Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Daily Herald the Brown

vol. cxliv, no. 52 | Wednesday, April 15, 2009 | Serving the community daily since 1891

Corporation will consider ‘young alum’ positions Health is a

By Brigitta Greene Senior Staf f Writer

The Corporation will set aside space in its membership for young alums for the first time later this year, Chancellor Thomas Tisch ’76 told the Brown University Community Council Tuesday.

The University’s highest governing body will consider — and, Tisch said, likely approve — a proposal to create “a new class of young alumni trustees” at its May

meeting, he said. It will also vote on unsealing its official minutes sooner than under the current policy, he said.

Only alums less than seven years removed from their studies will be eligible for a young alum position, Tisch said. Though the proposal does not specify the number of young trustees, Tisch said, he estimated that two or three of the Corporation’s 54 members would be recent alums at any given time.

A second proposal, which recommends that Corporation records be released 25 years after their creation instead of 50, will also be presented in May, Tisch said. If passed, the 25-year lag would be comparable to the shortest such waiting period obser ved by Brown’s peer institutions, Tisch said.

The more expedient release of minutes follows the creation of a new Corporation Web site in Februar y, and adds to recent ef-

forts to improve communication by the Corporation, said Russell Carey ’91 MA’06, senior vice president for Corporation affairs and governance.

Tisch said the Corporation began discussing young alum membership following a lunch with Undergraduate Council of Students leadership last year.

UCS President Brian Becker ’09 called Tisch’s announcement

the clause that required students to enroll in them.

For the next 20 years, the University struggled to find the resources to offer these courses, which were intended to revitalize introductorylevel learning.

“There were never enough Modes of Thought courses,” said Sheila continued on page 2

continued on page 3

continued on page 3

By Sophia Li Features Editor

With little ceremony, the faculty last month took the final step in laying to rest what was once a major component of the New Curriculum.

The New Curriculum at Forty: Part two of four in a series

signed to underscore ways of thinking about a certain topic, instead of about a topic’s foundational body of knowledge. They were graded exclusively on a Satisfactory/No Credit basis, and the New Curriculum’s creators intended that first-years and sophomores to take five to seven of them ­— a requirement Professor of Computer Science David Laidlaw ’83 said now might seem “antithetical” to

the spirit of Brown’s curriculum.

“One of the selling points of the New Curriculum today,” Laidlaw said, “is the lack of formal requirements.”

From the start, the faculty hesitated to endorse Modes of Thought courses in the form the curriculum’s framers envisioned. Though the courses were approved on May 7, 1969, the faculty decided to leave out

Layoffs of 31 U. employees made official

By Nicole Friedman and Brigitta Greene Senior Staff Writers

inside

All 31 University employees who were scheduled to be laid off by June 30 have now been informed of their termination, according to an e-mail sent by top administrators to faculty and staff Tuesday morning.

An undetermined number will receive other jobs within the University, Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration Beppie Huidekoper told The Herald Tuesday.

The layoffs finalize the immediate budget cuts planned for the fiscal year beginning July 1, the e-mail said. In order to cut $30 million in projected spending from the general budget and $10 million from the Division of Biology and Medicine’s budget for next

News.....1-5 Higher Ed...6 Spor ts...7-8 Editorial..10 Opinion...11 Today........12

www.browndailyherald.com

year, the University also eliminated 36 vacant positions and froze most salary increases and staff hiring.

No jobs in academic departments were eliminated, she said, though the number of positions cut in Facilities Management was relatively high because the University is reducing its planned construction projects.

Eight people were laid off in the approximately 30-person Planning, Design and Construction Office of Facilities Management, according to Karen McAninch, the business agent for United Service and Allied Workers of Rhode Island, the union that represents facilities and library employees.

Four vacant custodial positions will not be refilled, and the contracts of temporary library employees will not be extended, McAninch added.

No union members were laid off, according to McAninch. Brown has union contracts with some workers in Dining Services, the Department of Public Safety, the libraries and Facilities Management.

Two of the planning office employees let go were project managers, according to another project manager, who asked to remain anonymous.

Huidekoper did not provide specific numbers on where cuts occurred throughout the University. The jobs cut were “pretty equally dispersed across campus,” she said.

Severance packages, which normally include the equivalent of two weeks’ pay for each year an employee has worked at Brown, were “effectively doubled” for those being laid continued on page 5

By Sophia Li Features Editor

Physician and public health leader Jim Yong Kim ’82 discussed global health’s future — and his own as the recently elected president of Dartmouth — in Andrews Dining Hall Tuesday afternoon, stressing the importance of broad-based health solutions over tackling diseases one-by-one.

Students and faculty filled the room for Kim’s first public lecture since his appointment last month as the first Asian American to lead an Ivy League school.

Kim said he graduated from Brown believing in the power of individuals to change the world.

“There’s no question that Brown University made me think that anything was possible,” Kim said. “I hope to provide the undergraduates of Dartmouth College with the same inspiration I found here.”

His lecture, “Global Health and Human Rights: A Time for Change,” focused on health care and its delivery in developing countries.

“It’s so important that we took on HIV, TB and malaria,” said Kim, one of the world’s experts on tuberculosis and former director of the World Health Organization’s HIV/AIDS initiative.

But Kim emphasized the importance of improving health care systems instead of focusing on a single disease or condition.

“It’s my personal belief that every human being on the face of the earth deserves access to health care,” Kim

‘Modes’ courses re-thought how we learn, but didn’t last

In an uncontroversial resolution, Modes of Thought courses, which have been virtually absent from Brown’s curriculum for two decades, were formally removed from the faculty’s rules. The decision to delete the section was a “bookkeeping issue,” Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron said.

Though few students today are familiar with Modes of Thought courses — deleted by the same governing body that originally enacted the New Curriculum — the story of their creation sheds light on the spirit of experimentation that gave rise to the New Curriculum’s adoption.

Modes of Thought courses were created as introductory seminars de-

global right, says Kim ’82

f u ll - co u rt press

Eunice Hong / Herald

Bill Russell spoke on a panel Tuesday about the influence of the media in today’s sports wold. See Article and Q&A, page 4

News, 3

Sports, 7

Opinions, 11

GOING GLOBAL Former Chilean President Ricardo Lagos Escobar talks int’l economics

SOFTBALL FALLS After starting with one win against Dartmouth, things went south in N.H.

REFLECTIONS Jeremy Feigenbaum ’11 appreciates the true meaning of Passover

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

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Page 2

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

C ampus N EWS

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

“Shapes of snail shells and sheep horns, structure of skulls and cells, will be typical topics in this investigation,”— Course description for a Modes of Thought class

‘Modes’ courses didn’t last forever continued from page 1

Blumstein, a professor of cognitive and linguistic sciences and former dean of the College. Her 1990 review of the New Curriculum declared that the Modes of Thought concept had failed in its “primary mission” to be Brown’s new approach to general education.

Still, the program remained on the books — until March 3 of this year.

Bergeron said she noticed its inclusion in the faculty rules and regulations and brought the out-of-date section to the attention of Professor of Philosophy James Dreier, chair of the Faculty Executive Committee.

Dreier and Bergeron moved that the section be deleted. The faculty passed the motion with little debate — an uneventful end to the most significant component of the New Curriculum that never fully took root.

Rethinking general education The Modes of Thought courses, like the rest of the New Curriculum, grew out of students’ dissatisfaction with the educational model the University offered them.

“Undergraduate education at Brown, and in general in the country, was not serving students well enough,” said Ira Magaziner ’69 P’06 P’07 P’10, who, along with Elliot Maxwell ’68, led the Group Independent Study Project that would transform Brown’s undergraduate curriculum.

The proposed Modes of Thought courses were intended to address two particular inadequacies in Brown’s curriculum that students perceived: the idea of general education requirements and the poor quality of introductory courses.

At the time, Brown students had to take 14 courses to fulfill their distri-

bution requirements. But Magaziner and Maxwell rejected that traditional model, instead developing an undergraduate experience that reflected individual students’ interests and backgrounds.

They planned to transform the first-year experience by revamping Brown’s existing introductory course offerings, putting Modes of Thought at the forefront of their proposal.

Before 1969, the responsibility of teaching entry-level courses generally fell to junior faculty members, Maxwell said.

The students in such courses were often uninterested in the subject because they were taking them to fulfill distributional requirements, said Edward Ahearn, a professor of comparative literature who has taught at Brown since 1963.

The Modes of Thought courses were the New Curriculum’s answer to the weaknesses of Brown’s introductory classes, Maxwell said.

Unlike a traditional survey course in history, for example, a Modes of Thought course would teach students “how to learn historically, how to analyze problems historically,” Magaziner said.

The small size of the courses, which were limited to 20 students, gave students the opportunity to work closely with a faculty member, according to Maxwell. The courses were to emphasize “ways of looking at the world, ways of organizing knowledge,” he said.

“What was important was that people had an opportunity to understand what it meant to be a sociologist, a biologist, a physicist,” he added.

The program was based on the premise that professors would propose courses on topics and ideas to explore with first-years and sophomores from

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any discipline, said Professor of Mathematics Thomas Banchoff P’91.

“Teachers teach best when they’re teaching about things they’re interested in,” Maxwell said.

“I think the spirit of the (Modes of Thought) courses reflected an attitude of openness during the 1970s,” said Professor of Art Richard Fishman, who joined Brown’s faculty in 1965, “and all the principles of the New Curriculum — risk-taking, crossing boundaries.”

The ‘principle of student choice’ In April 1969, the Special Committee on Educational Principles synthesized the GISP’s recommendations and developed the Modes of Thought courses as a viable solution to the college’s shortcomings. The committee, chaired by then-Assistant Provost and Professor of Engineering Paul Maeder, proposed the Modes of Thought courses as a requirement for students.

Under the committee’s recommendations, students would be expected to take five to seven Modes of Thought courses during their first two years.

They would then be expected to take at least one course from each of the four areas of study: Humanities, Social Studies, Natural Sciences and Formal Thought.

