Daily
Herald
the Brown
vol. cxlvi, no. 21
Friday, February 25, 2011
Since 1891
ResLife: Rise in enrollment will not strain housing
Ne ws in brief Colosseum owner apologizes for alleged assault
ma survivor who tried and failed to survive radiation-induced leukemia by making 1,000 paper cranes. Sasamori emphasized the importance of peaceful messages like Sadako’s. The talk was presented by the Japanese Culture Association and sponsored by the East Asian Studies and History departments, University Finance Board and Global Zero, an organization dedicated to the eradication of nuclear weapons. Sasamori is one of only a few Hiroshima survivors practiced enough in English to give talks to English-speaking audiences,
Colosseum owner Anthony Santurri apologized for the alleged assault on two students by bouncers inside his downtown nightclub last night. Michael Quinn ’13 and Jonathan Smallwood ’12 said they were dragged by two Colosseum bouncers down a flight of stairs and threw them out by their necks around midnight Wednesday. The club’s staff said Quinn and Smallwood did not respond to their requests to stop dancing on the bar, but the students said they were dancing on the stage. Santurri said he did not learn of the altercation until today. “I am absolutely beyond livid that I wasn’t contacted,” he said. Though Santurri did not blame either party, he said he would like to apologize to the community and the two students for the incident. Santurri said he hopes this incident does not damage the relationship his nightclub has with students. “Brown is a no-trouble crowd,” he said. Santurri said he has not spoken with the nightclub’s staff but is conducting an investigation into last night’s events and hopes to reach a conclusion soon. He said he will not make a decision regarding the two bouncers in question until he meets with them and reads the Providence Police Department’s disturbance report.
continued on page 3
— Joseph Rosales
By Abby Kerson Staff Writer
inside
continued on page 2
news...................2-3 Arts.........................4 editorial..............6 Opinions...............7 SPORTS...................8
Hilary Rosenthal / Herald
Shigeko Sasamori spoke in Salomon 101 last night about her recovery from the 1945 atomic bomb in Hiroshima.
Hiroshima survivor calls for peace By Jamie Brew Contributing Writer
“As long as we live on this Earth, we have a responsibility to keep it a happy Earth,” said Shigeko Sasamori, a survivor of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima, last night during her talk in Salomon 101 about her life and anti-war philosophy. Sasamori was one of 25 Japanese women, known as the Hiroshima Maidens, who were chosen to travel to the United States and receive reconstructive surgery for injuries caused by the bomb. Sasamori began with a detailed narrative account of the day of the bombing, and of the ensuing
chaos as citizens fled the city and tried to reunite with their families. “If there is a hell, that was a hell,” she said. Severely burned, Sasamori survived and spent months incapacitated and barely conscious as her parents helped her recover. She said her life in the United States was not colored by lingering animosity from the war and that she saw wartime and peacetime as two separate worlds. “When I came to America, all the people were so nice, and they didn’t do (the bombing). The government did it,” she said. Sasamori recounted the famous story of Sadako Sasaki, a Hiroshi-
University officials read Brown e-mails By Ashley Aydin Senior Staff Writer
The University has accessed emails sent and received on brown. edu accounts 11 times since July 2008, according to David Sherry, chief information security officer for Computing and Information Services. According to the University’s e-mail policy, Brown accounts may be accessed “by authorized University officials for purposes related to University business.” Sherry said no one should be surprised that the University has access to e-mails. “What Brown has the ability to do, every company, every school and every place that has an IT infrastructure has the ability to do,” Sherry said. “You
Listen to the Music
have to support the system. You have to have people to help with troubleshooting.” But students said they did not know the University could access their e-mail accounts. “If they’re going to do this, they should let us know,” said Sam Helman ’12, a computer science concentrator. Accessing e-mail
Though CIS usually accesses accounts for health and safety reasons, they may also review Brown e-mails if, for example, the Department of Public Safety were investigating someone, Sherry said. “Most of the time, it’s for a staff member who became ill
Hilary Rosenthal / Herald
continued on page 2
Audience members enjoyed a laid-back concert yesterday during a party at the Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts.
Media Impact
D&C
New GISP focuses on the role of social media in Egypt
The Hay gets coal — find out why
News, 3
diamonds & coal, 6
weather
The 1.1 percent increase in next year’s undergraduate enrollment approved by the Corporation at its Feb. 12 meeting will not necessitate the placement of students in temporary housing next fall, according to Richard Bova, senior associate dean of residential and dining services. Enrollment for next year is slated to increase to 6,000, a 1.8 percent increase in enrollment over what the Corporation approved last February. The Office of Residential Life currently has 4,645 beds, Bova said. But next year’s enrollment figure as it stands will add 64 more students than are on campus this year and 105 more than the Corporation approved last year. Last fall, 82 students were put in temporary housing to compensate for this year’s elevated enrollment figure, Bova said. Currently, 46 live in temporary housing, which includes converted kitchens and lounges. “This year was atypical,” he said. In order to guarantee all students housing, ResLife takes into account the total predicted enrollment for the fall as well as the number of students on leave to determine how many will be granted off-campus permission, Bova said. ResLife guarantees undergraduate students on-campus housing for all four years and will compensate for next year’s increase in enrollment by allowing more students to live off campus, Bova said. All 954 rising seniors who have applied to live off campus have been granted permission, as well as 250 of the 345 rising juniors who applied, according to Bova. Given the number of off-campus applications received and students already approved to live off campus, a projected 4,796 students will need to live in on-campus housing next semester. “In a perfect world, every single number lines up correctly, but I do not know of one single college campus whose numbers line up perfectly based on their projections,” Bova said. Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron also said that projections often differ from actual yields. For next year, taking “early precautions for off-campus housing” should “alleviate any particular
t o d ay
tomorrow
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2 Campus News calendar Today
February 25
7 P.m.
ToMORROW
February 26
Men’s Hockey vs. Cornell,
International A Cappela
Meehan Auditorium
Quarterfinals, Salomon 101 9 p.m.
Starla and Sons Improv Show,
Brown Stand Up Comics,
MacMillan 117
Salomon 001
menu SHARPE REFECTORY
VERNEy-WOOLLEY DINING HALL LUNCH
BLT Sandwich, Herb Roasted Potatoes, Chicken with Raisins and Olives, Clam Bisque
Chicken Fingers, Baked Vegan Nuggets, Sticky Rice, Butterscotch Cookies
DINNER Chicken Tikka, Arabian Spinach, Basmati Rice Pilaf, Vegan Chana Masala, Focaccia
E-mail privacy not ensured continued from page 1
8 p.m.
