The Justice, January 26, 2010

SPORTS PAGE 16

EDITORIAL

FORUM PAGE 10

HOME SPLITS

RETHINKING ACADEMIC CUTS THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER

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Justice www.theJusticeOnline.com

Volume LXII, Number 16

Waltham, Mass.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

ACADEMICS

Search firm to be chosen by February

Academic programs to face cuts

■ A candidate profile and

case statement will be presented to the student and faculty advisory committees

by March.

■ The newly created

Brandeis 2020 Committee will look at phasing out weak or inferior programs.

By MIRANDA NEUBAUER JUSTICE SENIOR WRITER

The Brandeis 2020 Committee, an expanded version of the Curriculum and Academic Restructuring Steering committee, will examine which academic programs constitute the University’s strengths and which are of lesser importance or inferior quality, Board of Trustees member Meyer Koplow ’72 and Dean of Arts and Sciences Adam Jaffe said last Wednesday after a special facul-

ty meeting. These programs would be considered for termination as part of the resolution of the University’s long-term budget challenges, said Koplow and Jaffe.

“To be concrete, what we’re talking about are academic programs that would be phased out,” Jaffe said. “That might not save money for a while, but eventually, as faculty do retire and departments are reconfigured, that means that that’s a need in the curriculum that will not have to be met.” Both he and Koplow emphasized that a student pursuing a major chosen for elimination would still be able to complete the degree. Koplow said he told faculty at the meeting that cuts to the academy would be just one of many components to solving the budget challenge “and quite possi-

bly the smallest of them.”

Jaffe explained that the new committee’s mission differed significantly from that of the CARS committee formed last winter to respond to the University’s plan to increase the undergraduate student body by 12 percent and decrease the Arts and Sciences faculty by 10 percent. He said that a key factor in reconsidering the University’s budget challenge was the realization that the amount of time it would take to implement the faculty reduction through attrition was greater than expected.

The CARS report stated that “if a point came where non-trivial costs were necessary to maintain [Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Language and Linguistics, Internet Studies, Peace and Conflict Studies

and History of Ideas], we would recommend that their termination be seriously considered.”

The committee, chaired by Jaffe, is composed of members of the original CARS committee, the Dean’s Curriculum Committee, the faculty representatives to the Board of Trustees and the chair of the Faculty Budget Committee. The committee is expected to report to the Board of Trustees March 23.

Koplow added that the Board and the University were looking at other ways to increase revenue. Koplow stated that the International Business School and the Heller School for Social Policy and Management would play one important role in this regard and that the

See CUTS, 5 ☛

By NASHRAH RAHMAN JUSTICE EDITOR

The Presidential Search Committee expects to select a search firm by the end of this month and to present a candidate profile and case statement, a document detailing the University’s “goals and aspirations for a new president,” to the advisory committees

by March, according to the newly launched Presidential Search Web site.

“Successful presidential searches don’t sit back and wait for applications to pour in. What a search firm does is help identify a lot of people who don’t know yet that they really would like to be president at Brandeis,” Chair of the Presidential Search Committee Meyer Koplow ’72 said in a press conference with the Justice and The Hoot.

Koplow also explained that the search firm will be involved in conducting background checks on candidates through interviews to “make sure that there aren’t any hidden issue[s]” that may result in an unsuccessful presidency. “[The Presidential Search Committee] intend[s] for the ‘searching’ part of our effort to begin by March,” according to the Web site. “[Presidential search firms] all cost about the same, … which is about a third of the first-year compensation for president,” Koplow said. He did not specify if the search committee was considering a particular search firm.

The Presidential Search Committee, Faculty Advisory Committee and Student Advisory Committee were created after University President Jehuda Reinharz announced his intention to resign in a Sept. 24 e-mail to the Brandeis community.

Reinharz will remain president until a new president has been selected or until June 30, 2011, according to a Sept. 24 University

See SEARCH, 5 ☛

INTERPRETING THE CONSTITUTION

ASHER KRELL/the Justice

IN RE DIANA ARONIN: Chief justice Judah Marans (second from right) speaks during Sunday’s hearing on the impeachment of Student Union Secretary Diana Aronin.

Oral arguments presented during impeachment trial ■ The Union Judiciary heard

arguments regarding the impeachment of Union Secretary Diana Aronin for failing to submit a referendum to students.

By EMILY KRAUS JUSTICE EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

The Union Judiciary heard oral arguments in the case In re Diana Aronin on Jan. 24 during a public hearing. The arguments were about whether Student Union Secretary Diana Aronin ’11, who

was impeached by the Union Senate on Dec. 5, should be removed from office.

The Senate impeached Aronin for failing to present a constitutional amendment that proposed creating the position of midyear senator to the student body for a vote. Union President Andy Hogan

’11 was censured for recommending that Aronin not submit the amendment to be voted upon.

Ryan Fanning ’11 represented the Student Union. His associate counsels, Jackie Saffir ’10 and Mark Trilling ’12, were not present at the trial. Aronin was represent-

See TRIAL, 5 ☛

Shoe designer

New music arrives

Housing changes

■ Brahm Wachter ’12 has talents for designing shoes.

■ The International Contemporary Ensemble will play a three-day residency.

■ Students who applied to study abroad can also choose to live in Ziv Quad next year.

FEATURES 9 For tips or info call Let your voice be heard!

Submit letters to the editor online (781) 736-6397 at www.thejusticeonline.com

INDEX

ARTS 19 ARTS SPORTS

17 16

EDITORIAL FEATURES

10 7

OPINION POLICE LOG

11 2

COMMENTARY

11

NEWS 3 COPYRIGHT 2010 FREE AT BRANDEIS. Call for home delivery.

2

TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 2010

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THE JUSTICE

NEWS AP BRIEF

POLICE LOG

Massachusetts immigration reforms in peril after Brown win

Medical Emergency

BOSTON —For months, immigrant advocacy groups like the Chelsea Collaborative and Berkshire Immigrant Center have been gearing up to push lawmakers on state and federal immigration reforms.

But after the historic election victory of Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate, those illusions may be evaporating.

“Many angry and frustrated voters, particularly those on the right, are clearly aligned with forces that oppose immigration reform,” said Paul Watanabe, a political science professor at University of Massachusetts at Boston. “They are vocal opponents of anything other than enforcement.”

Watanabe said it’s now doubtful that Patrick and state lawmakers will spend political capital pushing any controversial proposals in an election year shortly after Brown’s victory.

During his campaign, Brown said he opposed granting driver’s licenses and in-state tuition rates to illegal immigrants, ideas Patrick vowed to support in November after receiving recommendations from an advisory panel.

As a state senator, Brown also introduced legislation that would have required proof of citizenship or right to work in the U.S. for wage enforcement cases.

“His record is concerning,”' said Eva Millona, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrants and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, a group that represents 130 immigrant groups.”

But Brown’s positions excited conservative voters and won him endorsements and praise from national groups like Americans for Legal Immigration Political Action Committee, who hailed him for opposing “amnesty.”

It’s a dramatic shift from positions taken by his predecessor, the late Sen. Edward Kennedy.

After Brown’s victory over Democrat Martha Coakley, the Federation of American Immigration Reform sent out a statement arguing that Brown’s win showed even Massachusetts voters oppose some of Kennedy’s ideas on immigration and that it would be “suicide” for any politician to support certain reforms.

Massachusetts is home to around 1 million foreignborn residents, or 14 percent of the state’s population.

For their part, immigrant advocates in Massachusetts say they aren’t giving up on prospects for state and federal immigration reform.

But Millona acknowledged, after Brown’s win, “It makes it harder for us.”

Millona said despite the upcoming election, she still expects Patrick to keep his promise on reforms from an advisory panel report with 131 recommendations, which include suggestions for more English classes for Massachusetts immigrants and allowing undocumented students to pay in-state tuition.

The recommendations came more than a year after the governor sent the panel around the state to take public comment on immigration.

But Steve Kropper, co-director of the bipartisan Massachusetts Coalition for Immigration Reform, a group that opposes some reforms, said advocates can forget about some of those recommendations.

“We expect driver’s license and in-state tuition for illegal immigrants to be left behind in the dust,” said Kropper.

Carol Hardy-Fanta, director of the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy at UMass-Boston, said while politicians may balk on reform proposals in the near future, it’s unclear if immigrant voters and their advocates can sway state elections later.

Jan. 17—University Police received a call about an 18-year-old male vomiting and semi-alert in Usen Hall. University Police and BEMCo were requested. BEMCo treated the party on-scene with a signed refusal for further care.

Jan. 19—A caller reported that a female party was intoxicated.

University Police and BEMCo responded. The party was transported to the Newton-Wellesley Hospital.

Jan. 19—A party stated a 19year-old female at the Gosman Sports and Convocation Centerwas having difficulty breathing.

University Police and BEMCo responded. BEMCo treated the party with a signed refusal for further care.

Jan. 22—A party reported a laceration after he fell and hit his head in the Foster Mods. University Police and BEMCo responded. The party was treated on- scene with a signed refusal for

further care.

Jan. 23—University Police received a call that a female was passed out on the road next to Pomerantz Hall. The party was intoxicated and vomiting. University Police and BEMCo responded. The party was transported to the Newton-Wellesley Hospital.

Jan. 23—University Police received a report of an intoxicated female in the Foster Mods. University Police and BEMCo responded. BEMCo treated the party on-scene with a signed refusal for further care.

Jan. 23—BEMCo units called back to a previous call regarding an 18-year-old intoxicated male.

The party was treated and transported to the hospital for further care.

Larceny Jan. 16—A community member reported a fraud incident to the University Police Detective Bu-

reau. A report was compiled, and an investigation is set to follow.

Jan. 22—A party reported a personal property theft from a locker in the Gosman Sports and Convocation Center. University Police compiled a report.

Disturbance Jan. 16—A community advisor reported drug activity on the third floor of Scheffres Hall. University Police responded and confiscated the contraband.

University judicial charges will be sought.

Jan. 19—A caller reported that he was receiving harassing phone calls and violent threats. The party knocked on the caller’s door, but the caller did not answer. Units were sent to investigate, and University Police compiled a report on the incident.

Jan. 21—A faculty member reported being harassed by another faculty member in the Rabb Graduate Center. University Po-

The Justice welcomes submissions for errors that warrant correction or clarification. E-mail justeditor@ brandeis.edu.

theJustice The Justice is the independent student newspaper of Brandeis University. The Justice is published every Tuesday of the academic year with the exception of examination and vacation periods. Editor in chief office hours will be held Friday from 10 a.m. to noon in the Justice office this week. Editor in chief office hours are usually held every Wednesday from 1 to 2 p.m.

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Jan. 17—A party stated that his vehicle was struck while parked in the loading dock at Sherman Hall. The reporting party did not want to file a report.

Miscellaneous Jan. 15—A white male was reported to be breaking into a black BMW in South Residence Lot. University Police located the subject, but the subject’s girlfriend, a Brandeis student, had let him borrow her vehicle. All was reported to be in order.

Jan. 15—The University Police Detective Bureau has compiled a report regarding a faculty member’s concern about a former University student. An investigation is set to follow.

—compiled by Alana Abramson

Executive Board Web site to be launched shortly

A photo attribution in News last week was misrepresented. The photograph of Meyer Koplow ’72 is a file photo and was not taken in the week leading up to the publication of the issue. (Jan. 17, p. 1)

An article in Sports last week misidentified the NCAA division in which Lucia Capano ’11 qualified for regionals. Capano qualified for the NCAA Division III Regionals, not the Division II Regionals. (Jan. 17, p. 16)

Traffic

SENATE LOG

CORRECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS

An article in News last week incorrectly stated that a staff member contributed reporting for the article.

Emily Kraus did all the reporting for her article regarding the UJ Case; Erin Doniger did not contribute reporting. (Jan. 17, p. 5)

lice compiled a report on the incident, and an investigation is set to follow.

DAVIDA JUDELSON/the Justice

Job Hunt 101 Robert Molla III, the director of human resources at Unitarian Universalist Association, spoke to Brandeis students at Job Hunt 101. Molla provided attendees with successful interview and search techniques.

The Senate will have an up-and-running executive board Web site by the end of February break that students can use as a resource for Brandeis news, according to Director of Executive Affairs Sofya Bronshvayg ’11. Bronshvayg urged senators to create blogs where they can inform their constituents of relevant updates and receive questions from students.

Rick Sawyer, Dean of Student Life, has found a potential candidate to take over the Health Center Director position, reported Rosenthal Quad Senator Yakov Israel ’12.

Jessie Steinberg ’10, secured nonmedia representative to the Constitutional Review Committee, reported that the committee would be entering its heaviest discussions in the next four meetings, focusing on inefficiencies, financial issues and making the Constitution available to all students.

Ridgewood Quad Senator Beau Bonness ’11 reported that over 100 people are registered to participate in Communiversity, where undergraduates will be given an opportunity to teach other students about their special fields of interest.

Amy Mandel ’10, the senator for the Foster Mods, is looking into the cost of installing lighting for the Mods, in addition to exploring ways to plan more anti-stress events for Brandeis seniors.

Linda Li ’13, the senator for Massell Quad, asked the Senate for $355 to help fund the Winter Wonderland dance on Jan. 30, which is also funded by the Department of Community Living. All members of the class of 2013 are invited as a means of interacting with the incoming midyear class.

Andrea Ortega ‘13, senator for North Quad, reported that the Boston Intercollegiate Leadership Conference is to be held at Bentley University in February and requested that a group of senators go as representatives for Brandeis.

Senator for the Class of 2011 Michael Newborn updated the Senate on his plan to send out a survey to Brandeis students inquiring about their favorite places to visit in Boston so that he can create a guide for the student body. The Senate voted to charter the Cheese Club, which will inform the student body about different cheeses in different regions of the world.

—Fiona Lockyer

ANNOUNCEMENTS Beacon Hill Report JBS Information session Prof. Eileen McNamara (JOUR) and Alyssa Grinberg, the Justice Brandeis Semester manager, will provide information about the Beacon Hill Report, a summer Justice Brandeis Semester that enables students to experience journalism firsthand by covering the Massachusetts gubernatorial campaign and other pressing policy matters. Today from 4 to 5 p.m. in Shapiro Campus Center 313.

Study Abroad Information session The Office of Study Abroad is providing an information session for students to help navigate the Study Abroad application process. Attending an information session is mandatory for students who want to study abroad for a semester or a year.

Wednesday from 4 to 5 p.m. in the Usdan Student Center 122.

Waltham Group Recruitment Night The coordinators from the 17 different community service opportunities from Waltham Group will provide information about how to get involved. Wednesday from 7 to 8 p.m. in the Shapiro Campus Center.

Employment Workshop For International Students Ruth Brigham will provide information for J1 visa holders about internships and employment. Thursday from 4:30 to 5 p.m. in Kutz 215. For more information, e-mail rbrigham@brandeis.edu.

Sociology Spring 2010 Colloquium Series featuring Hillary Levey Hilary Levey, a Princeton Ph.D. and RWJ Health Policy Scholar at Harvard University, will present her research in a session entitled “Playing to Win: Raising

Children in a Competitive Culture.” Levey is currently investigating the rise of children’s injuries from youth sports. Thursday from 3 to 4:30 p.m. in Pearlman Lounge.

Applying For WOW Internship Funding The Hiatt Career Center is providing information about the application process for the World of Work Fellowship, which grants students $3,500 to pursue unpaid summer internships. Friday from 1 to 2 p.m. in the Usdan Student Center. For more information, e-mail hiattcenter@ brandeis.edu.

Natick Day Away The Department of Student Activities is providing shuttles to the Natick Mall for those who sign up before Thursday, Jan. 28. The shuttles will run after noon. Friday from 12 to 9 p.m. in Theater Lot.

THE JUSTICE

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TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 2010

3

REVIEWING THE CONSTITUTION

STUDENT LIFE

Abroad living options expand ■ Students planning on going

abroad in the spring of 2011 will now be able to live in Ziv Quad as well as the Village.

By ALANA ABRAMSON JUSTICE EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

Housing options available for students studying abroad in the spring of 2011 have been expanded to include suites in Ziv Quad as well as space in the Village, according to the director of the Department of Community Living, Jeremy Leiferman.

The DCL decided last year with the Office of Study Abroad, the Office of Students and Affairs and the Office of Student Enrollment that students studying abroad in the spring must live in the Village, but have now changed that policy so that those students can live in the Village or Ziv. Leiferman explained in an e-mail to the Justice that the housing options were expanded to suites in Ziv because students had requested a suite option, and more space was needed in the Village to accommodate the rising sophomore class that will live in Village A House.

According to the Web site, House A of the Village is now only designated for sophomores.

Houses B and C and “limited suites” in Ziv 130 are reserved for students going abroad.

Leiferman further explained that the entire suite must be comprised of students planning on studying abroad in the spring, and that the number of suites available will be based on the number of students approved to study abroad at that time.

Leiferman wrote that the study abroad housing policy was reviewed by an advisory board to the Student Union.

“The designations are reviewed by multiple student committees and based in part on suggestions we receive from students,” he wrote.

Students planning to use this option were pleased with the expansion of choices.

“I am really excited by the fact there is an option to live in Ziv. It is nice to have the opportunity to live in a suite for a semester,” said Jessica Nusbaum ’12, who said she is applying to study abroad in the spring.

“I think it is great that we have so much more variety now in our housing opportunities,” Ariel Hirsch ’12 told the Justice.

According to Leiferman, the suites in Ziv that are vacated at the end of the fall semester will be filled in the spring by transfer students or students who were abroad in the fall or who participated in a Justice Brandeis Semester off campus.

Students planning on studying abroad in the fall of 2010 are not eligible for room selection, a policy that Leiferman wrote was implemented last year.

Leiferman also explained the concept of “Common Cause Communities,” which he wrote is an opportunity for students to live together surrounding a theme.

“The programming in these areas will be tailored to the theme in order to draw out students’ passions in these areas,” he wrote.

Leiferman wrote that the ideas for this type of housing developed over the course of the past semester and were based upon feedback received from students.

He added that these communities will likely be in East, Ziv and Ridgewood quads, but that the locations depend on the number of students interested.

ASHER KRELL/the Justice

FUNDING STANDARDS: Students discussed the allocation of Union Finance Board funds at last Saturday’s town hall meeting of the Constitutional Review Committee.

Funds proposal discussed at meeting ■ The proposal calls for the

Student Union Finance Board to review requests for funds solely on merit.

By EMILY KRAUS JUSTICE EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

A proposal on the allocation of Student Union Finance Board funds to chartered clubs was presented to the Constitutional Review Committee at its third town hall meeting last Saturday. Three students as well as most of the committee members attended the meeting.

Andrew Husick ’11, the president of the Brandeis Academic Debate and Speech Society, submitted the proposal, which suggested that F-Board evaluate requests for funds based on the merit of the request without taking into consideration how many funds that club may have from fundraising efforts independent of the Student Union.

Adam Hughes ’11 also attended the meeting in support of the fund-

ing proposal.

Husick said that the current system of allocating funds “encourages people not to go out and fundraise, to not work hard,” and that it “[allows] the F-Board to direct club leaders about how to spend their fundraising money.”

The current system makes no stipulations regarding fundraising money, so members of F-Board are allowed to take that money into consideration.

The proposed amendment does not alter any text currently in the Constitution but adds a clause forbidding the use, view or discussion of independent fundraising accounts in fund allocation.

The Constitutional Review Committee was formed last semester pursuant to Article 13, Section 1 of the Student Union Constitution.

The article states that an independent group must be formed every four years and will be “charged with conducting a full review of all aspects of the Union, including the operation of clubs, Secured Organizations, and Union Government.”

While the Committee’s meetings

are closed to the public, the town hall meetings allow students the opportunity to voice concerns and submit proposals for the Committee’s consideration.