“We did require them because we felt that was the only way to ensure that they happened,” Magaziner said.

But when the faculty met in the spring of 1969, professors pointed out, according to Magaziner, that implementing a Modes of Thought requirement contradicted the “principle of student choice” that was at the heart of the New Curriculum.

Though the committee’s report had laid out provisions for phasing in the Modes of Thought courses, the faculty still objected to the overhaul of Brown’s course offerings that would have been necessary to implement the courses as requirements.

“If you require five to seven Modes of Thought courses, we’d have to have a couple of hundred Modes of Thought courses,” Banchoff said.

On May 7, 1969, the faculty voted.

It adopted the Modes of Thought courses — as optional, both for professors to teach and for students to take.

“Not every faculty member was interested in teaching Modes of Thought courses,” Banchoff said. But “there were some of us who thought it was a great idea,” he added.

A novel idea The first year Modes of Thought courses were offered, first-years lined up two hours before registration opened and had to wait in line for over three hours to sign up for the courses, The Herald reported in September 1969. At the program’s peak, in 1971-1972, more than 1,000 students were enrolled in a total of 71 Modes of Thought courses.

But over the years, the number of the courses offered dwindled — until there were only four courses offered in 1988-89, according to Blumstein’s 1990 review of the Brown curriculum.

“I remember them being sort of touted, at the beginning especially,

Julien Ouellet / Herald

as cool, different, ‘Brown’ things to do,” said Laidlaw, who took Banchoff’s course on the fourth dimension his junior year.

Banchoff also collaborated with faculty from other departments to create other interdisciplinary course offerings.

In the second year of the program’s existence, Banchoff taught “Growth and Form in Mathematics, Biology and Art,” with Fishman and Peter Stewart, who taught biology.

“Shapes of snail shells and sheep horns, structure of skulls and cells, will be typical topics in this investigation,” the professors wrote in their course proposal.

The course was proposed as an “experimental” Modes of Thought course that would take advantage of first-year residential units. “We taught in a dormitory in Littlefield Hall. We met in the lounge there,” Banchoff said.

Professors ran the courses on top of their regular teaching duties, Banchoff said. But it was stipulated that a Modes of Thought course be offered “only as long as a professor is willing to teach it,” according to the section recently deleted from the faculty rules and regulations.

Eventually, enthusiasm for the courses waned.

“There was a certain novelty factor,” Banchoff said. “A number of people tried (teaching) them once or twice and found that was enough rather than continuing it.”

Magaziner called the decision not to institute Modes of Thought courses as a requirement “unfortunate.”

“It did not bring the full result that we had hoped for,” he said.

Liberal learning today As the program declined, the University sought other ways to fulfill its original objectives, even incorporating some Modes of Thought courses into the standard curricular offerings.

Several introductory-level courses in the Department of Comparative Literature originated as Modes of Thought courses, Ahearn said.

In the past 40 years, Banchoff said, he has taught his course on the fourth dimension about 20 times. This semester, he is offering it as a first-year seminar, MATH 0010B: “Exploring the Fourth Dimension.”

The first-year seminar program was founded in 2002 to help first-year students develop close relationships

with faculty members.

“What we have in the first-year seminar program is a … curricular offering that carries on the spirit of the Modes of Thought courses,” Bergeron said, adding that first-year seminars, too, emphasize knowledge outside of a “strict disciplinary frame.”

While students are not required to take first-year seminars, enrollment reached an all-time high this year, according to University Registrar Michael Pesta. Over 1,100 students signed up for 74 first-year seminars, nearly mirroring the success of the Modes of Thought program at its peak.

Unlike the Modes of Thought courses, though, first-year seminars are part of a faculty member’s regular teaching load, Bergeron said.

First-year seminars are not the only curricular program the University adopted to fill the gap left by the Modes of Thought program. In the mid-1970s, several programs were created to foster interdisciplinary learning: Special Themes and Topics, Modes of Analysis and Foundations courses, according to Blumstein’s report.

But the boundaries that distinguished these course categories from one another were unclear, according to the report, and by 1993, these special designations had disappeared.

University Courses, originally established as the upper-level counterpart to Modes of Thought courses, still exist in Brown’s curricular offerings, though few courses still bear that label.

Liberal Learning courses, an offshoot of the University Courses program, also “focus on thinking” instead of “absorbing content,” Bergeron said, and emphasize an interdisciplinary approach.

The idea of “liberal learning promotes the making of connections across the curriculum,” she said.

“Maybe you’ll learn something in a music course and say, ‘That’s completely applicable to this CogSci course.’”

Despite differences in format and program structure, Blumstein said, Brown’s curriculum maintains the interdisciplinary emphasis and problem-based approach to learning that defined the Modes of Thought courses.

“As long as the curriculum is rich and varied — and gives students different ways of learning, different styles of teaching — that’s what I would hope we provide for students,” she said.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

C ampus N EWS

“Brown is here for the students” — Mike da Cruz ’09, Students for a Democratic Society member

BUCC meeting details tight budget

By Brigitta Greene Senior Staff Writer

Providing a glimpse at preliminary planning for the University’s fiscal year 2011 budget, Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration Beppie Huidekoper emphasized to the Brown University Community Council Tuesday that budget cuts will loom large for planners well into next year.

Earlier in the meeting, the BUCC’s last of the year, Chancellor Thomas Tisch ’76 told the council that the Corporation will likely include young alums in its membership next year (see story, page 1).

The University cut about $35 million from projected budgets this year, leaving an additional $60 million to be cut by June 2014 in order to meet goals set by the Corporation at its meeting in February.

The University is looking to eliminate an additional $30 million from the projected budget for the fiscal year beginning in July 2010, Huidekoper said.

Tightened budgets are a function of both endowment losses and the “flattening of the net tuition line” — the amount the University takes in from tuition less financial aid — Tisch told The Herald after Huidekoper’s presentation. This flattening is not just a result of the economic downturn, he said, but a result of the recent increases in undergraduate financial aid offerings, which he called a “paradigm switch.”

Though some expenses — such as utilities costs and contract-mandated salary increases — are relatively immutable, Huidekoper said the University needs to be “more aggressive” in managing other areas of the budget.

Revised projections place yearly general revenue growth at about 2 percent per year, resulting in a total revenue increase of only $50 million over the next five years. “Financial aid alone could eat up most of that,” Huidekoper said.

The six-member Organizational Review Committee will expand to encompass a larger body of faculty, students and staff, and will work throughout the summer and fall to analyze areas in which the University can cut back, she said. The committee, which Huidekoper said was formed before the depth of the economic downturn became fully clear, is responsible for identifying areas where the University can cut costs.

“We will look for … opportunities for consolidation,” Huidekoper said.

A total of 67 staff positions were eliminated this year, saving the University a total of $6 million, according to an e-mail sent to University faculty and staff Tuesday morning by Huidekoper and Provost David Kertzer ’69 P’95 P’98.

“A lot of sacrifice has been made,” Huidekoper said.

She emphasized that all budget cuts are considered in the context of the University’s broader goals and

are aimed at maintaining undergraduate academics and a commitment to financial aid.

“We’re very lucky to have a clear plan to guide our behavior and priorities,” Tisch said. “Not all schools have the same clarity.”

Requesting divestment Also during the meeting, members of the Student Labor Alliance gave a presentation about possible investments by Brown in HEI Hospitality, LLC, a national chain of hotels and resorts that the group says violates workers’ rights.

The group told the BUCC that the University has a moral obligation to divest from HEI because of the union’s employment practices. Though the University has not said any such investments exist, the group’s representatives said Tuesday that HEI officials have listed Brown among the company’s investors.

The SLA has been working with the University’s Advisory Committee on Corporate Responsibility in Investment Policies to determine what action, if any, the University should take with regard to HEI. The group also said Brown’s investment portfolio should be more transparent.

Tisch said after the meeting that the larger question raised by the group was an important one. “The bigger issue,” he said, “is whether the composition of the University’s portfolio should be public.”

Lagos discusses recession impact on South America

By Jeremy Jacob Contributing Writer

Though its end is nowhere in sight, the current recession could lead to an increasingly globalized world in which developed and developing states will be more inclined to coordinate their economic decisions and policies, former Chilean President Ricardo Lagos Escobar told nearly 50 students, faculty and community members at Smith-Buonanno Hall Tuesday night.

Lagos, who has been a professor-atlarge at the Watson Institute for International Studies since July 2007, also said Latin America, in particular, is ready to play a greater role in the international economic arena.

Lagos started his lecture, “Latin America’s economic setback: a global downturn overtakes local progress,” by presenting a brief over view of the Latin American economy in the last ten years, noting its higher growth and lower poverty rates compared to past years. But while Latin American states had followed the economic policies recommended by institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, he said the current economic crisis will make it difficult for them to maintain the same level of economic development.

Describing the current situation as the “Latin American frustration,” Lagos said many states in the region believed they had “done their homework” and “been good students.” But he said they are now suffering despite those efforts.

Latin America experienced an uninter-

rupted growth rate of 5 percent from 2003 to 2008, Escrobar said, adding that the six-year streak will probably be broken in 2009.

“Now there is a sense that it will take a long time to know when we are going to get to the bottom of this crisis,” he said.

But Latin America, which has faced difficult times in the past such as the Mexican economic crisis in 1994 and the Argentine financial crisis in the last decade, is prepared for the challenges that might come its way in the near future, Lagos said.

The current crisis, he said, illustrated the need for globalized institutions and regulations, adding that it was important for developing states to have a say in global decision-making. He also pointed to the fact that global economic decisions are now being discussed by the G20, a group of the world’s 19 largest economies and the European Union. Unlike the G8, the G20 includes Latin American states such as Argentina, Brazil and Mexico.

Lagos currently heads the Club of Madrid, an organization of former presidents that promotes democracy, and is a special United Nations envoy for climate change.

John Walsh ’12, who attended the event and is a Herald designer, told The Herald he enjoyed listening to Lagos, but wished the former president had discussed his personal experiences in greater detail.

