Volume 31 - Issue 5

TheNewJournal PuBLISHER

David S/ifoa EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Michael Gerbtr MANAGING EDITORS

Ian Bkchtr, Dank/ Brook DESIGNER

Nicholas jitlroff PRODUCTION MANAGER

Eric Rothfotkr BusiNESS MANAGER

Navin Manglani PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

AndrwYoun AssociATE Busi NESS MANAGER

Makiko Harunari AssOCIATE EDITORS

Ronm Givony, John Swansburg RESEARCH DIRECTORS

julia Kardon, Alan Schomfo/J CIRCULATION AND SUBSCRIPTIONS MANAGER

AnyaKAmmaz

Staff Van0$U Agard·Jones • j2SOn D'Cruz

Hrishikesh l:firw.ty • Monia Kim ~Wang

bookhauen In this compelling study, Ian Hamilton brings his own for-

Members ANi Dir«ron Emily &.u.don • ConsW>GC Clement • Peter 8. Cooper Tom Griggs • Brooks Kdley • lainie Ruckow Henty Schwab • Eliubeth Skd&e • Fred Sucbeigh Thomas Suong

midable gifts and his lifelong

AJ~Jisnt

passion for his subject to bear

Richard Blow • Jay Carney • Richard ConniiT Ruth Conniff • Elisha Cooper • uurcn Rabin

on one of the most mysterious literary figures of the last century-and a figure who still fascinates today.

Published by Basic Books

AVAILABLE NOW AT

bookhauen TELEPHONE

• Jacb Yuan

290 YORK STREET (203) 787-2848

Steven Weisman • Danid Yergin

Frinuls Sreve Ballou • Anson M. Beard. Jr. • Blam 8en11<11 Edward B. 8en11<11, Jr. • Edward B. Bennrn OJ Paul S. lknn<11 • Gcnld Bruck • Barbara Bundl Jay Carney • Daphne Chu • Josh Ovin Jonarhan M. Oark • Co1Ut2DCC Clemenr • Elisha Coopa Peter B. Cooper • ArKly Coun • Jcny and ~ Coun Masi Omison • Albert J. Fox • Mn. Howard Fox David frtti'IW\ • Ccollicy Fried • Arturo Gandara Sherwin Goldman • David Grccnbcrs • Tom Griep Srephcn Hdlman • Jane Kamcruky • Brooks Kelley Roger Kinoood • Andrew J. Kumeski, Jr. Lewis E. Lehrman • Jim l...owo< • E. Nobles ~ Hank Mansbadr. • Martha E. Neil • Pmr Neill Howard H. N<W~~W> • Scan O'Brien • Julie PeterS Lewis and Joan Platt • Josh Plaut • Julia Preston Lauren Rabin • Flirfu C. Randal • Rollin Jtiw Mark Rinella • Nicholas X. Riwpouloo • Sruan llohrtt Ark<n and Arthur Sop. oa and Dd>bic Scan Rldwd Shields • W. Hampcon Sides • Lisa Silvuman Elixabcth and W'olliam Sled&< • Thomas Srrong Elixabcth Tar< • Ala and Bcuy Torello • Melissa Tumca Allen and Sarah Ward<U Daniel Ycrgin and Angela Stun Ycrpn

1heNewJo____

5

voL_x~-~~-~~~-'~9-~~-ER__

uioiiiioiiiiir::;;..;;:n=-=a:.=.l_ _

features

6

Ghetto Superstar A ntw dirtctor trits to cltan up Ntw Havm's troubled Housing Authority, but who dtfints the project?

BY)ADA YuAN

II

Shots in the Dark: Deus ex Machina

BY HRISHIKESH HlRwAY

14

Lost in Translation A congregation ofKortan immigrants transforms its childrm into Kortan-Amtricans

BY KAREN PAIK

16

The Home Court Advantage ]udgt jorge Simon dishes out justict, family-style.

BY )ESSICA WINTER

21

Better Dead Than Read A Cold W'llrrior accusts Yak Univtrsity Prm ofun-Amtrican activitits.

BY )OHN SWANSBURG

standards

4 Points of D eparture 2.6 .Essay: Sex Appeals BY BRAD SHY

2.8 The Critical Angle: The United Stakes of America BY IAN BLECHER uvi~wing The Stakeholder Society, Bruce Ackerman and Anne Alstott 30 Endnote: Off the Beaten Path! BY JuuA l<ARDON

p.6

P· J6

p.2.8

p. 21

Ttca NIY }0111.HA1. is published fi•c times during the aadcmk ynr by Ttcl NEw jo111UW. at Yale. Inc., P.O. Bos J.4)1 Yale Suuon. l'cw H»-m. CT o6s:o. Offocc oddrcu: 111 Por" Str«t Phone: (103) ~)>· '917· All contents copyricbt 1999 by TKI NIY JouiUW. at Y:ak. Inc. All ~ts Reserwd. Rq>roduetoon either in wbok or on p.an without wriun pcraWaon ol the publisher aod editor on chid' is prohibited_ Whik this mapziM is published by Y:ak ~ studcfta, Y:ak Un••tniry is DO< responsd>k for ots contents. s...a, thouund fi•c hundml coptcs of cac:h -ore diombuccd frtt to of the Y:ak aod New HaYCD COatmuairy. Subscripuons .... anilabk ro those ouwdc the •ra. Rotcs: Oac ,-ar, ••• r- years. SJL THIN .... Jo~IU<Al. .. pnatcd br lmpnat Pn~~unc. !'onh Haven, CT: booltkccpiac aDd hilliD& krYJCes arc provided by Caiman Boolckccpins of New HaYCIL TIU NIY jOtJaNALencourages kncn to 1M editor aDd coauuc1m on Y:ak aDd !'rw HaYen..-. Wrirc m Editorial.. J4l1 Y:ak StaOOft, Nrw Hn-c11, CT o61:10. All kttcn for publication m\ISI include oddrcss aDd siputUrC. We rc:snw 1M riel>• to cdi< all kttcn for pabloca<ion.

-•ben

faster than expected, he entered the restaurant business. In 1971, he opened the first It's a popular spot, Mamoun's of New Haven.

Mamoun's Restaurant in Greenwich Village, You probably know the place well-the dim New York City. Gradually, he was able to lantern-cast light, plant-screened windows bring his immediate family-three elder and muted browns. Step over the threshold, brothers and two younger sisters-to the U.S. and it looks like you're a world away from Together, they expanded the , business, New H aven's Howe Street. Elements of the founding Mamoun's in New H aven and Middle East cover the space: ornate Persianinviting more members of the family to join style rugs, calligraphic inscriptions from the them.

Qu'ran, Arab vocal music playing in the Suleiman and Belial, Mamoun's nephews, background. Is the atmosphere authentic, or is are two of the many relatives working in the it only part of a decor contrived to make us New Haven restaurant. I spent a recent think we're eating authentic falafel? evening there during Belial's shift. He "Seems authentic," more than one had little time to talk; the student said of the food. "It's ;t restaurant was filled with a comfortable place," a place to constant stream of customers. relax, eat, chat and smoke. The Even as he paused to answer room itself is definitely part of my questions, his eyes moved the experience, and it's hard not around the room, alert to every to notice the objects in it. But rather detail, every customer's need. than propelling most customers into Then, at r20 AM, when the place probing questions, they serve as a finally emptied, he had the backdrop. "I was after a timeless chance co talk as he swept look," says Jim Gordeuk, the the floor and mopped it restaurant's business manager since clean with ammonia: "My father told me its establishment in 1977. "Not too weird, or cleanliness is the most important thing." too modern, but comfortable." Obviously his Bella! maintained his characteristic focus as he plan worked. But although Jim might have worked, only speaking to answer direct put them up to create a "look," some of the questions. "A family-run business takes care in decorations hanging in this room hold more a special way," he said. "My father says that meaning. you should think of everything you do as if it is for yourself. If you don't eat ¡the First of all, Mamoun is a real guy.

He is the young man with the ~ food,don'tserveit." traditional Arab headdress ~ _ -L _r.

I asked Belial to 1 in the black and white .. c,qlj ': ~ put on the music photograph hanging behind the ~ â&#x20AC;˘â&#x20AC;˘ Q most often played at counter. Now he's 57, and the silver '--.. ~ Mamoun's. Soon a passionate, swords hanging on either side of the picture-deep, fe male voice was singing from the their points meeting below the word dining room speakers. This is the voice of "Mamoun"-have been in the family for Oum Koulsoum, he told me, the most generations. famous Arab singer of the century. Born in Mamoun Chater was born in Damascus, Egypt, she was loved throughout the Middle Syria, the oldest continually inhabited city in East. When she died 30 years ago, 250,000 the world. He grew up in the neighborhood people attended her funeral. "What does she of Bab Salaam ("Door of Peace"), one of the sing about?" I asked. "Love songs," Belial seven gates of the capital, and came co replied. "Love songs full of hurt."

America as a student in 1970. His plan was co As I listened, I looked around the room continue his studies and become a more closely. O n the walls around the pharmacist, but when his money ran out counter, there are large color photographs of

Arabian Nights

YJ - -Y

4

._,,

the Kaaba at Mecca-the holiest place in the world for Muslims-surrounded by millions of pilgrims dressed in white. When I asked Belial about these, he told me that Mamoun himself had just returned to the U.S. after going on the hajj-a holy pilgrimage to Mecca that every Muslim hopes to perform once in his lifetime. He had gone with his brothers.

I turned to the Qu'ranic inscriptions hung around the room, and asked Bella! if he could tell me what they said. He hesitated.

According co traditional Islamic belief, the Qu'ran is the word of God and no translation of its Arabic verses can do justice to the original meaning. Still, he cautiously provided an interpretation pf one: "God bless this place."

-Fayre Davis

Spaceship Earth Fifty years ago, the Monsanto Corporation produced PCBs, the chemicals that make Hudson River stripedhass a-health risk. In the 1970s, they produced a particularly dangerous variety of the defoliant known as Agent Orange. In the early 1990s, the corporation sold its controversial chemicals unit, cut toxic emissions dramatically, began to talk of "synergy" and "sustainability," and won more enemies than ever.

As Monsanto spent billions transforming into a genetic engineering powerhouse, it aroused public disdain on a wide variety of issues. The European Union banned Monsanto's genetically modified seeds.

Organic Farmers complained that Monsanto's super-pesticides, produced by the plant's very own cells, would create breeds of resistant super-pests. And worldwide suspicion has greeted the company's acquisition of patents for the ominously named "terminator technology," a genetic engineering technique which will protect Monsanto's patented crop varieties by insuring that a seed's offspring will be infertile.

Monsanto tried to defuse criticism ~y trumpeting its hopes to "feed the world," to reduce pesticide use by increasing effectiveness. But disaster struck during the

THE NEW JouRNAL

first week of the ad campaign when Great Britain's Prince Charles responded with a well publicized endorsement of organic farming and a con<!,emnation of genetic engineering.

Still, the corporation has thus far held on co the right to slip genetically engineered crops, unannounced, into such staples of the U.S. food supply as the McDonald's french fry.

Terrified chat regulators will slap "Genetically Engineered" labels on its produces, Monsanto has embarked on a novel public relations venture for the new millennium, and the name of the game is pathos.

And so I felt bad for Robert Horsch. The diminutive vice president of the Monsanto Corporation struggled with a hostile audience and a faltering voice on a rainy Wednesday afternoon in the Forestry School's gloomy Sage H all. He paused in his discussion of corporate synergy and "Spaceship Earth" to glance uneasily at the large crowd. He smiled plaintively. "I hope there's no pies thrown," he said. Horsch had good reason to worry: his boss, Monsanto chief Robert Shapiro, took a pie in the face a few months ago in San Francisco, and Yale environmental activists held heated debates over the ethics of piethrowing in the weeks preceding Horsch's arrival. When the day came, the plant botanist-turned-V.P. got off easy-after an extended, combative question-and-answer period, six undergraduates stormed the stage to present him with the "Victor Frankenstein Award for Unrestrained Progress in Technology." As the protesters launched into a skit, Horsch held his award aloft, smiling uncertainly, until a silver-haired Forestry School administrator took him firmly by the arm, confiscated his award and seated him along the wall.

