12.11.08 vol. xl, no. 13 Questions for the UC candidates
independent THE HARVARD
President Diana Suen ‘11 Cover art by ADAM HALLOWELL & PATRICIA FLORESCU
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Kids with Concussions The Meowel 6-7 Electoral Inquiries
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As Harvard College's weekly undergraduate newsmagazine, the Harvard Independent provides in-depth, critical coverage of issues and events of interest to the Harvard College community. The Independent has no political affiliation, instead offering diverse commentary on news, arts, sports, and student life. For publication information and general inquiries, contact President Diana Suen (president@harvardindependent.com). Letters to the Editor and comments regarding the content of the publication should be addressed to Editor-in-Chief Sam Jack (editor@harvardindependent.com). Yearly mail subscriptions are available for $30, and semester-long subscriptions are available for $15. To purchase a subscription, email subscriptions@harvardindependent.com. The Harvard Independent is published weekly during the academic year, except during vacations, by The Harvard Independent, Inc., P.O. Box 382204, Cambridge, MA 02238-2204. Copyright © 2008 by The Harvard Independent. All rights reserved.
11.09.06 11.02.06 s The Harvard Independent 11.06.08
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Immortal Beloved Romancing the undead proves to be a complicated proposition. By FAITH ZHANG
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WO DAYS AGO,
I SCREWED MY COURAGE to the sticking point and, caught between avid anticipation and sheer terror, went to see Twilight. Fortunately, the terror proved to be unfounded, and I quite enjoyed the experience — if perhaps not for reasons that fans of Twilight would approve of. Twilight is the film adaptation of the wildly popular book of the same title by Stephenie Meyer. Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) moves to a tiny town in Washington to live with her father Charlie (Billy Burke), and meets a fascinating, mysterious stranger in the form of Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson). It transpires that Edward is a vampire to whom Bella smells particularly delicious, and naturally the two of them begin a romance thoroughly seasoned with stalker-like tendencies. At some point Bella is pursued by another vampire (Cam Gigandet) who wants to drink her blood, but that plot development is largely secondary. Several parts of the movie, mostly near the beginning, are agonizingly awkward. I realize that high school is an awkward time in general, but it’s not an experience I am particularly anxious to relive — the interminable awkward silences are unnecessary and uncomfortable additions to movie that’s meant to be all mindless enjoyment. I went in hoping for some eye-candy at the very least, but found myself sadly disappointed. Kristen Stewart as Bella is pretty enough, but no one seeing the movie is doing so for her — they're in it for Edward. I am aware that the vampires in this series are supposed to be very pale, but Pattinson was unattractively so in his much-anticipated appearance as the vampire in question — and that’s not even mentioning his ridiculously enormous hair. The rest of his family has skin in varying shades of too pale and hair in varying degrees of terrifying, culminating in a stunning plot twist — the appearance of the Joker. Or, well, maybe not, but Carlisle bears a striking resemblance. Despite the failure to dazzle with his pretty face, Pattinson is the saving grace of the film. He speaks for himself in an interview from the October 2008 issue of Empire magazine: “When you read the book, it’s like, ‘Edward Cullen was so beautiful I creamed myself.’ I mean, every line is The Harvard Independent s 12.11.08
like that. He’s the most ridiculous person who’s so amazing at everything. I think a lot of actors tried to play that aspect. I just couldn’t do that. And the more I read the script, the more I hated this guy, so that’s how I played him, as a manicdepressive who hates himself. Plus, he’s a 108 year-old virgin so he’s obviously got some issues there.” Pattinson’s Edward supposedly talks like he’s from another era. As a matter
her — that is, all the people in the movie — see in her, this pale, silent girl who refuses to do so much as smile at the people trying to be friendly on her first day at a new school. Billy Burke as Bella’s father Charlie is probably the most sympathetic character in the entire movie, as a man still single after a messy divorce who is just trying to deal with a beloved but incomprehensible daughter. The sympathy isn’t quite enough to make him interesting, and
MOVIE REVIEW Twilight
of fact, he does no such thing. Rather, he talks like he can’t speak very fast because he has to think very, very hard about each word. He doesn’t look straight on at anyone; instead, he tilts his face downward and then angles his eyes up, which is quite effective at making him look simultaneously menacing and sulky. He does make some entertaining faces, including the one where he looks like he’s fighting not to come in his pants after receiving his first kiss and the one where he looks like he’s about to throw up at the sight of Bella. Also, the explanation for why an immortal vampire would stay in high school still holds no water. Reading the book forces you to sympathize with Bella, even if just a little, because everything is presented through her particular blend of self-pity and low self-esteem, and also because she wants Edward and so — the assumption is, at any rate — do you. On screen, even that measure of identification is stripped away and, watching her, you have to wonder what the people interested in
the remainder of the people in movie are stock characters who exist mainly to worship Bella and provide a backdrop for prom, with the exception of Jacob (Taylor Lautner), who is awkwardly shoehorned into this movie for the purpose of playing a larger role — one involving a great deal of Bella-worship, naturally — in the movies to follow. Don’t let the lack of sympathetic characters discourage you from seeing Twilight, though. Watch the movie for the moments that will become iconic. The defining characteristic of Stephenie Meyer’s vampires, the one thing that everyone remembers, is that their skin sparkles in the sunlight. This is what briefly elevates the Twilight movie into a moment of cinematic greatness: Edward runs up a mountain, steps into a patch of sunlight, and sparkles. The sparkly sound effect that goes with it makes it even better. And then Bella is so admiring, and Edward is so tragic about his sparkly skin — “This is the skin of a killer!” he says, still sparkling, and —
Well, it was worth seeing the movie just for that. Also, it’s a nice reminder that no matter how ridiculous your own life may occasionally seem, someone else has still been forced to say that line about his own sparkly skin in all seriousness. But the movie has at least one more much more serious flaw. One of the major draws of both the book and the movie is supposed to be the intense sexual tension between Bella and Edward. It’s unfortunate, then, that the sexual tension in this movie is absolutely nil. Even the scene involving Edward, Bella’s bedroom, and Bella without pants is oddly sexless, and the eventual kiss is marred by Edward’s bizarre insistence on Bella remaining absolutely still. Bella thinks a great deal about Edward and Edward stares at Bella much too often, but the sense of tension, of pent-up longing, is somehow lacking. It is probably a common and possibly an understandable desire, to be loved to distraction; I’m even willing to concede that in the context of fiction, stalking can be construed as a form of love — it’s a matter of devotion, of his unwillingness to spend even one unnecessary moment away from the object of his affections. But at least some of the fans of Twilight don’t seem to be able to draw the line between fiction and reality. Take the following excerpt from an interview conducted by Kim Linekin of MSN Entertainment with two fans of Twilight, Jolene and her daughter Soleil. “Would you let your daughter date a guy like Edward? “Jolene: I wouldn’t take issue with Soleil dating someone like Edward. I know many people view Edward’s behavior toward Bella as stalker-like, but I don’t agree. Edward watches Bella sleep to get insight into what makes her tick. He doesn’t sleep himself, so how else is he supposed to while away the hours? His heart and intentions are pure. Therefore, so are his actions.” A multitude of minor objections immediately spring to mind: can you really get insight into what makes anyone tick by watching them sleep? Hasn’t Edward had about a hundred
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Where Troubles Melt Like Lemon Drops Baz Luhrmann’s Australia is too big for its britches. By CAROLINE CORBITT
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LUHRMANN’S AUSTRALIA IS A GOOD old-fashioned epic, bursting with rousing music, bright explosions, and handsome leads. The problem is that the good oldfashioned epic doesn’t quite strike the right note in this post-9/11 age. If a movie is not a keen satire or a “geopolitical thriller,” it is a depressing exploration of the loneliness of life (see The Dark Knight and Casino Royale). There’s something ridiculous about a grand movie that takes its meaningful moral seriously — ridiculousness heightened by the fact that few filmmakers, Luhrmann included, are able to approach the epic with a figurative straight face. Australia opens with a message about the “stolen generations” of partAboriginal, part-white children who were forcibly taken from their families to be raised by missionaries. We are also informed that Australia is the continent of “adventure and romance.” The logical conclusion would be that the movie is an adventure and romance concerning these stolen generations. It is, but it isn’t. Luhrmann seems to aspire to capture a time, a place, and a timeless romance in the vein of Out of Africa, a very serious film from 1985 starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. But the liaison between a buttoned-up English aristocrat, Lady Sarah Ashley, and a shirt-optional cattle drover, known simply as the Drover, doesn’t come near the gravitas of doomed love in colonial Kenya. Lady Ashley (Nicole Kidman) travels to Australia to ensure the sale of her AZ
husband’s failing cattle ranch, Faraway Downs. The Lord Ashley isn’t in the picture for very long, and Lady Ashley falls in love with the land and the Drover, who is played by the suitably hunky Hugh Jackman.
