Volume 35 - Issue 1

PUBLI S HER

Eric Rutltow EDtTOR-tN-CIItEP

Danitl Kurtz-Phtlan MANAGING EDITORS

jessica Cohm, Mattlxw Undnwood DESIGNER

David Banh~o PRODUCTION MANAGER

Flora Lichtman BusiNESS MANAGER

MichMi Stibtl PHOTOGRArHY EDITOR

Santiago Mostyn

ASSOCIATE EDITORS

jacob Bkchn; Clint CarroO AssoctAT£ DesrGNER

Jarica Chang REsEAJI.CH DtRECTOR

Kmhryn MalizUz WEB DESIGNER

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THE

Naw JouRNA11

'IheNewJournal

Volume 35, Number 1 September 2002

FEATURES

10

Cultural Engineering An orientation program breaks down racial barriers, but on whose terms?

by Jacob Blecher

16

Assembly Line Justice How bail abuse by a New Haven court undermines due process.

by Kathryn Malizia

22

What Lies Beneath A controversial energy solution gets buried, but not deep enough.

by Benita Singh

STANDARDS 4 5 26

Editor's Note

Points of Departure

Essay: How to Succeed Without Really Trying by Christoph~r H~an~y

28

26

The Critical Angle: Critics in the Cradle by ]mica Cohm r~vi~wing Stori~s and Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children ofAll Ag~s

by Harold Bloom and Toilet Trained for Y11le by Ralph Schotnsuin 30 . Endnote: The Things They Left Behind by Matth~w Underwood

, Tut Ntw jOURNAL is publish«<fiv~ times during rh~ academic )Ul by Tm NEW jouRNAL at Yal~. Inc., P.O. Box }4}1 Yale Sracion, New Haven. Cf o6s10. Olf~ee address: 19-.fS Broad way. Pbooe: (10J) .f}1· t9S7. ~ail: rnj@yale.«<u. All conr~ts copyright 1002 by Tm NEW jouRNAL at Yale, Inc. All Rigbrs R<:served. R.produaion eithtt in whole o r in part without wrinm permission of rhe publisher and «<itor·in· cbirt os prohibit«!. Whil~ this magni.ne is published by Yale Colleg~ srud~ts. Yal~ Univenil)' is not responsible for its con tents. Seven thousand 6~ h undred copies of each issue~ distributed lne to members of~. ~ale and New Ha~n communi!)'. Subscriptions~ available to those outsid~ rh~ area. Rates: One year, SJ8. Two )Uf'. SJ1. Tut N &Y Jo uii.HA!. is p rin t«! by Turky Publications. Palmer, MA; bookkeeping bil!.ng services ar~ provid«< by Colman Booklc~ing of New Ha~n. TH• NEW jouRNAL encourages leners to ~ ~tor and com menu o n Yale and New Hum issues. Writ~ to EditorWs. }4}~ Yale Station, Haven, cr o6s10. All lttters for publication must includ~ address and signature. w~ rese~ the right ro ~t alllenen for publica.tion.

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0

n September 12, 2001 , we were told that everything was suddenly simpler.

Battle lines were clearly drawn. Moral questions were obvious. This clarity heralded a "sea-change" from the troubling ambiguity of the decadent age that had ended the previous morning. We had emerged from a "haze of relativisim," and stepped into a new world painted boldly in black and white.

In the flood of prophesy and pronouncement, the self-appointed arbiters of public opinion and the public ethos offered up Yale and its students as prime evidence of the awakening. David Brooks, pundit and "public intellectual," came to Yale looking for bright-eyed visionaries and, to no one's surprise, discovered exactly that.

Before, we were lost, unprepared by environment and education to make firm decisions or "construct moral arguments." Those days of last fall signaled better times to come, with simpler thoughts and clearer morals-as Brooks put it, a new wave of "judgementalism."

Brooks was by no means alone in this declaration. Alison Hornstein, then a Yale senior, echoed him in the pages of Newsweek. She pointed to "a deficiency in [our] generation's ability to make moral judgements," and cast the blame for our collective confusion on academics who had left us woefully unprepared to confront reality. She was no doubt thinking of people like Paul Kennedy. In those strange days, Kennedy, by no means a foaming-at-the-mouth radical, became a scarred nation's whipping boy for having dared to wonder out loud what the world might have looked like through the eyes of those 19 young men. In the process of lambasting Kennedy, a Wall Street Journal editorial dubbed Yale students "the best and the brightest" and portentously declared that we had found our calling and a clear sense of mission.

They quoted the editors of the Yale Daily News: "After September 11, 2001, we came of age as a generation. We agreed on an agenda."

What they told us on September 12 was wrong. A year later, our easy consensus, moral certitude, and clarity of purpose are gone. Every avowal of simplicity exposes a new layer of complexity. Every stab at certainty reveals another question.

-Daniel Kurtz-Phelan, Editor-in-chief

4

THE NEW JouRNAL

sf

The Art of War IN

Alive from Palestine: Occupation, a couple

A SCENE PROM

Stories

Under

exchanges a bullet and a gas canister as tokens of love. Mounds of crumpled newspapers are the only scenery. The play debuted in the United States at New Haven's Long WharfTheater in late June as part of the annual International Festival of Arts and Ideas. It offered New Haveners a glimpse of life in Palestine and a rare chance to experience Palestinian art firsthand. The series of dramatic vignettes were delivered in Arabic, with English surticles, by members of AJ Kasaba, an acting troupe based in the West Bank city of Rarnallah.

Invited to New Haven by Festival organizers as the second intifada raged in Jerusalem, the actors asked their audience to "see and hear us as no longer a news item but as we are: Palestinians, living, dying, crying, laughing, commiserating, struggling for a normal existence against a backdrop of uncertainty."

The Festival sponsored the play as part of its summer repertoire. Mary Miller, the Festival's director, attributed the play's selection to its artistic merit. "The criteria is artistic excellence," she told The New York Times. Before premiering in the United States at the Long Wharf, Alive from Palestine had played at the London International Theatre Festival and was met with positive reviews and little controversy.

Miller saw the play as a good fit with the mission of the Festival. But in the weeks before Alive from Pakstine opened in New Haven, doubtful members of New Haven's Jewish community raged at her explanation.

Their main concern was a state contribution of $1.4 million to the Festival, meaning the play-in which Israelis are referred to as "the wicked ones"-was funded in parr by public dollars. Jewish community leaders derided the selection as insensitive, inappropriate, and "bigoted" and charged that it "demonizes" and "stereotypes" Israelis. Critics also protested

SI!.PTEMBER 2.002.

that by showing the Palestinian perspective, the Festival had the responsibility of showing the Israeli viewpoint as well. Despite the claim of AI Kasaba and Festival organizers-that the play should be viewed only as art-David Waren, the regional director of the Connecticut office of the Anti-Defamation League, described the play as "pure political propaganda."

The play's inclusion sparked a crusade against the Festival itself. In The jewish udgt'1'-which turned the issue into frontpage news for much of the summer-an editorial described Alive from Palestine as "a rotten apple that tain whole barrel."

The editorial urged r rs to take action: "The show should not go on. This play should be withdrawn from the program.

Ask Governor Rowland to do something about this now. Call his office at 860-5664840." A resident of Waterbury said, "With more than 95 percent of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza living under their own self-government, 'a play about life under Israeli occupation' would be appropriate for a festival about the art of propaganda, but it is not appropriate for a festival of arts and ideas."

There was no public consensus in the Jewish community about what course of action should have been taken rekarding the play. Editorials and letters from Jews from all over the New Haven area flooded local newspapers, calling for a wide range of responses.

Some Jews ' encouraged people to see the play, stating that ALive from Palestine was "necessary viewing" and engaged people in a civil dialogue on the issue. Waren did not call for the play's withdrawal, instead

demanding that .o rganizers "achieve a degree of balance" by including an equivalent Israeli performance. (At least one local Rabbi managed to find a bright side to the controversy: "They're making an in Rarnallah? How wonderful!")

In response to the outcry, the Festival added a series of post-play discussions to provide a forum for debate on the role of art in politics and politics in art. (They also installed electronic security check-points at the theater's entrance.) But the show had to go on, or at least that's how Miller saw it.

And it did, selling out all five nights it was performed.

Alive from Paksti.ne put the Jewish community-a demographic not typically associated with censorship or conservatism-in an awkward position. The Anti-Defamation League, one of the groups initially outraged by the play's inclusion in the Festival, recognizes the importance of free speech when it comes to the Ku Klux Klan, a group with an obvious political agenda, and adamantly defends the right of political extremist groups to express hateful views in public. The actors, for their part, deny that they have a politi-

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cal agenda ar all. Nizar Zuabi, the play's director, was dismayed by the controversial opening in New Haven. "The play is arr," he told the Los Angeles Times. "It is shaped by political circumstances, yes, but it is art." In fact, some reviewers described the play as pretty bland fare. "The company has chosen not to make any reference to Yasir Arafat or to suicide bombers; that seems politically prudent, if nor chickenhearted .... There is little in the show chat is likely co inflame anyone in any new way," Bruce Weber wrote in a review for The New York Times.

