Phoenix_9_15

PHOENIX

THE

SEPTEMBER 15, 2011 • THE CAMPUS NEWSPAPER OF SWARTHMORE COLLEGE SINCE 1881 • VOLUME 134, ISSUE 4

Inside: EJ empowers Chester community with garden Enlace hosts fiOlde Club’s opening show Women’s tennis dominates on home turf fi

Drawing Conclusions How accurate are the typical stereotypes of Mary Lyon residents? p3

The Phoenix

Thursday, September 15, 2011 Volume 134, Issue 4

The independent campus newspaper of Swarthmore College since 1881.

EDITORIAL BOARD Amelia Possanza Editor in Chief Menghan Jin Managing Editor Marcus Mello Managing Editor Adam Schlegel News Editor Patrick Ammerman Assistant News Editor Dina Zingaro Living & Arts Editor Parker Murray Assistant Living & Arts Editor Reem Abdou Opinions Editor Tim Bernstein Sports Editor Allegra Pocinki Photo Editor Peter Akkies Webmaster Eric Sherman Webmaster

Paul Chung The Phoenix

The Garnet volleyball team, which emerged victorious from the Garnet Classic for the third straight year, shakes hands with an opposing team. Page 20

News

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A new kind of poetry: “A picture makes a thousand EJ cultivates Chester’s words” Professor Rachel Sutton-Spence sense of community with ofVisiting the Linguistics Department will give a lecture focusing on metaphors in sign lanlocal garden guage today.

Swarthmore’s Environmental Justice group uses a community garden to address issues of race and class in Chester.

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Peter Gross expounds on the provisions of Obama’s latest economic initiative, highlighting its flaws and underscoring its benefits.

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Sports

Caffeine in the form of cook— what could be better? Women’s tennis excels in Lakey database released ies In her second installment of the semes- singles and doubles ter, Lauren Kim takes a stab at another The Garnet women’s tennis team squared 10 years after 9/11 caffeine-infused cookies; this time they inVisiting Professor George Lakey ceremoniously releases a new database that will serve as a new resource for scholars and activists.

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off against Haverford and Stevens Tech at the Swarthmore Invitational this past weekend, appearing to be in good shape for the upcoming Regionals matches in Virginia.

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clude Earl Grey tea.

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Now showing: The sun a telescope Financial aid at Swat through On Fridays, students will now be able to the sun’s surface from telescopes in The meaning of the Djokovweathers the economic cri- view the Science Center patio. ic “miracle forehand” sis PAGE 10 Novak Djokovic’s incredible serve return Proposed budget cut negotiations during the debt crisis this summer could have had Amongst the vines, it’s a against Roger Federer spurred his comeback victory and U.S. Open title, but it also ramifications for undergraduate institu- family affair told us a lot more about who the two playtions nationwide.

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Living & Arts

From the vineyards of California, alum Scott Young ’06 offers a glimpse into his unique post-Swarthmore experience.

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ers are.

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Opinions

The Swarthmore women’s soccer team officially left its slow start in the dust this past week. The Garnet will take a 3-2 record into conference play.

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Digging into the juicier basics of enjoyable, healthy Strategic planning draft sex Vianca Masucci shares more sex tips, delv- should outline cost, overall ing into topics such as lubrication and pen- plan etration.

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Olde Club begins season with Enlace concert

Enlace will bring a unique trio of musical artists to campus Saturday night to kick off the Olde Club performance season.

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The new draft released by Strategic Planning requires more transparency in regards to cost in order to be seriously considered.

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Voter identification laws should be a non-issue

Danielle Charette reflects on the frivolity

How to take action when of voter-ID laws being called into question Democrats. lightning strikes your port- by PAGE 14 folio Sharing our collective Aliya Padamsee offers valuable pointers on how to manage your financial assets in myths in commemoration the case of lightning striking the market.

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“Contagion,” Kate and Cotillard

Nolan Gear explores the recently released thriller “Contagion” as well as the seemingly similar roles played female Oscar winners.

With the recent passing of both 9/11 and his birthday along with the approaching Chinese moon festival, Sam shares his thoughts on remembrance, celebration and collective empathy.

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Obama’s American jobs act a step in the right direction

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Women’s soccer riding three-game win streak

Corrections

FROM THE SEPTEMBER 1 & 8, 2011 ISSUES

STAFF Sera Jeong Living & Arts Writer Steven Hazel Living & Arts Writer Nolan Gear Living & Arts Columnist Jen Johnson Living & Arts Columnist Lauren Kim Living & Arts Columnist Vianca Masucci Living & Arts Columnist Susana Medeiros Living & Arts Columnist Aliya Padamsee Living & Arts Columnist Johnny Taeschler Living & Arts Columnist Naia Poyer Living & Arts Artist Tyler Becker Opinions Columnist Danielle Charette Opinions Columnist Olivia Natan Opinions Columnist Peter Gross Opinions Columnist Shimian Zhang Opinions Columnist Emma Waitzman Political Cartoonist Renee Flores Sports Writer Ana Apostoleris Sports Writer Paul Chung Photographer Simone Forrester Photographer Christina Matamoros Photographer Elèna Ruyter Photographer Holly Smith Photographer Renee Flores Chief Copy Editor Sophie Diamond Copy Editor Robert Heins Copy Editor Shashwati Rao Copy Editor Alli Shultes Copy Editor BUSINESS STAFF Business Manager Ian Anderson Advertising Manager Paul Chung COVER DESIGN Amelia Kucic CONTRIBUTORS Alyssa Bowie, Victor Brady, Julia Carleton, Andrew Cheng, Ariel Finegold, Chris Nam, Max Nesterak, Yared Portillo, Chi Zhang OPINIONS BOARD Amelia Possanza, Menghan Jin and Marcus Mello EDITOR’S PICKS PHOTOS COURTESY OF: (clockwise from top left) en.wikipedia.org djorion.com rilesmith.com davidhbdrake.com TO ADVERTISE: E-mail: advertising@swarthmorephoenix.com Advertising phone: (610) 328-7362 Address: The Phoenix, Swarthmore College, 500 College Ave., Swarthmore, PA 19081 Direct advertising requests to Amelia Possanza. The Phoenix reserves the right to refuse any advertising. Advertising rates subject to change.

CONTACT INFORMATION Offices: Parrish Hall 470-472 E-mail: editor@swarthmorephoenix.com Newsroom phone: (610) 328-8172 Address: The Phoenix, Swarthmore College, 500 College Ave., Swarthmore, PA 19081 Web site: www.swarthmorephoenix.com

The article “Paces Café receives its first makeover in a decade” published in the 9/1 issue did not mention that Mallory Pitser ’14 and Zac Wunrow ’14 are also involved in the management of Paces Café.

Mail subscriptions are available for $60 a year or $35 a semester. Direct subscription requests to Amelia Possanza.

The article “Professor shares poetic creations from sabbatical” misquoted Julia Finklestein ’13. Finkelstein was quoted, “Professor Anderson showed us ... that writing poetry requires devotion and extreme revision ...” when she really said “entensive revision.”

All contents copyright © 2011 The Phoenix.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without permission.

The Phoenix is printed at Bartash Printing, Inc. The Phoenix is a member of the Associated College Press and the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association.

In the 9/8 issue, Dina Zingaro’s piece “Amongst the vines, it’s a family affair” was not run correctly. This issue will feature this piece.

September 15, 2011

THE PHOENIX

News

swarthmorephoenix.com

Events Menu Today Sign Languages: Linguistics Talk Cornell visiting liguistics professor Rachel Sutton-Spence will present a lecture on metaphor and figurative language in sign languages in Kohlberg’s Scheuer room. The talk will be 4:30-5:30 p.m.

ML residents resist being stereotyped

Tomorrow 2011 Constitution Day Lecture Swarthmore alumnus and U.S. district Judge for the Southern District of New York Jed S. Rakoff ’64 will be this year’s Constitution Day speaker. His lecture is entitled: “My Neurons Made Me Do It — How Neuroscience is Changing the Law’s View of Criminal and Moral Responsibility.” The event will be 4:30-6:30 p.m. in Kohlberg’s Scheuer room.

OASIS presents El Grito de Poetas Come view a performance by seven Latino poets, representing the Caribbean, Central and South America. The performers explore themes of various identities, preserving traditions, and bringing awareness to socio-cultural issues, and mentoring and empowering youth through the spoken word. The performance will be 7:00-9:00 p.m. in LPAC cinema.

Saturday, September 17th Moon Festival Celebration Come celebrate the Moon Festival/Mid-Autumn Festival in Shane Lounge, 7:00-9:00 p.m. Enjoy delicious mooncakes and other Chinese snacks, and learn about myths surounding the festival. The event will be put on by the Swarthmore Chinese Society.

Havadalah Movie Night Come to the Jewish Student Lounge (Lodge 5) at 8 p.m. for a movie night to celebrate Havadalah (the separation between one week’s closing and the next week’s beginning).

After a brief ceremony, everyone will have the chance to hang out and eat oven-baked s’mores. All are welcome to attend.

Monday, September 19th Bank of America Information Session Students interested in banking or financial services are invited to attend an informational session about the experience of working for one of the leaders in the banking industry.

The event will be held at Bryn Mawr College (the Ely Room in Wyndham Hall) 7:00-8:00 p.m.

Uprooting Classism Come to Kohlberg 115 at 7 p.m. for a chance to discuss how money and class affect our communities and social interactions. Tyrone Boucher and Jenna Peters-Golden of the AORTA Collective will be facilitating the discussion. Come ready to discuss class dynamics within your own community.

E-mail submissions for the events menu to news@swarthmorephoenix. com.

Paul Chung The Phoenix

Aside from being home to ML breakfast on the weekends, the Mary Lyon breakfast room is one of the centers of ML dorm culture.

By Patrick Ammerman pammerm1@swarthmore.edu

Mary Lyon is a dorm many Swatties may not have been to this week, or this month or this year. Some may never have been to ML. Yet, there are many others who have continued to request rooms in ML year after year, who think of the dorm as one of the best parts of their Swarthmore experience.

“This dorm is probably the best thing that happened to me at Swarthmore,” Mariah Parker ’13 said. Parker is a Student Academic Mentor (a.k.a SAM) in ML. She moved to ML as a first-year, after spending her first six weeks living in Willets, and found that the experience was formative to her new life in college. “Suddenly I fit in and I had friends,” Parker recalled.

In terms of its physical characteristics, Mary Lyon has a spacious social lounge, a breakfast room that’s open every Saturday and Sunday, large rooms (some with private bathrooms), as well as an attractive façade. “Students always say — so do staff — that if ML were on campus it would probably be the most popular dorm,” Rachel Head, Assistant Dean of Residential Life, said.

Many who live there do so because of the social life that it has. “It’s more of a dorm life than a hall life, and it’s a very social dorm life,” Parker said.

Ariana Spiegal ’13, RA on ML 1st, has similarly found that ML has vibrant dorm life. “There are always people in the [first floor] lounge. I go to the breakfast room on Saturdays and it’s always full of people … that’s a lot different [from other dorms],” she said.

Spiegel is living in Mary Lyon for the first time this year, and has found the experience unique compared to her experiences in Willets and Wharton.

“Everyone’s really friendly and really tight knit. And it’s not just my hall but the whole dorm, which is a lot different than any dorm I’ve lived in so far,” Spiegel said.

But, despite the many at Swarthmore who state positive experiences of their time living in ML, others harbor lessthan-ideal perceptions of the residence hall.

THE PHOENIX

Hillary Hamilton ‘12 was an RA in Mary Lyon last year, and noticed some of these stereotypes. “There are a lot of ideas on campus of what it means to live in ML, in the way you are isolated and the way that there are certain ‘ML kids’,” Hamilton said.

A few of the common stereotypes associated with the so-called “ML people” may include habitual partaking in video games, social awkwardness or even fullblown self-seclusion. “ML tends to have a stereotype of either the engineers who don’t want to talk to anybody or the computer geeks who don’t hang out with anybody … but I think if you look around campus you find those people,” second floor RA David Opoku ’12 said.

Those who live there generally find these stereotypes only half true.

“There are people who are not the most social, who would like to live alone but would like to hang out with people when they want to,” Alex Lee ’12, another SAM in ML said. According to Parker, those who chose to live less social lives do not make the dorm a less social place. ML residents can choose for themselves how social they want to be.

“The general rule with ML is that if you want to see people you can. But you’re not forced to see people, so it’s a nice balance,” Parker said. According to her, there are residents in ML willing to hang out anytime during the day (or night).

As for the idea that ML residents are bigger gamers than those in other dorms, Spiegel pointed out that that idea may come from the brevity of the experiences of many Swarthmore students in ML. “As opposed to other dorms where you don’t have a video gaming system or a television right when you walk in … that’s probably the first thing you see when you come into ML,” she said.

Another common feeling among Swarthmore students is that Mary Lyon is just too far away from campus to travel to, let alone live in. “People seem to believe that the distance is the major concern,” Parker said. Many people believe the distance is a burden on ML residents, but those who live there say it is totally manageable.

Some even find that the distance of ML attracts them to the dorm. “It’s a way

September 15, 2011

for you to get away from all the stress on campus but still also have access to everything,” Opoku said. Dean Head has even received several emails from students, who appreciated the time the walk to and from campus gave them to think.

“Part of ML culture kind of necessitates it being off campus. Being further away makes it easier to form a community bond with the people who are around you,” Lee added.

For those who don’t have these experiences, however, ML can appear to be an undesirable place to live.

Often, it is the returning ML residents who are able to relieve these fears, especially in first year students. Residents who are returning for their third or fourth year in ML help the RAs in getting students excited for their new dorm. “It’s not hard to get freshmen excited about living in Mertz or Wharton because there are all these seniors who wanted to be there … but when you have that in ML too that’s really exciting,” Hamilton said.

Ultimately, those who love to live in ML hope that some of these misconceptions about Mary Lyon can be overcome by exposing more of the student body to the dorm. “One thing that we try to do a lot is do things that entice people to come down ... so we tried to advertise the breakfast in the weekend events or on posters around campus and things like that,” Hamilton said.

Additionally, the administration is attempting to invent new events to take place at the “perimeter dorms”, such as ML and the PPR residence halls. “I don’t know if we have an answer of how to [dispel these misconceptions] other than to try to come up with events,” Head said.

Rooms in Mary Lyon became markedly more popular in last year’s housing lottery, and ML breakfast has been well attended so far this year, making it appear that the dorm is becoming better known. Residents there are optimistic that that these trends will continue, and that students will find even more reason to come to ML. “Most people coming to Swat are really open minded … they’ll figure out for themselves what things about ML, whether positive or negative, are right,” Lee said.

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News

swarthmorephoenix.com

EJ cultivates Chester’s sense of community with local garden

Week in pictures

tions about race, class, income and food sovereignty in a manner that could empower all of those involved,” The city of Chester, eager kids Natali Cortes ’13 said in an email. She from the Ruth L. Bennett Homes and is currently studying abroad in Cuba the science of vegetable cultivation. but was heavily involved with the When sparked by a handful of Swat- project before her departure. ties, these three things combine to An example of the community emform the Chester community garden powerment that Cortes spoke of can project, a collaborative initiative be- be seen in the “garden goals,” a list of tween the Chester Housing Author- goals created by the children particiity and Swarthmore’s Environmental pating in the project, with EJ’s help, Justice (EJ). concerning the Although maintenance the Chester of the garden. community The chilChester houses a garden project dren, the macommunity where began three jority of whom years ago and are aged beenvironmental has been maintween seven justice is a big problem. tained ever and twelve, since, EJ made also played an KC Cushman, much headway active role in EJ Member in expanding crafting reguthe project this lations that summer. detail how the The group garden should works with children from the Ruth L. be preserved and expanded, as well Bennett Homes — one of the six hous- as defining conditions for acceptable ing developments comprising the behavior in the garden.

