The College Hill Independent V.25 N.4

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT Brown & RISD Weekly | V. 25 N. 4 | 10.05.2012

from the editors

Itinerant painters wandered the streets of early 19th century New England, staying in houses and eating the owners’ food as commission. They traveled through towns painting interior murals of panoramic landscapes and Indian figures on the plaster walls of colonial homes. They painted images of geometric rugs onto hardwood floors (the colonials liked colors and patterns much more than people give them credit for). Their specialty, though, was portraits. They stretched canvases with rabbit glue (for maximum tightness) and painted detailed backgrounds with white humanshaped spaces. Then they went from house to house looking for families who wanted their bodies and faces to be filled in.

My friend is about to cut pornography cold turkey. He’s worried because he is incapable of imagining sex for extended periods of time. When he tries to fantasize, his mind flashes through a reel of pornographic imagery. He wants to practice imagining and relearn how to fantasize.

Naturally, I thought of itinerant pornographers. They walk down the street and they don’t ask for much, just a place to stay and some food to eat. They are modest about their magic, and if we let them come inside they make our dreams come true. The beach. A bed. An Office. Even Prison.

The options are fairly limited, but when you imagine they realize.

Sometimes the painters and pornographers leave a small mess behind: crumbs on the floor, empty cans in the bathroom, an unmade bed. They are artists, though. And also house guests. We are fine with it. — GSD

ephemera news

the indy is

MANAGING EDITORS Raillan Brooks, Robert Sandler, Erica Schwiegershausen NEWS Barry Elkinton, Emily Gogolak, Kate Van Brocklin METRO Joe de Jonge, Doreen St. Félix, Jonathan Storch FEATURES Sam Adler-Bell, Grace Dunham, Alex Ronan, Ellora Vilkin ARTS Ana Alvarez, Olivia-Jené Fagon, Christina McCausland, Claudia Norton SCIENCE Jehane Samaha FOOD Ashton Strait INTERVIEWS Drew Dickerson SPORTS Sam Rosen LITERARY Emma Janaskie, Michael Mount X Drew Foster LIST Allie Trionfetti BLOG Greg Nissan DESIGN EDITOR Allie Trionfetti DESIGNERS Carter, Davis, Mary-Evelyn Farrior, Allison Grosso, Annie Macdonald ILLUSTRATIONS Diane Zhou PHOTO Annie Macdonald STAFF WRITER Mary-Evelyn Farrior SENIOR EDITORS Belle Cushing, Mimi Dwyer MVP Doreen St. Félix COVER ART Robert Sandler

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WEEK IN REVIEW ken dolls speak // marcel bertsch-gout & emily gogolak

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CAPTCHA

this old house // sam adler-bell, belle cushing, grace dunham,

incendiary spam // alex ronan

PROMISED MAN

kevin pires

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papyrus, not the font // mary-

BOOKINGS three purposes // megan hauptman

ROLL TIDE school spirit // dixon johns

TAIL TALES up-do the right thing // alex ronan

arts

evelyn farrior

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sports

8

FOUNDATIONS

mimi dwyer, avery houser, &

metro

7

features

LAB REPORT dawn casper // claudia norton

POSTER meredith stern // ana alvarez

science

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ALKALIES stabilizing salts // tyler bourgoise

literary

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SHOPPING PERIOD register cart // adam wyron

x-page

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RHINO // x

Week in Review

by Marcel Bertsch-Gout & Emily Gogolak Illustration by Lizzie Davis

True Lies on the evening of september 29th, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney appeared on the Spanish-language channel Univision to discuss the finer points of his policies affecting Latino voters. This was a runof-the-mill interview wherein he sidestepped immigration with the equivocal “I will put into place an immigration reform issue that resolves this issue” and promised to grant citizenship to those Latinos who served in the military. All was standard, save for one delectable detail: Romney’s skin was a couple shades darker than usual.

Shortly after the appearance, a media cloudburst ensued, as reporters wondered aloud if Romney could really be desperate enough to carry out such an act of subterfuge.

Among the stampede of speculation, Technorati’s Steve Woods remarked that “there would be nothing wrong with simply going outside and embracing the sunlight… but Romney took a somewhat more disturbing path to his short-term tint…one thing that struck me was the enormous difference between the color of the back of

Romney’s hands versus his face.” Could Romney really not have had any other recourse?

If a Gallup poll from late August is any indication, the answer seems to be an emphatic ‘no’, with Obama leading Romney among Latino voters 64 percent to a mere 27 percent. Thus far, Romney has remained intentionally murky on immigration, hoping that his economic plans will appeal to Latinos. But Latino voters seem to have caught on to the fact that the GOP platform currently supports mandatory use of an employment eligibility database, an English-only law, and expanding the border fence, but not the Dream Act. Romney better start downing Jarritos in public if he wants to seduce the fastest growing US demographic, but then again, without a prop beer and steel-toe boots, he might alienate the rust belt.

In reality, the kerfuffle over Romney’s complexion was likely displaced tension simmering to the surface, emblematic of Romney’s superficial attempts to court Latinos—e.g. showcasing his son’s Spanish-speaking talents

at the RNC—while remaining nebulous on the issues that affect many Latinos the most. But for those of us who want definitive answers, Univision’s makeup artist, Lazz Rodriguez, claims stalwartly that only industry-standard MAC NW30 foundation powder was applied to Romney’s face that fateful night to prevent glare. “It was definitely a real tan,” asserted Mr. Rodriguez. And after 25 years of experience with politicians, surely he’s seen a few shades.

In fact, Clinton, who was “definitely the fairest-skinned of politicians [Rodriguez has] worked with,” also had the largest Latino voting base. With this knowledge in hand, Romney’s mishap was probably just a genuine, Chanelcertified fashion emergency. ­— MBG

Mitt Romñey arnold schwarzenegger is back. An Austrian hulk of a Renaissance man, the bodybuilder, actor, businessman, politician, philanderer, and now autobiographer made a splash this week when he released his 646-page, tell-all, ghost-written memoir, Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story. In the book, Schwarzenegger lays it all out, from his pastoral youth to his days as a bodybuilding hero to his descent into the dregs of popular opinion everywhere in 2011 when news of his infidelity broke.

In one of Total Recall’s juicier moments, Schwarzenegger recalls how ex-wife Maria Shriver confronted him about his lovechild. As the story goes, she convinced him to go to couple’s therapy, making an appointment for the day after his term as governor of California came to an end. “The minute we sat down, the therapist turned to me and said, ‘Maria wanted to come here today and to ask about a child —whether you

OCTOBER 05 2012

fathered a child with your housekeeper Mildred,’” the book says. “I told the therapist, ‘It’s true.’” Apparently, he then started groveling, saying that he “screwed up” and calling her “the perfect wife,” and that he was still “turned on” by her. Tough luck for the Terminator, though. She filed for divorce.

Largely seen as a chance to make some money and an attempt to boost his image after the lovechild debacle, the mammoth memoir isn’t getting a lot of love. Star Jones tweeted, “#Arnold Schwarzenegger fake rebranding apology book tour irritates me. ‘just ‘cause you pour syrup on something, doesn’t make it pancakes!” Joy Behar on The View also isn’t drinking the Schwarzenegger KoolAid, but she did give him props for self-restraint: “I give Arnold Schwarzenegger credit. He got through the entire 60 Minutes interview without groping Lesley Stahl.” Book critics are knocking it too. Janet Maslin wrote in The New

York Times, “What Total Recall actually turns out to be is a puffy portrait of the author as master conniver. Nothing in his upward progress seems to have happened in an innocent way.”

The most muscular part of the book seems to be its 64 glossy pages of photos, many of them shirtless. Another bonus: if you want to know how to be just like Arnold, you’re in luck. The book ends with “Arnold’s 10 Rules.”

They include: “Reps, reps, reps; No matter what you do in life, selling is part of it, and when someone tells you no, you should hear yes.” — EG

NEWS // 02

PULLING A SWIFT ONE HARVEY MUDDLES RESULTS

by Alex Ronan Illustration by Diane Zhou There is no mention of the Horace Mann School for the Deaf on the webpage for the win-a-Taylor-Swift-concert contest, which is surprising, since the school received the most votes. Sponsored by Papa John’s and Chegg, an online textbook rental company, the contest promised to send the pop singer to perform at the school with the most Facebook votes. But when Internet pranksters on 4Chan and Reddit got wind of the concert, they launched a campaign to send her to Horace Mann. One commenter on Reddit called it “fucking brilliant,” while another said it “seems kind of mean.” “They are technically the only ones [who] could enjoy her music,” said a third commentator. Votes came from those who thought it’d be funny to send Taylor Swift to perform at a deaf school, and from those who were disgusted by the campaign, but nonetheless thought the school would enjoy the concert and benefit from the $10,000 donation to the music program that the winning school and four runner ups received.

The Swift concert marks the third crowd-sourced marketing campaign hijacked by 4Chan and Reddit users this summer. In July, David Thorpe and Jon Hendren, of the website SomethingAwful.com, succeeded in “exiling” hip hop artist Pitbull to a Walmart in Kodiak, Alaska, an island with a population of just over 6,000 people. In a promotional campaign for Energy Sheets, a line of caffeineinfused breath freshening strips [???], Walmart announced that it would send product representative Pitbull to the store that received the most Facebook “likes.” Members of 4Chan and Reddit helped contribute the 70,000 Facebook “likes” that guaranteed the Alaska store’s victory. And in August, 4Chan users hijacked a pizza restaurant’s contest to name a new variety of Mountain Dew. The “Dub The Dew” campaign was shut down after it was populated with suggestions like “Hitler Did Nothing Wrong,” “Diabeetus,” and “Sierra Mist.”

Because of the poll-trolling, the Horace Mann School for the Deaf was disqualified from the competition. But the PR nightmare was quickly rectified. Swift gave the school a personal donation of $10,000, which was matched by the contest’s four sponsors. VH1’s Save the Music foundation contributed $10,000 worth of instruments and all the students at Horace Mann will get a ticket to Swift’s next local show.

He said that students initially voted legally, but then realized the site lacked high security. It contained a cookie, to remember if you’d voted and a CAPTCHA. Mudders, as students at Harvey Mudd are often called, created a program that downloaded the CAPTCHA, allowing students to type it in, cast a vote, and load another CAPTCHA. This sped up the voting process, allowing students to vote every 2 or 3 seconds, pushing Mudd into the top 15 schools. But then, according to the graduate, someone realized that the CAPTCHA itself was relatively easy to hack, and students were able to write a program that would break the CAPTCHA and cast a vote. (“It had a success rate of about 85 percent, so we were like, ‘eh, good enough.’”)

Students began running it on their computers continuously, which was how they were able to get Mudd into first by a huge margin, while also arranging the runners-up as they pleased.

