Monday, October 26, 2009

Daily Herald the Brown

vol. cxliv, no. 92 | Monday, October 26, 2009 | Serving the community daily since 1891

Students helping students, and cash is a new twist

By Nicole Friedman Senior Staff Writer

It sounds like the beginning of a joke: What do an elite Ivy League university and the third-poorest public school district in the nation have in common?

But the answer — their shared community of Providence, Rhode Island — is no punch line, and the wide-ranging relationship between the University and the Providence Public School District has left its mark on students and teachers both on and off College Hill.

Individual faculty members and student groups have long been involved with Providence schools, but Brown began to “institutionalize” the relationship and broaden its scope after the University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice recommended three years ago that Brown make new commitments to the district, said Professor of Education Kenneth Wong, who chairs the department.

Likewise, the city school district has begun “systematically” to build a system that can “accommodate the volunteers and resources” coming from Brown, said Providence Public Schools Superintendent Tom

By Dan Alexander Senior Staf f Writer

It was turning out to be a defensive battle in Ithaca.

Midway through the third quarter of Saturday’s BrownCor nell 34 Brown football 14 Cornell game, the Bears had only one touchdown, and the Big Red defense had scored Cornell’s only two touchdowns.

Then 15 seconds changed ever ything.

inside

A panel of Alpert Medical School doctors and students discussed the inadequacies of cur rent health care deliver y systems Friday in Sayles Hall.

The event — the first of three lectures in the Paul Levinger Health Care Reform Roundtable Series — featured Edward Wing, dean of the medical school and Lt. Governor Elizabeth Roberts ’78.

The panelists, including Professor of Medicine Thomas O’Toole, Associate Dean of Medicine for Public Health Terrie Wetle, Zachar y Ginsberg MD/MPP ’10 and Chima Ndumele GS, addressed a large audience of physicians, faculty and students.

Wing said too many healthrelated problems are tackled in the emergency room first. “I’m a fan of primar y care,” Wing said.

“It is the heart and soul of medicine. It’s the starting point.”

Primar y care physicians should build relationships with their patients and educate them to change their lifestyle choices to prevent diseases, he

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SPORTS

Nick Sinnott-Armstrong / Herald

Providence students receive a hands-on lesson in plant anatomy from a Brown Science Prep mentor.

Brady.

As the University expands its programs in Providence schools, both Brown and Providence students are reaping the benefits, educational program managers at the Swearer Center for Public Service said, and an increasing number of students are leaving College Hill to volunteer. continued on page 4

Town/Brown The Herald examines Brown’s multifaceted relationship with the city it calls home.

Third in a five-part series.

Students see eye to eye in arts mentoring program

Primary care lacking, according to panel

By Goda Thangada Contributing Writer

Farnham ’10 leads football over Cornell

“We made a plaster wristband that went up to her elbow — like a Spiderman kind of thing,” Ryan said, Elizabeth Ryan ’12 smiled, remem- laughing. “She was so excited.” bering the day she helped a student For Ryan, mentoring Arianna was from Vartan Gregorian part of a weekly routine Elementary School dress FEATURE last spring. With other up as a superhero. Arianna volunteers from Brown’s didn’t want to settle for a mask and chapter of Project Eye-to-Eye, now a a cape, Ryan recalled — she wanted continued on page 3 to play with plaster.

By Luisa Robledo Staff Writer

said.

“We let patients off the hook.

They’re responsible for their own health,” he later added.

But both Wing and Roberts said primary care lacks adequate resources. “We’re not thinking enough about deliver y systems,” Roberts said. As an example she pointed to a “major revelation” among many in neighboring Massachusetts that there were not enough primar y care providers for the influx of new patients brought into the system after health care reform in the state.

Wing believes a greater proportion of the money spent on health care ought to be spent on primar y care. The United States spends “seven percent of health care dollars on primary care,” he said. “The optimum is 12 percent.

In Rhode Island, we spend five percent. It’s a disgrace.”

It is unfair, Wing said, that physicians are paid more when they recommend more tests.

“The way they are incentivized to do their business is out of control,” he said. During the panel,

With his team trailing 147, Brown quar terback Kyle Newhall-Caballero ’11 spotted wide-receiver Buddy Farnham ’10 wide open near the right sideline. Fifty-six yards later, Farnham was in the end zone and the Bears were an extra point away from tying the score, 14-14.

After the ensuing kickoff, Cornell had the ball at its 34yard line. On the first play of the drive, Big Red quarterback Ben Ganter tried to pass to one of his receivers. But defensive end and co-captain Jimmy Develin ’10 got it instead. Develin ran the interception back to Cornell’s six-yard line. One play later, running back Zach Tronti ’11 found the end zone, giving Brown its first lead of the game, 21-14.

Four plays. Fifteen seconds.

Two touchdowns.

The Bears never looked back, and ran away with a 34continued on page 7

W ar m in g u p to C han g e

Courtesy of Adam Robbins

On Saturday’s Global Day of Climate Action, students posed for a photo in Sayles Hall, promoting 350 as scientists’ estimate of the maximum sustainable amount, in parts per million, of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

See story, page 3

continued on page 3

Arts, 5

Sports, 7

Opinions, 11

ready for swine time Brown-RISD Hillel presents ‘Contagious,’ and H1N1 themed art show

bears beat big red The men’s soccer team bounced back after its first loss to beat Cornell

Rhody, Rhody, Rhody Tyler Rosenbaum ’11 outlines the littlest state’s biggest problems

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

herald@browndailyherald.com

Page 2

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

C ampus N EWS Grant takes aim at inequality with interdisciplinary approach A new $3.1 million fiveyear grant from the National Science Foundation will allow the University to expand doctoral training and research on global inequality.

The grant will allow doctoral students in the social sciences to receive interdisciplinary instruction on themes including public health disparities and will provide funding for fieldwork in the developing world, said Professor of Sociology Patrick Heller.

Heller, who will direct the grant along with Barbara Stallings, a research professor at the Watson Institute for International Studies, said the program will begin admitting second-year doctoral students next year.

The Brown program is one of the first in the country focused explicitly on global inequality, Heller said. “We know a lot about inequality in the first world, but it’s time we took that accumulated knowledge and applied it to the global South,” he said.

The grant is part of an NSF program focused on expanding interdisciplinary training for doctoral students, Heller said. The Brown initiative is one of

only a handful of social science projects awarded money through the program this year.

“We hope to give students the opportunity to get training in a variety of methodologies,” he said, adding that inequality has usually been studied through the lens of a single discipline — such as economics or anthropology.

According to Heller, the Brown initiative will also encourage doctoral students to begin fieldwork in their first or second summer — earlier in their careers than is usual. Brown has partnered with institutions in China, India and Brazil in order to ease “logistical problems” and make research easier.

“We want to understand the reality on the ground,” he said.

Heller said the program — which joins a variety of other Watson Institute initiatives focused on inequality and development — is a perfect fit for Brown because of researchers’ existing focus. “We’ve got more people studying these issues than almost anywhere in the country,” he said.

— Emily Kirkland

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The Brown Daily Herald (USPS 067.740) is an independent newspaper serving the Brown University community daily since 1891. It is published Monday through Friday during the academic year, excluding vacations, once during Commencement, once during Orientation and once in July by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Single copy free for each members of the community.

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Monday, October 26, 2009

“It is not important who is voting, it is important who is counting.”

— Malalai Joya, former member of Aghan parliament, on elections

Former Afghan MP paints bleak picture

By Bradley Silverman Contributing Writer

Malalai Joya, a former member of Afghanistan’s parliament and an advocate for women’s rights, addressed a Salomon 101 crowd Sunday afternoon, speaking about corruption in the national government, the role of women in Afghan society and U.S. involvement in her countr y.

Elected to the parliament in 2005, Joya was expelled from the body after denouncing the presence of war criminals within the Afghan government. She stirred controversy with similar claims in 2003, when she was a delegate to the Constitutional Ratification Convention.

Joya described a society in which rights for women are virtually nonexistent, saying Afghan women scarcely enjoy more freedom today than they did under the Taliban’s regime.

She said that eight years after the fall of the Taliban, women are still required to wear burqas outside, and that rape and murder of women is still common in Afghanistan.

She described, as an example, an incident in which three men — including the son of an MP — raped a young girl without facing

any repercussions.

Joya also blasted corruption within the Afghan government, accusing it of being made up of thugs — many of whom are either involved in the opium-trafficking trade or are members of the Taliban.

“Day by day, they prove to the world that they are mentally similar to the Taliban,” she said. “They replaced the Taliban with warlords and criminals.”