1,500 head of cattle to the costal city of Darwin and obtain an army contract that will save Faraway Downs. Joining her on this crazy caper is a ragtag group of makeshift drovers, including the Drover himself, an alcoholic
MOVIE REVIEW Australia
Pretentious scrolling text aside, the first hour or so of Australia is delightful — kitschy, hokey, and good fun. Kidman brings zaniness, verve, and heart to Lady Ashley, who is a strong and sympathetic female protagonist. Though she unwisely brings a dozen or so suitcases to the outback, Lady Ashley is astute enough to realize that the true problem on the ranch is the villainous overseer Neil Fletcher (David Wenham). She resolves to drove
accountant, and an illegitimate halfAboriginal boy named Nullah (Brandon Walters). Lady Ashley becomes a mother to Nullah, overcoming her normal reticence enough to sing to him about another magical land called Oz that’s “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” By the time the crew reaches Darwin, it seems certain that Luhrmann intended Australia to be a feel-good Western homage-slash-parody. The expected affair
can begin, though it’s not as scorching hot as one might hope; the tween flick Twilight, released the same weekend, is far steamier. The plight of the stolen generations has been somewhat explored through the character of Nullah, and the audience may even have learned something about that land of adventure and romance known as Australia. But Luhrmann still has another hour or so of story to tell, involving the bombing of Darwin by the Japanese in 1939 (and a lot more about those stolen generations). What has been a hooky film turns “meaningful,” and it is apparent that Luhrmann is trying to make an epic — and that he perhaps meant to be meaningful all along. The problem is that it’s too late too make this shift, and that Luhrmann, despite his obvious desire to tell the great Australian saga, is too quirky a filmmaker to pull off such a grandiose project. (One might point to his critically acclaimed adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, but to that I say that it’s hard to mess up Shakespeare.) Australia is an entertaining movie, funny and occasionally moving. The soundtrack is excellent, and there are a few moments of great visual power. It is also a movie that Luhrmann takes very seriously. You may find it hard to do the same. Caroline Corbitt ‘09 ( corbitt@fas ) suggests that Luhrmann consider making a sequel, Tasmania.
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years to figure out how to while away the hours? But the most important one is more serious. Edward is the romantic hero, so by the rules of such things he can’t possibly mean harm to Bella. It is only because Twilight is fiction that we can know that “his heart and intentions are pure.” But in real life, the thoughts of others are completely opaque except as revealed through their actions — and seen from the outside, Edward’s actions are inexplicable unless he is a stalker. There are plenty of people I would happily invite into my house, but that doesn’t mean I would be fine with them breaking in; if you find that a stranger has broken into your daughter’s bedroom, his declaration of obsessive love for her is the furthest thing from reassuring.
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If Soleil and girls like her enjoy imagining themselves in Bella’s place, that’s wonderful; if Twilight is a book that mothers and daughters can share, that’s great; but the fact is that dating a guy like Edward in real life would be, in the best case scenario, a brief mistake ending with a call to the police. Here’s the thing: I most certainly don’t think that all entertainment should portray only good people and healthy relationships. That would be stupefyingly boring. So Edward and Bella can have their immortal love, Jason Bourne can kill one man after another and look damn cool doing it, and the Joker and the moral black hole he carries around can mesmerize. But these things are fiction, and the separation between fiction and reality needs to
be acknowledged. Fortunately, if you haven’t already been sucked in by the books, you’re probably safe from joining Edward’s screaming mob of fans. The truth is, I found myself drawn in by Twilight, in much the same way as one is drawn in by a train wreck — a train wreck with tragic sparkles. So go on, see it, have a good snicker or two, and join me in pondering the one really burning question raised by the movie — why, why, why is Bella wearing leggings under her prom dress? Faith Zhang ’11 (fhzhang@fas) would mock her sparkly vampire boyfriend forever.
12.11.08 s The Harvard Independent
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More Pain, Less Gain As kids compete at higher levels, injuries increase. By RIVA RILEY
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N RECENT YEARS, THE RATE AND SEVERITY
of injuries among young athletes has increased markedly. Of the 30 million children who participate in organized athletics, over 3.5 million will suffer some form of injury, and almost all of these injuries could be prevented with simple measures if the coaches, parents, and officials in charge of youth sports were educated about them, according to Stanford’s Children’s hospital. Part of the cause of the upsurge in injuries is the increased intensity with which young athletes are expected to train and perform. The number of hours dedicated to training has skyrocketed in many sports, compelling children as young as eight and twelve years old to spend up to 24 hours a week practicing a single sport. This makes kids liable to a broader range of more severe injuries. There is always a risk of acute traumatic injuries that present immediate symptoms, and this risk rises the more time kids spend in training. The risk of overuse or chronic injuries also increases tremendously as kids spend too much time performing repetitive motions in activities that overtax growing bodies and even harm the development and growth of young athletes. Dr. Lyle Micheli, a leading expert in pediatric sports medicine who practices and performs research at the Boston Children’s hospital, notes that “individual sports carry a greater risk of overuse injuries” because individual sports like skating, gymnastics, and tennis can entail strenuous practice and match schedules. The solution to this dilemma seems very straightforward: restrict the training regimens of young athletes until they are physically mature enough for intense play. Often, however, the situation is more complicated.
