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Michelle Welch takes on franchise's second installment.

Softball goes 1–1 against Carthage on final day of regular season.

MAY 7, 2010

CHICAGO

AROON

VOLUME 121 ISSUE 43

CHICAGOMAROON.COM

The student newspaper of the University of Chicago since 1892

OBITUARY

Scav-etize me, Cap'n!

Max Palevsky dead at 85

By Asher Klein News Editor Max Palevsky (Ph.B. ’48, S.B. ’4 8), a computer pioneer who remained involved with the University long after graduating,

Max Palevsky (Ph.B. ’48, S.B. ’48) donated millions to the University.

COURTESY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

passed away Wednesday. The 85year-old died of heart failure at his home in Beverley Hills.

A frequent and generous donor to the University, Palevsky has a dormitory, a theater in Ida Noyes Hall, and a University professorship named after him. He also donated millions of dollars to encourage faculty excellence and promote student life. Palevsky

served as a University trustee from 1972 to 1982.

“Max Palevsky would often say that the University of Chicago ‘changed his life’ and in his own carefully considered ways he worked to make the transformation that he experienced at Chicago available to others,” said professor Hugo Sonnenschein, University president when Palevsky helped fund the dormitories that bear his name, in a press release. Palevsky “will forever stand tall among those who best represent what our rigorous variety of education makes possible,” Sonnenschein said.

“My whole life has been shaped by the time spent as a College student at Chicago,” he said in a March 1996 interview with the University, after he endowed the Max and Ellen Palevsky Faculty Fund with $5 million. “It gave me a notion of, and enthusiasm for, all that was out there in the world. It gave me a sense of the terrain of learning and of the limitless horizons of discovery.”

Born in Chicago in 1924, Palevsky studied math and philosophy as an undergraduate, according to a University press release, attending the University after returning from military service in World War II. He did graduate work in the same fields

PALEVSKY continued on page 2

S

econd-year BJ resident Sam Quinan dressed as Cap'n Crunch Thursday morning for the Scav Hunt road trip send-off. Other potential costumes: Captain Picard, Captain Ahab, and Captain Planet. For Scav updates, check ChicagoMaroon.com/Scav.

TOM TIAN/MAROON

LABORATORIES

Death at Fermi Lab spurs Sheriff's investigation

By Michael Lipkin MAROON Staff DuPage County sheriffs are investigating the death of a woman found at the University’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Thursday morning. According to a Sheriff ’s

Office press release, there is no indication of foul play.

Th e w o m a n w a s f o u n d a t around 10:50 a.m. after employees investigated a noise in the laboratory’s main building.

Paramedics pronounced the woman dead shortly after 11 a.m.

The Sheriff ’s Office is withholding the name of the victim until it notifies her family. Its press release also did not identify what type of noise Fermi employees were responding to.

Fermi, in Batavia, Illinois, is jointly run by the University and the Department of Energy.

DISCOURSE

ADMINISTRATION

Free, not clear: panels discuss pitfalls of academic freedom

At open forum, Zimmer calls sexual assault referendum "valuable data"

By Adam Janofsky Associate News Editor

New York Times columnist Stanley Fish speaks on academic freedom in the University of Chicago Law School courtroom on Thursday afternoon.

CAMILLE VAN HORNE/MAROON

By Al Gaspari News Staff It’s a good thing for New York Times columnist Stanley Fish that the University is so dedicated to academic freedom.

Th a t ' s b e c a u s e Fi s h t o o k a different stance from President

Robert Zimmer in his keynote address of this week's academic freedom conference, disagreeing over the moral argument justifying those freedoms.

“The trouble with the term ‘academic freedom’ is that the emphasis always falls on the freedom and not on the academic part...

Freedom is too large a concept that conjures images from the last scene of a bad Mel Gibson movie,” he said.

In consecutive events, Zimmer and law professor Geoffrey Stone discussed why academic freedom needs to be protected, while Fish

FREEDOM continued on page 2

President Robert Zimmer addressed student questions about last month’s sexual assault referendum and last quarter’s arrest of third-year Maurice Dawson at an open forum Wednesday in the Reynold’s Club.

Students pressed him to discuss the relationship between campus police and minority students, the University’s role in the Hyde Park community, and alcohol use on campus.

In response to student support for a sexual assault policy referendum, Zimmer said the University would take the recent student vote into account, calling the almost 80 percent favoring reform a “valuable [piece] of information” available in reviewing the policy.

Zimmer defended the current policy, in which faculty in the department of the accused assess his or her case, saying “for a long time…issues around discipline have been driven by faculty.” However, he remained open about including non-faculty in future reforms.

“It shows that [Zimmer] has an open mind about the future of the sexual assault policy,” first-year and incoming liaison to the board of trustees Frank Alarcon said.

When the February arrest in the Regenstein Library came up, students focused their questions on why Zimmer did not make a statement about the incident and how the arrest could reflect problems with diversity on campus.

For Vice President of Campus Life Kimberly Goff-Crews, who also took questions, the incident was outside of Zimmer’s purview. “It was a campus and student life issue…It made sense to keep it at the vice presidential level,” she said.

Addressing concerns that the incident stemmed from a lack of campus diversity, Zimmer said the University reaches out to a diverse body of faculty, graduate and undergraduate students.

“There are very specific programs designed to address [diversity] issues,” he said, adding that “progress has been positive but relatively slow.”

Goff-Crews mentioned that the University has been following up on alcohol use after a November e-mail was sent out by administrators. “We’ve been working on creating alcohol education programs…so [students] have a little bit more training about appropriate alcohol use,” she said, but also commented that problems haven’t arisen since November. “We don’t think there is a crisis at the moment, but there is enough information to get our attention.”