At one point, the first letters of the top 28 colleges spelled out “Harvey Mudd Rox, Boo CalTech,” in reference to one of Mudd’s longtime rivals. But the prank is most remembered for the “West Is Best” slogan. West is well known for its wild antics and pyromania, and there’s actually a rule that bonfires are not allowed to exceed the height of the dorm’s second story. Residents of West once created giant fireball that relied on a chemical reaction involving Spam. Mudders have also built a Rube Goldberg machine that spanned all of Mudd’s eight dorms. The machine ended in the middle of the inner dorms where “Celebration” by Kool & the Gang played and a piece of toast with “HMC” branded on it popped out of a toaster. According to sophomore Travis Beckman, “Mudd has a storied tradition

of goodhearted pranks” and the Victoria’s Secret contest was “just another example of Mudders using their smarts to have a little fun.” To everyone’s displeasure, but nobody’s surprise, the school was disqualified. “I’m still really sad that we never got Victoria’s Secret HMC underwear,” said Teri Cinco, one of West’s current dorm presidents.

LOVE STORY

Campus mobilizer Beckman is a huge Taylor Swift Fan. “I have every single one of her songs and know them by heart.

[I] have no shame singing them in front of friends, which I do all the time, much to their chagrin,” he explained. Beckman created a Facebook event with fellow Mudder Yeahmoon Hong to spread the word about the contest. Russell Transue, who graduated in 2012, acted as a publicist and insists that it wasn’t anything illegal that secured the win, but rather a way less exciting combination of “grit, determination … [and] a great deal of organization.”

Unlike the Victoria’s Secret contest, the voting system for the Swift contest was normalized, so as to give small and large colleges equal chances at wining. The total number of votes for each school was divided by the number of students at the voting school, rounded to the nearest thousand. As Mudder Bea Metitiri explained, though there are many Swift fans on campus, but “we definitely wouldn’t have won if there weren’t so many students and alumni who just thought it would be ‘lulzy’ to have a country pop singer perform at our tiny science school.” Cinco noted, “our small size maximized the impact of each individual’s vote while also making it easier for us to mobilize the student body as a whole.”

PANTY RAID

It wasn’t just the top result that raised a few eyebrows.

Chegg announced on October 1 that Harvey Mudd College would be the new winner of the Taylor Swift concert, but the school doesn’t exactly have a clean record when it comes to polls. In 2009, Victoria’s Secret launched a contest to promote their “Pink Collegiate Collection,” promising to create products featuring the mascots of the top schools from the competition. Voters were allowed to vote once daily, with protections in place to prevent automated voting bots. Because of the contest’s structure, schools with the most students, alumni and fans would be most likely to win. Surprisingly, Harvey Mudd, a school with fewer than 800 students, somehow managed to wrangle over a million votes, 400,000 more than the next leading school.

Not only that, but the first letter of the schools in second through fifth places formed the acronym wibstr. At Mudd, this acronym stands for “West Is Best Screw The Rest,” the motto of the infamously raucous West dormitory.

The Independent spoke to numerous Harvey Mudd graduates who participated in the contest’s shenanigans.

Many requested anonymity. One alumnus said the prank was “a blast,” calling it “the most amazing and organic social grouping I think I’ve ever seen …There were whole lounges full of students” working together till all hours of the night. Of the prank’s origin, another participant explained, “someone sent a link to the contest, thinking it would be hilarious if we got Harvey Mudd College Pink Victoria’s Secret underpants made.” The school’s mascot is Wally the Wart, a concrete brick with arms and legs.

03 // NEWS

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

Beyond Mudd’s immediate community, its role within the Claremont Consortium—the five colleges Pomona, Pitzer, Claremont McKenna, Scripps, and Harvey Mudd, or the ‘five Cs’—helped increase votes. Another Mudd graduate who wished to remain anonymous explained that the Facebook group promised that tickets would be shared across the five schools (as is common with events at the five Cs), which meant that students voting for Scripps, Pomona, Claremont McKenna, or Pitzer probably decided to cast their votes for Mudd instead. Despite its nerdy student body, Mudd is known for having the best parties of the five Cs, a reputation often attributed to the student-policed honor code, correspondingly less drinking policies. According to Beckman, approximately 150 students from the other four schools joined the Facebook group and voted daily. This sort of mobilization is legal within the rules of the contest.

Students are thrilled about the concert and the $10,000 grant. According to Beckman, Mudd is “filled, and I mean filled, with musicians,” but lacks proper practice area. “A Taylor Swift Music Department would give me a chuckle, but hey, anything is possible considering we won this competition in the first place.” Mudd’s sole music professor, Bill Alves, says he was both “surprised” and “delighted” to hear about the grant. Mudd participates in a joint music program with the other Claremont colleges.

OCTOBER 05 2012

WINNERS AND LOSERS AND CHEATERS

“I had nothing to do with the Taylor Swift shenanigans, I just know that there were some,” Metitiri told the Independent. “I also heard that the contest officials removed all suspect votes, so it’s possible the shenanigans did not cause us to win,” she added. Current students and alumni who participated in the Victoria’s Secret prank were split over whether or not the contest was won fairly. Those who were skeptical that there was foul play cited the heightened security of the Swift contest in comparison to the Victoria’s Secret one. One alumnus said he’s “pretty sure” it wasn’t rigged, a sentiment shared by current senior Liana Boraas.

As alumnus David Gross explained, “It’s not unreasonable that HMC could win: we are a small school with a larger following.”

Others are less convinced. Adam, an alumnus who participated in the Victoria’s Secret prank responded to the Independent’s inquiry, “Did Mudders game the competition? Almost certainly. Did they create an automatic tool like I did to cast absurd numbers of votes? Probably not.”

He wasn’t sure how they might have gone about it, and he’s hoping for a “proper clinic report” after the concert, when details would be more likely to come out. Other alumni suggested that Mudders probably considered messing with the poll (“a challenge is a challenge,” as one put it), but the normalized votes based on school size made it unnecessary.

Jacques Favreau, an alumnus who was also involved in the Victoria’s Secret prank, was quick to point out the

difference between that and the Swift contest. Regarding the Victoria’s Secret contest prank, he cited a “drawn out conversation” amongst students about the ethics of the situation, who eventually decided that it was okay to pursue the trickery because the contest was non-binding and lacked official rules. He described a strong sense of ethics regarding pranking amongst Mudd students, which includes “not doing any damage that can’t be fixed.” Accordingly, to spell out messages with the results, they chose schools that weren’t actually competing, so that if they were banned, or voting was reset, they wouldn’t impact schools where students had been organizing to win legitimately.

This approach to pranking is a far cry from the no-holds barred modus operandi of 4Chan.

As Favreau explained it, the Swift contest, with a concert and $10,000 prize, is completely different from the relatively harmless Victoria’s Secret prank. “That’s not pranking, that’s stealing because you’re smart,” said Favreau.

If it turns out that the contest victory was a result of individuals not playing by the rules Favreau said there would be serious social and academic repercussions. As he explained, “‘Don’t be a dick’ is a pretty core belief at Mudd.”

ALEX RONAN B’13.5 is

a challenge.

NEWS // 04

DIVORCING MRS. JESUS Reactions to the ‘Gospel of Jesus’ Wife’ Article & Illustration by Mary-Evelyn Farrior in 2010, a private antiquities collector approached Dr. Karen L. King at the Harvard Divinity School and asked her to investigate a small piece of papyrus that was in his possession. She initially declined the offer, fearing it might be a forgery. The collector, whose identity has not been publicly revealed, persisted and eventually hand-delivered the papyrus to King’s Cambridge office in December 2011.

The anonymous collector’s motives remain unclear­­— no one is certain why he selected King specifically, or why he wanted the papyrus examined at this time. However, this is not the first time the fragment has been given serious consideration by academics. A letter that accompanied the papyrus revealed that in 1982 a professor of Egyptology at the Free University in Berlin used this specific fragment as possible evidence for the marriage of Jesus.

Despite its murky past, the papyrus has captured headlines worldwide this month when King officially announced her findings at the 10th International Congress for Coptic Studies in Rome on September 18, 2012. After months of studying the fragment, King believes it to be authentic. Rather than focusing on King’s report that is set to print in The Harvard Theological Review, the world descended upon one line of the papyrus that reads, “And Jesus said to them, ‘My wife ...’.”

The New York Times and The Boston Globe quickly picked up the story after King’s announcement, and the article was at the top of the ‘most emailed articles’ list of the Times within hours of publication. King referred to the fragment as the ‘Gospel of Jesus’ Wife,’ for ease of reference. Soon, that title would headline stories in the nation’s premier papers, with little explanation as to the artificiality of its name. No scholars, not even King, take the papyrus as evidence against Jesus’ celibacy. Instead, King claims, the papyrus shows that some group of Coptic

05 // NEWS

Christians in the fourth century CE wanted to attribute a wife to Jesus.

Yet after the Times article, the scholarly rebuttal had no chance of keeping up with the impossibly fast escalation of the story. Leading Coptic grammarian and Brown University Professor Dr. Leo Depuydt said, “The evening before, when I saw it online [on the Times website] before it was in print, I already knew it was a fake.” the tiny, golden-hued papyrus in question resembles a flattened piece of shredded wheat. The edges are frayed, and the cacographic letters are fading. The papyrus, measuring a mere four-by-eight centimeters, contains eight incomplete lines on the front and six illegible lines on the back, all written in Coptic. Coptic descends from hieroglyphic Egyptian and more immediately from Demotic Egyptian, which is written in extremely cursive hieroglyphs. Coptic itself, however, is written with the Greek alphabet plus a few characters derived from hieroglyphs. Coptic literature flourished in the time between Antiquity and the Middle Ages, approximately 300 CE to 800 CE. Used throughout Egypt during the rise of Christianity, the language was often a popular choice for Christian texts.

King, who earned her doctorate in Religious Studies from Brown University, specializes in the history of Christianity. Being neither a coptologist nor a papyrologist, she was not able to confirm the authenticity of the papyrus on her own. Once the fragment was in her possession, she started consulting specialists. She began with Ann Marie Luijendijk, an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Princeton University who studies early Christian papyri. Luijendijk, in turn, contacted eminent American papyrologist Roger Bagnall at New York University. “I have an informal papyrological seminar that meets in my house

every two or three weeks, and Ann Marie Luijendijk is a regular member of that seminar,” Professor Bagnall said.

“She brought the photos [of the fragment] one evening and asked, ‘What do you think?’ We all sort of stared at it, and our first reaction was, ‘Wow. This is really ugly. Can this be real?’ But as we looked at it in more detail, we came to the conclusion that the handwriting was actually perfectly explicable. It was the handwriting that you could find in a real text of that period.”

