The Brandeis Hoot - Mar 18, 2011

Vol. 8, No. 8

www.thebrandeishoot.com

Brandeis University’s Community Newspaper • Waltham, Mass.

March 18, 2011

Students no longer studying abroad in Japan

By Destiny D. Aquino Editor

Six undergraduate students will see their semester abroad programs disrupted due to the earthquake, tsunami and spreading levels of radiation from nuclear plants in Japan this week.

Three students already abroad in Kyoto, Japan through the Kyoto Consortium for Japanese

Studies, a Columbia University-administered program, are returning to the United States due to safety concerns. The program has chosen to suspend the spring semester.

“Everyone at Brandeis understands that this is a very tragic situation in northern Japan and we will work with our students to make the transition back to the U.S. as smooth as possible,” Assistant Dean of Academic Service and Director

of Study Abroad J. Scott Van Der Meid wrote in an e-mail.

“After much debate and despite the fact that our students are quite safe at the moment, KCJS felt they could not guarantee safety moving forward and reluctantly decided to suspend the program,” Van Der Meid said in a BrandeisNOW press release.

Three students who were supposed to depart

League advocates dining changes

By Josh Kelly Staff

For two weeks, students had seen mysterious advertisements. Whether it was the poster featuring the maniacal baby Stewie from “Family Guy” or the poster with teenage pop star Justin Bieber or merely the Facebook group, all of these advertisements had the same general theme: take control of your destiny on March 14.

Yet except for the organizers, students were clueless. All students were told was to check their mailboxes on March 14. Also if enough people joined the Facebook group, a clue would be released as to what the topic of March 14 would be.

March 14 came and upon checking their mailboxes students found slips of paper provided by the Justice League, a relatively new student organization devoted to social change and empowering student voices.

The slips of paper were ballots for each student to fill out with different ideas of how to improve the food service as Brandeis. Once the Justice League receives more replies, it will deliver the ballots to university President Fred Lawrence.

“We’re going to have a degree from Brandeis for the rest of our lives and we should have a say in what Brandeis is, what our values are, where we’re

Editor

photo by ingrid schulte/the hoot

going to go, what we prioritize,” Massachi said in an interview with The Hoot. “So the food campaign flows really naturally out of that … I want to show students that yes you do have

Editor

The university will host multiple academic forums and cultural events during the week of President Fred Lawrence’s inauguration on March 31. A student art exhibition, a musical performance by the Brandeis string quartet, a graduate student symposium and a Rose Art exhibit are other events that will take place during the inauguration week.

On April 2, the university is hosting an inaugural ball in Gosman with music from the White Heat Swing Orchestra. In an effort to celebrate the community’s diversity, attendees are asked to wear attire from their native cultures.

Prior to the official ceremony in the Gosman Sports and Convocation Cen-

the power and by organizing you can make a difference and food is a great first place because it’s so obviously a See JUSTICE LEAGUE, page 2

When the university announced last fall that it was altering policy to allow for the possible consideration of financial status as a factor for gaining admission, the Brandeis community found itself weighing the decision of a Brandeis office few could name on a murky topic. At this month’s faculty meeting, President Fred Lawrence suggested that the policy may not have even been needed, saying it was possible that every domestic student this year was considered without financial need as a factor.

Keenyn McFarlane is vice president of the Division of Students and Enrollment, a job he sees as one not concerned simply with financial concerns but of “leveraging all assets,” he said, “and our greatest asset is our students.”

McFarlane said that his office may largely consist of admissions oversight, including setting enrollment targets for the number of students in each successive class, “enrollment isn’t just admissions—it’s the student from prospective to alumni.”

The students and enrollment divi-

sion also oversees student life, including campus amenities for current students.

“If you’re unhappy, we want to know why,” he said. McFarlane asks all students who enter his office where they live on campus and where they have ever lived; how they like club life; and what can be done about the food on campus.

And all of the on-campus matters in turn feed back into implications for admissions. For better or worse, admissions attracts and recruits based on how the Brandeis experience is, McFarlane said.

“The best thing we can do [in admissions recruitment] is be honest brokers,” he said. “We’re not just about getting ‘x’ number of students, but x number of the right—and contributing—students.”

McFarlane said that it was not university admissions’ job to recruit the 800 or so students with simply the highest GPAs or standardized test scores.

“We want x number of students at a mixed range: and that composition is composed not just of diversity,” he See ADMISSIONS, page 15

James Carroll addresses religion

ter, faculty and alumni Judith Shapiro ’63 and Michael Sandel ’75 will participate in discussions about the global role of a liberal arts university.

Shapiro, who served as the chair of the anthropology at the University of Chicago and spent 14 years as president of Barnard College, will moderate discussions on March 28 about university finances and science and creativity in a liberal arts education.

Sandel, a professor of government at Harvard who teaches the undergraduate course “Justice,” will moderate discussions about diversity, immigration and social justice on March 29.

“The overarching theme of this week, as stated by Fred, is that Brandeis is a global liberal arts university,” Provost and Senior Vice President for Academ- A PANEL ON RELIGION See INAUGURATION, page 15

See JAPAN, page 15

McFarlane explains univ priorities in admissions

By Nathan Koskella

Academic forums, cultural events planned for inauguration week

By Jon Ostrowsky

for Tokyo, Japan next week due to their programs beginning April 1 will not be going, Van Der Meid said.

Kyoto students should arrive home within the week and the program is evaluating options for remote study and research so that students do not lose credit for their disrupted semester.

James Carroll discuss his new book in a panel on religion and violence.

photo by firstname lastname/the hoot

2 The Brandeis Hoot

Schiller honored for Pepose science award

By Josh Kelly Staff

The university honored Peter Schiller, a professor in Medical Engineering and Medical Physics at MIT, for winning Brandeis’ Jay Pepose ’75 Award in Vision Sciences established in 2009.

The award is funded through a $1 million grant established by Brandeis graduates Jay Pepose ’75 and Susan K. Feigenbaum ’74. After winning the award, Schiller delivered a lecture titled “Parallel Information Processing Channels Created in the Retina” on Monday in a Gerstenzang auditorium.

Schiller’s research focuses on vision and understanding processing channels.

“There are probably now more than 50 different laboratories in the world,” as Maunsell explained, “which can trace their scientific heritage back to Peter.” Schiller also was elected to the National Academy of Science in 2007.

Schiller began by discussing midget and parasol systems originating in the retina. He spoke about the ganglion cells in the retina which are broken down into midget ganglion cells, with a “relatively small cell body” connected through arbors with the photoreceptors, and the larger parasol ganglion cells with more expansive arbor connections.

After discussing the basics of midget and parasol cells, Schiller explained the various discoveries of the cells during the past century.

One discovery was that he receptive fields of the parasol cells are three times that of the midget cells. Also the midget and parasol receptor cells can be divided into a center of the receptive field and a surrounding area.

To illustrate the function of the cells, Schiller explained that the cells are inhibitory, meaning that they do not actually measure light but rather just measure differences in light.

Schiller also discussed the functions the different midget versus

peter schiller

parasol cells perform, and he explained tests performed with monkeys where he discovered some of these functions.

For example, discriminating between different colors is owed to the midget system, as when a monkey’s midget system was inhibited he had difficulty seeing color.

The midget system is also responsible for texture and pattern discrimination. However, the parasol system is responsible for perceiving flickering lights, and also plays a major role in motion perception. They do however share brightness, as both are responsible for that part of visual perception.

Following his discussion of the midget and parasol ganglion cells, Schiller then went on to discuss his second part of the presentation, the on-and-off-channels. According to Schiller, the on-cells respond to the appearance of something while the off cells respond to the disappearance of something.

Schiller displayed various ideas as to why the on-and-off-systems exist.

Through use of a chemical abbreviated as APB, he tested various functions that the on and off cells could fill.

APB, when injected into the eye of a monkey could disable the on-cells while simultaneously allowing the off cells to function normally. Schiller questioned some of the hypotheses which have arisen concerning the evolution of the on-and-off-systems.

After probing various ideas, Schiller concluded, as he did in his research, that the on-and-off-channels evolved in order to process light increment and light decrement. For example, the on-cell would respond to a light spot but not a dark spot while the off-cell would respond to a dark spot but not a light spot.

He used the real-world example of reading to explain the on-and-off channels. For example, reading the traditional black letters in a book involves using the off-systems, while reading lighter letters on a darker background, the on-systems.

photo by paula hoekstra/the hoot

NEWS

March 18, 2011

Ballot: The Justice League surveyed students about their opinions on dining services.

photo by ingrid schulte/the hoot

Justice League surveys students on dining JUSTICE LEAGUE, from page 1

rip-off.”

Among the options on the ballot were reforming the point system to make points equivalent to dollars, as well as reintroducing competition into the food service through having Aramark, the major food supplier to the school, compete for that spot every year rather than just automatically be granted it. This is the second major campaign this year for the Justice League, the first being a counter protest to the Westboro Baptist Church visit in October.

The food campaign has so far received 700 ballots filled out with the ultimate goal of reaching more than 50 percent of the student population.

After they reach that number, they will take their case to Lawrence in an attempt to initiate a dialogue.

Still, it seems that this food campaign has sprung from a small organization. While the Justice League reaches many through its e-mail lists, it has a core staff of only seven students.

Founder and Chairman of the Advisory Board Sahar Massachi ’11 and Senior Organizer Max Stahl ’11 spoke about the history of the organization and their mission going forward. To begin, Massachi explained the general theme of the group, that Brandeis should better represent the voices of the students, which he illustrated by going back to the history of the budget crisis of 2009.

Following the budget crisis, committees were formed to give students more power in administrative decisions. These committees were called CARs or Committees for Academic Restructuring.

Massachi said, however, that he believed many of the students simply held a symbolic role on the committees and that the committee with any power to actually affect change had only one student on it — the Student Union president, who was not a voting member.

“So a lot of us felt when they made those concessions that we had worked so hard to get what should have been the baseline understanding of the status quo that we should have been saying was insufficient in the first place,” Massachi said. “And ever since then it’s become sort of the new norm at Brandeis to have students on these big committees but not really. It’s always a bit of a fight.”

Massachi explained that the Student Union and Justice League had to advocate for a student seat on the Presidential Search Committee, and even then the student held a nonvoting seat.

“It was a mess. Every time, the battle … We want it to be university policy that students are expected to be on these committees. Sort of this theme of student power … We are part of Brandeis,” Massachi said.

Max Stahl explained the logistics of the food campaign by comparing it to previous attempts to reform campus dining. According to Stahl,

ideological complications made the past campaigns ineffective while they only attempted to address the most basic ideas.

“We figured that it was too easy for both Aramark and the administration to kind of put that off … So what we’re doing is we’re talking about something very basic, like cost of the plan, so don’t rip us off by hiding costs, by changing the value of points [related] to dollars,” Stahl said. “If you’re going to rip us off, tell us how much you’re ripping us off. And secondly, Aramark’s been the contractor since the ‘80s…We think that there should be an open competitive bidding process for the food contract.”

The Justice League hopes that in four years, food contractors will be required to place a bid for a contract, and the Board of Trustees will assess the financial feasibility of the plans.

Then, students will be able to view the plans and vote, Stahl said.

In the build-up to the release of the ballots the Justice League ran an advertising campaign through Facebook and with mysterious posters around campus.

“Everyone’s trying to push their issue all the time so the way that we could get distinction and attention was by doing up that hype campaign that we did,” Stahl said. “We can engage the student body in something that’s fun by doing this mysterious hype campaign, you know, get people fired up, discussing what it’s about and we figure all those conversations

get people excited and then by the time we drop the campaign they’re like ‘oh, this is what it is’.”

However, according to Massachi and Stahl, this sort of campaigning will not end now that the ballots have been released. They plan to soon have a gorilla art campaign in which talented artists will come to campus to create more flyers. They’ve also bought a gorilla suit to go along with this theme and plan to keep it fun and engaging.

The Justice League began a little more than a year ago through Massachi’s blog “Innermost Parts.” The Justice League itself was originally intended to be a branch off of another club called the Change Agency which was founded a year ago as part of a class run by Professor David Cunningham (SOC). They grew last semester as it began having meetings and running campaigns. However, Massachi explained that the Justice League of last semester versus the Justice League of this semester are entirely different.

“The aim of the Justice Leagueor one of the aims—is to revive that spirit of the Brandeis that we were supposed to be and that we used to be and bring back this concept [that] we should be part of a national or inte— national movement for social justice,” Massachi said. “Brandeis students should be the cream of the crop. A Brandeis degree should mean ‘yes, I know how to change the world and I’m willing to do it.’”

Editorials

March 18, 2011

Established 2005 "To acquire wisdom, one must observe."

Alex Schneider Editor in Chief Destiny D. Aquino Managing Editor Nathan Koskella News Editor Jon Ostrowsky News Editor Leah Finkelman Features Editor Morgan Gross Impressions Editor Alex Self Impressions Editor Sean Fabery Arts, Etc. Editor Gordy Stillman Sports Editor Leah Lefkowitz Layout Editor Vanessa Kerr Business Editor Yael Katzwer Copy Editor Savannah Pearlman Copy Editor Ariel Wittenberg Associate Editor Photography Editors Nafiz “Fizz” Ahmed Ingrid Schulte Alan Tran

Senior Editors Bret Matthew Kayla Dos Santos Max Shay

Volume 8 • Issue 8 the brandeis hoot • brandeis university 415 south street • waltham, ma

Founded By Leslie Pazan, Igor Pedan and Daniel Silverman

STAFF Rick Alterbaum, Candice Bautista, Alana Blum, Chris Bordelon, Debby Brodsky, Emily Breitbart, Haley Fine, Emma Chad-Friedman, Jodi Elkin, Andrea Fishman, Paula Hoekstra, Adam Hughes, Gabby Katz, Josh Kelly, Christina Kolokotroni, Anthony Losquadro, Ariel Madway, Estie Martin, Alex Norris, Alexandra Patch, Lien Phung, Andrew Rauner, Alexandra Zelle Rettman, Ricky Rosen, Nate Rosenbloom, Imara Roychowdhury, Morgana Russino, Aaron Sadowsky, Jessica Sashihara, Aliza Sena, Emily Stott, Brian Tabakin, Ryan Tierney, Steven Wong, Yuan Yao and Suzanna Yu

Mission The Hoot is a community student newspaper of Brandeis University. Produced entirely by students, The Hoot serves a readership of 6,000 with in-depth news, relevant commentary, sports and coverage of cultural events. Our mission is to give every community member a voice.

SUBMISSION POLICIES The Hoot welcomes letters to the editor on subjects that are of interest to the community. Preference is given to current or former community members, and The Hoot reserves the right to edit or reject submissions. The deadline for submitting letters is Wednesday at noon.

Please submit letters to letters@thebrandeishoot.com along with your contact information. Letters should not exceed 500 words.

The opinions, columns, cartoons and advertisements printed in The Hoot do not necessarily represent the opinions of the editorial board.

connect On the Web http://thebrandeishoot.com http://twitter.com/thebrandeishoot http://facebook.com/thebrandeishoot General Inquiries Phone: (781) 330.0051 E-mail: eic@thebrandeishoot.com

CORRECTION Due to a reporting error, last week’s article “Microfinance panel aims to combat poverty” incorrectly stated that Oxfam gives outside funding to groups in foreign countries. The group members make loans among themselves, but do not receive funding from Oxfam.

A survey on race at Brandeis The Brandeis Hoot is taking a look at how race affects all levels of Brandeis.

We need your help. Visit our web site to fill out a survey about race at Brandeis.

For more information Contact us at raceproject@ thebrandeishoot.com To take the survey visit http://thebrandeishoot.com

T

The Brandeis Hoot 15

Let’s try for a serious discussion

he Justice League’s effort to engage President Lawrence in a campaign to reform student dining is both misguided and inappropriate.

There is a reasonable way to address student concerns and relay them to the administration.It does not include gorillas dancing outside of Usdan and delivering a stack of surveys to the president’s office.

If the Justice League truly wanted to benefit the entire student body, they would consider more than one issue to campaign on. While dining services is certainly an important area of the stu-

dent life, it is not the only one. We also care about housing renovations, social events and academic programs. To portray a passionate reaction to dining services may represent the priorities and views of the Justice League, but it does not reflect the priorities of student body. Surely when students looked in their mailboxes on Monday, they were expecting a far more exciting surprise than a survey about food on campus.

With the substance of the campaign aside, we also believe that the best way for students to enact any change is to first meet with Lawrence and discuss

their concerns. Had the Justice League advocated in front of the Student Union or the management of dining services they would be presenting their concerns in the most effective way.

President Lawrence does and should care about student life. But we hope he will realize that dining services is the priority of the Justice League, not the entire student body. As he has already done, the best way to learn what students want is to talk with them.

Perhaps the Justice League should do that next time—before it starts having gorillas dance in the sidewalk.

Letters to the editor Send letters to letters@thebrandeishoot.com

One girl’s story: dealing with suicide at Brandeis I did not know Kat Sommers but news of her suicide struck a familiar cord with me. There is a history of suicide in my family, from the aunt who committed suicide before I was born to my father’s cousin who killed himself when I was in ninth grade. Whenever someone dies like this I can’t help but think “it could have been me”— for I have come dangerously close to being in Kat’s shoes many times.

