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Thursday, April 16, 2009
TRying an advanced search Google Books Initiative shapes role of libraries By Sarah Nance THE DAILY CARDINAL
There is a project on campus spanning over 100 countries and 35 languages, involving a partnership between UW-Madison and a leading Internet company, but most students on campus don’t even know how it works. As part of the Google Books Initiative, the UW-Madison Library System was the eighth library worldwide to join with the information powerhouse Google to bring books into the digital age, scanning them to be used online. The initiative, which now has over two dozen library partners and thousands of publisher and author partners, has a mission to “create a comprehensive, searchable, virtual card catalog of all books in all languages that helps users discover new books and publishers discover new readers,” according to their website. The project at UW-Madison, which has also partnered with the Wisconsin Historical Society,
has no direct costs, according to Edward Van Gemert, Deputy Director of the General Library System at UW-Madison. “Google pays for the actual digitization,” Irene Zimmerman, project manager for the Google Initiative, said, referring to the process of digitally scanning pages of books from the university’s libraries to be placed in a database and online at books. google.com. The books are collected and shipped to an off-site location where Google does the actual scanning and digitization. Although Google pays for the process, Zimmerman said the university incurs costs “on either end of gathering the material [and] reshelving the material.” Thus, much of the cost is associated with staff wages. According to Jeanne Witte, head of Access Services at Steenbock Memorial Library, the Google project has three full-time employees who are employed by the library system, with their total salary approximately $87,400 annually. The initiative also calls on the support of library staff across campus. “There are many librargoogle books page 5
Slacking off
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Many of the protesters Wednesday spoke out about fiscal issues, including federal bailouts for large companies.
Thousands rally at Capitol ‘Tea Party’ By Charles Brace THE DAILY CARDINAL
Thousands of protestors converged on the Capitol Wednesday to protest the Obama administration and state Democrats in power. The rally, intended by event organizers to evoke the spirit of the Boston Tea Party, was on April 15 to coincide with the day when many Americans file their taxes. “This is an uprising, a groundswell of enthusiasm from the people,” said Vicki McKenna, a conservative Milwaukee talk show host who spoke at the event. Other speakers included U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., 24 year-old La Crosse Mayor Matt Harter and Pastor David King of Milwaukee. “I came today to raise hell,”
King said, who operates the group Milwaukee God Squad. “It’s time to take out the garbage.” King also said Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle was “smoking crack” when he prepared the proposed state budget. Mark Block, state director of the group Americans for Prosperity-Wisconsin that helped to organize the rally, said the event exceeded expectations in the amount of protestors. Capitol police did not provide an estimate for the crowd size and Department of Administration official Emily Winecke said she could not give an estimate of the crowd, with event organizers estimating it was around 5,000. Numerous protestors held up signs mocking Doyle and Obama, with one sign stating “Obama is the Anti-Christ.”
The rally included a spectrum of residents, including some supporters of U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-TX, motorcycle bikers and some dressed in Revolutionary War costumes. UW-Madison senior Michael Seaman said he attended the rally because government spending is out of control. “People here today are very fired up, this is not something that is going to fall by the wayside,” he said. Milwaukee resident Shawn Larkin, 26, said he drove to Madison for the event because he was upset with the passage of the federal stimulus bill and bailouts for large companies. A small group of counterprotestors dressed in yachting clothes and formal attire protests page 3
STUDENT GOVERNMENT
ASM spring election results postponed By Erin Banco THE DAILY CARDINAL
KYLE BURSAW/THE DAILY CARDINAL
Jenna McLennan of California and Madison native Austin Josephs balance on a “slackline” tied between two trees on Bascom Hill.
The Associated Students of Madison’s Student Judiciary Committee and Student Elections Committee were unable to meet quorum Wednesday to release the results of the 16th session election results. Voting for student representatives took place April 13-15 with an online ballot on the ASM website. Polls closed at 5
p.m. Wednesday. According to Claire Lempke, member of the ASM Press Office, there was a “miscommunication” between the two committees, disallowing the members to meet quorum. Lempke said Student Elections Commission Chair Katherine Tondrowki was at the Student Activity Center at 5 p.m. Wednesday to review results. She left at 7 p.m. because of prior commitments, at which point
there was still not a quorum. Hannah Karns, ASM vice chair, said at least five justices of eight from the Student Judiciary Committee are required to attend a quorum for results to be released. According to Lempke, there were at least five justices present throughout the evening, but there were only four present at elections page 4
“…the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”
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News and Editorial edit@dailycardinal.com Editor in Chief Alex Morrell Managing Editor Gabe Ubatuba Campus Editor Erin Banco Rachel Holzman City Editor State Editor Megan Orear Charles Brace Enterprise Editor Associate News Editor Caitlin Gath Opinion Editors Nick Dmytrenko Jon Spike Arts Editors Kevin Slane Justin Stephani Sports Editors Ben Breiner Crystal Crowns Features Editor Diana Savage Food Editor Sara Barreau Science Editor Bill Andrews Photo Editors Kyle Bursaw Lorenzo Zemella Graphics Editors Amy Giffin Jenny Peek Copy Chiefs Kate Manegold Emma Roller Jake Victor Copy Editors Dave Heller Megan Kozelek, Danny Marchewka Todd Stevens
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MATT HUNZIKER his dark matterials
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o doubt you’ve seen or heard the advertisements printed on bulletins at your place of worship, aired on late-night television or even shouted at you on the street, warning you about the dangers that threaten your soul. The script is familiar: “Warning! Your soul is in danger of forfeiture. No soul can be saved without our help!” It’s true, of course, that failing to properly care for your soul can result in its degradation or loss of trade-in value. But what these ads don’t tell you is that with a little bit of know-how and regular maintenance, the average soul is virtually guaranteed to increase in worth throughout your lifetime. Granted, it can be hard to know where to start. If you own a television, you’ve probably seen ads for weekly support groups, dozens of different books—heck, the market
for soul care is one of the oldest in the world. Thankfully, you don’t need a lot of bells and whistles to keep your soul looking and sounding its very best—just a little bit of elbow grease and some spare time. With that in mind, here are some of the tips and tricks that will help make sure your soul lasts an eternity: Don’t get carried away with superficial maintenance It’s easy to get caught up admiring the pristine, shiny souls you see on TV, but if you haven’t thought about soul care in a while or you’re working on a budget, it’s best to keep in mind that your time and money are much better spent providing for your soul’s bare necessities. (Besides, most of the souls you see in advertisements are heavily airbrushed.) If you find that you absolutely can’t ignore this area, the best way to get convincing results for the least amount of money is to invest in a top-quality waxing agent. Souls don’t like to be too hot or too cold A beginner will warn you that a soul should never be “lukewarm,” but experience teaches
that you’re better off keeping your soul as close to 98 degrees Fahrenheit as possible. Humidity can also be a factor, and although it’s hard for a soul to be “too humid,” drying can be a problem. Optimally, you’ll want to shoot for at least 70 percent humidity. If you live in a particularly dry climate, or one that experiences severe winters, you may wish to invest in a humidifier. This is also a good time to mention that souls don’t do well in direct light. (Questions about different substrates are more a concern for connoisseurs.) Make sure you have the proper tools This doesn’t mean you have to go out and buy one of those new steam cleaners or drop $2,000 on a grow light, but if you’re going to be doing your own soul maintenance, it’s going to take more than duct tape and prayers to get the job done. Must-haves include pruning shears, a food processor, a map of buried electrical wires in your neighborhood and (for those hard-to-reach places) a 32-gallon aquarium, which can be emptied when you’re not using it. A stainless steel corkscrew, a portable
generator and eye drops are not required but are strongly recommended. (Most of these purchases will be tax-deductible, depending on state statutes. See IRS State & Federal Withholdings subsection S.121.03, “Regarding souls filing singly or jointly.”) Know when to ask a professional Our aim is to provide you with the knowledge necessary to keep your own soul in peak shape, but we’ll be the first to admit some issues require expert attention. If you get in over your head at any point, it’s important to know there are certified professionals happy to help. But remember: Whatever your question is, there are likely thousands of different answers out there, and everyone from the Vatican to Moviefone has their own agenda for your soul. So, before you pick up the phone to share your existential maintenance questions with the Ayatollah or that friendly man who fixes old houses on the Home & Garden Network, ask yourself, “Is this the kind of soul I want?” Save your soul while working from home! E-mail Matt at hunziker@wisc.edu.