After seeing a photo, Bagnall, whose stance on the matter remains of key importance for King’s argument, concluded the papyrus could be authentic. “The papyrus, I think, is surely ancient, but, the thing is, because there are lots of blank papyri in collections around the world, that in itself does not really prove anything,” said Bagnall, who also handled the fragment in person once King carried it to New York in her pocketbook. The ink, he said, was battered and faded and seemed as though it could be thousands of years old. “It would be impossible to forge… A fragment this damaged probably came from an ancient garbage heap like all the earliest scraps of the New Testament,” Luijendijk told the Harvard News Office.

The three professors thus reached a conclusion. “Our lengthy discussion about the characteristics of the papyrus concluded with the judgment that the papyrus was very likely an authentic ancient text that could be dated on paleographical grounds to circa 4th c. CE,” King wrote in her report. in august 2012, King submitted a version of her report to The Harvard Theological Review. Despite the evidence provided by King, Bagnall, and Luijendijk, the reviewers questioned the authenticity of the fragment and asked that King have the piece reviewed by an experienced specialist

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

in Coptic papyrology and that the chemical composition of the ink be tested.

King then contacted Coptic expert Ariel ShishaHalevy, Professor of Linguistics at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Shisha-Halevy told King in an email, as mentioned in her revised report, “I believe—on the basis of language and grammar—the text is authentic. That is to say, all its grammatical ‘noteworthy’ features, separately or conjointly, do not warrant condemning it as forgery.” The Times used this quote, and included the expert opinion of these four professors as sufficient proof for the authenticity of the ‘Gospel of Jesus’ Wife.’

The results of the ink test will be revealed in the coming months. Ink tests are the only objective manner of determining the age of the fragment. However, the most accurate kind of test, carbon dating, would cause too much damage to a papyrus of this size. Instead, the only feasible test for the fragment is to examine the chemical composition of the ink with a procedure known as spectroscopy. If synthetic materials are found, then the papyrus is automatically invalidated. However, if the ink is only made of organic materials, then the test remains inconclusive, since ink of that kind could be made during any time period.

In the meantime, King has continued work on her report for The Harvard Theological Review. “Although the authenticity is not absolutely settled beyond any question, we are sufficiently confident to offer our results here,” King wrote in her recently revised report. yet, for some, the matter is settled. Professor Leo Depuydt sits in his barren office in the Egyptology Department building at Brown, proud to be playing the role of scholarly detective. Depuydt leaves no room for question. To him

OCTOBER 05 2012

the answer is obvious: the fragment is a forgery. Upon reading the article in the Times, Depuydt cautioned The Harvard Theological Review: “I said literally [in an email to the HTR], ‘The danger of making a fool of oneself is real’.” Taking Depuydt’s comment to heart, The Harvard Theological Review solicited a counter-report from him.

Within a matter of days, Depuydt had compiled an independently researched, comprehensive, 14-page report, denouncing any chance of authenticity. “There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that the text … is a patchwork of words and phrases from the published and well-known Coptic Gospel of Thomas… It is therefore clear that the Text is not an independent literary composition at all,” Depuydt wrote in his report. King acknowledged the Gospel of Thomas, but only to the extent that it offers certain phrases similar to those in the ‘Gospel of Jesus’ Wife.’

In his report, Depuydt shows, blow by blow, that the vast majority of the text is directly taken from the Gospel of Thomas, and clumsily at that. So careless are the grammatical errors that Depuydt postulates, “An ancient native speaker of Coptic who can select and combine words and phrases from the Gospel of Thomas with any understanding could not possibly have produced said grammatical blunders.” Depuydt believes the author is a modern forger, possibly someone intending the controversial marital reference to be tongue-in-cheek.

Nothing is known about the forger, but Depuydt suspects the forger may have come out of Germany: “We [Depuydt and a friend] are focusing on Germany and specifically Berlin because that is where the piece first turned up. But no success so far. The forger’s Coptic is not good. So it could be someone in the periphery of scholarship who never became a scholar.”

“I am at peace … I don’t need any papyrus or ink tests. I already know it is a fake,” said Depuydt, but one issue still leaves him unnerved: “The whole problem so far has been that the media has been so much faster on the trigger than the academics and that has not been a good thing.” Depuydt, who was taught by Shisha-Halevy in the ’80s, believes that his former professor’s comment personally confirming the authenticity of the fragment tipped the balance. “[The Times] saw his report as a watershed. You leave the door just a little open, and they blew it open.” however, the lightning pace that has come to define media today has no prospect of slowing itself down for the sake of scholarship. Within a week of the Times piece that promoted King’s opinion of authenticity, articles have come out from sources such as The Daily Mail and the Vatican’s semi-official newspaper L’Osservatore Romano firmly calling the fragment a forgery. Each scholar quoted in the articlesincluding one from England with whom Depuydt has been in recent contact-reached the same conclusion as Depuydt, albeit less thoroughly. However, these articles are not headlining international news sites with the same intensity as King’s story. “One has the impression that a jet engine just blasted off irretrievably,” said Depuydt.

Depuydt’s report is set to print in The Harvard Theological Review in January 2013, alongside King’s report and a rebuttal by King if the ink tests prove inconclusive. It will then be up to the reader to decide whose report is the most convincing.

MARY-EVELYN FARRIOR B’14 resembles

a flattened piece of

shreaded wheat.

NEWS // 06

SENTENCED Books on the Inside

by Megan Hauptman // Illustration by Diane Zhou the second floor of a small brown Providence house right off Broadway houses two rooms stuffed with bookshelves and boxes, organized into eclectic categories like “Native American History,” “Medical,” and “Wiccan.”

“Mystery” takes up an entire bookcase, flanked by “Classics” and “Horror.” These rooms are the donated library of Providence’s Books Through Bars program (BTB), a nonprofit that sends books to inmates across the country.

The books are collected from local donors, libraries, and book drives. They are packaged up by volunteers every Tuesday and Sunday and sent, along with a handwritten note, to inmates all over the US. There are about thirty similar organizations in the US, loosely affiliated by the informational pamphlets that are passed around correctional facilities that list the addresses of all the programs. Since their libraries are small, most books-toprisons organizations fill requests for genre or subject, rather than specific books.

Because it receives hundreds of letters per month, BTB is usually about three months behind in responding to requests. The letters received range from a brief note on a receipt slip, asking for books on calligraphy and comics, to a long letter written on the back of a bible page, asking for books about Woodstock, the Physician’s Desk Reference, and magazines about motorcycles. BTB estimates that they have sent out 10,000 books in the past four years. raymond grenier first got involved with BTB four years ago, after he was held awaiting trial for nine months in the Intake Service Center of the Rhode Island Adult Correctional Institute (ACI). The intake center, unlike the other eight facilities on the campus, is considered a jail rather than a prison, because most of its residents are temporary and unsentenced (the majority spend less than a week in the facility). Functioning primarily as a holding cell, Intake places little emphasis on educational or rehabilitative programs, and as such, its current library consists of two small shelves of assorted books. For people like Grenier, who spent months in the facility awaiting his court date, this selection was far too small to serve as adequate reading material.

Grenier, whose case culminated in a mistrial, never served time in any of the other facilities, but thinks that Intake, temporary or not, should have a more extensive library. Talking about his own experience, he says “I went nuts not having a book for thirty days.” When he was released in 2008, he got involved with Providence BTB and became the director of the volunteer-run organization last year. Though in the past four years BTB sent books to thirty-three states, it cannot send books to prisoners in the Rhode Island ACI, located only a few miles away in Cranston.

Policy at the ACI allows for outside donations to the prisons’ libraries, requested and regulated by a staff librarian, but will only allow individual prisoners to receive books sent by a publisher outside a fifty-mile-radius.

BTB is associated with a local distributor, Paper Nautilus Books, which allows them to send books to other prisons with similar requirements, but ACI policies invalidate them for the Rhode Island facility. Inmates in Rhode Island state prison have to request books from a friend or family member who can order them from online retailers, like Amazon, and have them shipped to the prison; this makes access to books cost-prohibitive for inmates who come from lower-income backgrounds or have few contacts outside the facilities. Grenier has been meeting with administrators of the Rhode Island Department of Corrections to change their regulations to allow BTB and other similar organizations to send books directly to prisoners at the ACI, but for now, the policy stands. correctional facilities across the US have discretion in limiting the types of books prisoners are allowed to have; many have restrictions on hardcover books as well as the number of books prisoners can keep in their cells. Most also have limitations on content; the ACI restricts books that “may be contrary to appropriate security and custodial concerns.” As well as specifically prohibiting sexually

07 // METRO

explicit content and weapons manuals, their restrictions are amorphous, precluding books that “depict, describe or encourage activities that may lead to the use of physical violence or group disruption.”

The extent to which this institutional censorship can be practiced was the subject of media attention in 2010, when it was discovered that a detention center in Berkeley, South Carolina prohibited prisoners from having any books, save a soft-cover Bible. After a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the facility rescinded its ban, but still heavily censors reading material, disallowing anything with staples. The Berkeley detention center’s defense—that staples could be used to jam locks and give makeshift tattoos—tried to shift the discourse on books to issues of safety and order away from prisoners’ rights. In response to a renewed round of legal efforts by the ACLU against the revised restrictions, they now remove the staples from incoming publications, but their drawn out efforts to censor reading materials—the staple case was resolved in January of this year—point to a default prioritization of order over education.

and federal facilities throughout the country, college-level educational programming in US prisons has decreased dramatically in the past twenty years. This can be traced back to the decision to eliminate Pell Grant funds for prisoners in 1994 (as part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act passed by President Clinton) and the subsequent dismantling of most prison college programs. In the year following the elimination of Pell Grants for prisoners, the number of college programs in prisons dropped from 772 to less than a dozen. While most states today do not provide inmates with any degreebearing post-secondary educational opportunities, some colleges still provide classes in correctional facilities, funded primarily through private grants. The Community College of RI runs classes in the ACI that allow inmates to earn an associates degree or vocational certification, and five people have received associate’s degrees through this program this.

High demand for classes, long waitlists, and lack of public funding mean that programs like the one run by CCRI inevitably underserve inmates who don’t have access to other higher-education opportunities.

“books serve three purposes: education, diversion, and contact with the outside world,” states Grenier. “Education is the only proven way to reduce recidivism.” His sentiment echoes prison reform groups across the US, who argue that more money invested in education, both in and out of prison, will save government money spent on sentencing.

Education in prisons is under-prioritized when compared to money spent on prison construction and security, which is steadily increasing. The RI ACI spends from $39,622 (Intake Service Center) to $172,352 (High Security) to house and guard one prisoner for one year. Sixty-seven percent of formerly incarcerated people are rearrested within three years of their release, and each sentence they serve costs the government far more than it would to invest in their education.