When I arrived the next morning at the restaurant on the 19th floor of the Omni Hotel, I found Horsch at a small corner table.

Dressed in a light green shirt and earth-tone tie, he bought me yogurt and coffee with the air of an uncertain suitor. Then Horsch, a man in early middle age with large glasses and a quizzical look, set about explaining how it feels to be so misunderstood.

Horsch ruefully remembered the optimism that marked the beginning of this decade for Monsanto. A denim-shined model executive named Robert Shapiro-but known, of course, as Bob--moved into the position of chief executive from his old post as the head of Monsanto's Nutrasweet Group.

APRIL 16, 1999

"He is a very thoughtful person. I'd call him a philosopher as well as a business leader," Horsch said. After the expensive, counterproductive ad campaign intended co improve Monsanto's image, Shapiro lead the company into a period of intense selfexamination, Horsch said.

"Monsanto's position in advertisements over the past year has been oversimplified, over-stated," Horsch admitted penitently.

After all, repentence is the first step.

Monsanto hasn't perfected its new public image, he said, but "we're pretty sure it involves discussion, listening, engagement."

And, as it turns out, all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. "The questions have triggered a personal journey or exploration into the social issues chat, as a scientist, I had largely ignored." Now, he muses, "I realize science and technology can create problems as well as solve problems."

-Ben Smith Naturally.

Liner Notes Peering over the top of her New York Times, my mother barked, "Did you catch anything yet?" My father pretended not co hear.

I smiled at him apologetically. Watching him cast was like watching golf on television: it quickly moved from uninteresting co excruciating. All the fly-fishing gadgets in the world couldn't make the trout bite. I couldn't help but snicker at the fucility of the venture.

An underground world of fly-fishing thrives at Yale, thanks in large part to the Migdalski family. Ed Migdalski, a former ichthyologist at the Peabody Museum, served as the director of Yale's Outdoor Education and Club Sport programs and as the Fishing Club's advisor. An accomplished fisherman, Migdalski has traveled the world, breaking fishing records and collecting samples for the museum.

Migdalski has since retired-he rurned 81 this year-but his son, Tom, is also an accomplished angler. As a toddler, Tom began fishing in the family's duck pond, which the elder Migdalski would stock each spring. Now Tom occupies the post his father held, ensuring that the sport-or as the most dedicated argue, the art-of fly-fishing continues co flourishes at Yale. He runs the Fly-Fishing Club and, with Ken MacKenzie, teaches a coUISe in the painstaking art of fly-

tying at Payne Whitney Gymnasium.

Each year, Yale stocks its own trout pond in East Lyme, Connecticut. The students, faculty, staff and alumni who make the onehour trip co the pond may be expert fishermen and fly-tiers or novices who have never wetted a line. Although the number of fly-fishermen at Yale is small, the camaraderie is great. "I've never met a fly-fisher I didn't like," said John Gould (BK '99). Relationships are forged and nourished around fly-fishing.

Remember the tear-jerking scenes of familial love between Brad Pitt and his brother and father in A River Runs Through It? There is a mysticism co the sport.

Something about it compels everyone from the novice to the experienced angler to put pen to paper. From tales of father-son jaunts to the drama of "the one that got away," flyfishing inspires literature. According to Joe Furia (Pc 'oo), Isaac Walton's book The Compleat Angler has been reprinted more than any other book except the Bible.

With chis notion in mind, James Prosek (BR '97) and Furia first started the Yale Anglers' journal. Furia came to Yale as a pre-frosh during Bulldog Days. He brought his rod with him because "you never know when you're going co pass by a stream," and ended up casting on the lawn with thenundergraduate Prosek, who has since authored numerous books on the subject. His first, Trout: An Illustrated History, was published while he was still an undergraduate.

Poems, essays and stories by everyone from William F. Buckley to Elizabeth Bishop, Ed Migdalski and Vmcent Giroud, a curator at the Beinecke Library-which houses one of the biggest collections of fishing literature in the United States-have graced the pages of the journal. That said, some speak of the spon with slighdy alarming devotion. Is fly-fishing really a lens through which to view life, or the embodiment of the epic struggle between man and fish on that boundless sea?

Still, you can't help but appreciate the Zen-like quality of the sport. In the editor's note to the ina\lgural edition of the Yale Anglers'journal, Furia urges the reader, "Read on, pen your passions, and always hope for a bigger fish, a better hatch, or a smoother

case."

-Caroline Marvin

5

.rusud highway overpass blcxlt~ half:the sky to the west of Farnam Courts, one of the- iiaily developmena run by

A

HANH, the Housing Aumtiq of New Hawn. On 1-91, it takes merely seconds to speed t;\ the sprawling compfttx below on the way north to Hartford or soath to f-9S al\d ~York City.

Down on the ground, though, the three blocks from one end of Farnam to the other seem to go on forever, an iftfinite stretch of brick and iron railing. Within the walls, empty plazas of clothesline and concrete blanket the project in stillness. From down below, the highway and its massive concrete pillars separate the area from the rest of New Haven, allowing just one lint of traffic, Grand Avenue, in and out. Only Franklin Street veers off Grand into Farnam CourtS¡ running between parking lots and residential buildings to the weeds and railroad track at the northern end of the project. At Farnam's entrance, on the corner of Franklin and Grand, stand wire fences and old jungle gyms pounded into the dirt. Welcome to The Ghetto.

6

THÂŁ NEW JouRNAL

u

5

p

E R 5 T A R

"The Ghetto," like "The Jungle" (Church St. South) and "The Terror Dome" (Rockview and Brookside}, serves as a reminder of the city's worst drug days. Along with the names come territorial hand signals and a stream of young black men who remember when wandering into another project likely meant never returning to your own. Back then the projects were true ghettos, whose "get tough or get taken" way of life forced young men like A.J. Ogman to carry their first guns by age twelve. Just four years ago, the fear of dying in Farnam Courts ran so high that A.J .'s brother, Bubba, now 21, never left home without a bulletproof vest. It saved his life one night when he took six bullets meant for someone else.

But Bubba's mother, Mary Ogman, hasn't heard gun shots in Farnam Courts for nearly two years. Both violent crime and drug use in the city are down, and most of the project's toughest residents are now either dead or in jail. On sunny days, Farnam's walkways fill with kids on their bikes and residents chatting with their neighbors. The Housing Authority, which constructs and maintains all subsidized housing in the city, recently added front stairs and sidewalks to the development, and residents have begun to plant small gardens of squash and coUard greens in previously unused patches of dirt. Since I met Mary in October, the Housing Authority, under the new direction of Edward Bland, has also launched several major clean-ups of the area and has increased its contact with the Farnam Tenant Representative Council (TRC), of which Mary is president. Real progress, however, comes slowly. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), classified HANH as "troubled" in 1997, and even if this classification is dropped after HANH's September 1999 inspection, it wiU have taken two years to meet minimum government standards.

Hope for the future remains high, though, and A.J. Ogman reUs me that Farnam Courts is now considered one of the best housing developments in the city. But looking at graffiti-scrawled waJls, doorways covered in plywood, and an entrance strewn with plastic bags and old beer bottles, that isn't saying much. ' ' F arnam's looking pretty clean," Bland says as he drives past the development in his green Ford Explorer, license plate "HANH-x." As the new Executive Director of HANH (affectionately pronounced "Hannah" by its staff), Bland spends most of his days driving to various sites in the city, checking on the work of his crews and listening to residents' concerns. The Housing Authority brought Bland to New Haven in January 1998, soon after it was classified as "troubled" and lost its HUD funding. While the Housing Authority coUects rent from its residents, it relies on federal funding to subsidize security, maintenance, and its much-needed Youth Crime Prevention and Drug Elimination programs. According to an April 1998 report from HUD (the most recent statistics available), the number of families in need of housing assistance nationaUy has risen to 5¡3 million. Federal funding administered by housing authorities provides the- only opportunity for qualified families and single elderly an~ disabled residents to live decently while paying only 30 percent of thetr income, or $25, in rent, without the added cost of utilities. HUD makes APRIL

16, 1999

clear, however, that subsidized housing should not mean substandard housing. In a September 1997 HUD inspection, New Haven's Housing Authority nearly failed across the board.

Losing money is not unusual for housing authorities, which provide services for low-income families and individuals, but HANH had made few effons to coUect rent from residents who weren't paying or to fill its vacant units with those who could pay. As its earned income fell, HANH turned to HUD for more money. HUD offered subsidies and grants for security and drug elimination, but soon found HANH's social programs falling grossly behind their goals. Further inspection also revealed that HANH's administration had mysteriously misaUocated over $2.9 milJion in federal funds. Whether the money was disappearing because of inefficiency or into the pockets of HANH employees, it wasn't being used to maintain HANH's residential units.

The Housing Authority's failure to inspect units or to complete work orders, even emergency ones, left many residents living in squalor, without heat or running water for months at a time.

The 1997 failure was HANH's fourth in four years, earning the Authority a place on Huo's short and infamous list of "troubled" agencies. HUD demanded that HANH find a new director and begin complying with federal regulations, or face complete termination of its employees and dissolution of the entire agency. As a requirement of the new classification, control of HANH has moved from the state office in Hartford to the new HUD office for "troubled" agencies in Cleveland.

The Cleveland office, under orders from Washington to monitor the New Haven Authority, has cut funding for HANH programs in both drug elimination and security provided by extra-duty police officers.

Bland, HANH's choice for the new director, is considered a hardworking, no-nonsense kind of guy by staff and residents. Under the control of the 55-year-old former Director of Housing Management in Alexandria, Vtrginia, HANH has slowly been earning back Huo's trust, and has even regained its funding for the Drug Elimination program. While HUD continues to audit the agency every two months or so, it seems pleased with Bland's work He has already made over 25 staff changes, with still more to come. elief for residents, though, has been slow to come. The first time I visited Mary Ogman, I found her on a bench near the end of Franklin St., watching her 15-year-old son, Jack, rake leaves into a garbage bag. The walkway he was cleaning was public space, the concrete front yard for eleven other Farnam apartments, and technicaUy Housing Authority responsibility. Two months earlier the Housing Authority, under directions from HUD to cut spending, decided to dean Farnam only once a week The Authority has since changed that policy and comes to clean the project every weekday, but it does lircle to monitor the work of the cleaners and by the weekend the project looks nearly as bad as it did before the changes. Broken glass and empty beer cans lie near residents' aparonents and dozens of white plastic grocery bags rumble along the ground. The crash blows in from the highway and other pans of the city, but mainly it comes from the residents themselves, who have no trash cans outside their

R

7

Malaysian fusion cuisine

Lunch

Edworrl Blond, !he new housing oulhority

cut flowers in town!

Balloons and P lants.

(203) 772.2229 26 Whitney Avenue, New Haven Juo -.nd .............. hNnJ Tionochy o..w. a..

a1r

1/allllltitJt - 20% Olllâ&#x20AC;˘r Slâ&#x20AC;˘tl'"" 6()5 Ec# Se. (t'JH ~ Stcu Se.) 624-4226 8

apartments and rarely take their crash to the dumpster in the parking lot. Mary hopes that by having Jack clean and set an example for other residents, she may alleviate the litter problem in Farnam. "Whenever I'm needed I try to 6t me and my children in it," she says.

"These young people who are coming in here, you've got to teach them how to clean.

We need to teach kids to stop thinking of this place as garbage. It's only garbage if you allow it to become garbage."

Mary is a heavyset black woman with braided hair that shows tufts of white peeking from the top. When she walks, she does so slowly and with some difficulty. She moved into Farnam Courts 13 years ago, after the city condemned her previous house. The city also condemned and confiscated her furniture, so she had to start all over again. When she moved to the project, Mary had seven children; she's had six more since. A few years ago her eldest son died in a motorcycle accident. Still, her family has stayed together through the hardship, and most live with Mary in Farnam Courts. Mary has so many people come in and out of her apartment, she jokes that she never locks the door: "They come in and shout, 'Honey Mom, it's me!' and I say, 1\ll right!' I don't know who 'me' is, but it must be mine."