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CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | May 7, 2010

Zimmer and Stone defend academic freedom on moral grounds, but Fish says speech should only be protected for professors

Blogging heads

FREEDOM continued from front page

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obel Prize winner Gary Becker discusses current U.S. economics issues at a debate with Seventh CircuitCourt justice Richard Posner on Monday in Kent Hall. Read the article on ChicagoMaroon.com

JULIA SILVERMAN/MAROON

Palevsky chaired Xerox and Intel, bought Rolling Stone, and donated millions to improve University life PALEVSKY continued from front page at the University, finishing at UCLA. Palvesky started the Max Palevsky Fund in 1969, which was used to attract scholars to the University. That year, he sold Scientific Data Systems to Xerox for $100 million, AP reported yesterday. Palevsky became Xerox’s chairman, and he helped found, and later chaired, computer-chip maker Intel.

Palevsky’s name is probably best known to students through the Max Palevsky Residential Commons, which were built in 2001, with funding from Palevsky’s $20 million donation towards the expansion of residential life on campus, made one year earlier.

“For most students, college is the first time they’ve lived away from home,” Palevsky said in a July 2000 article in the University of Chicago Chronicle, on his gift to the University.

“In this society, there often are not sufficient structures for young people, and I trust it will be an important thing to live in a structured, intellectual community. I’m very happy to be able to make that possible for future generations of Chicago students.”

Palevsky was more than just a University patron. The Chicago native supported the arts as well, donating to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, besides collecting himself. He produced a few movies in the 1970s and 2000s. In 1970, Palevsky bought a large portion of shares in a Rolling Stone, which was having fi nancial trouble at the time, and sat on the board. There he befriended journalist Hunter S. Thompson, who mentioned him in a fictional footnote in “June, 1972: The McGovern Juggernaut Rolls On.” He supported the political campaigns of Democrats in California, including George McGovern’s 1972 presidential bid. “It was at Chicago that I got my political bearings,” Palevsky said in his 1996 interview. “Not that I was taught to be a Republican or Democrat, but I learned the importance of political discourse in a democratic society.”

A service is being held today at the Max Palevsky Aero Theater in Santa Monica, but there are currently no plans for a memorial on campus, according to University spokesman Jeremy Manier.

critiqued their commitment to the ideal.

Fish, the conference’s keynote speaker, proposed a much narrower definition of academic freedom.

To Fish, academic freedom means no more or less than the demands of one’s job.

“It is freedom to do the job, not the freedom to change it or shirk it,” he said, reacting to Zimmer’s and Stone’s reliance on philosphical, moral, and legal arguments in support of open discourse.

The conference began Wednesday with a panel on academic freedom around the world. Calling academic freedom “a house in disrepair,” law professor Aziz Huq opened the panel with a speech arguing that the law that protects academic freedom has eroded, even as American culture grows more accepting of academic freedom.

“The law—in the form of judgments from the Supreme Court and the lower tiers of federal courts—is at best fragmentary and at worst destitute. Particular academies at our great public, state-run universities, from the University of Virginia on one coast to the University of California on another, have only uncertain protection from meddling by state officials,” Huq said.

One panel member, third-year Nadia Ismail, who is the director of Students for Justice in Palestine, raised the issue of Ehud Olmert’s October speech on campus, at which protesters jeered the former Prime Minister of Israel so that he couldn’t speak for almost an hour. Ismail said the University should not have brought such a divisive speaker to campus—Olmert has been accused of war crimes—and that questions were not moderated fairly, though she said she warned administrators.

“This has made me greatly concerned about the future and the sanctiy of academic freedom on this campus,” Ismail said.

On Thursday, Zimmer noted that the University itself does not invite speakers to campus, but creates a structure that allows others to do so, and that regardless, the culture of speech far outweighs the benefits of preventing the speech.

“You say this person is evil because he has

committed some set of acts. When you say that, you are in the business of deciding who is good and bad,” he said, though he did not mention Olmert specifically.

Days after Olmert’s visit, Zimmer sent an e-mail to the University community emphasizing the importance of free discourse.

Second-year law student Josh Bushinsky, who helped organize the conference, said the controversy around Olmert was one of the reasons for holding the conference.

“Part of the conversation on campus this year has revolved around the Olmert speech, and there are constantly questions of what the boundaries are within the context of academic freedom,” Bushinsky said.

There were several other panels on Thursday, including one on academic freedom and the admissions process, and one on academic freedom and the Oriental Institute.

Zimmer argued that the University should not adopt formal stances on issues because it would affect the culture of free speech on campus. “I keep emphasizing culture because, yes, the rules are important, but you are not going to be able to legislate an open discourse,” he said. “It’s not just a matter of writing down a bunch of structural rules.”

But Fish said academic freedom has no legal, moral, or philosophical meaning.

Instead, it should provide professors, not students or administrators, with a way to complete a certain task.

Fish has a history of arguing against lionizing free speech. In 1995, he published a book chapter called, “There’s No Such Thing as Free Speech, and It’s a Good Thing, Too,” in which he argues that free speech is not protected because of any inherent value, but because particular speech advances various societal preferences.

Fish understands why academics want their freedom, he said, “but you don’t have the right to it. It is, in fact, a form of guild protectionalism, which other people quite reasonably don’t want to grant to you.”

—Additional reporting by Asher Klein

CORRECTIONS The April 30 News article "Fourth-years With Jobs Thank CAPS" misrepresented fourth-year Abimbola Oladokun's involvement with CAPS. Oladokun did get her Teach for America position through CAPS and has visited on numerous occasions; she said she sees CAPS as a resource to support the job-finding process.

The April 30 Viewpoints article “The Hidden Patriarchy” incorrectly stated that the Referendum vote struck down the current sexual assault policy. Students voted to recommend that the current policy be changed, but nothing has yet been struck.

