Friday, January 30, 2009

Daily Herald the Brown

vol. cxliv, no. 8 | Friday, January 30, 2009 | Serving the community daily since 1891

Morey ’99 suits up for second Super Bowl

SPOTLIGHT

By Benjy Asher Spor ts Editor

A look at Brown’s collection of books from Hitler’s library

Hitler in the Hay stacks

By Emmy Liss Features Editor

Shelved in the walk-in basement vault of the John Hay Library is a second-edition copy of “Mein Kampf.” A yellowing bookplate on its inside cover features a menacing eagle with wings outstretched and a banner spread above its head reading “Ex Libris.”

With its talons, the eagle clutches a branch and a circular medallion inscribed with a large swastika. Below the image, a harsh, angular font spells out the name of the book’s owner: “Adolf Hitler.”

Tour groups parading past the Hay are told of Abraham Lincoln’s funereal flowers and the extensive toy soldier menagerie, but rarely is it mentioned that Brown possesses the nation’s second-largest collection of books from Hitler’s personal library.

Herald File Photo

Sean Morey ’99 in a Brown football game in Oct. 1998.

The Herald, then-Head Coach Mark Whipple ’79 said of Morey, “We don’t have a single senior that’s a receiver.

We’re counting on Sean Morey ... to lead our receiving corps and he’s only a sophomore.”

In addition to Morey’s outstanding physical skill set, current Head Coach Phil Estes remembers his former receiver’s constant drive to become a smarter football player.

Morey showed himself to be a continued on page 8

Gaza panel draws large crowds

BY EMILY ROSEN Contributing Writer

inside

A 300-strong crowd turned out in MacMillan 117 last night to hear a panel of Brown faculty and alums address the conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The event, “Gaza: Implications and Reconceptualizations,” was organized by the student group Common Ground and brought together academics and experts from a wide range of disciplines. Scholars in anthropology, history, Judaic studies, French studies and comparative literature discussed the roles of the media, international humanitarian law and the United States in the conflict.

Each participant discussed a facet of the conflict for about 10 minutes and then fielded questions from audience members. Professor

News.....1-4 Arts........5-6 Spor ts...7-9 Editorial..10 Opinion...11 Today........12

www.browndailyherald.com

Qidong Chen / Herald

After initially struggling to make it off the bench, Sean Morey ’99 can finally enjoy his stay at the top.

On Sunday night, the former Bruno superstar will suit up for his second Super Bowl in four years.

In a Super Bowl match-up defined by inspiring Cinderella stories, Morey’s Arizona Cardinals will take on his former team, the Pittsburgh Steelers.

The game will be the Cardinals’ first Super Bowl appearance in franchise history. It will feature such rags-to-riches stars as Arizona quarterback Kurt Warner — who has won a Super Bowl ring and two MVP awards after playing college football at Division I-AA Northern Iowa — and Pittsburgh defensive end James Harrison, the first undrafted player in NFL history to win a Defensive MVP award.

Likewise, for Morey, a special teams captain and, for the first time in his career, a Pro Bowler, success was not instant at the professional level.

At Brown, Morey was a standout from the start, earning 1995 Ivy League Rookie of the Year honors his freshman year. He went on to become a three-time selection to the All-Ivy first team and in his junior season was named Ivy League Player of the Year and a first-team All-American.

In the Sept. 30, 1996, issue of

The collection was a gift from the nephew of Colonel Albert Aronson, who arrived in Berlin in May of 1945, one of the first Americans to reach the German stronghold. Russian soldiers had already liberated the city and collected many of the Third Reich’s possessions. Within the Fuhrerbunker — Hitler’s last known hideout — Aronson found 80 assorted volumes remaining from Hitler’s extensive book collection.

The colonel “liberated the books, so to speak,” said Samuel Streit, director of special collections at the Hay, and brought them home to the United States with him.

For decades, the volumes lay in Aronson’s attic. He died in the mid-1970s and bequeathed the collection to his nephew. A Brown alum who elected to remain anonymous in all library

records, Aronson’s nephew contacted the Hay. Joking that the titles were “not exactly coffee table books,” according to Streit, Aronson’s nephew acknowledged the historical value of his collection. But he was “understandably nervous,” Streit said. “He wanted them to be used responsibly.”

Placing his trust in the rare book specialists at the University, Aronson’s nephew donated the collection to Brown in 1979. The 80 volumes were catalogued and shelved at the Hay, just like any other books. There was no press release about the new acquisition, “but it’s not a secret that we have them,” Streit said.

Even after three decades, the books have attracted little attention. One scholar, however, recently paid Streit and the collection a visit. continued on page 2

Simmons at World Economic Forum in Switzerland President Ruth Simmons has joined 2,500 other world leaders in business, government and education at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week.

The meeting — whose theme, “Shaping the Post-Crisis World,” suggests the ominous background to the week’s discussions — began Wednesday and will continue through Sunday.

Simmons moderated a discussion on nonprofits at the forum Thursday. The debate “focused on identifying new partnerships, involving youth, reaffirming our missions and setting sound priorities,” she wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.

Though Davos gives Simmons the opportunity to rub elbows with prominent Brown alums, including potential donors, and other international supporters, Simmons wrote that she “can’t promise a big gift.”

At last year’s meeting, Simmons announced a $5.75 million gift from Israeli businessman Idan Ofer P’12 that funds a scholarship for Brown students from sub-Saharan Africa.

Though the forum is dominated by political and business leaders — like Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and philanthropist Bill Gates — Simmons wrote that the forum also allows leaders of universities around the world to discuss the economic crisis. She has met with Indian and African educators and will make a presentation today on improving universities in subSaharan Africa, she wrote.

News, 3

Sports, 7

Opinions, 10

Peanut Butter Pulled

Sports Weekend W. basketball, m. hockey, w. tennis face league challenges at home this weekend.

sans Comic?

Michael Fitzpatrick ’12 writes that The Herald should expand the comics section.

By George Miller Metro Editor

Quinn Savit / Herald

A seven-member panel of faculty and alumni discussed the Gaza conflict

Emeritus of History Abbott “Tom” Gleason moderated the sevenmember panel.

Critical of the media’s role in and coverage of the conflict, Professor of Anthropology Catherine Lutz said there was more to the

war than military gains or losses.

“Contemporary war is waged as a campaign of public relations,” she said.

During her portion of the talk, continued on page 2

BDS removes potentially contaminated peanut products from its shelves.

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

herald@browndailyherald.com

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

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Friday, January 30, 2009

“It does tell us something about Hitler and his mental processes.”

— Samuel Streit, director of special collections at the Hay Library

Hay’s Hitler collection offers insight Gaza panel a success, continued from page 1 Timothy Ryback, a historian of the Holocaust and the deputy secretary general of the Academie Diplomatique Internationale in Paris, has studied Hitler’s private collection extensively.

In his recent book, “Hitler’s Private Library,” Ryback analyzes the works Hitler owned, the frequent notations he made within them and what this information reveals about the Fuhrer himself. Hitler was known for his vast collection, which included nearly 16,000 volumes. The bulk of the collection found its way to Moscow after World War II and has since disappeared. The Third Reich Collection at the Library of Congress houses 1,200 of the surviving books, and others are scattered across the nation.

Ryback closely examined the “hodgepodge” collection, as he called it, at the Library of Congress before coming to the Hay. Within the 80 volumes, he uncovered picture books, art journals, political works and nearly a dozen volumes on the occult, a topic that fascinated Hitler.

Among the occult volumes at Brown is “Magic: History, Theory and Practice,” written by Ernst Schertel in 1923. According to Streit, this is

the only of Hitler’s books requested “frequently.” Scholars are interested in the volume itself, he said. The original owner adds “creepy association value.”

The book — which, according to an article by Ryback, touches on “Satanism, eroticism, sadomasochism and flagellation” — bears a handwritten dedication to Hitler from the author. The book was evidently well-used: the edges of the pages are frayed, the spine is faded beyond legibility and the cover is tearing. Though there is no proof Hitler himself read the book, the margins are well marked. Perfectly straight red lines, about an inch from the text, denote the reader’s favorite parts.

Some chapters are left untouched, others are marked heavily. Ryback noted that one particularly highlighted section, with a wider line than other passages, reads in German: “He who does not carry demonic seeds within him will never give birth to a new world.”

Streit said the library has been criticized for its collections, but he feels owning Hitler’s books is “very important,” because they document the “dark side” of history.

“If you don’t preserve this kind of thing, where’s the evidence that it happened?” he asked.

“Their significance lies in what they tell us about the kind of books Hitler owned,” Streit explained. Hitler may or may not have read them; most of them he did not even buy for himself. But all of the volumes bear his signature bookplate and most have been marked. Ryback has analyzed the marginalia carefully, finding that Hitler annotated his books with fervor, underlining heavily the words he agreed with and leaving exclamation points to denote his enthusiasm.

Many of the books contain dated inscriptions from those who gave the books, creating a literary timeline: Brown’s collection includes a wellworn copy of a Friedrich Nietzsche book, given to Hitler by a friend in December of 1933. Also among the books is a 1922 history of the swastika, filled with nearly 500 illustrations of its different renderings.

Streit said the library has made every effort to respect the sensitivity of Aronson’s nephew toward the collection. “He wanted them to be used,” Streit reaffirmed, just not for the wrong reasons.