Chester Housing Authority, a housOn a more personal level, Coloning provider for low- and moderate- nese and Cortes concurred that the income households in Chester — to project sparked insightful educationmaintain a community garden built al experiences. to provide fresh produce for the ChesColonnese, an Educational Studies ter community. major, referred to the give-and-take “Chester houses a community nature of the project as particularly where environmental justice is a big stimulating. problem, so we are seeking to address Cortes said that “[she] came into that issue through this project,” KC this project interested in the mentorCushman ’12, a member of the group, ing and educational aspect of it, and said. it has more than lived up to [her] exAs an economically disadvantaged pectations.” city close to Swarthmore, Chester As for EJ’s plans for the future, the and its plight has been difficult to ig- growth of the garden project remains nore for EJ. of primary importance.

EJ defines “environmental jus“As for the future, we plan to detice” as “[asserting] that every per- sign a mini-educational program — son, regardless of race, class, nation we’ve already built an outdoor classor other variables, has the right to a room — to get more involved with healthy and safe environment,” and teaching the kids in more varied and that “the Chester Garden Project effective ways,” Colonnese said. stemmed from conversations with Nowadays, EJ makes weekly visits Chester community leaders and resi- to the garden and is carefully making dents who have expressed their con- steps to expanding their involvement cerns about this lack of fresh food” on in the community. their blog, where they describe their EJ also received Project Pericles summer exploits and their reasons seed funding in the summer. Project for pursuing this project.

Pericles is an organization that offers “Much of our work involves har- grants and funding to colleges and vesting, weeding, and general mainte- universities so that they may particinance of the beds. We’re also working pate in civic engagement programs to make a cookbook with basic reci- as part of their educational program. pes to give the community members This year, they are applying for the a variety of ideas of how to cook what full grant, the prospects of which they’ve grown,” Taryn Colonnese ’13 would further support their big-picsaid. Colonnese worked on the garden ture plans. this summer and continues to particiWhen asked whether the Swarthpate in the initiative. more community at large could conAn essential dimension of the gar- tribute manpower and effort to inden project has been the involvement crease awareness of EJ’s cause, the and empowerment of the Chester members enthusiastically welcomed community. such contributions but also said that “EJ decided that a community the prolonged involvement of the garden would be a productive way Chester community was integral to to bring together all these conversa- the garden’s success.

By Chris Nam knam1@swarthmore.edu

Holly Smith The Phoenix

Professors Lee Smithey, Lynne Schofield and George Lakey lead a panel discussion on the topic of non-violent responses to terrorism.

Julia Carleton The Phoenix

A line of prayer flags, covered in the written thoughts and feelings of Swarthmore students about the September 11 tragedy, are displayed in the Quaker Meeting House.

Allegra Pocinki The Phoenix

Journalists Elisabeth Perez-Luna from WHYY News, and Jennifer Lin and Alfred Lubrano from the Philadelphia Enquirer discuss the media’s coverage of 9/11.

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September 15, 2011

THE PHOENIX

News Financial aid at Swat weathers the economic crisis swarthmorephoenix.com

By YARED PORTILLO yportil1@swarthmore.edu

As a result of the spending cuts brought about by the debt ceiling crisis, many student aid programs ran the risk of being cut, including the federal Pell Grants.

“As happens in every federal budget cycle, all of the federal student aid programs come under scrutiny.

Early this August, however, federal Pell Grant allocations were again protected from being cut,” Director of Financial Aid Laura Talbot said.

The Pell Grant provides a maximum of $5,550 of support to students every year.

According to Peter Gross ’13, president of the Swarthmore College Democrats, Pell Grants ran the risk of being cut three times over the summer, and in some instances certain Pell Grant areas were cut, such as the Summer Pell Grant program.

Gross went with a group of eight Swarthmore Democrats to lobby for Pell Grant funding this summer.

They tried to speak with Senators Casey and Toomy, and Congressman Meehan, along with former Swarthmore professors and alumni.

There were also intentions to lower the Pell Grant to a maximum of about $4,000, which would save an estimated $1.7 billion, as Gross explained.

“What they wound up doing instead was they cut the graduate program equivalent of that. They decided to … cut that in order to reserve Pell Grant funding,” Gross said.

As a result, for this school year Pell Grant funding

will remain as it has for undergraduate students.

Pell Grants play a rather significant role in Swarthmore financial aid, according to Talbot. This year and last year, 15% of Swarthmore students received financial help from the Pell Grants. That translates to federal Pell Grants providing about three percent of the total needed by aided students.

However, even with Pell Grant support staying as it has, the economic situation has still called for more support on behalf of Swarthmore financial aid.

According to Talbot, there has been an 11% increase in Swarthmore Scholarship support due to the national recession. “Since most of our aided students’ financial needs increased but federal support did not, we did as we have always done: we increased our Swarthmore Scholarship support to our students,” Talbot said.

According to Talbot, 5% of a students’ need is covered by federal, state, foundation and community programs. With numbers this significant, even a cut down to $4000 would be, as Gross said, “a pretty significant cut.”

Although Pell Grants are not significantly affecting Swarthmore students now, the constant threats to the lowering of funds still proves potentially detrimental on a larger scale beyond Swarthmore.

“Education is one of the fundamental building blocks of the economy. We go to a school that has a very generous financial aid offering, but Pell Grants are an integral part of funding for higher education for millions and millions of poorer and middle class Americans,” Gross said.

According to Gross, there even exists the possibility that students may not even choose to consider college because of price alone, “You have students going into debt in order to finish college; you have students that can’t finish college because they just simply can’t pay for it; you have students that don’t even try to get into college ‘cause they don’t have the ability to pay for it to begin with.”

However, currently, Swarthmore and Swarthmore Admissions do not seem all too disturbed by these financial threats.

“We haven’t been that affected ... It hasn’t affected enrollment ... this year,” said Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Jim Bock.

Beyond Swarthmore, however, the threat proves to be much larger, according to Gross.

“Swarthmore is sort of an exception to the rule of Pell Grants because Swarthmore is an incredibly expensive place to go to college,” Gross said.

At other schools, however, where tuition is significantly lower, so is the amount of financial aid that is offered. As a result, Pell Grants go on to fund a much larger portion of a student’s education.

“I don’t think the immediate life at Swarthmore would change all that much if [the Pell Grant] were ... less, but at a lot of Swarthmore’s peer institutions it would change a significant amount. So in the world of higher education there’d be a much larger change,” Gross said.

Peter Gross is a columnist for The Phoenix. He had no role in the production of this article.

Lakey database released 10 years after 9/11 By koby levin jlevin1@swarthmore.edu

On the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, as a decade of violence from New York City to Afghanistan came to a close, a group of Peace and Conflict studies students and teachers offered a new solution to the conflict: nonviolent action.

The Global Nonviolent Action Database, an online compendium of nonviolent action campaigns from around the world and across the millennia, was symbolically released on Sunday as a reminder that peaceful responses to terrorism do, in fact, exist.

“The response to 9/11 by the U.S. government has been extremely militarized,” said George Lakey, a research associate at the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility and the leader of the project.

“A lot of people haven’t been able to challenge that, so this is a good time to release the database that has cases of people thinking outside the box, and trying something different than payback,” Lakey said.

The database provides basic information and sources for cases of nonviolent action from all over the world. It identifies nearly 200 methods of nonviolent action and reports cases from 214 countries between 1170 BCE and 2011. Cases in all of the modern world’s 196 countries have not yet been found.

Each case is tagged by location, year, methods used, and connection with major waves of nonviolent campaigns such as the American civil rights movement.

The 430 cases that comprised the database as of the launch date were researched and written by more than 45 students from Swarthmore, with a few additional cases sent by students from Tufts, Georgetown, and the University

of San Francisco. tabase will inspire a similar passion for The vast majority of contributors nonviolent action in its audience – parare Swarthmore students who have ticularly scholars of history. “History taken Lakey’s research seminar “Strat- as a discipline has been weighted on egy and Nonviolent Struggle” since it’s the side of believing that only violence creation two years ago. is really worth recording,” Lakey said.

“You take the class, you learn a little If scholars are aware of the history of bit about nonviolent action, and you nonviolent action, he posits, they will write a case every week that will go on be more likely to pursue it in their studthe database,” said Max Rennebohm ies. ’13, Lakey’s research assistant and a He imagined a scholar saying, “Yes, junior double major in Psychology and I could do another book about the battle Peace and Conflict Studies. “And while of Gettysburg, but what if I’m the first you’re doing that, you’re also learning one to do a book about workers for the some theory about how nonviolent ac- pharaohs campaigning for economic tion works and what the best strategies justice? Nobody has written about that, are,” Rennebohm said. but I see in your database that such a Rennebohm spent the summer at case exists. Maybe that’s how I’ll make Swarthmore on a grant, editing cases my mark’” and preparScholing the daa r s , tabase for hough, The response to 9/11 by the U.S. tare launch in not the the fall. He government has been extremely only target will continof the damilitarized. ue to edit tabase. “A unfinished lot of it is George Lakey cases and aimed at Former Lang Visiting Prof. of new ones activists,” as the resaid HanIssues for Social Change search semnah Jones, inar proa senior duces more.

Sociology Rennebohm estimates that there are & Anthropology major who has been another 85 cases that need polishing be- involved in the project since it’s beginfore they can be displayed online. Add ning when she was a first-year. “We those to the approximately 120 cases wanted it to be a tool. For instance, that Lakey’s students will produce this you can search by tactics, time period, semester, the database could surpass or place,” Jones said.

600 cases by December.

Such search capabilities will allow The continuing growth of the data- activists to easily find precedents for base reflects the passion that Swarth- their actions or search for new ideas. more students have brought to the “Suppose you are an activist who project. “Students spent free time this wants to do a blockade of the doorway summer [on the database],” Lakey said. of PNC bank to keep customers from “There’s been a real level of passion going in and out,” Lakey said. “You from students about this database.” want to know how that works, so you Ultimately, Lakey hopes that the da- go to the database, type in ‘blockade,’

THE PHOENIX

September 15, 2011

and there you have it.”

The format of each case – a short, jargon-free narrative alongside more technical source information – and their location online makes the information even more accessible to activists and anyone else interested in nonviolent action.

“The most common thing you hear when you talk about nonviolence is that it wouldn’t work against Hitler,” Jones said. “It’s always what people say. But it did work in a few cases, and using the database I can offer the example of people nonviolently resisting the Nazis in Denmark.”

Lakey told a story to explain the need for the database: “I was brought up in small town where everything was about being practical, so when I ran into moral questions about the use of violence as an undergraduate, my practical mind immediately got busy, asking ‘what are other ways of handling nastiness, ugliness, or threat?’ And I couldn’t find much about it. I thought about the Battle of Gettysburg; I knew there were rooms full of books about that one single battle. I thought, ‘how perverted is it that there are rooms full of scholarship about one battle?’ Where are the rooms full of scholarship about other ways of going about things?”

The new virtual room of scholarship can be found at nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu.

Now that the database has been released, its managers will have another task to contend with: handling public reaction. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we get all kinds of angry letters from people saying ‘I was there in Tahrir Square and that’s not the way it happened!” Lakey said. “I expect and actually look forward to their letters because they’ll help us tweak and improve the database.”

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Living & Arts

swarthmorephoenix.com

Digging into the juicier basics of enjoyable, healthy sex

My aunt once said to me, “Vianca, you know that the sex was good if the cheeks on your back blush as much as the cheeks on your Vianca Masucci face.” That definitely Missing Parts scarred me for about 8.79 years. It wasn’t until I got a little older (and a lot more experienced) that I realized what that weird-ass comment was about. What my dear aunt was hinting at was the fact that good sex excites a reaction from your entire body. (Either that or she was talking about spanking — in which case, you’re going to have to wait a couple weeks for that column.)

My aunt was using ‘sex’ to refer to penetration, the true great American pastime. Penetration, like any other form of sex, requires ample attention to detail and good, careful preparation. When embarking on a journey to the land of make-me-come, there are many subtleties that can be easily missed. Most of these things, contrary to popular belief, have nothing to do with style. Yeah, having some kind of crazy Beyoncé grind is great, but, in the end, everyone does ‘it’ differently and likes different things.

Penetrative sex can only be really good if you and your partner take the time to communicate and allow your bodies to be responsive to one another. This isn’t the invasion of Normandy. Don’t feel any pressure, whether you are the giving partner or the receiving partner, to rush into anything (especially not your partner’s pleasure pit). I know that sex fascist porn gives the impression that pubic hair grows in Picasso prints and vaginas and anuses are these magical orifices that beg for the opportunity to be pounded like mashed potatoes. But, in the real world, things are not so seamless. It may seem impossible to think about anything else when your junk is swollen and pounding away like a high school marching band, but there are some basics that are always important to keep in mind: Feeling up the situation: After a good amount of foreplay (see last week’s column on non-penetrative sex), communicate with one another about whether you both want to escalate to penetration. I know that it can be awkward, but c’est la sex. For lap-flounder fishing, discuss the wetness of the vagina and/or the erectness of the penis (if applicable). A blooming flower (outer labia lips thin, the inner labia lips swell, and the clitoris hardens) that is slick to the touch is a sign that the musky meadow is ready to be plowed. If you are unsure about it, whether you are the giving or receiving partner, test the waters. Start with one finger and see how moist the vagina is. Communicate and if everything is good, continue to add fingers until you’ve added about three or four comfortably.

Once this milestone has been achieved, proceed to penetrate with bigger objects, if desired. To avoid this guessing game, I suggest that you, as a couple (or group), discover your genital trends by means

of some frequent mutual masturbation. The one drawback of silicone-based lubes It’s a study break that you can feel good is that they can deteriorate your silicone about (in so many ways). Communication toys. However, they do dry slower than should always be a part of sex, but, once water-based lubes, which makes them you know someone’s body, it becomes ideal for extended play sessions. less verbal and more implicit.

Steer clear of oil-based lubes (even Anal sex works a bit differently. The makeshift ones, like petroleum jelly). Oil anus sometimes contracts when an in- based lubes, as deliciously slippery as dividual is excited and, unlike a vagina, they are, weaken latex which can cause it is not self-lubricating. Combine this condoms to tear and ruin your latex toys. with the fact that the lining of the anal If you’re broke, like many of us college canal is prone to tearing and you’ve got students are, spit is always a cheap and tons of reasons to proceed with caution. convenient option. The health center also As always, start with some foreplay and carries complementary one-use packets some communication. It’s a good idea to of water-based lube. (That’s our $50,000 begin with an anal massage, just to warm tuition hard at work.) up the area. Follow the gradual fingerPenetration tools (I know, that term ing technique, sounds like somebut always lube thing out of Saw, up first (either but I like it betwith synthetic ter than ‘penis This isn’t the invasion lube or spit) and alternative’) are of Normandy. Don’t continue to add another practical lube throughout element not to be feel any pressure ... to the session. In ignored.