The May 5 News article "At Summer Breeze, Illmatic Is The Move" incorrectly stated what would play during set changes. DJ OCD Automatic will play between the winner of the battle of the Bands and the Dirty Projectors, and a Fire Escape film will play between Damian Marley and Nas.

The MAROON is committed to correcting mistakes for the record. If you suspect the MAROON has made an error, please alert the newspaper by e-mailing

Editor@ChicagoMaroon.com

www.ChicagoMaroon.com www.ChicagoMaroon.com www.ChicagoMaroon.com

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CHICAGO MAROON

| VIEWPOINTS | May 7, 2010

VIEWPOINTS

EDITORIAL & OP-ED MAY 7, 2010

EDITORIAL

CHICAGO MAROON

The student newspaper of the University of Chicago since 1892

JORDAN HOLLIDAY, Editor-in-Chief JAKE GRUBMAN, Managing Editor ASHER KLEIN, News Editor ELLA CHRISTOPH, News Editor PETER IANAKIEV, Viewpoints Editor HAYLEY LAMBERSON, Voices Editor BLAIR THORNBURGH, Voices Editor AUDREY HENKELS, Sports Editor WILL FALLON, Sports Editor A. G. GOODMAN, Sports Editor VICTORIA KRAFT, Head Copy Editor MONIKA LAGAARD, Head Copy Editor HOLLY LAWSON, Head Copy Editor CAMILLE VAN HORNE, Photo Editor MATT BOGEN, Photo Editor JACK DiMASSIMO, Head Designer ABRAHAM NEBEN, Web Editor ADAM JANOFSKY, Assoc. News Editor

Weird social science Student concerns about the decline of UChicago culture are unfounded In recent years, parts of our community have grown worried that the U of C’s unique culture is being diluted by changes in University policy. Their concerns have found voice in T-shirts and demonstrations protesting the switch to the Common Application, fliers posted around campus decrying “normalizing” forces working within the University, and currently, on the Max P. Scav team’s T-shirt, which bears the tongue-in-cheek slogan, “Keep UChicago weird.”

Of all the purported changes to campus culture, there are two that seem to cause the greatest anxiety. The first is that the U of C is contorting itself to accommodate pre-professional College students, rather than insisting on learning for learning’s sake. The second concern is that ever more pre-law gunners and pre-med grinds are applying

and enrolling, and costing us the quirky points of campus life that have long set the College apart. The U of C is no longer the U of C of old, some say, and it is a poorer place for it.

To give these arguments legs to stand on, their supporters have to assume that a real, substantive division exists between those who like to learn and those with pre-professional ambitions.

This is a handy trope for teen movies, but it just doesn’t hold in real life, and least of all on our campus. Girls who rush sororities and guys who suit up for football can often debate Durkheim with the best of them, and to think otherwise is arrogant and intellectually lazy. If ours is to be a campus devoted to the critical examination of ideas, then the all-too-prevalent belief that people who party on Saturdays can’t be intellectually serious on Sundays

should be the first idea reconsidered and then tossed out.

But before we even entertain arguments about whether jocks and premeds can live the life of the mind, we should ask what has actually changed at the U of C. True, the College only recently cracked U.S. News & World Report’s top 10, but our academics have been held in great esteem for far longer. The jump from our Economics department to Wall Street has never been difficult, and the College has long been a starting point for those hoping to go into law, medicine, and other professional fields. We know, because the admissions statistics bear it out, that College first-years are better and better prepared to study here.

What we don’t know—and shouldn’t presume—is that we’ve arrived at the College in the gloaming of some

Golden Age of intellectual purity. Like any top school, the U of C has always attracted students with a range of interests and ambitions.

Scavvies will be taking over campus all this weekend, and those who are truly concerned about the U of C might want to take a page out of their book. The Scavvies know that college, like much of life, is what you make of it. Instead of calling our college too normal, or criticizing classmates with mean-spirited diatribes and notso-subtle slurs, they just go and be as “weird” or “quirky” as they want.

And if you do the same, who knows?

If Scav is any indication, the “normal” people might surprise you and join in.

exist in a single moment—that is, a ballplayer can wrap out a clutch base hit and a jurist can write an empathetic decision. However, neither trait is all that helpful in terms of evaluating a potential major leaguer or potential justice.

Empathy, like clutch, is often in the eye of the beholder. In fact, the attachment of the empathy label says more about the beholder than it does the judge in question. This is abundantly apparent in Dahlia Lithwick and Sonja West’s recent piece in Slate, “The Unsung Empathy of Justice Stevens.” (We’ll hold aside the ridiculous use of “unsung” here—have they

read any of the gushing profiles about Stevens recently?)

Lithwick and West cite a litany of cases in which Stevens was supposedly empathetic, but for every case that they could name in favor of Stevens’ empathy, I could cite one against it.

Take Kelo v. City of New London, where Stevens displayed his “empathy” by denying a woman the right to keep her family’s property from government-forced takeover. Take Gonzales v. Raich, in which Stevens voted to maintain federal laws that criminalized the use of medical marijuana. Even in the cases Lithwick and West do offer

are likely to blame Robert Mugabe for Zimbabwe’s extraordinarily high inflation, despite the fact most research shows that international sanctions share as much responsibility for this as his policies. Finally, while radicals will know the names of Asian and Latin American leftist leaders, hardly anyone recognizes the names of brilliant revolutionary figures like Nyerere, Lumumba, and Cabral. Africa is relegated to the shadows even at the University of Chicago.

Until the end of last year, students could have majored in African and African-American Studies. The major was then subsumed under another program: Comparative Race Studies.

Neither program has shown itself to

be truly adequate for the continent of Africa. The former major joins Africans—a group that has thousands of languages, thousands of ethnicities, thousands of years of history, and spreads thousands of miles—with African-Americans, obviously a very different group of people. One could conceivably finish such a major without truly understanding either group.