9 p.m.
The Brown Daily Herald Friday, February 25, 2011
Texas Style Beef Brisket, Mexican Cornbread Casserole, BBQ Grilled Asparagus, Jelly Cake Roll
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very quickly, and so we have to go through his or her e-mail for business-related purposes,” he said. But Sherry said the University rarely has to access student, staff or faculty e-mails. “Since July of 2008 — my arrival — we have had 11 instances of emergency access. All were for the continuation of urgent University business, or life and safety. Only one was a student,” Sherry wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. The University’s acceptable use policy states that people using Brown e-mail accounts cannot be involved in any illegal activity, which includes “sending spam messages and if someone uses their brown.edu address to send stuff when they’re running for office,” Sherry said. “It’s very rare that this process is used,” Sherry said. “We don’t want to be looking in people’s emails, nor do we have the time to do this.” CIS places restrictions on who can access e-mails, wrote Michael Pickett, vice president for CIS and chief information officer, in an e-mail to The Herald. “With the proper high-level authorization, e-mail accounts can be accessed,” he wrote, but added that staff members must sign an annual confidentiality agreement. Though CIS does have access to e-mails, messages are encrypted and stored on Google’s servers, not Brown servers, Pickett wrote. E-mails are broken up and “stored in different data centers to increase security and ability to survive potential disasters,” he wrote. The University does not have a
regular screening process or system to monitor e-mails, Sherry said. “We don’t screen for content or for wording,” he said. “When DPS or the Office of Student Life approaches me with something, it’s usually through a complaint.” “We would need substantiation or receive authorization from (the Office of Student Life) if there was an imminent health and safety issue,” Sherry wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. Requests to have access to an e-mail account come from the chief of Brown police at DPS, the director of health services, the vice president for campus life and student services, the provost, the vice president of CIS or the vice president of human resources for staff, Sherry said. Exercising caution
“There is always a risk that someone could access your e-mail, regardless of what program you use,” Google spokesperson Kat Eller wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. CIS policy states that the University cannot guarantee the full security and privacy of its e-mail service, and users should “exercise extreme caution in using Brown email to communicate confidential or sensitive matters.” “The security is reasonable for normally confidential University use, but we recommend that users not consider University Gmail as a good tool for private, personal matters,” Pickett wrote. But Sherry said the University is careful to restrict Google’s access to brown. edu accounts. “They have access to servers but not individual accounts. They
hold themselves to very high standards,” he said. Sherry said if students are concerned about having their accounts accessed, they should open a personal e-mail account. “With private data, I never send e-mails through my brown. edu account. It would bother me,” said Ryan Kaplan ’12, a mathematics and computer science double concentrator. Instead, Kaplan forwards his brown.edu e-mails to his personal Gmail account. “I mainly use it for employers,” said Victor Vu ’12, a philosophy and computer science double concentrator. He also said he does not do anything financial through his Brown e-mail. The privacy policy
Sherry said that since he has been at the University, he has not received any complaints about the University’s e-mail security policies. “When we update a policy by a statement or a word, we send it out for University-wide comments. We didn’t get any negative feedback from the Google update,” he said. “People have to run the system that need access for troubleshooting and help.” “I believe the freshmen that are coming in are made aware of all the policies through the Office of Student Life,” he said. “We hope that the message is getting out.” Both Kaplan and Vu did not know about the University’s policies concerning e-mail privacy. But Vu said the policy concerns him. “If you don’t know about the policy, it’s a privacy issue.” — With additional reporting by Herald staff
ResLife prepares for more students continued from page 1 strain of what is a relatively small change,” Bergeron said about the increased enrollment. She added that after fall 2012, additional housing — including a renovated dorm at 315 Thayer St. — will accommodate the growth of the student body. The enrollment increase was recommended to the Corporation, the University’s highest governing body, by the University Resources Committee in its annual report,
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which was made public after the meeting. Compared to peer institutions, a large portion of the University’s revenue comes from tuition, said Evan Schwartz ’13, who sits on the URC. If an extra 105 students were to pay next year’s full student charge of $53,136, it would increase the budget by $5,579,280. Last year’s URC report budgeted for 5,895 students, but the number of students currently on Brown’s campus is closer to 5,936, according
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to the report. The discrepancy is in part due to over-enrollment of the current junior class, Bergeron said. When the Class of 2012 was admitted in 2008, about 50 more students matriculated than expected. Bergeron emphasized that the University’s plan is to “stabilize” the enrollment at 6,000 as opposed increasing enrollment every year, as it has done in the past few years. To accomplish the enrollment goal, the University will initially increase the number of transfer students accepted next year by about 50, according to Bergeron. The University increased the first-year enrollment goal to 1,500 from the current 1,485 after the current junior class graduates to sustain a total undergraduate enrollment of 6,000. The URC based its decision on the input of the Enrollment Working Group, led by Bergeron. The group considered a number of different ways an increase in enrollment could effect the University, including the student-faculty ratio, advising and housing. None of these factors will be significantly effected by the enrollment increase, Bergeron said.
Campus News 3
The Brown Daily Herald Friday, February 25, 2011
TWC to hire new diversity director By LIZ kelley Contributing Writer
The Third World Center will increase its core staff positions to five by hiring an assistant director for diversity initiatives in an effort to foster cultural awareness. The new staff member will work most directly with ethnic student groups on campus and will also serve as an adviser for international student and firstgeneration programs, according to Ricky Gresh, senior director for student engagement. The search is underway, and the center is hopeful that the position will be filled soon, Gresh said. The search committee for the new assistant director is composed mainly of undergraduate students, Gresh said, adding that the committee includes a first-generation representative, one representative of the international mentoring program and three students from cultural student organizations or who work for the center to plan diversity events. “Because the position is so critical and because of its high level of working with students, the committee relies heavily on
student voice to help identify the best candidate,” Gresh said. Though the University had to make budget cuts, it wanted to do so while enhancing diversity and investing in the center, Gresh said. In 2010, the Organizational Review Committee met to assess student services, Gresh said. “Coming out of last year’s discussions, there was a strong sense that we should more effectively center efforts around diversity programs,” Bergeron said. “We recognized last year that we are all doing a lot, but not coordinating very well.” The Undergraduate Council of Students also brought forth recommendations in October that called for a more centralized approach to providing services to international students, The Herald reported at the time. “UCS recommended that the energy of efforts be brought more clearly into the TWC as a kind of hub,” Bergeron said. Three staff members previously led the center, but the organizational review recommended adding the additional position of associate director, Gresh said. The center originally hired Rosario
Navarro as associate director, but after taking maternity leave, she assumed the position of director of international programs and languages at the Office of Continuing Education. Gresh said this gave the center another chance to reevaluate their staff and their staff ’s responsibilities. “Now we have the opportunity to hire an assistant director and a program associate, thus expanding our staff to five people,” Gresh said. “The real difference between the positions, however, is the level at which their work is expected to be done,” Gresh said. Navarro’s departure was an opportunity to configure positions in the most effective way. Top candidates for the assistant director position will go through a series of events including campus visits and interviews with student groups, the search committee and current and former staffers including Navarro. “Only then can an offer be made,” Gresh said. The position of director, formerly held by Karen McLaurin, is also currently open, and a search committee has been formed, according to the TWC website.
