NOVEMBER 4, 2010 • THE CAMPUS NEWSPAPER OF SWARTHMORE COLLEGE SINCE 1881 • VOLUME 133, ISSUE 10
PHOENIX
Inside: Controversial signs are sparking varied responses Randall Exon art exhibit opens in Wallingford Cross country teams take fourth at CC meet
Senate
owned. House
The Phoenix
Thursday, November 4, 2010 Volume 133, Issue 10
The independent campus newspaper of Swarthmore College since 1881.
Page
20 Olivia Natan Phoenix Staff
Roberto Contreras IV cuts between two attacking Fords in Saturday night’s 2-0 win.
News Professor receives award for project Rachel Buurma ’99, assistant professor of English, receives an award for her Early Novel Database, an online literary database that catalogs the information of more than 3,000 novels. PAGE 3
Alum tells of fight for social justice Edgar Cahn ’56 returned to the college Monday afternoon to give a lecture about his life’s work promoting social justice. PAGE 4
Midterm elections results To get students to the polls and vote Democratic, Governor Ed Rendell held a small rally on campus the day before election day. PAGE 5
The dead are walking, crawling, even jogging! Alex reviews the first episode of the new zombie television show “The Walking Dead” on AMC, and finds it to be both exhilarating and horrifying. PAGE 10
Art exhibit draws inspiration from familiar themes Professor of Studio Art Randall Exon’s work is currently being exhibited in Wallingford, PA. His work draws upon themes of personal experience and memory. PAGE 10
do higher stakes mean more intense managing? In 2010, Ron Washington’s bullpen decisions sure didn’t pay off for the Texas Rangers. PAGE 15
Garnet seniors go out with big win at Diplomats The Swarthmore women’s soccer team concluded the 2010 season with a 4-0 win at Franklin & Marshall on Saturday. It was the final regular season contest for the six Swarthmore seniors, who, led by Megan Colombo ’11, recorded 48 wins in their Garnet careers. PAGE 16
Epic poem ‘Beowulf’ returns Garnet sweeps Bullets to its musical roots again to set up date with Benjamin Bagby will be performing the epic poem “Beowulf” with music from an Anglo- Fords Saxon harp this Friday, Nov. 5. PAGE 11
Opinions
For the second time this year, the Swarthmore volleyball team defeated the Gettysburg Bullets. With the latest victory in the first round of the Centennial Conference tournament, Swarthmore moves on to the Centennial semifinals to face top-seeded Haverford. PAGE 17
Student body responds to Deer cull most effective, radical posters Posters around campus promoting a new humane way to preserve Cross-country men and conservative student group spark bitter Crum responses and questions about censorship The Phoenix endorses a forthcoming deer women fourth at CC Meet within the student body. PAGE 6
Living & Arts
cull this winter because it remains the safest, most humane way to curb deer overpopulation. PAGE 13
The men’s and women’s cross-county teams each finished fourth at the 2010 Centennial meet. The men improved two spots from 2009’s sixth place finish while the women were only three points behind Haverford for third. PAGE 17
Why is making money bad? Removing the stigma of Dems need to change Tyler contends that Democrats, now los- High expectations as swim Vodou through Fet Gede ing many seats in Congress, and the Though the idea of Day of the Dead may first President need to be more pro-business. teams begin 2010 season summon up images of candy skeletons and Latin American culture, the Day of the Dead celebrated this past Saturday at Swarthmore was a festival of Haitian culture. PAGE 8
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Jasper looks into the social, religious and political segregation in Israel and throughout the Middle East as he embarks on the last leg of his travels. PAGE 8
deserved positive representation in sitcom “Mike & Molly,” despite what a now infamous blogger may think. PAGE 14
Blogger’s sizeist vitriol ignores obstacles of overStudying in the Middle East weight Eva writes that overweight people earn among segregation
Sports
Living the green life: it’s a lot easier than you think Always a lose-lose situation Steve encourages Swatties to live more environmentally sustainable lives, and offers tips on how to do so. PAGE 9
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Every season, managers are questioned for their strategy in the World Series : should one make the same decisions as they would make in the regular season or
EDITORIAL BOARD Jeff Davidson Editor in Chief Amelia Possanza Managing Editor Menghan Jin News Editor Miriam Hauser Living & Arts Editor Camila Ryder Living & Arts Editor Susana Medeiros Assistant Living & Arts Editor Dante Anthony Fuoco Opinions Editor Marcus Mello Sports Editor Victor Brady Sports Editor Jacqueline Small Copy Chief Olivia Natan Photo Editor Xingyu Zhang Photo Editor Julia Karpati Graphics Editor Eric Sherman Director of Web Development STAFF Jacqueline Small News Writer Isaac Han Living & Arts Writer Dina Zingaro Living & Arts Writer Steve Dean Living & Arts Columnist Jasper Goldberg Living & Arts Columnist Alex Israel Living & Arts Columnist Jen Johnson Living & Arts Columnist Maki Somosot Living & Arts Columnist Ariel Swyer Living & Arts Columnist Naia Poyer Artist Emma Waitzman Artist Mark Chin Cartoonist Ben Schneiderman Crossword Writer Anna Shectman Crossword Writer Peter Akkies Opinions Columnist Tyler Becker Opinions Columnist Eva McKend Opinions Columnist Timothy Bernstein Sports Columnist Hannah Purkey Sports Columnist Andrew Cheng Photographer Paul Chung Photographer Eric Verhasselt Photographer Nick Brown Photographer Jakob Mrozewski Photographer Allegra Pocinki Photographer Morgan Bartz Copy Editor Stella Cho Copy Editor Renee Flores Copy Editor Madison Garcia Copy Editor Lauren Kim Copy Editor Daniela Kucz Copy Editor Pendle Marshall-Hallmark Copy Editor Catherine Meador Copy Editor Parker Murray Copy Editor BUSINESS STAFF Patricia Zarate Circulation Manager Madison Garcia Circulation Manager COVER DESIGN Julia Karpati, image courtesy of The New York Times CONTRIBUTORS Ana Apostoleris, Daniel Duncan, Gail Engmann, Renee Flores, Sera Jeong, John Oh, Navin Sabharwal OPINIONS BOARD Jeff Davidson, Amelia Possanza, Dante Fuoco, Camila Ryder EDITOR’S PICKS PHOTOS COURTESY OF: http://tiny.cc/t2fn9, http://tiny.cc/06jpv, http://tiny.cc/hibd1 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 Jeff Davidson. The Phoenix reserves the right to refuse any advertising. Advertising rates subject to change.
Both the men’s and women’s swimming teams believe that they can contend for Centennial Conference titles this year. The men’s team returns all but three swimmers from last year’s squad that finished second in the Centennial for the fourth year in a row. The women will be forced to fill the shoes of Anne Miller ’10, a seven-time All-American. PAGE 18
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
Senior Sophia Ferguson, a leader on and off the field
The Phoenix is printed at Bartash Printing, Inc. The Phoenix is a member of the Associated College Press and the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association.
The Swarthmore field hockey team concluded the season with a 3-1 loss at Franklin & Marshall on Saturday. Sophia Ferguson, who led by example throughout her four years at Swarthmore, ends her career with 19 goals and 12 assists for 50 points. PAGE 19
November 4, 2010
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THE PHOENIX
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events menu Today Peace Corps open house and info session Interested in working in a developing country after graduation? Learn about the application process and speak to representatives from the Peace Corps at 12:30 p.m. in the Scheuer Room.
Fireside Chat with George Lakey George Lakey, a professor with the Peace and Conflict Studies Program, will sit down with students for discussion in Parrish Parlor West starting at 8 p.m. Tomorrow Alumni Council Mixer The Alumni Council is hosting a department mixer for students to chat with alums about life after Swarthmore. The religion department mixer starts at 4 p.m. in Pearson 210, biology mixer at 4:30 p.m. in Martin 210 and psychology mixer at 5 p.m. in Papazian 206. Fall Toejam 2010 Come to Science Center 101 this Friday at 8 to see Sixteen Feet’s fall concert, featuring UPenn’s The Quaker Notes. They will sing a nearly entirely new set of songs, with a special performance by their first-years. “Beowulf” Performance Benjamin Bagby, a performer of medieval music, will chant sections of the Anglo-Saxon epic poem “Beowulf,” while accompanying himself with a replica of an acient six-stringed lyre at 8 p.m. in the Lang Concert Hall. Saturday, November 6th Minus Malaria Variety Show The Global Health Forum will host a variety show in LPAC at 8 p.m. There will be performances by a capella groups, comedy troupes Boy Meets Tractor and Vertigo-go, Rhythm n Motion, and more. Sunday, November 7th Tan Dun and Wu Man: Chinese Visions in Concert with Orchestra Wu Man, who plays the Chinese lute, or “pipa,” will perform in the Lang Music Building at 3 p.m. Man will play selections from the works of Tan Dun, who composed the score of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” Monday, November 8th Panel: Teaching and learning in language minority education A panel including several alumni will discuss the issues surrounding teaching and researching in language minority education. The event, sponsored by the Alumni Office, Educational Studies and the Intercultural Center, will run from 4:15 to 6 p.m. E-mail submissions for the events menu to news@swarthmorephoenix.com
tHe PHOenIX
Professor receives award for project BY JACQUELINE SMALL jsmall2@swarthmore.edu Assistant Professor of English Rachel Buurma’s newest project, the Early Novel Database, is “sort of like a library catalog on steroids,” according to Buurma ’99. Thanks in part to a nomination from College Librarian Peggy Seiden, the database has been awarded the Community Contribution Award by the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education. The award will provide the database with a small honorarium and an opportunity to publish case studies with Academic Commons. The case studies will be published in April 2011, under the theme “Digital Humanities and the Undergraduate.” Buurma said the Early Novel Database is still in its infancy, but will eventually allow users to create groups of novels based on information gleaned from the title page, biographical information about the author and even marginalia in specific copies of each book. It draws from novels in both French and English from before the year 1830. “This will make possible the writing of new histories of the novel. Usually we rely on a very small number of ... canonical, well-known examples, though some novel critics try to make big generalizations ... This is going to offer something in between,” Buurma said. Currently, the database contains over 3,000 novels, though several are different editions of a novel or even different copies of the same edition. Buurma pointed out that they are no more interested in earlier versions of a text than in later versions, since later editions offer more information about the book, its popularity and sometimes its author. Unlike other online literary databases, such as Project Gutenberg and Google books, the Early Novel Database is not going to offer full texts of novels, but data about or describing the books. Instead, it is about the meta-data of books. “It emphasizes the way the novel describes itself [on the title page and in the preface] and information that can be gathered by looking at the novel as opposed to information about it,” Buurma said. The professor first worked on an incarnation of this project when she was still in graduate school, at the University of Pennsylvania. That project came to a halt after their application for a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities was denied. She left Philadelphia after graduate school, but when she returned to work at Swarthmore, she “realized [she] was still interested and picked it up again.” Now, two Swarthmore students, Anna Levine ’12 and Richard Li ’11, as well as students at Bryn Mawr help contribute to the database. Two years ago, the first summer they were involved with the project, Li and Levine learned how to analyze and then catalog rare books at the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at the University of Pennsylvania. Levine, Li and Buurma also discussed conceptual issues relating to the
Eric Verhasselt Phoenix Staff
Assistant Professor Rachel Buurma, who was awarded the Community Contribution Award for her digital literary database, lectures in class. project, and they kept a blog about their progress. The next summer, Li and Levine mostly worked on cleaning up records they had already created, but they continued to catalog books, too. “I got involved with the Early Novels Database as a freshman. Rachel asked me if I had any interest working on the project over the summer, and it seemed like a great opportunity–– not very many undergraduates majoring in the humanities get to do research,” Levine said in an e-mail. Seiden pointed out that although there are several ways for students to gain research experience in the sciences, it is very difficult to find such work in the humanities. This is partly because humanities work is rarely collaborative. “I think in the humanities
November 4, 2010
the notion of the ‘lone scholar’ still prevails ..., particularly in literary analysis,” Seiden said. Working on a project like this is a rare chance for college students, she said. She described once meeting a professor from the University of Chicago who was opposed to working even with graduate students, on the grounds that they did not offer the same knowledge and experience as senior researchers. “I think [the fact] that she’s bringing in undergraduates is really wonderful,” Seiden said. Buurma said the people who work on the project do not have any sort of hierarchy. “I am the faculty director, so I’m in charge of content, you could say. But we’re non-hierarchical, we think of ourselves as collaborators.”
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Alum tells of fight for social justice
Week in pictures
to solve problems in the community,” he said. To support his claim, Cahn referOn Monday afternoon, in Science enced a parent-support group system Center 199, Swarthmore alumnus he helped create for families with Edgar Cahn ’56 spoke about social schizophrenic children. justice and changes in the social sysServing as extended families, they tem. Cahn’s lecture centered on his helped both the parents and children work fighting for social justice and better cope with the disease, and prethe need for a paradigm shift regard- vented the state from spending miling the way society defines the value lions of dollars institutionalizing of a human being. His lecture them. attracted more than fifty students, Second, Cahn claimed that “the faculty and members of the message sent is not the same as the Swarthmore community. message received.” Cahn explained The talk was largely organized by how when we try to help an Chester Youth Court Volunteers, a oppressed group, we inadvertently group that send the mesworks with sage that we are youth groups in the only ones “We must use the Chester. Shilpa who have someBoppana ’11, one thing to offer, capacity of community of the organizand that those ers of the event, to solve problems in the who we help was especially have nothing to community.” eager to have give back. Cahn speak Indeed, this Edgar Cahn ’56 because of the process Social Justice Activist gests that sugyouth court he the started in D.C. only asset these “It’s a program oppressed peowhere youth come up with construc- ple have is their problems; thus, they tive sentences for their peers,” she will try to perpetuate and grow their said. problems in order to see increased During his lecture, Cahn attention. described how the youth courts give “Everybody has something to first time juveniles alternative sen- give,” Cahn said, and he suggested tencing. Instead of being treated by that the attendees emphasize what the traditional justice system, offend- people can do for each other. ers are given constructive tasks, Consequently, Cahn concluded such as community service, by a jury that a paradigm shift in the way we made up of other young people. define value must occur. Throughout his lecture, Cahn He stated that instead of supportemphasized that he chose to speak ing a system where “money defines specifically at Swarthmore because value,” we need one with an “ecologiof its innovative people and commit- cal definition of value,” which apprement to social justice. ciates the significance of work that is “You are the ones who have to cre- not valued economically, such as ate new possibilities,” he said, refer- building families, communities and ring to Swarthmore students and fac- fighting for social justice. Having ulty. this mindset, he argues, will help us Cahn pursued a career in law be able to better solve the problems after Swarthmore, determined to of the disenfranchised. achieve social justice. Working After the lecture, he invited the under Attorney General Robert audience to ask questions and engage Kennedy, Cahn spearheaded the first in a discussion about the points he national campaign against hunger in brought up. the U.S, which ultimately led to Students and faculty asked quesincreased food shipments to mal- tions on topics ranging from the role nourished Native American reserva- of social media technology to what tions. changes can be made to help the D.C. With his now late wife, he co- school system. founded the National Legal Services Students reacted positively to the Program under the Office of lecture. Minh Vo ’14 attended the talk Economic Opportunity in the in order to learn more about social Johnson Administration. justice. “I really want to hear about He also created Time Dollars, an what Swat alums have to say about influential, tax-free currency system their work,” he said. designed to value and reward the Minh was particularly impressed work of the oppressed in rebuilding by Cahn’s “idea that human values their communities and fighting for are not necessarily represented by social justice. the market price,” and his concept Cahn made three main points that being “defined by your salary about his experiences fighting for and your job security ... is wrong.” social justice and what needs to be Shilpa was also impressed by done to ameliorate the state of the Cahn’s lecture. “He has a lot of pretoppressed. ty radical ideas ... but many practical First, he said that it is impossible applications,” she said. to deliver health, justice and commuAt the end of his lecture, Cahn left nity to a set of disenfranchised peo- his audience with a thought-provokple without enlisting their help. “We ing question: “What kind of world do must use the capacity of community you want to leave behind?” BY NAVIN SABHARWAL nsabhar1@swarthmore.edu
Andrew Cheng Phoenix Staff
Gabe Khaselev shows off his pumpkin carving at the Vampire Energy Fallapalooza hosted by the Green Advisors on Friday.