On the subject of the recent Afghan elections, Joya denied the legitimacy of the official results, calling the vote “the most ridiculed election in the world.”

She also accused the government of engineering a massive fraud campaign to fix the election results.

“It is not important who is voting, it is important who is counting,” she said.

She criticized both Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his main rival, former Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdullah Abdullah, saying that both men “betrayed our people… and are hated by Afghans.”

Joya also called upon the United States to remove its forces from Afghanistan. The longer American troops stay in Afghanistan, she said, the worse the internal

situation will be, and added that American soldiers only ser ve to prop up an unpopular government that does not have the support of the Afghan people.

She criticized President Obama for continuing with the policies of George W. Bush, whom she called a “war criminal.”

“No nation can donate liberation to another nation,” Joya said. “Histor y shows we will never accept occupation.”

After concluding her address, Joya took questions from the audience, including one from an American soldier who asked what would happen to Afghanistan’s internal security if U.S. forces were immediately withdrawn.

Joya replied that despite the presence of Americans, there is already little stability, accusing the media of not telling the truth about the current situation within the countr y.

Despite her bleak take on the current condition of Afghanistan, she concluded on a note of hope with a quotation from Martin Luther King, Jr.: “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”

Philosopher diagrams liberty, natural law

By Leonardo Moauro Contributing Writer

“Liberty is something you achieve. It is not an automatic given,” philosopher Peter Kreeft told a Salomon 001 audience Friday afternoon during the Brown-Rhode Island School of Design Catholic Community’s annual lecture.

Kreeft, an author and professor of philosophy at Boston College and the King’s College, examined the nature and rudiments of liberty from a purely philosophical perspective.

Although he grounded his argument in the work of the Ancient Greek virtue ethicists, he drew from the theories of 20th-century philosophers such as Jean-Paul Sartre and C.S. Lewis. He also extensively quoted Thomas Aquinas.

An audience that included ministers in addition to students from Brown and Providence College watched Kreeft fill the chalkboard with an intricate diagram of philosophical definitions and explanations. At the center of the board, Kreeft wrote down what he called the four kinds of freedom: physical freedom, free will, liberty and political freedom. In his “ancient argument,” Kreeft linked the concepts, saying there is no liberty without free will, and there is no free will without physical freedom.

But the “big question” is the nature of the tenets of liberty, Kreeft

said. He drew a clear line between exterior and interior liberty, and consequently, between bondage and addiction.

Kreeft further refined his conception of liberty by describing its preconditions: free will, wisdom and virtue. In opposition to determinism — the belief that all human actions are already set — Kreeft paraphrased William James: “I will choose to believe in free will, thereby showing free will.”

Still, Kreeft argued that free will needs to be supplemented by wisdom and virtue because not all decisions people make increase their liberty. “You can freely choose to sell yourself into slavery,” Kreeft said, referring to both bondage and addiction.

Another key theme of his lecture was natural law. This higher law, informed by the divine will, cannot exist, Kreeft said, without moral realism — the belief that there are objective moral values. He said virtue was simply adherence to natural law.

In defense of the existence of an objective set of moral precepts, Kreeft said, “Your desires can’t possibly be the source of morality, because morality judges your desires.”

Peter Simon ’13, an audience member, asked if there was a difference between natural law and moral law. Kreeft replied affirmatively by mentioning that many atheists observe moral law. Simon said he was

impressed by Kreeft, who “knows what arguments are out there and knows which ones are logical and which ones don’t make sense.”

After the lecture, Kreeft told The Herald that he believes modern politics lies somewhere in between the theory of the virtue-ethicists and that of more pragmatic philosophers such as Niccolo Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes. He described the political system as a “meritocracy based on intelligence.”

Answers to conflict between pragmatism and moral virtue “can’t come from government,” he said, adding that individuals make up institutions, not the opposite.

Kreeft extensively referenced the Christian philosopher and writer Lewis when discussing natural law.

He quoted Lewis’ claim that civilizations which believe in natural law are the ones that, historically, have thrived the most and lasted the longest. According to Kreeft, Lewis also said that “moral subjectivism ... will certainly damn our souls and end our species.”

In concurrence with Lewis, Kreeft said, “modern Western culture has ... increasingly turned away from the notion of natural law,” something that “has never happened in history.”

As a result of this refusal, he said, people will either disprove one of the most influential laws of humanity, crawl back to it or disap-

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Monday, October 26, 2009

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

C ampus N EWS

Page 3

“We are not smart consumers of health care.”

— Lieutenant Governor Elizabeth Roberts ’78

Program aids learning disabled with arts continued from page 1

Courtesy of Adam Robbins

Students socialize after posing in the shape of the number 350 (see photo, page 1) to recognize a global day for action on climate change. The number represents a potentially sustainable amount of atmospheric CO2.

Students rally for climate change action

By Emily Rosen Staff Writer

A group of Brown students joined members of the Providence community Saturday at Waterplace Park to participate in the International Day of Climate Action.

The event was organized in cities across the world by 350.org, an international campaign devoted to publicizing the dangers of climate change and advocating for policy reform. The group organized over 5,200 events in 181 countries, including Egypt, India, Australia and Brazil, according to its Web site.

At many of the events, including the one in Providence, participants took photos in the shape of the number 350 and submitted their photos to the 350.org Web site. According to some scientists, 350 is the maximum number of parts per million of carbon dioxide that should safely be in the atmosphere. Currently, that number stands above 380 parts per million, according to Greg Gerritt, the primary event coordinator in Providence.

A group of students, organized

by the campus environmentalist group emPower, gathered in Sayles Hall to form the number “350” for a photo and then marched down to Waterplace Park for the main event.

“I think it’s really important that individuals band together to vocalize support about the issue,” said Kara Kaufman ’12.

Several Watson International Scholars of the Environment from Africa joined students in Sayles in attending the Waterplace Park event.

“We are here to network with our peers in the developed world,” said Visiting Scholar Joachim Ezeji, who is conducting water research at Brown this semester. “Africa is very vulnerable to rising temperatures.”

At the Waterplace Park rally, speakers addressed the crowd, a local church group provided music and a few local organizations set up informational tables. The Environment Council of Rhode Island and Rhode Island Interfaith Power and Light, a religious group dedicated to climate change, organized the

event, which attracted a crowd of more than 60 students and community members despite rainy weather.

“We have CO2 emissions off the chart, and it’s time to do something about it,” Gerritt said.. He opened the event by stressing that changes need to be made in people’s lifestyles in order to reduce their carbon footprint.

A main focus of the event was the rising global sea level, which is expected to go up by at least five feet in the next 80 to 100 years, according to Gerritt. “What’s high tide now will be low tide in the future,” he said, adding that a five-foot rise in sea level would mean that the Waterplace Plaza would often be completely underwater.

“We need to start being really vocal,” said Paul Beaudette, president of the Environment Council of Rhode Island. “We need to put limits on how we use carbon.”

Beaudette also emphasized the need for new modes of transportation in Rhode Island, such as electric cars, that reduce carbon emissions.

Panelists critique health care reform debate continued from page 1 Ginsberg said physicians both supplied and created the demand for health care.

“It’s a flawed economic system, and it doesn’t function rationally,” he said.

Roberts said she expected to see “people wanting some accountability in terms of quality in medical practice.”

“We are not smart consumers of health care,” she added.

Wing and Roberts expressed their confidence in the medical home model, in which patients receive comprehensive care from primar y care physicians.

Rober ts said she expects “a

diversity of approaches” in health care deliver y to emerge after reforms pass through Congress.

But she and Wing agreed that health insurance reform rather than health care reform is the focus of legislators in Washington.

“I’m not sure how productive that is,” Wing said.

Addressing the doctors in the audience, Rober ts said, “The medical community has to be in the middle of this discussion. It’s really vital that we don’t make assumptions about the work that you do without your input and involvement.”

O’Toole emphasized the importance of “teaching our students to think about systems, the milieu

they will be practicing in.” He also stressed the need for doctors to be effective communicators and to work together. “We need to be considering what it means to be working as a team,” he said.

A basic concern is whether health care is considered a right, Roberts said.

“I think it’s a fundamental question for the countr y and for each of us,” Wing said.

Roberts said an influx of patients into the health care system presents the chance for major changes in health care deliver y.

“We have the opportunity to make smart changes,” she said, “We also have the opportunity to do it wrong.”

national organization with 26 chapters in 14 states, Ryan went to the Fox Point elementary school to explore art with a group of children with learning disabilities.

“It’s an after-school program in which we get to build a one-on-one relationship with kids,” said Ryan, who now coordinates the student group at Brown. “We’re role models, and we’re using art to get through to them.”

