The Justice, November 22, 2011 issue

ARTS Page 22

FORUM Reform registration system 11

A NEW DAWN

SPORTS Men’s BBall win two to open season 16 The Independent Student Newspaper

the

of

B r a n d e is U n i v e r sit y S i n c e 1 9 4 9

Justice

Volume LXIV, Number 13

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Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Waltham, Mass.

administration

MELA 2011

Process begins for strategic plan committee ■ Provost Steve Goldstein

’78 is chairing the steering committee, which met for the first time yesterday.

By sam mintz JUSTICE editorial assistant

Provost Steve Goldstein ’78 announced in an email to faculty, students and staff that a steering committee has been formed to begin the strategic planning process that University President Frederick Lawrence initiated earlier this year.

Goldstein is serving as the chair of the committee. According to his email, the “talented and diverse committee” includes faculty, deans, undergraduate students, graduate students, trustees and members of the senior administration.

Notable members of the Brandeis community on the committee include Prof. Anita Hill (Heller), the

ROBYN SPECTOR/the Justice

Expressing identity Members of the Class of 2014 perform the sophomore dance during MELA 2011: Pehchaan, which was hosted by the South Asian Students Association last Saturday.

See Arts, p. 20, and for video of the event visit go.thejustice.org/mela11.

senior adviser to the provost; Chief Executive Officer of the Davis Companies and the Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees Jonathan Davis ’75; and Chief of Staff of the Office of the President David Bunis ’83.

The committee had an introductory meeting yesterday. Lawrence charged the committee and “set [them] off with a robust and exciting introduction to his view of the process. He brought energy to the table about being bold and at the same time practical,” said Goldstein in an interview with the Justice.

The committee will meet for five or six hours once a month for a year.

“The timeline is that we expect to present the board of trustees with a completed plan for their approval

by December a year from now, so it’s a yearlong process,” said Goldstein.

The students on the committee are Student Union President Her-

See PLANNING, 7 ☛

STUDENT LIFE

sTUDENT uNION

Constitutional review to start Survey shows students ■ Student Union President

Herbie Rosen '12 called for the review after systematic issues earlier this semester.

By andrew wingens JUSTICE editor

Student Union President Herbie Rosen ’12 has called for a constitutional review of the Student Union Constitution, two years before an official review would be mandated by the constitution, he said in an interview last night with the Justice.

According to Article XIII of the Student Union Constitution, a Constitutional Review Task Force instructed to conduct “a full review of all aspects of the Union” must be formed every four years.

The task force would comprise

For tips or info email editor@thejustice.org

students from various constituencies, including secured groups, club sports, the Union Senate, artistic and performance organizations and religious organizations, as per the constitution.

Rosen said the review would be implemented due to questions that have been raised about the constitution.

“We are doing it because people have asked me to, … and I looked at [the Constitution] when I got elected and was just like, ‘I don’t want to be the president of a Union with this as a constitution, ’” said Rosen.

Rosen listed past troubles with the student elections voting system and the term lengths of senators as two issues that helped prompt the review.

“The voting system, the question of abstain and can that just be worded better—that’s the main thing, making our constitution be

want more study areas

more clear and less pretentious sounding,” he said.

Earlier this year, a Justice review of election results revealed that the instant runoff election system used by the Union incorrectly tallied votes and failed to express voter desires in the election results. This tabulation error was largely due to the way the system counted the “abstain” vote.

At the time, Rosen said in an interview with the Justice that he would work to fix the voting problems.

“Honestly, this is something our union came to inherit. And it’s things like this that get brought to our attention that we will move to correct and fix. Sorry for the confusion and inconvenience, but you can expect better from us in the future when we come up with a solu-

■ Over half of the students

who participated indicated they would support adding extra study days as well.

By sara dejene JUSTICE editor

According to results from the recent PULSE survey on student life, a slight majority of students are unsatisfied with the amount of study spaces and study days currently available and over a third would use a shuttle to the Riverside MBTA station, if it were in place.

The PULSE survey was sent out to the student body by the Student Union in order to gather feedback on

See REVIEW, 7 ☛

various issues relating to student life.

Five sections—dining; housing; student life; Student Union; and “what else,” where students could provide feedback on topics not covered in previous sections—comprised the survey.

According to Student Union President Herbie Rosen ’12 in an interview with the Justice, 320 students participated in the student life section of the survey, which is about nine percent of the undergraduate population.

Topics covered in the student life section of the survey included study days, study spaces, transportation, relationships with faculty and advisers, extracurricular activities and health and fitness.

See PULSE, 7 ☛

Environmental activism

Women level out

Vegan competition

 Students protest the construction of the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline.

 The women’s basketball team split its first four matches of the season this week.

 Peta2 named Brandeis the runner-up in its small school vegan-friendly competition.

FEATURES 9

SPORTS 16

Let your voice be heard!

Submit letters to the editor online at www.thejustice.org

INDEX

ARTS SPORTS

17 16

EDITORIAL FEATURES

10 7

OPINION POLICE LOG

10 2

COMMENTARY

News 3 11

COPYRIGHT 2011 FREE AT BRANDEIS. Email managing@thejustice.org for home delivery.

2

TUESDAY, november 22, 2011

●

THE JUSTICE

NEWS SENATE LOG

POLICE LOG

Senate recognizes chapter of ASISC and approves two SMRs for events

Medical Emergency

At the Student Union Senate meeting on Sunday, the Senate recognized the Brandeis chapter of the American Student Investment Study Connection as a club.

According to the constitution of ASISC, its purpose is to “gather students who are interested in investment, offer a networking platform especially for Brandeis students to communicate with each other and find resource and information through the platform and various events, especially resources and internship opportunities in New York City.”

The Senate postponed voting on the recognition and charter of the German Club until its next meeting, because there were no represntatives from the club present.

Student Union President Herbie Rosen ’12 announced to the Senate that the Student Union is going to begin a review of its constitution and that a representative from the Senate is needed for that committee.

He also encouraged senators to apply for a position on the Student Advisory Committee for the strategic planning steering committee. This committee will advise Rosen as he represents the student body on the Strategic Planning Committee.

The senate also approved two Senate Money Resolutions.

The first SMR, for $69, is for an event called the Mods Mixer. Proposed by Senator for the Foster Mods Betsy Hinchey ’12, the event is being held to bring together residents of the Mods and so that Hinchey can get feedback from her constituents. The money will pay for pizza, soda, plates and napkins.

The second SMR, for $669, is for the Midnight Buffet, an event held by the Senate every semester to congratulate students on finishing the semester and raise morale before finals. The money will pay for security, custodians, and tables.

The Club Support Committee reported that 134 existing clubs have applied for renewal, up from 104 last week.

The Senator of the Week was Charlotte Franco ’15 for her “consistent dedication.”

Nov. 15—A party came into Stoneman claiming he was having a panic attack and requested that BEMCo not respond. University Police called a Mailman House staff member who conversed with the party on the phone. The party then volunteered for evaluation at the Newton-Wellesley Hospital. University Police transported him there without incident.

Nov. 16—A reporting party stated that her friend took a prescribed medication and the pill did not go all the way down her throat. BEMCo responded and treated the party on-scene with a signed refusal for further care.

Nov. 17—A 30-year-old female in the Heller School’s Irving Schneider and Family Building stated that she was feeling faint and was also 24 weeks pregnant.

An ambulance was notified and transported the party to the Newton-Wellesley Hospital.

Nov. 17—A reporting party in Village C stated that a female fell and hurt her knee. University

Police transported the injured individual to the Health Center.

Nov. 18—A reporting party stated that her friend had fallen off a stage in the Usdan Student Center but was conscious and alert. BEMCo treated the party on-scene with a signed refusal for further care.

Nov. 18—A female in the Charles River Apartments requested BEMCo for a sore throat. BEMCo responded and treated the party with a signed refusal for further care.

Nov. 19—A caller in Hassenfeld Residence Hall reported that a female party was intoxicated but conscious. University Police and BEMCo responded; BEMCo treated the party onscene with a signed refusal for further care.

Nov. 19—A caller in Usen reported that his friend was intoxicated. University Police and BEMCo responded. BEMCo treated the party with a signed refusal for further care.

Nov. 19—A caller in Pomerantz reported an intoxicated

female party. University Police and BEMCo responded, and an ambulance was notified. The party was transported via ambulance to the Newton-Wellesley Hospital.

Larceny

Nov. 15—University Police compiled a report on a theft of a coat and wallet that occurred in the Peace Room of the Usdan Student Center on Nov. 12.

Nov. 18—A coat with keys and a wallet were taken from the weight room in the Gosman Sports and Convocation Center.

University Police compiled a report on the theft.

Traffic Nov. 15—University Police compiled a report on a traffic accident with no reported injuries that took place in North Quad Lot.

Miscellaneous

Nov. 16—University Police compiled a report on a possibly suspicious male who previously

HARTFORD, Conn.—More than a dozen students either at New England universities or with roots in the region are among 32 newly named Rhodes Scholars, an award that earns them scholarships to study at Oxford University in England.

The awards, announced early Sunday, provide all expenses for two or three years of study at the prestigious university.

Most of the New England honorees attend Yale University, Harvard University or Brown University, and one attends the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Several others are natives of the region who attend universities elsewhere in the U.S. The Rhodes Scholarship was created in 1902 by British philanthropist Cecil Rhodes. Winners are selected on the basis of high academic achievement, personal integrity, leadership potential and physical vigor, among other attributes.

This year’s winners with New England ties exhibited a range of those attributes, with skills that ranged from computer science to the politics of nongovernmental organizations in China.

They also included musicians, a budding archaeologist and a former competitor in the World Youth Chess Olympiad.

The winners were selected from 830 applicants endorsed by 299 different colleges and universities.

The scholars will enter Oxford next October, with the value of their scholarships averaging about $50,000 per year.

The Justice welcomes submissions for errors that warrant correction or clarification. Email editor@ thejustice.org.

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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 are held Mondays from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. in the Justice office.

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The Justice Brandeis University Mailstop 214 P.O. Box 549110 Waltham, MA 02454-9110 Phone: (781) 736-3750

—compiled by Marielle Temkin

TEL AVIV, Israel—Scientists at Vaxil BioTherapeutics Ltd., a clinicalstage company in Israel, are developing an innovative cancer vaccine, according to the company database of the non-profit corporation Israel Life Science Industry. A recent article published on the website of United with Israel, a grassroots organization that focuses on Israel advocacy, reported that the vaccine is now in clinical trials at Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem.

Specifically, the vaccine is being assessed in the presence of multiple myeloma, a blood cancer. If successful, Vaxil’s pioneering technology that developed the vaccine, VaxHit, could then be tried against all identified cancers and additionally examine the vaccine’s effect on solid and non-solid tumors, according to United with Israel. The article also states that the vaccine, well on its way to success, is projected to be available for public use in six years, and is predicted to prevent about 90 percent of cancer recurrence.

Vaxil’s research currently focuses on creating novel synthetic T-cell therapeutic and preventative vaccines that act more like drugs than typical vaccines.

New England college students win prestigious Rhodes Scholar honors

nA photo caption in the basketball preview special failed to credit a photographer. Photos were also taken by Alex Margolis. (Nov. 15, p. 25)

Nov. 17—A reporting party stated that a towel rack was ripped off the wall in the Farber Library. University Police took photos and compiled a report on the vandalism.

Nov. 19—A reporting party stated that someone ripped off the numbers outside the suites in Ridgewood C. University Police compiled a report on the vandalism.

Israeli company creates possible cancer vaccine

AP BRIEF

nA photograph in News incorrectly stated the date of a men’s soccer game. The ECAC Championship game took place on Sunday, Nov. 13, not on Saturday. (Nov. 15, p. 1)

Vandalism

BRIEF

—Sam Mintz

CORRECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS

utilized Goldfarb library.

Nov. 18—University Police received a report of a suspicious person in the Shapiro Campus Center Atrium staring at and watching students. University Police made contact and identified the party; the party was praying.

Nov. 18—University Police compiled a report on a former summer school student who was reported missing by his parents since Aug. 12 from the Republic of South Korea.

—Amanda Winn

NOTE TO READERS:

Thanksgiving feast

ASHER KRELL/the Justice

Students enjoy a Thanksgiving meal provided by Student Events yesterday in the Shapiro Campus Center Atrium. The meal featured traditional Thanksgiving fare including turkey, gravy mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberries and cornbread.

The Justice is on hiatus for the Thanksgiving recess.

Our next issue will be published Dec. 6, 2011.

Check our website, www.thejustice.org, periodically for updates.

ANNOUNCEMENTS “The Roads not Taken”

The speaker Vidya Sri advocates for rights of women who are victims of forced marriages.

Tuesday, Nov. 29 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the Epstein Lecture Hall in the Women’s Studies Research Center.

This talk examines the overlapping careers of three women scientists by reflecting on how their careers and lives in science relate to the gender revolution of the 1970s, to each other and to speaker Pnina Abir-Am, who shares key biographical features with all three subjects. Two of these scientists are members of the first-ever team of women Nobel Laureates in 2009 while relating to each other as Ph.D. adviser and advisee. The third scientist was their predecessor, and the first woman to be hired in the Department of Molecular Biology at the University of California, Berkeley in the mid-1970s prior to becoming part of the “leaking pipeline” of women in science.

Today from 12:30 to 2 p.m. in the Epstein Lecture Hall in the Women’s Studies Research Center.

The Saivetz-Mandel Symposium will explore the varied processes of modernism in Boston architecture. The discussion will focus on the prolific careers of Michael McKinnell and Martin Dermady through the architectural and historical analysis of Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Stanford Anderson. The event aims to address larger issues about modernism and post-modernity in architecture and contemporary urban life. Wednesday, Nov. 30 from 6:30 to 8 p.m. in Mandel Center for the Humanities G03.

“Honor and Shame in Forced Marriages”

“The Arab Spring: Implications for Israel”

To mark the 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence, the Internaional Center for Ethics invites you to a speaker event titled “Honor and Shame in Forced Marriages.”

Saivetz architectural symposium

Prof. Shai Feldman (POL), the Judith and Sidney Swartz Director of the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis, will discuss the impact of the Arab Spring on Is-

rael during the Alumni Association’s next Faculty Lecture Forum. In his lecture, Feldman will discuss the effect the uprisings in the Arab world have on Israel’s security and standing in the Middle East. He will focus on developments in Egypt and Syria and their impact on Israeli national security interests.

Feldman will also explore the Palestinian quest for United Nations recognition of independent statehood and its implications for Israel.

Wednesday, Nov. 30 from 7 to 8:10 p.m. This lecture can be viewed online.

Mandel lunch seminar

This presentation, by Howard Deitcher of the Melton Centre at The Hebrew University, will address three key issues that shed light on how reading Jewish books impacts young children’s ideas and values. He will examine competing understandings of “good children’s stories” and their implications for Jewish children’s literature.

Monday, Dec. 5 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the third floor of the Mandel Center for the Humanities.

THE JUSTICE

●

TUESDAY, november 22, 2011

3

BRANDEIS PALESTINE AWARENESS WEEK

Chomsky offers ideas Baum speaks on

economic aspects of the occupation

■ Noam Chomsky

discussed the Gilad Shalit prisoner swap, the Arab Spring and U.S. policies.

By LUKE HAYSLIP JUSTICE CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Noam Chomsky, professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and political activist, addressed students, faculty and alumni on the topic of the IsraeliPalestinian conflict last Thursday, focusing on conflict resolution and further insight into the Middle East struggle for peace.

Chomsky last appeared at Brandeis almost exactly a year ago on Nov. 11, 2010, when approximately 50 proIsrael students stood up during his speech and left the room in protest.

Chomsky’s presentation this year was the featured event of the Brandeis Palestine Awareness Week, a week co-sponsored by Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace.

Chomsky began by saying that the Israel-Palestine conflict is easy to solve and that a resolution has only been hindered by the United States and Israel.

Chomsky asserted that Egypt, Syria and Jordan had proposed a political settlement to the United Nations based on United Nations Resolution 242—a resolution following the end of the 1967 war that called for “secure and recognized boundaries” and for Israel to withdraw from territories it occupied in the war. It also called for “guarantees for the rights of states in the region to exist, in decent security with its secure recognized boundaries” and “a Palestinian state in the occupied territories,” he said.

Chomsky said that the formulated land proposal had an “overwhelming international consensus that virtually no one formally disagrees with.”

Referring to the consultations for the resolution, Chomsky claimed that “Israel refused to attend the session.

Instead, they bombed Lebanon for no credible reason, killing 50 people,” while the United States vetoed the resolution.

Chomsky spoke of the Arab Spring and the popular uprising this past January in Egypt.

Chomsky discussed both the United States and the Egyptian leaders’ opposition to any type of “true democracy” in the Middle East. He also stressed the vast number of Egyptians who oppose U.S. policy in Egypt.

“Opposition to U.S. policy in Egypt was so strong that about 80 percent of the population thought the region would be more secure if Iran had nuclear weapons,” he said.

Chomsky addressed the issue of secret prisons and compounds within Israel, specifically in regards to the story of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli Defence Forces soldier who was abducted by Palestinian commandos in June 2006 and only released recently

■ Activist Dalit Baum

joined several other speakers who lectured during Brandeis Palestine Awarness Week.

By DANIELLE GROSS JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

JOSHUA LINTON/the Justice

SOLVING DISPUTES: Noam Chomsky discussed the Israel-Palestine conflict. in a prisoner exchange deal.

Chomsky said that the 1,000 Palestinians released in exchange for Shalit are “but a small fraction” of prisoners being held in secret prisons across Israel.

Closing with a question-and-answer session with audience members, Chomsky addressed several aspects of the conflict, including questions of Palestinian leadership.

When asked why the Palestinian authority has such low credibility in the eyes of Palestinians, Chomsky commented that because Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Organization have inner hostility and have failed to achieve a unity agreement after multiple attempts, they are viewed as hostile organizations.

He went on to say that if Palestinian officials receive Security Council permission for statehood, the U.S. could veto, which would hurt U.S. credibility due to the fact that the U.S. would be openly going against a UNsanctioned attempt to present Palestine with statehood.

Chomsky elaborated on the U.S. interest in preserving the Israeli con-

flict, stating that in the eyes of American leaders, “Israelis are people, but Palestinians are ‘un-people.’”

Chomsky referred to Palestinians as “un-people” because he said they are seen in the eyes of the Israeli and U.S. governments as not worthy of equal protection.

In an interview with the Justice, Julia Beier, a master’s student in Sustainable International Development, said, “I heard a lot about [Noam Chomsky], and I support his point of view.”

Ramesh Yadawar, another master’s student in Sustainable International Development, said that he “felt an affinity to the movement. I have been following the Israel-Palestine issue for many years, and the developments in Palestinian statehood have really been of great interest to me, because it has a lot to do with the movement and the struggles of people.”

Yadawar went on to say that “I agreed with what Chomsky said, but I think he spoke a lot about violence and terrorism on the part of the U.S. and Israel and didn’t really focus on the other side of the issue.”

Dalit Baum, an Israeli feminist and activist, came to speak this past Tuesday about the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and who profits from it.

The event was sponsored by Students for Justice in Palestine and Brandeis Jewish Voice for Peace and was co-sponsored by Global Exchange.

The event was part of the Brandeis Palestine Awareness Week. Other speakers brought to campus for the week included professor Noam Chomsky, film director Terje Carlsson and Nimer Sultany.

Carlsson screened the film Israel vs. Israel and participated in a question-and-answer session afterward with Seth Grande ’12 and Noam Lekach ’14. The film “focus[es] on [four] Israelis[:] one grandmother, one rabbi, one anarchist and one ex-soldier, who are trying to put an end to the Israeli occupation,” according to the event description on myBrandeis.

Sultany, a doctoral candidate at Harvard Law School, discussed the issue of Palestinians with Israeli citizenship.

Baum is a teacher at Haifa University in Israel who has been working for years with various feminist and queer organizations, including Anarchists Against the Wall, Black Laundry and Boycott From Within. She is also the founder of Who Profits, an industry research project on the Israeli occupation to see who gains from it.

Baum is a prominent figure in the Boycotts, Divestments and Sanctions movement, which promotes abstaining from buying products of Israeli-settlement based corporations until Israel “complies with international law and Palestinian rights,” according to the movement’s website.

The five main tactics used in her “direct action” approach are pictures, collecting evidence after protests, collecting evidence from the settlements, interviews and

Internet research.

Baum said that Combined Systems, Inc., a U.S.-based firm, is the main supplier of tear gas to the Israeli Army, thus allowing the company to profit from the occupation.

The next group that Baum discussed was G4S, a private security company that provides equipment for Israeli-run checkpoints and terminals in the West Bank and Gaza.

According to Baum’s website and her speech, G4S has provided security systems to detention and interrogation facilities where evidence has been collected showing that Palestinian prisoners have been tortured.

“

I was not shocked by anything I heard. ... It gave me greater details.

NATAN ODENHEIMER ’15 Baum also discussed Elbit Systems, a war technologies company that created “G-NIUS,” an armed, unmanned vehicle.

Although it has never fired at anyone, the company is only allowed to test the device in Palestine, according to Baum. They also have a technology called “The Scream,” a chime that emits a sound only three decibels lower than that needed to inflict pain in humans, said Baum.