During freshman year, my roommate had to take my meds away from me; had she not been in the room, I would have overdosed on my prescriptions. During sophomore year I had a single, and I spent many nights thinking about how, if I killed myself in my room, no one would even notice—I didn’t have close friends who would get worried if they didn’t see me for a couple days, and I imagine no flag would have been raised until professors got concerned that I was missing their classes. Last year while I was abroad I thought about how incredibly stupid it was to put someone with depression up on the seventh floor with no screens on the windows.

Luckily I never made anything out of it.

I’ve been through the system. Freshman year I was sent to the Newton-Wellesley psych ward— not because I was actively considering suicide but because I called the counseling center on a weekend and at one point mentioned that I didn’t care if I lived or I died—which frankly taught me only to avoid telling people about anything remotely suicidal so I wouldn’t be sent back there. Since then I’ve had appointments at Mailman and I’ve been put on antidepressants.

My first psychologist assumed all my friends were gay because I was; another—or maybe the same one—blamed all my issues on my family’s frequent moves. The one really good psychologist I saw at Mailman—the one who respected

my own ideas and theories and helped set me up for neuropsychological testing—left Brandeis while I was abroad, and now I go only because as my mental illness gets in the way of my academics, knowing that I’m “seeing someone” comforts my concerned professors.

Last week’s article in The Hoot mentioned that “the PCC holds urgent care walk-in hours twice per day,” but I have never seen any evidence of them. Last October I was falling apart, missing class and work and having nightmares and episodes of massive panic. I finally brought myself down to Mailman—which I had been avoiding because my good therapist was gone and I hadn’t had much luck before her—because I needed help right then, but all I got was a 20-minute intake appointment and “we hope to find you someone soon.”

When I told them it was urgent, the only response was “Do you need to go to the hospital?”

Given my previous time there of course the answer was no, and I was left without any immediate help. If there were urgent care walk-in hours, why were they not mentioned to me then? Why is there no mention of them on the PCC website?

I do not mean to blame my troubles entirely on the PCC, but I cannot say that they have particularly helped me, either. Little things have kept me alive—my roommate that first year, my girlfriend’s love and support now, the knowledge that the friend who cosigned my student loan would be left in debt, and the fact that I know of no method that would definitely, 100 percent kill me.

When your first experience at a place is negative, you won’t want to go back and try again.

When you say you need help and are told your options are to go to the hospital or wait an un-

Editor’s Note This letter provides a perspective from a student who has dealt with thoughts of suicide and has an opinion about campus support services available to students with mental health issues.

Ordinarily, it is against The Hoot’s policy to publish unsigned letters to the editor, but in order to protect student privacy and confidentiality regarding mental health services, this letter has been granted anonymity. told amount of time, you won’t go back next time you’re in a crisis and need help right away.

There’s a trust issue here: you cannot trust that you will be seen by someone who is supportive or understands (particularly with queer students), and you cannot trust that you can see someone when you are truly in need. And for some with out-of-state insurance, Mailman is the only shot they have. My own insurance won’t cover a psychologist any closer than Cambridge or a psychiatrist any closer than Westborough; if I can’t count on services available on campus, I’m stuck.

I guess what I’m trying to do here is show why I’m not entirely surprised that someone could commit suicide on the Brandeis campus. I’m not saying that students should be babysat, but there are holes in the system. Who do you turn to if you don’t have close friends and you can’t count on the counseling center?

– An anonymous student

An apology regarding the Mardi Gras ‘Wake & Shake’

It has come to our attention that last Wednesday’s Wake and Shake, which coincided with Ash Wednesday, was inappropriate due to its celebratory atmosphere being in conflict with the holy and meaningful nature of the holiday.

We are very sorry for the tone our event conveyed, and we would like to offer a brief explanation into how the planning for this event was done.

We choose dates for our events based on the campus community’s availability as well as the availability of Student Events to staff the event.

The Wake and Shake event is held on Wednesdays because the Wednesday morning class schedule sees the most number of students walking by Usdan.

The themes we choose for these events are chosen based upon proximity to American cultural and secular holidays. This particular event took place the day after Mardi Gras, and therefore the theme of the event was Mardi Gras. We found this particularly apt because the jovial and celebratory nature of the secular celebration of Mardi Gras fits in with the type of atmosphere we try to promote during our Wake and Shakes.

Unfortunately and unintentionally, because our Wake and Shakes are held on Wednesday, this event coincided with the religious observation of Ash Wednesday. By no means did we mean to hurt or offend our fellow Brandeisians observing the holiday or the Christian com-

munity as a whole. We would like to formally extend our sincerest apologies to anyone who may have been offended by the timing of our event and we will ensure that in the future we are more aware of when our events may coincide with religious holidays.

For more information, please feel free to contact Student Events at studentevents@brandeis. edu Respectfully, Ronnie Dorfzaun ’11 Director of Public Relations, Student Events

4 NEWS

The Brandeis Hoot

Brandeis Briefs

March 18, 2011

This week in pictures

Sports continue despite festivities Thursday’s inauguration of new university President Frederick Lawrence will only slightly disrupt the regular operation of the Gosman Sports and Convocation Center, with the largest alteration being that of the intramural sports’ schedule.

The inauguration and related events that will occur this upcoming week will make the intramural indoor soccer season three games long as opposed to the usual four, while the softball season will be elongated from four to five games, Assistant Director of Athletics Tom Rand said.

The shortened soccer season is because the Shapiro gym, where the games take place, will be closed Wednesday through Saturday of next week in preparation for the Inaugural Ball, Associate Director of Athletics Lynne Dempsey, who is on the inauguration planning committee, said. In preparation for Thursday’s Inauguration Ceremony, the fieldhouse will also be closed Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

“The soccer season is always a little shorter than other intramurals, because it serves as a buffer from when basketball ends until it’s warm enough to play softball outside,” Rand said. “But because we’ve known about [Inauguration] forever we were able to plan for it.”

Dempsey said that other than the intramural seasons “Inauguration is not going to disrupt the regular schedule of the athletic facilities.”

Rand added that he was not concerned that the weather would interfere with the earlier softball season, saying he was more concerned that April break was at the end of the month, when the weather would be warmer.

“We might have some cold night games, but it will be OK,” he said.

Despite the different season lengths each team still was required to pay $20 for the season. Additionally, because of the April break schedule, some softball games will be set for saturdays, a day usually reserved for makeup games.

Dempsey said she was most excited for the Athletic facilities to be a part of the historic Brandeis event.

“It’s not something that happens very often, but we are excited that it’s here and we are excited that we get to be a part of it,” she said.

—Ariel Wittenberg, Editor

‘The Vagina Monologues’

By Nafiz ‘Fizz’ Ahmed, Editor

an annual event Many students participated in last week’s staging of “The Vagina Monologues,” the landmark play by Eve Ensler. Performances of the show, which mixes comedy with drama, have been a staple of campus life for the last ten years.

The orgasm workshop

Her Campus, bookstore team up to design t-shirt Her Campus Brandeis, an online magazine, has collaborated with the campus bookstore to design and produce the next campus t-shirt.

After speaking with the bookstore, Her Campus Brandeis editors decided fashion options in the store could use help.

Any Brandeis student was able to submit a design and the contest had about 20 submissions.

Students will get a chance to vote on the Her Campus Brandeis website starting tomorrow. The wining design will be produced in the bookstore by April. As Her Campus Brandeis receives about 1,800 hits per week, they expect a lot of votes in this competition.

In addition, the winner will receive a free t-shirt and a $100 gift card to Barnes and Nobles Bookstore. Student Events is also planning a kick-off party for the t-shirt and its designer.

“Her Campus has really only been trying to do one thing. We want to give students a reason to rep their school. Right now, out of 150 schools, Her Campus Brandeis is almost always in the top 15 for hits. We’re a small school but we have a lot of heart,” Abi Katznelson ’11, editor in chief of Her Campus Brandeis, said. “Her Campus Brandeis is a way to access that from anywhere in the world, whether you go home to China for winter break or down the street to Newton, Mass. We all write from the heart and we hope to make someone laugh, smile or realize that they’re not the only ones who feel the way they do. We’ve gotten nothing but love from the Brandeis Community and we’ve got nothing but love to give back.”

— Leah Finkelman, Editor

By Nafiz ‘Fizz’ Ahmed, Editor

vagina week annual event As part of Vagina Week, Megan Andelloux gave the annual orgasm workshop on Tuesday, March 15.

Univ plans inauguration festivities INAUGURATION, from page 1

ic Affairs Marty Krauss wrote in an e-mail. “The panels will each explore the challenges of the vision for us as an educational institution.

Each will be moderated by distinguished alumni of the University.”

Delegates representing other colleges and universities have been invited to attend events on inauguration day, Andrew Gully, Senior Vice President for Communications wrote in an e-mail.

Members of the Honorary Committee, a group of “of prominent representatives of constituencies that are important to Brandeis” include Governor Deval Patrick, Senator John Kerry, Sheriff of Middlesex County Peter Koutoujian, Representative Edward Markey and Waltham Mayor Jeannette A. McCarthy.

In a campus wide email on last month, Krauss wrote that both she and Lawrence decided classed should still take place on March 31, the day of the inauguration.

Mountain club slack line

By Alan Tran, Editor

hanging by a branch Mountain club takes advantage of the beautiful weather on Thursday afternoon to set up a slack line near Rosenthal.

March 18, 2011

impressions

A message of hate

By Ariel Madway Staff

“Someone drew a swastika on our stairway.” I paused, rereading my computer screen; surely I had misread my friend’s morning greeting.

But, no matter how long I stared at the small black words, they told the

Sexcapades

By Sophie Riese Columnist

What makes a successful relationship? Recently I’ve become a sort of go-to gal for relationship and interpersonal questions from my friends in a way that I haven’t been before.

Maybe it’s because I’m actually in what seems like a healthy and stable relationship for once. But does the end of a relationship actually mean that it wasn’t successful? Or can a successful relationship simply come to an end?

The difficulty with any relationship question is that inevitably, at the end of a relationship, one person is able to move on faster than the other. Additionally, what we each define as a relationship differs from relationship to relationship and person to person.

So while one person might think a relationship was going on, the other might think the whole thing was pretty casual.

If you watch “Greek”—and you’re as sad about it ending as I am—then you’ve probably seen a few examples of some pretty messed-up relationships, some successful ones and, in the last few episodes, examples of people trying to figure out what went wrong. The whole Evan and Casey thing was nothing new for me—my own boyfriend cheated on me and I

same stunning story: “Someone drew a swastika on our stairway.”

Early Tuesday morning, a good friend of mine left her dorm room at a small college in Vermont, just as she does every weekday morning.

She didn’t make it far on the short trek to the bathroom before she saw it, big and black, glaring at her from

the wall. There was no mistaking what it was; it was identical to the images plastered in Holocaust books and films, each line perfectly formed to broadcast an understood message of anti-Semitism.

Fighting back tears and incredible rage, she backtracked to her room to handle the matter in a mature and ra-

graphic by steven wong/the hoot

tional manner. By 11 a.m. the administration had been contacted and her fellow residents notified. Although she is the only Jew in her residence, and therefore the most personally affected, her gentile roommates found the night’s hateful graffiti offensive as well. Quickly, rumors and theories spread, speculating who of the small

The Brandeis Hoot 5

quantity of students with access to the small Victorian-style house—which serves as a dormitory—would have initiated such an act. Who—of the people she interacts with on a daily basis—had been harboring such hate for her people this entire year.

Until Residential Life steps in and covers the mark, all the residents will have to walk past it in order to leave their individual rooms. How can one be expected to go on with life normally while being faced with such a loaded symbol? No one, Jew or otherwise, should be forced to see this constant reminder of the hate that still exists in our world, this reminder that there are still people among us who believe in Hitler’s policies.

While the marking of a wall is not physically harming anyone, there is no way to know how far someone filled with this level of hate is willing to go.

The swastika is a symbol with a powerful meaning and extreme connotations.

Someone didn’t just haphazardly happen to doodle it on the wall, no matter how drunk they may have been.

A marking this strong is made with one purpose and one purpose alone: to instill fear. No one should need to be afraid to walk freely in their own home.

“You’re lucky you go to a place where there are actually other Jews,” my friend told me amid her angry online ranting.

“I’m starting to regret not doing so.”

While my friend attracts attention for wearing something as simple as a Magen David, Brandeis students are greeted by a Chabad table in the dining hall asking them about their plans for Purim. While my friend will find it difficult to find Passover Matzah, Brandeis gives its students a week off.

And while my friend needs to travel to an entirely different university to say a communal Kiddush, Brandeis provides an entire Kosher cafeteria.

Here at Brandeis, a swastika appearing on any public building, while not impossible, seems unlikely. Judaism is prevalent. Anti-Semitism is low.

But at Brandeis we live in a bubble.

What my friend is dealing with is very real. It is hard to fathom that such hate still survives in the world. But it does. What my friend is experiencing is not an isolated instance, but a blaring wake-up call.

Amiable exes equal successes found out in a similar way when I was first starting college. For Rebecca, however, why her relationships didn’t work was less obvious and a secret that neither guy is willing to tell her.

The truth is, dating a guy who never got over his ex (which for both of her boyfriends was the same girl) is usually a bad idea. Dating a guy who never grew up enough to want to graduate college on time also tends to be a bad idea because real life has to start eventually.

Relationships that end amicably are usually tougher to work out than those that don’t because, if it ends badly, at least you’re not talking to each other. Ones that end well usually need a bit of time to fizzle out and sometimes that time never comes, which can end in emotional wreckage.

If an ex-couple continues to talk and hang out immediately after breaking up, especially if one (or both) of the people isn’t really over it, emotional breakdowns and inappropriate sex usually ensue.

This can mean that the end of the relationship gets effectively disregarded and (usually) unrealistic hope is given to the still-in-love party about the possibilities for the future.

None of this makes it an unsuccessful relationship though, just a complicated one.

So what exactly IS a successful relationship? I like to think that successful relationships are the ones where you actually manage to be friends afterwards, even once you stop having inappropriate sex. This is harder than you might imagine and I would know.

For almost five years after breaking up with my high school sweetheart, we remained friends; in fact, I would have said he was one of my closest friends. Since I told him that we could no longer sleep together in the early fall, however, I’ve barely heard from him, even when I make the effort to reach out.

With other exes, however, we’ve managed to stay platonic friends for some time, enduring even through the eventual coupling-up of one or both of us with other people. In all, these HAVE to be the successful relationships because I’m a true believer that if you have dated someone, there was something that brought you together that a breakup doesn’t have to do away with.

I also refuse to believe that the only successful relationships are the ones that last forever, so there has to be something else. The people who know you best and love you no matter what are always going to be in your life and some of them can be exes from successful relationships that just didn’t work out.

graphic by steven wong/the hoot

6 IMPRESSIONS

The Brandeis Hoot

March 18, 2011

Chopping away at the deficit

By Sam Allen Staff

One of the biggest problems the United States faces is the budget deficit and the national debt. In 2010, the deficit was approximately $1.42 trillion and the national debt stood at a staggering $14.078 trillion. Neither the Democrat nor the Republican parties, however, are serious about addressing the issue. Instead, both parties are using the issue only to gain political advantage. This travesty cannot continue and politicians in Washington need to start telling Americans the truth: The deficit and debt problem will only go away if we both cut spending and raise taxes.

There are ways to be smart about cutting spending and raising taxes without hurting the economy; however, that conversation is unlikely to happen in Washington anytime soon, due to the delusions that politicians in both political parties are under.

The Republicans have been discussing the debt and deficit for the last two years yet, until they’re willing to consider targeted tax increases, they are deceiving the American people about their commitment to tackling the problem.

The Democrats, meanwhile, are willing to consider some tax increases but any increase in the retirement age is a non-starter for them, proving that they too are unwilling to make the sacrifices necessary to put the country on a fiscally solvent path. Sadly, both parties are talking about making cuts in the discretionary budget, which is only about 19 percent of the federal budget.

Last year, a deficit reduction commission, chaired by Erskine Bowles

The Chosen Rosen

By Ricky Rosen Columnist

Everyone fantasizes about being able to read minds. After all, you would know the answer to every question your professor asked before he asked it.

You no longer would have to squander away countless hours playing the “guess what I’m thinking game.” And any time someone asked you what they had for dinner last night, you would know the

and Alan Simpson, urged Congress to freeze federal wages and eliminate congressional earmarks—recommendations it adopted. These changes, however, will only save about $36 billion in 2015. Indexing the retirement age to increases in longevity, medical malpractice reform and simplifying Medicare cost-sharing rules would save about $44 billion per year. All of these cuts are anathema to Democrats, who have called the deficit commission’s recommendations “unacceptable.”

The commission also called for closing tax loopholes that favor industries such as Big Oil, a recommendation Republicans oppose. The commission did not come up with the idea, however, that personal income exceeding $1 million per year should be taxed at a higher rate.