David Flink ’02 and Jonathan Mooney ’00 founded the program 11 years ago in an effort to give hope to kids who, like them, had learning disabilities. They wanted to improve the children’s self-esteem, Flink said.

“We wanted to empower kids and let them know that they could get to college,” said Flink, who has dyslexia.

“There is no one better to deliver that message than people who have gone through the same situation.”

When first choosing a curriculum, he and Mooney turned to social activist and educator Maxine Greene’s philosophy, which states that “art gives people a voice to advocate for themselves,” Flink said. Each year, an artist-in-residence designs an artbased curriculum that includes activities like finger painting, drawing and crafts for the mentors to use with their students.

“Art is a form of democracy,” Flink said. “This is really what our population needs.”

Flink and Mooney also intend for Project Eye-to-Eye’s mentors to be students with learning disabilities themselves.

“We don’t have to teach our mentors,” Flink said. “They’ve made it to college, and they know what it’s like,” adding that this helps mentors

see “eye-to-eye” with the younger students they work with.

During his time at Brown, Flink worked closely with Professor of Education Cynthia Garcia Coll.

“He got all sorts of background knowledge about learning disabilities, how people think about them and treat them,” Garcia Coll said, adding that Flink did “a lot of independent studies” with her.

Flink even offers advice and support to younger students whom he hasn’t worked with through Project Eye-to-Eye. For years, he served as a mentor to Garcia Coll’s son — who has attention deficit disorder — through the struggles he faced in school.

“Forget about college,” she said.

“We were uncertain if he was going to make it through fifth grade.”

With Flink’s support, Garcia Coll said, her son became more confident in his ability to achieve academic success and is now applying to graduate school to get a master’s degree in marine biology.

But Flink and Mooney did not want the program to wither after their graduation. For advice on how to build a sustainable business model for the organization, Flink turned to Professor Emeritus of Engineering Barrett Hazeltine.

With Hazeltine’s guidance and their determination to keep the project alive, Flink and Mooney found the funding they needed to continue working with Project Eye-to-Eye as their full-time jobs after Brown.

Nowadays, Flink comes back to campus as a guest speaker for some of Hazeltine’s classes to encourage undergrads to pursue their own entrepreneurial visions.

“He succeeded,” Hazeltine said.

“It’s a great thing.”

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

C ampus N EWS

Monday, October 26, 2009

“The Hill is not so high and we’re not so far from the city.”

— Hanna Rodriguez-Farrar ’87 MA’90 PhD’09, assistant to the president

Brown’s ties to local schools survive budget cuts continued from page 1 “If you look at that trajectory over the last 20 years, the Hill is not so high, and we’re not so far from the city,” said Hanna RodriguezFarrar ’87 MA’90 PhD’09, assistant to President Ruth Simmons and a member of the Corporation’s Board of Trustees. “The ties are much closer now than they were when I was going to Brown.”

‘Trying to institutionalize’ The 2006 final report of the Slavery and Justice committee criticized the decentralization of Brown’s initiatives in Providence’s public schools and urged the University to do better.

“One of the most obvious and meaningful ways for Brown to take responsibility for its past is by dedicating its resources to improving the quality of education available to the children of our city and state” as part of a wider acknowledgement of the University’s historical ties to slavery, the report said. Providence public school students are disproportionately black, and the committee cited the historical links between slavery and the denial of educational opportunity.

In response, Brown took a three-pronged approach to improving its education outreach.

First, it established a Fund for the Education of the Children of Providence, with a final endowment goal of $10 million — $1.5 million of which has been raised. The fund announced its first four grants in May: A $118,000 purchase of graphing calculators for all of Providence’s middle and high schools and three $10,000 curricular development grants for Roger Williams Middle School, Vartan Gregorian Elementary School and Hope High School.

The grants were determined by a group of Corporation members that oversees the fund, said Rodriguez-Farrar, who was on the committee before this year. Committee members, all of whom live in Rhode Island, elicit ideas for grants from the district — the calculator donation, for example, was suggested by Brady, administrators said.

“We were very concerned with touching the students directly,” Rodriguez-Farrar said.

The calculator grant was a “perfect combination” of a grant that directly affected student experiences and had a long-term benefit, she added, because the calculators were accompanied by professional development and teacher training.

“There are pieces to it that should make a lasting difference in math education in Providence public schools,” she said.

Members of the Corporation oversight committee hope to announce further grants from the fund by the end of this semester, said Vice President for Public Affairs and University Relations Marisa Quinn.

Also in response to the Slavery and Justice report, the University now enrolls up to 10 Urban Education Fellows each year. These fellows receive free tuition for a one-year master’s degree, either in teaching or in urban education policy. In exchange, they spend three years after graduation working in Providence-area schools.

“One year isn’t really enough to establish relationships” within communities, said Heather Johnson MA’09, an urban education fellow. “I liked the idea of that commitment to a specific urban community for an extended period of time.”

Like the education fund, the fellowship program is designed as a long-term investment.

“If we keep producing this pipeline, in 10 years we will have 80 to 100 of these urban education fellows who contributed at least three years of service to the urban commu-

Nick Sinnott-Armstrong / Herald

Hope High students gathered in Barus and Holley on Saturday morning for a lecture on plant biology led by Brown Science Prep volunteers.

Town/Brown

The Herald examines Brown’s multifaceted relationship with the city it calls home.

Third in a five-part series. nity,” Wong said.

Lastly, to coordinate the variety of programs and outreach initiatives already existing between Brown and the Providence school district, the University created the Office of Education Outreach. Its primary job is finding internships for urban education students, Wong said.

The office also “helps people in the schools understand what the resources are at Brown,” Quinn said, adding that it can show people at Brown where to implement new programs or research projects without duplicating someone else’s work. Some Providence schools “make perfect sense because we’re already there, and some make no sense because we’re already there,” she said.

The education outreach office runs a Web site listing Brown’s various initiatives in Providence schools, but it is out of date.

Elizabeth Richards MA’09 is temporarily acting as director of education outreach, after former director Tehani Collazo ’91 left the post this summer. The Education Department has received approval to fill the position despite Brown’s budget crunch, Wong said, and hopes to hire a new director “within a month.”

“We don’t want to let a short-term economic cycle push us back on this commitment to support building this relationship,” Wong said.

Overall, the University is making its part-

Kayleigh Butera / Herald

A member of the Hope High Debate Club organizes her notes during a meeting last week.

Brown students coach the club.

nerships with the district less “dependent on individual faculty or individual students,” he added. “What is different now, because of Slavery and Justice, is that we are trying to institutionalize.”

Areas for improvement Despite the expansion of Brown’s outreach programs since 2006, there is “so much more to do,” Brady said. “And that’s on both sides.”

Though the creation of the Office of Education Outreach is a big step forward, “there’s

definitely room for better integration and collaboration” within the University, said Linda Cunningham, program director for educational equity for the Swearer Center.

Grants from the fund, for example, are managed separately from the center’s outreach programs.

It was “never the intention of the fund” to work closely with the other educational outreach programs on campus, Quinn said.

“It was always, I think, seen as an additional piece and a university-level piece,” she said.

Page 5

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

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The district’s “sporadic” and “fragmented” relationship with Brown has been “remarkably effective on a case-by-case basis,” Brady said, “but systematically we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Providence schools can only “properly tap into” Brown’s resources if the district can make its needs known, he said.

“Unless I come up with, ‘Here’s specific things that you can do,’ then we’re wasting each other’s time,” Brady said.

The superintendent has already identified one weakness: Brown programs, perhaps because of their grassroots beginnings, often contribute more to public schools in the immediate College Hill area than to schools in the rest of the city.

Brady, who attributes this imbalance to the “geography and comfort level” of nearby schools such as Vartan Gregorian and Hope, said one of his challenges is to provide opportunities for Brown to expand its programs to schools that “definitely could use the help more.”

The grants given by Brown’s new education fund, especially the donation of graphing calculators to all of Providence’s middle and high schools, could begin evening this imbalance. The calculators, TI-Nspires, will arrive in classrooms in mid-November.

Brady said the $118,000 calculator grant goes a long way for the school system, noting that “for a cash-poor district, that’s not bad.”

But for Brown, it is only the start for what it hopes will become a much larger endowed fund, Quinn said.

‘A crucial first step’ But in a district in which 85 percent of 11th graders were below proficiency in math last year, according to an annual report on Providence schools put out by the state department of education and the University of Rhode Island, new graphing calculators might not address students’ most pressing needs.