The Harvard Independent s 12.11.08
According to Micheli, having a young “star” in the family can boost a family’s standing in their community, and the benefit to parents and siblings can cause pressure on sons and daughters to play well and maintain the social advantages that are directly related to their performance. As if the injury risks weren’t enough, these kids have to cope with familial pressure to excel in a sport they may not even like. Micheli recounted cases where pediatric patients viewed injuries as their only way out of a sport they had no desire to play. There is also a higher risk factor associated with regional recreational programs, according to both Micheli and the Stanford study. Coaches and trainers responsible for such programs often have no knowledge of vital techniques; many coaches of youth recreation programs do not even have comprehensive knowledge of the particulars of the sport at hand. The majority of youth sports organizations have no training programs for coaches, resulting in adult supervisors who are often unprepared to deal with accidents and injuries that can occur during practices and games. Because children are still developing, they are at a higher risk for many types of injuries and carry the added risk of incurring a growth plate injury. A growth plate injury can result from acute traumatic injuries or overuse injuries, and can impair growth and development of the injured area for the rest of a child’s life. In addition, children have a higher risk of suffering spinal injuries that could result in a permanent loss of mobility or even paralysis. Micheli described his experience treating concussion patients at a specialized clinic. When he first started the clinic, only a few people came in for consultation and treatment. “Now, there is standing room only in that clinic,” Micheli said.
SALLY RINEHART/Independent
Quick Facts 30 million children and teens participate in some form of organized sport each year. Almost one-third of all childhood injuries are sports-related. More than 3.5 million ages 14 and under are injured playing sports or participating in recreation every year. 21 percent of traumatic brain injuries among American children are caused by sports-related accidents. Brain injury is the leading cause of sports-related deaths. More than 775,000 children are treated in hospital emergency rooms for sportsrelated injuries each year. Most of the injuries occur as the result of falls, being struck by an object, collisions, and overexertion during unorganized or informal sports activities. The highest rates of injury occur in sports that involve contact and collisions. More severe injuries occur during individual, rather than team, sports and recreational activities. 62 percent of organized sports-related injuries occur during practice. Sources: National SAFE KIDS Campaign, AAP, and Stanford Children’s Hospital.
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indy news JAMES - WONG
FLORES - McLEOD We are running because the student body deserves a UC that is relevant and improves student life. We promise to be effective advocates for student issues ranging from alternative social space to centralized room reservations to a pass/ no record grade system freshman fall. To make these changes, though, Kia and I know we can’t do it alone. What sets our ticket apart is not just experience—it is a commitment to working with students to solve problems and leverage our collective power to make significant improvements on campus. The power to build new initiatives alongside the student community is key for the next UC leaders. We know that in the past, initiatives like Calendar Reform and Ad Board Reform gained traction because UC leaders worked effectively with students and brought their voices directly into the process. My experience as Finance Committee Chair, and Kia’s experience on and off the council, means that we will build on our strong student group relationships to get things done. We’re running for the UC because it’s time the council was an effective, transparent partner in improving student life. KOENIGS - PALMER To bring joy to Harvard children during this cold Christmas season.
KOENIGS - PALMER Small pets (including ant farms, gerbils, and puppies) should be permitted in the dorms.
We are running because we see a desperate need for change in the UC. “Fresh, New Ideas and a Commitment to Service” is our motto. The UC is wasting people’s time and input when it simply drafts resolutions and hands them to the Administrative bureacracy. SO much could be done if we just took the resouces that we have (35 members, 6000 students, 400+ student groups and $500,000) and came up with student-based solutions. It’s so simple and so easy, but reps just don’t think that way. So the UC needs a change of mentality or rather a different approach to progress.
Why are you running for UC? SCHWARTZ-BIGGERS We are running for the UC because we know what students want and how to get it. Through Ben’s advocacy experience on the UC and through Alneada’s experience as the President of the Association of Black Harvard Women, we have seen successful and unsuccessful advocacy and intimately know the issues that face students and student groups. Through our work on and off the Council, we have seen that the UC does not have a culture of getting things done for students; that’s why we don’t just have ideas, we have plans for action. The UC can deliver constant advocacy solutions for students, and with our concrete action plans it will.
What is your top priority for the UC going forward?
FLORES - McLEOD Our top priority is improving social life, with broadening academic options not far behind. We will work with the Office of Student Activities to guarantee access to the Cambridge Center for student groups and students from 10PM to 2AM every Friday and Saturday night during the school year and make it a standard social space. The space will be available to student groups at little to no cost to use for their parties and social events. The UC will partner in this initiative by working to fund food and alcoholic (provided there is a BAT team) or non-alcoholic beverages at these parties through the standard grants process. This will allow any group of students to easily throw a party or social event that requires space larger and more comfortable than a house suite. We will then work with the UC’s Finance Committee to develop and advertise funding opportunities for groups looking to hold their events at the Cambridge Center. It is our hope that by the beginning of the spring semester, this space will be available for use to student organizations. Adding to that, we believe that our
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financial expertise coming off FiCom will be an asset in working with the administration. In particular, as the University is fighting to cut costs in the coming fiscal year, we will push actively for ways to protect student activity funding. For example, we aim to help student groups defray costs associated with ticketing at the Harvard Box Office. By directing UC funding for certain events to the budget of the Student Events Fund, this will allow more students access to more tickets through the program than ever before. Our other top priority, improving academic options, involves rallying the campus around a pass/no record system applicable to all Harvard freshmen for their first semester at Harvard. Studies confirm that pass/no record gives freshman the necessary time to adapt to the academic expectations of Harvard-like courses and provides flexibility to explore multiple academic opportunities. MIT has successfully had this program for decades. Kia and I also hope to improve academic diversity. Working extensively with SAA, AAA, RAZA and other student organizations on this issue, we want to make sure that academic options reflect the diversity of interest in ethnic studies and other underrepresented fields on campus.
The Annual El
Candidates for UC President and Vice-P
Compiled by SCHWARTZ - BIGGERS There are two ways we would make the UC relevant. First of all, we’d deliver consistent advocacy solutions – once a month, not once a year—that make students’ lives better. When they see the UC as an effective organization that improves the quality of life at Harvard, they will be more likely to reach out with The UC Presidency and Vice-Presidency is a huge undertaking that we’re excited and prepared to take on. We understand the amount of time and responsibility that we will problems. Secondly, we will institutionalize regular meetings with student group presidents to talk about issues facing students. As a start, we’ll create a student group president email list so they can communicate about issues facing groups, just as Ben created for HoCo Chairs last year to better facilitate communication amongst the houses and issues that face HoCos.