By piecing together the subject matter, “it does tell us something about Hitler and his mental processes,” Streit said. The collection offers insight into what “might have informed Hitler’s opinions.”

organizers say continued from page 1 Lutz argued that a harsh “us versus them” style of reporting often portrays force as the necessary solution in situations like the Gaza conflict.

Chelsea Sharon ’06, a student at Harvard Law School and a former member of Common Ground, discussed the role of international humanitarian law — which distinguishes between military and civilian targets to protect the latter from military action — in the conflict.

“It is crucial to have some benchmark of rules,” Sharon said, adding that many principles of humanitarian law are being violated in Gaza.

Associate Professor of Judaic Studies Maud Mandel spoke about the deteriorating relations between Muslims and Jews in Europe as a result of the conflict in the Middle East. She noted an increase in tension and violence between these groups throughout the continent, and in France in particular.

Former Sen. Lincoln Chafee ’75, a distinguised visiting fellow at the Watson Institute for International

Studies, discussed the Bush administration’s historical involvement in the Gaza conflict and its impact on the war in Iraq. Yishai Blank, visiting associate professor of international studies and a senior lecturer at Tel-Aviv University, offered an Israeli perspective, addressing the country’s dilemmas and questioning whether the conflict should be “legalized and internationalized.”

While one of Common Ground’s goals was to bring diverse viewpoints to the panel, attendee Reem Yusuf ’09 said she felt the panel “needed a Palestinian point of view.”

“There was something missing,” she said.

But event coordinators Joanna Abousleiman ’09 and Alex Ortiz ’09 said they were pleased with the evening’s packed house.

“The large turnout showed an interest in the Brown community about this issue,” Abousleiman said.

Common Ground hopes to organize a film festival and bring more speakers to campus in the future to increase awareness and discourse about the conflict, Ortiz said.

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Friday, January 30, 2009

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

C ampus N EWS

“I ask all the student to come back and educate me on how the world really works” — James Morone, professor of political science.

Dining Services pulls peanut products

By Sarah Husk Senior Staff Writer

Those with a penchant for peanuts may have noticed the recent absence of the majority of products containing peanuts from campus dining establishments since last week.

Due to a string of recalls issued by producers of peanut paste starting earlier this month, potentially contaminated products were pulled from shelves nationwide. The contamination, originating from a factory in Georgia, was linked to several cases of salmonella.

The contamination, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Web site, extends only to bulk containers of peanut paste, meaning that peanut butter available directly to consumers is safe. But the bulk quantities of peanut paste that food processing companies use as an intermediary ingredient in foods like sandwich crackers and candy bars are still potentially dangerous.

Brown Dining Ser vices received an e-mail update from the FDA on Jan. 23 about the contamination and removed all products

Erin Curtis GS stood at the front of Foxboro Auditorium with a stack of index cards in her hand. “Could I get someone to help me?” she asked the students as she began to distribute them.

Curtis was using the cards to help determine which of the students would be allowed to register for AMCV 1612F: “Female Maladies: Women and Mental Illness.”

The course had been capped, said Professor of American Civilization and History Mari Jo Buhle, be-

Frederic Lu / Herald

Fears of salmonella contamination have caused Brown Dining Services to remove many peanut-derived products many campus eateries

immediately, according to Gerry Teixeira, the purchasing manager for BDS. “We’re happy that we pulled everything,” Teixeira said, because FDA officials “keep adding products on a daily basis.”

Some peanut products do remain in dining establishments, such as jars of Jif peanut butter in the Sharpe Refectory, but Teixeira said that anything available to students has been officially declared safe by the FDA. BDS has been

cause Curtis is its only teaching assistant.

“As soon as registration figures came out in November,” Buhle said, she and her colleagues in the Department of American Civilization “knew that we didn’t have enough” teaching assistants. She pointed to the popularity of Associate Professor of American Civilization Ralph Rodriguez’s course AMCV 1611V: “Color Me Cool: A Survey of Contemporary Graphic Novels,” which was assigned four TAs, and Senior Lecturer in American Civilization Paul Buhle’s course AMCV 1611L: “The Sixties Without Apology,”

Rush events begin this week for Greek houses

By Sarah Husk Senior Staff Writer

This week marks the beginning of the recruitment period for Brown’s eight fraternities and two sororities, though some houses have already hosted their kick-off events, and others will not begin to do so until this weekend.

Recruitment, said Mike Peterson ’10, head of rush at Sigma Chi, “is probably the best part of the year.”

Reasons for joining a Greek organization are varied, and while stereotypes may dominate students’ perceptions about fraternities or sororities, members stressed the reality of the closeknit communities that exist within the houses.

Alum may become Obama’s ‘car czar’

By Chaz Kelsh News Editor

especially scrupulous in keeping the contamination out, according to Sean DeBobes, assistant manager of Josiah’s, who said Brown has been “a little more precautionary” than other local eateries.

As for the return of other products containing peanut paste, which includes the packaged peanut butter available at the Sharpe Refectory and the Verney-Woolley Dining Hall, as well as packaged continued on page 4

Some classes facing TA shortages

By Emma Berry Staff Writer

Page 3

While prospective brothers may have raucous parties or expanded social possibilities in mind when they decide to rush a fraternity, Greek life is much deeper than that, Peterson said,.

“There’s a misconception. It’s not all about partying,” he said, continuing that a large part of the Sigma Chi experience revolves around tradition and close relationships between brothers.

Sigma Chi President George George ’10 said that although this bonding may not initially be the main drive behind pledging a fraternity, relationships that develop between the brothers are “deeper than you might anticipate.” The “camaraderie and strength of the continued on page 4

which was assigned two.

Her course, with roughly 70 preregistered students, was assigned only one TA. It was the first time in her career — and the last, since she is retiring at the end of this semester— she ever had to limit a course’s enrollment, she said.

With the souring economy and the diminished endowment, which is estimated to lose approximately $800 million by June, problems like this are unlikely to go away. Expansion of the Graduate School, a key initiative of the Plan for Academic continued on page 4

A Brown alum and Corporation member could be appointed President Barack Obama’s “car czar”, a new position that would be created to oversee a bailout of the American auto industry, according to multiple media reports.

Steven Rattner ’74 P’09, co-founder of the New York-based investment firm Quadrangle Group, would become Obama’s point person overseeing the restructuring of manufacturing giants General Motors and Chrysler, which received promises of up to $17.4 billion in government money in December in exchange for promises to make serious internal changes.

Obama was said to be near appointing a car czar, the New York Times reported in mid-January, and had “focused” on Rattner for the job.

Rattner had “expressed interest,” the Times reported, though no final decision was reached. Bloomberg News and the Wall Street Journal, among other media outlets, have published pieces in recent weeks exploring the possibility of Rattner’s overseeing the automaker bailout.

Rattner worked as a business journalist early in his career, then worked at Wall Street firms, including Morgan Stanley and Lazard Freres, specializing in media and communications investments. He co-founded Quadrangle in 2000.

He is also a major fundraiser for the Democratic party, and his wife, Maureen White, served as a co-chairwoman of finance for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

A member of the Brown Corporation since 1994, Rattner was also editor-in-chief of The Herald during his undergraduate years.

Rattner could not be reached for comment on his potential position.

Though many have pushed for a “car czar” so as to provide critical oversight of a major industry in a time of economic crisis, others question whether one person can solve the complicated problems the industry faces.

“I don’t think it’s entirely clear what authorities will be given to the car czar,” said Richard Arenberg, adjunct lecturer in public policy.

Though the original idea was to allow the car czar to restructure the “Big Three” automakers — Chrysler, GM and Ford Motor Co. — without bankruptcy proceedings that could end in liquidation, previous czars created for other problems have not been effective, he said.

“The devil is in the details,” Arenberg said. “The trouble is that (czars are) outside the normal bureaucracy.”

Though czars are meant to “cut through all the bureaucratic red tape,” they often end up stuck in it because they lack the “lines of authority” that would allow them to succeed, Arenberg said. It’s also unclear who the car czar’s boss would be, he said, adding that it could be the secretary of the Treasury, the secretary of commerce or even the President.

In the background of the debate over a car czar is Obama’s announcement this week that California and other states will be allowed to impose their own stricter environmental standards on cars — breaking with the stance of George W. Bush’s administration. Such mandates could make the auto industry’s recovery — and hence the car czar’s job — even more difficult, according to Professor of Economics George Borts, who taught Rattner at Brown.

“There are conflicting noises coming out of the Obama adminiscontinued on page 4

Seminar offers inside look at RI gov’t

By Anne Speyer Staff Writer

Political Science concentrators at Brown now have the opportunity to explore Rhode Island government first hand in a new course, POLS 1821J: “Rhode Island Government and Politics.” Students enrolled in the course will take on internships in the state government and work there for eight to 10 hours a week in place of traditional class time.

Professor of Political Science James Morone, the course instructor and organizer, said the new course will allow students to apply their studies to the real world.

“I want students to be thinking and writing about what they’ve learned in political science and how it’s prepared them and how it has failed to prepare them (for their internships) ,” Morone said. “I ask all the students to come back and

educate me on how the world really works.”

