the combination of an over-enrolled freshman class and fewer students taking leaves of absence.

This semester, there’s no “crunch,” Bova said. “We just don’t have maximum amounts of flexibility.”

The space in on-campus housing is simply a matter of inflows and outflows, Bova said. During the spring, the total number of students taking leaves of absence, studying

abroad or otherwise not living on campus tends to be greater than the total number of mid-year transfer students and students returning to campus.

This net outflow of students between the fall and spring semesters generally means that there are more vacancies in residence halls during the spring.

According to Bova, there are fewer students living on campus this semester than last semester, but the difference isn’t enough to counterbalance the residual effects of an overcrowded fall.

At the beginning of the fall semester, the housing crunch translated into the temporary conversion of many common areas so that they could house the surplus of students.

While many of these temporary spaces have been vacated and their occupants placed in permanent housing, Associate Director of Residential Life Natalie Basil said the Office of Residential Life is still finishing the process of converting all common areas back.

“We’re still very committed to continued on page 2

Undocumented: students in ‘limbo’

By Colin Chazen Senior Staff Writer

Kim Perley / Herald

Tam Tran GS wants undocumented students to get in-state tuition.

Tam Tran GS did not vote on Election Day. Though she volunteered for the Obama campaign and followed the presidential race enthusiastically, she avoided her colleagues’ questions about visiting the polls that day.

“It would have taken too long to explain why I didn’t vote,” she said.

Tran first arrived in the United

States at age six and holds a degree from the University of California at Los Angeles in American literature and culture — but in the eyes of the government, she is not an

FEATURE American. She is an undocumented immigrant.

Fearing political persecution, Tran’s father and aunt fled Vietnam by boat before Tran was born.

Her father was later rescued by the German Navy and her aunt by

the American Navy. Tran and her younger brother Thien were born in Germany, but moved to the United States when they were children.

The family believed that Tran’s aunt, who received legal status in the Unites States after being rescued by the Navy, could sponsor them. They applied for political asylum, but were denied in 1997. In 2001, an immigration board found that her family could not return to Vietnam for fear of persecution and continued on page 2

Metro, 5

Sports, 7

Opinions, 11

Open the Taps Roba Dolce gets license to serve Italian wines and beers

weekend winners The men’s tennis team took down four schools this weekend

beyond good and evil Jonathan Topaz ’12 thinks conservative voices need to have a place on campus

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Simmons advocates for piece of stimulus continued from page 1 Briant said.

According to Briant, if the stimulus packaged were to include increased funding for science, government agencies would augment support for research institutions, which could, in turn, lead to more jobs.

“Brown will have to compete to get those funds, but if we win the competition, so to speak, sponsored research funding will come in here, and from that we can begin to create jobs locally,”

Briant said.

The letter’s signatories claim that the National Institutes of Health could spend up to $5 billion immediately on approved but unfunded proposals from 2008, as well as another $5 billion to maintain higher funding rates in 2009.

“It is our belief that such an investment is not only critical to the long-term health of our economy,” said Columbia President Lee Bollinger in the press release, “it will ensure that America remains at the forefront of scientific research.”

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“If you’re undocumented how do you become a legal adult?”

— Tam Tran GS, an undocumented immigrant

Undocumented student struggles to find place continued from page 1 ordered them deported to Germany.

But when her family tried to apply for German visas, they were denied.

Because they have nowhere to be sent, Tran’s family members have a pseudo-legal status that allows them to hold work permits and Social Security. Though she is unable to vote, Tran has not been afraid to involve herself in political activities. “I always felt really safe,” she said. “I have nowhere to be deported to.”

Last semester, Tran and several undergraduate students formed the Brown Immigrants’ Rights Coalition to speak out about immigrants’ rights issues and the challenges faced by undocumented students.

“A lot of these kids are now grown up. They’re teenagers like me, and they are sort of in limbo,” said VyVy Trinh ’11, co-founder of the group, whose parents also immigrated from Vietnam. “I’ve seen how arbitrary U.S. immigration policy is, depending on the year or even the month in which you’ve come.”

Under the current system, the legal status of thousands of other undocumented youth are tied to their parents’ cases, and few paths to citizenship exist for them. “There’s no form for them to fill out or line to stand in,” Tran said.

Many young adults are not even affected by their legal status until they become adults, according to Tran. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Plyler v. Doe in 1982 that undocumented immigrants have a right to public education from kindergarten through 12th grade. An estimated 65,000 illegal immigrants graduate from U.S. high schools every year, according to the Urban Institute.

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“But if you’re undocumented,” Tran said, “how do you become a legal adult?”

Following high school graduation, Tran was able to pursue a college education thanks to a California law that grants in-state tuition to any student who graduates from a state high school, regardless of the student’s immigration status. BIRC plans to lobby for similar legislation in Rhode Island and encourage students to apply to private universities that have an easier time offering financial aid to undocumented students, said Gabriela Camargo ’11, another member of BIRC. “Universities like Brown offer very attractive financial aid packages that are often perfect for undocumented immigrants who are not eligible for federal grants or loans,” Camargo said. “Without equal access to education, you’re creating a subclass of people that have no way of getting out of their situation and no way of finding employers that can sponsor them.”

BIRC members also hope to serve as a support group for undocumented immigrants who might not be aware of the options available to them, or that other students face similar challenges. It was at UCLA that Tran first began to meet other undocumented students confronting similar challenges, she said.

“Growing up, I didn’t know anybody,” Tran said. “This isn’t something that people just talk about.”

While an undergrad, Tran became a vocal advocate for citizenship reform after joining an on-campus support group for undocumented students, and getting involved in the California Dream Network, a statewide association of college or-

ganizations dedicated to immigration reform. In 2007 she testified before the House immigration subcommittee in support of the DREAM Act, which would provide the children of illegal immigrants with a path to citizenship if they earn a high school degree and complete two years of college or military service.

“For the first time it gives someone the opportunity to earn their citizenship,” Tran said. “You grow up being told that if you work hard, you can succeed. A lot of undocumented students’ parents told them that if they worked hard and got good grades, they would become citizens.”

The bill failed, but Tran said she remained hopeful that it may one day pass, especially now that President Barack Obama, a supporter of the act, is in office.

Tran continues to advocate for immigration reform at Brown, where she is a graduate student in the Department of American Civilization. She and other BIRC members want to see the University provide information to undocumented youth about how to apply to Brown without a Social Security Number, Trinh said.

“It’s the idea of what it means to be an American,” Tran said. “Are you American if you were born here, but spent your entire life outside of the country? Are you more of an American if you have a Ph.D. in American culture?”

Though Tran said she considers herself a citizen of the world, she still thinks about the rights that come with a U.S. citizen’s passport. “I spend a lot of time looking at Google Maps,” she said. “I look at places I can’t go to right now.”

Housing crunch lingers; new roomies for many continued from page 1

the Brown

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

having common areas and kitchen spaces in our dorms,” Basil said.

“We haven’t forgotten that.”

In addition to vacating students from all temporary housing, ResLife was also faced with the task of placing returning students, as well as 40 mid-year transfer students, into residence halls.

Basil praised students returning to campus for doing “a really great job planning.” She said many students were “pulled in” to a suite, which makes the move back onto campus smoother because students can anticipate where and with whom they will be living.

For mid-year transfers, the housing assignment works somewhat differently. Questionnaires about living habits, which are used for both incoming first-year and transfer students in the fall, are not part of the process mid-year, primarily because there are fewer rooms available and student requests cannot always be met, Bova said.

Instead, incoming and returning students who have not been pulled into a room or a suite may give their preference for living in a particular area on campus and may indicate

what type of room they would prefer.

Basil said ResLife tries to place students together based on semester standing and, as often as possible, tries to clump transfer students together.

“Our goal,” Basil said, “is to help (transfer students’) transition to the University be successful.”

As students adjust to their new living situations, Bova said, ResLife is “waiting for the final dust to settle” before it will be able to accommodate most room change requests.

“We had beds for everyone,” Basil said, adding that while students may not initially be happy with their housing assignments, ResLife encourages them to give themselves a chance to “settle in” and “give their new spaces a try.”

Included in this group of students who will have to wait until at least next week for news on whether they will be granted a room change are many students who requested a room change at the end of last semester.

Kara Lindquist ’11, currently living in a double in Sears House, went to ResLife last semester hoping to switch rooms at the beginning of this semester.

