2/19/2010 V1I3

December 7, 2009

Volume I, Issue 3

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February 19, 2010

Faculty formation Professors join to discuss issues

Shutter Island

Scorsese returns to Boston blockbusters

Coakley’s defeat

A reproach of Obama’s performance?

BC dress code

QUEER IDEAS FOR GROWTH

Students wear school spirit

News

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Thefts occur in CLXF, students concerned

By Robert Rossi Editorial Assistant Since the start of spring semester, the CLXF (Claver-LoyolaXavier-Fenwick) dorm on Upper Campus has been victimized by a series of break-ins and robberies.

At least five separate rooms have been broken into and thousands of dollars worth of electronics have been stolen.

The break-ins began before most students returned from winter break. The dorms were re-opened to the majority of the student body on Saturday, Jan. 16.

Athletes and participants in certain school-sponsored programs were allowed to return earlier, however, meaning that the dorms were accessible with an EagleOne card before Jan. 16.

Tom Swiderski, A&S ’13, returned to his dorm room on the second floor of Claver during the early afternoon of Jan. 16, making him one of the first arrivals in the CLXF building. Upon entering his room, he noticed a sizable gap

atop the dresser where his television once sat.

“I thought that maybe my roommate Kishan, who owned the TV, had taken it with him over break, but when I called him he said, ‘Of course I didn’t,’” Swiderski said. “Earlier, someone had told me that his TV had been stolen over break, and so I feared ours had been stolen too.”

That someone was also a resident of the second floor of Claver, who left his television in his room over the break. Based on the dates that the last residents in both rooms left for break, it became apparent that the robberies had not occurred before the dorms were closed in December. And because many students besides the three residents of each room knew the room access codes, many on the floor came to the conclusion that the robberies were carried out by one or more residents of the CLXF building.

BCPD was contacted as soon as the owners of the televisions arrived back on campus and con-

firmed that they had left the TVs in their rooms. The resident assistant of the second floor of Claver compiled a list of people known to have access to both rooms, but no suspects appeared on both lists.

“I know a lot of crazy people around here who just barge into other people’s rooms and steal food. Don’t share room codes.

I learned the hard way. Make friends with people you can trust,” said Kishan Bhakta, CSON ’13.

On Wednesday, Feb. 3, another robbery occurred on the floor. A CLXF resident, who

requested to remain anonymous, told The Gavel that he received a text message from his roommate inquiring about the location of his Xbox 360. He had returned to their room to find it missing. The orange Ethernet cable that had been attached was still lying on the floor.

“I have my suspicions as to who it is, but I’m not going to name names. Obviously it was someone who knew my code because nobody was in my room, nor was the door open,” the resident said.

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Group forms to present Palestinian perspective at BC

Courtesy of Students for Justice in Palestine

By Sue Byun Assoc. News Editor This semester, several Boston College students have formed a new student activism group, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). The group, which is still waiting for the administration’s

approval of their constitution, plans to work closely with the Student Programs Office, along with other groups such as BC Hillel and the Arab Student Association, toward pursuing a just peace to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

SJP will focus on political

and educational activism. Some of their plans include speaking events, documentary screenings, awareness and letter-writing campaigns, and also serving as a general outlet for discussion.

More specifically, SJP plans to push for an end to Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, address discrimination against Palestinians and establish a just solution for Palestinian refugees.

The mission statement reads, “As socially conscious people, it is our responsibility to incorporate all voices in the telling and changing of history and not sweep social injustices under the umbrella of fear, masking, or ignorance.” It calls for “. . .the embrace of an oft-overlooked narrative of a contemporary conflict, the Palestinian perspective.”

SJP’s mission statement gives a heavy nod to BC’s more general vision. It states the group’s commitment to the Jesuit values of service and education of the whole person, and to helping to

form men and women for others.

Lindsey Hennawi, A&S ’11, Scott Jelinek, A&S ’10, Lauren Costello, A&S ’10, and Joanna Klekowicz, A&S ‘11, are some of the student leaders involved in the group’s inception.

Professor Eve Spangler, professor of sociology and instructor of the course “Social Justice in Israel/Palestine,” organizes an immersion trip to Palestine every winter break, working closely with her students as their advisor. Inspiration for the students founding the group came largely out of their experiences from that trip.

“Some of things I saw there shocked me in ways I can’t even describe,” said Costello, who took Spangler’s class this past fall and went on the immersion trip over winter break.

“Palestinian women are giving birth to deformed babies as a result of Israel purposefully contaminating their water,” Costello continued.

“I feel as U.S. citizens, we only hear one side of the story

from the media, maybe because Israel is such an important ally to us, because of strategic government interests. We constantly hear about suicide bombings and arrests, and it’s easy to think that all Palestinians are terrorists.”

As such, some of the group’s most immediate goals include giving the unheard Palestinians a voice and shedding light on some of the glossed over, but disturbing facets of the situation in Gaza.

In an article for The Boston College Chronicle, Spangler said that she finds it difficult to talk with the students about what they have seen in Israel/Palestine, when it seems to be so contrary to the very limited information provided by the majority of the mainstream media.

“SJP is new, and we’re really excited to get the word out there and start building support for what we consider to be a very important and worthy cause in the pursuit of social justice,” Hennawi, who is currently abroad in Morocco, said.

February 19, 2010

Professors assemble to amplify concerns

By Sue Byun Assoc. News Editor Since its inception on Jan. 27, the Boston College chapter of the Association for the Advancement of University Professors (AAUP) boasts a steadily growing membership and a speaking appearance

by AAUP Secretary General Gary Rhoades. It was founded in the hopes of achieving greater faculty governance and academic freedom, and a greater faculty participation in University operations overall.

The chapter’s executive committee, which consists of Susan Michalczyk, Michael Clarke, Michael Malec, Tim Duket, Pam Grace, Joyce Pulcini, and Alan Lawson, was elected into office at the first meeting last month. This marked the fruition of an effort started this past December when a group of faculty voted to move forward with forming a chapter.

Membership is currently at about 60, expanded from 47 in late January. “We hope to triple that membership by next year,” Malec said.

The chapter, which is less than one month old, is still in the recruiting and strategy planning phases, but Rhoades’ speech this past Tuesday served as a morale booster, crystallizing and providing national context for what the chapter members were trying to achieve. He spoke about academic freedom and responsibility in hard economic times.

“BC has a history of issues that deal with issues fundamental to AAUP, such as academic freedom

of faculty as a core component of quality education,” Rhoades said.

“Particularly in colleges such as yours, with a social justice mission, this responsibility is especially important in the political environment of today”. He mentioned the controversy surrounding the cancellation of a scheduled lecture by Bill Ayers, and Prof. Mary Daly’s disputes with the administration in the late 1960’s.

According to Rhoades, the current trend in America is what he termed as corporatization and commercialization of universities.

“Especially with having to worry about building large endowments and moving up in rankings such as U.S. News’, these kinds of politics really play out in program elimination, creation, and continuation”, Rhoades said.

“Shaping academic initiatives should be based on an academic calculus, more than by anticipated short-term revenues, to the benefit of students and society”, he said.

Specifically for BC to achieve this, Rhoades indicated a need for budget transparency, a faculty senate, and a reworking of contract language.

According to Rhoades, academic freedom is a collective responsibility and a prerogative that faculty in a school should especially as compared to other workplace environments, because the professors’ principal loyalties are to society, the students, and the discipline they work in.

“Sometimes those things are not entirely in concert with the economic interests of an institu-

tion, which is why faculty input is especially important in tight financial times, for maintaining the integrity of academic initiatives”, he said.

“For shared governance to be meaningful, it needs to include contingent, and not just tenured track faculty”. He also said that in order to make informed decisions, faculty access to financial information directly followed.

The majority of the BC chapter members are adjunct, though there are some tenured professors.

Michael Resler, who is tenured as chair of the German Studies Department, said “Basically I am here to show support for my colleagues.

There absolutely ought to be a faculty senate, it’s shameful that there isn’t”.

Within the BC chapter, there is a desire for what Malec referred to as fiscal accountability and transparency. He said, “Some of us have concerns that we aren’t compensated appropriately because of having been critical of [the] administration. We could be wrong, but any faculty member that feels aggrieved has no way to really verify if indeed they are undercompensated.

“None of us know anything about the university. We have worked assiduously to shed some light on faculty compensation. At BC you just cant do it, it’s a well kept secret,” Malec said.

BC’s human resources department regards information such as pay rate, past earnings, and home address as confidential and will release it only with the written permission of the employee or a

court order.

“Cumulatively, it’s frustrating.

The past fiscal year nobody got a raise, but faculty never had the chance to discuss the matter with the University”, Malec said.

Malec also said that for about two years, the faculty has tried to elect a senate but was not supported by the administration. Currently, there is no formal mechanism for faculty to speak with the Board of Trustees. The student governing body, UGBC, meets regularly with the board in an advisory setting.

Rhoades said, “I think it’s foolish for a president or provost to try to do things without faculty input.

Why should they be so afraid of advice?” Still, he acknowledged the advantage of a “nimble” streamlined process of academic decisionmaking versus a more deliberative process.

Rhoades, who participated in an analysis of language on academic freedom across various university handbooks, cited University of Minnesota’s clause on free speech as an effective example, which allowed employees “to speak or write without institutional discipline or restraint on matters of related to… the functioning of the university… whether or not as a member of an agency of institutional governance”.

“The BC employee contract’s clause on academic freedom of faculty is not really defined, only invoked”, Rhoades said.

BC’s employee handbook states, “An individual employee has the right to speak publicly and to express personal opinions regard-

Background of the AAUP and Faculty Unionization

By Michelle Martinez Assoc. News Editor In 1900, Stanford University economist Edward Ross lost his job because Mrs. Leland Stanford disapproved of his stance towards immigrant labor and railroad monopolies. This incident led Arthur O. Lovejoy, philosopher at Johns Hopkins University, to form the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) along with John Dewey in 1915. This organization sought to ensure that faculty members’ academic freedom would no longer be violated, define fundamental professional values and standards for higher education, and to ensure higher education’s contribution to the common good.

Ever since its founding, the

AAUP has aided the faculty of numerous universities in tackling issues beyond those pertaining to academic freedom. These include matters of national security, discrimination, institutional matters, tenure, intellectual property, and economic security for faculty members, among others.

According to a publication by the AAUP, up until recently only 25% of professors are unionized, with over 96% of the union-represented faculty members in the public university sector. The lack of academic unionization in the private academic sector seems to be changing, however. In 2001, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), in charge of governing collective bargaining in the private sector, issued two decisions allowing faculty members and graduate

assistants to bargain collectively under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

The varying factor as to what professors are considered “professional employees” and not “managerial” positions, and therefore eligible to bargain collectively, is a determination made on a case-bycase basis at each academic institution. This complexity was proven in the 1980 case NLRB v. Yeshiva, where certain faculty members were deemed to be managerial employees rather than professional, and therefore not covered by the NLRA. In 2000, however, the NLRB upheld that faculty members in Manhattan College, were of employee status, given that they exercised “advisory, and not actual governance authority.” In spite of this legal victory, Manhattan Col-

lege professors delayed the process by rejecting union representation.

Later that year, the NLRB ruled that New York University graduate assistants can also be considered “employees” under the NLRA, and thus able to unionize. This went against the NYU administration’s policy that stated that allowing graduate assistants to unionize “undermined academic freedom.”

Contrary to the Manhattan College professorate, however, the NYU graduate assistants voted in favor of unionizing.

With these decisions it becomes visible that faculty-unions are no longer limited to public institutions, but that private-sector unionization will continue to be a trend that, with the help of recent events, is expanding to Boston College as well.

ing campus issues or issues that have no connection with Boston College. However, care should be exercised to avoid public criticism of University policy whenever such a stance is incompatible with the responsibilities of an employee’s position at Boston College”.

On the formation of a BC AAUP chapter, Patricia DeLeeuw, Vice Provost for Faculties, said, “These are all BC’s values as well.

We are very pleased. A university is only as good as its faculty, and a good faculty brings good students.

So as a community of scholars, the values of the AAUP, such as academic freedom and rigorous standards of higher education, are very important.”

“The more voices we have on campus the better,” DeLeeuw said.

Rhoades encouraged the BC chapter to be alert of the spirit it maintains in its discourse, to make sure that it works toward productive activities and presents feasible solutions, rather than just advocating grievances.

“Part of what an AAUP chapter can and should do is to establish the spirit – not only the structures – of accountability”, Rhoades said.

Malec lauded the chapter’s formation as a substantial effort towards forming a dynamic of being proactive rather than reactive.

“When did education become a business? We as a university are moving more towards a business model, and I think we’re really at a crossroads. My hope is that we come together to address the elephant in the room and have our voices heard,” Michalczyk said.

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Last Kennedy in Congress brings end to an era

By Andrew Slade News Editor When John F. Kennedy won his seat in Congress in 1947, few Americans gave thought to the possibility that the U.S. Representative who Mass. voters elected that year would go on to become one of the nation’s most admired presidents, serving as the forerunner for his younger relatives to establish the longest lasting dynasty in the history of American politics.

With the announcement of Representative Patrick Kennedy’s retirement from the House of Representatives this year, the “reign” of the Kennedy family seems to have reached its end.

Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) was elected to the Rhode Island House of Representatives in 1988 at the age of 21, making him the youngest member of the Kennedy clan to hold public office. Elected to represent the State’s 1st congressional district in 1995, Kennedy, like his father, battled bouts of alcoholism under public scrutiny.

Furthermore, the son of the late Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and nephew of President John Ken-

nedy was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and is known to have battled depression.

According to reports from The New York Times, Patrick and his father Ted spent time discussing the former’s future in politics shortly before the latter’s death of brain cancer. They came to the conclusion that of the numerous famed members of their family, Ted’s late sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, left the greatest legacy of them all as the founder of the Special Olympics. As one of the few among her siblings to stay out of politics, Eunice fought for the rights of the disabled: a cause on which Patrick Kennedy focused during his time in Congress.

