The Brandeis Hoot - Mar 5, 2010

VOL 7, NO. 6

MARCH 5, 2010

B R A N D E I S U N I V E R S I T Y ' S C O M M U N I T Y N E W S PA P E R

WA LT H A M , M A

Profitable program at risk

EXAMINING JUSTICE

Adam Jaffe did not dis2020 committee Sciences pute that “the program generates that exceeds its direct proposed cuts to revenue costs,” he wrote in an e-mail to Hoot that “the overall costs of revenue-positive The the program exceed the revenues.”

Cultural Productions When asked what the overall

BY ARIEL WITTENBERG Editor

PHOTO BY Lien Phung/The Hoot

JUSTICE: Harvard professor Michael Sandel discussed the meaning of Justice in Rapaporte Treasure Hall Monday. (FOR THE FULL ARTICLE SEE PAGE 2)

Despite the Brandeis 2020 Committee’s charge to alleviate the university’s budget crisis, the committee has proposed to indefinitely suspend the revenuepositive Cultural Productions Masters’ program.

The program, which was created in 2006 for the purpose of providing the university with additional revenue, has a gross profit of $100,000 per year for the university’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS), Professor Mark Auslander (ANTH), the program’s director said.

While the Brandeis 2020 Committee’s chair Dean of Arts and

costs were, Jaffe wrote, “I prefer not to share those numbers.”

This secrecy is “dumbfounding” to Auslander, who said, “I’m baffled at what these ‘hidden costs’ could be.” Auslander also said that his knowledge of the program’s revenue comes from conversations with Jaffe himself.

“Up until they wanted to cut our program, the Dean has said we are revenue positive,” Auslander said. “To cut us would be foolhardy.”

While Jaffe wrote in his e-mail that “the ‘direct costs’ do not include the time of any faculty other than the director,” Auslander said the Cultural Productions Program does not employ any faculty other than him.

While other professors teach classes cross-registered with cul-

tural productions, the professors themselves belong to other departments and are not on Cultural Productions’ payroll, Auslander said, adding he only teaches one class per semester that is registered as Cultural Productions.

The proposal to suspend the Cultural Productions program is just one of a list of 18 potential academic cuts announced by the Brandeis 2020 Committee on Feb. 22 to help close the university’s $25 million yearly budget shortfall.

While most proposals suggest the termination of a major or the restructuring of departments, Cultural Productions is one of the few affected programs whose monetary impact on the university is easily calculated because it is an independent entity.

Auslander said the program’s faculty is willing to work with the committee to restructure the department to bring in more revenue, which could easily be done See CUTS, p. 3

Shapiro may need to return Madoff money

BY ARIEL WITTENBERG Editor

The Boston Globe reported Tuesday that a federal judge’s decision in the Bernard Madoff bankruptcy case could force Brandeis donor Carl Shapiro to return a portion of the $1 billion in profit from investments with Madoff. United States Bankruptcy Judge Burton R. Lifland ruled that Madoff ’s victims can only claim the amount they first invested with the Ponzi-scheme’s organizer, minus any funds they withdrew over the years.

The effect on the university were Shapiro forced to return the profits is still unknown.

Shapiro, whose donations have funded the construction of the Shapiro Campus Center and the Carl Shapiro Science Center, has not yet paid all of the $80 million he has committed to the university over his past 50 years of affiliation with Brandeis.

While it is normal for donors to pay out large donations to the university over time, the state of Shaprio’s donation could be at risk due to the recent ruling.

University officials would not

THIS WEEK:

disclose the amount of money Shapiro has yet to pay, calling the information “confidential,” however, Senior Vice President of Communications Andrew Gully wrote in an e-mail to The Hoot that “The Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family Foundation has kept all its commitments to the university and we’re are confident that it will continue to honor its obligations.”

Administrators of the Shapiro Family Foundation referred all requests for comment to the public relations firm Dentraline World Wide, which did not respond to requests to comment by press time.

None of the outstanding donations to the university were made recently. When the Ponzi scheme was uncovered in fall 2008, the Foundation, after learning of Carl Shapiro’s $145 million in losses, announced it would be suspending all donations through 2009.

Brandeis is not the only Boston area non-profit organization which could be affected by the court’s ruling. The Shapiros have also donated to the Museum of Fine Arts and Brigham and Womens Hospital, as well as many organizations near their home in Palm Beach, Fla.

Castle ceiling caves

BY NATHAN KOSKELLA Editor

The ceiling and wall of a Schwartz Hall dorm room on Castle Quad caved in Saturday scattering metal, drywall and concrete. The room’s resident Kiernan Bagge ’12 was not injured by the damage because he spent the night in a different dorm room after being relocated by the Department of Community Living (DCL) for what was assumed to be a routine pipe leak repair.

Bagge called DCL’s response to the incident “completely inadequate,” and questions the safety of Castle living.

Bagge returned Saturday afternoon from the East Quad room DCL had temporarily granted

him only to find his original room in worse shape than the night before. Debris from the cave-in was strewn across the room, including a large piece of sharp metal in the middle of his bed.

“Facilities has told me that not only is the roof structurally unsound, but one of the walls was rotting,” Bagge said.

Bagge immediately contacted DCL for help, wishing to move the rest of his belongings from the Schwartz room permanently.

“A quarter of my bed was wet and all of my dirty clothes,” he said. “On the bulge in the roof, there was yellowish mold growing though the ceiling.”

DCL did not return multiple requests for comment.

Bagge had asked for help from

PHOTO COURTESY Kiernan Bagge/The Hoot

Facilities to help remove his things from the wet and moldy room, which was promised to him, according to e-mails made available to The Hoot. Bagge was also told Academic Services would contact his professors for possible extensions on assignments after the devastation in his room over the weekend.

“Neither of those things happened,” Bagge said, “they told me I was responsible for everything.”

Since the incident, facilities has visited Bagge’s former residence and put plastic tarp around the ceiling and most of the drywall in a trash can.

Bagge also sought assistance seeking medical attention, withSee CASTLE, p. 3

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March 5, 2010

Upcoming Howard Dean visit sparks controversy

BY NATHAN KOSKELLA Editor

Campus and national politics collided this week when the Student Union executive office decided to help pay for Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean’s upcoming visit and angered Brandeis Republicans. The union accepted a request by sponsors of the April 15 event including the university chapter of the Dean-affiliated Democracy for America and Brandeis Democrats.

The decision was met with criticism by the Brandeis Republicans, who attributed the funding of a party official’s visit not only

as partisan but also beyond the scope of the Union’s discretionary funding budget.

“I believe it’s unconstitutional,” Nipun Marwaha ’12, the organization’s president, said. “Under Article VI, Section 1 of the Constitution, the Union may only use its money for specific government purposes.”

The section of the Constitution reads that the money “shall fund affairs and operations of the Union.”

In defending the executive’s actions, Union President Andy Hogan ’11 said that the Union was only covering the costs of necessary security for the event.

“The sponsors had already se-

cured funding [through the regular Finance Board procedure], and the only thing from the Union money, which is split between the Senate and E-board, is going to security,” Hogan said. “We are paying just $100 and as far as I know, it’s going right to [Director of Public Safety] Ed Callahan’s office.”

But which and how much money, Marwaha said, was beside the point.

“The Union fund is not meant to be a second F-board for clubs who did not get enough,” he said.

Marwaha had threatened to sue the Executive Board in the Union Judiciary (UJ) due to the funding decision if the difference in interpretations could not be satis-

fied out of court, but he reconsidered filing a claim before the UJ after meeting with the president.

At the meeting, Hogan agreed to disclose the decision in full to the Union Senate.

Marwaha contended Hogan should apologize in the form of an address to the Senate for apparent conflicts with the founding document, while Hogan said the dispute, since resolved, is a lesson.

“We need to be more diligent.

We, as the E-board, will report all of our funding to the Senate, will be completely transparent,” Hogan said. “I’m working on making the Student Union less antagonistic—based on ‘chargesjudiciary-prosecution’ systems—

and base it on discussion. We’re all adults, capable of finding solutions that work for everyone.”

Campus Democrats argued that bringing Dean to campus is for the benefit of the entire student body, rendering Marwaha’s charges of partisanship mute.

“Everything in terms of speaking fees and attendance and logistics was secured through normal processes, the F-board,” Democrats Vice President Justin Backal-Balik ’10 said. “I think an open event with a Q-and-A and an opportunity to challenge an argument ... is for the whole campus.

[Dean] has a point of view, but so did Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter,” he said.

BADASS team hosts debate tournament

BY LEAH FINKELMAN Staff

The Brandeis Academic Debate and Speech Society (BADASS) held their annual tournament last weekend, hosting more than 20 schools, including Yale, Columbia and the University of Maryland. A pair from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology won overall after competing against more than 60 other teams.

As hosts, BADASS did not compete but instead organized the tournament, lead by coordinators Shira Strauss ’11, Michael Perloff ’12 and Mariel Gruszko ’10. Among other things, the team organized catering and volunteers. They also reserved classrooms for competition, primarily in the North Academic Quad, BADASS Secretary Richard Weisbach ’13 said.

BADASS judged each round with the help of teammates and alumni. The team also arranged housing for more than 100 competitors who stayed in Ziv and Rosenthal quads.

Competitors, many of whom were at the Brandeis tournament for the first time, had positive and neutral things to say about their experience.

“Brandeis was much less behind time than most tournaments … but that isn’t saying much,” said Dan Rosenblum ’12, captain of the Tufts debate team.

Mytheos Holt ’10, the vice president of the Wesleyan debate team, considers himself one of the more experienced members of his team and hopes to continue the upward trend of making his team credible after a downward slump.

“Brandeis’ tournament is generally well run,” he said. “You tend to have a good judging pool, which means you are qualified to make good decisions. Having a big enough team and a big enough commitment means that they don’t just pull people off the street.”

BADASS and the other teams present this weekend are members of the American Parliamentary Debate Association.

BADASS is one of the oldest student organizations on campus and one of the most successful Brandeis competitive teams, ranked ninth in their league, up from tenth last year.

PHOTO BY Lien Phung/The Hoot

Harvard prof. asks ‘What is justice?’

BY JON OSTROWSKY Staff

Harvard professor and Brandeis alumnus Michael Sandel said that intense political debates should encourage, not neglect, the incorporation of moral arguments at an interactive forum with students on Monday evening.

Sandel ’75, a Rhodes Scholar and former Brandeis trustee, engaged the students in Rappaport Treasure Hall by asking complex questions about justice and equality. Sandel’s lecture was based on his new book “Justice: What’s The Right Thing To Do” and his popular course at Harvard called “Justice.”

“What we need, I think, is a public life that engages directly with big moral questions and questions of justice,” Sandel said.

After admitting he struggled with understanding the works of Aristotle in his first year at Brandeis, Sandel said, “When it came to teaching political philosophy, I tried to design a course that would have interested me back when I was a freshman.”

A Professor of Government who teaches political philosophy, Sandel addressed the importance of bringing concepts from political philosophy into major contemporary issues.

“According to Aristotle, justice means giving people what they deserve,” he said.

Referring to debates about same-sex marriage, Sandel said “lurking just beneath the surface are arguments about justice.”

Sandel listened to arguments in support and and against same-sex marriage before commenting that one of the underlying questions is “what virtues and what forms of family union should the community honor and recognize?”

“To decide rights, we have to think through or debate the social practice in question,” Sandel said.

He explained that many political debates are left unresolved because politicians believe they must disregard their moral values when defending policies. The solution, Sandel said, was to address these moral issues of justice.

Admitting that “democratic politics is messy,” Sandel said that we need to have

“a deeper kind of respect [for] the repeating conceptions of the good life.”

In a film clip shown as an introduction to his online Justice course, students praised Sandel for his thought-provoking questions and the discussions and debates he encouraged.

Sandel then discussed the case of Casey Martin, a professional golfer with an injured leg, who was allowed to use a golf cart on the course after the Supreme Court ruled that it did not provide an unfair advantage. Their ruling, rested in large part, on the rights of disabled from the Americans Disabilities Act. “He [Sandel] seems very comfortable and confident in his approach to politics,” Irami Osei-Frimpong, a graduate student in Philosophy said.

Sandel’s talk was co-sponsored by Gen Ed Now, the History of Ideas Program, the Department of Philosophy, the Department of Politics, the Philosophy UDRs and the Office of Communications.

Sandel’s Justice course is available to the public online at www.justiceharvard.org.