The new major simplifies the study of Africa to the study of race, and implies that the study of this continent must be done in comparison with another group of people. Anyone who solely wants to study a section of Africa will be disappointed in pursuing this major.

Many of the University’s other

—The MAROON Editorial Board includes the Editor-in-Chief and the Viewpoints Editors.

ALISON HOWARD, Assoc. Viewpoints Editor JUDY MARCINIAK, Business Manager

OP-ED

VINCENT McGILL, Delivery Coordinator DOUGLAS EVERSON, Designer ANDREW GREEN, Designer IVY PEREZ, Designer

The trouble with empathy

CHRISTINA SCHWARTZ, Designer JESSICA SHEFT-ASON, Designer MATT TYNDALE, Designer ATHENA JIN XIE, Designer ANNA AKERS-PECHT, Copy Editor

Empathy is a hard-to-define concept that does not help when evaluating judicial candidates

ALICE BLACKWOOD, Copy Editor HUNTER BUCKWORTH, Copy Editor MARCELLO DELGADO, Copy Editor

Matt Barnum Columnist

JORDAN FRANKLIN, Copy Editor DANIELLE GLAZER, Copy Editor GYONG MINA KANG, Copy Editor LAUREN LARSON, Copy Editor LAUREN MAKHOLM, Copy Editor SAALIKA ABBAS MELA, Copy Editor GABE VALLEY, Copy Editor ALEX WARBURTON, Copy Editor LILY YE, Copy Editor WENJIA DOREEN ZHAO, Copy Editor

The CHICAGO MAROON is published twice weekly during autumn, winter, and spring quarters.

Circulation: 6,500 The opinions expressed in the Viewpoints section

Watch Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN and no doubt you’ll hear Hall of Fame baseball player and mediocre baseball announcer Joe Morgan use the c-word: “clutch.” It’s one of many descriptions that baseball commentators—as well as managers and players and fans and everyone else—use to evaluate players’ performance. “Clutch” players, the theory goes, come up with the big hit when

the team needs it; they’re “grinders” who hustle and make “quality outs,” scrappy players who know how to bunt but can’t hit many home runs.

They defy the odds, and help their team win every game, even when they don’t get a hit. Such a player has lived in baseball lore since Abner Doubleday invented baseball during the Civil War (this, of course, is lore itself ). But when Baseball Prospectus ran the numbers, they found that such players basically don’t exist. If a player is good in general, he’s just good in the clutch. If he’s not, he’s not.

Clutch is to baseball what empathy is to the Supreme Court: Both can

EMPATHY continued on page 5

are not necessarily those of the MAROON.

©2010 CHICAGO MAROON, Ida Noyes Hall, 1212 East 59th Street, Chicago, IL 60637 Editor-in-Chief Phone: (773) 834-1611 Newsroom Phone: (773) 702-1403 Business Phone: (773) 702-9555 Fax: (773) 702-3032

SUBMISSIONS The CHICAGO MAROON welcomes opinions and responses from its readers. Send op-ed submissions and letters to: Viewpoints CHICAGO MAROON 1212 East 59th Street Chicago, IL 60637 E-mail: Viewpoints@ChicagoMaroon.com The editors reserve the right to edit materials for clarity and space.

Letters to the editor should be limited to 400 words.

Op-ed submissions, 800 words.

CONTACT News: News@ChicagoMaroon.com Viewpoints: Viewpoints@ChicagoMaroon.com Voices: Voices@ChicagoMaroon.com Sports: Sports@ChicagoMaroon.com Photography: Photo@ChicagoMaroon.com Design: Design@ChicagoMaroon.com Copy Editing: Copy@ChicagoMaroon.com Advertising: jmarcini@uchicago.edu

OP-ED

A continental oversight The U of C’s treatment of Africa shortchanges students interested in the field

By Suman Som Viewpoints Contributor On the eve of the African and Caribbean Student Association’s annual show, it is important to understand how Africa is studied at this university.

Investigating this matter points to an alarming truth—Africa, the secondmost populated continent in the world, is stunningly underrepresented. This, in turn, leads to varying levels of ignorance towards the continent.

Most people’s understandings of what goes on in Africa reveal a high degree of ignorance of the actions our government plays a part in. Most of us know that American inaction allowed the deaths of thousands in Rwanda

during the 1990s. However, most of us don’t know that the U.S. currently supports Rwandan president Paul Kagame, a brutal leader who has led a silent military campaign in Congo, responsible for the rapes and murders of hundreds of thousands. The Save Darfur Coalition, while generating interest about an important issue, does not understand the conflict it seeks to address. As Dr. Mahmoud Mamdani notes, there is simply little to no evidence that the conflict is racially motivated. It was British colonialism and a regional power struggle during the Cold War between the United States, Israel, and Libya, which planted the seeds for such a conflict, with a lack of resources as a catalyst. Students

AFRICA continued on page 5

CHICAGO MAROON

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VIEWPOINTS | May 7, 2010

Empathy is too malleable to be a standard for legal rulings

University departments frequently ignore topics related to Africa

EMPATHY continued from page 4

AFRICA continued from page 4

same type of empathy, but feel bound by judicial philosophies to come to results that are sometimes unpleasant. And as in the criminal defendant example, empathy offers little guidance in cases where both sides can stake claim to it. I’m empathetic for criminal defendants, shouts one side; I’m for victims’ rights, counters the other.

What is the empathetic judge to do in such situations? Similarly, there are no clear standards for evaluating or determining a judge’s empathy—the empathetic decision, it seems, is whatever the commentator’s own policy preference is. In fact, to paraphrase a quote from the Supreme Court, all empathy advocates can say is that they know it when they see it.

—Matt Barnum is a fourth-year in the College majoring in Psychology.