Brown previously collaborated with Texas Instruments, Inc., on whose board President Ruth Simmons serves, to donate graphing calculators to Hope in 2007. With the calculators, TI provided teacher development training and the Swearer Center formed Algebra in Motion, a student group that sends volunteers to Hope classrooms and runs after-school tutoring and mentoring programs.

“When we got into Hope High, we found out that the calculators were basically useless,” said Aditya Voleti ’11, an Algebra in Motion coordinator. Because many students lag in basic math, “a lot of times the calculators become like a crutch,” he said. “We actually encourage our volunteers to discourage the calculators.”

Allowing students without basic math skills to use complex calculators is a “very controversial topic in the math education world,” said Ellen House, who leads Hope’s math faculty.

The calculators get a lot of use in Hope math classrooms, she said, but teachers use them far less in the math classes specifically targeted at students “way below” grade level.

The city rolled out a new district-wide math and science curriculum at the beginning of this year.

“We can’t expect students to do high-level math and science without the benefit of calculators and other materials that students in other districts have readily available to them,” said Christina O’Reilly, spokeswoman for the district.

“The presence of calculators isn’t going to make the difference necessarily,” said Johnson — who works as a math specialist at the Rhode Island Department of Education as part of her fellowship — but it’s a “crucial first step.”

A two-way street While Brown has a long history of investing volunteer hours and teaching time in Providence schools, direct grants from the University to the district are a recent and relatively

untested development.

“Human capital — the will to do the right thing for Providence children — has been there since Brown has been there,” Brady said.

The potential of the fund, on the other hand, is in the future, as it continues to grow and make grants that can benefit the district in the long-term, Quinn said.

Unlike grants, volunteering requires a long-term commitment to build relationships, Cunningham said. “It’s not a giveaway — like, ‘Here’s a box of calculators.’”

And face-to-face volunteer time lets both Brown and Providence students see concrete results, said Algebra in Motion’s Voleti. “Tracking the effect of grants or something is very abstract.”

At Vartan Gregorian — where athletic teams have sponsored classrooms for years — the school’s principal, Colin Grimsey, said the Brown partnership “translates into concrete examples of student performance,” including increased test scores.

But Brown’s relationship with Providence is not a “one-way street,” said Arthur Petrosinelli, principal of Hope High’s Information Technology School. Providence schools also offer Brown students a chance to practice teaching and “really get a hands-on approach with inner city students,” he said.

Most Brown and Providence public school students “come from worlds that are about as different as it’s possible to come from in this country,” said House, the Hope High math teacher. “Our kids have an awful lot to offer Brown students.”

Though Brown students are often taken aback by the academic needs of Hope students, they change their perceptions after working with Algebra in Motion, Voleti said, adding that many Hope students are “shockingly bright.”

Some students have decided to pursue careers in education after getting involved with Swearer Center programs, Cunningham said. “That sort of reaps dividends way down the road,” she added. “Way after a piece of expensive equipment will endure.”

Monday, October 26, 2009

“Our kids have an awful lot to offer Brown students.”

— Ellen House, a math teacher at Hope High School

College Hill outreach Organized Brown programs benefiting local public schools William D’Abate Elementary School 2.6 miles from Brown • • • • • • • • • •

Brown Arts Mentoring 21st Century Learning Community Center grant Swearer Classroom Program Brown Language Arts Program Olneyville ESOL Program Providence Science Outreach Math In Motion Sports, Mystery and Adventure Reading Team Grow Kids Garden Club No Small Parts

Hope High School 0.6 miles from Brown • • • • • • •

Algebra in Motion College Guidance Project $10,000 curricular development grant Texas Instruments Math Initiative Brown SAT Prep Brown Science Prep Rhode Island Urban debate League

Vartan Gregorian Elementary School 0.9 miles from Brown • • • •

$10,000 curricular development grant GK-12 Science Education Program Project Eye-To-Eye Partnership with Student-Athlete Advisory Committee

Roger Williams Middle School 2.4 miles from Brown • $10,000 curricular development grant • Calculator donation (through fund)

Kayleigh Butera / Herald

Brown faculty and students work with students in local schools as part of the University’s effort to expand outreach to Providence schools.

Online: See articles, multimedia and interactive maps from the series. www.browndailyherald.com/series/town-brown

Arts & Culture The Brown Daily Herald

Monday, October 26, 2009 | Page 6

Swine flu inspires, not Sister Spit explores queer expression infects, at art show

By Suzannah Weiss Senior Staf f Writer

By Corina Chase Contributing Writer

This fall has the masses anxious about “the swine,” with college students in particular tr ying to avoid the H1N1 flu. But for the Hillel Gallery Project — a committee of Brown and Rhode Island School of Design students responsible for organizing art exhibitions at Hillel — the looming flu season turned out to be a source of inspiration, not just rattled nerves.

“Contagious,” the committee’s fall juried show, emerged from a search for ideas that would be “pertinent” to the present time and for “issues at stake at this moment,” said JungMin Lee ’11, cochair of the Hillel Gallery Project.

The theme incorporates current worries about both the H1N1 and seasonal influenza viruses as well as thoughts about what Lee called an “interconnected world,” where information and knowledge (as well as germs) can spread incredibly quickly.

The show features around 25 works by 19 student artists — 11 from Brown and eight from RISD. The works themselves are a mix of traditional and more unusual techniques, including paintings and digital photographs, as well as installations and a body cast.

Richard Eder, an arts critic for the New York Times and a visiting lecturer at Brown, juried the show.

“Contagious” begins in the hallway that leads from the main Brown-RISD Hillel lobby and continues into the social hall.

Painting and photography are the most common media, making up at least one-third of the works in the show.

“Myths of the Near Future,” an intaglio print by RISD junior Whitney Alsup; and “Karma #1,” a pen, marker and pencil illustration on foam core by Affandi

Setiawan, also a RISD junior, are both notable for their intricacy.

The former, a detailed portrait of animal-like humans dancing by a fire, possesses the strange and lovely air of a Grimm fair y tale. “Karma #1,” a brighter and more abstract work, ser ves as the eye-catching opener for the show itself.

The hallway also offers several photographs and a brightly colored piece made of knitted squares and found socks, as well as the body cast mentioned earlier. That piece, called “My Sweet,” is a life-cast made of silicone rubber, hanging upside-down with the groin at eye level for maximum shock value. Needless to say, it dominates the hallway space.

The second, larger room of the show hosts the rests of the works — among them, a series of photographs, several paintings and a couple of large installations.

“Coupling,” a sculpture of concrete, nylon, sand and black resin

by Cecilia Salama ’12, combines stark beauty with a suggestion of bodily discharge, making a strong contrast to the quieter, more muted painting “Olive Tree #3” by Melissa Henry ’10.

Against the back wall, RISD junior Alex Temple’s installation “O’ sweet Amelia, where has all the time gone…?” stands out in particular. Built with steel, leather, dirt, leaves, a dog leash and a Gucci bag, the work evokes a quiet desolation even in the midst of the bright room.

With some of the works in “Contagious,” it’s a stretch to make a connection to the show’s stated theme. That isn’t necessarily a drawback. The Hillel Gallery Project and Eder have succeeded in both lightly connecting the works to each other and leaving them free to stand on their own, a difficult balance to achieve.

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The interdisciplinary queer feminist performance group Sister Spit held workshops at Brown and the Rhode Island School of Design last Thursday and Friday, followed by a presentation of their poetry, fiction, film and tour anecdotes in List Art Center Friday night.

About 110 people — including Brown and RISD students, Providence residents and even Sister Spit fans all the way from Syracuse University and Vassar College — attended the final show, according to Queer Alliance Head Chair Aida Manduley ’11, one of the event’s primar y organizers. Members of Word!, Brown’s spoken word poetry group, opened the show.

Sister Spit member Kirya Traber, who also teaches poetry for an organization called Youth Speaks, read three spoken-word poems, including “La Última Palabra,” a striking piece about the relationship between social class and hair type.

“With every performance I ever do, it’s a cathartic experience, but I also hope that the audience has an experience that can be healing or transformative,” Traber said, adding that she tries to represent queer women of color.

Traber also spoke to a class at RISD about working with youth in the arts.

Author Rhiannon Argo also performed Friday, reading from her novel “The Creamsickle” about queer skater culture. While she read, photos by group member Sara Seinberg of “queers with creamsickles,” as emcee and Sister Spit curator Michelle Tea put it, flashed on the screen.

Argo said she hopes to show aspiring writers, especially young women, “that their stories are important and that they can write.”

“When I was younger I didn’t have that many writer role models,” she added.