Baum ended her presentation by talking about how 20 familyowned business groups control about 50 percent of the Israeli stock market.

The 10 largest of these 20 control about 30 percent of the market in Israel. These are the real people that Baum said profit from the occupation.

Natan Odenheimer ’15 attended the event hoping to get an explanation about the economical powers that work in the West Bank and Gaza.

He also mentioned that he was very interested in hearing about the benefits from the occupation.

“I was not shocked by anything that I heard. The event was very interesting in that it gave me greater details about things that I already knew.”

DINING SERVICES

University ranked second in vegan-friendly college contest ■ Students expressed

varied opinions about the contest and Brandeis’ veganfriendliness.

By TATE HERBERT JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals named Brandeis the runner-up in the Small U.S. Schools category of its Most Vegan-Friendly College Contest on Monday.

Brandeis came in second to Northwestern University after making it through the brackets against schools such as Brown University and Bennington College in this year’s competition.

The contest is conducted by peta2, which describes itself as PETA’s “youth division.” According to the competition’s website, winners of each round were determined by

a combination of online voting, peta2’s judgment of each school’s vegan-friendliness, the schools’ promotion efforts and feedback from individual students.

Voting was conducted via Facebook, where each school received as many votes as people who “liked” its link to the competition. For example, “Brandeis University for Most Vegan-Friendly College 2011” was “liked” over 800 times.

Before this year, Brandeis’ best showing was making it to the final four in 2010.

Peta2’s description of Brandeis cited vegan dining options like “vegan brownies, vegan spaghetti and meatballs, barbecue veggie riblets, and vegan beef tacos.”

Peta2 found competitors to have similar options. Wesleyan University offers “barbecue seitan” and “tofu spinach lasagna,” according to the contest’s website, while Northwestern reportedly serves “tofu French

toast” and has a “Meatless Monday program.”

“Brandeis is extremely veganfriendly,” Zoe Novic ’13, a vegan, said in an interview with the Justice. “It’s really easy” to be vegan at Brandeis, said Novic, adding that there are “a lot of options.”

However, Novic said there is room to improve. “If we are the most vegan-friendly school in the country, then that says something really bad about the rest of the schools.”

Novic said that she did not vote in peta2’s competition, citing “conflicting views” about Brandeis’ veganfriendliness in general, not only as compared to other colleges.

Kimi Van Wickle ’14, who is also vegan, had a different take on the state of vegan dining on campus, calling peta2’s assessment of Brandeis “ridiculous” and “overstated” in an interview with the Justice.

While “there are definitely vegan options at Brandeis,” they are lim-

ited and in many cases “unhealthy,” said Van Wickle. Van Wickle said she was able to find many vegan options in the Provisions on Demand market, but was frustrated with the lack of organic food and the fact that some foods were meal-approved while their vegan counterparts were not.

Van Wickle said she did not vote for Brandeis for most vegan-friendly college. “By voting and saying Brandeis is really vegan, I think you can encourage Brandeis to make more vegan choices, but on the other hand it just isn’t true,” said Van Wickle, adding that “unless you’re vegan, you’re not qualified to vote for it.”

Other students agreed that the competition depends too much on non-vegan input.

“It’s just how many people you can get to like [the link],” said Joe Babeu ’15. Babeu said that he abstained from voting in the earlier

rounds because he felt that he didn’t know enough about the issue. However, said Babeu, he voted in the fourth round because “It [was] really getting down to the wire.” Babeu said he wanted to support Brandeis “even if I don’t really know if we’re vegan-friendly or not.”

According to Student Union President Herbie Rosen ’12, who helped to promote the competition in response to a request from Dining Services, results from the Student Union PULSE survey indicated that students were not satisfied with the overall quality of vegan dining on campus.

“I do applaud Dining Services for getting Brandeis involved in [the contest], but I’d love to actually see us being vegan-friendly,” said Rosen in an interview with the Justice.

While Rosen acknowledged that there are vegan options at Brandeis, he said that Brandeis needs to “step it up a lot more.”

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THE JUSTICE

Glatzer, a Brandeis professor of Jewish history and philosophy until 1973, focuses on his professional and personal life.

By jonathan epstein JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

JANEY ZITOMER/the Justice

SMART SOLUTIONS: Greg Fishbein presented solutions to combat impacts of deforestation and land use in Brazil and Indonesia.

IGS hosts discussion on unsustainable practices Nature Conservancy joined two students who spoke of their experiences abroad.

By allyson cartter JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

The International and Global Studies Program hosted “Green Growth: Environmentally Smart Economic Development,” a discussion that focused on how to change the supply and demand of environmentally unsustainable practices and the role of governments and organizations in this endeavor, last Wednesday.

The event featured Greg Fishbein, the managing director of forest carbon at the Nature Conservancy, and two students majoring in IGS, Stephanie Karol ’12 and Ben Rifkin ’12.

Fishbein discussed the environmental impact of deforestation and land use, primarily in Indonesia and Brazil. Karol and Rifkin discussed their experiences while abroad last semester; Karol’s presentation centered on soy production in Argentina and Rifkin’s focused on ecotourism in Madagascar.

The event was the second in the IGS Conversations series, the first of which centered on the global debt crisis and was held in October. Each discussion, Prof. Chandler Rosenberger (IGS) said in his introduction, provides a venue for study abroad returnees to discuss what they learned and bring in an expert in the field to react to the students’ presentations and provide additional perspectives.

Fishbein started the conversation with a presentation on the timber trade and the role of land use in economic development. The growing population and a global increase in wealth, he said, have led to more urbanization and a “huge demand for natural resources,” including timber and food, which have contributed to

5

Filmmaker speaks on documentary about former prof ■ The film about Nahum

greater rates of deforestation.

“There are some fundamental issues as we grow and prosper,” he said, including the difficulty of sustaining the environment in the midst of development.

Fishbein explained that these factors can be “reconciled” by using the land in “smarter” ways. For example, the Nature Conservancy is working with a district in Indonesia—which, with Brazil, contributes up to 50 percent of the 32 million acres of forests cut down each year—with a large timber and palm oil industry to find “a different pathway … to develop,” Fishbein said. One of the Conservancy’s main goals is to maintain jobs while decreasing deforestation.

It aims to achieve this by enacting a more targeted rather than an “ad hoc” approach to deforestation; finding smarter extraction practices; and quantifying carbon emissions so that developers can see the results of the efforts.

Karol then discussed soy production in Argentina, explaining that once export taxes on agricultural goods were removed in the late 1980s, the Argentinian soy trade “exploded.”

The number of farms producing soy decreased after the 2001 credit crisis, Karol continued, leading to concentrated wealth and fewer jobs.

According to Karol, many areas currently being deforested are home to indigenous populations, and the individuals being displaced do not always have the language or job skills to successfully enter the general workforce.

Rifkin then presented information on biodiversity and natural resource management in relation to ecotourism in Madagascar. According to Rifkin, positive externalities of ecotourism include job creation, an incentive for the government and Malagasy citizens to protect the land, a way to attract foreign aid and donations and, in some cases, improve the country’s living standards. Negative impacts of ecotourism, however, in-

TUESDAY, November 22, 2011

panel

“GREEN GROWTH”

■ Greg Fishbein of the

●

clude inflation, particularly of basic commodities; pollution and degradation of the environment compounded by increased traffic to tourist sites; and black market trade, including sex trafficking and the sale of illegal hardwood, Rifkin said.

Rifkin offered steps that Madagascar can take to work to remedy these issues, including bringing back foreign investment, improving stability, creating better accessibility to attract families and other tourists and building better infrastructure.

A conversation-style questionand-answer session followed the presentations, during which audience member Prof. Eric Olson (Heller) addressed the focus on changing the supply of environmentally unsustainable products rather than the demand. Though changing demand “is hard,” he said, “it would really be a terrible idea if we decided not to try.”

An important factor in this endeavor is education, he said.

In an interview with the Justice, Karol said that she hopes students gain an understanding that successful economic development is not based only on statistics and “the hard numbers.”

Rifkin said in an interview with the Justice that the event was a “unique opportunity” for study abroad returnees to apply what they have learned to “issues that we study here at Brandeis.”

In an interview with the Justice, Rosenberger said that the series aims to make IGS less “diffused of an experience.” Two main goals of having a conversation-style series are to “hear differing views” and to “get the chance to recognize that people you disagree with may be of good will and that you may be able to cooperate with them,” he said.

“We’ve been very lucky with great students and great speakers,” he said.

According to Rosenberger, the IGS Conversations series will continue next spring.

The North American premiere of Nahum Glatzer and the GermanJewish Tradition, a film on the former Brandeis Near Eastern and Judaic Studies professor, was held in the Mandel Center for the Humanities on Wednesday night.

The filmmaker, Judith Glatzer Wechsler ’62, and Prof. Jonathan Sarna (NEJS) held a discussion with the audience after the screening.

Wechsler, Glatzer’s daughter and a scholar in her own right, said before the screening that her motivation for creating a documentary on her father could be encapsulated by a saying of the German philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: “What you have inherited from your fathers, you must acquire in order to possess it.”

Glatzer was born in 1903 and was a professor of Jewish history and philosophy at Brandeis from 1951 to 1973, according to the film. His mentors included the Jewish philosophers Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig. Glatzer was additionally editor in chief of Schocken Books, where he edited and published Franz Kafka’s novels in English.

“Professor Glatzer really taught everything, from the Bible to the 20th century,” Sarna said. “And it is really quite extraordinary, in an age of specialization, to remember that we had a Nahum Glatzer who really embraced the all and published in so many different areas.”

Sarna discussed how Glatzer’s research methods “very much reflected some of the Wissenschaft [scientific] ideas of what made the Science of Judaism, as they called it, a science that academics study.”

Sarna added that those research methods have become unpopular in contemporary academia: “Some of the German ideas of objectivity, of the objectivity of the scholar, are today seen by younger scholars as perhaps illusory.”

The film details Glatzer’s childhood in Lemberg and Bodenbach, Germany, and his upbringing in a progressive Orthodox family that allowed him to read the works of Heinrich Heine as a child. Wechsler includes images of Glatzer’s childhood homes and the gymnasium at which he studied in Bodenbach, which she visited in order to get a feeling for his everyday life as a child. “It was very important for me to be physically present,” she said.

Wechsler stated that the film originally focused exclusively on Glatzer’s intellectual and spiritual life but, at the urging of her daughter, she added material on his personal life, including an anecdote on how Glatzer and his wife exchanged letters “almost every day that they were apart.” Glatzer and his wife met when she was only 16.

Sarna recounted how Glatzer brought Sarna’s father, Prof. Nahum Sarna (NEJS), to Brandeis in 1965, creating an “island of German scholarship” where the professors always wore suits and formally greeted each other by their titles.

Sarna stated that students, when asked what courses they were taking, instead of saying a course on Job, would say, “I am taking Glatzer” because he was so renowned.

Arthur Green ’61, a professor at Hebrew College in Newton, Mass. reminisced about taking Glatzer’s course on Isaiah during his freshman year here and called Brandeis during Glatzer’s era “a hub of that transmission of German-Jewish intellectual creativity to a generation of us American kids, American Jewish kids, who were hungry for it.”

“My father was a man of great reserve,” Wechsler said. “He might be embarrassed of so much attention paid to him.”

BRIEF

Professor Polonsky awarded annual Kulczycki Book Prize Prof.

Antony Polonsky (NEJS), the University’s Albert Abramson professor of Holocaust Studies, was awarded the annual Kulczycki Book Prize at the national convention of the Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies for his three-volume monograph, The Jews in Poland and Russia, according to a Nov. 18 BrandeisNOW article.

The Kulczycki Book Prize is administered annually by the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies “for the best book in any discipline, on any aspect of Polish affairs,” according to its website.

According to the ASEES website, the conference took place Nov. 17 to 20 at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C. In an interview with the Justice, Polonsky said the association consists of approximately 3,000 members.

The monograph for which Polonsky received his award is in the Littman Library of Jewish Civilization which is in the United Kingdom.

It chronicles the history of

the Jewish people in Poland and Russia.

The description on the Littman Library’s website states “The history of the Jewish communities of these lands— where most of the Jews of Europe and America originated— is often the subject of woolly thinking and stereotypes. Antony Polonsky recreates this lost world in a way that avoids both sentimentalism and the simplification of the east European Jewish experience into a story of persecution and martyrdom. This is an important story whose relevance extends beyond the Jewish world or the bounds of east-central Europe.”

Polonsky told the Justice that he learned he would receive this award in the middle of October and was very glad about it.

“I was particularly pleased because it is a book on Jewish history, but represents how Jewish history is central to the history of Poland,” he explained.

—Alana Abramson

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PLANNING: Goldstein asks for participation CONTINUED FROM 1 bie Rosen ’12 and Graduate Student Association representative Michael Singer.

Undergraduate students will be represented in the process through a Student Advisory Committee, which will hold town hall meetings, forums and online surveys. Rosen will accept applications from students who want to be on the committee. “I’m going to be looking for students from all different fields. I want to hit all corners of the University,” he said in an interview with the Justice. “Our concerns can’t be turned away.” The Graduate Student Association will hold similar events to represent graduate students, according to Goldstein’s email.

The University hired Elaine Kuttner of Cambridge Concord Associates as a consultant to the committee. The five academic deans and six professors will also serve on the committee.

“President Lawrence and I are deeply grateful to committee members for their willingness to assume this demanding service, and we

thank the Faculty Senate Council for its guidance during the committee selection process,” wrote Goldstein in his email.

Goldstein also announced the scheduling of information gathering sessions. According to his email, faculty and staff can sign up for a session online. These campuswide discussions, which will begin the next week, will help develop the strategic plan.

All input received from these planning discussions will be posted on a strategic planning website sometime in December, according to Goldstein.

Goldstein’s email also thanked members of the community in advance for their participation. “We need your input to produce a vibrant and successful plan that will propel us into a future as bold and discerning as the act of our formation,” he wrote.

“There was a palpable sense of opportunity and anticipation in the room,” said Goldstein of yesterday’s first meeting. “That was very exciting.”

REVIEW: Rosen calls for revision CONTINUED FROM 1 tion,” he said.

The last Constitutional Review Committee was convened in fall 2009 by then-Student Union President Andy Hogan ’11. The committee submitted 11 proposals to a vote by the student body after months of discussions and town hall meetings designed to hear student opinions.

Proposals by the 2009 committee included changes to the structure of the Student Union, added secured organizations, increased funding for BEMCo and the implementation of an instant runoff voting system, among others.

The student body approved eight of the 11 proposals, while students rejected major structural changes to the Student Union and did not grant secured status to Students for Environmental Action.

Rosen said, “We are a different Student Union, things have changed in two years. … We are not just going to copy what was done there.”

Rosen expects the review process to formally begin later this semester. The constitution mandates that the task force submit its final proposals no later than the first week of March.

As mandated by the Union Constitution, the task force must be composed of one representative from each of the following groups: intercultural community, club sports, religious organization, artistic/performance organizations, secured major media organizations, secured non-media organizations, non-sports competition organizations, Division of Student Affairs, Student Union Executive Office, Student Union Finance Board and the Student Union Senate. Each constituency chooses its respective representative.

Rosen, as Union president, would be empowered to appoint three alumni, two members at large and one community advisor to the task force. He would also appoint a chair from among the representatives.

●

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2011

STUDENT OPINIONS All data is from the Student Union PULSE survey, which was sent via email to students over a five-day period. These graphs represent the percentages of students who responded to the survey questions on student life.

In total, 320 students took the student life survey. The N/A option indicates that the question was not applicable to the student.

YES

(sometimes)

YES

(weekends)

20.6%

34.9%

YES

(week and weekends)

37.1%

If there was a shuttle to the Riverside T Station (Green Line), would you use it?

N/A

23.7%

YES 58.5%

NO 17.7%

NO 7.3%

Is one study day a sufficient amount of time to prepare for final exams?

NO

Is there a lack of study space before or during the finals period?

N/A

24.4%

YES 19.4 %

NO

56.2%

N/A 7.0%

11.1%

YES 81.9%

Would you utilize academic buildings during finals if they were open for studying after hours?

BRIAN BLUMENTHAL AND NAN PANG/the Justice

PULSE: Union survey gathers data on student transportation methods CONTINUED FROM 1 Fifty-six percent of students who took the survey said they were not satisfied with the one study day provided before finals periods, and 58 percent said they would be in support of extra study days even if it resulted in later final periods. In addition, 59 percent indicated that they felt there is a lack of study space on campus, and 82 percent said they were in favor of opening other buildings on campus for studying.

Rosen said that the Student Union will examine the data and look into advocating for student access to more buildings for studying and consider working with the registrar to increase the number of study days. However, this change would not affect the academic calendar for possibly two years because this year’s schedule is set and cannot be changed except in certain cases such as cancellation due to weather, according to Rosen.

The survey also gathered information on the most utilized study areas. Fifty-two percent of survey takers said that they studied in their rooms while 28 percent said they studied in the Goldfarb Library. Thirteen and a half percent said they used the Shapiro Campus

Center, and seven percent said they studied in their residential lounge.

In regards to transportation, the Boston/Cambridge Crystal Shuttle is the most often used mode of transportation, followed by a student’s own car and the Fitchburg line of the commuter rail into Boston.

When asked if they would utilize a shuttle to the Riverside MBTA station, 37 percent of students said they would use the shuttle during both the week and the weekends, while 21 percent said they would only use the shuttle during the weekends. Thirty-five percent said they would use the shuttle “only now and then,” and eight percent said they had no use for the Green Line, on which the Riverside stop is located.

Trial runs of a shuttle to Riverside were carried out during the past two weekends in order to gauge student interest in transportation to the station. The trials were conducted by Director of Public Safety Edward Callahan and the Escort Management team in collaboration with Rosen and three other members of the Student Union.

According to Rosen, 71 students used the shuttles during the first weekend of trials. As of press time, Rosen did not have the amount of students who took the shuttles this

Subscribe to

past weekend.

Rosen said that he will examine that number and speak with the Graduate Student Association to discuss graduate student interest in using the shuttles.

In addition, the survey asked if the Waltham shuttle times were compatible with students’ class schedules. In a Nov. 10, 2010 email to the Brandeis community, thenProvost Marty Krauss announced that she accepted recommendations from the Block Scheduling Committee that included starting classes on the hour or the half-hour, rather than ten minutes after. This schedule change was implemented for the fall 2011 semester, and Rosen said that he and the Student Union were interested in seeing if that had an impact on student transportation.

“We were concerned about the Waltham Crystal shuttles because they didn’t change their schedule after the academic schedule got changed,” said Rosen. Thirty-eight percent of students said that the shuttle times worked well with their classes, while 16 percent said that they did not.

Rosen said that he will hold a follow-up meeting with Callahan after the Thanksgiving holiday break to discuss the results of the survey.

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TUESDAY, november 22, 2011

just

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THE JUSTICE

VERBATIM | VIC BRADEN The moment of enlightenment is when a person’s dreams of possibilities become images of probabilities.

ON THIS DAY…

FUN FACT

In 1986, Mike Tyson defeated Trevor Berbick to become the youngest heavyweight champion in boxing history.

There are 119 grooves on the edge of a quarter.

Revolutionizing study strategies

PHOTOS COURTESY OF BILL DERUSHA

INNOVATIVE THINKER: Silverman works as StudyEgg’s CEO.

StudyEgg prevents last-minute cramming By celine hacobian JUSTICE Staff writer

TECH SAVVY: Urton serves as the mobile guru for the group.

SELLING STUDYEGG: DeRusha runs the marketing branch.

Every college student has been there: trying to read chapters one through 27 at 11 p.m. the night before a midterm exam or starting a paper at midnight mere hours before it is due. The next day, the test is taken, the paper handed in and the information forgotten, laid to rest with the rest of the material temporarily learned while cramming. Looking to transform the way students across the country are studying, three Brandeis graduate students set out to change this system.

Josh Silverman, Jason Urton and Bill DeRusha, who are all currently on leaves of absence from the Master’s program in Computer Science, began their process after realizing that students in all parts of the world have the same problem with studying. The three created StudyEgg, a website designed to better organize course material and prepare students for exams by asking online questions varying in degree of difficulty based on a student’s answers to previous ones.

“The idea really arose out of personal needs as a student, trying to keep track of a ton of information and review it effectively for a test. That is a really hard thing to do well as a student,” said co-founder and CEO Josh Silverman in an interview with the Justice.

“There’s such a volume when you consider all the chapters that you read, ... all the extra resources that are provided. ... The motivation was really tools to help students manage that enormous quantity of information,” he explained.

StudyEgg is organized by textbook so that it stays applicable to thousands of students across the country. “If we do a class, it has a much smaller range of applicability. It might not even work across semesters,” Silverman explained.

Students can search the textbook they are using for a class to find notes and review questions that pertain to the material included in the course readings. The website currently has about three subjects and will continue to grow with the users.

The University has played a major part in funding the group and developing StudyEgg. “Our first funding came through Brandeis. It was called the Brandeis Sprout Grant. That’s been a very helpful grant for us. It’s helped us cover our technology costs, like running our servers [and] paying for all the other technology expenses we have,” Silverman said. At the start of the project, the creators already had 1,000 people signed up on the website.