Though her request has not yet been granted, Lindquist said she thought the staff were “pretty upfront” about the fact that housing is tight this semester, and were “very courteous” and “helpful.”

According to Bova, Lindquist’s reaction is not atypical, and the number of student complaints about their housing placements has not increased from past years. Bova said ResLife has actually dealt with fewer unhappy students this semester.

Around the first week in February, Basil said, ResLife will have a better idea of the available rooms on campus and will begin contacting students who still wish to move out of their current rooms. Lindquist said she was told she’d have 48 hours to accept or decline the new housing assignment.

Bova also said that while most students who had requested a room change were informed that they would have to wait, there have been spaces available for students who needed more immediate room changes.

But for students like Lindquist, whose situations are not so dire, it’s going to be a waiting game. “We’re crossing our fingers,” Lindquist said.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

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Page 3

“It looks easy, but actually it’s not so easy.”

— Hua Li GS, molecular biologist

Researchers discover 3-D structure of energy protein

By Suzannah Weiss Contributing Writer

Courtesy of NASA

Brown, MIT to ‘redefine the moon’

By Unikora Yang Contributing Writer

One small step for Brown, one giant leap for mankind.

NASA has chosen a team of geologists from Brown and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to participate in the Lunar Science Institute, an organization created to support and extend its lunar science programs, research and education.

Carle Pieters, professor of geological sciences and the team’s principal investigator, said the project will study the moon to understand the evolution of the solar system, illuminate the geological processes at work on Earth and train the next generation of lunar scientists.

NASA will provide the institute with over $1 million per year in funding for the next four years.

Brown’s joint proposal with MIT, “The Moon as Cornerstone to the Terrestrial Planets: The Formative Years,” was one of seven selected from 33 proposals by academic in-

stitutions, nonprofit research institutes and private companies.

The Lunar Institute comes at a time of increasing prominence for Earth’s closest celestial neighbor.

After the Apollo program in the early 1970s, NASA’s focus shifted to exploring other planets.

But recently, “the exploration of the moon is having a renaissance,” Pieters said.

This return to lunar studies is significant because “the moon is one of the few bodies that preserves the evolution of the early solar system,” said Michael Wyatt, assistant professor of geological sciences and deputy principal investigator.

The moon’s well-preserved geology can reveal the development of rocky planets like the Earth, and their earliest histories, he said.

Brown and MIT will be investigating the moon from its surface to its interior. The Brown team will focus on the moon’s surface, while the MIT group will study its core.

“One person doesn’t have the expertise to understand the moon

as a whole — from the upper surface all the way to the core of the moon,” Wyatt said. “The institute makes it more feasible for everybody to come together.”

The Brown-MIT team was forged out of the “incestuous” relationship shared by the two schools’ geological studies departments, Pieters said. Geologists at both schools have worked together on many projects, classes and lecture series. One of the major themes of the proposal, which included 10 Brown researchers, six MIT researchers and five others, was multidisciplinary collaboration.

Brown’s proposal also reflected its emphasis on training future scientists and lunar researchers. In the future, the University might host a summer consortium for planetary researchers from NASA and other academic institutions.

“It is an exciting time to study the moon,” Wyatt said. “We do know a lot about the moon, but (the project) will redefine the moon. It will be a whole new moon.”

U.-specific Web aggregator launches

by Colin Chazen Senior Staff Writer

Students exhausted from typing in Web addresses and tired of viewing Brown-specific Internet content one site at a time have one more way to access all their information in one place.

A new site, CampusLIVE at Brown, provides weather feeds, Facebook, Gmail, newspaper headlines and links to commonly used Web sites on a single page. Launched Sunday night at campuslive.com/brown by the Amherst, Mass.-based company, the site made Brown the latest campus with a page on the Web site.

Launched a year and a half ago by two University of Massachusetts at Amherst students and staffed primarily by their friends, CampusLIVE now has personalized pages at about 60 colleges across the country, said Ryan Durkin, director of business development. Business Week ranked the company’s founders the No. 3 best entrepreneurs under 25 last year.

“We’re dominating in New England,” Durkin said. “We started out with only UMass and over the past year we’ve added about 55 campuses. We want to be over 100 in the next few months.”

The company’s revenue comes primarily from university and athletics departments that advertise on their campus’s page, Durkin said.

Restaurant menus and other unique content is uploaded by interns and campus representatives who work for the company in exchange for course credit at some Universities.

The founders’ inspiration for the site came when they were students themselves. “All their friends were browsing the Internet all day for resources,” Durkin said. “Why not just put it all together?”

The company decided to produce a page for Brown after about 30 students requested an edition, Durkin said. The page includes links to The Herald, The Brown Noser, Banner, MyCourses and other popular Web sites. Though few Brunonians know about the site now, close to 60 percent of students at UMass use it as their home page, according to Durkin.

Brown researchers have discovered the three-dimensional structure of a protein they believe is involved in the onset of cancer and could help in the future development of cancer treatments.

The new insights about the enzymatic protein, called TIGAR, were published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry this month

by Assistant Professor of Biology Gerwald Jogl and Hua Li GS. Jogl and Li have conducted cancer cell research together since 2006, having read the first work published about TIGAR’s role in regulating cell energy production in the scientific journal Cell, Jogl said.

TIGAR, controlled by an antigrowth protein called p53, works to repair damaged cells, protect noncancerous cells and prevent cancer from occurring. “It’s probably one of the good guys,” Jogl said.

The researchers were interested in determining whether TIGAR’s role in suppressing cancerous cells on the cellular level would withstand a more in depth examination on the molecular level, Jogl said.

“The structure of these enzymes was unknown,” said Li, who is studying structural biology and biochemistry. Finding the structure “looks easy, but actually it’s not so easy,” he added. “We tried many things.”

The researchers examined TIGAR enzymes of human, rat, mouse and fish genes, which they cloned and crystallized using an X-ray system to study each one, Li said.

The atomic structure of TIGAR was a little different than expected, Jogl said. Though it verified the already established role of the protein, the research also suggested other possible functions of this relatively unexplored territory.

The result of their experiments with TIGAR raises questions of

whether there are“other things it does in the cell that we don’t know yet,” Jogl said.

Jogl and Li said they plan to continue their research on this subject to search for further insights about cancer’s origins and possible treatments.

Knowing how TIGAR works could help scientists find ways to “modulate the activity of the enzyme” and to detect cancer in an earlier stage, said Kimberly Mowry, a Brown professor of biology who researches cell polarity.

The ideal application of these findings would be to determine what prevents TIGAR from functioning effectively and subsequently, “stop the cancer before it becomes cancer,” Jogl said. He added that it would also be useful to learn what each individual can do to facilitate the natural cell repair process that involves TIGAR. “The more we understand about these protection mechanisms, the easier it will be to understand when a cell becomes cancerous,” he said.

This discovery’s most significant role is to add “small knowledge to future research,” Li said, adding that it is impossible to know the impact of his and Jogl’s findings until more research is done.

Even so, these researchers’ achievement “certainly adds to the reputation of Brown as a research university,” Professor of Medical Science Edward Hawrot said.

“I’m glad it’s getting the attention it deserves,” Mowry said.

Jogl said he hopes his research will be helpful in the fight against cancer. “I’m very happy,” he said, that “this knowledge that was created here is potentially helpful to other researchers and doctors.”

Jogl and Li’s investigations were funded by the National Institutes of Health’s Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence, part of an $11 million grant to the University in 2006.

Metro The Brown Daily Herald

“It’s not like it’s going to be gone.”

— Jason Gorelick ’12, on the Providence Place Mall Tuesday, January 27, 2009 | Page 5

Residents miffed by outdoor gas meters

By Anne Speyer Contributing Writer

Kim Perley / Herald

Providence Place Mall, owned by General Growth Properties, Inc. since August 2004, is up for sale.

Providence Place up for sale

By Sydney Ember Senior Staf f Writer

Whether to catch a movie or to do some dorm room shopping, Brown students head to Providence Place Mall. But perhaps many are unaware that the owner of the mall, General Growth Properties, Inc., has decided to sell the property to help pay off the company’s $27 billion debt. The mall is being sold by the New York office of U.K.-based property consultant firm Savills.

An ownership change would not affect the retailers who rent space in the mall — a welcome relief given the country’s difficult economic situation — the Providence Journal reported Jan. 13. The company’s spokesperson also told the Journal that shoppers should only expect to see small changes in the print on some signs inside the mall.