A recent poll by Selzer and Company found that 61 percent of Americans support the idea. Such a tax would raise about $35 billion per year, according to an analysis that statistician Nate Silver did for The New York Times, if income more than $1 million per year was taxed at the current rates for the top income brackets.

Millionaires are not the only ones who should sacrifice; once the recession ends, President Obama should give a speech asking every American to do their part and accept a 2 percent income tax increase for five years. He should make it explicitly clear that every dime the federal government collects from this tax increase would go to balancing the budget or paying down the federal debt.

If we as a country are going to get the deficit under control, everyone will have to sacrifice. Once this recession ends, President Obama needs to be straight with the American people and tell them the facts. There must be

graphic by ariel wittenberg/the hoot

budget cuts and there must be tax increases, especially on those who can afford it the most. President Obama is fond of using the analogy of tak-

ing a scalpel instead of hatchet to the federal budget. If Congress does that, combined with intelligent tax increases that won’t hurt the economy,

the United States can get back on the path to fiscal solvency. Let there be no mistake, once the economy recovers, the United States needs to get real.

Disinclined to read minds answer. You would impress all your friends, you would win over guys/girls and you wouldn’t have to waste all that time guessing. Plus you’d be pretty darn good at poker. Telepathy would be great.

But you can keep dreaming. Unless the tooth fairy turns into the thought fairy and plants superhuman abilities under our pillows (I’d still rather have money!), mind-reading probably isn’t in our future. But with the rate at which technology is improving, we’re not that

far away from something close to telepathy. According to Pittsburgh Intel, software that uses brain scans to determine what items people are thinking about was showcased by Intel Corporation last week. The software analyzes fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scans to determine which part of a person’s brain is being activated as he thinks. According to Intel Labs, researcher Dean Pomerlau—in tests—was able to guess with 90 percent accuracy which of two words a person

graphic by alexandra zelle rettman/the hoot

was contemplating. So no, we cannot read one another’s minds yet but with the assistance of new-age technology, we can come pretty close.

Imagine the doors that mind-reading could open; imagine what life would be like. You could have an entire two-hour phone conversation with your friend without ever having to say a word. You could walk into a McDonalds and order a Snack Wrap (honey mustard, not ranch) without ever moving your lips.

You could make a joke to your friend telepathically and intercept his mind’s giggles in response.

But as fun as that world seems, it would get old pretty quickly. Eventually, you would get sick of reading minds and you would want to go back to listening to people. And your mind would hurt from straining itself too much.

Talk about a migraine!

I mean, telepathy is cool in theory but, in reality, if you had the power to read minds, you would want to rid yourself of it immediately. Human beings were not made to be telepathic; God gave us mouths for a reason. What would happen to face-to-face communication with telepathy? It would cease to exist. You would no longer have to listen intently to people’s words to figure out what they were thinking—you could just read their minds. You would no longer have to study people’s body language to see how they feel—you could just read their minds. Conventional communication would be seriously damaged by telepathy.

Another thing is that our thoughts don’t always reflect our feelings. Streams of consciousness are irrational and to make sense of them would be foolish.

Think about it: if someone wanted to

get to know you, would your internal thoughts really be a good indication of who you are as a person? I mean, personally, I’m constantly thinking about energetic squirrels (like Hammy from “Over the Hedge”) and talking trees.

Yes, my head is a pretty scary place. But for someone to get to know me, taking a tour of my subconscious would not suffice.

The same thing is true for other people, too. Reading their minds isn’t always going to tell you anything about them as people. When someone invites you to a party, you say: “I’d love to!” But you think: “Well, I have a paper due in two days that I haven’t started so I really shouldn’t go out tonight but I want to go crazy because it’s a weekend and everyone put on their Facebook statuses that they’re going out and I don’t want to be the only one with no life. Then again, John might be there and I really don’t feel like seeing him but I can always avoid him and but what if he sees me—I can’t risk that—I just won’t go.

OK, I’ll go.” This is what you think, but this is not what you say (if you talked in streams of consciousness like this, you’d lose your breath pretty often!). We don’t think in defined sentences and coherent thoughts. We think like we dream—out of order and in muddled bits and pieces. When we process it and say it aloud, it makes sense, but in our head it is utterly senseless.

Another thing is that not all of our thoughts are worth hearing. If I had the power to read minds and I browsed through the minds of the 120 students in my Intro to Politics class, I would hear: “I wonder if those shoes come in See MINDS, page 7

March 18, 2011

The Brandeis Hoot

IMPRESSIONS

7

Don’t read my mind MINDS, from page 6

photo from internet source

‘Post’ redesign: try again

By Alex Schneider

Twitter and Facebook.

For such a major news service, The Post was just too late.

In June of last year, Fox News came out with a new, modern website and, at that point, I had my answer: The Washington Post, not Fox News, would be the last of the major online news outlets to redesign its website.

The new question was when.

On Wednesday, The Post finally unveiled a new website. The problem is that they failed to make their website better to distinguish it from the other great sources of information online. The look and feel are almost identical to that of the old site.

The designers even kept the old navigation bar at the top of each page, which alone has three flaws: the words are not uniform, with some in upper case and some in title case; the bar is not perfectly centered and there are far too many sections listed; and, most importantly, the background color is the worst shade of grey imaginable.

And that’s only the beginning.

The standard On April 3, 2006, The New York Times unveiled a website that, for the first time, looked like a newspaper website.

For the first time, the website used a new font, Georgia, giving the writing a look of greater authority.

Navigation, commenting and general readability significantly improved. The key to this change was that The Times was one of the first newspaper sites to embrace new cascading style sheet (CSS) web standards, leaving blocky, table formats for an earlier time.

Recognizing that layout is subjective, let me state that even today, five years later, I think that The New York Times website is a work of genius. It is easier to use, expandable (as evidenced by the addition of Facebook modules) and looks like a newspaper.

Go to the front page and immediately the most important news is right there in bold letters. The Times did not make the mistake of allowing techies to control its website—instead, the editors who manage it employ clear editorial judgment when they decide the size and placement of a story.

Even so, the site is dynamic. It pulls from the AP wire to give a comprehensive view of the news.

Certainly, no news site can be perfect.

I, for one, was dismayed while in the United Kingdom last semester to find no mention of student protests about increased fees on the front page of The Times, despite both the jarring nature of the event as well as its prominence on most other news sites, including CNN. At the same time, I would submit that The Times’ clear editorial judgment along with the look of authority of its website is what keeps me and the other 16 million regular

Editor

A trend FOX News and The Washington Post were the major holdouts. Every other noteworthy media organization had redesigned its website.

CNN—perhaps keeping up with its ever-changing target audience—introduced two redesigns since 2005.

The Los Angeles Times looked like it was never going to change but, in August of 2009, the paper unveiled a format that not only looked different but even worked to rebrand the paper to appeal to those interested in the entertainment industry.

The list goes on. The idea of a redesign if simple: to improve layout using new tools that have become available to web designers since the middle of the last decade and to introduce components that make sites more interactive, such as modules from popular social media sites like

monthly visitors to the page coming back.

A second opinion The Post, by comparison, had nearly eight million visits last month, almost half the hits of The Times. Having lived in Washington and having read The Post, there is no doubt that the paper has greater potential.

It all comes down to the usability of The Post’s website.

The old site was aligned to the left, had modules that were not visually appealing, and had links that were small and hard to read. The page was not boxed and, as a consequence, some content appeared to veer off the page.

The new site does not improve on this. The site is boxed but without a noticeable line to differentiate the page from the background image, which is a dull gray color. The text of links is black, confusing readers as to which objects can be clicked on. There are also far too many small pictures on the main page, each of which is so insignificant that together they detract from the look of the page.

A major obstacle confronting designers of The Post’s website was the static address of its articles.

This is the URL that you type into a browser to access a given article.

For instance, on The Hoot’s website, an article will be accessible by typing: http://thebrandeishoot.com/ articles/9857/.

This rather simple format allows the article to be accessed by remembering the number at the end of the address. Other websites go for text-based addresses; for instance, The New York Times uses the intuitive format, http:// www.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/ nyregion/13payphone.html, where the address includes the date, category and then the day followed by a key word.

A typical Washington Post address, before the redesign, was h t t p : / / w w w. w a s h i n g t o n p o s t .

com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2007/07/05/LI2007070500831. html.

Unfortunately, they haven’t much improved. Perhaps to be different, perhaps just to confuse, the new format lists the category, then the name of the post, then the date and then an unintelligible string of letters in both capitals and lower case: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ national/latest-nuclear-plant-explosion-in-japan-raises-radiationfears/2011/03/15/ABwTmha_story. html.

A final problem with the new site is the right hand bar. Compared with the space given to the text of articles, this information bar is too large, includes a number of irrelevant modules and does not break up the website.

Additionally, the bar is continuous—that is, it starts at the top of the page and continues to the bottom. The content on the left does the same, which becomes tiring and focuses a user’s attention to the top of the page and the bottom, but not to the content in the middle.

An effective use of non-content modules on a website is to focus one’s attention toward content by breaking up a Web page into different parts. By leaving all of these modules on the right, the designers split the site into two vertical parts, both of which are too long and appear never to end.

By the way, at the time of this writing, at the top of the site below the masthead (which really should be centered), there is a string of text that reads: “In the news: US soccer, Raymond Davis, IE9, St. Patrick’s Day, Blog directory, Carolyn Hax.” My advice: learn from The Times— automated text is not a substitute for editorial judgment. If the text is going to be automated (“Blog directory,” really?), get rid of it.

Journalism is in enough trouble.

By ignoring its website, The Washington Post is only making its situation worse.

a size 7!” And “man I’m hungry!

What am I going to get for lunch today at Usdan? I forgot—it’s Brandeis … crap in a to-go box as usual. FML!” And “if I don’t get A’s on every test in every class that I ever take, I will not have any success whatsoever. Ah, focus!” And then there would of course be that kid in the back row, pondering the great mysteries of life: “how come you cook bacon but you bake cookies? And why do you park in the driveway and drive on the parkway?”

Not everything we think is worth communicating to others, that is why we have mouths (try telling that to Paris Hilton). Our mouths are censors, keeping all of our thoughts from escaping into the world. Think about it, throughout the course of a five-minute conversation with a friend, how many of your thoughts do you actually say out loud?

Now imagine saying everything that crosses your mind out loud in the midst of a conversation with a friend. Pretty scary, huh?

And then of course, there’s the Republican stance on telepathy: the idea that mind-reading is an invasion of privacy. Your thoughts are meant for you alone. The head is a sacred place where we sort through our issues and where we can talk to ourselves without fear of judgment. We can make bad jokes that nobody can hear. We can insult friends and say things in response that we could never say in person. We can scream as loud as we can in our heads to blow off steam and who would want to hear that? But if someone had mindreading abilities, you would have to change your entire thought process in order to make it socially acceptable. Just like Winston in “1984,” you’d need to be on constant alert for the “Thought Police.” You would have nowhere to run or hide. And you would probably go crazy trying. Or get electrocuted and reduced to a shell of the person you once were, then let back into society as a mindless automaton. Just like Winston.

Another thing is that, let’s face it, most of us are pretty cruel in our own heads. Sure, we may say: “Good job on that paper, Jared!” But in our heads, we are really boiling with envy. This is because of our innately selfish human nature. And so, mind-reading would lead everyone to hear each other’s negative thoughts about each other. Your lips may be saying; “Cute skirt!” But your thoughts are saying: “Who does she think she is dressing like that? A stripper?” If everyone had access to these thoughts, we would all end up hating each other.

And frankly, life is about the journey, not the destination. Learning how someone thinks is a part of getting to know them. Telepathy would just let you know their thoughts and you would have no need to get to know them. Within a moment of meeting someone, you could know them so well you could finish their sentences. Relationships would become utterly meaningless.

I mean, let’s be honest—it would be pretty ridiculous to be able to read minds like the Time Lords or the Jedi.

But telepathy isn’t all sprinkles and confetti. Oftentimes in pop culture, when a fictional character gets telepathy, it ends badly. When Buffy from “Buffy: the Vampire Slayer” became telepathic, she eventually went mad from all the voices in her head. I mean, could you deal with walking up and down the Brandeis campus and hearing the thoughts of hundreds of your peers at the same time? I sure couldn’t. And I wouldn’t want to either.

So take a moment and think. And enjoy the solitude. After all, you’re the only one with access to your mind. For now.

8 IMPRESSIONS

The Brandeis Hoot

Altered Consciousness

Anti-Israeli sentiment in Jewish Voice for Peace

March 18, 2011

Book of Matthew

All good naysayers, speak up!

Or forever hold your peace!

Michigan gives governor power to pull the plug on Michigan towns

By Bret Matthew Editor

By Rick Alterbaum Columnist

Last week, Brandeis University’s Hillel chapter rejected Jewish Voice for Peace’s (JVP) membership application. I applaud Hillel’s decision on the grounds that JVP takes positions that are completely out of the mainstream in relation to the pro-Israel community.

The primary problem with JVP and similar organizations, such as J Street U and Americans for Peace Now, is that they adopt a one-sided view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: that essentially, Israel the oppressor can do no right and that the Palestinians, the poor innocent victims of neocolonialism, can do no wrong.

According to JVP, settlements, the “occupation” and Israeli selfdefense initiatives like Operation Cast Lead and the Gaza blockade are the primary obstacles to peace.

Therefore, it supports the odious boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign; individuals who refuse to serve in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and the removal of Israel’s security fence, among other things.

This narrative, however, relies on an utterly distorted depiction of reality and must be refuted to filter out the public discourse.

Firstly, Israel has offered to make peace with the Palestinians seven times: in 1919, with its signing of the Weizmann-Faisal Agreement; in 1937, with its acceptance of the Peel Commission Report’s recommendation to partition then-Palestine; in 1947, with its agreeing to United Nations Resolution 181; in 1978, with its approval of the IsraelEgypt peace treaty that included

graphic by ariel wittenberg/the hoot

provisions related to Israeli-Palestinian peace; in 2000, with its bid to end all final-status issues at Camp David; in 2001, with a similar proposal at Taba; and finally, in 2008, with yet another offer at Annapolis.

The Palestinians ultimately refused each time despite the fact that Israel was always prepared to make far-reaching territorial, security, economic and political concessions.

Additionally, as if this were not enough, Israel withdrew from most of the West Bank during the 1990s Oslo process to let the Palestinians govern themselves.

Instead of reciprocating, Yasser Arafat launched a five-year campaign of terror, murder, suicide bombings and destruction known as the Al-Aqsa intifada to weaken Israel’s resolve.

Similarly, Israel unilaterally uprooted thousands of its citizens from Gaza in 2005. Again, this action had the opposite effect: it emboldened Hamas and its affiliates and encouraged the terrorists to launch thousands of rockets into the Negev and places like Sderot, Ashdod and Beersheba, precipitating the belated Operation Cast Lead in late 2008.

Finally, during the last few years, supposed hard-liner Prime Minister Netanyahu has significantly slowed down the construction of Jewish towns and villages past the green line; weakened the Gaza blockade; taken down roadblocks and checkpoints in the West Bank; reduced the IDF presence in the territories and permitted greater mobility for the Palestinian army.

In response, he has gotten absolutely nothing from his Arab counterparts, in addition to President Obama and the Europeans, but is instead receiving demands

for more concessions; Palestinian attempts to delegitimize Israel via forums like the United Nations and brutal attacks on Israelis such as the heinous massacre of the Fogel family at Itamar last week.

These facts establish that the “occupation” is not the main obstacle to a peaceful settlement but rather Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.

Furthermore, there is the Hamas-Fatah divide; the desire to flood Israel with millions of Palestinian refugees; Anti-Semitic incitement in Arab media; the status of Jews as infidels according to Islamic doctrine; the fact that Israel was established on once-Islamic land; the weakness and corruption of the Palestinian Authority; the instability in Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan; Iran’s involvement in the region; and disputes about issues like Jerusalem, boundaries, water and security arrangements.

In light of these truths, JVP and its ilk must answer the following: why should we punish and delegitimize Israel, which has suffered so much to acquire that ever-elusive peace with its neighbors but to no avail? Why should we completely ignore years of Palestinian violence, rejectionism and sheer hatred for the Jews? Why should we hold Israel up to moral standards that are far higher than we would to any other country in the entire world?

Until groups like JVP change their positions, they ought to be marginalized and excluded from the pro-Israel community. There are institutions, such as AIPAC, Zionist Organization of America and the Anti-Defamation League that are aware of the realities of the Middle East but JVP is not one of them.

Ever since Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin and his legislative allies passed a law banning public employee unions from engaging in collective bargaining, the state has been in an uproar. Thousands of protesters continue to gather outside the capitol building in Madison, and thousands more angry citizens are mounting a strong recall campaign to punish the most vulnerable Republican state legislators.

Though we should certainly follow events as they continue to unfold in Wisconsin, it is also important that we turn our attention to its neighbor, Michigan. While all eyes have been on Walker and his antics, Governor Rick Snyder has also passed an anti-union bill, but one whose effects are more farreaching, and whose implications are more disturbing, than anything in Walker’s wildest dreams.

