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Comedic Acts Dominate CUPB Shows

Some students push for more variety in types of shows brought to campus by program board

By SARAH SASSOON Sun Staff Writer

Over the past year, five of the last six shows the Cornell University Program Board has brought to campus have been comedy acts — including the likes of The Daily Show correspondent John Oliver and Saturday Night Live comedians Kenan Thompson and Seth Meyers. In light of this trend, some students said they wonder why there have not been more noncomedic shows at Cornell.

Richmond Wong ’14, president of CUPB, said that CUPB makes an effort to bring not only come-

March 2012

April 2012

SETH MEYERS

KENAN THOMPSON

Comedian

Gordon Levitt and those both sold out. They were incredibly successful — I think everyone that went to them enjoyed them.”

Some students, noting CUPB’s tendency to bring comedic acts to Cornell, said that they hope the organization brings more lecturers, speakers and scholars to campus for future shows.

Amanda Cramer ’15 said that even though comedic performances can be “awesome,” they do not necessarily have a campuswide appeal.

dians but also speakers or lecturers to Cornell each year.

While the majority of the four to six shows CUPB hosts each year are “comedy, we also like to have speakers or large lecture events in one or two of the shows each year,” Wong said.

Ultimately, CUPB decides what performer to invite to Cornell based on what types of shows it thinks students will attend, said Connor McMurtry ’14, selections chair of CUPB. “We look for the people that we think will be the most popular and that the most people at the school want to see,” McMurtry said. “We brought Billy Joel and J o s e p h

“[Comedians] only really target one group of people at Cornell. I would really like to see someone who can come in to speak about real life issues,” Cramer said.

Though comedic shows have been popular among the student body, some students, like Carolyn Scheinberg ’15, said that they are usually “hit or miss for a lot of people.” “[People] tend to judge comedians really harshly,” she said.

Rebecca Gilovich ’15 said that while she has enjoyed attending C U P B ’ s comedic shows, she would like to see the organization bring intellectual speakers

— such as the scholars featured on TED talks — to Cornell.

“It would be awesome to get some speakers like the ones you see on TED talks: poets, architects, musicians [and] psychologists,” Gilovich said.

Echoing Gilovich’s sentiments, Laura Fitzelle ’15 said she “would love to see a few more noncomedic guests” featured in CUPB’s future shows.

“Though I am always happy to be entertained, I also like to be inspired,” Fitzelle said.

Although some students said that there could be more variety in CUPB’s shows, Wong said that, overall, CUPB has continued to invite comedians to perform on campus because of their suc-

Nov. 2012

See COMEDY page 5

Sept. 2012

Comedian

JOHN OLIVER Comedian

JAY PHAROAH Comedian

JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT Actor

Lawyer, Prof Debate Affordable Care Act

By KEVIN MILIAN Sun Staff Writer

CONNOR ARCHARD / SUN SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER

Work it out | Prof. Tucker Culbertson, law, Syracuse University, left, and Greg Katsas, center, debate the Affordable Care Act in Myron Taylor Hall Tuesday.

Sex Offender Pleads Guilty To Child Pornography Charge

By AKANE OTANI Sun News Editor

Tompkins County prosecutors are recommending that a repeat sex offender who was convicted of possessing child pornography last week be given the maximum sentence.

Chris Slater, 51, pleaded guilty to possessing a photograph showing a female younger than 16 years old engaging in sexual conduct — a class E felony — in Tompkins County Court Thursday, according to The Ithaca Journal.

County prosecutors recommended that Slater serve at least 11 years in prison, The Journal reported.

Slater’s court appearance Thursday was not the first time he has faced the legal See CRIME page 4

A lawyer and a Syracuse University professor tackled The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and what its impact might be on religious groups and the healthcare system in a debate on campus Tuesday.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, was

signed into law by President Barack Obama in March 2010. It aims to overhaul the American healthcare system through several reforms, including decreasing the number of uninsured Americans and lowering premium prices for policy holders.

Despite the passage of the act in Congress, Greg Katsas, See DEBATE page 4

News Hey Mr. Postman

A Cornell professor testified before Congress last week to propose solutions to the United States Postal Service’s financial crisis. | Page 3

Opinion Expanding Horizons

Alexis Santi, coordinator of travel safety for the University, responds to a Sun editorial on Cornell’s study abroad policy and urges students to travel safely. | Page 8

Arts Singing Their Hearts Out

Reaching out

Teresa Kim ’15 sits down with a cappella group Pentatonix, winner of NBC’s reality TV show The Sing-Off, to reflect on a cappella’s burgeoning popularity. | Page 12

Sports You Got Served

The men’s tennis team defeated its Ivy foes last weekend, clinching the ECAC indoor title. | Page 20 KELLY YANG / SUN STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Students meet with representatives of companies Tuesday in Statler Hall at the Summer Opportunities Career Fair.

Weather Snowy HIGH: 30 LOW: 14

2 THE CORNELL DAILY SUN | Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Today

DAYBOOK

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Weird News

Umpteen speedy televisions perused two sheep, then umpteen tickets towed Jupiter, and Dan untangles five progressive orifices. Umpteen quixotic aardvarks annoyingly bought two Macintoshes. Umpteen bureaux tickled two extremely putrid botulisms. Paul sacrificed one lampstand, then Jupiter marries the very quixotic pawnbroker. Five purple poisons laughed, yet umpteen chrysanthemums kisses five aardvarks. Batman noisily untangles one Jabberwocky. Two Macintoshes laughed, then one extremely schizophrenic Jabberwocky drunkenly untangles two sheep, however Quark telephoned umpteen obese Jabberwockies. Five irascible botulisms slightly lamely auctioned off the subway, and five chrysanthemums easily untangles one mostly speedy Klingon. Five dogs drunkenly perused Minnesota, however the mats ran away cleverly, although one partly progressive subway quite comfortably sacrificed

Daybook

of the Week

Today Confessions of a Beltway Bandit: What 24 Years in the Trenches Teaches 12:20 - 1:10 p.m, 135 Emerson Hall

Antics of ‘Houdini Horse’ Caught on Tape

C.U. Music: Midday Music for Organ 12:30 - 1:15 p.m., Sage Chapel The Reserved, Exotic, Awkward, Model Minority: Asian American Representations in the Media 5:00 - 6:00 p.m., Asian & Asian Culture Center

Tomorrow “Peaceland: An Ethnography of International Intervention” 12:15 - 1:30 p.m., G08 Uris Hall

MIDLAND, Mich. (AP) — With her escape-artist antics now caught on video, a horse in Michigan is being dubbed the “Houdini Horse” thanks to her knack for opening stall doors.

The 9-year-old horse named Mariska somehow learned to open latches at Misty Meadow Farms near Midland in central Michigan.

The farm’s co-owner, Sandy Bonem, posted a video online of the horse opening numerous locks. It catches how Mariska lets herself out, then unlocking stalls for other horses — just not her mother’s.

As of Monday, the YouTube video had more than 760,000 views.

Bonem tells the Saginaw News that Mariska, “doesn’t like to be locked in.”

Bonem says Mariska played with things in her mouth when she was young, and “she just kind of progressed.”

Nonprofit and Government Career Fair 1 - 5 p.m., Carrier Ballroom, Statler Hall

9-11 Call Asking For Cigarrettes Leads to Arrest

Mathematica Nine in Education and Research 3 - 4 p.m., 401 Physical Sciences Building American Sign Language Sign Choir Learning Series 5 - 6 p.m., 340 Duffield Hall

GRANBURY, Texas (AP) — A Texas woman wanted to make sheriff’s deputies the butt of a joke, but she picked the wrong audience when she called 911 to have cigarettes delivered to her home.

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Hood County sheriff’s Lt. Kathy Jividen says the 48year-old woman was “very intoxicated” when she requested the special delivery on Feb. 11.

Jividen says the caller instead received a visit from two deputies and was arrested. She was charged with a misdemeanor count of abuse of 911. She was later released from the Hood County jail on a $1,000 bond.

The woman lives in Granbury, about 65 miles southwest of Dallas.

Jividen says the woman thought it would be amusing to call 911 to place her order.

Nudes Check Out Nudes At Austrian Museum VIENNA (AP) — These museum goers didn’t just leave their coats at the coat check. They handed over their shirts, trousers and underwear.

Everything, in fact, except their shoes and socks. After all, the stone floor can get chilly when you’re touring an art exhibit in the nude, which was what more than 60 art lovers did in a special after-hours showing at Vienna’s prestigious Leopold museum.

For many, the tour of “Nude Men from 1800 to Today” — an exhibit of 300 paintings, photographs, drawings and sculptures focused on the bare male — was a goose-bump-raising instance of life imitating art.

“I can’t say I’m sweating,” said office worker Herbert Korvas as he stood waiting in the atrium with other young men, wearing only socks, sneakers and a smile.

The CorneDaily Sun

THE CORNELL DAILY SUN | Wednesday, February 20, 2013 3

NEWS

C.U.Prof Testifies Before Congress On USPS Crisis

Fun with science

By LAUREN AVERY Sun Staff Writer

As the future of the United States Postal Service, wreaked by financial crisis, hangs in the balance, leading economists — including a Cornell professor — testified before Congress Feb. 13 to propose reforms that could stabilize USPS’ finances.

USPS is facing a “critical shortage” of revenue, having seen its revenues drop nearly $40 billion and its total volume of mail decline by 25 percent since 2006, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

In his testimony before Congress, Prof. Richard Geddes, policy analysis and management, proposed a two-step solution to USPS’ financial crisis: corporatization and commercialization.

Corporatization would allow USPS to restructure itself to resemble a “large private corporation,” Geddes said.

“That means having a Board of Directors instead of a Board of Governors, having board members who have private sector experience rather than political appointees [and] allowing the board to compensate senior management more in line with private sector standards of compensations, which are higher,” he said.

Additionally, by commercializing USPS — abolishing its monopoly on the postal service industry — Congress could help USPS evolve and become more “entrepreneurial,” Geddes said.

Pointing to the government’s “heavy regulation” of USPS’ prices and products, Geddes said that the service is currently struggling because it is unable to make important financial decisions on its own. “[USPS] can’t just venture into new markets the way a private firm can,” he said. “Also, its service quality is highly regulated, and it is not free to set the frequency or speed of delivery the way a private company would be.”

Geddes added that many other countries have already successfully implemented these kinds of postal reforms, including

CONNOR ARCHARD / SUN SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER

Edward Carmacho, staff member at the Cornell NanoScale Science and Technology Facility, sets up models in Duffield Hall Tuesday of nanotechnology.

the Deutsche Post, the Dutch Post and the New Zealand Post.

Additionally, all 27 countries that are members of the European Union have repealed their postal monopolies.

“Virtually every post in the world that is in a developed country that I am aware of has undertaken postal liberalization, which frees up their postal service. The U.S. is last in terms of taking serious postal reform,” Geddes said.

He said that in addition to battling heavy regulations, the USPS has also struggled to adapt to electronic communication and online transactions, which he said have contributed to a rapid decline in postal revenue.

“People aren’t sending as many letters as they used to, and I believe that this because of e-mail, phone, fax and other electronic substitutes to sending a letter,” Geddes said. “This electronic communication revolution is just as big in terms of its impact and scope as the industrial revolution was. The Postal Service either needs to adapt to that revolution, or it will disappear.”

Besides seeing a decline in the use of first-class mail, Geddes said that the Postal Service has suffered financial losses due to a decrease in billing services.

“People feel comfortable paying bills, banking, and sending messages to individuals online,” he said. “Utility bills used to be a big part of the Postal Services’ revenue, but people are increasingly comfortable to just let the utility debit their monthly charge from their accounts.”

Geddes urged Congress to help reform the USPS for the sake of the service’s immeddate survival and long-term stability.

“The U.S. Postal Service has an enormously valuable asset in its universal delivery network that has been constructed over decades. That asset deserves to be managed as effectively as possible. These reforms ... will ensure that the Postal Service remains a sustainable, vigorous institution for decades to come,” Geddes said in a University press release.

Lauren Avery can be reached at lavery@cornellsun.com.

CALS Introduces Solar-Powered Trash Can to Cornell

Trash can cuts energy costs, uses just one hour of sunlight to operate for two weeks

By NIKKI LEE Sun Staff Writer

The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences installed the University’s first solar-powered trash can outside of Roberts Hall last month in what the student behind the project touted as a step to reduce energy costs and increase environmental sustainability.

“The solar trash can … is a great example of CALS’ commitment to invest in new technologies to reduce costs, while working towards a sustainable future,” Kyle Ward ’13, the student who proposed installing the trash can.