“We’re pretty pleased with our pilots. We are rapidly developing a product and incorporating customer feedback,” Silverman said.

While students initially used StudyEgg in various classrooms across the country, Silverman said it did not exactly meet student needs because the initial software was “a little buggy.” It did receive publicity, however, through about a dozen blogs that boasted the new website. They spent the second half of their spring 2011 semester figuring out what students preferred through surveys and interviews.

Currently, the website allows students to register for an account that allows them to add “eggs” that correspond to a textbook and ask a certain number of review questions from the text. At the end of the question set, a pie chart shows the number answered correctly and incorrectly. This, however, is not the developers’ only goal.

StudyEgg’s next step will follow what is called adaptive testing and adaptive learning. “We ask you a question and the next question is determined by your response to the previous question, so if you got something right, then you’ll get a harder question on that same subject,” Silverman said.

“Once you’ve mastered that subject, you’ll move on to the next topic. If you get it wrong, then there will be supporting information followed by supporting questions, and then that very question will reappear,” he explained.

Silverman believes that adaptive learning saves students an extraordinary amount of time. “You don’t have to keep track of what you know and don’t know.

StudyEgg keeps track of that all for you and makes sure that you’re reviewing it effec-

tively,” he explained.

Silverman did his undergraduate work at the University of Pennsylvania, studying political science and french. After graduating, he taught information technology and English Language Arts to fifth graders in Seoul, South Korea.

“It was during that period of time where I started to develop learning tools for myself and also for my students to see in what ways I could help them out,” he said. “I was teaching a class of students with very different levels of English. It was an international school, so theoretically they all were proficient in English, but that wasn’t always the case, so there was a huge variation,” he explained.

“I was looking for ways to differentiate the curriculum to really individualize instruction based on individual needs. So that was what spurred a lot of my own dabbling in this [project].”

He then took a year off to work on the prototype for StudyEgg. This is when he realized he needed partners to continue his work and that, though he loved teaching, he was more interested in educational technology. He made the transition to Brandeis not only for its Computer Science department but also “to find partners and hit the reset button on the whole project and look for new ways, new innovations to individualize instruction.”

That’s when he met Urton and DeRusha, both studying Computer Science in the IT Entrepreneurship program. Silverman was doing a post-baccalaureate program in Computer Science, but they began development of StudyEgg in late December of this past winter.

“We worked pretty feverishly throughout the spring semester, both with a full load of classes and ... a full work week, also,” Silverman said. Although Silverman, Urton and DeRusha are now on leaves of absence from the University, Silverman does believe they will return to Brandeis to finish their graduate work.

“It’s really about what students want to use, and we’re just going to keep testing products and putting them in students’ hands until we get a really great fit,” he said.

THE JUSTICE

The

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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2011

9

pipeline protests PHOTO COURTESY OF MATT GABRENYA

PEACEFUL DEMONSTRATION: Environmental activists from around the country gathered in Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C. as part of their efforts to protest the construction of the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline.

Students join environmental demonstrations in Washington, D.C. By tyler belanga JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

An enormous crowd of people assembled outside the White House in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 6 to protest the building of the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline. Over 10,000 people of countless ages and backgrounds came to together to form one cohesive voice as they raised chants, hoisted signs and formed one massive human chain, several people thick, around the White House property.

Brandeis was not without representation at the rally: 15 students made the trip to the nation’s capital to show their firm opposition to the construction of the oil pipeline to President Barack Obama.

Over the past several months, protests against the construction of the Keystone XL, a pipeline that would transport crude oil from Canada to Texas, have dominated the efforts of environmentalists around the nation. Many fear that the pipeline, which would be built as an addition to the already existing Keystone Pipeline System, will have dramatic environmental consequences, while at the same time doing nothing to lessen the United States’ dependence on fossil fuels.

The proposed Keystone XL Pipeline would carry 900,000 barrels of tar-like oil daily into the U.S., in addition to the 435,000 barrels that already run through the current Keystone system on a daily basis.

“The pipeline would go from Alberta, Canada all the way down to refineries in Texas on the gulf.

This process of refining oil from tar sands causes way more CO2 to be released,” said Carrie Watkins ’12, an International and Global Studies major who attended the Nov. 6 rally.

“We need to be getting away from that, not supporting it more,” Watkins explained.

The new pipeline also threatens to leak crude oil on its proposed journey across the country. This could bring about virtually irreparable damage to any piece of land, but it has caused heightened unease because the Keystone XL would pass directly over the Ogallala Aquifer.

“If we know anything about oil, it’s that it spills; we saw the BP oil spill, there was just one in Yellowstone, and there are smaller ones all the time that people never hear about,” said Watkins. “If we want to create jobs, we can create them using clean energy and that will create far more jobs that will actually last,” she said.

“The thing about these types of issues is they tend to have more than one thing that is really wrong with them. So much of this is caused by greed and corruption and large amounts of money in the wrong hands. … You just can’t sit around and not do anything about it,” Watkins continued.

It was to show Obama their opposition to the Keystone XL that Watkins, along with 14 other Brandeis students and over 100 other environ-

mentally conscious students from universities in the Boston area, traveled to the White House to join the peaceful protest.

“This was something that the environmental movement could converge on. … Protesting this pipeline gave everyone something to rally around,” said Lisa Purdy ’14, an Environmental Studies major who also participated in the protest.

The day began with high-profile guest speakers, including climatologist James Hansen, social activist Naomi Klein and Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, a grassroots campaign dedicated to solving climate change. Protesters split up into groups and took turns marching around the White House with signs and ended the day by linking arms and forming an enormous human made chain around the White House.

While Purdy said she was worried that there would not be enough people to stretch around the entire White House, it turned out there were enough to form a human chain several people thick.

“It felt really beautiful. … Here I was, linking arms with a woman I didn’t know, and in the midst of this really serious thing we were protesting, I looked around and realized that these people really get it,” Purdy said. “It felt like something straight out of the ’60s,” she said.

Several days after the protest, the Obama administration announced that further review was needed before construction on the Keystone XL Pipeline can move forward. The decision will likely not be made until after the 2012 presidential election, but many experts believe that the pipeline’s construction will not be approved in light of fervent protests on the part of civilians and federal and state politicians. “[The protest] was incredible,” said Watkins. “The most amazing thing about it was that we really accomplished something. Obama came out a few days later and said the issue needed to be reviewed further; we made [a] real change,” she said.

Although the students have returned to campus, their efforts against the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline remain active.

Last week, members of Students for Environmental Action set up a model Keystone XL Pipeline between the Shapiro Campus Center and the Goldfarb Library, with signs along the pipeline reminding the passersby of the potential devastation that the project could wreak.

Watkins said that while SEA was prepared to make calls to Senator John Kerry and continue participating in protests and rallies, the success of the Washington, D.C. protests has put all of their plans on hold.

According to Watkins, “everyone is waiting to see what will happen next,” hoping that no further action to kill the Keystone XL Pipeline will be needed but prepared to resume action should Obama decide to move forward with the project.

PHOTO COURTESY OF RACHAEL DIAMENT

STUDENT ACTIVISTS: Rohan Bhatia ’14, Rachael Diament ’14 and Kate Alexander ’12 (from right) helped create a human chain.

PHOTO COURTESY OF CARRIE WATKINS

POWER IN NUMBERS: Thousands of protesters rallied around the White House to gain the attention of President Barack Obama.

10

TUESDAY, November 22, 2011

●

THE JUSTICE

Justice Justice

the the

Established 1949, Brandeis University

Brandeis University

Established 1949

Emily Kraus, Editor in Chief Nashrah Rahman, Managing Editor Brian N. Blumenthal, Production Editor Alana Abramson, Rebecca Blady, Bryan Flatt, Rebecca Klein, Asher Krell, Tess Raser and Robyn Spector, Associate Editors Sara Dejene and Andrew Wingens, News Editors Dafna Fine, Features Editor Eitan Cooper, Forum Editor Adam Rabinowitz, Acting Sports Editor Ariel Kay, Arts Editor Yosef Schaffel and Tali Smookler, Photography Editors Nan Pang, Layout Editor Marielle Temkin, Copy Editor Cody Yudkoff, Advertising Editor

Gauge opinion strategically Last Friday, Provost Steve Goldstein ’78 sent an email to the Brandeis community describing the manner in which the Strategic Planning Steering Committee will move forward as it begins its work.

While Mr. Goldstein mentioned several methods in which student input will be solicited, there are more effective ways to obtain students’ opinion in order to get more thoughtful and well-considered opinions.

In his email, Dr. Goldstein wrote that “undergraduates will convene a Student Advisory Committee to engage the student body through a series of town hall meetings, forums and online surveys” in order to inform the student representative to the Strategic Planning Steering Committee, Student Union President Herbie Rosen ’12.

We approve of the creation of such a committee: Having students from different aspects of the student body informing Mr. Rosen as he works on the larger committee will be useful and will ensure that different facets of student life are represented.

However, as the town hall meetings for the Constitutional Review Committee two years ago and the presidential search last year proved—some meetings had no students in attendance, others very few—holding open forums for all members of the general student body is not an effective way of gathering representative opinions. Perhaps offering some sort of incentives, such as food or giveaways, would boost attendance.

There may be an even more effective approach, though: The Student Advisory Committee would be better served by asking focus groups to give their opinions on the different aspects of student life. By convening groups of club leaders, members of the student government, members of Greek life, commuters and other groups representative of specific aspects of the student experience

Employ targeted surveys at Brandeis, the committee would gain valuable insights into the issues that will be critical to the strategic planning process.

Online surveys are a better way to reach out to all of the undergraduates than town hall meetings, as many more students are likely to respond to an email than to attend one of the meetings. But as the email questionnaires about the search for the provost and senior vice president for Students and Enrollment last year showed, questions on those surveys need to be accessible to students.

For example, last year’s survey sent out by then Student Union President Daniel Acheampong ’11 on the provost search asked: “What are the most important areas to be improved within the Provost’s authority?”

Students filling out this survey had little ability to answer this question, as most were unaware of the provost’s role at the University.

Questions should be geared toward subjects of which students have direct knowledge, and the survey should be advertised in ways that will make students interested in participating. Again, some targeted surveys might help the committee reach out to parts of the student body that are otherwise not represented, but one general survey to students would be a way to ensure that everyone who is interested in expressing his or her opinion can be heard.

At a time in which our university is considering its goals and values, we have a unique opportunity to make our voices heard. It is our responsibility to speak out, and the Student Advisory Committee to the Strategic Planning Steering Committee should do its best to reach out to those students who are interested in contributing to this important conversation.

Increase study spaces As Thanksgiving break draws closer, another time of the year looms on the horizon for Brandeis students: finals.

In addition to the stress and sleepless nights that accompany the actual exams, Brandeisians must also cope with the anxiety that they might not be able to find a place to study. According to the Student Union’s recent campus-wide Pulse survey, 58.8 percent of survey takers feel like there is a lack of study space on campus. While this board has previously called for increased study spaces during finals, in light of growing class sizes, the administration must now consider how to best accommodate the needs of its students.

Toward the end of the semester, the Goldfarb Library and the Shapiro Campus Center are filled to their maximum capacities with students. This poses a legitimate problem for those who are not able to secure a coveted spot in the library early enough in the day.

On the weekends and in the evenings on weekdays, academic buildings such as Olin-Sang, the Mandel Center for the Humanities and the Carl J. Shapiro Science Center are closed to students.

Currently, students who study in

Open buildings to students these buildings at night are not asked to leave —with the exception of the Science Center—if they entered them earlier in the day.

However, they are unable to enter the buildings at a late hour, as they are locked. While it is understandable that leaving these buildings unlocked and unattended at night is not ideal, the fact remains that students must have viable options for places to study on campus during finals.

Twenty-four hour quiet hours in the dorms do help facilitate a more productive environment, but many students are opposed to studying in their rooms for various reasons.

We acknowledge that in a past effort to provide more study space, folding tables were placed in the SCC atrium. While this idea had good intentions, the atrium was not a productive place in which to implement it, as it is a loud, busy area.

Sometimes it is easy to overlook smaller issues that challenge students on campus. We hope that as finals approach, this pressing problem will be adequately addressed.

SHAFAQ HASAN/the Justice

Assess meaning of liberal arts education Leah

smith in a word

If you look up the word liberal in the dictionary, you will find a whole slew of definitions. The ones that really stuck out to me were “open to new behaviors and opinions” and “free from bias, prejudice, or bigotry; open-minded, tolerant.”

In today’s politically charged climate, we sometimes forget those meanings of the word. Instead we think of liberalism as a left-leaning political persuasion that is responsible for the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Yet liberal does not refer only to a political persuasion. It also describes the education we are getting at Brandeis. And it is here that we get back to the other meanings of the word. We are not being taught to be politically liberal: rather, we are being taught to approach the world with an open mind and to be tolerant of new opinions and behaviors that we might encounter.

This is what it means to receive a liberal arts education, and thankfully, Brandeis has done very well by me in that respect.

Unfortunately, not all liberal arts institutions have lived up to this definition of a liberal education as well as Brandeis has.

According to a Nov. 15 article in The Huffington Post, Texas’ Baylor University has allegedly offered a sociology course titled “Homosexuality as a Gateway Drug.” After coming under fire for this course title, the university changed the name of the course to “Special Topics in Sociology” and stated that the previous course title was meant to be an independent study for one student rather than a group course.

Baylor University’s website describes the institution as “a private Baptist university, and a nationally ranked liberal arts institution.” If Baylor is a liberal arts school, and assuming that this course actually was intended as an independent study, why would they allow a student to conduct such a study on a topic that is clearly bigoted and biased?

One could argue that a student’s right to conduct any independent study they want is protected under the First Amendment. However, freedom of speech in academia works a little bit differently. An academic certainly has the right to say whatever he pleases, but if he hopes to get his work published and widely accepted, that work must be supported by substantial evidence and deemed unbiased by a body of his peers.

A rigorous university should treat all student work as if it were going to undergo this process of peer review. That being said, no professor should have ever agreed to mentor a student on a topic of independent study that is biased and bigoted even before any research has been done. If a student believes that homosexuality is a gateway drug, it will be difficult for her to conduct unbiased research and create an unbiased finished product, even if the evidence is clearly to the contrary.

Furthermore, academic research is largely defined by its ability to contribute to generalizable knowledge on a particular topic. While it might be possible to conduct research about homosexuality as a gateway drug among a very specific population of homosexuals, it would be quite impossible to reach viable, generalizable conclusions about homosexuality in general, especially since homosexuals account for a huge range of genders, socioeconomic statuses, races and areas of residence, among other factors, that could also contribute to drug use.

Clearly, there is quite a bit wrong with allowing a student to conduct an independent study on homosexuality as a gateway drug. That aside, why did the study title appear on Baylor’s course listings in the first place? If the university’s claim that it was intended to be an independent study rather than a group course is true, the name should never have appeared in the course listings at all. It is a grievous error indeed that a student’s paperwork to begin an independent study somehow ended up on the course listings for the entire university. Of course, I can only speculate as to whether or not the university’s story is true, but it seems to me as if Baylor is offering a shoddy excuse to cover up some very poor academic judgment by claiming that a class that was originally open to all was offered by mistake.

This incident is an embarrassment to academia. Liberal arts institutions pride themselves on providing an education that allows students to come away with an open-minded approach to real-world problems. Yet by publicly announcing that it isallowing a student to pursue a biased topic of study that does not meet the requirements of rigorous academic work, Baylor University has lowered the standards of a liberal arts education.

OP-BOX Quote of the Week “IArtists] create a world and make it engaging so people want to jump in it, make it breathe and everyone else will breathe with you.”

— Osaze Akerejah ’14 commenting on performing in front of an audience (Arts, page 21)

Brandeis Talks Back What do you think about the Student Union’s emails?

Kyra Borenstein ’15 “I honestly can’t remember them. I don’t open them very often.”

Anna Yatskar ’14 “I think they’re a bit excessive but they’re useful.”

Nghia Trinh ’13 “I just scroll through them and kind of disregard them.”

Josh Berman ’15 “I feel like it’s a bit excessive.”

—Compiled by Eitan Cooper Photos by Tali Smookler/ the Justice

THE JUSTICE

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TUESDAY, November 22, 2011

11

Adopt system to regulate registration Philip

gallagher back to basics

It’s within reason to say that, besides classwork and finals, Brandeis students are most stressed right around the time of course registration. We have good reason to be; it can be vital to our academic plans that we enroll in certain courses in order to complete graduation and major requirements. On occasion, these important courses have a restricted amount of seats that can prevent students from enrolling and continuing timely progress towards a desired major or minor. Even if the capped course in question needs to be completed for a requirement or is of unique interest to the student, the student’s only option is to enroll on the demand list and email the professor, who likely is receiving several similar emails, in order to plead their case.

This type of problem could be easily rectified if Brandeis created an administrator, either for the College of Arts and Sciences as a whole or for each academic department, who could meet with a student to determine whether he or she should have priority to enroll in a closed course and then, if deemed appropriate, contact the relevant department to make it happen.

According to a recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, the University of Nevada, Reno has effectively solved this problem with the creation of a course concierge. The concierge is a man named Paul Neill, a faculty member in the Physics department who holds the title of “Director of Core Curriculum” and who wields the institutional clout of a university administrator.

He meets with approximately 50 to 60 students each semester to discuss their enrollment difficulties and can call academic departments to create a seat in a necessary but full course. Additionally, he works with related departments, such as Mathematics and Chemistry, to make sure that courses frequently taken together do not overlap in scheduling.

Before the creation of the course concierge, the process by which a student attempted to enroll in a closed course at University of Nevada, Reno was highly informal and generally inefficient: emailing the professor. The implementation of the concierge helped give

TZIPORAH THOMPSON/the Justice

the process structure and authority. Additionally, the retention and graduation rates at University of Nevada, Reno have risen because of the services that the concierge provides. Milton Glick, the former president of University of Nevada, Reno, explained that students who hit even minor snags in their course enrollment could become discouraged, have their progress toward graduation delayed or be more inclined to transfer or drop out. The concierge has been able to meet with these types of students to ensure that they can avoid these challenges.

However, the concierge doesn’t just help anyone who walks in the door. Students who simply don’t like the time of a class, missed

several opportunities to enroll in a required course or are interested in taking a closed course on a whim won’t receive enrollment assistance.

The purpose of the concierge is to help those students who encounter difficulties by no fault of their own or to provide advice to those students who are simply bewildered by the enrollment process. The concierge does not replace the position of a normal academic adviser but rather works with more specialized cases and has the power to cut red tape for students as needed. Brandeis could benefit from a course concierge, either for the whole College of Arts and Sciences or for each academic department, given some recent en-

rollment challenges that we’ve experienced.

Some departments, such as Economics and Hispanic Studies, currently have almost all of their upper-level courses filled to capacity and spilling out onto the demand list, creating difficulty for students who need to take these courses to complete a major or minor. Other courses, such as “The Films of Disney,” were given received an enrollment cap in the middle of the registration period. Students who wanted to take the course for the film requirement of the English major may have been caught off guard and were unable to register before the cap was met. Science lab sections are also a common source of anxiety and fill up very quickly because they take up an entire afternoon, preventing students from taking any desired classes that meet at any time during those four hours.

Courses such as “The Economics of Education,” “Films of Disney” or “Public Speaking: The Art of Oral Communication,” all of which have demand lists of over 50 students, could benefit from having the concierge prioritize the students on the demand list to determine who should be able to enroll.

Departments who have courses that are co-requisites, such as Mathematics and Physics, could benefit from a concierge to ensure that as few of the courses as possible overlap in scheduling. Furthermore, students who aren’t sure where to turn during course enrollment could benefit from a concierge who can provide them with informed and meaningful advice.

Faculty time could also be better utilized by diverting the responsibility of speaking with students on unusually large demand lists or who have more pressing course difficulties to a central concierge. Professors who teach popular courses would not have to spend their time communicating with 30 students on a demand list via email, trying to determine who should be able to enroll in their course.

Faculty advisers, who are frequently confronted with students having scheduling issues involving classes in other academic department, would be able to direct them to the concierge, who would be a more informed resource. The creation of a central enrollment figure could help faculty members utilize their time more efficiently during registration periods, when they can be very busy with student concerns.

The course concierge is an innovative concept that Brandeis ought to investigate. By developing a powerful student-oriented resource for enrollment difficulties, the administration would take a big step toward alleviating student stress during the registration period.

Prevent the passage of online censorship bill

By BEN SETEL JUSTICE CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Those of you who read The New York Times on Tuesday may have noticed a full-page ad in Tuesday’s newspaper taken out by a consortium of internet goliaths that included Google, Facebook, Twitter, eBay and Yahoo!.

What issue could be so grave as to compel these companies—many of whom directly compete with each other—to band together?

The answer lies in a bill before the House of Representatives known as the Stop Online Piracy Act. This bill has two sections, both of which contain fairly alarming propositions.

One section of SOPA would make it a felony to knowingly upload streaming media that infringes on copyright.