Snyder, like Walker before him, is taking advantage of a bad economic situation. Consider the sorry state of Michigan: It has suffered double-digit unemployment since the Great Recession began and its January average of 11.3 percent unemployed is almost two points higher than the national average. With fewer residents able to pay taxes, the state, as well as most of its cities and towns, is struggling to provide basic services with less money to do so.

To the casual observer, it would seem obvious that Michigan has a revenue problem that can only be solved by putting people back to work. But to Snyder, who must establish his conservative bona fides to keep his supporters happy, there can only be one answer: Those pesky municipalities are spending too much money, thanks to those peskier labor unions.

Snyder’s solution is to bring in new management. His bill, which passed both chambers of the Michigan legislature last week, gives the governor the power to appoint socalled “emergency managers” who will assume control over local governments and school districts facing financial troubles.

I’m not exaggerating when I say “assume control;” according to the bill, an emergency manager “[shall] act for and in the place and stead of the governing body and the office of chief administrative officer of the local government.” While an emergency

manager is in control, members of the elected local government or school board may not exercise any powers of their offices without the manager’s consent—though they do have to pay his salary and any “necessary expenses.” Meanwhile, the manager assumes the power to fire officials, eliminate services, sell assets and terminate any existing collective bargaining agreement with local unions.

Even passing over the fact that the Contract Clause of the Constitution prevents state laws from “impairing the Obligation of Contracts,” there is a lot to worry about in this bill. Imagine living in a Michigan city where you have just elected a mayor and a council, only to be told that, due to some mysterious financial circumstances, your elected leaders will not be leading you at all. Instead, a new guy is going to run the place until your finances are deemed to be in order. He might not be from your city. He might work for, or even own, a large corporation. After all, the bill only stipulates that emergency managers be individuals with at least five years experience in “business, financial, or local or state budgetary matters.” He could be anything the governor decides and you won’t have a say.

That’s not local government.

Oh, and did I mention who gets to determine whether these municipalities are actually in financial trouble? That would be Snyder himself. The bill lists several different factors that may indicate problems (including the vaguely-worded “existence of other facts or circumstances that in the state treasurer’s sole discretion for a municipal government are indicative of municipal financial stress”). Only one must be applicable before the state financial authority can launch a preliminary investigation. Once the results have been compiled, the bill effectively leaves the final decision of whether to install an emergency manager in the hands of the governor.

This isn’t about financial stability; there are many other means by which a municipality can get its financial house in order. This is a power grab that could have come straight out of an amateur dystopian novel.

If you want further proof, just look at Snyder’s proposed budget.

He plans to reduce Michigan’s flat

This isn’t about financial stability ...

This is a power grab that could have come straight out of an amateur dystopian novel.

See TOWNS, page 9

March 18, 2011

IMPRESSIONS 9

The Brandeis Hoot

The Self Shelf

Why you should wear green on St. Patrick’s Day

By Alex Self Editor

On the 19th St. Patricks Day of my life, I put on a green shirt as always.

When I was younger, I used to pair the inevitable green shirt with green pants as well. One memorable year, I wore a green vest with a green shirt and green pants along with a green hat. With my red hair, I only needed black dress shoes and a general sense of creepy over-enthusiasm to be the leprechaun from those annoying Lucky Charms commercials (“They’re all after me ethnic stereotype-I mean Lucky Charms!”). The reason I wear green is first and foremost that I’m Irish and St. Patrick’s Day is a celebration of my culture.

Yet in recent years, I’ve wondered who exactly this St. Patrick was and why the celebration of the day has spread so far beyond the Irish. As it turns out, St. Patrick’s Day is actually the culmination of 1,600 years of Irish culture.

The story of St. Patrick’s day naturally has to start with who exactly St. Patrick was. As it turns out, he was a British Christian missionary born in England in the late 4th century.

That’s right; the patron saint of Ireland is British. Anyway, at the ripe old age of sixteen, he was kidnapped

by Irish pirates. Ireland, at this time, was a mainly Pagan country (Christianity had fostered some inroads into the local population but had not gotten far). Patrick, while in captivity, had a vision telling him first and foremost to escape but also to come back and bring Christianity to Ireland.

Armed with religious zeal and certain key allies, the future Saint Patrick would spend the rest of his life setting up the foundation for Christianity in Ireland. As it turns out, it was quite lucky for Christendom that he did so because the Irish monks would essentially save Christianity during the Dark Ages by transcribing all of the holy books before they were lost and sending monks on incredibly dangerous missions to spread Christianity throughout the rest of Europe.

Without the Irish monks, Christianity may never have become

as dominant in Europe as it later would. Regardless of your views on the normative advantage or disadvantage of the church’s presence, no one can deny the importance of St. Patrick in a historical sense.

As a reward for his work on behalf of Christianity, St. Patrick was later canonized by the church and thus got his own feast day. During the 9th and 10th centuries, the feast day began to be celebrated by the Irish as a cultural as well as religious holiday.

By the 16th and 17th centuries, St. Patrick’s Day was celebrated as a celebration of Irish heritage as well as a religious celebration.

As for why St. Patrick’s Day became so caught up with the idea of alcohol, I cannot find any conclusive evidence pointing in any valid direction. I can only imagine that it might be because St. Patrick’s feast day was and is in the middle of lent and people were looking for an excuse to eat, drink, and be merry for a day before returning to fasting.

Yet St. Patrick’s Day appears to me at least to be more important in a secular fashion. It is a celebration of Irish culture and Irish heritage. One may wonder how this could possibly become so popular and widespread (for example, South Korea celebrates St. Patrick’s Day). The answer is the proliferation of the Irish people.

In the United States particularly, the Irish have had a long history of struggle and triumph. I don’t think I can put it any better than Frank Costello from “The Departed” when he points out that Irish people rose from the lower working class to the presidency in the span of around sixty years.

As a result of their increasing standing in society, cities began holding events like parades on St. Patrick’s Day. Eventually, everyone else in society realized that the Irish seemed to be having a lot of fun partying on St. Patrick’s Day and decided to get in on the action. Thus the expression “Everyone’s a little bit Irish on St. Patrick’s Day,” was born.

And come on, I defy you to give me a reason not to join in on the celebration of St. Patrick’s Day or at least wear green.

At this point in my life, I have only heard two. The first is that it encour-

graphic by ariel wittenberg/the hoot

ages drinking and debauchery and thus is bad for the Irish and society in general. Unfortunately, this is true of nearly every major cultural holiday. What’s more American than sipping a cold beer and throwing some hot dogs on the grill on the fourth of July? The same can be said of a barbeque on a Labor Day Weekend. And while I’m not sure what everyone does on Columbus Day, I’m pretty sure it’s not necessarily reading up on Italian cultural tendencies. On cultural holidays, we recognize the culture at hand and we appreciate them in our society but we also tend to celebrate it with, well, a celebration of some sort. St. Patrick’s Day is in keeping with this fine holiday tradition. If the Irish

just happen to have some more fun celebrating their culture than the rest, so be it.

The second reason not to join in is a mix between hating the Irish/fun and the idea that St. Patrick was some kind of genocidal maniac. Having grown up in an Irish and Portuguese family, I can attest to the presence of the hating on the Irish phenomenon.

The Portuguese side of my family would always try to anger the Irish side in any way possible. I have no idea why the two sides dislike each other-I can only attest to the fact that they do. Yet if you hate the Irish, you probably hate fun too so perhaps St. Patrick’s Day isn’t for you anyway.

In terms of St. Patrick’s moral cleanliness, this is also something I

cannot truly attest to. Historical accounts are quite murky. While it does appear that St. Patrick led a powerful attempt to convert Ireland to Christianity, records do not show any kind of whole scale genocide of Pagans. That’s not to say there wasn’t pressure to convert but rather that charges of massacres are not verified.

In any case, St. Patrick’s Day is more about a celebration of Irish culture than of St. Patrick. Honestly, having been raised as a member of the Jewish faith, I have no real attachment to the feast day anyway.

All I know is that St. Patrick’s Day is basically Irish pride day and I’m proud to partake of it.

Town rights TOWNS, from page 8

photo by leah lefkowitz/the hoot

flat income tax rate from 4.35 percent to 4.25 percent—which isn’t too bad, on it’s own—but also seeks to cut the Michigan Earned Income Tax Rate, a $600 tax deduction for children, and tax credits for donations to food banks and homeless shelters. He wants to tax pension income and senior dividends, regardless of economic status. At the same time, Snyder proposes to cut taxes for almost all businesses, offsetting any revenue gains the state would receive from the aforementioned increases. It’s completely lopsided.

This is not the budget of a governor who knows how to solve a financial problem. This is the budget of a governor who seeks only to feed the rich from the shrinking pantries of the masses.

He must be held accountable.

10 The Brandeis Hoot

ARTS, ETC.

March 18, 2011

Purim Megillah reading gives women voice

By Leah Lefkowitz Editor

At Brandeis we see a lot of Jewish holidays. One of the most visible ones which comes around every spring is Purim. Purim attracts a lot of notice because it is so festive and because some participants dress-up in elaborate costumes. The Brandeis Interfaith Chaplaincy explains that Purim is a celebration to remember the story of Esther, the Persian queen who saved her Jewish people through her bravery. This inspirational story has resulted in Purim becoming, to quote the chaplaincy, “the holiday of hidden miracles, but it is celebrated in ways which reveal the hidden.”

To celebrate the occasion at Brandeis, there will be several religious ceremonies and social events throughout the weekend. Each of the Jewish groups will organize one or more Megillah readings. At these readings, participants take turns reading from the Book of Esther in front of an audience.

Reading from the Book of Esther is one of the religious requirements of Purim; other requirements include gifting food to friends, giving charity and eating a large, celebratory meal. Each Megillah reading will be unique in its own way, but perhaps the one that will stand out most is the women’s-only reading.

This reading is unique because typically in Orthodox Jewish ceremonies only men read aloud from the scroll. Deborah Thompson ’11, who has helped train girls in reading the scroll since high school, explains that there are religious rules which some view as preventing women from reading from holy books in front of men. It therefore simplifies the problem if women only read in front of other women.

photo from internet source

According to Orthodox Jewish law, a person can only help another person fulfill their obligation if they have at least the same level of obligation. Tziporah Gold ’13, who is helping to organize the event, explains that “in the Orthodox community, there is a debate about the level of obligation for women with regard to hearing versus reading the Megillah.” And, because there is debate about the level of obligation for women, there is debate about whether women can read for men.

Deborah adds that women can take over the responsibilities of men in certain situations, but sometimes they choose not to because of the cultural norms with which people are comfortable. Deborah adds that it is hard to ignore “Tradition with a large T, even if technically it is religiously legal.”

There have been women’s readings organized at Brandeis in past years as well, and both Deborah and Tziporah said that they thought it was important to continue the tradition.

Deborah explained that she enjoys the opportunity to increase the literacy of her students. Although they know how to read Hebrew, she teaches them how to read the musical tropes on the writing.

These tropes not only mark how each word is supposed to be sung, but also give the words a shade of meaning. These shades of meaning add to the nuances of the story, and you can learn new things each time if you are attentive to detail.

Although all participants at Megil-

lah readings do follow along in their own prayer books, learning how to sing the words provides a new perspective.

This is a popular event; last year the Luria rooms were filled with listeners. This year Tziporah expects another good turnout with participants from different parts of the Jewish community. Deborah is also excited because “there is just a little less pressure without any of the men around. Also, it is a fun atmosphere with girls all dressed up.”

Gotta catch ’em all over again with ‘Black’ and ‘White’

By Gordy Stillman Editor

On March 6, the latest wave of the Pokemon storm made its way across the Pacific as the fifth generation of games, “Pokemon Black” and “Pokemon White,” surged from store shelves and into the homes of families across the nation. The English edition had a lot to live up to, with the original already having an impressive reputation—including being only the 15th game ever given a perfect score by “Famitsu” magazine.

One of the first things to notice is, of course, the new pokemon. With the addition of “Black” and “White,” the list of pokemon expanded from an already impressive 493—which included Mew and other pokemon only available through Nintendo events—to 649. Unlike the previous release, which included way too many water pokemon and only two fire-types in the regional Pokedex, the new pokemon are very well spread-out among the different types.

Another cool element is the increase in differences between the versions. “Pokemon White” has an area known as the White Forest in the same geographic location as the other version’s Black City. Another twist is that the final dragon-type gym has two different Gym Leaders depending on which version of the game you play. While the pokemon you fight remain the same, “White” pits the protagonist against a young

special water pokemon to counter the grass starter’s fire weakness. Additionally, the first gym has three leaders, and the player fights the leader with their own type of weakness. This again brings the value of gaining other pokemon to the forefront and discourages people from rushing through the game with only a few strong pokemon.

However, gameplay has also provided the single greatest disappointment in the game for me. The reworked experience system (exp), now based on a combination of the opponent’s level and the level of the player’s pokemon, makes it significantly more time-consuming to level “grind” at the beginning of the game. Previously, exp was distributed in a set amount based simply on the opponent’s level. This new complicated system, while more realistic, makes it more time-consuming for players aiming to play through the story quickly.

Another change in the dynamics of gameplay is the presence of two rivals/best friends. Because the rivals take the starter pokemon that the player did not choose, one rival photo from internet source always has the traditional type adblack and white The latest installments in the “Pokemon” series introduced a variety of characters, including (clockwise from upper left) vantage, while the other is always Tepig, Oshawott, Snivy, Zorua and Victini. weak in comparison to the player’s choice. This, however, has also been girl while “Black” offers an old man “Black,” while triple battles are much two gyms were both of types which one of my biggest disappointments. were difficult for fire to handle. In I have always enjoyed naming my more common in “White.” instead.

Perhaps the greatest gameplay this generation, the player receives a rival. I’ve made it almost a tradition Additionally, the frequency of the new battle mechanics varies be- change occurs in the steps taken second pokemon not long after gettween the two. “Black” and “White” to avoid bad choices in selecting a ting a starter, and it is always of a introduce two new battle types: tri- starter. For instance, back in the first type that trumps the starter’s weakSee POKEMON, page 13 ple battles and rotation battles. Ro- generation, picking Charmander ness. For instance, if one chooses the tation battles are more common in was generally a bad choice as the first grass starter, you will later receive a

March 18, 2011

The Brandeis Hoot

ARTS, ETC.

11

Coping, or something like it

By Destiny D. Aquino Editor

It’s been one entire year. I wish I could tell you that I don’t cry anymore, that I don’t go to call her and that I don’t feel like I’m drowning in life. It’s been one year and I still don’t know—don’t know why it happened, don’t know what to tell my niece when she asks and don’t know what to do or say. I just try to get through the day.

It’s the guilt that gets me. When I want to sit and cry, to sleep and do nothing, it’s the guilt that makes me get out of bed, that keeps me in school and that sends me in search of the perfect pair of high heels. She can’t, so I do.

One year ago today, I got the call. I knew it was bad as soon as the sixth call from my mother came through.

I had been in class but I finally answered. “Have you checked your messages, where are you??!!” she said. Since when does my mom call six times in a row? I knew something was up. “No, why, is everything OK?” I asked.

By the time I made it down the hill and up the stairs to my dorm room, I couldn’t even get my key in the door.

I couldn’t see through my hazy contact lenses covered in my running mascara. I couldn’t breathe. The rest is a blur. I look back on it now as if it were some bad Lifetime movie.

Things like this don’t actually happen to people like me—so I thought.

I now know where the Lifetime movie writers get their stories. They rip them from the headlines and the lives of people like my best friend, my sister as far as we were concerned.

“Misha died last night,” my mom said. “Amaya is fine; someone’s going to get her. Do you want to come home?” I couldn’t get words out.

My roommate came after me when she saw me walk through the common room in hysteria. She took the

phone from me. I don’t remember what I said to her. My other friend sent e-mails to my teachers. I just cried.

I couldn’t understand it. I still don’t. My best friend was not the Good Samaritan type. She was cranky and liked to sleep all day long. She wasn’t friendly. She was the poster child for the mean girl. I used to hate her. She was the dance team’s captain. She had the footballstar boyfriend.

We became friends on prom night. I saw her crying in the bathroom and I didn’t want to care, but it was that crying you can’t ignore— even while intoxicated. I sat on the floor next to her. It was all jumbles, the words coming out of her mouth.

“I’ve been drinking,” she finally said.

‘Well duh, we’ve all been drinking,’ I thought. It’s funny how some moments stick out forever in your mind.

“I think I may be pregnant,” she told me. Through all of the senior week festivities it had slipped her mind and her calendar. When she felt a cramp, she thought it was her period, but it wasn’t; she couldn’t leave the bathroom. She couldn’t stop crying. It still amazes me that her biggest concern was that she might have hurt the unborn baby.

We graduated three days later. We were sure by then and we were talking. Years at the same school not a single nice word exchanged; now I was her confidant, her partner in this thing. Everything was supposed to be OK. Her parents weren’t happy; they wanted her to get rid of it. She moved out of her parents’ house and into her boyfriend’s house. They tried to make it work. Her boyfriend, Walter, had a drug problem and everyone knew it. This news only made it worse. She wanted to give her baby a family. She loved him. This would change things, she thought.