When just barreling looking for a penrush into anything. into your partetration tool, find ner, you’re putone that is well ting them at risk suited to you and for injury and infection. If you are used your partner’s interests. This can range to fingering vaginas, keep in mind that from a trouser-trout to a [sex] toy to a anuses work differently. They are not plastic pipet (for the bio (over) enthusias elastic as vaginas and are a bit shyer ast ). Pretty much any smooth object with about opening up; so go slow. Once you’ve a flared end should do. Just make sure, passed the three-to-four finger check-up, whatever the tool, that you disinfect it feel free to move on to bigger objects. before use, between person to person use, Just make sure that, no matter what you and if switching from anal penetration use, it has a flared end or is very well se- to vaginal penetration. Things to avoid: cured. Anuses will gladly gobble up unse- glass, rusty objects (I don’t think that cured objects and make it impossible to tetanus was what he had in mind when retrieve them. Avoid having to call your he said he wanted to be stiff forever), mom from the hospital with a ‘funny sto- foods without peels and Anne Rice novry’ about your boy/girlfriend and a jar of els. If fingers are your penetration tool pickles, yeah? of choice, remember to maintain their Note: Communication doesn’t have to upkeep. Every weekend I hear horror be part of the awkward Swattie contin- stories from girls about some Wolverine uum. Make it sexy, casual, kinky and/or character that clawed away at their cerfun. You’re not asking a question in a lec- vix. Don’t be that person. Keep your finture hall of 90 people (thank god); you’re gernails cut and clean and always wash asking your partner if they want to fork. your hands before you stick them into Be creative. your partner’s Arabian night.

Lubrication and penetration tools: Lube is the best way to show that you care. During vaginal intercourse, natural lubrication is a clear indication of how desperate your little furry friend is for some wood (or wood alternative). Vaginas undergo physical change to prepare for penetration; lubrication is just one of these changes. For this reason, my suggestion for vaginal intercourse is to always allow a woman to become naturally lubricated before you board her boat.

Synthetic lube can be useful too if an individual’s vagina consistently makes an insufficient amount of natural lube or if you just want to have an impromptu and high stakes quickie. I suggest a cozy cove in McCabe for some rushed love; it definitely wouldn’t be the first time someone got screwed there.

For synthetic lubes, water-based lubes are the way to go. It is the most bodyfriendly choice as they do not introduce any foreign chemical to your body. They do tend to dry a bit quicker than some alternatives, but can be reactivated with a little spit, natural lube, or more water.

Beware of water-based lubes made with glycerin — they create a bacterial candy store in the vagina that can cause yeast infections. Silicone-based lubes are also a good choice, especially for anal sex, for which a thicker lube is usually preferred.

6

The Big Finish: It’s not over until the fat labia sings.

Orgasm is one main appeal of sex. Everyone reaches the big O at their own

September 15, 2011

pace, in their own way. The receiving partner can be stimulated either through penetration (by means of the G-spot, the prostate, or the clitoral ‘legs’ that extend along the vaginal lips to the back of the anus) or by direct stimulation of their clitoris or penis. Reaching orgasm through penetration only is possible, but, I always advocate the double stimulation. (And why not?) Ideally, both partners should reach climax. (This, of course, is my ideal. You and your partner might be into something different.) Be conscious of how close your partner is to Nirvana and invest as much energy in your partner’s pleasure as you are investing in your own. If you finish first, be prepared to accommodate your partner until they finish. If fingers, toys, or some other inanimate object is your penetration tool, be ready for a sequel in which the giving partner becomes the star.

Knowing what exactly gets your partner off is a matter of just paying attention to their body. Luckily, our bodies are dumb. They don’t over think things; they just do. During sex, your partner’s body will move to a rhythm that makes it feel good. Your body will do the same. The key is to allow your bodies to respond to one another and adjust until you both find a grind that does it for you. The same rule applies when penetration is done with an inanimate penetration tool (with less emphasis on the giving partner’s groove.)

Where body language fails, use the gift of words (or non-words, like moaning or grunting).

I didn’t get any questions this week, which is fine. I know that us Swatties know everything about everything — it’s one of the stipulations for admission here. But, if you do ever find yourself with a question, really, do feel free to write in. As the Chinese proverb says, “He [or she or ze] who asks is only the fool for five minutes; but he who does not remains the fool forever.” Just write to me. I promise that I’ll make it as good for you as it will be for me.

Vianca is a junior. You can reach her at vmasucc1@swarthmore.edu. You can submit your questions and inquiries anonymously at www.swarthmorephoenix.com/ sexedquestions. All submissions will only be read by Vianca.

cartoon by naia poyer

THE PHOENIX

Living & Arts Olde Club begins season with Enlace concert swarthmorephoenix.com

duce these themes so radically, as women, into the hip- and more traditional Latino styles, true to his Puerto hop genre,” Jacome said. Las Krudas also frequently Rican and Colombian roots. invites audience participation, shouting out questions He also plays music that Jacome says “our parents listened to” — styles from the fifties and sixties — “but This Saturday at 10 p.m., Olde Club will host a con- to audience members and expecting them to respond.

One of the solo artists performing at the event is has given it a twist with things like electronica.” This cert and dance party featuring a renowned, diverse trio fusion of musical of artists — Zuzuka Poderosa, Las Krudas and Geko Zuzuka Poderosa, a freestyle artist genres from across Jones. The concert, which will be Olde Club’s first live with a fascinating background. She is the twentieth and performance of the school year, was organized by En- from Brazil, but also has Indonesian This show is going to be an twenty-first cenlace (pronounced en-LAH-say), Swarthmore’s Latino roots, and currently lives in the United States. Such a diverse heritage leads tury timelines is student organization on campus. amazing way to open the Olde called “Tropical Last Saturday, Enlace hosted a dance party in honor her to perform her songs in English, Club performance season.

Bass.” Mr. Jones of Latin@ Heritage Month, and plans to continue the Spanish, and Portuguese. “Languages is one of the precommemoration with the upcoming concert. Accord- are in transition in our generation,” Tayarisha Poe ’12 eminent Tropical ing to Enlace co-president Andrea Jacome ’14, the “@” Molina said. Ms. Poderosa helps enin the place of the final vowel of “Latin@” is intended to sure that Spanish and Portuguese stay Olde Club booking director Bass artists in the world. “His music rid the word of gender assignment—the “@” symbol is a alive in America. Jacome says that is bringing two aucombination of the masculine final o and the feminine Ms. Poderosa “blurs together” the fact diences together, a. This gesture is at the heart of the message intended that she is American with her Latina heritage. She, along with Geko two generations of Latinos,” Molina said. “My mom by the artists and the concert.

Jones, has a “hybrid element says, ‘This is music I can listen to.’”

Enlace leaders state that one of In addition to the concert on Saturday night, two of that speaks to Latinos here [at the purposes of the concert is to His music is bringing two Swarthmore].” Baile funk, a the artists will be holding separate events on campus “emphasiz[e] solidarity across of dance music that origi- this weekend, which Enlace leaders say is something race, gender, sexuality, etc.” audiences together, two type nated in Rio de Janiero, is Ms. very special. Geko Jones will hold a lecture on music Perhaps foremost in exemplifying this message, the female generations of Latinos ... Poderosa’s signature style. She, in Afro-Latino communities, and Las Krudas will hold however, “recreates” it by com- a screen-printing workshop to emphasize how art can rap/hip-hop group Las Krudas My mom says, ‘This is bining it with electronica and be used as a tool for social change. “bring[s] all of their identities Olde Club booking director Tayarisha Poe says that modern dance music, an incluinto their music,” according to music I can listen to.’ sive music-making technique the Enlace concert will be the first event of a new push Latin@ Heritage Month comJusselia Molina ’13 sure to please a broad array of to include more concerts sponsored by social and culmittee member Jusselia Molina tural groups. “This show is going to be an amazing way audiences. ’13. The group identifies as feAlthough similar to Zuzuka to open the Olde Club performance season,” she says. male, afro-Cuban, queer, and Jacome and Molina expressed their enthusiasm as immigrant. They try to broadcast the message that Poderosa in his all-inclusive style of music, DJ Geko there is beauty in everything, and that the conceptions (pronounced “Gecko”) Jones takes genre fusion to a well, “This [event] will be a place to come together to society has about what is favorable and unfavorable in whole new level. His mixes include rave and reggae dance and have fun, but also for students to come away terms of body image are not always right. “They intro- music, and in recent years had been including more with something more.”

By Preston Cooper pcooper1@swarthmore.edu

How to take action when lightning strikes your portfolio Whenever we hear about national crises such as the credit downgrade from AAA to AA+ on Friday, August 5th, we’re always made aware of Aliya Padamsee macroeconomic reMoney Matter$ percussions such as future governmental actions and the interpretations of huge investment banks including Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, among others. But how are these sharp declines in the market affecting the retail traders like our parents in their retirement funds or in our college accounts?

In past articles I have written about how the last 10 years was a lost decade.

Money invested in the US equity markets has languished and using the Buy & Hold strategies that most of Wall Street espouses, while charging hefty 2-3% commissions have produced negative growth and untold misery to millions of shareholders.

Granted that none of us have 401K accounts or large stock portfolios at this time, the current market that has experienced the sharpest market decline since October, 2008, is an extremely timely lesson that history is playing out before us.

It gives us a reference for what we can expect in the years ahead in times of increasing volatility that will cause big swings in our future portfolios. The better prepared we are, the more pertinent questions we can ask of our financial professionals who we entrust with our hard earned money.

So, the question is what do we do when

Lightning strikes? When we are fully invested, and the world equity markets tank, how do we react, or do we just sit back and passively watch?

When one is paralyzed by fear, there is a saying that the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago but the second best time is right now. Problems need to be confront-

When we left for the summer break in May, the S&P was roughly at 1338, and at the close of last Friday it was down 184 points to 1154, a loss of 14%! We are down 8% from January 1st (-103 points), and most fund managers are deep in red all across the board.

Many people are faced with the predicament of being “long,” or buying to own, a stock during a financial calamity. The companies held in an investor’s portfolio that were perceived to be rugged, reliable and upward-trending businesses are all of a sudden volatile and risky. During market volatility, even the strongest of companies tend to sell off. It is important to have a plan for all situations and not fall into the two human attributes that constitute the marketplace: fear and greed.

ed. Don’t succumb to the panic sell: taking a big loss and relocating all of your cash to under your mattress. Greed can also be your worst enemy if you fall into the “it will come back” crowd, because the market does not care where you got in or where you get out.

When lightning strikes, here are some pointers worth considering: 1. Institutions respect the 200 moving day average, and once stocks and indexes break the average, the dumping of shares intensifies. It may be prudent to accumulate shares above the average, and sell shares as it dips below the average.

2. If global markets are selling off, and stock prices are tanking, consider selling half your position, and raise cash positions. Selling some fraction clears one’s

THE PHOENIX

September 15, 2011

head, reduces the panic, and also minimizes losses, as now only a portion of the position is losing value, instead of the full, original position.

3. Sell the losing positions, while keeping the winners. This weeds out the weak stocks and rebalances the portfolio.

4. Cash is king. Raise additional cash reserves and keep it ready to re-deploy it to buy your favorite companies at bargain basement values, when the time is right to re-enter the market.

5. Research and learn to hedge long positions with vehicles such as gold and precious metal ETF’s (Exchange Traded Funds) that often appreciate, as investors flee to safety.

6. Diversify among different asset classes so the risk of one asset class depreciating rapidly is mitigated by gains in other vehicles.

9. Scale into the same stocks at lower prices, in a disciplined monthly allocation, to reduce the cost basis of each equity position.

10. Most market downdrafts cycle through periods ranging from a few months to a few years, so maintaining a long term view combined with an upward bias in the equity markets should bail out most losing positions, over time.

Remember: The current situation, too, shall pass.

Investment guru Warren Buffett often makes a comparison to the price of hamburgers at McDonalds. If the price tag is reduced he doesn’t get worried, he buys more and feels good that he’s paying less for the same hamburger than it would have cost him the day before.

It’s a good time to remember one of Warren Buffett’s rules: Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.”

Aliya is a sophomore. You can reach her at apadams1@swarthmore.edu.

7

Living & Arts

swarthmorephoenix.com

“Contagion,” Kate and Cotillard: Disfiguring the Oscars

In the manner of all those pedantic jerks you’ve already been reading and despising for three weeks, I will begin by telling you what I’m not talking about.

This column is not about the lovely Kate Winslet, threetime champion of Glamour Magazine’s “50 Most Glam” list (2009, 2010, 2011), mother of two, outspoken bodyimage advocate. Nor is it Nolan Gear about the lovely Marion Cotillard, whose beauty, Oui Oui Wiseau grace and, oh, Frenchness have secured her a seemingly endless stream of roles as the beautiful, graceful Frenchwoman in every American movie requiring such a role. And, post-2007 (when Mme Cotillard won her Oscar), there has been an anomalously high number of roles for beautiful, graceful Frenchwomen. Go figure.

No, this column is not about loveliness, though it is about celebrity and therefore about Kate Winslet, who many consider the best actress of her age. (She’s not – Tilda Swinton is the best actress of her age).

Mostly, however, this column is about Steven Soderbergh’s more-than-brilliant “Contagion,” which came out in theatres last Friday and articulates, maybe despite itself, the Way that Modern Movies Work. A contemplation on global dissemination, resistance, and control, Contagion evokes the reality of filmmaking in the Internet Age better than any art flick, academic treatise, or How-To Manual heretofore conceived or received.

Plus, it’s just so much fun. Unless you are radically germaphobic (actually, scratch that: the movie’s even more enjoyable if you are — I speak from experience, having avoided handshakes and doorknobs for five days now) you should stop reading this column and trot off to the multiplex. Now. The plot is straightforward enough: Gwyneth Paltrow acquires a mysterious new virus in Beijing, returns to her husband Matt Damon in Minnesota via Chicago.

Along the way, she touches credit cards, hands, food, and gambling chips, wreaking immunological havoc wherever she goes and instigating a global pandemic. Enter Kate Winslet and Marion Cotillard, both epidemiologists, to investigate the virus’s origins and endless spread. Various scientists, politicians, military personnel, and jour-

nalists (one nefarious blogger, played with this wonky calculated anarchism by Jude Law) enter the fray.

Shit goes down. It’s all handled with an eye for both institutions and ethos, cleverly balancing the precariousness of global interconnectedness with some really affecting examinations of love during crisis. It’s good.

Now, a brief aside: it is convention when writing film criticism to list actors by their character-name, not by their real name. It would be absurd to say, for example, that Ray explores Jamie Foxx’s struggles with blindness and morphine addiction.

However, I chose to keep real names in the summary 2.5 paragraphs ago because contagion and celebrity coimplicate. There are four (that’s right, four) Oscar-winners in “Contagion,” and two of them are dead thirty minutes into the movie. This is weird. None of them function as unambiguous protagonist, this being a movie about global concerns — but Damon comes closest.

It’s common to have past Oscar-winners in tiny parts, cynically billing a movie with a recognizable name to increase marketability, and I’m sure that Soderbergh’s casting decisions had more than a little to do with money-making. But it’s uncommon to have so many Oscarwinners in a movie that fundamentally atomizes human beings, that generally (and commendably) privileges institutions over emotions. Again, two of our Oscar-winners are in body bags long before the credits roll.

So, “Contagion” is critically fascinating in two ways.

First, it establishes — I think intentionally — disease as a metaphor for the dispersion and control of knowledge within a hypermediated society. It’s significant that Jude Law’s amoral blogger is a megalomaniac whose version of “telling the truth” is, within the logic of the film, tantamount to mass-murder.

Second, it links — I think unintentionally — disease and the Oscars. Or at least, abjection and the Oscars.

Here’s where things get interesting. Let’s talk about the unlovely Kate Winslet. Thwarted constantly by the Academy, nominated five times (Sense and Sensibility, Titanic, Iris, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Little Children) and winning zilch, she pulled out the big guns in 2008 with The Reader. In this film, which I haven’t seen, Winslet plays an illiterate Nazi guard sexually involved with a minor. Those who watch “Extras” know that Ricky Gervais and Winslet parodied the Nazi-Oscar binary in 2005, Winslet’s fictionalized version of herself unselfconsciously declaiming that nothing’s safer come awards season than the Holocaust.