All of her children help out with Mary's projecrs in Farnam's residential affairs: Jack cleans, AJ. distributes donated food to the residents, and one of her daughters is head of

a younger version of the Tenant Representative Council which her mother runs. Mary got involved with Farnam's TRC as soon as she moved into public housing.

"When I got here I wanted to make a difference," she says. The Farnam TRC works on the same small issues other TRCS work on throughout the city: solving maintenance problems or planning 'new 6dd trips for the residents. As President of the Farnam TRC, Mary presents resident concerns and plans to the Executive Direcror. Her big projecr this year is the learning center, which will take over Farnam's old community building. The center will feature day care, GED classes, and computer training (Bland's idea). Mary hopes to merge the technological learning with spiritual and moral learning. "I want to get a videotape of Jesus, you know, the cartoon, and show it on a Wednesday," she says. "We don't want to lose another generation of kids to disrespectfulness."

Disrepect seemed the least of Mary's concerns as she watched Jack clean the yard.

She worried that the Housing Authority was spending too much time correcting mistakes of the past, that Bland was not the kind of "people-person" who paid attention to what residents truly wanted: a livable environment and dependable security. She looked up to see Jack leaning against a tree, a pained expression on his face. Mary laughed, which she does a lot, and her eyes scrunched up tight, "Don't just stand there, Jack. Get

THE NEW JouRNAL

another bag and start working." Jack pushed himself off the tree and plodded upstairs to Mary's apartment. After all, he does clean up the neigbborhood for free. Mary laughed, "When I-feed him, that's his payment."

DONUTS • MUFFINS • BAOELS • SANDWICHES • COOKIES

UNKIN' NUTS®

E

dward Bland's salary comes from HUD, roughly $95,000 a year. He also gets the company car and a spacious office overlooking Audubon Court in downtown New Haven. Inside the HANH building, Bland's executive reception area is big enough to house at least three other offices; as it is, the office comfortably accommodates rwo secretaries and a duster of several couches. In Bland's office, a map of New Haven stands in center view. To the right of the map is his desk, and behind the desk every so often is Bland-a tall, grandfatherly black man with round glasses, white hair and a mustache.

Growing up in Vienna, Maryland, a farm community of fewer than 500, Bland never dreamed of working in urban housing development. He graduated college with a B.A. in Social Sciences and French, worked as a schoolteacher, served in the Army and the Boy Scouts, and then happened to become friends with a recruitment officer from the Baltimore Housing Authority. From Baltimore he made his way through cities and promotions, moving from Baltimore to Columbus and on to Alexandria, Virginia, before finally landing his first Executive Directing position in New Haven-a city he had never seen.

Bland is only one of a number of cityhopping officials who make up the top management in housing authorities across the country. Dependent almost entirely on federal funds, the housing authorities that provide the bulk of housing for inner-city residents across the country have virtually no formal ties with their affiliated city. The city government is not required to give political or monetary support to its housing authority, and in turn, the housing authority has no obligation to respect the wishes of the city.

The top directors and property managers in housing authorities move from city to city solving problems and troubleshooting, a club of super-housing players. Membership in the club requires expertise, but not necessarily in the specific problems each city presents.

The specific problem Bland faced as I followed him one day was with a Section 8 house on Blatchley Avenue. Usually Section 8

APRIL 16, 1999

•

IN YALE AT CHAPEL £ PARK 1179 CHAPEL STREET, NEW HAVEN

----

-I I I I

FREE

Bagel, Muffin, or Donut

•

______ _ With The Purchase Of A Large Coffee

I

I I \IWD OND'. 1178 CHAPEL ST.. NEW ...,.... I I I...__ wmt AMJ I COMBINED WITH OTHER OR COt.f>ON.. EXPIRES II UMIT ONE Of'F'ER

COUPON. CREAM Q£ESE AN'( Of'F'ER

BUTTER EXTfY.. CNIIOT BE ~

COOLATTA • COFFEE • HOT CHOCOLATE • SODA • JUICE

TI-IE

••

WASH llJJJB ·~·· • • • •

=.J..I c....

WHITIIEY If/ •

I

Self-service open 7 days J.a LMIIGSTOII ST o Expert DROP-OFF SERVICE Mon-Sat "' ~ Friendly, helpful staff .oJ& sr·~40 Foster Street - 776-3598 ' ~0 Wash Tub fOSmiST-

Best Laundry in the East Rock Area

intelligent

CARE FOR HAIR

:E&:I ....,. •

-=·

Hair - Skin - Nails - Tanning 1029A 0w>a. ST. 562-HAIR

Mc:lr+SAr 9-5:30 FRI>Av E~

9

HAIRSTYLES For Men and Women 821/2 Wall St. (865·9187) • 19 Broadway (865·9182)

We Carry Nexxua, Blolege, Aveda, and Paul Mitchell Producta.

No Appointment NKeasary.

Congratulations to our graduating seniors:

Jo Coakley .

• Daniel Kellum

• Eli Kintisch

• Lainie Rutkow

• Justin Sacks

• Ben Smith

• Genevieve Taft

• Heidi Vogt

• Jessica Winter

10

housing, which gives low-income families ren t vouchers to live in private sector housing, is seen as cleaner, quieter, and more desirable than public housing projects. This building, however, had failed inspection on at least four different occasions, and due to the landlady's failure to enact the specified changes, the Housing Authority had withhdd its rent vouchers for nearly a year. With the landlady claiming she couldn't make improvements without rent money and the Section 8 managers claiming they couldn't give money unless they saw improvements, the situation had led to an eleven-month stalemate in which both sides had turned to Bland to resolve the issue once and for all.

When he arrived at the residence, Bland headed around back to check out the yard.

The landlady and her Section 8 manager were already on the porch, but Bland waved; he would be right back. He only needed one glance to make his assessment.

"Mmm-hmin, that's going to need to be cleaned up," he mumbled to himself. Pieces of paper and decaying candy wrappers lined the inside of the chain-link fence surrounding the yard.

The tails of Bland's long, brown trench coat whipped above the ground, flapping in ·the wind. But Bland seemed oblivious to the cold. He called over the landlady and Monica Blazic, head of Section 8 in New Haven, and they moved on to the basement.

"See that?" Bland pointed through the basement window to a storage pile. ·~ that junk will have to go. Someone could drop a cigarette down there and the whole place could go up."

Blazic mentioned that the missing basement window also posed a security risk.

The landlady looked disturbed. In the five minutes she'd been waiting to discuss the rent situation, she'd gotten three violations, and the HANH people hadn't even gone inside to check out the heating problem, which was the reason she thought they had come down in the first place. Bland kept going.

"When was the last time you had this place painted? You've got some peeling paint over there, you know." He pointed to the door. "If I go in there and there's no heat, there won't be anything to discuss."

As it turned out, there was heat inside the apartment, but the discussion took place only between the landlady and the resident, Alveria Sanchez. They argued about storage

space and the neighbors while Bland carried a chair around the apartment and checked all the smoke detectors. He found one nonfunctional smoke detector and waited patiently for the arguing to stop.

"This is how we're going to resolve it," Bland began. He turned to the landlady. ''I'm not going to pay you until I'm assured that the smoke detector is .fixed, the window is fixed and the basement's cleaned out. We'll be back on Monday." To the resident: "[Within weeks] you'll have a new apartment."

With that Bland took his leave. H e had four other places to go.

I watched Bland for the rest of the day, hopping from site to site, troubleshooting as he went. By the next Monday, the apartment on Blatchley Street had passed inspection and recently the landlady received her final rent payment. Sanchez has since moved out, although she has not finalized plans for a permanent residence.

Bland's Housi'n g Authority is more efficient than ever, but as it works to please officials in Cleveland who in turn work to please officials in Washington, it often misses the reality of what residents need in New H aven, like trash cans and police officers on the corner. The ultimate goal remains increasing scores on HUD inspections; and at that Bland is a great success. If HUD says all the toilets in a certain unit must be fixed, Bland can do it. If HUD says all t he apartments in a cenain unit must be sprayed for roaches, Bland can do it. If HUD says cut back on security and outdoor cleaning in all your units (HUD inspections do not grade for having guards or cleaning up lawns), he can do that, too. Bland confidently states that passing HUD inspection by September 1999 is not just a goal, it's a given. But passing inspection and creating livable housing projects ~ay not be the same thing, a problem that Bland and HUD seem slow to understand. "Things are going to be coming down around here. I want to see elbows and heels. In 10 years," he continues, "we'll be the best housing authority in the state, in the country. That's my vision. That's the goal we're shooting for."

IIIII

Aivffl4 Sanchez is a ps~. ]ada Yuan, a junior in Branford Colkge, is on

the staffofTNJ. THE NEW JouRNAL

Deus ex Machina

Hrishikesh Hirway

The word "machine" is from a word in Greek, a noun that means device. The Greek connotes machines, akin to cranes, designed to hoist the actors on and off the stage in plays. Euripides, we think, employed machines to float his gods above the mortal souls below. Machines like these are best unseen.

II But here the photos stare at three machines. The camera, format large, allows a focus sharp. Beneath a cloth, the artist captures gear and blade and groove.

Ill Which is to say that the machines in these photographs could not be shown in such detail were it not for the antique machinery used to create them: the large format camera. The camera remains invisible, but just as the antique iambic meter of the preceding two paragraphs props up the prose unseen, a literary devise, so does the invisible machinery of the selected camera suspend these photographs, like the deus ex machina.

-John Swansburg

APRIL 16, 1999

II

A congregation ofKorean immigrants transforms its children into Korean-Americans

Koreans are the fastest-growing ethnic group in America. After the Immigration Ace of 1965, the number of Korean immigrants ballooned a hundred-fold in only a decade, from 200 co 20,000 annually. While nearly three-quarters of this co~unicy is affiliated with a Protestant church, embracing Western ¡ religion hasn't meant assimilation: predominantly Korean congregations, like che United Methodist Church of New Haven, are prospering.

At 2 PM every Sunday, Korean-American college students stream out of the building as parents ascend the brick steps with young children. They have come to chis church from all over Connecticutresearch scientists, post-doctorates, physicians, guest lecturers, computer scientists, engineers and housewives.

United Methodist hosts a temporary community based on a shared heritage. Congregants form an insular social network that extends outside the church. According to Pastor Soon Kook Ahn, about onethird lives on the same street in Hamden, and many ochers live in the same apartment complexes: Ivy Manor, Avalon and Hamden Hill. The families mingle at parties and the adults gather for Bible readings.

Their children often see each other at school, sit in the same English as a Second Language (ESL) classes and play with each ocher.

As important as preserving their Korean identity is to the adults, it's equally important to them that their children prepare for

America. But how can so insular a community prepare its children for life outside the church?

The answer is language. Learning English means power, academic achievement and high-paying jobs. Pastor Ahn conducts services in Korean, but when he questions the restive Sunday school class on religion, he speaks English. After Sunday school, many of the children study English composition and grammar, forgoing classes in Korean In fact, the children devote themselves so wholeheartedly to learning English that many forget Korean. One Korean-American, Mark, spoke only Korean when he moved from Texas to New Haven at the age of five. After three years of ESL at Worthington Hooker Elementary School, Mark speaks English fl.uently-:-but comprehends little Korean. Many of the young children~ about to enter school understand only simple Korean directions. On one Sunday afternoon I observed Hedy, a Sunday School teacher, asking a young boy to repeat after her in Korean, "Do you know what day it is?" Befuddled, the boy could not answer. She turned co another Korean boy and repeated the question. He, coo, remained silent. Finally when a little boy repeated the line fluently the entire class cheered.