In an interview on Friday, Kennedy stated that a lot of people get out of politics to spend time with their families.

“In a sense, when I got into politics, I was getting closer to my family,” he explained.

Many suspect that the 42-year old Kennedy’s departure from Capitol Hill was to some degree sparked by the death of his father, whose seat as a representative of Massachusetts in the U.S. Sen-

ate was clinched by Republican Scott Brown just weeks ago. For Patrick, the electoral outcome that followed his father’s death was “a joke.”

Although his exit from Congress is a blow to the cause of advocacy for the mentally ill, Kennedy has stated that he plans to continue his work in support of the cause in the private sector. “We are losing the biggest advocate we have for mental health in Congress. There’s no question about that,” said Dr. Patricia Recupero, president and chief executive of Rhode Island’s Butler Hospital.

Recupero went on to say that she is encouraged by Kennedy’s plans to continue to pursue the cause so closely tied to his personal life.

Republicans, however, are looking at Kennedy’s retirement —coupled with Scott Brown’s victory— as an opportunity to make headway in the markedly liberal congressional districts of New England in this fall’s midterm elections. “There’s an anti-incumbent fever, and that helps Republicans,” stated Republican Party consultant Ron Kauffman in response to Kennedy’s announcement.

Courtesy of The Sydney Morning Herald The GOP has specifically targeted Representatives Niki Tsongas and William Delahunt, both Massachusetts Democrats, in the hope of picking up seats in the State’s delegation to the U.S. House, presently comprised entirely of Democrats.

As of this weekend, there are three announced candidates for Patrick Kennedy’s seat: Providence’s Democratic Mayor David Cicilline, Rhode Island’s

Democratic Party Chairman William Lynch and Republican State Representative John Loughlin II. University of Rhode Island political science professor Maureen Moakley has suggested that while previous polls indicated a challenge for Kennedy from Loughlin, it seems unlikely that a Republican will win Rhode Island’s 1st district, given the shared appeal of Cicilline and Lynch in the district’s urban centers.

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February 19, 2010

Greek debts will affect Euro, US economy

Courtesy of enjoy-europe.com

By Kevin Fagan Asst. News Editor Greece may be the land of pleasant weather and the healthy Mediterranean diet, but concerns about the magnitude of Greek debt are affecting both U.S. and European equities markets

and causing concerns about the recovery from the recession.

Even though Greece represents just 2 percent of the European economy, Greece affects all of Europe because it uses the Euro, an international currency controlled by the European Central Bank in Germany.

Why does this affect the United States? Any perceived increase in the instability of an economy will cause a flight to U.S. treasuries because of fear, and a flight away from the stock market.

These same fears are also stoking the opinion that the United States will be going through a “double-dip” recession, where the economy deteriorates significantly after recovering slightly. This would further raise the unemployment rate, which is currently at 9.7 percent, and cause the United States to have similar problems as a result of the public debt.

Timothy Geithner, Secretary of the Treasury, said last weekend that European officials are carefully evaluating and handling the economic situation. Fortunately for Geithner and U.S. officials, Europeans have incentives to create a solution, though sellers were disappointed after the weekend on Feb. 8 as the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped below 10,000 for the first time in three months. The current budget deficit in Greece is 12.7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), though European Central Bank President JeanClaude Trichet added that he is

ACLU sues over flashcards

By Michelle Martinez Assoc. News Editor In times when heightened security has become a part of the air travel routine, people have gotten used to surrendering sharp objects, excessive quantities of liquid and other random belongings. With the detention of Pomona College student Nicholas George in August, 2009, the Transportation Security Administration’s definition of what constitutes a threat was extended to include Arabic flashcards and a text critical of American foreign policy.

On February 10th, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against the TSA on behalf of George, who was “detained, abusively interrogated, handcuffed and jailed” for close to five hours at the Philadelphia International Airport for carrying a set of EnglishArabic flashcards. Nicholas George, 22, and the ACLU charge that three TSA officers, two Philadelphia police officers, and two FBI agents unquestionably violated his First and Fourth Amendment rights to free speech and freedom from unreasonable seizure.

George, a physics and MiddleEastern studies student, was en route back to school in California when he was prompted by TSA agents to empty his pockets in order to clear the security checkpoint.

After he took out his set of EnglishArabic flashcards, which included translation of phrases like “to smile,” the TSA proceeded to detain and question him.

Questions posed by the TSA supervisor at the airport related to George’s opinions of 9/11, and why he had Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions in his possession.

If he had this book, he surely knew who Osama Bin Laden was, said the TSA supervisor, and therefore knew that Bin Laden’s language was Arabic, thus making it “evident” why these flashcards are suspicious.

After being questioned, George was handcuffed by Philadelphia Police officers, without any mention of his Miranda rights or on what grounds he was being detained or arrested. Once the FBI arrived, they questioned him on his religious and ideological affiliations to Islam, which George denied. After five

hours had elapsed, one of the FBI agents concluded that he was “not a real threat,” and allowed him to leave.

Ben Wizner, ACLU staff attorney for the National Security Project, said in presenting the lawsuit that “arresting and restraining passengers who pose no threat to flight safety and are not breaking any law not only violates people’s rights, but it won’t make us any safer. It actually makes us less safe, by diverting vital resources and attention away from true security threats.”

“Nick George was handcuffed, locked in a cell for hours, and questioned about 9/11 simply because he has chosen to study Arabic, a language that is spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world. This sort of harassment of innocent travelers is a waste of time and a violation of the Constitution,” Wizner added.

“It should not have taken four hours to determine that Nick George was not a security threat. In fact, it should not have taken four minutes,” said Mary Catherine Roper, staff attorney for the Pennsylvania ACLU.

confident that Greece will cut its deficit below the limit of 3 percent of GDP. This will optimistically occur through both an expansion in GDP as the recovery progresses and through cuts in government spending, provided that these cuts do not negatively affect the Greek economy.

“Greece has two ways out of the crisis: subsidies from other members of the Eurozone such as Germany and France, or Greek changes in policy, with increased taxes and public sector cuts,” Professory Philip Strahan, the JohnL.Collins Chair in Finance at CSO, said.

Realistically, Professor Strahan suggested that the solution will most likely be a combination of the two, with aid from the Eurozone coming with mandates to balance the deficit, though differences in culture between Germany, France, and Greece make the negotiations more uncertain than if a state like California were to ask for aid in balancing its budget.

Ireland, Portugal, and Spain are experiencing similar problems, so providing aid to Greece could be a slippery slope for the stronger members of the European Union.

On a more technical note, Greek credit default swaps, a mechanism used by holders of debt to eliminate the risk of default have risen to 426 basis points. This means that it takes $426,000 per year to insure against default on $10 million of Greek five-year bonds, for a total of over $1 million during the five-year period. This compares to 16.5 for U.S. government credit default swaps during the early part of the crisis. One difference between these metrics and insurance is that holders of the credit default swaps do not actually have to own debt; they may buy the swap and then trade it in a secondary market to make a profit. This means that the market for these swaps may be inflated as a result of the increased activity from speculation and not the fundamentals.

In the short-term, this crisis appears to be only affecting the equities markets and the market for U.S. treasuries, with little affect on the macro-economy or on the job market, though a significant deterioration in the situation could have a huge affect on the global economy.

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Features

Writing’s on [bathroom] walls Courtesy of veer.com

Meg Lister Gavel Writer Every day, every person, somewhere, somehow, sits down on a toilet. Approximately 20 percent of these squats take place in a public bathroom. Moreover, a significant percentage of these public bathroom stalls are graffitied with personal reflections, confessions, poetry, prose, questions, and answers. We’ve all seen these markings, and perhaps even contributed to them. Each sentence or phrase is totally anonymous, untraceable, and yet provides an interesting insight into our culture.

The Boston College campus is relatively remarkable for its scantily written-on stalls — in high schools and Dunkin’ Donuts, the damage is much more widespread. The most popular stalls are the most public ones, including the O’Neill Library, the bathroom outside the CTRC, and select stalls in Gasson and Devlin. (Note: as the writer is a member of the female sex, all data is reported from the girls’ lavatories. Certain facts and tales of boys’ lavatories have been gathered second-hand.)

Dormitory floor bathroom scribblings are rare, and private suite bathrooms are always unmarked. Bathroom stalls are meant to be anonymous confessionals; a writer takes no chances of identification. Even within chosen bathrooms, there are a relatively few number of stalls selected. People are hesitant to start their own threads and will usually respond only to existing, topics.

Once begun, a conversation is often continued and may extend along most of the door or stall wall, fragmented by both individuals and time. A respondent is never sure if he or she is replying to the original author, one of his/her supporters, or perhaps a devil’s advocate. These topics are never closed until painted over or scraped off by the janitors, and it is not uncommon for a visitor with

a dark marker to rekindle an old conversation.

We’re scared to blatantly or publicly deface university property — for the most part, bathroom walls and mirrors are left unblemished, save for those around urinals. The nature of anonymous postings signifies reluctance to reveal ourselves to friends or family. Usually, posted deeds are not particularly heinous — in most cases, these secrets are run-of-themill “he booty calls me … I try not to go” (women’s bathroom by the CTRC).

Bomb threats and reputation slurs appear far more frequently on high school rather than college campuses. The bathroom bomb threat is a particularly poignant case of the juxtaposition of dangerous words and a non-aggressive medium. It is nearly impossible to trace the perpetrator, but one cannot simply disregard their words. The threats are certain to command attention through their visibility, but the protection of anonymity allows their presence, both jokingly and seriously.

The more cheerful “Live, Laugh, Love!” (women’s bathroom by the CTRC, again) is more frequent on a college campus. The classic “I f*cked your boyfriend!” (numerous women’s lavatories on and off campus) is a nottoo-naughty secret perfect for bathroom stall posting. Though the writer may not want to tell her friends, the bathroom stall is an opportune medium to post this secret.

Nobody will ever know who she is, or whose boyfriend she victimized, but she’s had her say. Once inked, however, writers quickly attack her statement. Other girls provide uplifting, though off-topic, moral statements (“Jesus is always there!”) or aid her self-esteem (“You’re not fat!” both from women’s CTRC bathroom).

There is something inherently endearing about all bathroom stall postings, no matter how judgmental, scandalous, or bizarre

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Being green on a budget Eliza Duggan Layout Editor “It’s not easy being green,” croons Sesame Street favorite Kermit the Frog. While Kermit laments his tendency to blend in with nature, college students are educated enough to be cognizant of the fact that human presence on this planet has had a significant effect on global warming, ozone depletion, and air pollution.

Many aspire to be more like Kermit, achieving a state of “greenness” that will make us part of the solution to many of the ecological problems facing us.

Being “green,” however, can be difficult. It is not always possible to build one’s own personal windmills for energy or eat only what one has harvested from a private garden. Thankfully, Boston College is home to many students and faculty working to decrease BC’s impact on the environment.

Mariana Souza, environmental geo-science major, A&S ’10, is a member of Real Food BC, an organization dedicated to bringing local and organic choices to BC’s dining halls. Their highly successful project, Addie’s, created a restaurant for students who love to eat delicious, sustainable food.

“Choosing organic helps producers, consumers, and the environment,” Souza says. “You know there are no pesticides in the food you eat or around the workers who produced it.”

However, organic and local food can often be expensive, so Souza recommends those on the meal plan eat at Addie’s, which offers delicious, environmentallyconscious choices. Each worker at Addie’s is trained to know why local and organic food is better for the environment and for your body as well as where many of the products they offer came from.

Feel free to test their knowledge and, in the process, gain some yourself. In addition, Souza stresses how responsive dining services is to the suggestion cards in the dining halls. If students request more local and organic options, dining services is likely to react.

Those who are not on the meal plan but are still interested in increasing their intake of local and organic products can still make small commitments to buying a few organic items each trip to the grocery store.

“Food is very personal,” Souza says.

This recognizes that everyone must find ways that work for him or her. An eager organic and local eater can invest in farmer’s produce through Community Supported Agriculture or other cooperatives, which offer a box of fresh produce each week or month. Though organic food can be expensive, it doesn’t have to be, and eating healthily now can reduce medical costs down the road.

“I don’t need to buy vitamins since the food provides everything I need,” Souza says.

Another consideration is the postprandial process. Corcoran Commons now has compost bins in which students can toss their leftovers, including the brown to-go boxes, which are biodegradable. Composting turns food waste into usable fertilizer, which will help to grow more produce instead of loading up landfills.

EcoPledge Treasurer, Emily Luksha and A&S ’10, explained that BC sends the food waste to an industrial facility, which regulates the temperatures so that there is a large variety of foods that students can compost.

EcoPledge will also host an Earth Day festival in April. The group will collect all the recyclables to form “Mount Trashmore.”

This is created by the trash from McElroy and piled in the quad to raise awareness of the importance of composting and recycling.

“You’d be surprised how much of the trash is recyclable or compostable,” Luksha says.

BC provides students with countless opportunities to recycle and compost in the form of bottle receptacles sprinkled throughout campus and the recycling and compost bins in the dining halls.

Handling food and waste intelligently, however, is just the beginning of making environmentally conscious choices. Many students have noticed the signs in their dorms and classrooms provided by the Office of Sustainability and Energy Management, which gives tips on how to save energy on and off campus. Not only do these tips, such as shaving a minute or two off daily showers (which can save 700 gallons of water per year), help to lower energy consumption, but they can also save hundreds of dollars on bills and

energy expenses.

The UGBC is creating even more incentives for students to cut their energy use. At the begining of the month residence halls across campus began a monthlong competition to conserve the most energy; students can now check out a real-time monitoring system at www.bc.edu/dormenergy to see how many kilowatts of energy are being used in any dorm at any given time.

There is a multitude of ways to drastically cut energy use and aid your dorm in winning the competition. The average dorm room is covered with energy-zapping appliances, including computers, phone chargers, desk lamps, printers, microwaves, radios, alarm clocks, etc. These are obvious energy consumers, but what we don’t always consider is that most of the power drain comes when these items are not being used.