Students will be matched with internships based on their personal interests, said Robert Gemma, executive director of the Rhode Island state government internship program.

Gemma, who is responsible for interviewing enrolled students and pairing them with available internships, said many students use the internships to explore career options.

“There’s a lot of students that want to go to law school and they make up their minds working with a judge, working with a legal defender or the department of legal council,” Gemma said. “A lot of students come back as law school students after making up their minds in these internships.”

Morone said the course, which is capped at 20 students and is limited to department concentrators, has a long waiting list.

“We’re going to have a very com-

mitted, energetic bunch of concentrators,” he said.

Stephen Chaisson ’10, who is in the class, said he was given a position working for the Commissioner for Human Rights because Gemma felt it fit his goals and interests.

“I really wanted to do some work in the community, and I thought it would be a great way to be a part of something and actually do an internship in Providence,” he said. “I was really excited to get this.”

Daniel Parnes ’10, another class member, said he will be working with House Deputy Majority Leader Raymond Sullivan Jr., whom he met last summer while working for President Barack Obama’s campaign in Rhode Island.

Parnes said the course “will be a wild experience.”

“To get class credit for an internship … it’s the best of both worlds,” he added.

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Friday, January 30, 2009

“A lot of people in our house never expected to join a Greek organization.”

— Charlie Shrader ’09, Alpha Delta Phi president

Rattner may advise Obama Departments suffer continued from page 3 tration, which might make (the car czar’s) job harder than I thought it would be,” Borts said. Applying more stringent environmental requirements will advantage foreign automakers, whose cars are often more fuel-efficient, he said.

The car czar must also try to reconcile the Big Three’s needs with union demands, Borts said.

American automakers are “weighed down” by health benefit payments for retirees not yet eligible for Social Security or Medicare, he said, adding that convincing unions to allow cuts to these benefits will be

the “main hurdle of a car czar.”

Recalling Rattner’s days at Brown, Borts said he taught him courses in microeconomics, macroeconomics and international finance.

“He was a ver y smart guy,” Bor ts said. “He’s ver y wellinformed.”

Peanuts pulled from campus eateries continued from page 3

candies and snacks that contain peanut products, Teixeira said that BDS is waiting for clearance from the FDA before restocking shelves.

“If there’s any doubt whatsoever that there could be some harm,”

he said, “we will not put them out on the shelves.”

Until then, DeBobes said Little Jo’s has introduced several new products to take the place of those that were recalled.

Both DeBobes and Gate supervisor Carlos Reyes reported few, if any, complaints about the lack of

peanut butterproducts.

Teixeira said BDS will incur financial losses from pulling products, but the specific numbers are still unknown.

Ultimately though, he said, “that was not our concern. Our concern, always, is for the health and wellbeing of the student body.”

Greek recruitment events attract all types continued from page 3 relationships come later,” he said.

Michelle Flagg ’11, president of Alpha Chi Omega, also said that despite the various stereotypes attached to the Greek system, the actual experience is different.

Flagg wrote in an e-mail to The Herald that “the women who make up Brown’s Chapter of AXO are not like the sorority girl stereotype in which many people believe.” She continued that the truth about life in a sorority “is something we cannot advertise; girls just have to experience it themselves.”

For Ian Nappier ’10, president of Alpha Epsilon Pi, those most attracted to Greek Life are “people who enjoy having a community.”

Phi Kappa Psi President Corey Goerdt ’09 said that, for him, Greek life offered a way to meet people he otherwise never would have met, adding that Greek organizations, although they count only a small percentage of the student body as members, represent a wide diversity of students and play a large part in campus life.

The appeal of Greek organizations is often unexpected, particularly given the presence of

less traditional options, like co-ed fraternities Alpha Delta Phi and Zeta Delta Xi. “A lot of the people in our house never expected to join a Greek organization,” said Charlie Shrader ’09, president of ADPhi. On the other hand, for some, joining a Greek organization was on their minds early on: George said that several freshmen approached Sigma Chi brothers during one of the fraternity’s parties this fall eager to know about the recruitment process and when they would be able to rush.

For fraternities, rush is overseen by the Greek Council, which has representatives from each Greek house on campus, but for sororities, recruitment is governed by Panhellenic Council, which includes only representatives from Brown’s two sororities, Alpha Chi Omega and Kappa Alpha Theta.

The sororities, said Ellie Cutler ’10, the public relations chair on Greek Council and the membership chair of Kappa Alpha Theta, work together more than the fraternities and have a slightly different events schedule.

Some organizations, like Phi Psi, go into rush with a specific number of pledges in mind, Goerdt

said. He said the number was flexible, but reported that his fraternity was looking for a pledge class of 13 or 14 men.

Shrader also said that ADPhi had somewhat specific numbers in mind, but said that the process was flexible.

Being co-ed, Shrader said, also adds another dimension to crafting a pledge class. And while he said the house hopes to attract prospective pledges regardless of gender, currently in ADPhi, there is a “solid female majority,” and added that the fraternity would be looking to “strengthen the male side just a bit.”

George said that Sigma Chi is relatively flexible in terms of numbers and emphasized the importance of selecting members who will be good matches for the fraternity.

All representatives from the Greek community reported that, so far, the events have been going well and turnout has been either on par with years past or slightly better.

Cutler said that there has been “a great turnout for a lot of different groups” and added that both sorority houses “had a lot of interest.”

without enough TAs continued from page 3

Enrichment, has been postponed indefinitely due to lack of funds, President Ruth Simmons wrote in a campus-wide e-mail on Tuesday.

Professors are already feeling the effects of the TA shortage. “By capping the courses, we all got our courses down to manage the TA situation,” Buhle said. Because many of the preregistered students never showed up on the first day of class, Buhle said that all students who had shopped the course would be allowed to register. However, by that time she said she had already told several students who contacted her by e-mail that the course was closed.

Overall, Buhle said, “potentially 200 students” were turned away from the three classes.

Graduate students in American Civilization often serve as TAs in other undergraduate departments, including Africana Studies, which does not have a corresponding graduate program, Buhle said. Because of American Civilization’s significant need for TAs in its own courses, “we can’t be as generous as in years past,” Buhle said. “I don’t know what those departments are doing now.”

However, Dean of the Graduate School Sheila Bonde said, “There is no overall shortage” of TAs. Last fall, the Graduate School funded 369 TAs, which has been the average over the past six years, Bonde said. “In these extraordinary (economic) times, I think that it is remarkable that we are able to maintain that status quo,” she added.

The ability of individual undergraduate departments to meet their own need for TAs “depends on availability and expertise,” Bonde said. “A spare student in Philosophy doesn’t help us out in Physics ... it’s not a failure necessarily of funding.”

Smaller graduate programs like American Civilization are particularly vulnerable to these problems, Bonde said. “If three people go out and win great grants, that can put pressure on the number of available TAs.” Buhle said a recent change in the way graduate students are funded was partly to blame for her department’s shortage. The policy, which went into effect in 2006, guarantees five years of funding to each graduate student. Before that time, Bonde wrote in an e-mail to The Herald, each graduate program received “a certain number of fellowships and teaching assistantships,” but graduate students could not depend on institutional support.

The policy put the Graduate School in line with the other Ivy League schools, Bonde said, all of which offer five years of guaranteed funding, and helps Brown’s graduate programs attract stronger candidates.

Guaranteed funding is a blessing for graduate students, Buhle said, who depend on it as they research and write their dissertations. However, she said, “in the humanities, very few students actually finish [a Ph.D.] in five years.” She said that

in history, her field, students typically require seven to eight years to complete their degree.

While the Graduate School may still fund students after the fifth year, such funding is not guaranteed.

Buhle said some graduate students in the humanities had to find jobs in order to support themselves, making their own research more difficult and making them unavailable for teaching.

Buhle worries that “the undergraduates are getting shortchanged” by the policy. Without increasing the size of the graduate school, humanities courses will not have enough TAs, she said.

Interdisciplinary programs have already reported problems finding TAs since they depend on other departments’ graduate students for assistance, The Herald reported in September.

In the past, some courses, including CHEM 0330: “Equilibrium, Rate, and Structure,” have had to limit class sizes due to a lack of TAs. But, “as the present semester starts, the number of available TAs is only one of several restrictions” on class sizes in the chemistry department, Professor of Chemistry Peter Weber, who chairs the department, wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. “Others are the size of classrooms, the number of labs available for different courses and the specialization of graduate TAs,” he wrote.

Other departments said that, though they also had trouble getting enough TAs for their courses, they were able to meet their teaching needs.

Professor of History Joan Richards, director of graduate study for the department, wrote in an e-mail to The Herald that the history department has experienced a “TA crunch” due to high enrollment in certain courses. Nevertheless, she said she expected teaching needs to be met by recent graduates who have been hired to serve as TAs. Professor of English Philip Gould, the department’s acting chair, said that a smaller class of graduate students matriculated a few years ago, which meant that this year, the English department had fewer potential TAs than usual.

Still, the department has “sufficient teaching” in large classes like ENGL 0400A: “Introduction to Shakespeare” that break into sections, he added.

“I don’t want to pretend that there aren’t challenges,” Bonde said. Though the number of TAs has remained stable in the recent past, during these past six years the faculty has grown, and with it the need for research assistants and TAs, she said.