Egypt GISP examines Hiroshima impact of social media survivor shares life story By Chip Lebovitz Staff Writer
Inspired by the recent popular unrest in Egypt, Claudia Norton ’13 and Raillan Brooks ’14 created a last-minute Group Independent Study Project Feb. 7 to examine social media and its impact on the recent Arab revolutions. Because the deadline to apply for a GISP passed Nov. 5, Norton and Brooks reclassified their project as a Department GISP to enable them to study the protests as they happened. The jumping-off point for the GISP was a class both students are taking — SOC 1871R: “Knowledge Networks and Global Transformation,” taught by Michael Kennedy, director of the Watson Institute. “The protests in Cairo happened. We were talking about them in class, and I woke up one morning and was like, ‘Well, got to create a GISP.’ What is the University for if not this?” Norton said. Norton said she was inspired to investigate the issue further based on her previous experiences in Egypt. “I lived in Cairo over the summer between my junior and senior year of high school,” she said, “I was part of a community there that I am still a part of.” “What fascinated me about the project was how, for the first time really in my experience, social media was touted as the method or chan-
nel for revolution,” Brooks said, “I thought that the argument was compelling,” Brooks said. “We wanted to understand exactly what role social media played, instead of relying on the broad brush strokes that were provided to us in the English media,” Brooks said. The two said they hope that the project will expand beyond its current class form. Norton and Brooks plan on applying for an AT&T New Media fellowship to provide funding for a documentary they hope to complete by the planned September elections in Egypt, Norton said. Norton and Brooks both said the less stringent requirements of a Departmental GISP suit the unique needs of the course — its syllabus can change as the political situation in Egypt evolves. “Right now, the way we have conceived it, it would kind of be a bit presumptuous to create a thematic approach from the get-go. What we’re trying to do is move with the demonstrations as they occur across the region,” Brooks said. The two have expanded their original plan of study to include protests in other Arab states including Tunisia and Bahrain, Norton said. “We’re not just going at this cold with just a media studies perspective,” Norton said. “We’re also studying in-depth history of political context in Egypt.”
continued from page 1 said Chishio Furukawa ’12, event chair. Members of the JCA worked over the past two weeks to construct 1,000 paper cranes of their own, which decorated the stage as Sasamori spoke, and will soon be sent to Hiroshima as a message of peace from Brown, Furukawa said. This year, the JCA wanted to expand its scope beyond their usual cultural awareness events like Japanese food banquets to address social and political issues as well, said Takeru Nagayoshi ’14, who helped organize the event. Nagayoshi added that the JCA’s main focus was not to incite argument about the ethics of the 1945 bombing, but rather to “keep it simply a story to share with the Brown community.” Audience members said they appreciated Sasamori’s talent for storytelling. “You could tell she was living in the story,” said Francis Suh ’13, “It was great to see she was so optimistic about the future and had so much faith.”
Herald file photo
After a brief scheduling freeze, new BuDS employees can now sign up for shifts.
BuDS ends temporary student hiring freeze By Nicole Grabel Contributing Writer
Brown University Dining Services imposed a temporary hiring freeze for student workers last week, placing 18 students on a waitlist to allow current workers to pick up more shifts. The freeze on filling shifts with new workers ended Monday, said Melanie Masarin, general manager of BuDS. When signing up for shifts this semester, some workers “didn’t get their eight-hour minimum,” she said, which is one of the few requirements of working for BuDS. In response, BuDS stopped hiring to allow current workers to pick up more shifts and fulfill this minimum requirement before they started allowing new employees to pick up shifts that the current workers may have wanted. During this brief hiring suspension, 18 students came in looking for jobs, Masarin wrote in an email to The Herald. Those students were put on a waitlist and were told that they would be e-mailed
“as soon as they would be hiring new workers again.” Masarin said the students received e-mails Monday. Many of the students who were initially put on the waitlist did come back for a job, said Ann Hoffman, director of administration for dining services. But Masarin added that some students who initially came to BuDS for a job may have found work elsewhere by the time they received the e-mails informing them that BuDS jobs were available again. It’s “not unusual to keep a waitlist for a short amount of time,” Masarin said, adding that it “happens almost every semester.” The Herald reported in April 2010 that there was a similar waitlist in fall 2009. Though Hoffman said the number of BuDS workers “fluctuates every single day,” Masarin said BuDs has “probably around 340 workers.” There are 794 shifts per week for student workers, Masarin wrote.
4 Arts & Culture
The Brown Daily Herald Friday, February 25, 2011
‘Loop’ brings arts center to life Fiasco? Not for this ‘plucky’ company By Suzannah Weiss Arts & Culture Columnist
In light of The Herald’s extensive coverage of the recent opening of the Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts, it seems appropriate to examine the new building in a way its makers might appreciate — as a piece of art. It is fitting to the center’s mission that its design — as well as its current exhibit, “Loop: Works by Julianne Swartz” — resists conventional artistic distinctions: technicality vs. creativity, utility vs. aesthetics, art vs. reality, observer vs. observed. In the interior, it is impossible to determine what is a piece of art and what is a piece of the structure itself. The most visually striking features are the furnishings that sit at junctions: the set of chairs intricately dressed in acrylics and Sharpie ink that appear to be waiting for the fourth-floor elevator and the retro lounge areas greeting visitors each time they descend a staircase. Installation artist Julianne Swartz’s exhibit, currently housed in the firstfloor Cohen Gallery, is similarly frustrating in its refusal to reveal itself. This resistance comes from Swartz’s use — and perhaps invention — of novel mediums. “Camera-Less-Video,” a set of black sculpture boxes, turns the room inside out by showing the viewer an inverted image of the Walk outside the window. If you pass the west side of the building off Angell St., you might show up on the projection.