New Beer Thursday Lakefront Brewery New Grist I must begin with a disclaimer: New Grist, while technically beer, is not beer. It’s a barley-free, gluten-free substitute for normal beer. So, if you can’t eat gluten, this beer gets a big five out of five rating, because anything else will make you hit the john so many times you’d think it was a red-headed step child. But, all things being equal, I must judge this “beer” against its peers. While one shouldn’t expect a glutenfree rice beer to taste similar to any regular beer, this beverage is hardly
unique. It took a few sips, but once my palette was fully acclimated, I realized I was drinking watered-down sake—otherwise known as rice wine. The main ingredients advertised are rice and sorghum extract, which is very similar to molasses. In the end, this is a sweet rice beverage, and should be denominated as such. On the bright side, the beer is light tasting and relatively inoffensive, so if you are looking for something new and, while you may not like it, something you will be able to finish without
severe crappy beer face, this might be worth a shot. And if you can’t eat gluten, this is like heaven in a bottle.
Lakefront Brewery • New Grist $8.99 at Riley’s Wines of the World
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Board of Directors Vince Filak Alex Kusters Mikhail Hanson Nik Hawkins Dave Heller Janet Larson Chris Long Alex Morrell Sheila Phillips Benjamin Sayre Jenny Sereno Terry Shelton Jeff Smoller Jason Stein l
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© 2009, The Daily Cardinal Media Corporation ISSN 0011-5398
For the record Corrections or clarifications? Call The Daily Cardinal office at 608-262-8000 or send an e-mail to edit@dailycardinal.com.
NOW ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS FOR PAGE 2 COLUMNIST POSITIONS Want to be like Matt? Join the Page 2 team as a columnist for the 2009-’10 academic school year! All five positions for each day of the week are up for grabs. To apply, please send three (3) sample columns between 600-750 words to features@dailycardinal.com by Friday, May 1.
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Sexual Assault Awareness Month Fact of the Day: 10 times more rapes are reported to crisis lines than are reported to the police. Thursday, April 16, 2009
protests from page 1 were also present, with many members from the liberal-leaning group One Wisconsin Now holding signs like “Don’t tax my Boss’s Yacht.” Scot Ross, executive director of OWN, said the rally was funded by conservative millionaires and popularized by Fox
PHOTO COURTESY BRANDON LAUFENBERG
The UW School of Public Health is in the process of phasing out its Clinical Laboratory Sciences program.
UW School of Public Health cuts educational lab program By Erin Banco THE DAILY CARDINAL
The UW School of Public Health is in the process of phasing out its Clinical Laboratory Sciences program by the end of 2012. The UW School of Public Health will no longer be accepting students into the Clinical Laboratory Sciences program. The school made the decision to phase out the program, which teaches students how to work as medical lab technologists, because of Gov. Jim Doyle’s call for reductions in the UW System. However, Lisa Brunette, UW Hospital spokesperson, said the governor’s office made no official request
to take action in budget cuts. “The decision was based on several factors, including the fact that this educational program is available at other Wisconsin campuses,” she said in an e-mail. “We are deeply appreciative of� the incredibly strong and consistent support from Governor Doyle for all� of our School’s missions.” Brunette said the program would be phased completely out of the school by 2012. The 80-student program will finish training current students until they finish their undergraduate curriculum. The decision to phase out the program was made by the School of Medicine and Public
Health administration over the last several months, according to Brunette. With the deletion of the program, the school will cut $560,000 a year from their budget of approximately $502 million. “They contemplated the question that all public schools are now facing—how to cope with the national economic downturn in the best way possible,” she said. Doyle proposed his 2009-’11 biennial budget on Feb. 17, calling for a $174 million cut from the UW System to close the gap on a $5.4 billion deficit. Lawmakers are expected to pass Doyle’s budget by the end of their session, which ends in June 2009.
UWM journalists ask opinion on open records By Grace Urban THE DAILY CARDINAL
UW-Milwaukee student journalists traveled to the state Capitol Wednesday requesting clarification regarding how Wisconsin’s open record and open meeting laws apply to UW System student governments. They submitted a 147-page legal interpretation request to Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen following several incidents last spring in which the UWM student government allegedly declined to provide records to student media, said Jonathan Anderson, editor-in-chief of the UWM Post. Anderson recounted two specific incidents, one in which the student government would not release information about a New York trip they took and another in which the student news crew PantherVision was kicked out of an event by an official because he “didn’t like how the news crew was covering the event.” The students met with assistant attorneys general Wednesday, including Assistant Attorney General Kevin St. John, to present their letter and discuss their motives. The letter argues that under Wisconsin Statute 36.09(5) university student governments have sig-
nificant governmental authority and therefore should be subject to public records and open meetings laws. “We’re cautiously optimistic that [Van Hollen] will agree with our position,” Anderson said. “We think it’s a really important issue.” “We’re cautiously optimistic that [Van Hollen] will agree with our position ... We think it’s a really important issue.” Jonathan Anderson editor-in-chief The UWM Post
According to St. John, the attorney general’s office will look at Wisconsin statutes, case law and any administrative rules that might be related before giving a substantive response sometime within the next three months. “We will thoroughly review the information and then provide an appropriate response,” St. John said. Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, said he believes student governments are established in part as agencies
of the state and therefore open records laws should apply. “Student government should welcome the opportunity to conduct its business transparently,” Lueders said. “It’s good for the process and it’s good for student government.” Associated Students of Madison generally complies with these laws, according to ASM chair Brittany Wiegand and vicechair Hannah Karns. “We try to comply as much as we can with open meeting laws and make sure we’re transparent,” Wiegand said. Lueders said he has not received many complaints from people denied information from student governments. “For the most part student governments act as if they’re subject to the law, and they should. Why would they want to breed distrust with the student body?” Lueders said. Anderson emphasized that their request was not an “adversarial move.” “We’re really just trying to get clarity about the law,” Anderson said. “We think an opinion in our favor would legitimize what [the student government] does and how they govern.”
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News. FreedomWorks, a conservative interest group out of Washington D.C., was promoting the tea party events around the country, according to their website. “This is corporate America trying to prevent paying its fair share of taxes,” Ross said. “The answer is not more tax cuts for the top one percent.”
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STUDENT GOVERNMENT
While his guitar gently weeps
elections from page 1 the same time. Lempke said members of the committees had legitimate academic reasons for not attending the quorum. According to Carl Fergus, chair of the Student Services Finance Committee, three justices had turned in absence forms ahead of the meeting. “Most of the justices are involved in other organizations … Coordinating schedules is really difficult,” Hannah Karns, ASM vice chair, said. Karns said the SEC chair, Katherine Tondrowski, who attended the meeting, would have tallied the votes had the appropriate number of members attended. After the tally of the votes the Student Judiciary would address election complaints, look over the votes and ratify them. Karns said she did not know if there were any com-
plaints filed. “It’s really important that they take time to look over election complaints,” she said. “If they were filed, it’s important that they review them with care and that they ensure that the results are valid.” “Most of the justices are involved in other organizations ... Coordinating schedules is really difficult.” Hannah Karns vice chair Associated Students of Madison
The Student Judiciary has three days to review the election results, but the situation is expected to be evaluated tomorrow evening, according to Lempke. —Rory Linnane contributed to this report.
Students raise concerns about ASM outreach at second forum discussion By Rory Linnane THE DAILY CARDINAL
NICK KOGOS/THE DAILY CARDINAL
A University of Wisconsin-Madison student performs as part of a guitar ensemble during the UWMadison School of Music’s spring concert in the Humanities building Wednesday night.
Woman charged with neglect after granddaughter’s death Child had six times the therapeutic dose of oxycodone in her system By Rachel Holzman THE DAILY CARDINAL
A 39-year-old Madison woman was charged with child neglect Tuesday after her 3-year-old granddaughter died this February from an overdose of the painkiller oxycodone. According to a criminal complaint, April M. Walker is an abuser of prescription medications and told a detective, “The thing I did wrong was I left my night meds out.” Walker allegedly did not seek help for the child, Amaya Marie Walker, for almost six hours after she was unable to be awakened. At the time of her death, Amaya had six times the therapeutic range for oxycodone in her blood. Valium was also found in the
child’s system. It is unknown how the child ingested the drugs, but the complaint states that Walker would often drop pills and not pick them up and leave pills loose in her purse. Walker was living at YWCA, 101 E. Mifflin St., with Amaya and her 10-year-old daughter at the time of the death. Walker had been caring for Amaya for a few weeks at a time. Amaya’s mother, Alicia Walker, 22, is an inmate at the John C. Burke Correctional Center in Waupun serving a sentence for forgery and probation violations. According to a criminal complaint, an acquaintance of Walker told police that Walker had talked about not being able to care for Amaya and allegedly said, “I just can’t take it anymore,” just a few weeks before the death. Walker’s friend said Walker would often complain about Amaya not going to bed when all Walker wanted
to do was sleep after taking her pills. The complaint states that Amaya had a green discharge coming out of her nose and was unable to be woken the morning of Feb. 6. Walker carried Amaya into the YWCA lobby and told two front desk employees she was taking the child to the hospital because she believed she was having an allergic reaction. The employees told police they wanted to call 911 after seeing Amaya, saying her lips appeared purplish and she looked “almost dead.” However, instead of bringing Amaya to the hospital, Walker allegedly went to her mother’s house, watched television and made calls about the child, finally speaking with a clinic nurse. According to the complaint, Walker left to pick up a friend and returned to find that Amaya was not breathing. Amaya died the next day after she was brought to the hospital.