Why the celebration? Although their parents recognize English as an important tool, many bi-cultural children associate Korean with maternal warmth, paternal authority, gossip and the church. The ability to speak Korean is a gift: it means not only understanding parents' private conversations, but also communicating with grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

For children, the choice between Korean and English is not always clear. In one Sunday school class, four boys and one girl sac at a small, rectangular cable. Unversed in the Bible and Korean, I was nervously substituting for their bilingual teacher. Three of the boys had arrived from Korea within the past year, while the other boy, Mark, sac quietly in the back. The lone girl, Elena, urged me to speak only "American" in the classroom. By the end of the 4o-minute class, two factions had formed, each asserting its respective language.

I had. instructed the third-grade children to follow the 4th Commandment, "Honor thy father and thy mother," by drawing cards of appreciation on construction paper. Most of

THE NEW JouRNAL

them drew stick-figure portraits of their parents. "I'm drawing Mr. Potato Head!"

Chung-Bae, a Korean boy shouted.

Elena ~ked up. "I'm going to call you 'pig' then."

Moment of silence &om the other side.

announcer.

Suk-Jae's insistence that Bill Clinton would overhear the tapes resounds with the political embarrassment he hopes to exact on his classmate. Despite an imperfect pronunc1auon , Suk-Jae established ''I'mpif." dominance in the classroom over his more "Yes! If you call me that." Gulp of air. "If Buent friend. He had absorbed material &om you call me something, I call you his main c hannel to the external world, something." television, and incorporated the tropes for his "I-you are the most," Chung-Bae lifted schoolwork. himself &om his seat and swelled his lungs Eu-Jong, a winsome four-year-old, is with air, "em-bar-rasses!" Another heave of already taking advantage of American breath, "em-bar-rasses!" he shouted, mocking opportunities. She was born in Korea, deaf in her for using English, with its accented one ear. Until recently, Eu-Jong's disability syllables-which are absent from Korean. had prevented her &om learning to talk at all.

"Embarrasses is not a word," Elena Her family moved to the United States so she retorted. could get state-of-theChung-Bae , cognize art surgery unavailable noticeably calmer, in her home country. replied slowly, "So you n important tool.vnany bi- She can hear well now, are a stupid pig." cultur Korean but has some catching Translated &om one up to do. She speaks no language to the other, with aternal Korean, and babbles in these seemingly her own incohe rent torments incomprehensible made perfect sense to English. the childre n . Chtmpi, or "How Eu-Jong's mother, for her part, speaks embarrasSing!" carries the connotations of only halting English. She realizes, though, babies peeing and parents' scolding. Similarly, that her daughter's only shot at success pig, or t.kji, is common playground parlance depends on learning the language, and refuses in Korea, as are the insults wan t.kji and suptr to talk to her in Korean lest she cause confusion. She's taking English classes, but it's wan t.kji, or "king pig" and "super king pig."

Although acceptance of English isn't been an uphill struggle. She worries about when to pronounce the plural "s" as "z~ how unanimous, the children have absorbed to teach her children to ask for more milk American usage through the popular media. an d how to ask her fifth-grade daughter, Suk-Jae, convinced that the President would "What did you do at school today?" eventually listen to my tape recording of the With so strong a support network, many class, shouted the name of another student's like Eu-Jong and her peers will live out their love interest, which sounded like "Monica." parents' dreams for them. But those dreams He then read his story in a Korean accent: w ill undoubtedly take them away from Once there was a snake (I'm going to make United Methodist and old-world traditions. this ape hear this) named Mark (he's right Suk-Jae plans to artend Yale, Chung-Bae here beside me). He is a harmless grass snake wants to be an architect, Mark aspires to be and is a goof just like Barney the Dinosaur. an engineer and Yung-Min, a shy girl who If you don't know Barney the Dinosaur, speaks little English, hopes to be a lawyer. In w.uch Barney, watch Barney the Dinosaur the shelter of a close Korean community, and sec how babyish at crv at 5 o'dock. .. they're learning to speak American.

IIIII After splitting the snake in two, Suk-Jae announced, "Surgeon General's Warning: this document is highly violent and is PG-8. Or Tht namts of tht uhoolchildrm else it is hazardous to your health." Although psnuionyms. he used the chtmpi strategy ("see how babyish") that Chung-Bae had tried ("emKarm Paik is a junwr in Saybrook Colkgt. bm-.rasses!"), he said it like an American TV

APRIL I6, 1999

Hamden Plaza 2100 Dixwell Ave. Hamden 230-0039 - open 7 days

• natural fiber clothing • Crabtree & Evelyn • jewelry • toiletries • pottery • and presents for children of all ages.

It's time for ice cream and we've get the best-

DOUBLE RAINBOW THE OmciAL l eE CRE.A.\1 OF S.Au~ FR.>J>.K:ISCO

Shakes • Malts • Sundaes Floats • ~ Creams Smathies & More!

Also: Candy. Ccffee & Pastries Mon-Thurs lD-8 Fri 8: Sat 10-9 Sun 12-5 1042 Chapel Street. 0:ev.· Haven (Between Co~

& High) 200-624-2411

by Jessica Winter

A

s usual, session's starting late, and the people assembled in Courtroom C of the city courthouse at 121 Elm Street are . getting chatty, fidgety, restless. Sheepish-looking teenagers, umforml,y tall, black, and hunched beneath their puffy Tommy Hilfiger jackets, talk with sheepish-looking lawyers, uniformly white and male, their chests puffed out under their double-breasted navyblue suits. A young woman in a red sweatshirt, her hair in cornrows, sits in the front row of spectator seats, pushing a stroller methodically back and forth, staring into space. Another woman-whose Mae West strut into the courtoom occasioned one courtgoer to excitedly whisper, "Hey, Alyssa's here!" -struts back out again. Alyssa is white, latethirtyish, sporting teased bleached-blond hair and a tiny denim skirt that she keeps tugging at. She has a nervous habit of shifting her weight from one skinny leg to the other, back and forth, teetering on her spiked heels; she lasted about three minutes in the courtroom before leaving for the bathroom, slurring over her shoulder, "Could somebody watch my pocketbook? Don't take the drugs that are in there." Her seatmates giggled, and Alyssa laughed too, a high-pitched, rattling noise.

Alyssa's joke catered to her audience: most of the people in the spectator seats of Courtroom C are defendants in the Drug Session of the New Haven Superior Court. Charged with non-violent, narcoticsrelated crimes, clients complete court-ordered drug treatment in lieu of prison sentences. After Judge Jorge Sim6n finally takes the bench a half-hour past the hearing's 2 PM scheduled starting time, the defendants will take turns rising for a brief consultation with the judge.

Most of these chats with Sim6n amount to genial formalities, as friendly and banal as small talk. John, a compact, weatherbeaten man in a flatinel shirt and jeans, is called; his turn with the judge is typical.

"Good afternoon, John. How ya doin'?"

"Good, sir."

"Good. You had a negative urine today, good job."

"Yes, sir."

"You've put on some weight, you've got some color in your cheeks.

I'm real proud of you."

"I'm real proud of myselÂŁ" The exchange between judge and defendant would seem surprisingly intimate, except for the thirty other defendants watching from behind John, a cluster of drug counselors and social workers to John's right, and most awkwardly, a ten-foot-long table situated between John and the judge's bench. At the table are prosecutors, public defenders, court liaisons, bail commissioners and more social workers, all listening attentively to the conversation.

"I want a sense of empathy in the courtrOOm, a sense that everyone is working closely together," Judge Sim6n says later, in his chambers.

He is the sole judge presiding over the New Haven Drug Session; each client sees him every other week during the arduous year-long treatment program. "I try to foster camaraderie. I make everyone stay to listen to all the clients' progress." Perhaps this is why Sim6n is chronically late to court: the defendants have a chance to mill around a bit, get to know each other outside their required Narcotics

Anonymous (N.A.) meetings and group therapy sessions.

Sirn6n is saddled with a difficult task: to play the tough-love father to dozens of different people in five-minute increments every two weeks. The soft, indulgent smile Sim6n wears while talking to a babyfaced college freshman ("Basketball season's all done now, right? So you can spend some time studying?") is replaced with a mask of suppressed ang~r fo;, his next visitor, Manuel, who hobbles to his mark wearing leg chams. Manuel had a real unfortunate accident where some bleach splashed into his urine sample; we're not sure how," Sim6n tells the courtroom, his voice steeped in sarcasm. "So I locked him up."

Manuel will spend a few weeks in jail for this relapse, and Sim6n has also extended the duration of Manuel's treatment by a few months.

As Sim6n quickly proceeds through these points with Manuel's private attorney, the hostility in his voice eases. "So we're going to win this thing together, right?" Sim6n asks Manuel, switching to Spanish, the offender's first language and his own. "Yes, of course. You have to win, because it's your life." Sim6n offers him a big smile; Manuel stands silent, nodding. As Manuel and his attorney take their seats, the young lawyer huddles down, rubbing his hands together nervously, as if implicated in his diem's tra..-1sgression.

T

he concept of drug courts was the brainchild of Attorney General Janet Reno. In cities like New Haven where drug court programs have been adopted, defendants can apply to have their cases transferred to a single docket dealing exclusively with narcotics cases. Under this alternative paradigm of law enforcement, rehabilitation is privileged over punishment and viewed as a collaborative, even familial effort between judge, prosecutor, defender, a battery of social workers and drug counselors, and the defendant.

Modeled on the pilot drug court program started by Judge Stanley Goldstein in Miami, New Haven's court opened in June 1996, the first of its kind in Connecticut. It responded to a growing concern that, as a means of responding to the state's drug problem, heavy reliance upon the criminal justice system was miscalculated. Public defender Jim Chase, who represents the majority of drug court defendants, says, "If it weren't for this drug court, all of my clients would be going to prison. Drugs are the reason why people commit crimes, and nobody gets off drugs in jail. With the drug courts, recidivism drops to single digits." Of the 65 graduates of the New Haven Drug Session, only five have been arrested since on any other charge.

Without any prompting, Chase will tell you that Goldstein and other proponents of alternative sentencing measures for drug crimes "aren't knee-jerk liberals." Pat Chaco of Project MORE, the "alternative incarceration center" of the New Haven Drug Session and the focal point of rehabilitation for drug court clients, also stresses that "the drug court program is not easy. It's not soft on crime."

Chaco, director of substance abuse ueatment at Project MORE, continues, "It's very difficult for a client to follow through for one full year with treatment. If they apply to drug court just to get out of jail, they're not going to make it." Prospective clients are first referred to Project MORE by social workers in the p.ublic defender's office. Violent

Judge jorge Simon dishes out justice, family-style.

APRIL 16, 1999

17

Specialists for the

Lowest Student, Youth & Budget Airfares!

• Eurorail Passes issued on the spot!

• Adventure Tours • Hostel Memberships • Work Abroad Programs • Budget Accomodations • Affordable Gear Selections • Expert Travel Advice

Council Travel 320 Elm Street New Haven, CT 06511 Councilnewhaven @ciee.org Call 203-562-5335 or Fax 203-562-0197

~~

MAIN GARDEN

CHINESEFOOD TO TAKE OUT & EAT IN 376 Elm Street • New Haven

777-3747

Open Seven Days a Week: Mon-Thurs: 11 :30am-1 am Friday: 11 am-2om Saturday: 12 noon-2om Sun: 12 noon-12 midnight

FREE DELIVERY Sl 0.00 MINIMUM See our menu online!

00 ...__.... s

P~~'~

~

WINE & LIQUOR

FINEST SELECTION OF IMPORTED & DOMESTIC WINE OVER 80 BRANDS OF IMPORTED SEER FREE DEUVERY

a

212 COUfGE STREET, NEW HAVEN, 06510.

(203) 777·7597 MONDAY-SATURDAY: 9.00 TO 8.00

18

>ffenders or those convicted on sales charges ue disqualified, as are individuals who are ~ot drug-dependent. Applicants then undergo a clinical evaluation by Project MORE staff members. Chaco explains: "We ask ourselves, 'Does this person look like he can follow through?'"