Turning off electronic equipment conserves a lot of electricity, and unplugging the items is even better. A very easy way to conserve this energy is to plug appliances into a power strip and turn the strip off when they are not in use.

The Office of Sustainability’s website has countless tips to cut down on energy consumption, which should make it easy to help students bring their dorms to energy efficiency victory in February.

Visit BC.edu/offices/sustainability/what-you-can-do.html to find out more.

Though the task of trying to preserve the environment, purify the air, and patch up the ozone layer may seem daunting, the little differences made will add up.

Luksha asserts, “It’s important to participate in making these changes, because we live in this world and we don’t want to ruin it for ourselves and future generations. Together, we can get a lot accomplished.”

“Go Green,” because as Kermit says, “It’s beautiful, and I think it’s what I want to be.”

Courtesy of Impact.com

February 19, 2010

Immersion trip calls BC students to action Lauren Costello Gavel Writer Imagine living under a roof occupied by a soldier 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This soldier stands idly by as your house is attacked, as the steel rods over your windows are hit with large rocks, trash is thrown into your yard, and even when your house is invaded by illegal settlers who believe that God is on their side. Imagine this soldier intimidating visitors, listening in with his machine gun clearly visible and reporting their conversations.

This is exactly what life is like for the Palestinian family that I met in the contested city of Hebron/Al Khalil in the occupied West Bank.

I was among a group of Boston College students that visited the area at the beginning of January. I was shocked and disturbed by the horrendous conditions in which Palestinians are forced to live.

No amount of reading in class could have prepared me for the experience of going through a checkpoint in the West Bank, for hearing anti-Arab racism casually, unselfconsciously expressed, or for seeing the daily injustices of

life in “the world’s largest open air prison,” as one woman described her society.

One night we were abruptly awakened by an Israeli soldier yelling outside, demanding that the family car be moved to accomadate road closings. Seeing the silent exasperation on their faces quickly let me know that this was just another inconvenience that they had to accept.

Before my trip, I could have explained to you the history of the conflict and how the map of Palestine has been steadily decreasing since 1967 due to the checkpoints and the separation wall. I would have been able to argue which sociological framing of the conflict (apartheid, sociocide) made the most sense to me, and I could have made a convincing argument as to why I believe a one-state solution is the only just possibility for the region at this point. While this ‘conflict’ may appear to be a war between people – a war shaped by different religious and cultural beliefs – it is actually about power and control shaped by political interests that use racist ideology to breed hatred among its citizens.

Imagine, however, what it’s like

to be a Palestinian child walking to school daily past graffiti that says: “What’s the difference between an Arab and a trampoline? You take off your shoes to jump on a trampoline.” Additionally, less than five minutes away a Palestinian market functions as usual, except for the steel mesh overhead designed to protect shoppers from the bricks, trash and sewage-filled plastic bags that Israeli settlers throw down on the market.

I could not have foreseen what we would learn during our homestays in the Dheisheh refugee camp in the holy city of Bethlehem. We met families who could not feed their children and had lived in Dheisheh for three generations but still managed to hope that one day their lives would be different.

In my host family, the parents now have two different identification cards, and the father will not be able to see the birth of his third child because he is banned from entering Jerusalem to go to the hospital ten minutes away from his house.

Along with the horror, we also saw enterprise and hope embodied in the Palestinian Fair Trade Association that brings organic olive oil to a Whole Foods near you. We

saw the amazing persistence of a Prisoners’ Rights NGO (Addameer) that continues to fight injustice despite the fact that they are working within a prejudiced court system and 70 percent of Palestinian men will spend time in jail.

Mostly, there is an incredible gallantry of daily non-violent resistance. The attempt to live an ordinary Palestinian life amid the checkpoints, land seizures, road closures, and daily insults is truly admirable. While Palestinians never get used to the daily assaults on their lives, large or small, they meet these difficulties with “sumud.”

This means a mix of forbearance and steadfastness that my host family explained in this way: “You have to just do it and move on with your day, because if you let it get to you all the time, you’d go insane.

You can’t stop living.”

In some ways our trip can be viewed much like every other service or immersion trip; we saw poverty, resilience, and the requisite number of cute, photogenic children. And like most service trips, we are now challenging ourselves to find ways to put our knowledge and our experience to work in service to the world.

This trip is distinguished by the fact that the injustices we saw were not produced by a natural disaster or the slowly unfolding consequences of our capitalist system.

The gross injustice we witnessed is produced by an illegal occupation that is crucially supported by American foreign aid, your tax dollars and mine.

We also found that as Americans of conscience, we have strong partners in both Palestine and Israel. A broad array of Palestinian organizations (representing rural and urban, secular and religious groups, academics, professionals, craftspeople, folks in the West Bank, Gaza and the refugee camps of the diaspora) invite us to join with them in a program of boycotts, sanctions and divestments against Israel that would impose non-violent but real costs on the illegal occupation (with the full support and encouragement of Israeli NGOs and human rights organizations, such as Who Profits and Zochrot). We all left Palestine with a clear message: time is running out, and this issue could not be more urgent. The question now is this: how do we, at BC, take up this call to action?

GoodCrush now plays cupid for BC students

Courtesy of nickellis.co.uk

Maeve Gormly Managing Editor Launched just in time for Valentine’s Day celebrations, Cupid went digital at Boston College with the creation of the BC chapter of GoodCrush.com.

GoodCrush.com, originally founded four years ago by and for students at Princeton University, adds to the slew of social networking Web sites trying to attract college students. However, it specializes in assisting people on the hunt for romance — or perhaps just a good hookup with the hottie from

the Plex.

The site has two main features: the CrushFinder and Missed Connections. The CrushFinder allows students to list the e-mail addresses of up to five potential relational partners, who then receive an email from GoodCrush.

“Someone at Boston College is crushing on you and kinda-sorta wants you to know,” the e-mail says, not revealing the crusher’s identity to the crushee. “It feels nice to be liked, doesn’t it?”

The e-mail then implores the crushed-on student to similarly register and enter up to five love

interests’ e-mail addresses. If there is a match, both students will be notified.

The Missed Connections feature borrows the Craigslist favorite, encouraging users to write about the tall, dark and handsome stranger who is always working Late Night on Saturdays, the blond in green shorts at 3 p.m. in the Plex, or the cutie with whom someone made flirty eye contact with on the elevator.

Nicholas Domino, A&S ’12, who helped to bring GoodCrush to BC, says that he sees GoodCrush as a tool to potentially help combat the oft-referenced hook-up culture on college campuses.

“If you establish you have a ‘crush’ and not a ‘hookup,’ you establish that you like that person or at least could be interested in them,” Domino says. “… It’s not even about encouraging relationships. It’s encouraging dating. A more meaningful bond than is just confined to a double on upper campus, that is just confined to 11 p.m., perhaps a little inebriated.”

Although some of the Missed Connections listed at BC.GoodCrush.com are on the

raunchier side of the romance spectrum, Domino says that his favorite post thus far belonged to a roommate.

“You just dropped my jaw on the vandy elevator while I was going to do laundry.” the post says. “you said, ‘enjoy your laundry.’ who are you [sic].”

Domino says that after the elevator encounter with the mystery woman of Vandy, his roommate went straight to GoodCrush.com in hopes of rekindling his fleeting moment.

“I saw the sheer look of excitement on his face when he saw that [feature of GoodCrush] and the hopefulness of knowing that she could possibly respond,” Domino says. “Even if it doesn’t give him a connection … his hope is put out on a limb, and a fairly safe limb that is still anonymous.”

GoodCrush.com cites a review

by The Trenton Times referring to the Web site as a nostalgic throwback to middle school-style flirting: “Do you like me? Circle yes or no.”

But unlike in middle school, there is little risk involved — interested parties are never revealed

unless the GoodCrush is returned.

The anonymity also appears to be popular among the notoriously non-dating BC population. Within the first 40 hours of operation of the BC chapter, GoodCrush garnered 280 members.

Ultimately, Domino says he hopes that GoodCrush will be able to work in tandem with other oncampus efforts to help fix perceived problems with the hook-up culture.

These include the ever-popular lectures with Professor Kerry Cronin, AHANA’s Lovers’ Lounge, Speed Dating at the O’Connnell House, and the Residence Hall Association’s Relationship Week.

“There are so many stimuli around you all the time that when you are in a relationship you almost have to be around each other all the time to prove you are ‘together,’” Domino says. “Muck of the weekends, which turns into random week nights … also affects those who are in relationships. The big problem is that we go from hookup culture to ‘exclusive relationship’ — we completely forget about this whole thing of ‘dating.’ How many people actually go past one date or ‘O.K., we’re dating now?’”

www.bcgavel.com

BC students wear school spirit on sleeve Lorna Greene Gavel Writer I left school uniforms behind the day I graduated from my Catholic secondary school. I hoped I would never have to come across one again, unless I happened to pass children on their way home from school. Imagine my surprise when I arrived on Boston College’s campus only to soon realize that I had once again been thrown back into the world of the school uniform. On the BC campus, it is impossible to walk from one building to another, to sit in a class or to eat food in any of the dining halls without seeing an impressive myriad of BOSTON COLLEGE apparel. What has surprised me most about this phenomenon is that I like it.

At my home university, University of County Cork, or UCC in Ireland, the level of demonstration of university paraphernalia stands no competition to that of Boston College. There are no UCC baseball caps, pom-poms, snuggies, pajamas or even sweatpants. Granted, you

are able to pick up a sweatshirt, a key ring, a mug or a pen but these banal items are not embraced by the students themselves. It is usually only visitors, or exchange students who buy these products.

Most students on my home university’s campus wear the apparel of their specific sports team, club or society that they are involved in.

I do realize that this also the case on BC’s campus, but the items are not exclusive, and students wear the generic BOSTON COLLEGE clothing too.

This eagerness to sport clothing emblazoned with the university’s name demonstrates a certain pride the students take in their school.

This has become one of my favorite things about Boston College– the fact that the people who attend the school are so happy to be here and eager to demonstrate their affiliation with the university. It creates a sense of community and togetherness. It makes it easy to identify fellow BC students when off campus and it adds meaning and true value to the college’s motto, “We are BC.”

The fact that the quintessential clothing item for a BC student is a ‘Superfan’ t-shirt says a lot about the collective spirit present on campus.

There is a willingness of almost all BC students to support and rally around the various sports teams that represent this university on a state and national level. School spirit is strengthened and consolidated in the student body’s choice to wear ‘Superfan’ t-shirts; the very name of which demonstrates the unwavering loyalty and pride in our sports teams and various other representatives of the college. Furthermore, the fact that these t-shirts also represent our fellow classmates and peers only reinforces the idea of togetherness and community at BC. Not only can students identify as Boston College ‘Superfans’ but they can also proudly identify themselves as a member of the class of 2010, 2011, 2012, or 2013.

Although I am an exchange student and in reality cannot identify myself as a full-fledged Boston College student, I am still exceptionally proud to have had the opportunity

Courtesy of BC Athletics Online Store

to attend this fantastic university. I am also happy to experience college life on such a vibrant and fun campus. I have my own ‘Superfan’ t-shirt and Boston College sweatshirt. I enjoy the sense of pride that accompanies wearing Boston College clothing, signifying that I,

too, am part of this community.

Perhaps UCC students are missing out on this same opportunity, or at least nowt making the most of their opportunity to wear our school’s name and emblem with the same delight and unwavering loyalty that BC students do. Let’s go BC!

NEDA seeks to raise eating disorder awareness Alison Athey Assoc. Features Editor

Many BC students have heard horror stories about the Plex, from students on the elliptical machines for hours on end to girls eating packets of Splenda so they won’t pass out while exercising. These are signs of a pervasive culture of disordered eating that has created a formidable presence on campus.

Forty percent of female college students have eating disorders, according to the Massachusetts Eating Disorders Association. To combat this widespread problem, Feb. 21 – 27 is National Eating Disorder Awareness Week. During NEDAwareness there will be several online seminars that call upon healthcare practitioners, social workers and all those affected by eating disorders to raise awareness by organizing events in their own communities.

“Our aim of NEDAwareness Week is to ultimately prevent eating disorders and body image issues while reducing the stigma surrounding eating disorders and improving access to treatment,” says The National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA) Web site.

“There is a difference between being healthy and being sick. There is such a fine line and it is being crossed

all the time. It’s scary,” a Boston College senior who has had several close friends with eating disorders.

This student, who asks to remain anonymous to protect the privacy of her friends, remembers a close friend putting herself on Weight Watchers in the sixth grade. Instead of eating balanced meals on this diet program, the young girl would save all of her “points” for Twizzlers and Hohos.

Many BC students know that anorexia is characterized by restricted eating habits and that bulimia is based on binging followed by compensatory behaviors. The physical consequences of these disorders are far-reaching, among them nose bleeds, stained teeth, inability to menstruate, hair loss and the development of lanugo, a soft, coating of hair on the arms, face and back that occurs when body fat decreases too significantly. According to the American Psychological Association, anorexia nervosa has the highest mortality rate of any psychotic disorder at 10 -15 percent.

No single cause of eating disorders is known, but researchers believe that it is linked to a combination of factors, including genetics, depression, anxiety, familial difficulties and imbalances of the neurotransmitter Seratonin.

Distorted self-image is a critical

feature of eating disorders, and many sufferers experience feelings of inadequacy. High-achieving people with perfectionist tendencies are also vulnerable to disordered eating, which is a characteristic typical to students at competetive universities.

Women at BC may be especially at risk for developing eating disorders. NEDA states that anorexia is more prevalent in young, uppermiddle class women, who make up a large proportion of the student body. However, anyone can develop an eating disorder, regardless of race, gender, socioeconomic status, size or sexual orientation.