The proposal, according to Husick, provides a way for the Finance Board to evaluate funding requests based only upon their constitutional merit and their impact on the student body instead of considering extraneous factors, such as how much money the club may have raised on its own.

He also said that it is not possible for F-Board to fairly consider every factor that goes into how much money a club has raised on its own for every funding request, so none of the factors should be taken into account.

Waltham Group Coordinator Nate Rosenblum ’10 spoke to the Committee to share his opinion that WBRS and BTV should not be secured organizations, which are guaranteed a certain amount of funding each year under the Constitution.

He said that he is “not sure what they have to do with the University’s mission per se” and that

they should exist as chartered clubs that can request funding.

Gideon Klionsky ’11 who is affiliated WBRS could not be reached despite repeated requests for comment.

Rosenbaum also suggested that the baseline amounts of funds promised to secured organizations under the Constitution should either be followed or abolished as a constitutional provision, citing the fact that Waltham Group received $250 less than the amount allotted to it this year.

The Committee said that it would consider the proposals and questions posed at the town hall meeting in its executive session deliberations.

Jessie Steinberg ’10 wrote in an e-mail to the Justice that the turnout at the town hall was average. “My hope is that the low turnout is in part due to students’ confidence in the ability of their representatives,” Steinberg wrote in his e-mail.

She also encouraged students to join the conreviewupdates listserv if they would like updates on the constitutional review process.

ACADEMICS

Housing will not be offered to JBS students ■ Students in fall or spring

Justice Brandeis Semester courses will not be eligible for on-campus housing.

By HARRY SHIPPS JUSTICE EDITOR

Students who apply and are accepted to Justice Brandeis Semester programs for either fall 2010 or spring 2011 will not be eligible for on-campus housing during the program but will be eligible for housing during the other semester, according to Director of the Department of Community Living Jeremy Leiferman.

According to the 2010 Room Selection Guide, accessible through the Brandeis University Web site, “Students enrolled in a Justice Brandeis Semester for fall are not

eligible for on-campus housing during the fall semester, but may request housing for the spring semester. Students enrolling in a Justice Brandeis Semester for spring may live on-campus for the fall semester.”

When asked where students who are enrolled in JBS programs are expected to live, Leiferman wrote in his e-mail to the Justice that “it will be determined by each student and will be dependent on their programs.” Although no JBS programs have been finalized for fall 2010 or spring 2011, at least some of the programs will take place outside of the Boston area, according to JBS Director Alyssa Grinberg, who wrote in an e-mail to the Justice that “other programs take place outside of [the greater Boston] region.” This means that students enrolled in those programs will not be seeking

on-campus housing, said Leiferman.

The University is currently accepting applications for JBS programs in the summer of 2010 but has not introduced programs or application deadlines for JBS programs during the 2010 to 2011 academic year.

Leiferman said, “Part of the reason that the JBS program was conceived was to help to alleviate some of the on-campus crowding in multiple ways; housing, dining, mailboxes, classroom spaces, all of that.”

The idea of the JBS was first posited by a subcommittee of the Curriculum and Academic Restructuring Steering committee in early 2009.

According to the Web site for the JBS programs, “A Justice Brandeis Semester (JBS) is an engaging, immersive academic pro-

gram in which small groups of students explore a thematic topic through inquiry-based courses linked to real-world experiential opportunities.”

Students who choose to enroll in a JBS program for fall 2010 will have the same options for housing during the spring semester as students who are returning to campus from study abroad programs, said Leiferman.

Students generally have “quite a few options for housing,” continued Leiferman.

Leiferman also said that students who choose to participate in summer JBS programs will be able to live on campus for the duration of the program. “Summer JBS program [participants] will be able to live on campus. … [students taking part in] Programs during the academic year won’t be able to [live on campus],” he said.

4

TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 2010

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THE JUSTICE

IN REMEMBRANCE

CAMPUS SAFETY

Police stationed at South St crosswalk ■ After an accident involving

a student last semester, the University has upped road safety at South St walkway.

By ANYA BERGMAN JUSTICE EDITOR

Waltham police officers will sporadically be stationed at the crosswalk on South Street near the entrance to campus to educate students about using the pedestrian walk button and to issue citations to cars that speed or do not stop for pedestrians, Director of Public Safety Ed Callahan said.

The crosswalk was the site of a traffic accident involving a student bicyclist last semester and is located between the Foster Mods and the Gosman Sports and Convocation Center.

The student involved in the accident, Mary Cate Brower ’10, could not comment for the Justice because the case regarding the accident is in litigation.

Callahan said in a phone interview that he ordered the Waltham officers to be stationed at the crosswalk on foot or in their cars at various points during the daytime and evening and that the officers had already seen a reduction in the speed of cars on South Street.

He said that historically Waltham officers have given out 20 to 40 citations per day to cars speeding on South Street.

Stationing the police officers is “kind of a reactive thing,” Callahan said, and added that cars will continue to slow down if they know the police might be parked at the crosswalk.

The Waltham officer stationed last week said he cited a few drivers who crossed the double yellow line in order to get around drivers stopped at the

crosswalk.

Alexandra Pizzi ’10, who lives in the Foster Mods, has been concerned about students who are not paying attention when crossing the street and drivers who are not attentive to pedestrians.

She has been in contact since last fall with her community development coordinator, Brandeis police officers, Callahan and Erika Lamarre, director of Community Living for juniors and seniors, to find a way to make crossing the intersection safer.

Pizzi said that she was crossing when the pedestrian button was broken and a driver stopped to let her cross the street, but the next car did not stop and hit the first car, causing it to slide forward. “It amazes me how fast the cars go,” Pizzi said, adding that cars speed up after slowing down to pass the Stanley Elementary School.

She said that students are oblivious and do not look before crossing the street, even when walking on campus.

“It scares me. I’m really worried for all my friends,” Pizzi said.

Callahan said there have been signs in Gosman, and an e-mail was sent out to the Brandeis community about how to safely use the crosswalk.

Callahan said that over the years there have been incidents where people were struck by cars and that this is an “area that we try to monitor to educate the public about speed and [how to use] the crosswalk.”

Pizzi said she was very happy about the policemen stationed at the crosswalk last week and said, “Chief Callahan has really responded,” while other Brandeis officers previously recommended that she use the footbridge at Gosman to cross the street.

Pizzi said the Student Union fought several years ago to install the crosswalk and she is frustrated that “as a student, I’m blamed for trying to cross in that area.”

DAVID SHEPPARD-BRICK/the Justice

VIGIL FOR HAITI: Students at the vigil painted each other’s faces with the national flag of the earthquake-stricken country.

Events planned to support Haiti ■ Several events, including

benefit concerts and a black-tie fundraiser, will be held to aid Haiti efforts.

By ERIN DONIGER JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

The Waltham Group, Global Haiti Initiative, B-DEIS Records, the Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Student Events and several a cappella groups are among those at Brandeis coordinating efforts to aid Haiti, which was ravaged by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake Jan. 12.

A Brandeis Vigil for Haiti was held last Wednesday in the Shapiro Campus Center. Shaina Gilbert ’10, a firstgeneration Haitian-American who was instrumental in organizing the vigil, said that the vigil was a great

start but the work goes far beyond there.

Many more events to support Haiti are currently in the works. There are plans to sell Valentine’s Day grams, hold benefit concerts, sponsor staffversus-student basketball games and hold a black-tie fundraiser, Waltham Group representative Nate Rosenblum ’10 told the Justice. These fundraisers will be promoted later in the semester. Rosenblum returned from Haiti just three weeks prior to the earthquake, where he went as a member of a volunteer program.

“There will need to be consistent, long-term support and efforts to even begin the rebuilding process,” Rosenblum told the Justice.

Rosenblum said that approximately $2,500 had been donated by the Brandeis community thus far and will be donated to disaster relief.

Along with four other Brandeis students and her father, Gilbert

founded a camp in the Haitian town of Hinche last summer and ran its first session that July. The camp, called Empowering Through Education, served 43 boys and girls between eight and 11 years old by “bringing the spirit of Brandeis there,” said Gilbert.

In a working draft to the Heller administration, faculty and staff, representing the approximately 70 members of the student body who have signed a petition, Krista Clement ’11 wrote that “many students have expressed the desire to travel to Haiti as part of Heller’s annual ‘Alternative Spring Break.’

In an e-mail to the Justice, Clement wrote, “Heller students have joined together to create what we’ve dubbed the Heller Haiti Recovery Effort,” noting that “recovery is not immediate relief,” which she said is “best left to those on the ground and with significant medical training.”

Waltham Group

Blood Drive 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Tuesday, Feb. 2 Wednesday, Feb. 3 Sherman Function Hall, Brandeis University Valid ID required!

Textbooks bought and sold, new & used, online buybacks. Buy, sell, rent at cheapbooks.com (260) 399-6111, español (212) 380-1763, urdu/hindi/punjabi (713) 429-4981, see site for other support lines.

THE JUSTICE

CUTS: Certain programs will be phased out CONTINUED FROM 1 Board of Trustees would need to do a better job at raising unrestricted funds for the University’s general budget. He added he had told faculty that “some of the solution will come from realizing value ultimately from some of the art at the Rose [Art Museum]”.

According to the Faculty Handbook, on the occasion of proposals to discontinue or establish academic programs or departments, “the Provost will consult with the Academic Deans, the chairs of relevant existing departments and School Councils, as well as with the Council of the Faculty Senate to establish an appropriate deliberative process.” The handbook requires faculty approval for the establishment of undergraduate academic programs.

Last year, the CARS committee had initially proposed reorganizing the departments of African and Afro-American Studies, Classical Studies and American Studies into interdepartmental programs, a plan that met with faculty and student criticism.

“It seems like they’ve put together a committee which is diverse, fairly representative; it’s not an elected one, which would have been better … [since] it’s supposed to be the faculty’s view of what should be cut,” Prof. Leonard Muellner (CLAS) said. “I hope they come up with some reasonable ways of dealing with the agenda that the Board of Trustees has set for them. …

We’re hopeful that we’ve justified our existence enough times so that we’re not on the chopping block.”

He noted that it was the third time the University faced such cuts. Jaffe had proposed to eliminate the Music Composition graduate program, the Linguistics major and the teaching of ancient Greek, as well as a reduction in the number of faculty in the Near Eastern and Judaic Studies and Physics departments.

“One thing that does concern me is that the dean at the faculty meeting said that one of the most important criteria he was going to use is what the students want,” Muellner said. “And I think that’s a way of not letting the faculty make decisions on the basis of what they think is important for education. …

It’s important to not make the students responsible for cuts.”

He said he was concerned about how cuts would affect the University’s broader mission. “If you start narrowing it down, you’re reducing the quality and defeating the purpose of having a thing called a university.”

American Studies Chair Prof.

Joyce Antler called it “unprecedented” for a Trustee to address faculty directly... Faculty she said “listened respectfully, and there’s already some anxiety that’s been setting in along with a positive attitude that yes we can.” She noted that there were no American

Studies or Classical Studies faculty on the committee. The AMST department already considered itself a model for the Board of Trustees’ goals of resource-sharing collaboration. “[While] undoubtedly cuts are painful and no one wants them, if we need to go through cuts today to ensure long-term financial security and to continue to make Brandeis one of the top universities in the world, then I cautiously commit to being a part of the committee and doing the best that I can,” committee member Jason Gray ’10, a former Student Union president, said.

One proposal the administration and Faculty Senate Council first offered at the start of the financial crisis last year envisioned replacing the currently offered 43 majors and 47 minors offered to undergraduates with a much smaller number of interdisciplinary metamajors, a suggestion rejected by many faculty at a subsequent faculty meeting. Among faculty at this January’s retreat, Jaffe said, “There actually was some resurrection ... of the meta-major idea and related ideas” that the committee might consider.

With regard to graduate programs, Jaffe said the number and academic quality of applicants, student satisfaction with programs, subsequent job placement and national rankings could be among factors under consideration. On the undergraduate level, the committee could look at enrollment, “the importance of a program from a recruitment perspective” and how crucial a program is to the Brandeis education.

Koplow stressed that Brandeis needed to build on its strengths.

“What we do have to do is make sure that everything that should be part of a first-class liberal arts college is here and that the areas in which we excel are strengthened and fostered, and if that means we can’t spend money on programs where we don’t do as well, that’s what it means,” he said. Asked which areas were under consideration, he stressed that those decisions," have to come from the academy.” According to the Dec. 3 Faculty Senate minutes, Koplow had suggested that “a major pillar of this university is the mission of social justice, and this could be pushed more to the forefront and integrated into many of the programs.”

“Last spring the discussion in the faculty after the CARS recommendations was should we accept those recommendations or not.

And there was a lot of sentiment that the answer is we should not,” Jaffe said. “[Now] the board has essentially told us that we need to make reductions in our academic commitments, so I certainly anticipate that there will be a lot of opposition, but at the end of day, we’re in a different place. We're not being given the option of doing nothing,” he said.

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TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 2010

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A TEACHER’S PERSPECTIVE

DAVIDA JUDELSON/the Justice

Elementary school observations Cynthia Ballenger, a reading specialist at the Martin Luther King Open School in Cambridge, spoke at last Wednesday’s event, ‘I would Sing Everyday’: Elementary School Children Read and Talk about Whales.” Ballenger used multimedia to supplement her talk.

TRIAL: Union Judiciary will render decision by month’s end CONTINUED FROM 1 ed by Deena Glucksman ’11.

The members of the Union Judiciary present were Chief Justice Judah Marans ’11 and Associate Justices Matt Kriegsman ’11, Neda Eid ’11 and Justin PierreLouis ’10. Associate Justice Leeyat Slyper ’12 was not present.

Fanning argued, “The Student Union Senate was forced to impeach Secretary Aronin for deliberate abrogation of her duties under the Constitution.”

Glucksman posited that Jon Freed ’09, the amendment’s original sponsor, could not amend the Union Constitution after he graduated because the Constitution no longer applied to him at that point.

Fanning pointed out that nowhere in the Constitution does it say that a person must be a current Brandeis undergraduate to propose an amendment. He argued that because the proposal had the required support from the student body in the form of signatures, it was valid regardless of who originally proposed it.

Glucksman also argued that the amendment proposal was invalid

because it was not presented at a “regularly scheduled Senate meeting.”

To support that statement, she presented a survey from a 1995 Pennsylvania State University Faculty Senate meeting that lists the duration of Brandeis’ semester as 65 days as well as an e-mail from the Department of Community Living that states that students must leave campus within 24 hours of their last final.

Glucksman stated, “[Aronin] had no choice but to not put [the amendment] to a vote.” Fanning argued that the UJ has no way of knowing if the survey is valid or if it even still applies since it was conducted so long ago.

Union Vice President Amanda Hecker ’11 and Aronin were called as witnesses. Hecker testified that Senate meetings are usually not held during finals period but also stated that there was quorum—the number of Senators required for a meeting to be valid—at the meeting where the amendment was proposed.

Glucksman said that she had planned on calling Union Treasurer Daniel Acheampong ’11

and Executive Senator Jenna Rubin ’11 as witnesses, but they were not able to attend the trial.

Marans asked Fanning and Glucksman if they believed there was a difference between violating the letter of the Constitution and the spirit of the Constitution and whether a person should be punished in each of these situations.

Fanning said that a person should be punished for violating what is explicitly written, but punishment for violating the spirit of the Constitution should be considered based on the individual case.

Glucksman agreed with Fanning on the first point but was unsure regarding the second.

Aronin said in an e-mail to the Justice, “It was strange that certain members of the senate who were directly involved with this situation were not in attendance.”

She also wrote, “I have no predictions about the verdict. The Judiciary has heard both sides and it is now all in their hands. The Judiciary led a smooth trial and now we just have to wait.”

Marans said that the verdict will be announced to the student body Jan. 31.

SEARCH: Selection of search firm nearing end, according to Web site CONTINUED FROM 1 press release.

Prof. Len Saxe (BCHM) chairs the subcommittee that was created to recommend a search firm. The subcommittee, which was created from within the Presidential Search Committee “is about to make a recommendation to the entire committee,” Koplow wrote in his e-mail.

Saxe was not on campus and could not be reached for comment.

Another subcommittee, also created from within the search committee and co-chaired by Prof. Gina

Turrigiano (BIOL) and Student Union President Andy Hogan ’11, is developing the candidate profile and case statement. “Drafts of the documents will be submitted to the entire committee in February. It is contemplated that proposed forms of both documents, once vetted by the entire committee, will be provided to the [Faculty Advisory Committee] and [Student Advisory Committee] for comment,” Koplow wrote.

The Presidential Search Web site, launched last Wednesday, was created to update the Brandeis commu-

nity and other interested parties about the search process, Vice President of Communications and External Affairs Andrew Gully told the Justice.

“It is also important that we provide a variety of information about Brandeis, its history, mission and goals to provide context for this search and a real sense of the University as the search committee works to identify candidates to lead Brandeis,” Gully wrote in an e-mail to the Justice.

The Web site contains information about the Presidential Search

Committee members and the University’s mission, as well as biographical information about the current and past Brandeis presidents.

Koplow also confirmed in his email to the Justice that Faculty Advisory Committee co-chairs Profs. Robin Feuer Miller (GRALL) and Anita Hill (Heller) will not be added to the Presidential Search Committee.

At a Dec. 3 Faculty Senate meeting, Chair of the Faculty Senate Prof. Sabine von Mering (GRALL) suggested that the co-chairs should

be added to the search committee following the addition of the Student Advisory Committee chair to the search committee.

“When the search committee was formed, three faculty members were appointed but no student members were included. That is why a student was added as a nonvoting member. … [Miller and Hill] are kept up to date, their views are being reflected in committee deliberations, and both [Miller and Hill] will be asked to attend a number of committee meetings,” Koplow wrote in his e-mail.

THE JUSTICE

just

features

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TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 2010

VERBATIM | Thomas Jefferson I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.

ON THIS DAY...

FUN FACT

In 1915, the inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, inaugrated U.S. transcontinental telephone service.

Sound travels about four times faster in water than in air.

A night on the BranVan

By ABBY KULAWITZ JUSTICE CONTRIBUTING WRITER

It was like a game of musical chairs, except on wheels—the BranVan, to be exact. I spent three Thursday evenings riding the BranVan, the campus shuttle into Waltham, and watched students get on and off at Lizzy’s, Rabb, Admissions and Hannaford.

The cycle repeated itself over and over, with countless pickups and drop-offs.

Hidden beneath the drivers’ blasting Miley Cyrus and Lady Gaga, I overheard snippets of everyday conversation: “My sister just had a baby. She lives in New York, and I’m going to visit them this weekend!” But the excitement soon subsided.

“I’m an uncle. And I’m only a sophomore in college. Is that okay?” An identity crisis was breaking out on the campus van.

This conversation, among many others, was a peephole into the lives of two Brandeis students.

The informal setting of the BranVan fostered political discussions, deep reflection and, of course, venting about college stresses and pressures.

I first became a wallflower on the campus van in late October.

As we drove down Moody Street, past Ponzu and Margarita’s, students debated an assortment of pressing topics: Does Obama deserve the Nobel Peace Prize? Another group of students mulled over the Justice Brandeis Semester, while others asked, Monopoly or chess?

“You get to use money when you play Monopoly! Chess is just old wooden pieces.” “But it is fake money. It’s paper. And chess has real wood. It’s all just, well, more intellectual.”

The debate continued as the two students walked off the van into Hannaford.

Later that night, Hannaford proved to be a topic of conversation in itself among some of the riders. “We need apples, pears, carrots and grapes.” “What about real food? Like Goldfish and pretzels.”

We soon returned to campus, whereupon a group of students getting on at Admissions immersed themselves in debate. But their discussion centered around an entirely different subject: bottled water versus tap water.