“There’s not one voice that’s ‘the queer voice.’ It’s a lot of different styles,” said Beth Lisick, author of “Helping Me Help Myself: One

Nick Sinnott-Armstrong / Herald

Sister Spit, a queer feminist performance group, gave its final show last week, drawing fans from the community and as far as upstate New York.

Skeptic, Ten Self-Help Gurus, and a Year on the Brink of the Comfort Zone.”

As one of the show’s last acts, Lisick read an excerpt from her book in which, on a quest to better understand the self-help phenomenon, she goes to a talk featuring author-psychic Sylvia Browne, who grew up in Lisick’s town.

“I don’t think it should be the only way, but I think it’s interesting to have an event that is curated by women or by queer people to show what is going on in their communities or in their artistic circles,” Lisick said.

Sister Spit visited Providence as part of a coast-to-coast tour beginning in San Francisco and stopping in other major cities. The group performed at some peculiar venues, including a Salt Lake City realty office full of Spongebob Squarepants paraphernalia, Tea said.

Other Sister Spit members who visited included spoken word poet Ida Acton, graphic novelist and former “L-Word” writer Ariel Schrag, transsexual performance artist Ben McCoy and filmmakers Peter Pizzi and Sarah Adams.

Sister Spit’s workshops, each

attended by about five to 10 students, addressed a variety of topics, including resisting assimilation, creating exhibitions with multiple art forms and writing personal narratives, graphic novels and book proposals.

“They were small, cozy workshops,” Manduley said, adding that the intimate setting allowed for “an equilibrium of interaction.” Still, she said, “at each of the workshops I saw people I had never seen before.”

Katie Lamb ’10, who was also involved in bringing the group to campus, said she hoped Sister Spit would “have a chance to do networking and talk to people about a wide variety of different topics.”

Manduley said her main goal in bringing Sister Spit to College Hill was not only to entertain students and members of the wider community but also to inspire them to challenge their beliefs.

After the workshop on resisting assimilation, Manduley said, students came up to her with comments like “this made me question myself” and “some of the things that I thought were just turned upside down.”

SportsMonday The Brown Daily Herald

Monday, October 26, 2009 | Page 7

Bears continue tear with road victory over Big Red continued from page 1 14 victor y.

“That 15 seconds was huge,” said Head Coach Phil Estes. “After that, the offense really kicked in and just controlled the football game.”

Once they had the lead, the Bears turned away from their passfocused offense and kept the ball on the ground, chewing up time and slowly advancing down the field.

Of their 24 offensive plays in the fourth quarter, 19 were rushes.

Tronti finished the day with 26 carries for 134 yards and three touchdowns.

“He made some great runs,” Estes said. “He got to the sideline and made the edge. He set up his blocks really well.”

But Tronti and the rest of the of fense struggled to get drives going in the first half. The Bears’ only first-half touchdown was a 48yard pass to Farnham, who didn’t have anyone within 20 yards of him because of a miscommunication between two of Cornell’s defensive backs, according to Cornell safety Anthony Ambrosi.

Farnham’s first touchdown was one of his nine catches for 207 yards.

The Bears had to rely heavily on Farnham after the Bears’ other star receiver, Bobby Sewall ’10, came down hard on his head and back and was sidelined for the rest of the game.

“I mean, he basically took over the game,” said Estes of Farnham.

“With Sewall out, he knew the ball would be coming his way ... He’s one of the best football players I

Jesse Morgan / Herald

Zachary Tronti ’11, pictured above in a battle against URI, had three touchdowns at Cornell Saturday.

have ever been around.”

Other than Farnham, no Brown player found the end zone before halftime, and the Bears entered their locker room tied, 7-7.

Ambrosi led Cornell’s defense in the first half with nine tackles, one fumble recover y and a touchdown. A former running back who converted to safety this summer, Ambrosi said he never thought his first college touchdown would have been at safety.

“We had some tough breaks in the first half,” said co-captain and left-tackle Paul Jasinowski ’10.

On a play that ended with a Cornell touchdown, the officials ruled that Newhall-Caballero fumbled, but Estes said the tapes showed that they should have called it an incomplete pass. A few downs before, the referees ruled a late hit on a play that Estes said was still going when the contact occurred.

And Farnham caught a ball that one referee said was a touchdown, but another official said the receiver bobbled the ball and was out of bounds by the time he had possession.

“That was a touchdown,” Estes

Doubles teams represent Bruno at ITA Regionals

By Han Cui Assistant Spor ts Editor

Six players on the men’s tennis team represented Brown in the four-day ITA Regionals from Oct. 16 to 19. Co-captains Kendrick Au ’11 and Charlie Posner ’11 advanced to the doubles final on the last day, losing 9-7 to Alistair Felton and Andy Nguyen from Har vard.

“All the teams at Regionals are top teams,” Au said. “We knew going in there would be no easy match.”

Au and Posner received a bye in the first round. They faced off against Chris Post and Diego Valdenegro from St. Bonaventure in the next round, whom they sailed past, 8-3. Star ting in the round of 16, the competition became fierce, but Au and Posner battled through. First they defeated Dan Freeman and Michael Laser from host school Dartmouth, 9-7. They then beat out Sven Vlodgraven and Gilbert Wong from Binghamton University, 8-6.

“We were able to score the big points,” Au said. “Overall, we played well.”

In the semi-final round, Au and Posner defeated the second doubles team from Harvard, 8-6. In the final round, they played against the first doubles team from the Crimson. Au and Posner established a comfortable 6-2 lead, but Har vard rallied from behind to take the win, 9-7.

“Charlie and I came out really quick” in the final match, Au said.

“The Har vard team played well, but we played a notch above them in the first eight games. But momentum is so important in doubles. We might have gotten a little complacent and allowed them to come back.”

Despite the loss, Au said his confidence was high.

“We had our chances,” Au said.

“But our confidence is up because we know we can keep up with the best teams in the region.”

Andrew Yazmer ’12 and Michael Hill ’13 were the other Brown doubles pair who advanced in the tournament. They won their first match against Graydon Klassen and John Nogueras from Colgate, 8-4, to advance to the round of 32.

But they could not move further in the competition after they fell to

Jonathan Wong and Haig Schneiderman from Columbia, 9-8.

On the singles end, the team did not fare as well. All five singles players fell in the round of 64.

After receiving a bye in the first round, Au lost his second match to Christian Coley from Marist in three sets, 2-6, 6-2, 7-6. Nathaniel Gorham ’10 also fell in three sets in the second round after edging out his opponent in a fierce first set, 7-6, but losing the next two 6-1, 6-4.

“We did not play as well in singles,” Au said. “But we all put up a good fight. It’s important for us to see where we are and where we want to be, especially in the fall.”

The Bears will travel to Cambridge, Mass., to compete in the three-day Big Crimson Invitational from Oct. 31 to Nov. 2. As of now, four Brown players, two freshmen and two sophomores, are expected to represent the Bears at the invitational.

“I remember it was a great experience for me when I played there my freshmen year,” Au said.

“I think it will be a great experience for the young players on the team too.”

said. “The guy that called it, the field judge, was behind the play.

I don’t think he should have been making that call. The backfield judge had clearly (seen) it, and it was a catch.”

“It’s calls like that,” Estes said.

“We just couldn’t keep things going because we just constantly got moved back or plays taken away from us. It’s deflating when you make a great play.”

The Bears’ defense kept Brown in the game during the first half, and played well throughout. The defensive line combined for 6.5

tackles for loss on the day, with five different linemen getting at least one.

“You’ve got to give them credit,” said Cornell receiver Br yan Walters. “They dominated us up front.”

Walters, who has more receiving yards than anyone in the Ivy League except Farnham, was one of the few bright spots in Cornell’s offensive attack. He finished with seven catches for 105 yards.

Two dif ferent quar terbacks were on the other end of Walters’ receptions. Ganter, who separated his throwing shoulder two weeks ago, shared time at quarterback with Stephen Liuzza, who is listed on Cornell’s roster as a wide receiver.

But that didn’t stop Cornell from throwing with Liuzza, who was 10-of-13 passing for 124 yards on the day. He also had 10 rushes, but gained only nine yards on the ground. Ganter was 10-of-20 passing for 101 yards.

Ganter, who Walters said usually has a “rocket arm,” couldn’t put as much power behind his long throws on Saturday.

The Bears’ win keeps them in third in the Ivy League, behind Penn and Har vard, who remain unbeaten in league play.

Brown will get a crack at Penn Saturday when they return to Brown Stadium. Sewall said he will be healthy for the game.