The “Education” section of the Federal Bureau of Prisons website describes a “variety of programs for inmates to achieve literacy and marketable skills,” and mentions that inmates who can fund their coursework may have access to some correspondence-based college courses. This focus on basic literacy and vocational skills instead of college certification reinforces limitations on job prospects of post-release prisoners.

The education levels of incarcerated individuals already compare poorly to that of the national population—only 17 percent of incarcerated Americans have some type of post-secondary education, and 39 percent fall below a sixth-grade reading level. Statistics from the RI ACI are similarly bleak: 80 percent of inmates arrive without a high school diploma or GED, and 22 percent read below a sixth-grade level.

In an interview with the Providence Journal in 2010, Ralph Orleck, Principal of the education programs at the ACI, says the data they’ve collected in RI shows that “inmates who leave with a GED or high school diploma are 18 percent less likely to re-offend, while those who take post-secondary classes or earn college degrees are 70 percent less likely to end up back in jail.” while literacy and ged classes are common in state

in the twenty years since the passage of the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which, along with cutting most public funding for post-secondary prison education, allocated $9.7 billion to prison construction, the US prison population has more than doubled—it hit one million in October of 1994 and has since grown to 2.3 million. Local and national statistics speak to the importance of education in reducing the prison population, and consequently, the ballooning prison budget. As prison funding is funneled into security and construction costs, non-profit programs such as BTB try to address at least a small part of the education deficit. “a book [...] meant more to me than a stack of gold bars,” Grenier says, reflecting on his comparatively brief stay in the ACI. The letters from inmates posted on a website run by the Prison Books Program, which has been sending books out of Quincy, MA since 1972, confirm Grenier’s estimation of the value of books in prison. There are several odes to dictionaries, testaments to the ability of books to connect one with the outside world, and reflections on compassion achieved through reading. Jeffrey Watson, an inmate in a state prison in Dallas, Texas, identifies himself as an autodidact and points to the lack of sufficient higher education opportunities in prisons as why “inmates who desire to improve themselves through education have to take matters into their own hands [...] books are as necessary to this process as liquid is to quenching a thirst.”

MEGAN HAUPTMAN B’14.5 uses

media mail.

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

BAMA MAMA-JAMA Football Fandom in the Deep South

by Dixon Johns Illustration by Katy Windemuth you could say I was born with a Crimson spoon in my hand. My father has always been an avid follower of the Crimson Tide and indoctrinated me from a young age. As a University of Alabama student in the early 1970s he was the first person in his family to go to college, but he had been to countless games before he even enrolled. His family wouldn’t go on trips that didn’t culminate in an Alabama football game—the question wasn’t “where are we going?” it was, “where is ‘Bama playing?”

In those days, Alabama was at the pinnacle of college football and consistently competed for championships. During a tenure that spanned from 1958 to 1982, Coach Bear Bryant was not only one of the most famous figures in all of sports, but also the most powerful man in the state of Alabama. A month after his death—only four weeks after his last game—President Regan awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He won six national championships and 13 Southeastern Conference (SEC) championships during his tenure and retired with a higher win percentage than anyone in the history of college football.

Bear Bryant won hearts and minds all over Alabama and established in-state rival Auburn as the David to its Goliath. Bryant’s retirement left the Crimson Tide with plenty of goodwill, but his vacancy led to a long stretch of mediocrity on the field. ‘Bama only won one SEC championship and zero national championships between 1993 and 2009. I attended around 75 games with my dad during those years, and only half were Alabama victories. There was a brutal period from 2003 to 2008 where Alabama lost five straight times to its three biggest rivals: Auburn, LSU, and Tennessee.

Although times were tough, we tailgated every game as if we were competing for the biggest prize. Alabama football is as much about the pageantry as it is about the game. The cult following transcends all demographics, as long as you don’t wear an Auburn hat. It’s a time for family and friends to come together, laugh about the good times, drink a little beer, and if they’re lucky, maybe see Alabama not embarrass themselves. Regardless of the outcome, you’ll always see familiar faces the following Saturday.

Recently, though, we’ve been enjoying a golden era.

Alabama has won two of the last three national championships, and we’re currently favored to win this season. This incredible reversal of fortune seems appropriate for the years of torment and torture that the fan base has endured. It seems to validate all of the long road trips that culminated in watching our favorite team get roughed up.

In the South, college football rivalries become allegories for entire states and for Alabama there are two that stand above the rest: LSU and Auburn. Our feud with LSU is relatively new. They weren’t a powerhouse team until the early 2000s when current Alabama coach Nick Saban made their

OCTOBER 05 2012

program elite, leading them to a national championship in 2003. Prior to 1971, Alabama’s record against LSU is 2515-1. Since 2000, though, we’ve gone 3-9. LSU and Alabama have four national championships between them (two each) since 2003 and continue to sit atop the college football world. Last year, Alabama, ranked number one at the time, played second-ranked LSU, lost 9-6, then played them again in the national championship—this time with the rankings reversed—and won 21-0.

I was at an LSU game back when Alabama wasn’t playing so hot and LSU had just come off a national championship. The expectations were low, but as always, we support our boys. As I reached our section, I noticed two middle aged LSU fans sitting in my seats. I approached them cheerily, assuming that they must have been mistaken and would gladly acknowledge their error. This was not the case. I got their attention and let them know that they had made a mistake. They informed me promptly that they had not made a mistake and planned on watching the game in their “new” seats. I had the tickets in my hand, but decided against getting help from a stadium employee. Instead, I took matters into my own hands. Naively thinking that as a 16-year-old boy I would be immune to any repercussions, I started jawing off with them about their choice in seats. They ignored my demands to evacuate. Being a teenager, I had to do something extreme to get their attention.

I remember what happened next vividly and question to this day why I did it. In an attempt to demand respect, I grabbed the LSU beanie from the man’s head and threw it to the ground. I remember looking back around to seek admiration from nearby witnesses. Imagine, a teenager standing up to a grown man!

That was the last thought I had before I was punched in the face. When I opened my eyes I was being helped up

three rows down from where our argument had begun. The man who punched me was already being detained by police, which made me think I had been out for a little while.

Granted, I should not have removed his hat. You don’t touch another fan’s gear. Alabama lost the game and I left with a black eye.

The rivalry with LSU has become our most high profile, but it’s far from our most intense. That distinction goes to our feud with neighboring Auburn. The biggest game of the year will always be the Iron Bowl, played over Thanksgiving weekend between Alabama and Auburn. This in-state classic dissolves friendships and marriages for one day of the year and ensures bragging rights for the remaining 364. Although Alabama’s football history is richer than Auburn’s, the past decade has brought about radical change in the rivalry. Auburn has won two league titles and one national championship since the turn of the millenium. Not only have they been good, they have been dominating the Crimson Tide, going 8-4 against Alabama since 2000, including six in a row from 2002 to 2007. The winner of the Iron Bowl game has won the national championship each of the last three years.

Coming into the most recent Iron Bowl, Alabama was ranked No. 2 in the nation and Auburn was the defending national champion. Sitting in the Alabama visitor’s section, my family and I noticed that there were a few Auburn fans directly behind us, including a middle-aged man and woman couple. At first, nothing suggested that this would be anything but a civil coincidence of proximity. It quickly became apparent that the two were extremely drunk and had little expectation of a victory. It was clear that they were more interested in expressing aggressive school spirit than focusing on the game.

I had the pleasure of sitting in the row in front of them, directly in the crossfire. At first their behavior was sloppy and benign, but as the game went on they began to heckle my family aggressively. I decided to take the high road and ignore them. Towards the end of the third quarter, we noticed a distinct lack of commotion coming from behind us.

The wife had clearly passed out from the alcohol and the husband was struggling to stay upright in his seat. In this moment of silence, we watched the end of the game in peace.

As Alabama built a massive lead, we realized that the couple had stirred from their daze and managed to sneak out of the stadium. A massive puddle sat where the two had been stationed.

DIXON JOHNS B’14 is

an allegory for an entire state.

SPORTS // 08

HOUSES

by Sam Adler-Bell, Belle Cushing, Grace Dunham, Mimi Dwyer, Avery Houser & Kevin Pires Photographs by Annie Macdonald

ESEK DEXTER HOUSE, 364 BENEFIT STREET

IRA M. GOFF HOUSE, 62 JOHN STREET

I like the Goff House because it’s almost not one. It’s small and red and its ceilings are low, its staircases creaky. It’s a house for candles in its windows. You can barely see it past the long narrow lawn, the layer of trees, the picket fence that separates it from the street. The house is incidental; you miss it. A blacksmith named Ira Goff built it in 1842 after he moved to Providence with his new bride. They had two children there, in the small house, next to the other small houses. Ira died a few years later, far earlier than he was meant to, and left his wife to manage her home and her young children.

By 1868, James Goff and his sister Mary Borden still lived on their parents’ property together, taking care of their aging mother. They wanted to expand. James set to building a much larger house at the front of the lot, like most of his neighbors had done, hiding the modest half-story homes of their childhoods behind new tri-level manses with stone steps that led from the sidewalk. He gave his sister and her husband that luxurious house, left his mother in their home at the rear. Then he packed up and moved to Power Street. When his mother died the little house decayed, vacillating between renter transients and vacancy, until the next generation sold their grandparents’ whole plot in 1915.

From there, the two homes changed hands every few years—as Portuguese and Cape Verdean families moved into the neighborhood the names on the deeds shifted; Goff and Borden became Silva and Ferreira. In 1946, brothers named Frank and Amario Reis moved their families in. They lived there for 20 years, passed the houses down to their children, the stately front home and cozy rear one together, the 19th century Providence layout that all the lots surrounding 62 John once had.

But 62 John has a lawn, not an estate, between the little red house and the street when you walk past it today.

That’s because in 1966 Brown University bought out the neighborhood—all the lots to the left, right, front, and back of the Goff house—and planned, rumor had it, to raze them and build a five-story parking lot. The Reis family would not sell. They held out as long as they could, until all their neighbors had emptied their homes, until the whole neighborhood waited on them, the pressure of the University weighing down. Eventually, Brown paid them $20,000 to physically move the front house and relinquish the lot. They complied, packed up, left the rear home behind. Now, the other Ira M. Goff house in Providence stands a half-block away on the corner of Brook and John; the yard of 62 John remains its crater.

Needless to say the parking lot never materialized.

Brown sold the houses it had bought to a realty company which sold them to Brown professors who converted the homes to student housing—having effectively pushed the Cape Verdean community off the entire block. The Allens, who still rent the house out today, say the lawn makes the quaint late Victorian popular with kids. The absence of a home lends itself to excellent garden parties. — DD

09 // FEATURES

Pink houses, I find, are the best houses. They make you stop and say, “Look! A pink house.” They’re always somewhat unexpected, and thus always something of a gift. It’s an odd choice to paint a house pink. Would you? I’ve always imagined that the owners of pink houses are especially proud—that the pinkness of their houses is a light but essential part of their identity.