The Graduate School is committed to using “creative” solutions to meet teaching needs, Bonde said, including transferring money from the Graduate School budget to hire recently graduated Ph.D.s as adjuncts. As the economy improves, the Graduate School will move forward with its expansion plans, she said.

Arts & Culture The Brown Daily Herald

‘Totally tantalizing’ Aussie wows audience

By Caroline Sedano Senior Staff Writer

Imagine standing in a clean and air y art galler y.

A small television set in the corner plays a movie — perhaps a cowboy western.

As the broadcast stops for a commercial break, the sound stops and is replaced by an amplified woman’s voice telling you about the other art hanging on the walls.

The only evident movement in the gallery is a tall, white, woven sculpture with protruding sticks that seem to sway slightly even though there’s no wind in the room.

On second glance, you notice an inert human body whose head disappears into the tall white shape.

That body would belong to Barbara Campbell, an Australian performance artist who brings text, visual arts, movement and speech together.

Campbell visited Brown on Tuesday and Wednesday to give a lecture, work with a class and hold a workshop in List Art Center while she was in the United States for a few weeks.

“It’s an absolutely wonderful opportunity for students to start to work between dif ferent media and disciplines,” said Richard Fishman, a professor of visual art whose class — VISA1800L: “Hybrid Art” — Campbell visited on Wednesday.

“There’s something really funny about a lot of her work. I think it’s absolutely great,” said Anna Fisher GS, a doctoral candidate in the Depar tment of Modern Culture and Media who specializes in female performance art practices.

“In some ways her work took from recognizable performance practices, but it was also really imaginative, idiosyncratic and employed a lot of her own self and memor y,” Fisher said.

Campbell’s workshop on Tuesday had students painting, writing and moving to the rhythm of their breath.

Rebecca Schneider, an associate professor of theatre, speech and dance who helped bring Campbell to campus, was most excited about the idea that Campbell would bring students from a variety of disciplines together.

“We really emphasize becoming talented in your own craft.

But, if you forget to look up from your own craft and look around, you can become limited,” Schneider said.

“This is a great oppor tunity for students who don’t normally cross paths to do so and step out of their comfort zones,” she said.

Schneider first heard about Campbell after being asked to take part in her most recent performance art piece, “1001 Nights,” which ran from 2005 to 2008. The project, inspired by the Iraq war and the “1001 Nights” folk tales, was a daily cycle of artistic creation that connected artists from all over the world.

Ever y morning for 1001 days, Campbell would wake up and read the latest news stories from Iraq.

She would then pick one phrase from one article — like “frenetic failure,” “lull” or “mopping his brow” — and make a simple watercolor painting of the phrase, which she would post on a Web site.

Then, one previously contacted ar tist would have until three hours before sunset to create a 1001-word stor y using that prompt.

Once the stor y was e-mailed to Campbell, she would read it out loud on a live streaming video webcast that showed only her mouth. Each webcast would begin with an image of Campbell’s tongue ornamented with a stud displaying the day of the project.

“I wanted to explore the idea of a frame stor y and how one stor y could generate other stories,” Campbell said Wednesday.

She explained that she first had the idea in 2005 shortly after former President George W.

Bush spoke to the crew of the USS Abraham Lincoln in front of a banner reading “Mission Accomplished.”

“Ever yone’s hear ts sank at this moment knowing it would be a long war and that we had all been sucked into it,” she said.

Campbell’s Wednesday lecture used photographs to document some of her other strange, funny and insightful per formance art pieces that explore political, historical and purely abstract themes.

The first piece she described was inspired by the diary of Francis Ford Coppola’s wife, Eleanor, during the filming of “Apocalypse Now,” as well as by a plane crash in the forests near Campbell’s hometown and Joseph Conrad’s novel “Heart of Darkness.”

Another piece, entitled “I have been given the name Tania,” was inspired by the kidnapping of newspaper heiress and socialite Patty Hearst into the Symbionese Liberation Army.

Campbell recreated the iconic photograph of Hearst wielding a machine gun in front of an SLA banner and encouraged passersby to pose as Hearst for Polaroid pictures and read an SLA mission statement.

“The Polaroids were given to the people, and I like to imagine the final work of the project is all these little Polaroids stuck to fridges around Perth (Australia) as proof of this secret group,” Campbell said.

Her other works included one in which she glued a hat to her hair and then proceeded to cut the hat off, a five-day project in which she examined the trial of alleged axe murderess Lizzie Borden and one in which she hid — naked except for a coat of glow paint — in an art exhibit.

Andrew Starner GS, who studies performance art, said he was left wondering what it would be like to witness Campbell’s pieces.

“I thought Barbara was quirky, but totally tantalizing,” he said.

Friday, January 30, 2009 | Page 5

A ‘formula’ for success in PW show railway station” with “unwholesome toilets,” and that the rail workers have gone on strike, leaving MargaSome people have a natural gift for rita stranded on her journey. doing math. Then there are those What follows is a sequence of sevwho are less numerically savvy — en semi-connected monologues, one they learn how to do other things, for each day of the week Margarita like write theater reviews for their spends at the station. She recounts college papers. But, as Edna St. dreams and memories, musing on Vincent Millay wrote, “Euclid alone the little things people notice but has looked on Beauty bare.” There’s rarely talk about, like the marks bed something magical about the ability sheets leave on one’s face. The stage of mathematics to strip away excess is littered with stopped clocks, and in the pursuit of truth, restricting anything that disrupts the stasis beitself to a limited set of escomes a cause for alarm — sential tools as it searches REVIEW Margarita starts chopping for the unambiguously right a carrot and is taken aback when she actually cuts through it. answer.

“Mathematical Adventures,” “Being curious is like riding a which opened last night in Produc- bike up a hill,” Margarita says at one tion Workshop’s upstairs space, has point, and the viewers know exactly very little to do with math and a lot what she means because they’ve beto do with thinking mathematically. come deeply, deeply curious about Written and directed by Ioana Jucan her. In this case, though, getting ’11 — the program says “worked to the top of the hill is a Sisyphean out by,” as though the production task. Xu acts her part as though she’s itself were an algebra problem — holding in the biggest secret ever, “Mathematical Adventures” con- and she always seems to be one step fronts viewers with an abstract and ahead of us. From what little we can schematic world that eludes them as tell of Margarita, she’s kind of into soon as they think they’ve figured it pain, both experiencing it herself and out. New formulas are tried, possible inflicting it on others, and she clearly solutions hypothesized, but the audi- enjoys toying with us. At the same ence won’t come up with the answer, time, she’s also very insecure. Xu and the play, wisely, doesn’t try to deftly negotiates the interaction besupply one. tween these two poles of Margarita’s Running just over 90 minutes, the personality, and the result is a fully three-act play begins with Margarita realized and fascinating character.

(Jing Xu ’10) sitting on a beat-up suitThe next two acts of the play grow case next to a set of wooden railroad increasingly abstract and difficult to tracks that run up the center of the untangle. In the second act, Margaristage to an open door. The first Time- ta ends up in a strange romance with Keeper (Herald comic artist Jeremy the second Time-Keeper (Herald Kuhn ’10) announces in drawn-out continued on page 6 tones that we are in an “old, damp

By Ben Hyman Arts & Culture Editor

Page 6

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Friday, January 30, 2009

A rts & C ulture ‘Mathematical Adventures’ a thought-provoking puzzle continued from page 5

editorial cartoonist Alex Yuly ’12).

We know they’re perfect for each other when they play a thought experiment — “Think about something you haven’t thought of in the last 110 seconds,” Margarita commands — and keep thinking of the same things. But Margarita bridles at the idea of opening herself up emotionally to anyone else.

In the third act, Margarita and the second Time-Keeper seem to have moved in together, but she is haunted by the third Time-Keeper, played by the disembodied and authoritatively English-accented voice of Henry Peck ’11. Here in particular, but also throughout the play, the sound design by John Racioppo ’11 is essential. There is a constant undercurrent of noise running through the three acts, from ambient sounds to weird sci-fi squawks to a recording of “Different Trains,” the minimalist composition by Steve Reich. The train station noise during the first act and the chirping birds in the second ground the surrealism in some kind of reality, keeping everything from getting too portentous without diminishing the play’s strangeness.

“Mathematical Adventures” def-

initely takes place outside of any strictly identifiable time, which adds to the show’s sense of mystery. This is a world where people still take long train journeys but also use email, where the streets are narrow and winding but each house has a television — in other words, it’s a lot like certain parts of Europe. In keeping with this sense of timelessness, Jucan’s language is rich and a little bit antiquated — it should have a vintage. The script is full of words and concepts juxtaposed unexpectedly. People say things like “I would blush like a poppy” and “Don’t leave things unfinished, or you’ll go bald 10 times faster than in normal conditions.”

In other words, “Mathematical Adventures” is an extended poem, a mood piece, and it’s not necessary to understand everything that goes on. As theater, it serves as a pretty good antidote for shopping period stress, and, as an equation, it’s a thought-provoking puzzle for the audience. Not that they’ll ever figure it out — “Mathematical Adventures” intends to keep its secrets. Q.E.D. “Mathematical Adventures” runs through Jan. 31, with performances tonight at 7:30 p.m. and 11 p.m., and tomorrow at 9 p.m. in T.F. Green Hall.