“Penn is a good team,” Jasinowski said. “They’re a lot like us. They’re tough. They’re hardhitting. That’s the kind of football they like to play, so I think that will be a real good game.”

Page 8

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

S ports Monday

Monday, October 26, 2009

“Our team spirit and chemistry is now at its highest point this season.” — Men’s soccer co-captain David Walls ’11

M. soccer comes off loss to beat Cornell

By Katie Wood Assistant Spor ts Editor

The Cornell men were in dire need of an Ivy League soccer win Saturday in Ithaca, N.Y., but the No. 18 Brown 1 Brown men’s soc0 Cornell cer team would not budge an inch.

With a golden goal by Thomas McNamara ’13 in the 71st minute, the Bears (8-1-5, 3-1-0 Ivy) put away the Big Red in a 1-0 win.

“We had a game plan, and we stuck to it,” said co-captain David Walls ’11. “We played well together which resulted in the hard-fought win.”

The Bears entered the contest coming of f a 1-0 loss at No. 11 Har vard last Saturday and a 1-1 tie against St. John’s on Tuesday night. The Big Red (5-5-4, 0-2-2) came with only one win in its last five games, including a 2-2 tie with Penn and a 1-1 tie with Har vard.

Brown started off the first half well, with several good looks on goal, but Cornell’s Rick Pflasterer recorded five saves to prevent the Bears from taking the early advantage. Brown outshot Cornell 8-4 in the opening frame.

“We always knew it was going to be a tough game,” Walls said.

“We played relaxed and were determined to come out well in the second half — optimistic and confident that the goal would eventually come.”

In the first half, the Bears attacked the Big Red’s defense more centrally, Walls said. The team headed in a different direction in the second half, focusing on a spread offense that attacked around the defenders instead of going through them as the team attempted to do in the first half. This renewed sense of the team’s game plan in the second half led to the decisive goal scored by McNamara in the 71st minute of play.

Sean Rosa ’12 found an opening after passing his defender down the right hand side. He crossed the ball to a wide open McNamara on the far post, who nailed in his third goal of the season for the Bears.

The defense, consisting of goalkeeper Paul Grandstrand ’11, Evan Coleman ’12, Ryan McDuff ’13, Dylan Remick ’13 and Ian Smith ’11, tightened up in the final 20 minutes of play and kept the Big Red off the scoreboard to preser ve the lead for the 1-0 win, despite Cornell’s 3-2 shot advantage in the second half.

The defense played without Walls, who was out of the game with a concussion from Tuesday

night’s match against St. John’s.

Nick Elenz-Martin ’10 took over as captain for the night and represented his team well.

“He did a great job out there and has been a great leader this season,” Walls said. “He’s taken on a lot of leadership responsibilities, especially on our win over Cornell.”

Grandstrand tallied two saves on the night in his fifth shutout of the season. McNamara tallied three shots in the game in his 41 minutes of play, two of those on goal. Elenz-Martin, Mike Manella ’11 and Rosa each contributed another two shots to add to the teams total of 10 shots on the night.

This weekend, Har vard lost at home to Princeton, 2-1 in double overtime, and Dartmouth lost 2-0 to Columbia. Dartmouth had been the sole Ivy League team with no losses on the season, and the Big Green and the Crimson will battle it out next weekend in Cambridge, Mass., in a decisive match that will affect the Ivy standings. Brown still remains in the hunt for the conference crown despite its loss to Har vard.

“The good thing about this year is that we don’t care about other teams’ weekly per formances,” Walls said. “We’ve been focused on our team and getting better with

Herald File Photo

The men’s soccer team has won or tied all of its games except its match against Harvard two weekends ago.

ever y game we play.”

The Bears return home to Stevenson Field Saturday at 1 p.m. when they take on Penn in their fifth Ivy League match of the season. After the matchup against Penn, the team travels to Yale the following weekend before finishing out the regular season at home against Dartmouth Nov. 15th, a

game that will more than likely be the deciding game to determine the conference champion.

“Our team spirit and chemistry is now at its highest point this season,” Walls said. “We have three more opportunities to play together and get better. If we keep this up, we can have a real successful end to the season.”

World & Nation The Brown Daily Herald

Next phase in health care debate: The art of the deal

By Ceci Connolly The Washington Post

WASHINGTON — In Washington, there are two ways to wage legislative war: fight to kill and fight to tweak.

With a growing sense that Democrats may have the votes to pass health-care reform, many participants are now attempting to shape the components of landmark legislation rather than to defeat it.

“We’re very close to getting the 60 votes we need to move forward,” Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is expected to request a cost estimate on the bill he has worked out behind closed doors, moving one step closer to debate in the full Senate, his spokesman said.

Lawmakers, industry executives and lobbyists said over the weekend this is the moment to exert maximum influence on legislation aimed at refashioning the $2.4 trillion health sector. From company-specific minutiae to far-reaching changes in the tax code, it is bargaining season.

“We’re entering the final stage, and everyone is maneuvering to get the best possible deal,” said Drew Altman, president of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. “The odds of passing legislation are steadily moving up.”

The shift into deal-making mode is both good news for President Obama and an indication that the most arduous work is yet to come. Although Democrats are nearing a compromise on a government insurance option, large hurdles remain.

The party in power is divided over how to pay for health-care legislation, and it could easily become sidetracked by emotional issues such as abortion. Most important, Democrats are still searching for the right recipe for making insurance affordable for average Americans.

Chris Jennings, who worked on the Clinton administration’s attempt to overhaul the health-care system, compared this phase of the debate to the final third of a marathon.

“It is the most challenging and the most rewarding part of the race,” he said. “The problem is, it is the most

painful part as well.”

To cross the finish line, Obama will almost certainly have to offend some allies, make more concessions and risk additional political capital — even as his popularity has fallen. In recent weeks, he has stepped back from the process, leaving his aides and Congress to work out the details.

“I’m becoming increasingly optimistic that we will have a health-care bill,” Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “I’m frankly getting excited that we may have some momentum for something very positive.”

Most negotiations are taking place in private. But the tidbits that have emerged hint at the remaining contentious issues.

Some of the nation’s largest employers have appealed to Reid and home-state senators to remove language that would require large firms to immediately enroll new hires in the company health plan. Corporate executives say the provision could add unnecessary burdens, because some employees receive coverage through a spouse, parent or the government. Reid has not indicated how he will handle the request, industry sources said.

Labor unions are lobbying against a Senate proposal to tax higher-priced insurance policies. It is another tough call for Reid, who is engaged in a tight reelection campaign: Unions provide legions of campaign foot soldiers for Democrats, but the tax is a core element of financing healthcare reform.

Physicians are still pressing for a technical change to Medicare payment formulas that would translate into an extra $250 billion over the next decade. Reid could not secure the money last week, leaving the powerful American Medical Association decidedly noncommittal about a broader overhaul.

“The doctor situation is a huge wild card,” said Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn. Without the increase in Medicare rates, reform offers “pretty thin gruel from the doctors’ perspective.”

Even recent attacks by the insurance industry are “not so much an

attempt to block the legislation,” Altman said, but rather a “recognition the legislation is likely to pass, and they’re trying to gain leverage on the fine points that really matter to them in the final bill.”

He added: “All these details make people’s eyes glaze over, but they mean billions to an industry.”

Lobbyists are not the only ones flexing their political muscles. Lawmakers see an opportunity to rework the legislation more to their liking.

In the House, at least five groups have formed around particular concerns, said Cooper, who is among the contingent pushing for greater cost savings. The others include: antiabortion activists, small-business proponents, ardent liberals and a band focused on reducing geographic disparities that often hurt rural areas.

In the Senate, where Reid needs every Democrat and the chamber’s two independents to back him on procedural votes, each lawmaker holds enormous sway.

Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., drove home that point Sunday when he said it would be “reckless” to promise prematurely to stand by his party. “I can’t decide about the procedural vote until I see the underlying bill,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Administration allies said Obama will return to his role as chief salesman when it becomes clear exactly what he is selling. Behind the scenes, he continues to nudge lawmakers without making explicit demands, Capitol Hill staff members said.

With perhaps two full months of haggling to go, Obama’s top policy goal is still far from reality. But both sides sense a shift in the political calculus.

“Democrats have concluded it would be to our political and policy detriment if we don’t” enact reform this time, Jennings said, reflecting a theme sounded by the Obama White House.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., predicted that Democrats will have the votes to pass a bill.

“They don’t want a repeat of the Clinton failure in 1994,” he said on “Face the Nation.” “So I think it’s likely they will get something through.

But it’s not clear to me what it is.”