In o ne scene from Alive.from Pakstine, a man picks through his son's book bag afrer a bomb attack leaves the boy dead.

T he boy may not have been a political actor, but fell victim co a war beyond his conuol. T he Al Kasaba troupe may have arrived in New Haven co perform art, but they were swallowed up by a political fuestorm they could not contain.

-Flora Lichtman

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6

Kung Fu Fighting TH.B M I GHTY NEW HAVEN NINJAS, beloved gladiators of arenafootbalh, open every event co a fanfare of violins and heavy bass.

Tonight's opponent, the Scranton/WilkesBarre Pioneers, are shalcing in their tights as the N injas jog out of the concession stands, through two spires of fireworks, and onto the field. One spire prophetically fizzles and dies; a Ninja pauses, then stoically continues his uoc. We already know how the season will end: The New Haven Coliseum will be demolished, and the arena-less Ninjas will either disband or trudge to another post-indusuial wasteland, peddling their distinctive brand of musclebound pageantry to new adoring fans.

To the uninformed, an looks more like rec hour at the outhouse than football.

Grown men ram one another to sm ithereens while chasing an oblong ball around a half-sized, walled-and-padded, asu orurfed cage. There is no punting, and nets deflect the ball back into play after a field goal is missed. The best playersincluding New Haven's famed Anthony Comer-are "sixty-minute men."

With a $36 dollar seat and a $10 ticket, this is what I see:

Despite the high scores and brutal collisions, the highlights come when play scops. At one point, football apparel is lined up every five yards; two drunk, doughy men will suit up over their clothes and race for the goal line. Pete is slightly more coordinated. He oucdresses Adam and lumbers to victory. Defeated, Adam spots [Nun)Chuck the Ninja, the team mascot, on the sidelines. Adam pauses for a moment and then barrels shoulder-first into Chuck, sending him to the floor. But Chuck's the wrong ninja to russel with: He gracefully subdues the man while security rushes in and the crowd blows its top with admiration.

Later in this same game, an angry player kicks the ball into the stands after ending the game with a futile touchdown.

An elderly man leaps into the air. He catches the ball but fumbles when he crashes three rows back, spilling spectators and beer. After a hush, someone gives him the ball, and he emerges with it held triumphantly high. We clap respectfully.

To rouse the crowd from its torpor, the Ninjas' cheerleaders, the Stan, execute second-rate dance moves. On the sidelines they seem co evince the enthusiasm of un-

TH.E NEW JouRNAL

D

oiled automata, but during the halftime show they break out the lapdance moves.

In the first quarter of every match there is an "Honorary Cheerleader": a gawky prepubescent girl plucked from the crowd and placed in the middle of the Stan with pompoms thrust into her hands. As they swivel and gyrate she looks about helplessly; a few try to follow along with the crew, but most just stand and look on, confused and sad.

In the first row, directly behind the opposing team's bench, sit the Chop-Chop Guys, New Haven's secret weapon. The Chop-Chop Guys are two men in their mid-twenties, one short and round with a black goatee, the other skinny and tall with dirty blonde hair. By the fourth quarter, they are usually either roaring drunk or ejected. They heckle the opposing team for all they are worth. The Chop-Chop Guys are also the originators of the Chop-Chop phenomenon: One spastically chops at the air kung-fu style and rapidly mutters 'chop chop chop chop' to encourage or applaud.

But by the second-to-last game of the season, it's clear that the Ninjas have lost not only their last three games, but also the hearts of their dearest fans: The ChopChop Guys have defected. They boo the Ninjas and cheer their opponents. They argue loudly and violently with the other fans. I walk up and ask them why. "They keep losing! And when these assholes [the other fans] around us started calling up and complaining about us, we lost it." One of them came to the game with NINJAS sucK written on the back of his shirt with tape.

Told that 'suck' was not appropriate, he rearranges the design to have an x over NINJAS. When the fourth quarter starts, he emerges from the bathroom with NINJAS SUCK COCK. They are escorted out of the Coliseum, taunting all the remaining Ninjas diehards with a limp and drooping foam sword. That is the last we see of the Chop-Chop Guys.

And that's how, after showing some early promise, the Ninjas broke our hearts.

It happened mid-season: On the cusp of ·SOO, they were at Albany's one-yard line in overtime. Our quarterback backpedaled, got hammered, dropped the ball, and Watched as it was returned for a touchdown. Fans showered the field with popcom. We knew that our horse was running With three good legs, that the gunshot was

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only a matter of time. Our boys ended up in second-to-last place in the American Northeast Division.

So as you hear the faint crash of the Coliseum this fall, say a prayer for Anthony Comer, Chuck, Coach "Buff" Buffington, and the rest of the gallant Ninjas. Like a black light, they shone so dimly, and then died too fast.

-Matthew Schneider-Mayerson

Walking the Line

On the trail from New Haven ro New York, there are three types of terrain: ground-level tracks flanked by fields, neighborhoods, and marshes; elevated tracks passing over streers and bodies of water; and sunken tracks with fifteen-foot slate walls on either side. Sunken tracks were my favorire. I enjoyed climbing up rhe walls, walking along the ledges, living on the edge.

As I approached my first major body of water, my mom called me on my cell phone to check up on things. I thought

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greeted me from the industrial landscape as I began my pilgrimage. I was at New Haven's Union Station; Yale was behind me, and ahead of mebeyond the caution signs-were 72.5 miles of track stretching to New York's Grand Cen tral Station.

With a bag full of water bottles and energy bars on my back, I continued into the cold, damp dawn air and faced the Connecticut Railway Maintenance Facility of New Haven. Twelve conjoining tracks and a fleet of canary-yellow Metro-North security vehicles teamed up to intimidate me. I had taken the train into New York a dozen times before, but this time I was going to walk.

There was ample space next to the tracks-about ten to fifteen feet on either side. I checked the metal for vibracions every now and then. After walking a few miles, the sun began to rise, and I saw my first train. As the cars rolled my way, I ran to the outer edge of the track and hid behind some shrubbery. I went undetected.

8

crossing the bridge looked fun, bur as I got closer, I saw that there was only about a foot of space separating death by train and death by drowning. I climbed down to the water's edge. Half a dozen speedboats scurried under the bridge. The closest one carried a trio of sunburned, beer-bellied oldtimers. The boat sputtered toward me. As it approached, I could see that the men were pleasant enough, but I was still nervous. To my relief, they initiated conversation: "Hey buddy." I tried to respond casually. "I know this sounds really strange, but could you possibly take me across the water?" "Sure, five bucks." I hopped in, not a single word

was spoken as we crossed. I was about to leave with a quick "thank you" when something caught my eye. Resting on top of one man's head was an oversized foamy white hat with blue netting in the back. Ironed onto the foam was a map of the United Stares and the words "Get Your Kicks On Route 66." I had to say something. "That hat's great. It reminds me of home. " Awkward silence. "Could I possibly buy it off you?" "Are you kidding?" "No, I'll give you twenty bucks." "Deal."

With my new cap in place, I reached an intricate overpass in Bridgeport that traversed yet another body of water. Standing by my plan to avoid traveling on bridges, I crossed beneath the uacks and climbed back up on the other side. In Fairfield, the buffer zone between track and fence became dangerously narrow. I jumped the fence, off of the tracks and onto Carter Henry Drive. I bought a dipped cone at a Dairy Queen and resumed my jourthe ney once tracks looked safe.

A few miles down the line I counted a dozen security trucks in my path. Fearing detection, I once again climbed the fence and got off the tracks. When I began the trip, I wanted to be the kind of guy who would swim across shark-infested oceans, jump on the cabooses of speeding trains, and hold my ground against any middle-aged MetroNorth official. But I was pussyfooting, messing around, avoid ing danger left and right. I was less rugged pilgrim and more Jewish mother. My cell rang for the second time. It was _my mom again. I love Jewish mothers.

Midnight came quickly the first day. It was cold and I was standing on the ledge of

THE NEW JouRNAL

a Scooby Doo billboard near Stamford.

Freddie Prinze, Jr.'s mouth was the size of my head. Knowing I wouldn't sleep outside, I called a friend at his home on the Upper East Side. By one in the morning, I was asleep inside his 1984 blue Cadillac. I woke up the next morning at six rested and ready for more.

Graffiti is ubiquitous on the MetroNorth train line--literally thousands of tags between New Haven and New York on buildings, train cars, fences, rocks, even dirt. A cage that encases a huge generator with a warning-"Caution: 10,000 volts"- is beautifully decorated with colorful graffiti. Huge metal posts supporting webs of large electrical wires were clustered along the tracks. Each post had a white sign reading "Danger: Live Electrical Wires," and each sign was tagged with the same explorer's mark. A blackened rock read "Partied Hard: 10-19-98.'' T his was charted territory.

I didn't meet anyone on my journey.

Before setting out, I had fantasized about discovering "tunnel-people" along the way.