Most of the mall employees con-

tacted by The Herald were unaware that the property was up for sale.

Representatives of the company did not return multiple requests for comment.

The mall has performed well despite the economic downturn, according to recent sales tax data.

It generated $13,981,625 in sales taxes for Rhode Island in 2007, a record for the state, according to the Journal.

Despite the mall’s success, there is little chance it will sell soon in this economy due to a lack of able buyers, Joel Bloomer, a senior equity analyst at investment research firm Morningstar, told the Journal.

The company owns over 200 regional shopping malls in 44 states across the countr y and 24,000 retail stores on the commercial properties, according to its Web site.

It has owned Providence Place,

which opened in 1999, since August 2004.

In order to help lessen the company’s debt, its lenders agreed to extend their deadlines to repay $900 million in loans on two Las Vegas properties, the company said in a statement recently. But it still faces the prospect of bankruptcy if it cannot repay its debts.

One Brown student interviewed

by The Herald said he was skeptical of the mall’s appeal despite assertions of retail robustness.

“Who would buy the mall?” said Ryan Kaplan ’12. “I was in there today, and it was empty all day.

I honestly don’t know how they make money.”

Another student said a change in mall ownership was unlikely to affect him.

“It makes no difference to me,” said Jason Gorelick ’12. “It’s not like it’s going to be gone.”

Roba Dolce granted limited liquor license

By Heeyoung Min Contributing Writer

The Providence Board of Licenses granted Roba Dolce a limited liquor license last Thursday after denying the cafe a license last year. The decision was met with approval by the cafe’s owner and some East Siders, including the University.

A limited liquor license typically stipulates that the liquor-selling establishment must shut its doors by midnight or 1 a.m., and restricts the kinds of alcohol to be ser ved.

In the past, the University has strongly opposed decisions to grant liquor licenses to businesses on Thayer Street, said Darrell Brown, the University’s director of state and community relations.

But this time around, Brown said the University was satisfied by the decision to grant a limited, rather than a full, license.

Brown said the board hearing was “open and fair,” calling the decontinued on page 6

Eunice Hong / Herald

Patrons will soon be able to buy alcoholic beverages from Roba Dolce on Thayer Street, which was granted a limited liquor license last week.

Providence homeowners are facing off against utilities company National Grid over the installation of gas meters on the exteriors of local homes.

While National Grid insists that the new meters are necessar y, even for homes already equipped with interior gas readers, neighborhood associations citywide are fighting for the right of property owners to refuse the installation of new meters.

Pressure from the Fox Point and West Broadway Neighborhood Associations, in addition to support from local leaders led the City Council to pass an ordinance requiring utility companies such as National Grid to obtain written consent from property owners before installing exterior meters.

The ordinance, which went into ef fect in December, gives the Providence Housing Court the jurisdiction to fine companies that fail to do so.

National Grid has appealed to the Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission and is awaiting action, David Graves, the company’s spokesman, said, adding that access to the sidewalks outside of private homes has previously been available to National Grid and is a part of the basic customer contract.

National Grid is replacing the current gas lines with new ones, which contain gas at a pressure up to ninety-nine pounds per square inch.

“You obviously can’t put that amount of pressure in the home, so we want to put the meter outside along with a regulator,” Graves said.

Residents are opposed to the installations for a number of reasons.

“Every gas supply is stepped down (reduced in pressure) by a gas regulator, so the high-pressure gas comes to the regulator and it’s stepped down so it can serve all of our appliances,” said Jessica Jennings, a West Broadway Neighborhood Association board member. “The regulator needs to be outside. Everything after that — the meters — can be inside.”

Ian Barnacle, a local real estate agent, agreed.

“The historic commission is up in arms ... for aesthetic reason,” he said. “My other concern is for safety. Who’s to say that someone won’t crash a car into the side of a house with an outdoor gas meter?”

Jennings is less worried about the safety of the new meters. “The biggest problem people have with this is that they’re not being consulted at all. ... People want to participate in this process and that is what they are feeling robbed of, that’s where people are feeling a sense of infringement on their rights.”

But Graves said the company has done nothing wrong. “We’ve never replaced a meter without direct discussion with the propcontinued on page 6

Page 6

M etro Outdoor gas meters enhance public safety, says National Grid continued from page 5 erty owner so that they’re aware of why we’re doing what we’re doing,” he said.

Like Barnacle, Graves also invoked the public safety argument, but to argue for outdoor gas meters.

In case of a fire, for example, Graves said the gas service must be turned off before firefighters can access

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Friday, January 23, 2009

“The University does not operate in a vacuum when dealing with liquor licenses.”

— Darrell Brown, director of community relations

snow p l a c e l ike home

the building, and placing the meters outside would be more efficient.

If the ordinance were repealed, Jennings said the West Broadway Neighborhood Association would push for regulatory legislation at the state level. “We’re kind of looking around, saying, ‘How are we going to be protected at the end of the day?’” she said. “It’s a classic David and Goliath story.”

Kim Perley / Herald

Tunnels were dug through large snow piles on the Main Green.

License saves Roba Dolce, says owner continued from page 5 cision to grant a limited license “a win” for the University.

“The University does not operate in a vacuum when dealing with liquor licenses,” he said. “We work cooperatively with the community

and other businesses.”

Will Touret, president of the College Hill Neighborhood Association, said the earlier closing time dictated by the limited license could allow for “less of an adverse impact on the community.”

No one was more pleased with

the decision than Roba Dolce’s owner, Nino DeMartino, who said he hopes that ser ving alcohol will bring more customers to the cafe.

The day before the decision was released, DeMar tino predicted that the restaurant might go out of business if it were not granted the license.

As DeMar tino awaited the board’s decision, he said he would “love” a limited liquor license, even preferring it to a full license because he wanted to maintain a distinction between his cafe and local bars.

Roba Dolce hopes to offer an extensive line of Italian dessert wines and beers, DeMartino said. Details regarding possible limitations on the types of alcohol ser ved will be worked out by this Friday.

“Alcohol drinks will have ver y reasonable pricing for the community,” DeMartino said. “Most of the restaurants on Thayer have more of a bar/lounge atmosphere. Our goal is to have an ambiance where people can enjoy their gelato with some alcohol in moderation.”

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SportsTuesday The Brown Daily Herald

Tuesday, January 27, 2009 | Page 7

WWE acting as its own undertaker

Over winter break, I went to see the movie “The Wrestler,” and as I watched Mickey Rourke portray Randy “The Benjy Asher Ram” RobinSports Editor son, an aging professional wrestler, it got me thinking. First, I realized that I had found the perfect Halloween costume for next year, as my friends will attest to my love of blond glamor wigs. But secondly, it occurred to me that if I were asked to name a single current professional wrestling star, I would draw a blank.

Now, I was never a wrestling fan by any means, but in the ’90s, I was certainly aware of the stars of the wrestling world, like Hulk Hogan, Duane “The Rock” Johnson and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. Today’s professional wrestling scene seems to have lost any of its mainstream appeal, for a variety of reasons. Over the last decade, Americans have developed a taste for greater authenticity in their television programs, with an explosion of reality TV and laugh-track-less sitcoms. Meanwhile, increasingly popular mixed martial arts organizations, particularly the Ultimate Fighting Championship, have filled the niche of “no-holds-barred” fighting, eliminating the theatrics and planned stunts that characterize professional wrestling matches.

The front page of the World Wrestling Entertainment SmackDown Web site features a promo for “Royal Rumble,” which comes in the wake of a WWE championship match in which Jeff Hardy, who was competing for the title, was knocked out. By a metal chair. By his brother, Matt Hardy, a fellow wrestler, who was not competing in the match. Pure sport at its finest, indeed.

The worst part is that the match that the WWE is advertising is only available on Pay Per View. The WWE is digging its own grave if it expects to keep a significant paying fan base on the basis of absurd stunts, while other sports, like mixed martial arts and even football, offer action just as extreme, minus the shenanigans, which greatly detract from the realness that draws so many people to sports.