Monday, October 26, 2009 | Page 9

Israelis, Palestinians clash at religious site

By Richard Boudreaux Los Angeles Times

JERUSALEM — Israeli police stormed the grounds of Al- Aqsa mosque Sunday, using clubs and stun grenades to subdue hundreds of stone-throwing Palestinians in the worst clashes in a month of unrest in and around Jerusalem’s Old City.

The rioting, which caused no fatalities and subsided after a few hours, did not appear to portend a large-scale Palestinian uprising.

But it sprang from rising tensions stoked by Jewish and Islamic extremists that could keep Jerusalem and its contested holy sites on edge for weeks to come.

It is also expected keep Israel on the defensive against international criticism like the sharp protests registered Sunday by Egypt, Jordan and the 22-member Arab League over what their officials called Israeli provocations at Islam’s third-holiest shrine. The black-domed mosque is enclosed in a compound revered by Jews as the Temple Mount and by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.

Israel denied star ting the trouble. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said police on routine early morning patrol came under attack by about 50 Muslim protesters.

The group had been summoned

by Islamic political and religious leaders to “protect” the compound against what they claimed was a planned demonstration Sunday by religious Jews.

Dozens of police reinforcements rushed in behind plastic shields, many of them slipping on oil poured by protesters over the stone pathways of the esplanade. The protest-

ers fought back with rocks, plastic chairs and a firebomb before retreating into the mosque.

The disorders did not disturb Jewish prayers at the Western Wall, at the foot of the compound. But they spilled into the surrounding alleyways of the Old City and adjacent Arab neighborhoods, where clusters of young Palestinian men threw rocks and bottles from street level and from rooftops.

A second clash outside the mosque occurred in mid-morning as larger groups of police and protesters converged. Dozens of protesters holed up inside the mosque for several hours, occasionally opening the doors to throw objects at the police.

Israeli forces did not enter the building and they withdrew from the compound in the afternoon.

Later, the protesters left the mosque and the compound was closed.

Nineteen Palestinians, most of them beaten with clubs, and nine policemen were reported injured.

Irris Mackler, an Australian journalist reporting for the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., was hospitalized with a broken jaw after she was hit by a rock outside the compound.

Police arrested 18 Palestinians, including two political leaders accused of incitement.

One was Ali Abu Sheikha, a top official of the Northern Branch, the extremist wing of the Islamic Movement, Israel’s largest Arab organization. Police turned back several busloads of Jerusalembound protesters organized by the group from Arab communities in northern Israel.

Editorial & Letters The Brown Daily Herald

Page 10 | Monday, October 26, 2009

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Dropped call Professors in the physics and engineering departments must have been surprised when they arrived at their building last spring and found the parking lot closed to accommodate a crane. They must have been even more surprised to find out that the crane was there to install a T-Mobile cell phone tower — a radio transmitter that could interfere with sensitive research equipment in the building.

As it turns out, there may be no cause for alarm. According to the company, the tower emits less radiation than a dozen cell phones, and it’s unlikely that it will cause problems — at least for now. Still, the incident raises a number of questions about the way construction projects are carried out at Brown.

Faculty members told The Herald this week they were not notified about the tower until after construction began. In fact, the first time they heard about the project was when they saw the crane in the parking lot of Barus and Holley.

Professors had experienced problems with a radio transmitter in the early 1990s, and they were concerned the T-Mobile tower might have similar effects on experiments. But the project was well under way before they were able to voice their concerns.

There were blunders earlier in the planning process as well. Computing and Information Ser vices did not consider potential effects on professors’ work when it approved the project.

Tim Wells, director of telecommunications and network technology for CIS, told The Herald he has been talking with professors in the physics and engineering departments and will

discuss future project plans with them before going for ward. Those are welcome words. But similar incidents could occur in other departments, and Brown must take measures to protect research there as well.

This is not rocket science. First, the University should notify faculty of construction projects on or nearby their buildings. This is only sensible, and it will at least give professors a chance to express their concerns before the cranes start working.

Depar tments should also designate one faculty member to correspond with Facilities Management and other relevant parties. This point-person would assemble concerns from fellow professors and discuss them with the University.

On a certain level, it’s up to Brown to take responsibility and consider the effects on research when approving construction projects.

It is absolutely unacceptable, for example, that nobody in CIS realized Barus and Holley is a research facility. But we cannot expect the University to know about ever y piece of specialized equipment and ever y experiment in the works.

Ultimately, professors are the ones who know best whether projects might interfere with their work. The University simply has to give them the opportunity to say so before construction begins.

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

Ellen Cushing, Alexandra Ulmer, Night Editors Senior Staff Writers Dan Alexander, Mitra Anoushiravani, Ellen Cushing, Sydney Ember, Lauren Fedor, Nicole Friedman, Brigitta Greene, Sarah Husk, Brian Mastroianni, Hannah Moser, Ben Schreckinger, Anne Simons, Anne Speyer, Sara Sunshine, Alex Ulmer, Suzannah Weiss, Kyla Wilkes Staff Writers Shara Azad, Emma Berry, Alicia Chen, Zunaira Choudhary, Alicia Dang, Juliana Friend, Anish Gonchigar, Sarah Julian, Christian Martell, Heeyoung Min, Jyotsna Mullur, Lauren Pischel, Kevin Pratt, Leslie Primack, Luisa Robledo, Dana Teppert, Gaurie Tilak, Caitlin Trujillo, Monique Vernon, Senior Business Associates Max Barrows, Jackie Goldman, Margaret Watson, Ben Xiong Business Associates Stassia Chyzhykova, Marco deLeon, Katherine Galvin, Bonnie Kim, Cathy Li, Allen McGonagill, Liana Nisimova, Thanases Plestis, Corey Schwartz, William Schweitzer, Kenneth So, Evan Sumortin, Haydar Taygun, Webber Xu, Lyndse Yess Design Staff Gili Kliger, Jessica Kirschner, John Walsh, Kate Wilson Photo Staff Qidong Chen, Janine Cheng, Alex DePaoli, Frederic Lu, Quinn Savit Copy Editors Sara Chimene-Weiss, Miranda Forman, Casey Gaham, Anna Jouravleva, Geoffrey Kyi, Frederic Lu, Jordan Mainzer, Madeleine Rosenberg

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Opinions The Brown Daily Herald

Monday, October 26, 2009 | Page 11

We’re all mad here IVY CHANG Opinions Columnist Almost every Tuesday and Thursday morning, despite arriving 10 minutes before class, I can barely find a seat in the filled-to-capacity auditorium where PSYC1330: Abnormal Psychology is taught. What exactly is it about classes dealing with mental illness that draws so many people?

Well, we’re curious. While it’s interesting to learn about how our species functions, we also want a little insight into how we “dysfunction,” so to speak.

It simply isn’t possible for us not to have had some sort of experience with mental illness at some point in our lives, whether it be personal or through depictions in books, films or television. Everyone has seen the archetypal images of the brooding, alcoholic writer, the psychotic murderer, the person whose frequent hand washings are frantic enough to draw blood.

What makes these people this way? It’s a valid question. And while searching for the answers, many people will come to the disconcerting discovery that they exhibit quite a few of the traits listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It’s impossible not to begin matching up a few of your own odd habits with the ones listed as symptoms of various disorders in your textbook.

Those extravagant spending sprees that

occur right before major exams? The aggravation you feel when you see an extra space or blank bullet point on your study guide that you’re not even turning in? The way your clothes have to be organized by color, just so? Those could be compulsions, for sure.

When you start sweating and stumbling through your sentences while giving a class presentation, could you have some form of anxiety disorder? And it’s hard not to think, after you’ve been ill, have tons of work to make up and are trekking all the way across

on a continuum. Most cases do not have a clear “yes” or “no” diagnosis, and many of the symptoms that people use to self-diagnose are just gradients on a large scale, displayed with varying intensity by everyone around them.

Incorrect diagnoses can result in what Dr. Paul Chodoff calls the “medicalization of the human condition,” fixing a medical label to feelings that may be unpleasant but are simply “inescapable aspects of the fate of being human.“ Diagnoses also become the focus of

What exactly is it about classes dealing with mental illness that draws so many people?

campus in the freezing rain, that you could definitely be diagnosed with depression.

It’s humbling, and it may make you more sympathetic to the case studies you’d previously read with judgmentally raised eyebrows. However, it is important to remember one of my psychology professor’s first warnings in class: Students should not diagnose themselves. It seems all too easy, but it is almost always inaccurate.

Delving into psychology should not only give insight into cardboard cutout stereotypes of the mentally ill — Edgar Allan Poe, Norman Bates, Howard Hughes — but also help people realize that mental illness exists

blame for all individual troubles, while other important social context is ignored.