Now, finally, a thesis-ish-thing-of-sorts-with-caveats:

the Academy of Motion Pictures has recently been rewarding women for effecting extreme dissonance between on-screen and off-screen personas, through conduct or physical appearance, but especially both. And I think for those savvier than I, there’s ample room here for a political critique of embodiment and celebrity, or perhaps better put: the embodiment of celebrity. Because there’s nothing more unnerving than juxtaposing images of Natalie Portman’s masochistic, ankle-cracking, toetearing, thorn-sprouting figuration of psychosexual paranoia in Black Swan, and soft-lighted images of her walking red carpets in flowing, off-white designer maternity gowns — she literally glows. This is an extreme example, but others follow: Charlize Theron in Monster, Hilary Swank in Million Dollar Baby, and Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose each won Oscars for arguably self-punishing roles that highlight radical dissonance between on-screen and off-screen imagery (Swank’s performance in Boys Don’t Cry deserves an infinitely more nuanced analytical framework, and I’m fast approaching my word limit).

But hang on a moment, the skeptical reader demands: is this really a trend? And is it really recent? And is it really gendered? And, wait, isn’t that just acting? Are you saying anything at all?

For the skeptics, here’s thesis-ish-thing version 2.0: not only are women winning awards for what often seems like self-punishment and self-displacement (especially Black Swan, but there’s really nothing novel about this) — I speculate that contemporary women’s celebrity is actually constructed around this dissonance.

A friend of mine shared an article with me this summer, in which sports commentator Bill Simmons claims there to be one, and only one, True Movie Star in all of Hollywood: one absolutely and endlessly bankable actor.

No one else, Simmons says, deserves the title. This unerring überstar is Will Smith, who — according to Simmons — always plays himself, thereby never intimidating or disorienting his fanbase.

I think that Mr. Simmons is dead-wrong, or at least that the stakes are higher, more complex, and more latently misogynist for actresses. Celebrity status is actually a constellation of two competing sets of imagery, both of which are necessarily consumed by fans. Contagion, again despite itself, invokes the aesthetic and political rules of the game (the game being Gender and Hollywood). And the rules are symptomatically rigged.

Nolan is a senior. You can reach him at ngear1@ swarthmore.edu.

A New Kind of Poetry: “A Picture Makes a Thousand Words” BY steven hazel shazel1@swarthmore.edu When we think of the arts, we think of expressions of emotion that touch on a particular sense, or senses. Music touches our hearing; painting our visual perception. With poetry, words on a page attempt to evoke images in your mind. Yet a group of deaf poets have since the 80’s created “sign language poetry,” which mixes poetry and visual representation inherent in sign languages to place images directly in viewers’ minds.

This Thursday at 4:30 in the Scheuer Room, Visiting Professor Rachel SuttonSpence of the Linguistics Department will host a talk on “Metaphor and Other Figurative Language in Sign Languages,” highlighting some examples of sign language poetry, one of her passions.

Sutton-Spence visits Swarthmore from the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, where she teaches postgraduates at the Centre for Personal and Professional Development. She has also previously worked at the Centre for Deaf Studies in Britain.

At Swarthmore, Sutton-Spence received the Julian and Virginia Cornell Distinguished Visiting Professor, an annual fellowship for one professor to teach at Swarthmore for an academic year.

This fall, Sutton-Spence is teaching “Sign 8

Languages and their Social Contexts,” which aims to help students understand the structure of languages and how this affects how ideas are expressed.

Sutton-Spence has a long-standing partnership with Donna Jo Napoli, Professor of Linguistics. The two have cowritten a book titled “Humor in Sign Languages: The Linguistic Underpinnings.”

Professor Sutton-Spence first came to Swarthmore to guest lecture for Napoli’s linguistics class. “Rachel brings energy like the most well-behaved of hurricanes and wisdom of a type that leaves you feeling peaceful, like you’ve just left the most beautiful yoga class,” Napoli said. [“She is also] one of the most intellectually open people I know. I’ve never seen her find a linguistic question uninteresting.”

Although Sutton-Spence majored in psychology at Oxford University, her path was changed by a course in sign language, an area that very few professors taught during the 80’s. In fact, sign language was not always taken to be a real language at the time, and was a source of debate among the linguistics community. “The thing that completely blew me away [about sign language] was finding out that you can compose haiku in sign language,” she said. “In fact that was my argument: if you can compose haiku in it, then it’s a human language. I find the strong visual nature of sign language

absolutely incredible -- it just shows you what human languages can do.”

In fact, poetry in sign language has fascinated Sutton-Spence throughout her career. In cooperation with a group at the University of Bristol, she has created the Metaphor in Creative Sign Language Project, the first online collection of poems and short stories in British Sign Language (BSL). “This is a linguistic medium [sign language poetry] that ties text and performance so tightly together that you can’t separate them,” said Sutton-Spence.

“When the performer shows you the images they’d like you to see, rather than giving you words to create the image in your own head, the poet shows them to the you. You work out what they mean.”

The lecture will focus on metaphors in sign language, which may be difficult to imagine at first. How can a poet visually express a metaphor? “On Thursday, I want to talk about how you can use your body to show one idea in another way.

For example, we think about status in terms of height – ‘climbing the ladder to success.’ In sign language, you can show the height of a person through the height of your hands,” Sutton-Spence said.

But not all sign language poets perform in the same sign language. British Sign Language and American Sign Language (ASL) are different, and usually not mutually intelligible. The Brit-

September 15, 2011

ish community is smaller and got off to a later start than its American counterpart, especially because Britain necessarily has a much smaller deaf community.

Looking ahead, Sutton-Spence has organized “Hands Across the Water – An International Festival of Sign Language Poetry” with the help of the Cooper Foundation for March. The Festival will bring British and American poets together for a public discussion on the differences and similarities in American and British sign language poetry.

The talk should be of interest to linguistics students and anyone interested in exploring the nature of language and of communication. “As an aspiring linguist and a member of the deaf and hard of hearing community, I am excited by [lectures like this] because they are relevant to my hope that more people will be interested in signing as an avenue of expression just as important as learning a foreign language like Arabic or Chinese,” Frank Mondelli ’14 said.

Looking forward, Sutton-Spence’s lecture will speak to current and future linguists. “I hope students will fall in love with sign language, just as when I realized that you can have haiku in sign language – that’s just so exciting!,” she said. “[I also hope] they’ll come away thinking, ‘I don’t know anything about this, and I want to know more.”

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Living & Arts

swarthmorephoenix.com

Caffeine in the form of cookies — what could be better?

It’s pleasant to eat cookies and wash them down with a nice cup of coffee. Why not have the two combined?

I received lots of comLauren Kim ments and Collegiate Confections f e e d b a c k from people who had sampled my coffee diamants last time or read my column.

They were mostly about how novel and convenient it was to have coffee (the caffeine) being incorporated into cookies. And they were pretty enthusiastic about the idea too.

So without further ado, I’ll introduce another quick caffeinated treat. And I’m hoping this will be a great crowdpleaser with all those Earl Grey fans out there.

As a freshman I thought, “Swatties must love their tea.” Maybe it was just the people that I knew back then, but everyone around me seemed to carry steaming cups of tea with them everywhere.

The orchestra concertmistress constantly had a mug of tea with her in practice sessions; my freshman roommate was an avid tea drinker; and my friends would constantly go for tea after finishing their meals at Sharples.

Back then, I only had a vague idea of the health benefits of tea but was biased against the drink. Why did people like the plain and earthy taste?

Turns out, I had no idea about the wide world of tea. I disliked herbal teas, which are prevalent back home in Korea. They were too subtle for me. My father, who very frequently drinks tea, told me that I would soon come to really enjoy it. I never really believed him until I came to Swarthmore.

My freshman roommate was gener-

ous and always kept her tea stock open to me, so I sampled one of the fruity selections. Apple cinnamon. Fragrant, spicy and a little tangy. My taste buds approved.

Starting from the second semester of my freshman year, I had had a few cups of all of the fruity teas that Sharples had to offer. It was surprising actually, because I liked their flavors even though they had the characteristic herbal tea taste.

With fruity teas under my belt, I decided to try more black tea varieties.

My first target was Earl Grey, mostly because I wanted to see why it was one of the most popular teas worldwide.

It was love at first sight. The distinctive aroma of something fragrant and deliciously smoky was extremely addictive. (I had five straight cups of it that first time, and just before going to bed too. Not the best idea if you’re sleepdeprived.)

I realized, then, that I actually did appreciate the earthy taste. I’ve had so many other kinds of tea since then, including English Breakfast, Chamomile, Ginger, Rooibos, Peppermint, Darjeeling and so much more. But I’ve remained (mostly) faithful to Mr. Earl Grey.

The secret to Earl Grey’s irresistible charm is that it is flavored with the oil of the Bergamot orange. The Bergamot is a small, acidic orange that is a close relative of the Seville orange, which is native to southern Vietnam. I imagine those Bergamots are what give the tea its powerful tang from the start of a sip.

I remember that a friend of mine told me she used to take 10 or more packs of Earl Grey tea out of Sharples. To keep her “stock’ filled up, of course. For those of you who have never tried Earl Grey before, these cookies will provide a good taste of the tea’s deep flavor.

You’ll fall for these babies hook, line and sinker.

Lauren is a junior. Please submit any recipes you would like to share with Lauren for her to try out for her next column by e-mailing her at lkim1@swarthore. edu.

Hurry at dinner time today to get your FREE Earl Grey stick cookie at the top of Sharples.

Image courtesy of http://sarajane.info

The Recipe for Earl Grey Stick Cookies Ingredients: 1/3 cup butter (room temperature) 3 Tbsp confectioners’ sugar 2.5 tsp heavy cream (or whole milk) (cold) 1 Earl Grey teabag (~1/2 tsp) 1.5 Tbsp cornstarch 1/2 cup all-purpose flour Pinch of salt 1~1.5 tsp finely chopped white chocolate (optional) Makes 15~17 cookies.

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Instructions: 1. Cream the butter and sugar together until smooth.

2. Add the milk and beat mixture thoroughly.

3. Add the flour, cornstarch, salt and contents of the Earl Grey teabag and mix until just incorporated (don’t over-mix).

4. (Optional) Lightly mix in the finely chopped white chocolate, just until distributed.

5. Roll the dough into a 1cm-thick rectangular sheet, then seal in plastic wrap. Chill for at least 2 hours.

6. Preheat oven to 350F (175C). Once the dough has chilled, cut out 1cm-wide sticks from the sheet. Bake for about 18~20 minutes, or until the bottoms of the sticks start to get golden and crispy.

September 15, 2011

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Now showing: The sun through a telescope BY chi zhang czhang1@swarthmore.edu

Are you ever curious about what is exactly on the surface of the Sun, the gaseous material that you are so familiar with? Do you want to witness the changes of the Sun every week? Now, there’s a chance waiting for you in the Science Center patio. Every Friday from 11:20 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. weather permitting, you can see the real images of the sun through special telescopes.

“It was interesting to come out and look each time because each week it would be a little different.” said Elliot Padgett ‘13.

“The sun is something we see all the time but we never actually really get to look at it,” he said.

One of the attractive aspects of the solar viewing is that every week, people can see constant changes in the appearance of the sun.

“You could see little arches, tails and strings of it reaching out from the surface and these are some things that are really different every week.

Even across a few minutes, if you stay and look for half an hour, you would see little changes. That was the most impressive thing,” Padgett said.

The special telescopes in school allow people to see sun s p o t s e a s ily and safely.

A c cording to Mary A n n Klassen, a physics laboratory lecturer at the college, there are two refracting telescopes put into use for this event.

One, called the Sunspotter, is not the same as a typical telescope. It is used to observe sunspots and it is designed to point at the sun easily.

Meanwhile, the image of the sun will be projected onto a white screen.

This way of viewing is much better than looking through the telescope directly because looking at the sun through even a small telescope without proper filters can be extremely dangerous and even sometimes cause instant blindness.

The second one, on the other hand, looks more like the usual image of a telescope in most people’s minds. However, it is special as it has filters that block the majority of the Sun’s light so that it ensures the safety of the whole viewing process.

Participants should not worry about the use of telescopes. Klassen, or other faculty members in the Physics and Astronomy department will always be

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there to explain how to deal with the equipment and what people are seeing.

“The sun goes through an 11-year cycle and sometimes has lots of sunspot activities and we are coming into one of the peaks, one of the maximum of the cycle so there’s going to be more interesting stuff to look at of the sun in the next few years,” Klassen said. Except for viewing the sun spots, participants can also have a look at the beautiful chromosphere.

“There are also lighter-colored regions called ‘plages’ in the chromosphere that tend to be associated with sunspots. The really cool thing to see with the hydrogen-alpha filter are ‘prominences’, which are loops of ionized gas that erupt from the surface of the sun.

We can see them around the sun’s edges,” Klassen said.

Started last year, the solar viewing event attracted many physics majors and non-physics majors. This event can be extremely flexible.

During your way to class, you can just stop by and take a minute to look through the telescopes. If you are interested in scientific talk and discussion about what you just saw, then you can stay and talk with the professors there.

Nowadays, the prediction and warning of the sun activities have already become globally-aware issues. The sun activities can affect the survival and development of human being greatly. On April 29, 1991, a strong magnetic storm caused a catastrophic devastation of a nuclear power plant of Maine.

On April 3, 2001, the most serious solar flare in the past 25 years took place.

The signal communication around the world has been interrupted. These impacts will continue as frequent sun activities happen.

If you want to k n o w m o r e about the solar system which is so significant to mankind, why not start from viewing it first? Every sunny Friday, it is wise for you to have a date with the Sun.

September 15, 2011

Images courtesy of http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.

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Living & Arts

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Rewinding Back to Their Swarthmore Days

Scott Young for The Phoenix

Amongst the vines, it’s a family affair Scott Young for The Phoenix

Scott Young for The Phoenix

also, I read a lot of books, got a job in wine retail and really started learning about the industry and winemaking at that point.

DZ: What was the transition like to finally buying the property to establish Young Inglewood Wines?

SY: When we found this particular property, all the stars aligned and I was at a stage where I could move out to California and manage the vineyard. So, that fall I made our first wine in a makeshift winery in the barn on the property. On the strength of this we decided to continue making wine and have since designed and begun construction on a new winery on the vineyard.

DZ: So, what is a typical day like for you at the vineyard?

SY: We are a fairly small business, so I’m able to have my hands on everything.

And since the work varies from season to season, the day-to-day similarly varies depending on the time of year. But, right now, we are gearing up for the harvest season, which will begin in a few weeks.

Therefore, I need to be sure we have all the materials for the winemaking process.

Also, I take daily walks through the vineyards to see how the vines are progressing and how the fruit is ripening. Right now, it’s all about gearing up for the fall season — harvesting the fruit and making the wine.

DZ: With the current pressure for students to continue their studies in graduate school, law school or medical school, what was is like to take a less traditional path?

Did you ever have doubts?

SY: I always thought I’d take a year off after college and just kind of look around to figure out was I was really interested in.

Actually, I did think about graduate school and after I moved to California, I was regularly taking classes at the winemaking unit of UC Davis Extension, which is one of the few universities in the country that really focuses on viticulture education.

Throughout everything, I always remained very flexible about what my plan might be and it helped me not to have such a rigid idea of how my years after college would play out.