“I wish he had spent more time going into specifics about Chile,” Walsh said.

Page 3

Young alums likely to get Corporation seat continued from page 1 about the young alum positions “incredibly exciting news.”

The process of getting UCS’ idea to the Corporation’s leadership was “a really great example of how receptive the Brown administration and governance is to student ideas,” he said.

The most recent undergraduate class currently represented on the Corporation is the class of 1992.

Tisch said the Corporation has not included an alum less than a decade removed from Brown since 1938.

“We wanted to make sure we had voices in the Corporation room who were ver y close to students,” he said.

Mike da Cruz ’09, a member of Students for a Democratic Society ­— a group that has lobbied for increased Corporation transparency — said he did not think the proposal went far enough.

“Brown is here for the students, and the students are what make Brown a functional institution,” he said. “Giving that voice to one person under the age of 30 is the epitome of ‘tokenization.’”

The Corporation is made up of 12 fellows and 42 trustees. Of the 42 trustees, 14 are elected by

alums in voting overseen by the Brown Alumni Association.

Young tr ustees would be elected in the same manner, Tisch said.

Candidates would be selected for their experience and leadership on campus and would be expected to bring knowledge and skills representative of the student experience, he said.

Tisch said he expects the first young trustee to begin ser vice July 1, with a second to be selected in the next year.

Younger Corporation members who have experience with new Internet technologies will bring with them a set of skills cur rently lacking within the Corporation, he said, citing the increasing importance of social hubs like Facebook and Twitter.

“There’s a lot of power in these capabilities,” he said. “Like any organization, we have to find ways to find our place and work with it in a positive way.”

Following the completion of their three-year terms, young alums would have the possibility of remaining on the Corporation, Tisch said.

— With additional reporting

by Joanna Wohlmuth and Ben Schreckinger

Kim: Health care is a universal right continued from page 1 said.

The physician and medical anthropologist currently serves as chief of the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and as the director of the Francois Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights.

On Tuesday, Kim discussed his work with Partners in Health, the non-profit organization he co-founded in 1987 with Paul Farmer — now an internationally known physician, anthropologist and public health leader — while the two were medical students at Harvard.

He and Farmer strove to raise the standard of medical care in rural Haiti, where Partners in Health established a clinic to serve the impoverished, Kim said.

“Our first project was building functioning health care systems that took care of people in their entirety,” he said.

Partners in Health built houses and provided education. “Health is not just medical care,” Kim said. “Health is all these things at once.”

Kim also discussed the “implementation bottleneck” in health care, noting that many people don’t have access to existing technology and medicin.

The past two decades have seen a surge in funds committed to global health, posing an important question for the field’s leaders, Kim said.

“Now what do we do?” he asked. “We’ve got all this money. Are we really doing what we need to do?”

Kim emphasized the need to collaborate, share knowledge and take an interdisciplinary approach to guide the projects that recent funds and commitments to global health have made possible.

“Just about every problem of (health care) delivery has been solved somewhere in a really brilliant fashion,” he said. “But we need a lot more.”

In 2007, in order to address this need, Kim and his colleagues founded the Global Health

Delivery Project, an organization that researches and spreads knowledge about effective health care systems, he said.

Kim said strengthening education about health care delivery and implementation can also change how public health leaders approach health care systems.

This year, Harvard’s public health program and medical school launched a collaborative program to teach students about what he calls “health care delivery science,” he said.

But “teaching about the complexity of global health delivery” has to start at the undergraduate level, he said.

Kim said he thinks the purpose of an undergraduate education is “to make people feel that there’s no problem that they can’t take on — and to give them the teeth to do that,” he said.

Kim was selected to give Tuesday’s 10th annual memorial lecture in honor of Professor Emeritus of Medical Science Frederick Barnes Jr. and his wife before Kim was announced as Dartmouth’s next president, said Terrie Wetle, associate dean of medicine for public health and public policy, who helped organize the event.

Wetle said Kim’s recent appointment indicates that public health and internationalization are receiving recognition at schools such as Brown and Dartmouth.

“Dr. Kim is just a wonderfully internationally acknowledged leader in ... global health and human rights,” Wetle said.

Kim, who spoke for about 40 minutes, took a few questions at the end of the lecture that touched on a variety of topics, including the role of public and private organizations in global health issues.

He apologized for not being able to speak for a long time, saying that in addition to his three jobs in Boston and his new appointment at Dartmouth, he has a six-week-old child at home.

“I had canceled most everything else,” he said.

“But I didn’t cancel Brown.”

Page 4

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

C ampus N EWS

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

“No one wants to know how a sausage is made.”

— ProJo columnist Bill Reynolds, on the dark side of college sports

All-star panel tackles sports media issues

By Seth Motel Staf f Writer

Eunice Hong / Herald

Chris Berman ’77 P’08 P’09 visited Salomon 101 Tuesday to discuss the media’s role in the sports world.

Q &A with Bill Russell Legendary Boston Celtics center Bill Russell spoke in Salomon 101 yesterday about the media’s role in sports. Before the symposium, he sat down with The Herald to answer questions about President Obama, his relationship with Boston and championship rings.

Herald: What was your response like when you found out that NBA Commissioner David Stern wanted to name the NBA Finals MVP trophy after you?

Bill Russell: Well, I was mildly surprised. David and I have been friends for years. Before he was commissioner, he was the assistant attorney of the league. ... We always got along. So I was mildly surprised because in this countr y, there are very few awards named for the workers. (Laughs) I think in baseball, the only one I can think of is the Cy Young Award. I don’t know if there are any others. But there’s no award for Babe Ruth or any of those guys.

In football, there’s just the Vince Lombardi Trophy. But I was mildly surprised.

What’s your take on President Obama’s basketball game?

Because that’s a big issue that people are worried about right now.

He’s a left-handed jump shooter.

He’s pretty good, right?

Now, you say he’s pretty good, where would he start? The NBA, the WNBA? But seriously, he seems to be pretty good.

When you were a player, your relationship with Boston wasn’t necessarily the best.

How is your relationship now?

Well, in this case, everybody thought I was having a difficult time. But I was having the time of my life. Today, the only people I’m concerned with is a guy named Tom Menino. He’s the mayor of Boston. And since Tom has been there with the city, the whole image has started to change. And the Red Sox — I have an excellent relationship. But when I was in Boston, I would have nothing to do with the Red Sox because the owner of the Red Sox said he would never have a black player.

And I found that a little offensive.

But now, I go to Red Sox games, and I have an excellent relation-

ship with them.

Mahatma Gandhi said once, “I do not concern myself with being consistent. I concern myself with being consistent with the truth as it reveals itself to me.” So as things change, you must evolve with them.

Was it surreal last week at Fenway Park with Sen. Ted Kennedy throwing out the first pitch to Jim Rice?

That would be indicative of how the Red Sox are today — basically, that would demonstrate where the Red Sox are today in terms of human relationships. So the guys I know at the Red Sox now, include the owners and the management and the players. It’s a good bunch of people. And I’m very glad that I have a positive relationship with them.

I must be getting old.

Why do you only wear two of your NBA championship rings?

Well, this one, David Stern gave me as a birthday present about five years ago. So this is all 11 championships in one ring. And this is my rookie year. And I can’t get it off.

Individual opinions now overshadow the true essentials of sports coverage, said Hall of Fame basketball player Bill Russell to a full Salomon 101 auditorium Tuesday night.

The Boston Celtic great was one of four members of a panel that discussed the role of the media in spor ts. He was joined by ESPN sportscaster Chris Berman ’77 P’08 P’09, Providence Journal sports columnist Bill Reynolds ’68 and HBO Sports President Ross Greenburg ’77 P’10.

The event, titled “The Role of the Media in Constructing the Public Perception of Sport,” was moderated by Luther Spoehr, a lecturer in education and history who studies intercollegiate athletics.

Russell, a youthful-looking 75, dominated the stage with his 6-foot10-inch frame. The five-time Most Valuable Player and 11-time NBA Championship winner reflected on his mixed emotions regarding the media, especially their coverage of race in sports.

“The media approached me and talked to me as if I was part of a group,” he said. “But they wanted me to respond to them as an individual. I didn’t think that that was quite kosher.”

Members of the media sometimes get preoccupied giving their opinions and don’t report on the facts of the games, Russell said, adding that journalists said they knew more about professional basketball than Russell did on “at least two dozen occasions.”

“That was one of the dumbest things I ever heard,” he said.

The three media professionals each discussed their excitements and concerns regarding today’s sports culture.

Berman, who has worked at ESPN since its inception in 1979, said today’s “24/7” culture is blurring the line between immediate information and privacy.

In their haste to break stories, Berman said, some members of the spor ts media don’t wor r y enough about getting the facts straight.

“Accuracy is another line that’s being blurred,” he said. “The possession arrow may be going in the wrong direction.”

Reynolds remarked that sports coverage when he was younger only reported on “hits, runs and errors.” In the age of satellite television and the Internet, fans know much more about athletes outside of the game.

“We have all types of access to people, obviously sometimes too much,” he said.

One problem of over whelming spor ts coverage is that it focuses heavily on professional sports and major college teams.

Reynolds said coverage of Brown football games always used to be on the front of the sports section of the Providence Journal, but too

many people now have a perception that “if it’s not on TV, it doesn’t count.”

Spoehr turned the discussion to the media’s increased coverage of college sports and the changing expectations colleges have of their student-athletes. Because enough people will watch, television networks now encourage schools to have their athletes play games during the school week, he said.

Berman responded that the public demand for spor ts continues to grow and networks can be hard-pressed not to broadcast more sporting events.

“Does that mean we need to have a quadruple-header on Wednesday night?” Berman said.

“No, not necessarily.”

Reynolds said schools are ignoring their athletes’ educations in order to make money, but the public chooses to look the other way.

“No one wants to know how a sausage is made,” he said. “This is a business. This is what we want.”