UW-Madison students urged the Associated Students of Madison to be more active in reaching out to students at Disc(US)sion 2009, a townhall-style forum hosted by ASM Wednesday. “We need to outreach more, and tonight was an affirmation of that,” ASM Chair Brittany Wiegand said. Students at the forum reprimanded ASM for their passive presence on campus. They urged ASM to rely less on e-mails and to engage in direct conversations with constituents. “There’s pools of students in Memorial Union. You guys could be down there getting feedback,” WISPIRG intern Jenna Ormson, who attended the discussion, said. “Getting an e-mail is good, but when you’re down there talking to someone it’s really more effective.”
“We need to outreach more, and tonight was an affirmation of that.” Brittany Wiegand chair ASM
Ormson said students need to be better informed about ASM practices in order to hold their representatives accountable. “What are [our representatives] going to do for us? I have no idea right now, and I guarantee you none of my friends do,” Ormson said. WISPIRG Chair Tony Uhl, who attended the discussion, said ASM should embrace forms of grassroots outreach to involve more students. “They need more interns and volunteers,” Uhl said. “The representatives should exist to organize other people to get stuff done.” Currently, ASM representatives chair grassroots campaigns by recruiting volun-
teers. These campaigns do not cap their numbers of volunteers. Wiegand said they could benefit from including more students, but said it is hard to attract students because their issues are less compelling than other student organizations. “What are [our representatives] going to do for us? I have no idea right now, and I guarantee you none of my friends do.” Jenna Ormson intern WISPIRG
Uhl said ASM could find ways to make their activities more attractive. He said WISPIRG has increased its number of interns by learning the right way to reach out to students. “Our issues haven’t changed that much,” Uhl said. “We’ve gotten better with our recruitment drive … You can make just about anything sexy.” Uhl suggested WISPIRG work with ASM to make the organization more successful in attracting students, possibly holding workshops to train students in communicating successfully. “I’ve done what I can to create that relationship,” Uhl said. “I gave them my card. The ball’s in their court. [ASM needs] to do more of these things.” Wiegand said WISPIRG’s help could be useful. ASM already engages in similar training, but only for recruitment drives. “That’s definitely something we could extend throughout the year,” Wiegand said. ASM members are required to spend at least five hours recruiting, but Wiegand said many do not fulfill the requirement. She said there are consequences for not fulfilling the actions, but she was not sure what they were and they are not enforced.
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Thursday, April 16, 2009
Campuswide project causes headaches for staff at libraries
By Sarah Nance
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Graphic by Charles Brace
google books from page 1 ians who work on the Google Project,” Witte said. “They do a lot of background work as far as cleaning up records and getting stuff ready to go.” Because of the way the initiative has been integrated into the library system, many different people help with the gathering of books to be sent off-site for digitization. “It was a lot of just pulling things from the shelves, doing a few things to the item records in our cataloguing system to send them out and then sending them out to Google to be digitized,” said Phil Hansen, a former Google Books Initiative assistant. Hansen, who now works as the manager of the Middleton Shelving Facility, said the initiative “open[s] a lot of doors for people who are doing research,” but that the initiative could “be tedious at times.” “I think we’ve definitely created more work than we thought when we were there,” Hansen said. “In some places like Memorial [Library], they had to hire student employees just to get stuff barcoded because it was too much to ask [the Memorial Library] staff to do, essentially.” This work overload was due in part to the large amount of books being processed to send out, as Hansen mentioned the process of pulling books off the shelves revealed damage, lack of barcodes and other overlooked problems. However, those were problems that would have needed to be addressed at some point and the standard staff was too busy to handle. “We created a lot of work,” Hansen said, “but we also solved a lot of problems by being there.” Because the initiative draws from many libraries on campus, not just Memorial Library, where the Google staff is located. As a result, other librarians have been handed an increased workload at times. “It definitely increased the workload of a lot of the libraries from where we were sending,” Hansen said. Peter Gorman, head of the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center, which leads the university’s own digitization efforts, saw a similar workload increase with library staff. “It’s an investment,” Gorman said. “The staff that we have is devoted to working on this project are devoted to providing access to information for our patrons … So what they’re doing isn’t a sidetrack from our mission; it’s supporting our mission.” Although the libraries send mainly books, rather than journals or magazines, Hansen said they also make a point of sending masters and doctoral theses to Google. At times, the theses were too large to meet size constraints that Google set, so they would have to be rebound into two smaller volumes, a process carried out on campus by the bindery
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located in Memorial Library. “The bindery was definitely an area that got hit very hard by extra work because they were not prepared or staffed to handle the amount that we were putting at them because there were so many [theses] that were oversized,” Hansen said. “I know that their workload increased dramatically while we were dealing with the theses especially.” According to Louise Coates,
supervisor of the bindery in Memorial Library, the bindery also works with damaged books so that they are in good condition before being sent to Google. “These volumes are routed to us to be rebound before being sent to Google so they are intact for processing at Google,” Coates said in an e-mail. “Rebinding of … theses for the Google Initiative has had an impact on our workload, but we have integrated it into our regular workflow.” Copyright Concerns and Legal Disputes From the beginning, a debate has surrounded the alliance between Google Books and UW-Madison. As the eighth library to team up with Google to digitize library materials, UW-Madison found itself at the initiative’s infancy stages. “Even back that time [when the
agreement was signed in Oct. 2006], there was a lot of controversy around this agreement,” Van Gemert said. “The issue at that time was legal suits, by publishers and authors, against Google for digitizing in-copyright material.” Even though Google wasn’t showing the text for the in-copyright material, many authors and publishers were concerned that even a preservation copy was being digitized, Van Gemert said. According to Shubha Ghosh, a professor at the UW Law School, Google is attempting to create digital uses for books that don’t infringe on copyright law. “The thing that makes it difficult is the fact that in order to get to those uses, they have to make a copy of the book, and copyright law seems to be pretty strict about that if you want to make a copy of the book—a reproduction of the book—you need to get permission from the copyright owner to do so,” Ghosh said. The controversy eventually went to court in a battle over fair use doctrine, a portion of copyright law that Anuj Desai, associate professor at the UW Law School, described as “notoriously ambiguous.” According to Gorman, the class action lawsuit against Google alleged that the actual act of scanning books was a violation of copyright. “[Google’s] defense in that was that the way that they were doing it constituted fair use, and copyright law has exemptions for fair use,” Gorman said. “We agree with Google’s interpretation of that.” Google attempted to settle the dispute out of court, according to Van Gemert, eventually reaching an agreement that Google Books’ homepage calls “groundbreaking.” “About a year and a half ago, Google contacted us and said, ‘We would like to negotiate a settlement with those publishers and authors … not because we think they will win and we will lose, but because we think we can negotiate a settlement that would be better for everyone’s access to stuff in the long run,’” Van Gemert said. The end result, although still needing final approval from the court, involves an “institutional subscription,” Van Gemert explained, which would open up all of the public domain material and “the entire corpus, for material that’s in copyright and out of print, and for material that’s in copyright and in print,” to institutions, like universities and libraries, who purchased a subscription. Van Gemert also noted that each public and academic library in the United States would receive one
copy of the entire project. Still, the settlement comes with a dose of skepticism. “There’s a lot of controversy around [the new agreement],” Van Gemert said. “Some of the issues have to do with concern over a monopoly. Some of the issues still have to do with concerns over copyright. A large piece of the concern has to do with control.” In many ways, the settlement aims to give back some of the control that publishers and authors believe was jeopardized by digitizing, according to Desai. Van Gemert compared some of the copyright concerns to issues making the news recently in the music industry, and the lawsuits filed by the recording industry, as well as concerns decades ago with the use of microfilm, video recording and other means of preservation. “At the heart of it, the issues concern lying and intellectual property, and that’s always going to come up,” Van Gemert said. “There’s no easy way around it.”