DZ: Well, now that you are settled in, what is your favorite part of the job?

SY: I have two answers. My first answer is I love everything. The really great thing about this business is that I really get to have my hands on every side of the business. There is a farming element, a

winemaking element, the business decisions and financial planning and also, a sales and marketing element.

Those are all the sides of the business and even though I don’t love them all equally, I really enjoy having my hands in all of them. There is a lot of creative expression in the various sides of the business that I really enjoy.

DZ: So, broadly, that’s what you love.

What about specifically?

SY: Specifically, I really love the vineyard and farming, getting my hands dirty and spending hours out in the vineyard really tending to the vines.

It’s very detail-oriented work and you really spend a lot of time observing what’s happening and how the vines are behaving on a day-today basis. Since it’s such an accelerated process, you can practically watch the shoots grow and it’s really an exciting thing to be a part of.

DZ: During the spring semester of your sophomore year, you studied abroad in France at the Swarthmore Grenoble program. Did this traveling experience shape your later wine interests?

SY: Well, after graduation, when I was living in London with my family, I traveled back to France pretty frequently. And in terms of real practical things I learned in college, I studied both French and German and in Napa Valley, there is a French winemaking contingent so my French has been pretty handy.

DZ: Would you say that you hold a particular affinity for French wines? Perhaps one of your favorites is French?

SY: Well, I do love French wines. However, wines are so diverse so it’s hard to make direct comparison because comparing two different wines is similar to comparing a baseball team to a football team.

I will say though, in terms of the greatest bottles of wine that I’ve had, a lot of them have been French wines.

DZ: Well, I just have to ask then, what makes a great bottle of wine?

SY: It’s actually pretty simple. I think a great bottle of wine is made from a great vineyard and that’s where the winemaking starts and ends. From the winemaking side, we just do everything we can to real-

(L to R): Young stands amongst the vines just a few days ago; these Merlot grapes will be harvested in about two weeks; the family property includes 18-acres of beautiful vineyard land.

BY DINA ZINGARO dzingar1@swarthmore.edu Philosophy major Scott Young ’06 traveled following his graduation and landed in Puligny-Montrachet in Burgundy, France where he worked as a vendangeur or “harvester of grapes” at the vineyards of Domaine Leflaive.

He pursued his interest in winemaking in London — where his family was living — to enroll in classes at Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET), which organizes wine education courses, spirits courses and wine tastings for both professionals and enthusiasts worldwide.

With a longing to stay amongst the vines, Young moved to St. Helena, CA in the summer of 2007 to the family’s new vineyard property to launch the new family business. Joined by his family later in 2010, Young continues to pursue his passion for winemaking on his family’s 18-acre vineyard property — Young Inglewood Wines — where the family of four anticipates their first release next year of its 2009 Estate Cabernet Sauvignon. It’s truly a family affair.

Dina Zingaro: So, how does a philosophy major end up co-owning his own vineyard?

Scott Young: Well, it’s kind of a long story, but after college I was looking around for something to do and talking a lot with my parents who were actually in the process of getting out of their first business and interested in starting a new business. We had always talked about doing something together as a family.

DZ: Did you ever imagine that “something” would be winemaking?

SY: When I was growing up, my family and I would travel during the summers all around Europe. We traveled mostly to France and other wine regions and that’s how I was first exposed to wine and where my interest really sparked. So, though I certainly had an interest in it that developed over the years, I didn’t necessarily see myself getting into winemaking specifically after college.

DZ: When were your interests for winemaking truly sparked?

SY: It was so exciting to be working in the vines — Burgundy is a very idyllic and romantic wine country setting so that was a fantastic experience for me. Afterwards, I enrolled in wine-sensory courses at WSET once I moved back to London and

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September 15, 2011

ly focus on capturing what happens in the vineyard in the production of the wine.

I love all kinds of wine and from all regions of the world and the one consistent thread that I’ve noticed in great wines that I’ve tasted is that it comes out of a great vineyard, or one that is managed with very conscientious viticulture practices.

DZ: Do you believe that overseeing a smaller vineyard, like Young Inglewood Vineyards, is central in being this “great vineyard” to produce that “great wine”?

SY: That’s an interesting question because it’s not necessarily true to science.

Thus, it’s more about attention to detail.

I’ve seen some very successful wineries that have huge number of acres — “vineyard land” — but because of the way they have structured their team and staff, they are able to pay close attention to what happens in the vineyard. This seems to really be the key in successful management.

Also, another thing that comes into play is having a great piece of land, which is affected by the soil, the climate and by the resources that are available to the people working the land. All of those things play into what can make a vineyard great and a great bottle of wine.

DZ: Do you feel that your education and experience at Swarthmore influenced your career now?

SY: Oh, definitely. In many ways, I managed my time as a student in the same way that I do now in my career. I involved myself in as many things as I possibly could; I studied Philosophy, French, German, played baseball, served as the Blues/ Soul/Funk director at WSRN, worked on SPIKE, played in a rock band, and even played a couple of semesters of Ultimate Frisbee.

So, I had a very diverse range of experiences and that really fit my personality and that’s very true of what I do now.

DZ: What type of advice would you give current undergraduates?

SY: Well, I think potentially, everyone should take the Symbolic Logic course in the Philosophy Department. The greatest thing I took away from my college experience was learning how to think. But, seriously, enjoy college and really get the most out of it, whatever that means for you.

DZ: For you this translated into the great diversity of student groups and activities. So, students need to personalize their experience?

SY: Yes, make Swarthmore work for you. When you are a student, you feel the pressures of class and whatever you have going for extracurricular activities, but it’s important to remember that Swarthmore has a job to do for you, so make sure it works for you.

DZ: Looking back, which memories have you carried with you after graduating?

SY: For me, it’s been all the friends that I made while I was there — people who are still really important in my life today. We all shared this great formative experience together at school and these friends are from all areas of interest, people within the philosophy department, people I played ball with and played music with. All those people strongly define what I loved about Swarthmore.

For more information on Young Inglewood Wines, visit the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Young-Inglewood-Wines/115585767699. journal/hk/.

The greatest thing I look away from my college experience was learning how to think.

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DJ Geko Jones: Evolving Music from the Afro-Colombia Diaspora Saturday, Sept. 17 4:30 in Sci 199

2011 Constitution Day Lecture The Honorable Jed S. Rakoff ’64 Friday, Sept. 16 at 4:30 in the Scheuer Room

editor’s picks

By Allegra Pocinki

Coop’s Country Hootenanny S at urday, S e pt . 17 Delta U ps i lo n

Philadelphia Fringe Festival Ends this Saturday, September 17

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September 15, 2011

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Staff Editorial

Strategic planning draft should outline cost, overall plan A recalibrated course load, increasing faculty diversity and an Institute for Liberal Arts in the 21st Century are all valid and meaningful recommendations, but they are also lofty goals — soaring aspirations that aim to fill in the gaps of Swarthmore’s overall curriculum and community. Yet the plan they constitute neglects to be as painstaking as it may seem.

The draft, “Strategic Directions for Swarthmore College: Planning Update,” is an ostensibly all-inclusive document that proposes impressive and indefinite measures in order to “give Swarthmore a broad vision, guiding principles and recommendations for our future together.” These include ambiguous initiatives that address our “oversubscribed facilities” — essentially by refurbishing older buildings and constructing new ones that promote wellness, the arts and the pervasive concept of “community.”

But how can the Board, existing councils and those in the alumni network approve the final plan if they aren’t entirely sure of where specificaly funds will be drawn from?

While all the proposed changes seem necessary, or at least worthwhile, the fact that the cost of the initiatives is not discussed is a glaring inadequacy in the strategy as a whole (only besides the fact that some of the initiatives are generally vague). Students, faculty and staff cannot be expected to get on board with a plan so exhaustive (yet decidedly indispensable) unless the source of funds are transparent — to discover that money intended for already established programs will in-

stead go to creating new programs may drastically forfeit community backing.

While the project does intend to develop an overall prioritization and implementation plan that discusses financial affairs, it will do so after the fact of its approval. However, the current sequence of these recommendations could potentially be considered in their order, implying priority. Following this, for example, the construction of common spaces (Recommendation 2) is ranked a more pressing matter than, say, the encouragement and support of faculty excellence (Recommendation 4). The community’s interaction with (and supposed support for) the plan may suffer due to this seemingly insignificant and easily overlooked arrangement.

The call to expanding and enhancing a liberal arts education at Swarthmore is far from inconsequential. Each one of us reaps the rewards of a living, working and studying in an environment that values the essential fusion of academic rigor and creativity. But we cannot march head-first to the pinnacle of higher education with only a list of recommendations for success. We must calculate the costs, consider the cons and re-commit ourselves to creating a strategy as comprehensive as possible.

Faculty discussion of the draft plan is scheduled for Friday, September 16 at 12:30 p.m. Student Council discussion of the draft plan is scheduled for Sunday, September 18 at 7 p.m. For a full list of meetings, to read the full draft and to submit feedback on the plan, visit http:// sp.swarthmore.edu.

Emma Waitzman The Phoenix

letter to the editor To the Editor: I was excited to read Tyler Becker’s most recent piece, “Romney’s right: corporations are people,” but was underwhelmed by a rather simplistic analysis of a contentious and complicated issue. Mr. Becker’s conclusion — that corporations are fundamentally the same as people — is obviously flawed.

Moreover, his misleading and vindictive portrayal of Daniel Symonds ’11 should be condemned.

Mr. Becker rests much of his conclusion on a single abridged definition from the Merriam-Webster dictionary. However, when I checked the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, I found that there were two additional definitions, one of which is highly pertinent to this thorny issue. That particular definition is as follows: “A BODY FORMED AND AUTHORIZED BY LAW to act as a single person although constituted by one or more persons AND LEGALLY ENDOWED WITH VARIOUS RIGHTS and duties including the capacity of succession” (emphasis added).

This captures why corporations are not the same as people: corporations are legal constructs, which enjoy special privileges that ordinary persons cannot enjoy. In his dissent in Citizens United, Justice John Paul Stevens lists some of those privileges.

Stevens writes, “… corporations have “limited liability” for their owners and managers, “perpetual life,” separation of ownership and control, “and favorable treatment of the accumulation and distribution of assets ... that enhance their ability to attract capital and to deploy their resources in ways that maximize the return on their shareholders’ investments …”

It is tempting to assert, as Mr. Becker

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did, that corporations are people because they are made up of people. This temptation is understandably magnified when one says, as Mr. Becker did, that these same people feel — rather, “endure,” as he wrote — the effects of government policy. But insofar as corporations are concerned, the whole is more than the sum of its parts. In our larger national debate we must remind ourselves of the crucial legal protections that (even the smallest) corporations — but not people — have.

Finally, Mr. Becker’s portrayal of Daniel Symonds ’11 is deplorable. As Mr. Symonds himself explained in an online response comment to the piece, Mr. Becker at no point contacted him or his organization for a quotation regarding their involvement with Mr. Romney.

As such, Mr. Becker quite clearly fabricated a quotation — or rather, a ‘thought’ meant to be accurately representative of Mr. Symonds’ feelings towards the matter. And, as Mr. Symonds explained in his response, Mr. Becker’s depiction of him was so fraudulent and misleading that it amounted to a “nonsense straw-man argument,” manipulatively made to serve a rhetorical end.

I do not wish to delve into how “business operates in this country,” as Mr. Becker says. I merely wish to contribute what I feel are necessary considerations to the important debate about corporate personhood. However, I feel much more strongly about Mr. Becker’s mistreatment of Mr. Symonds. I find it abhorrent, and I hope that Mr. Becker will, in his future pieces, refrain from making these sorts of misleading fabrications.

With kind regards, Michael Fleischmann ’13

Letter, op-ed and comment policy Letters, opinion pieces and online comments represent the views of their writers and not those of The Phoenix staff or Editorial Board.

The Phoenix reserves the right to edit all pieces submitted for print publication for content, length and clarity. The Phoenix also reserves the right to withhold any letters, opeds or comments from publication.

All comments posted online and all op-eds and letters must be signed and should include the writer’s full name.

Letters are a minimum of 250 words and may not exceed 500 words. Opeds are a minimum of 500 words and may not exceed 750. Letters and op-eds must be submitted by 10 p.m. on Monday, and The Phoenix reserves the right to withhold letters and op-eds received after that time from publication.

Letters may be signed by a maximum of five individuals. Op-eds may be signed by a maximum of two individuals. The Phoenix will not accept pieces exclusively attributed to groups, although individ-

September 15, 2011

ual writers may request that their group affiliation be included.

While The Phoenix does not accept anonymous submissions, letters and op-eds may be published without the writer’s name in exceptional circumstances and at the sole discretion of the Editorial Board.

An editorial represents the opinions of the members of the Opinions Board: Amelia Possanza, Marcus Mello and Menghan Jin. Please submit letters to: letters@swarthmorephoenix.com or The Phoenix Swarthmore College 500 College Avenue Swarthmore, PA 19081 Please report corrections to: corrections@swarthmorephoenix. com Letters, corrections and news tips may also be submitted online to the paper by clicking “Contact” on the Phoenix website.

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Voter identification laws should be a non-issue Aside from an economy that’s going haywire, an obstinate Libyan dictator, and a mushrooming level of debt, U.S. officials are sparring over an issue that seems oddly antiquated and minor.

Texas, Alabama, Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Wisconsin, and Rhode Island recently Danielle Charette passed legislation that requires all voters to show The Nascent Neoliberal a photo-ID at the polls.

Voter mischief, like mail-fraud or jaywalking, is not exactly an existential threat to American society. Even so, there have been enough flagrant and documented examples over the years – particularly in municipal politics – to make IDs a reasonable initiative. One would assume something as simple as confirming you are who you say you are on Election Day upholds the essential ethics of citizenship and cracks down on voter-impersonation, double-voting, and voting by non-citizens.

However, this relatively mundane measure has morphed into a rallying cry for some on the Left, who equate photo-ID requirements with disenfranchisement, poll-taxes, and Dixicrat schemes. Speaking to the NAACP, former President Bill Clinton likened Republican-backed voting laws with Jim Crow tactics.

I guess asking voters to confirm their personhood at the polls with a government-issued slice of plastic is akin to the disgusting discrimination that once dominated the South.

DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Shultz floated suspicion that the new voting protocol is racist in a U.S. News and World Report June Op-ed, writing that the ID laws disproportionately discourage AfricanAmericans and Latinos from casting their ballots. Referring to his state’s new laws, Wisconsin Democratic State Senator Bob Jauch upped the speechifying,

“Jim Crow, move over — the Wisconsin Republicans gories of people who, by pure assumption, are deemed unable to complete a simple and universal task. There have taken your place.”

Apparently the conspiracy theory goes as follows: are other stalwart Democratic contingencies — Jews, the GOP recognizes that more minorities swing to- union members and college students, to name a few ward the Democratic Party and is therefore in the — but I don’t hear the DNC Chairman fretting over midst of a covert drive to undermine minority rights. them. In the name of racial equality, some on the Left Curiously, this can’t be the case in Rhode Island. Its are lapsing into cruel, inaccurate stereotyping.

Data from Georgia from the 2008 presidential elecstate legislature is flooded with Democrats who confidently support voter IDs. Democratic sponsor of the tion reveals that Georgia had its largest voter turnRhode Island bill, Joe Brien, says the approach has out in state history, despite it being the first major nothing to do with partisanship, reflecting, “We as election in which ID laws were in effect. Amazingly, representatives have a duty to the citizenry to ensure the black share of the vote jumped from 25 percent in the 2004 race to 30 in 2008, according to the Joint the integrity of our elections.”