March 5, 2010

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NEWS

Proposed cuts include revenue-positive Cultural Productions CUTS (from p. 1)

by admitting more students.

Tuition for the cultural production program is $35,000 per year, and Auslander estimated each student brings in $10,000 in yearly net profit for GSAS. Auslander said he is willing to accept five to eight additional students per year, which would increase the two-year Masters’ program’s net profits by up to $80,000 over the course of one year.

Increasing the number of admitted students to the program would be in step with goals set for the university by the Curriculum and Academic Restructuring Committee last spring which recommended the university cut Ph.D. admissions and increase Masters admissions.

As a result of that recommendation, Fiscal Year 2009 was the first year GSAS contributed positively to the university’s finances, with a combined revenue for graduate schools of $6.6 million.

Jaffe wrote to The Hoot that accepting additional students to the program is unrealistic because “we already accept ev-

3

Sophomore questions safety following castle roof caving CASTLE (from p. 1)

eryone who is qualified. There is no way to increase the number of students in the program without lowering the standards.”

Second year Cultural Productions student Rebecca Lennon said she was dissapointed students were not consulted in the decision.

“We would be willing to do whatever it takes to keep our program,” she said. “They just won’t tell us what that is.”

First year Cultural Productions student Celeste Radosevich agreed, saying the committee’s secrecy made the program’s suspension especially difficult to take.

“This process was fairly opaque,” she said. “It’s difficult not to see this decision as a value judgment if you don’t know the reasons behind it.”

out success.

“I have spent a semester and a half in a room full of mold,” he said.

Bagge said his treatment, or lack thereof, showcased the university’s general reactions to problems between its students.

“I’m disappointed with the fact that … we’re living in substandard housing,” he said. “I have not only not received adequate care, but have had to fight every step of the way to get help.”

Beyond that, Bagge said the instance has a larger meaning relative to the other students living in such housing.

“I feel afraid for my neighbors ... because there is no accountability, and everyone is on their own,” he said.

“I do not think they care about us,” Bagge said. “The university should have a set of priorities, with safety for its students first.”

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March 5, 2010

Seligman wins Mr. Brandeis competition

BY LEAH FINKELMAN Staff

After an hour of thrilling competition at the Mr. Brandeis 2010 pageant, Jonah Seligman ’10 walked away with the title, a crown, a sash and a stuffed Dalmatian. Marc Eder ’11 and Ari Tretin ’12 were first and second runners up, respectively.

The event, hosted by Ari Stein ’11 and Jeff Cornejo ’10, was a fundraiser for Peers Educating about Responsible Choices. The club sold votes for $2, and raised close to $200, Tretin said.

“Thank you for making my dream come true,” Seligman said in his acceptance speech.

“I have nothing else to live for.”

Afterwards, in an interview with The Hoot, he said, “This feeling I have…it’s indescribable. I’ve been wanting this moment for a long time. I’d like to thank my parents and my legion of fans for their support.”

Seligman began his campaign for Mr. Brandeis last August with the Facebook group “Jonah Hussein Seligman for Mr. Brandeis,” which now has 170 members. He beat Eder, Tretin, Jason Henry Simon-Bierenbaum ’11 and Akash Vadalia ’12.

The win was announced after five rounds of competition, including casual wear, talents, beachwear and question and an-

swer and formal wear.

All contestants received cheers and applause for their talents, but Seligman and runner-up Eder were clear crowd favorites. Seligman did a poetry reading of “Crank That,”

by Soulja Boy, while sitting and wearing a bathrobe.

“I’m still speechless,” judge Cornejo said of the reading.

Eder proved his worth by creating a “really good” peanut but-

ter and banana bagel, prompting one audience member to shout, “Look, he peanut-buttered both sides. He has my vote.”

Although he did not win, Tretin, the second runner-up, said he was “honored to even be a part of it.”

“I was the most dashing man out there, and that’s the truth,” Cornejo said, although he made it clear he is proud of Seligman.

PHOTO BY Nafiz “Fizz” R. Ahmed/The Hoot

MR. BRANDEIS: Jonah Seligman ’10 wowed the crowd with his poetry recitation.

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Feminist Gera discusses Israel Women’s Network

BY LEAH FINKELMAN Staff

Ella Gera spoke at Brandeis Wednesday about the state of women in Israel. The event, held at the Women’s Studies Research Center, was sponsored by the Hadassah Brandeis Institute and other groups to commence Women’s History Month.

Gera, an economist and attorney, is considered by many to be the leading advocate for feminism and women’s rights in Israel. She has served as both Deputy Mayor of Kfar Shmaryahu and Executive Director of the Israel Women’s Network (IWN), an Israeli feminist organization. She spoke about several women’s issues in Israel, focusing on everyday topics such as gender distinction in schools, the military and the government.

Last year, Gera served as chair of a committee appointed by Israeli Education Minister Limor Livnat to investigate gender discrimination and stereotyping in Israeli textbooks. Following the study, which showed that more than 90 percent of textbooks didn’t meet committee standards, Gera became more dedicated to fighting discrimination in Israeli schools.

IWN has two primary goals, advocacy and education, Gera said, explaining that the organization sponsors programs for tenth graders, both boys and girls. In the programs, girls are taught skills to help them be heard by their male counterparts and boys are taught that there are different ways of being a man, not just the archetypal “Rambo” militaristic persona embodied by so many Israeli men.

“We teach them that empowering girls is not at their expense,”

Gera said.

Twenty percent of the programs are culturally adapted for students in the Arab sector, but still follow the same general pattern.

IWN hopes teens will carry the skills they learn from these workshops for the rest of their lives, whether that means opposing gender stereotypes in the military, the workplace or the family.

Gera identified the military as a major place where gender discrimination occurs. She pointed out that it is constitutionally illegal, but happens anyway.

“American feminists don’t really need to think about the military, but in Israel, well, we are not that lucky,” she said.

She said that the military is not perfect, but is approaching gender neutrality, which is much better than in the 1940s and 1950s, when women were only fighters

if they were needed.

One woman who attended the event was part of the Israeli Women’s Corps, a women-only branch of the military, disbanded in 2001. She described the Women’s Corps as “a special place for women to strive for, to learn, to grow,” and thinks that men and women training together is a sexist mechanism for men to oversee women. Gera countered her argument, saying that during the institution of the Women’s Corps, women were less likely to rise up the ranks, and are now more likely to rise professionally after leaving the army.

“You can point and say ‘it’s not so bad,’ but we know that these are the exceptions,” Gera said after naming female professional role models, including Tzipi Livni, head of Kadima, the largest political party in Israel, and Galia

Maor, CEO of Bank Leumi, one of Israel’s largest banks.

Although women comprise more than 50 percent of B.A., Masters and Doctorate students, there is a lack of women in the Israeli professional world. Only 20 percent of the Knesset, or Parliament, is female. That number is similar to the 17 percent of American Congress that is female, but ranks far behind most European countries.

Gera spoke highly of the advocacy efforts of the Israeli Women’s Network and their attempts to change what they still see as problems for women in Israel.

Referring to their small size (a 9-person mostly part-time staff and a network of volunteers) she said they have a “disproportionate effect,” and are proof that “a small but focused NGO can make a difference.”

‘Food, Inc.’ director condemns food industry

BY BECCA CARDEN Staff

Director of the documentary “Food, Inc.” Robert Kenner visited Brandeis on Sunday to talk about his film, which he described as just one piece of a much larger crusade against the food industry.

This crusade began when people began to realize the health problems posed by fast food chains, as illustrated by documentaries like Morgan Spurlock’s documentary “Super Size Me,” Kenner explained.

However, Kenner said the problem of unhealthy food options has extended beyond McDonalds making it difficult for healthy eaters to find suitable food.

“There seems to be this incredible, growing movement that ‘Food, Inc.’ played into,” he said, “It’s all happening really quickly and it’s very exponential.”

“Food, Inc.” covers the pitfalls of modern farming, including the industry’s mistreatment of workers and animals, the widespread use of genetically modified crops, especially corn and soy, and the unsanitary conditions on many farms that lead to e-coli and salmonella outbreaks.

The film also demonstrated the negative effects these issues have on consumers like health problems such as diabetes and obesity, and the obscene strength of large food corporations in the American government.

“Ultimately, it’s the story of how this low-cost food we’ve created is coming to us at a very high cost,” Kenner said, emphasizing how even though some foods may have small price tags, they actually carry hidden expenses.

Kenner cited animal cruelty as an example.

Genetically modified to grow bigger, faster and with more white meat, chickens, are often kept in very cramped, windowless houses.

“Today chicken is very cheap to produce. But as you see in the film, it’s become a different creature,” said Kenner.

It's not just the animals who suffer, Kenner said. Workers in animal plants tend to have meager wages and dangerous assembly line jobs. As unskilled laborers, they are easily replaceable and are often illegal immigrants who feel powerless to complain about their working conditions.

“In my mind, we’re treating our workers as bad as the animals,” Kenner said.

Kenner played a clip from his interview with Joel Salatin, an organic farmer featured in the film, to emphasize this point.

Salation explained that it is necessary to treat farm animals well because “honoring and respecting the pigness of the pig” is the foundation for treating all creatures humanely.

It’s not surprising, Kenner explained, that an industry in which animal abuse is so prominent also abuses its human laborers.

He also stressed the negative effect modern farming has on consumers, citing the fact that commercial foods highly concentrated in fat, sugar and salt are responsible for the extreme rise of obesity and early onset diabetes in the United States.

In addition, Kenner said, the right to eat healthy food has become a privilege of the upper class because it is very expensive.

Kenner also pointed to “food deserts,” places with no grocery stores, as contributing to poor American eating habits.

“There is not one supermarket in the city of Detroit,” only convenience stores, Kenner said,

to illustrate his point.

“We’ve created a totally unsustainable system that’s bad for the earth, bad for the workers, but it’s also bad for the consumers,” he said.

He also said very strict libel laws, which make it difficult to speak out against food companies, contribute to the growing power of the food industry.

“This is a film about more than food. It’s about our rights. And it’s about social justice,” said Kenner.

Despite it all, Kenner’s lecture ended on a hopeful note.

He explained that consumers have the ability to improve the way the food industry works.

For example, Wa l - M a r t , which was featured in the film, stopped selling milk with the growth hormone rBST, as a direct response to consumer demand for safer milk.

Kenner’s speech was directed to educate Brandeis students, but many students are already at the forefront of this movement.

A group of clubs, is leading campus participation in the Real Food 2020 campaign.

“The point of this is to have 20

PHOTO From internet source/The Hoot

percent of the food [at Brandeis] to come from local sources by 2020,” said Emilie Schuler ’11, who is helping to organize this operation. “We have so much power, because we are the consumers here,” she added.

Kenner is all for this movement. “As we begin to realize the consequences [of this industry’s actions], we will really try

to get out there and change it,” Kenner said at the end of the lecture, “And it’s going to be from people like you.”

Kenner was brought to Brandeis by Students for Environmental Action, in conjunction with Students for Natural Living, Students for a Democratic Society and the Brandeis Democrats.

FEATURES

6 The Brandeis Hoot

Students react to data now available online

March 5, 2010

Meal or points?

BY ALEX SCHNEIDER Editor

Last semester, Adrienne Karlovsky ’12 ran out of points. Over the semester, she would stock up on various snacks while still paying for meals with points; as Karlovsky explains it, “I was trying to double up.”

By the end of the semester, her combo meal plan point allowance of 525 was gone.

On Feb. 21, Josh Goldman ’11 was charged a penny to his All Points declining balance meal plan. According to Goldman, he had instructed the cashier at Sherman that he wanted to pay in points, but the cashier instead swiped the card as a meal.

The penny was deducted because of the mistake.

Similarly, Nora Mitnick ’12 and Amanda Feldman '11 were also incorrectly charged a penny at Sherman. Both were unaware such a charge had been made.

Last week, Ben Henig ’12 visited the Upstairs Café for the first time, bought a sandwich and a drink, and asked to pay with a meal. Later, though, he realized his points balance had fallen by almost 10. Instead of charging him a meal, the register had deducted points.

Everyday, students at Brandeis who use meals, points, dining dollars or WhoCash hand their campus ID–or WhoCard–to cashiers to pay for items such as food or books, or services such as library printing

PHOTO BY Max Shay/The Hoot

or dorm laundry. Every swipe of the card represents value deducted from funds already paid to Brandeis in the form of fees or, as is the case with dining dollars and WhoCash, discretionary money deposited for convenience into an account.