There are a handful of pink houses on College Hill. My favorite is the Esek Dexter House, 364 Benefit Street, at the corner of Planet. It’s on the peachier end of the pink spectrum and its doors are orange-red. The metal house numbers are below the front door instead of above it, which I like. The bronze knocker on the cellar door (a bit of a ways down Planet Street’s slope) is a small woman’s hand hung with bracelets, a large ring around her pointer finger.

Esek Dexter bought his plot of land in 1788, from a mariner’s widow named Ruth Brown, for 150 Spanish Milled Dollars (a coin minted in Mexico and Peru, popular because the British hadn’t allowed American colonists to mint their own money).

Esek is a biblical name for both boys and girls, but this Esek was a man with a wife named Margaret. Unfortunately, the house probably wasn’t pink when Esek built it. It’s changed families and hands many time since then, even been through two fires. But it could have been pink: in 1790, when the house was built, Federal style architecture was just getting popular. Unlike the deep and earthy tones of the Colonial period, lightness was admired: pinks, creams, and yellows meant to compliment the clean lines of symmetrical Georgian and Federal homes. So, if you like, picture Esek leaving the center of town, making the steep walk up the long green hill to Benefit Street, arriving at his front door and—with an easy smile—opening the door of his pink house.

A couple hundred years later, in 1983, John Cougar Mellencamp—driving along an Indiana interstate—saw an old man sitting in the front yard of his pink shotgun house, holding a cat and calmly staring at the traffic. The release of “Pink Houses” followed soon after: Oh but ain’t that America for you and me Ain’t that America somethin’ to see baby Ain’t that America home of the free Little pink houses for you and me… ­— GD

THOMAS P. IVES HOUSE, 66 POWER STREET

There is not much back there on the corner of Brown and Power. There are fences and facades and occasionally someone taking the long way somewhere. You might never even walk by 66 Power. Thomas P. Ives’s home is a brick and mortar manifestation of the economic propulsion that made sea captains and merchants out of men newly acquainted with capitalism. We look back at this history fondly; we imagine the cannons and tattered flags of a people free from a foreign crown. We forget the disease and the discontent. But all I want is the brick home on the hill, the silence that ensues from the roof ’s white balustrades, and the views down to the docks on the Providence River. It’s not about forgetting history; it’s about anachronisms. It’s about the fan visible through one of the first floor windows. It’s about the quasi-modernist simplicity of the home’s Federal lines.

Ives, an orphan pulled from school in Boston to work in Nicholas Brown’s office, married his former boss’s daughter Hope in the spring of 1792. As a new member of the prominent Brown family, Ives had ensured his business pursuits with Hope’s brother Nicholas Jr. The brothers-in-law parlayed their success in the maritime trade with Europe and the Far East into a textile manufacturing enterprise. They marked the hill with their power distinctly, funding Nicholas’ namesake university, William Strickland’s Greek Revival temple on Benefit Street, and their stately homes on the East Side. The July 1969 nomination form for the National Register of Historic Places notes that, “The residence has remained in the possession of the Ives heirs to this day and will eventually go to Brown University.” The BMWs parked on the cobbled drive in front of the stable and coach house are probably theirs, the carriages of a new generation of Ives elite. — KP

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

BENJAMIN CUSHING SR. HOUSE, 38 NORTH COURT STREET

38 North Court Street is also 117 North Main Street. It has stood 87 feet further east from the corner where these two streets intersect. It has been confused in records with 38 ½ North Court Street, which is 35 years older and is now known as 40 North Court Street, was almost known as some number Cady Street, and which was certainly once known as some number North Main Street, being originally built about 87 feet west from where it now stands next to the current location of number 38.

There are faded business signs above the bambooblinded windows of 117 North Main Street. One sign is missing: Benjamin Cushing Jr. House, 1772. Son of Benjamin Cushing, Sr., whose name appears on a neighboring

plaque: BENJAMIN CUSHING SR. HOUSE 1738. My great-great-great-great-great-great-great-second-cousinonce-removed, if my counting backwards is correct.

In 1737, Benjamin Cushing, Sr. moves from Scituate, MA—leaving behind a brother who would move to Maine and father the branch to eventually beget me—to build along North Main the oldest surviving house in Providence. Benjamin Cushing Sr. dies (d. 1785 Plain, honest, and always consistent, Go thy ways Traveller! And convinc’d of the infalibility of human life, Meditate upon eternity). His son, Benjamin Cushing Jr. dies (d. 1786 In him his children have lost a tender parent; his wife, an affectionate husband, and society at large a truly honest man). The bodies remain in North Burial Ground but the houses are moved, lifted off their foundations onto oak beams, dragged by horses up the hill so that the younger is directly in front of the older, to make room for the Furlong Building and its warehouse for spirits.

In photographs taken of the corner of North Main and North Court: top-hatted men loiter outside the store, Cheapside, built into the foundations of the son’s house (1870, or maybe 1860); a many-storied brick building houses a shoe store and apartments (1952); a cement foundation lies empty, behind it looms a house hauntingly similar to one once frequented by top hats (1982). At some point, a third story was added to the son’s house, blocking its father.

In 1961, in an effort to uncover and restore the Benjamin Cushing, Sr. House, a proposal is made to demolish the Benjamin Cushing Jr. House. Instead, twenty years later, a power winch shifts the son’s house back downhill, to its former corner. A caption from a Providence Journal photograph of the scene projects what will follow: “Eventually the ties will be removed and the house will lower to the foundation.” As for the older house, once grand mansion now squat colonial, today it is hidden from street view by trees.

To enter the apartments and office buildings of the Benjamin Cushing Jr. House, I need to input a personal identification number on a screen visible through the front window. I don’t know it, so I begin to walk back up the hill. On the steps of the Old State House across the street, where the time is always 3:01, a woman in a white wig, a blue scrunchie, and a black poly-blend coat gives a speech to a man with a camera. She speaks of the intelligence of the people, the only sure reliance to be had. She finishes her speech. The cameraman gives edits. She begins again.

Later, I click on a google link for genealogical information about BENJAMIN CUSHING. I expect to be shown information about his father and his father’s father—our common forbearer who came from Hingham, England to found Hingham, Massachusetts. Instead, the name that appears on the next page is my own. Anne Cushing. b. 1738 d. 1756. ­— BC

SOPHIA A. BROWN HOUSE,185 WILLIAMS STREET

According to historical record, the house that now stands at 185 Williams Street, an inauspicious two-family home, with a red door and a little columned stoop and a roof made of worn-out cedar shakes, was built between 1868 and 1871 for Sophia Brown, wife of the philanthropist and book-collector John Carter Brown.

In 1859, Sophia Augusta Browne dropped the ‘e’ from her surname and moved into the cavernous, Brown ancestral home at 357 Benefit Street. She was 34; her groom, 62. Since inheriting his father’s estate in 1842, John had spent his time and formidable wealth meticulously collecting rare books and Americana, compiling a documentary history of the American continent, a life’s work which he termed “The Great Subject.” Sophia described herself as a ‘bibliophile.’ When they married, she would spend months at a time touring private libraries and booksellers, scouring the shelves and musty basements of strangers for the volumes John requested. She probably loved him.

In the first eight years of their marriage, Sophia gave birth to three children, two boys and a girl. John was four months shy of 70 when his daughter was born. Sometime around 1868, Sophia’s mother Harriet died and left her

a plot of land on the south side of Williams Street near Hope. And maybe because it was good for the estate, or because someday their daughter would marry and want a home for her family, and maybe because Sophia could envision a day when the ornate Georgian fortress where the Providence Browns had lived for a generation (and would for three more), where her husband’s books lined the walls and his smell clung to the fabrics, when that home would feel less like a home and more like a prison, or maybe she just liked the little plot of land on Williams, which catches sun in the early morning and shade in the afternoon, and anyway, for whatever reason, Sophia had a house built there: an inauspicious two-story home, with a little columned stoop and pristine cedar shake roof.

And I lived there, in the summer of 2009. My first house in Providence, shared with a friend who drank malt liquor on the little stoop and a girl I probably loved. We climbed the fire escape to the roof and splintered our hands on the cedar shingles. We read out loud to each other on the second floor, on sunny mornings. We put books on the shelves, but not very many. — SAB

ROBERT MORROW HOUSE, 66 JOHN STREET

I lived in 66 John with nine other boys last year. People would call us the “John Street Boys” or refer to the house only as “Sixty-six.” Sometimes we would joke about getting “66” tattoos.

In 1893, Robert Morrow, the director of the Providence Opera House, bought the lot and demolished the dwelling house and two other buildings on the property to erect 66, a three-story Victorian mansion. Our landlords, Peter and Susan Allen, are the fourteenth owners since 1842. When they bought the house from Brown University nearly a century later, it was derelict.

“We cleaned out piles of shit in the basement,” Peter tells me. Heavyset, pushing 70, professorial in a tweed jacket and Red Sox cap, he sinks into the ancient floral sofa in my dark living room. He speaks of the house in the weary and studied tone of a man who has told this story many times before, but he stumbles upon a juicy tidbit now and then. “I cleaned out one file, there were pictures of this girl in a bubble bath with her boobs hanging out. Her boyfriend had taken these in the ’60s. We end up with what we call ‘house treasure.’ My whole wardrobe is house treasure.”

When the Allens bought 66, the entire façade was green with asbestos shingles. The house was lopsided, drooping down into its northeast corner. Though they served as the primary contractors, painting and refurbishing the inside themselves, they had to outsource the foundation work. Peter tells me, “Buddy Cianci, before he went to jail for racketing, he lost his office when he basically kidnapped his former wife’s lover and tortured him. I mean, he threatened him with a poker and then he put a cigarette out in his eye. Well, the guy we hired to fix the foundation was the guy who had the cigarette put out in his eye. Didn’t realize until after I’d hired him. But he did a good job.” The Allens lived in the house for a few years, occupying the top two floors. They used two extra rooms as their studies and left empty many of the rooms that would become our bedrooms.

This year I live two doors down. I see the new kids coming in and out and hear their parties. Walking by feels like running into an ex-lover. I miss it but know that I can’t have again what I once did, and that’s okay. — AH

OCTOBER 05 2012

FEATURES // 10

keratin

BY ALEX RONAN

PHOTOS BY ANNIE MACDONALD

I. The newspapers say a slender girl with a long, blond ponytail blonde ponytail held by a ribbon of pink yarn and a ponytail hairdo tied with a pink ribbon her light brown hair is pulled back in a simple ponytail and she is wearing a pink cotton dress they are different girls, but are they different girls?

II. He says, “I call ponies the athletic counterpoint to the horse. The predominant hairstyle in females happens to be a ponytail. If I were a girl I would wear a ponytail pretty frequently. But that’s mostly for safety reasons.”