But once you enter the building, you are no longer under surveillance — instead, you become the surveyor. Viewing the room’s miniature, internal representation of the outside world feels like living inside someone’s head, peering into the mind’s eye. The exhibit transforms the Granoff Center into a sentient being. The windows are eyes, the Cohen Gallery a brain, the gallery’s inhabitant an observer privy to its perceptions. If a room with eyes would enjoy the view of the greenery outside the window, what would a room with ears hear? “Loop,” the exhibit’s eponymous piece on the opposite wall, takes the gallery-as-mind metaphor a step further by boldly displaying electric currents, the connectors within the brain. The speaker-embedded web of multicolored wires lining the wall illustrates Swartz’s “interest in the internal mechanisms and circuitry of our human pathway systems — both physical and emotional,” according to the exhibit’s pamphlet. The threedimensional, splatter-paint-like network recalls a diagram of nerves in a biology textbook. The various speakers emit sounds that could be taken as this strange creature’s inner voice. The cumulative sound shares several qualities with that unrelenting dialogue inside your head: multiple tracks playing at once, tunes as well as language,
nonstop chatter. But the disembodied voices vary in pitch, texture and volume, and they speak in multiple tongues. Most are foreign, doubly disguised with whispering. When the installation reaches out to the average listener by speaking English, it offers reassurance in the midst of the unfamiliar sounds: “You don’t have to be afraid. I’m going to make some noises, okay?” The most difficult piece to make sense of, “Floor to Ceiling,” consists of two long, cylindrical magnets suspended from the ceiling and floor, one hanging directly above the other, nose to nose. They look as if they ought to fall over, but instead they stay aligned in the air. Perhaps, to stick with the biological theme, the structure of the magnets mirrors that of a human being. It seems illogical that the objects not fall to the ground, and with the slightest disturbance to the delicate balance, they would — hence, a very visible “do not touch” sign. Likewise, the thinking, feeling mind, which possesses an inner voice and an inner eye, seems an improbable, if not impossible, product of mere electrical force. But the intricate design allows the forces to balance just right. One who did not know better would call it a miracle.
“Loop” is running through March 18. The Cohen Gallery is open Wednesday-Friday 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
By Ben Kutner Staff Writer
Fiasco Theater’s name seems to be a misnomer. The theater company, founded in 2007 by alums of the Brown University/Trinity Repertory MFA Acting and Directing programs, has been quickly gaining recognition on New York’s off-Broadway scene. It is anything but a fiasco. “It is only in risking the possibility of fiasco that you can do something great,” said Jessie Austrian ’03 MFA ’06, one of the cofounders of the small company, a not-for-profit organization. “We enjoyed working together in grad school,” said Austrian, of co-founders Ben Steinfeld ’01 MFA ’05 and Noah Brody ’01 MFA ’05 . “We all got very interested in a certain set of aesthetic principles,” said Steinfeld. “We were all in New York together by 2007.” Members of Fiasco manage every aspect of the plays — including acting, directing and set design — an impressive feat for a small company. Steinfeld attributes this achievement to Brown’s undergraduate theater program, where students learn all aspects of play production. There are many opportunities to participate in what Steinfeld describes as “student-generated theater,” in which undergrads are responsible for complete production of plays. “You can blur the boundaries. You don’t just have to say ‘I’m an actor, I’m a playwright,’” said Steinfeld, who both co-directed and acted in Fiasco’s recent production of “Cymbeline,” which ran in mid-January. In a Jan. 17 review of the production, the New
York Times described Fiasco as “a plucky little...troupe.” “(Theater students) are not dependent on other people to hire them,” said Lowry Marshall, professor of theater, speech and dance. She added that it is not uncommon for alums to create work for themselves, like the founders of Fiasco did. “All of them just have remarkable charisma as people,” said Marshall, who taught many of the founders as undergraduates. “Their engagement is so total,” she said. Marshall said she is never surprised when actors from Brown go out and make their way in the world. Brown produces a fullfledged and educated person, rather than someone who is just trained in acting, she said. Marshall said she was extremely impressed when she saw Fiasco’s production of “Cymbeline,” and added that the company has a level of excellence in everything they do. “They made (“Cymbeline”) happen on a really small budget,” said Brian McEleney, head of the Brown/Trinity MFA program in acting. “It was tremendously rewarding.” Fiasco Theater also offers free conservatory-level training for actors in New York City. Everyone who attends the session is already in the profession, Steinfeld said. “Our goal is to teach people how we work,” he said. “(Teaching) theater is a hand-to-hand, person-to-person thing.” The New York Times’ glowing review of “Cymbeline” has helped put Fiasco on the map and they seem to have a bright future ahead of them — no fiascoes in sight.
Sports Friday 5
The Brown Daily Herald Friday, February 25, 2011
New York battles over ’Melo, LeBron is Fish Co. continued from page 8 at players to build a winning team and that his team is, regrettably, located in New Jersey. Prokhorov has already addressed the latter by planning to move the team to Brooklyn next season, but what about the former? How can the owner turn his cellar-dwelling Nets into contenders? Well, the crafty Prokhorov saw an opportunity in these Anthony trade talks and approached Denver with a ludicrous trade for the Nuggets’ forward. Carmelo, perhaps feeling a bit bad about just how awful he had treated Denver in these past few months, pretended to be interested in the Nets’ bait, saying he would consider signing an extension with the Nets if the trade went through. Fatalistic Knicks fans and executives alike panicked, fearful of what would happen if the former Syracuse player they had been eyeing for so long went to the Nets. They slowly began upping their trade offers for him. By the time the teams pulled the trigger on it, the Nuggets got the underrated Raymond Felton and Danilo Gallinari, as well as Timofey Mosgov, a first-round pick and two secondround picks, all in addition to Chandler. The Knicks, in return, received Anthony, the depressing but still sharp Chauncey Billups and a slew of incredibly average players. Am I saying that the Knicks paid too much in the trade? Absolutely not. They needed to get Anthony to stand a shot at landing a guy like Chris Paul or Dwight Howard in the future. Am I saying that Prokhorov knew that Anthony wouldn’t sign with the Nets, so he offered up a ridiculous trade in order to run up the price for his cross-town rivals? Yes. The Nuggets
had no business somehow swinging a fair trade out of this, but that’s exactly what it turned into. Meanwhile Prokhorov made the incredibly sneaky deal of acquiring elite point guard Deron Williams — who no one even thought was on the market — for Devin Harris, Derrick Favors and two first-round picks, a trade that is two players and two picks less than the deal that the Nets were reportedly offering for Carmelo. Did I mention that I think Williams is a better player? I didn’t? How about that he is one of the four or five best point guards in the league? Still nothing? Well, it’s a very, very good trade for the Nets. I picture the face of Knicks owner James Dolan on the body of Commissioner Gordon in The Dark Knight, as he screams to the police force, “He planned to be outbid! Prokhorov wanted us to get Anthony!” There is then a cut to Prokhorov in full Joker face paint leaning out the window of the stolen police car and leering at the streets of Gotham as he makes his getaway. Really, this series of trades has unfolded in a fashion that sort of mirrors the night-club wars that are currently dominating our campus. In this analogy, LeBron James is Fish Co., a heavy slugger and dominant presence that is suddenly not available. Now the region’s disappointed masses must make do with options that are less attractive but pretty good considering how shocking it is to not have the aforementioned presence around. One fallback option is a party with superior location and an already established credibility from previous times — Olives and the Knicks. The other is a rival faction striving for the same resources with a worse location, using cre-
ative strategies to go toe-to-toe — The Colosseum and the Nets. The Colosseum and the Nets know Olives and the Knicks have some advantages, such as “You don’t have to cab there,” or “We have an actual playoff team now,” but are using some crafty under-thetable knowledge to stay competitive: “The Jazz are shopping Deron Williams,” or “Underage Brown students can drink before going to the club, making an 18-plus club viable”. There is one thing we have to understand, though. Lebron is out of our reach. He isn’t coming back, and we can’t expect Carmelo Anthony or Deron Williams to try to be him. LeBron truly is a once-ina-lifetime player. There will never be another nightclub … I mean, player like LeBron. It’s time to accept it, Brown. We just have to accept it and move on. Sam Sheehan ’12 knew the only way a player was moving to New Jersey was to get away from Utah. Talk sports with or berate him at sam_sheehan@ brown.edu or follow him on Twitter @SamSheehan.