Even more confusing was the WWE’s decision last July to tailor its PPV events to a TV-PG rating, rather than TV-14, in what the organization described in a statement as an effort to make its product more “family friendly.” It seems that wrestling is struggling to find an identity, and though, according to its Web site, the WWE still attracts 15 million viewers weekly, the sport will decline if it fails to maintain any aura of uniqueness. Currently, though, the no-holds-barred fighting style is no longer limited to wrestling, and a need to suit TV-PG parameters has the potential to lessen the entertainment value of the sport’s theatrics. continued on page 8

Justin Coleman / Herald

Sadiea Williams ’11 scored nearly a third of the Bears’ points in their loss.

W. hoops mauled by Bulldogs at home

By Nicole Stock Spor ts Staf f Writer

The women’s basketball team (313, 1-1 Ivy) went into the weekend looking to extend a two-game winning streak on 71 Yale Friday, but in37 Brown stead suffered a loss, 71-37, when the Bears hosted Yale (8-8, 1-1 Ivy).

The Bulldogs came out strong, looking to avenge their 64-62 loss at home to Brown the previous weekend. Brown was able to match Yale’s energy and pace at the beginning of the game, but as the first half continued, Bruno was unable to contain the Bulldogs’ offensive attack. Eight minutes into the game, Yale went up 11-9 and never relinquished that lead for the rest of the contest. The Bulldogs extended their lead to 15 by halftime despite a strong effort from Sadiea Williams ’11, who tried to keep the Bears within striking distance. Williams had three rebounds and seven of her team-high 12 points in the first half.

“Our team has been working really hard at getting each other open to score and getting

good ball movement to open up the floor,” Williams said. Against Yale, Brown “made the extra pass and stretched out the defense to allow not only me, but others, to score.”

Brown finished off the first half shooting 22.6 percent from the field. Going into the second half, the Bears looked to overcome their shooting slump by pressuring the ball, forcing more turnovers and creating better shot opportunities.

“We needed to up the pressure in the second half and come out of the poor shooting first half,” said Head Coach Jean Burr. “We weren’t putting enough pressure on the ball.”

The Bears could not get an offensive flow going in the second half as they continued to struggle from the field. The ball would not fall for Brown as they shot just 20 percent from the field in the second half, while Yale continued to convert opportunities at the offensive end, finishing the game at 41.7 percent from the field.

Yale also had several secondchance opportunities on the offensive side of the ball as they grabbed 15 offensive rebounds in a game where the Bears were

out-rebounded 47-32. Burr attributed this in part to questionable calls by the officials and an overly timid mindset for Brown in what quickly became a ver y aggressive game.

The Bulldogs “were very physical with us and the officials were letting it go and we didn’t handle it well. We weren’t able to get into our presses or control the tempo,” Burr said. “Because we weren’t scoring, we needed to get into a more offensive flow. We needed to attack the basket. Yale was very physical and we retreated a little bit.”

The strong physical play by the Bulldogs forced Brown into 28 turnovers on the night and the Bears were unable to consistently get high-percentage shot opportunities. Turnovers have been a thorn in the side of the Bears all

season long.

“Turnovers have been plaguing us. Against Yale we had too many turnovers, and it’s incredibly hard to win a game with that many turnovers,” Williams said.

“We need to play one opponent.

Against Yale, we were playing two: them and us. We need to stop the turnovers and get more rebounds.

Those are controllable things and I think that they are ver y attainable.”

The Bears will look to get back in the winning column this weekend when they host Ivy League opponents Cornell (5-9, 1-1 Ivy) and Columbia (8-8, 1-1 Ivy).

“I feel that we come in with lots of experience. We can score, we have balance and we are developed as a team and ready to go.

We must keep the fight and hustle and focus,” Burr said.

M. tennis scores grand slam over weekend

By Erin Frauenhofer Spor ts Staf f Writer

The men’s tennis team was unstoppable over the weekend, demolishing Davidson College, Boston University, SUNY-Buffalo and Lehigh University in a pair of doubleheaders.

On Saturday, the Bears won all of their doubles and singles matches to sweep Davidson and BU, 7-0 and 5-0, respectively. The Bears were equally dominant in their 5-0 and 6-1 victories over Lehigh and Buffalo the next day.

“We really came together this weekend,” Jonathan Pearlman ’11 said.

Although the Bears stumbled against Boston College last week, Head Coach Jay Harris said that

the loss influenced the team’s mentality in a positive way.

“One of the biggest things we learned from that tough loss to Boston was the type of attitude we have to bring to the table,” he said. “Our results showed that we’re starting to develop that more.”

The Bears kicked of f their weekend play by taking on Davidson, who beat them 6-1 last year.

But this time, the Bears were in charge, breezing by the Wildcats with three wins at doubles to secure the doubles point.

The Bears then collected six singles victories, all in straight sets.

Pearlman led the way at first singles with a 6-1, 6-1 win over Walker Lyons. At second and third singles, captain Chris Lee ’09 and Skate Gorham ’10 defeated their oppo-

nents by identical scores of 6-1, 7-5.

Meanwhile, captain Noah Gardner ’09 triumphed over Calum Gee 6-3, 7-6 at fourth singles, and Kendrick Au ’11 took a 6-3, 6-2 victory over Arie Hefter at fifth singles. Andrew Yazmer ’12 played at the sixth singles spot, where he overwhelmed Carter Braxton, 6-1, 6-1.

“Last year, Davidson beat us 6-1, so to beat them 7-0 speaks volumes to what these guys are capable of doing,” Harris said.

Later that evening, the Bears competed in the first-ever “Rock N’ Roll & College Tennis” match. The match’s shorter format featured only one doubles match and four singles matches, and the free pizza and nonstop rock and roll music attracted a larger crowd of fans than normally attend.

The ‘Rock N’ Roll’ match was “wild,” Gorham said, who was competing in the Pizzitola Center for the first time. “It was really exciting for me.”

According to Gorham, he enjoyed the louder atmosphere because “tennis is such a mental game, you have to almost battle the quiet. So having music gets people more energetic. I’d like to do it again.”

The Bears blew by the Terriers with straight set wins at singles. At first singles, Pearlman dominated Bill Kring to notch a 6-2, 6-2 victory.

At second singles, captain Sam Garland ’09 defeated Tim Sichler by a score of 6-0, 6-4.

“Sam really brings that competicontinued on page 8

Page 8

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

SportsTuesday M. tennis rebounds with dominant wins continued from page 7 tive edge,” Harris said.

Charlie Posner ’11 and Au also had easy wins at third and fourth singles by respective scores of 6-2, 6-1 and 6-2, 6-2.

Gardner and Gorham represented Brown in the doubles match, where they trounced Charles Weinstein and Jeff Chudacoff, 8-2.

The next day, the Bears dismantled what Harris called “a very, very good Buffalo team.” After the teams split the first two doubles matches, Lee and Au pulled through at third doubles with a 9-8 win that clinched the doubles point.

According to Pearlman, the momentum from that victory propelled the Bears throughout the rest of the match. Pearlman again gave a strong performance at first singles, where he defeated Marcelo Mazzetto, 6-3, 6-2.

At second singles, Lee dropped the first set, 7-6, to Kirill Kolomytes but rebounded to take the second set, 6-4. Although Lee then lost the “superbreaker” that was played in place of a third set, Gorham said, “I really think (Lee) would have won the match had it been played out.”

Gorham powered by Alex Kalinin at third singles by a score of 6-1, 6-3, while Gardner, Yazmer and

Posner also had straight-set wins to round out the singles matches.

The Bears ended their weekend by decimating Lehigh, once again winning the doubles match and all of the singles matches.

“We played four teams in 30 hours, so to beat Lehigh 5-0 really showed that these guys are starting to develop that edge,” Harris said.

At first singles, Pearlman routed Troy List, 6-2, 6-1.

“I played very well,” Pearlman said. “I only lost my serve once or twice in all of the matches I played, and I was also returning very well.

I played very aggressively.”

Gardner was dominant at second singles, earning a 6-1, 6-4 win over Colin Laffey. At third singles, Au defeated Edgars Rauza 6-2, 6-4, while at fourth singles, Yazmer triumphed over Chris Collins by a score of 7-6, 6-0.

“Overall, it was a really good weekend,” Gorham said. “It was a really welcome turnaround. We showed a lot of character rebounding from the loss to BC. We showed our true selves.”

Next weekend, the Bears will travel to New Haven to compete in the Yale Invitational.

“We’re looking forward to testing ourselves a little more,” Harris said.