To understand what this means, consider the following scenario: I upload a music video to YouTube without the artist’s permission, and poof—I am suddenly guilty of a felony.

Not merely a civil offense, not even a misdemeanor, but rather, a felony.

If I played that song on the radio without the artist’s permission, I would not be guilty of any crime. If I stole a physical copy of that song from a record store, I would be guilty of a much lesser crime. Such a provision is overly punitive.

The other section of this bill is far worse,

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however.

It would allow private copyright holders to force companies like PayPal and Google to stop doing business with sites that are allegedly committing copyright infringement.

Copyright holders would not need to get a court order, nor present any evidence to support their claims. Rights-holders would be able to legally compel companies to stop doing business on the basis of mere suspicion.

No proof, no trial—just raw suspicion. To get a sense of why this would be so devastating, it is necessary to explain what kind of services companies like Google provide to other websites.

Say for example that “website A” uses Google for its ad network. This means that Google figures out which ads are most likely to be clicked on by people who visit website A, runs those ads on website A and takes some percentage of the resulting revenue.

This is a fairly common practice that many small websites use to increase their ad revenue. Under SOPA, if I, as a rights holder, merely give Google notice that I suspect website A to be infringing on my copyright, Google must stop doing business with website A. This website will then have five days to respond to the accusations, but will be blacklisted until the initial claim of the rights holder and the website’s response are evaluated.

Even a single day without their ad network

Fine Print

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could have huge economic consequences for many sites.

The Stop Online Piracy Act gives far too much power to rights holders. Allowing rights holders to force companies to stop doing business with other websites merely on the basis of suspicion of copyright infringement would be devastating to online freedom and innovation. Small, independent sites rely on third-party services and cannot work without them. Many of our favorite websites would not have had a chance to get off the ground if these rules had been in effect when they were formed.

The costs associated with addressing these claims and the loss of revenue that would have resulted from them would simply have been too great for these websites to bear. The argument that these sites invite such suspicion only if they actually host unauthorized copyrighted content rings false, since no offer of proof is required by rights holders.

Even in cases where sites are actually hosting copyrighted material, it may be without the knowledge or intent of the site’s administrators.

YouTube is a great example of a website that regularly may be unaware of hosting copyrighted material on its site, given its size and popularity.

Even today, YouTube struggles with copyright complaints stemming from user up-

The Staff

For information on joining the Justice, write to editor@ thejustice.org.

loads. If YouTube had been prevented from doing business with third parties as a result of these complaints, it may never have become the popular and innovative website it is today.

If these rules had been in effect when YouTube was founded, it would regularly have received such complaints. This would have meant that it could have regularly lost access to its payment processing system and advertising network, which would have resulted in huge revenue losses.

These losses would have made it impossible for YouTube to meet its fairly large bandwidth costs, thus forcing it to shut down. If SOPA were to pass, it would prevent the next generation of companies from getting a fair start. Making the users of these websites face felony charges for uploading copyrighted content is clearly unfair.

The argument that such uploads may have some negative economic consequence on the copyright holder may be well-founded, but that is precisely why it should be a matter for our civil courts and not our criminal courts.

To face prison time for uploading a song or a video that happens to be copyrighted is just not consistent with our legal system’s current standards of punishment, nor should it be.

The Stop Online Privacy Act is an ill-reasoned bill and it must not be allowed to pass into law.

Editorial Assistants Ads: David Wolkoff Copy: Maya Riser-Kositsky Forum: Shafaq Hasan News: Sam Mintz Photos: Jenny Cheng, Joshua Linton Staff Senior Writers: Josh Asen, Aaron Berke, Jeffrey Boxer, Max Goldstein Senior Illustrator: Rishika Assomull Senior Photographer: Hilary Heyison, Alex Margolis, Janey Zitomer News: Shani Abramowitz, Tyler Belanga, Jonathan Epstein, Danielle Gross, Tate Herbert Features: Dave Benger, Claire Gohorel, Rachel Miller Forum: Hillel Buechler, Aaron Fried, Philip Gallagher, Hannah Goldberg, Tien Le, Diego Medrano, Liz Posner, Sara Shahanaghi, Leah Smith,

Elizabeth Stoker, Naomi Volk Sports: Julian Cardillo, Henry Loughlin, Jacob Lurie, Jacob Moskowitz, Natalie Shushan Arts: Damiana Andonova, Wei-Huan Chen, Hayley DeBerry, Alex DeSilva, Leah Igdalsky, Olivia Leiter, Amy Melser, Leanne Ortbals, Louis Polisson, Mara Sassoon, Ayan Sanyal, Dan Willey Photography: Jon Edelstein, Lydia Emmanouilidou, Morgan Fine, Nathaniel Freedman, Rachel Gordon, Yifan He, Josh Horowitz, Davida Judelson, Maya Shemtov, Josh Spriro Madeleine Stix, Diana Wang, David Yun Copy: Aliza Braverman, Jennie Bromberg, Rebecca Brooks, Allyson Cartter, Hilary Cheney, Erica Cooperberg, Patricia Greene, Celine Hacobian, Max Holzman, Liana Johnson, Eunice Ko, Felicia Kuperwaser, Jessie Miller, Tarini Nalwa, Megan Paris, Christine Phan, Mailinh Phan-Nguyen, Holly Spicer, Amanda Winn Layout: Rachel Burkhoff, Denny Poliferno, Michelle Yi Illustrations: Arielle Shorr, Sara Weininger

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TUESDAY, november 22, 2011

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THE JUSTICE

FORUM

Nationalism at Brandeis and in Israel Hillel

Buechler And so On

When emails have to be sent repeatedly in order to encourage students to do something, it’s usually because the students aren’t already doing the something in question.

So those emails imploring students to attend soccer games two weeks ago probably had something to do with a lack of student attendance at soccer games, or even university sporting events in general.

But I think that indifferent attitude extends beyond University athletics to the University in general. Students here may enjoy and appreciate the Brandeis experience, but we’re not quick to exhibit too much passionate Brandeis pride beyond campus. That lack of school spirit is mostly treated as some sort of problem in need of repair.

But perhaps it shouldn’t be.

Just because we’re not out there cheering and roaring about our love for this university doesn’t mean we don’t care for Brandeis. We do love it, though maybe just a little more quietly than students at other colleges. It’s possible that we appreciate our Brandeisian identity in a different way than most other schools appear to do.

Perhaps, though, our apparent apathy articulates something meaningful about Brandeis’ Jewish identity. And perhaps it conveys a difference between two very different models of Jewish sovereignty—Brandeis and Israel.

When Jews think of 1948 (irrespective of whatever post-identity label they may self-apply), they think Israel. When Brandeisians do the same (provided that they have their facts in order), they think Brandeis.

Aside from the year, the respective foundations of Israel and Brandeis share something else: They constitute outcomes of a Jewish effort to solve a perceived problem through the creation of a new entity.

Now, it’s true that nationalism isn’t exactly something that comes to mind when you think of college. But the pride that students feel toward their universities is in some way a kind of nationalist sentiment—although obviously this is a rather loose use of the word “nationalist” since there’s no literally national element involved. However, school pride nonetheless represents a way in which people at an institution share and express an associated identity. I don’t mean to craft some fictitious equivalency between the struggle of Jews in less-than-amiable foreign countries and that of Jews that faced unfair challenges in dealing with top-tier American universities.

However, the processes behind the two were similar, at least conceptually. In each case, Jewish groups adopted a previously unJewish model of some type of sovereignty and found some way to, well, give it a Jewish twist.

The precise nature of the model they adopted is where the founding of Israel and Brandeis diverge.

The upper hand in Zionist politics during and especially after the Holocaust belonged

TZIPORAH THOMPSON/the Justice

to those who embraced the nation-state as the ideal model for Jewish sovereignty, as opposed to a binational state or a homeland of sorts. Thus, in 1948, the Jews of Palestine established the State of Israel, embracing as Jewish the nation-state model, as well as the state-based nationalist notions that accompany it.

In terms of Brandeis, the story is a bit different. Its founders adopted the model of a nonsectarian American university and decided to add some notion of Jewish control. To the founders, Brandeis would be like any other university, except that those supporting and overseeing it—most explicitly from a financial perspective—would be Jewish.

You might argue that the Brandeis model doesn’t really count as a form of Jewish sovereignty, but I think there’s something to be said about a university with an overwhelmingly Jewish board of trustees that has thus far supported hiring only Jewish university presidents.

It’s true that now, well over 60 years since their respective foundations, each enterprise

continues to grapple in some way with the precise nature of its Jewish identity—Israelis with defining their state’s Jewishness by something slightly more salient than an ethnic majority and a law of return, and Brandeisians with addressing any nature of our university’s Jewish character at all.

But more important than a shared identity struggle is perhaps what is most clearly different about the state and the university: their modes of nationalism as it relates to that Jewish identity.

So what of Brandeisian nationalism? What does it look like? Our athletic situation captures part of it—some form of apathy instead of any exciting, boasting attitude about facets of our college as compared to others.

And maybe—just maybe—therein is the truest manifestation of our university’s Jewish character. In response to Zionist discussions, various Jewish intellectuals have presented the ways in which statist sovereignty and nationalism can or cannot be adopted as truly Jewish concepts.

For instance, some Jewish thinkers opposed

adopting any potentially nationalist model as the model for Jewish sovereignty because they saw something inherently un-Jewish about nationalism—that Judaism and nationalism cannot truly go hand in hand.

Similarly, there are also arguments from Jewish intellectuals concerning the elegance of Jews as outsiders. Such views may hold that Jews flourish when living on the periphery of society rather than in the spotlight of civilization, that it was from the sidelines rather than the parliament that Jews best offered something to the world.

Maybe these types of fears concerning mainstream Jewish nationalism have incidentally manifested themselves in the nonsectarian college model that Brandeis constitutes: formal Jewish control via actual leadership but openness and tacit pride among students.

Do we have some viable alternative to mainstream Jewish nationalism to share with the world? Well, we’re a college, not a country, so I’d say probably not. But it wouldn’t be the worst thing if we acknowledged what we have and more openly embraced it as our own.

Participate in programs to enroll veterans Naomi

Volk Et Cetera

As the war in Iraq winds down, our country must facilitate the reintegration of veterans back into society. One way of doing this, as Columbia University, among others, has already taken to, is actively recruiting veterans as potential students by going to military bases.

While Brandeis doesn’t necessarily need to go this far, we should participate in programs that encourage veterans to go to college.

A recent New York Times article describes the reactions of one of Columbia’s deans of admissions in recruiting these veterans.

Columbia is following a pattern well established in American history: After World War II, the passage of the GI Bill allowed veterans to go to universities in droves. This not only paid tribute to the extreme sacrifice the veterans had made on behalf of our country, but gave the veterans concrete opportunities for their futures.

With the Post-9/11 GI Bill in 2008, veterans

are once again flocking to universities, including Columbia. This recent incarnation of the GI Bill, according to its website, “provides financial support for education and housing to individuals with at least 90 days of aggregate service on or after September 11, 2001.”

It pays the full tuition and fees for public, in-state schools, and will give $17,500 per academic year to veterans for a private school.

Veterans deserve guidance and assistance through the college admissions process to ensure that they take advantage of the great opportunities they have available to them to go to college.

The Leadership Scholar Program works with 190 colleges around the country to help marines figure out the college admissions process. It serves as the link between honorably discharged marines and universities, matching marines with universities that they believe would be a good fit and ensuring acceptance for those that are qualified.

We would benefit from encouraging this sort of behavior. We should salute our men and women in uniform by giving them a chance at the American dream—a dream that, in this day and age, more or less requires a college degree.

After all, these men and women have had life experiences that most college students can’t say they have had; being in the army

forces someone to grow up in a way that many 18-year-olds cannot relate to.

Brandeis, unfortunately, does not participate in this program as of now. It would give our student body a diversity of life experiences, allowing the whole student body to benefit from the experiences of a few.

Consider how much we could learn about the world outside the “Brandeis bubble” by talking to someone who has seen the terrors and devastating impact of war on the communities of the world. Having the influence of more veterans would allow us to begin to see beyond the scope of our own world and understand what life is like for others out there. It would also increase support for our veterans, no matter our personal feelings on the wars— interacting on a day-to-day basis with veterans would make us understand the hardships soldiers must go through and appreciate their sacrifices.

Additionally, it would give us greater socioeconomic diversity, as many young people join the military because they do not have the money for college. The New York Times article talks about Cpl. Andrew King, who was accepted to the University of Virginia and Emory University before heading to the marines. He didn’t accept either school because he couldn’t afford the tuition—something the army uses to increase its recruitment. With

the 2008 GI Bill, King will now have money to alleviate the monetary burden of a college education.

We, as a community, could benefit from this socioeconomic diversity because it would allow us to understand the world from another perspective—to understand the realities of life and of the world.

While Columbia places the veterans in its School of General Studies, focused on nontraditional students who take the same classes as other students, Brandeis would not have to orient itself this way. We have many programs, such as the Transitional Year Program, that seek the help some students deal with the transition to Brandeis.

I don’t see why we couldn’t have a similar program focused on bringing veterans into the campus community and integrating them into campus life.

By participating in the Leadership Scholar Program, we would be in great company. In the local area alone, the program counts Harvard University, Tufts University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as participants.

In short, Brandeis should engage in this program as it gives veterans the chance to have a world class education. Perhaps more importantly, it enriches our own campus community with diverse life experiences.

THE JUSTICE

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TUESDAY, November 22, 2011

13

SPORTS ON THE ATTACK

fencing

Squads begin their season on a high note ■ The men’s and women’s

fencing teams delivered notable performances in their first season meet.

By adam rabinowitz JUSTICE editor

JOSHUA LINTON/the Justice

DRIVE-THRU: Guard Hannah Cain ’15 drives down the court in search of an open player in a 68-47 victory over Endicott.

WBBALL: Judges split in their first four matches to kick off the year CONTINUED FROM 1 shot. Higginbottom secured the rebound and passed the ball out to Ethier. Brandeis then nailed a three-pointer, pulling to within one.

However, the Mules were hungry for a win in their season opener and steadily outpaced the Judges to extend their lead to nine points before coach Carol Simon called a timeout.

“Coach Simon just told us to keep working hard, not to give up [and] that the game wasn’t over. We were still in it,” said Hassan. “She gave us the plays to come out and run to get some fast points.”

Brandeis was unable to regroup, however, and the game slipped away in favor of Simon’s alma mater.

Despite the loss, Higginbottom recognized promise in the team’s final game of the tournament.

“Even though we didn’t win, we didn’t give up. We’ll have wins and losses, but it’s important we always play with heart,” she said.

On Saturday, the Judges played Endicott College in the tournament’s opening game. Brandeis began the game with an 8-1 run, highlighted by scores from Hassan, Higginbottom and guard Hannah Cain ’15. The Gulls had a difficult time competing with Brandeis on the boards, as Brandeis totaled 44 rebounds compared to 33 from Endicott. Samantha Anderson ’13 made a statement in the paint, leading the Judges with 12 rebounds.

“Endicott was a more guard-based team [than Colby],” said Hassan.

At the end of the first half, the Judges led the Gulls 38-18. The point leaders for the Judges in the game were Ethier and Cain, who each accumulated 10 points for the Judges.

The second half was much of the same story, as Brandeis preserved a double-digit lead en route to a 68-47 victory.

Before last weekend’s tournament, the Judges squared off against Babson last Thursday. The Judges found themselves in the hole early,

down 18-1 before piecing some plays together, most notably a jump shot from Higginbottom on an assist from Cain. Inspired by that clutch shot, the Judges then clawed back with a 16-8 run en route to a 26-17 deficit at the break. The Beavers exploded after the second half, launching a 19-4 assault against the Judges that put the game out of reach.

Last Tuesday, Brandeis was able to start its season on the right foot with a victory over Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Both squads started off slowly, with Brandeis making just one of its first 13 shots and WPI sinking only one of eight shots. By the end of the first half, though, the Judges were up 26-22. Brandeis came out stronger in the second half thanks to a three-pointer from Ethier and a layup by Cincotta.

Brandeis led by five points and after that, never let the lead slip away.

The women’s basketball team next takes on Wellesley College tonight at 7 p.m. and then hosts Tufts University this Sunday at 1 p.m.

The men’s and women’s fencing squads would not be foiled in their opening regular season meet last Saturday. Traveling to the University of New Hampshire, the squads squared off against Sacred Heart University, Boston University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Wellesley College and host UNH. The men came out of the meet with an impressive 4-1 mark, while the women also fared well with a 4-2 record.

Foilist Vikki Nunley ’13 earned UAA Athlete of the Week honors for the women with a 16-1 record, sweeping her opponents from BU, Wellesley, and UNH. Epeeist Kristen Ha posted a notable 13-5 record for epee and Zoe Messinger went 14-3 on saber.

On the men’s side, rookie sabreist Adam Mandel ’15 and sophomore foilist Julian Cardillo ’14 were recognized as UAA Athletes of the Week.

Mandel went a perfect 11-0 while Cardillo notched a 14-1 record.

Alex Powell was 11-3 with epee.

Sabreist Ben Schmidt ’14 was impressed with both teams’ dedication during the meet.

“We were focused throughout the entire day,” said Schmidt. “It was a good all-around effort. We solidified everything we’ve learned over the last few months.”

Sabreist Zoe Messinger ’13 was also satisfied with the squads’ performances last Saturday.

“Overall, it was a successful day,” said Messinger. “We fenced very difficult schools; we tried very hard, and that effort showed.”

The men’s team held three of its opponents to single digits, notching a 26-1 rout over BU as well as a 23-4 victory over UMass and a 20-7 win over UNH. MIT, however, would not make it that easy for the Judges. The Engineers came out with their best effort, but the Judges ultimately prevailed by one bout.

The men’s team suffered its only defeat at the end of the day to Sacred

Heart, losing for the second consecutive year in a row to the Pioneers, this time by an 18-9 margin.

Schmidt noted that the men’s lack of energy was evident in the match.

“Sacred Heart was the strongest team there,” said Schmidt. “These matches are winnable, though; it is just important for us to keep our energy level up throughout the course of meets.”

The women’s fencing team had a tougher time, earning a 4-2 record last Saturday. After tallying notable 18-9 and 19-8 victories against UMass and UNH, respectively, the Judges ran into trouble against their next three opponents. Brandeis faced a tough fight from BU, pulling through by an 11-6 margin.

The women’s fencing team suffered both losses from the same schools that plagued the men’s team. While the men were able to pull off a thrilling victory against the Engineers, the women were not able to do the same, falling to MIT by a 18-9 score. Likewise, the women’s team was defeated

by Sacred Heart by a score of 18-9.

Messinger figured though it was a good learning experience for the younger fencers.

“MIT is a very difficult school,” she said. “They are one of our biggest opponents. This was essentially our trial run for major matches such as these, given we have a lot of new fencers. They will stand to benefit later in the season, however, from having such a learning experience.”

“Sacred Heart is always a tough challenge, and today was no different,” said Messinger. “Ultimately, we did the best we could and that is all that matters.”

Overall, Schmidt was optimistic about the prospects for both squads throughout the rest of the season, especially given the youth on each team.

“The key here is experience. A lot of our fencers are relatively young, and I think it was great that our team was able to do so well in spite of that.

Saturday was a good step in the learning process for our young fencers.

Like Schmidt, Messinger also believes that both teams have a high potential to fulfill this season.

“I have a good feeling this will be a great season for both teams involved.”

The men’s and women’s teams will strive to continue their success at the Brandeis Invitational on Dec. 5, facing off against Yale University, St. Johns University, Brown University and Cornell University.

MBBALL: Season starts well CONTINUED FROM 1 play. The Judges had a 51-26 lead and never looked back. Bartoldus added 10 points, while Hughes, center Vytas Kriskus ’12 and Jay Freeman ’13 each had nine points.

Hughes was impressed with the team’s ability to rebound offensively after a disappointing first game.

“I was impressed with the team during the Becker game, said Retos.”

“We decided we would win together or lose together.”

The Judges were rusty in their first game of the season against Lasell College, falling by a score of 91-82. Brandeis shot just seven of 35 from the field for a poor 20 percent.

Adding to Brandeis’ misery, Lasell

came out hot, shooting 15 of 29 in the opening half. Lasell stretched their lead to 52-26 to start the second half.

Brandeis responded by storming back with a 19-8 run. Lasell, however, replied with a 9-4 run to bring the lead back to up to 20 points with 11:25 to go. Hughes made back-to-back layups to bring the Judges to within 11. Lasell, however, answered with consecutive scores of its own to halt the comeback.

Hughes noted, that despite winning its last two games, the team still needs to limit its turnovers and improve upon its overall defensive effort.

“From last week, we have to improve our shot selection,” said Hughes. “We can’t fall in love with

threes. We have to work on communicating on defense, and we have to not turn the ball over. We turned it over 23 times against Becker. That’s enough for three games. We have to improve on that.”

“The season only gets tougher,” said Hughes. “Every possession counts. We won two games but we have a long road ahead of us.”

Retos added defense would be the key to the team’s success this season.

“We need to get better in all facets of the game,” said Retos. “But most importantly we need to improve defensively. If we can do so we have a chance to be very successful.”