Nick Brown Phoenix Staff
Ozan Erturk and two members of the Swarthmore community participate in the “Darbouka Day” drumming workshop with Philly percussionist Joseph Tayoun on Saturday.
Paul Chung Phoenix Staff
Soledad Barrio and Noche Flamenca, Spain’s premier flamenco touring company, perform in LPAC Friday night.
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November 4, 2010
tHe pHOeniX
News 2010 Midterms: local and state-wide Pa. results U.S. Senator Patrick Meehan (R)
U.S. Congress 7th District
Pat Toomey (R)
Bryan Lentz (D) James Schneller (ACP)
Joe Sestak (D)
Edwin Erickson (R)
Pa. Senate 26th District
Governor
Michael Farrell (D)
Tom Corbett (R)
Joe Hackett (R)
Pa. House 161st District
Dan Onorato (D)
Walter Waite (D)
Results from the Pennsylvania Department of State website, with 99.43 percent of districts reporting as of publication.
Rendell rallies campus voters day before elections BY JACQUELINE SMALL jsmall1@swarthmore.edu Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell spoke to a small group of students in Science Center 101 on Monday afternoon. He urged students to vote for the Democratic candidates in Tuesday’s midterm elections, focusing primarily on Bryan Lentz, who ran for U.S. Congress in the 7th district; Mike Farrell, who ran for state senate in the 26th district, and Walt Waite, who ran for State Representative in the 161st district. Farrell, Waite and Lentz all attended the rally, as did Rick Lowe, the mayor of Swarthmore and Maurice Eldridge ’61, vice president for community and college relations. The rally started at 3:40 p.m., 40 minutes later than planned, because the governor had been busy campaigning at various places throughout the day and had gotten behind schedule. He spoke for approximately 25 minutes, followed by a brief speech by Lentz. Natalie Litton, president of the College Democrats, opened the rally by introducing Rendell. THE PHOENIX
“As you know tomorrow is Election Day, and the only poll that really matters is the one that’s taken on Election Day when we get up and get out and vote,” Rendell said. He believed the election was much closer than the polls were showing. “I have sensed a much stronger democratic turnout than the polls are predicting,” he said. Rendell explained that in his campaigning, he has seen members of the Latino, African American and gay communities “fired up” to vote Democratic. Rendell went on to discuss the strides that the Democratic party has made in social improvements. He cited the Lily Ledbetter bill, which ensures equal pay for men and women, the credit card bills reform and children’s health care. He said that although financial reform on Wall Street is still imperfect, the changes that are being made will prevent a second economic crash. “We’ve done a good job, we’ve moved the country forward in some very important areas. We deserve to be reelected. The tenor of the campaign Tea Partiers have waged disqualifies them ... They’re trying to divide us, when our strength
Xingyu Zhang Phoenix Staff
Governor Ed Rendell stopped by the college in SCI 101 Monday afternoon to hold a small rally urging students to get out and vote on Election Day.
has always been our diversity,” Rendell said. Lentz spoke quickly, after Rendell’s speech, and urged the importance of vot-
November 4, 2010
ing in this election. “The key is that we can make a difference all the way up the ladder. This is the center of the universe in the 2010 election,” he said.
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student body responds to radical posters BY MENGHAN JIN mjin1@swarthmore.edu
Posters are ubiquitous on campus; posters denouncing President Obama’s presidency usually are not. That is, until last Wednesday. In an effort to promote a new conservative student group known as the Swarthmore Young America’s Foundation (YAF), Danielle Charette ’14 put up countless controversial posters in various campus buildings last week reflecting her conservative ideals. Several of them, however, were defaced and even taken down and replaced with parodies of Charette’s original posters. Especially noticeable in Sharples, some of Charette’s posters portrayed a fractured picture of Obama’s face, declaring statements such as, “Epic Fail” and “After only one year, we are poorer, weaker, less respected, and less free.” Another poster declared, “It’s the economy, stupid,” over a picture of Ronald Reagan. Also immediately after they were put up, Charette’s posters sparked a wide response from the student body. “Everyone was pretty much … shocked to see that kind of rhetoric used at Swarthmore,” Andy Forrest ’12, member of Students for a Democratic Society, said. Unidentified sources have been putting satirical sticky notes on the posters saying “down with the fascist government” and “down with bureaucracy.” Charette has also noticed that all of the anti-Obama are missing and that several other mock-ups have been posted around campus, calling YAF “our local branch of the number one conservative group in the United States.” “If 50 percent of the American public doesn’t like Obama’s policies, it shouldn’t be World War III if one Swarthmore student criticizes the president,” Charette said in defense of her anti-Obama posters. Dan Symonds ’11 admits that he has been putting up counter posters of his
own, but made sure to leave Charette’s posters alone. “I wrote some quick comebacks in the hopes of satirizing YAF’s ideological kin, using the same level of emotionalism and superficiality that the ‘Obama epic fail’ sky-is-falling flyers did,” he said in an e-mail. For both Forrest and Symonds, most of the controversy lies in the inflammatory language in Charette’s posters. “I don’t necessarily have a problem with posting controversial views, but when you start saying things like ‘Obama’s a failure because he’s an embarrassment,’ it doesn’t really make much sense to me,” Forrest said. Charette’s intentions, though, were not to anger. “I was frustrated that we were just having a one-sided dialogue about certain things and I thought, ‘Well, I can’t really get frustrated if I don’t come back from the other side,’” Charette said. Thus to enhance dialogue, Charette formed a new conservative group, YAF, that would work with the national YAF — an organization specialized in helping students promote conservatism at their schools — to bring conservative lecturers to campus. The posters were just a way to publicize the group. Currently in the process of being chartered by Student Council, YAF already has a cohort of about six students who are interested in joining. Natalie Litton ’12, president of the College Democrats, finds the formation of such a conservative group healthy for Swarthmore. “I think it’s great,” she said. “I think that every student on this campus has a right to form a group to build to the conversation.” What’s interesting for Charette and most conservative Swarthmore students is that in the real world the posters would be considered moderate. “I’m from D.C. and to be honest, most of those posters were very, very tame compared to actually offensive posters,” said Peter Ballen ’14, who
News iN Brief
Three incidents reported during night of Halloween party, underage student cited The night of the Halloween party is usually the busiest Saturday night for Public Safety, but this year’s party, which was held in Sharples, was relatively tame, with only three reported incidents. “If you look back at … Halloween parties for the past five years, this was as good as any, perhaps better than most, so far as accidents, injuries, alcohol [and] police [involvement] go,” Director of Public Safety Owen Redgrave said. According to Redgrave, at 12:22 a.m., Public Safety responded to a report that an intoxicated student had fallen off the cereal counter in Sharples. She was subsequently rushed to the Springfield hospital by ambulance and treated for a sprained ankle. The incident will be handled as an accident and the student will not receive a citation for underage drinking. Earlier in the night, public safety also responded to two unrelated reports of two students with alcohol
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poisoning, one at 12:08 a.m. and one at 12:19 a.m. Both students were taken by ambulance to the hospital. Since one of the students was under 21 and highly intoxicated, she will receive a citation. All three students are currently in fine condition. Redgrave attributes the decline in number of incidents to the location of the Halloween party this year. Apart from last year, previous Halloween parties have been held at the Mary Lyons dorm. Many incidents usually occurred from students walking back to campus intoxicated and out in public streets and sidewalks, Redgrave said. Swarthmore Chief of Police Brian Craig also noticed this trend. “The activity is much reduced from when it was at Mary Lyons,” he said. “It is a lot less than what we’ve experienced in the past.”
BY MENGHAN JIN
Olivia Natan Phoenix Staff
Several unidentified students have put up parodies of Danielle Charette’s bold posters promoting her new conservative group.
identifies himself as conservative. Charette figured that since the Swarthmore community is primarily leftleaning, students would be offended by her posters, but she did not anticipate such a passive-aggressive response from the student body. Despite the fact that she provided her contact information on all posters, only a few students have personally e-mailed Charette asking her to defend her views. “I don’t think there was a lot of thought behind the original removal of the posters, because they … didn’t ask to hear our argument,” she said. “No one contacted us … they just assumed they knew what we were all about.” Litton claims that the College Democrats are not behind any of these counterattacks. Though she may find fault in Charette’s posters, Litton said, the expression of ideas at Swarthmore should not be suppressed. “I don’t agree with the ideology, but that has nothing to do with the right to gather, to post their ideas or to look for others who are similar minded,” Litton said. “I think that people should not be taking these posters down; they should not be writing on them; they should not be parodying them.” But in putting up his posters, Symonds had no intention of disrespecting Charette’s right to express her ideas. “I regret that my initial postering retort seems to have been interpreted as a personal attack against Danielle, when I meant only to lampoon the incendiary bluster of the posters themselves,” he said in an e-mail. Forrest also claims that SDS as a group is not involved with any of the counter posters and stands behind Symonds’ conviction that he did not remove any of Charette’s posters. “I definitely know that [Symonds] did-
November 4, 2010
n’t take any down. He made sure that the other posters were still visible,” Forrest said. The taking down of Charette’s posters also sparked Kenneson Chen ’14 to put up posters with a photo of Reagan as a hero and two shirtless men kissing with the text, “What do you think? It doesn’t matter. If you take this down ... it’s censorship.” All of these responses show that Charette’s posters have done more than just bring a conservative voice to campus. They have sparked many discussions about the importance of the freedom of speech and tolerance, especially at Swarthmore where the diversity of ideas is highly respected. “If we really value diversity, we should value someone who comes forth, has a different opinion and be willing to listen to that and tolerate that,” Charette said. Ballen, who is considering joining YAF, agrees. “If you want to put up a poster that says, you know, ‘Obama is a socialist’ or ‘Republicans are fascists’ or ‘Reagan and Bush are war criminals’ or whatever you feel like, that’s your right.” For Charette, these counter posters will not stop her from continuing with the formation of her new conservative group. If anything, she’s found amusement in catching people’s reactions as they passed by her posters last week. “It is funny to watch people casually walk into Sharples and then their heads kind of turn,” she said. But Charette does plan on reconsidering her advertising tactics for YAF. Based on the response she has already garnered, she probably will not put up any more anti-Obama posters. “If we do advertise,” she said, “we’re going to need to be much more moderate.” THe PHOeNiX
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Section editors are responsible for ensuring the completion of their section, reading and editing all copy submitted for publication in the section, coordinating their staff of writers, writing items for publication and laying out pages in QuarkXPress. The section editors must be present in the office for their respective deadlines until the Editor in Chief is satisfied with their completed section. Additionally, the section editors must attend all weekly editorial board meetings on Monday and Thursday evenings, and they must communicate regularly with the writers of their sections to assess their progress and to develop story ideas. The responsibilities of a section editor may be divided between two individuals.
Reporters / staff writers (8 news, 6 living, 5 sports) Reporters write at least one story a week for their section. Writers must attend weekly meetings. Approximate hours per week: 6–8. Columnists / Bloggers (6 opinions, 2 sports, 8 living & arts) A columnist receives a biweekly column. The columnists are expected to work closely with their respective section editors in developing topics and improving their writing styles. Approximate hours per week: 3—4. Copy editors Copy editors check facts, style and grammar and proof pages. Approximate hours per week: 3—5. Photographers Photographers are expected to fulfill weekly assignments. This includes taking photos at the assigned time and uploading the photos onto the Phoenix server in a timely fashion. Approximate hours per week: varies. Staff artists (3) Staff artists are required to submit at least one illustration per issue, for various sections of the paper. Approximate hours per week: varies. Cartoonists (4) Cartoonists may apply to work as either an op-artist or a living & arts artist, and will be required to submit pieces biweekly. Approximate hours per week: 2.