JAMES - WONG Our top priority is AdBoard Reform. The report that comes out in February will detail a lot of overhaul changes however, 1. None of the changes will take place until at least the next school year. 2. Student-Faculty feedback cannot stop with the publication of this report. In the framework of our platform, we have a student-based solution to the problem as well as a plan for interfacing with the administration. On our end we can create student advisors to help students through the AdBoard process. This would be a person who has gone through the process before and can give advice and support to students currently in that situation. The administrative side would be understanding that this is as sensitive an issue for faculty as it is for student and coming to the table with open thoughts not an ultimatum SCHWARTZ - BIGGERS Going forward, our top priority is to create inclusive social space on campus. With the party fund’s abolition last year, the College lost a significant student social outlet. With College regulations that make student events prohibitively expensive, social opportunities are further stifled at Harvard. As UC President and Vice-President, we will make available alternative social spaces, like the Democracy Center at 45 Mt. Auburn St. and the Cambridge Center for Adult Education, for student events free of charge to groups. We will also continue to work with the administration to come to a compromise on a party fund that will work for students. We’re the only ticket that has taken action on the issue; Alneada has planned events at the Cambridge Center and Ben has coauthored legislation with Matt Sundquist and other student group leaders with proposals for alternative social space, reduced costs of HUPD details, and administrative support for events.
JAMES - WONG We will make the UC more relevant to students by giving them a say in every part of the process. We don’t just want your input, we will hold monthly town hall meetings where students can both speak and vote on legislation pertinent to the entire student body. In addition, student-based solutions require student to implement them. Our Administration will generate the most student participation on campus because students will have more opportunities to lead and serve.
How would you make the activities of the UC more relevant to average students? KOENIGS - PALMER N/A FLORES - McLEOD Kia and I believe the UC should work immediately on projects that affect students’ daily life: student group funding, room reservations, and party/common spaces. Time and time again, student groups are knocking at the door of the Undergraduate Council looking for feasible and sensible plans—I know with my past experience and proposed initiatives we can make the Council more relevant to the average student and the groups that serve them. As FiCom Chair, I have fought to make the Undergraduate Council a well-managed resource for students. Distributing a half a million dollars per year, the UC’s most important job is effectively funding student groups and projects on campus. The UC funds and supports Harvard organizations’ study breaks, events, and refreshments. Any future vision of the UC must maintain this role for the organization. More broadly, I hope to take what has worked in my time as chair and apply it to the UC as a whole. Students deserve representatives who reach out to them, solicit their opinion, and use the existing UC structure to lobby the administration on behalf of all students. This is what happened when I was involved in the calendar reform movement. Kia and I think that it’s time for the UC to re-engage students on major issues, leveraging student power to make a real difference once again.
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President field the Indy's questions.
y SAM JACK FLORES - McLEOD
The Ad Board has been too stressful and too unfair for too long—students deserve a judicial process that is neither intimidating nor closedoff. Kia and I wish to continue with the progress that the UC achieved this year in attaining a spot for President Matt Sundquist on the Ad Board Review committee through working to implement the proposed recommendations. The Ad Board is still largely opaque, but we will meet with administrators in University Hall as well as resident deans to discuss better ways to dispel fears and misconceptions concerning this body. For students, we promise to keep the doors to the process open, meaning frequent transparent discussions of where we are in the process, along with easy-to-access news online. We will hold open meetings on the ad board to continue to solicit student input, and collaborate with the administration to ensure that these suggestions reach fruition. Some of the largest issues that students have already brought to our attention, which we will discuss closely with the administration, include concerns that students are not allowed to appear before the Ad Board to plead their own case, that students have limited to no ability to choose their advocates before the Ad Board (usually a resident dean or assistant dean of freshmen who made the student appear before the Ad Board in the first place), that the entire process is confusing and inefficient, and that the stigma and secrecy attached to it exacerbates the problems.
How would you participate productively in the ongoing discussions about Ad Board reform? JAMES - WONG
We both understand the Ad Board process horoughly from both sides of the fence. We are niquely poised to tackle these types of issues ecause we bring our experience along with close elationships with deans. This, of course, is just n extension of our earlier response.
KOENIGS - PALMER N/A
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Current UC VicePresident Randall Sarafa ‘09 wrote at Universal Waste that “beingUCVicePresident requires at least 30-40 hours a week.” How will you balance commitment to the UC with academics and other activities? KOENIGS - PALMER We will stop studying. FLORES - McLEOD The UC has already been the first priority for both Andrea and Kia. Andrea has been dedicated to the UC Finance Committee, serving for three years, and is currently in her second term as chair. Kia, who is in her first year on the council, has served on the HRDC board and Leverett HoCo, but as her terms there expire, the UC remains her foremost commitment. Andrea and Kia aren’t just the only candidates running together with UC experience, but are fully dedicated—40 hours a week and all—to making the council work better for students.
SCHWARTZ - BIGGERS We have to represent students, but we also understand that one of the most dangerous things about the UC is its members’ tunnel vision. The UC needs to collaborate with other student groups, both to understand what students want and also to use student engagement to show the College these desires. In this vein, we will stay engaged in our smaller extracurricular commitments to ensure that we are not bogged down in the UC processes and can offer effective advocacy solutions for students. We both have the time to commit fully to the Council while also staying active in other facets of the Harvard community. Therefore we have the perfect balance of inside experience and commitment with outsider perspective.
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FLORES - McLEOD We hope that every student explores our platform and differences between this year’s UC candidates, and then takes a minute to vote online (you can do both at our website, www.studentstogether.com). The upcoming year presents us with a real opportunity to improve social, academic, and community life here at Harvard. Kia and I would sincerely appreciate your support not just this weekend, but as collaborators throughout the next year.
Anything you’d like to add?
JAMES - WONG The UC Presidency & Vice Presidency is a full time job. Hands down. It won’t just be our main thing. It will be our only thing. It has to take precedence over everything else at Harvard (yes, including classes). While it may come with some honor, the office comes with a great deal of sacrifice. And we have already made the commitment. 40-60 hours every week: we will be busting our butts for the UC.
SCHWARTZ - BIGGERS As the only ticket with significant advocacy experience and the perspective of having led a major student group on campus, we are the ticket that best understands what students want and how to get it. We will bring collaboration to our advocacy to ensure that Harvard College students’ collective voice is heard and that our interests are served. More importantly, we’re not just offering a wish list; we offer concrete plans for how we’ll get things done.
KOENIGS - PALMER Visit our website, HarvardHooligans. com, for more information about our campaign.
JAMES - WONG The UC produces very few tangible results because student ideas are written down and handed to the Administration, where they sit collecting dust for a few years. The UC has a wealth of resources and does not need the Administration to do everything for it, yet in 26 years, we haven’t learned from our biggest mistake. At the beggining of the year, the two of us polled 450 upperclassmen with the question “name any 3 things the UC talked about or did last year.” Of that number, less than 3% were able to respond with three things. Only a third were able to name just one. Though the UC does a terrible job of reaching out to students, most students don’t really even care because the UC brings little tangible change to their lives. Max and I want to change that. How? Studentbased solutions. Rather than always asking what the Administration can do for us, we should first ask ourselves “What can WE do to address this problem?”... THEN ask what the administration can do to alleviate this process. Student-based solutions to issues gives us immediate results. Let’s face it: the Administration is a purgatory for student ideas, but with a student based approach to change, we can see real change.
SCHWARTZ - BIGGERS We would like to continue with Matt Sundquist’s work on AdBoard reform. Matt has worked tirelessly on this issue, and when the recommendations are released in February, we will work equally hard to enact the changes that increase transparency. Having advocacy experience will be essential on this front to ensure that Matt’s work and the Dowling recommendations are not squandered. We need somebody who can hit the ground running, and Ben is the only candidate with the advocacy experience to do so.