The Judges are next in action tonight at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

DIANA WANG/Justice File Photo

GAME POINT: A Brandeis fencer lunges for the point in a home meet last March.

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THE JUSTICE

●

TUESDAY, November 22, 2011

15

CLUB SPORTS

jUDGES BY THE NUMBERS Men’s BASKETBALL UAA STANDINGS

TEAM STATS

Points Per Game

Not including Monday’s games

Derek Retos ’12 leads the team UAA Conference Overall with 18.3 points per game.

W L D W L D Pct. Player PPG Chicago 0 0 0 2 0 0 .1000 Derek Retos 18.3 Emory 0 0 0 2 0 0 .1000 Youri Dascy 13.3 NYU 0 0 0 2 0 0 .1000 Ben Bartoldus 11.0 Rochester 0 0 0 2 0 0 .1000 Vytas Kriskus 10.7 JUDGES 0 0 0 2 1 0 .667 Rebounds Per Game Wash U 0 0 0 2 1 0 .667 Youri Dascy ’14 leads the team Carnegie 0 0 0 1 1 0 .500 with 11.3 rebounds per game Case 0 0 0 1 2 0 .333 Player RPG Youri Dascy 11.3 UPCOMING GAMES Alex Stoyle 7.0 Tonight at UMass Dartmouth Vytas Kriskus 6.7 Sun. vs. Rhode Island College Alex Schmidt 4.7 Tuesday, Nov. 29 at Clark

WOMen’s basketball UAA STANDINGS

TEAM STATS

Not including Monday’s games

Points Per Game

UAA Conference Overall

W L D W L D Pct. NYU 0 0 0 3 0 0 .1000 Rochester 0 0 0 3 0 0 .1000 WashU 0 0 0 3 0 0 .1000 Chicago 0 0 0 2 0 0 .1000 Case 0 0 0 2 1 0 .667 JUDGES 0 0 0 2 2 0 .500 Carnegie 0 0 0 1 1 0 .500 Emory 0 0 0 0 1 0 .000

Dianna Cincotta ’11 leads the team with 9.5 points per game.

Player PPG Dianna Cincotta 9.5 Kelly Ethier 6.5 Hannah Cain 6.0 Julia Scanlon 5.8

UPCOMING GAMES Tonight at Wellesley.

Sunday vs. Tufts Tuesday, Nov. 29 at Emmanuel

Rebounds Per Game Samantha Anderson ’13 leads with 6.5 rebounds per game Player RPG Samantha Anderson 6.5 Hannah Cain 4.5 Kelly Ethier 4.2 Erika Higginbottom 4.2

FENCING Results from the Northeast Conference Meet at UNH last Saturday.

TOP FINISHERS (Men’s)

TOP FINISHERS (Women’s)

SABER Adam Mandel

RECORD 11-0

SABER Zoe Messinger

RECORD 14-3

FOIL Julian Cardillo

RECORD 14-1

FOIL Vikki Nunley

RECORD 16-1

EPEE Alex Powell

RECORD 11-3

EPEE Kristen Ha

RECORD 13-5

UPCOMING MEET: The men’s and women’s teams will next compete at the Brandeis Invitational on Dec. 3 against Yale, Brown, Cornell and St. Johns

cross cOuntry Results from NCAA Regionals at Bowdoin College on Sat. Nov. 12.

TOP FINISHERS (Men’s)

TOP FINISHERS (Women’s)

RUNNER Marc Boutin Chris Brown Alex Kramer Ed Colvin Taylor Dundas

RUNNER TIME Kate Warwick 21:49.28 Ali Kirsch 22:34.15 Miriam Stulin 22:50.28 Amelia Lundkvist 23:10.29 Victoria Sanford 23:29.16

TIME 25:16.65 25:21.64 25:41.37 25:45.49 25:57.37

NOTE: The cross country teams concluded their season on Saturday, Nov. 12 at the NCAA Regional Championships at Bowdoin College.

PHOTO COURTESY OF JOSHUA YANKELL

REUNION: Brandeis alumni who played on the men’s rugby team traveled to the school on Oct. 15 to face the current team.

Rugby squad looks forward to a new season this spring ■ The men’s rugby team

went 0-4 in its fall portion of the season but is excited for what its future holds.

By BECCa ELWIN JUSTICE contributing writer

The men’s rugby team came into this past fall season aiming for the red zone. While the squad unfortunately fell short of the goal line, earning a 0-4 record, the team and its fans can look forward to a spring season that holds a lot of potential.

Inside center and co-captain Harry Shipps ’12 expressed enthusiasm in regard to the men’s team’s performance this fall.

“While we didn’t win any of our matches, we had a very talented as well as committed group of guys that were able to compete in every single match.”

Shipps, who has been a leader on the team for the past two years despite sustaining an injury before this fall season, shared some insight into the benefits of being a member on the rugby team.

“The rugby team has a great group of dedicated people and it is a very demanding as well as enjoyable sport.”

The men’s team faced Lasell College, Mitchell College, Framingham State University and Rhode Island College throughout the fall.

Despite losing to all four of their opponents, the Judges gave every team a tough fight.

The Judges have struggled at times to field the full 15-man team, according to wing Siddhartha Narayanan ’12. In addition, 12 of the team’s members on the roster are graduating after this year. This will be a matter of concern for the men’s rugby team in the future.

In the meantime, though, there are still returning juniors and

sophomores that have proven to be consistent, dedicated contributors to the squad.

Core seniors such as Shipps and this year’s other co-captain and eightman Ami Spiwak ’12, have been in large part responsible for that success, creating a stable, strong nucleus. They have served as the faces of the team, making for a very talented and devoted duo.

Next year’s elected captain, flanker Max Leibowitz ’13, will have the daunting task of building up the team’s numbers in seasons to come, especially from the firstyear and sophomore classes.

Before he takes over, though, Brandeis men’s rugby has a full spring season to prepare for.

Starting right after winter break, the team will begin practicing for its first spring game in April.

The roster of talented individuals, combined with dedicated leadership, will hopefully make for a winning combination.

Want to see your team here? Email sports@thejustice.org!

Boston Bruins beat Bruins awaken from an early-season slumber, reeling off another two victories this past week Entering last Thursday’s game, few thought the Columbus Blue Jackets had a chance to compete with the Bruins. The Bruins entered the game looking to sweep a homestand of five or more games for the first time since 1986. The Blue Jackets, on the other hand, were looking for just their first road win of the season.

However, the story line of the game was unexpected. The Bruins were outshot 31-27 by the Blue Jackets and scored only one goal after scoring 34 goals during their winning streak.

Behind Bruins goalie Tuukka Rask, who made 30 saves, including four in overtime, the Bruins held off the Blue Jackets in a 2-1 shoot-out victory to extend their streak.

“We looked a little tired. You could see it in our players’ faces and the way they were coming back to the bench,”

Boston coach Claude Julien said after the game. “The one thing that I liked was that no matter what, we still found a way to win.”

By the end of the first period, the Blue Jackets weren’t going down without a fight. During the first period, the Blue Jackets played the Bruins evenly, with the first period ending in a scoreless tie.

Forward Derek MacKenzie of the Blue Jackets struck first, scoring two minutes, 49 seconds into the second period, tapping in a wrist shot from the blue line off a pass from defender Nikita Nikitin. The goal came with just one second left on a power play.

However, the Bruins struck back only two minutes later. Defenseman Adam McQuaid took a wrist shot into traffic that bounced off the leg of forward Rich Peverley and into the goal.

The Bruins finished the second period with a flurry of shots but could not capitalize. The Bruins also had many scoring chances in the third period, but Blue Jackets goalkeeper Curtis Sanford was a force in the net.

In overtime, Rask made several saves to keep the Bruins in the game.

“We didn’t play our best hockey. Everybody saw that, but the result is the only thing that matters in this game, and we were able to squeeze the win,” Rask said.

In the shoot-out, Peverley and center David Krejci scored to put Boston ahead 2-1, for the win.

Earlier in the week, the Bruins pulled off a tight 4-3 win over the New Jersey Devils. The first period saw no scoring from either side, a rarity for the Bruins recently.

That changed 10:40 into the second

period. Devils right wing David Clarkson broke the 0-0 tie with a power- play goal.

Four minutes later, center Chris Kelly scored on a assist by right wing Gregory Campbell to tie the game. The Bruins failed to capitalize on scoring chances thereafter.

Just six seconds into the third period, left wing Brad Marchand put in his sixth goal of the season.

Two minutes later, though, New Jersey right wing Nick Palmieri chipped the puck in the net, knotting the game at two apiece.

Bruins left wing Shawn Thornton then came through in the clutch, scoring his first goal of the season, and notching the tie. again.

In the sixth minute of play, Devils center Adam Henrique’s shot from in close bounced right in front of the net,

allowing Palmieri to score his second goal of the game.

After a little over 10 minutes of scoreless play, the Bruins broke the tie. Left wing Benoit Pouliot scored his seventh goal of the season, sending the crowd to its feet.

After the game, Thomas stated what everyone in the crowds was thinking: Man, that was close.

“New Jersey played the most complete game of teams we’ve seen in the last five or six,” Thomas said. “It seemed like every time we scored, New Jersey matched it.”

After breezing past the Islanders with a 6-0 rout on the road last Saturday, the Bruins will next try to keep their winning streak alive against the Buffalo Sabres tomorrow at 7:30 p.m.

—Jacob Moskowitz and Jacob Elder

just

Sports

Page 16

FOILS UP The men’s and women’s fencing teams made a statement in their first meets of the season, each notching four wins, p. 13.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Waltham, Mass.

men’s basketball

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

Men start season with a bang Team

breaks even in its first week

■ The men’s basketball team

lost its opening game of the year before winning its next two matches of play.

By max goldstein JUSTICE Senior writer

A wild opening week for the men’s basketball team ended in the hands of guard Derek Retos ’14. Retos, who had already scored 26 points, drove down the lane in transition and converted a layup with 16.8 seconds against Becker College in overtime to put the Judges up 77-76. The Judges were then called to action on defense, and as the game clock ticked down to zero, Brandeis won a dramatic overtime match at Red Auerbach Arena.

Brandeis led the game comfortably for most of the first half, leading the Hawks at the half by a score of 42-31.

Retos and center Youri Dascy ’14 led the team with 14 points apiece. The Judges added to their lead, jumping ahead 49-34 just three minutes into the second half. Becker then launched a impressive 18-1 rally over the next eight minutes to fight its way back into the game. The Hawks capped it off with a put back from junior guard Moody Doherty at 8:57 to put them ahead 52-50. Brandeis, however, answered with a 7-1 run, going up 66-61 with 2:32 to go. The Hawks turned up the defense, allowing just one Brandeis point the rest of the way. Down 66-65, senior forward Terrance Favors grabbed the rebound then drove down the length of the court and nailed the lay up to tie the game at 67-67 with 1:22 to go. Neither team could score to keep the game from overtime.

Retos immediately drained a threepoint shot to start the overtime. The Hawks answered by scoring five straight and eventually took a 76-73 lead with just 37 seconds left. Forward Connor Arnold ’14 scored his first bucket of the game on a nice pass from guard Ben Bartoldus ’14, driving it home to cut Becker’s lead to 76-75. Sophomore guard Chris Canady, after failing to convert on either of his free throws, grabbed his own rebound but lost the ball to Hughes, who broke down the court on a two-on-one with Retos. Retos then banked the layup with 17 seconds to go for the win.

Guard Tyrone Hughes ’12 was impressed with how the play unfolded amid all of the chaos.

“That play [the game winner] was crazy; there was a lot of commotion,” said Hughes. “I just saw the ball, was able to grab it, and I was going to go to the lane myself, but I saw Derek ahead, so I fed it to him.”

Retos added that he was still sur-

■ The women’s basketball

squad opened up its 2011-12 season with four matches this week, ultimately falling to a .500 record to start the year.

By jacob lurie JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

ALEX MARGOLIS/the Justice

TRAFFIC JAM: Center Youri Dascy ’14 elbows past two defenders to go for the hook shot in a 78-50 victory over Emerson College. prised about the game-winning shot.

“I was just really at the right place at the right time,” said Retos. “Tyrone made a great play to come up with the loose ball, and I just happened to be under the basket when he did.”

Dascy finished the game with 16

points and 15 rebounds, his first double-double of the season.Bartoldus and Hughes each had 10 points, while Hughes added nine assists.

On Thursday against Emerson College, the Judges had a much easier time offensively and cruised to a 78-50 victory. Retos was again im-

pressive, netting 17 points. Brandeis never trailed, shooting a healthy 58.7 percent from the field while holding Emerson to 35.2 percent. The Judges took a 31-22 to the break before coming out of the second half on fire with a 20-4 run over the first 5:28 of

See MBBALL, 13 ☛

BRIEF Warwick ranks among top 50 runners at NCAA National Tournament It’s safe to say that Kate Warwick ’12 ended her cross country career with a bang.

Competing at the NCAA Division III National Championship on Saturday at the University of Wisconsin Osh Kosh, Warwick finished 48th out of 266 runners.

She qualified for the championship by turning in a notable 14th-place effort at the New England Division III Regional Championship last week at Bowdoin College.

“I had an awesome time,” wrote Warwick in an email to the Justice.

“It was awesome! There are a ton of fans everywhere, and many people dress up, and everyone sprints from one part of the course to another [to catch different parts of the race.] It felt really cool to be running with the best in Division III.” Warwick, running as the only qualifier from both of Brandeis’ cross country squads, said she had missed her team’s presence at the tournament.

It was tough to be in Wisconsin without any of her

fellow teammates.

However, she received plenty of good wishes from teammates and friends, saying it was “amazing” to have so many people rooting for her.

Tactically, the senior ran a intelligent race. Following the first mile of the six-kilometer (3.72-mile) race, Warwick was in 78th. In the next leg of the race, she then moved up four spots in the second mile. Shortly after, Warwick turned in a five minute, 54 second third mile to move up to 50th. Warwick would pass two more runners in the last 1,200 meters of the course to finish with a notable time of 21:54.82. She ended the meet, and her cross country career with an average of 5:53 per mile.

As much as her finish was an individual achievement, Warwick was quick to credit coach John Evans. “[Evans] has done everything for me,” she wrote.

“He gave me my training schedules, my workouts and all of the tools that I needed to get to Wisconsin. He has worked with me so much and

taught me how to listen to my body and also how to push myself to the max. I couldn’t have gotten to Nationals without him.”

Satisfied with the conclusion of her cross country career, the senior is looking forward to doing even more in her final year in a Judges uniform.

“I am moving on to indoor,” she said. “I love indoor, and my goal is to qualify for Nationals in the 5 kilometer race. In the spring I want to tackle the 10 kilometer at least once and hopefully qualify for the 10 kilometer or 5 kilometer. The goal is always to [run a] personal record!”

While this would be quite the way to end her collegiate running career, she is certainly not done yet.

Based on what Warwick has already accomplished in her time with the cross country team, her upcoming two seasons in both winter and spring track could yield even more notable results.

—Henry Loughlin

The women’s basketball team kicked off its 2011-12 season with a roller coaster ride of a week.

The squad opened its season with a 52-42 road win at Worcester Polytechnic Institute before suffering a 64-35 defeat at the hands of Babson College. The team then returned to Red Auerbach Arena for its first home action of the season with the Brandeis Judges Classic.

The Judges started the Classic on Saturday with a 68-47 victory over Endicott College, but fell to Colby College on Sunday 60-44.

In the tournament, guard Dianna Cincotta ’11 and Kelly Ethier ’12 achieved All-Tournament honors.

The Judges are now 2-2 on the season.

Brandeis’ last match of the week was against Colby, which was initially a tight game. “When we came into the game, we knew that Colby was a ranked team,” said forward Shannon Hassan ’12. “And [we] took that as a challenge.” Brandeis jumped out to a 5-2 lead after Cincotta sunk an open shot from beyond the arc.

“We talked about coming out hard and using our strengths, and I feel like we did a great job of that to start off the game,” said Hassan.

Forward Erika Higginbottom ’13 echoed Hassan’s sentiments.

“Our opening tonight was definitely huge. It got our entire team fired up from the get-go, which always carries over into the rest of the game,” she said.

The Judges were able to hold onto the lead until the Mules took a 9-7 lead on a three-pointer from senior guard Aarika Ritchie just under seven minutes into the game. Brandeis kept pace with Colby until the close of the first half. At that point, junior guard Diana Manduca stripped the ball from Hassan and found senior forward Jil Vaughan heading down court for the layup. On the next play, Cincotta committed a foul, which led to a pair of free throws for Colby. The Mules soon found themselves with their largest lead of the evening, 28-21.

“Colby was very big in their post. The challenge was put on the post … to play big [defense] and get a body,” said Hassan.

Cincotta then scored seven of the Judges’ next nine points.

After four minutes of play, the Judges trailed by 33-30. With 13 minutes, 55 seconds left, Vaughan misfired on a mid-range jump

See WBBALL, 13 ☛

ARTS

just

November 22, 2011

HTG has a ball with ‘Last Night of Ballyhoo’

p. 20

Photos: Asher Krell/the Justice. Design: Brian Blumenthal and Asher Krell/the Justice.

18

TUESDAY, november 22, 2011 ● THE JUSTICE

POP CULTURE

INSIDE ON CAMPUS

18-21

■ MELA review

20

SASA’s biggest performance of the year, MELA, treated the audience with multiple acts including songs and dances.

■ ‘Last Night of Ballyhoo’ review 20 A Jewish family living in Georgia in the 1930s attends the biggest party in town, the Ballyhoo, in this ethnic comedy by HTG.

■ Sebastian Smee round table

21

■ BSI Turkish coffeehouse

21

The Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic from the Boston Globe came to campus to discuss the works of Lucian Freud and Cy Twombly.

The Brandeis Sephardic Initiative hosted its first coffeehouse this week. The event included slam poetry, rap and improv acts.

OFF CAMPUS

22-24

■ ‘Breaking Dawn’ review

22

■ ‘Take Care’ album review

22

■ Critical Hit

22

The latest Twilight film includes Bella’s marriage to Edward and their child’s birth.

Drake’s second album dropped this week. It includes help from guest artists like Rihanna.

This week’s video game column features The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim by Bethesda Games.

■ ‘My Week with Marilyn’ review 23 Michelle Williams may get an Oscar nomination for her work on the film.

■ ‘Tower Heist’ review

23

This buddy comedy twist on the classic crime film features Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy.

CALENDAR

Interview

by Shelly Shore

This week on Glee, Glee Club leader Finn (Cory Monteith) outed lesbian cheerleader Santana (Naya Rivera) in the middle of McKinley High School’s famously homophobic hallways during a heated argument.

Since the episode aired, fans of Finn have claimed that Santana has famously been a bully and that she deserved to be outed. Santana fans fired back, calling Finn’s actions unforgivable.

Bullying has been a constant theme on Glee since the show began airing. However, bullying has been dealt with in very different, and often problematic, ways, depending on the target. In its weekly episode recap, pop culture blog Project RunGay wrote, “Glee has a problem with bullying in that they want to appear as the stalwarts in the fight against teen bullying, except that they’ve used bullying as a source of comedy since the show began. Put more bluntly, …

Glee thinks bullying is hilarious until someone bullies a gay character.”

Santana has played the “hot bully” role since the show’s inception, picking on other characters for everything from their weight to their intelligence. However, writers and fans alike have interpreted her behavior as simply part of her “sassy Latina personality” (actual quote from a Glee forum). Last season on Glee, another closeted student, Dave Karofsky (Max Adler), also played the role of the self-hating gay bully, but as soon as viewers found out he was gay, they were expected to view him as an understandable, if not sympathetic, character. However, RunGay writes: “It’s a poor way to discuss bullying to have your victim be a bully herself and expect the audience to feel for her when a tiny little bit of what she’s been dishing out to everyone around her finally lands back on her.”

Few people are denying that Santana needed to be pulled down a few notches, but

The ‘Proof’ is in the production

 Free Play Theatre Cooperative’s December performance, ‘Proof,’ tackles multiple topics, including advanced mathematics, sanity and family ties.

VAGUEONTHEHOW/Wikimedia Creative Commons

BAD GIRL: Santana (Naya Rivera) is Glee’s resident meanie. This week, she gets bullied herself. there seems to be a wide agreement that outing went too far—especially considering the experience of already-out gay students at McKinley. Further, one commenter on E! News’ episode recap wrote, “It is not the place of a Caucasian, cis-gendered [not transgendered], heterosexual, able-bodied male to take away the agency of a minority in disclosing her sexuality.”

That might be a little too much sociology jargon, but the point remains. It was not Finn’s place, nor his perogative, to take away Santana’s right to coming out on her own terms.

What do you think? Do bullies deserve to be bullied right back?

What’s happening in Arts on and off campus

ON-CAMPUS EVENTS

‘Disorders of Childhood Psychopathy’ playhouse

Students in the psychology class “Disorders of Childhood” will present a play based on their classwork and discussions this semester.

Tuesday, Nov. 29 from 1 to 4 p.m. in the Polaris Lounge in Gordon Hall.