There are many on-campus resources available to students with disordered eating. University Counseling Services and University Health Services offer some psychological and nutritional counseling. The University also employs a nutritionist available by appointment on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The Women’s Resource Center (WRC) offers a variety of resources for people who struggle with disordered eating, as well as those who care for them.

“There are weekly support group meetings for those struggling with eating issues, and in the WRC we regularly see students struggling with eating issues or friends of students struggling with those

issues,” says Rachel Lamorte a staff member at the WRC and A&S ’10.

The group, known as HOPE (Healthy Options for the Pressure of Eating) is facilitated by two graduate students who have extensive training in the area of eating issues.

The WRC is not planning any events related to National Eating Disorder Awareness Week. Instead, they organize Love Your Body Week in the fall semester and offer ongoing services throughout the year.

“We try to make Love Your Body Week focused on healthy body image promotion and eating issues awareness to make it a positive week while also getting at some incredibly difficult issues,” says Lamorte, who was the chief coordinator of the event in 2008 and 2009.

“We’re always looking at the efficiency and effectiveness of our programs and we’ve had many students give positive feedback about Love Your Body Week,” she says.

Despite these services, BC students still hear those same horror stories from the Plex. It is clear that eating disorders have a large and negative presence on campus, but many students do not know how to help friends or address peers who engage in unhealthy eating and exercising habits.

The WRC Web site offers detailed advice to students who are

concerned about loved ones who struggle with eating. They offer a guide on how to set up interventions, what to expect in the process, and a perspective on the subjective experience of people with disordered eating.

“It is so easy to go on without addressing [a friend’s eating disorder],” the anonymous source says. “If you catch it early enough, though, they can be helped in a relatively quick fashion, as opposed to being sent away [for treatment].”

When confronting a friend about his or her eating behaviors, it is important to know common mistakes to avoid — telling a friend that she looks “disgustingly thin” can be interpreted as a compliment, whereas telling someone in recovery that she looks “healthy” can be seen as code for “fat” — but without the encouragment of loved ones, few people know how to reach out for help.

“Many people who recover acknowledge the importance of friends who believed in them and kept trying to reach through to them,” says the WRC website.

Especially on college campuses, where residence halls become a second home to many students, friends and roommates can play an important role in helping to reduce and raise awareness of disordered eating.

February 19, 2010

Jobseekers use ‘twesumes’ Arrupe trip to highlight experiences shocks, inspires Lauren Viola Asst. Features Editor

Stafford Oliver Gavel Writer

Santa, ZUP BC UR J2G hrs 2 tkts 2 Aruba 4U n ms Claus 4t mth of dec O n mayB Rudy n d boyz cn join U TTYL d Grinch

Over winter break, I, like many other Boston College students, participated in a service trip. I know how many students partake in the “service culture” and that you may be thinking, “Yeah, I know. You’re going to talk about how your trip was so great and so special and so life changing, and blah blah blah.”

So what new information or perspective do I have to offer that you haven’t heard from countless friends? Continue reading.

I started the whole process in March of last year when I was selected to co-lead an Arrupe International trip to Agua Prieta, which is right on the border of Mexico. The whole thing feels like a whirlwind, from the information sessions, the hours of interviewing, and group selection to the weekly two-hour meetings. There was so much material to talk about and information to cover. If I uttered the words “let’s go over some logistics” one more time, the Arupe group would probably have mutinied against me. We did so much reflecting throughout the pretrip phase, I felt like I was a CURA leader.

After submitting my last paper with the arrival of winter break, the thought that I was actually going to a different country within the next few days finally dawned upon me.

Late in December, it was unclear if we would still go due to increased levels of violence in the nearby city of Nogales. Growing up in Baltimore (which is not exactly like The Wire, please don’t ask me if it is), I did not bat an eye upon learning of the shootings and drug deals, but our itinerary was indeed changed at the last minute. I returned to BC hoping and praying that I would be ready to accompany 12 others on a complete roller coaster.

The trip was organized by Borderlinks, an organization from

A quick translation: Santa, What’s up? Because you are just too good, here’s two tickets to Aruba for you and Mrs. Claus for the month of December. Oh, and maybe Rudy and the boys can join you?

Talk to you later, The Grinch Though this may not be the typical Christmas letter you wrote as a kid to Santa Claus, language like this is rapidly becoming the norm for all sorts of communication. Originally, it began as a short hand way to type to a friend on AOL messenger or send a quick text message without going over a 160-character limit. However, shorthand, abbreviations and minimized words have taken over the globe. Their latest captive: resumes.

New social networking sites seem to spring up daily, as their popularity seemingly increases by the minute.

Whether used for reconnecting with old friends or colleagues, keeping in touch with people who are far away, sending fun messages to your friends down the hall or posting pictures to share with friends and family, there is no doubt that the online social network phenomena is quickly expanding to cover it all.

However, with information on the internet being globally public even with the use of certain privacy settings, there has always been a concern as to what is posted on these websites and who can potentially see them. For a college student, this concern usually winds down to two very important people: mom, and the person from whom your future paycheck will come.

But if we look past these concerns, and the precautions that need to be taken to make sure a potential boss does not see what you did last Friday night, we find that social networking sites can actually be helpful in finding a new career or in starting one.

A recent article in Newsday, entitled “Why U shld hire me!” says, “Job hunters who’ve whittled their resumes down to one page have a brand new challenge — getting them down to 140-character Tweets;

Courtesy of ceberco.co.za

make that 120 if you leave room for retweeting.”

Impossible? Kristin Borrero, CSOM ’11, thinks it might be. “Even trying to keep my resume to a page for me is extremely difficult, but to try to make it 140 characters I would find virtually impossible,” she said.

With such intense competition these days for every position on the market, resumes are an extremely important tool for students and older job hunters alike. A job seeker is trying to get their personality and qualifications across to a potential employer, especially since resumes are normally looked at before an interview process even beings.

“I usually try to get across something completely distinct and unique in that individual point while keeping it extremely strong and action based,” Borrero says what she tends to highlight on her resume.

“I also try to incorporate some sort of numbers into it or some sort of quantitative measure of how I performed in that job or activity so that the perspective employer can get a good picture of the actual benefit of the task that I was working on … a lot of employers only spend the first 30 seconds looking at your resume.”

This highlights how long we have to get our uniqueness, qualifications and important background information across before our resume gets tossed to the side.

What the new wave of online resumes, or “twesumes” seems to be doing is forcing us to beat the employers to the punch, and only give them 30 seconds of information to read.

“Those who see Twitter as a job-search tool need a succinct but compelling ‘twesume,” Allison

Hemming, founder and president of Manhattan talent agency Hired Guns, said in Newday. “It calls for focus and editing, and, if your story is neither short nor compelling, people won’t share it with others.

And that’s networking death.”

So what can you actually say about yourself in less than 140 characters (about the length of this sentence) that would give any sort of true picture of who you are?

“I think I would try to highlight my passions as well as how I’d like to put those into work at a specific job or position,” Borrero says. “I don’t think that in 140 characters you can talk about your educational background, your extracurricular background, interests, your technical skills and your past work experience, you couldn’t even list those things in 140 characters.”

“Twesumes” seem to be about focus and branding yourself.

“Whether it’s in written form or in an elevator pitch you need to have a brand and have that be a unique something,” Borrero says. “Something that’s unique and different about you, that sets yourself apart from somebody else that could easily say the very same things about themselves or has a lot of the same experiences.”

Though they may be a challenge for many to write, “twesumes” can be used for other purposes, such as a tagline on the back of your business card, or a starter for your cover letter or resume.

But with a “twesumes” present or not, and no matter whose tweets you are following, technology seems to have spread its grasp even deeper into the realm of job hiring and recruitment.

Tucson, Ariz. Borderlinks was founded to educate groups about the conditions and the multiple perspectives of living at the border. I spent seven days rolling around in a van stuffed to the ceiling with book bags, sleeping bags, and 12 other mostly unwashed bodies. We slept at migrant shelters, visited a horrifying low-wage factory, met with a multitude of social justice organizations working on the behalf of migrants, visited a coffee co-op, witnessed a mass-deportation trial and were stopped by border patrol.

The most heart-wrenching moments came when we were putting those foreign language core classes to good use, talking with people who were deeply affected by the border wall and its many implications.

My heart plumeted when I saw a 17-year-old youth group leader who had us singing and dancing on a Friday night, robotically working on an assembly line Monday morning. I can’t describe the shock of learning from a minister that the man I sat next to at Church used to smuggle human beings for a living. This comes after completing a seminar class and writing a research paper on human trafficking.

This trip went beyond meeting gracious people in Mexico, being inspired by dedicated folks who are actually making a difference, and engaging with an academic subject beyond a book or an essay. I was able to get real (in a way that is difficult inside of this ivory tower) with 12 incredible and insightful people that I would probably not have otherwise known. Not only did we share lots of disinfectant and powder, but lots of songs, hugs and most importantly, friendship.

I’m not sure if what I did or how I feel is representative of all those who have or will go on a service trip. I am, however, sure that I am too engaged and too inspired to let go of my experiences and simply move on.

u! o y g n i r u t a e F

The Features Section

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www.bcg

Students present ways to

By Tue Tran Editor-in-Chief

Institutionalization of Queer Peers:

There are many degrees of homophobia. From the flippant usage of “that’s so gay” to injuring someone due to suspicions of him or her having a non-heterosexual orientation. At Boston College, GLBTQ students have expressed concern about the campus climate with regard to issues of sexual identity and the lack of support from the University.

“Being gay isn’t [seen as] commonplace here,” said Larissa Belcic, vice president of the GLC and A&S 2010. “It’s [seen as] something weird.”

The GLTBQ Leadership Council (GLC) has developed ideas that they feel would help Boston College become more inclusive. They believe that the University needs to acknowledge that homophobia is prevalent on campus and to take the issue into BC’s hands.

Currently, a number of campus resources for GLBTQ students are run by students. The GLC fears, however, that this causes inconsistencies from year to year, as programs are dependent on the abilities of student leaders.

This is why they emphasize the institutionalization of resources that are currently student-run.

“The administration looks to student leaders [to provide resources to other students],” Belcic said. “Doing this ignores the fact that they are students too and need the same support.”

According to Belcic, this is not a floor plan for the University — it is neither a list of demands nor is it concrete. It is a product of hours spent researching other Jesuit universities and brainstorming ways to improve campus.

“I wouldn’t be arrogant enough to tell the people who run this school what to do,” Belcic said. “But I can tell them what is needed, what can be fixed.”

It all comes down to support for the individual student, said Belcic. It is not about anything that would be deemed to go against Catholic teaching on homosexuality, but rather care of the whole person. It would help combat the marginalization that queer students feel.

“Jesuit universities have the same values, but they seem to be doing a better job upholding those values,” Belcic said.

Queer Peers is a program where students who are dealing with coming out or other sexual identity issues can come have a one-on-one conversation to a GLBTQ peer confidentially.

While this program was officially launched last semester, Queer Peers was run unofficially the year before. If it is institutionalized, it would guarantee that the program continue without hindrance in the future. Currently, the program is being run in the Women’s Resource Center.

Implementation of Safe Spaces programming: The Safe Spaces program offers resources for students to hold presentations and workshops to open dialogue about sexual orientation. This program could be modeled after a FACES gathering, where the GLC has presented.

Institutionalization of GLBTQ student-faculty mentorship programming: This program matches GLBTQ faculty with GLBTQ students to foster a closer-knit community between professors and students. Also, students will have the opportunity to gain wisdom from respected BC adults about growing up queer.

Creation of Collaborative Committee on Campus Climate: This committee would be for the University to research student culture with regard to homophobia and how GLBTQ students experience BC. This would allow administrators to move forward with initiatives concerning queer students.

Statement of public support: Recently, the president of Fordham University released a statement exhibiting his support for GLBTQ students. The GLC feels as though this would be a way for queer students to feel less marginalized by the establishment.

Availability of literature:

Students come to college for knowledge, and the GLC feels that the availability of pamphlets that would cover coming out issues or other questions that GLBTQ students may have would be beneficial for students struggling with their sexual identity or wanting to understand more about sexual orientation.

Establishment of a GLBTQ Resource Center: While the Queer Resource Center has become a buzzphrase, the GLC states that it would simply be a permanent home for those initiatives, rather than the ultimate goal. This will be another way to ensure that there will be consistent availability of resources for students in the future.

Creation of a full-time staff position related to GLBTQ issues: This person would be responsible for the continuation of GLBTQ support resources for students.

Establishment of a GLBTQ student scholarship fund: This would allow alumni to donate to this scholarship fund to ensure that queer students have every opportunity to excel in the future.

Creation of a queer studies minor: This would allow for students to scholarly examine issues that pertain to identity. This also requires that classes in this area be consistently provided, that the availability of those courses are not necessarily based on the professors currently here to teach other courses. As seen in the past, when professors who have taught GLBTQ-related classes leave, with them were their courses.

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www.bcgavel.com

gavel.com

o further GLBTQ acceptance Student Perspectives (Confidential)

“It seems to me that Boston College’s attitude towards GLBTQ students very closely reflects the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in our U.S. military in many ways.

Boston College seems to tolerate GLBTQ students in so far as [the students] do not actively advocate for GLBTQ issues.”

“As a GLBTQ person, I have been insulted several times by fellow students who use hateful and derogatory language against the GLBTQ community.”

“The First Annual GLC Gala was an extremely positive experience, and I have rarely felt so welcomed and free to be myself as part of a greater community, regardless of my sexual orientation.”

“BC students are mostly indifferent and unaware of GLBTQ issues. This lack of concern and knowledge of GLBTQ members of the student population and their concerns has manifested in a campus that is often homophobic and hostile.”

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Editorials

www.bcgavel.com

The Gavel endorses Witmer-Dower for UGBC This past year has seen its share of controversy: the passage of the sexual health referendum, the commotion surrounding the cancellation of Bill Ayers’ lecture, and the Forbes feature that ranked Boston College the 17th worst school for interaction across racial and socioeconomic lines.