However, Desai noted that the way people consume books is different than the way people consume music. “The one thing that may be true is that at least for many books, is that you only use them once,” Desai said. According to Ghosh, the ease of copying items on the Internet also can make copying easier to trace, and therefore monitor. “If you do take the view of copyright law that it’s the copyright owner’s prerogative to determine when copies get made, then that becomes a very difficult … legal standard to apply when copying can be done very easily,” Ghosh said. “The copyright owner’s view is that the ease of copying also
makes it easier in some ways to meter the copying.” And, unlike the music industry, Google is the major force in digitization, not a large number of smaller sources. Although some opponents fear a monopoly on the part of Google, Desai viewed having a single source for digitization as one of the project’s strengths, and a major factor in maintaining copyright precedents. “One big difference is that here all the digitization is being done by one company,” Desai said. “There isn’t a realistic possibility of a competition to Google.” Moving Forward With the copyright concerns being handled for now, U W- Ma d i s o n is still moving forward with the Google Initiative. “It’s been remarkably smooth, really at every level,” Gorman said. “In terms of the library’s mission, this is a tremendous leap forward in providing access to information and to do it in a way that’s more convenient than ever before.” And just what is that mission? Although the UW library system works for the benefit of the students and faculty who keep this research giant running with new information, Gorman also sees a big-picture view of the initiative’s benefits. “Access, access, access,” Gorman said. “A library’s mission is to provide access to information.” Because of its partnership with the Wisconsin Historical Society, UW-Madison has been able to send many historical texts and non-circulating collections from its archives, including numerous texts that are used for genealogy research. “We have Wisconsin citizens who can search what they want to search from the comfort of their own home,” Zimmerman said. She also noted the American Indian Collection, which students K through 12 across the state use while on field trips, and which will now be available online. According to Zimmerman and Van Gemert, the university also receives its own copy of all of the digitized materials, which is being added to a repository housed at the University of Michigan, where a number of Google partners are building a digital library. Objections to Google Books’ settlement are being collected until May 5, with a hearing scheduled for June 11.
featuresstudent life 6 Thursday, April 16, 2009
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Defining “For better or for worse”
Nicole Steffens and Mitch Levenhagen
Students conflict in their views on marriage.
Marriage: YES Reasons: Love and Stability
Story by Madeline Anderson JENNY PEEK/THE DAILY CARDINAL
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feel like I don’t know any other way,” UW-Madison junior Mitch Levenhagen said. “It’s just what you do,” added his girlfriend and fellow UW-Madison junior Nicole Steffens. Levenhagen and Steffens met during their freshman year of college and have been dating since, celebrating their two-and-a-half-year anniversary this spring. They both came to college to explore different career opportunities and found each other shortly after. After discussing marriage, they view it as a possibility in the future. Many young couples at the university enter relationships like Levenhagen and Steffens. They often decide that marriage is the next step after a period of commitment and stability with one another. Yet others hold alternate views of marriage. Although college is a time when one’s views on careers seem endless, each student often has very specific views on marriage. “Society tells you to get married,” Steffens said. “There’s no reason for me to think otherwise, because I have never been told anything different.”
Say ‘I do’ Institutions within American society help reinforce a seemingly one-track life plan. “I date people who I think have the potential for marriage because the Mormon religion views marriage as a sacred ordinance,” UW-Madison sophomore Cherish Westin said. Westin’s strong beliefs stem from a lifetime of scriptures and experiences. “I’ve been thinking about marriage all my life,” Westin said. “You witness it everywhere around you.” Yet, Westin is much less confident about other decisions in the future.
Although she plans to attend medical school after graduating, she feels powerless in the outcome. “Yes, I can work harder at school and build up my résumé, but ultimately it’s out of my control,” Westin said. “Marriage is in my hands, not left in someone else’s.” “Society tells you to get married. There’s no reason for me to think otherwise, because I have never been told anything different.” Cherish Westin student UW-Madison
The comfort Westin finds in the idea of marriage contributes to its appeal for some students. Some are drawn to marriage because it provides a sense of security and autonomy in the face of an undefined and unknown future. “There are less variables involved in marriage,” UW-Madison sophomore John Cook said. “Whether or not I get a good job depends on what major I choose, how well I do, internships, experience,” Cook said. “Whether I get married or not only depends on if I find someone. That comes with significantly less effort. At least it’s supposed to.” Cook believes in marriage despite his parents’ painful divorce. Their strained marriage desensitized him to the stigma associated with divorce. His dad started showing signs of depression when Cook was in middle school and was diagnosed with manic-depressive disorder a year later. The dynamics of his parents’ relationship changed considerably.
Cook said this personality disorder did not just affect his dad, but colored all his parents’ interactions. “It gets tricky because of the ‘in sickness and in health’ clause,” Cook noted. “[Mental illness] is a disease and should be treated as such but with something that can potentially be emotionally abusive it blurs the line between ‘sickness’ and just harmful actions.” Say ‘I don’t’ Despite their marriage vows, some couples feel less pressure to remain together, in part because of more liberal views of individual well-being. Today’s historically high divorce rate of over 50 percent certainly reflects in part society’s acceptance of divorce. “It baffles me that marriage is supposed to be sacred,” UW-Madison fifth-year senior Zach Riley-Glassman said. “Plenty of couples don’t last. And then there are same-sex couples who are denied rights and benefits, but have been committed to each other for years.” As an LGBTQ advocate and member of Allies, a student organization that promotes support and awareness for the LGBTQ community on campus, Riley-Glassman feels compelled to speak out against American society’s reluctance to include same-sex couples in its marriage laws. “Right now, our society is centered on a [heterosexual] view of marriage. Religion is a private institution. There is no reason to make sweeping legislation based on religious views,” Riley-Glassman said. Currently, laws in most states, including Wisconsin, define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. However, Riley-Glassman’s generation of students brings a new definition. “In the short run, we just have to
Manushika Yapa Marriage: NO
Reasons: Parents’ arranged marriage and observations of society
Photos by Charlie Baker and Kyle Bursaw
John Cook Marriage: YES
Reasons: Happiness and observations of society
play into the system. Gay marriage will happen in our lifetimes. Just look at the voter demographics,” Riley-Glassman said, referring to the increasing percentage of adults under age 25 who support gay marriage. This fluid interpretation of marriage has led some students to question the purpose and function of marriage today. “In the long run, it would be more constructive to do away with the institution altogether,” RileyGlassman said. UW-Madison freshman Manushika Yapa agrees that marriage is an outdated tradition. “Most people are not meant to be in one relationship for a lifetime,” Yapa said. “Marriage restrains people from going out and finding other relationships that may fulfill them.” Yapa’s parents, originally from Sri Lanka, had an arranged marriage. “A relationship should be able to run its course. There is no need for marriage if most relationships are going to end at some point.” Manushika Yapa student UW-Madison
“I never grew up with parents who were really in love,” she explained. Although a large influence on her life, Yapa’s parents’ relationship is not the defining factor in her views on marriage. Her skepticism stems from simply observing the rest of society’s interactions. “The whole point of marriage is that there was no point,” Yapa said. “People are not going to stay the same people throughout 50 years.” She views this change as neither
Cherish Westin Marriage: YES
Reasons: Religion and comfort
good nor bad, but human. “Change should be OK,” Yapa said. “A relationship should be able to run its course. There is no need for marriage if most relationships are going to end at some point.” Challenging the views in favor of marriage, Yapa exposes what she thinks are the underlying motivations behind people’s reason for getting married: Society makes companionship and commitment an unnecessary and perhaps daunting priority in people’s lives. “If society as a whole did not make marriage a necessity, those said needs and motivations would diminish,” she explained. “Ultimately, people would be happier.” Reasons for ‘I do’ Yet it is difficult to distinguish society’s embedded attitudes of marriage from students’ seemingly individual and independent decisions. “I’m certain I want to be happy and [marriage] would be an important component of happiness,” Cook said. Levenhagen, who shares Cook’s view on marriage, has more specific reasons for the inevitability of marrying. “I am most certain that I want to have a family and, to me, that encompasses marriage,” Levenhagen said. “Marriage symbolizes love and stability which I feel is a good way to bring up a family.” Their certainties rest on personal desires and beliefs, yet these reasons are a product of societal constructions of family and happiness. Still, others who express concrete views on marriage cannot identify the factors contributing to their definitions. “I honestly don’t know why I want to get married,” Steffens said. “I just love him.”
Zach Riley-Glassman Marriage: NO
Reasons: Marriage should have a broader definition
arts
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Thursday, April 16, 2009
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Cultural perspective should not outweigh literary merit FRANCES PROVINE a fran for all seasons
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PHOTO COURTESY ATLANTIC
Death Cab for Cutie’s latest EP is a spunky alternative to last year’s melancholy and masochistic Narrow Stairs. Despite this, the group still maintains their lasting image as indie’s lovelorn pop-rockers.
Cutie ‘Opens’ new ‘Door’ By Alex Kuskowski THE DAILY CARDINAL
Released nearly a year after their critically acclaimed Narrow Stairs and made up of songs recorded during the same sessions, Death Cab for Cutie’s newest EP, The Open Door, certainly differentiates itself from their last release. It’s easy to see why the band didn’t include these five far more upbeat songs on the depressing Narrow Stairs. For one thing, these songs wouldn’t have fit the darker mood of the album. For another, it satisfies the unending, if somewhat masochistic, craving Death Cab for Cutie fans have for the melancholy and melodic styling of Ben Gibbard. That said, the EP holds together well as a peppier version of the band’s previous releases. The up-tempo first track, “Little Bribes,” is a whimsical look at visiting casinos, and with lyrics like “Pretend every slot machine is a robot amputee waving hello / The people stare into their eyes and they feed them little bribes,” the listener is certainly kept entertained. The second song, “Diamond and a Tether,” reverts back to the sleepy
rock and folk style that is the band’s signature, though the clear melody and clean guitar riffs stop it from veering into Narrow Stairs territory. It’s also a classic Gibbard song with his usual mix of self pity, love and paranoia, with lyrics like “Pity, take pity on me / Because I’m not half the man that I should be.”