Managing editor (2) The managing editor(s) are responsible for the completion of the newspaper and for delegating tasks to other editors and staff members, to support the role of the editor in chief. The managing editor(s) have significant involvement in the editorial, design and layout processes, and must be present in the office during production on Tuesday nights and Wednesday. Approximate hours per week: 25. News editor The news editor must have a current and comprehensive knowledge of events, people and issues on campus. Job duties include reading and editing all news copy, leading a staff meeting on Monday nights to work with reporters and develop future story ideas, working with other editors to select news content and directing reporters. Frequent communication with reporters, photographers and senior editors is essential. Applicants should be competent reporters, willing to write last-minute news stories and take photos. Approximate hours per week: 18. Living & Arts editor The Living & Arts editor must be able to develop creative feature and art ideas for the section each week; maintain familiarity with the art, music and theater scene, both on campus and in the Philadelphia area; and select events to feature as editor’s picks. The living section allows for more creativity in design than do other sections in the paper. Approximate hours per week: 16. Chief copy editor The chief copy editor of The Phoenix is responsible for the factual and grammatical aspects of all copy in the newspaper. Responsibilities include reading all copy, reading proofs of all pages, coordinating the schedules of a staff of copy editors, maintaining and updating The Phoenix stylebook and providing editorial feedback to the writers and editors. Approximate hours per week: 12. Graphics editor Responsibilities include working with the editors and staff artist(s) to conceptualize and create cover art and graphics within page designs. The graphic designer should coordinate art and is responsible for ensuring completion of graphics or photo-intensive pages. The graphic designer will also attend editorial board meetings. Previous work with Photoshop is required. Approximate hours per week: 8. Photo editor Responsibilities include taking, uploading and editing photos; maintaining a staff of photographers; coordinating the use of the paper’s digital cameras; and communicating with editors at editorial board meetings and throughout the week. Approximate hours per week: 10
Opinions editor The opinions editor’s primary job is to ensure that a diverse range of views relevant to the campus are represented on the editorial pages. Responsibilities include soliciting op-ed pieces, working with staff columnists and cartoonists to develop and carry out ideas and ensuring completion of the staff editorial each week. The opinions editor must also keep abreast of relevant campus and world events. Approximate hours per week: 12. Sports editor The sports editor should maintain a comprehensive knowledge of all varsity and club teams on campus. Duties include reading and editing all sports copy and assigning sports photos. Applicants must be competent sportswriters who are willing to write and take photos as needed. Approximate hours per week: 12. Assistant section editors Assistant editors in news, living and arts, sports and opinions may be added as training positions. Assistant section editors are responsible for helping the section editor in all duties and learning all aspects of production essential to the section, including layout design and editing. Assistant section editors are also responsible for writing for their sections as necessary. Approximate hours per week: 8–10.
BUSINESS POSITIONS Advertising manager (2) The advertising manager(s) work to recruit local and national ads. Responsibilities include keeping up-todate advertising records, sending out invoices and tearsheets to the advertisers, documenting paid invoices; providing up-to-date advertising income figures and attending weekly business staff meetings. Approximate hours per week: 6. Circulation manager (2) The circulation manager(s) must distribute copies of The Phoenix to areas across campus early Thursday mornings, stuff faculty and administration mailboxes, maintain subscriber lists and ensure that subscriptions are mailed out each Thursday on a weekly basis, deliver extra copies to The Phoenix office and answer subscription requests as they are received. Approximate hours per week: 3. Advertisers (3) Advertisers sell ads for The Phoenix website and print edition to local businesses. This position pays a commission for ads sold. Having access to a car is preferable but not required. Approximate hours per week: varies.
WEB STAFF (NEW!) Web Editor (2) The Web Editor(s) edits all stories that appear only on the web, moderates comments, posts to and moderates the forums, and coordinates the newly created Phoenix Web Staff. The Web Editor will hold a weekly or twice-weekly meeting with the Web Staff to ensure there is plenty of fresh content to keep the website as lively as possible. Approximate hours per week: 5-7. Web Staff (4) Web staffers are in charge of keeping The Phoenix website up-to-date throughout the week. Staffers will write stories, post blogs and/or take additional photos for the website. Staffers are required to attend weekly meetings to discuss the content to be placed on the website and will be required to post several items every week. WIth much less time commitment, it’s a great way to get started on The Phoenix. Approximate hours per week: 3-4. Assistant Webmaster / Ruby on Rails Web Developer The webmaster is responsible both for maintaining the website and for improving it in ways that engage our readers. Expect to post content, tweak styles, optimize the server configuration and maybe even build entirely new sections of the website. A wemaster must have experience with Rails or an avid interest in learning Rails as an extension of some existing web development background. Knowlege of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript is required.
FOR HIRING RULES, FULL JOB DESCRIPTIONS AND TO SUBMIT AN APPLICATION FOR SPRING 2011:
h t t p : / / w w w. s w a r t h m o r e p h o e n i x . c o m / h i r i n g
THE PHOENIX
November 4, 2010
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Living & Arts
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Studying in the Middle East among segregation It seems as though no place in the world receives as much media attention as the Eastern Mediterranean, whose cities — such as Beirut, Damascus and Jerusalem — and citizens can barely go a day without appearing on the front page of the New York Times. Those of you who excel at counting will have noticed that more than 70 days have Jasper Goldberg passed since I started travelAround the World ing across Europe. I am now in 70 Days studying in the Eastern Mediterranean, and am desperately trying to write an article about a place where it seems as though everything has been written about, usually by far better writers than I could ever hope to be. It is difficult to write about Israel without discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, to focus exclusively on this conflict is to pay insufficient attention to the cultures of both peoples. I have not spent enough time in the West Bank to write knowledgeably about Palestinian culture, and for now I think it is better for me to focus on Israeli culture. Both societies are so much more than their conflicts, and I believe that most people living in this region would prefer to be known for their foods and traditions, rather than for their feuds and tragedies. My hope is to be as evenhanded as possible in my writing, but I know I will not succeed in the eyes of every reader. Israeli society is much more complex than I had expected. Each of my four Israeli roommates has a different background; one’s family is German-Iraqi, another GermanMoroccan, a third Kurdish-Moroccan and the fourth Moldovan. Initially, as in the United States, Europeans held the highest social status, and there was significant discrimination against non-European Jews. Over time, nonEuropean Jews have gained greater equality and today roughly a third of all Israeli marriages are mixed. Similar to how military service led members of different ethnic and socio-economic groups to intermingle when America had the draft, the Israeli military has also broken down barri-
ers between Jews from around the world. Just as Americans have begun to embrace their preNorth American roots, some Israelis have recently revived traditions from the Jewish diaspora. Traditional Moroccan weddings have become very popular (one of my roommates is attending a traditional wedding this weekend). Falafel and Shawarma dominate the fast-food scene, along with the Israeli chain McDavids, which sadly is being squeezed out by kosher McDonald's restaurants. Of course, some Jewish immigrants never lost their traditional culture. For example, later this year some friends of mine and I might join the Bnai Yisrael, a Jewish community from near Mumbai, for an Indian-influenced Hanukkah. My roommates have promised to teach me Iraqi and Yemeni dishes that they have learned from friends and family, and Moroccan dishes are a staple of our cooking in the apartment. Perhaps only places like New York City and San Francisco can compete with the diversity of Israeli cuisine. Besides Jewish Israelis, there are also significant numbers of Arab Israelis and Druze. As usual with the Middle East, names can be complicated; there are many Arab Jews in Israel who are now considered “Jewish Israelis,” while the term “Arab Israeli” refers to the Christians and Muslims living inside of Israel's 1967 borders. Arab Israelis do not have the same political status as Arabs living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but most prefer to identify as Palestinian. In the broader Arab world, they are sometimes refered to as “The Arabs of 1948” or “The Arabs Within.” To make things a little more confusing, some Christians consider themselves Israeli, although they speak Arabic. Many feel stuck between the Arab states, which the Arab Israelis/Palestinians I have met told me are too autocratic or Islamic (Palestinians are among the best educated people in the world and historically have had little interest in fundamentalism), and Israel, which many of them view as an occupying power. This dilemma perhaps explains why the 2006 Herzliya Patriotism Survey found that 56% of Arab Israelis “are not proud of their citizenship,” but 77% consider Israel to be “better than most countries.” At my university, a large number of students belong to this group, although I am not sure how many are Christian and how many are Muslim. Many female Arab students wear the hijab, and the male Arab students are among the most politically active students on campus, but plenty of
Arab students are neither conservatively dressed nor politically active. Although Israel is the only place in the Middle East where people of all three faiths study together in large numbers, there is too much social segregation between the three religions, although less so between Christians and Muslims. It sometimes seems as though we foreign students, who are often unable to distinguish Jews from Muslims or Christians, are the only ones who intermingle freely. My friends and I are planning to put on a large Thanksgiving celebration, and it will be interesting to see how our roommates, who come from different backgrounds, will interact if we are able to convince them to come. The Druze living in Israel are jokingly referred to by Jewish Israelis as being “more Israeli than we are.” They serve in the army and border police, and do not identify with Arab Nationalism. This is partially because some Arab nationalists persecuted them prior to 1948. However, Druze in the Golan Heights, which is internationally regarded as Syrian territory, continue to identify as Syrian citizens, and less than 10% accepted Israeli citizenship. Interestingly, the Associated Press reported in 2007 that many Druze in the Golan Heights quietly prefer Israeli rule to Syrian rule, because they have more freedoms in Israel than they would in Syria. On the other hand, Druze living within Israel’s pre-1967 war boundaries share what is referred to as “a covenant of blood” with Jewish Israelis from fighting together in Israel’s wars. And so, here I am in Haifa, with neither a kippah nor keffiyeh on my head, able both to brew beer with my roommate Gil and to eat bacon while my roommate Avichai isn’t looking (to Avichai’s credit, he makes awesome sushi). I certainly don’t know how to solve the conflicts I have avoided discussing in this article, and I don’t know whether my Thanksgiving barbecue will even attract my friends’ roommates to come and intermingle. I’m hopeful though that they may come for the food. A few days ago, I was in the car with Avichai, Ari (my American roommate) and two of Ari’s friends who are working at an immigration center for Ethiopians. We passed an Arab restaurant whose tables were filled with people devouring plates of hummus. “Most of them are Jewish,” Avichai said, laughing. Jasper is a junior. You can reach him at jgoldb1@swarthmore.edu.
Removing the stigma of Vodou through Fet Gede BY SERA JEONG sjeong1@swarthmore.edu While Day of the Dead celebrations bring to mind the Latin American Dia de los Muertos, many other religions and countries, like Haiti, observe this day as well. On Saturday, Oct. 30, the Haitian Vodou celebration of Day of the Dead, Fet Gede, was held in Bond Hall. Vodou often conjures images of voodoo dolls and witch doctors. However, those who attended were exposed to a practice largely different from the stereotype. “What everybody knows about Vodou they’ve learned from movies and TV, and that’s wrong,” Mambo Pat, a priestess from the Vodou house Sosyete du Marche in Philadelphia, said. Mambo Pat began the celebrations by giving background information to Haitian Vodou and how she became a Vodou Priestess. Swathmore’s Fet Gede event included Sosyete du Marche’s members and founders assembling an altar and leading a service to the dead, which mostly involved singing in Creole and dancing to drums. “We really have an opportunity here tonight to see how the big question of death is spoken to, interrogated and addressed in a particular tradition, the religion of
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Haitian Vodou,” professor of religion Yvonne Chireau said of the event’s importance to the community. Fet Gede translates to “festival of the dead” and more specifically, the festival of the angel Gede. The purpose is to honor ancestors by honoring Gede, who is known as the original ancestor. The service’s atmosphere was very different from a conventional, formal religious ceremony and is instead exactly what the Creole name suggests, a festival. While Vodou beliefs suggest that there is nothing to fear in death as it leads to the immortal, Fet Gede’s honoring of the dead is conducted in a spirit of celebration, rather than mourning. Students were encouraged to dance with each other and in front of the altar; participants spent little time sitting down. The evening gave students a wider perspective of Vodou. “I was surprised it was so open to non-participants [of the religion]. I thought [Vodou] was something that involved ‘an evil force.’ I realize it is worship of ancestors,” Ted Goh ’14 said. Vodou is not a form of witchcraft as commonly perceived. It is an inclusive and multidimensional religion that borrows elements from other religions such as Catholicism, the predominant religion of the masters of Haitians during the Plantation Era. “Vodou is a collection of
practices. We call it a Creole religion,” Mambo Pat said. The inclusiveness of Vodou is reflected in the demographics of those who partake. Sosyete du Marche includes members of American, Latino, Haitian, pan-American and Native American origin. Although worship songs are conducted in Creole and French, these languages need not be mastered to identify with Vodou. Mambo Pat, whose full name is Mambo Vye Zo Komande la Menfo, is not Haitian, French or African. An American, Mambo Pat went to Haiti to search for answers after her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. She says she felt a calling to become ordained after a Vodou priest read cards that revealed her new purpose of being a Vodou Priestess. It is now part of her personal vision to ensure Vodou is recognized as a valid religion. At the center of the celebrations was an altar, an important element in Vodou as it is a form of offering for spirits. Food is particularly significant for Haitians because, as poverty is a major social issue, many people do not eat everyday. The food offered during the Fet Gede was cookies, which are not a traditional Haitian food. After offering the food to the spirits, participants were welcomed to eat the offerings. Typical Day of the Dead ceremonies in Haiti can last for over five hours. The
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ceremony held on Saturday lasted only about one hour. While students had ample space to sing and dance in Bond Hall, Haitian ceremonies take place in much more confined environments due to the high population density of Haiti. Vodou in Haiti “was more of an underground thing,” according to Goh, who visited a community near Port-au-Prince this summer. Goh could not feel an overt presence of Vodou in the community he was staying at and noted the growing influence of Christianity. Vodou, though, is heavily ingrained in Haitian culture and history, which makes it unlikely to be completely lost. Mambo Pat describes Vodou as being not so different from other religions, as its essence is to serve people and serve spirits. Followers of Vodou serve members of the community through education and charity work. These factors are similar to the values of more mainstream religions like Christianity. Perhaps once the barrier of reputation is overcome, these similarities will make Vodou a more acknowledged religion. "Vodou is growing slowly but steadily. The conditions in Haiti are precluding people from going back and participating in the religion there. The diaspora is growing hugely [in the USA],” Mambo Pat said.