ROTC athlete returns after brain surgery continued from page 8 — in the mornings and then coming back, going to class, and then from class going to hockey practice, you know, being at the rink for five hours a day, sometimes you have (to) lift in the weight room after practice. So then you have to come home and do your homework. It’s definitely a grueling schedule, but I think — especially with ROTC — if you really want to do it, you make it work. And that was definitely the case last year for me. What do you plan to do after you graduate? I was planning to go into the intelligence field in the Army. And when they discharged me this fall, I definitely decided to go a similar direction, just as a civilian. So I’ve been talking to a few agencies in the intelligence community, and I’m hoping to just start in an analyst position or whatnot in one of those organizations, which I think is kind of perfect for me because a lot of those organizations either have military personnel directly in their
organization, or they work hand-inhand with the military. So I think it’s the perfect thing for me to do since my original plan was to be in the Army for at least four or five years on active duty. What will be your favorite memory from Brown? I think just because it happened this past Saturday, but I think Saturday’s game against Quinnipiac was such a fun game to be a part of. Especially having gone through the last year and a half and not having gotten much playing time for a while now. It was just a great game, it was an exciting game, it was back and forth, a lot of great clutch goals by our team. Obviously I was pretty busy that night — 41 shots total. So it was fun to go out that way. It was fun to tie a team like Quinnipiac, who we lost to so significantly before. And I think it was just a really emotionally charged game. I definitely played for my teammates, and my teammates played for me. My teammates played great in front of me. It was almost like a pictureperfect way to go out.
comics BB&Z | Cole Pruitt, Andrew Seiden, Valerie Hsiung and Dan Ricker
Cloud Buddies! | David Emanuel
Dot Comic | Eshan Mitra and Brendan Hainline
Thanks for reading!
6 Editorial & Letter diamonds & coal
The Brown Daily Herald Friday, February 25, 2011
Editorial comic
by erik stay ton and e van donahue
Coal to the bouncers at the Colosseum who allegedly assaulted two students Wednesday night. We know you’re trying to be the next Fish Co., but this is taking it a bit far. A cubic zirconium to the student who said of a collaboration between Brown students and Israeli and Palestinian musicians, “The general aim is to have an openness of discussion that would not necessitate rigorous academic thought.” That’s what we have the Department of Modern Culture and Media for. A diamond to Kenneth McKay, the former chief of staff to Michael Steele at the Republican National Committee who resigned last year after RNC staffers expensed a night out at a lesbian bondage club to Republican donors, and who is now running for chair of the state GOP. As long as Rhode Island Republicans don’t confuse your support of “lesbian bondage” for support of “gay marriage,” we think you’ve got a good shot. Coal to Cynthia Garcia Coll, chair of the Faculty Executive Committee and professor of education, who said faculty members “don’t like to be given something that is complete.” We already used that excuse the last four times we handed in term papers. A diamond to Production Workshop’s “Stand and Unfold Yourself,” an “interactive meditation on ‘Hamlet,’” which will only be performed for a single audience member at a time over the course of 24 performances. At Cornell, 24 people attending a run of a Shakespearean tragedy is what they call a good turnout. A diamond to Senior Associate Dean of Residential and Dining Services Richard Bova, who said ResLife’s goal is “a bed for everyone.” We’re glad to see that ResLife’s standard for comfort and accommodation is identical to that of an emergency room in the wake of a natural disaster. Coal to administrators, who have accessed Brown accounts to read e-mails 11 times since 2008. If you really wanted to know our plans for the weekend, you could’ve just asked. A diamond to DJ Meatball, who said of the bar Olives, “With the students who have been coming out this year, it’s more of a chunkier, dancier feel.” We hope moonlighting as a DJ hasn’t interfered with your day job as the Chef Boyardee spokesperson. Coal to the John Hay Library, which is using a grant to digitize the papers of S.J. Perelman, who wrote screenplays for the Marx brothers, Martha Dickinson Bianchi, who was Emily Dickinson’s niece and Charles Evan Hughes, who was nearly elected president. Our dentist’s cousin is almost excited to read them. Just joking, we would never belittle a library named for Abraham Lincoln’s secretary.