If the answer is yes, then the defendant pleads guilty to his pending charge and begins the 48-week treatment program. If he completes the program, the charges are dismissed; if he doesn't, his case is returned to a regular criminal docket. Rehabilitation is dauntingly time-consuming. Participants are responsible for up to three NA meetings per week, one-on-one and group sessions with clinicians, regular urinalysis, and biweekly appearances in court. Of 451 total applicants in the thtee years of the court's existence, just 208 have been accepted. From that pool, 66 have been "terminated" from the program.

The most recent termination is Randy, who shufijes into Courtroom C one Thursday, arms and legs shackled, guilty of one relapse too many. He sits down and gestures angrily toward his attorney across the room; stabbing his finger downward. A few moments later, the lawyer strolls over, rattling some change in his palm. He speaks quietly to his client, but gradually his voice rises to an enraged pitch. "If you treat me like a pig, then I'm going to treat you like a piece of shit," he says bitterly. He paces back and forth in front of the big table; then, as if in a qualified gesture of peacemaking, he sits down in the row of chairs in front of his client. Randy, a rotund man in a red shirt and jeans, looks startled and chastised. His lawyer continues, "It's too bad, because you missed out on a great opportunity. Why did you do what you did to me? Why did you lie to me?

What if we had done that to you?" The lawyer bolts up again to resume pacing and rattling his change.

Much as his melodramatic bravado grates, the attorney seems genuinely wounded

by Randy's errancy. Moments later, when Judge Simon formally banishes him from the program, Randy replies, ''I'm sorry, Your Honor. I guess that this is how I am." ames Milton (orv '88) sounds like the former social worker and 12-step veteran at he is when he claims that relapses like Manuel's or Randy's "can be part of your recovery." A tall, shambling black man in his

l

50s, Milton meets me one afternoon after an N.A. meeting at Project MORE. He makes his living as the landlord for some brownstones in New York City, and for years he had passed the same girl on the street on the way to his properties. "I know she's doing things, I know she's up to something," he recalls. One day the combined effects of "a mid-life crisis, tax problems, and the end of a long-term relationship" stirred a foreign impulse in Milton. "I said to the girl, 'Bring me some of whatever you've got,' and she showed me how to use crack."

Milton laughs. "Now, I'm a businessman, a religious man. I don't even say 'damn,' and here I'm smoking crack," he marvels in his deep, graveled voice. Picked up for possession in late 1996, he sailed through drug court treatment until the summer of 1997. "They say six months is the pink cloud, and then comes the hard test. I failed it," Milton says.

"I was driving, and that old feeling, that urge, came on me so -heavy. One man could not begin to fight it. I'm fighting it, I'm fighting it, but I just had to have it one more time."

Next time he came to court, M ilton's urinalysis yielded predictable results, and Judge Simon put him in jail for anot her week. "He understood that I understood the nature of addiction," says Milton, who earned a Master's degree in social work from the University of Connecticut. "H e knew that all I needed was a separation from crack and time to think. He's a judge who talks to you individually; he knew jail was what I needed. I could just sit there and read my Bible. And I've never felt that urge again."

Mike Elliott telJs of a simil~rly critical turning point in his rehabilitation for crack abuse. Elliott is just a week away from completing the Drug Session program when I meet him for coffee one afternoon. He had worked at SNET for a decade when, one day after work in 1991, a colleague showed him how to smoke crack. "Crack made me feel powerful, like I had everything, and at the time I did," Elliott recalls. He lost his house, his car and his job before he ended up in jail on a domestic violence charge. "My wife, they called her my enabler," Elliott explains.

"I would bug her and bother her for money until I just wore her down, and she would give· me the money and I would go get high."

The pattern continued even after Elliott had entered Drug Session. "I had this thing where I'd be dean for three days and have to THE NEW JoURNAL

celebrate. Or I'd have a Monday off and I'd have to celebrate," Elliott tells me. "Then I'd go to court, my urine comes back dirty, the j ud ge puts me in jail for one night, two nightS. I miS! court one time because I'm on the run, trying to get $10 for a bag. The judge says, 'Next time, you're getting your full sentence.'

"Next time comes around, and I'm dirty.

And I think, well, they've got me, might as well get as high as you can, for as long as you can, until they catch you. I told my six-yearold son that I was going away for a while, and I told him to be good, and he said, 'No, you be good.'

"I get to court. I was late, I was high. I thought the sheriff would shackle me right there. W h en I walked in, the j udge interrupted whoever was up there, and said, 'Good afternoon, Mr. Elliott. Thank you for coming to court. Would you please remove your hat?'

"H e thanked me," Elliott says, shaking his head. "I couldn't believe it. He wasn't going to just lock me up and throw away the key." Elliott spent two weeks in jail and 45 days in the Stonington Institute, an inpatient detox center, and hasn't used crack since. Last month, when Elliott graduated from Drug Session, Sim on interrupted courtroom proceedings for him again. The judge came down from the bench and embraced him.

CC I

'm like the dad, but only to a certain point," explains Simon, who grew up in Bridgeport, the son of a Puerto Rican mother and a Cuban father, both immigrantS. "In some drug courtS, you'll see there's no space at all between the judge and the client, or there might be just a desk But I think a certain amount of formality is fine.

The client has to realize that he's still in a courtroom, you know, that this is a judicial relationship. I don't want him thinking. 'Hey, it's Tuesday, I'm going to see my buddy now."'

Jim C hase adds, "T he judge is like the father, and I'm like the big brother." Chase is a recovering alcoholic, a status that has granted him the influence of experience upon his clientS. "If I'm telling somebody that they have to give up their addiction, they have to put their toys away, they might say, 'Well, what the heck do you know about it?' And I can say, 'Well, quite a bit, actually.'"

A ce rtain organic connect ion to the

APRIL 16, 1999

experiences of drug court clients is a state of mind that Chase has access to and Sim6n, it seems, does not. Chase, a portly gentleman with a greying beard and a predilection for colorful suspenders and paisley ties, provides a rumpled counterpoint to the tall, athletic Simon's sleek professionalism. Simon plays well the part of the strict, loving father, but he does make curious stumbles here and there. He forgetS the name of a not-very-new client, and one Tuesday tells three male defendantS in a row, "You look good, you've put on some weight." The third in this line, a large fellow with an impressive beer gut, reddens slightly and replies, "Yes, sir, I've got to work on that. One thing at a time." Bail commissioner Ronje Davis rolls her eyes and tells Simon, "You've gotta find something else to compliment the man on."

Sim6n moves right past the gaffe to Cara, who is feeling prone to a relapse. "How are you doing. Cara?" ''I'm fine if I stay away from my parentS' house. Ifl go there then bad things happen." " T hen stay away from your parents' house!"

"My kids are there."

Simon tells Cara to talk to her social worker. Cara seems strongly inclined to son out her current dilemma with the judge, but Simon repeats that she should talk to her social worker. It's another mantra, like "You've p ut on some weight," useful in most cases but not invariably so.

"Other than that, though, things are going pretty good?" Sim6n asks, with that soft smile.

Cara hesitates. "Yes, sir," she replies, and takes her seat again, her audience with the judge having arrived at itS swift conclusion. lthough the New Haven Drug Session sees drug offenses as a health problem rather than a criminal matter per se, this view is strictly circumscribed. The program bars the door to dealers, however low-level. The drug court also does not allow for reductions in length or intensity of treatment for users of marijuana or marijuana's popular upstart cousin, "illy," pot soaked in formaldehyde. Ask Judge Simon what differences come in to play in treating users of marijuana as opposed to physically addictive and crippling drugs like heroin, and he !lady replies, "None. There's not m uch difference in the need for some

A

AUTHENTIC THAI CUISINE

1170 O.apel Street NEW HAVEN, CT 06511 (aaoss fr• COlONY INN, DowwtoWII) OPEN EVERY DAY SUN • THURS: 1130AM· 1O:OOPM FRI 'SAT: 11:30AM • 10:30PM PHONE: (203) 562..0322 " Best Thai R estaurant 1 998~ - N ew Haven Advocat e

LAUNDROMAT

One stop laundry center BIG WASHERS Ill FAST DRYERs

3 HR.

WASH, DRY

Ill

FOLD

CLEANING • SHIRT SERVICE SPOTLESSLY

CLEAN • PARKING

2 Locations -

Open 7 days

JSO PARK ST.

J65 WILLOW ST.

(conter ol ~e)

(corner ol F osUr-)

776-SCSO 8am-10prn daily

491J..85$7 8am-10prn daily

19

can't get to the edge of campus? then come into the center .. .

the Microcomputer Sales Center

The Yale Microcomputer Sales Center is at the heart of our ¡ campus. Located in the lower . level of The Yale Bookstore on Broadway we are now closer to your computer needs than ever.

Here you will find high quality hardware and supplies along with our Yale-specific technical advice.

Visit us and let us show you the latest in computer technology and the best software available for all your needs. ",...-

~

M ONDAY-THURSDAY 9AMT0 9 PM

~

on, 0\

""

,,~

-

o~

J)

11 _,

,.,

structure and support in the lives of people who use marijuana as there is with any other controlled substance." Chaco agrees, citing t he familiar maxim about pot being a gateway drug.

This a-d rug-is-a-drug stance creates strange juxtapositions in the courtroom.

Devon, the college athlete caught for marijuana, has his turn with the judge just before Alyssa. Alyssa's urinalysis test came back clean; her unsteady gait and slightly garbled speech can be attributed to w ithdrawal and methadone maintenance.

T he judge calls her "sweetie" and tells her she looks wonderful. Alyssa smiles coquettishly and fiddles with her blouse. When she stands up, one observes that her skin is slit up the back, perilously high.

"The m ost obvious difference between different drugs is the physical effectS," Sim6n says. "This is especially the case with heroin and women. It just devastates them physically. A lot of them are prostitutes, turning tricks to get enough money for the next fix." H e pushes some photographs across the table to me; they're mugshots of Sandra, who was arrested for solicitation a year ago and now has just a few weeks before she grad uates from d r ug session. In the ph otographs sh.,e looks wan, haggard, emaciated; her mouth is twisted and angry, her eyes dead. In the courtroom one sees a different person, a mild-looking woman with thick brown hair and a sweet smile.

Sim6n points at Chase, who is passing t hrough the judge's office at t he end of another long day. "He cries every time he sees her," the judge says. "I do, I do," Chase says, looking at the photos. Sure enough, tears well up in his eyes and he takes off his glasses.

"See? See?" Sim6n exclaims, touched and amused. "These women who earn their living the way th ey do, they feel so badly about themselves," Chase explains. "With the drug cour t, you can see t he complete transformation of another human being. It's akin to a born-again experience, a radical spiritual change." He takes another look at Sandra's mug shots. "It's like seeing your own daughter being saved."

IIIJ

S UNDAY

12 TO 6 PM Mikt Elliott is a psew:Wnym.

432-8770

20

www . yale . edu/mcsc

]tssica Winter, a smwr in Trumbull Cofkgt, is a former mantlging tditor ofTNJ. THE NEW JouRNAL

A Cold Warrior accuses Yale Un iversity Press of un-American activities.

Dead than lie

BY JoHN SwANSBURG

T he back of Soviet Communism had not been broken for long b efore the spines of Th( Last

Diary of Tsarina Akxandra were released by the Yale U niversity Press (YUP) in 1992. The book was the fi rst in t h e YUP's Annals of Communism serie.s, a large-scale proj ect d ed icated to p ubl ishing scholarly work using the archives of the former Soviet Union. According to series editor Jonathan Brent, the purpose of the series "is . to produce a documentary history of Soviet comm~sm , from the 1917 revolution to the demise of the system m 1991. Such . a window on the Soviet system was not possible before the draWIDg back of the Iron Curtain; the archives scrutinized by the Annals of Communism only became available to scholars after the 1991 collapse.

The archives include documents that run the gamut from red tape to red bait. Since the release of Th( lAst Diary, five other volumes have been published in the series: Th( Fali ofth( Romanovs, Th( Lmin, Stalin's L(tUrs to Molotov, Tht Surtt World of Ama~can Communism, and, most recently, Th( Sovitt World of Amazcan

UnJrm:wn

APRIL 16, 1999

-,

Communism. Each volume is edited by an American scholar and a Russian scholar working in collaboration.