Tracking usage of this money has typically been difficult. Until recently, WhoCard usage data was only available if a student requested information from administrators

in the Campus Card Office.

Now, the data is available through netcardmanager.com, a Web site hosted by the Ithaca, N.Y., company CBORD Group, which provides Brandeis with its magnetic stripe card equipment. Students can access the site–which is currently riddled with error messages–with their single sign-on UNET ID at https://sys.brandeis.edu/offsitesso/cbord.

Faulty Charges None of the students listed above brought the extraneous charges to the attention of the Campus Card Office. Campus Card Office Director Muriel Bolio said “very few” students visit the office to lodge any official complaints regarding their campus card usage. “I’ve had students question See WHOCARD, p. 7

Points spending Nora Mitnick

Percent of points spent at various dining locations during 2009-2010 academic year

Josh Goldman

Percent of points spent at various dining locations during 2010 INFOGRAPHICS BY Alex Schneider/The Hoot

March 5, 2010

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FEATURES

7

Points, Whocash usage now transparent WHOCARD (from p. 6)

[their balance],” she said, but the number of corrections she has seen made amount to “three or four” cases since the beginning of the year. Most changes involve library copiers that incorrectly charged students.

Bolio did note that students may also consult dining hall managers or cashiers for refunds.

Still, students like Henig never thought to complain until shown the online data.

Henig thought he had been charged incorrectly, but the online data confirmed his case. He says he still will not ask for a refund, but that now that the data is online, “I’d be more likely to complain [in the future] because I have proof.”

Percent of spending at Einstein's

Percent of each student's total spending of points at Einstein Bros. Bagels Resident of the Village Resident of East Quad Resident of the Village

Student Trends Nora Mitnick ’12 claims to “live in the [Shapiro] theater.” A carpenter for the Undergraduate Theatre Collective, Mitnick often finds herself working long hours in the Shapiro Campus Center. Sometimes, fellow theater crewmembers order take out from various eateries in Waltham and treat the rest of the theater crew.

At other times, Mitnick reciprocates by treating her friends to food from Einstein Bros. Bagels.

As opposed to the spring 2009 semester when she ate at Einstein’s only 5 times spending 11.90 in points, since August, Mitnick has visited Einstein’s 79 times, spending a total of 345 points. The difference? Now, according to Mitnick, with classes in the Shapiro Science Center, multiple late nights working in the Shapiro Campus Center, and the All Points plan, Einstein’s makes more sense.

Feldman returned from study abroad last semester and now lives in the Village. She prefers the Village meal plan to her former All Points plan, though she wishes it could have more points and cost much less money.

“Since I cook around three nights a week in the Village, and also have leftovers a couple of nights a week, I do not need all of the meals/points on the Village meal plan," Feldman said.

Feldman added that she and her friends “prefer the freshness, quality and variety of home cooking to most things offered in any of the dining halls.”

With All Points, Feldman used to eat at the Faculty Club or Stein for “variety,” spending nearly 19 percent of her points there last year. Now that she does not have as many points, she used points at the faculty club only once.

Feldman, Mitnick and Tommy Arnot ’11, all have spent most points at the P.O.D. market.

Arnot spent 51 percent of his Combo meal plan points at the P.O.D. since January 2009, making 93 visits to the store in total.

Similarly, Mitnick spent 87 percent of points at the P.O.D. when she was on the combo meal plan last year. Now on the All Points plan, she spends 38 percent at the P.O.D., still more than at any other location. Feldman spent 36 percent of points at the P.O.D. when she was on the Combo meal plan, but now on the Village plan, she only spends 9 percent at the P.O.D., reserving most of her spending – 30 percent – for Einstein’s “[Einstein's] is close and convenient to grab something on the go,” Mitnick explained.

Goldman spent the most points–36 percent–at Einstein’s as well with his All Points plan.

“I live in Ziv, have all of my classes in Slosberg, [the International Business School]

Resident of Ziv Quad Resident of Cable Hall

Percent of spending at the P.O.D. market

Percent of each student's total spending of points at Einstein Bros. Bagels Resident of the Village Resident of East Quad Resident of the Village Resident of Ziv Quad Resident of Cable Hall and Spingold, and none of my friends live farther than Rosenthal,” he said. “Einstein’s is the best place for me to get reasonable quality food for points conveniently.”

Students surveyed overwhelmingly used WhoCash for laundry rather than food.

Arnot and Goldman never used WhoCash, Mitnick used it exclusively for laundry, and Feldman spent 54 percent of $48 total of WhoCash on laundry, reserving the rest for small expenses, the largest of which was a one-time visit to Sherman.

Even Teresa Hashiguchi ’13 – who is on the 14 Meal plan, has spent a total 84 cents of WhoCash on food as compared with $22 in laundry since the beginning of the academic year.

Costly Meal Plans According to a survey by the College Board, fees for room and board have risen for private, not-for-profit four-year colleges such as Brandeis by $377 since the last school year, a change of 4.2 percent. Accounting for such changes, the current average cost for room and board is $9,363. At Brandeis, a student living in a double and buying the Combo meal plan is charged $11,016.

Dining plan money then sits in an account until students choose to use the money. At the end of the academic year, all unused funds are lost, except WhoCash, which carries over from year to year and

can be withdrawn at the end of a student’s time at Brandeis.

The new online system for checking balances enables students to plan ahead and budget their spending, so that they make full use of the money they have already paid.

As Karlovsky pointed out, she would sometimes ask for her account balance at the checkout line, but the value often sounded meaningless to her. A running tally of her points usage, she said, would have helped her budget her points so she would not run out too early.

“Yes. That would really help me,” she said.

"Its always easier to [use] a running balance to think ahead.”

Check your own dining balance by following these five easy steps: 1 - Visit https://sys.brandeis.edu/offsitesso/cbord.

2 - Sign in with your UNET ID. 3 - Click on the words “Whocash” or the name of your meal plan (if you have one).

4 - The next page is titled “Spending History.” Select the date range from the drop down menus. For the account, select “All Plans.”

(If you do not select “All Plans,” your data may not appear.)

5 - Click okay.

8 The Brandeis Hoot

SPORTS

March 5, 2010

Track and field faces challenging opponents at Open New England Championships

BY ADAM HUGHES Staff

The men’s and women’s indoor track and field teams competed last weekend in the Open New England Championships, each managing to score points in the prestigious meet.

Held this year at Boston University, the meet features athletes from colleges all over New England competing head-to-head regardless of their NCAA division. Qualifying to compete is difficult in and of itself, but Brandeis had seven athletes representing the school in the two day competition.

“We were definitely the little fish,” Suzanne Bernier ’10 told The Hoot. “We were competing against schools like UConn and BU.” Only one Judge was in action on the opening day, Friday, Feb. 26. Paul Norton ’11 had the Judges’ best finish of the meet, taking sixth place in the 5000-meter run with a time of 14:49.56. The high placing earned the Brandeis men three points and earned Norton All-

New England honors.

Bernier got the Judges off to a quick start on Saturday.

Competing in the high jump, an event in which she holds the all-time Brandeis record, Bernier leaped 1.65 meters and tied for fifth.

She eventually finished seventh after the tie-breaker, which considers the number of jumps, was applied; this was still the highest position for a Division III athlete in the event. Brandeis received two points for the finish, and Bernier was also named All-New England.

Unfortunately, those were the last points that either the men or the women would register. Each team had two runners in the 1-mile run, but not one was able to break into the top ten.

Alex Kramer ’13 clocked a time of 4:17.79, only good enough for 18th place; his teammate Marc Boutin ’12 finished 23rd with 4:20.85.

The women fared slightly better. Beth Pisarik ‘10 had a personal-best time of 5:00.11, which earned her 12th place and moved her into the top

PHOTO BY Leah Lefkowitz/The Hoot

15 in Division III in the mile.

Marie Lemay ‘11 was just 4.09 seconds and three positions behind her.

Lucia Capano ‘11 finished the meet for the Judges by recording a mark of 10.53 meters in the triple jump, leaving her in the 20th position.

“Those who went really held their own,” Bernier said, “and did well despite the ob-

vious advantages that the bigger schools have, with personal trainers and what not.” Brandeis left the Open New England Championships ranked 30th out of 34 schools on the women’s side and 32nd out of 34 for the men.

Their seasons continues today and tomorrow in the UAA Championships and next weekend in Greencastle, In-

diana, where all qualifying athletes will take part in the NCAA Championships.

“We are definitely looking forward to the meet this weekend. UAAs is what we train the whole season for,” Bernier explained. “Also to have it on our home turf is wicked exciting.

We only get one home meet a year usually and home turf is definitely an advantage.”

Men’s basketball ’10 earns 80th victory, NCAA berth and UAA honors

BY JON OSTROWSKY Staff

Over the past week, Terrell Hollins ’10 and classmate Kenny Small have shown that the best of their team’s season is yet to come.

After the senior class scored their 80th victory last Saturday, beating UAA rival NYU 69-62, they earned a berth in the NCAA Division III tournament on Monday.

The Judges, who finished their regular season with a 19-6 record, will compete against St. Lawrence (16-11) in Rochester, NY at 6 p.m. this evening.

On Wednesday, Hollins and Small were named 2010 Men’s Basketball All-UAA First team selections. Tyrone Hughes ’12 and Andre Roberson ’10 were also named All-UAA honorable mentions.

Hollins averaged 13.6 points per game in the regular season and was ranked 33rd in the country for rebounds in Division III play with 9.9 per game, according to the Brandeis Web site. He is also only the third player in Brandeis history with 1,000 points, 500 rebounds and 200 assists.

“He [Hollins] is one of the

best rebounders I’ve ever seen in traffic,” head coach Brian Meehan said in an interview with The Hoot. “He has a knack for just coming out of the crowd with the ball, and that’s something you can’t teach.”

Assistant Coach Eric McKoy explained that all of the seniors have made great contributions to the team and the university over the past four years. “They did different parts to make themselves better and make the team better,” McKoy said.

“They’re guys that are going to be missed not only here on the basketball court but also in the community of Brandeis,” McKoy said.

Speaking about Roberson, Meehan called him a “pure point guard,” and said that “he’s just a smart, smart player who always tends to make the big play.”

Both McKoy and Meehan said that they are ready for a tough weekend of competition in Rochester. If the Judges win against St. Lawrence tonight, they will face the winner of St. John Fisher and Brooklyn on Saturday at 7 p.m. Both St. John Fisher and Brooklyn have posted 22 wins in the regular season.

“It’s going to be a tough weekend. [We’ve] just got to play a complete game for 40 minutes. [We] can’t have lapses in the tournament,” McKoy said.

Vytas Kriskus ’12 said that he thinks it is crucial that his team “can start out really strong and keep that intensity for the rest of the game.”

The Judges will look to build on their strong second-half run against NYU last weekend where Meehan said that, “NYU did a really good job of controlling the tempo.” He said he was very pleased with his team’s ability to adjust at halftime, and be more patient on defense in order to deal with the fast pace.

“That’s a sign of a good team that can adjust at the half,” Meehan said. He added that although St. Lawrence is a team that plays aggressively on offense, the Judges will be ready to play strong defense.

“We try to spend the whole season getting better at the way we play,” Meehan said.

The Judges play tonight at St. John Fisher College on Bobby Wanzer Court at 6 p.m.

“We’d like to get closer to home, so all the fans can come out and see us [play],” Meehan

PHOTO BY Napoleon Lherson/The Hoot

WOOSH: Brandeis senior Kenny Small (No. 25, right) shoots under pressure against NYU during Brandeis’ home season finalé.

March 5, 2010

The Brandeis Hoot

SPORTS

9

After last big win, hoops seniors reflect, reminisce on four years at Brandeis

BY KARA KARTER Staff

Entering Saturday’s regular season finale against New York University (14-12, 5-9), the Brandeis women’s basketball team needed a win–and lots of help–to qualify for the NCAA Division III tournament. They got the win, but did not make the tournament. Still, with the largest home crowd of the season on hand, the Judges ended the year strong, routing NYU 95-60. Brandeis finished the season on a three-game winning streak, at 16-8 (9-5 in conference play.)

Though the odds were stacked against the Judges, the atmosphere in Red Auerbach Arena this Senior Day was electric. In front of more than 400 friends, family and fans, the team’s senior class of 2010–Carmela Breslin, Jessica Chapin, Kasey Gieschen, Lauren Rashford, and Manager Talisa Torres–was honored at center circle.