According to Ward, cities and univer-

sities across the nation are purchasing and installing these solar trash cans, which, once full, automatically compact the trash and notify staff through a wireless Internet connection when they need to be emptied.

After spending two years researching the trash cans, called Big Belly Solar compactors, Ward –– co-chair of the CALS Dean’s Student Advisory Council –– contacted CALS Dean Kathryn Boor ’80 Spring 2012 to ask if the University would install one of its own solar-powered trash cans. The University agreed, and purchased the trash can, according to Ward.

Boor said she “enthusiastically

Poking fun at acupuncture

MICHELLE FELDMAN / SUN STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Sadie Hays, co-owner of Ithaca Community Acupuncture, discusses her practices of alternative medicine at an event hosted by the Intermed club in Goldwin Smith Hall Tuesday.

embraced the concept when it was pro- impact of the can outside of Roberts Hall posed by the [Student Advisory before deciding whether or not the Council].”

University will purchase more.

“First and foremost, the concept repIn one scenario, Delaney said that the resented a great student initiative. University may move the trash cans to Second, the ideas behind the trashcan are different locations around campus to test innovative and forhow it handles ward-thinking and greater volumes of send a very posi- “It’s my hope that Cornell will waste. tive message about eventually switch to all solarWard said he is applying CALS’ powered trash cans.” optimistic that the values to improve University will human lives,” Boor Kyle Ward ’13 join the ranks of said. universities such According to as Georgetown Ward, the trash can reduces the number University, Boston University and Iowa of trips staff need to take to empty it by State University, which have already 80 percent by sending data on how full adopted the widespread use of solar trash the can is over Wi-Fi. By compacting the cans on their campuses. trash, the can also holds five times more “It’s my hope that Cornell will eventrash than regular trashcans, Ward said. tually switch to all solar-powered trash Both factors, Ward said, result in trash cans in its outdoor areas,” Ward said. trucks needing to use less gas to pick up Before asking the University to purwaste. chase the solar-powered trash can, Ward Additionally, the trash cans — being said he was inspired by the City of Ithaca solar-powered — need one hour of sun- — which, in 2010, purchased and light to power them for two weeks. installed two solar-powered trash cans on “This means, even in Ithaca, there is the Commons. enough sunlight for solar trash cans,” At the time, Ward said he found little Ward said. success in encouraging the University to Ezra Delaney, assistant dean of CALS increase installation of outdoor recycling capital projects and facilities services, and trash bins on campus. lauded the fact that the trash cans will “I knew I had to try to find a new help save energy. route to take,” Ward said.

“It has gotten a lot of attention and With the solar-powered trash can on helps educate the campus on the total Roberts Hall up and running, Ward said cost of creating and handling waste,” he hopes the can will “hopefully establish Delaney said. “This is an interesting precedence and be followed by other colapplication of technology which should leges across the University.” be evaluated as we work toward a more sustainable campus.”

Delaney said, however, that the Nikki Lee can be reached at University will still have to gage the nlee@cornellsun.com.

4 THE CORNELL DAILY SUN | Wednesday, February 20, 2013

NEWS

Debate Tackles ACA’s Complexities Tompkins County Court Convicts Sex Offender For Repeat Offense DEBATE

“I don't know that a corporation can pray. That's one of the complications with the free-exercise claim — the definition of individual employees in relia partner at law firm Jones Day, said the act remains gious institutions,” Culbertson said. contentious. He described Obamacare, which was Katsas said that his biggest issue with the act is deemed constitutional by the Supreme Court last how it labels the individual mandate — the part of summer, as being “very oddly schizophrenic.” the act that requires all Americans to have health “There are parts of it that are really wonderful insurance — as a penalty, rather than a tax. and other parts that are awful,” he said.

Although the act does not require all individuals One part of the act that Katsas said has been con- to purchase health insurance plans, it allows the govtroversial is its requirement that religious-affiliated ernment to tax individuals who do not have health organizations cover contraceptives in their employ- plans — something Katsas said should be reframed ees’ health insurance plans. While some Republican as a tax. and conservative groups have pushed Congress to “The bill can’t force people to buy health insurremove the requirement, Katsas said it would be a ance, but you can tax them for not buying health hassle to determine who should be exempt from insurance. … The bottom line is that we are making purchasing health insurance plans based on religious a punitive penalty,” he said. affiliations.

Dan Hartman, law, “It seems very hard president of the Cornell “I don’t know that a corporation can for [corporations] to Society — the pray. ... That’s one of the complications Federalist offer abortion services organization that hosted for people with religious the debate — said that with the free-exercise claim.” views,” he said. both Katsas and Prof. Tucker Culbertson Countering Katsas, Culbertson highlighted Prof. Tucker Culbertson, the complexities and law, Syracuse University, said that he is concerned controversies surrounding the Affordable Care Act. about the Affordable Care Act infringing upon peo“The Supreme Court decision went down last ple’s right to freely exercise their religion. By requir- summer, but that doesn’t mean that it’s over. This ing all corporations — including hospitals that may debate is proof that there’s going to be challenges in employ religious employees who oppose contracep- the future for the [Affordable Care Act]; it’s still an tion — to cover contraception in their health plans, unpopular piece of legislation,” Hartman said. the act “would compromise the free exercise of reliHartman added that although the act was gion,” he said. declared constitutional by the Supreme Court, “I see opinions against free exercise [of religion] Americans cannot be sure that “it’s going to be a and it concerns me,” Culbertson said, adding that he smooth ride from now on.” supports exempting church-affiliated universities, Though there are still aspects of the Affordable hospitals and charities from providing or paying for Care Act that could still be discussed, Hartman said coverage of contraceptives. the debate Tuesday brought many remaining issues “We have exemptions not just for houses of wor- of the act to light. ship, but [for] all non-profit entities whose work and “I think it went really well. Both speakers leadership suggest and lead to a religious opposition brought immense intellect from both sides; I don’t on the use of contraceptives,” Culbertson said. think it could have gone better,” he said.

Culbertson, however, also conceded that it is difficult to define which individuals or what groups Kevin Milian can be reached at should receive exemptions to the act. kmilian@cornellsun.com.

Continued from page 1

CRIME

Continued from page 1

system for charges related to sexual crimes.

In 2002 and 2004, Slater was convicted of seconddegree sexual abuse, a misdemeanor, according to The Ithaca Journal. He allegedly abused 12-year-old males, The Journal reported.

After being convicted of the sexual abuse charges, Slater was sentenced in 2011 to serve six months in jail and a five-year probation for failing to register as a sex offend-

Sexual Offender Accountability and Responsibility program, a treatment program for persons convicted of sexual crimes. He was subsequently expelled from the treatment program, The Journal reported.

In addition to violating his probation, Slater was reportedly found to possess pornographic videos, magazines and photos — which led deputy and probation officials to deliver a warrant for a home search in June, according to The Journal.

After being convicted of the sexual abuse charges, Slater was sentenced in 2011 to serve six months in jail and a five-year probation. er, according to The Journal.

The Journal reported that, while Slater told police he was living in Newfield, N.Y., Tompkins County sheriff ’s deputies found that Slater was in fact living elsewhere, in Freeville, N.Y. Slater then allegedly violated the terms of his probation by failing to participate in the

In the search, the officials reportedly found a pornographic picture in a ziplock bag stored in Slater’s wallet, according to The Journal.

Slater faces sentencing in May. Akane Otani can be reached at aotani@cornellsun.com.

THE CORNELL DAILY SUN | Wednesday, February 20, 2013 5

NEWS

Students Ask CUPB For Variety in Shows COMEDY

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Continued from page 1

cess with the student body.

“Seth Meyers sold out Bailey Hall in Spring 2012. Having [him] here was fantastic; everyone really loved him,” he said.

Other students also said they appreciate CUPB’s leaning toward comedic acts.

“Jon Stewart was excellent. … I’d love to see comedians like him come back,” Caitlin Arens ’15 said.

Like Arens, Steve Lezynski ’14 said he hopes CUPB continues to bring the likes of Stewart to perform at Cornell.

“I’d [even] like to have Charlie Sheen come speak to see what he’s been up to these days,” he said.

Both Wong and McMurtry said that, in deciding who to invite to campus, CUPB attempts to garner student opinion and suggestions each year. They said that the University’s club fair, for example, is a useful forum in which to reach out to students for their opinions.

“We try to get as much feedback as possible from the campus,” McMurtry said. “People are always welcome to put down any suggestions or contact us.”

Wong added that while the CUPB’s executive board consists of six representatives, the input from the organization’s general body members — of which he said there are around 60 — is paramount.

“We try to make it as much of a conversation back and forth between the general body and the e-board,” McMurtry said.

Sarah Sassoon can be reached at ssassoon@cornellsun.com.

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6 THE CORNELL DAILY SUN | Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Bloomberg Defends Super PAC Anti-Gun Ads in Illinois

CHICAGO (AP) — New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg waded deeper Tuesday into the Chicago-area election to replace former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., defending his super PAC’s $2 million in anti-gun ads attacking a former congresswoman and candidate in the race.

Gun control has emerged as a main issue on the campaign trail, and television commercials and mailers paid for by Bloomberg’s super PAC, Independence USA, have been brought up in candidate forums, news conferences and biting emails from the 20 candidates who’ll appear on the Feb. 26 primary ballot.

The ads focused on two Democrats, former U.S. Rep. Debbie Halvorson and state Sen. Toi Hutchinson, who have had high ratings from the National Rifle Association. Then Hutchinson unexpectedly dropped out of the race last week and put her support behind another Democrat front-runner, former state Rep. Robin Kelly, who supports an assault weapons ban. Halvorson, who doesn’t support a ban, has since accused Bloomberg of trying to “buy an election” and colluding with Kelly.

Bloomberg, a vocal advocate of strict gun control, said his concern is beefing up gun laws and

said — without naming a candidate — that the NRA has convinced lawmakers that they can’t win without the organization’s support.

“It’s just an outrage, and the public ... should stand up,” he told reporters in New York. “I’m part of the public. I happen to have some money, and that’s what I’m going to do with my money — try to get us some sensible gun laws.”

It’s not surprising for the Democrat-turnedRepublican-turned-independent to take such a vocal stance on guns: He’s the co-chair of Mayors Against Illegal Guns and has spoken widely on the issue. But singling out one race on the issue is a bit more unusual, and the action has drawn attention since it’s mid-cycle.

Bloomberg launched his super PAC weeks before the November election and spent more than $12 million to back seven candidates nationwide. Guns were an issue in the election of newlyelected Rep. Gloria Negrete McLeod, a California Democrat who ousted incumbent Democrat Rep. Joe Baca with Bloomberg’s help. However, Bloomberg’s backing hasn’t always equaled success. His super PAC supported former Rep. Robert Dold, R-Ill., who lost to a Democratic businessman, Rep. Brad Schneider.

Judge Blocks NYC From Ken Burns Film Footage NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday blocked New York City from getting footage gathered by documentary filmmaker Ken Burns in research for his movie about the five men exonerated in the Central Park jogger rape case.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Ronald L. Ellis said the city had failed to show him a concern so compelling to trump the “precious rights of freedom of speech and the press” when it last fall requested outtakes and other materials from the film The Central Park Five.

The request was connected to a $250 million federal lawsuit filed by the men against the city nine years ago after their sentences were vacated. The attack on a 28-year-old investment banker occurred in April 1989, when she was found in the park after being beaten and raped while jogging. She was in a coma for 12 days and was left with permanent damage. The men were exonerated after a man already jailed for other crimes confessed, and DNA evidence supported his claim.

Ellis rejected arguments by the city that Florentine Films and filmmakers Ken Burns, David McMahon and Sarah Burns were not independent journalists entitled to reporter’s privilege.

He said Florentine had “established its independence in the making of the film” and may claim the privilege.

He also said the city had failed to adequately address the requirements of relevance and significance of the materials it sought and had failed to demonstrate they are not available from another source.

City attorney Celeste Koeleveld said city lawyers were “disappointed and reviewing our options.”

“While journalistic privilege under the law is very important, we firmly believe it did not apply here.

This film is a one-sided advocacy piecae that depicts the plaintiffs’ version of events as undisputed fact. It is our view that we should be able to view the complete interviews, not just those portions that the filmmakers chose to include,” the lawyer said in a statement.

Burns said that he and his co-filmmakers are “grateful for this important decision.”

“This adds a layer of important protection to journalists and filmmakers everywhere,” he said.

His lawyer, John Siegal, called it a “marvelous decision for the media industry generally and documentary filmmakers in particular.”