Russell expressed concern that student-athletes don’t get salaries and can only make $2,000 a year working other jobs while colleges and high-paid coaches are profiting from their work.

“The student-athlete, unless he comes from a wealthy family, is compelled to live a life of poverty,” Russell said.

Greenburg, of HBO, said media professionals highlight the glamour that comes with being a professional athlete but ignore the fates of the vast majority of collegiate athletes.

“For ever y Carmelo Anthony or LeBron James,” he said, “there are hundreds of thousands of kids who are lost.”

Just in the last generation, Reynolds said, too many college players assume their careers after college will involve playing professionally.

“Professional sports hangs over too many kids like it’s the only option,” he said.

Russell said he encourages student-athletes to finish college before attempting to become professional athletes. Even those who become professional athletes need to enjoy a full college experience, he said.

“The night before final exams — there’s nothing in the real world that’s going to top that,” Russell said.

The panel took questions from two audience members, discussing rising ticket prices in sports and the ramifications of age restrictions in the NBA. After the panel discussion, many audience members headed to Salomon 001 to watch a screening of HBO’s 2000 documentar y “Bill Russell: My Life, My Way.” Tuesday’s event, sponsored by the Depar tment of Athletics and the Student Athlete Advisor y Committee, was the third recent symposium on sports.

Page 5

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

C ampus N EWS

Thayer St. shop pierces the spirit

By Lauren Pischel Staff Writer

Alongside the jewelry in the display cases of Rockstar, the piercing shop on Thayer Street, there hangs a picture of a man with long spikes protruding from each side of his chest.

The spikes project upward and cross each other to form a halo around the man, Fakir Musafar, who is one of the founders of modern piercing and has trained all of the body piercers who work at Rockstar.

“For Fakir, there is no such thing as pain. There is only sensation which can bring you into different states of perception,” said Billy Wood, a piercer at Rockstar who took Fakir’s basic body piercing class in 2006.

Musafar is considered the founder of the Modern Primitive Movement, which uses body modification practices such as piercing, branding and tattoos to change one’s body. A pioneer of modern piercing techniques, he is also the director of the Fakir Body and Branding Intensives in San Francisco — a school that offers courses in basic branding as well as basic and advanced body piercing. The Fakir School currently provides the only comprehensive introduction to body piecing in the country.

Musafar incorporates shamanistic beliefs as a means to “letting the flesh be a pathway to the spirit,” Wood said.

“Everybody owes something to Fakir,” Wood said. “If it wasn’t for him there wouldn’t be body piercing.”

The ‘flow of energy’ There are about 10 students and multiple instructors in Musafar’s basic course, which lasts for one week and covers all basic body piercing as well as health and safety, anatomy, aesthetics and the spiritual aspect of piercing.

While the instructors focus on the technical aspects of piercing, “the thing Fakir really focuses on is the magic behind the piercing, the flow of energy,” Wood said.

“Unless you have been there, I can’t ever really describe it,” he added.

A student can also become a professional body piercer through an apprenticeship. By going through the Fakir school, though, students have the advantage of seeing different instructors’ techniques, according to Jef Saunders, owner of Rockstar and assistant at the Fakir School. Students do not need any prior experience to participate.

When he took the class, though Wood already had several years of piercing experience, “I think I got a lot more of the spiritual connection,” he said.

But just because the school does not require previous experience for its basic class does not mean the course is easy.

The course begins with basic tutorials on health and safety as well as piercing techniques and introductory shamanism. The students begin practicing by piercing cardboard, and then move on to practicing on

each other.

“It is tough though. It is not easy,” Saunders said. “The tools are totally foreign,” and the jewelry can be counter-intuitive and difficult to handle.

After hours of practicing further on oranges and clay models both in class and in hotel rooms, on the final day of class, the public is invited for a free piercing by the students.

FEATURE “The place is mobbed for volunteers,” Saunders said, “partly because it is free, partly because they will leave with a good piercing.”

An instructor observes each student while they are piercing the volunteer, and will stop them if the student is doing something wrong.

“The school does not make you a good piercer, I wish it could,” Saunders said. “You have to bring experience and intelligence to the table.

It gives them the tools to become a good piercer.”

The calling Saunders did not become interested in piercing until he was in college and, one day, went to get his ears pierced with his girlfriend.

“If anything felt like a calling in my life, this was it,” he said.

Saunders then apprenticed at a piercing shop in Connecticut from 1997 to 1999. He took the Fakir Intensives Basic Piercing Intensive in 1999 and the Advanced Intensive in 2000.

Wood, on the other hand, first pierced himself when he was 13 years old in a church on Mardi Gras.

He then went on to apprentice at several shops around Providence and took the basic Fakir course in 2006.

He is currently waiting for the next advanced course to be offered.

Piercing the ‘spiritual oneness’ The spiritual aspect taught at the Fakir School plays an important role at Rockstar, though it may not be obvious to some clients.

Saunders tries to incorporate the spiritual aspect to become a better piercer. If a piercer were to have the mentality that they are simply piercing a navel, “then things tend not to heal well,” Saunders said. “If you get taught from day one that you are making a hole in someone’s spiritual oneness as well as their physical oneness, it really does help.”

The spiritual side of piercing allows one to “go beyond just piercing someone and sticking a piece of jewelry in them,” Wood said.

The advanced class covers more unusual body piercing techniques and also delves more deeply into the shamanistic side of piercing. To get into the class, students must have a portfolio and have attended the beginner class. In this course, there are usually eight students and 10 to 12 instructors.

“The advanced class is in many ways a family reunion,” Saunders said.

Fakir is also known for his use of O-Kee-Pa suspension, a Native

American sun dance in which two hooks are inserted into the skin and the person is suspended by the hooks. He also performs the Kavadi Dance, a Hindu torture ritual involving a halo of spikes inserted into the body.

In the 1970s, Fakir teamed up with ­­­­Jim Ward to experiment and develop modern piercing techniques.

Among other endeavors, they experimented with using hospital forceps designed to hold gauze as a tool for navel piercing.

“It just happened to work beautifully,” Saunders said. “The entire community of body piercing owes a lot to him.”

Though they draw on Fakir’s teachings, the piercers at Rockstar do not incorporate all of his techniques and spirituality into their work.

“In an East Coast-based shop, people do not want to you burn incense and chant, ‘Ohm,’” Saunders said. “We focus on our personal intent — part of it is just treating people well.”

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

“We know we aren’t done yet.”

— VP of Finance Beppie Huidekoper, on future cuts

More cuts and layoffs possible in future years continued from page 1 off now, Huidekoper said.

Savings from the salary freeze will be the “major source” of budget reductions next year, according to the e-mail. Administrators expect the layoffs and eliminated vacant positions to save the University $6 million in the upcoming fiscal year.

Union members are also not subject to the current salary freeze because union contracts stipulate yearly salary increases, Huidekoper said.

Those contracts are not scheduled to come up for review in the near future, she said.

And Huidekoper admitted there would be “some costs” associated with the cuts from severance packages and commitment to transitional assistance.

Those costs will remain unclear until it is determined how many employees will receive other positions at Brown, she said.

The administration foresees more cuts and possible layoffs in future

years, according to Huidekoper.

“We know we aren’t done yet,” she said.

Decisions about further budget reductions will be made next year and will go into effect in July 2010, according to the e-mail, which was sent by Huidekoper and Provost David Kertzer ’69 P’95 P’98. Decisions about further position eliminations will probably not be made until next spring, the e-mail said.

The current round of cuts represents a stark turnaround from the last several years, during which the University enjoyed robust fiscal health under President Ruth Simmons and sought to grow aggressively.

“Brown hasn’t been doing layoffs in a long time,” McAninch said.

Some of Brown’s peer universities have also recently had to lay off employees. Dartmouth cut 60 staff members and reduced hours for 28 more in February. Yale may have to lay off as many as 300 employees, the Yale Daily News reported in February.

Higher Ed The Brown Daily Herald

Higher

ed in brief

Presidential commencement addresses trigger debate Two of President Obama’s planned commencement addresses — at the University of Notre Dame and at Arizona State University — have engendered controversy in recent weeks.

At Notre Dame, a conservative Catholic group started an online petition calling for the Indiana university to rescind its invitation for Obama to give a speech and receive an honorary degree at its May 17 commencement.

The petition, which according to the Washington Post has some 87,000 signatures, reads, “It is an outrage and a scandal that ‘Our Lady’s University,’ one of the premier Catholic universities in the United States, would bestow such an honor on President Obama given his clear support for policies and laws that directly contradict fundamental Catholic teachings on life and marriage.”

The petition was started by the Cardinal Newman Society, a Virginia-based college Catholic advocacy group, and supported by other groups including CatholicVote.org and Operation Rescue, which identifies itself as “the leading pro-life Christian activist organization in the nation.”

Notre Dame, however, has defended Obama’s invitation.

In an online statement, the university’s president, the Rev. John Jenkins, said Obama’s speech should spark dialogue about these issues at Notre Dame.

“The invitation to President Obama to be our commencement speaker should not be taken as condoning or endorsing his positions on specific issues regarding the protection of human life, including abortion and embryonic stem cell research,” Jenkins said in the statement. “Yet, we see his visit as a basis for further positive engagement.”

The university has a tradition of inviting new presidents to speak, and has hosted Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush in past years.

At Arizona State, where Obama is scheduled to speak May 13, controversy has centered on whether the university will grant the president an honorary degree. ASU’s policy is to not award honorary degrees to sitting politicians, according to ASU’s student newspaper, the State Press.

“Because President Obama’s body of work is yet to come, it’s inappropriate to recognize him at this time,” university spokeswoman Sharon Keeler told the State Press.

Some members of the ASU community and the public have since protested, and university officials are now considering granting the president an honorary degree despite the school’s policy.

Obama will also deliver the commencement address at the United States Naval Academy on May 22.