UGBC leaders have a responsibility to work through such challenges, but this cycle’s candidates took only cursory steps to address them. Despite such shortcomings, The Gavel endorses Charlie Witmer and Courtney Dower for UGBC president and vice president because ultimately, they will be stronger representatives for the student body than opponents Micaela Mabida and Patrick Raab.

Witmer and Dower ran a strong, well oiled operation that placed importance on outreach to students. Their Web site invited comments and suggestions and their door-to-door campaign asked students for input — strengths that are indicative of a positive, open relationship with students if elected. Their complementary problem-solving styles are highlighted both by Witmer’s position as UGBC chief of staff, which provides the experience necessary to implement change,

and Dower’s newcomer status, which brings a fresh perspective.

The Witmer-Dower platform focuses on a number of achievable goals, such as establishing CabShare and BikeShare programs.

Their Spring Weekend plan will help entrench a sense of tradition and cohesiveness of student spirit that any university would find valuable.

We also commend Mabida and Raab for the passion they brought to the election. Their campaign’s greatest strength was its focus on building a connection with freshman and AHANA students. Despite these advantages, they did not reach out to the GLBTQ Leadership Council president or vice president until after the primaries, neglecting to acknowledge an important constituency. They also failed to include any stance at all on the testing of sexually transmitted infections and sexual health at large in their platform. While Mabida acknowledged that their campaign failed to adequately research the issue prior to developing their platform, we feel that a commanding knowledge of the problem is essential to leading UGBC. Mabida and Raab’s silence

on sexual health is symptomatic of the lack of a strong stance in significant areas of concern on both tickets. The referendum that passed last year, with 89 percent of the vote, called not only for affordable STI testing, but also open access on campus to condoms and other contraceptives for students. The student body issued a resounding mandate that has been ignored by the current UGBC administration, and this election presents an opportunity for candidates to finally capitalize on the hard work of BC Students for Sexual Health.

While Witmer and Dower’s approach of incremental implementation of the referendum is preferable to no position at all, the short-term successes they hope to forge should not come at the expense of sustained pressure for progress. For example, although it may be unreasonable to ask the BC administration to provide students with condoms, because such a policy would be in direct conflict with Catholic ideology, it is not an unreasonable goal to fight to decriminalize the on-campus distribution of condoms by BC Students for Sexual Health, who do not ask for university funding. We are disap-

pointed by the lack of interest shown by both campaigns to an issue with such significant student support, especially because it is directly related to physical health.

Moreover, without a much stronger showing of solidarity from UGBC, students’ commitment to this initiative will have been in vain.

The campaigns also need to more substantially address academic freedom. The candidates acknowledged that the University’s speaker policy needed revision after last year’s botched Bill Ayers visit, without outlining any specific ways of addressing it. But there is a further failure on both sides to understand that academic freedom is more than guest lecturers — it is the ability of students to explore intellectual curiosities.

Freedom to test convictions in the marketplace of ideas is crucial for both a private research university and a functioning, participatory democracy. UGBC’s current push for academic advising is functionally meaningless if university policy precludes a frank and open exchange of ideas between professors and students.

Witmer-Dower and Mabida-Raab did not adequately acknowledge the burden with

which many BC students are currently struggling. They expressed support for the Montserrat Coalition, which provides affordable access to campus events for students of lower income, but this is not enough. If the candidates are serious about inclusion, they should work with the University on prioritizing students’ economic concerns.

We realize that reaching these goals will be neither immediate nor easy. They will require years of arduous negotiations and difficult compromises. We fear that because of the enormous obstacles standing in the way of progress, significant policy problems are being shelved for the next generation of students. Generic platitudes in the platforms should not preclude progress on these big picture problems. We caution students against complacency and apathy in light of significant status quo issues – talk to the candidates about your concerns. We endorse Charlie Witmer and Courtney Dower for their energy, genuine desire to connect with and include student voices, and realistically attainable initiatives. We hope that our endorsement will encourage them to stand resolved to fight for meaningful improvements.

Want to speak your mind about an issue?

Send a letter to the editor at bcgavel@gmail.com Charles Long / Gavel Contributor

February 19, 2010

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BC campus needs Queer Resource Center While establishing the Society of Jesus, the very organization that would provide as the inspiration for the founding mission of Boston College, St. Ignatius outlined one of the major tenants of his new organization, cura personalis. Cura personalis, which translates to “care of the whole person,” instructs Catholics to provide individualized attention to the needs of others as well as a distinct respect for the unique circumstances and concerns of others. With that philosophy in mind, Boston College was founded as a Jesuit institution for higher learning.

However, the motto of cura personalis has at times been ignored by the BC administration as specific parts of our community have been neglected — specifically the GLBTQ com-

munity. Steps have been taken by the administration to heed the call of St. Ignatius, but more steps still need to be taken — including the creation of a GLBTQ resource center and the institutionalization of several programs including, but not limited to, “Queer Peers.”

Some in the BC community argue, that as a Catholic institution, any support of the GLBTQ community by the university administration could be perceived as a condoning of homosexuality — which contradicts Catholic teachings on the subject. However, in a letter by then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, titled “On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons,” stated that homosexuality “is a proper focus for the Church’s pastoral care. It thus requires of her ministers attentive study, active

concern and honest, theologically well-balanced counsel.”

The words of Pope Benedict XVI have been met with action across the campuses of Catholic universities around the United States. Almost 20 years ago at Fordham University, the then president of the university, Rev. Joseph O’Hare, released a public statement backing the GLBTQ community in which he stated, “Catholic teaching insists that all individuals be treated with respect and understanding as they work to integrate their own sexuality into their personal lives.”

Similar action was taken by the Jesuit-run Santa Clara University as they declared that support for gay organizations is “the Catholic thing” to do.

At Georgetown University, the administration took a similar

approach to that of the BC administration: a silent co-existence with GLBTQ organizations, but a lack of a true involvement in the issue by the university. Then, in October of 2007, two attacks motivated by anti-gay bias, both involving homophobic slurs and physical assault occurred to a Georgetown student. In response, the Georgetown university administration increased their support of GLBTQ students — including the opening of a GLBTQ Resource Center.

However, the BC community cannot afford to take the same path as the Georgetown community did. We cannot afford to wait for a catalyst, such as a hate crime, to finally motivate the administration to become substantially involved in the issues that the GLBTQ community faces on

campus.

The university should be commended for the steps it has already taken to assist the GLBTQ community on campus – including the creation of the GLBT Leadership Council (GLC). However, more action is needed. Recently, GLC has unveiled a rough outline on additional programs and resources they would like to see made available for the GLBTQ community on campus including a Queer Resource Center, a student-mentorship program, and the creation of a GLBTQ alumni network.

Not only does the university need to become a more vocal advocate of solutions to GLBTQ issues on campus, but also, the administration simply needs to show more support for its own students and the problems affecting them.

Implications of the meaning of “progressive” The Gavel presents itself as “the progressive news source of Boston College.” What do we mean by “progressive news source?” How does our definition of “progressive” shape the presence and role of our publication? These are some of the questions we hope to answer for readers and in so doing assert ourselves as a new, independent campus media organization.

The Gavel is first progressive in the liberal political sense of the word. The Progressive movement of the early 20th century sought electoral reform in response to corruption, trust-busting, and environmental protection, among other issues. After his tenure in the Oval Office, Theodore Roosevelt formed the progressive Bull Moose Party and challenged thenPresident William H. Taft.

Even though Roosevelt’s campaign was unsuccessful, and

despite the desire of many middleclass progressives to undermine the suffrage of immigrants and African-Americans, the movement evolved over time.

Today, the progressive movement incorporates the traditional emphasis on conservation to a slew of concerns including a noninterventionist foreign policy, civil rights, distributive justice, marriage equality, universal healthcare and the abolition of the death penalty. The College Democrats of Boston College (CDBC) provides some funding for the newspaper because we share the goal of incorporating a multiplicity of viewpoints into contemporary discourse.

The Gavel remains editorially independent the views of our editors are not necessarily those of CDBC, and vice-versa. While we may advocate for progressive

Published with support from Campus Progress / the Center for American Progress – online at www.campusprogress.org

causes in our editorials, we are committed to unbiased, nonpartisan journalism with a clear demarcation between factual reporting and opinionated commentary. Unlike 24-hour cable news networks and activist blogs, the newspaper has always been a space where readers can easily differentiate content that represents objective fact from that which is the view of a writer or a group of writers.

The Gavel also receives funding from the Center for Campus Progress, a group that facilitates Web-based journalism. This leads to the second meaning of progressive technologically progressive.

While The Gavel acknowledges the tradition and importance of the printed newspaper, we also realize that economic concerns have made this a declining possibility. Our newspaper embraces new technology on our Web

site, www.bcgavel.com, where one can find not just our printed content but daily news, additional columns, regularly updated blogs and streaming video. Readers can view video interviews of the Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates for the UGBC, post comments, view photos, and submit letters to the editor.

We feel that the breadth of our online resources set us apart from other campus newspapers and provide a complementary source of information. In several weeks, we will launch a new, revitalized Web site to increase the number of photos and videos we can post and will add new features like ongoing opinion polls, a reorganized archive system, and staff biographies.

The combination of political and technological progressivism allows us to enfranchise the mar-

TUE TRAN, Editor-in-Chief MAEVE GORMLY, Managing Editor YANIRA REVAN, Copy Editor ANDREW SLADE, News Editor BRENDAN BENEDICT, Opinions Editor AMY WALSH, Features Editor DANIEL MONAN, Culture Editor ANDREW SCHOFIELD, Special Projects Editor SHARON COSTELLO, Photo Editor SEAN MEEHAN, Video Editor GABRIELLE CHWAZIK-GEE, Broadcast Producer ELIZA DUGGAN, Layout Editor SUE BYUN, Assoc. News Editor MICHELLE MARTINEZ, Assoc. News Editor

ginalized and unheard voices of BC. Traditional sources initially overlooked the dispute between the University and its unionized service employees, so we covered the story. Traditional sources highlighted UGBC elections, but only The Gavel put the videos of candidate interviews online. We will continue to cover breaking news on campus, but we will also seek out the stories that fly under the establishment radar, with a greater emphasis on investigative journalism and in-depth news analysis. While students or professors might view The Gavel as a liberal response to The Observer or a threat to The Heights, we hope to progress beyond these characterizations and present our institution not as one that conflicts or competes with others, but one that cooperates and complements to the greater benefit of our readers.

KEVIN FAGAN, Asst. News Editor ALISON ATHEY, Assoc. Features Editor LAUREN VIOLA, Asst. Features Editor ROBERT ROSSI, Assoc. Culture Editor LEA FREEMAN, Asst. Culture Editor RODAAN RABANG, Assoc. Video Editor JUSTINE BURT, Assoc. Video Editor MATTHEW GAVIN, Asst. Video Editor DENNIS O’MARRA, Assoc. Broadcast Producer BENJAMIN MAYER, Editorial Assistant BOBBY NGUY, Business Manager ERGY JEAN-BAPTISTE, Webmaster CHRISTINA DRAGO, Senior Editor LAUREL MANLOW, Senior Editor

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Opinions

www.bcgavel.com

History being written before it happens Mike Mullin When it is all said and done, history has a way of writing itself.

For the last couple weeks, the incessant drone of the relatively uneducated were proclaiming Peyton Manning as perhaps — wait for it — “the Greatest of All Time.”

This label, innocuous to some (hysterical to me), was dependent on a Colts victory. Thankfully, a full scale uprising of Peytonites was avoided, but the dye had already been cast. Thousands of football fans had coalesced and decided history before the fact.

This phenomenon — call it the CNN complex — has effortlessly and unassumingly either empowered or enraged the talking head tendencies in opinion holders across America. The dominance of 24-hour news cycles and punditry on cable television has unsurprisingly created a niche for talented oracles, like Glenn Beck and Charles Barkley, and their utterly incomprehensible rants. Diatribe and the outlandish prediction have replaced real sports commentary,

real political commentary, and real news.

That is not the problem. It’s business as usual for Fox News, as Beck, apparently readying himself for a future in amateur cave diving, has been loading his pockets with scammed gold (though we know this is because he managed to scare off all his former advertisers).

I watch the NBA on TNT every night, and the best part is easily Charles Barkley. Out of cable news rubble have emerged Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert as fairly reliable and consistently entertaining news sources. The talking head is here to stay, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

Issues arise when opinionators start toying with history. I wasted 30 minutes of my life (30 minutes!)

Saturday night before the Super Bowl, listening to the ramblings of an incoherent android. By the end of it, the filth spewing from his mouth, like the spray off a Mark McGwire back pimple, had contaminated guys like Jim Brown, Barry Sanders, and even Joe Montana. Dismayed as I was, I

could not find among the ostensibly dwindling crowd of uninterested listeners one person who would back me. First of all, Peyton Manning is still playing, so the jury, should recess until he hangs up his cleats. Second, the argument is moot because of Rex Grossman and a 9-9 playoff record. Lastly, the guy is still playing, for crying out loud.

Why does this matter? In the midst of an awful financial situation and earnest attempts to push necessary health care and job measures through a broken Congress, the collective American body politic, including President Barack Obama himself, only seem concerned with one thing: history.

The buzzword for the Obama administration, “unprecedented,” is draped upon every piece of its agenda: unprecedented health reform, unprecedented financial stimulus, unprecedented Republican obstructionism. The only precedent Obama is following is his predecessor’s penchant for legacy mongering, though more subtly, like a professor assigning

Peyton Manning, Courtesy of blogs.newsok.com

the textbook he wrote for required reading. Or is that Glenn Beck’s scheme?

Maybe the CNN complex is not to blame. Maybe, as one would expect after a, historically speaking, brilliant campaign, the daily conclusions arrived at, by political junkies and the casual cable news watcher alike, on Obama’s place on Mount Rushmore come with the territory. Maybe, after so many record-breaking regular seasons, Manning deserves to at least be in the conversation. Nein, I say!