‘Live viewing’ earns Netflix profits

By Dawn C. Chmielewski Los Angeles Times

Netflix, the movies-by-mail service, has shown little sign of the economic slowdown that’s nailed other companies this earnings season. But it attributed its fourth-quarter jump in revenue, profit and subscribers to a surprising factor: the surging popularity of its online video-streaming service.

On Monday, Netflix said it added 718,000 subscribers in the fourth quarter, far more than analysts had expected, bringing its subscriber base to nearly 9.4 million. Netflix expects the number to reach 10.6 million within the next three months, even as other parts of the entertainment business contract because of the recession.

“It’s very clear that streaming is energizing our growth,” said Netflix Chief Executive Reed Hastings during a call Monday with analysts.

Hastings said the company’s streaming business was propelled by connection with devices from LG Electronics, Samsung and Microsoft that offer Netflix’s “Watch Instantly” service. Subscribers can use the service to stream any of about 12,000 television shows and movies without waiting for the DVD to arrive. The

company “substantially” increased its investment in streaming video and plans to do the same in 2009, he said.

“We plan to spend as much money as we can with the studios, licensing as much content as we can — and we are already one of the studios’ largest Internet revenue sources,” Hastings said. “Our spending is limited only by what content is available at reasonable costs.”

DVDs remain the core of the company’s business, and Netflix doesn’t expect that market to peak until at least 2013.

But Netflix is betting that its future relies on delivering its streaming service to television and it’s paying device makers marketing money to promote Netflix.

Hastings expressed confidence that Netflix can thrive, even as online services such as Hulu rely on advertising to provide TV shows and movies free to viewers, and Amazon. com and Apple offer movie downloads for purchase or rental.

Netflix reported revenue of $359.6 million, up 19 percent from a year ago.

Net income rose 45 percent to $22.7 million, or 38 cents a share, compared with net income of $15.7 million, or 23 cents a share, a year ago.

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Tuesday, January 27, 2009

“We showed our true selves.”

— Skate Gorham ’10, men’s tennis player

Asher ’10: WWE digging its own grave continued from page 7 It’s going to be awfully tough for organizations like the WWE to maintain popularity if their business models become heavily dependent on PPV events.

Boxing, too, appears to have suffered a decline in mainstream appeal, in large part due to the lack of cooperation between the four major boxing organizations. While the title of Heavyweight Champion used to be a label associated with largerthan-life stars like Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, the four boxing organizations currently recognize three different heavyweight

champions, and those three boxers can hardly be called celebrities. I mean, I certainly couldn’t envision a grill marketed by Nikolay Valuev (the World Boxing Association champion) to be all that popular a consumer product.

On Saturday, Shane Mosley defeated Antonio Margarito at the Staples Center in Los Angeles for the world welterweight title, in front of a crowd outside of only 20,000 — which ESPN boxing analyst Dan Raphael nevertheless cited as evidence that “the dopes who insist boxing is dead have no clue.”

Raphael is right, in a sense, in that boxing still has a core of ex-

tremely dedicated fans. Despite this core of fans, boxing has damaged its widespread appeal, putting too many championship fights on PPV, alienating all those except fanatics from enjoying the sport.

America loves violence and drama, and at their best, wrestling and boxing can deliver those elements as well as any sport. Those sports, though, are demanding more commitment and more money out of fans at a time when both sports have started to lose their individual niches in the athletic world.

Benjy Asher ’10 is going to go start a fight with someone.

U.S. faces steep decline in w. figure skating Amy Shipley The Washington Post CLEVELAND — The questions usually begin now, a year out from the Winter Olympics: Which of the United States’ top female figure skaters is most likely to win the gold medal?

This year, the question is different: Do the U.S. women have hopes of winning any medal?

The U.S. Figure Skating Championships, which ended here Sunday, offered further evidence that the U.S. women’s program is mired in its deepest drought in at least 14 years — and possibly several decades — with the Olympics in Vancouver, B.C., just over a year away.

“We just don’t have that star,” said skating coach Robin Wagner, who led Sarah Hughes to her 2002 Olympic gold medal. “We’re so used to having the queen of figure skating in our country.”

Figure skating is arguably the most popular of the Winter Olympic sports; certainly it draws the largest television audiences.

It usually provides both fans and advertisers with the “face” of the U.S. Winter Olympic team — think Peggy Fleming, Dorothy Hamill, Kristi Yamaguchi, Nancy Kerrigan and Tara Lipinski. And it gives the United States — not a power in many winter sports — a boost in the medal table. In the past three Olympics, American women won five of the nine medals available in the individual event.

This year’s U.S. champion is 21-year-old Alissa Czisny, who won the title here Saturday night despite falling on one jump and hitting just three triple jumps rather than the customary five or six in her long program. The other top finishers, silver-medal winner Rachael Flatt, 16, and bronze-medal winner Caroline Zhang, 15, have never won a senior event of any sort.

Among the reasons for the apparent decline, skating insiders say, are the new judging system introduced in 2004 that has shifted the emphasis from artistry to technique; the rise of skating’s popularity in Asia since the 1998 Winter

Games in Nagano, Japan; and the departures in 2006 of Michelle Kwan and Sasha Cohen, who won 15 Olympic and world championship medals between them.

“It’s an extraordinar y situation,” said 1984 Olympic gold medal winner Scott Hamilton, now a commentator for NBC. “Unusual circumstances are producing extraordinary results.”

The world championships in Los Angeles in March will provide a pivotal test for Czisny and Flatt.

Should neither finish in the top three, the U.S. women will have failed to win a medal at three straight world championships for the first time since 1964 — which came after the entire figure skating team had been killed in a plane crash on the way to the 1961 world championships.

Czisny’s and Flatt’s performances will also determine whether U.S. women are allowed to enter a maximum three skaters in next year’s Olympic field. If their combined finish does not equal 13th or better (such as a sixth and seventh place), the United States will only be allowed to send two women to Vancouver. That has happened only once since 1924.

“It’s obviously a ver y critical event for us in terms of who gets to the Olympics,” said Wagner, who also coached Cohen, who won a silver medal at the 2006 Games in Turin, Italy. “All of us are keeping our fingers crossed.”

In recent years, Japan has made the biggest rise in women’s skating, winning seven world championship medals since 2002 after winning just four in the previous 95 years. Shizuka Arakawa won the 2006 Olympic gold; Mao Asada won the 2008 world championship gold; and Miki Ando won it the year before — when Asada finished second. Meantime, South Korea’s Kim Yu-Nahas won two straight world championship bronze medals.

“I don’t really think it’s quite as much that the American ladies are deteriorating as much as other countries have gotten a great deal better,” said longtime U.S. coach John Nicks, who has coached Cohen, Fleming and Yamaguchi.

“Except from (1992 Olympic sil-

ver medal winner) Midori Ito a few years ago, we didn’t have any threat in skating from Japan or Asia.”

It’s not as if the United States isn’t producing young stars. At the 2006 world championships, Kimmie Meissner of Bel Air, Md., won the world title at just 16, but she has not excelled in any international events since and pulled out of this year’s U.S. championships because of an injury. Last year’s surprising U.S. champion, then14-year-old Mirai Nagasu, blamed changes from puberty and her response in part for her fifth-place finish this year.

Some figure skating insiders say the new judging system, which was adopted just before the decline, might be contributing.

Because the system emphasizes technique over pure artistry, they say, the United States has lost one of its historically greatest assets in the sport. Also, they say, prepubescent skaters who can best execute difficult spins and jumps with their small, lean bodies are best suited to accruing high technical marks.

In the old system, judges gave skaters just two marks on a 6.0 scale immediately after they skated; the new system relies on judges casting element-by-element evaluations of each skater’s program that are merged into one final point total.

“In the United States, we have emphasized crowd appeal, the artistic side of it, everybody being unique and having a real sense of showmanship,” Hamilton said.

“That doesn’t seem to be as valued as in the past.”

Even so, Wagner and Nicks said they believed a young skater could yet emerge to produce a medal for the United States at the next Games. The first step will be the world championships in March, and with the Olympic slots at stake, the pressure already is on.

Winning a “medal is very important,” said Richard Callaghan, who coaches Meissner and once coached Arakawa. “But I think the three spots for the Olympics is equally important. We need to get a force back in there.”

World & Nation The Brown Daily Herald

E-mail outage forces White House to go old school

BY MICHAEL D. SHEAR The Washington post

WASHINGTON — The computer Help Line guy at the White House seemed a bit harried Monday afternoon.