Back in 2008, Indiana’s voter ID laws were Center for Political and Economic Studies. Yes, this marched to the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of was a watershed election with Barack Obama on the Crawford v. Marion County. Yet the Court, in a 6-3 ballot, but Mississippi, which has an equal black population and no voter ID decision written by the measures, only experiliberal Justice Stevens, enced a 2% jump in black confirmed Indiana was participation. Similarly, well within its bounds We already flash IDs to board Indiana, the state with of legitimate state intera plane, enter the workplace the supposedly tyranest to safeguard elections nical voting laws, saw and voter trust. If a voter or swipe a meal at Sharples. its Democratic primary was unable to produce a turnout quadruple from valid ID, he could obtain 2004 to 2008. Meanwhile, one at the DMV for free.

And should the bureaucratic hassle of traveling to the in neighboring Illinois (Obama’s home state) turnout DMV be too much for some, they could even cast a increased by less than half of the Indiana swell.

To the chagrin of parents, I was one of those provincial ballot without an ID if they filed with the circuit court clerk’s office in due time. In fact, the slowpokes who thought operating a motor vehicle plaintiffs weren’t able to produce a single witness required an advanced degree in Mechanical Engineering and took eons to learn to drive. There were who was unable to gain a satisfactory ID. Indeed, 75% of Americans (according to a recent several instances in which I had to scramble for an Rasmussen poll) have no problem with voting stipu- alternative form of identification. A state ID might lations and make light of the supposed ID-induced have mitigated this, and it certainly assists others hassle. I mean, we already flash IDs to board a plane, whose geography, health or finances demand an alenter the workplace, borrow a library book or swipe ternative to the standard issued driver’s license.

Voting is the sacred backbone to the American rea meal at Sharples.

Honestly, I find it degrading and woefully off-target public. IDs, for all demographics, maintain that structhat some Democrats are advertising the inability of ture.

Danielle is a sophomore. You can reach her at dchaminorities to obtain an ID. How can we say we value the input of all American voters and then create cate- rette1@swarthmore.edu.

Sharing our collective myths in commemoration

When I read David Rieff’s recent article in Harper’s Magazine, “After 9/11: The limits of remembrance,” I remembered that it was AuSam Zhang gust 15th Sticks and Stones on the lunar calendar.

I remembered because I was born on both of these days, depending on which calendar is referenced. August 15th is the lunar festival, a joyous Chinese celebration atop a melancholic legend. Thus, 9/11 is always a multicultural event for me, and Rieff’s article, without mentioning race even once, transcends cultures with finesse, subtlety, and personal wisdom simply by rejecting the nationalist institutions that keep us locked in shallow grief.

In his essay, Rieff attempts to more than propose a basic proposition that “in the very long run nothing will be remembered.” This is taken for granted.

The most telling suggestion of his subtler purpose is when he writes, “When people are so committed to looking away from human transience, trying to stare

for just a bit longer surely is in order.” writers, as Ozick reminds us, not woman He asks us to give ourselves the space writers, or black or white or Asian writto forget while looking for just a little ers.

My life became torn between two bit longer, as if our problem is not lack of collective grief, but lack of collective myths after 2001: the terror and grief of depth. He makes the honest and politi- 9/11, as well as the gaiety of my birthday cally dangerous observation that “to re- and the harvest. One of the most fremember may not just mean to grieve; it quent questions I get about my birthday may also mean to harbor a vision of se- is, “Does it suck?” I am asked that with curing justice or vengeance long after it varying degrees of facetiousness, but the assumption is there: the tragedy of 9/11 is time to put the guns away.”

In his call to forgo politics to allow is intricately related to my blood. That is why when Rieff our commemoraobserved that tion to return to “the ghost at the the individuals This is a multicultural banquet of all grieving, Rieff commemalso spanned the movement of unity rather public oration is always empathic gap of than fragmentation, and it politics — above immigrants who the mobilizamight not othprovides the empathy we all, tion of national erwise feel the he weight of a “na- need in times of mourning. solidarity,” opened up my tional” tragedy. ability to particiHe recasts 9/11 pate. I now have as a human tragedy, rather than an American one, as he the words to reject an interpretation of cites the “Buddhist idea of historical and my commiseration as an endorsement personal transience,” Ecclesiastes 1:11 of the nationalistic politics that goes (“There is no remembrance of former with it. A rejection of an “us vs. them” things…”), and Percy Bysshe Shelley. mentality is the most important element As Cynthia Ozick writes, “Literature of multiculturalism. I am reminded of universalizes. Without disparaging par- Richard Rodriguez when he wrote, “The ticularity or identity, it universalizes; it bilinguists insist that a student should does not divide.” This is a multicultural be reminded of his difference from othmovement of unity rather than frag- ers in mass society, his heritage. But mentation, and it provides the empathy they equate mere separateness with indiwe need in times of mourning. We need viduality. The fact is that only in private

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September 15, 2011

— with intimates — is separateness from the crowd a prerequisite for individuality…In public, by contrast, full intimacy is achieved, paradoxically, by those who are able to consider themselves members of the crowd.”

In the spirit of sharing our collective myths in commemoration, the legend of the moon festival is ancient and beautiful. Two lovers were damned to eternal separation after the woman swallowed a pill of immortality she promised to share with the man. The pill made her lighter and lighter until she floated onto the moon. There she lived alone with a rabbit, who endlessly ground on a mortar and pestle, trying to make a second pill for her lover. Once a year, on the day of the full moon in August, the man was granted a visit. On the cassette tape reading of this that I listened to as a kid, the story ended with the haunting echo of the rabbit’s pestle hitting and hitting.

The rabbit’s melancholy chore resonates in American culture as well: the endless walking of our bluesmen, or our persistence as “we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

Cultural myths are transcendental, and only through sharing them and permitting each other the space to imaginatively think like and become one another can we develop the collective empathy it takes to grieve.

Sam is a sophomore. You can reach him at szhang1@swarthmore.edu.

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Obama’s American Jobs Act a step in the right direction Last Thursday, President Obama gave an address to a Joint Session of Congress to propose his $447 billion American Jobs Act. At the face of it, $447 billion seems like a fairly large proposal, and to an extent it is. It’s nearly 50% larger than the pre-speech consensus figure of $300 billion, and over half the size of the 2009 American Peter Gross Recovery and ReinvestThe Principle Progressive ment Act. However ,once we get down to the details of the proposal, the price tag obscures just how much new economic activity the act will create.

The single largest part of the proposal is extending and expanding the payroll tax cut at a cost of $175 billion, roughly 40% of the total cost. Normally, the employee payroll tax rate is 6.2%. However, because of a deal the President cut in December 2010 to extend the Bush-era tax cuts, the rates have been lowered for one year by 2%, which translated to approximately $1000 in additional income for the average family.

Extending this portion of the tax cut is not new stimulus. It is merely a preservation of the status quo. It prevents anti-stimulus from occurrin — nothing more and nothing less. But if there were ever a policy no-brainer that could get bipartisan support, this is it.

But in addition to merely extending the tax break, the President has proposed expanding it so the rate would further fall from 4.2% to 3.1% – half the original rate. So ,of the $175 billion the tax cut is projected to cost, about $60 billion would be new money in the economy, which is still a significant chunk of change.

In addition to the employee side tax cut, the President proposed cutting the employee side of the payroll tax from 6.2% to 3.1% for the first $5 million in payroll, and

a complete tax holiday for firms that increase their payroll for up to $50 million dollars. Also, new capital investments would be 100% tax deductible. Combined, this part of the plan would cost $70 billion. These provisions are targeted at small businesses rather then large corporations, which are sitting on record levels of cash.

This course of action, while commendable, misdiagnoses the fundamental problem of our unemployment crisis. The problem isn’t that firms aren’t hiring because it’s too expensive for them to do so, but rather it’s that that firms don’t feel that there is enough demand for their goods and services to justify hiring additional workers. The tax-oriented portion of the plan might help on the margins, but it is a sub-optimal way to spur hiring and investment.

For the real bang in the proposal, we have to turn to the $200 billion in spending. The biggest chunk of spending, roughly $85 billion, comes in the form of aid to the states. $35 billion of that will be used to prevent teachers, police and firefighters from being laid-off.

This is again not new spending. It’s filling in budget cuts that states have been forced to make due to the economic downturn. This isn’t to say such spending isn’t important — it very much is — but it isn’t going to bring unemployment down by itself. It’s just acting to preserve the status quo.

The remainder of the package, though, will act to bring unemployment down in the short run. Of the $50 billion remaining for aid to the states, $30 billion will be used to repair and modernize schools and community colleges. This part of the plan is easily my favorite. It is both an investment in today by getting construction workers employed, and an investment in our future because of the improved facilities students will receive throughout the course of their education.

Another $5 billion will directly support young and low-income workers by directly funding summer and year round job programs and $57 billion will be used to aid the long-term unemployed, who have been hit hardest during our unemployment crisis. This is one of the best forms of stimulus — since the unemployed have a

The elusive independent

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BY SAM SUSSMAN ssussma1@swarthmore.edu If political strategists are to be believed, there is one creature in American politics that trumps all, an elusive beast whom, if tamed, ensures electoral hegemony. Elections, we are told, are about independent voters. This zealous faith in the ‘moderate independent’ has led the Democratic Party on a wild twoyear goose chase: amidst the greatest opportunity to affect significant political reform in eighty years, the Obama Administration has time and again eschewed the bold policy initiatives needed to end the recession in favor of moderate policies it hopes will appeal to independents.

Yet if the past two years have revealed anything, it’s that such ‘independents’ exist only in the befuddled minds of talking heads. Were there a cohort of moderate-minded independent voters, it would be quite pleased with the Administration: the President’s record thus far includes a stimulus bill balanced with Republican-advocated tax cuts and Democrat-sponsored social spending; a health care bill that reflects Richard Nixon’s proposal to Edward Kennedy in 1974 and Republican Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole’s offer to Bill Clinton in 1993; and financial regulatory reform that angered both liberals itching for reimplementation of New Deal regulatory framework and free-market ideologies who believe less regulation is always better. So independents who, we are told, crave bipartisanship and centrist policies, must be

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very low savings rate, every dollar we put in their hands is a dollar that will be spent purchasing goods and services, directly increasing aggregate demand.

Finally, $50 billion will be used for infrastructure spending, and $10 billion will be used to capitalize a national infrastructure back that can leverage public and private dollars to fund projects of regional and national importance.

Even during full employment, more infrastructure spending is desirable given our nations decrepit network of roads, railroads, sewers, bridges, tunnels and the infrastructure bank in particular is a good way to ensure that our investment in infrastructure is always well-financed and free of political interference.

All in all, the plan is a step in the right direction. It’s a very moderate proposal, and while it won’t bring us to full employment anytime soon, it will brighten the economic outlook drastically. Most mainstream economists believe that if the plan were enacted without amendment, we would avoid a “double-dip” recession and unemployment would fall to around 8% by 2012. It’s nothing heroic, but it’s definitely an improvement over doing nothing.

The only question remains, then, is will it pass? Early indications say some of it could pass, maybe, but Republicans have no incentive to act. The unfortunate reality for America is that it is in the Republicans’ best political interest to avoid co-ownership of the economy and for the economy to be as sour as possible in 2012. Politico even quoted a senior House Republican aide saying as much: “Obama is on the ropes; why do we appear ready to hand him a win?”

Over the past 3 years of his Presidency, Republicans have been good at saying no, and have been very, very successful by doing so. Obama seems to recognize this dynamic and, for the first time, the President seems committed to overturning it is using the aggressive language progressives have been waiting for since 2009.

His sudden use of feisty, “us versus them” rhetoric has finally given me, dare I say it, hope.

Peter is a junior. You can reach him at pgross1@ swarthmore.edu.

September 15, 2011

thrilled. Right?

Wrong. At 30%, Obama’s approval rating among independents is near an alltime low. Most Americans, it seems, care much more about the outcomes of policies than the ideological logic that supports them. The major political concerns for most Americans are unemployment, the mortgage crisis, and rising health and education costs, not vague concepts like “big government.”

Had the Obama Administration pursued the most effective policies to address these concerns — a robust public jobs program, significant mortgage relief, a public health care option and increased funds to public universities — without regard for the screams of “socialism” at it by the GOP, it would have found most Americans on its side. Complaining about “big government” is popular when under- and unemployment is 16%, but a healthy economy has a way of making theoretical criticisms of expansionist government from dusty Friedrich Hayek books less appealing.

Unfortunately, the Obama Administration has eschewed such policies, tempering itself in an effort to appeal ‘moderate.’ The result has been the treacherous cycle of the moving center: each time the Administration enacts a moderate proposal that has less affect than the vigorous Keynesian jobs program needed, it prolongs the economic crisis, which pushes the political dialogue to the right, incentivizing even more tepid Administration policies less likely to engender recovery.

See ELUSIVE INDEPENDENT, p.17

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Student Council Platforms

swarthmorephoenix.com

MEETthe candidates Below are the platforms for the Fall 2011 Student Council elections. The open positions are: financial policy representative, student events advisor and student groups advisor. All platforms are also available on www.swarthmorephoenix.com.

Voting will take place Wednesday, September 14 through Saturday, September 17.

For financial policy representative: Eugene Prymak ’13 How can I affect change in my environment, create a means by which my peers can achieve their goals, and elevate Swarthmore to the next level? These questions are constantly on my mind, and I am always searching for ways to improve both myself and the world around me. When I discovered that there were available Student Council positions, I believe I found a potential answer to all of these questions. That is why I wish to announce that I am now seeking your vote in order to become the Student Council Financial Policy Representative for the 2011-2012 academic year.

As your Student Council Financial Policy Representative, my duties will be twofold. First and foremost, I will be able to represent you as a member of Student Council. While my position will primarily focus on financial and budget issues, it will also allow me bring up any concerns, suggestions, or proposals you might have as a member of the Swarthmore College community. I encourage anyone and everyone to speak with

me or send me an email regarding anything about the college they wish to change and improve; I can personally promise you that I will address your ideas and bring them up at our weekly StuCo meetings. Together, we can make all of our hopes and dreams about the college we attend into a reality and transform Swarthmore into the absolute ultimate educational institution.

Secondly, as your Financial Policy Representative, I will regularly attend College Budget Committee meetings, in which I will be able to express your concerns, suggestions, and proposals once again. These meetings will allow me to gain a better understanding of our college’s financial policies and proceedings, and while I do respect the confidentiality of any information disclosed in these meetings, I do still intend to create a positive feedback loop between students and the College Budget Committee. In other words, my goal is that students will convey their ideas to the College Budget Committee through me, and in return the College Budget Committee will respond to these issues. These responses, in addition to any other information deemed important for the student body to know, will be posted on my personal Student Council Financial Policy Representative blog. This blog will not only be updated with important information regarding financial and budget issues at Swarthmore, but it will also provide

a means by which you, my fellow peers, can reach me.

As a junior here at Swarthmore, I personally feel that I have a pretty solid working knowledge concerning how things here at the college work, particularly when it comes to financial and budget issues. I have served as treasurer of two student groups, and this has undoubtedly aided in my pursuit to understand how a budget operates and the intricacies of maintaining a balanced budget. In addition, during my past two years, I have been working to create the Swarthmore Entrepreneurship Club on campus. This year, it is finally up and running, with opportunities to expand, affect change on the campus of Swarthmore, in addition to the world and beyond, and further educate students of Swarthmore about entrepreneurship, whether it be financial, social, or political. Finally, I have read several books concerning the economy and how individuals and institutions can protect themselves and profit in the next several years, and thus, I will make absolutely sure that our very own Swarthmore College will still not only be in excellent shape in the future but also perpetually progressing.