THE PHOENIX
Living & Arts Living the green life: it’s a lot easier than you think swarthmorephoenix.com
Now that I have exhausted my technological treasure trove, I turn to my experience as one of your campus Green Advisors to provide some nifty green tips and strategies that will save you money and resources while helping to ensure a sustainable future for you and for the planet. My recommendations here enable you to go green without any Steve Dean significant changes or costs Life Tips from a Dean to your daily life — I will not ask you to harvest your own “humanure” or eat exclusively discarded food. That said, if those activities float your 100% recyclable Crum regatta boat, then by all means continue. At the activities fair at the beginning of this semester, I walked past a table for the Green Advisors and decided to sign up on a whim. I wasn’t the ideal candidate for a Green Advisor. I had never composted anything in my life, and I was going on my third year of drinking coffee virtually every day out of the coffee bar paper cups. But from the moment I signed my name and thereby incorporated into my life a new identity — a Swarthmore GA — my frame of reference was transformed such that I viewed normal dayto-day situations through a new, green lens. My challenge to you is not to merely adopt a few of my sustainability strategies as part of your daily repertoire, but to adopt sustainability itself as the frame through which you view your repertoire. By enabling your green actions to both derive from and retroactively affirm your own character, you will have established for yourself an unlimited capacity for the natural “feel good” psychological rewards that accompany your every sustainable action. Reduce There are hundreds of simple changes you can make that will reduce your impact on the environment while saving you money and peace of mind. When you wake up in the morning, consider the 3-step sustainable showering technique that can immediately cut your water consumption in half: (1) Turn on the water to get yourself wet; (2) turn off the water while you shampoo your hair and soap up your body; (3) turn the water back on to rinse off. Few people actually turn the water off during what is oftentimes the longest part of their shower; instead, they tend to let the water run, thus diluting their lathering efforts. After you finish up with your shower, you decide to take the time before class to print out your readings. But don’t just set the printer to duplex and assume that you’ve done all you can. Oftentimes your printed readings will contain many extra pages of notes and acknowledgements, which only serve to weigh down your stack of readings and trick you into thinking that your breezy 10-page article is actually a 25-page monolith. Take the extra few seconds to excise the offending pages before you print. Then, when you reach for a plastic bottle of water on your way to class, consider for a second how much that bottle cost both you and the environment. In the best case scenario, you recycle the bottle when you’re done and you’ve merely incurred the purchase price of the bottle itself and the collective environmental costs of bottle production, distribution, and (in an ideal case) recycling. But now consider that your tap water in all likelihood undergoes far more stringent health and safety requirements than that bottled water, and to top it off, tap water is virtually free to you, and drinking it from a mug or bottle of your own entails no environmental repercussions. While on the topic of mugs, let’s look at that cup of coffee that you were going to buy on your way to class. If you do not own your own mug or thermos, every cup of coffee that you drink out of a paper, plastic or styrofoam container will carry the cost of proper disposal, which in the case of styrofoam could mean hundreds of years in a landfill. You can get an excellent, fashionable, 100% microwaveable and 100% recyclable mug at Target for under ten dollars. So now you’re driving to Target, accelerating quickly because of your excitement. But alas, aggressive driving characterized by fast acceleration and abrupt braking can reduce a car’s fuel efficiency by up to 33% on the highway. Basically, your Prius just became a Camry. This is the point where you start to realize that the true benefits from going green arise from a transformation of your approach, not just the incorporation of unconnected green tactics.
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Reuse The concept of reuse strikes a particularly sympathetic chord in my heart thanks to a profound experience I had with a piece of cardboard during my sophomore year. One day, as I was walking to the trash room in Alice Paul, I noticed a large, thick piece of discarded white cardboard, which I had never seen before. Strangely, however, stuck to it was a post-it note with nothing other than my name written on it (and not in my handwriting). I interpreted it as a sign from the gods, and I carried it back into my room, and it has since accompanied me for over two years. It stands up at the head of my bed, preventing my pillows from falling off the bed at night. In the morning, it doubles as a tray for breakfast. Throughout the day, it works nicely as a lap-top countertop. It serves as a reminder that reuse of existing possessions can be incredibly rewarding. When you bought your mug at Target, they probably tried to give you a plastic bag. If you had planned ahead, however, you could have, in a matter of minutes, turned your old t-shirts into nifty totes. Just fold them inside out, sew them shut at the base, and cut as big an opening into the necks as you like, and voila!, you now have strong, fashionable, personally-relevant, and machine-washable tote bags that can accompany you on all your adventures! As for my favorite method of re-use, I recommend that you take full advantage of the “free tables” in your dorms. Free table items are awesome, namely because you don’t have to pay for them, and the people getting rid of them can be rewarded with the knowledge that their trash indeed turned out to be another person’s treasure. Plus, you might
be surprised to see some of the things people are willing to throw away. Case in point: there is currently a working TV (with remote!) on my hall’s free table. Recycle We Swatties are lucky enough to have many opportunities for recycling throughout campus. I wish to offer two insights that may facilitate your recycling experience. First, you can recycle print cartridges and batteries in the bins in Shane lounge, so you never again have to contemplate the world’s profound recycling dilemmas, like the cutoff of environmentally destructive chemicals your print cartridge must contain in order for it to still count as “plastic.” Secondly, recycling in this area can entail some distinct monetary benefits. The Best Buy on Baltimore Pike will happily recycle your old desktop computer towers and laptops as long as you remove the hard drives first, and if you recycle a monitor or TV in particular, Best Buy will give you a $10 gift card. When all is said and done, being sustainable is more than just the sum of its green parts. Sustainability is a lifestyle characterized by an internal disposition toward environmentally-friendly, low-impact actions, and luckily for us, a truly sustainable lifestyle can be both easy and fun to adopt, if only we accept sustainability as a valid, worthwhile and meaningful element of our own individual identities. Steve is a senior. You can reach him at sdean1@swarthmore.edu.
Crossword ACROSS 1. Regular, plus, or super 4. Phoned 8. Ancient letters 13. Jedi enemy, in “Star Wars” 14. Radiate 15. Adhesive 16. Clock starter? 17. Home of Baylor University 18. Most common craps roll 19. CCCP, in English 20. “Wheel of Fortune” purchase 21. Dennis, to Mr. Wilson 22. Do a few odd jobs 25. Roll of bills 26. Winter hrs. in Minnesota 27. No longer edible 30. Titan who fetched apples for Hercules 33. Convergence points 35. “It’s either you _____” 36. Popular high school course 39. Man-to-man alternative 40. Ranger or Yankee, informally 41. Game with kings and queens 42. CBS logo 43. Words said after “… so help you God?” 44. “_____ Willie Winkie” 45. It has no exceptions 51. Alligatorlike reptile 54. Laugh syllable 55. Trudge 56. Footnote abbr. 57. Signal receiver 58. With 63-Across, midwife’s announcement 59. _____ Lama 60. Margarine 61. Historic Scott 62. Utopias 63. See 58-Across 64. Musical gift DOWN 1. Infomercial knife 2. “This is only _____” 3. Radio type 4. Offer on a “Wanted” poster 5. Refrigerator brand 6. More friendly 7. Classic muscle car
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8. Harbor a grudge about 9. Tip over 10. Super star 11. Company V.I.P. 12. Part of a New Year’s Eve party song 13. Progresso product 21. Swing or rock 23. Simplicity 24. Take place 27. Spreadable cheese 28. “Famous” cookie maker 29. Family rooms 30. Woodworking tool 31. King Priam’s home 32. Part of a fishing trio 33. Serious offender 34. Praiseful poem
35. Where the grass is always greener, with “the” 37. Dangerous gas 38. Scored 100% on 43. Baghdad natives 44. MoMA artist 45. “That is to say…” 46. Hot dish with beans 47. Kind of printer 48. The “U” of UHF 49. Short-straw drawer, perhaps 50. “Yikes!” 51. Give up, as territory 52. Slightly 53. Archipelago unit 57. Woofer? BY BEN SCHNEIDERMAN
For the solution to this week’s puzzle, see The Phoenix’s online edition at www.swarthmorephoenix.com.
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The dead are walking, crawling, even jogging!
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its skin is falling off in shreds. In a word, it was awesome. Although probably not for the squeamish. Based on the pilot, however, the show is about more than zombie guts. Rick, after having gotten out of the hospital, is on the hunt for his wife and son, Lori and Carl (Sarah Wayne Callies and Chandler Riggs). Along the way, he’s taken in by an older man, who remains nameless, and his son, Duane. Well, before they take him in, they almost mistake him for a zombie, which, given his I-just-got-out-of-the-hospital gait and glazed-over eyes is not altogether surprising. The man and his son tell Rick that, if his wife and son are alive, they’ll be in Atlanta; the government was setting up a refugee center there. Rick, inexplicably deciding that an enormous urban center is less likely to be full of zombies than a nice, quiet town, sets off, stopping to pick up a horse along the way. In due time, we are treated to a truly magnificent shot of Rick, on horseback, riding into Atlanta on a completely empty stretch of freeway. Well, the side going towards Atlanta is empty; the other side, however, the side heading out of the city, is packed full of stalled cars. Rick fails to notice this, and keeps going into the zombie-infested hell hole. I won’t spoil the end of the episode for you; all I will say is that it is both a superb piece of action filmmaking and absolutely terrifying — so terrifying that I spent a good deal of it making strangled fear noises at my computer. Also, the final shot of the pilot is a gorgeous piece of camerawork, not to mention pants-shittingly scary. It has been a long time since I’ve been this intrigued by a television pilot; many of my favorites took a few episodes (or a season) to blossom, but “The Walking Dead” had me hooked from the first five minutes. Now, let’s just hope it can stay this good, because nothing is worse than a bloated, rotten zombie with nowhere to go. Alex is a senior. You can reach her at aisrael1@swarthmore.edu. courte
through the episode, just in case — was because this pilot was pants-shittingly scary. Now, when I say pants-shittingly scary, I mean astoundingly scary, and this is coming from a girl who knows her way around a zombie story. The only zombierelated media I’ve encountered that even comes close is Max Brooks’ excellent novel “World War Z.” (Yes, a book. Go read it, if you never want to sleep again). I would count the pilot of “The Walking Dead” as one of the best pilots I’ve ever seen, right up there with that of a certain mysterious sci-fi show set on a tropical island. The series, like the graphic novel it’s based on, centers on Rick Grimes, a Southern sherriff’s deputy who wakes up in the hospital to find that, while he was sleeping (or in a coma, if you’re going to be picky), the world has completely gone to shit. The approximately tenminute sequence is absolutely terrifying, mostly because the director of the episode, Frank Darabont (“The Green Mile,” “The Shawshank Redemption”), never goes for the cheap scare. There are lots of opportunities to have Rick turn a corner or open a door and run smack into a zombie, but he never does; instead, Darabont just lets the tension build until you can’t take it anymore and have to run to your fridge and eat copious amounts of peanut butter cups to take the edge off. Not that there aren’t zombies. There are zombies. Lots of them. And they are disgusting. “The Walking Dead” is certainly not for the squeamish. In the first five minutes, Rick shoots a zombie child — a girl, not more than ten or eleven, whose mouth has decayed to the point that she sports a maniacal grin — in the head. And they show the shot. Then, within the next twenty minutes, we’re treated to the sight of a corpse that has been completely stripped of flesh, except for the head and still-staring eyes, and a zombie that is still trying to eat Rick, despite the fact that the entire lower half of its body is gone, and
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I shall preface this column with three words: I love zombies. Well, not zombies themselves, as they are about the least lovable kind of horror movie villain (seriously, they make the Wolfman look like nothing more than an oversize black lab), but zombie movies. If there is a movie that contains zombies, whether it be an old-school classic Alex Israel like “Dawn of the Dead,” a shiny reboot like “28 Days Pencils Down, Later” (featuring 100% AllPass the Remote New, Faster, Not Actually Dead Zombies!), or a parody/homage like the brilliant “Shaun of the Dead,” I will see it. Immediately. As you can probably imagine, given this insight into my twisted, undead-nightmare-loving psyche, I was super pumped for AMC’s new series “The Walking Dead.” Yes, the channel that brought you such utterly classy, Emmy-winning fare as “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad” is now home to a zombie gore fest. Starring the guy from “Love, Actually” who was hopelessly in love with Keira Knightley. Be still, my heart. Well, my heart was definitely not still during the jawdropping ninety-minute pilot. The pounding, however, did not come from love, or even lust, although Andrew Lincoln (the guy from “Love, Actually”) is both goodlooking and a fantastic actor who, in the words of Entertainment Weekly’s Dan Snierson, acts better with “his one eyeball… than most actors [act] with their entire faces.” No, the reason my heart was pounding like crazy — not to mention the reason I was tempted to take a shotgun with me to change my laundry halfway
Art exhibit draws inspiration from familiar themes BY ISAAC HAN AND JOHN OH ihan1, john2@swarthmore.edu While the works of students and famous artists alike grace the walls of the List Gallery and classrooms of Beardsley, we are rarely given the opportunity to see the artwork done by Swarthmore art professors. Professor of Studio Art Randall Exon’s work, though, is currently being exhibited at the Community Arts Center’s Duke Gallery in Wallingford, PA. Exon’s work in the “At Home” exhibit draws upon themes of familiarity and personal experience. Running until Nov. 24, “At Home” showcases some of Exon’s landscape paintings from the past four years. The name “At Home” has a double meaning: it refers both to how the Arts Center is only a block away from his home, while his work is typically displayed at the Hirschl & Adler Modern Gallery in New York, and how much his work embodies the sense of nostalgia that he has for the landscapes that he paints. Exon, who considers himself a landscape painter, focuses most of his landscapes on three places that have played a large part in his life: the Upper Midwest and Kansas, where he spent most of his childhood, Southeastern Pennsylvania, where he currently lives, and Northwest Ireland. Exon spent many summers and holidays at his family’s farms in South Dakota as a child. The landscapes of South Dakota and Nebraska were “very mysterious place[s]” for Exon. Exon also
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marvels at the landscapes near his home now, like the Delaware Bay or the Susquehanna River, as well as the Irish landscape, where Exon spent time as a Fellow at the Ballinglen Arts Foundation in Mayo, Ireland. “The Irish landscape, [especially] that part of northwest Mayo, is just spectacular along the ocean,” Exon said. “It almost reminded me of the upper Midwest, although it had this big ocean. The terrain had some similarities.” While Exon’s landscapes include some figures and he’s also painted portraits, he was drawn to landscapes because of their ability to transcend differences. “Most people have had the experience of going into the landscape and having that wonderful experience of just looking over and saying, ‘Oh, how beautiful that is,” Exon said. “I think the role of the painters in the past [was] conjuring up those moments and getting them down in paint.” Exon described painting as a kind of “alchemy,” where it’s, at the basic level, dirt mixed with oil are placed on fabric. “It has no value beyond the imagination that’s demonstrated and, to some degree, the skill that’s demonstrated.” Drawing from his past, Exon creates a canvas that draws upon the experiences of the people viewing his work, whether it’s their memories of a beautiful landscape or their childhood. “The thing I like about his works is that they invite people in,” Debbie Yoder, the executive director of the Arts Center,
said of Exon’s works. “There is something very welcoming about his work. Part of me thinks it has a great deal to do with how his imagination works; the colors are accessible and awe inspiring.” Another element of his paintings that makes his work more accessible is the fact that Exon masterfully wields his craft to express the very sense of nostalgia he wishes to paint. “Clearly grounded in issues of classical ideas of design, colors, texture, he masterfully manipulates air, light, and space in his artwork,” Profesor of Studio Art and Chair Syd Carpenter said. “His work is accessible and beautiful. It’s the subtle things he does in painting that can only be done by someone who practices.” Exon is able to effectively translate the elements of a landscape to mold a painting that elicits a very profound personal response. Rose Cunniffe, a member of the Exhibition Committee at the Center, finds that his paintings, like “Hydrangea” and “Rule of Twelfths” show the “uncomplicated views which have been creatively edited by his imagination.” One of his oil paintings featured in the exhibit, entitled “Sheets and Garage,” is of a clothesline and an isolated white garage on a hilltop of a rural area. The scene achieves familiarity in spite of its specificity. The scene is only of one garage and clothesline but through its color scheme acknowledges the images reminiscent of universality. “The exhibit is a coherent, evocative body of work in which each painting is
November 4, 2010
Image courtesy of randallexon.com
“Hydrangeas” by Randall Exon absolutely noteworthy, and invites one to pause and contemplate,” Cunniffe said. “At Home,” which features both Exon’s oil and watercolor paintings, will be on display at the Community Arts Center until Nov. 24. Exon will be at the Community Arts Center this Sunday, Nov. 7 to discuss the thematic elements of his paintings. There will also be a question and answer section of the event. Camila Ryder also contributed to this article.