— Ellen Cushing

Wednesday, April 15, 2009 | Page 6

Pornographic film sparks controversy

By Amy Chen Contributing Writer

Mar yland state legislators threatened to withhold funding from the University of Mar yland after the student union planned a screening of the X-rated film “Pirates II: Stagnetti’s Revenge.” After the university cancelled the event earlier this month, a group of student activists screened a portion of the film anyway in response to the proposed legislation.

The original screening, planned for April 4 by the student union, was canceled by Linda Clement, vice president of student affairs, after the legislation to withhold funding was introduced. Clement’s assistant Kathy Broady said Clement would not comment on the decision.

Despite the official cancellation, a group of student activists unaffiliated with the student union chose to show 30 minutes of the film on April 6, Mar y Yanik, president of the university’s Feminism Without Borders group wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. Yanik co-organized the event and her group officially endorsed the screening.

In response to the first planned screening, State Sen. Andrew Harris, R-Baltimore County and Hartford County, proposed an amendment to the capital budget that aimed to encourage universities to develop policies restricting presentations of pornographic films on campus, Harris’ assistant, Kathy Szeglia said.

Harris did not oppose student groups showing pornographic films, Szeglia said. Rather, the legislation aimed to restrict universitysponsored events during which adult content would be shown.

Kenton Stalder, another co-organizer of the second screening, expressed disappointment that the university “caved in” to Harris’ threat.

“It seemed absolutely ridiculous … and a waste of Senate time,” Stalder said.

“I think withholding funds was a clear overreaction and made the

showing of this movie into a much bigger deal that it ever would have been,” Jonathan Sachs, the president of the University of Maryland Student Government Association, wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.

Although he did not attend the Monday screening, Sachs wrote that he was surprised the screening had turned into a big event on campus.

Before the attention from the legislature, “this movie was a joke and a lot of Greeks were going to go see it,” he wrote, referring to members of the Greek fraternity system.

The second screening included a panel of professors who spoke about censorship and academic freedom, Stalder said.

“Censorship does not help to resolve the potential problems with pornography, and certainly isn’t helpful to women involved in the industr y,” Yanik wrote. “The autonomy of this university is essential to its academic freedom, educational integrity and democratic dignity.”

Since 2005, more than 50 universities and colleges in the US and Canada have requested copies of either Pirates II, or its predecessor, “Pirates I,” according to Christopher Ruth, spokesperson for the film’s production company, Digital Playground.

Ruth said no school had encountered this degree of resistance to showing the film in the past, adding that he did not know of any other school’s canceling screenings of the film. The University of California, Davis; Northwestern; and Carnegie Mellon University are among the other colleges that have screened Pirates II. Ruth said Pirates II is unique among pornographic films in that it “appealed to different people.”

“These screenings allow students to gather together in an academic environment to discuss ... all kinds of issues as such sexuality, gender roles and pornography,” Ruth said.

But Szeglia said the screening did not of fer educational value.

“The students (at the University of Maryland) invited Planned Parenthood to talk about safe sex but the irony is that the movie is not about safe sex,” Szeglia said, referring to plans for the original, canceled screening.

“I know some students would like to portray this as a free speech issue,” Harris said in a statement.

“It is not. This is about the use of taxpayer dollars and the Maryland General Assembly acts ever y day on issues concerning the use of

taxpayer dollars. Just because someone is on a college campus they do not have a right to spend the hard-earned money of Mar yland’s taxpayers on something as detrimental to our society as hardcore XXX pornography.”

In response, Stalder said the screening was entirely funded by student fees and not university money.

At Carnegie Mellon, screening pornographic films has been a decade-long tradition, according to Tomasz Skowronski, a senior and current chair of the university’s Activities Board.

“Pornography is so pervasive in American society and it’s nothing new,” Skowronski said. Students ranked Pirates II, which was shown last semester at the university, among one of the most popular films — alongside “WALL-E” and “The Dark Knight” — out of about 40 films shown last semester.

Pornographic films are “largely for entertainment,” Skowronski said. “The films are funny and people laugh and cheer and have a great time,” he said.

Though some students protested the showing of Pirates II at Carnegie Mellon, Skowronski said school officials did not express any concerns to the Activities Board.

“I’m sure there is a line, but we have not crossed that yet,” Skowronski said.

At Brown, pornographic films have been screened in a more private setting: Male Sexuality Workshop classes. The films were shown in an educational setting with goals for the exploration and discussion of pornography, MSex facilitator Cameron Rementer ’10 wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.

Rementer wrote that universities should be a place of free expression, adding that legislature and administration have no role in stripping students of such rights.

“I believe that undue government influence in universities and colleges is a grave threat to intellectual freedom,” he wrote.

Andrew Vottero ’09, a former MSex facilitator, wrote in an e-mail to The Herald that he personally would consider screening pornographic films to the general public at Brown.

“There are many cases in which such a screening could be educational and interesting and fun, depending on how it was structured and what the goals of the presentation were,” he wrote. “If it bothers you or you are not interested, don’t go. I think that it’s as simple as that. And I think that Brown students would probably love it.”

So new, so fresh, so clean www.browndailyherald.com

SportsWednesday The Brown Daily Herald

Wednesday, April 15, 2009 | Page 7

M. tennis beat Columbia Softball braves tough loss to Green in ‘monumental’ match

By KATIE WOOD Assistant Sports Editor

By ERIN FRAUENHOFER Spor ts Staf f Writer

The men’s tennis team nabbed its most thrilling win of the season in New York on Friday, upsetting No. 57 Columbia, 4-3, in a battle decided by a third-set tiebreaker at first singles.

“I believe that Columbia — especially after winning at Harvard — was the favorite to win the league, so to go into their house and knock them off of that pedestal was extremely gratifying,” said Head Coach Jay Harris.

The Bears dropped a 5-2 decision to Cornell in Ithaca the next day, but are still competitive in the Ivy League standing, half a game back of Columbia for the top spot.

Brown 4, Columbia 3 The Bears clinched the doubles point to begin the battle, persisting in spite of an unfriendly atmosphere at the match.

“Our team came out knowing we would need to play our best to beat a good Columbia team, and we knew that started with the doubles matches,” said captain Chris Lee ’09. “To play away at Columbia with a tough crowd was difficult. We knew we had to stay focused and not be distracted by the activity that can sometimes occur with a hostile crowd.”

Kendrick Au ’11 and Charlie Posner ’11 took a quick 8-1 win over Rajeev Deb-Sen and Dan Urban at third doubles, but when captains Noah Gardner ’09 and Sam Garland ’09 dropped the first doubles match to Bogdan Borta and Mihai Nichifor by a score of 8-6, the doubles point hinged on the second doubles match.

The No. 55-ranked duo of Lee and Jonathan Pearlman ’11 readily handled the pressure. The Bears

edged out Haig Schneiderman and Jon Wong in a tiebreaker for a final score of 9-8 (5), giving Brown a 1-0 lead.

The close contest continued in singles play. After Skate Gorham ’10 fell at third singles to Ekin Sezgen, Gardner defeated Sho Matsumoto at sixth singles by a score of 7-6 (6), 6-3 to maintain the Bears’ lead. At fourth singles, Garland triumphed over Schneiderman, 7-5, 7-6 (2), and at fifth singles, Au dropped a 6-4, 7-6 (5) decision to Deb-Sen. Pearlman’s three-set loss to Nichifor at second singles tied the match at 3-3, setting the stage for a showdown between Lee and Borta at first singles.

“Chris battled one of the top players in the region,” Harris said.

“Borta advanced to the finals of the ITA Regionals in the fall and is ranked No. 2” in the region.

Lee dropped the first set, 2-6, but bounced back to take the second set, 6-2.

“I lost the first set pretty badly, and the coaches told me that I had to impose my game on my opponent rather than the other way around,” Lee said. “I came out on fire and won the second.”

Lee’s fier y streak put him up 5-1 in the third set. Then, according to Lee, “I played a pretty poor five games to find myself down 5-6 and 0-15.”

But Lee held his serve to drive the match to a tiebreaker. According to Harris, Lee struggled with his ner ves to the point of cramping, and while leading 6-3 in the tiebreaker had to call an injur y timeout, with three match points continued on page 8

The softball team (10-18, Ivy 4-8) began its four-game series in Hanover, N.H., on a positive note with a 2-1 win but fell in the next three games to Dartmouth (18-14, 9-3 Ivy) as the Bears were outscored 20-6 in those three losses.

Brown 2, Dartmouth 1 Michelle Moses ’09 dominated the Big Green through five-and-athird innings in game one on Saturday, giving up only one run on nine hits.

“The tone starts with what the pitchers are doing in the circle, and the pitchers on Saturday were executing,” said Head Coach DeeDee Enabenter-Omidiji.

Brown’s offense produced the first run of the game in the top of the third inning with two outs when a single to third by Elaina Atherton ’12 brought home Sandra Mastrangelo ’12.

Katie Rothamel ’10 then began the fourth inning with a double to left center before Kate Strobel ’12 came through for the Bears with two outs. Strobel ripped the ball down the left field line to bring home Rothamel for the 2-0 lead.

A home run in the fourth by Dartmouth’s Alyssa Parker tightened the game up, but the Bears outlasted the Big Green for the 2-1 win.

Jessica Iwasaki ’10 closed out the game for the save with two strike outs in the sixth inning.

Dartmouth 4, Brown 0 Iwasaki stayed on the mound for the start of game two, but did not have as much luck as she did in the first game. After a costly Dartmouth

error, Brown had the first base runner of the game in the top of the third inning. But the Bears were unable to capitalize on the runner’s position, and the score remained knotted at zero.

The Big Green loaded the bases in the bottom half of the inning for Molly Khalil, who hit a line drive to third to score two runs on an error.

“We had a few mental lapses that snowballed,” Enabenter-Omidiji said. “That definitely affects our pitchers’ psyche. If we’re playing decent defense and giving the pitcher some run support, it affects our approach at the plate — built-up pressure to get runs. It will take some growth to learn from our mistakes.”

Bruno put another two runners on board in the fourth but fell short again.