Critics of all political stripes have praised the Annals of Communism series, acknowledging both the vision of Brent and the individual work of the authors. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (o-NY) writes: All of us who care ro ensure thal dlis generacion and furure ones possess an adequale underslanding of whal rran.spired .~ 1917 a.J?d 1991. ..are in lhe dcbl of Yale Uruverslly Press for llS effom and contriburions.

William F. Buckley, wrote an entire syndicated column on the series, calling it "a huge contribution to an understanding of the mOst important political phenomenon of the century, the rise and f.ill of the communist international movement." (So taken with the importance of the series is Buckley that he dosed his article with an appeal to his readers for finmcial support of the project: "If.you ~ve influence, use it to raise money for the Annals of Commurusm senes of the Yale Universtiy Press, Jonathan Brent, Executive Editor, 302 Temple St., New Haven, Conn. o6520. ")

21

Amidst Buckley's accolades, however, is an ¡astute assessment of the troubles a series such as the Annals of Communjsm inevitably must face. The world of Soviet studies has traditionally been as bipolar as the Cold War world itself, but with a battlefield not nearly so tepid. The dipoles are, on the left, the revisionists, who see the Soviet Union as a noble experiment gone tragically wrong, and on the right, the anti-communists for whom Soviet oppression was the inevitable outcome of any experiment with socialism. The historical truth, which presumably lies somewhere in the middle, is potentially very dangerous to both poles. A series such as the Annals, therefore, which proposes to publish thousands of previously unavailable Soviet documents, is a political powder-keg. As Buckley observes: The left has never liked the idea of disgorging all the secrets because it has th.e effect of eviscerating any trace of idealism in the Soviet experiment, at least in the hands of its generals. And the right doesn't like it . because the firm hand of authoritarian government beckons to a sociery punch-drunk with liberalism and suffering now corruption, crime, inflation and unemployment.

Jonathan Brent confirms Buckley's assessment, noting that the volumes in the series are "frequently controversial and subject to partisan attack."

Until recently, the criticism has come more often from the left than from the right.

This is not surprising given the volumes the series has published thus far. The Yale Press gave the editorship of Lenin's secret correspondences to Harvard historian Richard Pipes. Pipes, a former national security advisor to President Reagan, portrays Lenin as consummately evil. According to the book's introduction, Lenin's rightful heirs are not merely Stalin and Brezhnev, but Hider and Saddam Hussein. This is hardly a revisionist stance, and crus volume has been duly attacked from the left for making Lenin into Lucifer. The Secret World ofAmerican Communism, a similarly hard-line anticommunist work, has been criticized even by non-revisionist scholars. Reviewing the work for The New Republic, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., a staunch anti-communist, complains that the work comes down too harshly on American communists. Once again, it is the left that has had occasion to criticize the Annals.

22

by the YUP was not fueled by political

If Brovkin's rejection

motivations , then wh y was he turned down?

It comes as a surprise therefore to read that "the Soviet studies field has been captured by revisionists who dismiss as Cold War humbug the notion that the Soviet Union was a totalitarian country." Yet this is the position of Jacob Heilbrunn, author of an October 1998 article in The New Republic.

The article, entitled "Historical Correctness," accuses Jonathan Brent of having "caved" to the pressures of revisionist historians.

Heilbrunn, a Senior Editor at The New Republic, ba.seS his claims upon the fact that Brent and the Yale Press denied Sdviet scholar .

Vla~fimir N. Brovkin an editorship after solicitin_g a proposal from him. Brovkin applied for the editorship of the volumes in the series dedicated to the Soviet prison system, known as the gulag, a system already made inf.unous by the prolific literary works of Alexander Solzhenicsyn. Brent approached Brovkin in 1997, asking him to submit a proposal. Brovkin submitted a seven-page prospectus and the proposal was scrutinized in the Yale Press's stringent review process.

The Annals' ~ry committee voted nearly unanimously against giving the editorship to Brovkin, and Brent informed Brovkin in a letter this past August that his proposal had been denied.

A committed anti-communist and an opponent of revisionist portrayals of the.

Soviet system, Brovkin was described by Heilbrunn as "a brilliant historian." He had bee!) suggested to Brent by the venerable writer Robert Conquest and by the aforementioned Richard Pipes. Brovkin worked with Pipes at Harvard, where he taught until recendy, when he was denied ten u re in what Heilbrunn calls a "controversial and dubious decision." Since leaving Harvard, Brovkin has been unable to find another full-time teaching position; he is currently helping to direct a study of Russian crime at American University. Prior to his

stint at Harvard, Brovkin was a member of the Government department at Oberlin College, where among his proteges was one Jacob Heilbrunn.

After being denied the gulag editorship, Brovkin contacted his former student Heilbrunn. Brovkin believed (and still insists) that he was rejected by Brent because the Annals of Communism's board of advisors is dominated by revisionist historians who not only refuse to publish non-revisionist history but also hold a gru"dge against Brovkin for his attacks on revisionist historians in the past.

Through his mouthpiece, Heilbrunn, Brovkin claimed that Brent's decision to reject him was not based on hls ability as a scholar. Rather, say Brovkin and Heilbrunn, the rejection was based solely on historiographical politics.

Brovkin and Heilbrunn's accusations are unfounded and unsupported, betraying a paranoia of a revisionist stranglehold on Soviet studies that simply does not exist. As a result, Heilbrunn constructs a largely spurious account of the events: his building blocks are sound-bite quotations, his mortar hyperbole. In an article in The Nation examining the controversy caused by the Heilbrunn article, Eric Altermann demonstrates that Heilbrunn's argument employs willful misreading and deliberate deceptiqn. In an attempt to portray the reviewers of Brovkin's proposal to the Yale Press as apologists for the Soviet regime, Heilbrunn cites editorial committee member Mark von Hagen, director of Columbia University's Harriman Institute for Russian and East European Studies. Heilbrunn quotes von Hagen as claiming that the gulag contained "the kinds of criminals who are incarcerated in every viable state." Heilbrunn makes von Hagen appear to be a foolish Soviet sympathizer who denies the horror of the gulag system and its role in Soviet

THE NEW JouRNAL

political oppression. In order to paint chis portrait of von Hagen, and by extension the YUP editorial committee, Heilbrunn has done something ~at would make any sixth-grade English teacher cringe: separate a "not only" from a "but also. " Heilbrunn has conveniently sliced off the first part of von Hagen's sentence: "the camps held not only large numbers of f31sely accused citizens and political oppositionists.... " Thus von Hagen's comment that the wrongfully imprisoned were not the only inmates is spun around by Heilbrunn to mean that only criminals were imprisoned in the gulag.

Heilbrunn's selective quotation is not the only hole in his careered attack against che YUP-ic is merely an indicator of his attack's lack of depth. Heilbrunn and Brovkin claim chac Brent caved into pressure from an editorial board controlled by revisionists. This claim is simply noc borne ouc by the facts.

The Annals of Communism series is governed by an editorial advisory committee comprised of 17 American and 12 Russian scholars and archivists. Before a new project can be added, a proposal must be presented before the American section of the advisory comrnitt~e. If the proposal is approved and a manuscript produced, it must still survive the rigors of University Press peer review. Often the Yale Press solicits as many as three co five outside readings before making the decision co publish.

Seven members of the American advisory committee responded in writing co Brovkin's proposal for che gulag volume. Five of the responses were negative. Of che two remaining responses, one was a mixed review and one a positive assessment. Professional standards do not allow the YUP to release the n ames of che scholars who considered Brovkin's proposal. Brent, however, has written that while two of the five negative responses were penned by scholars who could be categorized as revisionist, the remaining three responses came from scholars with "no particular political agenda." It is due to the responses of these three scholars, Brent says, that he chose not to offer the editorship to Brovkin. Brent also points out that the same advisory committee that denied Brovkin the editorship of the gulag volume rejected a revisionist's candidacy for a volume on the assassination of Leningrad Party leader Sergei Kirov. Brovkin cannot make a case for a personal bias either: his last book, Th~

APRIL 16, 1999

.

lbo

_,.- .

~

-

'R.u.t ""'--

SPECTOR

0

.,Ec: '1111:

loU

2

~

Comprehensive Eye Exams (:5.s ·"" Contact Lenses Fashion Eyewear Ill ~

~-

EYE CARE EMPORIUM

en

R.9INl: G vog_.E•

-~

~

Featuring the finest seledion of bener eyewear at guaranteed lowest prices.

Q

~

<>o. ~<.?

~~P

0

Q;

~

-3>~~

1st Place

<'Pq?~tO.'(

~

~~

o.,..

0~

~

z:· Eye Examination on premises by Dr. Larry Spector. Optometrist. Includes glaucoma & catataa tcating.

~

Dally Wear Contact Lenses

$1 24

Complete

Includes eye exam , lifting. foUow-up care. Specialry leniCS availablc at a.n additional cost.

I

1044 CHAPEL ST. • SHERMAN'S ALLEY NEW HAVEN • 787-7111 ( -student Discounts Aw!laWa a:· ~ IICIY ,. .. ' ....

~~

.

f El>

:I

A Yale Tradition for Over 23 Years Homemade entrees featuring flavors from around the world: Mexican, Italian, Mediterranean & Oriental Exciting salads and hearty soups. Nutritious juices and smoothies made to order.

Scrumptious desserts, gourmet coffees and more ...

•

~~HAMA THE BEST JAPANESE RESTAURANT Enjoy a wonderful variety of fresh Sushi and traditional Ja~N~n•- dish...

1206 Dixwell Ave., Hamden Open for Dinner Seven Days a Week (across from Chimney Square)

281-4542

Dinner Sunday-ThursdJzy 5-9:30pm Friday & SaturdllY 5-ZO:OOpm Lunch Monday- Friday 11:30-2:30pm

23

Bolsheviks in Russian Society , was published

Used Bookstore c( Cafe 1140 Chapel Street (off of York) 787-6147 M-Th 7.3o-8 Fri 7·Jo-1o Sat 1o-1o Sun 1o-8 .

SPRING TEXTBOOK BUY-BACK For Cash or Credit Enjoy Our Out door Patio Seating

Jtf..FT!U~MIT A Yale Tradition for Almost a Quarter of a Century

+ Pizzo + Posto + Casseroles + Svbs • Gyros • + Sovvlok l + Sandwiches + S.OA::ood + Chicken + • Steck + Solods • Dolly Speclol + + Hot or Cold Plotters + Burgers + Wings + + Beer + Wine + Desserts +

Sun-Thurs, 11am-1 am Fri & Sat 11 am-2am Located behind sterling Ubrary Next door to Toad 's

288 York Street New Haven CT 06511 787-7471 787-7472

in 1997 by none other than the YUP, a fact conveniently absent from Heilbrunn's article.

If Brovkin's rejection by the YUP was not fueled by political motivations, then why was he turned down? Mark von Hagen informed Heilbrunn that he feared that Brovkin would present a "black-and-white view" of the gulag system by selecting documents that "reinforce his own views," In other words, von Hagen feared that Brovkin would present the history of the gulag in the same misleading way Heilbrunn presented von Hagen's words.

The Annals advisory committee was not the first to express complaints of this nature regarding Brovkin's scholarly work. A former colleague of Brovkin at Oberlin, Professor Heather Hogan concurred with the committee's assessment of Brovkin as a scholar: It is the flattening out of the tale that worries me about Brovkin... a tendency to filter out conflicting points of view. So, I think there is legitimacy in questioning whether Brovkin would be appropriately representative in his editing of the volume and legitimate concern that he would present a black-white case.