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departments contribute to the ignorance of the student body regarding Africa. In recent years, the Philosophy department has not had a course on African philosophy, a topic that has intrigued luminaries of contemporary philosophy like Richard Rorty. The Political Science department does not have a single professor who primarily focuses on Africa. The History department has only two professors who specialize on Africa, making it one of the least represented regions in the world. There is no one in the Sociology department who focuses on Africa.

The Economics department, with the slight exception of Emily Oster, does not have any Africanists.

Finally, Swahili is the only African language taught at this university. In addition, only two levels are taught, despite the fact Swahili is one of the world’s fastest growing languages and the most popular indigenous African language.

Compare our lack of African languages to the plethora of South East Asian languages. While other top institutions hardly represent Africa well, most of our peers still beat us in this area.

The Anthropology department is the only one to buck this trend. It has produced some of the nation’s top Africanists. Thus the student interested in Africa would probably be served best by pursuing this major. There are a few problems with this decision, however. First, undergraduate courses specifically for Africa are few. The course catalogue points to only two courses for undergraduates that focus exclusively on an African community. Secondly, the major itself is not that marketable, scaring away a number of possible students from pursuing research on Africa.

Finally, there is a specific perspective that anthropologists take towards studying society.

While this is a generalization, much of anthropological research focuses on how the local is affected by larger currents, such as global capitalism and modernity. The point really is to help understand the latter, rather than the former.

Again, in a new way, Africa is simply used as a means and not an end. Few anthropologists talk about day-to-day political events, something that a political scientist tends to focus on.

The University’s lack of interest in Africa has led to many examples of ignorance here on campus. On November 10, the Human Rights Program and Amnesty International hosted Daniel Bekele, an Ethiopian activist. In a small discussion, the Bekele discussed his country’s need for democracy. Surprisingly, and obvious to anyone who had read his work, he hid the fact that he also demands less economic inequality.

The audience’s response was astounding. Susan Gzesh, Executive Director of the Human Rights Program, only asked, “What international NGOs are working there?” Such a question highlights her missionary-like outlook.

More egregious was the claim of an Amnesty International researcher in attendance, who said it was “the color revolutions of Eastern Europe that inspired Ethiopians to demand democracy.”

No one called out this inaccuracy. Few cared that it was the U.S. government that was the biggest donor to the Ethiopian military, the very institution that was responsible for massive human rights abuses and the imprisonment of Mr. Bekele.

More telling examples of ignorance are the arguments by economists about the prevalence of HIV. Why is there a tendency for certain African males not to change their sexual practices in light of HIV? For Emily Oster, who has studied the virus, it is because changing their behavior wouldn’t be rational. Because their life expectancy is perceived to be low, African men apparently have no reason to practice safe sex. It is as if Africans take care of themselves in the same way one would take care of cattle. This research oversimplifies a complex set of cultural processes and reasoning to fit a given methodology. What is more concerning, however, is the fact that academia has yet to refute these arguments. We need more Africanists in order to counter such beliefs.

Any student interested in African studies ought to demand more cross-departmental representation of the continent. It is the imperative of budding Africanists everywhere to see the people of the hidden continent as connected to us, to doggedly fight all forms of ignorance relating to Africans, and to help them on their own terms.

—Suman Som is a second-year in the College majoring in Anthropology.

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The University of Chicago Law School and the Center for Gender Studies Present

Gender, Law, and the British Novel May 14-15, 2010 Friday: 9:30 a.m-6:30 p.m.

Saturday: 8:30 a.m.-3:00 p.m.

University of Chicago Law School 1111 E. 60th St. Chicago, Illinois 60637

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as proof of Stevens’ empathy, it’s not always so easy to say which side is empathetic and which side isn’t. In one example, Lithwick and West praise Stevens’ compassion for would-be criminal defendants. But can’t it go the other way?

What if I have empathy for potential victims of crimes rather than potential criminals? One man’s empathy is another man’s callousness.

No doubt Judge Stevens might respond that in all these cases he was just following the law. Fair enough! But that’s the problem with empathy: There can be a real tension between an empathetic decision and a legally valid one. Perhaps Stevens really did feel empathy for the medicalmarijuana user or the property owner, but felt bound by law or precedent to find against them.

And maybe more conservative justices feel the

Featuring a Keynote Conversation with Sara Paretsky

This conference is free and open to the public. No registration is required, but space may be limited.

Distinguished author of the V.I. Warshawski detective novels

For special assistance or needs, please contact Rebecca Klaff at 773.834.4326 or gender.literature.conference@gmail.com.

and panelists: Nicola Lacey Professor of Criminal Law and Legal Theory the london school of economics and political science Alison LaCroix Assistant Professor of Law university of chicago law school Martha Nussbaum Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics university of chicago law school, philosophy department, and divinity school

Organized by Jane Dailey, Alison LaCroix, and Martha Nussbaum

For more details, please visit http://www.law.uchicago.edu/genderlaw-britishnovel

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CHICAGO CHICAGO MAROON MAROON | VOICES | VOICES | November | May 7, 20, 2010 2009

VOICES

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT MAY 7, 2010

FILM

New enemies, old demons come to play in Iron Man 2

Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) doesn't like to be interrupted during his lunch break.

COURTESY OF PARAMOUNT PICTURES

By Michelle Welch Voices Harley Quinn There are patterns to blockbuster franchises. The first film is always the hero’s origin story. The second movie deals with the hero’s inner turmoil.

And contrary to popular belief, the best in the series is always this first sequel (see The Dark Knight, SpiderMan 2, X2: X-Men United, Batman Returns, Superman II). The second sequel is always where it goes south (see Batman Forever, X-Men: The Last Stand, Spider-Man 3). Iron Man

2 sticks to this pattern. It proves its predecessor was a neat outing, but, as Tony Stark says, “It’s good to be back.”