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Predicting a Florida Victory Last week’s web special on the SEC championship game proved prescient. By DAN ALFINO
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8. 51. 63. 49. 42. 56. 70. 45. THESE are the points racked up by the No. 4 Florida Gators (11-1) in their last eight games. The No. 1 Alabama Crimson Tide (12-0) are up next for the Gators in the 2008 SEC Championship Game, and while this matchup is being touted as a national semi-final – the playoff system working incognito – it will undoubtedly host the two best teams in the country in arguably the most important SEC Championship game ever played. To the victors go an invitation to play in the BCS National Championship Game in Miami; to the losers go an invitation to the Sugar Bowl. Although the Tide should pose a much more formidable test to the Gators than any other team they have played this season, they are more than ready for the challenge. Immediately following their one-point loss to Ole Miss on September 27, QB Tim Tebow promised, “You have never seen any player in the entire country play as hard as I will play the rest of this season and you’ll never see someone push the rest of the team as hard as I will push everybody the rest of this season, and you’ll never see a team play harder than we will the rest of this season.” He has definitely proved true to his word. The Florida offense has crushed some of the best defenses in the country
on their way to eight straight lop-sided victories, including South Carolina and Kentucky (both of which were in the top 5 in total defense at the time Florida played them). Florida’s offense is hard to defend against because of its depth and speed. Head coach Urban Meyer boasts the fastest team in the country with twelve players on the team that run under a 4.4 40, seven of which are on offense. This speed is truly an asset for the Gators’ spread offense because when any of these players breaks a few tackles and makes his way into the secondary, he cannot be stopped, giving Florida a substantial big threat potential. After the Gators scored 5 touchdowns without conceding any points in the first half in its game with Vanderbilt, Vandy head coach Bobby Johnson remarked, “They run the ball extremely well inside. They run the ball extremely well outside. They run the option. They have an outstanding passing game. You try to defend all those things. It’s pretty tough to do.’’ Even without Percy Harvin, a “WR” who has over 500 receiving yards as well as over 500 rushing yards, Tebow can find receivers like WR Louis Murphy, TE Aaron Hernandez, and WR Deonte Thompson, and as for the rushing attack, there are three other backs with over
500 rushing yards, including Tebow himself. Whereas one year ago, Tebow was responsible for over 70 percent of all offensive plays, this year, speedy freshmen RBs Chris Rainey and Jeffrey Demps, in addition to USC transfer RB Emmanuel Moody, have greatly supplemented Tebow’s own contribution to Florida’s rushing offense. Florida’s defense has done its job, too. The Gators have the nation’s fourth best defense, giving up only 12.3 points per game and the best turnover ratio in the country at + 20. The defense has greatly improved from last year in its coverage of the passing game and has remained very strong against the run, which is the crux of Alabama’s offensive scheme. It is led by LB Brandon Spikes, DE Jermaine Cunningham, and interception magnet S Ahmad Black (6 already this year). On Saturday, this Florida team will be pitted against an Alabama team which has the best defense in the SEC and the 2nd best rushing offense (after Florida, of course), and thus maintaining the large margins of victory to which Florida fans have been accustomed lately might seem difficult. Alabama’s size and strength at the line have allowed RBs Glen Coffee and Mark Ingram to overpower most of the defenses that they have faced. In a consistent attack (6.2 yards per carry
and 5.4 yards per carry, respectively), Alabama has been able to march down the field in long, slow drives which eat up the game clock. By controlling the time of possession, Alabama has dominated its opponents; however, Florida has an unmatched ability to score lots of points in a short amount of time, and this threat will render Alabama’s game strategy ineffective. The combination of big play potential on offense, a pick-six-prone defense and “Beamer Ball” on special teams will power the Gators past Alabama. Their game against the South Carolina Gamecocks represents a case in point. Within 3 minutes, Florida scored three touchdowns thanks to an interception, a fumble recovery on special teams, and a quick scoring drive on offense. This Saturday will not be any different. Alabama will certainly be the toughest game that Florida will play this year, but they are more than capable of blowing out this Crimson Tide team just like every team it has played in the past two months. Note: This article originally appeared last Friday on HarvardIndependent.com. Dan Alfino ‘11 (dalfino@fas) is going to start betting on the stock market.
Post-Game Thoughts Wishful thinking and the Heisman. By HAO MENG
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SEC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME WAS A PHENOMENAL game, and as Dan correctly predicted, the Florida Gators won a close 31-20 game. There was enough offensive, defensive, and special teams flare to satisfy any college football fan’s appetite. Two quick thoughts from the game: Tim Tebow deserves the Heisman hands down. I don’t know how you don’t give the award to the man/ beast/superman who accounted for 76% of Florida’s
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offense (216 yards passing, 57 yards rushing) in its win over Alabama. Sure, his numbers are down from last year, but he’s the most crucial player on the best team in the country, and in my book, that defines a Heisman Award Winner. I want to see a rematch between Florida and Alabama in the BCS Championship Game. I realize I’m being irrational, but it doesn’t get much better than college football in the Deep South. Georgia
coach, Mark Richt, concurs, as he was the only coach in college football who voted for an Alabama-Florida re-match. I mean, when your team (ranked #1 in the preseason) gets crushed by Alabama 41-30 and Florida 49-10, you learn something. Hao Meng '11 (haomeng@fas) byline byline byline two-line byline.