quote of the day
“As long as we live on this Earth, we have a responsibility to keep it a happy Earth.” — Shigeko Sasamori, Hiroshima survivor, see hiroshima on page 1
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le tter to the editor ROTC would ease financial burden To the Editor: The pervasive societal impact of current United States military policy ties every American citizen, military or civilian, to the crimes committed in our name. Justice ought not to be the sole responsibility of service women and men. Living in a democracy means engaging dissenters and fighting actively for one’s conception of justice. The individual that believes that they can just renounce the actions of the government thereby denying his or her responsibility for the actions done by those that represent him or her is both dangerous and immature. Reserve Officers’ Training Corps programs are not mandatory and will have little affect on students who do not choose to enroll. While Brown does have a generous financial aid policy for working-class students such as myself, it falls short of creating true equality of opportunity between students of different socio-economic classes. Considering Brown is a private institution, its attempts at equality are praiseworthy and far above what most other similar institutions offer. My summers have been spent fulfilling my obligations for work-study payments, book expenses, travel expenses and housing and food for the summer, leaving me with little time to establish a career, work at the best — often unpaid, and not a viable option for a working class student — internships or networking and making business connections. The United States Marine Corps, and I would imagine the other armed services, offered me financial security and a career outside the financial constraints that relegated me to a very specific, limited set of internships and jobs. Middle- and upper-class students can afford to let their critical stances to military policy harm the opportunities of their working class classmates. The Marine Corps may not have been my only opportunity, but it was the one I chose because it offered me real opportunities and financial assistance. It certainly was not an ideal situation, but I weighed the responsibilities out
with the opportunities and freely came to the decision that becoming a Marine would benefit me. My decision and my presence on campus does not discriminate against students who can afford to be more critical. I understand that, with “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in effect, the Department of Defense practiced a policy that is completely irreconcilable with certain core values of the University, but that era is over, and to inaugurate the new one, a new class of men and women must step forward and bring the policy from de jure to de facto. Most students gain nothing from having an ROTC program on campus, but for students such as myself, the benefits are real. Having an ROTC program at the University would make the process of becoming a service woman or man much more manageable and further lessen the financial burdens upon those who freely choose to join. I am highly critical of United States military policy, but as a working-class student, the opportunities to make principled mandates are much more constrained than for higher status classmates. The world adheres to the ideals of no man or woman and we all compromise our highest principles to achieve small victories in carving out a world closer to our ideals. I was raised eating free food from the government. I have never been on a vacation. I do not have the money to go abroad and distribute aid to third world children. If you do, good for you. I honestly admire your philanthropy. I am fairly confident that this program will not pass. While the larger Brown community is washing its hands of the crimes committed abroad under their star-spangled banner, I will be doing my best to initiate a new era in an old and dusty organization. Until you are willing to renounce the advantages a comfortable and stable income has brought you in life, I would like to suggest that you withhold your judgment on a policy that will probably have no effect on your life at all. Alexander Betzel ’11
C O R R E C T I O N S P olicy The Brown Daily Herald is committed to providing the Brown University community with the most accurate information possible. Corrections may be submitted up to seven calendar days after publication. C ommentary P O L I C Y The editorial is the majority opinion of the editorial page board of The Brown Daily Herald. The editorial viewpoint does not necessarily reflect the views of The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Columns, letters and comics reflect the opinions of their authors only. L etters to the E ditor P olicy Send letters to letters@browndailyherald.com. Include a telephone number with all letters. The Herald reserves the right to edit all letters for length and clarity and cannot assure the publication of any letter. Please limit letters to 250 words. Under special circumstances writers may request anonymity, but no letter will be printed if the author’s identity is unknown to the editors. Announcements of events will not be printed. advertising P olicy The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. reserves the right to accept or decline any advertisement at its discretion.
Opinions 7
The Brown Daily Herald Friday, February 25, 2011
Brown University: in need of diversity? By HEATH MAYO Opinions Columnist Recently, the Associated Press released an article on a new Group Independent Study Project, “Modern Conservatism in America,” applauding its introduction of openminded intellectual curiosity to what was characterized as a traditionally liberal, agenda-driven curriculum. As a response to that rhetoric, The Herald printed an editorial (“‘Trafficking in stereotype,’” Feb. 15) attacking the idea that Brown’s liberal curriculum has prevented the academic exploration of conservative thought. While it is true that many hallmark texts of conservative literature are sufficiently infused into the University’s course offerings, the context in which the readings and the ideology itself are presented remains grossly slanted to the left. The debate is indicative of a larger lack of ideological diversity here at Brown that should be remedied if we wish to welcome students and faculty from all backgrounds in the future. As a political science and economics concentrator, I can attest to the fact that several of Brown’s political philosophy and economic theory courses adequately incorporate conservative literature into their syllabi. Unfortunately, this merely serves as a facade of legitimacy. The real problem arises in the manner in which these materials are presented in context. Indeed, from the experiences I have had, students are dispro-
portionately fed the data, logic and philosophy that affirm liberal concepts over other alternative approaches. For instance, in a popular political economy course, Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek are presented as neo-liberal roadblocks to the upward arc of Keynesian enlightenment. Also, the Phillips Curve has its virtues downplayed while its weaknesses are magnified. Even in a course studying the United States’ health care system, the social justice approach is presented
and the research we produce continually fill only a specific portion of the ideological spectrum. While Brown continues to celebrate and promote diversity at all levels of its academic community, it has seemingly overlooked the concept of political diversity. The recent wave of discussion and surprise elicited by the “Modern Conservatism in America” GISP certainly suggests that Brown has omitted at least some form of ideological diversity in comparison to
Brown has an obligation to strive to perfect its academic community and the forum in which its members contribute to societal knowledge. This noble goal can only be achieved if Brown begins to paint its ideological picture with more than just dark blues and purples. through an article by esteemed academic Paul Krugman, while the market justice approach is presented via a YouTube video of members of the Tea Party from rural Wyoming. This biased presentation of conservatism as a confused and misguided academic interpretation feeds the nationwide stereotype that Brown is a closed-minded bastion of liberal thought. Bias in the University’s instruction of politically and socially charged topics is not the only avenue through which we feed the liberal stereotype. The staff we recruit
other elite universities. Whether or not you think this to be true, the fact is that the stigma remains. Brown is widely considered to be an overly liberal campus that harbors the most progressive of Ivy Leaguers. As a community that holds diversity as one of its primary values, I would think this should pose a problem worth fixing. What’s there to fix? Shouldn’t Brown pride itself in its overly progressive stereotype and embrace its role as the idealistic Ivy? That depends. Either the University finds it more important to promote its
ideologically specific agenda, or it values producing a wide range of thought that fosters a non-biased pursuit of truth. Clearly, as an elite academic institution that is respected in many intellectual fields, Brown has an obligation to strive to perfect its academic community and the forum in which its members contribute to societal knowledge. This noble goal can only be achieved if Brown begins to paint its ideological picture with more than just dark blues and purples. From my perspective, the University may choose one of two paths. The first option is to continue the course it has set. Brown can continue to hire liberal professors with research priorities driven to please a specific ideological crowd and attract a diverse student body who generally find themselves in the same philosophical ballpark. Or Brown can chart an entirely new course. The University can take its dedication to diversity seriously and recruit faculty and sponsor projects that seek to challenge the blooming progressive literature that it currently produces. It can foster a new level of debate that brings everyone to the table and encourages approaches from all different angles. Such an approach will only reinforce the values that Brown so boldly stands for and dramatically enhance the level of intellectual inquiry and debate among our academic community. Heath Mayo ’13 is a political science and economics concentrator from Whitehouse, Tex. He can be reached at james_mayo@brown.edu.