“Why would you waste your money on bottled water? Do you really think that FIJI water comes from the natural aquifers in Fiji?”

“Well, do you really want to drink the water from your tap when you know it comes from Waltham?”

They agreed to disagree and moved onto a more important subject: food.

“I can’t wait to eat at Margarita’s. I don’t think I’ve eaten their chicken fajitas since freshman year.” “Dude, forget about the fajitas. What about the piña coladas?”

After three loops around Waltham, I left the BranVan at Rabb. But a week later, I again sat quietly in the middle of the van and casually immersed myself in the conversations around me.

Three or four students picked up at Grad had a clear destination: Lizzy’s. “What flavor are you going to get?” asked a blonde.

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY ASHER KRELL/the Justice

CASUAL CONVERSATION: As students such as Alanna Torre ’12 and Megan Stromm ’12 ride the BranVan, they often converse about a multitude of topics.

Quirky conversations ensue on the BranVan . “Flavor Flav! Well, coffee,” responded her brunette friend.

Their friends decided upon black raspberry and coconut. Even pumpkin pie, a seasonal flavor, was considered.

The students were soon dropped off at Lizzy’s, and discussions in the back of the van replaced theirs. A conversation about Arabic and Hebrew grew into a wider political commentary about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Two girls tossed around names like Bernie Madoff and Fidel Castro. Some discussed their career aspirations (dental school? Peace Corps?), while others attempted to analyze love interests.

“She de-friended me on Facebook.

What does that even mean?” “Man, I have no idea. But I think you should take the hint.”

Other everyday stresses also surfaced. Getting on the BranVan around 10 p.m., a graduate student explained that she had a late lecture to attend. Another student vented about a chemistry lab, and two girls practiced a Spanish dialogue that they were presenting the next morning.

I decided to ride the BranVan one last time on the Thursday before Thanksgiving break. With finals in the near future, some

students planned study groups: “Can I come over to your Ziv and study? I can’t be antisocial for too much longer.” Others had larger plans: “I think I am going to dress up like Harry Potter for class tomorrow. You can be Hermione.”

And others had even larger aspirations: “I think we should bomb North Korea. Why not? Let’s just do it.” Not to worry—his friend convinced him otherwise.

As the two scrutinized Kim Jong Il, another student with a guitar strapped across his back hummed Dave Matthews Band’s “So Much To Say” to himself.

He moved onto Dispatch, but soon Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the USA” blared over his renditions.

Students sang along, some even waving their arms in the air.

Commentary accompanied the music: “I love Miley Cyrus!”

“Miley Cyrus is a slut.” “No, she’s my role model!”

I was only able to hear one side of another conversation: The student rambled on her cell phone, venting about 5:30 a.m. swim practice and her “crazy, psychotic roommate.”

As we drove onto campus, two girls bundled up in winter coats and woolen hats discussed their weekend plans. “Do you know of any pedicure places in Waltham?

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ASHER KRELL/the Justice

NIGHT SHIFT: The BranVan transports students around Waltham and campus.

I went to one in Watertown a few weeks ago, but I really need to get my toes done.” “I went to the best place on Moody a few weeks ago.

Let’s hit it up tomorrow.”

And as one student walked off the van, he informed his friend, “My phone broke last night. I think someone spilled seltzer on it. Who even drinks seltzer?”

Driving around Loop Road or down Moody Street, riders cleared their minds with discussions of

water-damaged cell phones and Lizzy’s ice cream flavors. The BranVan provides much more than free transportation—it also gives students a short respite from their daily routines.

Who needs rides at Six Flags to have fun? Next time you need a break from exams and crazy roommates, just ride around the BranVan. Call in for a pickup, sit back and casually tune into the conversations around you.

THE JUSTICE

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TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 2010

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY GENEVIEVE ARMSTRONG/the Justice

BATHING IN SHOES: Brahm Wachter ’12 turned his interest in sneaker design into unofficial company called Brahm Wachter Sneaker Design Studio. He now designs sneakers for private clients and charities.

The sneaker-customizing king Brahm Wachter ’12 has a unique talent for sneaker design

By REBECCA KLEIN JUSTICE EDITOR

Like many college students, Brahm Wachter ’12 spends his Sunday evenings watching the HBO television show Entourage. He sits down with a bowl of popcorn, turns on the TV and admires the glamorous lifestyle of the Los Angeles actors around whom the comedy is based.

During one episode, Wachter found himself particularly impressed by sneakers that a character named Turtle sported. The sneakers were gold and black Air Force Ones. Wachter immediately wanted a pair of his own.

Wachter knew he would not be able to buy his own pair, as there is only a limited amount of the custom-made shoe available. Determined to own a similar pair, Wachter decided to learn how to design his own sneakers, so that he could create a pair like the coveted footwear.

“What I wanted to do is take the sneaker I saw and redesign it but make it similar,” says Wachter, who is 6 feet 1 inch tall and speaks confidently about his interest in sneaker design.

Now, 15 months and approximately 12 pairs of sneakers later, Wachter has started his own

unofficial sneaker design company called Brahm Wachter Sneaker Design Studios that has been featured in a magazine and gained the attention of several prominent sneaker blogs.

Although the Manhattan native, who is double majoring in History and Business, attests that his first sneaker design was poorly done, his interest was caught by the art form.

Last spring, he decided to turn his hobby into an unofficial company. He now produces sneakers for various charities and clients, who are mostly friends of his.

Wachter often chooses themes as inspiration for his various sneaker designs. His first design was based around Keith Haring, a New York City artist who uses his art to promote social change.

Wachter says his biggest success in sneaker design was a pair he made for the charity Hoops 4 Hope. According to its Web site, Hoops 4 Hope is a global not-for-profit organization that supports youth development in southern Africa by setting up basketball and life skills programs. The sneakers, which are green, yellow and red and are lined with motivational sayings, brought him to the attention of Bounce magazine, a grassroots basketball magazine, and various sneaker blogs.

“I connected with this girl from Hoops 4

PHOTO COURTESY OF BRAHM WACHTER

RED SOX NATION: Wachter designed the sneakers pictured above for one of the owners of the Red Sox.

Hope, and those were a big hit,” says Wachter.

Bounce describes Wachter as the sneaker “customizing king.” The sneakers were displayed at Hoops 4 Hope’s biannual fundraiser.

Wachter has also made sneakers for a fundraiser for his high school and the Red Sox Foundation.

Wachter says the number of pairs of sneakers he designs is limited by time constraints.

“Depending on the pair of sneakers it can take me a day, it can take me four days, it can take me an hour. It’s a lot of work,” he says.

Because he only has a certain amount of time, Wachter says he does not make sneakers for everyone who asks. He is selective about his clients.

“I don’t really like to [design] just for clients.

I like to do it for a cause,” Wachter says.

In the future, Wachter plans on reaching out more toward charities. He is currently interested in working with the Oceanic Preservation Society.

To design a pair of sneakers, Wachter starts by using acetone to strip the factory sealing off the shoe and wiping it off with an old sock.

Then, he lets the acetone evaporate.

Next, Wachter makes a blueprint design of the sneaker and asks for the approval of the client, to make sure they like what they see.

After that, Wachter begins painting the shoe

with special leather paints. Lastly, Wachter gives the sneakers either an acrylic or matte finish and picks out the colors of the shoelaces.

Wachter designs sneakers in his dormroom and several of his sneakers line a shelf in his room.

Wachter’s roommate, Daniel Popper ’12, says, “It’s exciting [to live with Wachter] because people will come in[to the room] and look at the sneakers all the time.”

In promoting his company, Wachter has used Facebook and his Web site.

“I try and get a lot of people to join the [Brahm Wachter Sneaker Design Studios] Facebook group, obviously,” says Wachter. “A lot of the promotion happened kind of naturally I made a Web site. I don’t know how exactly it happened, but that’s when all the sneaker blogs found out about it, and that’s when I got a lot of attention.”

In the future Wachter hopes to further expand his company. His main goal is to produce the best sneaker designs possible and work with more charities. He is also looking into getting an internship at Nike this summer.

“The best way to develop [the company] is to refine my technique. Each time I make a sneaker they’re different,” he says. “I’m trying to simplify my designs now and make them more succinct.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF BRAHM WACHTER

DESIGNS OF HOPE: Above is the pair of sneakers Wachter designed for the charity Hoops 4 Hope.

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THE JUSTICE

the Justice Established 1949

Brandeis University

HANNAH L. KIRSCH, Editor in Chief J OANNA SCHORR, Senior Editor ANDREA FINEMAN, Managing Editor ANYA B ERGMAN and SHANA D. LEBOWITZ, Associate Editors NASHRAH RAHMAN and HARRY SHIPPS, News Editors REBECCA KLEIN, Features Editor REBECCA B LADY, Forum Editor J OSH ASEN, Sports Editor SARAH BAYER, Arts Editor JULIAN AGIN -LIEBES and MAX B REITSTEIN MATZA, Photography Editors B RIAN N. B LUMENTHAL, Layout Editor B RIAN FROMM, Copy Editor B RAD STERN, Advertising Editor

Rethink academic restructuring This board has repeatedly expressed its concerns about multiple programs instituted over the past year in an attempt to alleviate Brandeis University’s serious budgetary crisis. We are consistently concerned that these measures are irreparably damaging the character of this University as a whole.

Deteriorating academics We are aware that Brandeis must break its bad habit of carrying a constant burden of long-term deficit. We are aware that the current financial downturn has made this situation even more difficult.

But the Board of Trustees’ mandates that the newly formed Brandeis 2020 Committee recommend an unspecified number of “academic programs” for deletion by the March 23 Board meeting is both frightening and irresponsible.

First, we question why now is the time for this kind of serious, hasty decision given that it will not begin to save money within the next five years; money will not be saved until the University is able to “restructure” departments and avoid filling faculty positions after retirement.

Asking faculty to choose within two months which academic programs to recommend to be cut is the sort of decision that should be reserved for precipitous, emergency debt relief. As this is reportedly not the case, we do not see why this measure should have been taken at all.

The University’s academics have survived mostly unaffected until now, and unaffected they should remain until absolutely necessary. It is academics that are the core and the purpose of this University—no business plan should cloud that.

Additionally, the composition of the Brandeis 2020 Committee does not represent the full spectrum of academic programs available at the University. The presence of three English professors and two Biology professors to the exclusion of programs like American Studies and Classical Studies is a significant oversight, and we worry that it could cause tension among professors whose departments may come under fire.

There is also the matter of recruitment to consider. Even if cuts to the academy are exactly what are needed for long-term debt relief, we doubt that students of the caliber that would enable Brandeis to retain its reputation will be attracted to a school that is offering fewer and fewer options for academic enrichment. Add to that the fact that the University is increasing its student body, and therefore classes are growing inexorably bigger. All in all, we are deeply concerned that these prospective cuts are going to directly and drastically lower the University’s intellectual and academic level; we question whether we ourselves would have chosen to attend Brandeis under the current conditions of degree devaluation.

Although in the past we have castigated the University for intending to sell art from the Rose Art Museum and for canceling sports teams, and although we are not enthusiastic about our recommendation, we would advise that the Board take both these measures long before such dramatic academic cuts. And above all, we advise that students be kept abreast of the situation and take responsibility to keep themselves involved and informed at all times. No e-mail was sent out to alert students of this decision, and no feedback mechanism for students to offer their opinions is in place. Students absolutely must offer their own ideas and raise their own concerns about this crucial issue.

Experiential fumble The Justice Brandeis Semester appears to be failing in one of its primary goals— to get students off campus. The fall JBS

Solutions are rash programs have yet to even be selected, and thus the University has been and remains incapable of releasing any information regarding them to students. Also, some professors misunderstand the intent of the JBS and have requested that their JBS include on-campus housing.

The Jan. 31 deadline for declaring one’s intent to be housed on campus this coming fall is looming. According to “Nothing Puzzling,” the Department of Community Living’s ironically named room selection guide for the upcoming academic year, fall JBS participants are ineligible for fall housing. However, we are certain that no reasonable students would or should cede their on-campus housing opportunities in advance of a program about which they know nothing.

In order to achieve its goals of housing our ever-expanding student population, the DCL is essentially asking students to act in an irresponsible manner.

When JBS was first proposed, this page expressed its hesitation with instituting such a program at this University. Now that the program will fail to achieve its primary goal of assuaging an on-campus housing crisis, at least for the time being, we are left with a program that simply does not fit the mold of the University and has the potential to cost the University even more money. Students who wanted to go to a school with co-ops went elsewhere—not Brandeis. Like the 2020 Committee, the JBS appears to be changing the character of the University in questionable ways.

Global obstacle The study abroad process is also damaging the character of the University without the intended logistical gain for the DCL. The Office of Study Abroad’s Feb. 12 deadline for its multifaceted application is fewer than three weeks away. The online application, still unavailable at the time of publication, is unnecessarily lengthy and complicated, and it ultimately discourages students from applying to study abroad.

The University’s “Global Brandeis” goal is threatened due to the expected decrease in the number of students opting to study abroad because of the discouraging nature of a lengthy application. Only an overly complex application would require its own workshop for explanatory purposes as the study abroad application does. Additionally, since many students may choose to stay on campus rather than engage in the complex application process for studying abroad, more students may want to be housed this upcoming academic year— not fewer.

The intent of expanding the application was to grant the DCL a better sense of how many students would require housing and when. While this may result, the application itself needed only to include the questions of when one wished to study abroad and why one wanted that specific semester in order to give the DCL its desired information. And though the DCL is not obligated to house all juniors, it makes absolutely no logistical gain by even inadvertently reducing the number of students choosing to study abroad due to the challenging application process.

If students who originally intended to go abroad ultimately decide to study on campus for their intended abroad semester, then those students should have to obtain their own housing.

Like the other changes we have discussed, changes to the study abroad process are detrimental to an aspect of this university that originally embraced all of the University’s values, from academics to global awareness, and attracted certain types of students who now make up a large portion of this campus.

A. ELI TUKACHINSKY/the Justice

Waste of stimulus cash

By AVI SNYDER JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

The University has received a total of $9 million from the federal government as part of the controversial American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the stimulus bill passed by Congress in February of last year. The money will be spent on various research projects, which have or will create a handful of jobs. The money has thus far been spent on projects like one intended to support Ph.D. students at American universities studying data collection methods to contribute to a research project focused on a native Amazonian population in Bolivia. I can’t help but wonder if sponsoring research at Brandeis is really what the federal government ought to be doing during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

In the interest of full disclosure: I’m a registered Republican, and I am naturally suspicious of big government spending projects. And while I am considering a major in Economics, as of now the bulk of my economic expertise comes from Introduction to Economics with Prof. Harry Michael Coiner (ECON). But I can’t resist the thought that the $9 million of government stimulus money received by Brandeis could have been better spent and that the University should not have sought, and should in fact have turned down, the government funding.

I’ll tackle this issue on two levels: first, whether or not the money could have been better spent, and second, whether the University had a responsibility to turn down the money.

Regarding the question of whether the money could have been better spent: The theory underlying the stimulus bill is classic Keynesian economics. The late British economist Alfred Maynard Keynes argued that during periods of economic downturn, governments can avert some of the recession by pumping money into the economy. This can be achieved by cutting taxes and increasing government spending, which is exactly what the stimulus bill did. According to Keynes, government spending on anything would be better for the economy than no spending at all. Since government demand for goods and services inevitably produces or saves jobs, there is always some benefit gained from any stimulus package.

However, governments can more effectively alleviate the effects of recessions by spending money in the most efficient ways. A report just last November on the nonprofit Independent Media Institute’s www.alternet.org reported that it was blue-collar workers who suffered most from the recession. According to the AlterNet article, “There are 25 unemployed construction workers for every job opening in their field, and more than a dozen for every opening in the durable goods industries, according to the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston.” With so many industries employing blue-collar workers suffering so terribly, it seems that sponsoring university research might not have been the best use of government money during the recession.

My gripe at this level is primarily with the government.

After all, the stimulus bill itself states that one of the bill’s goals was “to provide investments needed to increase economic efficiency by spurring technological advances in science and health.” Although I’m all in favor of the government sponsoring important research, I can’t accept that such sponsorship ought to have been part of an emergency economic relief package. That money has created or retained a mere 15 jobs in a sector of the economy suffering far less than the industries employing blue-collar workers.

But, you may ask, regardless of whether the stimulus bill’s distribution of funds was ill-conceived, shouldn’t the University accept research grants from whatever source is available? After all, $9 million is not that big a chunk of a $787 billion stimulus package, and why should it be the University’s job to ensure responsible government spending?

I think the answer to this question lies in that oft-repeated phrase about our University: We are committed to social justice. Brandeis advertises its commitment to social action and social justice as one of the “four pillars” of the University. This commitment to social justice is inherently a political commitment. It means that Brandeis isn’t solely in the business of education and research; it is in the business of improving the condition of the national and global communities. If the University takes this commitment seriously, then it most certainly has an obligation not to seek, and even to turn down government money if, during a time of economic emergency, that money could have been more wisely spent and directly relieve the burden of those who suffered most from the recession.

I know that $9 million is not all that much when it comes to government spending and massive recessions, and I know that the money would have likely gone to another university had we not taken it. But I think Brandeis ought to have considered its civic responsibility during this latest recession to ensure a just allocation of government funds a bit more before accepting that stimulus money.

OP-BOX Quote of the Week “I love Miley Cyrus!” “Miley Cyrus is a slut.” “No, she’s my role model!”

—Two students conversing while riding the BranVan. (See Features, page 9).

Brandeis Talks Back What academic programs should the Brandeis 2020 Committee consider canceling?

ELENA KORN ’13 “The Women’s and Gender Studies major, but that’s a horrible thing to cancel because it’s really important.”

LEAH BARTELS ’12 “It’s easier to figure out what to keep than what to cut. I’m too invested in my own major. ... I feel a lot of majors could consolidate.”

JULIA ELMAN ’10 “I guess American Studies, but I know I’ll get shot for saying that.”

BRIAN MELCHER ’10 “I don’t have an answer. I don’t think they should cut any.”

THE JUSTICE

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TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 2010

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To show respect for local community, let Waltham residents use Univ gym

READER COMMENTARY Cut salaries instead of academics Regarding your article “University to consider a cut in four-year combined bachelor's and master's degree programs” (News, Jan. 19): Instead of cutting programs that allow students to pursue an accelerated course of study, how about cutting down on some administrative salaries?

After all, what is the college experience but a satisfaction of a desire for a thirst for knowledge?

From what I can see, the administration isn’t doing a very good job at handling the various challenges that it has faced over the years. I’ve paid attention.

Cutting academic programs, especially in the sciences, will almost guarantee I’ll never donate to the endowment as even a mildly concerned alum.

To me, all it represents is a misguided approach to education brought about by years of mismanagement.

—Miles Ketchum ’08 (GRAD)

By ELIZABETH STOKER JUSTICE CONTRIBUTING WRITER

There’s no doubt that Bill Ayers and his lady Bernadine are interesting figures to hear from, having spent years evading the United States government during their stint as anarchists in the Weather Underground.

It’s no surprise, then, that University student groups invited Bill to speak on campus in 2009.

Unfortunately, these University groups did not seem particularly concerned about Bill’s connection to the organization believed to be connected to the murder of a current Waltham resident’s father, Boston Police Sergeant Walter Schroeder.

Schroeder was shot in the back during an act of “revolution,” or in other words, a bank robbery connected to the Weather Underground.

Thus, there was something painful about Bill’s invitation to Brandeis, an old ache reawakened by an oversight.

Therein lies the problem. Brandeis does not hate Waltham.

Brandeis does not even disregard the people of Waltham, as evinced by the Waltham Group’s continued interaction with less fortunate individuals in the vacinity of our university.