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The Injustices of the BCS Without playoffs, the best teams never get the chance to prove their prowess. By ANDREW RIST
I
’VE GROWN ACCUSTOMED TO THE FACT THAT the world is an unjust place. Hell, if the world were fair, we would be saying goodbye to President Gore in a month. I had thought that sports was different, because it was a closed system, so rule violators could be punished and rules fairly enforced. Sure, misfortunes still exist in sports, such as injuries to key players that tank seasons, a wicked wind blowing a potentially game-winning field goal off course, and Bobby Petrino. Yet, I thought the real injustices that anyone could do anything about were not tolerated. Boy, I was wrong. A team that I wholeheartedly believe is this year’s best team in college football has been relegated to the Fiesta Bowl, where they will inevitably crush Terrelle Pryor and the hapless Buckeyes. I will admit that I am a Texas fan, but that doesn’t mean my argument should be dismissed out of hand. I have plenty of evidence to back me up and, what’s better, the truth. There are two ways to rank teams; you can rank them predictively, guessing at who would win on a neutral field, which is what you see in power polls and in most voters in the human polls. One can also rank retrodictively, taking a look at what the teams have accomplished (their resume) and ranking them accordingly. I want to make an argument that Texas is better than both Oklahoma and Florida by a retrodictive standard and that Texas is also better than Oklahoma by a predictive standard. The latter argument is easy to make, because Texas played Oklahoma on a neutral field in October and won 4535. This is why I won’t make a similar argument against Florida, since it would be impossible to know for sure. Sooner fans and idiots like Barry Switzer will argue that Oklahoma is a lot better now than they were in October, since Oklahoma is now blowing teams out. Indeed, they were blowing teams out to start the season as well, up until they met Texas in Dallas, and afterwards as well. I have no doubt then, that Oklahoma can blow out bad teams and can run up the score to look like they crushed teams, when in fact they won a close game (see: Oklahoma vs. Oklahoma State where they pushed in a touchdown with 25 seconds left when they should have been kneeling the ball, making the final margin look bigger than it should have been). Texas and Oklahoma have the same record, and Texas beat OU The Harvard Independent s
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on a neutral field. Case closed. From a retrodictive point of view, Texas has the best resume in the country. In a four-week stretch they beat Oklahoma, who was then #1 and is also #1 now, by a convincing margin. The next week they blew out Missouri (56-21), the #11 team at the time, and then defeated the then #6, undefeated Oklahoma State. In the final week of their murderer’s row, Texas, suffering from several key injuries (to Bednarik award winner Brian Orakpo and Biletnikoff semi-finalist Quan Cosby), fell behind to Texas Tech in the first quarter, before launching an amazing comeback that brought them from over 20 points down to a 1 point lead. Unfortunately, they left too much time on the clock and the then undefeated #7 Red Raiders made the most of their opportunity after a Texas safety dropped an interception that would have sealed a Texas win and a likely undefeated regular season. Let’s first compare Texas’s resume with Florida’s. Both have their best win over a team, which was #1 at the time, Texas over Oklahoma and Florida over Alabama, but Oklahoma is still #1. Florida’s other wins of value were blowouts over LSU, Georgia, and Florida State, but LSU and Georgia have faded down the stretch, losing to Ole Miss and Arkansas, and Georgia Tech, respectively, while Florida State is in the ACC, so any success they’ve had is automatically subject to suspicion. Texas’s other respectable wins were over Oklahoma State and Missouri. It’s also important that we compare the teams’ losses. Texas lost to the #7 team in the nation on the road on a touchdown that came literally at the last second. Florida lost to an unranked team at home. Advantage Texas. Oklahoma played a lot of the same teams as Texas did, since they are in the same conference, so we can compare scores. Oklahoma beat Texas Tech, though they got them at home in Norman, and the Raiders are a different team on the road. Oklahoma beat Oklahoma State in Stillwater by 20, but as I pointed out before, part of that margin was Bob Stoops running up the score, while Texas beat them by 4 in Austin. So let’s look at some other games. Texas beat Kansas in Lawrence 35-7, while the Sooners beat them in Norman 45-31. Not only did Texas nearly shut out the Jayhawks on their own field, but their margin of victory was greater than that of the Sooners.
Oklahoma beat Texas A&M 66-28 (by 38), while the Longhorns beat the Aggies by a higher margin (49-9). The key to Oklahoma’s case for a higher rankings was that their schedule in conference was just as hard as Texas, and that their out-of-conference schedule was harder. I want to refute both of these arguments. Though they mostly played the same conference opponents, Texas had to play all of the toughest teams in the Big XII in four straight weeks, while Oklahoma got Texas near the beginning of their schedule and Texas Tech and Oklahoma State near the end. As for the out of conference schedule, Oklahoma claims wins over TCU and Cincinnati make their out of conference schedule better, but, aside from the fact that TCU plays in a cruddy conference where they split games with the only two teams in the league that were worth anything and Cincinnati plays in the Big East, the joke of the BCS conferences, Oklahoma leaves out the FCS (formerly I-AA) team they played along with Washington, who could very well be an FCS team, after they lost out to Washington State for most pitiful BCS conference team, with an 0-12 record. Texas’s out of conference schedule may have been nothing to scoff at, but it was consistent. They played Florida Atlantic, who are near the top of the Sun Belt conference, Rice, who nearly made it to the Conference USA championship game, UTEP, and Arkansas, who would have had a winning record in an easier
conference, but still notched wins over Auburn and LSU in their first year under Bobby Petrino. With all other things nearly equal, the measure of resumes has to come down to the head to head matchup. Advantage Texas. For those of you who were able to wade through that dense justification, I hope you were convinced that Texas is the best team in the country. The fact is, however, I shouldn’t have to be persuading you in the first place. This should be settled on the field. If the BCS is going to take Oklahoma over Texas, then a playoff is the only option. Even if the BCS creates just results in situations where the just result is obvious, its perpetuation will only cause more injustice, especially since the 12 game schedule has made it harder for major-conference teams to go undefeated, and you rarely find only two teams with only one loss. A month or so ago, I made a rational argument for a playoff in college football. Today I want to make an emotional plea. Stop injustice in whatever way you can. Give the Texases of the world the right to prove that they are in fact the best team in the country. Even if they happen to have lost more recently than Oklahoma or Florida, they are still the best. Justice is more important than student-athletes missing classes. It’s not like they actually go to class anyway. Andrew Rist ’11 (arist@fas) will miss all his classes just to prove that Texas is better than Oklahoma and Florida.
sports@harvardindependent.com
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Go Forth and Schism
Religious splits can be good for free thinkers and, ultimately, for everyone. By SAM JACK
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CHISM .
I T ’ S A WORD THAT SOUNDS unpleasant, probably by design. It evokes images of inquisitions, heretics burning, art whitewashed and destroyed. “I beseech you, brethren”, Paul wrote in his Biblical letter to the Corinthians, “. . . that there be no schisms among you; but that you be perfect in the same mind, and in the same judgment.” Things haven’t turned out the way Paul wanted; not even close. The history of Christianity, and indeed of all the large global religions, has been peppered with schisms major and minor, violent and nonviolent. Even as Christianity was formalizing its structure, in the centuries following the life of Jesus, groups such as the Marcionists, the Gnostics, and the Montanists were splintering off at a fairly good clip. The formulation of the Nicene Creed in 325 was a reaction to the constant flow of proposed gospels and beliefs, with a variety that, if unchecked, would have certainly reduced Christianity to incoherence. Admitting that a lot of ideas are floating around (and that it’s difficult to be sure which are right) was certainly not going to be a good enough foundation for the Christian religion. Hence the aggressiveness of campaigns throughout history to root out heresy and destroy the evidence of the same — usually in big bonfires, it seems. The impulse to feud over inconsequential (and, really, nonsensical) problems such
as whether or not there’s a purgatory, and whether the wine and bread of Eucharist is “transubstantiated” or “consubstantiated,” comes out of the same controlling impulse. Such problems, however insignificant, must be resolved one way or the other; no ambiguity or uncertainty is tolerable to people who believe they’ve been shown a “one, true path” by God. Disagreements on topics such as purgatory, the virgin birth, and the Eucharist still linger, but they don’t seem likely to cause any further major schisms. It is difficult to get parishioners too worked up about the difference between “transubstantiation” and “consubstantiation,” if you can even explain what the terms mean and why the distinction is important (good luck). Instead, such things get swept under the rug, into seminaries and divinity schools where scholars can debate them and write their considered opinions. Such maunderings never work there way down to the consciousness of the average church-goer. Most of the church-goers I know, if they even mention differences in the practices of various Christian groups, simply put it down to personal preference, and may be only dimly aware that the denominational divisions they are living with are the result of arcane theological differences in the distant past. The basic story is locked in, and it works for the vast majority of the Christian community: Jesus died for our sins, help
the poor, ask God for your soul to be saved, et cetera. Besides, nothing is ever going to disrupt the dense core of Christian belieft; every channel of engagement with hard fact has been plugged. No one will ever prove for a fact that, say, the Eastern Orthodox Church is going about Communion the wrong way, much less that any basic premises are incorrect, or correct. The few spots on the periphery of Christian doctrine where Christianity happens to be cross-wise to the real world are the only viable “trouble spots” for further schismatic activity. Science says that fetuses, up to a certain point in their process of division, lack the neural capacity to experience pain, and must certainly lack self-awareness. Many Christians, though, believe that fetuses possess “souls” from the moment of fertilization, and that the asserted sacred status of undivided stem cells outweighs the societal benefits of stem cell research, and the societal detriments of an abortion ban. Schisms both personal and organizational have resulted from disagreement on the issue. The divisions emerging in the Anglican Communion over the spiritual status of gay people seems now to have actually produced a schism in the United States; a group of conservative Episcopal bishops has declared that they are breaking away from the Episcopal Church, though they would like to remain in the Anglican Communion.