I planned on blowing away sociologists and anthropologists with stories of entire communities that secretly lived in darkness. I would find throngs of timeless characters-brave men recalling their days back in 'Nam, beautiful women sick of life above ground, investment bankers tired of JPo's embracing the R&R that only rock, track, and concrete provide. But to my dismay, the tunnels were empty. No homeless people, no rail yard bulls, no one.

When I neared Harlem on the evening of day two, I realized that yet another obstacle was in my way-namely, the Hudson River. I rationalized: "There really isn't anything that interesting between l25TH and Grand Central. And even if there were, the four mile long elevated track could prove deadly." I called my friend with the Cadillac. He picked me up, and we headed home. I had hiked the Metro-North with no close calls, no arrests, no glorious discoveries, and precious little of the adventure and self-discovery I had imagined. 72.5 miles of track behind me, and all I had was a new foam hat.

-Matthro~ Pattn-son

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racial barriersbut on whose terms?

THB NEW jouRNAL

N THE EARLY HOURS OP SEJYfEMBF.R 19, 1999, five white men chased down and assaulted a Yale student of Asian descent oucside a Howe Street laundromat. The Yale Police Department classified the attack as a "violent crime with apparent racial undertones" but released few details of the case to the public. According to rumors, the assailants shouted the word "chink" before they stomped the victim's head into the ground, puncturing his eardrum. Some believed the attackers robe Yale football players. Within a matter of weeks, the Asian American Srudenrs Association (AASA) scheduled a silent vigil and a Dwight Hall town meeting on hare crime, and the group's political action ch air, Lee Wang, wrote an impassioned, but largely unsuccessful, plea in the Yttl~ Daily Nnus for public discussion of the case.

But as student organizadons rallied against rhe assault, investigators struggled to pur a case together. Several witnesses came forward, bur the victim refused to press charges. W ithout his cooperation, the police could do lictlc to determine who was responsible for the arrack or even whether it was racially motivated. "We've investigated it as far as we can go at this time," YPD Chief]ames Perrotti announced that November. "Right now we've been unable to d etermine definitively who committed the assaults." At the end of the year, the case remained unsolved.

The mystery of the attack left the Yale community frustrated and confused. While minority groups were up in arms, many students and administrators were not convinced that race played a decisive role in the assault. "As I remember rhe incident," D ean of Student Affairs Betty Trachtenberg cold me, "there was a major alcoholic component to it." For many, it was hard co imagine char serious racial violence could happen ar a place like Yale, especially in 1999. Just two years earlier, the Minority Recruitment Program had launched a spare of open houses, phone-a-thons, and fly-ours to increase minority recruitment for the class of 2002. And in the spring of 1999, only a few monrhs before the alleged racial attack, Yale had made two ocher substantial moves: President Richard levin and Provost Alison Richard launched an initiative ro increase

I

faculty diversity, and the Pre-Registration Orientation Program (PROP), a week-long orientation program for students of color in the freshman class, was revamped and renamed "Cultural Connections."

In the wake of a potentially explosive situation, Yale managed to escape with remarkably few scrapes and bruises. A visit this year to Cultural Connections shows how, while the program could not stop the assault from occurring, it may have played a vital role in making sure it ended without incident, and without redress.

0

NE MORNING IN AuGUST, one hundred members of the Yale class of 2.006 and I caught a bus to a pow-wow. The group-here early for Cultural Connections-was headed for the M ash entucker Pequot Reservation in eastern Connecticut. We would be attending the annual Schemitzun celebration, a gathering of 500 Native American groups, to experience traditional dancing and singing firsr-hand.

T he ostensible goal of Cultural Connections is two-fold: to help incoming minorities meet studentS and administrators of color whom they might otherwise have difficulty finding and to introduce them ro Yale's academic and extra-curricular resources. What that means, in concrete terms, is a lor of social events, such as the trip we were taking, and a slew of panels, lectures, and discussions.

As the director of the program, Dean Saveena Dhall, pur it to me, "We're just trying ro do things that are going to bring people of different communities together, introducing them to various academic resources, introducing them to the cultural centers."

At the pow-wow I hopped off the bus and walked into a cluster of tents with a group of cc participantS. Dean Dhall had biUed the event as something of a cultural experience--"dancing and singing" -bur ro my surprise, I found at first only peddling: rows and rows of stalls seUing handicrafts, trinkets, and food. Among the items for sale were "Indian medicine bags;" fox, coyote, and wolf skins; pottery; wampum jewelry; moccasins; car decals; expensive herbal shampoos; and co's by the rapper Litefoot. One stall fea-

'â&#x20AC;˘

11

But if the political role of Cultural Connections benefits the students, it benefits the administration as well. tured an array of gimmicky t-shirts.

Emblazoned on them were messages like " NBA: Native by Ancestry," " FBI: Full Blooded Indian," "Native Honey," and, of course, "United We Stand: USA, Home of the Brave." Food vendors were selling delicacies: fry bread; buffalo, elk, and caribou burgers; "gator bites"; and corn cakes.

Cultural Connections was not always like this. This marked just the second year that the program went to Scheminun and just the fourth that it included a strong multicultural component. Originally, the program served as an intensive remedial workshop called the Puerto Rican Orientation Program (PROP). PROP existed mainly to ensure that the writing and math skills of Yale's incoming Puerto Rican students marched chose of their more privileged peers. Over the years, as Yale's student body diversified, PROP opened its doors to all minorities, and eventually changed its name to the "Pre-Registration Orientation Program." But by 1999, many felt that the program's remedial emphasis was outdated and inappropriate. "Students felt chat the acronym PROP had a rather negative connotation, that outside people felt that the kids who were coming to PROP needed to be 'propped up,"' Betty Trachtenberg told me. "It became in some people's eyes a pejorative concept." So Rick Chavolla, the director of PROP at the time, changed the name of the program to "Cultural Connections" and replaced remedial activities with events like the pow-wow, a poetry jam, and panels on cultural and racial issues at Yale.

In the past several years, however, Cultural Connections has taken heat from critics who claim that the program reinforces racial divisions at Yale by separating

12

minonues from their white peers before school starts. Dean Dhall was quick to cell me that such talk has no validity, at one point even handing me a clipping from the undergraduate race magazine ITPE authored by two c c participants Jonathan Farmer, an African American, and Ameer Kim El-Mallawany, a halfKorean, half-Egyptian-about how the two of them, against all odds, became best friends at the program. " Uon and I], we might've been acquaintances had it not been for that blessed program," it read.

"We rnight've been. I mean I'm talking fraction-of-a-percent-style here ... Me and Jon are friends because in a perfect world, we would've been. And for a week, we were in a world that was perfect enough."

It is precisely because of the new mulciculrural philosophy, supporters of Cultural Connections say, that the program does not advocate separatism. Dhall points to the fact that Cultural Connections has coordinated a number of events with other preorientation programs in the last few years. This year, cc participants attended an ice cream social with members of the Freshman Outdoor Orientation Trip (FOOT) program, a barbecue on Old Campus with the football team, the Orientation for International Students (01s) program, the Freshman Counselors, and FOOT, and a "Game Night" party with OIS. "You really gee a feel for how co interact with people unlike yourself at cc," former participant and aide Taiwo Stanback cold me. Despite the face that cc is partly about "stressing your identity," she said, "it's an opportunity co mix and mingle with people unlike yourself." Dean Dhall made a similar point: "You can't say that we're creating a single kind of student;

we're actually facilitating a lor of interactions within [the minority community]."

I existence, minorities at Yale were few and

N THE DECADES BEFORE PROP CAME INTO

far between. The number of non-whites per class never numbered more than a few dozen. When William Ashby, an African American student at the School of Religion in the early 20TH century, helped organize Yale's first black fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, there were only 16 black students at the whole university. By the 1960s, the numbers had only increased to about 15 per class.

But in 1964, the situation began to change. That year, all 14 black freshmen joined together to form what would, two years later, be called the Black Student Alliance at Yale (BSAY). Initially, the group focused on social issues at Yale. "We got together because we felt a need co assert our sense of positive self-identification," organizer Armstead Robinson told the Yale Alumni Magazine in 1969. "Mixers were really bad; we tried to create a normal social situation for ourselves." But in 1967, the group turned its gaze to an even more pressing issue: the Yale curriculum. BSAY undertook an intensive study of the curriculum and entered into intense negotiations with President Kingman Brewster, Provost Charles Taylor, and Dean George May about the possibility of creating an African American Studies program.

Surprisingly, the administration was open to the students' demands. As Caroline Jackson Smith, a Yale student in the early 1970s and director of the African American Cultural Center in the 198os, described the situation co me, "Yale did a very unique thing... [President Brewster] said, 'Come

THE NEW jOURNAL

in and let's negotiate. If you can prove to me that these demands are reasonable, then we should work on them in a reasonable way."'

Eight months after BSAY held a national symposium on African American Studies, the faculty of Yale College unanimously approved the creation of a major in African American Studies. It was the first black studies program at an elite university.