The problem is that the University simply overlooks the everyman of Waltham, the sort of person who doesn’t exactly want for food, but feels a sting of pain when an accomplice of the murderers of one of their own is invited to enlighten Brandeis students.

Perhaps the invitation extended to Bill Ayers is the most recent and stunning oversight of Waltham public opinion, but it is hardly the first.

Every year, Brandeis gives out only four scholarships to Waltham residents, and only to top graduates.

Other scholarships tend to take more into account than class rank and GPA when selecting recipients.

Furthermore, is four a particularly fair cap, especially when one is selecting purely on numerical data?

In a sense, it is important for us as students to recognize that there is more to Waltham than just Moody Street and also that the citizens of the city deserve a great deal more of respect than what we have given them in the past.

Oh, yeah. And we don’t let them into our

‘Lovely Bones’ review was accurate In response to your article “‘Lovely Bones’ buries pain of story” (Arts, Jan. 19): I sort of agree with some of your review, but no way was that scene where Wahlberg’s character smashes the bottles, the scene that goes back and forth to the afterlife, distracting.

It was one of my favorite scenes, and I thought the editing was terrific.

The afterlife scenes were beautiful although at times could have been a bit shorter.

However, I do think the characters, especially those of the parents, should have been developed to a greater extent, especially that of the mother.

In the book she has an affair with the detective! Saoirse Ronan was amazing, and Tucci, well, he was downright creepy and so effective.

I loved Mark Wahlberg and thought he did a very good job.

—Gloria Goodman

Protect Classics from budget cuts In response to your article “New committee created to evaluate academic programs for possible elimination” (Breaking News, Jan. 21): Please do not eliminate your outstanding Classics Department.

—Jim Farrell The writer is the father of Christopher Farrell ’07, a Classics major currently pursuing his Ph.D. in classics research at Kings College of the University of London.

STACY HANDLER/the Justice

athletic facilities, either.

Membership is free for students, staff and faculty.

Alumni and family of students pay $150 to $175 fees for their memberships. A student is allowed to bring a guest along for $5, but guest passes cannot be purchased and distributed for use at a later date. Individuals who are simply Waltham residents, however, are wholesale forbidden from ever entering.

I know what you’re thinking, athletes and exercisers—the facilities are just too small; it’s already way too packed in there. I’m aware of this, and I’ve got a potential solution.

Build a new gym.

Brandeis is currently experiencing a window of opportunity.

Our president is stepping down, and the University is excitedly planning on seeking out the right person to fill his shoes.

Facility improvement has already been listed as a major point of interest in the selection of a new president, so there’s never been a better time or occasion to explore such possibilities.

Clearly, the University is suffering some

major financial pain.

There’s no doubt that we’re hurting for money at the moment. This project, however, is one for contemplation, one that should remain in the University’s consciousness until a solution is produced.

Selling passes to Waltham residents for a more reasonable fee—at least, under the $150 to $175 range—would pull in a good amount of useful revenue for the University.

Maybe it would take a petition. Maybe it would take a couple of years.

Maybe it will be fought for and protested for and grasped tightly by the students of Brandeis who feel a particular affection for the town that has housed us since our inception.

No matter what it takes, I believe any Brandeis student with that special spark for social justice will find that it is a worthy cause to allow Waltham residents into our athletic facilities for a nominal membership fee—which has the potential to partially alleviate some of the University’s financial woes.

It’s the least we can do.

Midyear and administrative interests clash concerning study abroad Ethan

MERMELSTEIN MIND OVER MADNESS

Dear Midyears, Welcome!

It was only about a year ago that I and my fellow midyears finished up the same series of lectures (commonly referred to as “orientation”) that you all just finished, where we were assured that we would be taken care of and that the transition into school would be smooth with special help and special consideration along the way for our special group of students.

For the most part, you will find that those assurances will be upheld throughout your years here.

The midyear program was created with a lot of intensive thought and careful consideration.

Those charged with starting the program knew that nobody would choose to be a midyear if it were difficult to graduate with the rest of their class in the spring, so they enacted polices to make doing so more feasible.

We are the only group on campus that, as first-years, can transfer credits to Brandeis from universities where we studied before we got here.

Write to us

The University goes out of its way to advise midyear students on the premed track to take classes at Brandeis the summer before they arrive.

For the most part, there is sufficient support and consideration for our kind. Or at least there was.

Friends, you are entering a school in dire financial straits, driven to dangerously foolish cost-cutting extremes.

The need to shrink our budget gap has, to a great extent, clouded our administration’s thinking.

Case in point: The Rose Art Museum debacle. If you haven’t heard about that, ask anyone who was on campus last year. I’m sure they’ll be more than glad to explain the whole thing to you.

On a perhaps bigger and scarier scale, the intensified pressures stemming from an increased admission rate and frozen/shrinking faculty and stagnant options for housing are ushering in an era of radical administrative thinking that is affecting the University and its students in a grand variety of fashions.

Now, some good has come out of this process.

The Justice Brandeis Semester program offers exciting opportunities for students to get field experience while receiving University credits for their endeavors.

It may be arguable, though, whether such a program is actually in line with the University’s philosophy of a true liberal arts education.

The Justice welcomes letters to the editor responding to published material. Please submit letters through our Web site at www.thejusticeonline.com. Anonymous submissions cannot be accepted. Letters should not exceed 300 words, and may be edited for space, style, grammar, spelling, libel and clarity, and must relate to material published in the Justice.

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All submissions are due Friday at 5 p.m.

But nonetheless, it helps the University to stand out among our equally ranked counterparts.

One department that has been forced to significantly change its policies in response to the school’s shifting needs is the Office of Study Abroad.

Last year, students receiving merit scholarships towards their tuition here were told that the money probably wouldn’t carry over to study abroad. Then they were told it would.

This erratic flip-flopping best illustrates the perhaps questionable thought processes of an extremely pressured study abroad office.

The current situation seems to be that all sophomores planning on going abroad during their junior years must apply through the Office of Study Abroad by Feb. 12, so if need be, Study Abroad can make the process selective.

Because of the study abroad application requirements, this means that all students must declare a major before their junior year and also choose a school that matches their academic interests.

In the past, students interested in going abroad in the spring of their junior year had until October of that same year to apply.

Yes, this change is quite annoying for all students interested in studying in the spring, but it is particularly disadvantageous to us midyears.

It means that, after only two semesters, we must choose our majors with near certainty

The opinions stated in the editorial(s) under the masthead on the opposing page represent the opinion of a majority of the voting members of the editorial board; all other articles, columns, comics and advertisements do not necessarily. For the Brandeis Talks Back feature on the opposite page, staff interview four randomly selected students each week and print only those four answers.

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and find schools that offer courses into which we can work on those majors.

In an e-mail to the Justice, when asked what consideration, if any, was given to midyear students when making these changes, Director of Study Abroad J. Scott Van Der Meid responded only by saying, “All students have eight semesters at Brandeis and all students are eligible to study abroad in semesters 5, 6, and 7 of their time at Brandeis.”

So, in other words, no serious consideration was given to the plight of the midyear student.

Yes, what Van Der Meid says is true, but if we want to stay on the seven-semester graduation track, we can either forget going abroad, have an unbelievably crammed last semester here or decide what we want to major in after taking only eight department classes.

This most certainly does not jive with the exploratory spirit of our liberal arts institution.

Regardless of their result, these changes prove to us that sometimes nobody here has our back.

The administration and University departments are hard-pressed to decrease spending, and it now appears that the weirdness of our scholastic schedule isn’t even an afterthought for them.

We need to have a loud voice and ensure together that we are not forgotten during these radical financial times.

EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS NEWS: Alana Abramson FEATURES: Tess Raser FORUM: Hillel Buechler PHOTOS: Asher Krell, Robyn Spector LAYOUT: Debra Friedmann COPY: Emily Kraus ADS: Cody Yudkoff

STAFF Senior Writers: Miranda Neubauer, Melissa Siegel Senior Photographer: Rebecca Ney Senior Copy Editor: Joyce Wang Senior Illustrator: A. Eli Tukachinsky News: Erin Doniger

Forum: Eitan Cooper, Hannah Goldberg, Rebecca Kellogg, Matt Lawrence, Ethan Mermelstein, Leah Smith, Avi Snyder Sports: Quincy Auger, Jeffrey Boxer, Max Goldstein, Jonathan Steinberg Arts: Wei-Huan Chen, Alex DeSilva, Bryan Flatt, Morgan Manley, Daniel Orkin, Alex Pagan, Bryan Prywes, Justine Root, Ben Serby, Sujin Shin, Shelly Shore Photography: Genevieve Armstrong, Maegan Bautista, Jaxson Dermer, Nathaniel Freedman, Paula Hoekstra,Davida Judelson, Shaefali Shandilya Copy: Danielle Berger, Rebecca Brooks, Jacob Chatinover, Hilary Cheney, Jenn Craig, Camille Dolfen, Ariel Glickman, Patricia Greene, Rachel Herman, Liana Johnson, Daniella Kohlhagen, Mailinh Phan-Nguyen, Zane Relethford, Marielle Temkin, Amanda Winn, Liat Zabludovsky Illustrations: Rishika Assomull, Stacy Handler Layout: Nadav Havivi, Karen Hu, Nan Pang

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TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 2010

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THE JUSTICE

FORUM

It’s time for the filibuster to disappear

By LIZ POSNER JUSTICE CONTRIBUTING WRITER

On Jan. 19, Massachusetts voters elected Republican Scott Brown to fill the empty seat in the U.S. Senate that previously belonged to Democrat Ted Kennedy. Most of the news media right now are concentrating on how Brown’s election to the U.S. Senate will specifically hurt certain legislation.

The health care reform bill obviously comes to mind, though pundits have also mentioned the cap-and-trade bill to reduce carbon emissions and regulatory reform of the finance industry as probable victims of Brown’s ascent.

What may be more important— especially to college students—is how this election points to the injustices of the Senate voting system.

The filibuster is a ridiculous and undemocratic political tool.

When Brown fills the Republicans’ 41st Senate seat, Democrats will lose the supermajority that would have allowed them to pass Democratic-favored legislation relatively easily. Now, it will be possible for Republicans to indefinitely block the health care bill and other legislation from passing by use of the filibuster.

Young Americans who are particularly attuned to their basic sense of justice should recognize this abuse of bureaucracy and protest use of the filibuster in the Senate.

A quick review: the filibuster is a procedural act that allows the minority party represented in the Senate to extend the period of floor debate over a bill.

The motion for filibuster was rarely invoked until the mid-20th century. A rule revision in 1975 made the call for filibuster much easier by requiring 3/5 of the Senate—or 60 senators—to end debate.

If more people knew about the filibuster, more Americans would see that it is unfair and illogical and would understand how it antagonizes the legislative process.

I don’t mean to criticize the filibuster just because I lean left politically or because I sympathize with Senate Democrats.

It simply doesn’t make sense that any minority party should have so much power, especially since a bill only needs a simple majority to pass during final voting.

Senate Republicans, for the most part, represent sparsely populated states in the South and the Midwest. The Senate is not based on population, but even if it were, Democrats would still represent more people in the U.S. How does it make any sense then that a minority could have a large enough influence to block major legislation?

Why is it fair that 60 senators make a supermajority, but one more minority member can completely impede legislative progress?

Both Democrats and Republicans have used and abused the filibuster in recent years. In 2005, Democrats threatened to impose a filibuster to delay judicial appointments made by then-President Bush in an attempt to keep conservative judges out of federal courts for as long as possible.

But use of the filibuster has

spiked incredibly over the past 30 years as partisan politics became a fact of life in Washington.

Before the 1950s, one call for filibuster was made, on average, every two years in the Senate.

From 2007 to 2009, that number rose to 139, according to a Jan. 12 article in Slate magazine. Future figures promise to match, if not surpass, this one. Simply because the filibuster has become such a vital part of Senate debate, it is now almost guaranteed that major legislation cannot pass without 60 votes.

My basic point is that the filibuster is undemocratic. The initial purpose of Congress was to provide representation for citizens in their government.

Universal suffrage complements this philosophy by ensuring that all Americans have an equal say in how their government is run.

The nature of the filibuster is detrimental to this concept because it essentially gives more power to some and less to others.

The filibuster could be eliminated.

This would reform the Senate and put it in line with contentious modern politics, where party loyalty and closed-door deals can sway a Senator’s opinion more than the needs of the citizens they represent.

Because it is a part of conduct within Congress, the House and Senate would need to take the initiative to rework the laws that allow filibusters.

And members of Congress are ultimately dependent upon their constituents, so if citizens organized a major grassroots campaign to protest the practice, senators and representatives would have to listen.

This is an issue that should especially irk any college student, particularly politically active and socially conscious Brandeisians.

We are young idealists, still hopeful that our system can change.

History’s lessons are fresh on our minds—we remember that our government has undergone dramatic changes in the past, and by comparison the removal of the filibuster would be relatively tame change.

Young Americans were some of Obama’s most vocal supporters during the 2008 presidential election. Many supported his vow to change the way government politics operate.

On the other hand, according to a poll released by Tisch College at Tufts University, only 15 percent of Massachusetts citizens aged 18 to 29 participated in the voting last week.

Most young people do not think their votes impact election results or do not follow politics.

This kind of apathy keeps significant change merely a vague dream.

The anti-filibuster movement has real potential to take off on college campuses, but not if this kind of political indifference continues.

Students especially need to recognize the enormous impact they could have on movements like these, show up at the polls and appeal to elected officials to transform our dissatisfaction into action.

This way, young people can act on their intrinsic sense of injustice to remove one of the most blatant inequalities still practiced by the government.

AP CREDIT LEAPS

RISHIKA ASSOMULL/the Justice

Raising the standards for redeeming AP test credits Eitan

COOPER DOWN TO BUSINESS

We all know that our university is one of the many victims of the current economic recession.

We have heard about the budget cuts and the dangerous decrease in endowment. We have been offered a few different solutions to get out of our financial pickle; some have had promise (such as the Curriculum and Academic Restructuring Steering committee), and some have not (the Rose Art Museum). But a startling revelation I experienced this past semester gave me a new idea for how the University could make some more money and even gain some academic prestige in the process.

I, along with many other Brandeisians, was privileged enough to take Advanced Placement courses in high school. I took the courses mainly for my college résumé; all of the selective schools like to see a rigorous high school schedule.

When I finally got my scores, I eagerly looked on the Brandeis Web site to see how much credit I could receive. I was a senior in high school at the time and didn’t know much about the academic system at Brandeis. When I saw that my AP tests netted me four “semester course credits,” I assumed that this meant that I was to receive four credits, or the equivalent of one class. I was satisfied.

Well, lo and behold, I was quite wrong. It turns out that a “semester course credit” is the equivalent of one class at Brandeis, and instead of eventually receiving four credits, I would actually get an entire semester of credit.

But after giving this jackpot

some consideration, and having compared the AP credit policy at Brandeis to other prestigious schools, I have had second thoughts.

Why has Brandeis decided to give me so much credit for what are really just a few tests I took in high school? Why do I receive credit for both AP Language and AP Literature (two tests that are very similar), when most other high-ranked institutions refuse to do so?

Moreover, AP exams are curved—quite generously—so to get a score of “4” on most exams (the score that Brandeis requires, for most exams, to receive a “semester course credit”) one only has to get around 60 percent of the material correct.

That’s right, you can walk into your AP exam, get a generally failing score of 60, and still be exempt from an entire college course.

And there may be an even larger problem looming. A recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education describes a growing trend of high school graduates displaying less-thanimpressive math skills.

According to the article, part of the reason for this phenomenon may be that AP courses are simply not the same difficulty level as college courses. And students who enter college with a score that places them out of Calculus I may either never take a math course again or crash and burn when they reach Calculus II. Perhaps there were solid reasons for accepting lower scores.

After all, the students who excelled and may normally have decided to attend an Ivy League school—where they would not have received as much credit— would instead be lured in by Brandeis with the promise of graduation in three and a half years.

But given the current econom-

ic situation, Brandeis would do well for itself if the registrar decided to raise its standards of AP credit acceptance for three reasons: 1. Students like me, who have gained a significant amount of credit from scores of “4,” would not be able to graduate a semester early and would then have to pay more money in tuition.

2. By adopting a stricter policy, Brandeis would join the prestigious ranks of Ivy League schools and elite liberal arts colleges that do not place such a high value on AP scores. For example, Harvard University only accepts scores of “5.”

The truth is that many students in high school just take these exams to bolster their résumés. According to a recent New York Times article, the AP program is rapidly gaining participants, but it is also losing its prestige.

3. Students would no longer place out of courses that in reality would be very beneficial for them to take. Students would have to learn course material on a more in-depth, challenging, college level, as opposed to the more basic high school level.

The truth is that we are here to take college courses and to take our studies to the next level. As much as an AP course in high school can mimic a college curriculum, it cannot replicate a college education.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not advocating for Brandeis to stop accepting all AP credit. I still think that the policy has merit.

And, if Brandeis wants to view a score of “4” as an impressive accomplishment that is worth notice, then it would be fair to evaluate this score as part of the admissions process. But excessive use of this score for college credit only loses us money and prestige.

THE JUSTICE

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TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 2010

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SPORTS SWIMMING & DIVING

Men’s squad dominates in the pool ■ The men’s swimming and

diving team went 2-0 last week against Trinity College and Clark University.

By JONATHAN STEINBERG JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

The men’s swimming and diving squad continued to impress with two wins against Trinity College and Clark University this past week, while the women’s team fell

short in both meets. With the two wins, the men improved to 6-1 while the women fell to 2-5.

In Saturday’s meet against Trinity, the men’s squad took advantage of strong swimming to finish first in 13 of 14 swimming events and dominated 173-118.

Coach Jim Zotz was aware that the men’s team was capable of performing well against Trinity.

“We expected if we were swimming to our capabilities, we should have a good time against [Trinity]. ... We had a lot of great races and a

lot of people came back,” Zotz said.

James Liu ’10 once again had an impressive day, notching victories in the 50-, 100- and 200-yard freestyle.

Liu also recorded a win as a member of the 200-yard medley relay consisting of himself, Justin Wellins ’10, Marc Eder ’12 and Aaron Bennett ’11.

Bennett also won four events, winning the 1,000-yard freestyle, 200-yard butterfly, 500-yard freestyle and 200-yard medley relay.

Daniel Danon ’13 also finished

the day with three individual wins as well as a win as a member of the 400-yard freestyle relay team that also included Josh Allgaier ’12, Wellins and Jesse Hershman ’10. He won the 100-yard backstroke, 100yard butterfly and the 200-yard individual medley.

The women’s squad continued to struggle against Trinity, as they were without Julia Derk ’12 and Emily Heldman ’10. The squad lost 167-120 while taking wins in only 8 of 16 events. Despite the unsatisfying result of the meet, Hollis Viray

Both squads compete at Greater Boston Track Club indoor track and field teams competed in a nonconference meet at Harvard University Sunday.

By JEFFREY BOXER JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

Grayce Selig ’11 qualified for New England Division III Championships in the 1-mile Championship, and several runners finished in top spots as the Brandeis men’s and women’s indoor track and field teams wrapped up a successful meet at the Greater Boston Track Club Invitational at Harvard Sunday.

The meet was a change of pace for the Brandeis squads. While most of their competitions are team meets against other schools, this meet was more geared toward individual competition.

“There were other schools there, but there were also a significant number of unaffiliated runners who were very competitive,” captain Lucia Capano ’11 said.

The majority of the squad’s successes came on the women’s side.

The best team performance was delivered in the 800-meter run, where Brandeis finished three of the top four runners.

Erin Bisceglia ’12 finished first with a time of 2 minutes, 20.66 seconds. Emily Owen ’11 finished third with a time of 2:21.60, while Marie Lemay’s ’12 time of 2:22.16 was good for fourth.