Shortly after the workweek began, the tech-savvy Obama administration was hit with a mysterious “server outage” that shut down all incoming and outgoing e-mail for more than eight hours, forcing aides to resort to old-fashioned phone calls and face-to-face conversation.

“We’re getting a few calls,” the worker deadpanned after answering phone calls from e-mail-starved employees at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. How is it possible that the e-mail system for the White House could go down that long?, a caller asked.

Press secretary Robert Gibbs had just apologized on live television for the lack of any e-mail contact.

“We still don’t know,” the Help Line guy said, adding that two e-mail servers had been rebooted but that two others remained mysteriously down, with no immediate explanation.

He then abruptly put the caller on hold, returning momentarily to say that he was no longer authorized to answer questions.

The e-mail disruption added communications insult to technological injury.

Obama aides had just switched over from their now-defunct transition accounts over the weekendand were handing out their spiffy new government e-mail addresses when the outage hit.

There was no indication that the outage caused any sort of national calamity. President Obama still managed to give former Sen. George

Mitchell, D-Maine, a formal sendoff to the Middle East and to swear in Timothy Geithner as Treasury secretary.

But several administration officials said that business had ground to a halt because of the disruption — and that they were fearing the deluge of messages that would come when service was restored. One person, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the disruption was made worse by the fact that people were still finding their way around the West Wing and the Old Executive Office Building and were relying heavily on e-mail to communicate with their new colleagues.

White House staff members already were frustrated by the somewhat archaic technology they discovered when they took over their offices.

Starting about 10 a.m. and lasting well into the evening Monday, most White House aides did not receive a single e-mail. Not on their computers.

Not on their BlackBerrys. Instead of the constant ping and buzz of new messages, there was just an eerie silence.

“It’s absolutely ridiculous,” one aide fumed as the outage dragged into its eighth hour. “This is the freakin’ West Wing.”

The result was a weirdly old-fashioned kind of day at the White House.

Instead of BlackBerrys, everyone used cellphones — a decidedly 1990s technology that used to serve as the principal means of communication in Washington political circles.

Pink while-you-were-out pads popped up on the desks of White House press assistants, who were suddenly unable to field the flurry of questions they normally get from reporters.

Kristol, Times part ways after one-year contract

By HOWARD KURTZ The Washington Post

WASHINGTON — Bill Kristol and the New York Times parted company Monday, one year after he began writing a weekly opinion column that became a high-profile target for his detractors on the left.

But the conservative commentator, who edits the Weekly Standard and appears on Fox News, won’t lack for media exposure. He will write a monthly column and occasional pieces for The Washington Post, as he did before joining the Times.

Post Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt called Kristol “ver y smart and very plugged in,” saying Kristol would be an influential voice in the coming debate over redefining the Republican Party. “It seems to me there were a lot of Times readers who felt the Times shouldn’t hire someone who supported the Iraq war,” said Hiatt, adding that he wants “a diverse range of opinions” on his page.

The Times hired Kristol for a one-

year run during the 2008 campaign, and Editorial Page Editor Andrew Rosenthal told his paper that the arrangement was ending by “mutual agreement.” Rosenthal would not say whether the Times plans to hire another conservative. Kristol, who did not return calls Monday, told Portfolio.com in November that he was “ambivalent” about continuing, noting that the weekly column was “a lot of work” and “I have a lot of things going on.”

Even some journalists sympathetic to Kristol say his Times writing was often predictable and not his best work, and noted that he had to correct three factual errors.

Kristol’s earlier punditry for The Post was also controversial. In July 2007, he wrote in the paper’s Outlook section that “George W. Bush’s presidency will probably be a successful one.” He also said the Iraq war could be won and that “military progress on the ground in Iraq in the past few months has been greater than even surge proponents like me expected.”

“I haven’t had a less stressful day in five years,” Gibbs joked, pointing at the BlackBerry on his desk and noting that it would make a good coaster. “The president can have my BlackBerry as far as I’m concerned.”

Katie Lillie, director of White House press advance, is responsible for herding the press corps from place to place. Normally, her BlackBerry relentlessly fills with questions and complaints.

“You know, it’s good,” she said as she led a group of reporters to the Cabinet Room, where Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton were meeting.

“People who are worried about stuff? I don’t know about it,” she said.

Josh Earnest, another press assistant, said he had “met a lot of people” Monday because he could no longer rely on the relatively impersonal email system to communicate.

“It’s very old-fashioned,” he said.

So how does a modern White House run without e-mail?

The press office could not send releases, transcripts or memos to its growing list of reporters across the country. Instead, it simply handed out photocopies to the reporters gathered in the White House briefing room.

“It’s like the old days, where you guys are running to the pay phone to call your papers,” said press assistant Tommy Vietor.

At 5:30 p.m., Vietor’s voice boomed over the loudspeaker in the White House briefing room, informing those present that the transcript of the president’s comments with Clinton were ready. The transcripts normally go out by e-mail.

tuesday, January 27, 2009 | Page 9

Iceland’s government collapses due to economy

By MARY JORDAN The Washington Post

LONDON — Iceland’s coalition government collapsed Monday, the first government to fall as a direct result of the global economic turmoil.

Prime Minister Geir Haarde said he and his cabinet would resign immediately. As personal savings have been wiped out and joblessness soars, Icelanders — once among the world’s wealthiest people -— have taken to the streets in protest, banging pots and pans and throwing eggs and toilet paper at Haarde and other parliamentary leaders.

Protests have mounted throughout Europe, where the political backlash to the crisis is growing. In Ireland, Britain, Spain and other countries where bankruptcies and home foreclosures are rising, polls show approval ratings of leaders are sinking. In Eastern Europe and Greece, where there is less of a government safety net, protesters have spilled onto the streets by the thousands. Last month’s collapse of the Belgian government, which had been wrestling with long-standing conflicts, was also hastened by the banking crisis, analysts said.

Perhaps nowhere has the economic crash been more spectacular than Iceland, an island of 300,000 on the edge of the Arctic Circle. Last fall, its largest banks went bust and the value of its currency plummeted. In recent days, protests intensified as no leader took responsibility for the crash, prompting police to use tear gas for the first time in half a century.

People felt that the government was “playing the violin while the Ti-

tanic was sinking,” said best-selling Icelandic author Andri Sn r Magnason in a phone interview from Reykjavik.

“Everybody who has a loan is paying 20 percent interest,” and even those who own modest homes find their salaries cannot cover what is owed, he said.

Haarde announced Friday that he would call early elections and said he would step down. He cited health reasons and said doctors were treating him for cancer.

But ahead of those planned elections, Haarde’s Independence Party could not come to terms with the Social Democrats, its main partner in the two-year-old coalition that was scheduled to stay in power until 2011.

The Social Democrats have called for the firing of the central bank governor and for closer ties with Europe.

The nation hadpurposefully sought to stay outside the European Union but now many believe that if Iceland had the euro as its currency instead of the krona, this crisis would not be so severe.

Foreign Minister Ingibjorg Gisladottir, head of the Social Democratic Alliance Party, is expected to start talks immediately with smaller parties in an attempt to form a new government that would rule until the new election.

She has been receiving treatment for a brain tumor and said she herself does not want to be prime minister.

“Iceland is certainly leading the way of the social protests and the political fallouts,” said Simon Johnson, former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.

Obama dispatches Mitchell to Middle East

By PAUL RICHTER Los Angeles T imes

WASHINGTON -— President Barack Obama dispatched his special Middle East envoy on an inaugural peacemaking trip Monday, declaring that George J. Mitchell would speak for the White House in a search for “progress, not just photoops.”

Obama’s public appearance with Mitchell, a former Democratic Senate majority leader from Maine, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at the White House was his second in five days and placed an emphasis on peacemaking efforts, which come at a time when analysts rate the chances for Arab-Israeli peace as the worst in decades.

“Now, understand that Senator Mitchell is going to be fully empowered by me and fully empowered by Secretary Clinton,” Obama said. “So when he speaks, he will be speaking for us.”

Some analysts have warned that if the administration puts its prestige on the line and the current cease-fire between Israel and the militant group Hamas collapses,

it could be an early black mark for the Obama team.

Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator, said the announcement was intended to stress that Mitchell is speaking for Obama and to push back against anyone critical of the appointment.