Most importantly, self-diagnosis can tip the scale in the favor of drug treatment. According to a 2006 National College Health Assessment, about 30 percent of college students take medication for depression. As a 2007 Herald editorial wrote, “It’s alarming that opting for medication as the solution to mental health issues can be so simple.”

Our new knowledge of mental illness symptoms, when wedded to the glossy and memorable drug advertisements that pop up on the Internet, television and in magazines, can become more dangerous than demysti-

fying. It can twist the fact that everyone feels anxious or depressed at times, making us think instead that “everyone” is also diagnosed or on medication.

I remember that many of us laughed in response to the professor’s warning not to self-diagnose — some dismissively, but some perhaps all too knowingly.

Information about mental illness doesn’t only attract people curious to learn about something that “the other” has, but also those curious to see what outsiders have to say about what they’re already suffering from. A significant minority of Brown students visit Psychological Services for help.

There are many whose lives are seriously affected by the symptoms so casually listed in mental health textbooks.

College is a trying time for practically everyone. It’s stressful — people are forced to adapt to an entirely new environment with different faces, places and rules, or lack thereof. With parents and other authority figures not constantly able to monitor our every move, it’s easy to let a small stress build into something much bigger in the relative isolation of a dorm room.

There are benefits to understanding and sympathizing with the mentally ill, but it’s important not to contribute to a trivialization or overgeneralization of their experience.

Ivy Chang ’10 is a human biology concentrator from Los Angeles, California.

She can be reached at ivy_chang@brown.edu

Poor old Rhode Island TYLER ROSENBAUM Opinions Columnist When I was at the Empire State Building last week, I noticed an interesting mural. It was a stylized map of the northeast, the point of which undoubtedly was to portray New York at the center. All the states but one were labeled.

Can you guess which was left behind?

Anyone who’s ever lived in Rhode Island and Providence Plantations knows that it has its quirks, its unique pros and cons. Perhaps the most noticeable of these is the state’s complete invisibility to outsiders. Sure, Providence is on the Amtrak route from New York City to Boston, in much the same way, I suppose, that Minnesota and Wyoming are on the flight path from Boston to Los Angeles.

Even most Bostonians never have occasion to visit their southern neighbors. I have relatives who lived in Eastern Massachusetts for decades before ever making it down to Providence — to visit me at Brown.

But the loss of pride that accompanies encounters with benighted foreigners who fail to see Rhode Island’s greatness is hardly the worst of the state’s worries. Rather, it seems to be trapped in a demographic and economic quandary that prevents it from fulfilling its potential.

Quite simply, the state’s population is growing too old. About 14 percent of Rhode Island’s approximately one million residents are 65 and older. Nationally, the figure is only 12 percent. In fact, the largest sector of the

state’s economy is health care — essentially, taking care of aging Rhode Islanders.

The state is facing a demographic crisis similar to the one haunting Japan and most European countries. But unlike those other countries, this is not a result of declining birth rates. Rhode Island is one of only two states with a declining population, due entirely to emigration from the state.

These troubles go hand-in-hand with the state’s deep economic problems. Of the approximately one million Rhode Islanders, only about 460,000 are working taxpayers.

This small tax base has to support all the bu-

well-being has been its stunningly high unemployment. As of August, our unemployment rate stood at 13 percent, behind only Michigan and Nevada, and far higher than the national average of 9.8 percent. It seems as if the state that gave birth to the Industrial Revolution in the United States has not successfully navigated the deindustrialization of the Information Revolution.

To make up for the financial disadvantage caused by its small size, aging workforce and high unemployment, it seems Rhode Island has had to raise its taxes. None of our New England neighbors have a sales tax as high

The loss of pride that accompanies encounters with benighted foreigners who fail to see Rhode Island’s greatness is hardly the worst of the state’s worries.

reaucracy of the modern state’s apparatus.

Of course, a small state like Rhode Island is cheaper to run than larger states like Massachusetts or California. On the other hand, certain fixed costs make it much more expensive to run Rhode Island as a separate state rather than, say, as an eastern county of Connecticut. For example, Rhode Island needs its own state house, governor, legislators, agencies and so forth.

The final blow to the state’s economic

as ours.

Even worse, for most taxpayers, the income tax is at least two percentage points higher than in Connecticut or Massachusetts. And though I won’t be shedding any tears on their behalf, it can hardly make sense to tax away 10 percent of the wealthiest Rhode Islanders’ incomes — twice as much as our neighbors would.

To compound the problem of high unemployment and high taxes, the economic

crisis and poor governance have combined to create crippling budget deficits that will mean even higher taxes and even deeper cuts to state services. Despite frequent cuts, the state still failed to balance its budget over the last two years, and absent drastic action, faces a cumulative deficit of $850 million by 2012 (this year’s budget was $7.8 billion).

The future does not look particularly bright for Rhode Island. Unfortunately, unlike New York, California or even Massachusetts, Rhode Island does not have a worldclass city that will attract talent and taxes come hell or high water. Rather, it has to compete for residents and jobs.

It’s high time Rhode Island began focusing on convincing employers and employees to move into the state, and enticing those who are here to remain. I’m no proponent of trickle-down economics, nor am I a knee-jerk advocate of tax cuts. But it is hard to imagine the state competing successfully without at least equalizing its tax rates with those of its neighbors.

This, as with much in life, will doubtless have to wait for the end of the recession and the stabilization of the budget. The planning, however, should have begun years ago. Obviously, the partisan differences between the legislature and the governor complicate matters, but unless we want Rhode Island to become a stagnant backwater, sinking deeper into economic and demographic decline, something must be done, and quickly.

Tyler Rosenbaum ’11 is not a fan of Reaganomics, he swears!

Today The Brown Daily Herald

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‘Contagious’ expresses flu fears with art

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to m o r r o w

58 / 40

59 / 47

M. soccer rebounds in win over Cornell

Monday, October 26, 2009

Page 12

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

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comics Dot Comic | Eshan Mitra and Brend Hainline

Today, october 26

tuesday, october 27

6 p.m. — Independent Concentration Information Session, Curricular Resource Center, J. Walter Wilson 310

6:15 P.M. — Internships in Journalism with Professor Tracy Breton, MacMillan 115

8 p.m. — “Bringing in the Bystander” workshop, presented by Sexual Assault Peer Education, Wilson 305

7 p.m. — Wendy Schiller: “Women in Male-Dominated Fields,” List 120

menu Sharpe Refectory

Verney-Woolley Dining Hall

Lunch — Vegan White Bean Casserole, Asian Noodle Bar, Savory Chicken Stew, Country Wedding Soup

Lunch — Chicken Parmesan Grinder, Swiss Broccoli Pasta, Nacho Bar, Butterscotch Cookies

Dinner — Italian Couscous, Chopped Sirloin with Mushroom Sauce, Vegetarian Six Bean Soup

Dinner — Roast Pork Calypso, Coconut Rice, Squash Rolls, Blueberry Gingerbread

Hippomaniac | Mat Becker

RELEASE DATE– Monday, October 26, 2009

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

ACROSS 1 Highway hauler 5 Cut off 10 “__ Silver, away!”

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DOWN 1 Grumpy mood 2 Morays, e.g.

3 Lawn burrower 4 Arouse, as passion 5 Watch covertly 6 The E in Q.E.D. 7 Solemn promise 8 Sister of Zsa Zsa 9 Fit for a king 10 Biblical cry of adoration 11 Popular Apple 12 Himalayan giant 13 Fit to be drafted 18 Queue 22 Political takeovers 24 Kellogg’s toaster pastry 25 “Alas, poor __!”: Hamlet 26 Persian Gulf emirate 27 Wonderland girl 28 Rodent kept as a house pet 30 Baby beds 31 Lee jeans alternative 32 Ice cream brand 33 Judge’s attire 34 Scarer’s shout

35 Scared response 37 Uncle Tom’s creator 40 Duettist with Sheryl Crow in the song “Picture” 41 Toon babies of ’90s-’00s TV 44 Sawyer’s friend 46 Frequent, as a diner

47 Like ripe peaches 48 Riga native 49 Distinctive emanation 50 Muffin ingredient 51 Infatuated, old-style 52 “This is my best effort” 53 Any minute now 54 Guitarist Clapton 57 Somme summer 58 Privileges: Abbr.

Cabernet Voltaire | Abe Pressman

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Classic Deo | Daniel Perez

xwordeditor@aol.com

10/26/09

Classic Deep-Fried Kittens | Cara FitzGibbon

By Jerome Gunderson (c)2009 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

10/26/09