There’s been a lot of consternation over the schism in the United States, and potential for broader schism over the issue in the worldwide organization, but I say, if the division is going to happen, let it happen. One side acknowledges the emerging science and the lived experience of millions of people, and concludes that sexual orientation is not a choice, and that God would have to be very odd in his practices indeed to give a whole group of people no choice but to “sin,” or else be miserable. The other simply does not. We’ll see which side wins in the long term. This isn’t like transubstantiation and consubstantiation; this issue has real consequences for real people, and all that preventing schism in the Anglican Communion will do is keep the issue swept under the rug for the sake of people’s comfort, on both sides. Since no one is suggesting that an Anglican Civil War is about to erupt, there is no reason that the two sides shouldn’t battle it out in the marketplace of ideas. I’m not saying that the fight for religious acceptance won’t be hard or long — we’re still working on evolution, for crying out loud — but barring technological and cultural setbacks, the long-term result seems inevitable. Religion has come a long way on the whole slavery thing, after all. Sam Jack ‘11 (sjack@fas) notes that the existence of the Harvard Independent is the result of a more secular schism.
A Minnesota Christmas
The Coleman and Franken campaigns are both getting nothing but coal in their stockings. By MARKUS KOLIC
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HE HOLIDAY SEASON CAN BE TOUGH ON A
lot of people. There’s the homeless and destitute, who spend the weeks before Christmas wandering frigid city streets begging for scraps. There’s the recently widowed and orphaned or the perennially lonely, who are reminded of their tragic loss by every bright-eyed TV commercial. And there’s the woeful college student, who as Christmas break approaches must trade his lifestyle of total irresponsibility and hedonism for one of marginally less irresponsibility, enduring days or even weeks of caring family hospitality and delicious homemade food. The horror. But all of those ashen-faced holiday sad-sacks can take heart this Christmas season, because today at least, there’s one group in America suffering more greatly than they; no matter how joyless or heartsick your Christmas might be, you can still take comfort in the
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fact that you don’t work for the Al Franken or Norm Coleman campaigns. Can you imagine? Maybe you can’t, because you have never heard of these men. The backstory is this: Coleman, a generic Republican U.S. Senator representing one of the country’s most idiosyncratically liberal states, faced a challenge from comedian and author Al Franken. Despite widespread skepticism, and an increasingly bizarre series of attacks over obscene things he’d written for Saturday Night Live decades earlier, Franken pulled even in the polls. As the Obama wave crested on November 4, Minnesotans watched with anxiety to learn who they’d elected to the Senate. And the answer appears to be: nobody. They’re still counting. Over a month later, they’re still counting. And recounting. And challenging and debating and suing. Everyone else in the world has long since
come down from the 2008 election high; but not Minnesota. Now, if you withdrawalstricken political junkies out there find that idea appealing, consider how stressful it must be for Minnesota’s campaign community. Organizers across the country, especially on the Democratic side, spent unbelievable amounts of time and energy on this campaign. Innumerable young people put their friends and family aside, traveling long distances to unimaginably obscure places, in hopes of electing their chosen candidates. Now, whether they won or lost, at least these people have closure in their lives; Franken and Coleman partisans still wake up every morning in a cold sweat, wondering whether today is finally their blessed day. The statewide vote count vacillates unpredictably — Coleman by 120! Franken by 65! Coleman by three and a half votes! — and both sides find new ways, every time, to declare victory.
Lidiya Petrova/INDEPENDENT
It’s an emotional rollercoaster even for the casual observer; the campaign staff must be on the verge of PTSD by now. It’d be better, I guess, if this ongoing recount wasn’t so completely bonkers. There have been a lot of wild recounts in American history, to be sure — but most of them happened in the 19th century, involved like a total of five votes all from white landowners with thick sideburns, and were settled by a gentlemanly round of fisticuffs. The paradigm, since then, has changed a little. (Although — I’d love to watch Norm Coleman and Al Franken fight for their Senate seat. Jesse Ventura could referee!) It’s the age of mass democracy now, and people vote by the millions on high-minded
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The Uncertain Lessons of the MySpace Suicide The creator of a deadly online hoax deserves justice, but her conviction raises unsettling questions. By ADAM HALLOWELL
H
ARD CASES MAKE BAD LAW.