Sending Mitchell to the region also allows Obama to take action without “getting bogged down in the details.”

“He can say, ‘George is on it,’ “ Levy said.

During his campaign, Obama promised to work for peace early in his presidency. The flurry of action in his first week in office also addresses criticism that, as president-elect, he was detached from the Gaza Strip fighting.

“The cause of peace in the Middle East is important to the United States and our national interests,” Obama said. “It’s important to me personally. It is important to Arabs and Jews. It is important to Christians, and Muslims, and Jews all around the world.”

Mitchell, who was appointed Thursday, left Monday for an eight-day trip to the Middle East

and Europe. He will stop in Egypt, Israel, the West Bank, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Paris, London and possibly elsewhere.

Obama hopes Mitchell can identify ways to “solidify the cease-fire, ensure Israel’s security, also ensure that Palestinians in Gaza are able to get the basic necessities they need and that they can see a pathway toward long-term development that will be so critical in order for us to achieve a lasting peace.”

The administration’s peace push has been welcomed by many liberals but has stirred unease among conservative supporters of Israel, who fear that the plans for “evenhandedness” means that Israel will come under new pressure.

Thanks for reading

Editorial & Letters The Brown Daily Herald

Page 10 | Tuesday, January 27, 2009

e d i to r i a l

Blue State blunder

Last week, The Herald reported that Associate Provost and Director of Institutional Diversity Brenda Allen will be leaving Brown to become the provost at Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina. With Allen’s upcoming departure, administrators should re-evaluate Brown’s strategies for promoting diversity among students, staff and faculty. The administration deserves credit for making substantial progress on that issue, especially since the establishment of the Office of Institutional Diversity in 2003. Over the last six years, Brown has seen a 40-percent increase in minority faculty and a 31-percent increase in female faculty. The number of under-represented minority students grew by over 21 percent.

These statistics, though encouraging, are not fully informative. Diversity in the broadest sense is harder to measure. By increasing its proportion of students and faculty from targeted groups, the University hopes to expose the community to a “broad range of perspectives, views and outlooks.” These ultimate aims deserve special attention.

The University should maintain its commitment to diversity despite recent economic developments. We hope Allen’s successor at the OID will also focus on increasing the presence and visibility of community members with varied political ideologies. Unfortunately, these objectives may prove expensive in some cases and impractical in others. Financial difficulties may delay certain initiatives such as need-blind admission for transfer and international students.

Plans to recruit students based on their political viewpoints would be unfeasible, morally questionable and most likely counterproductive.

For now, Brown can take a relatively cheap and simple step to attract a more politically diverse pool of applicants. Every year, many prospective students pass through the Brown Bookstore with parents in tow. As of this semester, visitors and their parents will be able to discuss the tour, the campus and the New Curriculum over coffee at the Bookstore’s brand new cafe. Unfortunately, some families may not find the atmosphere welcoming. We imagine that a few conservative families might be dismayed by the cups with a “Blue State Coffee” logo on one side and a suggestive slogan (“Drink Liberally”) on the other.

While we don’t object to the Bookstore’s decision to contract with Blue State Coffee, we expect that the cafe — an important part of Brown’s public image — to be less overtly political. Previously, Blue State Coffee planned to tone down its message at the new branch by not selling the anti-Bush merchandise available at its other Thayer Street location. Though the message on the cups is more subtle, we hope it is a temporary fixture.

Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board. Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.

t h e b r o w n d a i ly h e r a l d Editor-in-Chief Steve DeLucia

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chris jesu lee

l e t t e r s to t h e e d i to r s

U. shouldn’t worry too much about rankings To the Editor: I read with dismay your editorial on Brown’s relatively poor rankings (“The rank and the rate,” Jan. 26), which fretted that low rankings in U.S. News & World Report would drive away prospective international students. There’s surely a better way to convey our excellence to the world than through such pseudo-scientific metrics, which ignore Brown’s intangible assets such as the New Curriculum.

Ideally, Brown should aim to attract international students who are motivated by a love of learning, not those whose goal is simply to become “Harvard girls.”

Furthermore, it’s incumbent upon prospective students to learn about the universities to which they are applying. Applicants who know nothing about Brown except its ranking should probably not be admitted in the first place.

Finally, suggesting a campaign to boost applicant volume — with the aim of rejecting more students, and thus lowering acceptance rates — seems petty and superficial. Brown should focus on providing a quality liberal arts education, not playing the rankings game.

Sam Bollier ’09.5 Jan. 26

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Opinions The Brown Daily Herald

Tuesday, January 27, 2009 | Page 11

The dirty ‘c’ word JONATHAN TOPAZ opinions columnist

Matt Taibbi, a left-wing political consultant for “Real Time with Bill Maher” and a writer for Rolling Stone Magazine, is one of these young, cynical, deceptively knowledgeable guys we liberals love.

At a time where Keith Olbermann and Bill O’Reilly have become trusted and popular television journalists, Taibbi makes his points without excessive ire and without raising his voice, pointing out idiocy and hypocrisy with restraint and tact.

While many journalists choose to cover the horse race from the comfort of newsrooms, Taibbi functions less as a journalist and more a mere witness — a man who traversed the nation and then assessed where our country was after seeing it firsthand.

In perhaps his most poignant piece for Rolling Stone, an Oct. 30 article entitled “The Death of a Red State,” Taibbi contends that since the presidency of John F. Kennedy, “the GOP won the battle of cultural preferences.” Thus, the GOP took poor, white working-class voters (the base established by FDR) away from Democrats, leaving the party with an identity crisis.

However, Democrats have recently morphed into a party championed by women, minorities and homosexuals, a coalition built from the ground up due to the vision of a white America to which conservatives cling. European countries,

seen swooning for Obama during his version of Eurotrip, got it right away — why choose the pallid, awkward, reckless, all-or-nothing John McCain, the embodiment of American arrogance, when you could have the cool, skinny, biracial guy whose rallies look, as Taibbi put it, like a “college discussion group”? What the Obama victory affirms is that in a social war between an accepting, multicultural party and an intolerant, monolithic one, Democrats come out on top.

An Obama victory has the potential to validate a dangerous yet popular sentiment on our campus — a self-righteous rejection of all things conservative. The election storyline of intolerance vs. acceptance that Taibbi outlines is in many ways similar to Rovian tactics — an establishment of a good vs. evil battle that is both oversimplified and dehumanizing.

Lost in our politically active campus is not just a conservative presence, but mere respect for the opinion on the other side of the coin — the

Ironically, at Brown, it seems that we liberals pat ourselves on the back for voting for acceptance, all the while displaying intolerance for conservatives.

Cue drunken parties on the Main Green and marches to the state capitol, high-fives and pats on the back for supporting a candidate whose victory represents not just a verdict on policy, but on the moral stance of the country.

What George Bush — as well as pals Cheney, Rummy, Alberto Gonzales, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and many others — have done, according to Taibbi, is morph the word Republican “into a poisonous sobriquet that no politician with bipartisan aspirations will ever welcome again.”

Most Brown students couldn’t agree more. And that is a problem.

former perhaps a byproduct of the latter, in that there may be closeted conservatives unable to “come out” due to a dismissive environment.

Ironically, at Brown, it seems that we liberals pat ourselves on the back for voting for acceptance, all the while displaying intolerance for conservatives.

My political science lecture, a class of over two hundred students (a lecture geared towards current events and the 2008 election), felt at times more like an Obama rally than nuanced discussion. The campaign advertisements the professor showed us were often hard to hear

because many students laughed uncontrollably during McCain campaign ads.

Our customary brief discussion on current events often turned into a mass mockery of Republican campaign tactics and, of course, Sarah Palin. How many conservatives felt comfortable even revealing themselves as such, let alone comfortable enough to enter the debate? While screaming and clamoring for the abstract possibility of “change,” many of us have drowned out and dismissed the possibility for debate on substantive issues or for challenges to our ideals.

If the aftermath of this election says anything about Republicans, it is that there is a legitimate rift between social conservatives and economic conservatives — between ideologues concerned with Muslims in the Oval Office and homosexual marriage and traditional Republicans who have concerns about billions of dollars in new spending and the aftermath of a destabilized Iraq. To disregard conservatism is not merely condescending, but dangerously narrow-minded in challenging times when all input is needed.