NEW YORK STATE NEWS BRIEFS

Man Charged With Taking Dali Work From NYC Gallery

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday blocked New York City from getting footage gathered by documentary filmmaker Ken Burns in research for his movie about the five men exonerated in the Central Park jogger rape case.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Ronald L. Ellis said the city had failed to show him a concern so compelling to trump the “precious rights of freedom of speech and the press” when it last fall requested outtakes and other materials from the film “The Central Park Five.”

The request was connected to a $250 million federal lawsuit filed by the men against the city nine years ago after their sentences were vacated. The attack on a 28-year-old investment banker occurred in April 1989, when she was found in the park after being beaten and raped while jogging. She was in a coma for 12 days and was left with permanent damage. The men were exonerated after a man already jailed for other crimes confessed, and DNA evidence supported his claim.

Ellis rejected arguments by the city that Florentine Films and filmmakers Ken Burns, David McMahon and Sarah Burns were not independent journalists entitled to reporter’s privilege.

He said Florentine had “established its independence in the making of the film” and may claim the privilege.

He also said the city had failed to adequately address the requirements of relevance and significance of the materials it sought and had failed to demonstrate they are not available from another source.

City attorney Celeste Koeleveld said city lawyers were “disappointed and reviewing our options.”

“While journalistic privilege under the law is very important, we firmly believe it did not apply here. This film is a one-sided advocacy piece that depicts the plaintiffs’ version of events as undisputed fact. It is our view that we should be able to view the complete interviews, not just those portions that the filmmakers chose to include,” the lawyer said in a statement.

Burns said that he and his co-filmmakers are “grateful for this important decision.”

“This adds a layer of important protection to journalists and filmmakers everywhere,” he said.

His lawyer, John Siegal, called it a “marvelous decision for the media industry generally and documentary filmmakers in particular.”

In a declaration submitted to the court in November, Burns called the city’s position “deeply disturbing for documentarians and reporters — and the public at large” and “a troubling attempt to expand the power and role of city government and to reduce the legal protection afforded reporters.”

He said the filmmakers made statements after the documentary was made urging the city to settle with the plaintiffs and “close this painful chapter in their lives and the life of the city.”

But he said the opinion resulted from the reporting for the film.

“By stating this view, we have not forfeited our journalistic integrity any more than any author or columnist or filmmaker who espouses a point-of-view about a story he or she is reporting,” he wrote.

stay informed

U.S. NEWS BRIEFS

Ex, Current Peterson Lawyers Face Off in Court

JOLIET, Ill. (AP) — The attorney who led the defense team in Drew Peterson’s 2012 murder trial sat in the witness box Tuesday and faced questions from his former co-counsel — the latest turn in a long-running legal saga full of strange twists.

The rarity of former legal colleagues facing off as adversaries came at a hearing to decide if Peterson, a former suburban Chicago police officer, should get a new trial in the slaying of his third wife.

His current attorneys contend that former lead attorney Joel Brodsky botched Peterson’s trial, which ended in September with jurors convicting Peterson of murdering his third wife, Kathleen Savio.

Witnesses during the daylong hearing Tuesday included Brodsky, a law professor who teaches ethics and even a spectator during last year’s trial. The hearing resumes Wednesday.

Peterson, 59, faces a maximum 60-year prison term for killing Savio, who was found dead in her bathtub with a gash on her head. The former Bolingbrook police sergeant gained nationwide notoriety after his much younger fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, vanished in 2007. Her disappearance led authorities to exhume Savio’s body and change the cause of death from an accident to a homicide.

The dispute between Peterson’s former lawyer and his current ones is in sharp contrast to the beginning of Peterson’s trial, when the limelightseeking defense team faced the media together. Several times, they joked that Stacy Peterson — who authorities presume is dead but whose body was never found — could show up any day to take the stand.

The most dramatic moment at Tuesday’s hearing came when current Peterson attorney Steve Greenberg — who has engaged in an open war of words with Brodsky in recent months — announced that Brodsky was his next witness.

Brodsky at first did not appear, and eventually the judge ordered him to the witness stand.

In public, Brodsky and Greenberg have denounced each other as liars, but the back and forth in court Tuesday was comparatively reserved and polite.

Prosecutors Seek Death Penalty In ‘Cathouse’ Case OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The former girlfriend of a man accused of killing four people, including a prostitute featured on HBO’s “Cathouse” series, testified Tuesday she overheard him plan the Oklahoma City shootings because he was unhappy with the amount of money he made from a drug dealer among those killed.

Denny Edward Phillips, 34, is charged in the deaths of drug dealer Casey Mark Barrientos and three others, including two pregnant women. One of the victims was Brooke Phillips, who had worked for a legal Nevada brothel featured on HBO. She was not related to Denny Phillips.

In testimony at Denny Phillips’ preliminary hearing Tuesday, his former girlfriend testified Phillips and a second man, David Allen Tyner, planned to kill Barrientos, 32, because they were unhappy with their take from Barrientos’ drug trade.

“They were going to kill Casey and anybody who was in the house,” Karine Sanders testified in Oklahoma County District Court. “I almost felt threatened by it.”

Investigators say Barrientos ran a drug and prostitution ring out of the south Oklahoma City house where the victims were killed. Denny Phillips and Tyner, 31, allegedly were involved in illegal drug sales with Barrientos.

Sanders said she dated Denny Phillips during the summer of 2009 and that they frequently visited the house.

“It was like a party house,” she said. “A lot of strippers. A lot of drugs.

A lot of drinking.”

She said there was also a lot of money lying around and that many who visited the house were armed.

A resident of the house who survived, Jose Fiero, testified that he saw Tyner walk into the home where the victims were shot but never saw Denny Phillips.

Previous testimony indicates that Phillips told a fellow inmate at a federal prison that he was nearby when the victims were killed, but not actually present.

Denny Phillips faces six counts of murder because Brooke Phillips, 22, and Milagros Barrera, 22, were pregnant when they were killed. All of the victims, including Barrientos and Jennifer Ermey, 25, were shot and stabbed and their bodies were set on fire.

The preliminary hearing, which began last week, will determine whether there is probable cause that Denny Phillips was involved in the shootings and should be tried for murder. It’s scheduled to resume Feb. 26.

Denny Phillips has pleaded not guilty to the charges. Prosecutors said Tuesday they will seek the death penalty if he is convicted.

Tyner, whom Sanders identified as her cousin, worked as Barrientos’ bodyguard and complained to Denny Phillips that he was not being paid enough, Sanders said. Denny Phillips was also not happy with the amount of money he made from drug deals with Barrientos, she said.

“Let’s do something about it,” Sanders testified Denny Phillips said at one point during a conversation with Tyner in which she was present.

She said Denny Phillips made it clear that he wanted to personally kill Barrientos.

“He wanted to shoot Casey, I know that,” Sanders said. “He said he wanted to look in his eyes.”

Sanders said she broke up with Denny Phillips in September 2009, two months before the shootings and did not report the threats because she did not take them seriously.

THE CORNELL DAILY SUN | Wednesday, February 20, 2013 7

OPINION

Alexis E. Santi |

The Corne¬ Daily Sun

Above All Things, Travel Safe

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Guest Room

I

’ve had the chance to write a few articles for The Sun already. All of them have circled around various topics regarding student life and I give whatever advice I can give from having a Masters in Social Work. I’ve tried to stay away from my job for the University, but this time around, I’ll dig into it.

I’m the Travel Safety Coordinator for the University, which basically means I’m the person who is hopefully involved in the discussions when you’re thinking of traveling abroad on Cornell Business. It’s my job to ensure that the programs that we design for students going abroad are conducted safely. I advise the International Travel Advisory and Response Team, and it was my office that was responsible for the International Travel Registry.

On Tuesdsay, an editorial piblished in The Sun addressing the ITART review process for locations that are deemed high risk. I’d like to explain a little bit more about this process. Firstly, the University has gone to great lengths to minimize restrictions on international travel. Before launching the registry, the ITART committee was reviewing every independent undergraduate student traveler who was going anywhere in the world. Yes, we were reviewing safety plans for students traveling to France, Italy and the like.

That means, essentially, we’ve reduced this list of almost 200 countries we’re concerned about to around 60. To the question of why we chose this particular list of countries to review? The sense in the field of travel safety is that the State Department Travel Warning list is, by its nature, a political list. A lot of the work of travel safety is nuanced. No system is going to be perfect, but the list of the additional 30 on Cornell’s list that are not on the State Department’s list is backed up by our emergency provider FrontierMEDEX and other universities in the field.

Next, just because a country is on the list does not mean that travel there is an issue. In many cases, when students want to travel to countries on the list, showing them how risks can be reduced is enough to allow travel. We work with everyone who applies through the ITART process with the goal of supporting the travel, not hampering it. The ITART process is a moment in administrative time when we review the proposed risks of travel in a country and support the individual in working through that process. Let me be clear: Cornell University has no restricted lists of travel locations; we have an ITART review — that’s all. It is extremely rare for a trip to be denied — in fact, it has only happened once since I arrived at the University and the circumstances were beyond extreme.

It is my goal, through my position at the University, to work with all members of the community who wish to travel internationally to further their Cornell education, no matter the destination. The Sun is right: “The University must be cognizant [that addressing pressing issues in the world] may require direct engagement in developing, and perhaps dangerous, countries.” However, we have to do this and support the work properly somehow administratively.

What has struck me since I have been here on campus has been the extreme amount of travel experience that many of you have had already. For every group I speak to, I’d say that a solid 80-90 percent of the students have been abroad, and of those, I’m always surprised by the hands that shoot up of those who have already lived abroad for extended periods of time.

This is a remarkable amount of experience and shows me that the average Cornell student understands the global arena. Student group trips like Cornell University Sustainable Design and Big Red Relief or the Cornell Law Brigades are Cornell University at its finest. It doesn’t stop there though: A good example of a program that visited a travel warning country would be the faculty-led trip AguaClara that went to Honduras.

Dr. Monroe Weber-Shirk’s long-standing water purification project has made a deep impact in Central America for over a decade. This past winter, 20 students traveled across Honduras, a country that is the murder capital of the world. We supported that group through ITART, and I worked with the group regularly to facilitate the travel.

Yes, all travel is inherent with risks — and Cornell students, faculty and staff should and will continue to travel to destinations around the world and do the good work, regardless of their location.

How we travel internationally and the steps we take to do so are crucial, supporting this work is my duty and responsibility. So, regardless of how you’re going abroad — whether you’re taking a semester off, going on a service trip or traveling with faculty — it makes good sense to think through the basics ahead of time, for which the Health and Safety section of the Cornell Abroad website is very useful. I won’t assume I know it all — chances are, a good many of you have traveled much more than I have in my life so far — but it’s my hope we can work together.

Above all things, travel safe.

Alexis E. Santí is the Coordinator of Travel Safety for Cornell University. He may be reached at asanti@cornell.edu. Guest Room appears periodically this semester.

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THE CORNELL DAILY SUN | Wednesday, February 20, 2013 9

OPINION

Dan Rosen | Smell the Rosen

Plugging Away T

here is something odd about the fact that everybody on campus seems to be in his or her own world as they walk from class to class. This is not because of the oppressive and isolating nature of Ithaca in the winter but because we all walk around with headphones plugged into our smartphones (or iPods for those of us Luddites who haven’t embraced smartphones yet or Zunes for those whose parents do not love them). Do the people playing Taylor Swift on the clock tower chimes know that I can’t hear them when I am blasting Taylor Swift in my headphones? This phenomenon, is of course, not limited to the Cornell campus. Everywhere we go, people seem to be less and less attuned to their surroundings and more and more in tune with their iTunes.

There is something anomalous about the fact that we are, for the most part, removing our sonic connection to the world and replacing it with our own personal soundtrack.

Every person is experiencing his or her environment in entirely unique ways based on what is playing in his or her ears. This column, however, is not meant to be a diatribe against “the youths,” what with their “hipping-hop” and “walkymen.” I am actually a big proponent of listening to your MP3 player everywhere you go. Yes, you might get hit by a car, or not hear the love of your life screaming at you to not board the midnight flight to Paris to marry the rich Scandinavian doctor your parents want you to marry but whom you don’t really love because he is dull and has genital warts. But, actually, with the immense rise in podcasts and audio-

There is something deeply personal about an auditory experience. books, I have started to view listening to your device as a means of being more efficient. It is also a way to engage with a form of programming that is not confined by the rigidity of much television and film.