III. The newspapers say she laughed so hard her ponytail shook her dirty-blond ponytail swishing back and forth she flipped her blond ponytail out of the way but where is she going?

IV. Sarah says, “I like wearing a ponytail cause it makes me feel bossy.”

Ellora says, “wearing a ponytail makes me feel girlish.”

Christina says, “how are you going to quote me about this?”

11 // FEATURES

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

V.

X.

Science says long hair is attractive to men because it is a symbol of fertility. I have seen men watch me play with children in that mindless yet calculated way. I have seen desire written clear across their faces as I swing a toddler onto my hip or as they catch a smile meant for a five year old who just jumped from the swing for the first time. When I am feeling generous I can understand it, maybe. They see what I can give them. From peach pit to plum to mango to melon to baby. These hips are narrow, but they will bear just fine.

VI. XI. Call and Response Back and Forth He said, “I have a ponytail fetish” and another he said, “that’s so obvious it’s not really even a fetish.”

VII. Erica says you can’t wear a ponytail to work. I am confused. I have just come from a fluorescent-lit space. I wear a sweater though it is sticky and summer outside. This is called an office. Buns are okay, but ponytails, unless they are slicked back, can’t be worn. This is called unprofessional.

Girls are supposed to know this.

VIII. Question and Answer 1. “I’ve never heard that” 2. “That’s weird, I don’t like that” 3. “I don’t like that either” 4. “Ponytails are hair so there’s this weird I can touch the back of your head thing going on” 5. “If they make you think of blowjobs you’re probably doing it wrong”

IX. The young woman on his matchbook wore no ponytail, no collar, no clothes, and said, “Call Me.”

OCTOBER 05 2012

“Someone once told me they were excited by the appearance of a hair tie on my arm because it made them think of blow jobs.”

“So should you wear ponytails?”

“Yeah I’m completely pro ponytail.”

“In what sense of the word pro?”

“Ponytails are good for both blowjob and non-blowjob circumstances.”

XII. The Internet says that ponytails have been around as long as humans have. The blowjob wasn’t invented till 1948. Ten years later, the elastic loop fastener was patented. That’s a hair tie, a hair thing (“do you have one?”), and it’s actually true.

XIV. Thirteen-year-old Kaytlen Lopan was charged with assault.

Assisted by an eleven-year-old friend, Lopan used scissors to cut off several inches of hair from the head of a threeyear-old girl. At the hearing Judge Scott Johansen offered to lighten the sentence.

“I will cut that [community service sentence] by 150 hours if you want to cut her hair right now.”

“Me, cut her hair?” the defendant’s mother asked.

“Right now. I’ll go get a pair of scissors and we’ll whack that ponytail off.”

The victim’s mother was in the courtroom and supported the penalty.

“Satisfied?” Judge Johansen asked her, after the defendant’s hair had been cut.

“No” she replied. Judge Johansen then directed the defendant’s mother to “take it clear up to the rubberband.”

Judge Johansen ordered the other girl involved to have her hair cut, but he allowed it to be done by a salon.

XV. One day recently, as I watched my daughter and her friends at play with their Barbies…I noticed them trying each other’s doll wardrobes on the different Barbies. [Barbie’s ponytail comes in a variety of colors. –Ed.] And the frightening thing was that instead of dressing and undressing the dolls, they simply switched heads! What does it all mean?

Mrs. Marjorie Lewis Shaker Heights, Ohio as published in The New York Times.

XVI. XIII. The Internet says “ponytail headaches” result when tightly pulled hair irritates the muscle system.

“You May Also Like The History of Hair Ties”

The Internet says it probably didn’t take a study in the journal Headache to tell you that loosening your ponytail relieves a ponytail ache. Researchers have found that this simple action decreased headache pain within 30 minutes, and, in some cases, instantly. Kinney makes a conscious effort to reposition her ponytail throughout the day.

FEATURES // 12

Hypothesis: Everything You Could Ever Want & Be You Already Have & Are Interview by Claudia Norton Illustration by Carter Davis introduction

dawn kasper is living in a gallery in Brown’s Granoff Center, enacting the final chapter of her performance series “On the Exposure of Process: The Nomadic Studio Practice Experiment.” In the series, each exhibition title is the hypothesis that she explores throughout the duration of the performance. For the series’ penultimate installment “This Could Be Something If I Let It,” Kasper camped out in a Whitney gallery for their Biennial earlier this year, where she met the Granoff’s Richard Fishman who invited her to Brown. In the current installment “Everything You Could Ever Want & Be You Already Have & Are,” Kasper has filled the gallery with all of her belongings and occupies the space daily.

Kasper first conceived of the series when she found herself out of a job in 2008. Unable to find steady work, she lost her apartment and her studio. From this struggle, Dawn created a nomadic studio for herself. When I met up with Dawn Kasper for an interview, she was having a difficult time. “I’m out of place, and I wanted to want that, but I’m too unstable. It’s stressful, it’s taxing. I need to go to therapy again.”

procedure Dawn Kasper: I take interest in certain things, like the universe. Like a laymans approach to general topics, and I interpret them creatively, so I consider that research. I kind of have this formula that I’ve created for myself, which I liken to writing a middle school science paper, where I have a hypothesis or theory and I conduct experiments or do performances to prove or disprove those. And the documentation or the project—that becomes the findings. So I put myself through these stressful experiences to become acquainted with my research in this more hands-on way.

One was on ‘What Is Inertia and Anger and How Do These Collide?’ I was doing performances about not having a studio, “On Inertia and Anger” being an example, so I started to expose that process in order to deal with that question. It sort of reached a developmental crescendo: I kept saying yes to everything. I was doing performances everywhere, and it became about needing to fulfill a production rate, so all the performances became about the stress that goes into making a drawing. I would put that energy into the drawing and the performance, and that would be the drawing, and that piece was on drawing. They’re kind of like a monologue: they’re kind of funny, and they’re silly, and they’re embarrassing, and they’re vulnerable, and spontaneous. And then there’s this magical thing that happens, where I become this sort of channel or this cipher, and I kind of get into a trance, and once I let go, something is resolved. So although I’m not sitting by myself in my studio making this drawing in order to feel that feeling of resolution upon its finishing, I’m able to do that and have that experience in front of an audience and share it. So I deduced that there’s no way to fail. Failure is not an option, but it’s a variable. So it’s there and you’re aware of it, but it’s the same as facing a fear. You realize your fear is there but you can’t let it own you.

studio. I had been working from home, and my mother’s a hoarder, so I have this anxiety about having people in my home because of how I was raised. There’s a lot of vulnerable shame about having people in my space. So I didn’t want them to come to my home, but I did want them to come to see my stuff. It was the best studio visit I’d ever had. They got it. They contacted me for a second visit, so in the second visit I told them in fact they were part of a performance installation, and that the whole thing was a performance. They were like ‘oh, ok.’

I initially wanted to move the entire contents of my parents’ garage into the museum, and the registrar was saying we would have to account and inventory every single thing, and I was like ‘Yes!’ So I thought, “They get a clean garage and they know what all’s in there and I can help my parents and have an art installation at the same time, and I could be in the Whitney every day and be organizing it and re-organizing it.” When I asked my parents if I could do this they were very upset. I kept trying to ask them but I quickly let it go. I felt that energy—I wanted to do something of that nature. So I thought, maybe the message here is not to expose my parents, I’ll just do it with all my stuff.

Indy: Why

in a museum? Why was it art?

DK: I don’t know. I didn’t get to that point yet. I got to the point I just described. I didn’t get past that point. I got excited about inventorying their stuff, making it manageable for them. All these things I’ve wanted to do for years.

But then I realized I wanted to do that for myself. So after the second studio visit they invited me to be in the Biennial. So then it was like, what am I going to do? I wanted to show people I could actually make work. Prior to the visit by the curator of the Whitney, I would practice­—oh my god they’re wearing the exact same outfit. Um, I would prac-it’s incredible.

inventory—there wasn’t music before... and something I’d like to add is that I was working as an art handler part time so when I wrote my proposal I needed a quote for how much it would cost to ship as part of my budget. I thought, this is really amazing because I have access to a company that can answer this question. So to my boss I was like, “Can you help me?” And he was like, “Yeah, send me over everything you want to ship” and he said it will cost this much and I put it in the thing. And it ended up getting my moving company the job to move the stuff. It was incredible because my friends were moving my stuff and it was just a really beautiful thing because I got them work and it just felt really good and it felt like everything was falling into place. analysis Indy: What

was your relationship to your stuff when you started? How has it changed?

DK: It’s just this ongoing self-discovery of what I can actually put myself through. It has changed; I’m more attached to it now as a unit as opposed to individual, fragmented memories. They represent the solution of a problem, again, if you think about it like an equation; they’re an illustration of a solved problem.

Indy:

DK: In a sense the question of sentimentality, legitimacy. I am now comfortable in letting go of these objects; before, they were just an anchor. I created a job by facing that fear of not having. I took all of these fragmented issues I was facing and I put them together and that was the solution.

Am I not myself? Am I my objects? Am I a legitimate artist?

Indy:

materials

Indy:

DK: I was invited to do a studio visit with the carriers of the Whitney Biennale. That’s something I’ve wanted for a very long time and I never thought it would happen. I freaked out, I don’t have a studio, what do I do? So I thought, “all right, if I got nothing, I got nothing to lose,” so I went for it. What could I do to really include all of my interests in this one opportunity? But then I also made it about the

13 // ARTS

Are you your objects?

It’s because they’re waitresses together.

DK:

DK:

Problem being what?

No.

But like, it’s amazing.

Indy: Did

Indy: Yeah, DK: Yeah!

you ever think you might be?

totally—same shoes, too.

And both their phones were on the right hand side of their faces. They were mirroring. Anyway, I had been performing so much I had never stopped to take

DK: Yes. Indy: Was there a specific time when you realized you weren’t?

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

DK: I’m realizing that now. But I’m aware of the sentimentality of it being a unit now, and that’s why I’m having such a hard time. I just want to make sure it’s safe at my home.

It’s getting to the point where it’s unhealthy. It’s affecting my psychology. It’s very taxing. It’s depressing—being so exposed, and for people to just walk past it.

At first it took me a while to adjust so I wouldn’t bring food or a lunch, and I wouldn’t want to leave because I would be talking to people all day. Every day people would give me food out of their bag, like you did today. I get so caught up in it because it’s a durational performance installation. That’s what’s happening. But people—being human beings—if they choose to see it, there’s something else there. We’re just mirrors, you know?