IRON MAN 2

May 7 Wide Release

Mega praise goes to Robert Downey Jr.’s magnetic performance as the flaming narcissist billionaire Tony Stark and occasional weapon of mass destruction Iron Man; any

other actor and this franchise would be much less than what it is. I’m not sure whether that’s telling of the series, or Jon Favreau as a director, or simply a testament to how damn good Downey is, but nevertheless, he makes these movies what they are.

Downey brings much more than wisecracks and a shameless aura of untouchability. He brings a heart and soul to Stark that’s absent from the stone-cold Batman of Christian Bale and the perpetually tense casts of X-Men. He may be a super genius, have billions of dollars, and

fly around in a metal suit to an AC/ DC soundtrack, but underneath it all, he’s human. He’s a flawed guy with an alcohol problem who makes you root for him in his aerial battles with bad guys as well as in his personal struggles.

I live by the creed that superhero movies are only as good as their villains. Mickey Rourke’s rejuvenated career thanks to The Wrestler has provided Iron Man 2 with one colorful badass. Adopting a Russian accent, Rourke steps into the role of Whiplash, a blend of the original Marvel villain and another, the Crimson Dynamo.

Rourke, with his golden Flavor Flav smile and streaked, newspapercolored half-ponytail, presents himself as the strong-but-silent type with the physique he’s maintained since The Wrestler. It feels like a stretch that he would be both the brains and the brawn, but Whiplash is recruited by Sam Rockwell’s Justin Hammer—a weapons contractor and rival of Stark’s—to build an arsenal of Iron Man-like suits. But, as Rourke says, “Drone better.”

If Greg Kinnear can be considered the epitome of the suburban bumpkin, then Rockwell is fast becoming the go-to guy for the corporate bumpkin. Never being clever enough to trounce Stark, he settles for providing him with consistent headaches.

He’s a symptom of the first sequel in that with bigger budgets and a longer runing time, filmmakers opt to pack in more villains and more subplots.

Luckily this film works despite the

excess: Gwyneth Paltrow’s Pepper Potts is made CEO of Stark’s company; Stark’s best friend James Rhodes (Don Cheadle replacing Terrence Howard, an improvement) is pitted in opposition to Stark by his military obligations; Stark’s health is failing thanks to palladium in his blood from his arc reactor; and Scarlet Johansson’s Black Widow is introduced entirely for the setup of the crossover Avengers movie coming in 2012.

As a first sequel, this is no Dark Knight; there are too many kinks and underdeveloped this-or-thats to make it rise above its lowbrow superhero movie status. But damn if there aren’t some excellent action set pieces, particularly Whiplash’s debut at the Monoco Grand Prix, and a snazzy little trick Iron Man pulls off toward the end—because “it’s a one-off ” deal.

The film is packed with selfaware humor and some clever oneliners courtesy of screenwriter Justin Theroux, who adds some indie clout to the project. However, though it’s impossible for anything that can or can’t breathe to be attracted to Robert Downey Jr., somehow Gwyneth Paltrow succeeds in resisting his wild charms, leaving their supposedly romantic relationship to play like an older sister fed up with babysitting her rowdy little brother.

Then again, GOOP is barely in the movie, so two or three minutes of nonexistent chemistry doesn’t detract from the overall experience of Iron Man, Whiplash, and War Machine blowing shit up and looking cool while doing it.

ART

Everyday Adventures examines the art of childhood

By Blair Thornburgh Voices Monster Under Your Bed The Art Institute’s small but delightful new exhibit, Everyday Adventures Growing Up, is a child-sized peek into the weird and wonderful world of picture-book art. Featuring illustrations from Peter McCarty, Nancy Carlson, and Timothy Basil Ering, the exhibit showcases the diversity and whimsy that different artists bring to the drawing table.

EVERYDAY ADVENTURES GROWING UP Art Institute Through November 28

Split between the Ryan Education Center and Gallery 10, most of Adventures is on display just downstairs of the Institute’s main hallway.

The layout presents the artwork in two ways, combining the traditional setup of framed artwork on the walls, with more kid-accessible low tables with the picture books themselves available for reading. Such presentation is a wise choice, as it invites viewers young and old to consider not just the published product, but also the art and the artist behind the book.

The featured artists represent a wide range of narrative and artistic styles.

McCarty, winner of the prestigious Caldecott Honor award for his 2003 book Hondo and Fabian, creates a soft and simple world with his warm and elegant pencil drawings. His illustrations, while calm and spare, are inviting and lively—the interactions between a little boy and the horned, blue-scaled playmate he creates in scenes from Jeremy Draws a Monster are winsome and charming without being cloying.

Author and illustrator Carlson’s images are bolder and brighter, with her subject matter less fantastical and more the stuff of day-to-day childhood. Her animal protagonists (L ouanne Pig and L oudmouth George, to name a few) deal with familiar experiences of starting kindergarten or trying out for the talent show in a friendly, colorful tableau of home and school. Her neat, uncomplicated style is perhaps the most conventional of the three, but it is well suited to the positive messages of her books.

The work of the exhibit’s third artist, however, is much less tidy. Ering, illustrator of the 2004 recipient of the Newbery Medal The Tale of Despereaux, draws with the lively swoops and splashes of color of an imagination gone wild. His artwork is an excellent

example of the medium’s ability to convey a deeper narrative than one that would just involve the story: In a scene from 2009’s Finn Throws a Fit!, the titular tantrum comes across in dark scribbles of anger above Finn’s head.

But the most enjoyable pictures are easily those from 2003’s The Story

of Frog Belly Rat Bone, where we see a young boy build himself a creepy but loveable new friend in a world chockablock with layers of scratches and muddy splotches.