These pregame festivities would set the tone for the rest of the afternoon, making the seniors’ last game a can’t-miss event.

“I could not have imagined a better way to leave than with an impressive win,” Torres told The Hoot.

Team captain Chapin started the scoring, hitting a threepointer just 25 seconds into the game. For the majority of the first half, the Judges couldn’t miss, converting 16 of their first 20 field goal attempts in the period.

Leading the charge was Chapin, who had a remarkable first half, shooting a perfect 6-of-6 from the floor, with three triples and a free throw. Overall, the Judges shot 17 of 24–an impressive 70.8 percent–before the break. They entered intermission having doubled-up the Violets, 47-23. The credit goes not only to the Judges’ offensive out-

burst, but also to their defensive fortitude, holding NYU to 23.3 percent shooting before the half.

The party continued in the second. Like fellow senior Chapin, Gieschen started the session with a three, putting the Judges up 27 at 50-23.

Eight of the next ten points would be scored by the Violets, but Brandeis’ lead was insurmountable. The exclamation point–a Gieschen jumper with 4:25 to play–gave Brandeis its largest lead of the game, 85-50.

The seniors left the floor oneby-one, each to a standing ovation.

Chapin finished with 20 points and 10 rebounds to register her fourth double-double of the season and the eighth of her career. She also led the team with 8 assists.

Forward Shannon Hassan ’12 scored a career-high 19 points, and Rashford and Morgan Kendrew ’12 achieved double figures, scoring 13 and 11 points, respectively. Amber Strodthoff ’11 paced the Judges with a game high 11 rebounds.

As the final buzzer marked not only the conclusion of the game, but of their Brandeis basketball careers, the seniors were left to reflect.

“Basketball has one of the longest seasons, and me and my teammates were literally together almost all day, everyday” explained Breslin. “Really, the sense of family and friendship Coach [Carol] Simon is able to cultivate is fantastic, and I wouldn’t trade playing and establishing the friendships I did here for anything.”

Chapin agreed, recounting “I have so many memories to take away from this experience, but I am most grateful for the relationships I have made with my teammates; the experience would have never been so great without them.”

Spending so much time together, the Judges shared count-

less memorable moments both on and off the court.

“It’s hard to pick just one moment” said Torres. “I have been with this team since the beginning of my freshman year and have grown to love and admire everyone as friends.”

“I will really miss things like playing catch phrase against the boys, Kasey [Gieschen] and [Lauren] Goyette ’09 almost setting Grad on fire with their lasagna, or Steve DeLuca ’09 serenading us with Mariah Carey through the wall,” recalled Breslin.

By building and sharing memories, from making the Elite Eight, to playing in front of hometown fans in Rochester (which “pretty much helped put us in the tournament,” notes Chapin), to Senior Day, the Brandeis basketball team became a family. And like the families that changed when these girls first left for college, it’s time for these family members to go their separate ways.

“The first time I took the court I was full of excitement. Leaving for the last time was bittersweet but I knew it was time for my basketball career to end,” explains Chapin.

Chapin ends her career having totaled 1,280 points–sixth highest in school history–262 assists (sixth), 243 steals (third), and 521 rebounds (eighth).

She holds Brandeis records with 167 career three-pointers and 36 points in a game, the latter achieved in a victory over Carnegie Mellon last month. She is a five-time University Athletic Association player of the week and two-time UAA first-teamer. This week, she was named the UAA’s 2010 Player of the Year.

“This team worked hard and enjoyed to be with each other” summarized Torres. “The team is probably one of the things I will miss most about my time at Brandeis.”

To the Girls of 2010: Congratulations and thank you. The feelings are mutual.

PHOTO BY Ingrid Schulte/The Hoot

PHOTO BY Max Shay/The Hoot

ON GUARD: (ABOVE) Brandeis senior Kasey Gieschen (No. 53, center), drives to the basket against NYU during Brandeis’ home season finalé. (BELOW) -Brandeis senior Jess Chapin (No. 23, 2nd from left) defends against NYU during Brandeis’ home season finalé.

Swimming and diving set three school records

BY ADAM HUGHES Staff

There was something special in the water for the Brandeis swimming and diving teams during last Sunday’s Eastern College Athletic Conference Open Championships. The Judges took the pressure of competing against the top schools on the East Coast and turned it into three new school records, leading the teams to top finishes among competing Division III schools.

Marc Eder ’12 had the highlight performances for the men’s team. In the 200-yard breaststroke, he managed a fifth-place

finish, swimming a very strong 2:05.57; this would be Brandeis’ highest placing of the meet. He also qualified for the consolation final in the 100-yard breaststroke, where his time of 58.78 left him in 14th place overall after a very tight race.

Eder also had a chance to prove himself a strong team player. He joined Daniel Danon ’13, Aaron Bennett ’11 and James Liu ’10 for the 400-yard medley relay, and their preliminary round time of 3:31.77 broke a Brandeis record that had stood since 2005 by .77 of a second. Unfortunately, the team was disqualified in the final round, preventing them from placing and earning

points.

Among the other strong performances for the men were Liu’s 19th place finish in the 100-yard butterfly and 17th place in the 100-yard freestyle, Danon’s 20th place finish in the 100-yard butterfly and 17th place in the 100yard backstroke, and Bennett’s 17th place finish in the 200-yard butterfly.

Bennett’s race was particularly notable for his time of 1:54.63, which broke the school record of 1:55.37 that he set last year.

The diving of Dana Simms ’11 set the pace for the women, as she scored points for the team in both diving events.

In the one-meter dive, her score

of 169.80 left her in tenth place, just outside of the eight-diver final round.

She followed that with a 133.55 in the three-meter dive, placing her twelfth.

Angela Chui ’12 was almost as successful in the races, earning solid finishes amidst crowed fields. Her first individual event was the 200-yard individual medley, and she finished 14th with a 2:11.52. She earned the same position in the 400-yard IM, clocking 4:37.70.

Hollis Viray ’10 snagged the third school record by swimming the 200-yard breaststroke in 2:24.28, more than two seconds faster than her previous

record time from 2009; this left her in 11th place overall. She also took 17th in the 400-yard breaststroke.

These three record times mean that a total of 19 Brandeis records have been set in 2009 and 2010, a testament to the recent strength of both the men’s and women’s teams.

Final results from the ECAC Championships showed the men with 43 points, good for 16th in the meet, and the women with 30 points, putting them in 19th.

The Judges will be swimming only one more time this season, during the NCAA Championships from March 18th through the 21st.

ARTS, etc.

10 The Brandeis Hoot

March 5, 2010

VOCAL 2010 brings emotional relief Slam poets give powerful performances

BY KAYLA DOS SANTOS Editor

VOCAL, a club combining poetry and activism, hosted their annual 2010 poetry slam concert, which featured performers that exemplified the visceral nature of the spoken word. Each poet fueled their work with a reservoir of feeling, moving the audience with lyrical phrases, metaphors and beats. By the end of the evening, left shaky and exhilarated, the crowd and I learned what it meant to be slammed by poetry.

Those unfamiliar with slam poetry must have been shocked at what they encountered on Sunday night. Audience members danced to the hip-hop reverberating from DJ Esquire’s speakers as they cheered and applauded the entrance of the opening act.

Host Jamele Adams encouraged the crowd to be “extremely disruptive to the people studying outside” the Shapiro Campus Center theater.

The beginning of the night let the uninitiated know that they were not about to witness laidback coffeehouse performances, but instead acts with the kind of energy you would expect at a rock concert.

The theme of the night was “Relieve,” as all the money raised was for the financial relief of Empowering Through Education (ETE), a summer camp in Hinche, Haiti.

Set-up by Shaina Gilbert ’10, the camp’s mission is to teach and motivate the youth who will be the future of Haiti.

Throughout the evening, however, the attendees experienced a different kind of relief, an emotional one.

For me, the most memorable poems were the ones that clearly stemmed from deeply painful experiences or emotions and provided the poets—and through them, the audience—a way to lay down, for a moment, whatever has been burdening them.

In his poem “Imagine,” multiple national poetry finalist Oveous Maximus discussed his brother’s suicide. One line that was sear-

ing was his description of going through his brother’s clothes after his death, which he compared to “picking cotton in a field until you felt you were a slave to your own guilt.”

The moment in which he expressed how his brother, who provided the motivation for him to become a slam poet, was “a kid whose screams in his lifetime were never loud enough,” was also poignant.

However, slam poetry isn’t just about words and language, but about the performance. “Imagine” was so gut-wrenching because Maximus’ voice, facial expressions and gestures, communicated his anger, loss and sorrow.

Another equally powerful poem was by VOCAL poetry slam team member Sara Kass Levy ’12 who used war imagery to describe an act of sexual violence. “You wanted a body, I gave you a corpse,” she said. While she spoke, she traced invisible wounds on her arm.

Not every minute of the show was filled with such heavy emotions, though; there were welcome interludes of comedy. Longtime slam poet veteran Regie Cabico had a style akin to a stand-up comedian’s delivery.

During his Tina Turner impression and his hysterical short poem “Night of the living sex toy,” I could barely breathe from laughing so hard.

Cabico was adept at switching between humorous and serious moods. While one minute I chuckled at one of his clever jokes, the next I felt like I was sucker-punched by a particularly sad image. In his poem about growing up in a Filipino family, he described how his mother wanted him to “be like Oprah, Regie,” pronouncing Oprah as if the name had an ‘h’ in front of it. What was at first funny quickly transformed into something devastating as he spoke about his reaction to his mother’s construction of a shrine of all his trophies and awards. “I’m not your Oprah,” he said, Oprah becoming synonymous with the word “hope.” “I’m not the patron saint of your immigrant dreams,”

PHOTO BY Nafiz “Fizz” R. Ahmed/The Hoot

POETRY SLAM: Jamele Adams, associate dean of Student Life, hosted Vocal’s poetry slam, infusing the event with energy and charisma.

he continued. the poem with, “This poem was supposed Many of the acts throughout the evening to start with zero … the heart is a number explored the topic of relationships and the shape of a fist.” love. Brandeis alum Simone Beaubien perSome poems that were effective, but did formed a clever piece that used the strucSee SLAM, p. 13 ture of the Fibonacci sequence. She ended

NBC makes bad call with ‘Marriage Ref ’

PHOTO FROM Internet Source

BY SRI KUEHNLENZ Editor

There are many things on which I would defer to Jerry Seinfeld. Comedy and how to make millions, for example, are things on which Seinfeld has an authority. Marriage advice, however, is not one of them.

Unfortunately, NBC disagrees and this week premiered “The Marriage Ref,” a show in which a star-studded celebrity panel (which includes Seinfeld) issues rulings on trivial marital disputes.

Despite the channel’s best efforts, all the star-power in the world may not be able to save the Seinfeld-produced show.

Though the show’s concept is interesting, the execution falls flat. The preview episode, which debuted after the closing ceremony of the Vancouver Olympics, reveals the show is no more than a poorly executed mix of elements from past successful TV shows: celebrities, quirky dilemmas and some humor.

The first episode features Jerry Seinfeld, Kelly Ripa and Alec Baldwin on the celebrity panel. The celebrity panel aspect of it is an intriguing draw, but the odd selection of celebrities (who do not have any chemistry with each other) leads to some awkward pauses and multiple one-liners that fall flat with no partner to back them up. The celebrities seem to realize they are only figureheads on the panel and focus more on fulfilling the stereotype of their celebrity persona than actually providing a unique and entertaining insight.

Serving as the actual “Marriage Ref ” is Tom Papa, a stand-up comedian who has had a couple of bit roles in film and television here and there. Papa has trouble coping with the fact that he is no longer the funniest guy in the room. He ineptly inserts jokes that run on too long and disrupt the flow of the show. If he’s to succeed as a TV show host, he has to learn how to pull off

the zippy one-liners needed to transition between segments and to stay quiet for the rest.

The most interesting part of the show is the actual disputing couples who amuse viewers with their zany arguments. Kevin and Danielle are the first couple to be judged regarding their dispute over whether Kevin should be able to erect a shrine to his dead dog, the Fonz, complete with the Fonz’s stuffed body. After some witty banter between the panel and Tom’s contention that the dog will just end up in the “attic of broken dreams,” a collection of Kevin’s failed endeavors, Tom rules in favor of Danielle.