No longer must I waste the 20-minute walk from my house to campus with idle thoughts and fantasies. Or sit in the Ivy Room eating my lunch while listening to a hungover sorority girl drone on about which a cappella group stole her jacket at the frat annex of the guy she used to kind of hookup with. Instead I can listen to Ira Glass narrate perfectly constructed segments about a particular theme that often end in me weeping. There are plenty of educational podcasts about new inventions or interview podcasts that provide freeform and in-depth conversations that could never exist on television. Or, I can listen to an audiobook, like Tina Fey’s autobiography, which also often leaves me weeping (how does she juggle everything?). In the past few years, I rarely even listen to music on my iPod, and when I do, it is most likely another podcast that introduces me to current new music.

In many ways, podcasts have begun to replace the role that radio played for so many decades as a place where new music was introduced and long form journalism existed in a manner that it does not today. I was serious before about getting emotional listening to podcasts. I have laughed, cried and everything in between, and all in public. According to my friends, I know I am not the only one who has had such emotional reactions to podcasts. Just this week I teared up listening to an episode of This American Life that examined Chicago high schoolers at a school plagued by gun violence.

At one point, I had to take off the headphones, lest I totally break down in the Ivy Room.

There is something deeply personal about an auditory experience, in which we are complicit in creating the story in our imagination. It also requires our full attention, making it much more difficult to multi-task like we might while watching television. Moreover, since podcasts don’t need to meet rating requirements, they are not built to please everybody; the audience must come to them, allowing interviews and discussions to go in to depths not seen elsewhere. People are able to find their niche, the show that speaks to them and their interests specifically. Perhaps this is cliché, but maybe as we disconnect from the outside, descending into our individual worlds through the wires of our headphones, we aren’t actually excluding the outside world — we are just connecting in a different way.

Dan Rosen is a senior in the College of Architecture, Art and Planning.

He may be reached at drosen@cornellsun.com. Smell the Rosen appears alternate Wednesdays this semester.

Matt Hudson |

Red in the Face

The Death of Language S

ome nights, when the sky is thick with clouds reddened by pollution and when the midnight mist catches like a dull prism in the glow of streetlamps, time disappears and a soft wind, whispering through empty branches and browning blades of grass, carries off the breath rising from my chest like a spoken word. I will, on occasion, take 2 a.m. walks to escape the world and find those moments of intense clarity, when life billows from my lungs and disperses in the cold air as if to offer visible evidence that I still exist. Standing still for a moment with traces of my feet left amidst the streams of salt ghosts that litter the concrete walkways, I often cannot find any words to give the experience a conveyable meaning. Why is language such a fickle thing, so utterly useless in times of such fleeting beauty, so impermanent that to watch it depart like a winter breath is almost heartbreaking? Words fail, and it is our fault.

Weakened by generations of overuse and stretched thin by the accretion of new definitions that leaves much of its original sanctity hopelessly diluted, language has been dulled by thoughtless

expenditure. We have crafted a culture terrified of silence, one that despises the absence of sound and squirms under the imagined pressure of needing something to say at every passing moment.

Life has become a lexical waste bin, an alleyway littered with pointless queries and half-baked clichés, awkwardly staving off the terrifying weight of soundlessness. In our fear, our absolute loathing of silence, we have driven

include “some mousy kid’s helicopter mom” and “that possibly homeless man with a speech impediment who shows up at random sporting events to collect aluminum cans” (true story). Words are stretched so thin that to call someone incredibly close a “friend” is to say almost nothing at all.

It is the result of a terrible insensitivity that we so brazenly strain and misuse language.

It is noth-

Words are stretched so thin that to call someone incredibly close a “friend” is to say nothing at all. words to a near extinction of meaning.

Consider, for instance, the transformation of the adjective “awesome.”

Once employed almost exclusively in the description of kings and deities, it might now be slapped onto a list of accolades for an above average taco at a greasy downtown Tex-Mex restaurant. What of the word “friend?” Social media, namely Mark Zuckerberg’s explosively popular brainchild, has so thoughtlessly expanded the term that it might now

ing short of a tragedy that our tongues have become prodigal spenders, wasting words like pocket change as their value diminishes.

Imagine them as liquids, thick and mellifluous, flowing like honey and rich with meaning. Dilute them enough and they, like raindrops pattering and striking in sheets against tin roofs, make sound but neither soak our clothing nor wet our skin and chill our bones.

When language becomes a rainstorm that is heard and not felt, it becomes

Ashley Harrington |

nothing more than blank noise, static on a television flashing black snow against an electric white.

“The more we talk, the less words mean.” Given to me by a good friend not long ago, this spoken line from Jean-Luc Godard’s 1962 film Vivre Sa Vie expresses in words greater than mine possibly could the importance of silence and the poignancy of language’s slow death.

Perhaps I am not meant to describe those moments of staggering beauty on lonely winter nights; to truly explain things as dynamic as steaming breath and shimmering streetlight reflections on wet pavement is to go mute and quietly share them with someone else. Let us not use words so frivolously; let us savor them and not speak simply to break silence. As literature proliferates and as we continue to feel the need to speak, I can only plead that we recognize those moments when language is simply inadequate and when we can use the word “friend” and genuinely mean it.

Matt Hudson is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences.

He can be reached at mhudson@cornellsun.com. Red in the Face runs alternate Wednesdays this semester.

Dancing in the Margins

The Politics of Invisibility

T

hroughout the vast majority of sition into March with one question my primary and secondary edu- unanswered by my teachers: Why isn’t cation, seeing a black or brown black history, or the history of any body in a history textbook was as rare marginalized group, integrated into the as Cornell cancelling classes for snow. rest of the curriculum?

Whenever I did see a person of color in The answer lies in the politics of a textbook that wasn’t a shackled slave invisibility — deeming bodies legitior a savagely depicted First American, mate by making their privileged identithey, likely Dr. King or Rosa Parks, ties so universal they become invisible. were forced into a tiny square situated In America, normal has been painted in the margins of history. Consistently to be an upper-middle class, straight, depicted as a side note that was discon- white, Protestant, cisgender nected from the “real’ American narra- man. To be the coveted tive, people of color have been system- All-American, you atically and deliberately deleted from American history. However, when Why isn’t black February comes around, history ... integrated the reality supposedly into the rest of the changes.

Black History Month, curriculum? first started by Carter G. Woodson in 1926 as “Negro History must exist within this paradigm. You Week,” was the only time of year I was are the lawyer instead of the woman taught about select black Americans lawyer, the doctor instead of the black who were revolutionary enough to be doctor, the professor instead of the lesincluded, but mild enough to not over- bian professor. You are the host of the ly threaten the normative American party because while your guests are narrative. I use the word “select” hyphenated-Americans, you, my because as I began to self-educate friend, are American. myself on my people’s history, I slowly To be white, or straight, or male, or realized that the black history I did cisgender, or upper-middle class, is to learn in school was over-simplified and be the standard. It’s the reason why purposefully made benign. I never every class I’ve taken at Cornell that learned much beyond Rosa Parks’ sit- doesn’t pertain to straight, white men ting on the bus, Dr. King’s Dream, the has the word “gay” or “woman” or lies about Malcolm X and slavery. “American Indian,” “Latino” or However, something is better than “Black” in front of it. If I wanted to nothing, so I cherished Black History study the work of Maya Angelou, its Month, for allowing me to see my unlikely that I would do so in a class darker hue as somewhat American too. called Major Poets. That class would In spite of this, every year I would tran- be reserved for Robert Frost, Walt

Whitman, maybe Emily Dickinson if the instructor was into “diversity,” but the poets would likely all be white.

Frost, Whitman and Dickinson are, of course, brilliant, but so is Maya Angelou. Removing these vital perspectives is political. It makes the statement that the literary work of anyone who does not fit the narrowly defined standard is not fully legitimate. This reality is why disciplines such as ethnic studies, women’s studies and LGBT studies must exist. Just last week The Cornell Review published an article boldly asking “Is Africana Studies Relevant ...?” proving once again the ways in which the politics of invisibility work to delegitimize and silence certain voices in academia.

Now let’s bring this back to Black History Month. Due to common teaching styles, this politics of invisibility are frequently reinforced.

It encourages the study of a history without asking the critical question of why “(insert any minority name here) history” was separated from history in the first place. These are the questions we’ve been told not to ask. So, the next time someone asks you whether or not Black History Month should exist, I hope you’ll tell them that they’re asking the wrong question. Tell them to stop looking amongst the branches and start discovering the roots.

Ashley Harrington is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. She may be reached at aharrington@cornellsun.com. Dancing in the Margins appears alternate Wednesdays this semester.

10 T THE CORNELL DAILY SUN | Monday, W February 4, 2013

SCIENCE

Special Edition: The Wond Prof.David Smith Researches Memory Retrieval Triggers

By AMIT BLUMFIELD Sun Contributor

If you want to increase your grade on your next prelim or exam, take the test in same room in which you learned the material. According to Prof. David Smith, psychology, this is a form of contextual memory, or memory that can be recalled with better accuracy if a person is in the same setting where he or she first learned the information.

Contextual memory is used by crime investigators to obtain more information from eyewitnesses. But eyewitnesses do not have to return to the scene of the crime to trigger contextual memories.

The simple act of closing one’s eyes and imagining oneself back at the crime scene, known as context reinstatement, can bring back a flood of memories that would otherwise be unreachable.

Smith focuses on pinpointing the areas in the brain that influence memory encoding and retrieval, specifically which area of the brain contributes most to the phenom-

enon of contextual memory.

To do this, Smith places rodents under general anesthesia and surgically introduces a tube into their brains, which is directly connected to the hippocampus, the area of the brain associated with memory.

Because the brain has no pain receptors, the rodents feel no pain or discomfort during or after the procedure.

Smith injects a small amount of Muscimol, a drug that shuts down the brain for a short period of time, into the rodents’ hippocampi.

According to Smith, without a functioning hippocampus, rodents can still learn and remember a signal in the form of an odor, but their ability to recall contextual memory is impaired.

The control group of rodents, which were not injected with Muscimol, were able to recall odors more precisely when they were in the same setting where they had first smelled the odors, but the experimental group of rodents did not show the same memory retrieval improvement.

According to Smith, previous studies on

S t COURTESY OF PROF. DAVID SMITH

Triggering thoughts | Prof. David Smith and honors graduates present thier findings about memory functions. By studying rats, they found the connection between location and memory. contextual memory in humans concluded that lists of items can be recalled with more

COURTESY OF THE NEW YORK TIMES

Test taking | According to Prof. David Smith, psychology, if you take an exam in the same classroom in which you learned the material, you will do better on the test. The brain associates memories with places, so being somewhere helps access clearer memories of that place.

precision at the same physical location they were learned.

In those studies, however, it was unclear which part of the brain was responsible for this phenomenon. Smith’s findings that the hippocampus controls contextual memory in rats can be translated to humans because rodent brain structure is similar to that of humans.

Aside from his research, Smith teaches Psychology 2230, Introduction to Biological Psychology, in the fall semester.

According to Smith, the class is “an introduction to how the brain works.”

Students in his lecture learn about the functionality of the brain, including sensory systems, emotions and memories.

In the spring semester, he teaches a seminar that looks more deeply into one field within neurobiology. The topic changes each year, but this year, the seminar focuses on the hippocampus and its functions.

Smith also leads a year-round journal discussion, in which discusses a recent journal article in the field of neurobiology with students. The discussion is held every Tuesday and is open to graduate students and several advanced undergraduate students with permission.

Amit Blumfield can be reached at ab725@cornell.edu.

B S

d s l a J s f u h s a i t i e e c f h a G

Three-Photon Technology I

By NICOLAS RAMOS Sun Senior Writer

The brain has been an object of human curiosity for hundreds of years.

Microscopy and imaging technologies used to study the brain, however, have not been able to provide scientists the depth and clarity they desire. Prof. Chris Xu ’96, applied and engineering physics, has developed a new method of microscopy that improves on past technology.

Traditional methods of brain imaging can be divided into two categories.

The first, microscopic-level imaging, involves X-Ray or MRI technology. This allows researchers to see the entire brain, but it is slow and has poor spatial reso-

lution. The other category is optical imaging, which provides high resolution and fast speeds, but cannot penetrate the surface of the brain. The drawbacks of these technologies drove Cornell researchers Winfried Denk and Watt Webb to develop two-photon microscopy, in 1990, a valuable contribution to the field at the time.

“We pushed for three-photon technology in 1995, but at the time, the advantage wasn’t very clear,” Xu said.

“Only in the last few years have we been pushing deeper and deeper into the brain.”

The limitation of two-photon microscopy is the depth it can achieve.

Scientists discovered two years ago that they had reached this fundamental limit

in a mouse brain.

“This prompted us to think of what to do next,” Xu said. “By going up to three-photon technology, we reached a new fundamental barrier, but one much deeper than what we previously faced with two-photon technology.”