“They all ran great races,” said Capano. “It was really exciting

watching them round the final curve with all three of them pulling away.”

But the most noteworthy individual performance of the day was Selig’s. Selig finished in fourth place in the 1-mile championship with a time of 5:00.53.

The time was her personal best, and easily qualified her for the New England Division III Championships.

She surpassed the 5:05 time necessary to qualify, and was five seconds off of automatically qualifying for nationals.

“I definitely think that she can and will reach that time,” Capano said.

Coach John Evans was also pleased with Selig’s performance. “[Selig] had another great run,” Evans said. “She’s in great shape. ... I think she is going to have a tough rest of the season. ... I think she will run much faster in the next couple of weeks.”

Captain Beth Pisarik ’10 also ran the 1-mile championship, finishing ninth with a time of 5:27.46.

In the regular mile event, Kate Warwick ’12 finished third with a time of 5:18.31, while captain Ally Connolly ’10 finished tenth with a time of 5:27.46.

Anna Sinjour ’13 led the girls’ sprinters on Sunday. Sinjour finished the 200-meter run in 27.14 seconds, good for seventh place.

Sinjour also paced Brandeis runners in the 400-meter race, finishing in third place.

Michelle Gellman ’11 finished fifth with a time of 1:02.30, just 1 second behind Sinjour’s time.

In the high jump, captain Suzanne Bernier ’10 finished in

fourth place with a height of 1.57 meters. Lily Parenteau ’12 finished fifth with a height of 1.52 meters.

Capano excelled in the long jump and the high jump. In the long jump, she finished in third with a distance of 5.36 meters.

Her triple jump distance of 11.24 meters was good for fourth place in the event.

In the shot put, Desiree Murphy ’10 finished in fourth with a distance of 9.71 meters.

On the men’s side, the Judges were paced by their distance runners.

Alex Kramer ’13 had the highest finish of any men’s runner, finishing third in the 1-mile run with a time of 4:22.78.

Marc Boutin ’12 finished in 4:28.56, good for ninth in the event.

In the 3,000-meter event, Daniel Anastos ’11 finished sixth in the invitational with a time of 8:44.88.

Mingkai Lin ’12 and Brian Foley ’13 led the sprint events for the men’s team.

Lin finished eleventh in the 200meter run place with a time of 24.02. Foley led Brandeis in the 400 with a fourth-place finish.

Overall, Capano was pleased with the team’s performance on Sunday.

“We just wanted to come out and practice and see how high in the rankings we can get, and I think we all did a great job of that this weekend,” she said.

The men’s and women’s indoor track and field sqauds will next compete in the Terrier Classic at Boston University Saturday.

Josh Asen contributed reporting

FENCING: Women go perfect at NFCs CONTINUED FROM 16 dence into the upcoming Brandeis/MIT Invitational on Saturday, where they will face many of the same teams seen at the last Brandeis Invitational.

Nunley believes Saturday’s meet may be their key to the team’s success. “[At the Brandeis Invitational], we lost every single [match], but yesterday, the whole meet kind of re-energized everybody,” says Nunley. “We went undefeated, and so going into our next meet, I think we’ll be way more confident. This time, we’re trying to just do better than last time, which will help us to continue on.”

Shipman believes that the team has the ability to compete against many of those Division I squads.

“I think the women’s team has gained some confidence, and they’re pretty well balanced,” he said. “We don’t have too many really stand-out stars, but we don’t have

too many weak spots on the team either. Everybody’s fairly good, so it’s a nice, balanced team.”

On Saturday, the men started the day strong, winning their first two matches against Tufts and Dartmouth 15-12 and 19-8, respectively. They followed with 16-11 and 19-8 losses to host Boston College and Brown University and ended with a tight loss to Vassar College, 14-13.

Like the women’s team, the men’s squad has had trouble this season beating its tougher opponents.

“The two victories we had were against club teams, and our three losses were against varsity teams,” said épée Andrew Travis ’10. “We definitely need to start being able to beat varsity teams.”

The team posted a 3-2 record at its first NFC meet in November and a 1-3 record at the Brandeis Invitational.

Shipman believes the team needs to perform better.

“We’re not fencing as well as we

should, especially in foil and saber. … [We’re] not fencing with the confidence and the good tactics that we need to,” said Shipman. “The foil team is fairly young, and saber is not extremely deep. There’s no really heavy guy we can count on for three wins every match. If our best guys are off a little bit, then we’re in trouble.”

Despite having one junior and no seniors on the foil team, Shipman believes it has a strong potential.

“I think all of them can raise their level enough so that we can get over the hump,” he said. “In some of those close matches, like the Vassar match and the Boston College match, we can compete with them. But we’ll keep working on it and see what we can do.”

The women’s team is back in action tomorrow at Wellesley College. After tomorrow, both teams will compete at Brandeis next Saturday in the Brandeis/MIT Invitational, which takes place at 9 a.m.

See SWIM, 14 ☛

FADE AWAY

TRACK & FIELD

■ The men’s and women’s

’10 led the way with wins in the 1,000-yard freestyle, 500-yard freestyle, 200-yard individual medley and also as a member of the 200yard medley team also consisting of Angela Chui ’12, Siohban Lyons ’12 and Elise Allan ’12.

Chui also added points for the women’s squad with two secondplace finishes and a relay win.

In Wednesday’s senior night meet, the men’s and women’s squads split with Clark, with the men winning 139-100 and the

DAVID SHEPHARD-BRICK/the Justice

CONCENTRATION: Guard Carmela Breslin ’10 goes up for a shot in a Jan. 22 game.

WBBALL: Team drops lead in a tough loss CONTINUED FROM 16 post-player, Kasey Gieschen ’10, put away 10 more. The two athletes dominated inside play and helped Brandeis outscore Rochester 20-10 in the paint.

Two more starters, guard Jessica Chapin ’10 and Kendrew, contributed 11 points.

Rashford said that the team showed tremendous pride while playing aggressively for the entire game.

“I think we came out really aggressive and it showed how strong our teamwork was that four people were in double digits and Amber [Strodthoff] came through with 13 rebounds,” said Rashford. “[Strodthoff] played extremely well down low and also did a lot of the intangible things the team needed.”

Brandeis’ strong defensive play held Rochester under 50 points for the first time this season.

“We really took them out of the game,” Strodthoff said. We knew [junior guard Melissa Alwardt] was a great scorer and we really shut her

down. It was our defense that won the game for us.”

But the major turning point for Brandeis came with 1:50 remaining in first half play. Tied 22-22, Rashford knocked down a 3-pointer to give the Judges a lead they would hold until the final buzzer.

Strodthoff recognized the importance of the halftime lead.

“It’s always good to feel you ended the half with a lead because it’s more comfortable to have a little bit of a cushion,” she said. “But we really wanted to come out strong in the second half and build from our first half play.”

Despite their lead at half, the Judges struggled to pull away from the Yellowjackets in the second half. A 3-pointer by Chapin gave the Judges a 53-46 lead with 1:07 remaining in regulation.

The extended lead carried the Judges to victory in their second UAA win of the season.

The Judges next play Case Western University at home Friday night.

14

TUESDAY, JANUARY 26 , 2010

●

THE JUSTICE

SPORTS

SWIM: Men continue their successful season CONTINUED FROM 13 women falling 122-100.

The men took first-place in 9 of 11 swimming events, with second-place finishes in the other two.

Liu led the Brandeis seniors with individual wins in the 50-yard freestyle and the 100-yard freestyle, in which he placed 1.34 seconds in front of teammate and fellow class member Wellins Wellins also took home a thirdplace finish in the 200-yard freestyle and a win as a member of the 400yard freestyle relay team that included himself, Josh Allgaier ’12, Niko Karkantis ’13 and Liu. Jesse Hershman ’10 also contributed with a win in the 500-yard freestyle and as a member of the 400yard medley team which was comprised of representatives from every Brandeis class: himself, Bennett, Eder and Danon.

Alex Cemaj ’10 also represented the senior class with a strong second- place finish in the 1,000-yard freestyle 6.57 seconds behind teammate and winner Bennett.

The team’s impressive performance highlights the squad’s depth in various events.

“When we do the lineup, we know we need to plan in advance against good teams like Trinity,” Cemaj said. “It’s just a matter of people challenging themselves and giving their all, not relying on the rest of the team to pick up their slack.”

The women fell short of a victory against Clark, winning just 6 of 11 swimming events. Representing the class of 2010 were Viray and Lyons.

Viray took first place in the 500-yard freestyle and added a second-place

finish in the 200-yard freestyle and 200-yard individual medley.

Lyons, captain of the squad, placed first in the 200-yard butterfly and as a member of the 400-yard medley relay team consisting of herself, Chui, Holly Spicer ’13, and Allan.

Despite the close loss, Lyons looked to the bright side, noting the contributions her senior class gave to the team.

“We have a great senior class,” she said. “We’ve been together for four years and have set a lot of records. It was a sentimental occasion, but we just wanted to go out and give it our all.”

Both teams will next face Boston College on Jan. 26 for their final dual meet of the season.

Boston College, a Division I program, presents many challenges for the Judges.

Zotz acknowledged this, but realizes that his team can compete competitively with the Eagles.

“Realistically, they are a much stronger team, and we do not have any illusions of bringing home a victory, but at the same time we do expect to be very competitive and win a portion of the events.”

Cemaj is convinced tht the team has the dedication, determination and will to swim against Boston College.

“We swim 8 days a week and remain competitive,” said Cemaj. “We commute and practice longer than last year and everyone is putting in a fair effort to dedicate themselves to the team.”

—Josh Asen contributed reporting

MBBALL: Judges fail to keep winning streak alive CONTINUED FROM 16 The Judges were led by Roberson and forward Terrell Hollins ’10, each of whom scored 15 points.

The Eagles’ bench outscored the Judges’ 37-10, as key reserve guard/forward Vytas Kriskus ’12, who came into the game averaging 31.6 percent shooting from 3-point range but finished Sunday’s game 0-5 from that distance.

“I think some of the shots were there; we just didn’t take them sometimes,” Magee said. “It’s kind of a hard situation because we have a lot of guys that are really good shooters on the team, and we know that we can make those shots, and sometimes they just don’t go in and that’s hard.”

On Friday night the Judges defeated Rochester 70-63. Brandeis led by as much as 10 in the first half before the Yellowjackets closed to within three before a 3-pointer by Kriskus with 2 seconds left in the half stretched the Brandeis lead back to 6.

Rochester briefly retook the lead on a layup by rookie forward Marcus Roberson with just over 3 minutes into the second half, but the Judges quickly retook the lead on two free throws from guard Tyrone Hughes ’12.

Kriskus led the Judges with 18 points off the bench, while Hollins, Hughes and Small all finished in double figures. Hollins added a seasonhigh 13 rebounds.

The Judges will next play UAA opponent Case Western Reserve University at home on Friday at 8 p.m.

DAVID SHEPPARD-BRICK/the Justice

COMPOSURE: Forward Terrell Hollins ’10 leaps in the air in a Jan. 22 home game.

Love going to the games?

Join theJustice Sports section and give us the scoop on all the latest games and events.

For more information, e-mail Josh Asen at jasen@brandeis.edu.

THE JUSTICE

scored 19 points in a loss to Emory University on Sunday. In the win against the University of Rochester on Friday, she scored 11 points.

2 0

double-doubles achieved by men’s basketball forward Terrell Hollins ’10 this past weekend.

team losses for the women’s fencing team in the Northeast Fencing Conference Meet on Saturday.

24 55 4

rebounds gathered by women’s basketball forward Amber Strodthoff ’11 in the team’s two games last weekend.

-point margin of victory for the men’s swimming and diving team over Trinity College Saturday.

-th place finish for Grayce Selig ’11 in the 1-mile Championship at the Greater Boston Track Club Invitational Saturday.

DAVID SHEPPARD-BRICK/the Justice

need to play team defense as a whole, settle down on offense and not force anything.”

Kendrew looks forward to the future of the team as well.

“We definitely have a young team: Our freshmen are really good, and we have some great players coming in

next year. With experience, they will help us out a lot, and I think we’ll be good for a few seasons to come,” said Kendrew.

—Max Goldstein

UAA STANDINGS Men’s Basketball UAA Conference WL Washington 4 1 Emory 4 1 JUDGES 3 2 Rochester 3 2 Chicago 3 2 New York 2 3 Case 1 4 Carnegie 0 5

Women’s Basketball W L 14 2 12 4 12 3 12 4 9 7 11 5 9 7 4 12

Overall Pct. .875 .750 .800 .750 .562 .688 .562 .250

UAA Conference WL Washington 5 0 Chicago 4 1 Rochester 3 2 Case 2 3 JUDGES 2 3 Emory 2 3 New York 1 4 Carnegie 1 4

W 15 12 13 11 9 9 9 8

L 1 4 3 5 6 7 7 8

Overall Pct. .938 .750 .812 .688 .600 .562 .562 .500

TEAM LEADERS MBball (points)

MBball (minutes)

Guard Kenny Small ’10 leads the team with 14.3 points per game.

Guard Andre Roberson ’10 leads the Judges with 34.1 minutes per game.

Player Kenny Small Andre Roberson Terrell Hollins Vytas Kriskus Tyrone Hughes

Player Andre Roberson Tyrone Hughes Kenny Small Terrell Hollins Rich Magee

PPG 14.3 11.9 11.6 11.6 9.4

MPG 34.1 32.3 30.6 25.0 24.5

WBball (points)

WBball (minutes)

Guard Jessica Chapin ’10 leads the Judges with 15.1 points per game.

Guard Jessica Chapin ’10 leads the team with 31.7 minutes per game.

Player Jessica Chapin Morgan Kendrew Amber Strodthoff Kasey Gieschen Diana Cincotta

Player Jessica Chapin Morgan Kendrew Amber Strodthoff Diana Cincotta Kasey Gieschen

PPG 15.1 11.1 8.8 7.5 7.4

MPG 31.7 28.5 28.1 25.6 20.9

UPCOMING GAME OF THE WEEK Women’s basketball vs. Case on Friday night The women’s basketball team faces Case Western Reserve University at 6 p.m.

1

3-pointer made in 17 attempts by the men’s basketball team in its 77-64 loss to Emory University Sunday.

15

Saints beat Vikings in overtime, reach first Super Bowl

■ The women’s basketball guard

Judging numbers

TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 2010

AP BRIEFS

ATHLETE OF THE WEEK Morgan Kendrew ’12

Women’s basketball guard Morgan Kendrew ’12 continued her impressive season with a career-high 19 points and eight rebounds in the Judges’ 74-63 loss to Emory University on Sunday.

The starting sophomore guard is averaging 11.9 points per game and has scored the second most points behind senior guard Jessica Chapin ’10.

Kendrew has led the team in scoring four times this season, and although Kendrew had a strong season last year, she thinks that she has improved her game.

“I am more confident this year, take more shots, drive to the basket more this year, and that gets me more points,” she said.

In a 55-48 win over the University of Rochester on Friday, Kendrew scored 11 points and grabbed five rebounds in 31 minutes of playing time.

Kendrew and Chapin, make up a strong Brandeis backcourt. With Chapin graduating this year, Kendrew feels that Chapin has helped her throughout her career at Brandeis. “[Chapin] is always there to pick me up, tell me when I’m doing well and [badly],” she said.

Despite Kendrew’s play, the team is only 9-6. Last season, the Judges lost only seven games.

However, Kendrew is confident that the team can finish the season strong.

“I think that we’ve been struggling in some of our losses, but I think we can pull it together,” she said. “We just

●

The women’s basketball team looks to bounce back after its loss to Emory University on Sunday when it faces University Athletic Association opponent Case Western Reserve University at home on Friday at 6 p.m.

Brandeis won both matchups against Case Western last season. The Judges defeated the Spartans by 20 at

home and by 13 away from home.

The Spartans have a record of 11-5 (23 in UAA play) and are currently in fourth place in the UAA standings.

They are led by sophomore forward Erin Hollinger, who leads the team with 16.6 points per game. Senior guard Ashleigh Tondo averages 6.0 rebounds per game, which leads the team.

NEW ORLEANS—A 40-yard field goal in overtime by a little-known kicker could become as famous as jambalaya in these parts.

The New Orleans Saints, a team with no home and an uncertain future five years ago, are heading for their first Super Bowl. By battering Brett Favre and beating the Minnesota Vikings 31-28 Sunday, they set off celebrations on Bourbon Street that locals never could have imagined in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

“This is for everybody in this city,” said coach Sean Payton, the architect of the Saints’ turnaround. “This stadium used to have holes in it and used to be wet. It’s not wet anymore. This is for the city of New Orleans.”

And it came courtesy of Garrett Hartley and the Aints—who surely ain’t the Aints anymore.

“In reality, we had to lean on each other in order to survive and in order to get where we are now,” quarterback Drew Brees said. “The city is on its way to recovery and in a lot of ways has come back better than ever. We’ve used the strength and resiliency of our fans to go out and play every Sunday and play with the confidence that we can do it, that we can achieve everything we’ve set out to achieve.”

Favre threw away Minnesota’s best chance to win, tossing an interception deep in New Orleans territory in the closing seconds of regulation. Then the Saints won the coin toss and ended it on Hartley’s kick 4 minutes, 45 seconds into overtime.

“Just helping my team get to Miami,” he said. “Just doing my part.”

A team of nomads after Katrina ravaged its city and the Superdome, the Saints overcame a slew of mistakes in the biggest game the Big Easy has ever seen.

Forget the paper bag masks and that long history of losing that started in 1967. Moments after Hartley’s kick, they were toasting their hometown winners in the French Quarter and making plans for South Florida.

And in the Superdome, once a squalid refuge after Katrina, they boogied in the aisles as confetti covered the field.

“It’s a moment I’ve been waiting for for a long time, and obviously we’re not done yet,” said Brees, Payton’s hand-picked quarterback for the Saints’ renaissance.

It’s the first time the top seeds in each conference made the big game since the 1993 season.

There were nine fumbles and two interceptions, and the biggest mistake belonged to Favre. Flushed from the pocket in the final minute, he seemed to have room to run to set up a field goal. But hampered by a left leg injured in the third quarter, he threw cross-field and was intercepted by Tracy Porter at the 22-yard line.

Porter’s pick sent it into overtime, the third time an NFC title game has needed extra time and the second in three seasons. Two years ago, Favre’s interception in overtime set up a field goal that sent the Giants past the Packers and into the Super Bowl.

That finished off Minnesota’s chance for its first Super Bowl trip in 33 years—and opportunity to win it for the first time after four defeats. The Vikings have lost five straight NFC title games.

“I’ve felt better,” said Favre, who looked every bit his 40 years. “It was a physical game. A lot of hits. You win that and you sure feel a lot better.”

Manning, Colts rally past Jets, reach Super Bowl INDIANAPOLIS—This is perfect for the Indianapolis Colts: They have Peyton Manning, and they’re back in the Super Bowl.

The four-time MVP threw three touchdown passes, and the Colts rallied from an 11-point, first-half deficit to beat the New York Jets 30-17 Sunday in the AFC championship game.

The Colts (16-2) are now headed back to the NFL title game for the second time in four years and their fourth Super Bowl in franchise history. Better yet, they’re heading back to their lucky city—Miami, where they’ve played all four of those games and won there twice.

“I thought we just kept our mouths shut and went to work this week,” Manning said.

The big-talking Jets, and their equally big-talking coach, Rex Ryan, were all the incentive Indy needed Sunday.

A month ago, when the New Yorkers last came to town, Indianapolis coach Jim Caldwell pulled his starters in the third quarter and gave up a chance at a perfect season to focus on a Super Bowl run. Fans booed throughout the fourth quarter and when the Colts left the field, and some spent the past month complaining publicly.

That’s over now.

Manning stayed on the field for every Colts play and instead of blowing a lead, the Colts rallied behind their leader.