Another error by the Bears put the Big Green up 3-0 in the fifth before it added one more run to earn the convincing 4-0 win.

Iwasaki gave up four runs on three hits in the loss. Brown also committed four errors in the game.

Dartmouth 5, Brown 4 On Sunday, Moses got the start again and gave up all five Dartmouth runs in the first two innings, four of them coming in the first. Trish Melvin ’12 took over the game in the middle of the second, allowing no runs.

The visiting Bears began their comeback in the third when Kelsey Wilson ’09 singled up the middle, followed up by a sacrifice fly from Jackie Giovanniello ’12 to bring the game to within three.

After two more scoreless innings, the Bears fought back again with a

two-run sixth. Andrea Browne ’10 singled to short to bring home a run and close the Dartmouth lead to 5-3. A single by Lindsay Rice ’11 brought home the final run of the game, as the Bears fell short, 5-4.

“We put too much pressure on ourselves after digging ourselves into a five-run hole,” EnabenterOmidiji said.

Dartmouth 11, Brown 2 The first inning in game two of the Sunday doubleheader turned out to be even worse for the Bears, as Dartmouth tallied seven runs.

The Big Green went on to score another two runs in the second to extend its lead to 9-0.

Melvin started for Brown and did not fare well after her impressive relief effort in game one, giving up seven runs on seven hits in only two-thirds of an inning pitched.

Iwasaki and Emily Chaddock ’11 tried to stop the Big Green, but the Bears found themselves in the hole 11-0 after the fourth inning.

Brown added two runs after Wilson reached on a fielder’s choice, scoring Mastrangelo and Atherton.

The Bears fell after only five innings of play, 11-2.

Dartmouth’s offense compiled an impressive 15 hits, while Brown struggled from the plate with five.

“We want to continue to get better — it’s been our goal from the beginning,” Enabenter-Omidiji said.

“We’re going to take that mentality into the next few series.”

The Bears will play in a rescheduled doubleheader in Connecticut against Central Connecticut State University on Thursday before returning home for a weekend series of doubleheaders against Harvard.

Play starts at 12:30 p.m. on both Saturday and Sunday.

Page 8

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

S ports W ednesday

M. tennis loses momentum against Cornell continued from page 7

upcoming.

“I was cramping so bad that I actually had to pr y my finger off my racket,” Lee said.

Borta won the next two points to bring the score to 6-5, but Lee prevailed in his third match point.

“We played a pretty long point, and then after nine or 10 rallies, he missed it long,” Lee said. “I got mobbed by my teammates, alumni and coaches. It was a feeling I will never forget.”

According to Har ris, Lee’s victor y “will be remembered as monumental.” Harris called the Bears’ win over Columbia “our best team effort of the season for sure.

We battled a great team, a hostile crowd and some egregious officiating, but we still came out with one the best efforts and wins in the history of our program.”

Cornell 5, Brown 2 The Bears were unable to continue their domination the next day against Cornell.

“As hard as we worked to stay away from a letdown after the amazing win at Columbia, I believe the energy we expended to capture that win actually wore us down a bit and hurt us in the Cornell match,” Harris said. “But having said that,

Cornell has a great team, and they played extremely well.”

The Bears ceded the doubles point to the Big Red, despite an 8-6 win by Gardner and Garland at first singles. Lee and Pearlman fell, 8-2, to Jeremy Feldman and Andy Gauthier at second doubles, while Au and Posner dropped an 8-4 decision to Mirza Klis and Marc Asch at third doubles.

“I felt we came out a little flat,” Lee said. “Jon and I did not play at the level we are capable of playing, and the result reflected that.”

Lee and Pearlman were the only Bears to record singles wins that day. At first singles, Pearlman trounced Jonathan Jaklitsch, 6-1, 6-1.

“Jon Pearlman played his best singles match of his career, winning 11 straight games,” Harris said.

At second singles, Lee soundly defeated Joshua Goldstein, 6-3, 6-4.

Gorham, Gardner and Au dropped straight-set matches at third, fifth and sixth singles, respectively.

Meanwhile, at fourth singles, Garland narrowly lost to Feldman in a third-set super-breaker, for a final score of 6-4, 4-6, 1-0 (10-8).

“The loss to Cornell will actually help us, not in the Ivy standings necessarily, but for our team’s growth and development,” Harris

said. “We kind of needed one more kick in the pants to remind us what kind of effort it takes to win any Ivy match, and I believe we will hold on to that lesson for the rest of the season no matter who we play.”

The Bears will next face of f against Har vard in Cambridge, Mass., on Friday.

“I feel a little different than in years past about Har vard,” Harris said. “In the past — even last year — we got up for the other Ivy matches, but we always treated the Har vard match like the pinnacle of the season. Now that the Ivy League has so much more parity, we have to treat ever y Ivy match like it is the pinnacle of our season just to win one. Because we have done that to go 3-1 so far in the league, we are ver y battle-tested and ready to take on just another Ivy League battle.”

The Bears will then return to Providence to play Dartmouth on Sunday. Sunday will also be Senior Day, featuring a reception after the match.

“I know Noah, Sam, Basu (Ratnam ’09) and I are all going to be pretty emotional,” Lee said. “To have played in front of our dedicated fans and home crowd these last four years has been such a privilege. I will miss the team so much next year.”

World & Nation The Brown Daily Herald

Wednesday, April 15, 2009 | Page 9

Global warming ‘very real for us,’ Palin says

propositional lo g ic

By Kim Murphy Los Angeles T imes

Max Monn / Herald

New York University Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis Lisa Duggan spoke about California’s Proposition 8 and the future of legislated love during a talk in MacMillan 117 on Tuesday.

N. Korea kicks out inspectors

By Paul Richter and John Glionna Los Angeles T imes

WASHINGTON — North Korea on Tuesday ordered international nuclear inspectors out of the country and said it would “never again” take part in denuclearization talks, dealing a harsh, early setback to the Obama administration’s hopes of disarming the defiant regime.

In a strident reaction to a U.N. rebuke over its recent missile launch, the government took a sequence of provocative steps, including making an announcement that it would resume building nuclear weapons.

The White House said North Korea had taken “a serious step in the wrong direction” but offered

no hint Tuesday on how it plans to restart the long-stalled drive to abolish Pyongyang’s nuclear program.

The presence of international inspectors and ongoing multinational negotiations provide U.S. officials a partial sense of security, even without significant steps toward a final agreement.

North Korea periodically seeks to avoid the constant gaze of inspectors and diplomats. It also may have used such periods to press for technological advances.

For instance, North Korea suspended talks for most of 2006, saying it was protesting U.S. financial sanctions. During that period, it test fired seven missiles and conducted an underground nuclear test.

Analysts said this week’s developments could force U.S. officials to take steps they have long avoided, such as approaching North Korea with one-on-one negotiations in order to rekindle broader negotiations involving China, Russia, Japan, the United States and North and South Korea, a process known as the sixparty talks.

The North Koreans took the formal step Tuesday of giving official notice to the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog agency that it wanted its inspectors to leave, and disclosed plans to restart its plutonium production facility.

“There is no need for six party talks anymore,” said a statement by the Nor th Korean Foreign Ministr y.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin acknowledged Tuesday that global warming was harming her state but said steppedup natural-gas production could mitigate its effects.

Speaking at a hearing before Interior Secretary Ken Salazar — the third of several he is holding to consider renewed oil and gas leasing on the Outer Continental Shelf — Palin said that relatively clean-burning natural gas could supplant dirtier fuels and slow the discharge of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

“We Alaskans are living with the changes that you are observing in Washington,” she said. “The dramatic decreases in the extent of summer sea ice, increased coastal erosion, melting of permafrost, decrease in alpine glaciers and overall ecosystem changes are very real to us.”

Palin previously had questioned the science behind predictions of sea ice loss. Her administration sued the federal government to block endangered species protections for polar bears, whose habitat is melting. When she was the Republican vice presidential nominee in 2008, partisan crowds cheered her on by chanting, “Drill, baby, drill.”

But at Tuesday’s hearing, she dispelled any doubts that she was committed to combating global warming.

She cast energy development as part of the answer.

“Stopping domestic energy production of preferred fuels does not solve the issues associated with global warming and threatened or endangered species, but it can make

them worse,” she said.

Palin acknowledged that “many believe” a global effort to reduce greenhouse gases is needed.

“Simply waiting for low-carbonemitting renewable capacity to be large enough will mean that it will be too late to meet the mitigation goals for reducing (carbon dioxide) that will be required under most credible climate change models,” she warned.

“Meeting these goals will require a dramatic increase ... to preferred available fuels, including natural gas, that have a ver y low carbon footprint. ... ,” she said. “These available fuels are required to supply the nation’s energy needs during the transition to green energy alternatives.”

The Interior Department will be looking with interest at alternative energy prospects, Salazar told the more than 1,000 Alaskans at the hearing, but traditional oil and gas will remain part of the energy program.

“I understand the passion I feel in this room today,” he said. “I understand the point of view of people who have subsisted in the fishing industr y from time immemorial and the importance of wanting to maintain that way of life. I understand the sense I hear also from many of the people here that we need to have economic development, we need to have jobs, and oil and gas can be part of that job development.”

Alaskan officials say opening offshore waters to petroleum production will create 35,000 jobs with a payroll of $72 billion over the next 50 years. Hundreds of oil industry workers marched in hard hats outside the hearing with signs urging the government to “Drill Here, Drill Now.”

Drug fight will be main topic of Obama’s Mexico visit this week

By William Booth and Scott Wilson The Washington Post

MEXICO CITY — President Barack Obama will travel to Mexico on Thursday in a show of solidarity with his Mexican counterpart, Felipe Calderon, who has asked the new U.S. administration to do more against a thriving drug trade that threatens the integrity of his government and country.

In advance of the one-day visit, Obama administration officials have said the president will pledge to do more to stop the flow of U.S.-made firearms to the drug cartels fighting for control of smuggling routes along the border. Officials say he also wants to broaden the U.S. relationship with Mexico, dominated in the past by drugs and immigration, to include economic and environmental interests.