Keep ROTC out BY julian park Opinions Columnist The debate about bringing the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps back to campus has left two concerns — profit and prestige — unmentioned. In my analysis, these are the implicit justifications for considering ROTC’s return, though students have not been included in this part of the discussion — surprise. Harvard is welcoming ROTC back, and if a profit- and prestige-generating machine like Harvard decides to do something, endowment-envious administrators and Corporation members pay attention. Parallel to President Ruth Simmons’ jet-setting attempts to bring Brown greater international name recognition, ROTC’s return would effect a rebranding of the sort desired by certain alums. Last spring, The Herald reported alums making just this argument at a dinner discussion on the question, saying that “the prominence of Brown ROTC alums in the military ranks would bring greater recognition of University excellence.” (“‘Reserve’-ing judgment for ROTC,” April 29) The potential for squeezing cash out of ROTC should not be underestimated either. On the one hand, the elevated prestige would boost donations. On the other, ROTC grants scholarships. People usually use this fact to argue that, were Brown to host ROTC, more economically disadvantaged students could attend. This argument has two flaws. If it is true, then it consigns economically disadvantaged students to military service, a career
choice they might not make had they access to the multiplicity of options we are told a Brown degree makes available. The second is that it misses how things actually work — Brown’s budget for financial aid is based on the percentage of students in need it predicts it will admit, and the University claims to meet full demonstrated need. Only changes in admissions policy — like removing the requirement for standardized tests such as the SAT or ACT, which studies have shown to have race,
reductions to the military budget. There are two other pieces of the ROTC debate that are seldom acknowledged. Despite calls that Brown not limit the individual freedoms of its students, no such limitations are currently in place. Students can already participate in ROTC through the program at Providence College. Though available, few students choose this opportunity, while calls for ROTC’s return oddly have yet to come from students actually interested in enrolling.
The state has found a way to partially disarm supposed threats to so-called traditional family values by permitting some, though not all, queer people to carry arms — as long as they don’t have sex! — in wars that the majority of Americans oppose.
gender and class biases — would substantially alter the demographics of admitted students. All ROTC scholarships would do is subsidize the University’s other budgetary priorities — priorities that are increasingly focused on generating profits at the expense of public goods, as others have argued elsewhere. While budget cuts at the U.S. federal level loom, demanding more money from the military for scholarships seems unacceptable. We should demand that programs without strings, like Pell grants, should be protected, alongside demanding significant
I consider a second exclusion to be far more egregious. Regardless of the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” discrimination remains institutional practice in the military’s treatment of LGBTQ folks. While discrimination is undesirable on its own, discriminatory practices also violate the University’s Code of Student Conduct, and ought to prevent ROTC from returning. Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice still prohibits sodomy, defined as “unnatural carnal copulation with another person of the same or opposite sex.” As Columbia undergraduate Noah Baron recently wrote
in the Huffington Post, “While sexual conduct for heterosexuals remains a possibility, the same cannot be said for gay and lesbian servicemembers.” Meanwhile, the military still prevents transgender people from joining, considering their gender identities and expressions “disorders.” Other forms of oppression and inequality permeate our military. In 2009, CBS News reported that “one in three female soldiers will experience sexual assault while serving in the military, compared to one in six women in the civilian world.” Last week, the New York Times reported that a “federal lawsuit filed (recently) accuses the Department of Defense of allowing a military culture that fails to prevent rape and sexual assault” while consistently “mishandling cases … brought to its attention.” Also in 2009, ABC News reported that “among officers, just 3 percent of whites report experiencing discrimination within their current unit, compared with 27 percent of black and Hispanic officers.” Advocates of ROTC’s return argue that circumstances are different today, and this is doubtless. The state has found a way to partially disarm supposed threats to socalled traditional family values by permitting some, though not all, queer people to carry arms — as long as they don’t have sex! — in wars that the majority of Americans oppose. What has not changed is the serious harm to all communities that our military creates at home and abroad, to the benefit of an increasingly privileged few. Julian Park ’12 is a member of the Coalition Against Special Privileges for ROTC. He may be contacted at julianfrancispark@gmail.com.
Daily Herald Sports Friday the Brown
Friday, February 25, 2011
Sheehan ’12 Joung ’11 fights back from brain tumor, stars in final game shares trade nuggets Athlete of the week
By Ashley McDonnell Sports Editor
Women’s hockey goalie Joy Joung ’11 had brain surgery to remove a tumor this summer, turning her world upside down — she had to be discharged from the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program at Providence College — and putting her senior season on the women’s hockey team in jeopardy. But just months after the surgery, Joung returned to the ice for her final game in a Brown uniform. The veteran goaltender gave a stellar performance, making 38 saves and leading the team to a 3-3 tie against Quinnipiac on Senior Day. For her incredible comeback and outstanding performance in her final game, The Herald named Joung Athlete of the Week. The Herald: How did it feel to tie Quinnipiac and make 38 saves in the final game of your Brown hockey career and in your first start in net since the 2008-09 season? Joung: It felt awesome. We had lost to Quinnipiac, I think 4-0 or 6-0, the first time we played them, which was at Quinnipiac. And obviously it was a big weekend with lots of emotion, with Senior Day and even Pink at the Rink the day before, against Princeton. And personally, to be able to play the entire game was definitely a good way to go out. And for it to end like that, with 38 saves and pulling the tie out, it was really great. The only thing that could’ve really gone better was to get the win. At the beginning of the season, there was some doubt that you would be cleared to play because of your brain surgery over the summer. When and how did you find out you needed the surgery? I was diagnosed last spring and I had surgery June 28 of this past summer. I had been having —
By Sam Sheehan Sports Columnist
Jonathan Bateman / Herald
Months after undergoing brain surgery, Joy Joung ’11 returned to the ice to star in her final game in a Brown uniform.