This time, fans counted down the final seconds while streamers and confetti hung in the air, flash bulbs popped incessantly and when the official announcement was made, roars cascaded from the rafters.

“We talked about being patient against these guys,” Manning said. “We knew it would be a four-quarter game.”

Just as special was having the Colts career rushing leader, Edgerrin James, present the team with the Lamar Hunt Trophy, which goes to the AFC champs.

He never made it to the Super Bowl with the Colts, though team owner Jim Irsay gave James a ring when the Colts beat the Bears.

“We’ve been here before, we had seven comeback wins this year. I think the guys were a little rattled at first, I think we took their best shot, but we came back,” linebacker Gary Brackett said. “I think we did a great job of being the hunters and imposing our will today.”

Manning finished 26 of 39 for 377 yards. He became the first player in league history with seven 300-yard postseason games.

just

Sports

Page 16

CLEARING THE POOL The men’s swimming and diving team defeated Trinity College and Clark University, p. 14.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Waltham, Mass.

MEN’S BASKETBALL

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

Team splits two home games Judges cannot close out Emory

■ The men’s basketball

lost to Emory University despite defeating the University of Rochester.

By MELISSA SIEGEL JUSTICE SENIOR WRITER

After blowing a 55-45 lead against University Athletic Association foe Emory University Sunday afternoon, the men’s basketball team found itself tied with the Eagles at 6060 with 3 minutes, 40 seconds left in the game. But in crunch time it was Emory who came up with the key baskets to win the game.

Emory rookie guard Alex Greven hit two straight 3-pointers to put the Eagles up 66-60 as they went on to defeat the Judges 77-64. The Judges led by 10 points with 9:41 left in the game before Emory went on a 32-9 run to close out the game.

With the loss, the Judges fall to 123 (3-2 in UAA play) and a secondplace tie in the UAA after defeating the University of Rochester Friday night 70-63.

The game went back and forth early on before the Eagles went on a 17-5 run in the the first half to go up 33-24. Brandeis was able to pull within 6 points at the break despite shooting just 37.9 percent from the field in the first half, including 0-9 from 3point range.

The Judges then went on a bit of a run at the beginning of the second half, tying the game on a layup by forward Rich Magee ’10 and then taking the lead on a jumper by guard Andre Roberson ’10. It was part of a 25-9 run by the Judges to open the half that put the team up 55-45 with 9:41 left in the game.

But then the Eagles went on a run of their own, outscoring the Judges 32-9 for the rest of the game and taking advantage of continued cold shooting for Brandeis, who finished the game shooting just 38.6 percent, including 1-17 from behind the arc.

Emory tied the game with 4:36 left on a basket scored by senior guard Daniel Curtin and took the lead shortly after on two free throws from senior forward Anthony Fernandez.

The Judges were able to come back and tie the game on a jumper by forward Christian Yemga ’11 before the two 3-pointers by Greven sealed the Judges’ fate.

“I think we all struggled,” Coach Brian Meehan said. “We just didn’t shoot the ball well from the 3-point line. I think overall we shot the ball well when we were patient, got the [ball] inside. … But I thought we lost our composure a little bit, started settling for some shots that necessarily weren’t our best opportunities.”

See MBBALL, 14 ☛

■ The women’s basketball

team gave up a lead to Emory University on Sunday, losing 73-65 to the Eagles.

By QUINCY AUGER JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

Despite their impressive performance in the NFC’s, the team has not fared as well in other meets.

This, Coach Bill Shipman says, is due to the quality of opponents: “Most of the teams in the Brandeis Invitational were Division I and more established and just bigger programs,” Shipman said. “Basically, just the quality of the opponents was higher at the [Brandeis] Invitational. We didn’t fence much worse, I don’t think. Maybe we have a little bit more confidence now, especially in foil.”

The team can take that confi-

Just over 2 1/2 minutes into the second half, women’s basketball guard Morgan Kendrew ’12 stole the ball from Emory University’s Sally Peterson and laid it in to give the Judges a 13-point lead in Sunday afternoon’s University Athletic Association competition at Brandeis.

However, the 73-65 loss proved to be a heartbreaker. Emory went on a 20-1 run in the second half, punctuated by four straight 3-pointers and three Brandeis fouls to capture a substantial lead.

Emory pulled ahead with 3:14 left in the second half, which was its first lead since 18:35 remained in the first half.

Despite Emory’s momentum, Coach Carol Simon opted not to call a timeout.

“I’m not a big timeout person,” Simon said. “Our kids know what to do. [The breakdowns came] on the defensive end. … We weren’t getting it done. Our guards were [defending] off of their guards; we didn’t box out. A timeout wouldn’t have made a difference.”

For Brandeis, only two players notched scores in double figures.

Kendrew scored a game-high 19 points and added eight rebounds.

Fellow guard, Lauren Rashford ’10, provided vital energy, contributing 15 points. Forward Amber Strodthoff ’11 dominated the boards for Brandeis with eight rebounds.

Despite several strong performances, the majority of Brandeis’ game against the Eagles was focused on fast break points and rushed offense.

As Emory began to control the tempo, the Judges fell apart, which saw them commit 18 turnovers.

“Obviously, 18 turnovers is too many against that team,” Simon said.

In addition to numerous turnovers, the Judges did not take quality shots.

Several times, Brandeis players threw up wild shots with several seconds remaining on the shot clock instead of making an extra pass for an opportunity to score an easy basket.

“Sometimes it’s hard for players to see the open teammate while trying to get a shot off,” noted guard Carmela Breslin ’10. “But that’s no excuse. In practice, we’re to attack the rim in those situations even if another player is open.”

Despite the poor performance against Emory, the Judges began the weekend on a positive note.

On Friday night, Brandeis captured a vital 55-48 win over the University of Rochester at Red Auerbach Arena, ending an eight-game winning streak for the Yellowjackets.

Strodthoff led the Judges with 10 points and 13 rebounds to secure her third double-double this year as fellow

See FENCING, 13 ☛

See WBBALL, 13 ☛

DAVID SHEPPARD-BRICK/the Justice

UP IN THE AIR: Guard Kenny Small ’10 goes airbound in a matchup against UAA foe University of Rochester on Friday.

FENCING

Women go perfect to capture second NFC Meet ■ The women’s fencing

team went 6-0 Saturday to win its second Northeast Fencing Conference Meet.

By TREVOR COHEN JUSTICE CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Last Saturday, the Brandeis fencing squads traveled to Boston College to compete in this season’s second and final Northeast Fencing Conference meet. The women’s team finished the day perfect at 6-0, while the men posted a 2-3 record with victories against Tufts University and Dartmouth College.

For the women, the foil team finished with a record of 4-2 against their opponents, while the saber and épée squads each went undefeated. For the men, foil posted a record of 1-4, saber was 2-3 and épée finished at 3-2.

On the women’s side, the impressive results mirror their last NFC Meet in November, as the team went 6-0 to claim their secondstraight unbeaten NFC crown. The Judges posted decisive victories against five of their six opponents, including a 19-8 win over Dartmouth and a 21-6 triumph of Tufts. Against Brown, the meet’s runner-up, Brandeis edged out a 1413 win, with the decisive blow com-

ing from épée Emma Larkin ’11, who finished 11-1 on the afternoon.

While the foil team suffered the only two losses of the day, Coach Bill Shipman was particularly happy with their performance.

Vikki Nunley ’13 led the team with 14 wins, posting a record of 14-4, and Emily Levy ’12 finished at an impressive 13-5.

Other standouts included sabre Anna Hanley ’11, who went 10-2, continuing her strong performance this season, which now amounts to only seven losses in 50 bouts.

Fellow saber Alex Turner ’11 came out strong with a 9-5 record on the day, including a big win against Brown.

just Arts

January 26, 2010

Radio rave

Students dance the night

away

Photos: Asher Krell/the Justice. Design: Julian Agin-Liebes and Robyn Spector/the Justice.

18

TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 2010

●

THE JUSTICE

POP CULTURE

INSIDE ON CAMPUS

18-19

■ ICE residency 19 The noted International Contemporary Ensemble will perform on campus this week.

OFF CAMPUS

19-24

19 ■ ‘The Good Negro’ Company One’s production of the moving play featured standout performances.

20 ■ ICA ad fest The Institute of Contemporary Art will screen notable commercials from the U.S. and U.K. 21 ■ Late-night controversy NBC replaced Conan O’Brien with predecessor Jay Leno as host of The Tonight Show.

21 ■ Pop Muse Heidi Montag’s debut album, Superficial, is unlikely to attain lasting popular success.

■ ‘Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus’ 22 Heath Ledger gave an impressive performance in his final movie role.

22 ■ ‘Of the Blue Color of the Sky’ The new album from OK Go had catchy appeal as the band explored new styles.

23 ■ Kabab and Tandoor The Indian restaurant’s expanded location lacked intimacy, but certain dishes excelled.

23 ■ Anna’s Taqueria Customers at the Somerville location will find it hard not to finish the chain’s burritos.

CALENDAR

INTERVIEW

by Shelly Shore

Say what you will about their personal drama and bad decisions, but when there’s a real tragedy, Hollywood celebrities have a habit of getting their acts together and stepping up to help.

More than 100 of the biggest names in music, movies and television worked as phone operators in the “Hope for Haiti Now” telethon, which aired Jan. 22 on ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, CNN, BET, the CW, HBO, MTV, VH1 and CMT. The lineup included Jennifer Aniston, Alec Baldwin, Drew Barrymore, Sacha Baron Cohen, Daniel Craig, John Cusack, Ellen DeGeneres, Zac Efron, Neil Patrick Harris, Debra Messing ’90, Jack Nicholson, Adam Sandler, Steven Spielberg, Ringo Starr, Robin Williams and Reese Witherspoon—just to name a few.

The telethon also included performances by Wyclef Jean, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, Jennifer Hudson, Mary J. Blige, Shakira and Sting in New York City; Alicia Keys, Christina Aguilera, Dave Matthews, John Legend, Justin Timberlake, Stevie Wonder and Taylor Swift in Los Angeles; and Beyoncé and Coldplay, as well as a group performance by Bono, The Edge, Jay-Z and Rihanna in London.

“Hope for Haiti” was hosted by Wyclef Jean in New York City, George Clooney in Los Angeles and CNN’s Anderson Cooper reporting in from Haiti. (You may remember the media frenzy and hero worship for Cooper that erupted last week, when footage of him abandoning his camera to rescue a young boy from a violent looting was aired on CNN.) President Bill Clinton was also featured, as well as Brad Pitt, Clint Eastwood, Denzel Washington, Halle Berry, Jon Stewart, Julia Roberts, Leonardo

Committee funds student creativity ■ In an e-mail interview with

justArts, Catherine McConnell ’10 discussed her role on the grant committee for the Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Arts.

MARK DAVIS/the Associated Press

CHARITABLE STAR: George Clooney co-hosted Wednesday’s “Hope for Haiti Now” telethon.

DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Morgan Freeman, Nicole Kidman, Robert Pattinson (Twilight fans, I hope you were watching!), Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Hanks and Muhammad Ali, each of whom briefly addressed viewers to report statistics, share anecdotes and ask viewers to donate to Hope for Haiti Now. The telethon raised over $57 million, benefiting a number of charities including the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, the UN World Food Program, the Red Cross, UNICEF and Yele Haiti Foundation.

What’s happening in Arts on and off campus

B.O.M.S. The Brandeis Open Mic Series kicks off the spring semester with another installment open to any type of creative writing or performance art. The first hour will feature a poetry skills workshop and will be followed by the open mic portion of the evening. After performances by students, Minnesota-based poet Sierra Demulder will perform. The event will conclude with a poetry slam that allows participants the chance to compete on the Brandeis Slam Team.

Today from 8 to 11 p.m. in Cholmondeley’s.

Fridays@3 The Music department’s Friday Music Breaks series returns with a flute recital by Leonard Bernstein Scholars Emily Krainer ’12 and Jesse Begelfer ’12. Krainer and Begelfer will be accompanied by Jae Kyo Han ’10 on piano. The trio will perform works by Bach, Chopin, Doppler, Ibert and Honegger.

Friday at 3 p.m. in the Slosberg Recital Hall.

International Contemporary Ensemble As part of its residency at Brandeis, the renowned International Contemporary Ensemble will perform works composed over the last 30 years. The program includes music by Philippe Hurel, Franco Donatoni, Mario Davidovsky, Edgar Guzmán and Magnus Lindberg. For more information, see the article on p. 19.

Saturday from 8 to 10 p.m. and Sunday from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Slosberg Recital Hall.

OFF CAMPUS EVENTS

MICHAEL LUTCH/Boston Symphony Orchestra

SONOROUS STRINGS: The Boston Symphony Orchestra will play works by three turn-of-the-century composers this week in a concert titled Carter, Berlioz and Ravel.

Carter, Berlioz and Ravel

Universal Horror Triple Feature

The Boston Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of James Levine, will perform Elliott Carter’s Dialogues, Hector Berlioz’s Harold in Italy and Maurice Ravel’s Piano concerto for the left hand and Suite No. 2 from Daphnis et Chloé.

Thursday at 10:30 a.m. and 8 p.m., Friday at 1:30 p.m. and Saturday at 8 p.m. at Symphony Hall, Boston.

The Brattle Theater in Cambridge offers up a trilogy of classic monster movies for the price of a single ticket. On view are Frankenstein (1931) starring Boris Karloff, Dracula (1931) with Bela Lugosi and The Wolf Man (1941) featuring Lon Chaney Jr. Thursday at 6, 7:30 and 9 p.m. at the Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St., Cambridge, Mass.

Eddie Griffin

Celebrating Chekhov The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston hosts a film series that celebrates the work of influential Russian playwright Anton Chekhov.

The museum will screen film adaptations of such classic works as The Seagull, Uncle Vanya and A Hunting Accident, as well as the Chekhov-inspired movie Chekhov’s Motives . All films will be screened in Russian with English subtitles. For more information, see the museum’s Web site at http://www.mfa.org/calendar/sub.asp?key =12&subkey=9650.

Wednesday through Saturday at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

WHAT’S ON?

‘The Art and Technique of the American Commercial’ The collection of the 26 best commercials of 2009 will have its Boston premiere this week.

Matt Miller, President and CEO of the Association of Independent Commercial Producers, will introduce Thursday’s screening. For more information, see the article on p. 20.

Thursday at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 1:30 p.m. at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston.

Tickets are $8 for students and $10 for the general public.

The co-star of the ’90s sitcom Malcolm and Eddie. who also appeared in such films as Norbit and Undercover Brother, arrives in Boston for a weekend stand-up comedy stint.

Eddie Griffin has been named one of Comedy Central’s Top 100 Greatest Stand-Up Comedians and has performed at notable venues including Madison Square Garden in New York and Los Angeles’ Comedy Store, in addition to appearing on HBO’s Def Comedy Jam. Saturday at 7 and 9:45 p.m. at the Wilbur Theatre, 246 Tremont St., Boston. Tickets cost $25 or $35 depending on seating area.

Fine Arts major Catherine McConnell ’10 served on the grant committee for the 2010 Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Arts. The committee awarded $4,800 worth of grants to students to subsidize various creative projects to be performed or displayed during the festival, which will take place from April 28 to May 2.

JustArts: How did you and the other people on the committee choose [grant recipients]?

Catherine McConnell: Everyone on the committee was given the applications a week ahead of time to review them, with a rubric of specific things to keep in mind as we were reviewing them. Then each committee member ranked all of the projects on a 1-5 scale and the scores of all the jurors were then averaged. We then looked at all the grants based on the average ranking that they were given.

The projects were all discussed and looked at based on their ability to engage the Brandeis community, feasibility of completing the project, how well thought out the project was as well as other criteria.

The process was difficult, for there were many wonderful projects proposed, yet I greatly enjoyed getting to take part in the process. As a group, we would discuss each of the projects, everyone getting to weigh in their opinion of it, and then were able to come to a consensus in terms of if we believed the project should be funded, and if so, how much money they should be awarded.

JA: Would you say that the types of submissions you got were varied, or was there a trend among the types of submissions?

CM: The types of submissions that we received greatly varied, both across disciplines (visual arts, performing arts, and music) with some incorporating multiple types, as well as ideas and subject matter.

JA: Do you expect a lot of people who didn’t win any money or people who didn’t even ask for money will be participating in the Festival of the Arts?

CM: You do not need to receive a grant to participate in the festival. I hope and expect that a lot more people will take part in the festival, not just those that received money or applied and did not receive any.

JA: Are there any specific grant applications that really stood out to you, that you look forward to seeing in April?

CM: I am really excited about a lot of the projects this year. There are several projects that collaborate different art forms that I am excited to see come together. Also, there were some really innovating sculptures that I look forward to see the final product, but overall was really impressed by all of the applicants and can’t wait for the festival to see them all become reality.

JA: Are you doing a project, and if so, did you get any money for it?

CM: I am doing a project that we were fortunate enough to get money for. Being that I was also on the committee, I did not take part in the deliberation of my own grant.

I am going to be working with Hannah Richman ’10 whom I collaborated with last year on a festival project. We are going to make a series of three paintings that look at the connection between the issues of poverty and environmental degradation. We are also going to use it as an opportunity to have two painters work on the same surface, hopefully having the art itself be a representation of a collaboration of two different peoples marks.

The goal is to have the process of creating the paintings echo the need for large social issues that we study in other classes to come together and be looked at holistically.

—Andrea Fineman

Top 10s for the week ending Jan. 26

Box Office

College Radio

Billboard

WBRS

1. Avatar 2. Legion 3. The Book of Eli 4. Tooth Fairy 5. The Lovely Bones 6. Sherlock Holmes 7. Extraordinary Measures 8. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel 9. It’s Complicated 10. The Spy Next Door

1. Animal Collective – Fall Be Kind [EP] 2. Tom Waits – Glitter and Doom Live 3. Tegan and Sara – Sainthood 4. Devendra Banhart – What Will We Be 5. Real Estate – Real Estate 6. Flaming Lips – Embryonic 7. King Khan and BBQ Show – Invisible Girl 8. BlakRoc – BlakRoc 9. Them Crooked Vultures – Them Crooked Vultures 10. Compilation – Daptone Gold

1. Vampire Weekend – Contra 2. Susan Boyle – I Dreamed A Dream 3. Ke$ha – Animal 4. Lady Gaga – The Fame 5. Alicia Keys – The Element of Freedom 6. Lady Gaga – The Fame Monster [EP] 7. Mary J. Blige – Stronger with Each Tear 8. Taylor Swift – Fearless 9. Soundtrack – Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel 10. The Black Eyed Peas – The E.N.D.

1. Beach House – “Norway” 2. The Grateful Dead – “Althea” 3. Zanois – “Tranquility Base?”

4. OK Go – “WTF” 5. Bryan Lee – “Early in the Morning” 6. Sleigh Bells – “Beach Girls” 7. Free Energy – “Free Energy” 8. Olof Arnalds – “Englar og darar” 9. Spoon – “Written in Reverse” 10. Harel Skaat – “Od Ya’ir Alai”

Album information provided by Billboard Magazine. Box office information provided by Yahoo!Movies. Radio charts provided by CMJ.

THE JUSTICE

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ON CAMPUS MUSIC

ICE arrives for campus residency ■ The Music department will host the famed International Contemporary Ensemble as it performs a wide variety of modern compositions.

By WEI-HUAN CHEN JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

The International Contemporary Ensemble will be coming to Brandeis on Saturday, Jan. 30, for a three-day residency. The group, since its formation in 2001, has emerged as one of the top contemporary classical ensembles in New York and Chicago, with the New York Times praising it as “one of the most adventurous and accomplished groups in new music.”