Soon BSAY procured a Cultural Center, a dean of black students, and a minority ~ruitment progtam. After the assassination of Martin Luther lGng, Jr. in 1968, African American admission numbers increased as well. "In our minds, it was very important that we not just have the experience that some of our parents had," Jackson Smith told me. "Their experiences wac, 'You're a single black person. You don't bring the black experience with you, you just try to fit in.' Our generation was like, 'We're coming in big numbers, and we don't just want to be here--we want to be here as ourselves.'" At that point, the floodpees opened for other minority groups.

Within the next ten years, cultural centers and deans for Latinos and Asian Americans appeared. PROP was just one part of that development.

What stood out most about the push for integration in the 1960s and 70s was the f.act that the process was almost entirely non-violent. Unlike Cornell, where armed students occupied the student union, Yale sat down and negotiated calmly. The result has been 30 years of relatively lteady and peaceful interaction between the administration and students on issues of race. But it has also meant that Yale's administration, through deans, cultural ~nters, and programs like Cultural

Connections, has had a high degree of influence over race organizations on campus.

..

L

ADIES

AND

GENTLE-

welcoming you to their territory, here they are, the Mashantucket Pequot tribal people and the Eastern Pequot tribal nation! Let's give them a big round of applause as they welcome you to their territory for the annual Schemiiiiinun celebration!" The emcee's voice issued from a large tent. I walked inside toward a group of cc participants and watched as a line of Native Americans in traditional dress screamed into the tent to resounding drum beats. "Here come the Iroquois smokedancers!" shouted the emcee. "Wave to the people, smokedancers! GIVE IT UUUUP! Iroquois style in the house!" Over the next hour or so, more than a thousand people representing tribal groups from across the United States, Canada, and Mexico-from the Onondaga to the Aztecsfilled up the tent. "The true heartbeat of our people! What a beautiful sight!"

If Cultural Connections exists to make the transition to college easier for minority students, it also serves a purpose similar to that of the Schemiczun pow-wow: to create MEN,

solidarity among disparate minority groups. In that way, Cultural Connections takes on a distinctly political role. As Alexis Hoage, an aide, put it, "With Cultural Connections, it's connecting the different minority groups, just because there are situations at Yale where stuff happens and there need to be coalitions for that.

Ir sounds cheesy, but you make those initial little personal connections with incoming ~hmen and they're gonkt stick around three years later when you're trying to tackle MLK day." Taiwo Stanback agreed that Cultural Connections can be an important tool for effecting change. "Basically, Yale is a microcosm of the United States," she told me. "And until the United States changes, the [racial] problems are still going to be there. Cultural Connections is a way of dealing with those problems."

The kinds of problems that Stanback and Hoage are referring to include incidents like the one in the Morse College dining hall last January. When junior David Ahn, a Korean American, suggested to the dining hall management team that they put on a Korean theme dinner, Manager Brian Frantz jokingly replied, "What would that be? Dog$â&#x20AC;˘and kimchi?"

13

In a much-publicized letter to the Korean American Students of Yale (KASY), Ahn described his reaction to the comment as "shocked" and "offended." He later ftled a report to make sure that the incident would go on Frantz's record. As trivial as the event seemed to some, it proved an important catalyst for the formation of perhaps the first broad coalition of minority groups at Yale. In the spring, an emerging organization called the Pan-Ethnic Coalition presented a resolution on cultural sensitivity, drafted by the Asian American Student Association (AASA) and ratified by all the major cultural groups on campus, to Dean Trachtenberg.

Among the resolution's requests were cultural sensitivity training workshops for incoming freshmen. "Tension and resentment dearly exist when it comes to cultural differences and problems that arise from it," part of the resolution reads. "Incidents such as the remark by the Morse dining hall manager serve only to create a threatening atmosphere. They devalue the distinctive contributions of the individuals affected and impair their ability to contribute to the community. By alienating those individuals, they harm the whole Yale community." Dean Trachtenberg says that she plans to work with . the Pat-Ethnic Coalition in the coming months. ÂĽ if the political role of Cultural Connections benefits minority students, it obviously benefits the administration as well.

The program represents a major opportunity for administratorsspecifically, the three cultural deans, who all make appearances at cc-to form close relationships with participants, aides, and even ethnic counselors who, down the road, will very likely play important roles in campus activism. Of the dozen or so aides I met when I visited Cultural Connections, almost all were involved to some degree in activist groups, such as BSAY and AASA, or the cultural houses. When incidents such as the "dogs and kimchi" affair occur, the task of keeping the situation under control is that much easier for administrators, who already know many student activists, sometimes very personally.

In the spring of 2001, this became all too clear. In the April Fools' Day issue of the Yak Daily N~s. Michael Horn, managing editor of the paper, wrote a piece entided "Confessions of a Jewish Asian Worshipper" that satirized a number of common stereotypes about Asian Americans. A few days after the story came out, AASA sent an email to members of the Asian American community about the incident. Dean Dhall herself tacked on a personal message urging student protest. "As members of the Yale Asian American community," she wrote, "I hope that you will feel the need to respond, either on a personal level or by participating in one of our community efforts . . . I thank you for your support and for helping us constructively respond to folks at the YDN of why writing that promotes stereotypes is unacceptable, hurtful, and offensive to members of

14

the Yale community." With this memo, Dean Dhall had a unique influence over bow students responded to a controversial racial issue, an influence she might nor have had without her ties to Cultural Connections. of the Asian American Student, the case is still open, according to YPO ChiefJames Perrorci. But it seems unlikely that anyone will ever know for sure whether the incident was ~ vicious hate crime or just a late-night, drunken brawl.

Did Cultural Connections's success somehow contribute to the mystery shrouding the case? On the one hand, the program represents thirty years of progress for minorities at an institution that was once a bastion of white, Anglo-Saxon Protestantism. Not only do African-Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, and Native Americans now constitute a vital part of the Yale community, they also possess an intricate support system consisting of cultural houses, cultural deans, ethnic counselors, and an orientation program.

On the other hand, all of that progress has come at something of a cost: Yale's administration- for which a hate crime, or a divisive community response to one, would represent a public relations nightmare--now boasts firm institutional cies with most undergraduate minority organizations on campus, in part controlling their responses to attacks like this. Cultural Connections, in particular, is an integral part of that process.

On the fourth day of Cultural Connections, the program's participants crowded into a lecture hall in the Slifka Cenrer for a panel on "Diversity, Cultural Centers, and Being a Person of Color at Yale." Panelists included Rosalinda Garcia, director of La Casa Cultural; Pamela George, director of the African American Cultural Center; and three minority undergraduates. The goal of the panel was, at least in part, to introduce the various people and resources that exist at Yale to provide for students of color. But as panel moderator and Assistant Dean of Yale College Edgar Letriz reminded the crowd, "You need to know that we are not just the directors of the cultural centers. We're not hired to be specialists on multiculturalism .... We're in fact academic deans and student affairs deans of Yale College." He never acknowledged, however, that the dual role could create conflicts of interest. As long as Cultural Connections continues fostering early bonds between students and administrators, the Yale Community risks mistaking administrative damage control for administrative guidance.

T

HRRE YEARS AFTER THE BEATING

jacob Blecher, a junior in Davmport Co/kg~. is associau ~ditor for TNJ .

THE NEW JouRNAl

Advertisemen c

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Yale University: Contributing to a Strong New Haven For more information, contact the Yale University Office of New Haven and State Affairs www.yale.edu/onhsa or reginald.solomon@yale.edu SI!.PTEMBER 2002

15

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.

.

HOW BAIL ABUSE

BY A NEW HAVEN COURT

THE NEW JouRNAL

By Kathryn Malizia N A CRJSP AFTERNOON in December, Dora Shaw sent her 15year-old son Derek to the store for groceries. Somewhere tween his house and the corner, two police officers stopped Derek, pinned his arms behind his back, cuffed his hands, and read him his rights. Derek, surprised and afraid, did not resist. The officers were holding a warrant with his name on it for armed robbery in the first degree. As he was escorted to a waiting patrol car, Derek asked if they could tell his mother why he would not be corning home. No, they replied, he could call her from the station. Derek climbed into the back seat of the patrol car and watched through the windshield as his neighborhood vanished from sight.

For the past eight months, Derek has been held in two different correctional facilities and appeared in three different courtS. He is currently incarcerated at the Manson Youth Institution in Cheshire, a level 4 high-security prison. He sees his family only at court appearances, where he sits across the courtroom with the other prisoners and wears a standard-issue orange jumpsuit, his ankles shackled and his hands cuffed behind his back. The state's evidence against Derek is an affidavit implicating him in the robbery of a pizza deliveryman. The form is signed by a neighborhood boy with a lengthy criminal record. Derek has not been identified in a lineup and has no past juvenile record. He has never before been charged with a crime. In the eyes of the law, he is still innocent. In fact, he could go home tomorrow-if his family could only post a $250,000 bond.