CD REVIEW
The Open Door EP Death Cab for Cutie The third track, “My Mirror Speaks,” is both the best on the album and the most upbeat. With a footstomping backbeat and lyrics like “I always fall in love with an open door / With a horizon on an endless sea,” it definitely has a Beatles-esque flair and recalls “Summer Skin” from their album Plans. Unfortunately, the next
song, “I Was Once a Loyal Lover,” is probably the worst of the bunch. Interesting lyrics like “I wait to talk when I should listen / And cloud mistakes with false revisions” are completely overrun by fuzzed-out guitars with artsy riffs, walking baselines and even cymbals. It’s too layered to hang together and leaves the listener feeling dizzy afterward. The final track, which is promoted as a demo, is probably the most unique and interesting of the EP. Gibbard sings a refreshingly sweet tune along to a ukulele. Although this may not sound like the usual Death Cab for Cutie fare, lyrics like “It’s all here for you / as long as you don’t fly away” will still resonate with any lovelorn fan. Death Cab for Cutie has yet to put out a bad album, and in all, this EP recommends itself well. The Open Door fits perfectly with the band’s other albums and deserves a listen, especially “Little Bribes” and “My Mirror Speaks.” As far as owning it goes, its strength as quintessential Death Cab is also its weakness, and it is probably more of a collectable item for the avid devotee than for the average listener.
udiences aren’t interested in global issues. At least, that’s the excuse many news sources have used when they drastically cut funding for international reporting or only show brief two-minute clips about the war in Chechnya while running in-depth specials about celebrity sex scandals. Although this may be true in terms of international politics, however, it certainly isn’t true in the literary world. Books like “A Thousand Splendid Suns” or “God of Small Things” are set in faraway places that Americans are supposed to care little about, yet they make best-seller lists and win awards. Beyond this, there has been an especially strong movement of second-generation writers in this country, with authors like Jhumpa Lahiri and Jeffrey Eugenides exploring the experiences of foreigners within America.
The characters’ lives may be “complex,” all right, but not in a way that contains joy or humor.
What has made these books so popular, and why now? Has globalization not only sent our American pop music abroad but brought literary representations of different cultures here? Is it simply coincidence? It seems that the very fact that they represent a different cultural perspective must draw
certain people to such works, especially when looking at the varying amount of talent these authors have. Take Lahiri for example. There is nothing particularly impressive about her writing style, and although some critics may label her characters as “complex” or “imperfect,” those are just roundabout ways of saying they’re miserable. The characters’ lives may be “complex,” all right, but not in a way that contains joy or humor. Indians and Indian-Americans might not like being described in such terms, and as such, many are critical of her. Contrast that with Junot Díaz or Arundhati Roy. Their works may not always be flattering to their respective cultures, but they are always interesting and represent the kind of energy that can be milked from such influences. It’s always struck me as strange how Jeffrey Eugenides, who wrote the beautiful and unique “The Virgin Suicides,” won a Pulitzer not for that book but for the much less coherent “Middlesex.” Were critics only looking at length? Or did they find its depiction of immigrant culture or sexual ambiguity appealing? As a political science major with a focus on international relations, I have always been particularly interested in global cultures. And if there’s anything that such literature inspires in me, it is the feeling of gratitude that the literary world has finally given due respect to cultures in India, Iran, Afghanistan (and so on), beyond the more “traditional” powerhouses of Western literature like France and Russia. Readers should maintain a steady critical eye on literature, though, no matter who writes it. Lahiri and Eugenides are both American and write in English. They can’t blame boring writing or convoluted plot development on translation.
Readers should maintain a steady critical eye on literature, though, no matter who writes it.
Writing about different cultures, though incredibly important in terms of personally relating to people of different backgrounds, isn’t automatically absorbing. In order to keep the discussion around second-generation literature as valuable as possible, critics need to feel as open about pointing out flaws in the works of new authors as they do about praising it. Perhaps some fear that it would appear to be culturally insensitive to criticize pieces that market themselves as representing marginalized perspectives. It’s far more insulting, however, when Lahiri’s dull depictions of a spiteful, dead-end marriage are praised as an insight on Indian-American culture. Convince Frances you care about international politics at provine@wisc.edu.
featuresscience
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Question Answered
Our O science gurus takes on life’s mysteries By Bill Andrews THE DAILY CARDINAL
Q: Besides their goofy shape, what makes compact fluorescent light bulbs different from regular ones? Why are they supposedly so good for the environment?
JENNY PEEK/THE DAILY CARDINAL
Scientists at UW-Madison hope to use cellulose, which is cheap and abundant but hard to separate, as a major component in biodiesels, ultimately increasing the quantity and quality of gasoline.
A new kind of flower power UW scientists bring us one step closer to cheap, abundant biofuels for our cars By Jerry Stoecklein THE DAILY CARDINAL
Cellulose can be mighty tricky. “Cellulose is very crystalline,” said Joe Binder, a doctoral student at UW-Madison working on a new method of breaking down cellulose. The most abundant organic molecule on earth, cellulose has been targeted as a source of energy because of its ubiquitous nature. Most biofuels today are derived from easily transformable materials. Biodiesel, for instance, has corn kernels, cane sugar, palm oil and soy beans as ingredients. But these sources only make up a small fraction of plant matter. The United States produced about nine billion gallons of ethanol in 2008, and ethanol producers expect the demand to increase with the passage of the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act. It calls for an increase of 36 million gallons of biofuels added to gasoline by 2022. “We worked out a way to convert the biomass in one step into a chemical precursor that you could use to make fuels and chemicals.” Joe Binder PhD candidate UW-Madison
Only 15 million gallons can be provided by traditional materials. The rest will need to come from cellulose. But the cellulose needs to be broken apart. “If you think of cellulose, you can think of cotton balls. They don’t dissolve in water, they’re really tough,” Binder said. “On top of that, the cellulose is wrapped in other polymers called hemicelluloses and lignin, which really stick it together and really glue it and make it tough to get at,” he said. Plants use cellulose to build their cell walls; it provides structure and support, so it has evolved to resist efforts to break it down. Lignin, in particular, has long vexed researchers, as it essentially
creates a wall between the cellulose and any potential solvents. “We worked out a way to convert the biomass in one step into a chemical precursor that you could use to make fuels and chemicals,” said Binder, who worked with UW-Madison biochemistry and chemical engineering professor Ronald Raines. The research appeared in a recent issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society. “The reason cellulose is so hard to dissolve is that the molecules in the cellulose chain are bound to each other by what are called hydrogen bonds. Those hydrogen bonds are very sticky,” Binder said. “Typical solvents can’t break the hydrogen bonds. But we used special solvents that can make even stronger hydrogen bonds to the cellulose than the cellulose can make by itself,” he said. The chemicals Binder and Raines used are small enough to fit between lignin molecules and cellulose molecules. “These solvent molecules wiggle in there and break up the hydrogen bonds between the cellulose chains, which allows the cellulose to dissolve,” Binder said. The solvent dissolves these cotton balls, 90 percent cellulose, into a clear, slightly viscous liquid. The team of researchers has also tested its method on corn stover, a common source of biomass in Wisconsin, and pine sawdust. Broken down, they resemble molasses. This method requires no pretreatment of the biomass. The resulting molecule at the end of this first step is abbreviated as HMF. “It’s a molecule you can imagine converting into a lot of different molecules, which could then be used to make plastics, fuels or all these different things that we need for modern-day life,” Binder said. “And it could be a replacement for the stuff that we get petroleum from today. So then we would have bio-based plastics and bio-based fuels,” he said. Breaking down the cellulose into HMF is the first step. In the
second step, HMF is converted to another compound, DMF. This would serve as an alternative to gasoline. According to Raines, it has the same energy content as gasoline and is already in use as a fuel additive. Binder also noted that with a boiling point higher than ethanol’s, DMF won’t evaporate at the filling station, nor will it absorb water. “Our process is so general I think we can make DMF or HMF out of any type of biomass,” Raines said in a UW-Madison news release. In a test case with corn stover, 9 percent of the cellulose was converted to DMF. “That was just to demonstrate that we could do it from corn stover,” Binder said. “It could be a replacement for the stuff that we get petroleum from today. So then we would have bio-based plastics and bio-based fuels.”