So as change hopefully comes to America, will we ourselves change how we deal with each other? Ultimately, this is not a question of politics, but a fundamental question of community and co-existence. At an institution where individuality, academic debate and open-mindedness are prized ideals, will we persist on a trail of insularity or embrace our diverse opinions? On this question our edification depends.

Jonathan Topaz ’12 is a first-year from New York City. He can be reached at jonathan.topaz@gmail.com

The slow and sorry demise of the RSVP KATE DOYLE opinions columnist

My parents threw a Christmas party this year.

I had just arrived home for my first winter break, an all-grown-up college girl, and they thought it might be nice if I invited some of my nice, all-grown-up friends to come to the party too.

I’ve always been a sucker for a party of this sort, unfailingly jumping at any chance to munch hors d’oeuvres and wear a pretty dress, and, even more so, at the chance to play hostess. So invite I did.

Alas, so much for all grown up. One guest said she would get back to me and never did.

One guest declined only the day beforehand, citing mysterious, carefully concealed “other plans.” One sent a text-message the day of the party to report the onslaught of a cold that would prevent her attendance. And one phone call, naturally, went unreturned.

“What’s the story here?” I mused aloud to my younger sister. She gravely informed me that I would have had better luck with a mass text message. People simply don’t do phone calls these days, she explained.

I’m starting to think that in actuality, what people simply don’t do these days is RSVP. Those four poor little letters may yet survive on your standard written invitation, but as a trend, a civility, a simple common courtesy, they’re quickly fading.

I know this because as the “head planmaker” among my high school friends, I’ve tried text messages. I’ve sent e-mails. I’ve called landlines. I’ve called cell phones. I’ve made attempts with Facebook messages and Facebook events alike. I’ve even tried the good old-fashioned U.S. postal service.

And yet it seems that in this day and age, no matter how thorough one’s methods, a response is just a little too much to ask. If people want to come along, they appear. And

cepting an invitation, what’s most astounding is that popular opinion — at least among our generation — seems to be that it’s better not to reply at all than to reply with a “no.”

And to that end, we’re lucky enough to live in an age in which countless methods of communication proliferate, and hence, so do countless excuses.

Well, you see, my cell phone died. Yeah, I have a Facebook, but hardly ever check it.

Oh, I was away from my computer all week-

What people simply don’t do these days is RSVP. Those four poor little letters may yet survive on your standard written invitation, but as a trend, a civility, a simple common courtesy, they’re quickly fading. if they don’t, they won’t.

The mentality seems to be that there could be little more disastrous than to accept an invitation and then — God forbid! — watch in horror as something much better comes up at the last minute. Better to play it safe, we think, better to remain noncommittal.

Heaven help us if our host or hostess were to think that we didn’t have anything better to do than grace his or her event with our presence!

And, even in the event that a previous engagement truly does preclude us from ac-

end. You know, I never read my e-mails since I got my Facebook! And the thing is, I never check my voicemail, so if you want to get a hold of me you have to just keep calling and calling and calling!

It may be that ever y one of us, caught unawares in this age of Facebook, AIM and the text message, has been, at one point or another, guilty of such antics, of neglected replies, of wild excuse-making. But its universality, I am sorry to report, makes it no less deplorable.

Let us pause a moment and hearken back

to the good old days of civilized society, and perhaps take a word or two of advice from the admirable Emily Post, who, in her book “Etiquette,” laid down an ultimatum: “Nothing could be in worse taste than to flaunt your popularity by announcing that it is impossible to answer your numerous invitations.”

And so, in the spirit of Mrs. Post, a few handy pointers for the well-mannered in the modern day: If you simply cannot make it, be transparent about the fact that you’re otherwise engaged — a host or hostess requests the honor of your presence, but certainly won’t spend the next year crying into a pillow about it if you’re forced to decline.

Definitely, unquestionably, do not lie about the specifics of your previous engagement — that one can only get you into trouble later on. If you must decline, placing a phone call is infinitely more gracious than whipping off a text message.

Whenever an invitation is issued, reciprocation is only polite. And as someone who’s spent way too much time in her life trying to juggle Facebook, phone and Mac Mail in various well-meaning attempts to get people together, let me say this: No host or hostess will begrudge the invitee who politely declines with thanks — and none will be the least bit impressed by one who is too busy and important to respond.

Kate Doyle ’12 is from Westport, Conn.

She can be reached at Katherine_Doyle@brown.edu.

Today

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Roba Dolce receives a liquor license

The Brown Daily Herald

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to day

to m o r r o w

30 / 18

34 / 20

W. hoops crushed by visiting Bulldogs

TUESDAY, January 27, 2009

Page 12

the news in images

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JANUARY 27, 2009

JANUARY 28, 2009

7:00 pM — Do you want to be an MPC? Formal lounge, TWC.

4:00 PM — Michal Bregant, Contemporary Film and Politics in the Czech Republic, Petteruti Lounge

7:00 PM — Sugar Bears Pom Team Tryouts, Alumnae Hall Crystal Room

Mall for sale

7:00 PM — Community Service Opportunities Fair, Leung Gallery

The corporation that owns Providence Place has decided to put the property up for sale to help pay off billions of dollars in debt.

menu Sharpe Refectory

Verney-Woolley Dining Hall

Lunch — Fried Fish Sandwich with Tartar Source, Quinoa and Veggies, Sliced Turkey and Roast Beef

Lunch — Beef Stew, Tomato Quiche, Italian Vegetable Saute, Grilled Key West Chicken

Dinner — Chopped Sirloin with Mushroom Sauce, Sticky Rice, Vegetable Frittata, Asian Noodle Bar

Dinner — Curry Chicken Saute, Baked Spaghetti Squash, Apricot Beef with Sesame Noodles

An ownership change would not affect the retailers who rent space in the mall, and shoppers would likely notice little difference.

The gigantic mall generated almost $14 million in sales taxes for Rhode Island in 2007, according to the Providence Journal.

RELEASE DATE– Tuesday, January 27, 2009

crossword

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

ACROSS 1 Picture puzzle 6 Catchall abbr.

10 Playing an extra period, briefly 14 Tehran tongue 15 Dear man, in Milan 16 Delany of “Desperate Housewives” 17 Dickens’s Edwin 18 Plow-pulling pair 19 Does sum work 20 Getting a buzz from being 23 Free-for-all 25 Utterly ridiculous 26 Island west of Gr. Britain 27 Gobs 30 NE, vis-à-vis SW 31 Metaphorical backbreaker 34 Mosque bigwig 38 Rhubarb unit 39 Old salt 40 Nighttime annoyance, maybe 41 Home of the Nobel Peace Center 42 Center of attention 44 “2001” computer 46 “Baby Doll” director Kazan 47 Eunice, to Ted 48 Hardly objective 51 Related maternally 53 Grope, as for a light switch 56 Confiscated car 57 Film segment 58 Massey of old movies 62 From square one 63 Metallica’s “Nothing __ Matters” 64 Like sea battles 65 Put in long hours 66 Changed from black to red, e.g.

67 Fairy tale bellower of the starts of 20-, 31-, 42- and 53Across

DOWN 36 Palmer with an 49 Louvre Pyramid 1 Mayberry letters army architect 2 Musical gift 37 Queens team 50 Dawdle 3 Ted, to Eunice 40 Crossing over 52 Two-time loser to 4 The States, 42 Rooked Ike briefly 43 In __ of: to replace 53 “Animal House” 5 Hopscotch site 45 Communication house 6 Earth-friendly sci. syst. with hand 54 Levitate 7 Airport waiter signals 55 Columnist’s page 59 Eggs in labs 8 Coliseum 48 Three-time 60 Bert Bobbsey’s 9 Robin Hood’s Wimbledon twin weapon singles champ 61 PC key 10 “High Sierra” Maria leading lady 11 Rock bottom ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE: 12 Like Netflix flicks 13 Shock with a stun gun 21 Some annexes 22 Cleopatra’s “poor venomous fool” 23 Telly watchers 24 Of the kidneys 26 “Assuming that’s true ...”

28 Conductor Klemperer 29 Evidential amount 32 Defunct annual Honolulu football game 33 Evaporating sea 35 Like a fresh cake xwordeditor@aol.com 01/27/09

comics Enigma Twist | Dustin Foley

Alien Weather Forecast | Stephen Lichenstein and Adam Wagner

Classic Deep-Fried Kittens | Cara FitzGibbon

By Sharon Petersen & Nancy Salomon (c)2009 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

01/27/09