The 30-member collective features flute, clarinet, piano, percussion, acoustic and electric guitar, as well as electronic accompaniments, and frequently plays compositions by new or young composers. On Jan. 30, ICE will perform at the Slosberg Recital Hall at 8 p.m., displaying their critically acclaimed repertoire of Philippe Hurel, Franco Donatoni, Mario Davidovsky, Philippe Manoury and Edgar Guzmán. On Jan. 31 at 7 p.m., ICE will give a concert featuring premieres by Brandeis’ own graduate Composition students, after spending that afternoon working with the students on their compositions.

In addition to the concerts, ICE will be reading new pieces of music on Monday, Feb. 1 at 10 a.m. and giving a talk on art entrepreneurship at noon, both in the Slosberg Recital Hall. The group’s stay at Brandeis is sponsored by the Brandeis Arts Council, and all performances will be free and open to the public.

So what should students expect from a “new-music” ensemble? ICE’s MySpace page categorizes it as classical/experimental, but the two genres hardly describe the group’s dynamic selection of modernist, minimalist and contemporary composers.

LIZ LINDER/International Contemporary Ensemble

ICE ICE BABY: The New York- and Chicago-based International Contemporary Ensemble will complete a residency at Brandeis this week. The group includes, from left, David Schotzko (percussion), Claire Chase (flute), Joshua Rubin (clarinet) and Dan Lippel (guitar), and has achieved acclaim for its performances of eclectic, cutting-edge music.

Since the group frequently programs emerging composers, ICE’s sound and style changes with each new arrangement or composition.

James Borchers (GRAD), who is responsible for organizing ICE’s residency at Brandeis, has often found its concerts to be “very exciting, unconventional, and always at a high level.”

Borchers first met with ICE when he was a graduate student at Queens College and the group had just recently formed. Years later, Borchers saw that it had “become a prominent fixture of the contemporary new music scene in New York” and contacted them about coming to Brandeis in summer 2008.

“I was primarily interested in

bringing them to Brandeis to work with the graduate composers because they have a tremendous amount of experience, expertise, and affinity for the work of young emerging composers,” Borchers said in an e-mail to justArts. “The majority of their repertoire comes from music written only in the last few decades, by composers that are actually still

alive.”

Borchers, along with the staff and faculty of the Music department, expressed great enthusiasm for ICE’s residency at the school. “The concerts will likely challenge your expectations,” Borchers said, “and should offer a compelling insight into the realm of contemporary music.”

THEATER

‘Good Negro’ depicts struggle to achieve vision ■ Tracey Scott Wilson’s play

about the often-conflicting visions of civil rights leaders in the 1960s was movingly acted in the production by Boston’s Company One.

By HANNAH KIRSCH JUSTICE EDITOR

We all learned in elementary school about the heroics of participants in the Civil Rights movement.

Marchers were attacked, activists were threatened and families were divided by the fight to end segregation.

Company One’s production of The Good Negro by Tracey Scott Wilson communicates these heroics, but the true brilliance of the play lies in its confrontation of the manipulation and faults of the leaders of the Civil Rights movement.

The play opens in 1962 with the arrival of Reverends James Lawrence (played by recent Brown University graduate Jonathan Dent) and Henry Evans (Cliff Odle) in Birmingham, which is repeatedly described as the “most segregated city” in the United States. Joining them is American-byway-of-Geneva Bill Rutherford (the properly earnest and indignant Cedric Lilly), who counters their stirring passion and ample experience in the South with his impeccable organizational skills and restrained, neat character. The Movement, as they call it, has the brains and the voice, but lacks the titular “Good Negro”

PHOTO COURTESY OF COMPANY ONE

VOCAL TRIO: Henry (Cliff Odle, left) and Jimmy (Jonathan Dent, center) work with Rutherford (Cedric Lilly) in ‘The Good Negro.’ cause to provide a rallying cry.

Enter Claudette Sullivan (Marvelyn McFarlane), mother of the fouryear-old Shelly. Claudette is beaten and her daughter jailed when she violates segregation laws in order to allow her daughter to use a whitesonly restroom, and instantly the

three have found their cause. Countered by Claudette’s stolid, uneducated husband Pelzie (James Milord, alternately tender and intimidating as the script demands), Jimmy, Henry and Rutherford pursue Claudette as the perfect front for the Movement.

But as questionable financial and moral practices come to light, and as two FBI agents on assignment to stop the Movement at all costs (enter the hilarious subplot in which the pair attempt to brand the black anti-segregationists as Communist pawns) with the help of KKK infiltrate

Tommy Rowe (Greg Maraio), Claudette, Rutherford and the audience have their faith shaken. Wilson’s play makes it eminently and poignantly clear that the nobility of the methods might not always match the nobility of the cause, and this point has us captivated as surely as the suspenseful plot.

The staggering climax of the violence and racial tension that builds throughout the play is equaled by the climax of the tension between Jimmy and his wife, Corinne. Actress Kris Sidberry’s righteous anger as Jimmy’s wife is thrillingly realistic, and the scene in which the two have their marital confrontation is one of the best-acted of the entire production.

McFarlane shines as Claudette as well, and her character is an intriguing foil to the less presentable but equally compelling Pelzie. Despite its aura of fear and hope that rises and is crushed over and over, the play doesn’t neglect the opportunity for humor, whether it’s Jimmy and Henry’s jokes at the expense of the prissy Rutherford or the squabbles of the shut-in FBI agents forced to report good news to “the Old Man” at all costs.

The Good Negro provides an excellent examination of what it means to truly commit oneself to change and what personal barriers must be overcome in order to do so. Running through Feb. 6, it is as close to a mustsee as a play can get for anyone interested not only in the Civil Rights Movement and the horror of oppression in the South, but in the nature of sacrifice in the name of a cause.

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THE JUSTICE

OFF CAMPUS FILM

ICA will screen unforgettable ads ■ A screening of the most successful commercials of 2009 from the U.S. and U.K. will arrive at the Institute of Contemporary Art this week.

By ANDREA FINEMAN JUSTICE EDITOR

It may seem counterintuitive: buying tickets to see advertisements? With the advent of DVR, TiVo and on-demand streaming video online, you may have rendered your life (largely) commercial-free. Indeed, the advertising industry has suffered considerable losses in the years since these television enhancements became widespread.

Nonetheless, the art of short-form commercial filmmaking continues to be celebrated by the Association of Independent Commercial Producers, which is partnering with the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston to host screenings of award-winning ads from the U.S. and the U.K. When asked what led the ICA to hold an event focused on advertising rather than traditional film or video art, Branka Bogdanov, curator of film at the ICA, said in an interview with the Justice, “In the essence, the mission of the ICA’s Film program is to present work which explores and pushes the envelope of cinematic language today. This is exactly what the American and British commercials do. Additionally, it is very interesting to witness in the best of American and British commercials a conflation of new media, usage of innovative technology, old storytelling, ideas and crafts.”

The Saturday, Jan. 30 showing of Award-Winning British Commercials 2009 will be the Boston premiere of this collection of the 31st annual British Television Advertising Awards’ chosen works. The ads provide a window into British daily life for viewers who may not be familiar with the experience of watching British television. Some ads are provocative, some visually stunning; some feature amazing stunts and celebrity endorsements. Said Bogdanov, “A mischievous sense of humor is what sets apart British from American commercials. It seems that this very specific style of humor has its roots in British history, culture and in acclaimed TV comedy. The British commercials are born of that same culture. (One of my favorites is a Christmas ad where a puppet monkey sells tea dressed as the queen Elizabeth.)”

Matt Miller, President and CEO of AICP, wrote in an e-mail interview with the Justice, “While at a point in time, you could generalize and say that American advertising had a bit of a harder selling message, and British advertising was a softer, more entertaining messaging, the distinctions are much less today. This is because the world is becoming much more homogenized in communications, ideals, values and culture. While advertising still reflects the culture and creative sensibilities in different countries, thanks to shared global media experiences, like the internet and global television outlets, the once obvious tone and characteristics are fading.”

While nearly 100 British television commercials were recognized with awards, the ad that won the grand prize eschews celebrity endorsement and flashy stunts by the likes of break-

PHOTO COURTESY OF RED BEE MEDIA

ROYAL TOAST: ‘Queen,’ an ad to be screened at the Institute of Contemporary Art, features a puppet version of Queen Elizabeth. dancers and skydivers for a more serious message. The ad, for Hovis Bread, features a historical tour of London as a boy runs home from the market carrying a loaf of bread. Said Bogdanov of the choice, “‘Hovis: Go on Lad’ … is so charming, nicely shot, and beautifully produced—it is a whole film in 122 seconds (a second for every year since Hovis was founded.) I think that this choice speaks about the jurors’ admiration not only for the production values of the ad, but, as one juror stated, ‘What impressed us was the bravery the client demonstrated by investing so substantially … in the hope it would

halt a 10-year decline in sales.’ Hovis was selling 72,000 more loaves a day a month after launch, or 26 million more loaves a year!”

The ICA will also host two screenings of The Art and Technique of the American Commercial, a collection of the AICP’s top-winning ads, now in its 18th year. The ads are judged in 26 categories including visual style, performance, animation and original music and are chosen by a panel of 300 judges that include members of advertising agencies, production companies and editorial companies in addition to other industry professionals. At the Thurs-

day, Jan. 28 event, Miller will introduce the screening. “[I] will introduce the 2009 AICP Show to the audience and discuss the significance of this archival project,” he said. “The Show is more than an awards competition—it is an exhibition that honors the various collaborative crafts of commercial filmmaking, much like the Oscars honor the craft of filmmaking—there are awards for cinematography, visual effects, art direction, etc. The AICP Show is an ongoing project with archival significance—each year’s installment (this being the 18th) reflects the pop culture of that given year.”

THE JUSTICE

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TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 2010

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TELEVISION

‘SUPERFICIAL’

‘Tonight Show’ sees shakeup ■ NBC’s controversial change to

the hosting duties on its classic late-night show have resulted in a very public showdown.

By SHELLY SHORE JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

RISHIKA ASSOMULL/the Justice

Montag makes amelodious debut Brad

STERN POP MUSE

It’s difficult to appreciate Heidi Montag as a human being.

At first glance, she isn’t much more than your typical blonde bimbo socialite: a plastic Barbie making bank from a talentless role on a “reality” show gallivanting around Los Angeles to fill the narcissistic need for attention like a spray-tanned crack addict with a flesh-colored beard creeper of a husband.

But there’s another side to her—a weird one.

Her personality is fragmented and strange, bouncing from the hyperbolic fame whore staging fake, elaborate photo ops for the paparazzi and claiming her album to be on par with Michael Jackson’s Thriller; to the self-effacing, D-List-embracing character portrayed in “Overdosin’”; to a pseudo-born-again conservative Christian spouting off 140-characters-orfewer Bible verses on Twitter with one hand while signing off on photo stills for her Playboy spread with the other.

Not unlike Sarah Palin, Heidi Montag is either a comedic genius or an airheaded blowhole. It is possible that she may be a combination of both. For a while, I thought she could be the Antichrist.

And now, after endless unnecessary EP releases and a doofy, worm-like performance at the 2009 Miss Universe Pageant that seemed like a PG reinterpretation of Britney’s 2000 VMA performance, we have Superficial, a gift that truly keeps on giving.

One couldn’t stand to write a review of Superficial without first exploring the “vocals”: The work done on Heidi’s voice is, if nothing

else, astounding. While many rich, socialite brats and mega-pop stars—yes, even my beloved Britney!—are no strangers to AutoTune (I’ve been told that the pitch correction for Paris Hilton’s debut took over eight months), Heidi’s digital reconstruction is downright impressive.

It seems that not only can Heidi not sing—at all—but that the engineers couldn’t even stand to allow an instance of her true voice sound for a single second on the album without first melting it down with a pitch-assisting machine. At least Paris Hilton could command a lazy, if not a slightly sultry, whisper: Heidi doesn’t even get the option of breathing on this mess.

That being said, Heidi spent a reported cool $2 million on this album to get the finest in the industry, and that she did: With songwriting credits from Cathy Dennis, Steve Morales and Chris Rojas, Superficial has a slew of songs that are well written and, in theory, quite good.

“Look How I’m Doing” and “Turn Ya Head” are delicious guilty pleasures, providing thick, dance-worthy synths piled atop Montag’s verses to the point where the lyrics are barely intelligible. Further on, “More is More” is about as close to a genuine hit as Heidi comes on the album, meshing a naughty chorus (“More is more on the dance floor, it’s f--king chaos in here”) with a vaguely addictive synthesized beat.

“Twisted” is another delight, reveling in Montag’s toilet paper-thin delivery and manic, computer-controlled pitch changes. It’s actually a pretty well-written song—its only downfall is that it wasn’t released by a real artist first.

In her riskiest move (can I really call it that?), Heidi takes the already hypocrisy-ridden “Christian” side of her persona and drives her values even deeper into the ground with “I’ll Do It.” The song, a slinkier reaction to the album’s mostly hasty offerings, features a handful of awkward come-ons meant to sound enticing (a failed attempt), while simultane-

ously presenting the album’s greatest lyrics: “I brought some treats / I know that you gon’ love ’em / Come eat my panties off of me.”

There are some hilarious, just-plain-bad numbers as well, including “My Parade,” which includes a farty marching-band stomp and a truly hellacious set of lyrics about being defiant and young. Picture a balloon slowly deflating while being held by a sad, crying clown—that’s “My Parade” in visual form.

Heidi’s oft-published delusions of grandeur help to solidify this album’s non-genius genius, as in this morsel from Entertainment Weekly: “Most artists, it’s not their own money, but I’ve actually gone broke putting every dollar I’ve ever made and my heart and soul into this music. For me, I have a different appreciation, a different understanding, and a different love of my music and for my album than any other artist possibly could.”

If that’s the case—if we are to believe that Heidi’s heart and soul are found here in these songs (none of which have been penned or even co-penned by herself), you’ll learn nothing that you haven’t already on the cover of Star Magazine aside from the fact that she wears edible undies from time to time.

To be blunt, I don’t think Heidi knows who Heidi is. Fake and real seem to be distinctions that serve no purpose in Heidi’s blurred perception of the world. How she actually wishes to be perceived is an even deeper mystery. She is superficial, and superficiality may be her only reality. So really, the album is actually quite personal and deep when you think about it.

Just kidding.

For tongue-in-cheek pop flop enthusiasts like myself, Superficial is truly a gold mine: In all honesty, it’s a fun album. She’s a terrible singer, but there’s a certain cheeky, camp appeal to the whole ordeal.

Surprisingly hooky, hilariously bad and devoid of vocal talent, Superficial is not, as most would expect, an utter train wreck—it’s just a good ol’ shit show.

Call it the Battle of the Hosts, call it Conangate 2010—whatever NBC’s late-night debacle comes to be called, there’s no denying that it’s been a long, messy battle.

The drama started on Jan. 7, when TMZ reported that NBC planned to put Jay Leno back in his old time slot at 11:35 p.m. after the Olympics hiatus. This would bump Conan O’Brian back half an hour to 12:05 a.m.

Only one day after NBC’s announcement, Conan’s reps made it very clear that TV’s favorite ginger had not accepted NBC’s plan, and he wasn’t likely to do so anytime soon. That same day, FOX expressed an interest in having Conan do some network-hopping. “We’ve always been interested in late night, and we’re always looking to bring great new talent to FOX,” said a FOX employee, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record on the issue. “While Conan would be a great fit for FOX, he’s still under contract with NBC, so we’ll just see how all of this plays out.”

The stakes grew even higher when the news broke that Conan has a contract requiring NBC to pay him a staggering penalty, reportedly $45 million, if his circumstances as host of The Tonight Show change. Not a bad deal, right?

Conan certainly seemed to be keeping a lighthearted view on things—on Jan. 8’s episode of The Tonight Show, Conan addressed the rumors during his monologue, discussing everything from the possibility that he and Leno may simultaneously air at 11:35 p.m. via split screen and that he and Leno may join Jersey Shore together as “The Awkward Situation” to the possibility that each host is pregnant with the other’s baby.

Despite his apparently lighthearted attitude,

by Jan. 10, Conan basically had three options.

Door No. 1: Quit the show, and spend the next four years hanging out at the beach. NBC would have to pay him the value of his contract, worth about $20 million a year. That’s $80 million for the next four years. Unfortunately, given Conan’s fair complexion (and, of course, his ego), the beach seems doubtful. Door No. 2: Go to either FOX or ABC. This is iffy. If Conan made $20 million a year at NBC but got a deal with FOX for $15 million a year, NBC would only owe him $5 million a year for the four years remaining in his contract. Door No. 3: Suck it up and take the new time slot. Chances are that if Conan chose that option, NBC would negotiate a new contract with the same salary—it’s cheaper than paying him off. This would be the ideal option for NBC, because Conan wouldn’t be taking a large percentage of Leno’s viewers with him as he would if he moved to another network.

After staying mum on the issue for a few days, Conan issued an official statement on Jan. 12. In an open letter to “People of Earth,” he announced that he’s against moving The Tonight Show to a new time slot, as he feels that “delaying The Tonight Show into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. The Tonight Show at 12:05 simply isn’t The Tonight Show.” In response to the rumors that he was moving to another network, he continued, “I currently have no other offer and honestly have no idea what happens next. My hope is that NBC and I can resolve this quickly so that my staff, crew, and I can do a show we can be proud of, for a company that values our work.” (He also apologized for his hair, saying, “It’s always been that way.”)

Despite the rally of support online and off for Conan, on Jan. 14, Jay Leno signed a contract officially giving him The Tonight Show from 11:35 p.m. to 12:35 a.m. While Dick Ebersol, a top executive at NBC, blamed Conan, the fans weren’t having it—the “I’m with CoCo” movement launched protests outside of NBC’s studios and sent millions of letters in support of Conan and opposing Leno’s takeover.

While Conan did his best to keep things light by putting The Tonight Show up on Craigslist—“4 SALE: BARELY-USED LATE NIGHT TALK SHOW,” Conan’s looking for your best offer, but also “willing to trade for Coldplay tickets”—the final episode of Conan’s Tonight Show aired Jan. 22. Conan made a touching farewell monologue, thanking his staff for all their hard work.

Don’t you worry, CoCo. Wherever you go, your fans will follow you. (Good luck, NBC.)

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THE JUSTICE

FILM

‘Parnassus’ will be Ledger’s legacy ■ In Terry Gilliam’s meandering, moralistic movie ‘The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,’ the late actor Heath Ledger flourishes in his final role as Tony, a man with amnesia.

By ALEX DESILVA JUSTICE STAFF WRITER Before watching Terry Gilliam’s latest film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, you have to know what went on behind the scenes.

This wasn’t just Heath Ledger’s last movie; the late actor actually died during filming, leaving Gilliam to cast Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell in place of Ledger for the rest of the film. This knowledge lends both an air of sadness and a certain weight to the movie, as the last time Ledger would appear on screen. But even though the movie is undoubtedly connected to Ledger and his death, it isn’t overshadowed by it, and under everything that happened behind the scenes, there’s still a whimsical, personal story to be told.

The movie itself concerns Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer), an immortal, thousand-year-old storyteller traveling around modern-day London in a decrepit, multitier horse-drawn carriage. Along with his daughter (Lily Cole) and his associates, he offers people a chance to go into the “imaginarium,” which transports them into their own minds.

It is here that they are faced with a choice between good and evil, with the good individuals coming out changed for the better, while the bad emerge belonging to Mr. Nick, the devil himself (Tom Waits), who has long been competing with Parnassus. We learn early on that Nick has had the upper hand for a while, with modern people having little or no time for the doctor’s outdated show and having little interest in imagination. This is an especially big problem when it is shown that Nick is set to receive the soul of Parnassus’ own daughter unless Parnassus converts five people within three days. Into this bleak scenario comes Tony (Heath Ledger), an amnesiac who finds a way to modernize the show before being forced into the imaginarium himself, where Law, Depp and Farrell portray physical transformations of him each time he goes in.