The execution of Tom’s judgment seems to be a broken dream in itself, as he communicates his ruling via videoconference, giving an anticlimactic end to the debate.

Even though the show covers another couple’s dispute as well, the viewer can’t help but be bored with the generic witticisms about marriage and marital compromise that populate the show. Hopefully NBC doesn’t plan on applying the “’til death do us part” clause to “The Marriage Ref.” “The Marriage Ref ” airs Thursday nights at 10 p.m. EST.

March 5, 2010

The Brandeis Hoot

ARTS, ETC.

11

Once was ‘Lost’ but now am (hopefully) found

BY SEAN FABERY Editor

No television show in the past decade has captured the American imagination quite in the same way as ABC’s “Lost,” the enigmatic program that recently embarked on its sixth and final season. With its seemingly infinite meanings, the show now has a finite space—ten episodes—in which it must bring the divergent threads of its sprawling mythology together.

This season began by exploring the aftershocks of last season’s finale, in which Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox), the de facto leader of the survivors of Oceanic flight 815, set off a nuclear explosion on the island in the hopes of changing the very fabric of time— so that the plane crash which stranded them on the island never occurred.

Instead, as we discovered in the season premiere, the explosion led to the creation of two separate timelines, with the original continuing from the moment of the blast and a new, parallel one in which the plane never crashed. In the original timeline, the remaining survivors have congregated at a temple, where they have thus far been menaced by a possessed—and technically deceased—Locke (Terry O’Quinn). In the alternate timeline, major differences from the canon are afoot—Jack, for instance, has a son, while Locke is engaged. The two timelines have yet to intersect in any meaningful way.

On a basic narrative level, the portions focusing on the original timeline are immediately engaging simply because of the sheer volume of things occurring. Most of the survivors, having now relocated to a temple run by a faction known as the Others, are involved in the show’s core storylines. Jack and Hurley (Jorge Garcia) are currently engaged in discovering why they were brought to the island, while roguish Sawyer (Josh Holloway) copes with the death of his beloved Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell), the one casualty of the aforemen-

“LOST” SUPPER: The survivors of Oceanic flight 815 will complete their journeys in the final season of “Lost.”

tioned nuclear incident.

The survivors have also become reacquainted with one of their own, Claire (Emilie de Ravin), who previously disappeared into the jungle and has now returned crazy and determined to find her child. If that weren’t enough, mayhem follows the murder of Jacob (Mark Pellegrino), the island’s protector, at the hands of the Man in Black, who has taken on Locke’s identity. This narrative never abates; there simply is no time for filler.

As always, however, “Lost” has some trouble keeping certain characters integrated into its present plotline. This is especially true of Sun (Yunjin Kim), who has

spent the last two seasons following around others in the hopes of reuniting with her husband, Jin (Daniel Dae Kim). They have remained with the show, it seems, by virtue of their virtuoso performances, as they’ve managed to keep alive the soulfulness of their romance even when they’re in separate timebands, as they were last season.

Unfortunately, the storylines in the parallel universe have been less compelling, partially because they seem to reveal few new things about the characters. How many times do we need to be reminded, for instance, that Jack has serious daddy issues and that both he and Locke have trouble accepting their limitations? On the positive

PHOTO FROM Internet Source

side, the parallel storylines have allowed for cameos from characters that have died on the island, including rock star Charlie (Dominic Monaghan) and nice guy Boone (Ian Somerhalder).

Of course, this dual narrative structure is hardly something new to “Lost,” though it probably had most viewers—this one included—scratching their heads at first. This duality echoes the structure of previous seasons, in which the present action on the island was always interspersed with flashbacks and flashforwards, with each narrative engaged in a thematic dialogue of sorts with the other.

See LOST, p. 12

March Madness 2.0: video game edition

BY GORDY STILLMAN Special to the Hoot

For many of you, March Madness evokes thoughts of the NCAA basketball tournament—the brackets and the betting pools, after all, are a thoroughly engrained part of our mainstream culture. When I think of this March, however, I think of something else—the upcoming major releases for successful game franchises.

Between March ninth and 16th (that’s in just a little more than a week for the mathematically disinclined), Nintendo, Square Enix and Sony America are set to release their latest games to the applause of gamers around the country (I would say “around the world,” but Japan gets most of these before the United States).

The first to hit stores is “Final Fantasy 13” (a.k.a. FFXIII), and, if you know the franchise’s history, you know that it has come a long way from the first game released back in 1987 which saved Square from bankruptcy. FFXIII is followed closely by the latest releases in the Pokemon franchise, “Heart Gold” and “Soul Silver,” which are enhanced remakes of the second generation games—meaning they are the same as the originals but with additional gameplay and graphical improvements.

Days later, “God of War 3” hits shelves as Kratos’ war against Zeus finally concludes and unveils just what happened to the Greek gods (at least according to the

GAMERS’ FANTASY: The highly anticipated game, “Final Fantasy XIII,” is one of many sequels slated for release this spring.

game writers). I’m most excited for this one.

Not to be limited to March alone, let us not forget some of the earlier releases of the year which served as great appetizers for March’s entrees. In late January, “Mass Effect 2” came out to widespread critical praise. “Mass Effect 2” was followed a mere two weeks later by “Bioshock 2,” which also came out to high sales. I didn’t have much time to play either—after all,

PHOTO FROM Internet Source

school is supposed to come first—but so far they have both been quite fun and continued to bring interest and depth to their respective universes.

2010 seems to be the year of sequels.

This could be a double edged sword. Sequels have the potential to take a great game and make it a great series and possess potential to be innovative, but they also have the potential to take a great game and make a bad follow-up. In this

sense, games can be like major motion pictures: a sequel can be awesome, like “Spiderman 2” was, or it can be a disappointment, like “X-Men: The Last Stand.”

Still, I have high hopes for the upcoming releases this month.

After all, “Final Fantasy” has yet to release a disappointing game, and “God of War” has left its story in desperate need of a conclusion, leading me to believe that these upcoming games will be well worth the wait.

While 2010 seems like the year of sequels and re-releases (I haven’t even mentioned the announced “Star Wars: The Force Unleashed” sequel or “Super Mario Galaxy 2”), there is a noteworthy game not part of any established franchise.

That game is “Dante’s Inferno.” A very loose adaptation of the famous Inferno portion of Dante’s “The Divine Comedy,” the game takes the player through the nine Circles of Hell, allowing you to fight your way through a game that is basically “God of War” with a Renaissance theme.

While it isn’t the most original in story or gameplay, most will find it fun to play provided they are not turned away by the differences in story from Dante’s original.

I certainly enjoyed it when I had the time to play.

With all these games coming out in the first quarter of 2010, half of them in March alone, 2010 promises to be a very expensive year for gamers, especially for the gamers who like collector’s editions.

12 ARTS, ETC.

The Brandeis Hoot

March 5, 2010

YouTube offers music-philes aural nirvana

BY ADAM HUGHES Staff

Imagine being a music lover ten years ago.

Seeking out recorded live performances by your favorite artists must have been nerve-wracking.

Searching vainly for out-of-print videotapes and trolling the bootlegs in record stores would only yield the occasional gem. Hundreds of obscure musicians would exist only in your fantasies or in the one or two times you were able to catch them in person.

So how grateful are you to live in the YouTube age?

Entire libraries of rare performances are accessible completely free, on demand and at your fingertips. I’ve frittered away hours in front of the computer screen discovering new music and finding reinterpretations of old classics, and I’m sure many of you have as well. Any given artist probably has a treasure trove of available recordings, many of them professional quality. It’s a great way to get new insight into your favorite musicians, and nothing beats the pleasure of seeing a virtuoso putting his entire mind and body into what he does best.

The following is a short list of my favorite live YouTube clips.

I intentionally selected a wide range of music to show the incredible diversity available, but they all have at least one thing in common: I can’t help revisiting each over and over. Check ‘em out, and then find your own favorites to enrich your musical life: “My Favorite Things” by John Coltrane In 1961, Coltrane recorded a

tremendous version of the standard that made him a name to be reckoned with for critic Ralph Gleason’s show “Jazz Casual.”

Only Jimmy Garrison is missing from the Classic Quartet, and Eric Dolphy joins with the flute to add another soloist. Elvin Jones’ busy drum-work prefigures the freejazz directions the group would soon explore, and the fluidity of Coltrane’s glistening runs is absolutely breathtaking.

“Dancing in Your Head” by Ornette Coleman A 1986 version featuring Ornette in a dapper purple suit is one of the most emotionally intense performances I’ve seen. Starting with the bouncy main theme, it soon descends into utter free-jazz madness that features the great man taking his turns on the violin and trumpet. It’s fun to see shots of the audience looking utterly baffled, but seeing the passion written all over Coleman’s face reminds you that he found nirvana in even the most chaotic moments.

“A Survivor from Warsaw” by the Bamberg Symphony Composed by Arnold Schoenberg in 1947, this heart-wrenching cantata tells the story of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II. Hermann Prey narrates this version, imbuing each word with the pain of a disoriented prisoner who has just seen his friends and family brutally slaughtered. As he rises to a great crescendo, the chorus bursts from the silence, as the occupied Jews remain loyal to their faith even in their lowest moment by singing the Shema Yisrael. Before hearing it, I never

believed atonal music could be so staggeringly powerful.

“It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” by Christina Aguilera Before the 2007 Grammy Awards, I considered Aguilera just another twee, talentless pop idol, but this tribute to the recently-deceased James Brown showed me otherwise. She belts out the soul number majestically, and my hair still stands on end every time I watch it. Ignore the outdated, chauvinistic lyrics, and ignore the lack of substance in everything else she’s ever done – these three minutes alone validate Aguilera’s entire career.

“Folsom Prison Blues”

by Johnny Cash Recorded during his famous concert for inmates of California’s San Quentin State Prison, Johnny Cash’s signature song comes to life in front of a wildly appreciative audience. Cash’s band-mates PHOTO BY Internet Source are almost ridiculously TIME CAPSULE: Ornette Coleman’s performance of “Dancing in Your Head” is one of many stoic on stage, but the classic live performances preserved by the denizens of YouTube.

Man in Black has enough vigor for all four of them.

He seems ready to burst with Pull a Satanic preacher out of limbs contorted in erratic spasms, emotion as he wheels around the 1925 and have him sing about a and he spends instrumental stage, pounding out the boom- confectionary Savior, and you’ve breaks strutting across the stage chicka-boom rhythm he made fa- got the closest approximation to like a man possessed and flinging mous and yelling out to his band what Waits looks and sounds like sawdust into the air. As great as between verses. during this 1999 Late Show per- his studio albums are, you can’t formance. He runs his grizzled fully appreciate the guy until “Chocolate Jesus” by Tom Waits voice through a megaphone, his you’ve seen Tom Waits perform.

‘Lost’ promises answers, excitement tinues to delve into the duality of human beings and the struggle of the known versus the unknown, both of which have been prominent since its premiere.

These themes have been manifested in the present struggle between the disciples of Jacob and the Man in Black— representing the struggle between light and dark—with characters chaotically slipping into divergent camps.

When taken as a whole, it’s difficult to determine one’s response to any particular season of “Lost” before witnessPHOTO FROM Internet Source ing the conclusion of LOOKING “LOST”: Answers to the mysteries that have perplexed characters like Kate (Evangeline Lilly), Sawyer (Josh its arc. One’s interpreHolloway) and Hurley (Jorge Garcia) will hopefully be given by series’ end. tation of what’s happening now LOST (from p. 11) tions it has established over the and the decayed bodies found in could change dramatically by the years. The infamous numbers that a cave all the way back in season time the end of the season rolls As always, some viewers have once haunted Hurley and even one, have also been discussed, if around—especially with this, the complained that not enough an- landed him in a mental institu- not resolved. Though some mys- show’s final season, which raises swers have been presented thus tion, for instance, have now prov- teries established by the show will the additional question: what far, a complaint universal to all en important to explaining why undoubtedly be left unresolved, constitutes a satisfying end to a seasons of the show. However, the these characters were brought to the show seems determined to show millions of people have devoted time to deciphering? show has started committing itself the island in the first place. Past answer the most pressing ones.

“Lost” will be remembered for to answering many of the ques- enigmas, like the four-toed statue Thematically, the show con-

the way it approaches the expansive mythology it has created. The show must certainly avoid at all costs the problems that plagued “The X-Files” in its final seasons, when the show became completely bogged down in the nonsensical nature of its convoluted mythology.