It didn’t. She moved in with me when Amaya was little. All of our friends still couldn’t understand

photo courtesy of destiny d. aquino/the hoot

loss The death of Misha—pictured here with her daughter, Amaya—left her friends and family unsure of how to cope with the loss.

how we were even talking, let alone living together. She became my sister. She was there when I got into Brandeis and when my grandfather died; I was there when Amaya turned one and for her first Christmas—we were family.

She tried to fix Walter, tried to make up with her parents. It all worked for a little while, but it always got bad again.

She moved to Louisiana to get away from everyone. To start anew, she began nursing school to become a psychiatric nurse. She would tell

people that she wanted to “take care of the people no one else wants to.”

I was so angry with her—why would she just leave like that? I felt abandoned. I didn’t understand that people grow up, they move away and life goes on. This was her turn. I can’t even remember the last thing I said to her. I think it was something about clothes of mine she still had; I don’t like to think I was being that petty with her. We hadn’t spoken for four months when it happened.

Then she was just gone. Everyone we ever knew kept saying how won-

derful she was in every way, how she was a pillar in the community. That was a bunch of crap. But who cares, who was going to correct them? Not me. I couldn’t bring myself to be there. I couldn’t hold it together to go home for the funeral.

Almost everyone stopped talking to her after school; they all went to college far away. She stayed home, had Amaya and started at the community college. Now they were See LOSS, page 13

Crisis in Japan: Examining the effects of radiation

By Gabby Katz Staff

Considering the nuclear concerns that have resulted from the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan, I thought it would be important to evaluate all the news and data out right now and try to estimate the magnitude of this disaster in comparison to previous radioactive scares. At the very least, I hope to bring awareness to the health risks of radioactive exposure currently being faced by the people of the Fukushima area and Japan.

First, I just wanted to say that I, along with the greater part of the Brandeis community, have Japan in my thoughts and prayers right now as I wish everyone finds themselves safe.

To start off, what exactly led to all of this talk of radioactive exposure?

According to National Public Radio, the emergency cooling systems at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant failed because the electricity in the plant was knocked out by the large earthquake and tsunami.

If the plant overheats, there’s a risk that the nuclear fuel rods may melt; this is problematic because they could potentially melt through their containment vessel, leak out, and spread a hazardous plume and contamination. Though the release of some radioactive gases has already

photo from internet source

occurred, there has been only a partial core meltdown of the rods and not a complete escape of radioactive materials into the environment.

Historically, news outlets like MSN and FOX News believe the present situation lies somewhere between the incidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl in terms of damages and long-lasting health effects that may occur. According to NPR, Chernobyl had at least 5 percent of its radioactive reactor core released into the atmosphere, which led to a

total of 30 radiation-related deaths within a few weeks of the incident and left thousands at risk of cancer. Three Mile Island was a partial core meltdown due to a stuck-open relief valve; although no correlation between negative health effects and the incident were confirmed, some studies have suggested that it led to an increase in cancer, particularly of the thyroid, and immense stress for the people who lived in the area.

Since Fukushima has had multiple partial core meltdowns in units 1

and 3, a hydrogen explosion in unit 2 and a fire in unit 4, it has released more gas than Three Mile Island but has not quite experienced a complete containment malfunction like Chernobyl. Thus, as of now, many are assuming the health risks lie between these past two incidents.

According to the CDC, radiation has a few types of effects, including Acute Radiation Syndrome (ARS), Prenatal Radiation Exposure (PRE) and Cutaneous Radiation Injury (CRI).

ARS occurs following a high dose of radiation which has penetrated the entire body in a short period.

Symptoms include nausea, vomiting, skin damage and diarrhea; these can start within a few minutes or days of the exposure. Depending on the strength of the radiation exposure, symptoms can be as severe as seizures, coma, destruction of bone marrow, internal bleeding and death. PRE’s effects depend on the gestational age of the baby, but it can lead to stunted growth, deformities, abnormal brain function or cancer later in the baby’s life. CRI is an injury to the skin and tissues which results from a large external exposure to radiation and can be categorized into stages and grades that range in effects from erythema to injury of blood vessels, lympostasis, vasculitis and even skin cancer. The treatment for all three of these radiation exposure complications follow similar

regiments.

Initially, localized injuries are treated based on their symptoms.

The treatment then follows a stageby-stage basis. Antihistamines, steroids, anti-inflammatory medicines and creams are used for the prodromal stage, and anti-inflammatory medications and sedatives are continued through the latent stage. At the manifestation stage, antibiotics are added to the regiment to reduce bacterial, fungal and viral infections. Treatment of late effects include pain management, treatments for fibrosis and necrosis as well as potential reconstructive surgery.

Other treatments include therapy for psychological stress and preventative measures for the increased risk of skin cancer.

So far, the amount of radiation emitted is predicted to be too low to produce any of these syndromes or effects. If the amount released into the environment increases, it’s crucial to take preventative measures, which include staying in your house, sealing any vents during the plume and having food with a long shelf life. Being informed and prepared is crucial to keeping calm and collected during an emergency. Again, we wish the people of Japan the best of luck and hope they don’t have to worry about any of these effects. We can all help by making donations to the Red Cross and others relief organizations.

12 ARTS ,ETC.

The Brandeis Hoot

March 18, 2011

‘The Duke’ Part IV

By Kayla Dos Santos, Editor

Previously in “The Duke:” After loner Veronica informed Tim that his mother was having an affair with her mother, he agreed to try to catch them in the act ...

All week, Tim had carried the camera around with him in his backpack. He couldn’t stop unzipping his bag and looking at it, nestled among his school things.

He practiced taking photos at the reservoir. On the camera’s memory card were pictures of runners, partial images of Tim’s thumb and one of a goose splashing—Tim was proud of that one. If Veronica’s plan worked out, there would soon be one of his mom in the arms of the Duke.

When he saw his mom warming up a cup of coffee in the kitchen that Friday morning, Tim’s thoughts immediately went to the camera he was carrying. He felt itchy with guilt. How could he agree to a plan that could destroy his family? She peered at him with half-lidded eyes and held an empty mug imploringly to the gurgling coffeemaker.

“What’s the Duke up to?” he asked, scrambling for something to say, his mind still on the camera.

She blinked at him.

“I don’t really want to talk about the Duke right now,” she said.

Tim nodded. His mother usually couldn’t stop talking about the Duke. He still turned pink when he remembered his 13th birthday party when his mom had a loud conversation with Mark’s stepmother about a scene from “Deadly Duke.”

Tim had stuffed his pale face with the blue-frosted cake his dad had made for the party as he listened to his mom (even over the happy chatter of his friends) talk about a scene when Duke, on the brink of death, still manages to deflower the book’s heroine on his sick bed.

“But how could he … you know,” Mark’s stepmother had asked, gesturing with her hand. Tim had intervened, leaving his cake halfeaten to ask his mother to bring out the piñata.

Silence meant that she had writers’ block and all members of the household should tread lightly.

She sipped her coffee, eyes closed, then thumped it down on the counter with a satisfying smack, “Would you be upset if we lived somewhere else?” she asked.

Tim jerked backwards, feeling worse than if she had hit him over the head with the camera.

“Why? Do we need to move?”

Tim said.

She shrugged and Tim noticed a brown coffee stain on her shoulder.

“It might happen, is all that I am saying,” she said.

Tim tried desperately to think of what the correct response would be. Every conversation was like this now with his mother. He thought that anything he said would impact her decision. Lately, she had been keeping Tim on-edge with bizarre non sequiturs, popping her head out of the office to ask Tim if he thought it would be weird to live in California, saying that she would like to go on more camping trips (at this, Tim and Dad had exchanged a look full of horror) and once Tim had caught her with a stack of papers and a calculator, doing figures.

His mother, who hated math!

“I like this house,” he said, “I want to stay here.”

His mother nodded, but said nothing. She disappeared into her office, coffee issuing a faint trail of steam in her wake.

The last person Tim expected to see at his father’s bakery was Veronica’s dad. He walked in, pushing the front door open with his suitcase and looking out of place among the streusal muffins, fried dough and bundt cake.

The bakery’s cashier, Laura, gave him a toothy grin. “Welcome!” she said. She went to Tim’s high school, but they might as well be strangers; when he visited his dad, she only mumbled a brief hello at him and at school she ignored him altogether.

The Duke smiled in return and Tim felt a twinge when he realized that the Duke was handsome. Laura was bright-eyed and she spoke in a softer voice than she normally used.

Tim scowled when he realized that she was flirting with the Duke.

“Tim, is your father here? I need to talk to him,” he said, all curt efficiency. Tim pointed to the backroom where his dad, who was superstitious, was blessing an oven before he put in the dough of a customer’s wedding cake.

The Duke walked behind the counter and went swiftly to the door before Tim thought to stop him.

“Wait—I’d better get him,” he said. While it was true that his dad didn’t like to be interrupted when he was performing his self-described “silly ritual,” the real reason Tim stopped the Duke was because a putrid, nasty feeling had erupted in his chest. He didn’t like the Duke in the bakery; there was something wrong about him being near the cupcakes, the delicate sugar cookies, the strawberry-rhubarb pies— the products of his dad’s labor and his affection. Tim wanted the Duke gone.

The Duke glanced at his watch and waved his hand at Tim. Tim knocked on the backroom door and entered, sweating slightly as the heat from the ovens blanketed him. Although the bakery’s air-conditioners were working, the paper streamers that Tim’s dad had attached to them fluttering, nothing could combat the combined heat of Mother Nature and his dad’s huge industrial-sized ovens.

His dad was making the sign of the cross in the air before one of the ovens, his arms, up to his elbows, were coated with the white ghost of flour. On a tray next to the oven there were multiple moons of dough, cut in various sizes.

“Good. Give me a hand with this, will you?” he asked, beckoning Tim over to the tray.

“Mr. Dent is here,” Tim said. He handed the circles to his father who quickly slid them into the oven’s mouth.

“Is he?” he said. Tim couldn’t see his expression. Tim’s dad looked into the oven for a moment, his hands resting on his hips.

He turned around in a quick movement, clapping his hands together and sending a cloud of flour into the air, “Right, then!”

The Duke looked up from his blackberry when Tim and Dad reentered the room.

graphic by leah lefkowitz/the hoot

“Mr. Dent, I was hoping to speak with you about a matter that concerns both of us,” he said.

“It’s a nice day,” Tim’s dad said, eyes twinkling, “Let’s step outside.”

Both men walked through the door, the bell jangling.

Laura raised her eyebrow at Tim. “That’s Veronica Dent’s father? I bet he doesn’t know that his daughter is hooking up with the coach.”

Tim wasn’t paying attention to her, though; he was too concerned with what was going on outside.

Two men could not have been more different in appearance. While Tim’s dad was formed of soft lines that concealed strong muscles, Veronica’s dad was thin and constructed of hard right angles. Tim’s father wore a white pristine apron, a t-shirt and jeans, the Duke was dressed as if he were about to argue a case before a judge in court. His short, plump father presented an almost comical figure standing next to the coldly handsome Duke.

He didn’t seem to notice though that, while the Duke was making wide sweeping gestures with his thin fingers as if he was making a point, Tim’s dad was wearing a halfcocked smile.

Tim’s dad was still wearing that smile when he walloped the Duke

in the face with a right hook.

“I think he went out to see her,” Veronica hissed in Tim’s ear.

It was 7 o’clock on a Saturday night and Tim had been going crazy. His father had hit someone! He had punched someone with a gleeful smile on his face!

Tim couldn’t understand it.

When Tim was in elementary school he had been an easy target for bullies. They had taunted him for being overweight and called him “Daddy’s doughboy.” One day Tim snapped and had hit one of his bullies over the head with his superman lunch box.

His father had driven him home from school.

“Don’t be that person, Tim,” his father had said, “You’ll end up being mean and shriveled like Grandpa Alex.” Tim sniffled and his father added, “I know it’s hard, but nothing is solved by hitting someone.”

His father knew about the Duke and Tim’s mom—that had to be the explanation.

“Where?” Tim asked.

“That French restaurant, meet me there in 30 minutes.”

“Chateau noir” was an upscale French restaurant with valet park-

ing and a clean red carpet rolled out from the entrance to the sidewalk.

Tim stood gaping at it for a minute before Veronica shoved him.

“Did you bring it?” she asked, fiddling with something in her purse.

“Yes … I-” Tim stopped, taken aback, “What are you wearing?”

Veronica was dressed in a black skirt and red top. She looked very different from the Goth girl who had bullied him at the reservoir.

“How do you think we’re going to get past the host?” she said, she pursed her lips. She was wearing red lipstick! “Tuck in your shirt and comb your fingers through your hair and you’ll almost be presentable.” She strode into the restaurant and Tim had no choice but to follow her.

The restaurant was a small place with tiny two-person tables, dim lighting and waiters wearing uniforms that were so well-made that Tim anxiously attempted to patdown his springy hair. Veronica, confidently following the host to their table, acted like she ate at restaurants like this every day, and after seeing her house, Tim knew she

See DUKE, page 14

Submit your creative fiction, poetry and personal essays to The Hoot!

E-mail arts@thebrandeishoot.com today!

March 18, 2011

The Brandeis Hoot

ARTS, ETC.

13

get with the funk Liberate your mind and enslave yourself to the groove

By Maxwell Price staff

Students of Brandeis University, I have heard the Good Word, I have seen the Sign, I have experienced the Ecstasy, and I want to share it with you.

It has a name: The Funk.

“What is this ‘funk,’” you ask, “and how can I find it?” To this I answer you, if you go looking for the funk you will never find it. One day the funk will creep up on you, slither down your spine, make your knees shake, tickle your nose, spin you around and suck your face off.

You can then make a choice: surrender to the groove or go on living your miserable funkless existence.

Funk is a musical genre associated with artists from the ’60s and ’70s like James Brown, but it is much more than that. Funk is a way not of understanding the world, but of gettin’ down with reality. You don’t need to be a child of the 70s or take a lot of drugs to go there (although

those things don’t hurt).

Let’s get more specific. Funk is different from ideals like grace or harmony, because it is inherently nasty. When you open up a can of tuna fish and say, “that smells funky,” it’s not a pretty thing. Funk sees the ideal and it sees the reality. But then it jumps in between the two and shimmies through the divide.

Unfortunately, at Brandeis many students mistake funk for its prim cousin, “awkwardness.” For example, if President Frederick Lawrence walks down the spine path and you accidentally spill your chocolate milk on him, most people will text their friends, “OMG president lawrence got milk spilled on him AWKWARD!” But a funky person would look at that situation and laugh his or her ass off with glee.

Some people associate funk with black culture, and they are right.

But you don’t have to be black to be funky. In fact, the funk gets a real kick out of the fact that you if you’re white you want to avoid funkiness

because you associate it with being black. The funk is not blind to race, class, gender, sexuality or any of that. Funkiness means being a woman and thinking that men are jerks or accusing French people of smelling bad.

Here’s another thing you all need to know about the funk: it hates economics majors. I don’t know why. It just does.

Some places in the world are just so funk-averse that there’s really no use trying. The Hiatt Career Center is just one example of such a place.

You can shake your groove thang off in a resume appointment, but that joint will never be funky.

On the other hand, Sherman is one of the funkier places on the eastern seaboard. You can smell it a mile away.

But every person is capable of funkiness, wherever you live. So students of Brandeis University, in my last two months at our beloved school I wish to offer you this final piece of otherworldly wisdom: Ditch awkward. Get funky.

Finding a way to deal with loss LOSS, from page 11

there, crying over her, but I guess that’s what you’re supposed to do when someone you know dies, remember only the good things.

I remember everything, the way she was always late and would eat all but two spoonfuls of ice cream and then put it back in the freezer. The way she would wear my clothes and then throw them in my laundry, and her serious obsessive-compulsive behavior when it came to her sock drawer. These are the things I’ll tell Amaya because she’s too young to remember her; she’ll only have pictures, stories and our memories.

You’re probably still wondering what happened to her. I wish I could explain it to you, but I told you I don’t understand. I can only tell you the things I do know. The rest has kept me up more nights than I can care to ever count.

The police told us this: She was driving home late at night on an interstate highway. She saw a hit and run. No one got out of the car so she pulled over. She walked across the four-lane highway. As she tapped on the window of the car, another car going approximately more than 90 mph struck her. She flew 100 feet. She died on impact from head trauma. The woman whose window she was tapping on did not report the second hit and run when she called the police about her original accident. The car that hit her drove away and stopped two exits away, where the driver changed his tire and ripped off his bumper. This was recorded on toll cameras. The police found her at sunrise, hours later, after calls from drivers describing what looked like a dead body on the highway median.

I don’t know why she picked this night to be nice. Who gets out of the car at 3 a.m.? Did she actually die on impact? Did she lie there in pain? Her little brother told me he has nightmares about her screaming out for us on the side of the road all alone. I have them too.

Amaya is three now. She asks about her mom and dad. Walter is facing a 10-year prison sentence for possession with intent to sell. He tried. He says the loss was too much.

Part of me can’t blame him. I only knew her for a few years. They had

photo from internet source

‘Black’ and ‘White’ Pokemon excite

photos from internet source

POKEMON, from page 10

photo from internet source

been together most of grade school and they had a baby. He doesn’t want to live without her.