If the exhibit has a shortcoming, it is only one of scale: It would have been nice to see a larger breadth of artists and styles represented. For adult-

sized attention spans, a once-around through the gallery goes by in a flash, and many may be tempted to just skip over the show altogether. However, it’s commendable of the Art Institute to give the oft-neglected art of children’s books a high-profile platform, and I suspect that for the exhibit’s smaller visitors, the size is just right.

Timothy Basil Ering's illustration from Finn Throws a Fit. Alternate title: Finn's Parents Invest in Some Earplugs.

COURTESY OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

7

CHICAGO MAROON | VOICES | May 7, 2010

THEATER

Meta-Art Chicago

UT's Dining Room seats many families

By Yasmeen Hussain Voices Prix-Fixe This week, University Theater is going domestic. The Dining Room, their sixth week production, examines constancy and transformation throughout time.

The dining room—the table, the wooden chairs—bears witness to the ebb and flow of life.

THE DINING ROOM First Floor Theater Through May 8

One decade after another seems to pass simultaneously as we watch various American upper-middle-class families adapt to and demonstrate the progression of time and its inevitable changes in society.

Situated on a beautiful, everchanging set, where the lighting wonderfully compliments the mood of each dynamic scene, The Dining Room is one play that will take you back to the simpler times of breakfast with the parents, the confusing times of adolescence, and the progression of family life.

Th e a c t o r s w e r e t h e m o s t dynamic and fascinating aspect of the performance. It was phenom-

enal to watch them change personalities and adapt to each new environment as they changed ages, personalities, and numerous other characteristics as they took on multiple roles.

They adapted to each new role so well that it was hard to believe that the same actor or actress assumed a completely contrasting role just a moment before. The dialogue and intriguing personalities that each actor and actress executes so successfully are reasons to see the play.

As for the set, the props were simple and satisfactory: It was fun to see how the characters used the same items for different purposes and different time periods and situations. In one instance, the maid brings out a cake on a plate for a child’s birthday party while the birthday girl’s mom is teasing another boy’s dad. In a scene shortly thereafter, that same plate is used for a holiday turkey for a grandmother who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease.

Th e w o n d e r f u l c o n t r a s t i n scenery and use of the objects, along with the constancy that the furniture and props hold, make the play seamlessly flow and transgress, like the flow and transgression of American culture throughout time.

V

iewers traverse a gallery at Artropolis, Chicago's celebration of art, antiques, and culture, which was held at the Merchandise Mart from April 29 to May 3.

CLAIRE HUNGERFORD/MAROON

Most importantly, one cannot ignore the significance of the dining table, which is the centerpiece and foundation for the set.

All the play’s dialogue and action are structured around it. Its functions go far beyond that of a desk and place of eating: It holds a sense of timelessness in a setting where everything keeps changing

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. The Spirit of the Law: Separation of Church and State from 19451990 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

and moving forward.

Food. Culture. Families. Uppermiddle-class America. The Dining Room rolls all of these dynamic yet familiar concepts into one ever-constant, yet ever-changing room.

It shows the secrets, comedies, tragedies, lies, and affairs that occur in a room that so many of

CLASSIFIEDS Classified advertising in the CHICAGO MAROON is $3 for each line. Lines are 45 characters long including spaces and punctuation. Special headings are 20-character lines at $4 per line.

Classifieds are not accepted over the phone, and they must be paid in advance. Submit all ads in person, by e-mail, or by mail to the CHICAGO MAROON, Ida Noyes Hall, Lower Level Rm 026, 1212 E. 59th St., Chicago, IL 60637 attn: Classified Ads. Deadlines: Wednesdays and Fridays, 12 P.M., prior to publication. The CHICAGO MAROON accepts Mastercard & Visa. Call (773) 702-9555.

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The University of Chicago Law School Presents: The Maurice and Muriel Fulton Lectureship in Legal History

Sarah Barringer Gordon The Arlin M. Adams Professor of Constitutional Law and Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania Law School

May 13, 2010, 4:00 p.m.

This conference is free and open to the public.

No registration is required, but space may be limited.

For special assistance or needs, please contact Rebecca Klaff at 773.834.4326 or rklaff@law.uchicago.edu.

Weymouth Kirkland Courtroom University of Chicago Law School 1111 E. 60th Street Chicago, Illinois 60637

WWW.CHICAGOMAROON.COM

us have long forgotten about in our homes.

One thing is clear in this play: Despite the progressivism of American society and culture, the constant stability (as symbolized through the dining table) is what we all hope to have in our lives. UT’s Dining Room knows what it’s like when walls can talk.

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IN QUOTES

SPORTS

“Baker and two pitchers...were lighting farts in the clubhouse, when something went awry, and Baker suffered second degree burns to his patoot.”

—Edelweiss, a Cubs blogger, explaining why second baseman Jeff Baker missed several recent games. Edelweiss’s claim, informed by “someone in the Cubs organization,” received widespread attention thanks to crack journalism.

SOFTBALL

Regular season ends with emotional doubleheader

By Matt McCracken Sports Staff Things were not going well for fourthyear first baseman Kathleen Duffy.

Softball had just been swept in a doubleheader the previous day for the first time all year, the Maroons were losing to Carthage late in the game, and Duffy had struck out in her first two at-bats of the contest.

“We were down by one run and [during] my previous two at-bats, I had not done my job and had let the team down. My knee was messed up from the day before and I was having trouble walking, let alone running and playing ball,” Duffy said.

Duffy refused to let it keep her down as she came to the plate with the bases empty in the sixth inning.

“I told myself to snap out of it and play ball,” Duffy said. ”So instead of letting my frustration get the best of me, I thought about this being one of the last days I could play softball with my teammates, and I was going to have fun playing the game I loved.