In light of my experiences and my intense desire to help Swarthmore in any way I can, I ask that you vote Eugene Prymak for Student Council Financial Policy Representative. Only together can we achieve our goals and shape the future of Swarthmore.

Harshil Sahai ‘15 DO NOT READ THIS. Ah, a bit of a cheesy reverse psychology to brighten your day. By this point you have successfully succumbed to my trap, but have still yet to figure out why exactly I would be a good candidate for a Financial Policy Representative. Well, eager Swattie, I believe financial policy is more about allocating resources to the right institutions than strictly gathering the most resources we can. You and I both know how much dough we have here at Swat, but don’t you still feel that XYZ could use some improvements?

One important reasoning behind Swarthmore’s large endowment is the fact that, regardless of the economic state of the country, Swarthmore must continue to provide the same standard and reputation of education, living, and activities. Yes, academics are first, but what we do outside our classes is as important. Swarthmore is a college that prides itself in diversity, both in demographics as well as activities. As a Financial Policy Representative, I will make it my duty to advocate every facet of Swarthmore’s community, from cultural organizations and academic clubs to art and sports programs — and with a $50K investment, you deserve it.

But the little things besides organization funding tend to bug us the most. Have you seen the pool and ping pong tables at Tarble recently? What a mess. And who wouldn’t mind a bigger gym? Renovated music practice rooms? Art studios? AC in dorms other than AP and DK? Playable squash courts? Segways? Or even extended meal hours and dining options for Essie Maes and Sharples? God knows we need some REAL food around here…

In any case, all these improvements, whether for sports, art, music, dance, academics, or housing, require a piece of the big pie that is Swarthmore’s wallet. From being the treasurer of my school to managing the finances of four clubs, I feel fit to be your Financial Policy Representative. Regardless of whether such major improvements are made, what is more important is the fact that they are communicated — that such requests are at the least considered; that us, as students, have a say in where OUR money goes. I will proudly be your direct connection from the Swarthmore student body to the College Budget Committee (CBC), relaying your needs, concerns, and desires. As a finance and statistics nerd in the greatest sense, I will develop surveys and polls to gather YOUR opinions at a regular basis, and will forward such information to the CBC. Together we shall transform a college that has a few, nerve-wracking annoyances to a diverse, multifaceted community that has next to none.

Vote Harshil Sahai 2015 for your Financial Policy Representative. Over and out.

John Stevick ‘12

To my fellow students and the Swarthmore campus community as a whole: I’m John Stevick, and I want to be your next Financial Policy Representative.

As a representative for the student body, I hope to establish a stronger presence in budget meetings and the overall management of the institution. Currently, major decisions concerning the college are, more often than not, made without so much as a poll to gauge the opinions of the student body. Steps towards greater student involvement need to be made. I am fully prepared to indentify and take those steps with the support of the student body.

A primary responsibility of the financial policy representative is to attend and contribute to the College Budget Committee. I will be highly involved, develop relationships with the committee and board members, and do all that I can

to represent the student body. I plan to open a webpage accessible to students as a means to express your thoughts and opinions regarding processes, practices, and/or upcoming decisions of the school quickly accessible to me and other members of the budget committees. I want to bring your ideas directly to the administration. I will ensure that I am highly communicative with the student body and the administration.

I will work with the administration to create a greater student presence in budgeting decisions. I plan to pursue realistic goals and increase student involvement behind strategic planning and financial decisions. I plan to form positive relations with the administration, make my name and voice heard, and bring the thoughts and ideas of the student body to the table in true Quaker fashion.

I thank you for you time and consideration.

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September 15, 2011

THE PHOENIX

swarthmorephoenix.com

For student groups advisor: Lanie Schlessinger ’15

Student Council Platforms

My name is Lanie Schlessinger, and I am hoping to be your student groups advisor for the 2011-2012 school year.

What is consistently enticing to me about Swarthmore — the reason I chose to come here — is the channeled energy on campus. In my college search, I was constantly disappointed in the frizzy energy that I feel exists on most college campuses. But at Swarthmore, students seem genuinely dedicated to their causes. Students elsewhere dare the world to change; students here dare themselves to change it. For example, students could have written and sent dozens of angry letters to top news sources for providing biased media coverage on the Middle East. But instead, they took it upon themselves to provide unbiased news. Rather than fighting the tyrant, they superseded him. Swatties truly are the change they wish to

see in the world.

Swarthmore is filled with diverse groups of students who find one another and dedicate themselves to a purpose. They channel their energy into effective measures and do what they ask of others. Due to this overarching theme among the clubs and activities at Swat, it makes sense for these groups to utilize their greatest resource: each other.

On such a diverse campus, the easiest thing to forget is how similar we all are; how we all chose this place above the others. In any thriving, innovative community, collaboration is key. This is why we all chose a school with fewer than 1,600 students, where almost everyone lives on campus, and almost everyone eats meals at the same time in the same place. This collaboration should also translate to student groups.

As student groups advisor, I will ensure that this helpful, effective collaboration is taking place. In high school, I served on Student Council for all four years and absolutely loved it. During my senior year, during which I served as Vice President of Student Council, I did the work that is most relevant to my hopes for this position. Due to a lack of organization, the clubs in my high school were all disconnected, despite the fact Kimberly M. St. Julian ’12 Hi! My name is Kimberly St. Julian and I’m a senior. I am running for the position of Student Groups Advisor. I believe that I will be a good fit for this position as I have a wealth of experience with organizing and running student groups, charters and budgets.

As a sophomore I was a member of Student Budget Committee, Orientation Committee and the RA Selection and Housing Committee and I learned a great deal about the inner workings of the administration working with and for student groups. I understand the immense responsibility that comes with the position of Student Groups Advisor, including mandatory attendance of SBC Meetings and overseeing and maintaining

For student events advisor:

that many of them were similar and could benefit from collaborating with one another.

In response, I constructed a school-wide database that detailed the goals of each club, their meeting times, the student leaders, and the faculty advisors. We then used this database to establish incredible collaboration among the clubs and sports at school.

Every project for the remainder of the year was a collaborative effort, which not only boosted general school spirit, but additionally made every project more efficient and effective. Student Council became a support network for the school. We were finally able to channel our vibrancy, creativity, and manpower into representing and supporting the student body.

In addition to creating a similar database at Swarthmore, which can be posted to the Student Council webpage or another relevant site, I would like to begin to organize meetings in which student leaders can voice their concerns and hopes for the future of Swarthmore. This will increase transparency and communication on campus, thereby helping Swarthmore students to gain what they are looking for from the Swarthmore experience.

Outgoing Student Groups Adviser Anna Stitt also informed me that the bulletin boards in Parrish hall were recently renovated, but have since not been regularly updated. By making certain that these boards are updated routinely, we can make certain that people have a way of gaining information about the groups on campus, their events, and their short-term and long-term goals. We can also begin posting other groups’ events to an event calendar on the Student Council webpage to aid in publicity.

By undertaking these initiatives and continually striving to better understand the needs of old and new groups, we can make significant improvements in the struggle for the best possible Swarthmore. I am dedicated to this task and eager to take on the responsibility of supporting and representing you.

Thank you so much for reviewing my platform. Please feel free to contact me with any follow-up questions at eschles1@swarthmore.edu!

Sincerely, Lanie Schlessinger ‘15 student group charters, both of which I have done in a former capacity. Currently I am Senior Advisor to Dare to Soar, a volunteer with Chester Youth Court, Co-coordinator for Swarthmore Sibshop and I play for Swarthmore Women’s Rugby. I thoroughly enjoy being a part of student groups on campus and if elected I plan to use my years of experience volunteering with and leading student groups to improve communication between Student Council and the plethora of interesting groups we have here on campus. I would work to make the Charter process clearer and to have an open-door policy to help address any question, concerns or suggestions that student group leaders or members may have. I thank you for considering me as a candidate.

Aya Ibrahim ’15 My name is Aya Ibrahim and I would like to represent you as Student Events Advisor.

I learned about Student Council elections by chance, but I immediately knew that it was something I was interested in. College is about meeting new people and sharing in new experiences with them. This position would give me the opportunity to not only meet, but also work with people I may not have otherwise. I was nervous that Swarthmore would be too small, but I decided to make the most of the size. My goal is to meet each person on campus at least once. So far, I have had a conversation with every person on my hall at least once and most have been given nicknames. While some may see the school’s size as a negative aspect of Swarthmore, I think it allows each student to become part of a tighter knit community.

As Student Events Advisor, it would be my job to help promote and organize events that enhance that sense of community. As a freshman, I am overwhelmed by the sheer number of activities and groups that are on campus because they are all appealing in one form or another, and it would be impossible to be involved in everything. By coordinating events with various groups on campus, I would be able to interact with groups I otherwise would not have the time to join. It requires a serious commitment to communicate and collaborate with all members of the student body. I am willing to put in the commitment and dedication to make organizing events as easy and fun as possible.

In high school, I avoided our student government mainly because I felt its existence was just a formality. It was impossible to get anything past the administration, and ulti-

mately, their principle role was putting on carwashes to raise money for prom. I found other ways to become involved through Young Democrats and the National Honor Society. As Young Dems President, I worked with the Young Republican’s president to hold a school-wide voter registration drive. I also coordinated an effort between National Honor Society and the Red Cross Club that raised enough money for 500 meals at our local food bank. Experiences like these have taught me how to work across boundaries that may arise in a close yet diverse community like this one. This school has some of the most involved and active students and it is only fair to them that they have a representative who is persevering, responsive, and approachable.

At 5’ 2’’ I have never been called intimidating, but I want to reiterate that regardless of who you are, as excited as you may be about putting on an event, I am even more excited about the prospect of meeting you and helping to make it possible. If there is one thing I have learned about this school since arriving on campus three weeks ago, it is that students here really are special. My RA talks about living in the Australian jungle like it’s a regular occurrence and my Wharton quad is virtually a talent show. I know that I still have a lot to learn about this school and the students that attend and I think this is the perfect way to begin. Everyone on this campus worked very hard to get here and everyone should have a good time now that they’re here. I do not know everyone’s definition of a good time, but I can promise to try and make it possible.

Sincerely, Aya Ibrahim ’15

Matthew Bertuch ’14 Dear Student Body, My name is Matthew Bertuch, and I want to be your Student Events Advisor. The main objective of the SEA is to attend Social Affairs Committee meetings, and help student groups coordinate their events. I have experience in this process having been a member of the Delta Upsilon social committee for the last two semesters planning events like Margaritaville. I want to be the link between you, the students, and the resources that can make

your event a reality. I know that the SAC process can be intimidating, but it I assure you that if I’m there to facilitate the process I’ll make sure it’s as painless as possible. I also think that because we have such a diverse campus population, it is important for me to seek out a variety of opinions when planning social events, utilizing a wider range of underused spaces including the amphitheater and LPAC, to allow for an event schedule more diverse in scope. I would be honored to lend my experience to represent you, the student body, as the SEA. I will work hard to make this year an exciting and enjoyable one.

Continued from p. 15

In February 2009, instead of deploying his immense political capital to create the public jobs programs desperately necessary to restore employment security and increase aggregate demand, Obama opted instead for a stimulus that, after tax cuts and funds to compensate for holes in state and local government budgets, included a mere $330 billion in public spending. Given the $1.1 trillion shrinkage in GDP, the stimulus was enough only to prevent the continual loss of 800,000 jobs per month, not to stimulate new growth. When voters unsurprisingly punished the party in

the 2010 midterms, the Administration erroneously inferred that the election constituted a backlash against government activism. Obama pivoted to the ‘center,’ agreeing to an extension of the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% so as to appear ‘bipartisan.’ Ironically, 82% of Americans opposed the extension.

This summer, the chase for the ‘elusive independent’ reached new heights of absurdity, as Democrats conceded to a dramatic shift in focus from job creation to the entirely unrelated issue of longterm debt. Unsurprisingly, public outrage at the disregard for unemployment correlated with a dramatic 12-point drop in Obama’s approval rating among inde-

THE PHOENIX

pendents. Still worse, the reckless $2T in spending cuts of the debt-reduction agreement sent the markets into frenzy as firms’ medium and long-term demand forecasts fell and fear of a double-dip recession gripped the nation.

Now, in the hopes of again appearing ‘moderate,’ the Administration offers a jobs bill that, the New York Times reports, most economists believe will reduce unemployment by no more than 0.5%. Yet the President seems more concerned with the false idol of bipartisanship than the predictions of social scientists. A bill supported by both Democrats and Republicans — as he tediously reminded us his proposals have been

September 15, 2011

in the past — is more desirable in the Administration’s view than one that is effective. Nothing better epitomizes the false notion that ‘truth always lies in the middle.’

As the economy sputters and the 2012 election approaches, there is only one way to break the vicious cycle of the moving center: Democratic Party must tirelessly position itself as the party of jobs by vociferously advocating a large scale, New Deal-style public jobs program. Let the GOP cry “socialism.” We have social science — and proven results — on our side.

Sam is a junior. You can reach him at ssussma1@swarthmore.edu.

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Sports Women’s tennis excels in singles and doubles swarthmorephoenix.com

by timothy bernstein tbernst1@swarthmore.edu The Swarthmore women’s tennis team enjoyed a strong start to its fall season this past weekend. The Garnet squared off against two other schools, Haverford and Stevens Institute of Technology for the annual Swarthmore Invitational. Swarthmore excelled in both doubles and singles play, with two if its players even winning their respective singles pools by the conclusion of the weekend.

“The team did really well,” sophomore Katie Samuelson ’14 said. “It was a great start to the season.”

The Invitational was spread out over two days, each one featuring two rounds of singles play and one round of doubles play. Singles play on Saturday morning was highlighted by two Swarthmore victories.

Both victories were decided by single-game tiebreakers, played after the first two sets had been split. Lia Carlson ’14 defeated Jessica Borque of Stevens Tech by a score of 7-5, 4-6, 1-0 (17-15), while Epihany English ’14 beat ST’s Caroline Niezelski 5-7, 6-4, 1-0 (7-4).

Stephanie Chia ’13 added another tiebreaker victory in the second round, defeating Stevens Tech’s Danielle Stewart 6-3, 2-6, 1-0 (8-6).

Head coach Jeremy Loomis expressed his satisfaction with how the team was shaping up for the Regional Tournament in two weeks.

“It was a test of wills and endurance because it was the first time we’ve played matches in quite a while,” Loomis said in an email. “But, I’m very proud of how

we prepared for the tournament and we’ll be ready fourth singles match,” Iyengar said, referring to her for some more great practices to get ready for the Fall Sunday victory in the second round of singles play.

Regionals in Virginia in a couple of weeks.”

Swarthmore also had representatives place first The Garnet also fared well in doubles on Saturday, in two of the four singles pools lettered A through D. with three of their pairs — Chia and Samuelson, Carl- Carlson won pool A and Iyengar won pool C. Mimi son and team captain Rosie Dubrin ’12, and first-year Bese and Morgan Scalzi of Stevens Tech placed first Gayatri Iyengar ‘15 and sophomore Brooke Wilkins in the other two pools. ’14 — going undefeated in Saturday doubles play.

“The first tournament of the season is always chalOn Sunday, Carlson and Iyengar once again went lenging,” Dubrin said, “but everyone managed to reundefeated in their singles matches. For her part, main incredibly focused and disciplined, bringing as Carlson found the quickest much effort and energy to the route to adulation by blanking first match as they did to the Haverford’s Jordana Bloom 6-0, last.”