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Living & Arts
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Epic poem ‘Beowulf’ returns to its musical roots BY DINA ZINGARO dzingar1@swarthmore.edu Typically, one is primarily exposed to the epic poem “Beowulf” in its written form. Swarthmore students, however, will have the opportunity to appreciate the verses in its medieval oral tradition. World renowned vocalist and musician Benjamin Bagby will perform “Beowulf” this Friday, Nov. 5 in LPAC at 8 p.m. in the story telling tradition characteristic of the medieval bard or poet. With “Beowulf”’s roots in the art of the scope or entertainer of early medieval England, bardic story-tellers would recite the Anglo-Saxon epic poem at formal gatherings. Drawing from this tradition of tribal society, Bagby uses a six-stringed harp in his re-telling of the story in both song and speech. Though a modern English translation is projected on a screen for the audience, Bagby even performs in the dead language of Anglo-Saxon, or Old English. Famous for his “Beowulf” project, Bagby first gained worldwide acclaim in his direction of “Sequentia,” an ensemble he founded in 1974 that is dedicated to performing medieval music. After his musical studies in the U.S. at Oberlin College and later in Switzerland, he founded the ensemble in Germany and eventually relocated it to Paris where he now teaches medieval music performance practice at the Sorbonne University. Bagby remembers being fond of “Beowulf” as a child, but always considered the poem solely a literary text. After
his performance work with “Sequentia,” Bagby saw Beowulf as a performance text and began to consider the project of mixing instrument and word. To make the poem into a performance, Bagby first envisioned the performance’s “sound-image,” which is the image of how the sound of the language, in this case Old English or Anglo Saxon, can be employed musically with singing. “It was just an image which allowed me to then proceed with the work — kind of like unlocking the door,” Bagby said. “In other words, I didn’t approach it as an intellectual process. It started with a real gut reaction.” Bagby performed a short scene from “Beowulf” in 1987 as a segment in a “Sequentia” concert program of medieval English music. The Utrecht Early Music Festival in the Netherlands invited Bagby to perform “Beowulf” in 1990 and in less than five months, Bagby transformed his original 10-minute song into an hour-long performance of the epic poem. Bagby then gained recognition in his performances across Europe and North America. Bards performed stories such as “Beowulf” over a few days, usually performing about 400 lines per evening. Currently, he performs one third of the poem, which is about 1,062 lines of text. To learn the remaining two thirds would require him to cease his other work in order to dedicate the time for memorization. For his performance, Bagby uses a specially made instrument, a six-stringed harp, fashioned after the medieval lyre
excavated from a 7th-century German nobleman’s grave. Bagby taught himself to play the instrument and studied the use of such small-sized harps in other cultures such as Africa and Asia. “I am not copying techniques from another culture, but instead I am learning from how they approach the instrument, how they view it and how it is employed,” Bagby said. The crafting of his performance did not involve any musical notation, but Bagby studied extensively early medieval modal theory, which is the study of melodies or harmonies based on modes other than the ordinary major and minor scales. Bagby used his own artistic license to choose and combine the various sounds, especially since he is limited in using his hands for expressive means. However, he considers such artistic limitations also to be a blessing. “In a way, the extreme limitation of the circumstances of performance are to my benefit because clearly when you are working with a lot of limitations, you begin [to be] much more creative,” Bagby said. To bring life to the performance, Bagby heightens his speech selectively and relies on facial expressions. He also draws from traditional story-telling techniques and also adds his own style from his experience in training as an actor and singer. In 2002, Professor of English Literature Craig Williamson attended Bagby’s performance at Bryn Mawr College. Now, as head of the Medieval Studies program, Williamson invited Bagby to perform at Swarthmore. He recalls how Bagby “took
on the voice of the characters,” especially when narrating verses about the monster, Grendel. “It’s pretty spectacular. You are not actually sitting at a table eating meat and drinking, but it does make you feel like you are in an eighth-century gathering,” Williamson said. “We don’t really have many opportunities to actually experience what oral forms of prose were like.” “Beowulf,” written between the eighth and eleventh centuries, continues to live on in contemporary culture in novels, translations, comic books and in the 2007 film “Beowulf.” In regards to this enduring appeal, Bagby points to the tale’s “archaic or ahistorical” character. Bagby feels the text’s universal concepts of power, strength, ambition and especially of fearlessness attract readers. “We would all love to be fearless, but we live in a world of fear,” Bagby said. “[Bagby] has this incredible voice and energy to him - it really feels like watching a 10th century bard,” Ben Hattem ’12 said. “I l o v e Beowulf, and Bagby does it the way it's supposed to be done.” Courtesy of http://tiny.cc/lpek0, http://tiny.cc/43v3tgv8vl
S watStyleSnapshot Name: Ming Cai Year: 2011 From: Wynnewood, PA Current Residence: The Barn What She’s Wearing: “My top and my skirt and my belt are all from Goodwill,” Cai said. Her camel corduroy jacket is from American Apparel and her heels, worn with grey tights, are the Sunset Sandals from Madewell. Her salmon hued bag is by Swedish brand Fjallraven, which Cai calls the “L.L. Bean of Sweden,” but she purchased it from the online store Need Supply Co. Cai’s pocket watch necklace is from Etsy and her silver knuckle ring is from H&M. “My sunglasses are vintage Ray Ban before Ray Ban switched over from being Bausch & Lomb,” she said. From the widely coveted Madewell heels to the exquisite combination of camel and red, Cai is wearing, headto-toe, one of the most sartorially spot-on outfits for fall. How She Describes Her Personal Style: “My style’s kind of all over the place now,” Cai said. “There are days when I dress sort of ... androgynously and then there are days when I’m really girly.” Cai gravitates towards items or outfits that evoke the look of the 50s and early 60s, specifically those that have cinched waists. While Cai is sporting a below-the-knee skirt in the outfit pictured, she admitted it wasn’t something she used to typically wear. “A few years ago, I would tend not to wear anything that went below my knees, but lately I’ve found myself wearing a lot of floor-length dresses, floor-length skirts, [and] things that I guess [are] a little more modest-looking,” she said. Fashion Influences / Inspiration: Cai used to browse through many fashion blogs. Now, she has both a tumblr blog and a bloglovin account, which organizes all your favorite blogs onto one place and checks those out for both fashion and photography blogs. “Any sort of photography tends to inspire me more
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now,” Cai said, whose favorite photographers include Jeff Wall and Helmut Newton. Some photography blogs she looks at include the street style blog Turned Out and Half Girl, which hails from Copenhagen. Cai studied abroad in Copenhagen last year and loved how put together Swedish girls were, even when they were riding around the city on their bikes. “Definitely, I think [it] influenced how I dressed on a dayto-day basis,” she said. She also draws inspiration from her favorite TV show, “Twin Peaks,” as she finds her style to be “somewhere in between the Log Lady and Audrey Horne,” as well as movies, like Sissy Spacek’s paired-down look in “The Bad Lands.” Besides photography and film, Cai also likes designers like Chloé, A.P.C., Celine and Marni. Where She Shops: Cai tends to shop online at “every site possible,” but focuses more on items she loves rather than brands. While she’s been trying to shop less, she enjoys eBay hunts for specific items and also hits up the thrift store at the local Trinity Church. Favorite Items in Her Closet: “I have this one pair of black patent Ferragamo heels that I got a thrift store,” Cai said. “Those have lasted me through every sort of situation here, from interviews to Pub Nite or Olde Club shows.” She also loves wearing an off-white 50s shirtwaist dress with a leaf print that she purchased on eBay.
November 4, 2010
Do you think you (or a professor) have great style? Then submit a photo of you in your best outfit to cryder1@swarthmore.edu. Please include your name and contact information.
TEXT BY CAMILA RYDER, PHOTO BY MING CAI
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HAN presents Oh DANG!
Friday, Nov. 5 9 p.m. Danawell trailer
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Saturday, Nov. 6 6 p.m. Clothier Field
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editor’s Minus Malaria P I CK S Variety Show By Camila Ryder
Halloween Cover Show
Featuring: Mixed Company Sixteen Feet Essence of Soul Grapevine Chaverim Turkish Drumming Mariachi Band Rhythm and Motion Vertigo-go Boy Meets Tractor SMAC The Harolds
Friday, Nov. 5 9 p.m. Olde Club
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Saturday, Nov. 6 8 - 9:30 p.m. LPAC
o n w a r d !
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THE PHOENIX
Opinions
swarthmorephoenix.com Staff Editorial
Deer cull most effective, humane way to preserve Crum The college’s decision to have another deer cull this winter — pending the approval of its application — may not initially seem comforting, but it is the safest and most humane way to deal with the spiking deer population in the Crum Woods. Periodically hiring sharpshooters to hunt deer is, in fact, an environmentally ethical choice at this point because it would most effectively preserve the woods’ currently strained ecosystem. After years of research and consideration, the college had a deer cull in the Crum Woods last winter. Conscientious and thoughtful, the Crum Woods Stewardship Commitee has done an excellent job in addressing the dangerous upsurge in deer in the Crum Woods. Lacking natural predators and eating a variety of plant species, white-tail deer bring a challenge to the Crum Woods ecosystem, as evidence has shown. Since 2001, the college has been studying the effects that an overabundance of deer has had on the Crum Woods. A group of outside consultants concluded in 2003 that the abundance of deer has profoundly limited the forest’s ability to regenerate native plant species and reduced the natural habitats for some animals. As deer eat native oak saplings and older trees die, for instance, the forest canopy is reduced and other animals’ habitats are consequently put in danger. The explosion of deer has been serious. There are about 50 to 70 deer per square mile in the Crum Woods’ 170-acre tract of land, according to 2007 data. The problem is exacerbated with does giving birth to one or two fawns each year. The application for this cull asks to hunt 50 deer. Deer also are primary carriers of Lyme disease-bearing ticks, a health concern that cannot be understated considering the frequent traffic through the woods. Certainly, hunting animals is not an ideal or easy decision for a largely liberal school with a focus on ethical intelli-
gence and a palpable environmental community on campus. There has been some backlash in recent years regarding the deer cull, much of it centering on the ethics of resorting to hunting as the one and only way to solve a problem. Though that same kind of reaction doesn’t seem to have been voiced recently, we think it is still essential to emphasize that the deer cull is the only realistic option at this point to properly address a problem that will only get worse if action isn’t taken. Contraceptive methods in theory seem like a more humane alternative than hiring sharpshooters, but immunocontraception has not been released commercially, has not been approved by the EPA or FDA and has not been tested in open spaces. Besides, deer’s average lifespan in the woods is 18 years, meaning that contraceptive methods likely would only bring a decline too slow to make a significant difference. Other methods have been considered — such as constructing a fencing system or introducing natural predators — but the effectiveness and safety of them have continually remained unclear. Arguing that killing animals is principally unethical at this point, then, is a tired argument. After all, it ignores research and effectively disregards that other organisms and habitats will be more negatively impacted — a point that should be the primary environmental concern right now. Admittedly, the thought of sharpshooters roaming the Crum Woods is not a comforting thought considering it is an area visited not just by the campus but also the borough and surrounding communities. Nevertheless, the Crum Woods Stewardship Committee has insisted the sharpshooters are professionals who will shoot only from elevation and at times where there will be minimal traffic. Making sure that these regulations remain is absolutely vital for ensuring that this deer cull and following ones
Around HigHer educAtion
A case for slutty Halloween costumes BY RACHEL T. LIPSON uwire.com, Oct. 28, 2010 Halloween is the only day of the year when it’s perfectly acceptable to look like a total skank. Think about that statement. When else is it okay for a female to literally wear anything she desires, without facing judgment? In this day and age, we — as women — like to think of ourselves as liberated; we like to believe that we can wear whatever we want, wherever we want. But everyone knows that this isn’t really the case. Except on Halloween. No one will even blink twice as you parade down Mass. Ave., no matter how miniscule your skirt or low-cut your top. If someone is to bat an eye — well, an even-teenier skirt is probably on the way. And not only will no one judge you for wearing as little clothing as possitHe PHoeniX
ble, you can also get some great bargains. Paying $9.99 to morph into a sexy feline for the night? That sure is a lot cheaper than plastic surgery. Meanwhile, at a place like Harvard, it’s not often that service industry jobs outside of finance and consulting get much love. But when it comes to Halloween, police officers, fire fighters, nurses, maids, and flight attendants are the professions of choice. But it’s not just on the female side of the spectrum: Boys in scantily clad construction worker outfits can appear just as slutty. Isn’t it time that we at Harvard represent something other than Wall Street? Slutty Halloween costumes are all about bringing sexy back to Main Street. Best of all, on Halloween, dressing like a slut doesn’t mean you actually are one.
“I prefer smaller class sizes anyway, that’s why I came to Swarthmore.” Emma Waitzman Phoenix Staff
remain safe not just for the woods but also the people who visit it. The CWSP, from continually considering other options to opening itself up to campus and community input, has acted conscientiously and thoughtfully since they first commissioned research. We expect the college will continue to carry itself this way, as evidenced for instance by the college’s plan to use a new research-based monitoring program
to help inform what methods should be taken in the future. The CWSC has clearly handled this issue effectively and done an excellent job in preserving one of the college’s vital assets. And though we are at a school that constantly calls for open forums and campus-wide discussions, we believe this is an issue we think can be safely put to rest.