The improvement allowed researchers to go deeper into the brain by a factor of about two or three times, Xu said.

Another key component of threephoton microscopy is the use of fiber optic technology to generate a laser of ideal wavelength. Using well-known techniques in the telecom industry, researchers were able to operate at a wavelength of 1.7 microns, but did not have sufficient power for optimal per-

formance. Xu proposed using an ordinary glass rod to generate a soliton, or a high-energy light pulse. The use of the glass rod magnified the strength of the laser, thus providing an essential component to the three-photon system.

In order to fully use this newly-developed technology, a new microscope had to be built. Nicholas Horton grad, one of the co-authors on the paper on threephoton microscopy, contributed to the construction of the microscope.

“The home-made microscope may not appear sophisticated, but it is flexible and open, which is advantageous because it lets us swap out components easily,” Horton said.

In addition to the three-photon technology, the microscope contains a sys-

tem to secure and stabilize the brain so it can be studied, as used as an imaging platform allows researchers to change th scope orientation and image the the brain in different sizes.

“The beauty of mult microscopy is its versatility. W the brain because it is probably t mysterious organ. Understandi brain works will have huge im science and medicine,” Horto “But we can also use multiphoto ing to detect cancer cells in liv mals, which is another researc tion of our group. In the future photon microscopy could be detect cancer in human organs having to remove tissue for con

THE CORNELL DAILY SW UN | Monday, February 2013 11

Wonders of the Brain

COURTESY PROF. JESSE GOLDBERG

Studying songs | Prof. Goldberg studies trial-and-error learning through birdsongs.

COURTESY PROF. JESSE GOLDBERG

Bird brains | Prof. Jesse Goldberg, neurobiology and behavior, uses the song-learning process of baby male zebra finches to study how humans learn motor control through trial-and-error.

Prof. Jesse Goldberg Uses Songbirds to Study Learning

By JACQUELINE CAROZZA Sun Staff Writer

Male zebra finches are born babbling: randomly chattering with no pattern to their singing. As they grow older, their chirps coalesce into a highly regular, repetitive song that is almost identical to that of their father. Prof.

Jesse Goldberg, neurobiology and behavior, studies the learning process that is responsible for this behavior in songbirds in order to better understand how motor learning occurs in humans.

Goldberg uses the zebra finch as his model system because mammalian and songbird brains are similar. Both contain a collection of neurons in the brain called the basal ganglia, which controls trial-and-error learning and motor behavior.

As a medical student, Goldberg gained experience with patients diagnosed with diseases such as Parkinson’s, which affects both cognitive and motor behavior and originates from a malfunction in the basal ganglia. Seeing how damage to one part of the brain could affect both cognition and motion sparked Goldberg’s interest in the relationship between

motor control and learning.

“The reason we don’t understand the connection in humans is because it's insanely complicated. We need to go to a system where we think we might be able to understand it,” Goldberg said.

He said the zebra finch provides a simpler means of studying trial-and-error motor learning.

“There is discrete, specialized pathway in the zebra finch brain, a collection of interconnected nerve cells that is similar to the electrical circuit that turns on a lightbulb,” Goldberg said.

This brain circuit responsible for zebra finch song learning involves the basal ganglia, he said.

In order to study vocal babbling and song learning trajectories, Goldberg records juvenile birds singing and graphs the frequencies of their songs in charts called spectrograms. These spectrograms allow him to see the evolution of a juvenile song to an adult one.

Goldberg then probes into the learning mechanism by measuring the neural activity of individual neurons in the basal ganglia via electrodes implanted in the birds' brains.

According to Goldberg, there are more than

one million neurons in the songbird’s learning pathway, but there are far fewer distinct neuron types. By repeatedly measuring the firing of specific classes of neurons, Goldberg can identify which neuron types are important to learning behavior.

Once he narrows down which types of neurons play key roles in generating vocal babbling, Goldberg tests his hypotheses using optogenetics. Optogenetics involves genetically engineering certain cell types in the brain to be sensitive to light by introducing viral DNA that codes for light sensitivity.

The technique’s main strength is that it allows researchers to stimulate only specific neurons using light. Drugs or stimulating electrodes, which activate or inhibit large areas of the brain, do not exhibit the same resolution.

According to Goldberg, the trial-and-error process that relates to song learning in baby male zebra finches is the same as the trial-and error process behind motor control in humans.

“Virtually all human motor behaviors are learned through trial-and-error, a process by which the brain generates exploratory action through the motor system,” Goldberg said.

According to Goldberg, in the trial phase of

trial-and-error learning, humans experiment with a variety of motor behaviors. He provided the example of a beginning tennis player hitting tennis balls inconsistently at first while exploring different methods of holding and swinging the racket.

The next step of motor learning, the error phase, involves evaluating successes and failures. The tennis rookie decides if an action was good or bad.

Did a particular grip on the racket aid in the goal of getting the ball over the net? Whether or not the motor action was helpful dictates whether it should be repeated. This process of learning helps refine motor control in humans.

Last semester, Goldberg taught a course called “Neural Circuits for Motor Control in Health and Disease,” and this semester he is a guest lecturer in “Introduction to Neuroscience.”

Goldberg advises students not to take rejections too harshly.

“Failures are important to go through, and are a totally normal part of any learning Jacqueline Carozza can be reached at jcarozza@cornellsun.com.

e and stabilize the mouse’s can be studied, as well be imaging platform. This chers to change the microation and image the parts of different sizes. eauty of multiphoton is its versatility. We image ause it is probably the most organ. Understanding how will have huge impact in medicine,” Horton said. also use multiphoton imagt cancer cells in living aniis another research direcgroup. In the future, multiroscopy could be used to r in human organs without move tissue for convention-

al biopsy.”

The significance of deep tissue imaging is apparent in clinical practice.

Many neurological diseases are not wellunderstood, Xu said.

“If we don’t know how the brain normally functions, there is no way to understand why the brain malfunctions,” Xu said.

Xu envisions the technology to be used for brain mapping and the study of “emergent phenomenon”, or new capabilities granted through the collective action of neural networks. Three-photon microscopy allows for dynamic functional imaging, which will provide Nicolas Ramos can be reached at nramos@.com.

COURTESY OF THE NEW YORK TIMES

PHOTOS COURTESY OF PROF. CHRIS XU

gy Improves Brain Imaging

Improving imaging | From left: MRI brain scan, and a two-photon and three-photon images of a mouse brain allow increasing resolution of the neural structure. Three-photon imaging gives the clearest picture of individual neurons.

A&E

12 | The Corne¬ Daily Sun | Wednesday, February 20, 2013

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT PHOTOS COURTESY OF PENTATONIX

Schools, Scales and Songs: An Interview With Pentatonix

BY TERESA KIM Sun Staff Writer

After its win on NBC’s The Sing Off, Pentatonix has rapidly sang its way onto computer screens worldwide, with infectious musical arrangements that redefine the boundaries of the human vocal chord. Scott Hoying, one of Pentatonix’s lead vocalists, took time off from the group’s first national tour to reflect on college, The Sing Off and the imminent domination of a capella.

THE SUN: A lot of musical kids outlet their talents through a capella in school.

But it’s rare to see them continue on that road afterwards. What gave you guys that extra push?

SCOTT HOYING: When I joined a cappella in school, I never knew it would lead to a profession. I had the mentality that it would be a fun, musical way to get more involved in [University of Southern California] and that it could also be a good way to develop a network of musical friends in L.A. When I joined, it was more of a hobby but quickly turned into a passion and I could not be happier or more thankful that it has become a full time job!

I think the extra push was the show The Sing Off; it gave our group exposure.

SUN: Most of you have been classically trained in another instrument. What made you guys start to invest more of your individual musical talent into a capella professionally?

S.H.: We pretty much all play an instrument, and that helped so much with

learning music theory and understanding harmony. Singing is our main passion though, so when joining The Sing Off, we were excited to venture into the world of no instruments.

would have said no. Growing up, no one in the mainstream world really respected a cappella, so I somewhat fell into that way of thinking. However, after immersing myself in it and working with Pentatonix,

SUN: How do you guys spend your free time individually? And when you guys are together? Do you guys whip out into a capella mode when you’re shopping at ... I don’t know ... a hat store?

S.H.: We all have our hobbies; We love hanging out with our friends outside of the group, seeing movies and, honestly, just relaxing. We are ALWAYS singing when we are out. We can’t help it.

SUN: Now it’s been a little over a year since your epic win on The Sing Off. Before then, did you think it was possible to make it big and make a capella a “thing”?

S.H.: Honestly, probably not! If you would have asked me if a cappella could be mainstream prior to The Sing Off, I

I have no doubt in my mind that it can be something bigger. It is a beautiful, organic, just plain happy form of music and it’s definitely on its way up.

SUN: How’s the first tour been? What have you been learning from it? And meeting your fans firsthand?

S.H.: It really has been surreal. Touring is something I have wanted to do since I was eight years old and it’s even better than I imagined. It’s such a relaxed, fun atmosphere! Wake up, soundcheck, hang out, meet fans, perform, sleep, repeat! It’s a dream honestly. The main thing I’ve learned from it, is that I have to be VERY conscious of taking care of my voice. I’ve never really put that much thought into preserving my voice, but after singing an hour and a half show night after night, I’ve realized that pacing myself, resting a lot physically and vocally, and staying healthy is pivotal to being able to perform every night.

SUN: What direction do you guys see the group going in in terms of musical production? Are you guys working on more original covers or coming up with more innovative ways to cover mainstream songs?

S.H.: We will always do covers, but we have been writing a lot, so be expecting

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

way more originals. Production-wise, we will definitely stay a cappella, but we are really brainstorming how to push the boundaries even further to make a song sound massive, but keeping it obvious that it’s all vocal.

SUN: Have has stardom been for you guys? You’re living in L.A., away from home ... how do you feel?

S.H.: It has been unbelievable. We have “heart to heart” discussions about it all the time. To think we can live our dream and inspire others with our music is everything a musician could ever ask for. Living in LA is obviously awesome because there is so much to do. It does get hard sometimes being away from our families, but they are so supportive and encouraging and we get plenty of opportunities to stop by home and see them.

SUN: What would you guys be doing if you weren’t in Pentatonix?

S.H.: I would be studying popular music at USC! Kirstie would be at Oklahoma University for Musical Theatre.

Avi would be just graduating Mount SAC and getting hired by every single jingle and voiceover agency worldwide. Kevin would probably know three more languages and be the King of the world.

Mitch would also be in school and working on his D.J. career!

SUN: Our school has a pretty big a capella scene, so I’m sure students are wondering — what advice do you guys have to give them? For percussionists, team motivation, arrangements, etc.

S.H.: My advice would be having lots of discussions to make sure everyone in the group is on the same page. It’s important everyone keeps an open mind and is working hard.

The Pentatonix will be performing at the State Theatre on Monday, Feb 25 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets can be found at stateofithaca.com.

Teresa Kim is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be reached at tkim@cornellsun.com.