R

LMOST EVERYONE ACCUSED OF COMMITTING A CRIM£ in New Haven will stand inside Courtroom B, a lofty, dimly lit chamg oo the first floor of the Geographical Area (GA) courthouse on Elm Street. Courtroom B was once majestic, with ornate moldings

A

and other neo-classical flourishes. Now, decades of grime and tiny cracks mar its walls, and the gilt hands of the old-fashioned wall clock no longer keep time. But when the accused are led into the chamber, they are probably thinking only one thing: Will I go home today?

At arraignment, the first court appearance following arrest, the defendant hears the charges against him and enters a plea of "guilty,'' "not guilty,'' or "no contest." If he pleads innocent, the judge sets a date for further proceedings and may impose whatever conditions he deems appropriate to ensure the defendant's appearance in court and to "protect the safety of the community." These conditions can range from a simple "promise-to-appear" to the payment of bail money or property given co the court by the accused in exchange for temporary release. While sometimes as low as $500, bail often runs in the hundreds of thousands or, in some cases, millions of dollars. The court returns this amount if the defendant comes to court and retains it if he fails to show. Most defendants cannot afford to post their own bail. In such cases, the accused can pay a non-refundable fee to a bondsman, who will then assume responsibility for the entire bond. If the defendant cannot afford a bondsman, he stays in prison until his case finds its way through the judicial system-a process that can span weeks, months, or should the case go to trial, several years.

Connecticut state law and the Eighth Amendment of the u.s.

Constitution require that bail not be "excessive"-that is, it should not exceed the minimum amount necessary to ensure a defendant's appearance in court. There are, of course, exceptions. If the defendant has a history of violent behavior, for example, higher bail can be justified. But the purpose of bail is to preserve the presumption of innocence by ensuring that a person is not unduly punished

UNDERMINES DUE PROCESS SJ!.PTEMBER 2002

••

'7

before being convicted. A defendant retains his freedom but still has an incentive co return to court. Bail is a contract between the state and the defendant: In exchange for a reasonable amount of collateral, the state agrees to honor the defendant's presumed innocence, and the defendant agrees to comply with the order of the court. But when bail crosses the murky line between reasonable and excessive, this presumption of innocence comes under threat. Bail then begins to seem less like a contract and more like an abuse of authority.

C

ONTROVERSY ERUPTED LAST jANUARY

when a New Haven judge imposed a $50,000 cash bond-a sum that must be posted in full without the aid of a bondsman-on 19-year-old Brian Warner, a young man charged with shoplifting five times in less than a year, possibly co feed a drug habit. When Warner could not make bail, he returned to jail, where the following morning officers found hlm dead on the floor with a bed sheer twisted around his neck.

Warner's swcide rekindled a debate that had first begun ro years before. In

r8

1991, the Hartford Courant conducted an

in-depth investigation of Connecticut's bail system. The paper examined over 150,000 cases statewide for possible abuses and found that judges throughout the state regularly ignored the recommendations of bail commissioners, third party officers who suggest a bail amount based on an assessment of a defendant's ties to the commuruty, past criminal record, employment status, the nature of the charge, financial resources, and potential risk to the public.

The study also found that black and Hispanic defendants without a criminal record had to post on average twice that of white defendants to get out of jail. The srudy singled out New Haven as the leading culprit in setting ilisproponionately high bonds for minority defendants and perry drug-offenders. (The Connecticut Judicial Branch commissioned its own study of the issue in 1992. The enterprise was under funded and far less comprehensive than the Courant study, and its conclusions were ultimately both less specific and less damning.) A decade later, little has changed in Connecticut's bail system, and bail amounts in New Haven are still rising.

This year, more than to,ooo people will pass through the doors of New Haven's GA court. Fewer than 400 of them will ever see trial. The rest must be ilisposed of as quickly and efficiently as the resourcestrapped system will permit. For a judge, a disposition-the settlement of a case before trial-means one less case on an already overcrowded docker. With such a high volume of cases, many of which will end in convictions, the temptation co churn out fast justice can sometimes overshadow the rights implied by the presumption of innocence. In many cases, a compelling police report can suggest almost certain guilt.

Because a defendant who is locked up pleads guilty far more rearuly than one still on the street, high bail simultaneously moves backlogged cases and punishes those who appear guilty from the outset, making it an alluring solution and a dangerous shortcut. A two-time drug offender back in court on a new charge hardly strikes a sympathetic chord with a harried judge who has seen hundreds just like him. But to punish a defendant with high bail based solely on the likelihood of guilt amounts to a subversion of due process. If he has commined the alleged crime, those who serve the system must believe it will punish the guilty in due time. Unfortunately, time is exactly what the system does not have, and in the press to move cases, people can disappear behind docket numbers.

AST SUMMER, a young woman named Jaquetta Robinson made the trip from ~r Fair Haven housing project to the New Haven Probate Court in the city's downtown Hall of Records buililing. After a month of agonizing uncertainty, she had

I

THE NEW jOURNAL

IN THE P RESS TO MOVE CASES PEOPLE CAN DISAPPEAR BEHIND DOCKET NUMBERS.

come co temporarily surrender custody of her rwo children and turn herself in co police. On May 9, officers had raided Jaquerca's apartment wh ile she was our and found a stash of drugs she now claims belonged to her brothers and cousin. Three weeks later, an officer knocked on her door, again while she was out. Fearing the worse, she called a policeman she had known since childhood and learned that a warrant with a bond of s1oo,ooo had been issued for her arrest. "Ever since that day," she said, "I have n't been eating. I haven't been sleeping.

I've been sick all this week. My stomach hurts. I know there's no way I can come up with that money. I've been staying at a friend 's house. I'm afraid to come home and that the police'll see me."

Jaquetca continued co attend the weekly pro batio n meetings for her only previous offense, a nother possession charge. (She had been riding in a stolen car with her cousin when police pulled over the vehicle and found several bags of crack cocaine under the front seat. She served no jail rime and diligently attended probation meetings every week fo r the past year.) H er probation officer remained ignorant of the warrant until the week Jaquerca "go t scared" and missed a m eeting. When he called tO find o ut why, she explained rhc situation to him, saying that she wanted co "just turn myself in and get ic over with," bur was terrified of being unable to make bond should the judge decide to keep it at sroo,ooo. By the end of the phone call, Jaquerta had resolved to encrust her children ro relatives and cake her chances in court. "I don't wanna sig n over m y kids to nobody," she said, fighting back tears outside the Probate Court. "I don't wanna go

SI!PTRMBER 2 0 02

to jail. I don't wanna lose my apartment.

But I know I don't have chat kind of money."

The next morning Jaquctta was arraigned in New Haven court. After considering the charges-possession, possession with intent co sell, and violation of probation-the judge set bond at $175,000.

Jaquetta would have ro pay a bondsman 7 to 10 percent of chat, up to $17,500, co make bail. Following arraignment, Jaquctta returned co a prison cell, where she remained until her court dace on August 15.

In many ways, Jaquetta's story typifies the kind of mass-produced justice that goes on in New Havcn's GA court. She stands accused of possession and violation of probation, cwo of the most common criminal offenses. She has only one previous conviction and no history of violence. She continued ro attend probation after learning of the warrant for her arrest and then voluntarily turned herself in. She has strong family ties and has been a long-time member of the community. All of this suggests chat she would be neither a serious flight risk nor a danger to the public. So why is Jaquetta Robinson in jail?

In practice, when determining bail, judges have little time to consider the prescribed factors, especially in overcrowded GA courts. The average arraignment cakes about five minutes, sometimes less. In chat time, the judge gets only a snapshot of each case--the defense's position, the prosecution's posicion, the police report, and the bail commtsstoner's recommendation.

"Sitting in the GA is Like being a pan-time traffic cop, a part-rime psychologist and a part-rime social worker," says Judge Susan Handy, the Chief Administrative Judge of

Connecticut's Criminal Division. "We just have to do the best we can on each case."

Ultimately, the guidelines for judges co follow arc just that-guidelines. A judge has absolute discretion when determining bail. " Until challenged, a judge could justify almost any bond," says Judge Handy.

"Certain judges will assess certain cases differently. You can assemble a room full of judges and the range of bail for the same crime can vary from s5,000 co $250,000.

It's their individual decision." Handy admits chat she rarely takes financial resources into consideration when determining bail, choosing instead to focus on the nature of the crime. Whether the defendant is a woman from the projects or an uptown heiress does not sway her decision, though another judge might consider wealth a crucial factor in deciding bail.

Judges also emphasize chat in many cases bail isn't used to merely ensure the defendant's reappearance. And even defense attorneys agree that when a person has been charged with a particularly egregious crime, public safety should take precedence over personal freedom. Ifsomeone commies the same crime multiple times, judges consider this pattern, even when the crime is nonviolent. This is often the case with drug-related offenses, like Jaquetta's, in which the recidivism race tends co be high.