You don’t start a land war in Asia with winter on the brink, and you

don’t call history until it is done happening.

I love Obama. I think I always will, even if his approval ratings drop to Dubya-esque levels. He’s just my guy. But if he, and the rest of the administration, cannot find a way to shift their focus from the historical implications of the reform on the docket to pushing effective reform initiatives through Congress, he is going to end up looking less like Kurt Warner in the playoffs (a methodical, pragmatic leader) and more like Manning in the playoffs (a choke artist).

Democrats have options to pass healthcare Nick Schaufelberger For the past few months, we have watched Democrats and Republicans duke it out on Capitol Hill over the biggest political question of the year: health care reform.

While both parties have stressed the need for such reform theoretically, the ways in which they want to go about it are completely different. The Democrats mainly want to expand coverage dramatically and then cut costs, whereas the Republicans want to make changes to the already existing system with the main purpose of cutting costs.

With the need to get more people covered by health care and the importance of cutting costs becoming more and more apparent, it is now necessary for the Democrats to get the bill passed despite the Republican filibuster.

The statistics are overwhelming: in 2005, 40 million adults stated that they have needed health care service, but couldn’t afford

it. Also, despite being the only industrialized nation without universal health care, the United States still spends more money on health care per capita than any other nation in the world, with costs that continue to increase, with an excessive amount of those costs associated with administrative overhead.

Having the most expensive health care system in the world that still doesn’t cover all Americans demonstrates that the nation needs a major overhaul of the health care system.

The difference between Republican and Democratic plans for reform is mainly ideological, but only the Democrats have proposed major health care legislation. The Republicans, from the beginning of negotiations on the bill, have done nothing but obstruct the Democrats’ attempts to reform health care.

Even now, despite having an overwhelming majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate, the Democrats are blocked on the issue with the

Republican threat of a filibuster.

The Democrats have no one to blame but themselves for having failed to pass health care reform to date. Contrary to popular belief, the filibuster is not an unbeatable political obstacle and Democrats can defeat it.

The filibuster is essentially the right to unlimited debate on a bill in the Senate. It permits Senators to speak for as long as they wish on any topic, unless 60 Senators vote to end the debate. While this was originally intended to allow for more debate, in effect it has been used to block the enactment of legislation, contrary to the intention of the founding fathers.

There used to be a filibuster rule in the House of Representatives, however, it was terminated in 1842 due to the difficulty of passing any legislation in the House. In the Senate, the filibuster was never used widely due to the implicit threat that the filibuster could itself be changed by majority rule if the minority used it to prevent, instead of merely to delay, votes on measures sup-

ported by a bare majority. It was only after the filibuster was first used in the 1960s, in an attempt to block passage of the Civil Rights Act, that its use to block legislation became more commonplace. Nevertheless, the idea that a majority vote to change the rules of the Senate could be used to destroy the filibuster could still be effective today. Since it takes only a majority of Senators to invoke a point of order and change Senate rules, a simple majority of Senators could bar the use of the filibuster from Senate proceedings.

Why this hasn’t taken place, however, lies within Senate politics. The Democrats are unwilling to destroy any possibility of a filibuster, since they may want to use it themselves if they are ever in the Republicans’ position. More importantly, they are afraid that political backlash from destroying the filibuster could hurt their position.

The Democrats could also rely on the reconciliation process to avoid a filibuster. This would require a majority vote on any

budget-related issues to pass health care reform. However, they refuse to attempt this due to fear for their own political careers.

Simply put, the Democrats have no backbone. If the Republicans were in this position, they would definitely amend the rules to remove the filibuster, as they threatened to in 2005 until the Gang of 14 moderates negotiated a settlement. Had the Gang of 14 failed, the Republicans would have ended the filibuster in favor of getting their court candidates appointed.

This underscores the pointlessness of the Democrats trying to preserve the filibuster, since if Democrats ever try to use a filibuster to block proceedings, the Republicans will evoke a point of order and amend the rules. At this point, the necessity of getting health care legislation passed is important enough that the Democrats need to take a stand and force a point of order. Failing now would be more than just a political defeat; it would be a disaster for the American people.

February 19, 2010

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You Be the Judge:

Is Coakley’s defeat a rebuke of Opinions 15 Obama’s policies?

Jamie Zhang

Chris Fegan

As former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill once said, “All politics is local.” The Martha Coakley-Scott Brown election, while labeled otherwise by pundits and politicians alike, is an almost perfect example of that axiom.

Let’s start by dispelling the notion that Coakley lost because of President Barack Obama’s health care proposal. Massachusetts already has an individual mandate to obtain health insurance, with the plans of the poor subsidized by the state, yet there is virtually no clamor in our state to repeal universal health care. There are no “tea baggers” swarming about the state, screaming at politicians about socialism and death panels.

The voters of Massachusetts generally like Obama’s health care proposal, which is why among voters who cared mainly about health care legislation, Coakley did just fine. According to a Rasmussen poll taken after the election, Coakley actually won among voters who cited health care as their top issue by a 53 percent to 46 percent margin.

So how did Scott Brown win? He won by making the local issues the dominant issues of the election. Among voters who cited taxes as their top issue, Brown handily defeated Coakley by a 6-1 margin. But here’s the thing: Washington has not raised taxes in over a decade.

In fact, Obama actually cut taxes for the vast majority of Americans as a part of the stimulus bill.

Brown, by denouncing taxes, was implicitly referring to the recent 25 percent sales tax hike that went into effect a few months ago in Massachusetts, a new burden that has infuriated local residents. At a time when voters are losing jobs and being squeezed economically, the seemingly trivial jump in the sales tax from 5 percent to 6.25 percent seems to have had a tremendous psychological impact. Thus, Massachusetts voters who cited taxes as their main concern saw their vote more directly as a referendum on Gov. Deval Patrick and the state legislature than on Obama.

Let’s face it: Coakley ran an absolutely abysmal campaign. Between insulting Catholics and making it painfully clear she doesn’t know the first thing about the Red Sox, she alienated most of the swing voters who ended up deciding the election. In a state where the majority of voters are Catholic, Coakley glibly quipped that Catholics shouldn’t work in the Emergency Room, dismissing Catholic views on abortion in the process.

Even with these gaffes aside, Coakley ran a decidedly negative campaign that, in tone, seemed antithetical to the message of hope that sent Obama to the White House. While Brown was busy spreading populist fervor around the state, denouncing a paralyzed and ineffectual Washington, Coakley was actually mocking

It’s surprising that the high temperature in Boston on Jan. 19 was only 36° Fahrenheit. That was the day that Republican Scott Brown defeated Democrat Martha Coakley in the Special Senate Election to fill the late Ted Kennedy’s vacant seat. One would think that the billion-watt national spotlight shining on the state would have boosted that temperature by quite a few degrees.

This was not just a local election solely affecting the state of Massachusetts. It was the event that would affirm or reject the Democratic supermajority in the Senate and subsequently President Barack Obama’s efforts for health care reform. With the national spotlight thus shining on the Bay State, that supermajority was soundly rejected.

Certainly, Coakley was part of the problem. Her campaign was perhaps the textbook example of how to lose an election.

Expressing disdain for greeting crowds and mischaracterizing local baseball legends are not tactics that go over well with the constituency, to say the least. Yet Coakley’s campaign cannot be cited as the sole reason that Democrats lost the election.

Ultimately, the election hinged on one key issue: a vote in favor of the President’s vision of healthcare reform or a vote against it. That was why Obama visited neighboring Northeastern University to drum up support for Coakley, despite the risk of putting his “political prestige on the line,” as the New York Times called it in a Jan. 16 article. That same article featured this telling line: “Senior Democrats in Congress and the White House said they continued to believe Coakley would win in Massachusetts, but they acknowledged that her loss could have severe political consequences for them.”

Coakley lost. That’s tantamount to a shift in national politics, according to Democrats.

It’s impossible to examine the election without taking this into account. As such, the election had to be viewed as being at least partially a national referendum, especially on the health care bill.

Massachusetts voters had to know this when they went to the polls to cast their ballots. The reason that the election was so greatly publicized and covered was because of its national implications. If this had been a contest for the 61st Democratic vote in the Senate, there would have been far less hype; the President’s health care efforts would not have been hampered in any way.

It’s important to emphasize that this election is not a crushing barrier to the passage of a health care bill. Rather, it was the dif-

Courtesy of bachrachportraits.com Brown for shaking hands “in the cold” outside Fenway Park, something which she evidently considered herself above doing.

Still, for all the faults in Coakley’s campaign, one cannot ignore the tremendous impact the Great Recession has had on the election. After all, among the quarter of voters who cited the economy as their main issue, Brown won by a 52-46 margin.

Yet in a predominantly blue state, this does not represent so much a rebuke of the President’s economic policy as it does a lashing out at the harsh reality of the times. After all, it has traditionally been the case that the party in power tends to lose seats in Congress during midterm elections. We must view the Coakley-Brown contest in this context, which is to say that as a Democrat, Coakley may have actually been fighting an uphill battle, despite running in a usually “Democratic” state. For voters who have seen the economy only decline under the Obama administration, a fresh perspective may have been all that was needed to win over their votes.

In the end, the Democrats still have a whopping 59-41 majority in the Senate, a greater advantage than they have had in decades. Just as the President urged them not to “run to the hills” during his State of the Union speech, Democrats must be careful not to overreact to Brown’s win.

Ultimately, Brown’s election was the result not of Obama’s policy decisions, but the outcome of a perfect storm of factors that resulted in the loss of the Kennedy seat. If the Democrats want to avoid even more calamitous losses in the upcoming November elections, they will have to unite under the cause that sent Obama to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in the first place.

Ironically, it’s the same message that Brown used to rally support among his voters: that Washington ought to truly reflect the will of the people.

VS.

Weigh in at www.bcgavel.com

ference between a simple reconciliation of the House and Senate bills and revisiting the entire debate on healthcare in an attempt to get that final vote. There is no question that the bill can still be passed; it will simply take much more time, effort and compromise.

Yet the election still brings up the issue of how satisfied the people are with the current health plan. Perhaps the more telling information concerns recent election results in other states. These elections confirm that there is a national swing towards Republicans, especially among independent voters. The victories of gubernatorial candidates Chris Christie in wildly liberal New Jersey and Bob McDonnell in Virginia are indicators of a national trend in favor of the GOP. Massachusetts continues this surprising streak. After all, this was the seat of the Lion of the Senate that was snatched by a Republican. Health care has been the President’s primary concern for the past few months and all of these election results could indicate progressing unhappiness or uncertainty with his plan.

Perhaps the most concerning result of the election was the lack of importance placed on the health care bill as a whole. A recent 7 News/Suffolk poll found that 44 pecent of voters listed the economy/jobs as the most important issue in the election, while health care reform came in second with 38 percent of voters identifying it as most critical. This information is likely indicative of a national trend of concern over the economy as being the top national priority. After all, national unemployment is at 9.7 percent with 14.8 million people out of work. The pressing issue for these people is getting jobs and making money; health care, while important, is currently playing a secondary role.

By focusing on health care in recent months over more explicit measures to alleviate unemployment, Obama has likely incurred the scorn of some of these voters. The Massachusetts election can be seen as a microcosm of this trend — not so much of an explicit vote against healthcare, but a vote in support of focusing on more pressing issues first. Ultimately, voters did not care enough to place the President’s top priority at the top of voting checklists. Even if the election isn’t considered a critique on the health care bill, it certainly indicates that the priorities of Americans and Washington are not perfectly in sync.

Very rarely is there one explicit cause of an election result. Coakley’s poor campaigning and Brown’s hard work to rebound from relative obscurity are certainly important when evaluating why Democrats lost the Senate election in Massachusetts. But we cannot ignore the national implications that this election intrinsically held.

Even if voters did not intend for their selections to have national consequences, they did. That makes the election a referendum, especially on health care, by default.

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The parallel between language and agriculture Karen Kovaka Words and gardens: two things which, perhaps, you would never have thought to put together. But, suppose they have a lot in common. Suppose that words and gardens, speaking and farming, land and language, are connected to each other and to humans in strange and powerful ways. What difference would it make?

Speech acts and agricultural acts are deeply intertwined human tendencies, and uncovering the correspondence between the two will help us see them and ourselves in fresh ways.

Words and gardens are connected by virtue of the ways that people relate to both of them.

First of all, there is a relationship of dependence between people and their land and between people and their languages.

After all, human society can’t get along without either. Though individuals can get by without ever weeding a garden or uttering a word, people in general need both agriculture and speech in order to sustain and express themselves. While it’s difficult to imagine a world without clothing or sports or machines, it’s impos-

sible to imagine a world without speech or agriculture that is still a human world.

To balance this relationship of dependence, there also exists a relationship of power.

The story of humanity’s power over the earth is an old one, often re-told, and it mirrors the story of humanity’s power over language. These two cultural lynchpins upon which our lives and societies depend are also our playthings, cultural products which we build and shape and control.

The fact that dependence and power are coexistent with and basic to human interactions with land and language means that our relationships to these two things are (1) very rich and complex, (2) easily overlooked, and (3) formative for all of us, even when we don’t know it. We can’t take a step or a bite of food without manifesting dependence upon and power over the earth.

We can’t greet a friend or turn on the TV without demonstrating that we constantly inhabit the “space” of language, that we are acted upon by words and that we creatively act upon them to express ourselves.

From this starting point, you

can argue all kind of symmetrical relationships between people and land and between people and language. For instance, through “words and gardens”: ● People living in the present exert influence over the future.

From the hanging gardens of Babylon and the Epic of Gilgamesh to poisoned soil and the silver tongue of Adolph Hitler, few human endeavors are more enduring than works of agriculture and language. ● People express love and care for one another. (As evidenced by Valentine’s Day staples: candlelit dinners, bouquets of roses, love letters, poetry, and boxes of chocolates.) ● People demonstrate their capacity for either responsibility or destruction. Aside from certain basic physical limitations, the only thing that limits human exploitation of agriculture and speech for destructive ends is our choice to care for the words and the places which we inhabit.

