ALL SAINTS Canadian duo Tegan and Sara redefine indie with their latest album, ‘Sainthood’ SCENE page 7
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EDITORIAL
Eagle Staff Writer
Cultural relativism is incoherant and should be avoided at any cost page 5
SPORTS GOT THE TITLE Women’s field hockey takes Patriot League season title page 6
SWEET STREAK Volleyball team snags fourth win in a row page 6
SCENE DO THE MATH ‘Adding Machine’ finds perfect mix of entertainment value, depth page 7
TODAY’S WEATHER
AU will expand its resources for students by opening a women’s center in fall 2010 and an online veterans’ network launching this January. The Women’s Resource Center will have a variety of components, such as a library of books relating to women’s issues and a counseling center, according to Student Government President Andy MacCracken. The veterans’ network will provide veterans who are new to AU with resources and support from other veterans. The SG has been working on getting a women’s resource center since early 2006, according to MacCracken. He said the resource center is guaranteed at least one staff member and will most likely have office space on the second floor of the Mary Graydon Center in the same hallway as the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Ally Resource Center and the Disabilities Support Center.
Sarah Brown, the director of Women’s Initiative, said that she is overjoyed at the prospect of a women’s resource center. “I am incredibly excited for the opening of the Women’s Resource Center,” Brown said. “I was a freshman when this idea really gained momentum and it will be great to see all of the hard work of my peers and myself materialize into something tangible that will benefit the entire AU community.” Brown said that while the members of Women’s Initiative provide a great deal of support to women at AU, it is imperative that there be a staff office addressing women’s issues so the AU community can have a “full-time advocate for issues affecting women on campus.” Brown also stressed that a women’s resource center would provide more extensive women’s counseling services than the student-run Women’s Initiative. “Just having a space for students to go and feel welcomed and comfortable is extremely important,” Brown said. “While the Women’s n
see RESOURCES on page 2
City considers marriage bill By MEG FOWLER Eagle Staff Writer After approving legislation to recognize same-sex marriages made outside the District earlier this year, the D.C. City Council is now tackling the issue of approving same-sex marriages made within the city. The council’s Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary is scheduled to hold a hearing Monday, Nov. 2, to discuss the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Equality Amendment Act of 2009, a bill to permit same-sex marriage in the city of D.C. At-Large D.C. Council Member David Catania first proposed the bill on Oct. 6. Over 250 people — AU students among them — plan to testify both for and against the bill at this hearing.
Canyon Bosler, a sophomore in the School of International Service and the College of Arts and Sciences, signed up to testify at the hearing after encouragement from groups for which he has volunteered, including D.C. Clergy United for Marriage Equality and the D.C. Marriage Coalition, he said. Bosler, who plans to go to seminary after graduating AU to get a Masters in Divinity as a Unitarian Universalist Minister, wanted to emphasize at the hearing that the bill pertains to religious freedoms as well as civil rights issues. “The fact that only certain marriages will be recognized by law is a problem for us because it is infringing on my right ... as a future minister ... to marry couples as I see fit,” Bosler said. n
see MARRIAGE on page 2
SARAH PARNASS / THE EAGLE
LIFE OF PROTEST — Every day, rain or shine, John Wojnowski stands in front of the Vatican embassy, holding a banner that accuses the Vatican of hiding pedophiles. For the past 12 years, Wojnowski has shared his views with anyone willing to listen. He claims he was molested by an Italian priest in 1958 at age 15.