In letter at least, the system does offer recourse for defendants who believe their bail is too high. Following arraignment, the defense can file a motion to reduce bond and continue to petition the court until the bond is reduced or the case is dropped. "I chink certainly in my experience, [the defendant's] attorney will file a motion for

19

"POOR PEOPLE SIT IN JAIL BECAUSE THEY DON'T HAVE THE FUNDS TO MAKE BONDS. IT'S A COERCIVE SITUATION." bond modification if they believe their bond is unjust," says Judge Handy. ''After all, that's the only way we know if someone thinks a bond is unfair."

But an appeal, a defendant's only recourse against unfair bail, can take time--time the accused spends in jail away from family, work, and other responsibilities. "I don't care if the appellate court bends over backwards to expedite motions to review and get a quick hearing out," says Hugh Keefe, a New Haven defense attorney. "And I think ordinarily they do "give them quicker attention than other things, but it nonetheless rakes time. . . . I don't care if it's as lirde as a week or two weeks, those are seven or fourteen days where you have a defendant incarcerated who in many cases shouldn't be incarcerated."

Whether a defendant can make bail may also play a role in determining how long he spends in jail if convicted. "In some of these cases," says Keefe, "people will do more time because they can't make bail than they will do ultimately if and when they are convicted." A defendant out on bail has a much easier time assisting in his own defense. He is more accessible to his

20

attorney and can help in the process of gathering evidence and in finding witnesses to testifY on his behalf. Attorneys fr~m different racial and socio-economic backgrounds than their clients sometimes find it difficult to locate witnesses in unfamiliar neighborhoods that are distrustful of outsiders. In the case of Derek Shaw, it was months before the boy's attorney learned of a witness who could vouch for Derek's whereabouts at the time of the robbery, and still longer before he could locate the boy.

"It makes it much more difficult to handle a case from the defense perspective if a client's incarcerated," says Torn Ullman, head public defender for the New Haven- ¡ Meriden Judicial District. "Once a client's out, you can go to their home. You can go to the scene of the alleged incident. There are things you can do--you can find witnesses more easily. There are many reasons that are advantageous for the defense to have someone out on bond."

Public defenders, for their part, plead a lack of resources and an overWhelming caseload. Throughout the scare, the Office of the Public Defender handles the largest percentage of cases in the GA courts, some-

times as much as 63 percent in large urban centers like New Haven. Were public defenders to appeal every bond they thought unreasonable, the appellate court might be moved to question what some judges in New Haven consider reasonable bond. But then there are the clients to consider. As Ullman admits, "The practical solution from the defense is never to cave in on those kinds of eases. But sometimes you'll have angry clients who are sitting in jail who demand to get out and have the right to plead or not depending on what the offer is. So it's hard to say, 'Look, on principle, sit in there for another three months while I fight this for you.'"

In a current, highly publicized case, Judge Joan Alexander imposed a bond of $2.5 million on John Paolella, a local bondsman charged with forging millions of dollars in phony bail bonds. At a bond hearing on July 19, Hugh Keefe, Paolella's lawyer, challenged the bond before Superior Courr Judge Holly AberyWetstone, calling it "blatandy excessive" and an "abusive discretion" of the court's authoriry. "We have a man with no prior record," an outraged Keefe told the court.

THE NEW JouRNAL

Hamden Plaza 2100 Dixwell Ave, Hamden "He is 28-years-old, has no history of violence. He has lived in this community his entire life." He made reference to cases in his long career as a defense attorney in which violent offenders were released on much lower bail, including a capital murder case in New London where the defendant was out on house arrest. When Keefe pressed Abery-Wetstone to justifY maintaining the $2.5 million bond, she replied, "It makes sense when the defendant perpetrated a fraud on the Court, which is what happened this case." Keefe, stunned, informed the judge that she had just "reversed the presumption of innocence," essentially prejudging the case. There is no provision in Connecticut statute to justifY a higher bond for a fraud against the court as opposed to any other institution. Judge Abery-Wetstone eventually lowered the bond to $1 million, which Paolella's family managed to post with the aid of a bondsman.

But not everyone can afford the bondsman's fee, and those who cannot are far more likely to put forth a guilty plea when the alternative is jail. "Poor people sit in jail because they don't have the funds to make bonds," says Ullman. "It's a coercive situation .... It puts people in the position where if their choice is to take a disposition that results in their freedom versus being locked up in jail another month, it's obvious what the choice is going to be."

year. After his latest appearance in court, another hasty and inconclusive proceeding, Derek's attorney spoke with Dora Shaw in a corner of the GA courthouse's cavernous central hall. Earlier that week, he had cold her he expected Derek to receive a bond reduction that would enable his family to pay a bondsman for his release. "If we can get him out of there, we'll take it all the way to trial if we have to," he had said confidently at the time. But the reduction had failed to materialize, and he was considering other options. "I don't think we should fight this thing unless we can get him out," he explained to Derek's downcast mother.

"All he wants is out of there and you want him home. I can talk to the prosecutor and see if she'll give us a good deal. He may only get a couple years. He might even get out before the case would have gone to trial." Suddenly, Derek's chance to prove his innocence and the state's chance to establish his guilt no longer mattered. If Derek pleaded guilty, his family would not have to worry about bail, the state would not have to build a case, and Derek, guilty or not, would go home.

230-0039 • open 7 days

• natural fiber clothing • Crabtree & Evelyn • jewelry • toiletries • pottery • and sents for ren of all

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2002

Derek Shaw and Dora Shaw are pseu®nyms.

Kathryn Malizia, a junior in Branford College, is research director forTNJ.

ER.EK SHAW HAS SPENT OVER 240 DAYS

D

in jail since his arrest at the end of last

SEPTEMBER 2002

21

HIS IS THE STORY OP SOMETHING INVISIBLE. A new power line linking the Connecticut and Long Island electrical grids now lies under the floor of New Haven Harbor. Depending on whom you ask, its placement there last May was either a godsend co a nation in the throes of an energy crisis or the nail in the coffin for a bountiful local ecosystem and an age-old local industry. This is because also resting beneath the water are beds of dams and oysters where from out of the muck a number New Haven area fishermen dredge up a living day after day. On May 17, 2002, a specialized rig that had sailed from the Netherlands tore a trench ten feet wide and 20 feet deep through prime oyster habitat on the harbor floor 120 feet below the surface, making way for a 24 mile cable that weighs 3,700 tons. Though it may be invisible, the massive cable is hardly innocuous. Nor is it very effective: While the cross sound cable is ready to start sending energy from Connecticut to power 400,000 Long Island homes, not a single amp has passed beneadt the ocean floor.

Larry WUliams owns the rights to some of the shellflsh beds disrurbed by the cable. A fisherman since 1973, Williams is one of the few who carry out New Haven's &ding legacy as a booming port city. "I came from nothing," Wtlliams says about his life in the industry. ''I've made a study of it. I loved it. And I did well."

WUliams tells the story of the cross sound cable as he works on his boat, cleaning the mast and sandpapering the hull. Bamboo sticks line the floor of the shell, surrounded by water-worn rope and bait-fllled buckets. "What happened here in New Haven is unlike anything I've ever seen before," he says. "I know there's a whole story yet to be told." This is largely because the history of the cable is as murky as its new resting place: It is a story of back-room politics and the struggle for power over power.

T

T

the Bush administration released its National Energy Plan. T he document pointedly criticized Connecticut, and more specifically, New Haven.

Connecticut was labeled "parochial" for "rejecting efficient modes of energy transmission in the name of unsubstantiated local concerns." Comparing the Northeast energy crisis to last year's California power allocation debacle, the national report pitched "energy restrueturing" as a solution, explaining that in order "to provide ample electricity at reasonable prices, states must open their retail electricity markets to competition."

That was the exact case made last January when a private New England-based company proposed constrUcting a 33o-megawatt cable beneath the sound to the Connecticut Siring Council, a state HE DAY OP THE CABLE'S INSTALLATION,

THB NEW JouRNAL

agency that must approve all such large-scale and potentially damaging infrastructure projects. T he proposal was rejected 9-0, a denial that was noticed as far away as Washington, where, as the National Energy Policy later made clear, the policymakers of the new administration took the veto as a direct challenge to their authority.

Four months later, the Cross Sound Cable Company, a new incarnation of the same company, again proposed the cable project, now slightly modified. T his time, the cable would be constructed 100 feet farther inland and five feet deeper than the cable proposed in January. In an almost complete reversal of their previous stance, the Council approved the project by a vote of 8-1. What transpired between the first rejection in January and approval on April 9TH that changed the committee's stance remains unclear-in part because Vice President Dick Cheney, head of the administration's energy task force, refuses ro reveal what role his committee may have played.

S

HOREHAM, A SMALL TOWN 60 MILES EAST OF MANHATTAN, lies on Long Island's exclusive North Shore. Home to 3,000 residents, one school district, and three country dubs, Shoreham also has one non-operational power plant on its waterfront. When it was built in 1967, the facility was supposed to be Long Island's first and only nuclear power plant. But when it neared completion in 1975, 15,000 local protesters gathered outside the complex and brought the project to a halt. The plant, which cost $5¡5 billion to build, sits empty on a 419-acre site on the western bank of Wading River.