The princess, as Misha called her, is a little person now with her own personality. When I was home for break I took her out for the day and she suddenly started screaming , crying and throwing a fit. I ran to her and asked her what was wrong and she looked up at me and said “Ha Ha Tia got you!” She has her mother’s sense of humor. After that, I had to go to the bathroom so I wouldn’t cry in front of her.

I wonder if she’ll ever truly remember her mom or just what people tell her. I worry for her future.

I wonder if she’ll ever find out her grandparents only want her now because she’s all they have left. I wonder why this happened to her. She’s just a little girl. All the people who love her and loved her parents: we try. Will we be enough?

The entire thing has sent me into what I’ve been calling a quarterlife crisis; others are calling it an existentialism-caused depression.

Who cares what anyone calls it.

Losing someone so young changes you so quickly, so deeply; I worry she wouldn’t recognize who I am.

Would she still want to be my best friend?

Is there actually a heaven? Can I tell Amaya she’ll see her mommy sometime far, far away? That Misha is actually watching over us? I guess that’s what you call faith, but when you’re so angry, so lost, can you have faith?

Like I said before, it’s the guilt.

“Misha loved living each day.” Even when it was difficult, even when it was terrible and there was no end in sight, she loved to laugh at bad jokes and listen to gossip.

When I want to curl up and hope it’s all a bad nightmare, I go to class for her because she would have enjoyed learning. When I don’t want to go out with my friends because I’m feeling depressed, I go because she would have dragged me out herself.

On my graduation day, on my wedding day, when I have babies, eat too much chocolate, spend too much money on a dress, get drunk and do things I regret; when I do all the things she should have been able to do, all the things you do when you’re young and beautiful like she was, I do it with her in my heart.

With her as my reason.

This feeling has a name. It’s called survivor’s guilt. The solution: to live.

They, the parents, the therapists, the significant others, the books, everyone tells you it gets better with time.

It’s been a year. It feels like yesterday. Her phone number is still in my phone—I can’t delete it. The worst part is when people take it upon themselves to assume you’re OK. As if mourning has some sort of time limit on it, an expiration date on which you wake up and you’re put back together. What they forget is that in order to put something back together, you need to have all the pieces and one of my pieces is missing. We can’t replace her and there’s no filler. So I’ll always be just a little bit incomplete.

to name him after my brother as a mark of respect (I’m almost certain he does the same). It’s significantly more fun as I feel as though I’m defeating my brother rather than some arbitrarily named rival.

Another strong part is the music as well as the improved graphics.

While I’ve never been a big fan of playing handheld games with music, I did for a short while play with music and noticed that, in addition to some of the standard pokemon music arrangements, newer tunes had been added which gave each region a new flavor.

Additionally, while graphics for the game world have improved overall, one of the most notable changes occurs in the battles. In addition to improvements in the representation of attacks, pokemon

now move around and wiggle their tails or nod their heads as they wait for commands.

A final point of interest, for American players at least, is the basis of the new region, called Unova.

While the previous four generations’ regions have been based on geographic locations in Japan, “Black” and “White” feature a region that is instead loosely based on the New York City area. The center of the region is a large city, and the region also boasts a huge grassland not unlike Central Park.

I had a feeling that these games would be great even before learning that they had received a perfect rating from “Famitsu.” Having now played them, I can now definitely say that these are games not to be missed. Don’t delay: Nintendo is offering early buyers a free Wi-Fi download that includes Victini, a powerful pokemon not obtainable through regular gameplay.

photo from internet source

pokemon cartography Both “Black” and “White” feature a new world named Unova,

which is based on New York City. Most worlds are based on Japan.

14 ARTS, ETC.

The Brandeis Hoot

March 18, 2011

In which ‘The Duke’ ends his adventures DUKE, from page 12

very well could have.

She flipped open the menu. “Have anything you like, courtesy of my dad.” Her smile had a bitter edge.

“I’m going to go to the bathroom,” Tim said. He was feeling a little over-whelmed—the menu was in French.

“Smart, take a chance and look around, maybe you’ll spot them,” she said.

Tim bumbled around a potted plant and almost tripped over himself when he saw his mother and the Duke at a table in the corner of the dining room. He fingered the camera in his pocket. How did the zoom work again?

But then the Duke got up and left the table and Tim’s mother alone, presumably to use the restroom. Tim stared for a moment.

His mother looked very pretty with her hair down and in loose curls, her features were softened in the candlelight.

He dropped the camera back into his pocket. He couldn’t do this.

He didn’t hate his mother, not like Veronica clearly hated her father.

He couldn’t take a picture of this version of his mother as an adulterer, a version of her that he wished he had never seen and he wanted to forget.

He walked over and took the Duke’s vacated seat, “Hey, mom.”

She glanced up, startled. “Tim, what on earth are you doing here?” she said. Her cheeks were pink and Tim realized that he was seeing his mother embarrassed for the first

time. He had heard her use the word “engorged” while talking to a book club filled with women old and stern enough to be his grandparents—and she was embarrassed only now.

“I know about you and Mr. Dent, Mom,” he said.

“What?”

“I know you are going behind Dad’s back,” he said.

His mom fiddled with the napkin in her lap, “That is true,” she said.

“Tim, what are you doing?” Veronica whispered, standing behind him. Tim was relieved to see the angry girl he talked to at the reservoir again.

“I’m talking to my mom, like I should have done in the first place,” he said.

“He’s going to get away with it, again!” Veronica said and stomped out of the restaurant. Tim barely had time to register that she said “again” when Mr. Dent returned to the table.

“I’m surprised to see you, Tim,” he said, each word dripping like ice. His shirt was rumpled and the skin around his eye was soft like and the color of an over-ripe plum. Tim had the satisfaction of sensing that he was the exact person Mr. Dent didn’t want to see.

“I was just talking to my mom,” Tim said, “I should probably see if Veronica is OK.” “Wait,” Tim’s mom said, rising from her chair, “I don’t think you understand.”

Tim paused even though he had already decided that he never, not in a hundred years, wanted to understand.

“The end of my contract with my

Arts Recommends

publisher is coming up for review.

Mr. Dent works for them, he just wants me to renew the contract— that’s it,” she said.

Tim stopped and rested his hands on his knees, a band of heat scorched his face. The wave that had been threatening to destroy him had broken across his back and he had survived.

“Why did Dad punch him?” he asked, when he had wrapped his mind around the fact that his mom wasn’t a cheater.

His mom’s cheeks turned a more vibrant shade of red, “He did that?”

“Yes, and I’m considering whether or not to take action,” Mr. Dent said.

“Your father and I have been having problems over my work,” she said.

“He thinks I should stop writing the Duke and write my own novel.”

“You can do that and continue your contract with us,” Mr. Dent said.

Tim’s mom shook her head. “I love the Duke, I really do. But lately, he’s gotten on my nerves. He’s just so damn needy.” She smiled at Tim. “I think it’s time to let go.”

Veronica was at the bus-stop.

Sobbing, her head in her hands.

Tim hugged her, she was tiny and he held her against him she felt like a small, trembling bird.

“I was so sure that I finally caught him,” she said.

Tim patted her awkwardly on her head.

“He’s cheated on my mom before,” she mumbled into the growing damp spot on Tim’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry your plan didn’t work out.” He felt like that wasn’t enough,

graphic by leah lefkowitz/the hoot

but he couldn’t think of what else to say. He didn’t have his mom’s skill with dialogue.

And so he kissed Veronica. She tasted like salt and crying and when she pushed him away he felt like he had done something terrible.

“I’m dating the coach,” she said.

“Don’t tell anyone.”

For one fleeting moment, Tim wished he was like the Duke. He wished he could be the hero and rush in and save damsels, fall in love with them, seduce them and do it again and again, like the Duke did in each chapter and each book of his mother’s series.

He studied Veronica’s face. The

Not everyone has the time to see the latest films or read the newest bestseller. We make some recommendations that you can pick up at the nearest library.

Book ‘Novel Without a Name’

Film ‘Z’

Numerous books portray the carnage of the Vietnam War from the American perspective; look no further than Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried,” for instance. Rarely do we get the Vietnamese perspective, but Duong Thu Huong provides just that in “Novel Without a Name.” Huong tells the story of Quan, a 28-year-old North Vietnamese soldier who has been fighting both the Americans and the South Vietnamese for 10 years. Having been granted a rare leave from the front, he journeys home, encountering old friends and a society deeply changed by almost 30 years of constant conflict. Seeing this, he becomes gradually disenchanted, both with the war and with the North Vietnamese government.

“Novel Without a Name” is alive both due to its passionate narrator and the violence that always lurks just off the page. It’s a refreshing narrative, especially in light of frequent American portrayals of the North Vietnamese as stock villains interested only in destruction; it’s also a rare perspective in modern Vietnam, where it has been banned for the last 20 years.—SF

The past few months of revolts throughout the Arab world have revealed the discontent that simmers when autocratic regimes rule for decades. A similar kind of discontent fuels director Costa-Gavras’ “Z,” a thinly fictionalized account of events that actually unfolded in Greece in 1963. It was in this year that a deeply conservative—and ostensiably democratic—Greek government authorized the assassination of the leader of the leftist opposition; in the film, he’s simply known as The Deputy (Yves Montand).

“Z” focuses primarily on the investigation into The Deputy’s murder.

The government declares it an accident, but the examining magistrate (Jean-Louis Trintignant), a rare government official with a conscious, discovers evidence to the contrary. The film never explicitly names Greece as its setting—in fact, due to the dictatorship ruling Greece at the time, the film is in French—but it doesn’t try to cover up its true intentions, declaring in the opening credits that “any resemblence to real events ... is deliberate.” It’s a film smoldering with passion, which is unsurprising considering the director himself had been forced out of the country. You’re guaranteed to be as outraged as he is by the film’s end.—SF photo from internet source

thought of the stubborn and fierce girl being a damsel was so ludicrous—he had to keep himself from laughing.

She didn’t need a hero, she needed a friend.

They went to Tim’s house, ate cheesecake and read aloud sections from his mother’s books.

“The Duke slew the evil pirate with a mighty thrust of his sword.

As the pirate lay dying, the Duke wiped sweat from his manly brow and, winking at Lilly (who was lashed to the ship’s mainsail), he said, ‘After this, I will need a vacation.’”

The End

March 18, 2011

NEWS 15

The Brandeis Hoot

James Carroll explains significance of ancient Jerusalem

photo by nate rosenbloom/the hoot

By Wittenberg Writer

Editor, Staff, Special to the Hoot

Author James Carroll described the common threads of Christianity, Judaism and Islam in ancient Jerusalem, explaining that ancient Jerusalem reflects the stories of wars throughout history and continues to ignite heated conversations about the fantasy of the city of Jerusalem today.

The International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life hosted author James Carroll to promote the publication of his new book, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem: How the Ancient City Ignit-

ed Our Modern World” at a forum in Sherman Function Hall on Monday.

Panelists Asma Afsaruddin, Professor Bernadette Brooten (NEJS), Susannah Heschel, Professor Kanan Makiya (NEJS), Martin Marty, Professor Chandler Rosenberger (IGS) and Professor Ilan Troen (NEJS) joined Carroll for a two-part symposium to discuss the nature of religion and violence in the past and in the future.

Carroll, a member of the International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life’s advisory board, won an honorary award from Brandeis in

2008 and is the author of 17 books, several of which have won the National Book Award.

The symposium was designed to encourage discussion among panel and audience members about collective thinking on the counteracting the forces of violence in the future.

Once the panel opened for discussion, Carroll faced questions from Brooten, the Kraft-Hiatt Professor of Christian Studies and of Women’s and Gender Studies at Brandeis, regarding what the theological meaning would be if people today recognized the dangers of an apocalyptic worldview.

McFarlane discusses admissions policies ADMISSIONS, from page 1

said, adding, “but geographically and socially— and by that I am speaking financially.”

On financial issues, McFarlane addressed the decision last year to move from need-blind admissions to the possibility of “need-sensitive,” calling it an important budget decision, but not the only one.

Despite Lawrence’s intimation that the university can both meet its financial obligations and accept a smaller class (this time referring to the smaller size of the class of ’14 compared to ’13), McFarlane said it does mean compromising a class’ economic diversity.

“Tuition, and especially undergraduate tuition, is only one line-item in a budget,” he said.

“Makeup of a class has nothing to do with financial targets.”

As to need-sensitivity, he said many students are decided by too many small factors to have finances comprise a sole reason.

“You’re not going to find two identical twins,” McFarlane said, and referenced possible talented pianists or other outstanding factors. He added, “The primary thing we consider is the merit of the student,” and not simply academic merit.

Even in the first year of potential need-sensitivity, McFarlane said the policy may not have been needed. “[In terms of the financial status of applicants,] the split of the applicants was the same,” he said.

Study abroad programs cancelled in Japan JAPAN, from page 1

The office of study abroad is also considering options for the students who have not yet departed and the credit issues they could potentially face. These options were not clear by press time and the students could not be contacted in time for print.

“The images of devastation in Japan that we all woke up to this morning are deeply disturbing. As a caring community, our thoughts are with the people of Japan as they struggle to cope with their nation’s biggest recorded earthquake and the savage tsunami that followed,” President Fred Lawrence wrote in his blog “Brandeis First,” “As news of the disaster broke, the university moved to ensure that Brandeis students studying in Japan were safe and unharmed, and that we are supporting Japanese students studying here. We are also concerned about faculty, staff and students who have relatives in Japan,” he wrote.

Three graduate students that were supposed to depart for Japan are considering other international locations. Three International Business students currently in Japan were unharmed according to a BrandeisNOW press release.

The International Student and Scholars Office

has been in contact with five undergraduates, 11 graduate students and at least nine scholars, researchers and faculty from Japan who are on campus now to offer support.

“We are concerned about the safety of the members of our entire Brandeis community, which includes families and friends of our students, our faculty and staff, our alumni, and our colleagues abroad who may be facing such devastating circumstances. Our students appreciate that Brandeis is aware of the situation and there to help in any way we can,” Director of the International Students and Scholars Office David C. Elwell said in BrandeisNOW press release.

Students who are currently in the application process for study abroad in Japan in the fall and spring of academic year 2011-2012 will continue their applications as scheduled and decisions will be made during the summer regarding their ability to attend the programs.

“Students who are slated to go to Japan in the fall are still going through their application and approval process. We will make an evaluation over the summer based on the abilities of our Japanese partners to host programs at that time,” Van Der Meid wrote.

Van Der Meid’s office hopes to have more finalized plans for the undergraduate students and their individual situations next week.

Rosenberger suggested Jerusalem and religion might not have united the modern world.

“There are other things that are more secular, and that are unfairly conflated to religion such as nationalism,” Rosenberger said. “Nationalism is a force that has defined our modern world as modern. It stems from Judaism and Protestantism, and grew far beyond the boundaries of religion.

Nationalism has the extraordinary capacity to take the elements from original society and transform them.”

Following Rosenberger, Troen, Director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis, suggested to Carroll, that there is hope for the future by what is not in the book.

“Secularism,” Troen said, “does not necessarily bring people together to agree, but people can come together secularly to engage in discourse.

While religion services internal arguments, people now go to the United Nations or a higher secular court to settle their differences, not to a synagogue. It is incumbent upon us, however, to choose between religious and secular threads to weave a fabric of peace.”

In response to the panelists’ arguments, Carroll spoke of the difference between self-criticism and apocalyptic thinking. “While prophetic thinking invites self-criticism, apocalyptic thinking is a more useful strain of imagination when you are at war. Today, many people understand Jesus in

apocalyptic terms. We are on God’s side now in the ultimate war against evil,” he said.

Carroll continued by arguing that the most important religious phenomenon today is “secular nuclearism.” “The readiness to destroy the world in order to save it is a profoundly apocalyptic concept,” he said. Carroll also asserted, that nationalism is a sort of religion. “Nationalism’s trick is to call religious wars wrong, while we can have nation state violence and call it right,” he said. “Jerusalem did ignite our modern world, whether it was religiously or secularly.”

Carroll concluded by stressing how the threat of today’s nuclear-driven society can be viewed as divine intervention, because society has given itself the power to destroy itself.

Calling Hiroshima and Auschwitz the two greatest simultaneous disruptions in history, Carroll claimed, “there are reasons why Israel chose to be a nuclear power. Do we make ourselves extinct as a species? Isn’t Jerusalem’s fault but its testimony to its place in our imagination? My concern is about the future.”

The symposium was sponsored by the International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life, and cosponsored by the Tauber institute for the Study of European Jewry, the Brandeis Interfaith Chaplaincy, the Mandel Center for the Humanities and the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies.

16 The Brandeis Hoot

You Know We’re Right

Worried about living with your best friend?

Dear Leah and Morgan, I am living with my best friend next year and though I am utterly thrilled, I am somewhat concerned.

She is very neat and clean and, while I am not a complete slob, I am worried that I will not be able to keep our living space at her standards. I’ve heard upperclassmen talk about how living with a best friend can put a strain on relationships and potentially ruin them forever, but I don’t want this to happen to me.