which I didn’t even know about at the time — but I had been having weird amnesia episodes and what I later learned were seizures pretty much all throughout last year … My roommates, who are also on the team, convinced me to go get it checked out, and so I was diagnosed in the spring here and then went home to have the surgery done. What effect has the surgery had on you? It’s definitely been … a big piece of adversity that I’ve faced in my life. Especially the way that I went down, just because it was at the end of my junior year. I had just done an entire year of ROTC, being the only ROTC cadet from Brown, driving down to Providence College every morning, not getting much sleep, being pretty stressed out, playing hockey at the same time. And then, to have that year end with finding out you have a brain tumor, having to go to surgery. I think you end up having a lot of doubts about your ability, not only as an athlete, but as a student, as a
person. You kind of question what you remember and what happened, because I actually don’t remember a lot of what happened last year. Speaking of ROTC, you had been the only student on campus participating in the ROTC program through Providence College. What made you decide to join the program? It’s actually something I kind of wanted to do for a long time. My dad was in the military in Korea, and he got me started in martial arts when I was four years old. So I think the mentality and the culture is very similar, and he’s someone that’s influenced me a lot growing up. So it’s a goal that I’d had before, and I was originally planning on going to OCS — which is Officer Candidates School — after graduation. But I just happened to go over to talk to the cadre members at Providence College, and they were completely willing to work out my hockey schedule and my school schedule with the ROTC
schedule, so I definitely jumped at the chance. Unfortunately, I’m not in the program anymore, because I got discharged obviously, because of the brain surgery. But there is one cadet now from Brown. He’s a freshman on the football team, a great guy, and so he’s taken the reins. You know, I’ve passed on the torch to him. How did you manage to balance school, hockey and the Army? It was interesting. I wish I could say that I remember more about what happened. But I do know for sure that it was difficult and (I) didn’t get much sleep. I usually worked out two or three times a day, which was probably the hardest part because I think after a while, your body gets used to not sleeping. But when you wake up at five, you know, 0500, five in the morning, especially in the dead of the winter, carrying your, you know, 50-pound pack out the door to go to PT — physical training continued on page 5
track and field
Unexpectedly walking on to the running team By James Blum Sports Staff Writer
Joel Anifowose ’14 ran on his high school track and field team, but he never envisioned himself competing for Brown. When applying, he said he focused instead on the prestigious, academic nature of the University. “I had zero idea. … I never thought about sending information to schools,” he said. “I never really thought about competing D-1.” Anifowose isn’t the only walkon who had pictured himself spending more time in the library than on the track. Head Coach Michelle Eisenreich said all of the team’s walk-ons have the potential to become valuable contributors to the program. “We make sure that the people we walk on have a chance to be competitive,” Eisenreich said.
“We’ve had some really good walkons, like Lauren Pischel (’11). She made regionals in the 10K and has been a foundation of our cross country team.” Like Anifowose, Audrey Davis ’14 had run in high school but came to Brown without athletic aspirations. “I would still run on my own here,” Davis said. “But it wasn’t the same. I wanted to be on a team.” “It’s easier having someone tell you the workouts and what to run,” she added. “I feel more accomplished when I’ve done a workout instead of going out for a run on my own.” Anifowose saw joining the team as a second chance. “I just realized that I didn’t do as good as I wanted in high school, so I wanted a second redemption to get better,” Anifowose said. “I still did not know if I was going to be on the team during the summer.”
Arjun Pande ’14 — who made it to the Pennsylvania state meet in high school — also had not planned to run at Brown when he matriculated. But his high school coach reached out to the Brown coaching staff, and Pande reconsidered his decision. “I realized that things — like sports in general — there’s only a short window of opportunity in which I can live that dream,” he said. “I didn’t want to go through and regret not participating in something.” He eventually decided to join the team, and the grueling schedule began. Practices were intense and lasted several hours a day, often six days a week. But the work paid off when Pande got the opportunity to run at several indoor track meets, including the Alden Invitational on Dec. 4, where he ran the 55-meter hurdles in a time of 8.60 seconds.
“My outdoor goal is to make it to Heps,” Pande said, referring to the Ivy League Heptagonal Championships. “I love hurdling and I love the thrill of the race. … It’s something I want to do for as long as I can and that’s why I want to do it for four years here at Brown.” Anifowose said he finds the workouts at Brown not only challenging but also instructive because the coaches help him perfect his technique. He has already contributed to the team as Brown’s top finisher in the 60-meter dash at the Harvard Challenge Jan. 28. Anifowose came to Brown hoping to be a top finisher in class, not on the track. But now, he is working just as hard to reach a new goal. “It’s important that I do everything the coach tells me,” Anifowose said. “For outdoor, it’s just training. I’m trying to break 11 (seconds) in the 100 (meter dash) and get low 22.3 in the 200.”
Ok, I was wrong. When I went on NBA Trade Machine last week for my Wizards column, I took ESPN’s word that John Wall was under contract for two years. Apparently, they only count sure seasons, so the two years of team options and final year in which Wall is under qualifying offer was left out. So in actuality, Wall has five years on the contract and can’t be signed to an extension. Also, I know Jerry Buss is the Lakers owner and not the GM. Otherwise, I wouldn’t spend each day hoping that this is the day the reaper finally comes for him. I’m a fool. I apologize to my readers and fans — all four of you — as I enter a helicopter and hold aloft both hands with pointer and middle fingers extended. Gerald Ford will now write the rest of this article. Just kidding. I have even less shame than Nixon. I’m a Boston sports fan, after all. But how do I win you all back over? What about a column with the promise of an eventual Olives, Colosseum and Fish Company analogy? How about if I tie it in with New York, New Jersey and the tactical game they played while courting the Nuggets for Carmelo? How about a Deron Williams trade kicker? Good? Ok. For the past week, the basketball world in the tri-state area has been captivated by the pursuit of Carmelo Anthony, who is coveted by the New York Knicks and the New Jersey Nets. Carmelo had previously refused to sign an extension with his current team — the Denver Nuggets — and was telling anyone who would listen that he wanted to play in New York. This left the Nuggets in a bit of hard place. Their options were to lose Anthony at the end of the season to free agency, or trade him to the Knicks in exchange for peanuts and a copy of the Olsen twins’ directto-video film, Billboard Dad. Oh, it was Wilson Chandler who was included in the Anthony trade? Sorry, I get my completely average things that no one will watch unless you seriously don’t have anything better to do mixed up. Oh, calm down, Knicks fans, he’s not on your team anymore. Justin Bieber could have put up those numbers for you. He was at least being guarded by Scottie Pippen. Any way, enter Mik hail Prokhorov, the new Nets principal owner who understands that it takes more than throwing money continued on page 5