While New Haven tolerates four nuclear power plants in its immediate vicinity, there is not a single nuclear power plant on all of Long Island, despite rapid growth and scant resources to satisfy a growing demand for energy. On the site of the Shoreham nuclear plant, the cable comes ashore.

The C ross Sound Cable Company insists that the cable, despite its local impact, serves a greater good. Their website claims that "wherever good electric cies can link regions, the power companies can aid each other, and energy is produced at the lowest possible cost. Since consumers directly feel the cost and reliability of electricity, a project like the cross sound cable that strengthens the pool also helps the consumer." While the cable has been promoted for its potencial to facilitate a murual exchange of energy, in reality power can only go in one direction at a cime: from cash-Strapped New Haven to power-hungry Long Island. Cross Sound Cable Company spokeswoman Rita Bowlby explains this matter of faccly: "You either get it o r you lose it." Connecticut Attorney General

SP.PTEMBE R

2002

Richard Blumenthal, a staunch opponent of the cable, is less accepting: "The cable will do nothing for Connecticut. The power is going south. It's going to Long Island."

Underneath the technical jargon of the cable's purpose and professed benefits lies a strategic business deal. What the Cross Sound Cable Company's website does not mendon is that the cable is the first power line in the nation that is owned by a private company that is allowed to sell electricity to the highest bidder. In this case, the highest bidder is the Long Island Power Authority, to whom the Cross Sound Cable Company is selling electricity at the rate of up to SJOO,ooo each day.

4

00 OYSTER HARVESTERS WORK THE

NORTH shore of the sound, generating s6o million annually for the regional economy, putting them first in the nation in revenue and second in production. When the proposal for the cross sound cable first appeared in January, the Siting Council probably had those statistics in mind. But in a struggle that consisted primarily of one company's word against another's, the task of predicting the actual effects of the cable proved difficult. An environmental assessment by a third party had yet to take place, and even protesters could offer only a vague idea of the cable's concrete effects.

At the time of the first proposal, however, the Siting Council did know that there were certain economic effects that went beyond damage to the state's once booming fishing industry. New Haven Harbor is currently 35 feet deep. Other major harbors of the eastern seaboard are generally 15 to 20 feet deeper. Nearby New York's, for example, is 55 feet deep.

Remaining competitive as a harbor will inevitably require deepening, but the cable's construction makes an expansion of New Haven Harbor impossible.

The potential environmental implications and damage to New Haven's already declining position as a port city make the first unanimous rejection easy to understand. The Siting Council ruled that the cable's alleged benefits were not sufficient

to risk the pote-ncial repercussions. For a while, it looked like the cable had been defeated.

But by protecting its own interest, Connecticut found itself in the national spotlight. In the National Energy Plan released in May, the Siring Council's January decision is noted as a case in point of why federal authority should be able to override local concerns in the construction of new electric transmission lines. By rejecting the cable, the Siting Council followed a law requiring that the benefits of a proposed transmission facility go to the individual state in which it is located, rather than an entire region. With President Bush's assertion offederal authority comes the power of a national administration to determine whether a transmission line can go through a state that has no need for it-an interesting change of heart for a dyed-in-the-wool states-rights conservative. "We are now in an energy crisis," Bush said early in his presidency. "What the people need to hear loud and dear is that we're running out of energy in America." Yet Rita Bowlby, spokeswoman

for the Cross Sound Cable Company, vehemently denies that the cable is "the embodiment of a shifting national policy," as the N~ Havm Regisur labeled it last summer.

"This project has nothing to do with the national level," she says. "It is not a government project. It is a private project. It is just a business deal." The apostles of energy deregulation make the same case: It is a business deal, which allows competition in the marketplace to lower prices and generate innovation. The one certainty is that it is, if nothing else, a great deal for business: The Cross Sound Cable Company stands to make s8oo million.

0

UTRACED BY THE SMOKE-AND-MIRRORS,

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal referred ro the Siting Council's turnaround as "completely unjustified."

"None of the facts were different," he said, "and the benefits to Connecticut consumers in the reliability of electricity were even less ... this was more of a political calculation than a review of the merits."

Blumenthal credits the projeces realization to a power greater than his own.

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"Fundamentally, the national administration has given great encouragement to cable operators," he alleged. "Both directly and indirectly, the federal agency should not be one sid ed at the expense of Northeast consumers."

After the Siting Council's approval of the project in April, one step remained before construction could begin: securing permission from three fisheries based in New Haven Harbor co lay cable across their property. With a payment of $5 million as an incentive--just over one half of one percent of the total s8oo million that Cross Sound Cable Company stood to profit from the deal-Briarpatch Enterprises, Tallmadge Brothers, and Fair Haven Clam and Lobster agreed to a settlement, the terms of which have yet to be disclosed.

In defense of the cross sound cable, Bowlby refers to a regulated cable that already exists beneath the sound between Norwalk, Connecticut and Northport, Long Island. While serving as a functional transmission line for the past five years, that cable also elicited the second largest criminal environmental penalty in history, second only to the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

The Cross Sound Cable Company did not finish its project without its own share of violations. According to regulations set forth by the Department of Environmental Protection, the cable was to be laid 46 feet below the shoreline. After its construction, the Army Corps of Engineers discovered that the cable lies as shallow as three feet in seven areas. The cable is now idle as legislators debate whether or not to turn it on. In July, the Long Island Power Authority appealed to National E nergy Secretary Spencer Abraham to allow the operation of the cable despite the violations. To Blumenthal's dismay, Abraham granted the request, authorizing the cable to operate in the evenr of a severe energy crisis.

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whose future livelihood hangs in the balance. H is view on jurisdiction over the harbor is simple. "That's my channel," he tdls me. "That's my channel they're going

SlPTEMBER 2002

through. And we've fought it from the beginning." A marine pilot responsible for steering ships safely inro their moorings in New Haven Harbor, he claims to know the unseen intricacies of the channel. The cable's current position, he says, hinders him from safely and effectively leading ships to port. "Anchoring is our last line of defense when we bring a ship in," he said.

"If one of us drops an anchor, it will snag that cable." While the Cross Sound Cable Company offered the pilots compensation for any expenses they might incur, they do not assume liability should the cable get snagged, even where it is illegally buried three feet down. Unlike the company, however, Warner cannot afford co wait. "Their offer is all well and good, but I will have to anchor. And if nothing changes, I should probably declare bankruptcy, turn up my tent, and go away."

When Warner claims ownership of the channel, he does so not for himself, but for the public. "That channel was dug with public funds," he states with calm insistence. "Our tax dollars pay for that. Is some corporation really allowed to come in and put a cable on the bonom of a channel that will destroy the reason why that channel was there in the first place?" He's not the only one asking that question. Larry Williams is similarly troubled: "I know what happened was wrong." He continues, "I love my job. I love the water. And I thank the state for getting me where I am."

But Williams assumes the responsibility of standing up for himself during a time when the interests of those in authority are suspect. "If one of those fishermen had said no to their offer, just one, it would have been an entirely different story." His mouth twisting into a smile, he continues. ''I'm waiting for someone to come offer me millions of dollars to go through my land so I can say no. Then we'll see what happens. •

Bmita Singh, a junU>r in Branford Co/kg~. is on th~ staffo/TNJ.

TheNewJournal PO Box 3432 New Haven, Cf 06520

Ho-w To SuccEED Wi:tho-u:t'R~ Try~ 13ych¥~opheYtlULney IS RUSH HOUR IN GRANo CENTRAL STATION, and I wade I Tthrough the early evening crowds of people in various states of

guys. They wear tight and fashionable skirts or classy slacks with black tops. Their hair is shoulder length, held back well or allowed to frame the face. dress and undress, careful not co brush my khakis and blue collared shirt up against anything dirty. Outside, taxis and speed-walking I am about to step down from the raised carpet platform when commuters dog 42ND Street. Then I turn right onto Park Avenue. · a Club employee-stops me. He holds out his hand expectantly and Quieter here, more dignified. It stands up ahead, on the right side I fumble with my IDs, finally giving him my Yale 10, proving that of the street, a scone's throw from the Wescerri entrance to Grand I'm both of age and of the University. I turn to the man sitting at a Cemral. On the off chance I miss the card cable to my left. He has a cash box in front of huge blue flag emblazoned with a him and a little placard chat displays the drink white "Y'' that flaps in the hoc city updrafts, ~~~=-·~~:i-~ie::a, prices and the evening's special: Corona for slightly less a small brass plaque beside the tight revolving standard New York prices. I buy a Corona drink tickdoors announces my destination: The Yale and a ricket for a "Yale Ale," swivel right and prepare to of New York. I button my sleeves into the crowd. . through. slow going, as most people are in full cocktail mode, talkInside, I walk briskly past the pillars, couches, loudly and exchanging numbers for their silver flip-top rugs that adorn the well-groomed lobby and cell phones. Most of them are calking about their internelevator button. To my right, a taller guy, somewhat ships. I pick up "J.P. Morg~n" and "portfolio" from a suited guy on iar, glances in my direction before turning back to the my left. He's calking to a tall girl and a nodding fellow with his 10 vacor. He is better dressed chan I am. The elevator card still clipped co his belt. A friend from long before Yale scops and the doors open. They're about to slide close when me. Our conversations have sadly become robotic, but we still greet pops ... I don't know her name. Can't let on. other enthusiastically. "So what are you up to this summer, "Hey Chris! How are you doing?" man?" I ask, knowing perfectly well he told me a month ago.