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, op-eds 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. Op-eds 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 opeds 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 individual writers
November 4, 2010
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 opinion of the members of the Opinions Board: Jeff Davidson, Amelia Possanza, Dante Anthony Fuoco and Camila Ryder. 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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Opinions Why is making money bad? Dems need to change
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The Republicans have retaken the House and gained seats in the Senate. Washington is about to undergo a major change. President Obama’s administration now has to decide whether to continue pursuing his agenda while risking gridlock, or compromise with Republicans. There is one issue that Republicans need to stand up and push the Tyler Becker administration on: halting the demonization of business. The Swarthmore It is sometimes hard to Conservative believe when I hear Democrats say that the United States currently has an unemployment rate of 9.6 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The only way the rate will decrease is if the private sector begins to create more jobs. And decrying the evils of corporate America is not going to bring that rate down anytime soon. In July, General Electric CEO Jeffery Immelt said, “Business does not like the U.S. President, and the President does not like business.” This is not the environment the administration should be fostering in this economy. Earlier this year, controversy erupted when the President said gambling in Las Vegas was not a good idea “when you’re trying to save for college. You prioritize. You make tough choices. It's time your government did the same.” While it is noble that Obama said the government should reduce wasteful spending, the fact that Obama criticized Las Vegas while he was in the city was the problem. Tourists go to Las Vegas not only to gamble, but to spend money there. I mean, the unemployment rate in the city has topped 15 percent. Obama’s comment certainly did not
help. Even Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, went after Obama for implying that people should not go to Las Vegas in this economy. Reid told the White House to “lay off Vegas.” In the latest dispute, Obama recently has been attacking the Chamber of Commerce. Obama and his Democratic counterparts argue that foreign money is being used by the nonprofit to bolster Republican candidates in the midterm elections.The administration admitted they had no evidence of this. Yet, they vehemently attacked the organization that represents three million businesses, including small businesses. The reason for these ads is the anti-corporate climate that exists under the Obama administration. Now, as the midterm elections pass and we enter a lame duck Congress, Democrats will have to decide whether or not to extend the Bush tax cuts. The reason this was not voted on before the midterms is that the administration and many Democrats do not want to extend the tax cuts for families making over $250,000 a year. They fail to recognize that many small businesses are run by people making over this amount due to IRS regulations and the fact that businesses take a long time to turn a profit. For businesses classified as standard corporations, all business profit is counted as personal income for the business owners. It is these small businesses that we need to create jobs. After the bailouts were already complete, Obama decried corporate officials taking bonuses. While this may have been wrong, this is how to get the best officials in the corporate world to turn around a struggling company. Obama also said that “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.” We live in a capitalist society; people have the ability to make as much money as they can, if they are successful. President Obama should not be telling Americans how much money they should make. He should be celebrating that there is the ability to do so in this country. But this is a column about social issues, right?
The negativity the Obama administration shows towards business has become a social issue, maybe even a social problem. The unemployment rate is not headed in the right direction, nearly 15 million people can’t find a job, and individuals and families are struggling. I’m not saying that the administration is completely at fault, although their attitude isn’t helping. One of the major problems I have with the President is that he does not celebrate America the way past presidents, including John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, have. They encouraged America’s entrepreneurial spirit. They did not demean you for being successful, no matter the shape of the economy at the time. We live in a society governed by the free market. I am not saying it is always perfect, but it is the best system put into practice thus far in the history of the world. It bothers me to hear people talk about business like it is the ultimate evil. The for-profit sector keeps the majority of Americans employed and prospering. If there is one social issue that is important to me above all others it is the ability to fulfill the American Dream. If you play by the rules and work hard, it is all right to be successful. That can mean advancing to the top of your field, or starting a new business and turning a profit. Often this success comes with a financial reward. This is how we measure success in the private sector in America. The reason Swarthmore has an over $1 billion endowment is because many of the graduates have gone out and made a lot of money. They then gave back to the college. President Obama and the Democrats should be encouraging, not remonstrating, business. Making money should not be considered an immoral practice, especially in this economy. So, as the Democrats’ complete control over Washington, D.C. comes to an end, I ask the administration and Democrats in congress to join Republicans in promoting business. It is the only way we will get our economy moving again.
Blogger’s sizeist vitriol ignores obstacles of overweight T h o u sands were shocked that M a u r a Kelly’s sizeist rant, “Should ‘Fatties’ Get a Room? (Even on TV?)” was even published. In the October 25th Eva McKend post on the new romantic According to Eva c o m e d y series “Mike & Molly,” a show that Kelly admittedly has never watched, she wrote: “I’d be grossed out if I had to watch two characters with rolls and rolls of fat kissing each other ... because I’d be grossed out if I had to watch them doing anything. To be brutally honest, even in real life, I find it aesthetically displeasing to watch a very, very fat person simply walk across a room — just like I’d find it distressing if I saw a very drunk person stumbling across a bar or a heroine [sic] addict slumping in a chair.” Kelly falsely postulates, “No one who is as fat as Mike and Molly can be healthy … I think obesity is something that most people have a ton of control over. It’s something they can change, if only they put their minds to it.” As Kate Harding, co-author of Lessons from the Fat-o-Sphere: Quit Dieting and Declare a Truce with Your Body, argues, “Experts have long known that fat, active people can be healthier than their skinny, inactive counterparts … Fat people might very
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well be healthier than some thin people because exercise burns visceral fat stored under the skin.” “Mike & Molly” unusually profiles the love story of two working class characters that self-identify as overeaters. Through comedy, the audience witnesses the reality in trying to navigate a relationship in a society that, as Kelly exemplified, considers fat people unlovable. Often confined to marginal spaces, blacks, gays and the non-thin are exclusively used in popular media for comedic relief and retribution. It is perhaps this depiction of real Americans that threatens women like Kelly and large media establishments. The critical success of shows like “Mike & Molly” is powerful because it will ultimately change how these vapid institutions do business. Though a fashion magazine, Marie Claire has always positioned itself as the alternative choice, slightly edgier than their more superficial competitors. One of my favorite recent columnists is Ashley Falcon of “Big Girl in A Skinny World.” It’s hard to believe that Falcon and Kelly are a part of the same brand, and this difference signals there is an extreme level of inconsistency within the magazine. In response to the backlash, Editorin-Chief Joanna Coles seemingly defended Kelly and the post, calling the blogger “provocative” and awarding Kelly legitimacy since Kelly was “anorexic herself.” The 28,000 email responses to the piece did not warrant a strong apology but instead “excited and moved” Coales. Some positive unintended conse-
Courtesy of CBS/Streiber
Billy Gardell and Melissa McCarthy star in the new sitcom “Mike & Molly.”
quences emerged from Kelly’s venomous post. “Mike & Molly” gained tremendous exposure and people who are often subjugated to the periphery had the opportunity to have their voices heard. The well-crafted CBS hit addresses weight in a way that is hilariously honest and constructive. It would be disingenuous to put two characters that selfidentify as overeaters on primetime television without caricaturing the preposterous way society deals with difference.
November 4, 2010
“Mike & Molly” has already introduced additional sub-plots, such as the importance for men to embrace independent strong women and the unhealthy expectations we set for marginalized women to be everyone’s rock while negating their own desires. This potentially could turn out to be a very beautiful love story. I suppose I have Maura Kelly to thank for prompting me to tune into this rare TV relationship as it unfolds. Eva is a senior. She can be reached at emckend1@swarthmore.edu. THE PHOENIX
Sports
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Always a lose-lose situation Here’s the beauty of it: I could have written this exact column last fall. I could also write this column next fall. If I’m Timothy Bernstein incredibly busy this Bullet Points time during senior year, I might even dust it off for the 2012 World Series. Maybe 2013. It’s a journalistic Mad-Lib: Fill in the appropriate names and dates, and I’m home free. How about the 2035 Series, when the Royals face off against the Pirates? Doesn’t matter. Sure, it might be played on the moon, but the question of whether a manager should change his strategy for the playoffs or continue to manage as he has throughout the season will always be an issue, whether the games are played in zero gravity or not. One reason — maybe the biggest — why this will always be an issue is because with the right clichés at your disposal, you can make a convincing case for either side. Observe: “Now, [name of manager] has been pushing the right buttons all year long. That’s what’s gotten his team to this point. He’s been steady, he’s been consistent and he’s kept his team focused on the goal ahead. All of a sudden, he’s changing the approach that’s been so successful all year. He’s asking players to do things they never did all season, and more importantly, the team knows he’s managing tense. They feed off that tension, and it infects the clubhouse.” “Look, the playoffs aren’t like the regular season. You’re facing better pitching, better hitting, and usually a bunch of players who have been here before. Teams in the playoffs know how to win, and know how to hold a lead. You can’t take the chance of letting these games get away from you like you might on July 17th; you’ve got to manage with a cutthroat urgency that you didn’t need down the stretch. Manage like you did during the regular season? Let me ask you this: Are the STAKES the same as they were during the regular season? See? Listen to either of those cases individually, and you’d be positive that it was the right way to go. This year, the man on trial was Ron Washington, manager of World Series losers the Texas Rangers. He’s on trial the way Joe Girardi was last year, the way Charlie Manuel was in 2008, Bob Melvin in 2007, and as far back as you care to go. In each case, most of the controversy will revolve around managing the bullpen and Washington hasn’t proved an exception. Several times this postseason, he declined to use his rookie closer, Neftali Feliz, in the eighth to either preserve a comfortable-but-not-safe lead or to keep a deficit close to give the offense one last chance to rally. Instead, he attempted to mix and match, hoping to coax one or two outs from his palette of situational relievers. Washington’s reasoning: Feliz, although he’s been phenomenal all year, rarely entered the game before the ninth inning, and he didn’t want him to start
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now. Cue the dueling clichés: “Now, Neftali Feliz is an electric young closer who’s got a future in this league, but he’s still only a rookie, and now you’re asking him to do something he almost never did all season in the biggest games of the year? COME ON! “Look, Feliz has been ‘The Guy’ for Texas all year, there to get the big outs at the end of the game. Now you’re in the World Series, and you’re gonna put it in the hands of somebody else? You’re telling me, with his stuff, that he can’t come on in the eighth inning to blow that tripledigit fastball by a couple extra batters? COME ON! Of course, Washington got burned three times by this decision, once against the Yankees and twice in San Francisco. Not that things like evidence and fact are all that important here — show me a hundred examples where one approach fails; I’ll show you a hundred where it succeeds. What really is important here is the same thing that’s important for every controversial decision in sports, from an onside kick in the Super Bowl to leaving Wilt Chamberlain on the bench in Game 7 of the Finals: Did it work? Now that the Series is over, Washington’s so-called “gaffes” will be part of the narrative explaining why Texas lost. He didn’t manage with the necessary “urgency” that the World Series requires. He didn’t pitch Cliff Lee in Game 4 on short rest to keep Texas from getting in a 3-1 hole. Never mind that Cliff Lee would have been doing something he has never done in the World Series, and that in the two starts he did make he wasn’t exactly a house of fire. Even the one move Washington DID make that he never would have in the regular season, when he put the corpse of Vlad Guerrero in right field in Game 1 to keep his bat, was torn apart when it didn’t work*. There was a script to follow, and as soon as Washington’s team lost, it turned out that he had followed the wrong one. *The number of base hits that rolled past Guerrero to the wall in Game 1: Two. The number of hits Guerrero had the entire Series: One. I can’t honestly say I prefer one approach to the other, and maybe that’s why there was a part of me that appreciated how sure Washington seemed to be in what he was doing. He must have known what was coming in the press conference room every time Darren O’Day and Mark Lowe couldn’t get the job done with Feliz waiting in the wings. “He had a rough night,” he would say of [name of Texas reliever worse than Feliz], and move on. Never terse. Never rude. Simply unfaltering in his belief of what he was doing. But it seems that even he had a limit. Or maybe he figured he’d get some belated back patting from the guys who’ve been tearing him to shreds. After Edgar Renteria’s home run hit the mute button on the Ballpark in Arlington in the seventh inning and Cliff Lee guaranteed himself a mixed legacy as a Texas Ranger, Washington needed two innings from his bullpen. One guy pitched both of them. Can you guess who it was? Cue the dueling clichés. On second thought ... don’t bother. Timothy is a sophomore. You can reach him at tbernst1@swarthmore.edu.
gARnet Athlete of the week
kirSTen PeTerSon Sr., Soccer, fenTon, Mi.
WhAT She’S done: The senior set the program assist’s record in Saturday’s win at franklin & Marshall.
fAVoriTe cAreer MoMenT: “Scoring the game-winning goal in the championship game of our third consecutive ecAc championship.”
beST SeASon MoMenT: “Scoring a really nice goal against Gettysburg on our Senior night with my family in the stands.”
fAVoriTe currenT clASS:
Olivia Natan Phoenix Staff
“Professor ross’s Quakerism class. not only am i learning a lot about Quakerism, but we are also touching on the Quaker founding of Swat and the continued Quaker influence here, which is really interesting.”
RecoRds And milestones field hockey Sophia Agathis ’13 earned her fifth goal this season in Saturday’s loss to franklin and Marshall. Sophia ferguson ’11 earned her 50th career point in last Wednesday’s loss to haverford.
Men’S Soccer Philippe celestin ’11 earned his 10th career point in Saturday’s win vs. haverford. Morgan langley ’11 is first in division iii in assists and assists per game through Sunday’s games. Morgan langley ’11 is second in division iii in points and points per game through Sunday’s games. Morgan langley ’11 is ninth in centennial conference history with 26 career assists. Morgan langley ’11 earned his 90th career point in last Wednesday’s win vs. Muhlenberg. Morgan langley ’11 scored his 10th career game-winning goal in Saturday’s win vs. haverford. Morgan langley ’11 earned his 41st point this season in Saturday’s win vs. haverford. The 41 points set a new Swarthmore single-season record. Morgan langley ’11 earned his 94th career career point in Saturday’s win vs. haverford. The 94 points set a new Swarthmore career record.
VolleybAll Allie coleman ’13 earned her 1250th career assist in last Wednesday’s loss to haverford. Allie coleman ’13 earned her 450th career dig in Saturday’s loss to franklin & Marshall. brone lobichusky ’14 earned her 100th career kill in last Wednesday’s loss to haverford. kat Montemurro ’13 earned her 550th career kill in Saturday’s loss to franklin & Marshall. Genny Pezzola ’12 earned her 1100th career dig in last Wednesday’s loss to haverford. hillary Santana ’12 earned her 750th career dig in last Wednesday’s loss to haverford.
WoMen’S Soccer kelsey cline ’11 earned her 40th career point in Saturday’s win vs. franklin & Marshall. kirsten Peterson ’11 earned her 15th career assist in Saturday’s win vs. franklin & Marshall. The 15 assists set a new Swarthmore career record. kirsten Peterson ’11 earned her 10th point this season in Saturday’s win vs. franklin & Marshall. hannah Purkey ’11 earned her fifth career game-winning goal in Saturday’s win vs. franklin & Marshall.