I know. So obviously we’re performing all day no matter what. But is there an added level of performance to your pieces?

experiment is the conversation we’re having. All the things that we’re talking about are the variables. And I’m the control or the constant. So I began to realize that I’m the only one who sees the whole performance in its entirety. In a sense, I’ve turned it around and made the audience the performance. I’ve become the viewer, the only one who sees everything. It goes with me everywhere. I’m trapped in it though; I felt trapped when I got here. None of this is negative, it’s just happening. Here it started to feel like a rejection. And I got scared to connect with people because I was leaving—and those became the variables. My separation anxiety is heightened. you feel like you’re inviting people into your room by doing this piece?

Indy:

So what’s a ‘variable’?

DK: The variables are how I choose to interact in the space or be in the space. The variables are you and I and the

OCTOBER 05 2012

Indy: Eating and loving? ‘Oh wait I can’t eat I’m supposed to go do this job that’s going to make me happy?’

DK: Yeah

‘Oh I can’t let you love me because I have to go do this job.’

Indy: Do

Indy: Yeah,

DK: I’m trying to bridge that gap. I did come to a point where a variable was this question that you ask. What does it mean to have an audience and not have an audience and to take responsibility? The ability to connect or the ability to relate—what if that’s the performance? Being here at Brown and not engaging with as many people, and this weird threshold thing [in the Granoff gallery], because there’s this thing in the floor so people think that they can’t cross over. People don’t want to engage. People would look at me as they’re walking out the door and look away very quickly, so there was more of that than direct contact.

There were a few people that would connect, and I began to realize that I can’t have a successful performance without an audience. Kind of like what we were talking about earlier; you were asking me if I would rather be isolated or be vulnerable. I can’t stress enough how I feel that human connectivity is vital. People want to relate, people want to be understood, people want to be heard. That plays an important role in this project, but there isn’t a lot of that being realized here. It just felt like it was failing and I realized it’s because I don’t have an audience. Who am I doing this for? Why do I have all this stuff with me?

myself. It’s not about that, is my point. It’s not about being at Brown University. For the most part, I’m still bummed out, I still go home alone at the end of the day, I still cry for whatever reason, I still need to eat yogurt for breakfast.

There are all these other things I still need to do in order to maintain my existence; but then at a certain point they become an inconvenience.

DK: No.

I’m sort of suggesting it. I’m not saying anything.

I am coming from this place of political occupation where it’s like I’m a part of the 99 percent or the other half that had been dependent on unemployment. I needed a job, so I created a job. I have an education that I can’t afford in a specialization that’s a risky, dicey career choice. I don’t expect anyone to be empathetic, but I am dependent on institutions, collectors, and galleries in order to afford my cost of living.

Indy:

‘…so that I can love myself to be ready to love you.’

DK: Exactly. Exactly what you just fucking said. It’s me getting in my own way. It’s an illustration of me getting in my own way. Because I have to get all around my stuff. It’s all poetry; it’s all visual poe—turn off your car it stinks!

conclusion

DK: It’s a variable, but I’m also suggesting that in this climate, it’s deconstructing or dismantling. What the fuck do I have to do to be legitimate? So it was sort of a ‘fuck you’ to the institution in that way. You’re paying me to work on my own work and live. It’s pretty incredible.

The focus of Dawn’s installation, while at first concerned with the question of holistic self-containment, seems to have shifted towards exploring how we connect. The project ends up as a study of intimacy, how we invite, deny, contrive, and create an environment to foster intimacy— especially how we fixate on cataloging and organizing the relics of our experiences. Dawn isn’t sure what results the experiment has yielded. She says she has to be distanced by time and space to properly observe, but maybe even if the hypothesis isn’t true when applied to one person, it could still be true when applied to the whole—it could still be true that we’re holding some things for each other.

Indy: Which

CLAUDIA NORTON B’14

Indy: You were saying that one function of an object is to legitimize. Is showing all your stuff here a way to legitimize your identity or profession?

is a metaphor for the life of the artist?

wrote this lonely in her room.

DK: It’s a metaphor for anybody. You can do whatever the fuck you want to do. It’s no different from patenting Coca-Cola or making a perfume. If you stay focused for long enough, if you just keep at it people are going to listen.

It’s all variables, it’s nothing definitive, but I’m suggesting that I can be this person I think I am. But there’s so much information that comes from the outside, like you’re a piece of shit or you’re a woman or whatever. I have to prove

ARTS // 14

THIS IS AN EMERGENCY Meredith Stern’s Call to Action

by Ana Alvarez Illustration by Diane Zhou this is an emergency, a project organized by local artist and printmaker Meredith Stern, combines both visual and written artworks that address issues of reproductive rights and gender justice. On view at the Sarah Doyle Women’s Center, the title of This is An Emergency proclaims the portfolio’s message plainly and the impactful design of each print further points to the urgency of the desperate state of gender equality, views on sexuality, and access to reproductive health.

“This is evident in everything from our legislation to the culture at large,” Stern writes in the exhibition’s catalog, “exampled in the hundreds of laws which detail and inform us on the exact circumstances under which we are allowed to have an abortion, to Rush Limbaugh’s hateful comments surrounding birth control, or former Senator and Republican Presidential nominee [sic] Rick Santorum’s comments regarding homosexuality.”

Many of the prints, which Stern devised to be viewed and distributed as a collection, address a specific injustice, countering attack on reproductive rights or access to health care. Her call for awareness and action on these issues is timely. Last May, Republican lawmakers proposed a federal ban on abortions 20 weeks after fertilization in the District of Columbia, neglecting standards set by previous legislation which limits the right to choose only in cases of sexual assault in danger to the mother’s health. The recent funding cuts on women’s health care providers has been even more severe. GOP leaders have proposed and passed legislation in some states to strip Planned Parenthood of public funds on grounds that the organization provides abortion services.

These are not federally funded and they constitute three percent of Planned Parenthood’s services which include providing birth control, breast and cervical cancer screenings, and other essential preventative health measures to millions of women and men.

Several prints in the show examine the ways in which recent attacks on reproductive rights have exacerbated other forms of oppression. Molly Fair, an archivist, activist, and multi-disciplinary artist who participated in This Is An Emergency, created a print that depicts an ultrasound scan, the word “choice” replacing the space where a fetus would be read and the words “self-determination,” “access,” and “equality” surround the image. Similarly, Kristina Brown

15 // ARTS

writes in accompanying text that her piece “Our Bodies, Our Decision” addresses the “overwhelming, over-reaching, and oppressive decision-making happening in local governments around the country surrounding reproductive rights.”

The image depicts a group of women rallying, holding signs of “Equal Access,” “Stop the War on Women,” and “Reproductive Freedom for All.” The demands for health care access and reproductive autonomy are also explained in more specific demands. Xicana activist and artist Melanie Cervantes’s print “Reproductive Justice” depicts working women of color, a group disproportionately affected by recent restrictive measures on health care.

The critiques made by these prints span beyond issues of reproductive health and support LGBTQ rights.

Designer Arley-Rose Torsone’s piece “Rhode Island Blows” references the state’s failure to pass a full marriage equality bill in April of 2011, opting instead to legalize only civil unions. In a bright rainbow scheme, the print depicts a man sucking the phallic head of the Rhode Island state capitol building. The print, Torsone writes, aims to, “send the message back to the lawmakers that they’re sucking the life out of our state’s cultural livelihood.”

In a talk held after the opening of This is An Emergency at the Sarah Doyle Women’s Center, Stern stressed that a main goal of the project is to highlight the intersection of attacks on gender justice and reproductive health and many other forms of oppression. The shaping of the portfolio, both through Stern’s method of selecting artists and through its modes of dissemination, successfully speaks to her intent. “I wanted the group to be comprised of folks who tend to be marginalized in artistic endeavors,” Stern explained. This meant specifically approaching women of color, queer-identifying women, and transgender artists underrepresented in major museums, both because of the general exclusion of certain artists or, more pervasively, because of the suppression of queer and transgender history and context of their work. According to a study in Out History by Weena Perry on the misrepresentation of queer and trans artists in museum exhibitions, The Museum of Modern Art discussed queer themes in only 3.4 percent of its exhibitions between 1995 and 2005. Some museums, including the New York Historical Society, have failed to include queer or trans themes in any context for over a

decade. When questions of sexuality or gender are featured in exhibitions, it often serves as a token singular phenomenon and less as an outreach for overall inclusivity within artistic communities and endeavors. This is An Emergency, is an attempt on Stern’s part to reach out within her community. Half of the artists she approached for the project are women of color, while a quarter are transgendered or genderqueer, and the last quarter cis-gendered, straight women.

While the approach could be read as methodical, it assured the exhibit would not simply feature minority voices, but provide the possibility for an amplified volume.

Stern further expanded the scope of the portfolio by reaching out to Providence artists and activists whose work doesn’t explicitly connect art and activism. Additionally, some of the printmakers designed their prints in collaboration with community organizations that work against the injustices portrayed. This allowed the project to speak to the broader activist community working on various political, social, and environmental issues. Stern and many of the other printmakers are members of the Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative, a printmaker activist group comprised of members throughout North America. Their unity statement offers, “We believe in the transformative power of personal expression in concert with collective action.” To this end, Stern has donated two dozen copies of the portfolio to grassroots organizations, which will use the images to help further promote their activist work. The possible impact of This Is An Emergency lies beyond its artistic production; the power of these prints lives in the collaborations that inspired them and in the conversations they can inspire.

ANA ALVAREZ B’13

is a union of seven states.

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

Discourses on Lithium Confronting the Fallacy

by Tyler Bourgoise Illustration by Chloe Fandel

last tuesday in Portland, OR, the Dandy Warhols played a benefit concert: “Public Water, Public Vote.” Keyboardist Zia McCabe writes, “[T]he artists and citizens of Portland are willing to stand up to [their government] when they are not serving our city and her people the way they should be.”

Her grievance—and much of Portland’s—is fluoride. Two weeks ago, Portland City Council voted against the will of many residents, and now Portland’s water is set to contain trace amounts of fluoride by 2014. Whereas most major American cities have had fluoride in their drinking water for decades, Portland has been resistant.

Why fluoridate in spite of such strong antagonism?

It’s effective, it’s safe, and it decreases dental health concerns for the public at large; everyone drinks water. The benefits of fluoridation balance out costs and side effects.

The CDC heralds fluoridation as one of the most successful public health innovations of the 20th century. Fluoride is in more than 70% of the US’s drinking water. We now have much better dental health than it seems we would have had without flouride.

This success has led bioethicists and scientists to wonder what else should be put in drinking water.

Cholesterol-lowering statins seemed likely candidates for a while, but now seem too risky. Iron is still up for discussion, according to a 2011 Brazilian study. And China debated fortifying water with vitamins and minerals throughout the last decade.