The list could go on for pages. What does it all mean, though? This new view of words

Courtesy of Jo Ann McGinnis

and gardens also amounts to a fresh view of self, and I am wondering what it means to think of humans as the kind of beings whose existence is deeply connected to words and gardens.

Most people don’t give much thought to being a person of the land or a person of words. This connectedness doesn’t get much

attention or consideration – and perhaps a lack of focus on things which are so fundamental results in an incomplete and skewed perspective on what it means to be “me.” If we gave more thought and attention to speech and agriculture, is it possible we would come to a truer understanding of ourselves?

Compassion requires action in Haiti and at home Meg Lister The United States has vowed to respond with a “swift, coordinated, and aggressive effort.”

In a speech on Jan. 13, President Barack Obama outlined a three-step plan to deal with the effects: account for US citizens and embassy personnel, mobilize resources, and “ensure that the government acts in a unified manner.”

No, we have not been bombed. The terror threat level remains the same as before the event. None of our officials have been assassinated or attacked with anthrax. We are merely responding to the earthquake that shook Haiti, causing much of its infrastructure to collapse and demolishing structures throughout the capital, Port-au-Prince.

The island country, which lies next to the Dominican Republic and east of Cuba, was shook by a 7.0 magnitude earthquake on January 12th. Haiti is already the poorest country in the Western

Hemisphere and suffers from extreme poverty, illiteracy, poor sanitation, and health concerns.

Conditions on the ground are miserable: people scream, cry, and call for help as they or their loved ones lie trapped under rubble. This is the epitome of absolute misery and terror; it is emotional devastation beyond what any normal college student could comprehend. We sigh at the television screen, offer up a prayer at the dinner table, or donate a few dollars at a hockey game as the truly ambitious await the announcement of a new service trip: “Appalachia Goes Abroad!” Every volunteer or donor has a different reason for diverting their time or money; a sense of sympathy and humanitarian duty commonly top the list.

But how does true compassion factor into our responses?

Compassion, as derived from the Slavic form of the word, means “feeling with.” It is a form of love to be able to embrace another’s

pain, joy, and trials. It takes a breadth of extreme feeling and emotion to love those we do not know and have never met. In one sense, we are incapable of compassion towards the people of Haiti. I cannot imagine the mental or physical pain they are experiencing now, as conditions on the ground continue to worsen and media coverage gradually fades away. When I imagine losing my home, I picture myself griefstricken, running into the open arms of friends and relatives. In Port-au-Prince, however, there is nobody to run to and nowhere to look for consolation.

Everything they know and everywhere they used to go has been destroyed. Look at it this way: If Cormac McCarthy had waited a few years to publish The Road (and slightly changed the setting); his novel might not be in the science fiction section.

Two weeks ago, I yelled energetically and encouraged fans to drop a few cents into an orange paint bucket at the

BC-BU game. By the end of the first period, I was hoarse and Catholic Relief Services was about $4,000 richer. It was fun to gather with my peers and bang noisemakers in the faces of BU fans. Four thousand dollars will buy approximately ten thousand bottles of water for thirsty refugees (unless purchased at the BC dining hall). Water is nice, but isn’t there anything else I should or can be doing? I cannot feasibly take the rest of the semester off, fly to Haiti, and nurse people back to health. “Appalachia Goes Abroad!” has yet to get off the ground, both literally and figuratively. The fundraising effort is a “been there, done that”, though it is always possible to contribute further. I gave twenty dollars, which is all my bank account can handle after being robbed by textbook sales. Even after logically exhausting many options, I cannot shake the want and need to do something more.

This cannot be classified as true compassion, but I hope my

feelings fall into the realm of deep sympathy. I feel that it is my duty to know more, feel more, do more, to share in Haiti’s human burden. I cannot find a panacea or even a logical solution to the issue and in my defense, I doubt that anyone can. Here is the somewhat illogical moral of the story: take a day and volunteer at a shelter, like Haley House or Rosie’s Place. Buy the homeless man by the 7-11 in Cleveland Circle a sandwich. Give up your seat on the T to an old lady. The inability to feel compassion or extensively contribute for the earthquake victims has opened my eyes to that which I can identify with and make a difference in. Next, the illogical cliché: even in the worst kind of disaster, there is lesson to learn and progress to be made. Just try to imagine what it would be like to live on the street and watch people like yourself walk by in warm clothes, with money in your pockets. Try this and maybe the world will feel a little more compassion.

Culture February 19, 2010

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Fight claustrophobia, stick with ‘Shutter Island’ Sean Meehan Video Editor Unless you were lucky enough to catch Shine a Light, the film world has heard very little from Martin Scorsese since 2006. That would be the year that he brought us The Departed, which is considered to be a sort of classic for any Boston-area college student. So, aside from his documentary on the Rolling Stones and a few short films, where’s Marty now? Well, he’s actually still in Boston, and still working with his post-DeNiro muse Leonoardo DiCaprio, so setting and protagonist are similar in his latest flick Shutter Island.

But that’s about the extent of the connection between the two films – Shutter Island is a tense and chilling piece, and even manages to keep its f-word count in the double digits.

It’s hard to forget the opening sequence of The Departed: starting with stock footage of the harsh realities of Boston’s streets and then hurling us into a few short vignettes of Frank Costello and Sergeant Sullivan’s first encoun-

ters, we’ve sort of been rocketed face first into the thick of things.

Not to mention that the Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” accompanies it all - it’s almost glorious. With Shutter Island, we get the polar opposite.

Nothing more than slow paced expositional dialog on the deck of a ferry headed for the über ominous island off the coast of Boston that we’ve been told houses many of the most dangerous criminally insane offenders in the country. From there, we learn about how U.S. Marshall Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his partner Chuck (Mark Ruffalo) have been sent to Shutter Island to investigate the escape of a patient. Not much else is necessary to describe the plot of this film, but rest assured it’s got the standard twists, turns and weird dream sequences that belong in this sort of genre.

Typically a review would begin here with the good, but in the case of this film, working in a different order is more appropriate. Let it be said that the first 15 minutes appear downright sloppy, from both a screenwriting and technical perspective. The two marshalls

gab on about what the island is housing, why they’re there, as well as telling us (fairly directly) that these two officials have never worked together before and that’s (wait for it …) a big problem. From a technical perspective, and this is most certainly a nitpick, but the use of green screen and chroma key in this opening sequence is so blatant and poorly executed that it was distracting for this reviewer.

Needless to say, this flick had a large and steep hill to climb up to redeem itself.

What is so fascinating about the film is that, despite all odds, the film claws its way back ferociously throughout the rest of the film, constantly elevating itself to higher and higher standards. This review would turn into spoiler-central if it were to go into how precisely it manages to come back from the abyss, but let it be known that those aforementioned gripes about the issues in the first 15 minutes are addressed and actually more or less justified by the time that the credits roll. In that sense, Shutter Island has a sort of novel feature going for it in that it plays with the conventions

Photo courtesy of filmdocket.com and clichés of films of this genre and uses them to inform the story later on. I’m not saying that all of this was totally intentional on the part of the filmmakers (movies like this end up with a lot of “justifying” plotholes and problems just because the story is supposed to be a bit of a puzzle), but I’m inclined to think that someone like Scorsese wouldn’t let some of these major faux pas slide unless he felt it was warranted.

Like most Scorsese pictures, it oozes style on every frame, and

it’s very refreshing to watch so many of his “Scorsese-isms” crop up in interesting ways throughout the film’s 138-minute runtime. To equate this movie to a piece of technology, it’s a lot like the first generation iPhone. You can tell that a lot of very talented people went into the making of this thing that most certainly has some problems, but I just can’t help but enjoy myself with it, and I’ll probably be called a fanboy for liking it too.

8.0/10

Eventually, it is revealed that Fillory, the Narnia-esque world from the stories of his youth, is a real place. Desperate for an escape from his despondent state, Quinton leaps at the chance to go. He and his friends embark on a sort of “quest to find a quest,” seeking some adventure that will end the despondency they feel. This journey will cost them more than any of them realize.

As said before, Grossman borrows shamelessly from the themes of Harry Potter and Narnia to complete his novel, but none of this is a bad thing. It is easy to believe in Quinton, terribly envious of the ready-made destinies and purposes that are so common in books. The success of The Magicians hinges on Grossman’s subtle but constant argument that, despite all of the hardships characters in stories face, none can compete with the apathy inherent in magically having everything one could possibly want.

Putting aside the plot similarities, the writing of The Magicians is clean and precise, with a wonderful

economy to the detail and description of the surrounding world.

There are several indications that Grossman still has maturing to do as a writer. For example, he introduces secondary characters who vanish never to be seen again and there are points where the pace drags a bit, but none of this particularly hinders the book’s purpose from realization. Without revealing too much, the ending is not one that everyone will enjoy but still feels right in the context of the book. It is at the end where Grossman’s rather cynical philosophy comes out most strongly, forcing the reader to be paradoxically satisfied with a certain level of dissatisfaction.

The Magicians is Grossman’s third book, making him still a relatively early arrival to the writing scene.

Hopefully, his next work will overcome some of the issues that affect The Magicians, but until then, The Magicians is still very much worth the time of anyone who has ever been left cold by the too-perfect fantasy worlds they visited in their youth.

Book targets those disenchanted by Harry Potter Daniel Monan Culture Editor The Magicians, by Lev Grossman, is many things. It is a blatant parody of the Harry Potter and Narnia series. Yet, while other books have attempted to hop on the boy-wizard-bandwagon (to say nothing of the growing hoard of teen vampire rip-offs) it uses its associations with the previously mentioned series to its advantage, ultimately becoming something wholly different than anything seen before. Basic plot similarities aside, The Magicians possesses a dark and brooding quality that, while sometimes bordering on angst, neither J.K. Rowling nor C.S. Lewis would ever attempt. For this reason and many others, this is no children’s story. It is a remarkable book to be valued for its flaws as well as for its triumphs, and is certainly well worth a look.

The Magicians tells the story of Quinton, a disaffected teen looking for meaning in life. Quinton has spent his childhood reading and

rereading a series of books set in “Fillory,” a magical land visited by a group of English schoolchildren, and an undisguised allusion to the Narnia books. He dreams of the kind of contentment it seems only magic can achieve. Predictably, Quinton soon learns that magic is real and that he has been accepted into the premiere school for magicians.

Grossman makes no attempt to hide the similarities to Harry Potter and makes ruthless use of those expectations. The Magicians is a novel written for those who grew up on Harry Potter and Narnia, not a copy of the same. Brilliant, often arrogant, and always insecure, Quinton is not Harry, nor are his friends the steadfast companions Harry has at Hogwarts. One would be hard pressed to say any of the characters are particularly likable, but they are undeniably entertaining. The lack of effort put into making them pleasant goes a long way towards making them believable characters.

Unlike other hero-protagonists with their inborn importance,

Courtesy of Aidan Moher Quinton is not a “chosen one.” He has no destiny or direction, and this becomes the chief focus of the novel. He and his friends occupy their time with the standard college pursuits of alcohol, sex, drug-use and occasional studying, throughout which Quinton faces a subtle but near constant existential crisis as he realizes magic gives no more meaning to his life than life in the ordinary world.

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‘Threepenny’ to Winter style inspired by blogs examine dark side BLOG: FASHION FRAGMENTS

Lea Freeman Asst. Culture Editor

Courtesy of The Sartorialist Isabella Biedenharn Gavel Blogger When it comes to fashion, Boston College students are undeniably paradox-ridden. Many care enough to attempt to achieve the look they want and something in the water here makes every student attractive enough to pull off almost anything. But certain uncontrollable constraints always seem to get in the way. The worst of these hurdles are lack of time, money (three words: New Hong Kong), and most importantly, weather.

It is freezing here, and we have to walk around outside all the time.

When faced with the dilemma of choosing between cute flats or nonwaterproof but still warm Uggs, Boston’s frigid temperature is usually the deciding factor. For the sake of practicality, avoiding frostbite, and staying alive, it is much easier to choose thicker, less stylish pieces.

However, BC students could use their outfits to complement their good looks even in sub-zero temperatures simply by paying attention to the delicate art of layering.

Do not be alarmed. In fact, after looking through thousands of street style images on the Internet, it can safely be assumed that this style can be successfully executed without looking like (a) you rolled around in the Clothes-by-the-Pound bin at the Garment District, or (b) that guy on YouTube who wore 155 t-shirts at once.

Street style Web sites and fashion blogs have taken the industry by storm, largely because they provide inspiration and ideas about how to wear current trends in the real world. This is a refreshing contrast

to beautiful but over-the-top and impractical pieces used in runway shows or the designer-laden and obscenely expensive ensembles of celebrities. These sites document real style as it is found where there are actual seasonal changes, as opposed to the eternally moderate temperatures on fashion shoots.

Using inspiration from street style, people can pick and choose which elements to adopt as their own and which ideas fit with what is already in their wardrobe. The following images depict fashionforward people whose outfits contain simple pieces (probably in your closet) meshed into crisp final products.

The first image is from The Sartorialist. This is arguably one of the most well-known street style blogs — its creator, Scott Schuman, recently released a book of his best photographs. The man pictured is enjoying spring or fall weather, but upon close examination of his outfit, there are enough layers present to keep him warm during winter as well. Somehow, he combines a t-shirt, a flannel, a thick cardigan, and a leather jacket and still fails to look bundled or bulky. This is clearly a feat of fashion genius —and simply looking at that stack of warm materials is sweat-inducing. Just add a scarf, hat, or gloves, and the hypothermic potential is gone.

Trang Huyen of the blog Behind the Seams demonstrates a way to carry a summer/fall item (the shorts) into winter. She chooses tweed, already a thicker and warmer material, and also keeps the exposed parts of her legs warm with tights, thick wool socks, and leather boots.