For one thing, the “Lost” finale must satisfy both on micro and macro levels. The fates of its characters must be resolved satisfactorily, and all its disparate elements must come together to form a cohesive whole. But fundamentally it will come down to whether it can successfully answer a single question: why?

Though “Lost” has had the occasional narrative misstep, this viewer will continue to trust the behind-the-scenes talent that has made polar bears in the tropics, moving islands and time travel palatable. As with any good adventure, I can’t wait to see how this one ends, even as I prepare myself for the end of the adventure itself.

“Lost” airs Tuesday nights at 10 pm EST.

March 5, 2010

The Brandeis Hoot

ARTS, ETC.

13

Video and the radio star, now both dead

BY DANIELLE GEWURZ Editor

Since MTV pioneered the broadcasting of music videos with “Video Killed the Radio Star,” the medium has seen a few excellent highlights. The White Stripes used Legos. Prison inmates and Jennifer Garner have both performed the choreography from “Thriller.” There’s all those Michel Gondry videos, Aphex Twin weirdness and tons more examples of how a successful video is both part of and wholly separate from the track that accompanies it.

But in the last decade or so, music videos have fallen by the wayside. If you’ll permit me to wildly over-generalize, videos substitute stock shots and slick production values for any real effort or thought.

Videos have become increasingly indistinguishable from each other. Less popular artists rarely make videos anymore; it’s not a worthwhile investment for labels to make videos that have minimal chances of ever being aired.

My first major annoyance with music videos is the overwhelming increase in product placement in music videos. The close-ups of artists using cell phones or laptops, putting on makeup, drinking particular beverages and especially particular brands of vodka, have become increasingly noticeable. If you watch a block of three or four videos it’ll start to jump out at you.

Though product placement has also, of course, become commonplace on regular television, it is somewhat absurd that music vid-

eos, designed to be promotional tools for artists, have instead become promotional tools for other, completely unrelated items. Perhaps it’s a sign that music videos have outlived their usefulness.

Regardless, it’s off-putting.

What’s more annoying, though, is the unrelenting streams of objectification that are virtually mandatory. Regardless of the genre, it has become standard to feature scantily clad female artists or dancers, focusing extensively on specific parts of their bodies rather than the woman as a whole.

The ridiculous thing is that it doesn’t matter who the artist is; male artists are surrounded by dozens of women with seemingly no agency, and female artists are not only surrounded by other women, but they themselves are reduced to nothing more than objects. There are rarely multiple male background dancers, and even when present, they are never focused on so heavily or wearing so little as female background dancers.

Finally, the lack of any narrative in most videos makes videos somewhat pointless to watch. Not that I don’t appreciate pretty visuals as much as the next person— I’m equally distracted by shiny things. Performance videos are a classic standby, but they don’t tend to be interesting enough for a full three minutes. So, the choice remains to either impose a narrative in the video that has little to do with the song, or act out the song in some way.

This has resulted in pretty much only two main plotlines for videos that even try to have a plot. The first is a woman who doesn’t like

her crush’s choice in girlfriend, and said girlfriend may also be played by the artist—see Avril Lavigne and Taylor Swift.

The second, for which the word plot only loosely applies, is that the artist or band is playing at a party of some kind, possibly in someone’s house, where a group of total rebels, who invariably look like models, will PHOTO FROM Internet Source sing along.

A-HA: Creative, innovative music videos, like the classic associated with A-Ha’s “Take on Me,” have become a M aj o rrarity among a deluge of generic music videos. label artist videos have descended into the of footage they actually showed end—even Lady Gaga—have same vague, non-narrative sheen. from each video until you saw 30 been both clever and interesting, Watching multiple pop videos, seconds or less. And then I grad- but it doesn’t change the fact that rock videos or rap videos in a row uated middle school and never overwhelmingly music videos has a sort of cumulative pummel- went back to TRL, so I can’t really lack sway over audiences. It seems ing effect that renders the viewer be sure what happened after that. almost antiquated to continue incoherent and incapable of dis- But I doubt it ever changed. At to produce revenue losses, and tinguishing one from another. that point, it no longer mattered though there’s always been strains Perhaps that’s not a problem, if a video was interesting enough of misogyny and commercialism though, because today there’s no- to watch all the way through, be- in music videos, the trends have where on television where you cause no one really got the chance certainly worsened. can watch multiple videos in a to do so. Then MTV2 became So while I may be the typical row. just as useless as MTV, and it was music industry doomsayer, keep Come to think of it, MTV’s clear that if video killed the radio in mind that most of those videos “Total Request Live” was prob- star, reality stars killed the music you enjoyed are probably at least ably the beginning of the end of video. five years old. After all, the clasmusic videos. TRL made a habit Recent videos by bands like sic A-Ha “Take On Me” video is of gradually reducing the amount Grizzly Bear and Vampire Week- never not awesome.

Poetry concert keeps up tempo SLAM (from p. 10)

not stem from personal experiences, were criticisms of modern culture. Phil Kaye, especially, used poetry to examine politics and the media. Intertwining samples from radio hits along with current news, Kaye critiqued the United States’ imperial and consumerist mindset.

Not only were the wide variety of topics the poems covered impressive, but some poets displayed their mastery of language with their ability to form beautiful or striking images through the medium.

One of the highlights of the evening was listening to Rachel McKibbens, 2009 women-of-theworld poetry slam champion, come up with gems like “girls like hunks of bread.” In a poem about a husband’s admission of adultery, her description of how the narrator’s knowledge of the mistress haunted her was also brilliant. She said, “her smile is a plate I lick clean every meal.”

Overall, VOCAL’s annual show was an amazing experience that was not to be missed. Although the show was more than three

PHOTO BY Nafiz “Fizz” R. Ahmed/The Hoot

VOICE: Oveous Maximus moved the crowd when he performed a poem about his deceased brother.

hours long, not once did the energy of the performers or the audience lessen, which made the entire experience slightly overwhelming. By the end I was both physically and emotionally exhausted. Even so, there were

many moments that I wish I could relive.

Somehow I feel that reading the poems that were performed or watching videos of the acts would cheapen the experience. For, isn’t slam poetry meant to be experi-

enced? Poet Anis Mojgani, master of beautiful turns of phrases, encouraged the audience to “come into this” and immerse themselves in language and feeling, and, for three-and-a-half hours, the audience did just that.

Send an E-mail to join@thebrandeishoot.com

14 The Brandeis Hoot

VISIONS

March 5, 2010

The warmer half Photos by Max Shay, Editor

EDITORIALS

March 5, 2010

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

Ariel Wittenberg Editor in Chief Alex Schneider Managing Editor Destiny D. Aquino News Editor Nathan Koskella Deputy News Editor Bret Matthew Impressions Editor Chrissy Callahan Features Editor Hannah Vickers Sports Editor Jodi Elkin Layout Editor Max Shay Photography Editor Leon Markovitz Advertising Editor Vanessa Kerr Business Editor Savannah Pearlman Copy Editor Leah Lefkowitz Layout Editor Sean Fabery Arts Etc. Editor Kayla Dos Santos Arts Etc. Editor Senior Editors Sri Kuehnlenz, Kathleen Fischmann Alison Channon, Danielle Gewurz

FOUNDED BY

Leslie Pazan, Igor Pedan and Daniel Silverman

SUBMISSION POLICIES The Hoot welcomes letters to the editor on subjects that are of interest to the general community. Preference is given to current or former community members. The Hoot reserves the right to edit any submissions for libel, grammar, punctuation, spelling and clarity. The Hoot is under no obligation to print any of the pieces submitted.

Letters in print will also appear on-line at www.thehoot.net.

The deadline for submitting letters is Tuesday at 8:00 p.m. All letters must be submitted electronically at www. thehoot.net. All letters must be from a valid e-mail address and include contact information for the author. Letters of length greater than 500 words may not be accepted.

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

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.

Y

ou may be wondering why a university committee charged with saving the university money would want to cut a program that is revenue-positive by $100,000. We’re wondering the same thing.

While The Hoot editorial board would like to give Dean of Arts and Sciences Adam Jaffe (and the rest of the Brandeis 2020 Committee) the benefit of the doubt that there are legitimate reasons for this proposed cut, we can’t.

Because rather than participating in transparent discussion of the university’s choices in a time of crisis,

Think our editorials are wrong?

Write a letter to the editor at

eic@thebrandeishoot.com

Email: join@thebrandeishoot.com

The Brandeis Hoot 15

Non-cents

Jaffe has decided to tow the party line. As he wrote in an e-mail to The Hoot he’d “prefer not to share” the Committee’s deliberations with those affected.

This isn’t the first time the administration has made virtually unilateral decisions which they then refuse to explain. When the board of trustees announced they wanted to sell works from The Rose Art Museum to raise funds, they again refused to explain their decision in any amount of detail.

It very well may be that selling art is the only way to save the university, and there may very well be

“hidden costs” to the Cultural Productions program which explain it getting the axe.

But if the administration doesn’t show us, how are we supposed to support their decisions, let alone trust them in the future?

In a time of crisis, no one wants to believe the worst in people. We hope that hard times bring us together and help us overcome–isn’t that why Tom Brokaw calls those who grew up in the Great Depression and World War II “the Greatest Generation”?

But if this is Brandeis’ dust-bowl, it doesn’t look like the administration is planning fireside chats any time soon.

IMPRESSIONS

16 The Brandeis Hoot

March 5, 2010

Questioning activist ideals and attracting attention

BY ALEX NORRIS Special to The Hoot

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day about activism. She told me how much she disliked the fact that she was having fun at school.

That’s actually just an overstatement of what she said to get your attention. Did it work?

She said she felt that by spending more time on her own enjoyment and benefit, she was betraying her activist ideals. This, as things do every now and then, made me think. I have had similar episodes of selfdoubt related to asking myself “What are you good for?” and not having an adequate answer. I think I’ve come up with an adequate answer in the past, because it hasn’t bothered me lately. I’ve just forgotten what it was.

This school is filled with people doing stuff. There are activists on this campus for every issue under the sun. I’m part of Positive Foundations.

We work for the elimination of global extreme poverty. It hasn’t worked yet. We throw events and try to get people to give us money. People don’t give us a lot of money because they have their own causes they want to give money to. I know because I know people in other groups, to whom I do not give money.

I have a couple of friends in the Student Union. They work on student issues, trying to make our lives better. They often do a good job.

Sometimes they forget and think that the Student Union is important in-and-of itself. I can’t get too mad, though. People do this with governments all the time.

I have a couple of friends who write for this newspaper. They write a lot about the other people I know in other clubs and in the Student Union especially. I like that, because it is good to know what everyone is doing. But sometimes the newspaper and the Union seem to spend most of their time convincing each other that they are doing important stuff. I think that's a poor substitute for doing important stuff.

My friends on the Student Union ask what the activist community does to change Brandeis for the better. My friends in the activist community ask what Brandeis does to make the world better. They are both asking the right question. Both of these questions have the same basic answer.

We live in a community defined by time. Like mayflies, we live and die on this campus quickly, and every second needs to count. With just four years to define yourself, you specialize: academically, socially and in which causes you choose to champion. You are short of money, so all you can give is your time.

Unfortunately from the point of view of activism, you are in a closed environment that refreshes its populace continually but has a fairly consistent set of institutions. Administrators can always wait out students. When it comes to changing Brandeis, this is a major roadblock.

The other is apathy. Changing Brandeis is not something many people want to devote time to, not when they will be out of here in four or three or two years. Changing the world has its own set of issues, the mirror image of the other. Isolated from the rest of the world, how can Brandeis students affect it, especially when we lack the most fungible resource, money?

If I were prone to conspiracy theories, I would have something to say about the fact that in the phase of their lives when they are most likely to want to do something of an activist nature, students are put into a place where they can do the least amount of harm. Since I'm not, I'll say it's probably just an evolutionary mechanism of society and leave it at that.

I don't really leave this topic with an answer for my friend, or myself, but I guess I can conclude with this: I haven't ended global poverty. But this semester Positive Foundations is aiming to finish it's big project of the past two years, which is to raise enough money to build a library in Nepal. The Student Union hasn't stopped its ridiculous infighting, nor has it kicked out the self-important people that make dealing with it such a joy. But they have won us concessions from Aramark on dining, and from the administration as a whole on student voices in processes like CARS and the Presidential Search Committee. Every small student victory is a defiance of the odds. It is important that we recognize this and celebrate what we can do as opposed to what we can't.