Then there’s lithium. Lithium fortification is controversial, to the point that few researchers dare to engage in the debate. Existing research on this issue has relied on natural, rather than clinical, experiments.In 1990, a group of scientists published data showing that mean suicide rates were lower (8.7 per 100,000 people, compared to 14.2 per 100,000 in areas with ‘low’ levels) in areas with consistently ‘high’ levels of naturally occurring lithium in the drinking water (70-160 μg/l). This study focused on 27 counties in Texas over a 10-year period; a 2009 study showed similar results in Japanese communities. Last year, Austrian researchers showed that lithium’s effects were significant, even when adjusted for suicide mortality factors like per-capita income, population density and religious beliefs. It seems that ingesting low levels of lithium may prevent suicide.

This isn’t such a surprising statement. Lithium carbonate and lithium citrate have long been prescribed as mood stabilizers for people with bipolar disorder.

But despite its off-label success in treating depression, schizophrenia and anorexia, patients are sometimes reluctant to take the drug. It has a few unsettling side effects; many hear of the ‘lithium zombie,’ whose mania subsided a bit too much after starting medication.

Lithium’s effective dose, too, is closer to its toxic dose than most drugs’ tend to be. Yet it remains one of the most effective ways of treating bipolar disorder. Even so, there are only trace amounts of lithium involved in any of the suicide studies above. A single day’s prescription of lithium is 900mg. To get that dose from water in an area with a

OCTOBER 05 2012

‘high’ lithium concentration, one woman would need to drink in one day her recommended daily water intake for seven years.

Lithium water studies have so far caught some attention from suicidologists and psychiatrists who want to study the underlying mechanisms of suicide. (Until the drinking water studies, very low-dose lithium wasn’t something doctors thought to prescribe). Still, public health and public policy researchers are not yet interested in lithium fortification. And they probably won’t be until some key findings are made. For example, what effect trace levels of lithium have on non-suicidal people, or what the costs of demonstrating these effects would be. However, since lithium already occurs naturally in many water supplies, scientists can study individuals in these areas, suicidal and non-suicidal.

A few scientists have publicly made the unpopular case to fortify water with lithium. Jacob M. Appel, a bioethicist, playwright, and author, is one of those people. Our phone conversation came during a short break he had taken from his work at the hospital. I discovered him after he wrote that “[t]ime will reveal whether lithium is the next fluoride” in a Huffington Post article from 2009.

In his article and via email, Appel questions a popular counterargument to lithium fortification: the naturalistic fallacy. G.E. Moore coined this term to describe the inference from ‘X is naturally occurring’ to ‘X is good.’ And it’s already deeply embedded in advertising. Think about all the times you’ve heard that a product’s being “natural” makes it better than its “non-natural” competitor. Appel observes that the same psychology is present when people talk about drinking water. Somehow, “purer” drinking water seems better.

For many, this implies that to make water intentionally “less pure” infringes on drinkers’ rights. Such a claim is taken up by both ends of the political spectrum.

Those on the far right often object to any fortification on the grounds that it enlarges government and is coercive; those on the far left, that it spreads commercial interests and is industrially minded. “Both sides,” Appel notes, “exhibit a paranoid strain of thinking common to the antivaccine and anti-psychiatry movements.” Paranoid or not, the most vocal opponents are writing in forums and blogs, or on websites endorsing views that many would find suspect.

For lithium, theoretical and practical questions remain. Appel points one out: what if it’s not worth political, scientific and economic resources to save the suicidal? Someone could want those resources spent on other projects—they wouldn’t value favorable evidence for lithium fortification, no matter how glowing. Or, why not strengthen current educational, socioeconomic, and rehabilitative programs that lower suicide rates? Why not medicate only those who need medication?

On both the pro- and anti-lithium sides, though, it seems the people speaking are just a small subset of those with qualified expertise and opinions. I tried to set up a

conversation with a physician whom I won’t name. She had advocated for lithium fortification a few years ago, with some clout as both a medical and business professional. She said this was the only issue she felt uncomfortable going on the record about. The last time she did, she received inflammatory emails and a disparaging article was written about her. Appel also told me that lithium fortification is one of the few issues in which he doesn’t want to name names. People have very strong reactions to the thought of psychological medication being put in their water. “I do make one exception to note that my leading critic on the issue is a college-dropout-turned-radio-talk-show-host from Texas named Alex Jones,” Appel said in an email.

Alex Jones is barrel-chested and speaks dramatically.

Much of his radio show is broadcasted on Youtube, on a station called TheAlexJonesChannel, which has over 287,000 subscribers. These videos show a flustered Alex Jones who shakes his head quickly, throws up his arms, and appears to be on the verge of tears.

Jones responds to Appel in a Youtube video, “New York Times Pushing for Lithium and Other Drugs in Water Supply.” “To rant and rave about this isn’t even the proper response,” Jones says. “It’s the food, it’s the water—they’re already doing it, just like when they had private spies spying on you a decade ago—now they admit it!” It’s hard to gauge how much Jones’ audience endorses his viewpoints, or what his most articulate arguments might be. For now, the most “liked” comment on the video is: “Anyone who thinks it’s ethical to put drugs in my drinking water deserves to be SHOT IN THE FUCKING FACE!!!!!!!!!!!!” It has sixteen likes.

There’s a worry about whether this sort of hostility has cast undue suspicion on discourse about lithium. It may be that lithium fortification can save x number of lives, but at y cost. Yet, it’s still too early to tell whether that’s the case, or know what x and y may look like. No one has yet claimed that preventing suicides using lithium fortification should trump, say, one’s right to be creative or to feel sad.

Even if lithium turns out to be unpalatable, there seems to be a deeper issue: “My personal goal is…to raise the notion that the water supply is a public resource that can be used to achieve a public good,” Appel says.

Comparing fluoridation and lithium fortification shows a great gap in public attention. Photos from the recent Portland demonstrations show protestors wielding large signs with anti-fluoridation rhetoric—an echo of what one gets on first view of Fluoride Action Network’s homepage, fluoridealert.com. Meanwhile, Fred Crosby, a Providence Water Supply board member, said to me that he hadn’t ever heard of lithium fortification. Somewhere between these extremes, there’s probably enough of the public’s time for both.

TYLER BOURGOISE B’13 has

a big ol’ reservoir.

SCIENCE // 16

Course Catalogue

by Adam Wyron Illustration by Diane Zhou

ENGN1210-S01 Biomechanics Foundations.

Diffusion and convection.

Material properties of bone and muscle. Cardiac mechanics.

Circulation: steady and unsteady flow,

compliant tubes.

Macro- and microrheology of blood.

Thrombosis and hemostasis.

Respiration and ventilation.

Convective transport of solutes.

Thermal response and control.

Locomotion, swimming, and flight.

ENGN1710-S01 Heat and Mass Radiant heat transfer: Kirchhoff’s Law and the perfect emitter, radiation intensity and surface emissive power, real surface radiation; view factors for black (and gray) surfaces.

Convective heat transfer: laminar and turbulent flow heat transfer.

Mass transfer.

ENGN1360-S01 Soil Mechanics and Principles of Foundation Classification and identification of geological materials; mechanical and physical properties and methods of testing.

Elements of the analysis of stress and strain in rock and soil masses;

theories of failure, theory of seepage.

Problems of building foundations; consolidation and settlement; stability of earth slopes and embankments.

Heat conduction: steady and unsteady heat conduction equation with heat generation in two and three dimensions; numerical solutions.

17 // LITERARY

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

friday 10.5 gandhi’s ambivalence towards democracy 2pm // watson institute (111 thayer st) uday singh mehta, professor of political science & renowned political theorist, will speak on freedom, imagination & liberalism as they relate to colonialism & empire. part of the brown-india initiative. fabric flesh opening reception 6–9pm // #102 satellite project (yellow peril) gallery opening for flynn grinnan’s series of large scale figurative works—the body as sculpture is swathed in fabric. new urban arts: art inquiry show 5–7pm // new urban arts (891 broad st) students who participated in the art inquiry summer program will be showing their artwork to their peers, mentors, family & friends. runs through the 19th. jack-o-lantern spectacular 6–11pm // roger williams park zoo // $12–15 what happens when “all the world’s a stage” & “man’s best friend” get channeled through 5,000 illuminated pumpkins? and what exactly is a “climactic ‘laughing tree?’” babies get in free. through 11.3.

most celebrated black painters & a leader in pvd arts community. reservations required; call (401) 421-0606. all proceeds benefit the r.i. black heritage society. alumni + student art sale 10am–4pm // benefit st at waterman st over 150 alumni artists & current students display & sell their work. fine art, glass, ceramics, apparel, jewelry & much more. giant pumpkin weigh-off 12pm // frerichs farm (warren) // $5 parking the guy who broke the world record 2 weeks ago is trying for it again. come before & stay after for food, music, broom riding & more. that’s brutal! (...& so isthis title...)

11am // list art center (brown) & ccri’s knight campus (warwick) // $5–15 dietrich neumann, viera levitt, & robert reilly lead tours & discussions of two mid-century, architectural landmarks in rhode island: the list center & knight campus building. includes light lunch. reservations required.

phantom pulse star, unicorn hard-on, container, humanbeast, mirror men 9:30pm // black box (95 empire st) // $ communal exhale, fired pale-ly. sure to be incanted bliss. see you there.

pronk festival 3pm–12am // india point park, etc. music by stage & parade from 14 street bands from around the country and across the globe! pvd’s famed babes (hubba) of brass (tuba), what cheer?! brigade headline.

sunday 10.7 tuesday 10.9 the empire revue 8–11:30pm // as220 concert hall first sundays=providence’s premiere variety show! sketch comedy, music, burlesque, magic, etc. feat. superchief trio, the sparkling beatniks, guest performers, pre-show shenanigans, & a talking squirrel.

reading: brian evenson 2:30pm // mccormack theater (brown) professor of literary arts at brown, brian evenson, to read. come hear fiction that peter straub describes as “on the sheerest, least sheltered narrative precipice.”

monday 10.8

wednesday 10.10

young artist columbus day workshops 9:30am & 10am // 345 south main st // $100 risd’s continuing education department offers two holiday workshops. digital drawing board workshop (13–17y) & cartooning critters (9–12y). more at www.risd.edu/ce.

sound+electronics+performance=poetry 6:30pm // mccormack theater (brown) digital/sound artists & poets ricardo castillo, benjamin moreno, minerva reynosa, & chris novello present an evening of sound poetry, digital literature & performance. downtown boys, secret lover, leamers, wolf porn 9pm // as220 // $6 sweaty audio vs. the establishment. thursday 10.11

saturday 10.6 edward mitchell bannister walking tour 10am // risd auditorium // $10–20 a walking tour through college hill highlighting the life and work of one of america’s

archetype + kong.qi: opening receptions 6–8pm // sol koffler gallery & cohen gallery artists zhuang jie-lin, wei zih-jing & wang chung-kun present two multimedia art installations as part of the pixilerations festival. in the know? email listtheindy@gmail.com

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