But Mexican analysts say Calderon, who is frustrated by delays in

delivery of promised U.S. counternarcotics aid, will want more. Calderon, who two years ago became the first Mexican president to so fully deploy the army against the cartels, will seek from Obama an emphatic expression of confidence that the Mexican government will succeed against the cartels after a Defense Department report last year said Mexico was on its way to becoming a “failed state.”

“Drugs will be at the top of the agenda. It will dominate the agenda, because the drug fight is all that Calderon talks about, all that he thinks about,” said Jorge Castaneda, foreign secretary under Calderon’s predecessor, Vicente Fox. “He wants to hear (Obama) say that Mexico was never a failed state, is not a failed state today and even in their deepest, darkest fears, will never, ever be a failed state.”

The violence in Mexico captured the early attention of the Obama administration, which in March sent

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to Mexico to meet with Calderon and his drug-war cabinet.

More than 10,100 people have died in the conflict since Calderon unleashed military battalions and federal agents against the traffickers, and the extreme violence dominates the news about Mexico north and south of the border.

This visit “is designed to send a very clear signal to our friends in Mexico City that we have a series of shared challenges as it relates to the economy, as it relates to security, insecurity, the threat of violence, and the impact of drug trafficking on both our countries,” said Denis McDonough, the National Security Council’s director for strategic communications.

“The president admires (Calderon’s) work as it relates to confronting violence and impunity by criminal drug trafficking networks,” he continued. But Obama also wants to “more

deeply develop our bilateral relationship on economic matters, as well as on matters related to energy and climate change.”

This will be the third meeting between Calderon and Obama. Calderon was the first foreign leader to meet with Obama after his election, and the two saw each other again at the Group of 20 summit in London this month.

“The question now is what is President Obama going to do to back up all the nice speeches about how confronting the drug and arms trafficking is a shared responsibility between the two nations,” said Andres Rozental, a former Mexican deputy foreign minister.

On the specifics of fighting the cartels, Mexico’s law enforcement officials have complained that the highcaliber weapons used by the drug gangs are smuggled into Mexico from the United States. Holder, during his visit to Mexico, said the Obama administration would not push for an

assault-weapons ban in Congress.

But Holder and Napolitano, in a meeting with their counterparts, announced that they would begin to work to tighten border security, specifically on traffic heading from the United States into Mexico. Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora said at the meeting that one in 10 vehicles entering Mexico is searched, though that figure appears to be inflated, based on observations of traffic crossing into Mexico at major ports of entry in California and Texas.

A source of tension between the governments is the Merida Initiative, a $1.4 billion, three-year U.S. aid package for Mexico and Central America passed in June 2008. So far, only $7 million has been spent on projects and equipment. The big-ticket items, including fast-response helicopters, reconnaissance aircraft and scanners to search for drugs and weapons at the border, have been promised but not delivered.

Editorial & Letters The Brown Daily Herald

Page 10 | Wednesday, April 15, 2009

e d i to r i a l

Beyond forgiveness The current state of the economy is taking a toll on all levels of the University — the endowment has already shrunk from $2.8 billion to $2 billion, employees are being laid off and, most pervasively, students and their families are having trouble paying tuition. University administrators have recently shown that they are not ignorant of this problem and will allow students to pre-register for classes even if they have outstanding tuition balances in excess of $1,000.

This move is a continued suspension of the University’s previous policy, which did not allow such students to pre-register for the next semester.

According to Herald coverage, about 360 students benefited from this policy. The administration should be lauded for keeping this policy in touch with the needs of students and their families, and we hope that the University will continue to be lenient with tuition payments until the economy improves.

However, we think that Brown could go further in its forgiveness of penalties for unpaid balances. For example, the Registrar’s Office is still not allowed to issue an official transcript for students who have an unpaid balance of more than $100. This is obviously problematic for students who are currently applying to jobs, internships, summer programs and grad schools. In fact, this policy could ultimately prove counterproductive — if students cannot access official transcripts, they are at a disadvantage when it comes to applying for summer jobs, fellowships and other sources of funding which could possibly help them pay down their tuition balances.

There are several other courses of action that the University could take to assist students in paying down their balances. The Office of Financial Aid has already offered to assist families, regardless of aid status, by providing advice on financing options and federal loans. While this is a helpful gesture, if the University is really concerned about students paying off their debts, they should be expanding work-study programs. They should also look to provide opportunities for students to stay in Providence during the summer, when they can work for the University. Though forgiveness programs, such as the one currently in place regarding pre-registration, are helpful and appreciated, administrators should look further ahead and consider how they can ultimately help students meet their obligations.

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

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alex yuly

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

No divestment at Hampshire, no divestment at Brown To the Editor: Tuesday’s column, (“Student power for Palestine,” Apr. 14) contains factually incorrect and vitriolic information.

It claims, “Students at Hampshire College won a two-year campaign for their university to divest from Israel.” This lie is propagated by anti-Israel students on Hampshire’s campus. An open letter from Hampshire College President Ralph Hexter and their Board of Trustees Chair Sigmund Roos plainly refutes this untruth: “Hampshire College has made a strenuous, good-faith effort to explain its decision to exit a problematic mutual fund. We make this effort again, without equivocation: Israel was not the cause for divestment from the State Street fund.”

According to the letter, Hampshire’s decision was based on a variety of criteria, “none of them having to do with Israel. … No other college or university (should) use Hampshire as a precedent for divesting from Israel, since Hampshire has refused to divest from Israel. Anyone who claims otherwise is deliberately misrepresenting Hampshire’s decision and has no right to speak for the college.”

Divestment campaigns against Israel have been attempted at Brown. They have failed. Such campaigns prove fruitless because they disingenuously characterize Israel as the greatest perpetrator of human rights violations. Israel is not an apartheid state. Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, North Korea, Sudan and other brutal dictatorships around the world routinely murder civilians, torture dissenters, deny equal opportunities to women, imprison gays and repress free speech. Whatever one’s opinions of Israel’s actions, one must consider why, among all the nations of the world, only the Jewish state is consistently singled out.

Zionism is the belief in the right of national self-determination for the Jewish people and has no connection to any specific Israeli policy. If one challenges the notion of national self-determination itself, such challenge a priori must be extended to all peoples. If one does not, then one must question whether this judgment is being made along racial lines. Anti-Zionism is a manifestation of anti-Semitism when it denies only Jews the right to

self-determination.

Israel has adopted official policy supporting a two-state solution based the right to self-determination for Palestinians and Jews in their own respective states. Those committed to peace in the Middle East should not associate themselves with BDS: boycott, divestment and sanctions, a movement that denies Israel’s right to exist. BDS writes in a declaration, “We regard any Arab or international participation, whether individual or institutional, in any activity that contributes, either directly or indirectly, to the ‘celebrations’ of Israel’s establishment, as collusion in the perpetuation of the dispossession and uprooting of refugees, the prolongation of the occupation and the deepening of Israeli apartheid.” This position is actively harmful to collective aspirations for peace.

Characterizing a similar campaign targeting Israel, President Ruth Simmons said, “Is not fear of this kind of prejudice the inspiration for the letter to George Washington seeking reassurance about his commitment to permit bigotry no quarter?” We concur with President Simmons’ principles and welcome dialogue exploring the Middle East’s complex political situation.

Cayla Saret ’12 Curtis Harris ’09 Christopher Unseth ’11 Liz Piper-Goldberg ’09, President, Brown-RISD Hillel Sarah Rapoport ’10, Student Board Member, Hillel International Harry Reis ’11 President, Brown Students for Israel Drew Harris ’10 Political Affairs Coordinator, Brown Students for Israel Apr. 14

C O R R E C T I O N S P olicy The Brown Daily Herald is committed to providing the Brown University community with the most accurate information possible. Corrections may be submitted up to seven calendar days after publication.

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Opinions The Brown Daily Herald

Wednesday, April 15, 2009 | Page 11

Rhode Island falls behind

TYLER ROSENBAUM Opinions Columnist Many of you have probably heard that two more states will join Massachusetts and Connecticut in recognizing same-sex marriages this year. For those of you who haven’t, can you guess which ones they are? One is Vermont. And the other? Oregon, perhaps? Hawaii? Another coastal bastion of liberalness, like, say, Rhode Island? No — it was Iowa.

Almost more strikingly, the Iowa Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the state’s statutory prohibition on same-sex marriage was unanimous. The other three courts that have reached the same conclusion did so with bitterly divided 4-3 majorities.

Iowa, which is squarely located in America’s usually conser vative heartland, has left many states on the nation’s more liberal coasts in the dust, putting places like New York and Rhode Island to shame.

The rest of New England is preparing to follow in Iowa’s footsteps. New Hampshire and Maine look likely to approve marriage equality bills this year, and Vermont’s legislature already overrode Gov. Jim Douglas’ veto of its marriage equality bill by a two-thirds vote. Where is Rhode Island?

Ever since I first arrived at Brown, I have continually been taken aback by how “liberal” Rhode Island is, which means something coming from a Seattleite. It seems you aren’t allowed to bat an eye without obtaining a

permit from both the State of Rhode Island and the city of Providence, but when it comes time to vote, they’ll give a ballot to anyone with a pulse. (No identification, proof of residence, age, citizenship or that you haven’t already voted? No problem!). And though the governor is a Republican, both houses of the General Assembly have more than 89 percent Democrats, a claim no other state can make.

Given all this, it would seem logical that Rhode Island would be at the forefront of efforts to end marriage discrimination, especially considering that Rhode Islanders

cantly raises the number of votes same-sex marriage supporters need in both houses of the Assembly. Theoretically, though, this should not pose a significant problem, given Democrats’ overwhelming majorities. Fully one-third of Democrats could vote with the Republicans to sustain Carcieri’s veto and it would still be overridden.

So, if the real problem does not lie with the people, or even with the governor (who is ineligible for re-election), then where is it?