A: With Earth Week crawling ever closer, your question couldn’t be timelier. Essentially, CFL bulbs are simply more efficient, because they use less energy to illuminate the same amount as regular bulbs. This difference results from the different ways the two kinds of bulbs work. The old kind, technically called incandescent light bulbs, work by passing electricity through a thin piece of metal called the filament. The electricity makes the filament heat up, and soon enough it becomes white-hot, bright enough to illuminate the bulb’s surroundings. All this happens inside the familiar glass bulb, which keeps a vacuum (no air) around the filament. This serves to prevent oxygen in the air outside the bulb from getting to and oxidizing (burning up) that superhot filament. CFL bulbs, however, are just like regular fluorescent bulbs, only smaller and more compact. Perhaps most familiar to us as the long tube lamps found in office buildings and lecture halls, fluorescent bulbs produce light totally differently. Instead of heating up a piece of metal until it shines, fluorescent bulbs use electricity to excite mercury vapor, which emits invisible ultraviolet light. A coating of phosphor on the inside of the bulb then absorbs this light and emits the bright light we see. This process is called fluorescence. Since the light we see comes from the phosphor coating, the more surface area the bulbs have, the brighter they become. Although it may seem odd that the flickering, soulless lights of government buildings may be the future of household lighting, it’s really just
putting an entirely different kind of light to good use. Fluorescence gives the neon lights of the big city their striking glow and doesn’t create nearly as much heat as their incandescent equivalents. CFLs are merely these efficient fluorescent tubes folded and spiraled up (to keep surface area, and thus efficiency, high) and made compatible with regular incandescent sockets. This efficiency makes them the greener alternative. When you screw in a CFL where you once had an incandescent bulb you use between one third and one fifth the power for the same amount of brightness and illumination, according to General Electric. Plus, according to the National Energy Foundation, your new CFL bulb will last between eight and 15 times as long as its incandescent predecessor. So, combining the longer lifespan with the difference in energy use, Energy Star calculates you’d save around $30 per CFL bulb you use. Of course, nothing’s perfect. For instance, CFL bulbs are more expensive than their incandescent counterparts. Even though the increased efficiency would more than make up for the difference in cost, many are hesitant to make this initial investment—it’s hard to value long-term savings over the short-term cost, especially with the current economy. Also, the mercury in CFLs makes getting rid of them a bit of an issue. Used or broken bulbs have to be disposed of very carefully at specific recycling locations, and few people do so. And yet, in places powered by coal, CFLs still decrease mercury emissions over incandescent bulbs, since it would have taken more coal (which releases mercury) to power the less-efficient bulbs. So, funny-looking though they may be, CFL bulbs really are the most efficient, cleanest and most economical alternative. Their shape and higher price may take some getting used to, but by almost any measure it’s a change you’d be wise to make.
Joe Binder PhD candidate UW-Madison
“If we really worked on optimizing all the steps with the way we know how to do it right now, we could certainly get three or four times that yield, easily. And with further process improvements we could certainly boost those yields even further,” Binder said. Further process development is definitely still needed. One of the solvents in the cellulose-toHMF conversion is chromium, a toxic metal. The team also needs to develop a method for recycling the solvents. Still, they’ve already come a long way toward creating a viable source of energy. Continued research, at the Great Lakes Bioenergy Center, may some day lead to Wisconsinites filling up their cars with a fuel developed in their own state. “It’s really cool, all the different options people are coming up with,” Binder said.
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY KYLE BURSAW/THE DAILY CARDINAL
Compact fluorescent light bulbs may look a little funny, but they are capable of saving not just the environment, but your wallet, too.
opinion dailycardinal.com/opinion
Thursday, April 16, 2009
view Cardinal View editorials represent The Daily Cardinal’s organizational opinion. Each editorial is crafted independent of news coverage.
nonfiscal items a budgetary burden
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n light of the disaster of the last state budget, which took 115 days over its allotted time to become law, state Sen. Mark Miller, D-Monona, and state Rep. Mark Pocan, DMadison, have removed roughly half of the nonfiscal items from this year’s budget proposal to make it more palatable from a bipartisan perspective. As the chairs of the Joint Committee on Finance, Miller and Pocan removed some nonfiscal items to be introduced in separate bills, leaving some non-fiscal items on the budget for the state Legislature to deliberate on. Although The Daily Cardinal Editorial Board may support the nonfiscal items left on the budget, the sneaky method of including items that have absolutely nothing to do with the budget, trailing the meat of the legislation like pilot fish on a shark, should be banished altogether.
This will likely not be the last time nonfiscal items will be placed in the budget.
The democratic process of passing legislation has unfortunate loopholes where extraneous items can be placed within a
bill, and it’s not a new realization to politics: Almost every major federal bill is earmarked with special interests and unrelated items. Removing some of these items from the state budget is a start to the purification of legislation, but removing all should be the ultimate goal.
Although items such as the smoking ban are important, their expediency is not as vital as the state budget.
Included in the items left on the budget is a statewide smoking ban, which this editorial board thoroughly supports. The problem is, if such legislation would not pass regularly, then snaking it through as an item in the budget is inherently wrong and undemocratic. However, this will likely not be the last time nonfiscal items will be placed in the budget. In the interest of preserving the democratic process as well as making the budget a more palatable bill, every nonfiscal budget item should be removed and introduced separately. Although items such as the smoking ban are important, their expediency is not as vital as the state budget, especially considering the last budget stalled for so long.
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Faux Tea Party protests antiquated and divisive JOSEPH KOSS opinion columnist
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here are noticeable pangs of desperation in Wednesday’s anti-tax Tea (Taxed Enough Already) Party. Although ostensibly dubbed a grassroots uprising, the event is probably more accurately described as a coordinated and concerted partisan campaign. The Republican National Committee’s website allows for creating send-a-tea-bag postcards. An entire cable news channel (guess which one) has been actively promoting the day of protest, and the main website for the Tax Day Tea Party event is funded by conservative groups. Involved in Wednesday’s protest events were FreedomWorks, a conservative group founded by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, Americans for Prosperity and Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions for Winning the Future (along with his poignant YouTube hit, “Invitation to the April 15th Tea Party”). Although early reports claimed crowds contained anywhere from 2,000 to 5,000 protesters turning out in 300 cities in seven states, past immigration reform protests annually held May 1 since 2006 have drawn spontaneous crowds in the hundreds of thousands in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. The over-the-top antics are somewhat telling of the state of the Republican Party. Fewer voters identify themselves as Republicans now than at any other time during the last 16 years, creating a base supportive of an increased number of conservative approaches to problems. A March NBC/Wall Street Journal poll put Republican popularity at near-historic
lows: Just 26 percent viewed the party positively, compared with 68 percent for President Obama. When the poll asked which party is best positioned to end the recession, Republicans trailed by more than a 30-point margin. Additionally, Gallup’s annual April poll on taxes found that 48 percent of Americans said the amount of federal income tax they pay is “about right,” 3 percent say it is “too low” and 46 percent say it is “too high.” The poll also found 61 percent of Americans “regard the income taxes they have to pay this year as fair.” Republicans are losing their identity, and less and less of the public is buying their political goods. If they lose “no new taxes” as their main rallying cry, what will the party have left? The political ramifications of the current Republican outré are somewhat disconcerting. The tax debate is too important to let it continue to be a conservative shibboleth. James Madison, in his remarkable Federalist Paper #10, outlined—for eternity— this debate: “But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society ... Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation and involves the spirit of the party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government.” There are interests on both sides that need hearing. For much of the recent century, the conservative base has championed lower taxes for “creditors.” It is not as if this faction does not need a voice. They do. But the current voice being lent is a 20th-century voice. It is being led by defunct
Republican baby boomers looking for one last twirl. Our tax code needs to be viewed in relation to the social problems and inequities currently plaguing our nation. Research has shown the benefits of investing $1 into public infrastructure over $1 of tax relief. A recent study argued that almost every societal problem stemmed from one cause: inequality. Richard Wilkinson, one of the researchers in the study, explained, “It became clear that countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Portugal, where the top 20 percent earn seven, eight or nine times more than the lowest 20 percent, scored noticeably higher on all social problems at every level of society than in countries such as Sweden and Japan, where the differential is only two or three times higher at the top.” Very little research supports the old ideas that a higher tax reduces the incentives for “producers” while giving charity to the “parasites.” In 1995, the top 1 percent earned around $500,000, and the bottom 20 percent earned around $50,000. In 2005, the top 1 percent earned almost $1.2 million, and the bottom 20 percent held constant at right around $50,000. Taxes on the top 1 percent also decreased considerably over this time. Yet today we find ourselves facing enormous social challenges. Are we any better off? Faux Tea Party protests are not getting any closer to the regulation that Madison prescribes. They are not leading us closer to “the principal task of modern legislation.” Our current tax debates demand 21st-century thinking and collaboration. The only thing the Republican Party seems to be offering is a 20th-century masquerade of an 18th-century uprising. Joseph Koss is a junior majoring in secondary education in social studies. Please send responses to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
Services offered to sexual assault victims through Meriter Hospital By Sapir Sasson PROMOTING AWARENESS, VICTIM EMPOWERMENT
In light of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, I want to call attention to the wonderful, oneof-a-kind service offered at Meriter Hospital. The Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) program provides services to sexual assault victims both male and female. I interviewed Wendy Seay, a SANE nurse, who has been working in the program for six years and has been a nurse for 35 years.