‘Millionaire’ faces child pay issues

By John Horn Los Angeles T imes

HOLLYWOOD -— Determined to make the rags-to-riches drama “Slumdog Millionaire” as authentic as possible, director Danny Boyle reworked his film’s first act, casting Hindi-speaking children from the slums of Mumbai, India, in two lead roles. Now his choice to use the impoverished 7-year-olds has sparked a growing controversy that is threatening to overtake the movie’s global goodwill.

The dispute over the production’s hiring of the children comes on the heels of “Slumdog Millionaire’s” 10 nominations for this year’s Academy Awards. The film, which recently collected the top prizes at awards ceremonies for the Screen Actors Guild and the Producers Guild of America, is up for the best picture Oscar.

Boyle, producer Christian Colson and the film’s distributors Wednesday issued a statement disputing several reports saying that “Slumdog Millionaire” took advantage of the children.

The film follows two orphaned brothers -- Salim and Jamal -- and their friend Latika over the early years of their lives. Each character is played by three actors as they progress from childhood to their teens. The brothers clash not only over the girl but also over what paths they should follow. The lawabiding Jamal, determined to reconnect with Latika, finds himself on India’s version of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire,” where his remarkable performance captivates the nation.

Reports in Britain’s Telegraph and India’s Hindustan Times, quoting family members, said actors Rubina Ali (the youngest Latika) and Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail (the youngest Salim) were both poorly compensated for their monthlong work and have not shared in the film’s financial windfall; other media outlets and

Internet sites either have repeated or linked to the allegations.

The Telegraph says Ali earned about $1,000, while Ismail was paid about $2,400. (According to a World Bank report last year, 75.6 percent of India’s population lives below $2 a day.) Fox Searchlight, Boyle and Colson have declined to say what their actual compensation was.

The boy who played the youngest Jamal (Ayush Mahesh Khedekar) comes from a middleclass family, and the older children in the film are also comparatively well-off, Fox Searchlight says.

In their statement, Boyle and Colson said the production took special care to look after the children’s welfare, paying for their elementary and secondary schooling (neither child had been educated before) since June, covering their basic living costs (including health care and emergencies) and establishing “a substantial lump sum” payment for college tuition that will be distributed to the young boy and girl “when they complete their studies.”

Distributors Fox Searchlight and its India counterpar t, Fox Star Studios, along with “Slumdog Millionaire” sales agent Pathe International, said in a separate statement, “The welfare of Azhar and Rubina has always been a top priority for everyone involved in `Slumdog Millionaire.’ ... For 30 days work, the children were paid three times the average local adult salary. ... We are extremely proud of this film, and proud of the way our child actors have been treated.”

Boyle, Colson and Fox Searchlight head Peter Rice said in interviews that they never wanted to publicize the financial assistance they were providing to the two children, fearful it might make the children more vulnerable to predators. “I am really worried about the kids and the way they are being dragged into this,” Boyle

said. “The spotlight is on them.”

Added Rice: “First people say, `You’ve exploited the kids -- you didn’t pay them.’ And then now you’re publicly saying these two little kids have a lot of money.”

Screenwriter Simon Beaufoy originally had “Slumdog Millionaire’s” first third in English.

But the film’s casting director, Loveleen Tandan, told Boyle that Indian children who spoke English were so uniformly well-off that she was unable to find the wir y, undernourished kids whom Boyle had seen running around Mumbai’s slums. So the dialogue for the youngest three children was rewritten into Hindi, and Boyle and Tandan, who also is Boyle’s co-director, went into the slums to find actors.

“It was a difficult moral question,” Boyle said. “Do you exclude kids from the slums? If you exclude them, then it feels morally wrong. But if you include them, it raises another set of moral questions -- how do you care for them after the movie is finished?”

Colson said that he and Boyle considered offering to remove Ali and Ismail and their families from Mumbai’s slums but decided it was better to tr y to “ameliorate the lives they are living,” Colson said, “and put them in schools that work with underprivileged kids” while paying for their most pressing financial needs. When “Slumdog Millionaire” won the audience award at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, the $15,000 prize was put into Ali and Ismail’s trust fund, which will pay for their college if they stay in school.

Now Fox Searchlight wants to bring all nine of the film’s young performers to the Oscars, scheduled for Feb. 22.

“They’re all desperate to come,” Boyle said. “But then you have to worr y about exposing them -- even if it’s just a flash — to this world.”

Sunday Journalism Seminar Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe reporter

Matt Carroll A 22-year veteran whose major work includes the breaking of Boston’s Catholic Church priest-abuse scandal

Carroll will host a roundtable discussion about investigative journalism.

Sunday, February 1 @ 3 p.m.

Free and open to the public.

Upstairs at 195 Angell St., between Brook and Thayer.

SportsWeekend The Brown Daily Herald

When STATA meets Sunday

So there’s a football game being played this Sunday. You’ve probably heard of it. And you’re probably sick of all the media coverage that goes with it — except for the commercials.

The talking heads disBen Singer High Notes cuss intangibles, “smashmouth football” and let’s not forget the importance of establishing the run. But what you might not have heard is that the time-honored cliches and conventional wisdoms of the highest-rated professional sport in America are now being challenged by a new breed of sports analysts.

Enter footballoutsiders.com.

Founded with the objective of disproving the importance of establishing the run, a group of fans and Zeta Delta Xi alums started doing to the NFL what sabermetricians had been doing for years in Major League Baseball: use statistics.

Rather than rely solely on accounts of player toughness and conventional benchmarks of individual performance, they sought to create their own measurements.

Why is the importance of establishing the run overrated? Because correlation and causality frequently get screwed up. Most teams that win comfortably happen to run the ball successfully.

Often, this is because they already have a lead, and they are tr ying to milk the clock. But there’s no point in a team repeatedly running Larr y Johnson into the line for no gain. If you don’t think any head coach wouldn’t understand this, re-watch Herm Edwards “coach” the Chiefs against the Colts in the 2006-2007 playoffs.

Cliches aside, what’s the problem with conventional statistics?

If I were to ask you which running back played better this year, Minnesota’s Adrian Peterson or Houston’s Steve Slaton, it probably wouldn’t be a very difficult choice.

Sure, they both averaged 4.8 yards per carr y, but Peterson had more touchdowns and almost 500 more rushing yards while leading the NFL in rushing and the Vikings to a division title.

Problem is, football isn’t tennis. More specifically, Peterson and Slaton don’t play on one-man teams. In fact, their performance is based largely on how well their teammates and their opposition play. More than any other game, the team dynamics of football are astronomically important. Which is why it seems so odd that individual stats for NFL players don’t even tr y to take these factors into account.

So the Football Outsiders developed stats that do more than shrug their shoulders at how team play af fects individual per formance. continued on page 8

Friday, January 30, 2009 | Page 7

Three teams host busy sports weekend Sports staff reports

It will be a packed weekend for sports on Brown’s campus, as three teams host six events.

Women’s Basketball Continuing a stretch of five straight home games, the Bears (313, 1-1 Ivy) will look to rebound from last Friday’s 71-37 loss to Yale when they take on a pair of Ivy League foes over the weekend. Karly Grace ’11 leads Bruno with 7.7 points per game, with help from Natalie Bonds ’10, averaging 5.0 rebounds per game, and Courtney Lee ’10, who has chipped in with 38 steals. Brown hosts Cornell (5-9, 1-1) and Columbia (8-8, 1-1) on Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. at the Pizzitola Sports Center.

Justin Coleman / Herald

Women’s basketball eyes challenging weekend ahead, hosting Ivy rivals Cornell and Columbia.

Men’s Hockey Coming off a split on the road, beating Colgate but falling to No. 3 Cornell, Bruno (2-13-4, 2-8-2 ECAC

Hockey) will attempt to build on those results against two conference opponents this weekend. Jarred Smith ’12 was named the ECAC Hockey Rookie of the Week for tallying the first two goals of his career against the New York schools, while Mike Clemente ’12 made 32 saves against Colgate to earn the first victory of his career. This weekend, Brown will host Quinnipiac (13-9-2, 6-4-2) on Friday at 7 p.m. and Princeton (14-5-0, 8-40) on Saturday at 4 p.m. at Meehan Auditorium.

Women’s Tennis After beginning its spring season with a 4-3 win over Boston University, Bruno (1-0) will host Army on Saturday at 11 a.m. and Buffalo on Sunday at 10 a.m., both rival teams playing their first matches of the season. The Bears, who are led by No. 1 singles player Bianca Aboubakare ’11, will be playing at home for the first time since the Brown Invitational in October.

Nice on ice: Frosh named Athlete of the Week

by Andrew Braca Spor ts Editor

Jarred Smith ’12 was named the ECAC Hockey rookie of the week after he scored his first two career goals in games last Friday and Saturday. Smith scored what proved to be the game-winning goal in Brown’s (2-13-4, 2-8-3 ECAC) 4-1 defeat of Colgate (6-13-5, 1-8-3) on Friday night. The following night, Smith scored the Bears’ lone goal in

a 5-1 loss to No. 3 Cornell (14-2-3, 9-1-2). Smith’s weekend brought his season totals to two goals and two assists.

For his outstanding play, ATHLETE OF Jarred Smith is this week’s Herald Athlete of the Week.