The interest in simplicity and imagination is very personal for Gilliam. He has always been known for his liberal use of imagination in his films, from his Monty Python days all the way through his career as the director of movies like Brazil and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, and he extends this trait to the character of Parnassus. Gilliam paints a picture of a man whose unyielding belief and defense of the power of simplicity and imagi-

PHOTO COURTESY OF SONY PICTURES CLASSICS

MIRROR MIRROR: Terry Gilliam’s film ‘The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus’ stars Heath Ledger in his final role as Tony, an amnesiac who enters the imaginarium. nation is ignored by a general populace too distracted to listen. The personal nature of this movie is what makes the message so believable and effective, with Gilliam trying to tell us that even if we try to ignore it, imagination is still and will always be a powerful, important part of humanity.

Unfortunately, the movie itself sometimes gets in the way of its message. The simplicity of Parnassus’ stories and those of the imagination give way to a long, somewhat jumbled plot. If there’s one thing wrong with the plot, it’s that there’s just so much of it. There are scenes that aren’t needed, a drawn-out period before Tony’s introduction, an unnecessary amount of stops and a climax that’s so muddled that I had only a faint grasp of what exactly was going on. If only Gilliam had spent a

little more time in the cutting room to make a smoother, more concise story, it would have been much easier to follow, but as it stands, the plot is the weakest part of the whole movie.

Despite this setback, there’s still a lot to like about Parnassus. The sequences in the imaginarium are all wonderfully vibrant, with weirdness comparable to the animated sketches from Monty Python. There were times I felt like I was watching a surrealist painting as much as a movie, and I say that in the best possible way. Another plus comes in Ledger’s and Waits’ performances. Ledger is great, and after seeing his portrayal of the Joker in The Dark Knight, it’s almost surprising to see him do comedy. But Waits is a pure marvel as Mr. Nick: He absolutely steals every

scene he’s in. After all I’ve said about how confused I was around the end, his performance kept it enjoyable for me despite my confusion.

That, my friends, is talent. I was also surprised by how well Gilliam’s usage of different actors for Tony worked. It wasn’t completely perfect, but the changes were surprisingly subtle, and I truly have to applaud Gilliam on that.

Overall, the movie gets more right than it gets wrong. Parnassus rises above its subpar plot by being a visually stunning joyride with a heart: Gilliam wants to tell us that imagination still has a place in this world, and a pretty important one at that. If that’s not enough for you, this is also the last time you’ll be able to see Heath Ledger on the big screen. That alone is worth the price of admission.

MUSIC

OK Go’s ‘Sky’ shows that the band has no limits ■ OK Go’s new album, ‘Of the Blue

Color of the Sky,’ incorporates an eclectic sound that rewards multiple listens for those who are not used to the band’s experimentation.

By BRYAN FLATT JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

If you don’t know the band OK Go by name, you have probably seen them at least once before. It is the crazy band that is famously known for dancing on slow-moving treadmills to its song “Here It Goes Again” off its second album, Oh No. The video quickly became a viral music video sensation, now with almost 50 million views total (that’s more views than people in Canada!). It has been 3 1/2 years since the debut of the video that rocketed OK Go’s members into fame and 4 1/2 years since they have come out with a new album. Last Tuesday the long awaited follow-up album, Of the Blue Color of the Sky (produced by The Flaming Lips and MGMT’s Dave Fridmann), was released, and it is a very different sound than many fans may be used to. Missing from the 14 tracks are the basic upbeat drums, guitar, indie-rock sound and straining vocals that blasted them into fame, instead replaced with busy-sounding instrumentals the likes of ’80s-era synth sounds, guitars with a ton of distortion, echoing falsetto vocals, tambourine, steady bass drum beats and even a little cow bell. The result of this is something unlike anything I had heard before, and even though it was off-putting at first, I grew to really enjoy it.

The best way to describe this reinvented OK Go is Prince meets indie pop. From the first to the last song, its catchy dance beats mixed with

emotional undertones create a brand new sound that is oddly contagious. Though probably pretty alienating to people looking for a new OK Go album made in the same light as the first two, the disco dance beats fit right in with the new electro-pop culture but still retain the band’s individualism. This sound is immediately heard from the Space Invaders-like noises emanating during the first five seconds of the first track of the album—the aptly titled “WTF?” The song is the perfect opening and first single to one of the strangest but more intriguing albums in recent memory. The instrumentals are extremely busy with a lot happening but layer together to sound like a real song instead of just plain noise; a pitfall that must have been hard not to fall into. The feel of the song sets the tone of the album—8-bit ’80s bubblegum modern indie synth pop on crack with a musically rare 5/4 time signature to boot. It is a very intense start, making the listener really feel like saying “WTF.” As the lyrics say, and many fans probably feel about the album, “I’m trying to get my head around what the f-ck is happening.” What is happening, though, is a successful experiment in musical evolution.

The next group of songs on the album follow in the vein of “WTF?”. “This too Shall Pass,” the second song, called upon the Notre Dame marching band, an entire children’s choir and multiple instruments to create another busy but full sound. The next group of tracks follows this path of ultra-catchy, oddly contagious music until the ninth song, “Last Leaf,” a short track with only the lead singer’s voice and an acoustic guitar.

This marks a shift in the album, coming after the entirely computerized vocals of the song “Before the Earth was Round,” to a softer side focusing more on heartbreak, though still keeping up with the stranger sounds than usual—just a mellower version of them. Lyrics such as “Can’t you love me, can’t you love me,

PHOTO COURTESY OF BIG HASSLE MEDIA

ROWDY ROCKERS: OK Go’s latest album features some wild musical experimentation from the quartet. how I want please” further reiterate the more emotional feeling on the second part of the album. “Louisiana Island” is the perfect ending to the album as it is the most reminiscent of the band’s past music while including electronic themes used throughout the entire album, completing a musical journey. The lyrics from my favorite song on the album, “White Knuckles,” summarize this best: “Nothing never doesn’t change but nothing changes much, … but maybe it’s not so bad, so let your hair down now.”

Band member Damien Kulash was quoted as saying, “It has always been our position that the

reason you wind up in a rock band is you want to make stuff. You want to do creative things for a living, … [and we have created an album of the] danciest, most anthemic, most heartbroken and honest songs.” He couldn’t have put it any better. The album is creative beyond anything I have heard and certainly took a couple of listens to get through, but it is also an album that has been on repeat since I started listening to it.

Sometimes the music doesn’t have to make sense, and sometimes active background listening just works. For OK Go’s Of the Blue Color of the Sky, “WTF” is just good enough.

THE JUSTICE

FOOD

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TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 2010

23

AUTHENTIC INDIAN FOOD

Anna’s burritos are truly “super” ■ The Cambridge location

of the local chain offers well-built tacos and burritos with flexible food options.

By COLEMAN MAHLER JUSTICE CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Boston is not known as one of the Mexican-food meccas of the world, but you don’t have to be content with eating at Qdoba, Chipotle or Lower Usdan when that craving strikes. Local residents of Cambridge and the suburbs will be quick to tell you about a small chain of taquerias stretching out around Boston.

Since its inception in 1995, Anna’s Taqueria now has six locations in Brookline, Somerville, Cambridge and Boston. But don’t let the “chain” title lead you to believe that the food has suffered.

Anna’s still churns out delicious tacos, burritos and quesadillas at low prices.

The decor is nothing to get excited about at the Porter Square location, right across the street from the subway and probably the closest to Brandeis, just one train stop away from Harvard Square. But it’s not the furniture that draws the solid customer base: It’s the monstrous Super Burrito.

The ordering process is simple: you select what kind of food you want (burritos, tacos, etc.) and then direct the server to which fillings you wish to consume. The different kinds of meat are all delicious, but Anna’s specializes in pork. The al pastor is my definite favorite: rotisserie pork slow-cooked with onions and pineapples until it's dripping with a sweet, meaty flavor.

Along with the pork variations (chile verde and carnitas) are steak and chicken, both good. Sometimes there will be a special filling like cow’s tongue for adventurous eaters. For vegetarians they have a roasted vegetable main filling and a non-chicken-broth rice—just make sure you ask for it.

The rest of the fillings to choose from are traditional and fresh. The salsa is one of my favorites—not thick but tasty with tomatoes, onions and cilantro—and the rice and beans are thick but good.

While there are many tempting items on the menu, the classic Anna’s meal is a Super Burrito, and as the name would suggest, this is a very large burrito. Stuffed into a perfectly chewy tortilla are any fillings you want, and though the inside is a juicy mess, the tortilla never seems to soak through. This isn’t as true of the tacos, so if you order them, eat them fast. The regular burrito is just a smaller version of its super cousin but is great for people with smaller appetites.

Don’t go here with expectations of ambience or great service. The service is basic and efficient, and the lack of ambience is overshadowed by the first bite of a burrito until the last. You’ll make sure not one grain of rice falls to the plate.

Good friends will ridicule any uneaten puddle of juices and grains.

Delicious, filling food for $5 makes this a necessary trip every once in a while.

When and why to go: perfect for lunch or dinner during a Harvard Square excursion with friends (or breakfast, too, but it’s doubtful many people will be getting into Porter Square early enough to eat it).

Prices: Tacos are around $2-3, Burritos $4, Super Burritos $5, Quesadillas $4, Mexican Plates $5.

Where: 236A Elm Street, Somerville, Mass.

Open every day from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., Thursday/Friday/Saturday open to 1 a.m. www.annastaqueria.com

MAX BREITSTEIN MATZA/the Justice

AIRY ATMOSPHERE: Kabab and Tandoor’s new dining room lacks the intimacy of its former location, although it affords diners more comfort when eating with friends.

Kabab and Tandoor savors tradition ■ The renamed, expanded

and relocated restaurant has a number of delectable dishes for those willing to sample a variety of foods.

By MAX BREITSTEIN MATZA JUSTICE EDITOR

Formerly known as Taste of Hyderabad, the Southern Indianthemed halal restaurant Kabab and Tandoor has transformed from a hole-in-the-wall secret into the fancy dining experience American customers tend to expect with Eastern food, complete with fennel covered in colored sugar. The restaurant has changed dramatically since relocating from its cubicle-sized storefront on Lexington Street to 699 Main St. on the corner of Main and Moody.

The smoke no longer seeps out from the kitchen to yellow the fading walls of the tiny dining room whenever the 500-degree tandoor oven becomes unwieldy. The sole decoration, once a framed Arabic calligraphy of the shahada, the declaration of an individual’s faith in Islam, has since been replaced with diverse Muslim art needed to fill the dimly lit, muchexpanded dining room. Ornate wood carvings and Arabic-covered embroidery adorn the walls. Coins and beads stitched into fabric drape over the windows and unassuming entrance, which is piled with clay pottery. For those of us who enjoy proximity to food and can stomach a whiff of burning wood, the new location seems to detract from the authenticity of the experience. However, let me assure you that the food is true to its roots.

Like most Indian food, no single taste overwhelms any dish. The blend of traditional spices surrounding the halal meat reveals one truth about Eastern cuisine: They know how to cook a goat. I promise that any dish on the menu that features the words “goat” or “mutton” will not disappoint.

Visitors should get adventurous with the appetizers. The paneer pakora (cottage cheese) and mirchi pakora (hot peppers) are both under $2. The flavor of cheese

MAX BREITSTEIN MATZA/the Justice

SPICY STARTERS: Standout fried dishes include mirchi pakora (hot peppers, left) and paneer pakora (cottage cheese). is not strong enough to overwhelm and detract from the falafel-like chickpea batter in which it is fried. The freshly fried mirchi pakora defeats the stale version offered at Patel Brothers, the Indian market on Moody Street. The roasted flavor of the peppers compliments the mild heat, but the green chili sauce and tamarind chutney, which come with the mirchi, add a lot of dimension to these fried delicacies.

Another fried appetizer, the dahi wada ($3.99), features soft balls of ground lentils smothered in lightly spiced yogurt sauce. The delectable thin sauce soaks into the balls, leaving them fresh and creamy but not soggy.

This is not the place for vegetable samosas ($2.49). The crust was thick and hard with no fluffy crunch. The filling was unfulfilling. Also, steer clear of their seafood dishes. The shrimp curry ($15.99) contains the expected elements of a yellow curry, but the crisp salty flavor of seafood is lost in the shrimp.

The nariyal chicken ($14.99) also fails to impress. The burnt orange

color of saffron and fresh herbs sprinkled over chicken cubes made for a very attractive dish, but the promised coconut flavor was lacking and the chicken was undoubtedly overcooked to the point of having a woody-textured crust: a casualty of the tandoor furnace.

Unlike many Indian restaurants, the vegetable dishes are not predominant. Being halal, the restaurant justifiably features its selection of blessed meats. The prices have risen since the reopening, with the average entrée costing around $15. The haleem dishes are the most exotic and interesting on the menu. Whether you choose goat or beef is a matter of preference, but either way the spicy meat stew-cooked with dairy products and ghee (clarified butter) will melt on your tongue.

Creaminess defines the texture, and I would recommend one of their griddle-fried flat breads such as the paratha or chapati as your utensil. The bread also adds a charred flavor to the dish’s complex meaty heat. The haleem is sprinkled with fresh parsley and

limes and contains, in addition to meat, tons of garlic, caramelized onions and other broken-down beans and vegetables.

The mutton biryani is simple and delicious. The meat is smoky with the flavor of the bone and the seasoned basmati rice is well-accompanied by that delicious yogurt sauce. Diners who prefer to avoid spiciness might wish to select a biryani dish.

Kabab and Tandoor’s expansion often leaves the dining room empty and silent, with no music or sounds of the kitchen to remind diners of the authenticity of their tandoori experience. The environment is reminiscent of the library on a weeknight. The beauty of the restaurant is made awkward by pure silence, but now guests are able to sit in booths and interact with one another without blinking away spicy tears. Diners can no longer feel intimate with the cooking of their food but are now able to comfortably focus on devouring it. But if you eat all these diverse spices too quickly, you may once again find yourself on the verge of tears.

24

TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 2010

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THE JUSTICE

ARIES (March 21 to April 19) Your natural Arian leadership qualities make you the person others will follow in tackling that important project. But don’t get so involved in the work that you neglect your personal life.

TAURUS (April 20 to May 20) Aspects favor sorting through your possessions, both at work and at home, to start giving away what you don’t use, don’t need or don’t like. Relax later with someone special.

GEMINI (May 21 to June 20) The issues are not quite as clear as they should be. That’s why you need to avoid getting involved in disputes between colleagues at work or between relatives or personal friends.

CANCER (June 21 to July 22) You’ll get lots of support from others if you own up to your mistake quickly and include a full and honest explanation. Learn from this experience so that you don’t repeat it.

LEO (July 23 to August 22) There might be some early confusion over a major move, whether it’s at work or at home. But once you get a full breakdown of what it entails, it should be easier to deal with. Good luck.

VIRGO (August 23 to September 22) Creating order out of chaos, even in the most untidy spaces, should be no problem for organized Virgos. So go ahead and do it, and then accept praise from impressed colleagues.

LIBRA (September 23 to October 22) Whether it’s for business purposes or just for leisure, a trip might be just what you need right now. You would benefit both from a change of scenery and from meeting new people.

SCORPIO (October 23 to November 21) While things generally go well this week, a romantic situation seems to have stalled. But you can ACROSS 1. “Humbug!”

4. Trade 8. Leno’s feature 12. Expert 13. Gyro holder 14. Fight the clock 15. Michael Jackson album 17. Previously owned 18. Shadow location 19. Honest politician?

21. Chemical suffix 22. Comic “married” to Fang 26. Sired 29. Visibility hindrance 30. Galena, e.g.

31. Ear-related 32. Indulge in pugilism 33. Check bar codes 34. “— Town” 35. Tussaud’s medium 36. Stickup job 37. Extremely impressive 39. Bovine utterance 40. Sapporo sash 41. Entertained 45. Piece of work 48. German poet/dramatist 50. Leak slowly 51. Subsequently 52. Swiss canton 53. Will beneficiary 54. Ethereal 55. 19-Across’ party DOWN 1. Decrease 2. Needing liniment 3. Roll call reply 4. Immobilizer 5. Dorian Gray’s creator 6. Corroded 7. Seeming contradiction

restart it if you want to. Then again, maybe this is a chance to reassess the situation.

SAGITTARIUS (November 22 to December 21) A meeting that was promised quite a while back could finally happen. So be sure you’re prepared with everything you’ll need to make your case sound convincing and doable.

CAPRICORN (December 22 to January 19) A workplace blunder could create a problem down the line unless you deal with it right now to see how and why it happened. Don’t be surprised at what you might learn.

AQUARIUS (January 20 to February 18) This is a good time to re-sort your priorities and see if adjustments are called for. Be honest with yourself as you decide what to keep, what to discard and what to change.

PISCES (February 19 to March 20) Letting yourself be bathed in the outpouring of love and support from those who care for you will help you get through a difficult period sooner rather than later. Good luck.

BORN THIS WEEK: You have an uncanny gift for reaching out to all people and creating bridges of understanding among them.

BRANDEIS

Through the Lens

Solution to last issue’s crossword.

ROBYN SPECTOR/the Justice

Snow bunny With snow still covering the ground this week, students started to get creative with their surroundings. This snow creature material-

Sudoku

8. Inhumane 9. Possesses 10. Capades site 11. Homer’s neighbor Flanders 16. Of the upper hipbone 20. Huge 23. Places 24. History chapters 25. Musical based on La Boheme 26. Amazon.com buy 27. Needle case 28. Any of the Dionne quintuplets

29. Henhouse threat 32. Starbucks employee 33. South Korean capital 35. Symbol of intrigue 36. Basis for grits 38. “The Biggest —” 39. “Real Time” moderator 42. Punch 43. Architect Saarinen 44. Plumbing problem 45. La-la preceder 46. “The Raven” writer 47. Submachine gun 49. Greek X

King Crossword Copyright 2010 King Features Synd., Inc.

■ It was American journalist, author and humorist Don Marquis who made the following sage observation: “Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.”

might want to consider working toward a master’s degree in business administration.

The average salary increase enjoyed by new M.B.A. holders is a whopping 64 percent.

■ A giant carnivorous plant has recently been discovered on a remote mountaintop in the Philippines. The second largest pitcher plant on record, Nepenthes attenboroughii, secretes a nectar that lures insects, frogs and even rats into its trap, where enzymes and acids break down the animal and digest it.

■ The men’s formal attire known as the tuxedo takes its name from the Tuxedo Park Club in New York, where the clothing first became popular. The word itself is derived from the Algonquian word for wolf.

■ There has been a lot of debate about whether older drivers should be required to pass driving tests in order to renew their licenses, with failing sight and diminished judgment being cited as reasons for the more stringent requirement. However, statistics tend to indicate that, as a group, teenagers are the more dangerous drivers, with their auto accident death rate roughly triple that of the elderly.

■ If you’re thinking about going back to school during this economic downturn, you

■ The man who holds the world record for running 100 meters and 200 meters, and who has won three Olympic gold medals, is a Jamaican by the name of Usain Bolt. Yes, Bolt.

■ The Zagat restaurant rating system recently conducted a survey of Americans’ tipping habits. The results? It seems that residents of Philadelphia are the most generous tippers in the nation, leaving an average of 19.6 percent.

The average across the country is 19 percent.

Thought for the Day: “People who have no weaknesses are terrible; there is no way of taking advantage of them.” —Anatole France

Enter digits from 1 to 9 into each blank space so that every row, column and 3x3 square contains one of each digit.

Sudoku Copyright 2010 King Features Synd., Inc.

ized beside the main path, cheering up those crossing campus on foot.

Warmer weather arrived Monday, threatening such sculptures.