In the end, we may just have to hope that we don't abandon our principles when we graduate. I know you won't find me working for some irresponsible investment bank or representing a corporation that makes money by exploiting those with no choices left. And do you know why?

Because I'm not nearly qualified.

I’m part of Positive Foundations. We work for the elimination of global extreme poverty. It hasn’t worked yet.

PHOTO BY Max Shay/The Hoot

Brandeis' green monster, and other observations

BY ADAM HUGHES Editor

It's a process that I imagine most prospective students go through on their first visit to Brandeis.

You drive under the bridge and through the main gate, excited to see the place that could become your home for the next four years.

There's the castle; wow, you've already heard about it, but nothing can prepare you for the shock of actually seeing it in the middle of a college campus. You go up the loop road, thinking as you pass North that you could be living in these buildings soon. The chapels come next, and you pay them special attention–you've heard that they're built so the shadows never cross. Then, as you round the bend...

What is that green monstrosity?!?!

Okay, maybe I'm a little harsher on the Shapiro Campus Center than most people, but when it first came into view, my prefrosh mind couldn't comprehend what it was seeing. Where were the right angles? Why were there windows jutting out seemingly at random? Why was it green???

Pure and simple, I thought, and still think, that the Campus Center is just plain ugly. And it's not the only eyesore on campus. In fact, I'd be hard-pressed to name a single structure that rises above that level. Apparently I'm not the only person who feels this way; a list of the “20 Ugliest Colleges in the USA”from 2008 that I've seen bouncing around online (I'm not sure where it originated; Google it, and you'll find it)

ranks Brandeis fourth. While this gives me bragging rights over my friends at Southern Connecticut State (third), it doesn't speak well of our campus design.

Particularly hard-hitting is the article's comment that “each building tried to be modern and contemporary with a mix of glass and brick, but it just looks unfriendly and cold.” Indeed, every building embraces the objectivity of late 20th-century architecture so thoroughly that there's no room for anything humanizing.

What tries to be sleek comes off as artificial, and what tries to be quirky is merely awkward.

The worst thing in my mind is the unrelenting insistence on brick, especially for the residence halls. How can a building feel homey if it looks so massproduced and is so obviously designed as the triumph of function over form? East Quad is a misshapen red monolith, resembling a prison barracks more than a dorm, and I think that many people would mistake my current residence, Ziv Quad, for a New York tenement if it were stripped of its context. North Quad looks particularly bad in the summer, when the verdant trees and grass make the buildings' dull, drab exteriors look farcically out of place.

Still, I can't help but feel fondness towards our homely little campus. Maybe it springs from familiarity or from my general affection for the university, but even as I recognize the objective flaws in design, I'm not sure I'd want them any other way. They hold a certain charm in spite of themselves, the so-bad-it's-good

aesthetic of an Ed Wood movie.

Yes, they may be hideous, but they have character.

Just look at Usen Castle. It is an utter masterpiece of poor design, a backwards-engineered relic that proves impossible to keep heated, or sometimes even to keep in one piece.

But I will know that my inner child has left me for good when I no longer feel a surge of excitement every time I remember: I go to a college that actually has a castle! And with real hidden passages too! This sense of whimsy changes my entire approach to Brandeis architecture. What is Usdan but a giant, bustling maze?

Can I remember how to get from one end to the other without going outside?

Try to analyze the idea of having a theater shaped like a top hat, and you'll find it sounds bad from any angle you take. But if you accept it at face value, it becomes so much fun! Why does the Rose Art Museum have giant neon lights across the front? Why the hell not!

I still feel the need to apologize when showing old friends around campus: “Yep, that's really our campus center.” I still cringe a little at the thought of prospective students seeing Brandeis for the first time. But I'm comforted by the knowledge that eventually they'll know better, and the day will soon come when they wouldn't want to imagine Brandeis any other way.

As for all the other critics, they can just check their tone. It may be a green monstrosity, but it's my green monstrosity, and no one gets to insult it but me.

March 5, 2010

The Brandeis Hoot

IMPRESSIONS

17

Book of Matthew

Trying to eat gluten-free on a college campus

BY BRET MATTHEW Editor

Complaining about the poor quality of dining hall food is an integral part of attending Brandeis. Everybody does it. With every passing dining survey, the results are about the same: Students want better food, a greater selection and longer hours. But imagine if you could only eat a fraction of the mediocre food available to us.

When Nicole found out that she needed to go on a gluten-free diet last April break, she was not looking forward to coming back to campus and trying to eat in the dining halls. And she still isn’t.

“Food-wise, you would think they would accommodate,” she told me while heating a frozen dinner in a microwave in her Ziv. Nicole, a junior who wishes to withhold her last name, has gluten intolerance. Not everyone has heard of gluten, but everyone has eaten it. Found in grains such as wheat, rye and barley, gluten is the protein substance that helps bread rise and gives it a sticky texture. It is contained in many processed foods and almost all baked goods, making it difficult to avoid altogether, let alone on a college campus.

Unfortunately for those with gluten intolerance, they have no choice but to avoid it. Continuing to eat gluten can cause a myriad of health issues like autoimmune disorders, digestive complications and, in the long term, even death. There is no cure

or treatment other than the complete elimination of gluten from their diet.

Nicole has found it particularly difficult to maintain her diet. Most of the options in the dining halls are off-limits to her.

Quiznos and Upper Usdan almost exclusively serve bread products. Lower Usdan has more variety, but only a few stations serve gluten-free food, like the Balance Station and occasionally the Home Zone.

Sherman is similar, with a few gluten-free options in a sea of breads and pastas. The P.O.D. Market has a decent selection of frozen gluten-free meals, although these are mostly vegetarian or vegan. Nicole can’t eat most of those because they contain soy, which her doctor has told her not to eat due to another allergy.

On the days when Nicole will eat in one of the dining halls, she doesn’t eat much.

For breakfast, she will order two fried eggs from Lower Usdan. For lunch and dinner, she will make salads. But these meals are rare, both because she fears cross-contamination and because the repetition becomes boring. Most days, she eats gluten-free cereal stored in her room, microwaves frozen meals and orders in from nearby restaurants that serve food she can eat.

All the outside food adds up, though.

Nicole said that she spends an average of $90 every time she goes to Hannaford to pick up essential food items—about once every other week. This does not include the money she spends to order in, and yet it

already adds up to between $600 and $700 per semester. And that is on top of what she is pays for her required meal plan, from which she gets little use.

“Even my coach is more accommodating than Brandeis,” she said. Before tournaments, Nicole’s volleyball coach will often go grocery shopping for the team, making sure to buy plenty of gluten-free items.

Laura O’Gara, the nutritionist who works at the health center, said that Brandeis is doing a lot to accommodate the 18 glutenfree students who have come to her for advice.

She pointed out there is a system in place that allows gluten-free students to order specially-prepared food from Lower Usdan, provided they call by 10 a.m. that day and let the Usdan staff know when they will arrive to eat.

Though aware of the ordering system, Nicole said that she has been unable to use it because her busy schedule prevents her from predicting when she will have time to eat. Volleyball in particular gets in the way.

Last semester, she had practice until 8 p.m., when Lower Usdan closes.

O’Gara also said both Lower Usdan and Sherman have special refrigerators that gluten-free students can access. They don’t have much in them: a loaf of gluten-free bread, rice wraps, gluten-free French rolls, gluten-free soy sauce and gluten-free salad dressing. But they do allow gluten-free students to make their own sandwiches at

the self-serve deli station nearby. O’Gara said since this option opened, gluten-free students overwhelmingly prefer to make their own food instead of ordering ahead.

Still, Nicole feels she and other glutenfree students would have an easier time if they were given access to medical housing and allowed to get off the meal plan and cook for themselves. She has been unsuccessful so far. When she tried to apply for medical housing, she was denied. Brandeis requires medical tests for special housing, but it is difficult to test for gluten intolerance—most doctors use trial and error.

Nicole was told she could move off campus, but she doesn’t have a car to get her to and from class.

Brandeis should acknowledge the seriousness of gluten intolerances and allow these students greater access to medical housing, where they can cook in their own kitchens without having to worry about safety or the cost of a meal plan. The planned Grad renovations should make this easier. By attracting more students to live in Grad, the renovations will free up more kitchen space in other quads. This space should go to the students who need it.

Nicole hopes that next year she will get into a Mod and no longer have to worry about the quality of her food. Unfortunately, not every gluten-free student can say that.

Stand with the Pomona dining hall workers

BY NATHAN ROBINSON Special to The Hoot

At Pomona College in Claremont, California, 90 percent of dining hall workers have signed petitions demanding a cardcheck neutrality agreement from the school’s administration. The agreement would mean that workers could freely form a union by signing union cards, without being subject to discrimination or intimidation by the college.

This display of unity and force by the Pomona workers is more remarkable than it may seem.

Only about seven percent of American private-sector employees are members of a union, and union membership has been steadily declining over the years.

This is partly due to intimidation tactics by employers. According to Cornell University labor statistician Kate Bronfenbrenner, 25 percent of employers fire one or

more workers for union activity during organizing campaigns, 75 percent of employers hire unionbusting “consultants” to help defeat organizing drives, and 92 percent of employers compel their workforce to attend mandatory "captive audience" meetings to hear and view anti-union propaganda."

Furthermore, over half of employers threaten to report undocumented workers to Immigration & Customs Enforcement if they persist in union activity. Even managing to successfully unify requires a vast amount of dedication and risk on the part of workers.

Yet the need for the right to organize could not be starker. Dining hall workers nationwide are underpaid and often subject to gross mistreatment, and clashes over working conditions have occurred Penn State, Emory, Brown, and many other colleges and uni-

versities. On their website, the Pomona workers offer heartbreaking testimony about the intolerable practices of the management and administration. There are reports of outrageously low pay, denial of leave for serious injuries, and forced unpaid overtime.

Predictably, the administration has opposed the workers’ request.

Even though the workers are asking for a fair election process, rather than for a union, the college’s president has refused to sign the neutrality agreement, and now Pomona’s food service employees must risk their jobs and undergo a difficult fight before even being able to vote on whether to have a union.

The situation didn’t need to be this way. During his campaign, President Obama promised that the Employee Free Choice Act, which would guarantee the procedure that the Pomona workers are having to fight for, would become

law under his administration. As of a year in, the bill has been quietly shelved, while the recession has given employers more power than ever to mistreat workers without consequence, thanks to a workforce increasingly desperate to cling to their jobs.

It is outrageous that working people must face such vigorous opposition in their quest for justice.

All employees should have the ability to form unions if desired.

Whether the negotiations of the future unions would succeed is another matter, but employees must at least be represented so that such negotiations can take place.

Which brings me to us: Until President Obama fulfills his delayed promise, it is the duty of all college students to stand by workers seeking their rights. The snows of Waltham may be 3,000 miles from the palms of Clare-

mont, but during those rare times when college workers brave the dangers and fight for better conditions, every student in America should be united in supporting them. They are the people who spend their lives feeding us as we loaf, read, and party. At the very least, we owe them their dignity and a democratic unionization process.

While the Pomona effort is promising, and its participants are tireless in the pursuit of their goals, support from students is essential.

Repercussions against workers and the brushing aside of demands are only possible if students remain indifferent to the issue. If all of us pay attention, and do whatever we can to assist college workers when they demand fair conditions, we will be able to keep school administrations from ignoring the voices of those they exploit.

18 IMPRESSIONS

The Brandeis Hoot

Borde-nough

Altered Consciousness

March 5, 2010

Bunning vs.

The single-payer failure the Senate: What's the score?

BY CHRIS BORDELON Columnist

Political scorekeepers spent much of the last two weeks charging Hall of Fame pitcher and United States Senator Jim Bunning with a terrible error of delaying an important piece of legislation. But in politics, as in baseball, there's a lot of discretion involved in keeping score.

What Bunning threw at his colleagues was well outside the political box of the past decade. Rules of Senate courtesy allow a member to delay a vote on legislation, theoretically in order to apprise himself of its content. Bunning invoked those rules to delay passage of a bipartisan bill to provide over $10 billion in stopgap funding to continue key programs such as unemployment insurance, subsidies for extended health insurance coverage for unemployed people who former jobs had covered them, and road construction projects.

Congress will consider long-term funding for the programs soon.

Leaders assumed that no one would balk at a mere $10 billion in new IOU's. But Bunning did. It was undoubtedly the most memorable balk of his career. As a result, some federally funded highway workers were furloughed for two days, and the affected benefits programs were temporarily cut off.