D.C. man protests Vatican inaction By SARAH PARNASS Eagle Staff Writer “What is important is the stupidity of the church, the malevolence.” That is the message of a 67-yearold man who stands outside the Nunciature of the Holy See — or the Vatican Embassy — near the Naval Observatory on Massachusetts Avenue, nearly every day. Whether in the rain under his stocky black umbrella or in the warm rays of the D.C. sun, John Wojnowski has stood on that street corner for the past 12 years. Each day after 4:30 p.m., he attaches one end of his white banner to a signpost and holds up the other end. Once unfurled, the banner’s red letters shout Wojnowski’s mantra, “VATICAN HIDES PEDOPHILES,” accompanied by the URL for his Web site, www.vaticanhidespedophiles. com. Though Wojnowski appears soft-spoken in-person and claims extreme shyness once prevented him from ever speaking to women, his Web site presents a harsher picture. “This impudent degeneracy [the Catholic Church], that has the gall to threaten, shame, ridicule and insult the long suffering crippled victims of its ignorance, MUST BE EXPOSED,” it reads. Some might say his words are harsh, but the story he said is behind them could, perhaps, explain Wojnowski’s roughness. It is a real human story, filled with many emotions and memories. It is Wojnowski’s story, as he
told it. In a small village in the mountains of Italy in 1958, the town’s pastor invited a 15-year-old boy to the church to work on his Latin studies. Wojnowski described himself then as an impish boy with an intellectual curiosity that has followed him throughout his life. The boy and his pious older brother went to the village church. When the priest saw that the boy had not come alone, Wojnowski said the priest separated the brothers, leaving the elder in a room with an assignment and taking Wojnowski into a private chamber. In that room, the priest allegedly laid a hand on Wojnowski’s knee and convinced him to expose himself. Wojnowski said that the priest then sexually assaulted him. “The reason I’m doing this is because I was molested myself,” Wojnowski said. After that, Wojnowski said he only remembered finding himself on the ground in front of the church, stricken. The abuse caused something to change inside him, both psychologically and physiologically, Wojnowski said. He became withdrawn and depressed, he said. Even his height was stunted by the trauma, Wojnowski said. Yet, for nearly 40 years, Wojnowski said he did not fully remember the event. “I was so traumatized, so shocked that it was like literally being hit by lightning,” Wojnowski said. “Immediately, I blocked it out, repressed the memory.”
What Wojnowski said triggered his memory years later when he was living alone in the United States was news coverage of the scandal in the church that broke out in 1997. In the world of psychology, it is still debated whether such phenomenon is possible. One study of college women by Michelle Epstein and Bette Bottoms of the University of Chicago and La Rabida Children’s Hospital found that victims of childhood sexual abuse forgot their incidents more completely than those who experienced other trauma. A study combining the work of academics from the State University of New York, Emory University and the University of California, however, purported that all “recovered memories” could be explained by flawed treatment programs and an individual’s inability to distinguish between fantasy and reality. Yet Wojnowski was reluctant to focus on the recovery of his memory. “You understand, we are fighting the [Catholic] Church,” Wojnowski said. In August 1997, Wojnowski contacted a priest about the abuse he allegedly remembered. He said he was referred to counseling for which the church would pay, but he received no other reparations. Wojnowski pursued the matter further, even writing to the Nunciature, he said. After his letters and phone calls were ignored, Wojnowski took up his post where he stood this Halloween, on the n
see CHURCH on page 3
‘Doc’ site offers SHC alternative
A CRACK AT THE LAW
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By JULIA RYAN
Cool and sunny during the day, cloudy later.
Eagle Staff Writer
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AU adds resource centers
By JULIA RYAN
MORAL CLARITY
NOVEMBER 2, 2009 VOLUME 84 ISSUE 20
YIPIN LU / THE EAGLE
Jasmine Tyler, a representative from the Drug Policy Alliance, discusses new legislation introduced to Congress, which would equalize the sentencing for crack and cocaine drug offenses, in Butler on Oct. 29.
AU students looking for specialized medical advice outside of the Student Health Center will have more options when ZocDoc.com, a free Web service that helps people book appointments with doctors in their area, expands service to D.C. On ZocDoc.com, a person can search for a doctor by location and what type of insurance the doctor accepts. Users can also read detailed information about doctors, as well as reviews from patients. ZocDoc was started in 2007 in New York City to help people set up dentist appointments, but later expanded to help people set up appointments with more specialized doctors like dermatologists, psychiatrists and allergists, according to ZocDoc.com. ZocDoc’s move to D.C. was a re-
sponse to the growing demand for accessible health care in the D.C. area, according to Karsten Vagner, director of communications for ZocDoc. D.C. was the first choice in ZocDoc’s recent poll of what city ZocDoc should offer service in next. Vagner said ZocDoc’s expansion to D.C. is logical given the nature of the city and its people. “Washington, D.C., is a transient city with many people who are only staying for a short amount of time, like college students,” Vagner said. “But the average wait time for scheduling a doctor’s appointment in the D.C. area can be up to 30 days. With ZocDoc, people could schedule an appointment within 24 hours.” The Web site will be expanding to other major metropolitan areas in the near future. ZocDoc recently n
see ZOCDOC on page 4