IT IS HARD TO look at pictures of Lori Drew at her recent trial and not see a killer — because that is what she is. Drew surely deserves to suffer for her shocking role in the “cyberbullying” of a 13-year-old girl who committed suicide in 2006. But her conviction two weeks ago under federal computer crime laws sets an unwelcome precedent for Internet users everywhere. Moreover, when taken together with Drew’s heinous actions, the case raises unsettling issues for parents everywhere. Megan Meier was a middle-schooler in Dardenne Prairie, Missouri, described by her family as “bubbly” but shy and sensitive. Megan had been friends with classmate Sarah Drew, who lived down the street, but in the spring of 2006 they had a falling out. That fall, Sarah and her mother Lori launched a vicious online hoax carefully designed to prey on Megan’s insecurities. Together with her daughter and Ashley Grills, an 18-year-old family friend brought in as a macabre sort of consultant, Lori Drew created a MySpace account for “Josh Evans,” a fictitious 16-year-old boy from a neighboring city. When “Josh” contacted Megan, the eighth-grader fell for him instantly, and the two began exchanging messages through MySpace. Meier’s parents, suspicious that “Josh” never called Megan or offered to meet in person, nevertheless welcomed the online romance and Megan’s improved spirits. But on October 15, 2006, “Josh” turned on Megan, saying he’d heard she was not nice to her friends. His insults posted on her MySpace page prompted online teasing from other acquaintances. The next day, “Josh” sent a final message (allegedly written by Grills) saying that “The world would be a better place without you.” Distraught, Megan hanged herself in her bedroom closet. Christina and Ronald Meier learned the
truth about the hoax six weeks after their daughter’s death, and the story spurred nationwide outrage against the Drews when it finally broke publicly in November 2007. Prosecutors in St. Louis said no local laws were broken, but in May 2008 attorneys in Los Angeles, where MySpace’s servers are located, charged Lori Drew in federal court. Two weeks ago, the federal jury reached its verdict, deadlocking on a criminal conspiracy charge but convicting Drew of illegally accessing a protected computer (though it reduced those charges from felonies to misdemeanors). No one can hear Megan Meier’s story without feeling overwhelming sympathy for her and her parents. But, utterly reprehensible though the Drews’ actions are, their prosecution may lead to unintended consequences which hurt the web itself. Lori Drew was convicted of breaking a 1986 federal law which outlaws “accessing a computer without authorization” — a charge which matches activities like hacking much more easily than what happened here. According to prosecutors, the hoax had involved “unauthorized access” because Drew violated MySpace’s Terms of Service by creating a fake account. Drew wasn’t trying to download private information from the MySpace servers; her scheme was a local one which simply happened to involve a website based on those servers (To use a low-tech analogy, if Drew had sent fake letters from “Josh,” she wouldn’t be guilty of mail fraud). Under the government’s theory, violating Internet user agreements becomes a prosecutable crime. Defense attorneys’ response that people tend not to read the Terms of Service is a decent point — but a better one is that such violations happen all the time, usually with negligible harm done. Most Terms of Service violations, even fake
profiles, don’t hurt anyone (I’m thinking of the Pfoho Pfolar Bear’s Facebook account). Beyond that, the chance of prosecution would lead many people to think twice before doing things they now do casually online, for fear of violating the fine print of user agreements. Such agreements are simply contracts, private agreements between two people or corporations, which changes the complexion of the Lori Drew case. That’s because governments shouldn’t be in the business of trying to protect all contracts from ever being broken. As legal economists know, sometimes it’s efficient to break contracts if the harm (to both sides) from doing so is less than the cost of abiding by it. The penalty for breach of contract should be (and generally is) damages specified in the contract or in a civil suit, not criminal charges and prison time. The flip side of this is that MySpace can and should sue Lori Drew for all she’s worth. The website has certainly suffered bad publicity and perhaps business losses due to the news of Megan’s death, and MySpace doesn’t want a reputation for letting malicious predators lurk on its pages with impunity. Suing Drew would save Internet law from the current case’s cramping implications while still ensuring justice for this shockingly evil woman. The MySpace hoax is a disturbing enough episode in its entirety, but looking at the two halves of the story in isolation yields an even more chilling perspective. Megan Meier killed herself over a spate of online teasing instigated by a boy she’d opened herself up to despite never meeting in person or even speaking to him. This raises questions about our increasingly computer-based culture: what is lost when normal socialization gets rerouted onto the Internet, and how can we get those missing pieces back? For her own part, Lori Drew could not have
known Megan would commit suicide (which is why the jury tossed out the conspiracy charge). Yet this doesn’t reduce the maliciousness of her plot; in some sense, it almost increases it. What, exactly, was the goal of her hoax? Getting revenge on Megan for slighting her daughter? Sharing a laugh with sadistic friends? Earning Sarah Drew a reputation as a girl to be nice to — or else? Her elaborate scheme is out of all proportion to such nebulous goals, making it all the more unsettling. Lori Drew is a frightening caricature of a “helicopter parent,” someone who hovers around trying to eliminate all obstacles for his or her children. Many undergrads can probably claim personal experience of this distinctly 21st-century concept, but its most distorting effects occur early in childhood. It is really important for young kids to learn that they can’t achieve fantasies like never losing friends — or carrying out brutal revenge plots on friends they do lose. Many aspects of modern society are designed to shield children from any unpleasantness whatsoever. The Megan Meier case is now an extreme example of the damage that attitude can cause. These two conclusions are somewhat in conflict with each other: parents must thread a fine line between leaving kids to navigate an often hostile web on their own and “helicoptering” over them. Lori Drew led an innocent girl to take her own life, and for that she deserves the harshest sentence possible — within a legal framework that makes sense for the online community at large. But Megan Meier’s death raises difficult questions about the Internet and about parenting for the rest of us to ponder.
So I ask you: if you’re in the Twin Cities this holiday season, and you see a glassyeyed Dickensian wretch wandering the streets with a telltale campaign sticker on his lapel, don’t be afraid. Go right up and give him a big hug, and maybe a morsel of bread to eat. Sing him a soothing Christmas carol, preferably a good one like “Frosty the Snowman” and not an annoying one like “Little Drummer Boy,” because these people are likely to be kind of high-strung and a little violent.
Just do something — because for those of us who are privileged enough to know who both our senators are, in this season of charity and hope, a smiling gesture and a pat on the head for the godforsaken politicos of frozen Minnesota is really the best gift we can give.
Adam Hallowell ’09 (ahallow@fas) doesn’t have a MySpace page, and writing this article hasn’t made it any more likely that he’ll get one.
CONTESTED BALLOTS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10 ideological terms; so, much like in the Florida debacle of 2000, it’s really jarring to see our grand democratic experiment reduced to retirees fiddling endlessly with scraps of paper. And in Minnesota, after Al Franken fought so hard to shed his comedic background and take on an air of senatorial gravitas, it must be maddening to see his election decided by — this is true — whether or not a ballot is invalid because it says “LIZARD PEOPLE” on all the write-in lines. (You can see this, and other questionable
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ballots, at the website of Minnesota Public Radio.) What a purgatory Minnesota will be this Christmas! If the lawsuits go as predicted — and they will, if that Minneapolis precinct doesn’t find those 133 ballots it mysteriously “lost” — this thing could go on well into January, or worse, be kicked upstairs to the U.S. Senate for an inevitably arbitrary and partisan final decision. Meanwhile, the poor unfortunates in the Franken and Coleman camps will continue to suffer.
Markus Kolic ‘09 (mkolic@fas) thinks that in the event of a tie “Lizard People” should be declared the winners.
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The Night Before Christmas By CLEMENT CLARKE MOORE
‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof The prancing and pawing of each little hoof. As I drew in my head, and was turning around, Down the chimney St Nicholas came with a bound.
The children were nestled all snug in their beds, While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads. And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap, Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot, And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot. A bundle of Toys he had flung on his back, And he looked like a peddler, just opening his pack.
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash, Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash. The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below. When, what to my wondering eyes should appear, But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer.
His eyes — how they twinkled! his dimples how merry! His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry! His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow, And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow. The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath. He had a broad face and a little round belly, That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly!
With a little old driver, so lively and quick, I knew in a moment it must be St Nick. He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf, More rapid than eagles his coursers they came, And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself! And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by A wink of his eye and a twist of his head, name! Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread. "Now Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen! On, Comet! On, Cupid! on, on Donner and Blitzen! To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall! Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!"
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work, And filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk. And laying his finger aside of his nose, And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose!
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky. So up to the house-top the coursers they flew, With the sleigh full of Toys, and St Nicholas too.
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle, And away they all flew like the down of a thistle. But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he drove out of sight, "Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!"