A&E Sun Oscar Picks

Wednesday, February 20, 2013 | The Corne¬ Daily Sun | 13

PETER JACOBS

ZACHARY ZAHOS

JULIA MOSER

DAVEEN KOH

HENRY STALEY

WILL WIN

SHOULD WIN

WILL WIN

SHOULD WIN

WILL WIN

SHOULD WIN

WILL WIN

SHOULD WIN

WILL WIN

SHOULD WIN

BEST PICTURE

ARGO

ZERO DARK THIRTY

ARGO

ZERO DARK THIRTY

LINCOLN

ZERO DARK THIRTY

LINCOLN

BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD

LINCOLN

DJANGO UNCHAINED

STEVEN SPIELBERG

MICHAEL HANEKE

BENH ZEITLIN

ANG LEE

(AMOUR)

(LINCOLN)

SOUTHERN WILD)

STEVEN SPIELBERG

MICHAEL HANEKE

(LINCOLN)

(BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD)

STEVEN SPIELBERG

(LINCOLN)

STEVEN SPIELBERG

BENH ZEITLIN

BEST DIRECTOR

DANIEL DAY-LEWIS

DANIEL DAY-LEWIS

DANIEL DAY-LEWIS

DANIEL DAY-LEWIS

(LINCOLN)

(LINCOLN)

(LINCOLN)

BEST ACTOR

DANIEL DAY-LEWIS (LINCOLN)

BEST ACTRESS

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

DANIEL DAY-LEWIS (LINCOLN)

(BEASTS OF THE

STEVEN SPIELBERG

JENNIFER LAWRENCE JENNIFER LAWRENCE JENNIFER LAWRENCE JENNIFER LAWRENCE JENNIFER LAWRENCE (SILVER LININGS (SILVER LININGS (SILVER LININGS (SILVER LININGS (SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK) PLAYBOOK) PLAYBOOK) PLAYBOOK) PLAYBOOK)

ROBERT DE NIRO (SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK)

ANNE HATHAWAY

PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN (THE MASTER)

TOMMY LEE JONES ROBERT DE NIRO TOMMY LEE JONES

JACKI WEAVER

(LINCOLN) JESSICA CHASTAIN (ZERO DARK THIRTY)

(LINCOLN)

(LINCOLN)

(LIFE OF PI)

DANIEL DAY-LEWIS

DANIEL DAY-LEWIS

DANIEL DAY-LEWIS

(LINCOLN)

(LINCOLN)

(LINCOLN)

JOAQUIN PHOENIX (THE MASTER)

JENNIFER LAWRENCE JENNIFER LAWRENCE JENNIFER LAWRENCE JENNIFER LAWRENCE (SILVER LININGS (SILVER LININGS (SILVER LININGS (SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK) PLAYBOOK) PLAYBOOK) PLAYBOOK)

ALAN ARKIN

ALAN ARKIN

(LINCOLN)

(ARGO)

(ARGO)

HELEN HUNT

ANNE HATHAWAY (LES MISERABLES)

AMY ADAMS

ANNE HATHAWAY

(THE SESSIONS)

(LINCOLN)

(SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK)

ANNE HATHAWAY (LES MISERABLES)

(LIFE OF PI)

ROBERT DE NIRO TOMMY LEE JONES PHILIP SEYMOUR (SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK)

JACKI WEAVER

(LINCOLN)

HOFFMAN (THE MASTER)

ANNE HATHAWAY

AMY ADAMS

(LES MISERABLES)

(THE MASTER)

MOONRISE KINGDOM

DJANGO UNCHAINED

DJANGO UNCHAINED

SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK

LIFE OF PI

LINCOLN

LINCOLN

ANNA KARENINA

LIFE OF PI

SKYFALL

LIFE OF PI

LIFE OF PI

LIFE OF PI

LIFE OF PI

LIFE OF PI

SKYFALL

LIFE OF PI

LINCOLN

ARGO

LINCOLN

ZERO DARK THIRTY

ARGO

LIFE OF PI

ZERO DARK THIRTY

ZERO DARK THIRTY

SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN

SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN

SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN

SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN

5 BROKEN CAMERAS

SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN

SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN

(THE MASTER)

(LES MISERABLES)

(SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK)

DJANGO UNCHAINED

ZERO DARK THIRTY

AMOUR

BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD

LINCOLN

ARGO

LIFE OF PI

LINCOLN

SKYFALL

SKYFALL

LIFE OF PI

SKYFALL

ARGO

ZERO DARK THIRTY

ARGO

SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN

THE GATEKEEPERS

SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN

(LES MISERABLES)

(SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK)

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

DJANGO UNCHAINED

ZERO DARK THIRTY

DJANGO UNCHAINED

MOONRISE KINGDOM

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

ARGO

LINCOLN

LINCOLN

BEST MUSICAL SCORE

LIFE OF PI

LIFE OF PI

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

LIFE OF PI

BEST FILM EDITING BEST DOCUMENTARY

I, for One, Welcome Our New Digital Overlords

“F

ilm Is Dead? Long Live Movies,” read a loud and stupid headline blazoned across page one of The New York Times’ Arts section last September. The coverage over the last four or so years of this “film versus digital” debate has led to some woeful hyperboles and conjecture. I wanted no part in it — that is, until I saw Side by Side, a documentary that, as its peacemaking title implies, balances the pros and cons of both celluloid (physical film stock) and digital filmmaking and leaves judgment up to the viewer.

But not even Keanu Reeves, celluloid advocate and Side by Side narrator, can dodge the facts and sensible arguments that point toward one conclusion: Digital is here to stay, with complete domination in its sight. While celluloid still has many years until it shuffles off this mortal coil, financiers and amateur filmmakers have long preferred digital filmmaking technology since it is cheaper.

“But film is an art!

I won’t sacrifice 35mm just so Lena Dunham can film herself play naked pingpong with Patrick Wilson in an increasingly inconsistent HBO sitcom!” you may say (you being I). To you, Side by Side makes the most crucial case of them all, in the form of modern auteurs like David Lynch, Steven Soderbergh, David Fincher and Danny Boyle all voicing unqualified praise for digital technology.

Christopher Nolan is one of the few talking heads, along with a conflicted Martin Scorsese, who makes an impassioned case for the old-school approach. As much as I believe that film stock captures the superior image, his argument defies

objective reasoning. This is a religious matter, devoted to the 115-year-old medium of his forefathers — this time, it’s personal. Nolan’s passion for celluloid has paid off so far: Inception won the Oscar for Best Cinematography in 2011, the only movie shot on film to do so since Slumdog Millionaire broke the mold in 2009. Poor Scorsese and cinematographer Bob Richardson, both vocal celluloid stalwarts, dabbled in digital 3-D just once with Hugo, and the Academy slapped Richardson with his third Oscar. We welcome you and Marty to the 21st century, a blood-written note taped to the bottom of Richardson’s Oscar probably said. Don’t look back.

Indeed, Scorsese’s next movie, The Wolf of Wall Street, will be a film-free production; Life of Pi and Skyfall, two digitally-

Zachary Zahos A Lover’s Quarrel With the World filmed, color-corrected visual feasts, are the favorites to win the Cinematography statue Sunday night; and the Nolan types are a dying breed. Almost all young filmmakers now start with digital cameras, reared on attractive equipment compatible with their MacBook Pros. Out with the old, in with the new. “But, still, is it good?

Is all this right?” you plead. I know not all the answers, young lad, though it pains me to realize that the medium responsible for all the enrapturing images in my Ingmar Bergman film seminar will, certainly in my lifetime, become extinct. Yes, well — wait

… how is my class watching these Bergman films, you say? They are screened from an H.D. projector, off high-quality DVDs. It beats watching movies in my dorm.

And this is where this this silly debate hits home. As a viewing platform, film started to lose its footing with the invention of VHS in 1977 (digital movie cameras only took off in the early 2000s). Since then, the home video market has seen SANTI SLADE / SUN STAFF ILLUSTRATOR Laserdisc, DVD and now Blu-ray and Netflix Instant. Blu-ray represents the pinnacle of some heathen watches Solaris on his any physical storage medium for commer- iPhone?

Cinephilia, “the love of cinema,” is cial movies, with its 1080p high-definition resolution and lossless (code for “real dead, provided that “cinema” not only sweet”) audio. Specialty distributors like signifies “movies” but also the movie theThe Criterion Collection have dedicated ater as well as the physical medium of film themselves to re-releasing the treasures of itself. To the millions of you who still go American and world cinema — the works to the movies, chances are, whether you of Fellini, Kurosawa, Fassbinder, Powell & watch The Avengers at Regal Cinemas or Pressburger and Malick — in pristine con- even Side by Side at Cornell Cinema, you are watching a digital projection. For the dition, albeit in digitally-encoded files.

Over the weekend, however, I noticed casual moviegoer to the obsessive colleca telling update on The Criterion tor, film is long gone. For filmmakers, it’s Collection’s Facebook page. In honor of on the way out. For all of us, we’ll cherish Valentine’s Day, Criterion was streaming our access to all the films in the world all its titles for free — on Hulu. even as we debase visual and audio fideliApparently, you can break up marathons ty in the process. Just set some limits and of The New Girl and The Bachelor with a don’t you dare watch a film on, to quote little Michelangelo Antonioni or Jean-Luc David Lynch, “your fucking telephone.

Godard. I’m all for more access to film, Get real.” but what if a poor connection renders Zachary Zahos is a sophomore in the Colleges of Yojimbo to look like the screen is smoth- Arts and Sciences. He can be reached at arts-andered in Vaseline? What if someone views entertainment-editor@cornellsun.com. A Lover’s Wings of Desire on a 13-inch laptop, at Quarrel With the World appears alternate lowest brightness? What if, God forbid, Wednesdays.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

14 THE CORNELL DAILY SUN | Wednesday, February 13, 2013

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

ACROSS 1 When Romeo meets Juliet 5 Crummy 10 His mausoleum is in Tiananmen Square 13 Close-Up, e.g.

15 Posterior 16 See 15-Down 17 Pro foe 18 Ready to pour 19 Paint as wicked 21 Peoria-to-Decatur dir.

22 TD’s six 25 Question eliciting “Let’s!”

26 Vital vessel 28 Tidy up 31 Stratford’s river 34 Holm and McKellen 36 “Star Trek” role 37 2011 film in which Owen Wilson says, “Wonderful but forgettable.

That sounds like a picture I’ve seen. I probably wrote it.”

40 No __ sight 41 Letterman rival 42 “99 Luftballons” singer 43 Thaw once more 45 Give a good talking-to 47 In the lead 49 U2 producer or, backwards, U2 hit 50 Aswan landmark 53 Gift of a sort 56 Simoleons 58 Justin Bieber or the golden calf 59 Winner of screenwriting Oscars for the three quoted films 62 Stax Records genre 63 “Titus __”: 16thcentury play 64 Pre-LCD screen 65 Makes a home 66 Time in ads DOWN 1 Oldest musketeer 2 Directing brothers 3 Rich cake 4 “__ small world” 5 12-in. albums

6 Cereal grain 7 Previously owned 8 Scatter, like petals 9 Sycophant 10 Lionel train, say 11 1998 animated film released the month before “A Bug’s Life” 12 Jim Davis dog 14 “Fantasia” tutu wearer 15 With 16-Across, 1986 film in which Dianne Wiest says, “But you have to remember while you read and you’re cursing my name, you know, that this is my first script.”

20 Outmaneuver 23 Calc prereq 24 Lesley of “60 Minutes” 26 1977 film in which 59-Across says, “Awards! They do nothing but give out awards!”

27 Starts the pot 29 Consumer advocate Brockovich

30 Mercury Seven org.

31 From the U.S. 32 Hollywood crosser 33 Fifth wheel 35 From then on 38 Fjord, for one 39 High time?

44 Formosa, now 46 Willy, Biff or Happy of drama 48 Blackmore heroine

50 Sweets, in Naples 51 Native Alaskan 52 Minister’s house 53 Oft-burned object 54 Stench 55 Approves quietly 57 Lena of “Chocolat” 60 Seuss’s “The 5000 Fingers of __” 61 Rocky hellos

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

xwordeditor@aol.com

02/20/13

Sun Sudoku

Puzzle #89 Cohiba

Reaching New Heights

Fill in the empty cells, one number in each, so that each column, row, and region contains the numbers 1-9 exactly once.

Each number in the solution therefore occurs only once in each of the three “directions,” hence the “single numbers” implied by the puzzle’s name.

(Rules from wikipedia.org/wiki /Sudoku)

Circles and Stuff

By Eric Williams (c)2013 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

COMICS AND PUZZLES

The CorneDaily Sun

by Robert Radigan grad

02/20/13

Doonesbury

by Garry Trudeau

Mr. Gnu

by Travis Dandro

Strings Attached

by Ali Solomon ’01

THE CORNELL DAILY SUN | Wednesday, February 20, 2013 15

www.cornellsun.com CLASSIFIED AD RATES Ads are accepted at The Sun‘s office at 139 W. State Street downtown, by phone or e-mail.

Deadline: 3:30 p.m. at The Sun‘s office on the day preceding publication. Monday’s deadline: Friday, 3:30 p.m. at The Sun office.

Standard Rate: $3.40 per day for first 15 words, 32 cents per day per word thereafter. 5 or more consecutive insertions, $3.15 per day for first 15 words, 30 cents per day per word thereafter.

Commercial Rate: $5.20 per day for first 15 words, 33 cents per day per word thereafter. 5 or more consecutive insertions, $5.00 per day for first 15 words, 31 cents per day per word thereafter.

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16 THE CORNELL DAILY SUN | Wednesday, February 20, 2013

SPORTS BRIEFS

Olympian Oscar Pistorius on Trial For Shooting Girlfriend On Valentine’s Day

PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) — Oscar Pistorius wept Tuesday as his defense lawyer read the athlete’s account of how he shot his girlfriend to death on Valentine’s Day, claiming he had mistaken her for an intruder.

Prosecutors, however, told a packed courtroom that the doubleamputee known as the Blade Runner intentionally and mercilessly shot and killed 29-year-old Reeva Steenkamp as she cowered inside a locked bathroom.

Pistorius told the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court at a bail hearing he felt vulnerable in the presence of an intruder inside the bathroom because he did not have his prosthetic legs on, and fired into the bathroom door.