Herald: When did you begin playing hockey and why?

Smith: I started when I was about three years old, and I start-

ed playing pretty much because my brother played. So I just followed whatever he did.

Herald: Is your brother older?

Smith: THE WEEK Yeah, he’s a junior at Miami of Ohio.

Herald: Does he still play?

Smith: Yeah, he plays for them now.

Herald: Did you begin playing pond hockey or rink hockey?

Smith: There’s really not many ponds in Cleveland or whatever. So it was all, started out rec and then started travelling when I got a little older. But yeah, it was all indoors for the most part.

Herald: Have you ever played pond hockey?

Smith: I’ve played a couple of times. A bunch of kids on that team that are from, you know, like continued on page 8

Page 8

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

S ports W eekend

Friday, January 30, 2009

“Sean (Morey ’99) is the hardest-working guy that I’ve ever seen.”

— James Perry ’00, Brown quarterbacks coach

Morey ’99 heads to Super Bowl with Cardinals Football Outsiders re-evaluate game stats continued from page 1

student of the game, thirsting for greater knowledge and awareness of every facet of the sport, Estes said.

“Sean was one of those guys who, when we’d leave at nights and we’d turn the lights out, would still be in there watching film,” he said. “He wanted to know football, and he didn’t just want to learn his own position. He wanted to learn about everybody’s position on the field.”

Estes was an assistant coach during Morey’s first three seasons at Brown, before taking over for Whipple as head coach in 1998.

After being drafted by the New England Patriots, Morey was given a rude awakening at the pro level.

His 5’11’’ frame — small by NFL receiver standards — made it a struggle for him to find playing time. After multiple unsuccessful stints with NFL teams, and time playing abroad in NFL Europe for the Barcelona Dragons, Morey finally saw consistent NFL action as a special teams player with the Philadelphia Eagles in 2003.

Though it had taken four years, Morey’s eventual success in the NFL came as no surprise to those who know him well.

“In my years as a player and as a coach, Sean is the hardest-working guy that I’ve ever seen,” said Brown quarterbacks coach James Perry ’00, who counted on Morey’s receiving prowess in his years as the Brown quarterback. “Obviously, his talent was a prerequisite for what he’s accomplished, but he’s battled through a lot of adversity, and nobody works harder than Sean.”

After one season with the Eagles, Morey joined the Steelers and a familiar face in Whipple, who was then Pittsburgh’s quarterback coach. In 2005 — just his third season in the league and his second with Pittsburgh — Morey was named a special teams captain,

Herald File Photo

Sean Morey ’99 plays in a Fall 1998 game versus league rival Dartmouth. and he helped lead the Steelers to an 11-5 regular season record and a Super Bowl victory.

“Sean just had that leadership quality that brings out the best in others, too,” said Zachary Burns ’99, a former All-American tight end who played alongside Morey.

“I don’t think anyone who played with Sean is surprised that he’s had the success he’s had.”

Following the 2006 season, Pittsburgh offensive coordinator Ken Whisenhunt took a new job as head coach of the Cardinals, and Morey decided to follow Whisenhunt to Arizona, a team coming off a 5-11 season and without a playoff appearance since 1998. Despite the franchise’s recent struggles, Morey was optimistic, according to Perry.

“Talking to him, I could tell he was very excited when he went to Arizona,” Perry said. “He had great confidence in Whisenhunt, and it was his previous relationship with Whisenhunt that made him go to Arizona.”

“No one would have predicted

that they’d be in the Super Bowl, but Sean ... was quite confident they were going to have success,” he said.

Morey has been an important part of Arizona’s recent success, seeing occasional action at wide receiver in addition to being named a special teams captain for both his years with the Cardinals. This year Morey will travel to Honolulu for his first Pro Bowl appearance, on Feb. 8.

But Morey, who turns 33 next month, continues to set new goals for himself.

“I don’t think Sean has ever been satisfied. He thinks this Pro Bowl thing is an honor, but he still wants to make it as a wideout,” Estes said. “Sean’s always looking over his shoulder, at new guys coming into the league, and he’s not about to let anyone do his job better.”

Morey won’t be the only Brunonian holding down the NFC special teams squad in Honolulu.

New York Giants long snapper Zak DeOssie ’07, a former All-American

linebacker for Brown who won a Super Bowl ring with the Giants in his rookie season last year, will join the experienced alum.

“It’s kind of neat for us, because this is recruiting season now, and we have a lot to brag about,” Perry said. “These are very unique guys, and it speaks well of the whole University.”

Like Morey, DeOssie also made the adjustment to a new role in the NFL, after establishing himself as a defensive standout in his collegiate career.

“That’s not an easy transition, to go from being the star of your team to playing on special teams, but both Sean and Zak are truly team guys,” Perry said. “I think it speaks to a sense of team that Coach Estes has developed here. These are guys who, at Brown, never had a sense of entitlement, and ... when they were asked to play special teams, approached it with the same level of vigor that they had approached everything in football.”

While this may be an unusually successful year for Brown alums in the NFL, there is more to come from Brown football.

The program currently boasts several players who, according to Estes, have received attention from NFL teams, including defensive tackle David Howard ’09, punter Rob Ranney ’08.5, wide receivers Bobby Sewall ’10 and Buddy Farnham ’10, safety Chris Perkins ’10 and defensive end Jim Develin ’10.

If Brown’s NFL prospects want to see the path to success, they need look no further than Morey and DeOssie.

“They’re role models for the guys on our team — both were outstanding students, and both are incredibly hardworking,” Perry said.

“We tell all the guys to play the game the way those guys played it, and to see them reap the rewards of that is a pretty powerful motivational tool,” he added.

ECAC top rookie Smith ’12 talks hockey, iPod playlists continued from page 7 western Canada and up north or whatever, a bunch of them say that they play all the time when they go back home, but, you know, I haven’t been on a pond in probably about 10 years.

Herald: Did you ever play any sports besides hockey?

Smith: I played baseball, football and I wrestled a little bit. But

I was most serious about baseball growing up. I was almost as serious about, you know, playing baseball as I was hockey, but I made the choice when I was like a freshman to quit baseball.

Herald: What is your past hockey experience?

Smith: I started just like local, in Cleveland. And then I started playing for a travel team when I was about 10. And then I played on a couple of travel teams, and then once I got to high school, I played for my school, Gilmour Academy.

And then I played for their prep team or whatever, did two years with them. And then came up here actually to play junior hockey, played at Bridgewater. It’s like 30 minutes away from here, and I played two seasons for them, and then here now.

Herald: What persuaded you to come to Brown?

Smith: Just the best combina-

tion for me for school and hockey.

And then, once I met all of the guys on the team, it was pretty easy decision to make because I just love all of the guys here.

Herald: What is playing on your iPod before games?

Smith: I like to listen to songs that like get me going, like songs you hear like in a club — like dancing songs. I’ll listen to like Lil Wayne “Microphone Check” and Rihanna — all that kind of stuff. If you heard my iPod, you would laugh. I love it.

Herald: What allowed you to break out this weekend with your first two goals?

Smith: Our team is playing well as a team, I think. I think that’s what really helped me this weekend or whatever it is that as a team, we played a lot better. And so when your team plays better, it’s easy, you know, personally, to be better.

Herald: What does the team have to do to keep up the good play?

Smith: Our biggest thing is our consistency, and like consistency in terms of, not necessarily our effort. But, you know, we’ve got to make sure that we come to play ever y day. We can’t afford at this point, you know, to take a game off, to take a period off even. Just, you know, keep our intensity high. And, you know, if we do that, we’ll have a chance to win ever y night.

Herald: What are your predictions for the last (10) regular season games?

Smith: I feel that if we keep making the right steps, we definitely can climb up the charts of the ECAC, and, you know, hopefully get that goal of home-ice advantage for the playoffs. I really think it’s possible, and I’m excited for it.

continued from page 7 Two of these are Defense-adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA) and Defense-adjusted Yards Above Replacement player (DYAR). “DVOA breaks down ever y single play of the NFL season to see how much success offensive players achieved in each specific situation compared to the league average in that situation, adjusted for the strength of the opponent,” the site reads.

DYAR estimates the amount of yards a player gained given his DVOA over an average player in his position.

Wouldn’t you know it? Peterson had a DVOA of -.2 percent, while Slaton had 5.8 percent and over 100 more DYAR. Or for those of you who prefer English, it turns out that having a monster offensive line like the Vikings and playing the Lions twice a year makes your running backs look better.

Obviously there’s no per fect way to control for all the other players on the field, and certainly Peterson still deser ves credit for a great season. That doesn’t mean these new stats aren’t legit. Long gone are the days where scouting reports and gut feelings were all you needed to be an MLB general manager. They’ve been replaced

by Billy Beane, Theo Epstein and a cohort of statisticians to supplement conventional analysis. Slowly, the same trend is starting to take over the NFL. Football Outsiders is becoming a popular stats source, notably cited on ESPN news blogs.

And newly hired Detroit Lions head coach Jim Schwartz, a former Patriots intern and Tennessee Titans defensive coordinator, got his start with the statistical finding that fumbles are random and unrelated to team performance.