Courtesy of Behind the Seams If the idea of shorts in the winter is too disturbing, the shorts and tights can be replaced by leggings or skinny jeans. This is not new information; BC girls have had this look perfected for years. The main thing to consider here, which is lost in the black and white picture, is that the colors should largely be neutral. A rainbow of wool or too many different colored pieces could be the beginning of the end.

Fashion consultant and boutique owner Yasmin Sewell was photographed for The Sartorialist in this outfit, which is slightly reminiscent of its male counterpart above.

She layers a flannel shirt under a cardigan as well, but also includes the waist-cinching belt to prevent bulk or frumpiness and keep her feminine shape.

This man, from The Sartorialist again, makes the fascinating choice to layer a blazer under a leather jacket. Ideas like this seem so obvious after someone actually puts them into practice, but initially it takes a creative mind to recognize the potential. The snow in the picture serves as proof that this is acceptable for winter.

The question of footwear lingers, but it looks like there is still no quick, attractive fix for the snow or the Ugg catastrophe. But as for warmth, if no aspect of these outfits is appealing, just wear Under Armor under everything. At the very least, the ice in the air won’t latch onto your skin, illness can be avoided, and Mom will be proud of your practicality.

For more clothing tips and news, visit the new fashion blog Fashion Fragments at bcgavel.com.

The Threepenny Opera, by Bertolt Brecht, will debut in Robsham Theater at the end of April. Directed

by BC Theater Professor Stuart Hecht and with set design by fellow Professor Crystal Tiala, The Threepenny Opera examines the darker side of civilization. Set in a world where corruption is the norm, the musical’s lead character is a mastercriminal and an antihero.

Hecht’s rendition sets itself apart from other earlier interpretations with a major change in setting. I Instead of occuring in 19th century England as originally written, this version takes place in a post-modern, abstract world. The entire set is designed to retain the mood and spirit of the original production minus the period and realism.

A major inspiration for the set was the Jewish Museum Berlin in Germany, designed by architect Daniel Libeskind and notable for its unique use of angles. Many of its walls and doorways do not intersect at right angles. The unexpected lines created by this design help to imply an unconventional and unfriendly world that doesn’t follow standard norms of right and wrong.

Tiala attempts to create a strong sense of dehumanization with the set. By setting the play in a disconnected jumble of lines, shapes, and angles she hopes to create a world where humanity appears completely broken apart.

Set Designer Tiala attempts to create this world visually with a number of tricks, including the use of a projector. Employing a projector is a relatively new addition to theatre, but BC recently hired a projection designer, which allowed for the use of this dramatic device.

The Threepenny Opera specifically uses the projector to add commentary, almost like a news report. Because the rest of the set is so abstract, the projector is very useful in announcing changes in scenes and locations.

The projector serves a dual pur-

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pose; it both adds to the progression of the show and helps the audience see the world differently.

The Threepenny Opera is a slightly larger production than BC is used to. There are 27 cast members, about 50 workers in various shops, 10 members of the running crew and eight designers. Collaboration is an important aspect of theater, and there are certainly a lot of people involved and various visions to put together. Just deciding to change the setting from the 1830s was a huge step. Tiala first had to fully understand the director’s focus and then add her own visual aesthetic. Everyone is trying to take blank space and create their own world. Hecht provided Tiala with words and phrases such as “discomfort,” “disoriented,” “confusing,” “ugly city,” “uncomfortable,” and “unsafe” to help her understand the intended mood of the production.

“Once I know I’m right,” Tiala says, “the rest of the show comes together.” There are so many aspects of a play that have to come together to create a great production. The set designer has to work with light designers, costume designers, and sound designers to make sure to create the same world. The creative development of The Threepenny Opera started as far back as October.

“It’s important to have a visual direction and to know what the set is going to look like so the actors can know how to move through space,” Tiala says.

Tiala said she feels lucky to get to work with set design. “It’s the best job in the world. I get to design.

I get to teach design. What could be better?”

Tiala has been working at BC for 11 years and has worked on approximately 35 different productions.

“They’re all my favorites,” she says. “Each production is completely unique and takes on a life of its own.”

The Threepenny Opera opens at the end of April on the main stage of Robsham.

February 19, 2010

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Site allows anonymous Q’s for A’s

Yes, We Can:Cook!

Rachel Lamorte Gavel Writer

My friends, and especially my boyfriend, will tell you that I am not at all domestic for two reasons: first, I’m lazy and second, I’m a radical feminist and eschew traditional female roles as my personal rebellion. I don’t fold my laundry, I hate vacuuming, and I can’t remember the last time I made my bed. But I love to cook.

This year I’ve been doing what is considered impossible - living without any sort of meal plan. As a result, I’ve mastered the art of the one pot dish. By far my most tasty and easy to make creation has been chili as it is easily made in your dorm kitchen after a trip to Star Market.

Beef Chili Ingredients: -1lb. ground beef -1 14oz. can kidney beans -1 14oz. can corn -1 28oz. can whole tomatoes -1 large onion -3 gloves garlic -1 green pepper -1 jalepeno pepper -2tbsp chili powder -salt and pepper to taste -1tbsp vegetable oil

Prep Work: 1. Chop onions and green pepper in large chunks.

2. Finely chop garlic and jalepeno pepper.

3. Finely dice whole tomatoes or puree in food processor (or a blender, I know that’s way more likely in a college kitchen).

Cooking Directions: 1. In large pot with cover heat vegetable oil on medium heat, add ground beef and brown. Season with pinches of salt and pepper.

2. Add chopped peppers, onion, and garlic. Stir to mix ingredients and allow to cook until onions are softened, about five minutes.

3. Add kidney beans and corn.

4. Season with chili powder and stir so the spice is thoroughly mixed.

5. Add tomatoes and stir. Reduce heat to low, cover, and allow to cook for 35 minutes.

For those of you who are adventurous: I have decent spice toleration so I’ll add 2 tsp of cayenne pepper and another 1tbsp of chili powder.

Courtesy of almtalkies.com Andrew Slade News Editor For many college students with Facebook profiles, recent weeks have brought a new and unfamiliar sort of information into news feeds. This is the result of the virally popular Web site formspring. me, which allows users to create question boxes in which site visitors can anonymously post questions directed at the page’s owner. The owner may then opt to either answer or ignore the questions with which they are presented. Should they choose the former, the question and answer will appear below the question box for all to see.

In browsing the FormSprings of

friends, one is likely to come upon assurances from the page creators that they know the concept is a bit odd and borderline creepy, but that it is a new and intriguing way to waste time through Facebook or other social networking Web sites. FormSpring has set up its site so that users are able to link their question pages to their Facebook accounts and have their responses automatically shared with friends through status updates. This is in addition to users’ manually posted statuses that often state something to the effect of, “formspring.me … ask me anything!!!”

By connecting their Web site to Facebook without simply making themselves another application,

FormSpring seems to have latched onto the all too common concept of “Facebook stalking,” positioning itself well for expansion of its user base.

The general idea of anonymous correspondence, however, is not entirely new to Facebook.

Formspring.me expands upon the idea of Honesty Box, a well-established application that allows one to send others with the Honesty Box app secret questions or comments, and this application has nearly 2.5 million monthly active users. What sets FormSpring apart is the idea of allowing anyone to see the dialogue — albeit partially the work of an unknown party —between the two others involved, and that one not need have a Facebook account to use the site.

On whether the site concept is too invasive to prompt most people to create FormSprings, the jury is out. “I think it’s cool, but I would never do it. I just read other people’s answers,” Khushboo Pelia, A&S ’13, says.

Laura Ahn, LSOE ’13, says that the site has potential, but that people aren’t necessarily using it the right way.

“My friends have it, and some use it to make comments as a joke,” Ahn says. “I like the concept, but I wouldn’t make one given how I’ve seen it used.”

Chef brings ‘tasty pastries’ to campus Daniel Monan Culture Editor In preparation for Valentine’s Day, Boston College Dining Services arranged for a visit from famed Swiss pastry chef Jorg Amsler, who currently owns and runs the gourmet patisserie “Truly Jorg’s.” Amsler gave his presentation on confectionary construction in the Heights Room last Friday night. Later, the audience did BC’s sweet tooth proud in a cake decorating contest with prizes going to the creators of the most irresistible treat. Though over 50 cakes were generously provided, the standingroom-only audience was forced to double and triple up to ensure enough to go around.

The timing of the event, as well as its subject, may have played a role in its spectacular turnout. Of the nearly two hundred students in attendance, remarkably few were male. This gender discrepancy apparently mirrored the audience

during last year’s visit by Amsler, who joked that he thought BC was an all-girls’ college at first.

Nevertheless, BC’s men definitely missed an opportunity to pick up some tips.

“If this looks easy, it’s because it actually is,” Amsler said as he deftly turned component parts into a suitably pink and tasty Valentine’s Day treat.

Staying upbeat throughout the highly instructional demonstration and often displaying a quirky sense of humor, he showed onlookers just what it takes to decorate a proper cake.

Amsler carefully explained the various tools of a pastry chef ’s trade, from an icing funnel for creating perfect flowers to a triangular etch for giving the sides of the cake that textured look. Though he insisted that this feat could easily be accomplished in any dorm room kitchen, some credibility may have been lost when he produced a professional air-brush loaded with

food-coloring. Amsler went so far as to provide one lucky audience member with a complete set of cake baking supplies to help in their dorm room endeavours.

With an assistant pulled from the audience and using syrup and melted white chocolate as glue, Amsler went on to crown his cake with edible flowers and ladybugs, created nearly from scratch. “Ladybugs represent good luck, which is something we all could use, especially on Valentine’s Day,” Amsler said. It would seem that Valentine’s Day thoughts were never far from the minds of those in the audience; many of the student-decorated confections also featured Valentine’s Day themes.

Using the tricks Amsler demonstrated only moments before, the teams quickly set to their edible masterpieces. While only a few groups attempted something as ambitious as Amsler’s demonstration cake, none failed to present a suitably attractive alternative. And

Lauren Viola / Gavel Editor as the cakes were free to be taken home after the contest, other prizes may have been little more than an afterthought to many participants.

Chef Amsler’s “Tasty Pastries” event was by all accounts a stunning success, but Amsler himself alluded to the fact that his visits may not continue forever. As he rounded the edges of his latest creation, Amsler mentioned a bakery convention he had recently attended with a machine that could do nearly everything he could.

“Guess my job’s not needed anymore,” Amsler joked, and while the comment was delivered with all the confidence of a recent winner of the National Wedding Cake Championship, one cannot help but wonder if eventually even these handcrafted custom cakes will disappear from our shelves.

Until then, with this latest success of “Tasty Pastries,” it can only be hoped that Jorg Amsler will be back yet again next year, an event that should not be missed.

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The Gavel’s Oscar Picks Andrew Schofield Special Projects Editor Every year, the Oscars celebrate accomplishments in film. While it’s great to be even nomnated, it’s even better to win. The following are the films and actors The Gavel believes should take home the trophy: Best Actor Nominees: Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart), George Clooney (Up in the Air), Colin Firth (A Single Man), Morgan Freeman (Invictus), Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker) Our Pick: Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart Jeff Bridges has been nominated five times for an Academy Award, yet has zero Oscars to show for it. His role in Crazy Heart gives him his best chance so far for the honor.

In the film, based on a novel by Thomas Cobb, Jeff Bridges plays Bad Blake, a down-and-out country singer who tries to turn his life around after meeting a young journalist (Maggie Gyllenhall). Jeff Bridges shines in his role, which is based on a combination of several country singers including Merle Haggard. Honorable mention goes out to George Clooney for his striking portrayal of a corporate downsizer.

Courtesy of cbsnews.com

Courtesy of altfg.com

Best Actress Nominees: Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side), Helen Mirren (The Last Station), Carey Mulligan (An Education), Gabourey Sidibe (Precious), Meryl Streep (Julie & Julia) Our Pick: Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia Having been nominated a record sixteen times and having won two Oscars earlier in her career, Meryl Streep is no stranger to the Academy Award limelight. Julia & Julia contrasts the life of Julia Child and her rise to stardom, and the life of Julie Powell and her attempt to cook all 524 recipes from Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Meryl Streep shines as Julia Child, balancing the hilarious, yet dramatic portions of Child’s life as portrayed in the film.

Honorable mention goes to Sandra Bullock who impressed with her role as Leigh Anne Tuohy in The Blind Side, which follows the turbulent life of football star Michael Oher and his relationship with the Tuohy family.

Best Director Nominees: Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker), James Cameron (Avatar), Lee Daniels (Precious), Jason Reitman (Up in the Air), Quentin Tarantino (Inglorious Basterds) Our Pick: Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker Historically, Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director tend to be given together and don’t expect that trend to be broken here. As one of only four women to ever be nominated for Best Director by the Academy, Kathryn Bigelow could potentially become the first woman to ever win the highest individual prize for a director. Described by New York Times’s film critic A.O. Scott as the best American film on the war in Iraq yet, The Hurt Locker benefits from Bigelow’s fantastic direction as the story flows seamlessly and clearly. Surprisingly enough, her main competition may be from her ex-husband, James Cameron, director of the box office hit Avatar, who is looking to follow up on his success at the Golden Globes where he won Best Director and Best Picture. However, despite the success of Avatar at the box office, no director is more deserving of the Oscar than Kathryn Bigelow.

Courtesy of dailybruin.com Best Picture Nominees: Avatar, The Blind Side, District 9, An Education, The Hurt Locker, Inglorious Basterds, Precious, A Serious Man, Up, Up in the Air Our Pick: The Hurt Locker In the largest field of Best Picture nominees in recent memory, The Hurt Locker separates itself from the rest of the pack as the best film of the year with its stunning storyline and great script. The Hurt Locker, directed by Kathryn Bigelow, tells the story of a US Army bomb squad and its trials during the Iraq War. With strong performances by Jeremy Renner and Anthony Mackie, the film illustrates the full impact of the Iraq War on the American solider. Up in the Air and Inglorious Basterds deserve honorable mentions, but in the end, The Hurt Locker wins out.