The Valentine’s Day shooting in Pistorius’ home in Pretoria shocked South Africans and many around the world who idolized him for overcoming adversity to become a sports champion, competing in the London Olympics last year in track besides being a Paralympian. Steenkamp was a model and law graduate who made her debut on a South African reality TV program that was broadcast on Saturday, two days after her death.

In a major point of contention emerged even during Tuesday bail hearing, prosecutor Gerrie Nel said Pistorius took the time to put on his prostheses, walked seven meters (yards) from the bed to the enclosed toilet inside his bathroom and only then opened fire.

Three of the bullets hit Steenkamp of the four that were fired into the door, Nel said.

Pistorius said in his sworn statement that after opening fire, he realized that Steenkamp was not in his bed.

“It filled me with horror and fear,” Pistorius said. The 26-yearold Olympian said he put on his prosthetic legs and tried to kick down the door before finally bashing it in with a cricket bat. Inside, he said he found Steenkamp, slumped over. He said he lifted her bloodied body into his arms and tried to carry her downstairs to seek medical help.

But by then, it was too late.

“She died in my arms,” the athlete said.

Nel charged Pistorius with premeditated murder and said the athlete opened fire after the couple engaged in a shouting match and she fled to the bathroom.

“She couldn’t go anywhere. You can run nowhere,” Nel said. “It must have been horrific.”

A conviction of premeditated murder carries a mandatory sentence of life in jail.

Chief Magistrate Desmond Nair ruled that Pistorius must face the harshest bail requirements available in South African law. That means Pistorius’ lawyers must offer “exceptional” reasons for the athlete to be free before trial, besides simply giving up his two South African passports and posting a cash bond.

Pistorius sobbed softly as his lawyer, Barry Roux, insisted the shooting was an accident and that there was no evidence to substantiate a murder charge.

“We submit it is not even murder,” he said. “There is no concession this is a murder.”

Pistorius’ emotional outbursts again played a part in how the hearing progessed, as it did during an initial hearing Friday. At one point, Nair stopped the hearing after Pistorius wept as Roux read a portion of the athlete’s statement describing how Steenkamp bought him a Valentine’s Day present, but wouldn’t let him open it the night before.

“Maintain your composure,” the magistrate said. “You need to apply your mind here.”

Pistorius’ voice quivered when he answered: “Yes, my lordship.

Affidavits from friends of Pistorius and Steenkamp described the two as a charming, happy couple. The night before the killing, they said, Pistorius and Steenkamp had canceled separate plans in order to spend the night before Valentine’s Day together at his home, in a gated neighborhood.

Outside the court, several dozen singing women protested against domestic violence and waved placards urging that Pistorius be refused bail. “Pistorius must rot in jail,” one placard said.

As details emerged at the dramatic court hearing in the capital, Steenkamp’s body was being cremated Tuesday at a memorial service in the south-coast port city of Port Elizabeth. Six pallbearers carried her coffin, draped with a white cloth and covered in white flowers, into the church for the private service.

South Africa has some of the world’s worst rates of violence against females and the highest rate in the world of women killed by an intimate partner, according to a study by the Medical Research Council. Professor Rachel Jewkes of the council said at least three women are killed by a partner every day in this country of 50 million.

Steenkamp campaigned actively against domestic violence and had tweeted on Twitter that she planned to join a “Black Friday” protest by wearing black in honor of a 17-year-old girl who was gang-raped and mutilated two weeks ago.

What “she stood for, and the abuse against women, unfortunately it’s gone right around and I think the Lord knows that statement is more powerful now,” her uncle Mike Steenkamp, the family’s spokesman, said after her memorial.

He said the family had planned a big get-together at Christmas but that had not been possible. “But we are here today as a family and the only one who’s missing is Reeva,” he said, breaking down and weeping.

Pistorius has lost several valuable sponsorships estimated to be worth more than $1 million a year.

SPORTS BRIEFS

U.S. Allies With Iran to Put Wrestling Back in the Olympics

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — The caretakers of the Olympics may have inadvertently accomplished what has eluded diplomats: Galvanizing Iran and the U.S. on a common goal.

Wrestling officials from the arch foes appeared to be in bonding mode Tuesday on the sidelines of a Tehran tournament less than a week after the stunning decision by the International Olympic Committee that will force the ancient sport — as old as the Olympics themselves — to lobby for a spot at the 2020 Games.

Already, the fight to keep wrestling in the Olympics has brought the U.S. and Cuban federations into a possible alliance. But close cooperation between Iran and America would be an even more remarkable display of common cause with almost everything else driving them apart — led by an impasse over Tehran’s nuclear program and Western sanctions that have upended the Iranian economy.

It’s unlikely that any kind of wrestling detente would spill over into the wider issues, but it’s certain to at least draw attention to the power of sports as a low-risk icebreaker going back to the historic 1971 “pingpong diplomacy” between China and the U.S. U.S. freestyle coach Zeke Jones, speaking to The Associated Press by phone from Tehran, said that officials from 10 of the world's top wrestling nations will meet Wednesday in Iran.

Delegations from Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Georgia, Iran, Japan, Kazakhstan, the United States, Russia and Turkey will gather to discuss how to reverse the IOC’s decision.

Jones said that those countries were chosen because they finished in the top 10 in the freestyle competition at the 2011 world championships, the last time team scores were held at a major international meet.

“We’ll be standing arm-in-arm with Iran, and we’ll be standing with Russia as we will with lots of other countries,” said Mitch Hull, national teams director for USA Wrestling, in an interview in Tehran with AP Television News before the World Cup Tournament.

“Those (countries) really do make a difference because politically we’re not always on the same page, or politically with Russia, but in wrestling, there’s no doubt that we are all together in this effort and we consider Iran one of our strongest allies in the sport of wrestling,” Hull said.

Hull described them as “sport rivals, but they are friends in sport, too.”

“We have great confidence that we can work with the Iranian wrestling federation, Iranian wrestlers and the Iranian people to show the world that, no matter what’s happening politically, we have the same goal and the same belief and passion about the sport of wrestling,” he said.

Jones said that the World Cup, which ranks below only the world championships in annual importance, has come at a “perfect time,” given the IOC’s recent move.

Though Jones acknowledged that relations between international wrestling teams like the U.S. and Iran can be difficult, he said such competitions usually foster the kind of camaraderie and friendship the sport desperately needs.

“You'll have absolutely zero problem with the countries being unified on saving wrestling,” Jones said. “The countries will do anything in working together to keep Olympic wrestling in the program.”

Hojatollah Khatib, the head of Iran’s wrestling federation, said the tournament would offer “the best opportunity to confront the decision” to drop the sport from the Olympics.

“We should resist the decision, determinedly,” Khatib was quoted by the semiofficial Mehr news agency as saying. “We should show our unity in the current event.”

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THE CORNELL DAILY SUN | Wednesday, February 20, 2013 17

18 THE CORNELL DAILY SUN | Wednesday February 20, 2013

SPORTS

Shah Heads to Tournament Finals to Face Martinez O’KASICK

Continued from page 19

lightning-fast strikes and brutal ground-and-pound.

Shah now faces Rad Martinez in the tournament finals on Feb. 21, which will be broadcast live on Spike TV at 10 p.m.

Another triumph will earn the 145 pounder a $100,000 contract with the promotion and a shot at the Bellator Featherweight Champion.

“I was very surprised when I received my first check,” he said.

Shah earned $16,000 for his first Bellator fight, a modest sum for a top US promotion but up to twenty times what he typically earned with Russia’s leading organization, M-1 Global, after the sport was legalized in his country.

Underground fights paid as little as $200 or sometimes nothing at all.

The Bellator wins brought Shah’s official record to 14-11, with his only loss coming back in 2009 to fellow Dagestani and current undefeated UFC rising star, Khabib Nurmagomedov. He never lost an unsanctioned bout, but can’t even recall his fight total.

Rad Martinez stands as a formidable foe aiming to stop Shah’s winning streak. At 14-2, Martinez paved his way to the finals with workmanlike decisions over two notable Brazilians. A Division I All-American wrestler from Clarion University and bully-sized featherweight, Martinez will look to take Shah down early and keep him on the mat as much as possible.

To counter Rad’s wrestling, Shah has sparred with a squadron of grappling-based fighters from Team Bombsquad, working laboriously on takedown defense. It will be a classic wrestler-versus-striker battle.

“It will be like a bullfight. I will be the matador,” Shah said. “Last fight, I had an injury and couldn’t kick legs. This fight will be prettier.”

Besides facing Rad, the Dagestani might feel like he will be up against the entire crowd, as the finals will go down in Salt Lake City’s Maverick Center, less than 10 miles from Rad’s hometown.

“I will be alone with him in the cage,” Shah said. “It doesn’t matter what the crowd shouts then.”

Man From the Land of Mountains & Fighters With shaggy brown locks and a scruffy beard, Shah appears like a fighter nearing the end of his training camp and ready to step into the cage. In his spare time, he goes to movies to improve his English, and while not fond of American cuisine, he enjoys the soups at the Ithaca Bakery.

The food is still better, he said, than when he served in the 33rd brigade of the Russian army. They served meat that seemed to have been frozen since the days of Khrushchev.

Perhaps Lake Cayuga and Ithaca’s hills and gorges remind him just a little of the Caspian Sea and the Caucuses Mountains. When Shah speaks about his homeland, his grayish eyes become wistful.

Dagestan translates as “the Land of Mountains,” but it might as well be called the Land of Fighters. Four of the six current M-1 Global champions come from the small republic, which has just 2.2 million people but more than 30 ethnic groups and languages.

As in Chechnya, wrestling is the true pride of Dagestan, as it has produced more than 16 Olympic gold medalists over the years. Wrestling teams from around the world come to train in Dagestan’s rugged mountains, and nearby countries, such Azerbaijan and Turkey, regularly recruit Dagestani

grapplers.

Besides contributing significantly to national wrestling in Russia, Dagestanis also comprised half the taekwondo team at the 2012 London games, and they are regular Olympic medalists as boxers, such as the former world heavyweight champion, Sultan Ibragimov, who retired with a record of 22-1-1.

“The whole world has passed through Dagestan,” said Shah, who hails from Makhachkala, the republic’s seaside capital. “We have many styles of fighting.”

Yet for all of Dagestan’s natural beauty and athletic triumphs, it has a darker side. For one, like neighboring Chechnya, the predominantly Muslim republic has rebel factions fighting to break away from mother Russia. Just last week, government security forces tracked and killed six Dagestani rebels plotting a suicide bomb attack.

Furthermore, centuries of clan and ethnic conflicts have produced violent cultures of honor in which minor offenses, like incidentally flirting with the wrong guy’s girl, can lead to death.

“Generation after generation, everyone knows the rules,” said Shah. “You have to follow the rules and respect the elders.”

Taking into consideration where Shah has come from, he seems to have been born to be a fighter. He began learning sanshou at just five years of age and competing professionally at 17.

Thus, it is no wonder that when asked about why he fights, he gave a warrior-like answer: “I am just interested in fighting. It’s fun.”

J.D. O’Kasick can be reached at jokasick@cornellsun.com.

GYMNASTICS

Red Looks Ahead to Ivy Classic GYMNASTICS

Continued from page 20

the bars with junior Elise Kerner also finishing in third posting a 9.675 — a personal best.

Senior tri-captain Sarah Hein also finished in fifth on the bars and ended up in second on the floor posting a 9.825 — her personal best.

The Red received great scores from the freshmen on Sunday, with two finishing in the top three. Freshman Hannah Clark left the meet with a second place finish on beam and freshman Madeline Martinez finished in second on the vault. On beam, an event the Red has struggled with this season, the team said it was exciting to see a strong performance from Clark.

“We definitely had some improvement on beam this week,” Hein said. “Unfortunately we still had to count a couple of falls, but we did

OLIVER KLIEWE / SUN SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER

Full speed ahead | Sophomore Abby Thompson (above) gets height on her vault and prepares, along with the rest of the team, for the Ivy Classic.

have some standout performances … Hannah Clark hit a beautiful beam set and was rewarded with an impressive season high of 9.775.”

Sophomore Christie Wong also had a solid beam routine for the Red, scoring a 9.700 and finishing in fifth place.

“Christie Wong has also been a consistent competitor on beam the past three weeks. She’s been building her consistency week after week, along with her confidence,” Hein said.

Going into next week’s Ivy League Classic at Yale, the Red is optimistic that the team's steady improvement over the course of the season will continue, in part due to the successes the freshmen class has achieved.

“With nine freshmen on our team this year, they have played a huge role in our lineups and have really stepped up to the challenge. It's a new experience to compete at the college level, but they have adjusted well and continue to improve week after week,” Maher said.