November 4, 2010
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Sports Garnet seniors go out with big win at Diplomats swarthmorephoenix.com
BY VICTOR BRADY vbrady1@swarthmore.edu
The regular season finale for the Swarthmore women’s soccer showcased both the talent of the team’s six seniors as well as the bright future of the program. Three consecutive Centennial Conference losses had dropped the Garnet soccer team out of the Centennial playoff picture, but Swarthmore responded with a convincing 4-0 victory over the homestanding Franklin & Marshall Diplomats. Kirsten Peterson ’11 entered her final regular-season game tied with EB Fortier ’02 for the most assists in program history. In the 15th minute, Peterson found fellow senior Hannah Purkey who buried the ball in the back of the net to give the Garnet the early 10 lead. For Peterson, it was the 15th assist in her career, giving her sole possession of first place for the most assists in a Swarthmore women’s soccer career. Purkey’s goal was her third of the season and the ninth of her career. Three minutes later, seniors connected again for the Garnet as Kelsey Cline ’11 headed in a Laura Bolger ’11 feed for the 2-0 lead. The goal was the first of the season for Cline, who was limited to four games this year due to injury. It was the 17th of her career. Bolger’s assist was the fourth of her career. The teams entered the half with the score 2-0, but Megan Brock ’14 found the back of the net twice after halftime, showing the team that there is much to be excited about going into next year despite the loss of six seniors. Brock, who hit more posts this season than the rest of the team combined, scored on her first shot of the match Saturday, putting in a rebound just four minutes after halftime. Her second of the match came on a blast from the left side of the box to cap the scoring. “We’re upset we aren’t going to the [Centennial Conference] playoffs, but we also need to remember that we’re a good team. Unlucky games happen but if we put in the work to get better every time we play, we’ll have success next year,” said Brock, who was one of four first-year players to score for the Garnet this year. Head coach Todd Anckaitis was pleased that the team was able to come away with a victory in the final regular season match of the year. “We feel like we’ve been playing well and it was nice to finally get a result. The team felt really good about it and I thought it was a good performance, especially because the finishing part was there,” he said. “You can go back through the season and find five or six plays that completely changed the course of the year,” Anckaitis added. “In a soccer season, you expect one of those, maybe two. But surely not as many as we’ve had this year.” Elizabeth Mills ’11 and Megan Colombo ’11 also appeared in their final regular-season game for Swarthmore on Saturday, appearing in their 76th and 72nd games respectively. When Colombo first arrived at Swarthmore in the fall of 2007, she didn’t see herself as a big time goal scorer. But after a stellar career during
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Andrew Cheng Phoenix Staff
Senior Megan Colombo, Swarthmore’s all-time leading scorer, led the women’s soccer team with nine goals and 20 points this season. Colombo has scored 31 goals and recorded 75 points in her stellar career.
which she established herself as the best player in the Centennial Conference, Colombo will leave Swarthmore with the most goals (31) and points (75) in a women’s soccer career. Her 13 assists are just two shy of the new program record set by her classmate Peterson. Colombo, who led Swarthmore this season with nine goals and twenty points, was named first-team AllCentennial as a first-year and a junior and second-team All-Centennial as a sophomore. “I told [Colombo] in the offseason that I thought she was the best player in the Conference, and she really showed that this season,” Anckaitis said. “Megan's presence never went unnoticed on the field. Her leadership was by example and we’re definitely going to miss that next year,” Brock said. “She always made me want to be a better soccer player. She kept practices and games fun while always bringing up the intensity.” “When Megan isn't here next year, I am really going to miss her style of play. No one else on our team, or in our conference, plays the way Megan does. When she has the ball, she shows a lot of
trickiness and is able to beat just about any defender. It is really fun to watch her play and her confidence on the field is going to be really hard to replace,” said goaltender Marie Mutryn ’12. While her coaches and teammates rave about her play and her locker room presence, Colombo also earned the admiration of opponents as well, both for her talent and her composure on the field. “I had a Centennial coach this season ask if he could borrow [Colombo] for the next game, I had a coach say ‘Without a doubt, she is my favorite player in the conference,’; I had another coach come over after a game and say ‘Megan Colombo is sick with some of the things that she can do on the field,” Anckaitis described. Several highlights of Colombo’s career immediately jump to Anckaitis’ mind. As a first-year player, Colombo scored a hat trick in a late regular season match against a strong Ursinus team. “She was just on fire,” Anckaitis said. When the Garnet faced Ursinus again in the Centennial Conference tournament that year, they double-teamed Colombo, opening up scoring opportuni-
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ties for the rest of her teammates. But playing through double-teams and physical opponents for the remainder of her career, Colombo always handled herself with grace. “She always just played through it, even when officials weren’t making calls and protecting her,” Anckaitis said. Another highlight also comes from Colombo’s first year with the team. Against Catholic in the finals of the Eastern College Athletic Conference South tournament, Colombo attempted a bicycle kick in the box and put the shot on goal. “When Megan tried that bicycle kick, Catholic’s coach called out to me and so I turned to him, and he said ‘Oh my God,’” Anckaitis said. The shot didn’t go in, but that quality set Colombo apart for all four years with the program. Megan Colombo and her fellow seniors left Franklin & Marshall winners in their final regular season game, but their contributions will not soon be forgotten by their teammates or Anckaitis. “Megan and that whole class is just passionate about soccer and passionate about their teammates,” Anckaitis said. “They are real hard workers and we are going to miss that class next year.” THE PHOENIX
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Garnet sweeps Bullets again to set up date with Fords BY DANIEL DUNCAN dduncan1@swarthmore.edu Prior to 2010, the Swarthmore volleyball team had never beaten the Gettysburg Bullets. But on Wednesday in the first round of the Centennial Conference tournament, Swarthmore swept Gettysburg for the second time this season, setting up Saturday’s semifinal with the Haverford Fords. After clinching a Centennial Conference playoff spot against the Gettysburg Bullets 12 days ago, the Swarthmore volleyball team was riding a seven game Centennial Conference winning streak, having not dropped a set since a Conference-opening 3-0 loss at Johns Hopkins. But last week, two playoff-bound volleyball teams showed the Garnet that it must continue to improve if it hopes to contend for a championship this year. In Tarble Pavillion last Wednesday, the Haverford Fords knocked off the Garnet 3-1, and Franklin and Marshall defeated the Garnet in straight sets on Saturday. Those two losses dropped the Garnet to fourth in the Centennial Conference, earning the team a rematch with Gettysburg, a team that Swarthmore had never beaten before the victory this season. Despite the losses, head coach Harleigh Chwastyk emphasized that the team is not in a slump, pointing out that Haverford and F&M are two of the top three
teams in the Centennial Conference. Each set was a battle against Haverford. After dropping the first two sets 25-20 and 25-19, the Garnet came back to win the third set 25-23. The fourth and decisive set was again close, with the Fords taking it 25-19. Swarthmore also fell to Haverford 3-1 in the Centennial semifinals last season, dropping the first two sets, taking the third and falling in the fourth. Haverford finished the regular season undefeated to secure the No. 1 seed for this weekend’s tournament. As evidence of the quality of play in the match, four Garnet players racked up double-digit digs against Haverford, led by 20 from Hillary Santana ’12. Sarah Lambert ’11, Genny Pezzola ’12 and Danielle Sullivan ’14 were also active on defense, diving all over the court against the hard hitting Fords. The offense was strong as well for Swarthmore with Kat Montemurro ’13 accumulating 14 kills. Pezzola kept pace with 12 of her own and added three service aces as well. Allie Coleman ’13 led the way in setting up those kills, contributing 32 assists. Above all, the game was a learning experience for the team, Pezzola said. She added that the team hopes to meet the Fords again in the playoffs. The loss to F&M was more disappointing according to Pezzola. Playing for a bye into the conference semi-
final round, the Garnet dropped the first set 25-19. A hard-fought second set ended 26-24 in favor of the Diplomats, who then rode the momentum to take the third set 25-19. The match moved F&M’s record to 20-6 and 8-2 in Centennial play and dropped Swarthmore into the opening-round match with Gettysburg. Facing the Bullets soon after defeating them for the first time in school history, the Garnet liked their chances. Coach Chwastyk said that although the first match this year against Gettysburg was close, the Garnet had the capability to dominate stretches when playing well. Entering Wednesday’s game, Swarthmore was 9-1 in Tarble Pavillion. The Garnet defeated Muhlenberg at home in last season’s opening-round match for the team’s first ever Centennial Conference playoff win. Pezzola and the Garnet attack dominated the Bullets from the opening serve. Pezolla recorded 16 kills as the team hit .264 for the match. Gettysburg was unable to respond thanks to an active Garnet defense that held the Bullets to an .095 hitting percentage. Santana led the team with 16 digs and Pezzola added 14 for the Garnet, who won in front of a boisterous crowd 25-17, 25-15, 25-21. Semifinal action from Haverford is scheduled to begin at noon on Saturday.
cross-country men and women fourth at cc meet BY RENEE FLORES rflores1@swarthmore.edu
The Swarthmore men’s and women’s cross country teams each finished fourth in the Centennial Conference Championships hosted by Johns Hopkins University on Saturday. The fourth place finish was a twospot improvement for the men from their sixth place finish last year and the best finish in the program since 2006. The women finished fifth in last year’s championship and were just three points shy of overtaking Haverford for third. For the men, John McMinn ’13 and Jacob Philips ’13 led the Garnet, finishing 21st and 22nd consecutively with times of 25:57 and 25:58. Robert Fain ’14 completed a top 30 finish with a time of 26:12 for a 29th place. Finishing up the scoring for the men were Bill King ’13 (27:00) with a 45th-place finish and Chris Wickham ’12 (27:01) with a 46th-place finish. Patrick Hartnett ’11 ran 27:06 to finish in 47th, and Richard Scott ’14 finished two seconds behind Hartnett for 48th. On the women’s side, Emma Saarel ’14 once again led the Garnet, finishing 13th with a time of 22:39. Saarel was closely followed by Hannah Rose ’12, Swarthmore’s top scorer last season, who came in at a time of 22:50 to finish 16th. Also with a top 20 finish was Becky Painter ’13 with a time of 23:10 for 20th place. Rounding out the scoring for Swarthmore were Rebecca Hammond ’13, who finished 23rd with a time of 23:12 and Isabel Newlin ’13 at 24:08 for a 35th-place finish. Caitlin Russell ’11 ran 24:15 for a 38th-place finish and Rebecca Woo ’11 placed in 24:17 for 39th. In the men’s race, Haverford captured the team title with 23 points. Dickinson placed second with 39 points and Johns Hopkins placed tHe PHoeniX
third with 95. The Garnet (134) and Gettysburg (140) completed the top five team finishers. For the women, host Johns Hopkins took the title, finishing with 28 points as its first five runners to cross the finish line were all among the top 12 finishers. Dickinson took second place with 63 points, while Haverford placed third with 104 points. Swarthmore (107) and Gettysburg (129) completed the top five. After their success at the Centennial Conference Championships, both the men and women will next run at the regional meet at Slippery Rock. Between three and five teams from the Mid-East region will earn a berth to the National meet. For the women, regionals is another chance to beat one of the team’s biggest rivals. “We all want to beat Haverford, and I think we can do it,” Woo said. The men are looking for a top ten finish after reaching No. 9 in the latest U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association regional poll. “We have a chance of getting top ten in the region in two weeks,” Phillips said. Philips’ teammates echoed this response with resounding agreement. “While rankings are not necessarily a predictor of results, our 9th place ranking in the region validates our belief that we can compete for a top ten position,” McMinn said. “Until [the Centennial Championship match], we haven’t had everyone running at their full potential; we had sickness and injuries,” Phillips added. Now that the team is at peak potential, the runners have their sights set on securing a top-ten spot and heading to Nationals. Mid-east regionals are scheduled for Saturday, November 6 at Slippery Rock. Races are set to begin at 11 a.m.
Jen Johnson Phoenix Staff
Jacob Phillips and John McMinn led the Garnet men at the Centennial Conference championships from Johns Hopkins. McMinn finished 21st overall and Phillips 22nd.
garnet in action Saturday, November 6 Volleyball at Haverford, 12 p.m. Centennial semifinal. Men’s and women’s swimming vs. McDaniel, 2 p.m. Men’s soccer vs. Johns Hopkins, 6 p.m. Centennial semifinal. SuNday, November 7 Centennial Conference volleyball final at Haverford, 1 p.m. Centennial Conference men’s soccer final at Swarthmore, 3 p.m.