“Just Performance: Enacting Justice in the Wake of Violence”

The International Center for Ethics, Justice, and Public Life will conduct its Just Performance symposium, which it has had events leading up to all semester. The two-day symposium, co-sponsored by numerous academic departments and organizations, will examine how performance can be used to heal after a community experiences violence, and what these performances look like. The event will focus on violence in Cambodia, Peru and the United States.

Thursday, Dec. 1 from 9 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. and Friday, Dec. 2 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Rapaporte Treasure Hall.

“Thresholds and Passages: Readings of New Poetry and Prose”

ALEX MARGOLIS/Justice File Photo

LAUGH OUT LOUD: Boris’ Kitchen is known for its out-there antics and wacky scenerios that define its style of sketch comedy. Here, two members of the troupe perform in last May’s show, “Armed and Legged.”

Six poets and prose writers will share excerpts from their most recent works—some of which are not yet completed—in this program sponsored by the Women’s Studies Research Center. Photographer and author Emily Corbató will also play a short piano piece.

Thursday, Dec. 1 from noon to 2 p.m. in the Epstein Lecture Hall.

Charles Mingus, an influential jazz musician, composer and band leader who was also a leader in the civil rights movement in the 1950s and ’60’s.

Saturday, Dec. 3 from 8 to 10 p.m. in the Slosberg Recital Hall.

poser Ornette Coleman, one of the major innovators of free jazz.

Monday, Dec. 5 from 7 to 9:30 p.m. in the Slosberg Recital Hall.

Brandeis Sephardic Initiative henna party

Leonard Berstein Scholars and Fellows concert

Boston Ballet presents ‘The Nutcracker’

BSI, an organization that spreads awareness of Jewish Sephardi culture, will be painting Jewish-inspired Henna tattoos on participants.

Henna, a temporary skin dye, is a tradition in many Mideast and Asian countries, and it is typically used during important cultural and religious ceremonies.

Thursday, Dec. 1 from 7 to 10 p.m. in the Usdan Student Center International Lounge.

Boris’ Kitchen Presents: the 12th Annual Sketch Comedy Festival

The sketch comedy troupe is back with brandnew material, as well as classic sketches from the past. Professional comedy groups and groups from other universities will also perform.

Friday, Dec. 2 from 8 to 10 p.m. in the Carl J. Shapiro Theater.

‘Proof’

Free Play Theatre Cooperative will perform its fall semester show, Proof, by David Auburn.

The play won a 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and a Tony Award for Best Play. The intimate show features just four actors and concerns a woman’s struggle to prove her herself in the suspect world of academic mathematics and to maintain her sanity.

Friday, Dec. 2 and Saturday, Dec. 3 from 8 to 10 p.m. and Sunday from 2 to 4 p.m. in Schwartz Auditorium.

Jazz Ensemble performance

Student musicians will perform the music of

This chamber music group is made up of student performers who are selected through a rigorous application process. The concert will feature the Enigma Quartet.

Sunday, Dec. 4 from 3 to 4 p.m. in the Slosberg Recital Hall.

Brandeis University Wind Ensemble concert

The ensemble, directed by lecturer in Music Thomas Souza, will be playing pieces that each take a twist on a traditional number, such as reimagining major works in a minor key.

Sunday, Dec. 4 from 7 to 8 p.m. in the Slosberg Recital Hall.

“The Power of Jewish Stories to Shape Young Children’s Ideas and Values”

This Mandel Lunch Seminar features speaker Howard Deitcher of the Melton Center for Jewish Education at Hebrew University. Deitcher will be discussing how Jewish stories have impacted Jewish children and shaped their conceptions of right and wrong. The talk will explore several familiar examples.

Monday, Dec. 5 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Third Floor Reading Room of the Mandel Center for the Humanities. Registration is required to attend.

Brandeis Improv Collective concert

This ensemble of student musicians, led by lecturer in Music Tom Hall, will improvise based on the works of blues musician and com-

OFF-CAMPUS EVENTS

This classic Christmas ballet is a holiday staple. The Boston Ballet’s rendition will feature a full live orchestra and fanciful constumes, as well as some of the best dancers in the country.

Friday, Nov. 25 to Saturday Dec. 3 at the Boston Opera House located at 539 Washington St., Boston. Tickets are $35 to $165.

Mac Miller concert

Up-and-coming hip-hop personality Mac Miller currently has the number one album on the Billboard charts, Blue Slide Park. The 19-yearold emcee from Pittsburgh first gained notoriety for his mixtape K.I.D.S, inspired by the cult movie of the same name. He has also released an EP earlier this year called On and On and Beyond.

Saturday, Dec. 3 at 7 p.m. at the House of Blues, located at 15 Lansdowne St., Boston. Tickets are $20 to $30.

‘The Screwtape Letters’

This theatrical adaptation of C. S. Lewis’ novel, which is written from the point of view of a demon, Screwtape, who is employed as a psychitrist employed by the Devil, has earned rave reviews from critics. The play takes place in an office in Hell, God is referred to as “the Enemy,” and the Devil is known as “Our Father Below.”

Friday, Dec. 2 at 7 p.m. and Saturday, Dec. 3 at 4 and 8 p.m. at the Culter Majestic Theater located at 219 Tremont St., Boston. Tickets are $29 to $59.

Proof won just about every award that it was up for when it was first staged in 2001, inclulding a Pultizer Prize and a Tony. The play, by David Auburn, is a tiny production with only four characters. Yet it manages to encompass a wide range of human experience. JustArts spoke to director Jessie Field ’13 and stage manager Rachel Huvard ’14 about their experiences working on the show.

JustArts: Why did you choose to do this play, or how did that process come about?

Jessie Field: Well, I chose to do the play; I was actually in my very first theater course at Brandeis, THA 2A, which no longer exists. I was assigned Proof in a group to do a short project about it, and I read it. It was one of the only plays I actually read and actually gasped at parts out loud in real life, and I just loved it. We had a scene from it, and ... the whole time I was just itching to direct it. And Free Play is a great group that I’m a part of, and … it seemed like a great match.

JA: What are the themes of Proof, and how do those get established in the play?

JF: There are a lot of themes in the play. The one I focus on a lot is sort of this philosophical uncertainty, because the characters in the play are dealing with mental illness or questioning their own sanity or the sanity of the people around them. The play is called Proof for a variety of reasons, but they’re constantly searching for proof of everything: of love, of friendship, that somebody has written this amazing thing, that comes to mind. ... There are also gender themes, things about following your dreams, your passion. Family is a big thing too.

Rachel Huvard: I would agree with that, like obligations to family.

JA: So, the cast only has four people. What is it like working with such a small group?

JF: Wonderful, confusing, the best.

RH: Not only are they a small group, but they’re also incredibly talented and amazing people to work with who have great ideas and have contributed so much throughout the process that it’s just a pleasure to work with them.

JF: Seriously, it’s astounding how talented they are and how much they bring to the table.

Working in a close environment, you can really get into things. I know people very personally, it’s great.

JA: So where is the play going to be staged?

JF: It is going to be staged in Schwartz Auditorium.

RH: It’s kind of both a bad lecture hall and a bad theater space, so it’s an interesting space to work in because of that. It doesn’t really fully serve either of its potential purposes. We wanted it to be a more intimate-feeling space because of the small cast and the nature of the show, so we ended up building our own platform to serve as the stage, and it’s on the floor right in front of the audience.

JF: It really limits the playing space.

RH: Yeah, and keeps everything really close and personal.

JF: Then we fill in the rest of the forward seats so everyone’s really close. Because it is a huge space.

JA: So are all the characters crammed onstage at all times?

JF: No, in fact they’re never onstage at the same time—all four are never onstage at the same time.

JA: Have the stage or screen adaptations of Proof influenced the way the play is going, have you seen the movie?

JF: I have seen the movie, but it didn’t help at all. They had all the people in the world [to work with], and I wouldn’t want to base it on that anyway; Rachel has seen it too. A lot of people have seen it and hated it. It’s not a good representation.

I don’t like how they [portrayed] some parts of the story. I think we tried to find out our own interpretation.

RH: I didn’t see the movie until halfway through the rehearsal process. After seeing the movie I was disappointed. Proof [has] such an amazing script. … The film was compromised by how many resources they had. I like our version, not that I am biased.

JA: This being such a small group, has the cast influenced the way you thought about directing, has it been a collaborative experience?

JF: I tried to make it a collaborative experience. We are all peers, and it is difficult for one person to take a leadership role. I do have ideas I’ll stick to, but most of the time I look at what [the cast is] going to do and try and make it work.

RH: Because we have such a small cast we have been able to devote a nice amount of time to the discussion and what we think of them JA: Is this your first time managing/directing?

RH: I have stage managed before. I stage managed at my high school, and I was an assistant stage manager for Jessie during Margaret: a Tiger’s Heart.

JF: This was the second show I have directed at Brandeis. ­­ —Ariel Kay

THE JUSTICE

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TUESDAY, NovemBER 22, 2011

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ON CAMPUS FILM

Rwandans try to heal after genocide ■ ‘My Neighbor, My Killer’ documents communities in Rwanda that must integrate prisoners back into their midst.

By MAYA SHEMTOV JUSTICE contributing WRITER

Lush green grass sways in the breeze, majestic palms tower against bright blue skies, and the faint sound of birdcalls beats out a steady rhythm. This landscape appears to be the epitome of tranquility and peace, but in actuality, it is the scene of one of the worst tragedies of our time.

In the 1994 Rwandan genocide, over 800,000 people were killed in less than 100 days. The raging conflict between two ethnic groups, the Tutsi and the Hutu, not only took lives but broke up families and communities, left the country’s economy in shambles and resulted in nearly one million people dead and 100,000 imprisoned. In the face of these staggering numbers, a conventional approach to reconciliation between the country’s ethnic groups would have been in vain; Rwanda had to think of a creative approach to repair its broken society.

The unique approach is documented in the film My Neighbor, My Killer, which was screened as part of the International Center for Ethics, Justice, and Public Life’s “Enacting Justice in the Wake of Violence” program last Tuesday. The film follows the struggles of the Rwandan community to release and subsequently integrate over 100,000 prisoners back into their society. The release resulted in a very difficult transition for both perpetrators and victims of the genocide. The Rwandan government established local open community courts, in which the released prisoners confessed their crimes and were then forced to personally apologize to their victims and their victims’ families.

The communal aspect of this process was clearly important to the participants. One Rwandan woman in the film said, “Your lawyer will

PHOTO COURTESY OF GACACA PRODUCTIONS

FEARLESS FILM: The director of ‘My Neighbor, My Killer,’ Anne Aghion, has made three films about the situation in Rwanda. She won an Emmy for her second film on the topic. be your neighbor, your judge will be your neighbor, and your prosecutor will be your neighbor.”

Kochava Ayoun ’14, who works as an event coordinator at the International Center and attended the screening, thought the film may have been difficult to understand for someone without a background in the conflict. “I found the film easy to understand, but only because it was quite similar to Fambu Tok, the second film we screened last week that

dealt with Sierra Leone’s grassroots reconciliation efforts after the war,” Ayoun said.

“However, I don’t think enough background on the conflict was given, nor enough cultural information, so people who are not familiar with the Rwandan genocide and their cultural customs probably would not understand the significance of these courts,” she said.

After the film, a discussion was led by Jean Claude Mugunga, a

Rwandan master’s student in International Health Policy and Management. The discussion was extremely interesting because many Rwandans and Africans who watched the film had experienced the genocide and what preceded it first-hand. Mugunga shared his experience as a son of both a Hutu parent and a Tutsi parent and his view of the courts. Ayoun wasn’t fully satisfied by the discussion: “I found the discussion after the film to be reflective of the conflict

as a whole; confusing, complex and still so recent and raw that no bottom line can be drawn yet,” she said.

This point is exactly the reason why these types of screenings and discussions are so important and beneficial to Brandeis students: Political and social issues that are occurring right now are the most important to understand and debate, because the end resolution of these conflicts has not yet been determined.

CONCERT

Robert Hill concert presents ‘Variations’ on Bach ■ Kaffeekonzert, a

harpsichord concert performed by Hill, featured 30 takes on a Bach aria.

By FELICIA KUPERWASER JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

On Sunday morning, the Music department presented Kaffeekonzert, featuring Robert Hill performing J. S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations, BWV 988. Hill is a professional harpsichordist and pianist and also a professor of early keyboard instruments in Freiburg, Germany. His expert performance of this epic work combined with the enchanting presentation to make for a thoroughly enjoyable and engaging musical experience for all attendees.

For the hour before the concert began, guests, students and faculty enjoyed coffee together in the Slosberg Recital Hall’s lobby, setting the dignified tone of the morning.

The stage looked more like a set for a play than a typical concert space: In the middle of the stage stood a pale green, delicate-looking harpsichord, in itself a rare sight for Slosberg, accompanied by a simple but elegant floor lamp. Hill walked on stage unassumingly and sat down to play almost immediately as if he were in a world, or even a time, separate from that of the audience. As soon as he began to play, the lights dimmed so that the lamp alone cast a soft glow on the stage. This setting, combined with the harpsichord’s

DEBBIE CYR/Brandeis Music Department

MUSIC MAN: Hill is a professor of early keyboard instruments at a German university. clear but distant sound, relative to that of a piano, felt simultaneously intimate and remote. As everything but this idyllic scene began to fade away, the audience was transported into the world in which Hill was playing.

The story goes that Bach com-

posed these variations in 1741 when he was a court composer for Count Kaiserling of the electoral court of Saxony. Goldberg was Bach’s student and used to accompany the count on his trips to Leipzig.

The count suffered many sleepless nights, so Goldberg sat in the ante-

chamber and played for the count late into the night. Count Keiserling once mentioned that he’d like some pieces of a smooth and lively nature to cheer him up on sleepless nights, and so Bach came up with the Goldberg variations. The count never tired of them, and when he couldn’t sleep, he’d ask Goldberg to play him one of “his variations.”

The count awarded Bach 100 gold coins because he was so pleased with them. Certainly, with his entrancing staging and performance, Hill was paying homage to the variations’ origins, and in many ways, the work impressed today’s audience as much as we can imagine it did Count Keiserling.

Hill began with his own original introduction based on the harmonic structure of the variations and then went straight into the aria, a sweet, melodious and evocative theme.

Thirty variations follow this aria, constituting an epic keyboard work that demands virtuosity and a great deal of musical insight to perform.

Beyond the technical challenges that the work presents, this is a prime example of Bach at his most musically complex. Each variation is intricate on a structural and technical level, full of ornamentation and other techniques that highlight the interaction between the individual notes and voices. The articulation of the notes on the harpsichord accented this element of Bach’s writing here, but the continuous progression and development of the thematic material gave the variations a momentum that had a mesmerizing effect. In many ways, this

work set the standard for writing variations, as Bach explores every possible inversion and construct based on the aria, and arranged all of the variations in a way that has a logical progression throughout.

The 15th variation is the first one in a minor key, and in a way, it puts the breaks on the flow and progression that builds until that point. It signals the halfway point and sets the stage for the 16th, the “Variation 16. à 1 Clav. Ouverture,” which is, perhaps, the most showy and grand of all the variations. From this point on, each variation glimmers more brilliantly than the one before it, delicate but complex, until the aria reappears at the very end.

This return is not a regression, but rather a realization of all of the dimensions and layers of writing that underlie the simple theme. An hour and 15 minutes worth of complexity and exploration culminate in this beautiful melody that brings us back into the world from which we had departed.

Hill took liberties with tempo and maintained a stillness and relaxed demeanor throughout the concert so that it seemed like even he took a back seat to the music itself; he presented it to the audience, but really, we were all there to watch the narrative of the variations develop and reach its end. As it turned out, the whole aesthetic of the performance had great significance to the history and legacy of the work.

With this musical tour de force, Hill carried on the legacy of this preeminent piece of one of the greatest musical masters of all time.

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TUESDAY, November 22, 2010

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THE JUSTICE

EVENT

MELA displays South Asian heritage ■ MELA’s theme this year was

‘pehchaan,’ or identity. The show focused on the everchanging culture of South Asia.

By HAYLEY Deberry JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

This Saturday, the Brandeis South Asian Students Association hosted its annual show, MELA— Hindi for “fair”—which celebrated the stunning diversity of South Asian music, dance and poetry for an enthusiastic audience in the Levin Ballroom.

The theme of this year’s MELA was the pehchaan, or identity, of South Asia, which is always changing as the region grows both culturally and socially. The performances showcased unity as well as diversity, explaining through artistic performance how young South Asians have adapted to a different lifestyle while still honoring their roots.

MELA was organized by SASA’s dedicated Co-presidents Jasnam Sachathep ’12 and Sriya Srikrishnan ’12, who worked with Empower Dalit Women of Nepal, an organization that supports literacy training and empowerment of Dalit women.

Proceeds from the evening went toward this cause, providing funds to educate young girls so they can impart necessary social change in their region.

The evening opened with “Bharatanatyam and Step,” a piece whose title suggests its blending of contemporary Western and more traditional Indian dance styles.

Classical Bharatanatyam dancers lit up the stage with expressive eye movements and hand gestures distinctly characteristic of Indian dance, while the Brandeis step team So Unique took turns in the spotlight with a more direct, com-

ROBYN SPECTOR/the Justice

ART OF THE DANCE: Students performed traditional dances from some of the eight countries represented by SASA. manding style heavily influenced by hip-hop.

The subsequent fashion show exhibited breathtaking South Asian men and women’s fashions. The rich jewel-toned clothing embellished with sparkling detail was both elegant and wearable. The clothes showcased in this segment weren’t the only notable ones, however; performers throughout MELA bolstered their song and dance with brilliantly opulent costumes that added further dimension to their movements.

Associate Dean of Student Life Jamele Adams and Usman Hameedi ’12 performed a collaborative slam poetry piece illustrating a hypothetical meeting between Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Mohandas Gandhi. Hameedi took on the perspective of Gandhi while Adams

portrayed King. Their performance included a series of thought-provoking lines; says Gandhi to King, “Just before approaching death, I was one with my people.” The poem implored the future leaders of the world to “look to each other for the answers they search for in the heavens,” at which point they would truly be ready to lead with the same greatness. The pair ended their performance with a salute to peaceful defiance as a means of protest: “You can have our dead bodies but not our obedience.”

The memorable piece also carried significance for Hameedi, who will be graduating this May. “It’s [Adams] passing on the torch for me,” he explained in an interview with justArts after the event. “Jamele’s a big deal. In the slam poetry world, he’s a huge deal, and for me as

someone not at his level, per se, in terms of experience, to be able to go on stage with him and do a group piece like that speaks a lot about how he trusts me.”

☛ Visit go.thejustice.org/ MELA11 for highlight videos from the performance.

MELA’s second act included “Pehchana?”, a piece combining song, dance and spoken word that elaborated on the struggle of an Americanized Indian girl (Ashni Dave ’12) who spoke little Hindi and was asked by her teacher to connect with her only other Indian classmate (Wajida Syed ’12) despite the linguistic gap between them. The

piece explored how a simple “How are you?” can, as a result of dialectic idiosyncrasies in India, answer the question “Who are you?”

In stride with the formation of a multicultural identity, Brandeis’ Bellydance Ensemble fused Eastern and Western influences with its sensual choreography to Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie,” surprising the audience with veils and adding its own percussive touch to the song through costumes adorned with jingling coins.

The highlight of the second act was an electrifying performance by dance group Brandeis Bhangra.

Dancers wore red and blue costumes that amplified their grand movement across the Levin stage to a mixture of Indian and American music. “Bhangra … doesn’t emphasize precision and grace as much as it does energy and going all out.

There’s a certain amount of swag required to do bhangra on stage.

The beats lend themselves very well to doing fusion with hip-hop. It’s a great intro dance, but there’s a lot of subtlety and hand movements that just add so much. It’s very energetic; it’s tons of fun and always gets an audience excited,” explained Hyder Kazmi ’12, who choreographed the piece.

Kazmi also performed in the fantastic Senior Dance, the seniors’ final celebration of their commitment to SASA. They delighted the audience with a lively piece influenced by bhangra and hip-hop to a mix of traditional and contemporary South Asian music as well as American pop.

MELA performers left viewers energized and ready for the subsequent Indian dinner and after-party in the Shapiro Campus Center. The evening was hugely successful, and attendees as well as SASA members look forward to an equally great event next year.

THEATER

HTG presents the religious comedy ‘Ballyhoo’ ■ ‘Ballyhoo,’ by playwright

Alfred Uhry, is about two Jewish families living in Atlanta in the 1940s.

By AARON BERKE JUSTICE SENIOR WRITER

Hillel Theater Group’s production of The Last Night of Ballyhoo is a sweet and sincere tale that combines an interesting amalgamation of Jewish family values with the search for personal identity and even a little bit of Christmas cheer. If that idea seems like a tough one to swallow, it is, and not just for the audience, but for the Freitag and Levy families, the play’s central focus.

The play opens with Beulah “Boo” Levy (Joanna Nix ’14) decorating the family Christmas tree—a compelling way to start off a play about a Jewish family. It turns out that Boo, along with her brother Adolph Freitag (Ben Miller ’15) and sister-inlaw Rebecca “Reba” Freitag (Sarah Pace ’13), are the heads of household for a German-Jewish family living in Atlanta in 1939. The family has become so highly integrated into its community that its members have largely grown apart from their Jewish heritage.