The flattening and filtering noted by both von Hagen and Hogan represent a symptom of a greater weakness in Brovkin's scholarship: his use of history as a political weapon, which is to say that Brovkin is guilty of the very crime he accuses the YUP of perpetrating. In his review of Brovkin's 1994 book, &hind the Front Lines

of the Civil ~r: Political Parties and Social Movements in Russia, 1918-I922 (Princeton University Press), University of Michigan's William G. Rosenberg objects to Brovkin's biased readings of other scholarship and his attacks on other writings that are interspersed throughout the text. Reviewing the book in American Historical &view, a publication in which Brovkin himself has reviewed books, Rosenberg writes: Two Vladimir N. Brovkins seem to have written this book. One is a serious scholar who extends his earlier work on the Men-

sheviks to a rich description of the political context. The other is a simple-minded polemicist, tendentious in his misrepresentation of others' work (including my own), analytically shallow, and seemingly ignorant even of the "mainstream" historiography to which he opposes many of his arguments.

Throughout, these contending personae interfere with efforts to analyze impottant material.

According to Rosenberg, Brovkin's politics interfere with his ability to analyze historical facts judiciously.

The Bolsheviks in Russian Society. a ¥UPpublished volume which Brovkin edited and contributed to, has been attacked for the same reasons. In a review of the book, Susan Rupp of Wake Forest University criticizes its politicizing of history: The politics of this collection, or at least that of several contributors, profoundly compromises its value...The reader has the impression that, for some of the writers at least, the newly opened archives are simply a cudgel to be wielded against the revisionists rather than an opportunity to increase our knowledge of the revolutionary period.

Rupp says of Brovkin's article in the volume: B r ovkin 's own contribution, "Mobilization, Utilization, and the Rhetoric of Liberation: Bolshevik Policy Toward Women," is little more than a diatribe against the Bolshevik regime... Brovkin's piece borders on the outrageous, and is far from persuasive scholarship.

How can Brovkin claim that the YUP is the puppet of revisionist historians when the Press has published a volume of his that has been criticized for its scathing attacks on both the Bolsheviks and the revisionists who would protect them? T he YUP released the second volume of The Secret World of American Communism in March 1998. Did the YUP turn 180 degrees in five month~?

Historian Richard Gid Powers seems to get It right in a letter to The New Republic:

THE NEW JouRNAl-

The Yale series' widely-applauded efforts to reveal the truth about Soviet communism has inevitably resulted in an objectivdy antiSoviet ~rspecrive, and any trace in that series of revisionist apologies for the Soviets exist only in the imagination of the pathologically suspicious.

There is a difference between opposing revisionist history and becoming so obsessed with discrediting it that your scholarly work becomes no longer scholarly, no longer designed to elucidate history. If historiography is lowered into mere diatribe against other historical viewpoints, history becomes a more political tool. Herein lies the irony in Brovkin's dispute with the Yale Press.

One of the most terrifying powers of the totalitarian state is the ability to manipulate history for political ends. Brovkin accuses the Yale Press of trying to shape history by only sponsoring revisionist history, but time and again Brovkin has used his own historical works to attack his enemies in the academy. Is there a conspiracy among academics against true history as Brovk.in claims, or is he the one to be feared? Brovkin allows his view of how history should be told to cloud his pursuit of the truth-this is why he did not receive the editorship of the gulag volume.

Jacob Heilbrunn, defending his former mentor, is guilty of the same error: allowing his personal feelings to interfere with his professional writing. Heilbrunn's position as a former student of Brovkin's should have prevented him from writing the piece on Brovk.in's dispute with the Yale University Press. Another irony comes to mind: the opening of the Soviet archive has led Soviet studies into a period of revolution not unlike the Russian Revolution, with different factions fighting for control of a new era.

Brovkin and Heilbrunn, in their blind effon to tell the truth and fight those who differ in opinion, are doing their best to impersonate Lenin, at least the Lenin described by Richard Pipes.

IRIJ

fohn Swansburg, a junior in Saybrook is an associau ~ditor of TN].

APRIL 16, 1999

Co/kg~.

The New journal Thanks: Shruti Adhar

Caroline Marvin

SyeedaAmin

The New Haven Free Public Library

Fayre Davis

Karen Paik

Whitney Grace

Brad Shy

Rita Jules

Tamara Sussman

The Best Indian Restaurant in New Haven Lunch Special 11 :30om- 3:00pm Mon.- Fri. $3.95- $5.95 Sat.- Sun. lunch Buffet $6 .95

J.~

lAl\.1 )®R THE CLAY OVEN

Dinner 3:00pm- 10:30pm 7 Days

A Week Liquor License

1226 Chapel Street & Howe Street Corner • New Hoven, CT 06511 (203) 776-6620 • Fox (203) 787-5427 Free Delivery www.yowanna.com Catering Available Cong1 rt~ulalions Class ol '991 Come Cele&.ate Gt Tandoori CaR lor reserYafions.

0

treatment of women. [We're concerned with] the big im age these slogans put out about gay people in general," Kent said.

As she tried to recall past Coop slogans, Kent flipped through her records to the November '98 ad campaign. Records? Campaign?

I had pretty much figured that a few group members got a couple buckets of paint, some really big banners, and just w rote out the first unclean thoughts that popped into their heads. But this innuendo was getting to be serious stuff. Kent proceeded to tell me how the ''A Broad" poster was a break from more traditional Co-op advertising philosophy. "We typically have pictures of half-naked men," she said.

But when I asked how¡the Co-op would top "A Broad" in the Study A Broad. LGBT Co-op Dance. marketing for its latest event, the April 3 Pride Week dance, I was surprised. The students working on advertising chose to abstain from For some organizations, like the Lesbian, ~ the Co-op's usual sexual punning, opting instead for the tasteful route.

Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Cooperative at Yale, innuendo has become ._,,.

But just when my story seemed to have reached a dead end, Kent rescued me by explaining that the dance's co-sponsor, Society more than an innovative attention-grabber Electronica, had controlled most of the advettising, not the Co-op. on dining hall table ten ts: I've come to expect it. But talking with Co-op member ::...~ Although Kent promised me and the other faithful that there Alexandra Kent (CC '01), I found out the "A . . . ~ would be at least some sexual advertising next year, the Co-op .,.....,.~wJ hierarchy is questionfng the benefits of their more sexually explidl Broad" slogan in particular brought about quite ~ ~ f;;:~ advertising. They are realizing that the Co-op's cheeky slogans no a bit of debate in the Co-op ranks. "'Study A longer stand out from other student organizations' ads on bulletin Broad' was raising some feminist issues over the n my daily commute down York Street, the JE bulletin board tantalizes me with an indecent (if innocent) proposal: WJu for Shana and Erika and Get Some. Then, in a much smaller font, the punch line: result!. What I wouldn't .give to vote in the class of 2000 elections.

But acceleration aside, lately I've found that when I'm in the mood for a little illicit temptation, Shana and Erika are far from my only options at Yale. In the struggle to attract the few remaining unaffiliated students, more and more groups are falling into the same formulaic, fornication-oriented fad. Shana and Erika's proposal doesn't seem so clever (or innocent) any more. Every bulletin board, most table tents, and even the banners adorning the Elm Street gate bombard me daily with racy offers for romance, love and animal lust. As I try to keep them all straight in my mind, I realize the scope of this titillating trend.

When Yalies really need to get the word out, the option of choice is blatant sexual innuendo.

..-ft\\\'l ~'

_...

THE NEW JouRNJJ.

boards. "Some groups advertise sc:x, bur then you find our the group has nothing to do with [sex], " sai<% a bafAed Kent. Still, with only one Co-op dance left this year {which might be marketed entirely sans innuendo), who will compere with Shana and Erika for my love?

Spa~

Hours? Stooped to the depths of considtring Spring Mating? Try a brilliant rmudy!

The Yale Herald "Oh, it didn't use to be chis bad," said Pierson Dining Hall's Peggy Barnes, rolling her eyes slightly. A nine-year veteran of YUDH, she's as much a staple of the Pierson Dining Hall as the table rents themselves.

"Kids have always tried to table tent some obscene stuff, bur in the past we've been a lor more extensive in our screening."

After watching Barnes rush to smother potential food fights on more than one occasio n, I can imagine her despotically controlliqg the table tent distribution in earlier days. Bur times change, as do attitudes. Technically, YUDH rules state that all table rents should be

Booty. Booty. Booty. Booty. 3-26-99 The lone words Aash from a Auorescent orange Ayer for a Friday night parry-but if I hadn't been looking for it, would I even have noticed? At a petty eight by five-and-a-half inches, this ad must impress a student daily bombarded with the glossy full-pagers of Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, er al. if it wants to grab my attention. And with million-dollar marketing budgets at their disposal, Calvin and company can be considerably more conspicuous than a mere five-and-a-half inches. (Kent puts a rough estimate of the annual Co-op dance advertising budget at a little over SIOO.) Throw in CNN's latest rehashing of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, and Yale groups have some formidable opposition for control of the campus limelight.

Sadly, I've noticed that groups with no sexual affiliation are watering down Yale's advertising marker and scaring off more innovative organizations like the Co-op. I can see where selling underwear or advertising an adventurous dance could call for sexual innuendo. But an election for class AYA rep?

Yale can be a pretty sick place sometimes. Sc:x has come to be an expected, even cliched presence in much of Yalies' daily lives. The exception, of course, is in the bedroom. I find myself, from time to time, in dire need of a reminder co the difference between reading sexuaJiy explicit advertising and acrually having sex.

Although Yalies love to conAate the two, there is a distinction-! think.

Perhaps the Co-op is making the right choice in rethinking irs advertising. The trend of sexual innuendo at Yale could be fading. If this is the case, Yalies will have to find some other marketing ploy, and I'll have to look for love somewhere besides the faithful JE bulletin board. Still, it was fun while it lasted.

And to Shana and Erika-best of luck with IIIII your campaign.

exceptional dresses by: J~f s~,- .T-IIN_[oV.

J

~~te ~u~

0

H

t.

â&#x20AC;˘

zack

and many other fine designers

Seychelles 1020 Chapel Street New Haven 498-2626 across from old campus lOam to 6pm M toW & Sat l OAM to 7PM Th Noon to4PM Sun MCNisa/Amex

Brad Shy is a freshman in Pierson Colkge.

APRIL 16, 1999

27

Bru('f' AckPrman An ne ALc;tott

The United Stakes of America Two Yale Profs want to give you $80,000, but the check isn't exactly in the mail. by lan Blecher The Stakeholder Society, Bruce Ackerman and Anne Alstott (Yale University Press, 1999)

M

ove over, Germany. Move over, Japan. It's America's turn to kick ass. The Dow Jones just hit 10,000.

We're breaking records by the hour. The NASDAQ is up nearly 20 percent this year. We have politicians brave enough to stake their careers on those numbers-politicians brave enough to throw our Social Security into the mix, to make sure America claws its way up to 11,000, and then who knows how high?

A few things have been bothering me, though. We keep scoring all these points on the Dow. But who are we scoring them against? And when do we get to win?

Let's be serious. Not counting Russia, America's wealth is distributed more unevenly than any other industrialized country. From 1973 to 1997, real household income rose 1.6 percent among the poorest fifth of Americans and p percent among the middle fifth. Over the same period, reaJ income among the richest twentieth rose 56.8 percent. And things are getting worse. From 1989 to 1997, as the Dow ballooned, real income actually dropped 2.4 percent among the poorest and 0.7 percent for the middle class. The richest saw their wealth increase by 20.4 percent.

Is this the end of American equal oppo rtunity? In their new book, Tht Staluholdtr Socitty, YaJe professors Bruce Ackerman (LAw '67) and Anne Alston (LAW '87) hatch a plot to keep the Founders' promise of the right to pursue happiness.

Every citizen, they say, is entitled to an s8o,ooo stake in America on his 21st birthday.

He can spend it however he likes. He can snort it in cocaine in a Manhattan high-rise.

She can blow it on roulette in Vegas. He can start a small business. She can pay for college, in which case she could claim her stake upon matriculation. The government has no say.

No indentured servitude. No guidelines.

"Stakes are a marter of right, nor a handout."