So what do these new stats say about Sunday’s game? Well, Pittsburgh’s weighted DVOA was first in the NFL at 30.8 percent, while Arizona was good for 21st at -7.9 percent. And as of last weekend, the Cardinals had a 13 percent chance of winning it all. Ever ybody already knew the Cards were underdogs.

But what’s probable doesn’t always happen. Just ask last year’s New York Giants. The Cardinals are still playing, even though they probably should have been slaughtered long ago. The fact that they’re still alive attests to one everlasting and often overlooked statistical truth — regardless of how small the probability, nothing is impossible as long as there’s a chance.

Ben Singer ’09 cannot overstate the importance of establishing the chicken wings.

Commentary & Letters The Brown Daily Herald

Page 10 | Friday, January 30, 2009

letter

The Herald should regain its sense of humor To the Editor: I’m writing this letter to speak out against The Herald’s decision to stop taking humorous cheap shots at opinions columnists at the end of their columns. For those who don’t remember all the way back to last semester, The Herald used to cap off columns with witty comments like “Sarah Rosenthal ’11 has neither the education nor experience to opine on this subject” (“The great pundit menace,” Apr. 15) or “James Shapiro ’10 wants employers to understand the difference between Engineering and ENGN 0090” (“Shallow marks,” Feb. 1). Instead, readers are now provided with bland information about the columnist’s concentration and e-mail address. Boring!

The funny quips made me and plenty of other students chuckle, and reminded all of us that the Herald opinions page is, well, just part of a college newspaper, and a space for writers to spark controversy, go out on a limb and most importantly not take themselves too seriously. I respectfully request you bring back my favorite part of The Herald!

Matthew Corritore ’09 Jan. 29

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(Comic) Strip Tease Michael Fitzpatrick Opinions Columnist When it comes to the newspaper, I’m not a particularly difficult person to please. I love crossword puzzles, editorials, columns and comics. But since the start of the new semester, I have noticed a large decline in the number of comics.

I’m slightly disappointed. Why do we only get to read three comics per day? Surely, with all of the raw artistic talent that a prestigious institution like Brown University attracts each year, there must be some aspiring comedians and artists willing to fill a page with humorous sketches.

Part of my message is to draw the attention of the lovers of comics among us. There once was a time when half of Page Two could be devoted to comics — comics that brought us joy, laughter and a fresh viewpoint from someone with real talent. I was disheartened when I discovered that “Fizzle Pop,” a personal favorite, was on hiatus for the semester. I have also noticed the absence of “Brown meets RISD” and “Vagina Dentata.”

I am genuinely glad to still be reading “Alien Weather Forecast” and solving the puzzles in “Enigma Twist.”

But with these comics already firmly rooted in our hearts, what will fill the vacancies left by those that have not returned this semester?

The other part of my message is intended for those comic artists in the Brown community, both seasoned cartoonists and aspiring doodlers. Veteran Herald comic writers, I’m not demanding to be entertained.

I simply want you to know that whatever time and

PETE FALLON

effort you put into your art was well spent, and it was certainly appreciated. To better understand your positions, I attempted to draw my first four-panel comic strip. After laboring for an hour or two and fiddling with photo editing software for another half hour, I was able to piece together something resembling a comic strip. I was utterly fatigued, and I didn’t even bother printing it out. You people do this on a regular basis? It’s a real challenge, and I have nothing but respect for you.

Aspiring doodlers, I challenge you to put your skills to the test. I’ve noticed lately that some of you already have. The rest of you — and I know that you’re out there — should see if The Herald would be willing to feature your work. I’m told that e-mailing The Herald and submitting sample strips will get their attention.

You have nothing to lose, and a lot to gain.

The Herald needs comics. They give its readers laughter (the best medicine, some might say). They speak for the masses. They make us think about the world around us, bringing our attention to different ways of viewing it. Comics embody the very essence of the qualities we love in Brown: the happiness of our students, the diversity of our thoughts, the openness of mind we all share.

Give me comics, or give me death. On second thought, just give me comics.

Michael Fitzpatrick ’12 is a psychology concentrator from San Antonio, Texas. He can be reached at Michael_Fitzpatrick@brown.edu.

corrections An article about a new online course-shopping tool (“Student, dean introduce shopping by keyword,” Jan. 26) quoted an e-mail in which Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron asserted that the student-created tool Mocha did not allow users to search using a keyword. In fact, Mocha does include a keyword-based full text search of course listings.

An article in Thursday’s Herald (“Magazine features student trips,” Jan. 29) reported that Glimpse magazine is still part of the National Geographic. In fact, the magazine is an independent nonprofit supported by the National Geographic Society. The article also stated that Glimpse has both print and online editions. The magazine only exists online.

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 editorial is the majority opinion of the editorial page 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.

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Opinions The Brown Daily Herald

Friday, January 30, 2009 | Page 11

Food fight

Marcus Gartner Opinions Columnist Imagine yourself as a Brown student returning to your Pembroke dorm after a five-hour study session in the SciLi. You were either studying intensely for your chemistry midterm or were distracted every five minutes by playful incoming text messages and only managed to read a page-and-a-half of your text book. The page-and-a-half that you read turned out to be the table of contents.

It is late in the night. As you walk up Thayer Street, icy wind hits your neck and you slide the hood of your coat over your head.

Your stomach suddenly growls, reminding you that you haven’t had a bite to eat since scarfing down a plate of baked macaroni and cheese and a bowl of Cocoa Puffs around 6:30 in the Ratty.

Your stomach demands hearty and nutritious refueling: pizza.

Your eyes scan ahead, attempting to locate the nearest pizzeria. They quickly move back and forth across the street until they zoom in on Antonio’s Pizza.

You make a beeline for the door. Your mouth salivates profusely as you close the distance between you and a few delicious slices of potato bacon. Your hand reaches out

to swing the door open, but you stop abruptly when something catches your eye.

Across the street you see a sign offering “Body Piercing.” A certain curiosity builds inside you, but you are quickly reminded of your immediate priority of food after another growl of your stomach.

But wait! Your tunnel vision directed at the sign has dissipated, revealing an alternative to Antonio’s: Nice Slice.

You now have two options for satisfying your hunger, but your stomach grows more impatient by the second, and time is running out. Which pizza place do you choose?

larly grueling.

Antonio’s will appeal to those looking for a pizza with a heavy dosage of toppings.

Their pizza comes topped with everything from spicy chicken to tortellini. The thick and sturdy crust is a nice change of pace for those who have dropped a meal credit or two at the Gate for pizza with no more rigidity than a single sheet of college-ruled binder paper.

Because their pizza is thickly loaded with toppings, most people will be able to fill up easily on two or three slices, making it the perfect place for a quick late-night pit stop.

The war between Antonio’s and Nice Slice is affecting thousands of Brown students.

This scenario is not an uncommon one.

The war between Antonio’s and Nice Slice is affecting thousands of Brown students.

Sure, there are many other places to get pizza around campus, such as Via Via IV, Pizza Pieer or even the Gate, but the central location of Antonio’s and Nice Slice on Thayer and their close proximity to one another makes choosing one pizzeria over the other particu-

Nice Slice takes a somewhat different approach to pizza. They sacrifice crust strength for savory taste. The pizza seems to melts in your mouth and the flavors dance upon your tongue. The unique combinations of toppings have been masterfully designed to please every taste bud you possess.

However, this comes at a price — the flimsy crust will leave those with big empty

stomachs less satisfied than they might be at Antonio’s.

The hipness of Nice Slice also appeals to its customers. What could be more appealing than being served pizza by a man with full-body tattoos and enough jewelry stapled through his face to set off an airport metal detector?

People dining at Antonio’s will be unlikely to bump into other customers due to a relatively larger restaurant space, though that space is shared with the mysterious Gordito Burrito.

Nice Slice offers a more intimate (and poorly lit) atmosphere. Both provide ample seating for people-watching along Thayer.

The choice for me usually ends up being Antonio’s. This could be because deep down I can’t convince myself that bigger isn’t always better, and I am drawn to the mountain of toppings piled high on an Antonio’s slice.

Or I might choose Antonio’s more often because I am already on the west side of the street and too lazy to make the treacherous crossing, which often begs the question: “If I am too lazy to walk an extra 20 steps, should pizza really be a regular part of my diet?”

Marcus Gartner ’12 is a computer science concentrator from San Jose, California. He can be reached at marcus_gartner@brown.edu.

The problem isn’t protest Simon Liebling Opinions Columnist Imagine for a moment that Ruth Simmons, arriving at Brown after a career as a warmongering United States Senator, has just suffered a near-unanimous vote of no confidence from a faculty assembly.

Described by one of her former administrative colleagues as “impulsive” and “autocratic,” she’s just taken another blow with the resignation of David Kertzer ’69 P’95 P’98, the fourth provost to leave the university during her brief tenure. She declares her intent to serve in his place despite repeated protests from the faculty that she is utterly unqualified to direct the academic affairs of the university.

Some professors go public, telling the media that she has already irrevocably undermined academic life. But despite the groundswell of opinion calling for her ouster, President Simmons stays put, refusing to resign and instead proceeding with plans to bulldoze Faunce House. The Rock and SciLi have already been shuttered.

Now imagine that you hear from a friend that some organizations on campus, sick of being rebuffed by President Simmons and the Corporation that backs her, are planning to occupy Faunce in protest of their authoritarian tendency. You know Brown will be a better place the day she quits, and you can’t believe that she’s talking about new buildings while you’re scraping together your tuition.