Quite simply, it’s a lack of political will, not popular support, that is holding Rhode Island back from guaranteeing marriage

Quite simply, it’s a lack of political will, not popular support, that is holding Rhode Island back from guaranteeing marriage equality. support same-sex marriage 49 percent to 37 percent. Unfortunately, however, a series of factors are conspiring to keep the Ocean State from following its neighbors in New England.

The most obvious obstacle, of course, is Gov. Donald Carcieri’s ’65 promise to veto any same-sex marriage legislation the General Assembly might pass. After the Vermont decision, Carcieri clearly staked out his position by joining the National Organization for Marriage and supporting its anti-gay marriage campaign. Gubernatorial opposition signifi-

equality. The Legislature doesn’t have the votes to explicitly ban gay marriage; nor does it have the will to allow it. Even after the Rhode Island Supreme Court ruled that two Rhode Island women who were married in Massachusetts could not get divorced in Rhode Island, the people’s representatives couldn’t find it in their hearts to allow them to end their marriage.

In Februar y, the Judiciar y Committee of the Rhode Island Senate held a public hearing on two bills. One of the bills would ban same-sex marriage, and the other would

permit it. Hundreds of people turned out to tell their stories, but in spite of the impassioned testimony, the committee killed both bills, and the lack of support in committee is indicative of the situation in the Legislature as a whole.

In fact, both House Speaker William Murphy and Senate President Teresa Paiva-Weed are opposed to allowing gay couples to get married. They claim to be in favor of civil unions, but no bills implementing those suggestions have even been introduced in the 12 years since the legislature first debated same-sex marriage.

At a marriage rally at the Capitol in Providence, I spoke with a lawmaker who is heavily involved in the struggle to recognize same-sex marriage, who told me that many Rhode Island legislators believe that their constituents are much more conser vative than they actually are. Many think that the state’s over whelming Catholicism implies that their constituents would be opposed to marriage equality, despite opinion polls indicating the contrary.

When it comes down to it, the majority of current Rhode Island policymakers and jurists do not have the political will to fulfill the Rhode Island Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection of the laws. Unless there is a sea change in the current legislature, Rhode Island will continue to fall behind such trendsetters as Massachusetts, Connecticut and, yes, even Iowa. And that is truly a shame.

Tyler Rosenbaum ’11 is more than 89 percent Democratic.

The Passover story

BY JEREMY FEIGENBAUM Opinions Columnist For most Jews, Passover provides an opportunity to spend time with friends and family — and to grumble about how much they miss eating bread. But Passover also provides important lessons for modern Jews and non-Jews alike about the freedoms they enjoy.

Jews are not just required to remember that their ancestors were slaves in Egypt, they must also see themselves as if they were those slaves. In doing so this year, I’ve been thinking about the freedoms that Brown students hold dear. Passover helped me realize that I rarely take the time to appreciate the choices I am offered each day, both the superficial and the truly essential.

Although I could survive without it, I have the freedom to chart my own academic path.

A prospective student visited this week and asked me why I loved the New Curriculum.

Answering helped me to realize that, in addition to the trust Brown places in me, I love that everyone in my classes wants to learn about the subject. And I was able to explore a new interest, environmental studies, which I might not have done if I had been forced to take a math class, for example, as a core requirement.

The chance to take courses Satisfactory/

No Credit is an essential part of this freedom.

When I hear students claim that the option is silly, and that graduate schools do not want prospective students to take a class S/NC, I shake my head. Just as I had the freedom to take ECON0110: Principles of Economics S/NC, because I was nervous about taking five classes for the first time, they had the freedom not to.

Brown students, hailing primarily from the United States, also enjoy important political freedoms. Most clearly, students actively participated in the 2008 elections by voting and

ers, without having to fear that Joe Biden will show up in Caswell and whisk me away in the middle of the night.

And many at Brown live a life free from real need. Students sometimes complain about gaining weight because food is always available. I am no exception. Yet we are not forced to eat Ratty food — we can refill our plates to our hearts’ content, but we don’t have to.

Many across this city, state, nation and globe would envy that choice.

I am not writing this column to make students feel guilty about the freedoms that they

Passover helped me realize that I rarely take time to appreciate the choices I am offered each day, both the superficial and the truly essential. making calls to voters across the nation. By contrast, in some authoritarian states student political organizations are virtually non-existent. Students don’t even have the chance to affiliate with the opposition. I am a Democrat, but I think this campus is more vibrant for having groups like the Brown Republicans and journals like the Brown Spectator.

For anyone reading this article right now, freedom of the press should be obvious. I am allowed to write this op-ed, and others about recycling, gay rights and female lead-

enjoy. But this community must recognize that these are freedoms that many do not share.

Since Brown students are so blessed, it is our responsibility to bring freedom to others.

Hu Jia, a Chinese human rights activist, has protested environmental degradation in China along with attempts to cover up the AIDS crisis there. In December 2007, the Chinese government detained him for “incitement to subvert state power.” His wife was placed under surveillance.

Try to imagine the FBI storming into Wil-

son on a Sunday night, interrupting the weekly emPOWER meeting and arresting the attendees. We take freedom for granted, so we forget to help others fight for theirs. While human rights should not be our only foreign policy concern, we should insist that our leaders fight for activists like Hu, who simply want to attain our everyday freedoms.

The story of Shauna Newell might hit closer to home. She was kidnapped in Florida, raped and, although she was saved, was about to be sold to a man in Texas. She was a victim of a human trafficking network. During the past few elections, this issue has been neglected, and few are aware of its prevalence. Brown students should fight for these women and inform others that slavery, specifically sex slavery, is alive and well in this home of the free and the brave.

It is not enough to simply recognize that these events occur. As Jews do during the first two nights of Passover, everybody must see themselves as slaves — a difficult but necessary task given the freedoms and comforts we enjoy. Without putting ourselves in the shoes of those who live in authoritarian countries or who are enslaved in the United States, we can never truly dedicate ourselves to helping them.

Jeremy Feigenbaum ‘11 is a political science concentrator from Teaneck, New Jersey. He can be reached at Jeremy_Feigenbaum@brown.edu.

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M. tennis takes it to the wire — and wins

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Page 12

t h e n e w s i n i m ag e s

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c a l e n da r

comics

Today, april 15

tomorrow, april 16

4 P.M — Brown Degree Days Event: Visual Arts Alum Panel Discussion, List Art Building 325

4 P.M. — “Locked Up: Is Incarceration the Key to Public Safety?” List Art Building 120

8 p.m. — Mr. and Ms. Brown and Class Fashion Show, Sayles Hall

12 p.m. — Bizarre Bazaar Charity Auction, Wriston Quadrangle

Cabernet Voltaire | Abe Pressman

menu Sharpe Refectory

Verney-Woolley Dining Hall

Lunch — Sweet and Sour Tofu, Asian Noodle Bar, BBQ Chicken Sandwich, Stir Fried Rice

Lunch — Hot Roast Beef on French Bread, Vegetable Strudel, Caesar Salad Pizza, Chocolate-Frosted Eclairs

Dinner — Quesadillas with Salsa and Sour Cream, Salmon Provencal, Roasted Potatoes, Greek-Style Asparagus

Dinner — BBQ Chicken, Corn Cobbettes, Corn Bread, Whipped Cream Peach Cake

Enigma Twist | Dustin Foley

RELEASE DATE– Wednesday, April 15, 2009

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

ACROSS 1 St. with a panhandle 5 Polio vaccine developer 10 Stash 14 Jockey strap 15 Native of Tehran 16 “Now I get it!”

17 Loaf pan filler 19 Mane man of film?

20 Fruity rum drink 21 Fills 22 Give authority to 25 Gets in the crosshairs 26 English subjects?

27 One may be proffered at a wedding 29 Mistletoe branch that was Aeneas’ pass to the underworld 32 Eavesdropping org.

35 First name in jazz 36 Lets up 37 Adversaries 38 It’s 0 at the equator: Abbr.

39 Something to lead a horse to 41 Rained hard?

43 Lock horns 44 Use Scope, say 46 Dogs 48 WWII torpedo vessel 49 Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue __” 51 We, to Henri 52 “The Thorn Birds” author 56 Fixes, in a way 57 Two-dimensional surface 58 Puts to work 59 Pre-coll. catchall 60 Located 61 Horn sound DOWN 1 Heavenly body 2 It can precede plop or plunk 3 Make stuff up 4 Amazon predator 5 Move furtively

6 Like Niagara Falls 7 Data transmission rate 8 Swenson of “Benson” 9 Disease research org.

10 A hero might hold it 11 “Cut it out!”

12 Dublin-born actor Milo 13 Razzie Award word 18 Use a divining rod 21 One of about 19 million Indians 22 Georgia of “Coach” 23 Dinero 24 Make a dramatic recovery 25 Inner turmoil 27 Rinsed, as a driveway 28 Violin virtuoso Leopold 30 Author Zora __ Hurston 31 Diminish

33 Smooth transition 34 “... __, dust to dust” 37 Expel 39 Droop 40 “High Sierra” director Walsh 42 Two-time U.S. Open champ Andre 44 Pop or bop 45 Full of excitement

46 Cut back, as a branch 47 Gave the eye 49 Mid-12th century date 50 One __: kids’ ball game 52 AWOL chasers 53 Troupe for troops: Abbr.

54 Prizm maker of yore 55 FDR successor

The One About Zombies | Kevin Grubb

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

s p r i n g w e e k e n d m a g a z i n e to m o r r o w

xwordeditor@aol.com

04/15/09

Post-’s does Spring Weekend Post- will be coming out in fullcolor-magazine form as an insert in Thusday’s Herald.

Music reviews of the Spring Weekend artists, columns about how to make the most of your weekend and an in-depth look at the true meaning of Spring Weekend are just some of the sizzlin’ content in the magazine.

You can also find the full schedule of events for the weekend, listings of on-campus parties and ads for local restaurants and businesses.

By Dan Naddor (c)2009 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

04/15/09

Don’t miss out. Get your free copy.