“As I approached the batter’s box with two outs, I smiled at the pitcher, knowing I was going to start a rally,” Duffy said. “When I saw the ball coming low and outside, I thought ‘weight back and crush it,’ which I did. The minute the ball hit my bat I knew I had tied the game up and we were back in it.”

Duffy’s home run was a special shot, as her 18th career round-tripper broke the Chicago all-time home run record previously held by Erin Slone in 2001.

While the outstanding accomplish-

ment was acknowledged, the team still had to remain focused and finish off Carthage.

“While I was happy to break the record at the time, I was 100 times more thrilled we were back in the game and knew we were going to defeat Carthage,” Duffy said.

“When Kathleen broke the record, I don’t think any of us were thinking about it,” fourth-year outfielder Alison Feibel said. “We were all so excited that we had scored and were still in the game.”

But Duffy was not done on the day.

She added another solo bomb in extra innings that proved to be the gamewinning run in the Maroons’ 2–1 eight inning upset of Carthage, who sit atop the Great Lakes region rankings.

Duffy’s two solo shots were all the runs the Maroons needed in the crucial victory, as second-year Sarah Neuhaus and first-year Melissa Collins combined to limit Carthage’s potent attack to just one run over eight frames. Collins was particularly sharp, limiting the Lady Reds to just one hit and one walk while fanning seven batters after taking over for Neuhaus in the fifth inning.

The all-around effort on Sunday by the Maroons was not lost upon Duffy.

“I have never been more proud of 16 softball players than I was on Sunday.

That team, on Sunday, gave everything and we played as a cohesive, powerful unit,” Duffy said. “[When] I looked around at the outfield, the dugout or my fellow infielders, I got goosebumps.

I saw tears in my teammates’ eyes as Melissa threw that last strike to end the

First-year Vicky Tomaka, shown against Hope, struggled at the plate as the Maroons split with Carthage in their final two games of the regular season.

DARREN LEOW/MAROON

game; I had tears in my eyes too. I saw all of us, at the same time, fighting and wanting and pushing towards a win, and it was one of the best feelings in my life.”

The emotion with which Chicago played in the opener of Sunday’s doubleheader was sorely missing during Saturday’s twin bill against Illinois Wesleyan as they fell 4–1 in the first game and 10–3 in the second.

“When playing [Illinois Wesleyan],

we didn’t have our usual fire and spark and we weren’t all working as hard as we possibly could for our goal,” Duffy said.

“Our losses to Wesleyan were tough,” Feibel added. “We hadn’t been swept all season and to have them sweep us was not a good feeling. We needed to adjust better at the plate and to not just stick it on defense but to go all out on every play.”

After dropping the final game of the

weekend 4–2 to Carthage, the Maroons now await the release of the national D-III tournament bracket on Monday.

Meanwhile, the squad’s focus is now on their physical health and making a few minor adjustments.

“While we wait to hear about the tournament bracket, we are training hard,” Feibel said. “We are working out some little kinks and trying to nurse ourselves back to health. The training room has been busy this week.”

BASEBALL

Losing streak continues against North Central, Northwestern

Second-year Alex Garcia gave up four runs off of three hits in two innings against Northwestern.

CLAIRE HUNGERFORD/MAROON

By Nick Foretek Sports Staff Dropping games to North Central and Northwestern this week, the Maroons continued their downward spiral having now lost four in a row. The Maroons fell to 20th-

ranked North Central 1–5 at J. Kyle Andersen field on Tuesday, and 14–5 to Northwestern in Evanston on Wednesday.

It was a dismal ending to a week in which three players received UAA honors. Second-year designated hitter Stephen Williams, whose 19 doubles

this season set a team record, and firstyear outfielder Jack Cinoman earned all-UAA First Team Honors. Firstyear third baseman J.R. Lopez, who hit safely in 19 consecutive games, was named to Second Team Honors.

The games, however, were less celebratory. Capitalizing on a bevy of

errors and RBI singles by second-year first baseman Trace Capps and thirdyear center fielder Marshal Oium, the Maroons jumped to an early 5–1 lead after two innings of play against North Central.

But after the early outburst, the Maroons managed only two more hits on the day. As Chicago’s bats cooled, North Central’s grew hot. Third-year starting pitcher Dan McConologue was unable to keep the lead, surrendering six runs in the top of the fifth inning to give North Central an 11–5 lead.

Even a dominant relief appearance by first-year Matt O’Connor, in which he allowed only one hit over four and two-thirds innings, could not inspire the dormant Maroon bats.

Wednesday’s loss continued the themes established on Tuesday against Northwestern, as the Maroons once again jumped to an early advantage against their Division I opponents.

The Maroons mustered 13 hits on the day but scored all five of their runs in the first two innings, at the end of which they led 5–1.

As with the day before, however, the team’s pitching proved incapable of maintaining a lead. Second-year starting pitcher Preston Atteberry couldn’t finish the fifth, and surrendered seven earned runs on nine hits and three walks. Second-year Alex

Garcia, and fourth-year Joe Pankow fared much the same in relief, surrendering a total of six runs over the final three-and-a-third innings of the game.

While the Maroons didn’t get the result they would have liked, thirdyear second baseman Nick Fazzari noted that playing a Division I opponent did not phase the team. “We get up for it just like any game,” Fazzari noted. “Many of us play with and against D1 players in summer leagues so the competition is not unusual, but there’s definitely a drive to see how we stack up against the best team in the Big Ten.” In what has been a season of streaks for the Maroons, losing their fourth in a row with only one game left highlighted a number of the team’s deficiencies.

But with a young team and no declarations for the MLB draft, the Maroons fully expect to improve on this season’s efforts.

Chicago will play Illinois Tech in their season closer on May 9 at J. Kyle Andersen Field.

CA LEN DA R Sunday

5/9

• Baseball vs. Illinois Tech (DH), 1 p.m.