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Sports
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High expectations as swim teams begin 2010 season BY ANA APOSTOLERIS aaposto1@swarthmore.edu The Swarthmore Garnet men’s and women’s swim teams come into the 20102011 season under very different circumstances but with a shared drive to win and focus on the here and now. The men’s team is coming off a fourthconsecutive second place finish at the Centennial Conference Championship meet, where they were just over 100 points behind first-place Franklin & Marshall. The team returns largely intact with the same strong core of swimmers that got them so close in 2010. The women’s team, on the other hand, is looking to improve upon a disappointing fifth-place finish at last year’s Conferences while attempting to fill the shoes of Anne Miller ‘10, a seven-time All-American who medaled in both the 100 and 200 butterfly (taking gold in the 200) and who holds the school records in all distance freestyle and butterfly races. Head coach Sue Davis, who will begin her 27th season at the helm of both men’s and women’s teams, is on sabbatical in the fall, so her position will be temporarily filled by assistant coach Casmera Wick. Wick begins her second year with Swarthmore and provides a strong figure to take the lead until Davis’ return. On the men’s side, hopes are high and with good reason. Only three members of last year’s team, Michael Ahn, Reid Wilkening and Danny Friel were lost to graduation, and a large percentage of the Swarthmore swimmers seen in the finals of last year’s Conferences belong to the classes of 2012 and 2013. Tyler Hanson, a versatile sophomore, will be looking to build off an impressive freshman campaign which saw him reach the finals in three events, medaling in two, while posting the team’s top time in the 400 IM. Charlie Hepper, Daniel Duncan, Roger Chin, and Jacob Benveniste round out an impressive sophomore class that combined to win four individual medals last year. Difference-makers among the upperclassmen include senior Sterling Satterfield and senior captain Santiago Lombo, and juniors Neil Palmer, Tim Brevart, Lance Liu, Sam Bullard-Sisken and junior captains Dante Fuoco and
Travis Pollen. Satterfield is pegged to be one of the very top breaststrokers in the Centennial this year after turning in bronze and silver medal winning performances in the 100 and 200, respectively. Liu made a name for himself in the breaststroke events as well, making the finals in both distances. Fuoco is a solid IM swimmer who placed in the top eight in both the 200 and 400, and Bullard-Sisken won a bronze medal in the 100 backstroke while placing fourth in the 200. Brevart, Lombo and Palmer are established competitors in sprint freestyle events, which is an area in which Pollen says there will be improvement this season. “Last year we brought in great distance swimmers and were able to place really highly at Conferences in the longer events,” Pollen said. “This year, we’re focusing on improving in the sprints, because that’s where you earn a lot of points, especially for relays.” Pollen has gathered much attention over the past few seasons as one of the true feelgood success stories of collegiate athletics. An above-knee amputee, Pollen won the 50meter freestyle at Paralympic Nationals in 2010, breaking a six-year-old American record in the 100-yard freestyle in his disability class. While turning in times at Swarthmore that many able-bodied swimmers envy, Pollen keeps an optimistic and ambitious eye on his future. “I’m hoping to break one or two more national records this year, either in December at the Swarthmore Invitational or at the Conference championships,” he said of his season goals. “After the college season is over, I’ll keep training for Spring Nationals in April in Minneapolis. I’m hoping my times there will earn me a spot on the World Championship team this coming summer!” In addition to this exceptionally strong core of returning swimmers, the Garnet men also boast a large new crop of freshmen. “We have something close to a dozen first-years,” Pollen says. “We’ll definitely see a lot of them make an impact right away. The youngsters are probably in the best shape out of any of us on the team, so we’re definitely going to rely on them early on as the rest of us whip our butts back into shape.” As for specific members of the class of
2014 who are expected to make a difference, Pollen advises Garnet fans to “look out for John Flaherty and Peter Ballen to make big splashes in the shorter freestyle events, Stan Le in the breaststroke and Brian Nadel in distance free.” On the women’s side, there is a distinct air of determination and optimism despite the hole left by Miller. Senior captain Allison Bishop, while acknowledging the huge impact that Miller made, is quick to move the focus to the present. “Anne Miller is a spectacular person and one that I completely look up to and admire and I know that feeling is shared among many of my teammates … So yes, we will miss her,” said Bishop, an outstanding distance swimmer whose performances in the 1000 and 1650-yard freestyle last year were second on the team only to Miller. “But we have people ready and willing to step into her footprints and I’m confident that we’re going to have a great season even with last year’s beloved captain [gone],” Bishop added. “Are they difficult shoes to fill? Sure. And I don’t expect any one person to completely fill her position on the team. That being said, I believe that the team is strong this year, and that we will be able to fill the holes left by … our graduating seniors.” The team also lost Claire Shelden and Casey Osborne to graduation, both accomplished swimmers who made strong showings at Conferences. Sophomore Hannah Gotwals, who showcased great versatility in her freshman season and is expected to become a core member of this year’s team, agreed with Bishop’s sentiments. “We’ll definitely miss everything Anne brought to the pool, both through her swimming and personality. I’ll personally miss having her and Casey Osborne to race in the butterfly,” she said. “However, we’re a deep team this year. We have some very strong swimmers in all our events, and if we work hard, we have a good chance at an even better season than last year.” In addition to Bishop and Gotwals, the Garnet women return several strong contributors, including seniors Sarah Bedolfe, Chelsea Brett, Melinda Neal and Stephanie Su, juniors Jackie Scala, Rosalie Lawrence, Naomi Glassman and Amelia Possanza, and sophomores
Michelle Call and Chloe Stevens. Lawrence, Gotwals, and Glassman all were finalists at last year’s Conferences, with Gotwals pulling in a bronze medal in the 200 butterfly. Bishop, Scala, Possanza, Call, Bedolfe, Stevens, Brett, Su, and Neal all made the “B” finals in at least one event last year and will undoubtedly be hungry for the top eight. Lawrence and Su are both strong breaststrokers, and Scala posted the team’s top times last year in both the 100 and 200 backstroke. The team will add ten new swimmers, including two members of the sophomore class, Michael-Anne Myrvang and Jeewon Kim. “They’re an enthusiastic group,” said Bishop of the incoming swim class, “and I’m impressed by the work ethic I see in them. The caliber of the women coming up is spectacular.” Gotwals echoed her captain’s enthusiasm towards the new members. “I don’t think there’s really any of them that I wouldn’t look out for,” she said. “They’ve impressed me quite a bit.” Overall, both Garnet teams hope to be successful in the Centennial Conference throughout the winter and set themselves up for head-turning performances at the championship meet. The men are in good position to take that next step and secure their first-ever championship. The women are hoping to defy expectations and put up a surprise season. “With so many fresh faces as well as many people coming back from last year, I see this year as one where we move up in the rankings. I want to see our women dropping time, winning meets and coming together as a fast and united team - one to be reckoned with,” Bishop said. Both teams opened the season Wednesday against Widener, with the men coming away victorious and the women dropping a tough match to the Pride. For the men, it was the team’s first victory over Widener in three seasons. Both the men and women open Centennial play at 2 p.m. on Saturday from Ware Pool against the McDaniel Green Terror. Dante Anthony Fuoco is the opinions editor, and Amelia Possanza is the managing editor for The Phoenix. They had no role in the production of this article.
sports in pictures
Olivia Natan Phoenix Staff
The Swarthmore men’s rugby team competes against Haverford on Saturday from Cunningham Fields. Haverford and Swarthmore players form a scrum (left). Julian Leland takes a line-in (right). The Garnet defeated the Fords 46-8.
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Senior Sophia Ferguson, a leader on and off the field BY VICTOR BRADY vbrady1@swarthmore.edu Her final goal in a Swarthmore uniform didn’t give the Garnet field hockey team a lead. It didn’t tie a match or secure a Swarthmore victory. When Sophia Ferguson ’11 found the back of the net with three minutes remaining in last Wednesday’s field hockey match with Haverford, it was Swarthmore’s only goal in an 8-1 loss. But that goal epitomized Ferguson’s entire career on the field. In practice and whenever the clock began to run in her 55 career matches, Ferguson battled, worked and constantly learned. Every day, she fought for the honor of her teammates, coaches, herself, and the name across the chest of her jersey. Entering the 2010 season with 14 players and only four players with more than a year of college experience, Ferguson and her fellow seniors knew that they needed to lead not only through their talk but also through their play. Ferguson led the team in scoring, tallying career highs in goals (9), assists (6), and points (24). In the Garnet’s six wins this year, Ferguson had the game-winner in three. “Her work ethic over the last four years has been tremendous,” said Lauren Fuchs, who has worked with Ferguson across her college career, the last three years as Swarthmore’s head coach. “[Ferguson] has improved each and every year with different skills, and I think that she has been a tremendous leader for us because she led by example and you can’t give enough praise for that,” Fuchs added. During the 2010 season, Ferguson sometimes found herself frustrated as Swarthmore implemented a new zonemarking system and intricate attack based off of sharp cuts. But that frustration wasn’t resistance to change; instead, it was born out of the desire to understand and advance her individual play even quicker in order to help her young teammates and improve on the field. That intensity and desire translated into tenacity in games, with Ferguson consistently perfecting skills that the team had focused on in the practices leading up to each match. In the season opener, a 5-0 win over Immaculata, Ferugson had her first career hat-trick, the third goal coming on a perfectly executed tip after the team had focused on tipping the day before in practice. Against Haverford in her final home match, Ferguson and the Garnet were stymied by the Fords defense for the first 66 minutes of the match. But trailing 8-0, Ferguson refused to give in, leading the Swarthmore on a counter attack with Nia Jones ’14. Jones sprinted onto a ball in the right corner and sent a cross to the front of the net where Ferguson was there to score one of the prettiest goals for the Garnet all season long. It was a fitting end for Swarthmore’s final home match in the team’s most successful season since 2007 — one part of the bright future of the team setting up the senior one last time. Ferguson ended her career with 19 goals and 12 assists for 50 points. In each of her final two games at Clothier Field, Ferguson scored the lone Swarthmore goal. On Senior Day
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against Gettysburg, Ferguson, playing in front of her parents for just the fourth time in her career, tied the game at one late in the first half before the Bullets went on to win the match 2-1. In both of those matches, Ferguson was all over the turf, painting Clothier Field with her determined cuts and innovative runs to create scoring opportunities. Hobbled by a stress fracture in her right shin, Ferguson left nothing on the field, chasing down loose balls, forcing turnovers and leading the Garnet attack — both with her play and with her enthusiasm. “[Ferguson’s] leadership was key to our team's success this year,” said Sophia Agathis ’13, who led the team with seven assists. “Her intensity was contagious. Even though she finished the season with a serious injury, there was never a game or practice where Sophia didn't come ready to play with [everything she had]. Her efforts on and off the field were an integral part of our teams improvement this season.” Fuchs was amazed by Ferguson’s ability to play through the stress fracture. “She never complained and still gave 200 percent on the hockey field in games and in practice. To me, that’s incredible.” As a senior captain, Ferguson was always a rock on the field, especially during the most trying moments in games. After an opponent goal, Ferguson would urge the team to respond, encouraging “Right now, Swat,” or “Next five minutes.” Game in and game out, Ferguson battled with her head held high, regardless of the score or time remaining, treating the opportunity to wear the garnet and white as an privilege. Ferguson and her fellow seniors — Katie Ashmore, Hadley Roach, and Devon Novotnak — leave the team in a promising position hardly imaginable after the team won just one Centennial Conference match in both 2008 and 2009. Ashmore finishes her career with goaltending wins in 18 of the 22 Swarthmore victories during her four years in the cage including two shutouts. Roach, a catalyst in the Garnet midfield, finishes with four goals and nine points, and Novotnak, the speedy and creative defensive midfielder and one of the stars on the Garnet corner unit, ends her time at Swarthmore with seven goals and 10 assists for 24 points. After the horn sounded on Saturday to end a 3-1 loss at Franklin & Marshall in the season finale for the team, Ferguson, head held high, thanked her teammates for making the year so successful. “I am going to miss Sophia’s competitiveness and intensity next year. I’ve always looked to her to keep myself accountable and make sure I'm working as hard as I can,” Agathis said. “She’s just so passionate about the game,” Fuchs said. “Everything she did was about the team’s success. I’m really going to miss her leadership and all of her hard work and effort next year.” After Saturday’s match, Ferguson was completely drained, having left everything that she had on the field one last time. Sweat and a few tears dripped onto her Garnet jersey for the final time. The end of a stellar career.
Andrew Cheng Phoenix Staff
Garnet senior Sophia Ferguson led the field hockey team with nine goals and 24 points this season. Swarthmore finished the season with its best record since 2007. November 4, 2010
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Men’s soccer honors seniors, defeats rival Haverford
Olivia Natan Phoenix Staff
Morgan Langley hugs Swarthmore’s Marian Ware Athletic Director Adam Hertz prior to Saturday’s match against Haverford. Langley scored two goals as the Garnet won 2-0. BY VICTOR BRADY vbrady1@swarthmore.edu
What a way to end the regular season. Playing in front of its largest home crowd in recent memory, the Swarthmore men’s soccer team shut out Haverford 2-0 on Saturday to complete an unbeaten Centennial Conference schedule and knock their rivals out of the Centennial playoffs. Over 1,000 fans packed the garnet and gray stands at Clothier Field for Senior Night as the Garnet, after honoring Philippe Celestin ’11, Morgan Langley ’11 and Gage Newman ’11, beat the Fords for the seventh consecutive time. “There is a reason why we don’t typically lose at home and it’s because we have the best fans in the Centennial Conference,” head coach Eric Wagner said. “They are loud, funny, enthusiastic and always at the games regardless of the weather. I’m thrilled that we had such a great crowd Saturday and it was really a great atmosphere.” Langley continued his stellar year, scoring both Garnet goals, the first in the final minutes of the first half of play off a Kieran Reichert ’13 corner kick. Langley found himself free in the box to deliver a well-struck header into the back of the net. With just over two minutes remaining in the match, Langley iced the game, executing a perfect give and go with Celestin and beating Haverford’s keeper Nick Kahn. The two goals give Langley 14 for the season, and with his 13 assists, he
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now has 41 points this year. The 41 will host the semifinals and finals of points set the program record for the Centennial Conference tournament points in a season, breaking the previ- at Clothier Field on Saturday and ous mark of 40 set by McWelling Sunday. Swarthmore will take on Johns Hopkins in the second semifinal Todman in 1974. In his career, Langley now has 94 after the second-seeded Franklin & points, also a Swarthmore program Marshall Diplomats take on the thirdrecord, breaking the previous mark of seeded Muhlenberg Mules in the first semifinal Saturday. 92 set by James White ’56. Entering the playoffs, Swarthmore Langley is first in all of Division III in assists and assists per game and sec- is ranked No. 9 in the National Soccer ond in Division III in points and points Coaches Association of America Division III Poll and No. 7 in the D3socper game through October 31. “Defeating Haverford in front of cer.com poll. The team is ranked second in the Midrecord crowd on Atlantic region senior night was in the NCAA’s all that I could latest regional ask for. The “Defeating Haverford in rankings used to atmosphere was front of record crowd on determine atelectrifying and large berths for propelled us to a senior night was all that I the NCAA tourv i c t o r y . could ask for.” nament. Haverford has The Garnet i m p r o v e d Morgan Langley ’11 won its first immensely so it Centennial was fun to finally Conference get a game out of them and play in front of so many stu- championship two years ago on its own dents and parents,” Langley said after turf and enters the 2010 playoffs with momentum after three consecutive his final regular season home game. “I can't express how much it means shutouts to end the regular season. “Richard Stockton’s counterattacks to me to be able to share these last few games with so many of my friends, exposed our tendency to get ahead of teachers and community members,” ourselves in the at-tack to a greater Celestin added. “The crowd on Satur- degree than we had earlier in the seaday night was unbelievable, very few son,” said Newman about the team’s athletes at this level get to enjoy that only loss this year. “[Learning from kind of support, and to get the victory that match] helped us sort out ways to and contribute like that made the game prevent that in future games which I think greatly contributed to our last one of the hallmarks of my career.” Because the Garnet defeated three shutouts.” Muhlenberg last Wednesday, the team Wagner said that it was a change in November 4, 2010
perspective rather than tactics that led to the success in the final three regular season matches. “We made very minor adjustments and reminders to the defenders and just said listen: defense is an important part of why we are successful. Don’t neglect it and it will make things the other way that much easier.” The Garnet defense had one of its best matches of the year in last Wednesday’s win over Muhlenberg, shutting out two of the Centennial’s most dynamic scorers in Cody Antonini and Mike Williams. “That win was huge in a lot of ways. In terms of potential road performances I think we were able to prove to ourselves that we are a strong enough team to play anybody in any circumstance,” Celestin said. “We have struggled in the past with playing away and with playing on grass, and Muhlenberg is one of the hardest fields to play at because of the opposing fans. Overcoming that kind of adversity reflects the mental toughness of this team and that will really make a difference when the stakes get higher later on in the NCAA tournament. The confidence allows us to tune out a lot of uncertainties and focus on playing our best soccer,” Celestin added. The playoff run begins with a rematch of one of last year’s Centennial semifinals. Johns Hopkins defeated Gettysburg 4-1 Wednesday to earn a spot opposite the Garnet on Clothier Field. The Garnet defeated the Blue Jays 21 in Baltimore in the Centennial Conference opener this season. THE PHOENIX