We spend a lot of time together now, but we’re also both very busy. However, I’m worried about us spending too much time together and getting tired of each other.

What should I do?

Sincerely, Worried Roommate Dear Worried, We completely understand your concerns.

Living with a best friend can be an amazing experience that will bring you closer than ever, but the trials of sharing space can definitely take their toll if you are not prepared.

Talk it out.

Before you live with a best friend—or really, anyone at all—you need to have a conversation about what your expectations are.

Make a contract of what you hope to accomplish in your room next year. It sounds corny and a little cliché, but it will help. That way, you will go into next year understanding what will be required of you. You also should discuss where areas of compromise might be, and the different standards there will be for shared spaces, like the common room, bathrooms or kitchen, and for private spaces like your room. If you are in suite-style living, you should think about creating a job chart or job wheel so that everyone’s role is clear.

Think about your actions.

When you are living together, think about how each thing you do will affect your roommate. A lot of this is just common courtesy.

If you’re coming back late at night or have to leave early, close the door quietly and don’t turn the light on.

Schedule time together.

You and your roommate have been close, make sure to keep that going! Schedule time to chill, even if you only have time to grab coffee, or spend the last five minutes of your night telling each other about your day.

Don’t forget to communicate continuously.

Perhaps more important than discussing the expectations for when you are living together is making sure that there is a continued dialogue throughout the semester so that if something is not working out, you each feel comfortable going to the other and talking about your issues. You don’t want to get into a situation where chores make you resentful in an otherwise harmonious relationship.

Good luck!

Peace, Love and Great Advice, Leah and Morgan Have questions that you want answered by the lovely ladies of The Hoot? Submit your questions to advice@thebrandeishoot.com or at formspring.me/leahandmorgan! They will be answered by Leah Finkelman ’13, Features Editor and Morgan Gross ’14, Impressions Editor. We’re so excited to hear your questions!

Features

March 18, 2011

Students fight for rights of illegal students Brandeis Immigration Education Initiative pushes for in-state tuition bill

By Alana Blum Staff

Four Brandeis seniors were attending a Student Immigration Movement (SIM) meeting in Boston, when they heard a young man tell a story that made them question Massachusetts’ sense of social justice. The young man had been in the process of transferring from UMass Dartmouth to UMass Boston, when he was forced to drop out.

He had a 4.0 grade-point-average at UMass Dartmouth, so his grades certainly weren’t the issue. The university discovered that he wasn’t a documented American citizen. He had been brought to the United States when he was only eight years old, and his parents’ visas were denied twice. In line with Massachusetts’s current stance on undocumented students, the university declared that he had to pay out-of-state tuition. He was no longer able to stay in college, and thus this straight “A” student was forced to drop out.

He had attended elementary school, middle school and high school in Massachusetts, but without the proper paper work, he did not qualify for in-state tuition and thus he could no longer afford an education.

This young man’s story is not unique in the United States. Even if a student has spent the majority of his life in a particular state, if he does not have the proper documentation he must pay out-of-state tuition. Some colleges, such as Suffolk University, will deny admission outright to anyone who is an undocumented student.

Desiring to find out more about Brandeis’ policy regarding undocumented students, the four Brandeis seniors at the SIM meeting decided to form the Brandeis Immigration Education Initiative (BIEI), which is currently in the process of being chartered.

Their core mission would be to raise awareness about immigration reform among

Brandeis students and to look into Brandeis’ policies about undocumented immigrant students.

“The mystery on this issue is something we need to explore and clarify. The unwillingness of universities to state their policies on undocumented students highlights how pertinent this issue is,” BIEI member Laura Aguirre ’12 said.

One of the founders of the BIEI, Kayla Cronin ’11, also readily supports student immigration reform. Like the other founders, she holds that undocumented students should be treated like any other student.

“Undocumented students really are American. They’ve grown up here. They’re like the kid that you sit next to in math class,” Cronin ’11 said.

BIEI is therefore a big advocate for Massachusetts’ in-state tuition bill, which has recently been filed. This bill, similar to the recently failed DREAM Act, would allow a student who graduated from a public high

Undocumented students really are American. They’ve grown up here. They’re like the kid that you sit next to in math class.

– Kayla Cronin ’11

school in this state and who lived here for at least three years to qualify for in-state tuition rates at public Massachusetts universities.

Contrary to popular belief, this bill would apply to both undocumented students and American citizens.

As the Massachusetts in-state tuition bill has just been filed, the BIEI stresses that now is the time to act. Molly Schneider ’11, who helped found BIEI, first learned about the Massachusetts in-state tuition bill at a past

event held by Brandeis’ Protestant chaplain, Alex Kern.

“After attending this event and learning more about the struggles that face undocumented individuals in this country, I knew I wanted to become involved,” Schneider said.

The BIEI believes that by raising awareness about this bill among college students, the bill will gain the proper support to be passed.

“Because Boston is such a big student town, students actually have a lot of influence when it comes to voting. Students still live in Massachusetts for four years even if they are not permanent Massachusetts residents, and policy makers want to feel like they are representing their constituents,” Cronin said.

While the in-state tuition bill is BIEI’s main focus right now, the club has other projects and events planned for the future. For example, BIEI is co-sponsoring Harvard Professor Charles Ogletree, who will be speaking at Brandeis on March 22 about race, class and crime in the United States. They also have an open-mic Spoken Words event planned for April 1, titled “Where Do You Come From?”

Performances will revolve around immigration, race, community and identity.

At this point, BIEI simply hopes to engage Brandeis students in the everyday struggles of undocumented students. Through raising awareness, they hope that students such as the young man who was forced to drop out of UMass will soon be able to receive an affordable education. They hope that universities will no longer deny admission to students based on their lack of documentation, and that unequal access to education will become a thing of the past.

“Undocumented students carry more weight on them with all the policies that cast them in the shadows; they are denied many privileges a lot of other students take for granted. The Brandeis community needs to be aware of these issues,” Aguirre said.

signatures for students: Members of BEIE table to get signatures for a petition in favor of the in-state tuition bill.

photo from internet source

March 18, 2011

This Week in History Brandeis

2007

The Student Union launches a train shuttle from Brandeis to Brookline this week.

2010

Students attend a peace vigil following the vandalism of the Muslim Student Association prayer space.

Massachusetts

1794

1845

Westborough, Mass. native Eli Whitney applied for a patent on the revolutionary invention.

John “Johnny Appleseed” Chapman of Leminster, Mass. dies after planting apple saplings everywhere.

United States

1979

The United States House of Representatives begins broadcasting daily business via CSPAN.

2005

After a very public emotional and legal battle, Terry Schiavo’s feeding tube is removed by her doctors.

1969

2003

FEATURES 17

The Brandeis Hoot

World

United States B-52 bombers bomb Cambodia for the first time during the Vietnam War. The invasion of Iraq begins as part of the global War on Terror.

Eat, drink, get dressed up

Purim gives students a chance to show off creativity Purim celebrates the triumph of Esther, a Persian queen, and the Jewish people over Haman, the king’s evil adviser.

According to an e-mail from the Interfaith Chaplaincy, “The story of Esther is filled with small, seemingly coincidental events, all of which link together in a miraculous manner. Hollywood couldn’t have done it better!” Unlike most Jewish stories, God was not a key player in the Megillah, or Scroll of Esther. In remembrance, observers dress up and sometimes hide their faces to remember how God was hidden in the story. Purim is the most festive of Jewish holidays, filled with costumes, noise and treats.

Whether you’re going to the Chabad party or staying in with a few friends, Purim is the perfect time to show off your creativity when it comes to costume ideas. Whether you want to go a little more traditional with a costume from the Purim story or a little more abstract, The Hoot has you covered.

Queen Esther/King Ahasuerus Don a crown and some fancy clothes. Hide your identity or let the wool be pulled over your eyes. If you have a scepter, that would be a plus. For the latter, bring a conniving adviser.

The Green Monster

Wear green and a Red Sox hat.

If possible, grow until you’re 37 feet tall (but that might be asking a lot). Make sure that if anyone is going for a home run, they have to clear you first.

A work of art

Wear a colorful t-shirt and a cardboard cutout of a frame.

Painting your face is a plus, but make sure you’re not using permanent markers. If people don’t get it, get offended and say you’re post-modern.

Bowl of cereal

Wear all white and make a belt out of cereal boxes (the small kind work the best). Don’t drink too much ... milk.

Super easy Facebook

Take a hint from “The Office:” write the word book on your face. Mark Zuckerberg’s sense of humor and hundreds of friends are optional (but at least a few friends might improve the quality of your night).

Any superhero

Wear your underwear on the outside. Leggings or other forms of spandex are preferred, but optional. BYOPB­—bring your own phone booth (for quick changes). BYOS—bring your own sidekick.

By The Hoot Editorial Board

Purim classics Haman

Wear a tri-cornered hat and use eyeliner to make a goatee (or grow one­—hurry!). Keep your name a secret, because if anyone hears it they’ll just try to drown you out.

Boston specific Brandeis

Tape a box of Raisin Bran and some dice to your outfit. Make sure everyone knows you’re not officially Jewish, just Jewish sponsored.

New favorites Ladybug

Wear red and cut some black polka dots from construction paper. If you’re a boy, remind people to stop being sexist— not all ladybugs are girls!

Pirate

Cut an eye patch out of construction paper and wear a bandana. Bend a wire coat hanger to be your hook, but watch out for anyone dressed as Peter Pan.

Mor-de-chai

Dress up as a giant Starbucks cup with the size checkboxes on the side. Above venti, write “morde.” Make sure everyone understands you’re chai, not coffee.

The Red Sox

Wear all one color and then red socks. The jersey of your favorite player is optional.

Hippie

Wear a tie-dye shirt and some Birkenstocks. Guitars are optional, as are drum circles.

Make sure you know the lyrics to Kum Bah Yah and every Peter, Paul and Mary song.

Any animal

Wear the appropriate color leggings and t-shirt and cut ears out of construction paper.

Walk around saying “I’m a ____, duh.”

18 The Brandeis Hoot

SPORTS

March 18, 2011

Brian’s basketball rankings: The Bulls take over the East

By Brian Tabakin Staff

1. Lakers (48-20): Though they lost a close game to the Heat, Kobe stole the headlines with his post-game shooting session in the Heat’s own stadium. It is this type of dedication that will make the Lakers the hardest to out in the playoffs.

2. Bulls (48-18): As the Celtics are fading, putting health beforeh seeding, the Bulls are surging toward the one seed in the East. Michael Jordan has said he sees “many” titles coming from this group and it’s hard to argue with MJ. 3. Celtics (47-18): Even though the Celtics have lost three out of four against horrible teams such as the Clippers, Nets and 76ers, the Celtics proved last season that you can never count them out. After finishing the season barely above .500 going 2727 in the last 54 games last year, the Celtics made a playoff surge to come within four minutes of banner 18.

4. Spurs (54-13): After embarrassing the Heat with a 30-point win a

week ago, the Heat returned the favor with their own 30-point dismantling of the Spurs. With the six and a half game cushion the Spurs have in the West, the Spurs are one of the few teams that can afford to take their foot off the gas down the stretch.

5. Mavericks (47-20): Even though the Mavericks are currently tied with the Lakers for the second seed in the East, there is panic down in Dallas.

The Mavericks have constently been criticized for being “soft,” and this week their own coach echoed the same criticism.

6. Heat (46-21): Since Chris Bosh demanded he get the ball in the low post, the Heat have run off a three game winning-streak with solid wins against the Lakers, Grizzlies and Spurs. However, it’s hard to say that Chris Bosh is the X-factor when this is what he was expected to do as part of the Heat’s Big Three.

7. Thunder (43-23): In his first game since being traded, Kendrick Perkins posted six points and nine rebounds in 20 minutes. Perkins is a solid low-post presence who will make the Thunder a formidable foe in

graphic by steven wong/the hoot

any potential playoff matchup.

8. Nuggets (40-27): How’s this for irony? Since trading Carmelo Anthony to the Knicks, the Nuggets are 8-2.

The Knicks meanwhile are a pedestrian 6-6 since obtaining Melo.

9. Magic (42-26): Gilbert Arenas was supposed to make a resurgence in Orlando. Instead, he has constantly been beaten off the dribble and just looked plain old. Arenas is becoming an albatross on the neck of the Magic rather than the X-factor he was expected to be.

10. Trail Blazers (38-29): Even though the Blazers lost the final two games of their East Coast road trip after wins against the “Super Friends” in Miami and “Superman” in Orlando, the Blazers are debunking the common notion that the West is a top-heavy conference.

11. Grizzlies (37-31): After wins against Dallas and San Antonio, the only place to go was down for the Grizzlies. However, I doubt the Grizzlies expected a total freefall when they were destroyed by the Heat.

12. Hornets (39-30): In his first game back from the scary concussion he suffered against Cleveland, Chris Paul posted 33 points, 15 assists, seven rebounds and five steals. Not a bad outing for someone just back from a concussion.

13. 76ers (34-33): After starting the season 3-13, Doug Collins righted the ship and by doing so vaulted himself in the conversation for Coach of the Year. Only the Bulls at 14-4 have a better record than the 76ers, 13-6, in games played since Feb. 1.

14. Hawks (39-28): Here’s a painful statistic for Hawk fans. With their acquisition of Kirk Heinrich, he becomes their ninth point guard since 2005 when the Hawks opted not to choose Deron Williams or Chris Paul in the draft. Ouch.

15. Knicks (34-32): The Knicks have some explaining to do. After announcing a 45 percent rise in ticket prices for the next NBA season after their acquisition of Carmelo Antho-

ny, the Knicks are going to have to put on a better show than being just a .500 teams.

16. Rockets (34-34): With the Rockets almost certain to miss the playoffs, here is one stat to pin the blame on: the Rockets have nine losses this season after leading in the final three minutes of the game. Takeaway those snafus and the Rockets would be the fifth seed.

17. Suns (33-32): Though the Suns still have an outside shot at making the playoffs, those odds will quickly evaporate if Steve Nash is out much longer with his injury.

18. Warriors (30-37): At the beginning of last week, the Warriors had a slim chance of sneaking into the eighth spot in the West. After a threegame skid with losses to Minnesota, Indiana and New Jersey, those chances are gone.

19. Jazz (35-33): Already downtrodden after their loss of both Coach Jerry Sloan and all-star point guard Deron Williams, Minnesota threw salt in the wound with a 20-point beatdown.

20. Clippers (26-42): If I had told you that Blake Griffin would be held to single digits against the Celtics, you’d probably have asked me by how many points the Clippers lost. Instead the rest of the Clippers stepped up and led the team to an astonishing upset of the Celtics.

21. Bucks (26-40): I’ve never seen an NBA team throw in the towel in the first quarter. Then came Sunday’s Bucks vs. Celtics game. The Bucks scored just nine points in the first quarter en route to a complete dismantling at the hands of the Celtics.

22. Bobcats (28-38): Despite an abysmal -3.5-point differential the Bobcats sit just half a point behind the final playoff spot in the East.

23. Pacers (29-38): If the standings hold, the Pacers will make the playoffs almost seven games under .500.

In the process they might become the worst team to make the playoffs since the ’94-’95 Celtics made the playoffs

with a 35-47 record.

24. Timberwolves (17-51): The only good thing going for Minnesota ended this week with the end of Kevin Love’s 53-game double-double streak.

The only consolation is that the TWolves have no intentions of firing head coach Kurt Rambis, allowing him to absorb the losses while coaching and breeding their young talent.

25. Nets (22-43): The Nets have put together a streak of five wins, their longest streak since the ’03-’04 season. Though a long shot, the Nets sit just six games out of the final playoff spot in the East, and with Indiana, Charlotte and Milwaukee all slumping, the Nets still have a chance­—albeit a small chance­—to make the playoffs.

26. Raptors (18-48): It’s widely known that the Cavaliers started an impressive 7-9 without Lebron James.

Surprisingly less realized is the fact that the Raptors started 8-11 without Chris Bosh before completely crumbling like the Cavs.

27. Pistons (23-44): Rip Hamilton is finally out of John Kuester’s dog house, starting his first game since Dec. 17. However, that start came on the road so it will be interesting to see what kind of reaction he gets if he starts in the next Pistons’ home game.

28. Cavaliers (12-53): The one thing going for the lowly Cavaliers: they would probably beat the Knicks if they met in the playoffs. But the Cavaliers won’t be sniffing the playoffs for years to come.

29. Kings (16-49): The Kings have only 18 games remaining as the Sacramento Kings and only eight of those will be played at home. With the Kings moving to Los Angeles, it’s likely that their name will change too as the Los Angeles Kings (NHL) already have it.

30. Wizards (16-49): Even the abysmal Cavaliers have more road wins than the Wizards. The Wizards have 11 more chances to avoid matching Sacramento’s 1-40 road futility record in the ’90-’91 season.

Judges compete in UAA baseball tournament

By Edwin Gonzalez Special to the Hoot

The Brandeis baseball team has been active in Florida facing several different teams for the past two weeks.