SANE provides compassionate support and the appropriate health services to deal with the aftereffects of sexual assault.
Meriter’s SANE program, founded in 1988, is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week as staffing allows. SANE nurses see about 380 victims a year. Fifty-five percent of victims who utilize this service are under the age of 17. One of the main objectives of the SANE program is to lessen the trauma for sexual assault victims by providing compassionate support and the appropriate health
services to deal with the aftereffects of sexual assault. With the help of a Rape Crisis Center (RCC) advocate, the SANE program provides crisis intervention and can help victims feel more safe and secure. There is a general protocol for someone who comes into the Meriter Hospital emergency room for a SANE exam. When a victim comes in, a SANE nurse is paged and she notifies RCC to send an advocate. The victim is taken to a special waiting room to wait for the SANE nurse. The RCC advocate can stay with the victim throughout the exam or wait for the victim until he/she is done with the exam—whichever the victim prefers. The exam can last anywhere between 2.5 to six hours, depending on the situation. The SANE nurse asks the victim basic questions about sexual history, background health information and the assault. Most cases involving college women involve alcohol, and thus a urine or blood sample may be obtained. It is worth mentioning that alcohol does not get the victim in trouble with the law. It is to the victim’s advantage to be honest about the level of intoxication because under Wisconsin state law, anyone who is under the influence of alcohol is unable to consent to intercourse.
The next step is a head-to-toe physical exam. If the victim comes in within 96 hours of the assault, the nurse is usually able to collect forensic evidence, but factors such as bathing and significant injury may alter this time guideline (this will only be done if the victim so chooses). Otherwise, the nurse looks for injury and/or evidence of force. However, lack of injury in no way implies that the sexual encounter was consensual or that an assault did not occur.
The nurse discusses treatment and reporting options with the victim.
The exam begins with the least invasive aspects and ends with a pelvic exam. A colposcope is used to take pictures of the pelvic area and any injuries that may be present. Tests for sexually transmitted infections may or may not be useful at this point, depending on how long it has been since the assault. Following the pelvic exam, the nurse discusses treatment and reporting options with the victim.
Victims over the age of 18 are given the choice of whether or not they want to report the assault; the hospital staff is mandated by law to report any assault in which the victim is a minor. The SANE nurse follows up with the victim a week after the exam to talk about any lab results and see how the victim is doing. When a UWMadison student comes in, the Offices of the Dean of Students are notified (the victim’s name is never given). Students are encouraged to talk to ODOS. Often, victims follow up with RCC, a great resource that provides free counseling and extensive support to sexual assault victims and their family and friends. There are a couple of key points I would like to emphasize. First, many people worry about the cost of the hospital stay. For those who do not have health insurance, do not want their parents to find out or cannot have the bill go through their insurance for whatever reason, there are funds available to help victims pay for these services. If the victim is reporting the assault, the Crime Victim’s Compensation fund will pay for the services. In the event that the victim is not reporting the assault or has not yet decided whether he/she wants to report,
the Sexual Assault Forensic Exam (SAFE) fund can cover the costs of the hospital services provided. Second, a victim does not have to make the decision of whether to report the crime right away. Meriter Hospital has an agreement with the Madison Police Department in which the police keep DNA kits indefinitely, in case the victim later decides he/she does want to report the assault. This is a unique arrangement that is offered only in Dane County.
There are funds available to help victims pay for these services.
It is recommended to seek care as soon as possible after an assault. My goal with this article is not to make victims feel compelled to seek help, but rather to raise awareness about this wonderful program available to sexual assault victims that provides complete, compassionate and confidential care. Sapir Sasson is a PAVE facilitator. Please send responses to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
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No doggy style here. In California, animals are banned from mating publicly within 1,500 feet of a tavern, school or place of worship. dailycardinal.com/comics
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Boomshakalakah
Today’s Sudoku
Anthro-apology
By Eric Wigdahl wigdahl@wisc.edu
© Puzzles by Pappocom
Angel Hair Pasta
By Todd Stevens ststevens@wisc.edu
Sid and Phil
By Alex Lewein alex@sidandphil.com
Solution, tips and computer program available at www.sudoku.com.
Fill in the grid so that every row, every column and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 through 9.
Today’s Crossword Puzzle
The Graph Giraffe
Evil Bird
By Yosef Lerner ilerner@wisc.edu
By Caitlin Kirihara kirihara@wisc.edu
Answer key available at www.dailycardinal.com I’M OKAY, YOU’RE OKAY
1 5 9 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 23 24 25 29 30 31 34 36 37 41 42 43 44 47 48
ACROSS
Stay just out of sight Bingo item Oak fruit Once again Assert One not userfriendly? ___ de gallo (Mexican salsa) Neighbor of Sonoma Chancel fixture Free from defects Tolkien tree-creature A bit pretentious Choir members Fellow Married Italian woman Weaponless at a patdown Box-spring support Cork source Really hale Brain wave record (Abbr.) It’s good when they meet Places for 19-Across Bitterly harsh Part of a Morse code letter What tennis balls are packaged in, typically
49 51 54 57 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 21 22
Act as a henchman Calendar abbr. In fine fettle Bow application Electricity conductor, often Something that might come to a head? Amid Smell Exclamation of sorrow Ridges of windblown sand Oculist’s piece Ancient musical instrument DOWN
Discontinuance Square in Manhattan Prepare a movie for TV Tae ___ do Household warbler Nautical cry Catch up on one’s debt Blah Digital’s counterpart Contact a radio show Table dropping Alternative to Zenith or JVC Clause connector Intimidate Andrew Lloyd Webber
26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 38 39 40 45 46 47 49 50 51 52 53 55 56 57 58 59
musical Golden beer? Obliterate “Land ___ alive!” Young lady in a square dance Insolence Flimflam Freeloader Enthusiastic Put in harmony “A Shropshire ___” It might set off alarms Aristide’s land Choose Process, as sugar Human and extraterrestrial Yields Stage whisper, perhaps Title of nobility Strangely Understandable Display poor sportsmanship Base runner? I-XII place, perhaps X-ray unit Cassowary kin Tom, to the piper
Frugal Gnome
By Lindsey Heinz and Emily Villwock lheinz@wisc.edu
sports
dailycardinal.com/sports
Thursday, April 16, 2009
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Men’s Soccer
Badgers stay perfect in exhibition matches
By Jake Langbecker THE DAILY CARDINAL
After scoring only once in the first 180 minutes of their spring exhibition season, the UW-Madison men’s soccer team exploded for five goals in a shutout victory over the UW-Milwaukee Panthers Wednesday. Following a sluggish start in the first half, freshman Mark Roos found the back of the net in the 37th minute to get the Badgers on the board. Junior Pablo Delgado set up the play with a cross to fellow junior Brandon Miller, who touched it back for Roos. The Badgers failed to score a goal the rest of the first half, but things started to open up in the second. Delgado, who was all over the field setting up his teammates, helped start the barrage of goals in the second half. On a set piece in the 21st minute, Delgado struck the ball toward the goal, and it connected with junior Austin Nyquist’s head on the way into the goal. The scoring continued seven minutes later when junior Scott Lorenz scored off a rebound to make
overtime from page 12 game that comes down to such tiny moments and interactions. Series change on a puck hitting a pipe or a player tipping a shot just so it has unpredictable trajectory but not so it goes wide of the net. See, unlike in football or baseball, hockey’s sudden death is so much more sudden. In baseball the game-winning run is set up by having runners on base, and often by bunts to move runners over. Football pretends to have sudden death, but unless a player absolutely breaks through from the opponent’s defense, the tension dissipates as a kicker is sent out, warms up and finally attempts the kick.