But on the other hand, it’s exam week.

You’re headed home for break in a few days anyway. And besides, it’s not like some ’60sstyle occupation is going to do anything anyway, right? So the question is: Do you join

the protest?

Of course, in reality, Ruth can sleep easy; the most Brown students can actually accuse her of is being construction-happy while the Corporation jacks up tuition year after year.

But while Brown students and faculty dispersed for winter, with a few freshmen stragglers still waiting for their ECON 0110: “Principles of Economics” exam, the students of the New School in Manhattan crammed into their student center on Fifth Avenue, left with no other option while President Bob Kerrey, guilty of all the offenses named

get food.

They considered staying put well into the break if they needed to, and their persistence paid off. President Kerrey ceded to their final demands, granting students voting power on the Board of Trustees and on administrative hiring decisions, ensuring the preservation of student spaces at the school and promising amnesty for the students arrested during the occupation.

One imagines as well that given his untenable position, his days at the New School are numbered.

But judging by the widespread response

SDS acts the way it does because when students discard their apathy long enough to act, protest works, as it always has. above, stubbornly refused to resign.

Faced with the threatened loss of their student spaces — their library already closed with no plan to replace it — the students began their occupation a few days after the faculty no-confidence vote, the same day the student government issued a no-confidence vote of its own. They packed the building by the dozen, with countless more outside on the other side of the police blockade.

The occupation drew coverage from the New York Times while students inside posted their own updates online, documenting negotiations that carried on through the night into a second day. The protesters inside faced scuffles with police and some arrests and were not permitted to re-enter the occupied room if they left it to use the bathroom or

to similar instances of activism at Brown during the fall semester, these student victories would catch a lot of people here by surprise.

If only I could count the number of times that Brown Students for a Democratic Society was accused, even by the editorial board of The Herald, of being obsessed with spectacle, of clinging to a romantic infatuation with outmoded means of protest, of trying to get arrested for attention. After occupying a Rhode Island Public Transit Authority board meeting, organizing a die-in in protest of a militarized career fair and opening a closed Corporation meeting, SDS was consistently met with pathetic and jaded skepticism.

In the face of this apparent reluctance towards protest, the students of the New

School — many of whom were SDS members themselves — provide an example that SDS’s critics must heed.

SDS does not act the way it does to recreate the ’60s, much less to get arrested for the sake of media coverage and “activist cred.” It does so because when students discard their apathy long enough to act, these ways work, as they always have.

As hardcore or anti-intellectual as an occupation may seem, when “official channels” and “rational discourse” and “dialogues” and “bureaucratic recourse” fail, a cause becomes a choice between giving up or using timetested protest techniques. The New School is a better place because its students chose the latter.

In February, the Brown Corporation will be on campus again, this time to set tuition for the upcoming year. Given the Corporation’s recent history and trends across the country, another tuition increase would surprise no one. But at this point, with the economic nosedive, a tuition hike would be so out of touch it would be comical if it weren’t so tragic.

If the Corporation proves willing to trample on student interests once again, may we heed the example of the New School so that when the call to protest comes, we understand that it is not a vain attempt at a romantic vision, but instead a powerful and effective assertion of our collective influence. Influence that, unlike the governing administration at this school, works — for us.

Simon Liebling ’12 is from New Jersey and is a member of SDS. He can be reached at simon.liebling@gmail.com.

Today The Brown Daily Herald

superbowl preview

5

PW production tackles space-time

Games to watch this weekend

7

to day

to m o r r o w

36 / 17

30 / 15

Friday, January 30, 2009

Page 12

d i a m o n d s a n d c oa l Coal to this week’s financial and meteorological storms, both of which left us feeling kind of impotent. Is it just winter, or is our endowment really that small?

On that note, coal to President Ruth Simmons for jetting off to Switzerland immediately after $800 million went missing. You only get the money back that way in heist movies.

A cubic zirconium to Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron for introducing CourseMap, a new tool for class shoppers, just in time for shopping period to end. At least those plans to de-ice our dangerous campus sidewalks by March are still on schedule.

8

Coal to the Brown sophomore and “singer-songwriter” who describes her customary touring circuit as a “tight network” of coffeehouses up and down the East Coast. By that, we assume you mean the Blue State by New Pembroke down Thayer Street to the Blue State in the Bookstore?

A cubic zirconium to President Barack Obama, who hired three Brown alums to work in his office of legal counsel. You’ve made a wise choice — just make sure to ladder-proof the Oval Office.

c a l e n da r january 30, 2009

But you can have a diamond for considering Steven Rattner ’74 P’09 for the position of car czar.

If you ever need a proofing prince, editing earl or Photoshop pharaoh, you know where we are.

january 31, 2009

4:30 PM — Christian Lander, “Stuff White People Like: “The Definitive Guide to the Unique Taste of Millions,” Wilson 102 7 pm — M. ice hockey v. Quinnipiac, Meehan Auditorium

8 PM — Piano Recital, Boris Berman, Grant Recital Hall 9 PM — Mathematical Adventures, PW Upstairs, TF Green Hall

menu Sharpe Refectory

Verney-Woolley Dining Hall

Lunch — Chicken Fingers with Dipping Sauces, Swiss Corn Bake, Raspberry Chocolate Squares

Lunch — Chicken Fingers, Vegan Nuggets, Sticky Rice, Butter Cookies

Dinner — Seafood Pot Pie, Crispy Thai Tofu, Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Frosting

Dinner — Seafood Jambalaya, Grilled Chicken, Macaroni and Cheese, Chocolate Cake

RELEASE DATE– Friday, January 30, 2009

r o sDaily s w oCrossword rd Los Angeles c Times Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis ACROSS 1 “them” author 6 Bungles 11 “Gross!”

14 Stretch with no hits 15 Half a “Star Wars” name 16 Novelist Levin 17 Suits?

19 Release from the team 20 LPGA leading money winner before Lorena 21 Mumbai title 22 Make blasé 23 Bum 25 Like many cold drafts 27 Skiers may negotiate them 29 Mild 32 Actress Mendes et al.

35 __ d’amour: baroque instrument 37 Bring up again, as a grievance 38 German article 39 Hint 41 They, in Marseille 42 Contraption 44 Suit source 45 Agitated state 46 Saliva component 48 Popular tourist spot 50 Subs aren’t on it 52 Said grace, say 56 Erode, with “away” 58 Center X, in a game 60 Win over 61 Gran Paradiso, e.g.

62 Add up one’s losses?

64 Portuguese king 65 __ bee 66 Like highways 67 Jennyanydots’s creator, initially 68 Wear out?

69 Dummy Mortimer

DOWN 1 Madison who said “You don’t have to cook. I have enough potato chips to last me a year” 2 Unassisted 3 __ profit 4 Ruling periods 5 Rim supports 6 Govt. cosmetics regulator 7 Rents 8 “In __”: #1 Nirvana album 9 Ring activity 10 Red team?

11 What you won’t hear from a mutineer?

12 Gunk 13 Beckinsale of “The Aviator” 18 King’s __ 22 Plain type?

24 Kind of card 26 Sea swallow 28 Fire and brimstone target 30 Taylor of “Six Feet Under” 31 Once, once

32 Advantage 33 Hubristic 34 Simple?

36 Marsh hunter 39 Roughly 40 Formed by erosion 43 Fiction 45 Nightly visitor of folklore 47 Really enjoys 49 Ear features 51 San __, Calif.

53 “The Family Circus” cartoonist 54 Anxious 55 “Judge __”: Stallone film 56 Electrocautery target 57 Basses, maybe 59 1987 Best Actress Oscar winner 62 Geometric figs.

63 Tolkien’s Treebeard, e.g.

Coal to the reactionary Facebook group “Morning Mail Should Consider Events <300 people.”

What are “Events ice-cream-cone-with-two-scoops people,” exactly?

A diamond to the humble science professors who variously dismissed a prestigious national honor as “a big surprise” and “a mistake,” and referred to themselves as “old,” “homeless” and “one-trick pony.” If modesty were research funding, you’d practically think you were at Harvard.

Coal to Dean of Admissions Jim Miller ’73, who dismissed a new college ranking list by saying, “I’m not saying anyone manipulated it, but it can be easily manipulated.” And we’re not saying you manipulated it, but it could be easily manipulated by you.

Coal to the judge whose zoning ruling led Chipotle to scrap plans for a Thayer Street location.

Maybe a ladle of Ratty nacho cheese will change your mind?

Cheers, and a diamond to the city for granting Roba!Dolce a limited liquor license. Though to be honest, liquor probably had something to do with how that weird exclamation point got in there.

A diamond to the Brown-MIT team whose work aims to “redefine the moon.” You work on the moon part, MIT — we’ll problematize the hermeneutics of ‘lunar-as-other’ normativity.

Coal to the students who plan to start a micro-bank in Providence. What is this, a bank for ants?!

comics Enigma Twist | Dustin Foley

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Alien Weather Forecast | Stephen Lichenstein and Adam Wagner

xwordeditor@aol.com

01/30/09

Cabernet Voltaire | Abe Pressman

By Daniel A. Finan (c)2009 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

01/30/09