Most recently, the Judges participated in the University Athletic Association (UAA) baseball tournament. Before the tournament, left-handed pitcher, Jesse Link ’13 said, “We are all getting excited for the UAAs tomorrow [March 10] and I think that we have a great mentality as a team going forward. We trained very hard in the off-season. We need to come out of the gates with tons of enthusiasm and play with a lot of pride and, if we do that, which we are completely capable of, we can beat anyone we play on any given day. We have a lot of talent on this team and can be very very successful this year.”

March 10 marked the start of UAA action with the UAA opener. The Brandeis Judges faced Emory University at Historic Sanford Stadium. Going into Thursday’s game, the Judges were on a five-game winning streak, beating every team they faced in Florida. Emory University’s Eagles proved to be more difficult. The Judges made four errors and walked four batters, giving the Eagles a chance to capitalize on mistakes, and eventually win the game 11-3. Thursday’s loss broke the Judges’ five-game winning streak and lowered their season record to 5-4, and 0-1 in the UAA tournament.

The Judges also faced Rochester (NY) in a double-header the same day as Emory. This game lasted 12 innings and saw the Judges soar to a 7-6 nail-biter victory. Judges’ first baseman Eric Rosenburg ’11 scored the game-winning run in the top of the 12th inning. This extended his hitting streak to seven games and won the game for the Judges. The game against the Rochester Yellowjackets improved the Judges record to 1-1 in UAA tournament. The win against Rochester boosted the Judges to a 6-4 record, while Rochester fell to 4-2, and 1-1 in UAA contests.

Last Friday, the Judges faced Washington University in their next UAA tournament game. For the first six innings, the game was tied until the Judges opened the game up with four runs in the top of the seventh. Righthanded pitcher for the Judges, John McGrath ’11, was on the mound and, with the support of the Judges offense, won 5-2 at Sanford Memorial Stadium.

On March 12 the Judges faced Emory University in a rematch game from last Thursday. While the Judges hoped for revenge in the rematch game, the end result was the same.

Emory University won the second duel 12-5. The Judges jumped to an early 5-1 lead but were unable to hold that lead against Emory. The Eagles’ pitching managed to earn 10 strikeouts during this game, which came back to bite the Judges. This loss put

the Judges at 7-5 overall and 2-2 in the UAA tournament, while pushing the Eagles to 11-7, and 3-1 in the UAA tournament.

March 13 saw the Judges face Case Western Reserve University in Sanford, Fla. The Judges could not manage a win, instead creating a twogame losing streak. The Judges lost to Case Western 8-4. By the first two innings, the Judges were already behind by four runs. The Judges could not manage to come back in the only game against Case Western Reserve

University in the UAA tournament.

The fact that there were no extra base hits by the Judges is just one example of how potent the Case Western pitching was on Sunday. After Sunday’s game, the Judges fell to a 7-6 record, and 2-3 in the UAA tournament.

Monday was a big day for the Brandeis Judges. Monday was the last chance for the Judges to break a two-game losing streak and the last game of the UAA tournament. Sadly though, the Judges were unable to break their losing streak with a loss

graphic by steven wong/the hoot

to Washington University. In the ninth inning the Judges scored three runs but it was not enough to win the game, which ended 8-6. With the loss, the Judges wrapped up their time in Florida with a 7-7 record overall and a 2-4 in the UAA tournament, which places the Judges fourth in the UAA. The Judges have since returned to Brandeis. The first home game for the Judges is March 21 hosting Salem State.

March 18, 2011

SPORTS 19

The Brandeis Hoot

UAA standings and over-all records

The lockout: It’s not fiction anymore

By Gordy Stillman Editor

Baseball Team

UAA

All

Emory

5– 1

13 – 7

Case Western

4–2

10 – 5

Washington

3–3

6–8

Brandeis

2–4

7–7

Rochester

1 –5

4–6

Chicago

0–0

0–0

Box Scores Emory

Loss

11 – 3

Rochester

Win

7–6

Washington

Win

5–2

Emory

Loss

12 – 5

Case Western

Loss

8–4

Washington

Loss

8–6

Softball Team

UAA

All

Emory

8– 0

22 – 0

Washington

6–2

11 – 4 – 1

Rochester

3–5

5–5

Brandeis

3–5

4–7

Case Western

0 –8

2– 12

Chicago

0–0

0–0

Box Scores Rochester

Win

9–5

Case Western

Win

9–6

Washington

Loss

8–1

Emory

Loss

12 – 0

Rochester

Loss

8–2

Case Western

Win

9–0

Washington

Loss

10 – 0

Emory

Loss

10 – 2

Men’s tennis

Last Friday the long-running negotiations between the National Football League (NFL) and the former players’ union (NFLPA) over a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), after two short extensions, finally reached its next chapter. Unfortunately, the next chapter is litigation.

In order to avoid a required sixmonth waiting period before filing an anti-trust lawsuit, the NFLPA decertified as a union; and became a trade association before the close of business Friday. By the end of the night Friday, both sides’ stated fears had been realized. The NFL claimed that players wanted to sue: 10 players including Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Drew Brees have filed a class action lawsuit in federal court in Minneapolis, where Judge David S. Doty has had jurisdiction over NFL matters since the early 1990s. The players stated fears that owners would institute a lockout, which was exactly what has happened.

The NFL lockout has a few simple and immediate effects. Players and teams, meaning coaches and other support staff, cannot have any contact with each other. Even players selected in the upcoming draft, in which teams draft the rights to negotiate NFL contracts with new players, are legally barred from any contact with team personnel and are unable to sign contracts. Furthermore, teams have ceased covering players’ health insurance, including for Detriot Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford, who now has to complete his injury rehabilitation outside of the Lions medical team and facilities. Furthermore free agents are trapped in a state of limbo both due to their inability to sign with teams and the uncertainty of what the

UAA

All

Chicago

0–0

4–0

Emory

0–0

13 – 2

Washington

0–0

6–2

Brandeis

0–0

6–4

Rochester

0–0

6–4

Carnegie Mellon

0–0

7–5

Case Western

0 –0

4–5

NYU

0–0

0–3

Box Scores Oneonta State

Win

8–1

@ Middlebury

Loss

8–1

Connecticut College

Win

9–0

Women’s tennis Team

UAA

All

Rochester

0–0

5–0

Chicago

0–0

5–1

Washington

0–0

8–2

Emory

0–0

7–2

Carnegie Mellon

0–0

7–3

Brandeis

0–0

6–3

Case Western

0 –0

5–4

NYU

0–0

0–3

Box Scores @ Middlebury

Win

8–1

Connecticut College

Loss

8–1

graphic by steven wong/the hoot

Perhaps the positive part of this scenario is that the NFL itself is initiating this lockout. Because of this simple fact, the NFL cannot hire replacement players to play out an al-

ternate 2011 season. While I dislike almost everything about the lockout, I cannot help but enjoy the fact that the owners are unable simply to replace the players.

Gordy’s baseball rankings: halfway through spring training

By Gordy Stillman

Team

rights of free agents will be under either the next CBA or lack thereof.

While the next football season doesn’t really start until September, this impasse is still set to pose a significant threat to both the format of the season and the existence of the season itself. The NFL is effectively in a state of business as usual until the NFL draft finishes next month. After the draft, things will start to get interesting.

In regards to the draft, I do not understand why many of the top prospects, or at least the college students who aren’t graduating this spring, are not withdrawing from the draft for the year in order to play another year with the security that the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) does not have the issue of labor negotiations, etc.

The main point of contention, an additional $1 billion on top of the $1 billion already received that the NFL wants from the players before splitting the rest of the revenue. Other issues include the NFL’s proposed rookie salary cap and the owners’ desire to expand the regular season at the expense of the preseason. The NFL has also proposed to put increased emphasis on players’ safety; however, the possibility of adding two more season games would likely increase the chances of injury to players, despite the increased care to avoid injuries.

Editor

We’re halfway through spring training and less than two weeks away from the regular season. Here’s a look at how training is going for all of the teams. These are the records as of the end of the March 16 games.

Grapefruit League (Florida) 1. Atlanta Braves (12-6): The Braves have had a good week. With five wins, including wins against the Red Sox and Yankees, the Braves are holding on to the top spot in the Grapefruit League. Only the Cardinals were able to give them trouble this week, serving the Braves both a loss and a tie.

2. Philadelphia Phillies (13-7): The Phillies are 6-1 in the last week with a doubleheader on Saturday. Having had a break on Wednesday, they should be able to keep up the pace and edge out Atlanta for the top spot.

3. Detroit Tigers (13-9): The Tigers have been very active in the last week, but playing games every day, including a doubleheader on Sunday, may have been too much. The Tigers are 5-3 in their eight-game week and have almost doubled their losses in a single week.

4. St. Louis Cardinals (10-7): The Cardinals have had a messy week and were 3-3 with one tie game. With a strong loss to the Mets, it’s hard to see the Cardinals staying in the top.

5. Minnesota Twins (10-8): The Twins have had a mediocre 4-3 week.

That being said, two of their wins, one of which was against the Yankees, were by seven or more runs.

6. Washington Nationals (10-8): The Nationals have struggled in the

last week to earn a record of 3-5. This does not necessarily represent them fairly, as three of their losses, all three to the Astros, were by one run.

7. Boston Red Sox (11-9): Perhaps the highlight of the last week for Red Sox fans was the close victory against the Yankees on Monday, followed by another nail-biter in extra innings against the Tigers Tuesday night.

8. Baltimore Orioles (8-8): After a 3-4 week ending with a 10-0 loss to the Yankees, the Orioles are starting to look more like their regular season team.

9. Toronto Blue Jays (9-9): The Blue Jays were 5-2 this past week. It should come as no surprise that the Phillies and Tigers, the number two and three teams, were the ones that served Toronto those losses.

10. New York Mets (9-10): The Mets are 4-2 in the last week with multiple wins against Florida and a close loss to the Twins.

11. Tampa Bay Rays (8-9): The Rays have spent the week both winning and losing. That being said, their wins have come against teams such as the Phillies and Red Sox, while their losses were against the Pirates and Blue Jays.

12. Pittsburgh Pirates (8-12): Other than a surprise win against the Rays and a strong victory against the Red Sox, the Pirates have remained stagnant this last week.

13. New York Yankees (7-11): It’s hard for some to believe but the Yankees went 1-6 during the last week.

Wednesday they seemed to get their losses behind them, with a 10-0 victory against the Orioles. Fun fact: the Yankees were originally known as the Baltimore Orioles.

14. Houston Astros (8-14): Houston has had a very busy week, with two doubleheaders leading to a 5-4 record. The five wins shouldn’t be too impressive though; three of them were against the Nationals.

15. Florida Marlins (5-13): As of Wednesday night the Marlins are on a nine-game losing streak. Their closest losses have been against the Nationals, losing by four runs in two games.

Cactus League (Arizona) 1. San Francisco Giants (16-5): With a 6-1 record, the Giants are maintaining a strong hold in the front of the Cactus League.

2. Colorado Rockies (14-6): The Rockies are closing the gap between themselves and the Giants with a 7-1 record. While seven wins should be impressive, all of them have been by two runs or less.

3. Kansas City Royals (12-6): The Royals split the week with a 4-2 record and a tie game. The highlight of their week was a strong victory against the Dodgers on Saturday.

With a score of 19-7, they won by 12 runs on March 12.

4. Seattle Mariners (10-5): The Mariners are 4-1 with a tie game last Friday. If they could have managed two more runs in one game, and only one run in the tied game, they’d have had a perfect 6-0 for the week.

5. Milwaukee Brewers (12-7): The Brewers were also close to a perfect week, going 5-2. Both of their losses were by two runs or less, with one game going into extra innings.

6. Cincinnati Reds (10-8): The Reds went 2-4 in the week with both wins against the Cubs. All pre-season, the Reds have never managed more than

three runs in a game they lost.

7. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (10-10): Last week they were 6-6.

With another split week they are staying consistent with a 4-4 week.

8. Texas Rangers (9-9): With a 2-4 record for the week, excluding a tied game, the Rangers are seriously falling from prominence.

9. San Diego Padres (8-9): Unfortunately for the Padres, they needed better than a 3-3 split week. Two of their three wins were by four runs or more, and all three losses were by three runs or less.

10. Cleveland Indians (7-9): With a 3-2 record for the week, plus a tie, the Indians are at least making progress towards a split record.

11. Chicago Cubs (9-12): With a 5-4 record for the week, the Cubs can be proud with two wins against the Reds and their crosstown rivals, the White Sox. 12. Oakland Athletics (7-12): In the last eight games, the A’s are 2-5.

Hopefully, for Oakland fans, they can break their three game losing streak.

13. Chicago White Sox (6-11): These Sox have remained stagnant in the last week with an unimpressive 3-4 record. Their best game came in the middle of the week, with a 6-1 win against the Dodgers.

14. Los Angeles Dodgers (6-15): The Dodgers finally broke their eightgame losing streak on Tuesday with a 7-6 win against Texas, resulting in a 1-7 record for the week.

15. Arizona Diamondbacks (516): The diamondbacks were 0-7 this week, and extended their final loss last week into an eight-game losing streak.

20 The Brandeis Hoot

hooT SCoops

March 18, 2011

Luck of the Irish Leprechauns, shamrocks and emeralds, oh my!

Like most holidays in the United States, advertisers capitalize on St. Patrick’s Day. A flood of sale e-mails include subjects like “St. Patty’s Day is all about the green—How ’bout we save you some?” and “Save 20% on a Shamrock Sampler!” But what is the significance of St. Patrick’s Day, and how and why do Americans and Brandeisians celebrate it?

Celebrated internationally on March 17 on the anniversary of his death, St. Patrick’s Day commemorates a patron saint of Ireland who is credited with the arrival of Christianity in Ireland. Although it is traditionally a religious feast day marked by church services and fewer Lenten restrictions, it has recently become a more secular holiday marked by green clothing and excessive celebrations. According to Father Walter Cuenin, Brandeis’ Catholic chaplain, St. Patrick’s Day is still a religious holiday in Ireland and many people celebrate mass.

In America today, “a lot of the religious significance is lost,” Cuenin said. It is an excuse to celebrate and wear a lot of green—but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. “Even if one is not Irish, [St. Patrick’s Day] is a day when everyone is Irish, which is a way of acknowledging the influence of the Irish in our country,” he said. However, before partaking in celebrations next year, take a minute to learn about the history of St. Patrick, what he did for Ireland and the symbols associated with the holiday.

Leprechaun

St. Patrick

St. Patrick was born in Scotland in 387 AD. As a teenager, he was captured by Irish raiders and taken with them to be a slave and shepherd in Ireland. While tending sheep, he became more religious, and his love and fear of God grew. After returning to England and reuniting with his family, he dreamt that the Irish were calling to him, their “holy youth,” to come back. He was ordained as a priest and then a bishop, and he returned to Ireland to preach the Gospel. With his followers, he was able to convert thousands and build churches throughout Ireland. Now, along with Brigid of Kildare and Colmcille, he is a patron saint of Ireland.

Some scholars say that Irish fairies were considered gods by the pagans before the arrival of St. Patrick but as Christianity and Catholicism took hold, the fairies shrank in importance. One type of fairy, the leprechaun, was usually depicted as a small, mischievous man dressed in red or green.

According to Irish legend, leprechauns are shoemakers and hide their money in pots of gold at the end of rainbows. There is no clear link between St. Patrick and leprechauns, but as St. Patrick’s Day spread to the rest of the world, symbols of Ireland, including the leprechaun, became associated with the holiday.

Shamrock

Green

St. Patrick supposedly used shamrocks, or three leaf clovers, to explain the concept of the Holy Trinity to the pagan Irish. Each of the three leaves represented the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The three leaves have also been associated with hope, faith and love—on a four leaf clover, the fourth leaf symbolizes luck. One story explains that when St. Patrick chased the snakes out of Ireland, he was standing in a patch of shamrock. The phrase “the wearing of the green” means to wear a shamrock on one’s clothing.

A shamrock also represents Ireland on the coat of arms of Great Britain, along with the English rose and Scottish thistle.

Although blue was the color originally associated with St. Patrick, the color green means many things in terms of the holiday and Irish culture.

It is the color of spring, one of the colors on the Irish flag, and part of Ireland’s nickname, the “Emerald Isle.” Green is also the color of shamrocks, which have an important role in St. Patrick’s conversion of the Irish people.

However, like leprechauns, other than its association with Ireland, green has a mostly arbitrary relationship with St. Patrick’s Day. Many people celebrate St. Patrick’s Day by wearing green­—but watch out for orange, also on the flag, which is seen as a protest against the Catholic Church.

photos from internet source

in boston and at Brandeis St. Patrick is the patron saint of the archdiocese of Boston, and a special Mass, celebrated at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston, was attended by the Cardinal and the Consul General of Ireland, Cuenin said. At Brandeis, the majority of students wearing green were just doing it for fun.

However, for some students, the holiday has a deeper meaning. “I celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, but I’m Irish Catholic so it’s not particularly secular for me,” Jackie Zais ’13 said. “For a really long time I just wore green because everyone did. It wasn’t ’til I was older that I realized the religious significance of the day.”

Hamentaschen, pastries eaten during photo courtesy of barbara kane Purim, are decorated for St. Patrick’s Day.

by: Leah Finkelman Editor