It's time to build the late-capitalist wdfare state, Ackerman and Alston write: We are rrying to break the hold of the familiar vision of the welfare state in America. In this view, modern government has succeeded to the traditional tasks of the churchtending to the old, the sick, the disabled.

Like the church, the welfare state is concerned with providing the weak with a decem minimum.

In other words, welfare feeds on our nostalgia for gentler times--if feudalism can be called gentle. As politicians give in to every corporate whim, liberals crusade like Biblical prophets to raise the poverty line. It's no surprise, then, that anti-welfare arguments claiming our present system is outdated have met with so much success.

But Ackerman and Alston don't mind marker forces, as long as everyone has an equal shot at the market: As liberals, we believe that each citizen

should be free to shape her outcomes as she thinks best. But as activist liberals, we emphasize the f.lilure of the capitalist system to give each citizen an equal opponuniry to exercise this freedom as she goes about the task of shaping her life.

Social programs should attack disparities in the market, not dean up after the market has done its damage. "Our primary focus is on the young and energetic, nor the old and vulnerable." The authors have made it their mission to excise conservativism from liberal movements. Politicians will be able ro gut welfare as long as it remains an anachronism utterly contingent to the main event, the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

The rich man will probably want to know why he has any responsibility to make things easier for poor teens. What have juvenile delinquents ever done for him? To begin with, Ackerman and Alston say no one gets to choose his parents. Unless he puts his faith in predestination, the rich man must admit that it was only his good fortune to be born into great fortune. And even if he was not born rich, he was most likely born into privileges, like a good education. Bur even if he had made himself entirely without his parents, Ackerman and Alston argue that the market depends on every American's participation: "Nobody makes money simply on the basis of his own efforts." The public already spends billions to preserve the kind of social order necessary for free enterprise.

THE NEW jOURNAL

"Without billions of voluntary decisions by Americans to respect the rights of property in their daily lives, the system would collapse overnight. All Americans benefit from this cooperative activity-but some much more than othe~s." As Americans, we have a responsibility to our fellow citizens-and, perhaps, on the same grounds, to every citizen of the world. But that is a project for another book.

To realize Jefferson's dream of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all, we must first see John Locke's dream through: life, liberty and property. "We propose to revitalize a very old republican tradition that links property and citizenship." This connection, as the authors realize, is a dangerous one. In older times, for example, women were denied suffrage because they couldn't own property. That doesn't mean, however, that we should rid ourselves of private property altogether. On the contrary, we should strengthen the property-citizenship link by distributing property more equitably.

The authors refuse to define the members of society by their class status, as Marxists do.

"It is not one's relationship co the means of production that should shape tax status but t he exte)lt to wh ich liberal society has honored its promise of equal opportunity."

John Q. Public is an American, not a Ford worker. Indeed, Ackerman and Alstott cake special, if subtle, care not to attribute the success of capitalism to the exploitation of labor. The capitalist's responsibility to his worker comes not from the former's dependence on the extraction of surplus value but from the latter's "voluntary" support of the social order. And although the authors don't try to refute Marxist claims about class struggle, it's as clear now as it was in the Cold War: communism is just plain un-American.

Individual liberties are well and good. But who's going to finance them? Ackerman and Alstott suggest a twofold plan to raise the money, which they estimate at $255 billion a year (Social Security and Medicare, by contrast, cost $477 billion ). It won't shock you to learn that the wealthy will cover most of the cost. The richest 41 percent would pay an extra 2 percent income cax, a relatively small price to thank the plebeians for not revolting. Besides, stakeholders would be required to return their stakes when they die.

In real 1999 dollars, an s8o,ooo stake would grow to about $250,ooo over 6o years. But

APRIL 16, 1999

the stake is not a government loan. If Tom decides to blow his stake on hookers and dies broke at 22 of a heroin overdose, his estate isn't liable for the stake. But successful stakeholders will pass a stake on to th eir children, who will receive $8o,ooo at age 21 like everyone else.

Freedom is great, but shouldn't we be worried about how this money is going to be spent? Ackerman and Alstott do take a few precautions. Stakeholders have to graduate high school, and no one would get all her money at once. Instead, she would receive four annual payments of about $2o,ooo, enough to cover a year of tuition at most private colleges.

In the end, Ackerman and Alstott's society is relatively indifferent to so-called stakeblowers. What matters to them is that everyone has a stake to blow in the first place.

A liberal society has only one responsibility: to provide equal opportunity to every citizen.

In this respect, the plan is profoundly antiutopian. The idea isn't to improve society so much as to help it fulfill its moral responsibility to its members.

Will "moral responsibility" alone inspire Americans to undertake such a huge project?

Ackerman and Alstott think so. Citizens will rightly believe themselves entitled to their stakes. This is not something we do for other people; it's not charity for the poor. It is rather something we do for ourselves. "When our children or grandchildren come forward to claim their st.akes, they are doing it for themselves and for America: they are recognizing their common citizenship and gaining the effective freedom to take their own projects of self-definition seriously," Ackerman and Alstott say. Again and again the authors tell us that the stake means more than money. Stakeholders: will locate themselves in a much larger national project devoted to the proposition that all men are created equal. By invoking this American ideal in theit own case. they link themselves not only to all others in the past who have taken steps ro realize this fundamental principle but also to all those who will do so in the future.

So, despite its anti-utopian rhetoric, Th~ Staluholder Soci~ty can't suppress a certain utopian glee. In a chapter enthusiastically titled "Profiles in Freedom," Ackerman and Alstott spin yarns about future stakeholders.

There's "Brenda" and "Bill," a working-class couple. Bill works construction but has trouble finding steady work. Brenda is a home health aide, but she'd like to train to be a nurse. Lucky for them, they share a $16o,ooo stake chat allows Bill to go to technical school to become a mechanic.

There's also "Mike" and "Mary Anne." Mike's a Teamster who wants to start his own small trucking business. Mary Anne wants to pursue her college degree.

At times, The Stakeholder Soci~ty reads like a really boring work of fiction, which makes sense, given that the book details an imaginary social program (real as it may seem to its authors). Ackerman and Alstott chortle to themselves about the culture of stakeholding. New terms like "stakeblower" will come into common parlance, we learn.

Newspapers will brim with tales of how Jane Doe made millions with her stake or how Jim Jones lost all his money on a single night. It's never quite clear why the authors play up these banalities.

But the biggest unanswered question is exactly bow any of this could come about.

The book's underlying premise seems to be, "We live in a democracy. Now let's put our money where our mouth is." But real problems with American democracy can easily prevent a plan like this from ever taking shape. When the House passed a campaign finance reform package last year, for example, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott singlehandedly killed it. What's to stop an interested few among the wealthy from dismantling any hope of stakebolding? The authors hearken back to the New Deal and the Gl Bill, two about American projects that succeeded. Stakeholding, presumably, is the next link.

It would certainly be nice if all that were true. Ackerman and Alstott persuasively define American economic success not by the Dow Jones Industrial Average buc by equal economic opportunity for every citizen. The plan is simple and elegant. But for now, we'll have to content ourselves with their less-thanelegant fiction.

IIIII

Ian Bkchn; a junior in Davmport College, is a managing ~ditor ofTNJ.

Off the Beaten Path!

The Ma rquis de Sod t a ke a beat ing, but wi ll t hey kee p o n seedi n g ?

by julia Kqrdon

T

hese recent halcyon days, as I walk from Old Campus to join the hourly flood of Yalies flowing across Elm Street co Cross Campus, I leave a peaceful world of expensive green sod and enter the theater of a small war. The first sign of battle appears as I pass through the Porter gace t<? Cross Campus: a long, dusty scar gouged in the grass runs the length of che scone walk. Ac che end of che first Berkeley wall (a battlefield in itself) the full ravages of the¡ struggle are revealed as Ground Zero comes into view. Two intersecting swaths of pitted, bare earth cue through the meager grass of che lower Cross Campus lawn, signs of the feet that leave the sanctioned scone paths for a tempting shortcut.

Disturbed by this silent struggle at the heart of Yale's campus, I stood ac the corner of Cross Campus one morning to question the perhaps unwitting aggressors. Most peop1e, understandably, claimed that saving time was the reason for their trespass. Still, the reasoning of some stood out. The first person I accosted coming across the scarred lawn offered a formal geometric proof, explaining at length how the diagonal through the grass was the hypotenuse of the triangle of his daily path. The next person I stopped, cutting the corner at an intersection of the walks, was less a strategist than a follower, saying he did it "because [the grass] was already trampled on." He exhibited a disjunction between thought and action that I suspect exisrs in the minds of most of the grass oppressors: when asked if he would answer some questions about the Cross Campus grass, he told me, "It needs some, chat's what you should say!"

Back on Old Campus, I spoke to a gardener raking the grass co find out about defense strategies. According to him, spring '98 was the lase time Grounds and Maintenance brought out the artillerymachines that spray "hydroseed," a high-tech mixture of grass seed and fertilizer. They barricaded the seeded lawn, buc "stakes and ropes aren't going to keep [the students] from crossing the grass," he said. Since then , Yalies' determinacion to find a shorter route and the encroachment of the Berkeley renovation upon the grass has caused Grounds and Maintenance to give up resistance, at least temporarily.

"It's a big political thing. It makes us look bad. My boss doesn't want to buy seed, and his boss is yelling ac him because of the condition of the grass," the gardener volunteered, and then asked to remain anonymous, fearing retaliation if it became known that he had

volunteered this intelligence. His boss, Supervisor of Grounds and Maintenance John Kul, claimed that the Berkeley renovation is the reason for the neglect of Cross Campus. He admitted that "it's sore of been a forgotten area in the past year," but maintained that there are plans for a renovation within the next year.

Roberto Meinrath, deputy director of Yale's Office of Facilities, gave me a litcle history of the Grass Wars. Apparently, the destruction of Cross Campus lawn is merely ¡a single instance in a pattern of aggression by Yale students. "When che good Old Campus was in good old pretty bad shape, we could keep volleyball and soccer off Cross Campus," he told me, saying that these activities and events like Spring Fling made traditional attempts co protect the grass completely futile. Meinrath seemed resigned to hi~ defeat in the defense of the grass, saying "there's no point in continuing to try to fight the neverending war of keeping students off the grass." Instead of continuing the fight, the Office of Facilities has chosen the strategy of appeasement: the upcoming renovations will include two new crosswalks roughly approximating the swaths of lawn worn to bare earth and a complete replacement of the grass on both the upper and lower lawns, an overhaul with an estimated cost of up to $Ioo,ooo.

I figured chis was a rather large defense budget to use essentially on grass, so I decided co investigate just how much time cutting through Cross Campus saves. At a moderate pace, using the stone walks to travel along two sides of the lawn to the opposite corner took 58 seconds; walking along the worn diagonal across the grass took 48 seconds. This is a savings of ten seconds, about the amount of time it takes a Yale student to say "lt's okay. I'm caking ic Credit/0/Fail." But this doesn't seem like a ten seconds any of the people I spoke with really needed, since they all agreed to talk to me. A few calculations involving these ten seconds may be illuminating. Spreading the price of the renovation over a year, and allowing for one trip, ten seconds faster, per day, per Yalie, Yale is valuing its students' time spent walking to class at about $40 an hour. If walking across campus were a 40 hour a week, 50 week a year job, it would pay on the order of s8o,ooo a year. But such spendthrift ways seem common co all institutions with more money than they could possibly need. Just look at the U.S. Department of Defense-<lo they really need s4oo toilet seats and two-billion dollar bombers co fight their own wars?

IIIJ

julio Kordon, o freshman in Saybrook College, is o research director for TN).

30

THE NEW JouRNAL

A DIVISION OF YALE UNIVERSITY INFORMAT ION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES

REPROGRAPHICS

& IMAGING SERVICES

155 Whitney Avenue â&#x20AC;¢ 432-6560

FAX: 432-6274 http://www.yale.edu/ris

'

Store Hours Monday thru Friday 7am-7pm Saturday 9am-Spm Sunday 10am-4pm

Staples, 84 Whalley Ave., Hew Haven, CT •· 77 3-3353