The Red looks to stay focused this week and prepare psychically and mentally for the Ivy League Classic on Saturday against Brown, Penn and Yale. Last year, the Red finished second after being narrowly defeated by Penn. The Red is aware of the importance of this meet but is focusing on perfecting its own routines.

“Ivies is a really exciting meet and we look forward to performing what we've trained all year to do,” Maher said. “It would be great to take home another Ivy title, but right now our focus is on us and what we need to do to have our best performance of the season.”

While the Red has shown its talent and depth at all four events, the squad is still seeking to perform well at all four events in one meet. The team’s performance on Sunday at the Shelli Calloway Invitational at Towson, however, was a step in the right direction and has senior tri-captain McKenna Archer excited about the Red’s potential performance at the Ivy Classic.

“I think this weekend hinted at how strong of a team we have this year,” she said. “Every person in our lineup on all our events has huge scoring potential and we’re just working on putting it all together. We hit our season high even with some mistakes on bars and beam, which is exciting because it means we can still score much higher.”

Tucker Maggio can be reached at tmaggio@cornellsun.com.

KELLY YANG / SUN STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Army strong | The women’s tennis team will take on Army this weekend, but will have to wait until the end of March for Ivy competition.

TENNIS

Women Take On Army TENNIS

Continued from page 20

“It’s definitely going to be a tough match,” said junior Ryann Young. “We just played them in an individual tournament a couple of weeks ago, so a lot of my teammates got to play them in matches … I think that we’ve been working really hard and playing pretty well, so hopefully we’ll come out on top.”

Due to the cancellation of the ECAC tournament, the Red will not see any Ivy opponents until the end of March, which Young said is detrimental for the freshman players on the team. She added that the team is now working on getting good matches in to prepare for the rest of the season. “[We want to work on] making every match count,

especially as a good warm-up for Ivy League season,” she said. “Just gaining the experience and getting the match play in is something that’s important for us.”

Although the men’s team just faced and triumphed over its first set of Ivy opponents, the men also maintain the same focus as the women on the upcoming parts of the year.

“It was a really good weekend; I thought all the guys played great and I thought our team played really well as a unit,” Iyer said. “It’s a big moment for us to win the ECAC championship, but we have to use it as a stepping stone for the rest of the season.”

Emily Berman can be reached at eberman@cornellsun.com.

THE CORNELL DAILY SUN | Wednesday February 20, 2013 19

SPORTS

Former Lacrosse Player, Coach Schimoler ’89 Remembered as ‘Role Model’

By HALEY VELASCO

both the Cornell and NCAA record with 787 career saves. He set nearly every goalie record on the Hill, including saves in a Paul Schimoler ’89 died on Friday game with 34 against Syracuse in 1987; evening after losing his battle with cancer. season with 241 in 1988; and career with Schimoler was one of the greatest collegiate 787. Schimoler also set the NCAA tournagoalies and a four-time All-American — ment record for saves, with 85 in 1988 — the first in Cornell men’s lacrosse history. a record that still stands.

He also helped lead Cornell to a pair of After his graduation from Cornell's national runner-up finishes in 1987 and School of Hotel Administration, he was a 1988. member of the Team USA lacrosse team Memorial services for Schimoler will be that won the 1990 and 1994 International held Saturday, Feb. 23 at 1 p.m., at the Lacrosse Federation World Championship. chapel of St. Michael the Archangel on the He also served as an assistant coach at campus of St. Michael’s College in Cornell from 1991 to 1994 and was Colchester, Vt. inducted into the Cornell Athletic Hall of There will be an additional memorial Fame. service in Long Schimoler Island, N.Y., at at St. coached “Paul’s passion for Cornell University and a future date.

Michael's “ C o a c h Cornell Lacrosse ... is truly legendary.”

College in Schmoles’ was Vermont for one of my first Ben DeLuca eight seasons, introductions from 2004 to to Cornell 2011. He put Lacrosse as a high school player, and was a together the longest head coaching tenure tremendous role model for me as a com- in the program’s 30-year history and posted petitor, as a young man and as an alumnus a school-record 61 wins. His squads coming up through the college coaching reached the Northeast-10 Conference ranks,” said men’s lacrosse team head coach Championship six times and advanced to Ben DeLuca in a statement. “Paul’s passion the semifinals in four of those six runs. for Cornell University and Cornell Recently, Schimoler returned to the Lacrosse, his selflessness and intense com- Ancient Eight as an assistant coach at petitive nature and his unconditional love Dartmouth, where he would have started for his family, his teammates and his friends his second season this spring. is truly legendary.”

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations In addition to being a four-time All- may be made to the “Paul Schimoler Fund,” American lacrosse goaltender, Schimoler for an educational fund for the children. was also a four-time All-Ivy selection, These donations may be sent to: Branch including first-team honors in 1987 and Manager, TD Banknorth, 100 Center Road, 1989. He was named Ivy League Player of Essex, VT 05452. the Year in 1989 and Ivy Rookie of the Year in 1986.

Haley Velasco can be reached at When he graduated in 1989, he held hvelasco@cornellsun.com.

Sun Assistant Sports Editor

COURTESY OF DARTMOUTH ATHLETICS

All-around star | Paul Schimoler ‘89 was a four-time All-American lacrosse goaltender and four-time All-Ivy selection during his career with the Red.

Absence of blade

Shah of the Cage W hen he first walked the streets of Moscow, Shahbulat Shamhalaev had just one thing on his mind: he needed to find a fight.

The task might seem easy enough in a vodka-fueled metropolis where the bratva, or “brotherhoods” of the Russian mafia, have roots as deep as those of the Kremlin. But Shamhalaev, also known as Shah, had not traveled 1,000

J.D. O’Kasick

OLIVER KLIEWE / SUN SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER

The 2013 Ivy Fencing Round-Robins were rescheduled from Feb. 9 and 10 to March 2 and 3 at Harvard’s Albert H. Gordon Track. The event was initially postponed due to the winter storm Nemo — which ended up dumping more than two feet of snow in Boston. In the opening round on Saturday, March 2 at 11 a.m., the Red will face the Tigers before battling against the Crimson at 2:45 p.m. and the Bears at 4 p.m. On Sunday, March 3, the Red will take on the Quakers at 10 a.m., the Bulldogs at 11:30 a.m. and then round out the day against the Lions at 1:45 p.m.

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The organizers did not strictly enforce rules or weight classes.

Headbutts might be allowed.

Fighters might differ by more than 30 pounds. One thing did remain constant, though, for all competitions — the gambling action kicked off at a furious pace before the night’s first bell and didn’t stop until after the last arm of victory had been raised.

“They never asked me to throw a fight,” Shah said and smirked, alluding to the

Fight Life In Ithaca kilometers from his Dagestan home in the Caucasus Mountains merely to end up in a night club free-for-all.

Instead, he had sought entrance into the illicit Moscow underground of mixed martial arts.

“Before 2009, MMA was illegal in Russia,” Shah said.

“We had to work to find fights.”

An expert in the Chinese military art of sanshou, Shah fought an untold number of bouts in casinos, circus rings,and undisclosed locales.

match-fixing ways of the organizers. “They knew what we are like from Dagestan.”

From the Red Square To Big Red Country Shah’s life today must feel like a light-year away from his MMA beginnings in Russia.

Moving to Ithaca six months ago to train with Team Bombsquad, the 29 year old scored two first-round TKOs in the Bellator MMA featherweight tournament, mixing See O’KASICK page 18

The Corne¬ Daily Sun

Sports

WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 20, 2013

20

TENNIS TAKES TITLE

Men’s tennis defeats Ivy foes to claim ECAC indoor title Young team beats higher-ranked opponents for second title in three years

By EMILY BERMAN Sun Staff Writer

TINA CHOU / SUN FILE PHOTO

Net gain | Junior tri-captain Venkat Iyer led the

Red during its undefeated weekend.

TINA CHOU / SUN FILE PHOTO

Holding court | The women’s team returns to play after three weeks without games.

Back in action after the postponement of its Feb. 10 game, the men’s tennis team was unstoppable last weekend en route to claiming the ECAC indoor tennis championship at Reis Tennis Center. The Red (7-1) had previously won this prestigious title two seasons ago.

The men entered this year’s tournament seeded fourth and ranked No. 73 in the nation. The Red eventually topped the number one and two seeds to claim victory.

Despite their lower rank, junior tri-captain Venkat Iyer said the men never considered themselves underdogs.

“When we go into every match, we’re pretty confident,” he said. “We know that if we play well, we have a good chance of beating most of the teams we play … It was a question of having the confidence and desire to win.”

The Red first topped fifth-seeded Brown, 4-1, to make it to the semifinals. The team won both completed doubles matches after Iyer and sophomore Alex Sidney beat the Bears’ opposing No. 1 doubles team and sophomores Jason Luu and Quoc Nguyen won the No. 2 doubles. The Red also won three of the four singles matches it played.

Iyer said the No. 2 doubles tandem of Luu and Nguyen was integral to the team’s success in the tournament.

“I think what was special this weekend was at doubles [with] Jason Luu and Quoc … They played fantastic this weekend and got some wins that were critical for us,” he said.

After defeating Brown, the Red advanced to play topseeded Harvard in the semi-finals on Saturday. The men secured wins at No. 2 and No. 3 doubles to claim the opening point. The Red then again won three of four completed singles matches, this time in straight-set victories by Iyer at No. 1, Nguyen at No. 4 and Luu at No. 5. The 4-2 win vaulted the team into the finals against second-seeded Columbia.

The Red gained the opening point against Columbia in its closest challenge yet. The team won at No. 3 doubles, 84, but dropped the No. 1 match-up by the reverse score.

The Red then claimed the point by an 8-7(2) tie-break victory in the No. 2 doubles face-off. The team followed up that point with wins in No. 2, No. 3 and No. 4 singles to round out a 4-0 victory and take the championship.

The Red also beat Columbia and Harvard two years ago for its previous tournament title. The team was ranked No.

1 that year and was a senior-led team, as opposed to this season’s newer squad.

“This time, we have several sophomores and I’m the only junior — it’s a young team,” Iyer said. “It’s fun and refreshing to play with the guys; they’re young and know how to play hard.”

After the tournament, the men have next weekend off before returning to play against Binghamton and Colgate at home. Iyer added that the men will have to work even harder heading into the rest of the season.

“We’re more hungry than ever now,” he said. “It was a great weekend and we’re really, BROWN 1 really excited.

CORNELL 4 The other teams are going to be HARVARD 2 coming after us, CORNELL 4 so we’re going to COLUMBIA 0 have to push even harder.”

CORNELL 4 The women (2-0) had been scheduled to play in their own ECAC indoor tournament on Feb. 8-10, but winter storm Nemo forced the cancellation of those matches. The team plays this weekend, however, when it travels to Army on Saturday for its first official games in three weeks.

“It was a great weekend and we’re really, really excited. The other teams are going to be coming after us, so we’re going to have to push even harder.”

Venkat Iyer While the Red and the Black Knights have not seen each other for a dual match since 2009, some members of each squad played each other at the Cornell Winter Invitational in January, with the Red leading 10-4 in singles matches and 3-2 in doubles matches against the Black Knights.

See TENNIS page 18

Gymnastics Posts Season-High Score, Places Second Behind Towson

By TUCKER MAGGIO-HUCEK Sun Staff Writer

On Sunday afternoon, the Cornell gymnastics team earned its highest overall score of the season, scoring a 192.250. After three rotations the Red was in the lead at the Shelli Calloway Invitational at Towson University. However, the Red posted its lowest score of the day on beam which allowed Towson, with a strong performance on floor, to pass the Red. Cornell finished second behind Towson’s 193.275. Finishing in third place was Temple with 190.600 and Ursinus finished the meet in fourth with 182.425.

Although the second place finish is not what the team hoped for, they said there are plenty of positives to take from

the meet.

“This past week, we really tried to focus on building confidence and consistency in our routines at practice,” said senior tri-captain Ashley Maher.

“We’ve been putting in the numbers every day, but it’s important to be able to go out there knowing we’re going to hit, and I think that's what made the difference this week.

We went in with a different mentality, kept the energy up and didn’t hold back on any of our skills.”

The Red’s strong performance Sunday was led by junior Alexis Schupp, who scored a meet high on the bars with a 9.725 — one of five Cornell gymnasts who finished in the top three. The Red dominated TINA CHOU / SUN FILE PHOTO

See GYMNASTICS page 18

Taking a tumble | Although the Red led after three rotations, a low score on the beam allowed Towson jump ahead.