There are two young adults in the family; the first, Lala Levy (Jacquelyn Drozdow ’15) is Boo’s dreamy, enthusiastic daughter who is in love with the film Gone with the Wind and aspires to be a novelist. The other is Sunny Freitag (Viktoria Lange ’12), Reba’s daughter, who is a bright young student at Wellesley College enamored with the works of Upton Sinclair. Out of everyone in the family, Sunny seems to struggle the most with her Jewish identity. This struggle becomes even more emphatic when Joe Farkas (Ryan Kacani ’15), Adolph’s assistant, is introduced to the family. Joe becomes involved with Sunny, and offers to take her to the titular Ballyhoo ball. However, things turn awry when Joe’s Russian-Jewish values begin to conflict

ASHER KRELL/the Justice

KEEP THE FAITH: Joe and Sunny have different views on keeping their Jewish customs. with the Freitag-Levy family, and he expresses discontent with the way the family has utterly disregarded their Jewish history. The conflict comes to a head at the Ballyhoo ball, and the resolution of faith and the identity of this Southern Jewish family becomes the play’s ultimate focus.

This focus took a while to become clear despite its obvious importance.

The play’s intriguing opening scene was somewhat offset by a few dull scenes that focused on exposition for the admittedly complicated family structure. This exposition was probably necessary, however, and the

play really gets going once Joe enters the picture.

The ensemble cast all played off of each other impeccably well, with Miller and Pace serving as the central sources of comic relief. Miller’s Adolph provided a kindly father figure to Sunny and Boo, but he watches the events around him unfold with a detached, sardonic edge, and Miller played up this characterization with great comedic timing.

Pace, meanwhile, got the best lines in the show. Reba has a cheerfully absent-minded disposition, and Pace played up this faux-unaware attitude and counterbalanced it with hilari-

ous deadpan line delivery. According to Pace, this playing up of the character’s comedy was partially a conscious decision on her part. “I think I made Reba more of a comedy relief than she was originally written to be,” she said. “I just thought that the show really needed to be lightened up at points, just because it does deal with some pretty heavy stuff. … If you juxtapose her with a character like Boo, she’s all the more funny because Boo is very serious.”

The rest of the cast members played their roles in a more straightforward fashion, and Kacani and Lange resonated with particular strength because they embodied so much of the play’s internal dilemma. According to Kacani, it was the straightforward story arc of his character that really drew him to the part. “I thought it was something that I could relate to,” he said. “A guy in his early 20s, working, falls in love [and] gets the girls in the end.”

Nix and Drozdow were quite convincing as mother and daughter, with Boo’s strength and concern for her daughter meshing well with Lala’s innocence and free-wheeling desires. Rounding out the cast was Sylvan “Peachy” Weil (John Seale ’15), Lala’s date for Ballyhoo whose non-conformist and obnoxious attitude provided a nice opposition to the other characters, all of whom are fairly straitlaced.

The technical aspects of the show were also great for the most part.

I particularly enjoyed the musical interludes, specifically the fantastic Judaic Klezmer rendition of “’Tis the Season,” which musically captured the spirit of the show perfectly.

Ballyhoo’s director, Helena Raffel ’14, had a style that was very fluid and lent itself to some great comedic moments, particularly when Lala descended down the stairs in her absurd Ballyhoo outfit—a dress that blossomed out from her waste like a bell. The first glimpse the audience got of her was her gigantic dress ballooning out from the doorway.

These great moments were sometimes inhibited by a bit of awkward

blocking, particularly every time a character got up to move from the couch to the upstairs hallway. Because of the setup, the characters could not proceed from the couch directly to the door and instead had to walk around the couch to reach it, a movement that often wasted a few seconds and detracted a bit from the comedic pacing. The actors did sometimes compensate for this by balancing the long walk with amusing gestures, which helped a bit.

Overall, the production handled its theme of finding personal identity marvelously, and it helped that it was one that almost anybody can relate to. “I’ve never been subject to discrimination myself in that way, but I’ve certainly seen it happen,” said Kacani on the matter. “I definitely think it’s an important message to get out there. And it might not necessarily be one that a lot of people know about, … that rivalry between the two parts of Judaism.”

Kacani’s comments are probably true, and this show was a perfect venue for the audience to gain a better understanding of that rivalry and of the values intrinsic to any family, not just in the 1940s, but in today’s world as well. Pace offered some poignant closing comments on the matter: “I hope everyone who came to the show walked away with a smile on their face, but also a lesson learned, and maybe are reflecting more about how the world we know of it today came to be this way because of sacrifices that were made.”

The sacrifice of family values is what the show portrays and ultimately redeems through a rediscovery of the Jewish spirit at Christmastime. It is tough subject matter to portray, but HTG’s cast and crew nailed it. In the end, what the show is really about is bringing a family together through the bonds of faith, the battle against inter-Jewish discrimination and a rediscovery of personal identity. But whether Jewish, Catholic or any faith in between, these values are transcendental and reason enough to spend a night out at Ballyhoo.

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TUESDAY, novemBER 22, 2011

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THE JUSTICE

EVENT

BSI shares Sephardi culture and coffee

■ The Brandeis Sephardic Initiative hosted its first Turkish Coffeehouse in Cholmondeley’s on Tuesday.

By RACHEL GORDON and maya shemtov JUSTICE STAFF WRITERs

A small crowd dispersed throughout the dimly lit Cholmondeley’s and was engrossed last Tuesday night as the Brandeis Sephardic Initiative held its first Turkish Coffeehouse. With a plentitude of performers and Turkish coffee, which is prepared with powdered roast coffee beans broiled in a pot, the audience sat attentive as each act performed. BSI works to increase awareness and appreciation of Sephardic Jewry and culture through communal activities, ethnic experiences, education and traditional food.

Luky Guigui ’15, who was emceeing for the night, introduced the first act, Zevvy, a stand-up comic. Starting off the evening lightly, Zevvy had the entire audience laughing and set the tone for the evening.

The second act was rapper Saz.É (Osaze Akerejah ’14), who performed four songs: “Mr. Nice Guy,” “It’s Lovely,” “Passports and Sex” and “Ray Ban Weather.” Saz.É said that each of these songs are from upcoming projects. The second track is from his second mix tape, Invincible Tomorrow, and the first, third and fourth songs were from the third mix tape, titled One Hell of An Internship, both due out next year.

The third song he performed, called “Passports and Sex,” was about traveling across the globe with that special someone. As Saz.É sang, “We have the world to run/It’s great fun making love close to the sun,” he proceeded to explain how he writes songs about things he wished he could do, but can’t. Before his last song, Saz.É went on to speak out to anyone who is artistic, saying how artists “create a world and make it engaging so people want to jump in it, make it breathe and everyone else will breathe with you.”

The next performance was a different approach to music than Saz.É’s raps. The Sephardi Band, which included Jacob Chatinover ’12, Daniel Shimansky ’12, Benny Sternberg ’14 and Guigui, used only vocals and drumming. The group performed several piyutim (Jewish spiritual poems). Two of The Sephardi Band’s performers have Sephardi ancestry, but Guigui was unphased that he himself

JENNY CHENG/the Justice

CULTURE SHOCK: Leah Naghi ’14, a member of the Brandeis Sephardic Initiative executive board, helped to plan the Turkish Coffeehouse and performed there. was not one of them, saying, “sometimes personal heritage doesn’t really matter. Embracing all heritages just calls out to a person.”

In between each act, Guigui read Sephardic bedtime stories to the crowd. Shortly after the Sephardi band left the stage, Avi Popack ’14 read slam poetry. He performed one of the poems he submitted as his college admissions essay and another he wrote recently for a poetry class. Popack has been writing poetry for three years and has performed at several other coffeehouses as well as at the Brandeis Open Mic Series.

“The crowd was great,” Popack said. “Afterward, a lot of people were very encouraging. They came up to me and thanked me for coming and gave me feedback on the set, which was especially nice because one of the poems was brand new, and the other I had only performed once.”

The last three acts were improvisational comedy group TBA, Brandeis’ only all-male Jewish a cappella group Jewish Fella Acapella and Manginah, Brandeis’ co-ed Jewish a cappella group. Each of the groups brought a unique flavor to its performance, from TBA’s improv games that required

input from a more-than-willing audience to the a cappella groups’ many songs. TBA performed the improv games Survivor, Ding, Good Bad Terrible Advice and Press Conference, all of which they also play during their rehearsals every week. Yoni Sebag ’13 said that TBA was “very happy with our performance at Chum’s, thanks to a very responsive audience. Their energy enhanced our performance.”

This coffeehouse offered a unique blend of cultural tradition with a wide variety of performances. “The acts I saw were pretty unique and great, they were nothing I’d seen before at a coffeehouse,” Popack said.

Guigui also really enjoyed the event, saying, “It was the first time I have ever been an emcee and it was really fun.” He also really appreciated all the hard work that was put into planning the event. “Thanks need to go out to all the BSI board but especially to Atara Chouake ’14, Leah Naghi ’14 and Aliza Braverman ’14, for putting all of this together. It takes a lot to plan an event and these guys really put it all together and are responsible for it all.”

Editor’s Note: Aliza Braverman ’14 is a Justice copy staffer.

JENNY CHENG/the Justice

RAP SUPERSTAR: Rapper Saz.É performed four songs from his newest mix tapes.

CAMPUS SPEAKER

Smee discusses modern painters in roundtable

■ Boston Globe art critic

Sebastian Smee spoke about artists Cy Twombly and Lucien Freud in a talk with students.

By MARA SASSOON JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

Last Thursday, Sebastian Smee, the Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic for The Boston Globe, spoke on “The Not-so-Fine Art of Art Criticism” to a packed house in the Lee Gallery of the Rose Art Museum. His presentation was part of the Brandeis Arts Council Lecture Series and was supplemented with a round-table discussion facilitated by Prof. Nancy Scott (FA) and Dabney Hailey, the director of Academic Programs at the Rose.

Smee is relatively new to the Boston area, having moved here in May 2008.

He grew up in Australia and attended the University of Sydney. He has previously worked in London, writing for the Art Newspaper and the Daily Telegraph, and freelancing for the likes of the Financial Times, The Guardian and the Independent. Prior to working at the Boston Globe, he was a national art critic for the Australian. Smee has also penned Side By Side: Picasso v.

Matisse, a book on the relationship between the two painters, as well as several books on the artist Lucian Freud.

Scott touched upon the revitalization of the Rose in her introduction of Smee, saying, “It seems like we’re in a new place, and we really owe Sebastian a great round of thanks for this

fresh regard.” Indeed, Smee recently wrote a piece about the Rose’s 50th anniversary, reckoning that “we can at last get back to looking at art.” He also wrote about the Bruce Connor film triptych “EVE-RAY-FOREVER (1965/2006),” which is currently on display at the Rose. Scott’s warm introduction certainly established the event as a continuation of the celebration of the Rose’s new chapter.

Once he took to the podium, Smee immediately encouraged audience participation, stating that he would “welcome any questions about the strange and odd business of being an art critic.” Smee’s talk centered largely around connections he has drawn between artists, as well as connections he has found among the current exhibitions of the contemporary art scene in Boston that he described as “so vibrant and so alive.”

He began by talking about the British figurative artist Lucian Freud (the grandson of Sigmund Freud), who passed away in July. Smee said that he was lucky to get to know Freud over the course of about 10 years and form a bond with him. Shortly after Freud passed away, Smee wrote an “unusually personal” piece about him for the Globe. In the vein of making connections, Smee said that thinking about Freud, which is “still a difficult subject [for him],” prompted him to think about the American artist Cy Twombly, who also passed away in July. From there, he admitted that he started thinking about all of the connections that could be made between these two great talents.

Behind Smee was a slide presentation of some of Freud’s and Twombly’s works. First, Smee brought up the image of Freud’s painting “Double Portrait” (1985-6), which portrays a woman lying down and a dog sleeping next to her. Then he showed images of the collection of four paintings made up of abstract splotches and strokes of color and text that comprise Twombly’s “The Four Seasons: Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter” (1993-4).

Smee laughingly acknowledged that he knows at first it seems hard to find a connection or common theme among these works, and he decided he would touch upon an unconventional theme that connects the artists’ work, “a theme which is very dear to [my] heart: doing nothing.” This statement was understandably met with laughter from the audience.

Smee described his feelings from his first encounter with Lucian Freud’s paintings when he was in his early 20s and discovering art, the sense of “the luxury and the sensuality of indolence” he got when looking at the works. However, he went on to explain that this feeling was “double-edged” because Freud’s work also gave him a simultaneous sense of discomfort in thinking about how difficult it is “to occupy a body without moving much for long periods of time.” Freud is known for the length of time it took him to paint his subjects, who would sometimes sit for him on a regular basis over months or even years.

Smee said that he was also attracted to works by artists other than Freud, from which he could “feel a struggle, a

restless twitching, aching for repose.”

This attraction led him to think about the marks that compose a work, citing the example of Titian’s late work, how “one comes across whole passages of paint that describe nothing, that are just slathered on and yet which somehow become the most emotionally precise ingredients of all.”

The poetic language Smee used to discuss the artwork in his presentation indicated his immense passion for the visual arts.

The discussion returned to the theme of indolence in relation to Twombly’s and Freud’s works. Smee spoke of the way Twombly’s pieces, with their “childish-looking marks” give the sense that “civilization itself might be drifting off into sleep, twitching and dreaming as it fade[s] out.”

He culminated his rumination on this unexpected, connecting theme by reasoning that both artists’ works are “as beautiful and as poignant as a ruin in a landscape,” despite their drastically different styles.

The rest of the evening was left open for audience questions. When asked about his process of looking at artwork, Smee referred to a transformative experience he had as an art student in a small class; when his professor had him observe a Morisot painting for half an hour and describe all that he saw in that work within that span of time. Of his job, Smee most loves the “luxury” he has of “taking art in, in [his] own time, in [his] own way,” adding that he rarely attends openings because they do not allow for such a manner of looking at art.

Another audience member even asked Smee about his thoughts on the wall plaques at art museums, drawing from his own frustrating experiences of seeing a multitude of typos on these plaques at various museums. Smee agreed with the audience member, calling the scenario “dismaying” and arguing that the dull and patronizing tones of some plaques he has seen before make him “feel like a five year old.”

The evening’s discussion ended on an inspirational note, with a student in the audience asking if being an art critic is Smee’s “dream job.” Smee humbly confirmed this sentiment and recalled how he had taken a year off of his studies and was down to his last few hundred dollars. He described writing to more than 20 different editors and writers at different publications, finally hearing back from John McDonald, an art critic at The Sydney Morning Herald at the time, who mentored him and eventually let him write his own column. Smee emphasized that the combination of his “persistence” and “a lot of luck” led him to secure a job that he loves, and he conveyed to the students in the audience that it is indeed possible to do so.

Smee’s talk was made more engaging because of the ample time allowed for students’ questions. The event and contributed to a continued celebration of the Rose’s anniversary. Bringing Smee, who exhibited such an immense passion for his profession and the visual arts, to campus was exemplary of the University’s commitment to the arts.

22

TUESDAY, November 22, 2011

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THE JUSTICE

FILM

‘Breaking Dawn—Part 1’ a campy gorefest ■ The beyond unbelievable

romance is the latest film in the ‘Twilight’ series.

By ARIEL KAY JUSTICE EDITOR

Movies can create myriad different emotional journeys within the mind of the viewer. Some films lift the audience up to the virtue of the greatest character, while others drag it down to the baseness of the villain. Films can inspire people, they can anger them, and they can make a person rethink their deepest-held beliefs.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn—Part 1, however, is not that kind of movie.

Those who go to see a Twilight film already know what to expect: beautiful young people in the throes of a passionate but notably chaste love affair.

Vampires and werewolves are also involved.

In this third installment, however, the series gets a much-needed shot of sexuality. Finally, human Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) are getting married. And everyone, even a Mormon, knows that with marriage comes a honeymoon. Bow chicka wow wow.

After Bella and Edward are married—in an admittedly beautifully decorated outdoor wedding, complete with suspended flowers and a lace aisle—he whisks her off to Brazil, where they spend the night in a cottage on an island off the coast.

Of course, the couple is worried that Edward’s supernatural strength will kill his bride, and that he will not have the willpower to resist draining her of blood once they consummate

their marriage. But Bella insists. After all, the two have barely touched since they first met in their high school chemistry class, and she is a 19-year-old girl.

So they do it, in a rather comical scene. Edward physically breaks the headboard of their marriage bed, crushing it between his fingers to release his built-up sexual tension.

The next morning, Bella wakes up to discover the entire bedroom has been destroyed, all the furniture ripped to shreds. She shrugs it off as a silly vampire quirk.

This scene does bring up some questions, however. Just why does Bella love Edward so much? Edward has made it clear that he is attracted to her because she has the best blood he’s ever smelled—vampires are known for their romantic sides. But Bella is strangely drawn to him as well, for reasons that are never really fleshed out. They’re just “meant to be,” and director Bill Condon (Dreamgirls, Chicago) leaves it at that. This is one aspect of the Twilight story that I find actually upsetting. Young girls around the world are reading these books and watching these movies. To feed them a story in which a girl gives up her entire life, including her family, her friends and her future to be with a boy is not a message I’d like to be gobbled up without a second thought. But that’s what the story is, in essence. Stewart is known for her glum appearance, both in the films and at industry events. While walking down the aisle, Bella seems struck by fear and hesitation, not the normal happy and anticipatory energy that a woman should feel on the day she weds her one true love.

Though Bella is the film’s protagonist, she never seems to have any serious obstacle to overcome. Rather,

PHOTO COURTESY OF SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT

IT’S A GIRL!: Bella gives birth to a fast-growing, half-vampire baby in ‘Breaking Dawn.’

Edward and Bella’s ex Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) devote their lives to her protection and well-being. She mostly sits back and argues with them about how strong she is, though she never really shows it.

Two weeks into her honeymoon, Bella becomes ill. Could it be food poisoning? Nope, it’s a baby. Apparently

music

Drake matures on his new CD ■ ‘Take Care’ displays the rapper’s passion for music and features notable guests.

By AYAN SANYAL

Gaming

‘Skyrim’ offers an endless virtual universe to explore Dan

JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

Music tends to follow a cyclical path: Trends that are popularized underground make it to the mainstream and then are worn out by radios, record companies and, of course, MTV. As much as Drake spits that he is “real,” even in the openinformation age, record companies still have ultimate creative control when it comes to popular music. In an opposite vein, hip-hop as a genre was born out of a need for positivity and truth and as a vehicle to move things toward a brighter future. It is hard to say whether Take Care will age to be one of this decade’s greatest albums, but Drake definitely is not moving the cycle backward with this fantastic record.

Let’s get some things straight: Drake is not a gifted singer. He is decent with his words, but his lyricism pales in comparison to legends like Jay-Z and Nas. His voice sounds dry and laughable, but it is also strangely enjoyable. Drake owes much of his success to his charming persona, incredible production team and lots of love from his hometown, Toronto.

Noah “40” Shebib, one of Drake’s longtime collaborators, handles most of the production on Take Care and soaks Drake’s rather bland voice and dry hooks with rapid 808 drum beats, wafting synthesizers and reverberated pianos. The guest artists on Take Care were also chosen carefully and successfully: The album features a hook from Rihanna, a verse from Nicki Minaj, contributions from Lil Wayne, a stunning verse by Andre 3000, two songs featuring Toronto’s upcoming R&B artist The Weeknd and a surprising harmonica solo from Stevie Wonder. This multitude of voices adds a flavor to the album and keeps the story going.

The best songs off the album are the title track, “Take Care,” “Look What You’ve Done” and closer “The Ride.” “Take Care” mixes a Gil ScottHeron song with Rihanna’s hook and has Jamie Smith of The xx handling

half-vampire babies grew super fast and are so strong that they can break their mother’s bones from the inside.

Bella doesn’t really get that “pregnant glow” that expectant mothers are known for.

Instead, through CGI, Stewart loses what’s left of her non-existent body fat. Her hair goes grey and her cheeks

Willey critical hit

PHOTO COURTESY OF AMAZON.COM

GOOD FRIENDS: ‘Take Care’ includes a harmonica solo by legend Stevie Wonder. the production. Drake and Rihanna presumably sing about their affair, but who really knows? The song is a hit regardless.

“Look What You’ve Done” is one of the most heartfelt tracks I’ve heard in a while. I think I may have even teared up once while listening.

Drake reminisces about his mother and uncle, and he even features his grandmother speaking to him on the phone in the track. The album’s last song, “The Ride,” features The Weeknd singing a 4 a.m. after-partybedroom hook and Drake spitting some real bars as he deconstructs himself and steps back from his lavish lifestyle in the same way Kanye West does in “My Beautiful Twisted Dark Fantasy.” The best lines from the song come in the first verse: “Deal with the questions about all your excessive needs/and you do dinners at French Laundry and Napa Valley/Scallops and glasses of Dolce, that s— right up your alley/…

They put the cloth across your lap soon as you sat down/It’s feeling like you own every place you choosing to

be at now/walking through airport security with your hat down/’stead of gettin’ a pat down, they just keep on saying that they feel ya.”