On March 2, Bunning agreed with congressional leaders to end the delay. President Barack Obama quickly signed the stopgap measure into law. The missed benefits were paid retroactively, as everyone expected, and highway workers have two more days of work ahead of them in the future to complete their projects.

Bunning agreed with his colleagues that “this [stopgap bill] is essential and we should pass it.” But he also insisted “that this bill be paid for,” meaning that money to offset the stopgap bill's cost should be found elsewhere in the budget. He offered amendments that would have paid both for it and for the long-term bill that is to follow.

To permit the stopgap bill to come to a vote, Congressional leaders agreed to allow one of Bunning's amendments to come to a vote, too. The amendment would have closed a $24 billion handout to paper companies that offered them alternative energy tax credits for burning “black liquor,” a by-product of paper production that they ordinarily burn anyway. The amendment failed.

Bunning's stand drew mostly criticism. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell conspicuously failed to defend Bunning's actions. Illinois Democratic Senator Richard Durbin misrepresented Bunning's position, claiming that Bunning, who desired a funded stopgap bill, actually “objected to extending unemployment insurance benefits and COBRA health insurance payments.” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs thought Bunning should feel “shame.” Roger Alford's widely distributed Associated Press article reflected most media commentators' opinions, calling Bunning an “angry” man who “made others cringe” with his “ornery nature and ungovernable mouth.”

Persistent criticism of Bunning predated his recent actions. It was sufficiently widespread to suggest that it had a kernel of truth in it.

Even the Republican National Committee has apparently lost faith in Bunning. It is thought to have dried up his flow of campaign contributions last year, forcing his retirement this year at the end of his term.

But does Bunning's objection to spending money make him “the crazy uncle in the Senate attic,” as Alford put it? Is paying for new spending crazy? Gibbs said that “Bunning... has frustrated a lot of people across the political spectrum.” Was it not politicians' ambition to remain popular without responsibly paying for popular programs that was actually (and only temporarily) frustrated?

Supporting the stopgap bill was easy; only Bunning took the difficult step of trying to pay for it. He was ostracized for doing so. Bunning's detractors have suggested that he actions were not politically courageous because he's retiring soon. But judging Bunning's 99 colleagues and the president by the same standard of courage produces 100 profiles in cowardice. If only retiring legislators spend money responsibly, we should retire them more often.

Moreover, no one thought to call Bunning's bluff by offering to pay for our domestic needs by ending our overseas interventions. Open debate on spending on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars is rarer today than at the end of George Bush's presidency.

No one wants to be left holding the political hot potato of fiscal retrenchment. But as Paddy Chayefsky concluded succinctly in his Academy Award-winning script, The Hospital, “someone has to be responsible.”

Elected officials may not fulfill their responsibilities now. But when the big lie behind their votes–that of endless government borrowing power–is finally revealed, our leaders will have to accept responsibility in the less satisfactory form of blame. Unfortunately, recalling dead leaders' irresponsible decisions and letting historians slap them on their wrists cannot repair the damage they caused. As it is with the Gulf of Tonkin, so it will be with the sea of debt.

GRAPHIC BY Ali Corman-Vogan/The Hoot

BY RICK ALTERBAUM Columnist

Last Thursday, President Obama and leaders from both parties deliberated for seven hours to espouse their talking points and delve into the intricacies of health care policy. They discussed a multitude of topics, ranging from health savings accounts to medical malpractice reform to the "Cornhusker Kickback." What they did not mention, however, was the possibility of establishing a single-payer health care system. This failure of Congress to consider the plausibility of this policy has been the underlying tragedy of the health care debate.

Several months into the Obama presidency, the Democrats took on the challenge of fixing the broken and convoluted structure in which the American people acquire health insurance. Believing they possessed a mandate for change after their gigantic 2008 victory, the Democrats yearned for a major legislative victory.

And, more importantly, they ultimately wished to make history where presidents from Theodore Roosevelt to Bill Clinton could not.

But right from the start of this initiative, the Democrats did not even entertain the thought of a single-payer option. They dismissed it as too radical and politically infeasible, viewing it as a fringe issue and a pet project of the far left.

This is foolhardy. The creation of a single-payer health care system would only extend Medicare coverage to every hard-working, tax-paying American citizen.

Medicare is not a perfect institution. Indeed, the program contains its fair share of fraud, abuse and waste. However, its administrative costs are generally far lower than those associated with private health insurance companies, and seniors who are recipients of Medicare’s federally-mandated benefits overwhelmingly approve of the quality and treatment associated with the care they receive.

This program is familiar, a household name from the political lexicon and popular.

So why can’t people younger than 65 be so fortunate? According to conservatives, single-payer is socialism, government takeover and communism, to name a few.

Despite the conservative histrionics, advocates of these views are at least partially right. Under a single-payer system, every person would receive coverage that is funded by the federal government. Consequently, the market for private health insurance would, if not dissipate, erode significantly.

But that shouldn't be counted against the single-payer system.

People like their doctors and the care they receive and don't like the intermediaries they need to deal with as the beneficiaries of this care. This is especially the case when said-intermediaries escalate premiums by up to 39

percent, as Anthem Blue Cross in California did recently, when said-intermediaries deny people coverage based on previous medical conditions and preexisting conditions; when said-intermediaries haggle and squabble over nearly every single medical claim they get.

As long as for-profit insurers are dominant, the American people will suffer. Even if the current health care reform bill passes, this will still be the case. These companies will presumably find loopholes that they can exploit in order to elude the prospect of truly abiding by new regulations.

At the same time, due to an individual mandate, millions of more Americans will be forced into the greedy clutches of these insurers via a virtual marketplace, or exchange. There will not even be an alternative for these individuals— no public option, no Medicare buy-in, no health care cooperatives, nothing besides a Medicaid expansion for the poor.

While the current proposal is better than nothing, the American people shouldn't have to settle.

It is a shame that the Democrats did not take the single-payer, Medicare-for-all route. Quite simply, they do not have the guts to defend significantly expanding government, even when doing so is manifestly in the public interest. The irrational, paranoid stigma attached to big government looms over their every move.

March 5, 2010

The Brandeis Hoot

Sexcapades

Keeping it simple

Impressionable Weekend comics and fun from The Hoot Sleezy by Matt Kupfer

BY SOPHIE RIESE Columnist

The first time with a new guy is always awkward, no matter how amazing it ends up. This becomes even more important to think about considering that in college, a lot of hook-ups only happen once or twice and may not always be with someone you even know well as a friend. Figuring out how to make it memorable, at least at a basic level, can make all the difference.

Even if it’s bound to stay a one-night stand, you want to have a good time, and presumably want to make sure the guy’s going to have a good time too. If it’s a new guy, then it’s even more important both of you have a good time and are comfortable.

First things first, take it slow. Foreplay is important in the process. The longer you drag it out over the course of the night, the better the sex will be. In Rome last year, I met up with an old friend and we were flirting at the beginning of the night. By the time we made it to the club, we were dancing and making out, and discussing the possibilities for the rest of the night.

Eventually, we decided it would be better to go back to his hotel room than take him back to the apartment where I was staying with another friend. The whole way back to the hotel, we were practically bursting to take each other’s clothes off. By the time we made it to his room, we were both too excited for the sex to be bad.

All too often, first-time sex with a new partner is planned out. We all know someone who has said “not until the third date, ”or “Thursday’s the day,” but the truth is one of the best things about sex is urgency and spontaneity. Often, spontaneity is mistaken as sex that is unplanned or foolhardy. But there's nothing wrong with discussing our comfort zones, what we like, and what we don’t like, with our partners (even if they're only there for the night) without planning out the exact date and time of fornication.

Being completely comfortable with a new partner is the surest way to make sure that the first time will be good, not planning out the minutiae.

Think of the first time as a stepping-stone.

If you’re planning on sticking around long enough to hook up again, then don’t worry if the first time isn't perfect, it just has to be good and fun. No matter how good the first time is, you always want it to get better, an uphill slope. So lower your expectations, and make the point having fun, not necessarily getting each other off. There’s no way you can know another person’s body and likes the first time around. If you take your time, and calm down, you can definitely enjoy yourself and get to know your partner a little bit better.

Keep things simple. The first time doesn’t have to be a show of everything you’ve done or know how to do, nor will it require a copy of the Kama Sutra. More than two positions the first time is probably excessive. It’s hard to be comfortable if you’re constantly changing positions, and if you don’t know how you fit together, switching can be complicated.

First times are stressful enough. It’s important to make them as easy as possible.

Use contraception and just let things happen. The more comfortable you are with one another, the easier things will be. But try to make the first time as pressure-free as possible and just enjoy.

By Ali Corman-Vogan

Jumble by Cecelia Watkins

IMPRESSIONS

19

20 The Brandeis Hoot

HOOT SCOOPS

March 5, 2010

After shock: Students react to Chilean earthquake

By Destiny D. Aquino, Editor PHOTO COURTESY Liana Langdon-Embry/The Hoot

The reverberations of last week’s 8.8 earth quake in Chile are being felt at Brandeis. The earthquake, one of the largest to ever hit the South American country, hit in the early morning hours and killed close to three hundred people.

Brandeis currently has one student studying abroad in Chile.

While officials in the Study Abroad Office would not release the name of the student or the program the student is traveling with, the office has confirmed that the student is safe and not returning back to the States.

Several students applied to study abroad in Chile next year, but their travels will not be affected by the quake as Chilean schools will be reopening by next week at the latest.

Perhaps some of the most effected are students who have studied abroad in Chile previously and were worried about the safety of the friends they met there.

Simona Lang ’10, who studied in Santiago in fall 2008 stayed with three separate host families during her time in South America and returned to do research this past winter break.

Lang said she developed a strong bond with two of the families.

Lang first learned of the earth-

quake via text message Saturday morning when friends who knew of her Chilean connection texted her when they learned the news.

“I turned my computer on right away and tried to get a hold of people. I was so scared my friends and family that I had created in my time there were going to be hurt or worse,” she said. “I was trying to be really logical thinking ‘well of course they don’t have phones or internet maybe they’re fine and I just can’t get a hold of them.’”

She has since gotten in touch with one of her host families. She has been unable to get in touch with the other family, which lives in a rural area and does not have regular access to phones or internet without traveling to a larger city.

Lang said it is unlikely she will get in touch with them but she hopes they are doing well. Lang plans to try and have other people go to their home and check on them and the town this weekend.

Facebook has aided students and families with communication throughout the world in this hard time. Through status updates and messages many people have been able to receive updates about their families and friends.

The facebook status of Liana Landon-Embry ’11, who studied

abroad in Arica, Chile this fall reads “pensando de nuestros queridos chilenos,”or ‘thinking of our beloved Chileans.”

Because she studied in Northwestern Chile, more than a thousand miles from the epicenter of the earthquake, Langdon-Embry said the people she met were not effected by the earthquake, but the news scared her nonetheless.

“I immediately tried to phone my host mom to see if she was okay, but the phone lines were down,” she wrote in an e-mail to The Hoot. “I was able to contact several of my friends through Facebook to make sure they were safe. Luckily enough, no one I know was directly hurt by the quake but a few of my Chilean friends had friends who were injured and whose homes were seriously damaged.”

Lang said she has been heartened by the support she has felt from her fellow students.

Even though there are several students who have studied abroad in the past few years in Chile there are currently no plans for relief events on campus.

“I’ve personally thought of doing something of that nature but I myself don’t have the time with my academics to do something like that,”Lang said. “I don’t think I’ll try to make one but there are

other events in Boston that will feature Chilean music and food in order to raise money for the country.”

Lang also said she was worried that any efforts to help Chile monetarily will overshadow ongoing Haitian relief efforts.

“With all the other relief events on campus, I am worried that there will be a competition for funds and that’s never a good thing,” Lang said.

Though they have no plans to raise funds, both Lang and Langdon-Embry said they support the Chileans.

“All the messages I’ve gotten from people are really about how grateful [the Chileans] are to know the world cares about them. The Rabbi at the congregation I attended while I was there to my host mom, they’re all just so humbled by the support of the world right now” Lang said.

“Chile has really become a part of who I am. I’ve become fluent [in Spanish] and been able to learn about the world while learning about myself.”

“My favorite part of Chile is the spirit of the people,” LangdonEmbry wrote. “They are extremely proud and although their country is facing this catastrophe, their strength sustains. I absolutely plan to go back.”