It was a test of wills and 6-0. Dubrin, English and Chia In the doubles pools (called added singles wins of their own endurance. I’m very proud flights), the Garnet once again on Sunday. had two winners. The team of of how we prepared.

In Sunday doubles, the Chia/ Rosie Dubrin and Lia Carlson, English team soundly defeated in doubles play, Coach Jeremy Loomis undefeated Haverford’s tandem of Anderwon Flight A, while Iyengar son/Flynn by the score of 8-1. and Wilkins, also undefeated, Dubrin was especially imcame in first in Flight B. pressed by the team’s doubles play, noting, “last year, The Garnet now set their sights on the main event at times, we struggled a bit with execution but I saw of their fall season. They have two weeks to prepare definite improvement this weekend and I think it for the ITA Regional Tournament. The objective: for could make a big difference in our success this com- everyone to take the next step. ing spring.”

“I think the goal for each player will be to go farBoth Carlson and Iyengar went undefeated over ther than they did last year at regionals,” Wilkins the course of the entire weekend, while Dubrin, Chia, said.

English and Wilkins all had multiple victories in both Tournament play begins on Saturday, September singles and doubles competition.

24 in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and ends on Monday, “For me, [the biggest hurdle] was getting past the September 26. Start times are to be announced.

Garnet athlete of the week

Justin Toran-Burrell The Phoenix

Genny Pezzola SR., VOLLEYBALL, OAKLAND, CA.

WHAT SHE’S DONE: Pezzola was awarded MVP for this year’s Garnet Classic, leading Swarthmore to its third straight tournament victory FAVORITE CAREER MOMENT: “Beating Haverford last season in the Centennial Conference semi-finals.”

WHAT SHE WANTS TO DO: “We have many team goals, among them are working hard and having fun, but ultimately we are all working towards winning the Centennial Conference Championship.”

FAVORITE PUMP-UP SONGS: “‘Blow’ by Kesha and ‘Dance’ by Big Sean.”

Katie Samuelson (l.) and Lia Carlson (r.) in mid-serve.

18

Justin Toran-Burrell The Phoenix

September 15, 2011

Cristina Matamoros The Phoenix

THE PHOENIX

Sports The meanings of the Djokovic “miracle forehand” swarthmorephoenix.com

By now, you’ve probably seen the forehand return that Novak Djokovic (pronounced “Joke-avitch”) hit when he was down two games and two match points in the fifth set of his U.S. Open semifinal match against Roger Federer this past Saturday. Or, more specifically, Timothy Bernstein you saw what appeared to be one on TV — a desBullet Points perate stab at the ball, a chance flick of the wrist, and then a blur, over almost before it had begun.

Even if you still haven’t managed to watch it, you most likely know what happened next: Federer, who still had a match point after the phantom return, began playing like he had realized the symbolic meaning of that incredible and incredibly lucky forehand before it had actually acquired any, as if he knew that no one was going to return a serve like that with the match on the line and end up losing. On his second match point, he badly mishit a forehand of his own that failed to even clear the net, had his serve broken, and preceded to win exactly one point in each of the final three games of the match. It was, as everyone even tangentially associated with tennis noted afterwards, the second consecutive year that Djokovic had saved two match points against Federer to defeat him in a U.S. Open semifinal. And this time, it all began with the return. Or, as it will probably become stylized, The Return*. *Hyperbole? Sure, but when you consider that Federer’s service game had not even ended before announcers had dubbed it “The Miracle Forehand,” suddenly “The Return” has a quaint simplicity to it, like the title of a Japanese horror movie.

But for me, at least, the tennis element was only a part of what that forehand can tell us. For me, at least, it was the immediate aftermath of that incredible play that may mean more than anything else. Once the point

had ended, the crowd, more stunned than anything else, burst into spontaneous applause for Djokovic. The reaction almost seemed involuntary — how could it not have been? For three-plus hours, they had uniformly and unapologetically cheered on Federer as they always did, as just about everyone always did, with Djokovic resigned to playing the heel. But something like that, even coming from the villain, almost demanded applause from the crowd, and they gave it to him. Djokovic, up until now content to play his role, walked away from the baseline and towards the stands, arms extended, smirking in a way that left no doubt just how aware he was that the crowd had been rooting for him to fail all along.

Oh, now you’re going to appreciate me? he seemed to say with the gesture. Is THAT what it’s going to take?

The crowd exploded into full-fledged cheers. Federer, for his part, stood on the other side of the court, silently waiting it out.

Is there anything better than when it feels like a single moment can tell you everything? There was Djokovic playing the showman, embracing the moment both within it and slightly removed, while Federer steadfastly refused to break character. Djokovic may have his share of detractors, but he has his fans as well, and one reason why I believe they gravitate to him is because every now and then, he almost appears to think like we do. That is to say, he has always seemed aware of the bigger picture when he is playing, what people were seeing and thinking and wanting* when they watched his matches. This level of awareness, incredibly rare in any athlete, is almost unheard of for someone who might currently be the best player in his sport. For better or worse, you could never have said that about the stoic Federer; Rafael Nadal might be his starkest contrast when it comes to playing styles, but personalitywise, the Bizarro Federer was the guy who beat him on Saturday. As Djokovic faced the crowd and took in the first real applause he had heard all day, Federer looked like he was wondering when the crowd would go back to their default position of unconditional love for him. *A particularly good example from this tournament came during his second-round demolition of an

Argentinean named Carlos Berlocq, whom the crowd gave a standing ovation when he won his first game of the match — in the third set (final score: 6-0, 6-0, 6-2).

Djokovic could be seen grinning broadly as the players changed sides, a sly acknowledgement of just how dominant his game is right now, and consequently just how eager the spectators were to see a chink — any chink — in his armor.

Even after the match had ended, the moment managed to persist by virtue of how consistent the two men were with who they had been on the court.

Federer at press conference: “Some players grow up and play like that — being down 5-2 in the third, and they all just start slapping shots. For me, this is very hard to understand. How can you play a shot like that on match point? You’ve got to ask him.”

Djokovic at press conference: “Yeah, I tend to do that on match points. It kinda works.”

There is a whole host of reasons why watching a tennis match between two elite players in person is preferable to watching it on television. With the camera’s set position behind one baseline, the third dimension of the court is lost, and with it the awe-inspiring quickness and physicality of the players. That said, what TV can do — especially in tennis — is shape a narrative and propel it forward. The twenty-two thousand fans sitting in Arthur Ashe stadium on Saturday might have been able to see where the ball actually went on the return (impossible on the broadcast without slow-motion), but it is unlikely that they could have seen where it was going to lead.

“Surely it won’t happen again,” one of the announcers said after the miracle forehand, referring to Federer’s parallel collapse the year before. But if the cameras told us anything — alternating between shots of a suddenly inflamed Djokovic, a shell-shocked Federer, and a crowd who had just been bullied into applause by the sheer brilliance of that shot — the announcer was correct. Surely it wouldn’t happen again. Because it just did.

Tim is a junior. You can reach him at tbernst1@ swarthmore.edu

Women’s soccer riding three-game win streak

By ANA APOSTOLERIS aaposto1@swarthmore.edu After a rocky start to the regular season, the Swarthmore College women’s soccer team seems to be officially back on its feet. 0-2 by the first weekend, the Garnet have since turned in three straight wins, capitalizing on team-wide efforts to outscore opponents 6-1 over the course of the winning streak. The team regained a spot in the top 10 of the NSCAA regional rankings, checking in at #7 this week.

A 3-0 defeat of Widener last Tuesday accounted for the first win of the season; that was quickly followed by a Saturday 2-1 win at Marywood and a 1-0 overtime win against Scranton on Sunday. Marie Mutryn ’12 tended goal for all three of the victories, allowing just one goal in 276.5 minutes of play. Emma Sindelar ’15 picked up her first two collegiate goals this week, and Emily Coleman ’12 and Aly Passanante ’14 found the back of the

Garnet IN ACTION

net for the first time this season.

While pleased with the victories, head coach Todd Anckaitis claims that the best is yet to come for the Garnet girls.

“I wouldn’t [say we’re in] a groove,” he said. “To me a groove means we’re playing our best soccer and we’re not quite there yet.”

Whether or not further improvement is in the cards for Swarthmore, the last week has featured tough play against a high caliber of opponent.

Marywood is the reigning ECAC South champion and was picked to finish first in the Colonial States Athletic Conference. Regardless, Swarthmore dominated the field, outshooting Marywood 21-5 and scoring twice in the second half to seal the win.

Passanante opened the scoring with a 45th-minute shot, and Sindelar provided the game-winner with a 65th-minute goal, assisted by Amy DiPierro ’15. In the early going, Sindelar leads the team

with four points.

“The whole team has been super welcoming and encouraging since day one and being part of a team like that makes you want to work hard for them,” Sindelar said of her early success. “Both of my goals were off perfect passes from my teammates so I’m just happy that I could do my part and put them in the back of the net.”

Sunday’s match against Scranton — undefeated in its last eight attempts against the Garnet — featured a shutout from Mutryn, her second in less than a week. Swarthmore was outplayed for the majority of the match, as Scranton took 19 shots to Swarthmore’s 4, but Mutryn’s seven saves helped keep the score knotted at zero until Coleman netted an unassisted goal six minutes into the first overtime to give the Garnet the win.

“Sunday’s win against Scranton was very important, we showed that we have the ability to not give up any goals to a

WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 14

SATURDAY, SEPT. 17

Men’s tennis, Villanova Invitational, time TBA

Men’s soccer vs. Widener, 7:00 p.m.

Men’s tennis, Swarthmore Invitational, 9:00 a.m.

Volleyball vs. Cabrini, 8:00 p.m.

Field hockey vs. Franklin & Marshall, 12:00 p.m.

FRIDAY, SEPT. 16

Volleyball vs. York (Pa.) in Salisbury, Md., 1:00 p.m.

Men’s tennis, Villanova Invitational, TBA

THE PHOENIX

very good team, and we good advantage of our chances when we had them,” Mutryn said. “Hopefully as the season continues we will keep raising our level of play and be able to do well in our conference games.”

With a tough Conference schedule looming, Anckaitis is confident in what he has seen from his team. “The thing that I’m most proud of right now is that different individuals have stepped up every game and made an impact,” he said.

“We’re not all going to always be at our best nor are we a team with just one or two superstars that carries the team.

We’re a group in which any player is capable of making an impact on the game and players are showing that they are willing to step up and do it. That is an indicator of a good team.”

Swarthmore faces off against Franklin & Marshall in the Conference opener on Saturday at Clothier Field Stadium.

Play will begin at 7 p.m.

Volleyball at Salisbury, 3:30 p.m.

September 15, 2011

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Sports

swarthmorephoenix.com

Volleyball wins third straight Garnet Classic

BY VICTOR BRADY vbrady1@swarthmore.edu

The internal expectations have not changed for the Swarthmore volleyball team since the first preseason practice for seniors Genny Pezzola, Hillary Santana, Lisa Shang and Anthony Yoshimura four years ago.

The goal, from day one, has been to win a Centennial Conference Championship.

The external expectations are an entirely different story. From a Conference afterthought, the Garnet has become a favorite. Never before has the team been in a better position to win the Centennial and never before has the target been larger on the Garnet’s back.

But aside from a single slip-up against Moravian after winning the first two sets, Swarthmore looks better than ever, remaining focused on the team’s goals rather than outside pressure.

“Roll tide” used to be the cheer when a football team still called Clothier Field home over a decade ago. Now, it is an appropriate description for the volleyball team’s performance this year. Behind a wave of momentum generated thanks to talented veterans and the most athletic squad in program history, the team is soaring, bursting out to an 8-1 record and routing opponents in the process.

On Friday and Saturday, Swarthmore hosted the annual Garnet Classic and won the home tournament for the third consecutive year, blowing away RutgersCamden, Cabrini and Marymount (VA) in pool play before dominating Marymount again in the Championship match. Over the course of the weekend, the Garnet dropped just one set.

Pezzola (43 kills and 55 digs), Danielle Sullivan ’14 (39 kills and 29 digs) and Allie Coleman ’13 (113 assists) were named to the All-Tournament team for their performances.

In the recent matches, it has taken time for the Garnet engine to start running — a set or two of warm-up in order to reach full efficiency. In the team’s last seven contests, the Garnet has won each first set by an average of just four points. In the other 13 sets Swarthmore

has won over that same span, the average margin has been over nine.

It is all a part of the maturation process, says head Coach Harleigh Chwastyk, who notes that in years past, the team would drop first sets rather than win close ones.

“I think it’s a lot of mental preparation … We are in a new place — where we are looked at as a threat.”

Chwastyk said.

“Some of the past still resonates where we are trying to get past being the underdog. But I have been impressed by our ability to finish down the stretch because in the past few years, we had a consistent pattern of dropping the first or second set. A lot of that is just the experience on the team,” she added.

According to Sullivan, who has sparkled opposite Pezzola thus far, “usually after we start getting a few sets in, the team starts to feel the game’s flow a bit more and it seems we ride the momentum well. The main thing we need to do as a team is enter matches with a more aggressive mentality and attempt to dictate the flow of the matches in earlier stages …”

Against improved competition at the Garnet Classic than in previous seasons, Swarthmore held its opponent to 15 points or fewer in five sets over the weekend. Already this season, a Garnet opponent has failed to surpass 15 points in 11 sets. When the Garnet starts rolling, look out.

Since Chwastyk arrived at Swarthmore, the team has adopted a defense-first mentality, a focus that the first-years have been quick to pick up. “We have an amazing offense, but we can’t do anything without a good dig from our defense,” said Danielle Delpeche, who is averaging over a block per set. “That doesn’t just mean our [back row] either. During a rally, defense starts at the net. The blockers have an important role to play in defending our side of the court and helping out our passers.”

With the five quality freshmen, the volleyball team had never before had such depth. But rather than creating factions and rifts within the team, the internal competition has driven all of the players to improve. “I

Genny Pezzola goes up for a bump.

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Paul Chung The Phoenix

think that the competition that exists now has pushed players to step up and play outside of their comfort zone a little bit, which in turn has helped us to get the results that we want,” Chwastyk said.

That every single player is positively driven by competition is in part a testament to the senior leadership of liberos Santana and Shang, who over the past three years, have pushed each other to be two of the top defensive specialists in the entire Conference.

Both Shang and Santana recorded several spectacular full-extension digs at the Garnet classic and entering this weekend are each within 50 digs of 1000 for their careers.

“As nice as it is to be honored individually, the seniors all know that it is about what the team can do as a whole,” Chwastyk said. “It has been like that from day one. The fact that three members of one class will have broken 1,000 digs is a pretty incredible accomplishment which really shows their defensive tenacity. That resonates in the foundation of our program. What matters more than the individual accomplishments is how we play as a team every time we step on the floor.”

For Santana, who leads the team with 116 digs this season, “this is the first year that we have had multiple people for each and every position. Every person on the team brings talent and athleticism, which allows great versatility with regards to our lineup. If we continue to work hard and have fun, and keep our goal of winning a conference championship at the top of our list, I think we can absolutely make it happen.”

Swarthmore returns to action against York (PA) at 1 p.m. at Salisbury with a contest against the host as part of the Capital vs. Centennial Challenge immediately following.

“This weekend will give us a chance to test ourselves against new and challenging opponents,” Sullivan said. “I am excited to play more teams as the season progresses, as we will be able to gauge where we stand within the conference. Hopefully, all of this will help us understand what we need to do as a team to achieve our goal of winning the Conference championship.”

The tide rolls on.

Brone Lobichusky (7) and Kate Amodei (4) defend a spike.

September 15, 2011

Paul Chung The Phoenix

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