baseball from page 12 The fundraising also helps play for travel costs required if the team makes the playoffs, with the regional tournament played in Huntington, Ind., and the finals in Florida. The trip to Huntington provides players with the unique experience of playing on the field used to film “A League of Their Own,” and Rubatt said the stadium still features nostalgic ads on the walls of the outfield. Wisconsin outfielders should be quite familiar with the ads by now, as the trip to the playoffs has become almost an annual expense for the Badgers, who hope to make their third NCBA World Series appearance in the last six years this spring. But according to junior first baseman Brian Vike, making it to the playoffs might be a bit more of a challenge this year. “Our goal as a team every year is to win our conference and advance and be competitive at the regional tournament,” Vike said. “This year it seems like there will be more disparity in the conference than years past, and we’ll be playing in some exciting games.” Some exciting games are exactly what the team needs to help build its meager fan base. Because the team is under the control of the Division of Recreation Sports and not the Athletic Department, however, it receives little funding and is forced to play at various
the score 3-0. It was another play that Delgado kept alive to give his teammates a scoring opportunity, and Lorenz had nothing but praise for the junior from Spain. “Pablo’s been having a great spring. Coach asked him to do a lot of defensive work, and I think that’s brought his overall game up a level,” Lorenz said. “He’s been asked to be a leader and he’s really stepped into that role.” One of the prettier goals of the game came in the 32nd minute when sophomore Austin Spohn drilled a shot from the top of the box after a well timed tap back from his teammate. Sophomore Cale Cooper added the fifth and final goal in the 39th minute to cap off a solid performance for the Badgers. The Badgers remain undefeated in the spring exhibition season with a record of 2-0-1. First-year head coach Todd Yeagley credited his team’s success so far to their hard training. “The players are doing a great job. It starts with the everyday training environment and their approach, and On the ice that tension is ever present, since one quick play and one nice pass can send a whole team into shock, pondering how to rebound from a five-hour marathon defeat. The aura of limitless overtime also builds the legend of impregnable goaltenders who can carry title teams on their backs. Local fans have seen two Badgers do this, as Brian Elliott blanked Cornell for three overtimes on the way to a national title in 2006 and Jessie Vetter did the same to Harvard a year later. Sixteen NHL playoff games went to overtime last season, accounting for nearly 20 percent of postseason contests. Think parks around Madison. “The crowds typically aren’t very big because we don’t have a home field and actually play most of our games in outlying areas of Madison, making it very difficult for college students to attend games,” said coach Jeff Block, a member of the original club team. “A home field is one of the things we desire most and that would help us the most.” Block proposed the idea of working out a deal with the Madison Mallards to allow the club team to play home games at Warner Park and have buses run from the university to the field so more students could support the team. The deal would be convenient for both parties, considering the Mallards season doesn’t start until after the club season ends. But such an agreement would require increased financial support from the university, a key factor for program growth that has been severely lacking since the club team’s inception. Ultimately, both players and Block hope the program’s success will help lead to a Division I program on campus, a dream shared by many Badger fans but one that is complicated by Title IX. “Baseball is a major sport in this country,” Rubatt said. “If I’m wearing Wisconsin baseball clothing, people will approach me and ask me about it. They all mention how sad it is that there is not a varsity team at the university.”
LORENZO ZEMELLA/CARDINAL FILE PHOTO
Sophomore Austin Spohn provided two of the Badgers’ five goals in their shutout win over the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Panthers Wednesday night, improving their spring exhibition record to 2-0-1. we’ve challenged them to raise every part of their game and they’re responding to it,” Yeagley said. “Now we’re seeing results, we haven’t given up a goal and we’re starting to score.” Yeagley spoke about changing the mentality of the team and improving its confidence heading into the fall season. It was something Roos and the rest of the team seemed to be about that. One in five games will end with the sudden snap of a stick, a rebound the goalie can’t quite tip away or some other play that came oh so tantalizingly close to never happening. All of a sudden, after hours of skating, checking and trying to get that little puck into the net, someone gets a stick on it, makes a move, the horn howls and, like that, it’s done. Any one else excited for the hockey playoffs? Talk to Ben about it at breiner@wisc.edu
buying into. “Coach Yeagley is changing the whole mentality, and everyone’s real excited. We got some more guys coming in in the fall, and everyone is excited about the upcoming season,” Roos said. Wednesday night’s game stood in stark contrast to the first two contests of the spring season where the Badger
recruits from page 12 belt. He spent two years at Boston University, and during the 2007-’08 season he finished with a record of 16-10-3, a 2.63 goals-against average and a .888 save percentage. He is the current goalie for the United States Hockey League’s Indiana Ice. Bennett received 2009 First Team All-USHL honors, leading the league with 54 games played, 35 wins and four shutouts. He ended the regular season with a record of 35-17-4 while only allowing 2.59
offense seemed lackluster. The players say they did not do anything differently but that hard work in practice was finally starting to pay off. “It’s always the first one that’s the hardest. Once you get that everything else kind of comes,” Roos said. “Against Illinois-Chicago we had 17 shots, but sometimes they just don’t go in. Today they were going in.” goals per game. Before heading to Boston University, Bennett also had the opportunity to be a part of the U.S. National Team Development Program. While with the under-17 team in 2004-’05 he was 20-12-2-1 with 2.71 goals-against and a .913 save percentage. With the addition of Ramage and Bennett the Badgers have now signed seven players for next fall. —uwbadgers.com contributed to this report.
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dailycardinal.com/sports
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Club Sports
Overtime rules make for better playoff hockey
Badger baseball dominates clublevel conference By Justin Dean THE DAILY CARDINAL
By now it is common knowledge that springtime in Madison is not a hotbed for college sports activity. But although there is no NCAA baseball team, the Wisconsin club baseball team and its players haven’t let that stop them from maintaining the tradition of athletic excellence Badger fans have come to expect. “When you put that much time and effort into a program, you are going to take it very seriously.” Daniel Rubatt senior catcher UW club baseball
“We are the biggest school in our conference, and we set high expectations every year,” senior catcher Daniel Rubatt said. “We are representing the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and we want to keep up its good reputation.” The club baseball program started in 1999 and has grown every year since, so much so that
a second team was added in 2002. The A team, which fields the program’s more talented players, joined the National Club Baseball Association in 2003 and has been a contender for the NCBA World Series every year since. According to Rubatt, the Badgers have won their conference every year he’s been on the team and only lost one conference game over the last three years. Rubatt says the dedication and commitment to winning comes from the team’s self-sufficient nature that keeps the program alive. “We do everything on our own—fundraising, car pooling, scheduling. When you put that much time and effort into a program, you are going to take it very seriously,” he said. The team operates on a $15,000 budget, and only a portion of that cost is covered by the university and the Dugout Club, a Madison-area baseball booster. So the team relies primarily upon player fees and local fundraising to pay for their annual spring break trip to Tampa, Fla., and other travel expenses. baseball page 11
BEN BREINER one breining moment
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During the 2007-’08 season, he played for the Robertson Cupwinning St. Louis Bandits. In their championship season, Ramage skated in 56 games, accumulating four goals, including two gamewinners, and 11 points. Bennett comes to Wisconsin with college experience already under his
an one little rule change make that much of a difference? Well, if you look at the NHL playoffs, one single rule change drives the level of postseason play to a much, much higher level than that of the regular season. The rule is simple: Play ’til someone wins. Throughout the regular season, games undecided after five minutes of overtime simply go to a shootout, a quick-paced result that feels in some way immensely unsatisfying. It’s better than ties, but still the equivalent of soccer’s awful penalty kick system or ending a basketball game with a short game of one-on-one. Instead, the Stanley Cup playoffs feature full 20-minute overtime periods without commercials. This means no extended rest for the skaters or goalies. Both teams drag themselves onto the ice, shift after shift, players knowing that a small slip up or slight misplay might send them home worn down, minds full of disappointment. Every sport experiences little tweaks when they shift into postseason play. In basketball, the games get slower and players can get away with more contact, which often leads to some very ugly games (see: San Antonio Spurs). Football suffers from a similar issue as defensive backs are allowed to manhandle receivers and high-powered, entertaining passing offenses like the 2007 Patriots are cut down from the playoff field. The theory in baseball is that the playoffs are ruled by pitching (though the 2006 Cardinals and 2008 Phillies definitely work against that) and teams that can scratch out runs. But the change in hockey is even bigger. Hockey is such a lithe, moving
recruits page 11
overtime page 11
PHOTO COURTESY DAVID ERICKSON
Brad Wittnebel pitched for the Wisconsin baseball team, which has played well despite its low profile.
Men’s Hockey
Two recruits to join hockey in 2009-’10 season By Nick Schmitt THE DAILY CARDINAL
Head coach Mike Eaves announced Wednesday defenseman John Ramage and goaltender Brett Bennett will join the Wisconsin men’s hockey team next fall. “Brett will come in as a Badger after a super year in junior hockey,” Eaves said. “We look forward to him bringing
his experience to our team. And John, with his experience with the National Team Development Program, he has already played multiple college games and will come in and add that experience to our incoming class.” Ramage spent the past year in the U.S. National Team Development Program in Ann Arbor, Mich., playing for the U.S.
Under-18 Team, and is currently playing in the 2009 International Ice Hockey Federation World Men’s Under-18 Championship. He is also the son of former NHL defenseman Rob Ramage, who was a No. 1 overall pick in the 1979 NHL draft and played over 1,000 games in his career. He has experience in the North American Hockey League as well.