Drake, in an interview with music video website VEVO, stated that he wanted the album to be a slow-motion movie that captured his feelings as he climbed from obscurity (as the wheelchair-bound Jimmy Brooks of Degrassi) to a rap star. This is where Drake succeeds the most. The lyrics are honest, introspective and sometimes even clever. In “Doing It Wrong,” Drake states that “we live in a generation of not being in love and not being together.” In the social media age of tweets and Facebook statuses, Drake captures our generation’s plea for truth and substance.

He also has the right persona for this. He’s not a gangster, but he’s got swag. He’s a half-Jewish, half-black nice-mean guy from Toronto. He can relate and appeal to practically everyone with those credentials, and that is what ultimately makes Take Care great and what makes Drake a star.

become hollowed. Within a month her abdomen is swollen to the size of an exercise ball. When Jacob gets wind that something is wrong with Bella, he runs to the Cullen residence, where he finds his love clearly dying.

Cue the angry discussion between Edward and Jacob. This same scene happens so often in the Twilight movies it’s like the actors are all on autopilot.

Jacob returns to his pack and tells them what’s going on. The alpha, or leader of the clan, then delivers the best line of the film: “We have to kill it, before it is born.” This overly dramatic dialogue is made all the better by the fact that when the werewolves are in their animal form, they for some reason sound like they’ve been dubbed by gravely voiced killer robots. Honestly, if this line had been the tagline for the film, I would have been much more inclined to tell people I was seeing it.

Breaking Dawn—Part 1 has become the second-highest grossing midnight opening of all time, coming in behind only Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, and had overall the fifth-highest grossing opening weekend for a film. This franchise is a huge deal for the box office. But if I hadn’t known that it was so popular and just seen if on my own, I probably would have thought it was some cult horror film from the 1950s, just with better CGI. The plot is utterly ridiculous and the script sounds like a series of exclamatory remarks pasted awkwardly together. The campiest scene of all was the birth of Bella and Edward’s daughter, Renesmee. To get that monster baby out, Edward rips Bella’s uterus open … with his teeth. The site of blood running down his chin as he rushes away from the hospital room is pure camp gore at its finest.

Perhaps no game has seen more hype or been more looked forward to this year than the most recent entry in the Elder Scrolls series, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The Elder Scrolls games and their developer, Bethesda Game Studios, have come a long way since the series was first introduced back in 1994, but some things have remained the same. Bethesda has again released one of the largest fantasy role-playing game experiences on the market.

Like each game in the Elder Scrolls series, Skyrim begins by having gamers create their own characters.

Players can choose from one of 10 different races, with the ability to customize almost every element of the characters’ appearances. After this, Bethesda yields almost complete control of the Skyrim experience to the player. Many gamers will choose to follow and complete the main quest, and for good reason.

After generations have passed without the appearance of dragons in Skyrim, they have become little more than a myth. However, the game starts out with a bang: right before the player’s unexplained execution, a dragon appears out of the sky, destroying the town and inadvertently saving your life. You are then tasked with discovering the sources of the dragons’ reappearance and ultimately saving the land of Skyrim.

While this campaign is truly exciting and will intrigue players, it’s what happens outside of this quest that makes Skyrim so unique from other games. Unlike most games, players need not follow this path right away, if ever. Players can instead choose to complete any number of side quests offered by non-player characters in the numerous cities, or join a guild focused around combat,

magic, theft or assassination and ascend through its ranks. Players even have the option to ignore quests altogether and simply create their own experience: If you want to become a master thief and simply loot the largest palaces and manors you can find, you can do that. If you want to go hunting across the map and discover the dynamically generated flora and fauna, you can. Skyrim is truly a blank canvas, and players can take any or all of these routes.

It’s hard to overstate just how massive Skyrim is. Players can spend hours just walking from one end of the province to the other. In Bethesda’s new Radiant Story system— which dynamically creates new quests and missions—the gameplay is truly endless. One would think that with such a large game, some detail would be lost, but this is certainly not the case. Each non-player character lives his or her life by a certain schedule and engages in activity as though the gamer were not there. Every object in the game can be picked up and used. Every location is amazing in its detail and beauty. While it may be cliché to say so, the game is actually epic.

Skyrim is, of course, not without its faults. In large part because of its size and its dynamically generated missions and creatures, this game has more than a few glitches. Some of these are minor, while others are outright ridiculous, such as a town soldier literally soaring through the air after being hit by an enemy’s club in one bizarre error in the game’s physics. Skyrim’s menu system is also a bit cumbersome. While it may seem like nitpicking, a game so reliant on its menus for equipping characters and leveling up should have a more intuitive interface.

Ultimately, however, these faults are few and very minor. Skyrim is a masterpiece that will keep gamers busy for a long time to come. There is no game on the market that gives players this much freedom and instills such a strong sense of discovery. Bethesda has topped itself again with Skyrim. I can’t recommend this game enough, and I give it a perfect score of 10/10.

THE JUSTICE

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TUESDAY, November 22, 2011

23

OFF CAMPUS FILM

‘Marilyn’ shows a rare side of the actress ■ Michelle Williams plays

the troubled star during her brief affair with a production assistant in Britain.

By ariel kay JUSTICE editor

The life of Marilyn Monroe is the quintessential American Hollywood fairytale: a story of a down-on-herluck kid who is chosen by fate to become a movie star.

The film My Week with Marilyn is based on filmmaker Colin Clark’s 2000 book of the same name. The book relates Clark’s experiences working as the third assistant director and Laurence Olivier’s personal assistant on The Prince and the Showgirl, a 1957 film directed by Olivier and produced by both him and Monroe. My Week with Marilyn— both the film and the book—focus on the weeklong affair between Clark (Eddie Redmayne) and Monroe (Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine and Brokeback Mountain) that occurred during the film’s production.

Born Norma Jeane Baker, Monroe spent her childhood in foster homes.

Her mother was psychotic and she never knew her father. As a teenager, a series of guardians shuffled her around.

It was when Monroe was 19, working in a munitions factory, that she got her first lucky break. The young woman was photographed by an army photographer who sold the picture to Yank, the Army’s weekly magazine, and encouraged Monroe to pursue modeling. She dyed her hair blonde and her career took off.

This random encounter with the photographer led Monroe to a successful modeling career and eventually to a contract with Columbia Pictures. Her popularity—and infamy—grew with the American public. She began dating famous baseball player Joe DiMaggio (he later became the second of her three husbands) and became the first Playboy centerfold in 1953. Her risqué behavior on and off screen led some to consider her work inappropriate, while others saw her as a symbol of the emerging liberated American woman.

Monroe both enjoyed and was troubled by all of this attention. She traveled to England in 1956, where she began filming The Prince and the Showgirl alongside the famed British Shakespearean actor-director Olivier, hoping to establish herself as a serious actress. This moment is where the film My Week with Marilyn begins.

Monroe was married to acclaimed playwright Arthur Miller (Dougray Scott), her third husband, during the filming of The Prince and the Showgirl. It was only after Miller

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE WEINSTEIN COMPANY

PLAYBOY QUEEN: Williams, a native of Australia, trained to learn Monroe’s recognizable walk and her subtle vocal inflections. returned to America a week before the production ended that Clark and Monroe were free to begin their affair.

The film closely follows the narrative Clark describes in his book. During the filming, Monroe felt personally attacked by Olivier (the smugly wonderful Kenneth Branagh) and sought out Clark for moral support.

Clark was, of course, immediately enamored with Monroe and could not refuse any of her demands. Redmayne, as Clark, gives a compelling performance as a naïve young man unable to see that Monroe is ultimately taking advantage of him.

His boyish, freckled face lights up whenever he is in her presence, and Redmayne’s transformation from a shy boy into a confident young man is one of the highlights of the film.

Scenes of the two frolicking in the English countryside and devolving into fits of laughter showcase the best moments in their relationship.

Williams’ performance, like Monroe herself, is more difficult to fully grasp. Unlike other actresses who have portrayed this icon of feminine beauty in the past, Williams focuses on Monroe’s childlike wonder rather than her irresistible sexiness. My Week with Marilyn depicts Monroe

as a troubled woman not fully in control of her own actions. She has moments of crippling self-doubt as well as scenes in which she flourishes under the public eye, though it is clear that the rift between her public persona and her private life causes her emotional pain. Williams does a good job of creating this image, but ultimately, the character is unsatisfying. Throughout the film, it never really feels as though the audience is watching Monroe. Rather, we watch an actress play her.

Part of the problem is that Williams, despite her blond tresses, looks little like Monroe. Monroe

was famous for her full figure and brash attitude, whereas Williams is a waifish pixie with a thin face who often looks uncomfortable on the red carpet. Williams does manage to capture Monroe’s girlish voice and trained walk, but she doesn’t give a convincing performance overall.

Branagh, on the other hand, is the clear standout of the film. He has several uncanny similarities with his character, Olivier. Both men are highly regarded Shakespearean actors, and both have directed and starred in film versions of Hamlet, Othello, Henry V and Richard III. In the film, Olivier is unable to cope with Monroe’s unprofessional attitude. The actress is often several hours late and cannot remember her lines. Olivier ends up screaming slews of curses at her or to his cast and crew. These furious monologues are some of the funniest moments in the film. Branagh performs just as well in the film’s more subtle moments, such as his interactions with Olivier’s then-wife, actress Vivien Leigh (Julia Ormond). It is also lovely to see the character, in one of the film’s final scenes, come at last to acknowledge Monroe’s acting talent.

My Week with Marilyn attempts to be a dramatic story of one man’s fling with the most famous sex bomb of all time. However, it never manages to live up to the drama of this premise.

The relationship occurs when Miller is out of the country, so there is no chance of him discovering Clark and Monroe’s affair. Furthermore, the film includes a scene implying that Miller doesn’t even love Monroe, so the audience can’t fault Monroe or Clark for committing adultery.

Many characters warn Clark not to get involved with Monroe, that she will break his heart. He ignores them but comes out unscathed anyway. Despite disapproval from the rest of the cast and crew, Clark suffers no professional consequences for his affair. When it is time for Monroe to return to America, the two have one final, amicable conversation. When his former girlfriend, Lucy (a small role by Emma Watson), asks if Monroe broke his heart, Clark responds, “a little.” There is no passionate fight, no breakdown or emotional hardship. The relationship is never even consummated.

The two kiss twice, briefly. I had to wonder if the week Clark spent with Marilyn was more of an ephemeral friendship than an affair to remember.

My Week with Marilyn gives a glimpse into Marilyn Monroe’s life just before her demons began to get the best of her. It is a light-hearted film without a huge amount of substance. However, it does provide an interesting look into the life of one of the most famous, but ultimately enigmatic, stars of the twentieth century.

FILM

Aging comedians prove they’ve still got it in ‘Heist’ ■ ‘Tower Heist’ is a farcical

crime movie, but stars like Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy bring their A games.

By DIEGO MEDRANO JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

When you look at movies like 2009’s Old Dogs and this October’s The Big Year, the guiding thought behind their creation seems to be, “Let’s get aging actors and comedians currently experiencing mid-life crises, put them in ridiculous situations, then watch hilarity ensue.”

Anyone who’s seen even a trailer for one of these types of movies knows that hilarity doesn’t ensue.

Instead, these movies are cash-grab gimmicks that often disrespect the actual talent of the actors.

Admittedly, Eddie Murphy and (to a lesser extent) Ben Stiller are as guilty of this as anyone else in the

business. So when Ben Stiller, Matthew Broderick and Eddie Murphy grace the trailers of director Brett Ratner’s Tower Heist, it’s easy to write the movie off before the opening credits. Luckily, Tower Heist defies expectations with humor, cleverness and a healthy dose of excitement.

Heist follows Josh Kovacs (Ben Stiller) as the building manager for The Tower, a luxury New York apartment high-rise. Stiller is the leader of his lovable gang of misfit employees: the soon-to-be parent concierge Charlie Gibbs (Casey Affleck), the former Wall Street-investor-turned-squatter Mr. Fitzhugh (Matthew Broderick), the childish klutz bellhop Dev’Reaux (Michael Peña) and the sassy Jamaican maid Odessa (Gabourey Sidibe).

After they lose their pensions to a Ponzi scheme run by multi-millionaire building resident Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda), Kovacs enlists the help of Slide (Eddie Murphy)

to steal Shaw’s on-hand cash of $20 million following a drunken suggestion from Kovacs’s love interest, the FBI agent on Shaw’s case, Claire Denham (Téa Leoni). What follows is a laughable heist film chock-full of unbelievable situations and oneliners.

This movie works (and well) because instead of taking the older actors and trying to get them to play washed-up versions of themselves, Ratner doesn’t ask them to do too much. None of the actors have to carry the movie on their own, which allows all of them to stay fresh.

Stiller shows glimpses of his character from Meet The Parents, yet whereas that character ran its course over three movies, this character is allowed to sit back and show sincerity while other characters get laughs, only to then steal laughs of his own. One such example is an enjoyable scene where he shoplifts women’s panties from a Victoria’s Secret by stuffing them down his

pants to prove his criminal ability to Slide. Murphy’s quick-witted delivery demands attention in a way that harkens back to his eighties persona and adds a much needed jolt to the movie. Broderick is wonderfully subtle in a way that clashes perfectly with Murphy.

With those actors working in unison, the rest of the ensemble shines.

Affleck is just dumb enough to be endearing and just smart enough to seem like the only sensible character. Peña contributes some great lines and energy as well, complimenting but not intruding on Murphy’s performance. Sidibe looks like she’s playing a character in a Saturday Night Live skit, but in a movie that doesn’t take itself too seriously, it’s still fun to watch.

In truth, the heist doesn’t matter.

The plot is secondary to the characters. Still, while the scheme is farfetched, you never get the sense that the characters are trying to pull a fast one on the audience. A cast

of characters barely good enough at their jobs in a hotel wouldn’t be able to pull off this heist in real life, but no one really talks only in oneliners in real life, either.

You’d be best off to just suspend disbelief and enjoy the ride. This is the type of movie where Playboy magazines successfully distract guards and loose ends don’t really need to be tied up. This isn’t Ocean’s Eleven smugly showing you how clever it is. Instead, every time something unbelievable happens, you can practically hear Ratner whispering to the audience, “Just go with it.”

You can think of this movie as the veteran sports team that uses former superstars to play a contributing role instead of carrying the team. And while they don’t win the championship, they do pretty well in the playoffs.

This movie won’t win any Oscars but as an unexpected treat, you could do a lot worse with 10 bucks.

24

TUESday, November 22, 2011 ● THE JUSTICE

TOP of the

ARTS ON VIEW

TRIVIA TIME

CHARTS

1. Where would one find a coda to a piece of music?

2. What is a “beau geste”?

3. When was the first patent issued for the modern zipper?

4. What organ in the human body produces insulin?

5. What was the sextant once used for?

6. Who founded the colony of Rhode Island?

7. Where is the famous Watergate building?

8. How did Andrew Carnegie make his fortune?

9. What did American patriot Paul Revere do for a living?

10. Where did Cain go to live after slaying Abel?

Top 10s for the week ending November 20 BOX OFFICE

1. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 2. Happy Feet Two 3. Immortals 4. Jack and Jill 5. Puss in Boots 6. Tower Heist 7. J. Edgar 8. A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas 9. Paranormal Activity 3 10. Footloose

NYT BESTSELLERS

1. The end 2. Noble gesture 3. 1917 4. Pancreas 5. Navigation. The instrument measures the angles between visible objects.

6. Roger Williams 7. Washington, D.C. 8. Steel industry 9. He was an accomplished silversmith.

10. The land of Nod ANSWERS

STRANGE BUT TRUE  It was celebrated Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw who made the following sage observation: “The liar’s punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.”  Virginia law prohibits anyone over the age of 15 from wearing a mask in public, unless it’s part of a traditional holiday costume for work or for medical reasons.  You might be surprised to learn that there are people who study how air quality, humidity, the mineral content of the water and pollution affect people’s hair.

According to these researchers, the worst American cities for your tresses are Corpus Christi, Texas; Olympia, Wash.; and Pittsburgh.  In a survey conducted by the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, it was found that twothirds of Americans believe they are smarter than the average American.  If you happen to be traveling in India and are passing through the town of Deshnoke, you might want to check out the Karni Mata temple—but not if you have an aversion to rodents: Karni Mata is the rat goddess. Visitors can dine at the temple, but they have to watch out for the more than 20,000 rats mingling with the guests. Don’t worry, though: If a rat runs across your feet, it’s considered to be good luck.  Ever wonder what the world’s deadliest animal is? It’s the lowly mosquito. Thanks to the diseases it spreads, it kills more humans than any other animal on the planet.

LENNY SCHNIER/the Justice

DRIFTERS: Lenny Schnier ’13 painted this oil on canvas work, titled “Up.” The painting, which was completed this year, depicts a group of people gathered under a boardwalk at night.

ACROSS 1. Overseer of JFK and LAX 4. Jewel 7. Gear parts 12. Throw in 13. Big hatchet 14. Plankton components 15. Actor McBride 16. March Madness semis 18. Pirouette pivot 19. Movie 20. Pond gunk 22. Away from WSW 23. Verifiable 27. Antiquated 29. Riddler of yore 31. Verboten 34. Trip around the world 35. Namesake of a sort 37. Conk out 38. Information 39. Ottoman officer 41. Way out 45. Representative 47. Before 48. Done with desperation 52. Opposite of “oui” 53. Spud state 54. Golf prop 55. — and outs 56. Male and female 57. Raw rock 58. Favorable vote DOWN 1. Data 2. Kind of committee 3. Farewell 4. Hook with a handle 5. Ostracized 6. “— Black” 7. Chat 8. Subordinate Claus 9. Id counterpart 10. Greek consonant 11. That woman 17. Experts 21. Jupiter has 63 23. Crowd?

24. Tease

CROSSWORD

Nonfiction 1. Steve Jobs — Walter Isaacson 2. Killing Lincoln — Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard 3. Back to Work — Bill Clinton 4. Jack Kennedy — Chris Matthews 5. No Higher Honor — Condoleezza Rice

iTUNES

1. Rihanna feat. Calvin Harris — “We Found Love” 2. Bruno Mars — “It Will Rain” 3. LMFAO — “Sexy and I Know It” 4. Flo Rida — “Good Feeling” 5. Adele — “Someone Like You” 6. David Guetta feat. Usher — “Without You” 7. Glee Cast — ­ “Rumour Has It/ Someone Like You (Glee Cast Version) 8. Katy Perry — “The One That Got Away” 9. Maroon 5 feat. Christina Aguilera — “Moves like Jagger (Studio Recording from The Voice Performance)” 10. Foster the People — “Pumped Up Kicks”

BILLBOARD

25. Numerical prefix 26. Addnl. phone 28. Powell co-star 30. Luau bowlful 31. X rating?

32. Mimic 33. Violinist’s need 36. Creche trio 37. One inspired by Terpsichore 40. Reach 42. Ohio city 43. O. Henry’s specialty 44. Nervous 45. Commotions 46. Quaker address 48. Fleur-de- — 49. Citric beverage 50. Reed instrument 51. Definite article

1. Mac Miller — Blue Slide Park 2. Michael Buble — Christmas 3. Various Artists — Now 40 4. Various Artists — The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 Soundtrack 5. Adele — 21 6. Justin Bieber — Under the Mistletoe 7. Susan Boyle — Someone to Watch Over Me 8.Coldplay — Mylo Xyloto 9. Romeo Santos — Formula: Vol. 1 10. Il Divo — Wicked Game Top of the Charts information provided

by Fandango, the New York Times, BillBoard.com and Apple.com.

Solution to last week’s crossword

STAFF PLAYLIST

“My Eclectic Life”

King Crossword Copyright 2011 King Features Synd, Inc.

SUDOKU INSTRUCTIONS: Place a number in the empty boxes in such a way that each row across, each column down and each small 9-box square contains all of the numbers from one to nine.

 In 2004, a record was set for the world’s farthest pizza delivery when a Domino’s Pizza in London delivered a vegetarian supreme pizza to Melbourne, Australia—a distance of 10,532 miles.

The world record challenge was conducted as a fundraising event and brought in nearly $50,000 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Thought for the Day: “Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn’t have to do it himself.”

— A.H. Weiler

Fiction 1. 11/22/63 — Stephen King 2. The Litigators — John Grisham 3. Zero Day — David Baldacci 4. The Best of Me — Nicholas Sparks 5. The Christmas Wedding — James Patteson and Richard DiLallo

Solution to last week’s sudoku

Sudoku Copyright 2011 King Features Synd, Inc.

By ASHER KRELL

Justice ASSOCIATE EDITOR

I find that my music is often a mirror for my life.

My favorites change depending on my mood and location. From Mika to Jimmy Buffett, I find my place in different styles.

THE LIST 1.f“Relax” — Mika 2. “Fireflies” — Owl City 3. “You and I” — Ingrid Michaelson 4. “Centerfold” — J. Geils Band 5. “Big Yellow Taxi” — Joni Mitchell 6. “I’m Yours” — Jason Mraz 7. “Banana Pancakes” — Jack Johnson 8. “The General” — Dispatch 9. “Gravity” — John Mayer 10. “Margaritaville” — Jimmy Buffett