Unfortunately, I didn't care enough to remember. This con"Hey ... you! Good, thanks. So what you been up to this summer?" She puts on an earnest face and preversation should be easy, since he's a talker. He cells me all about a pares to answer but is interrupted by the doors swooshing back like play he's acting in, how the New York acting scene seems, and oh, did I see the little blurb in The Village voice? No, I did not. He goes brass curtains to reveal the Tap Room in all its cacophonous glory. on with observations about living the bohemian life in Brooklyn, The lighting in the Tap Room is low and intimate like a good Irish pub, leaving dark corners and quieter tables for conversation. sharing a house with a group of lesbians, one of whom has a son she The ceiling is a low, thick lattice of dark wood columns. Still, the takes care of {very poorly, in his opinion). He asks how I'm doing, and I tell him, feeding him the typical line about how rewarding .rp.y room might seem spacious if its 4,000 square feet weren't filled with Yalies standing shoulder to shoulder. As it is now, the place reminds internship at The Village voice is, how ir's a great workplace, how I'm really glad I'm getting my New York experience. I sound like I'm me of the old Naples on a Thursday nighr, packed with elbows and lying, but I'm not. H e lisrens better and is more sincere than anyjuggled pirchers of beer. But here, the patrons are infinitely better dressed. Ac Yale, we were just students. Now we have internships one else present, so I feel bad when I have to break off the conversation to talk with people whom I care less about. with the best fashion designers, most lucrative investment banking firms, and the trendiest magazines. On these summer Thursday I pick up conversation with a gaggle of stylish girls who I've met at some point in the past year. Half of them are from New nights, we pose as high paid bankers at Goldman Sachs living on York, saving on rene money by staying in their parents' apartments. the Upper East Side. We get a gritty street cred from tight t-shircs They have scored great internships or assistantships with up-andand faded jeans. We are hip and trendy fashionistas at vogue magazine. We happily parley our internship experience into namedropcoming designers or producers. A few are involved in governmental internships, but these girls play that achievement down, as it is ping, networking, and conversational currency.

The Tap Room atmosphere demands a standard pose: The less interesting than the gossip they heard about so-and-so yesterday. guys, athletic looking, in blue button-down shirts, khakis with razor-sharp creases, and diamond-hard hair gel, stand casually with One of them asks the evening's question: "So what are you up co this summer?" I tell her. "Really?" She's impressed "Oh, how did their shoulders back and hands in cheir pockets. They nod at each you gee that?" The conversation meanders on, and I ask what she's other to say hi, saving smiles for the girls. The girls hold their left been doing, smile and nod in the right places, and I'm out of the elbows in their right hands, cradling liquors and tonics and wine conversation. coolers, and jut out their hips. They are even better dressed than the

THE NEW JouRNAl-

The Tap Room is even more packed now, and I can't help but bump into people from whom I had wanted to take the summer off. They're good people, but all we'll talk about is how great their internships are and how wonderful my internship is, and then maybe make plans to go out next week, which we never will. But it's good practice for the networking skills we never knew we had. In the years since our entrance to Yale, our eyes and ears have become microscopes and satellites, picking up the slightest hint of acquaintances who might know someone who knows someone who knows someone.

And before we can feel guilty about using our contacts as an advantage over the kids without the snazzy Yale ring or well-developed network, we have a job, and it is water under the bridge.

I spot a savior, a friend I actually talk to, just across the crowd, looking a little out of place. I'm feeling a little socially desperate, having just been snubbed by a recent Yale graduate that seems set on never leaving the college scene. He waxes and wanes between buddy-buddy and cooler-than-thou. Today it's the latter. I push my way past his chattering group and grab my friend's arm. He turns around, smiles, and then tells me worriedly that someone was just looking for me.

My friend and I lean our heads together and begin to complain about the atmosphere. I realize that with the exception of him and my old friend, I've only been talking to girls tonight. The place seems more loaded with testosterone than ever. The crowd of banking interns, all of whom are paid infinitely more than we are, are giving each other high fives--in a most dignified manner, of course.

My friend and I begin to seriously talk about our internships, without the surface gloss and scripted lines, and we are quickly laughing. We talk longer about actual things.

We make actual plans to go barhopping afrerwards and go our separate ways. I weave through the crowd looking for that girl I beard was working for a famous columnist.

She'll be good to talk to.

s t a

c y

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For more information email tnj@yale.edu or call Dan at 776-2073

THE CRITICAL ANGLE

â&#x20AC;˘

Critics tn the Cradle

By Jessica Cohen

Stories and Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children of All Ages by Harold Bloom (Scribner, 2001) pp. 573.

Toilet Trained for Yale: Adventures in 21st Century Parenting by Ralph Schoenstein (Perseus, 2002) pp. 161 . by an Aoversized mortar-board, graces the cover of Ralph Schoenstein's SMILING BABY, TONGUE STICKING OUT AND EYES BLINDED

Toilet Trained For Yale: Adventures in 2ISt Century Parenting.

Though the resemblance is unintentional, the baby represents both Schoenstein and Harold Bloom, editor of Stories and Poems for.Extremely Intelligent Children ofAIL Ages.

Giddily facing the world, he remains completely unaware of his surroundings.

Toilet Trained for Yalefollowing Schoenstein's The !-Hate-Preppies Handbook and With T-Shirts and Beer Mugs for Aft-is part tongue-in-cheek examination of "push-parenting," the origin of such ridiculous endeavors as in utero IQ stimulation, and part uucnDn

senti~ental "r~member

-H --..;;_--

a rold

when mem01r. The ~' book runs chronologically from fetus-hood to Little League with chapters interspersed recounting various parts of the author's own childhood and parenting experience.

The best parts of the book are Schoenstein's well-researched and astutely analyzed tales of the opportunities available to upperclass parents in the United States. There is a "bull market in bullshit for babies," and Schoenstein addresses a whole battery of gimmicks for what he calls "career moms," "fast-track dads," and "resume-raising parents." At The Institute For The Achievement Of Human Potential in Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania, for example, kids begin reading programs at the tender age of three months. Using sound bytes from conversations with child psychologists and pediatricians, Schoenstein provokes a few funny, though predictable, exchanges with the employees of the Institute. Quoting some studies conducted by one child development specialist at Tufts University, Schoenstein suggests to an Institute employee that children learn to read better at a later age and that "the pressure for early reading reflects the parents' need, nor the child's." The conversation

abruptly ends when the Institute employee disregards Schoenstein's point: "Well, he [the specialist] better study some new children.

And you'd better visit us and forget about Tufts."

Schoenstein also spends time at a Bright Start Learning Center, where parents are reminded in a brochure that "when children put blocks in trucks and dump them out, they are learning to understand size, weight, and number concepts . . . When children put on dress-up clothes, they are learning small muscle skills." Highend day-care centers like this one can cost parents as much as $17,000 per year.

(Apparently, the extra money goes toward the sophisticated hermeneutics of playtime.) After watching two teachers try to give mashed-potato-chucking one-yearolds a zoology quiz, Schoenstein suggests that Bright Start has misinterpreted the scholastic behavior of toddlers. "When children throw mashed potatoes," Schoenstein glibly interrupts, "they are learning to request boiled or fried." Amidst such barely tolerable scabs at humor writing, Schoenstein does make the valid point that sometimes children simply play and that to assign importance and to measure potencial in every childish activity reflects a troubling collective neurosis. This daycare center had turned blocks into quizzes and snack time into lesson time, even reprimanding one child for climbing the jungle gym off schedule. It seems to Schoenstein that, unfortunately, "While trying to produce Mensa mites, push-parents can't schedule that sweet time-waster called play, for which there are no Cliffs Notes."

Among the gimmicks aimed at over-educated, over-ambitious, over-zealous parents is Bloom's book, an anthology of stories and poems supposedly for consumption by minors. Its title is characteristically Bloomsian. He makes no apologies and does not skirt the issue. This book is intended for parents who fancy their children to THE NEW JouRNAL

be "Extremely lntelligenc."-dever marketing to the intellectual masses. After all, what Bloom fan wouldn't consider his own children to be of the highest caliber? The book is billed as Bloom's Cliffs Notes for modern childhood but looks more like the Cliffs Notes for his own. He claims to have discovered, read, and reread every work in the anthology during his own youth and recommends that today's children "persevere" and do the same. Bloom laments the loss of a slow-paced, literature intensive childhood in the introduction to his book: I am old-fashioned and romantic enough to believe that many children, given the right circumstances, are natural readers until this instinct is destroyed by the media. The tyranny of the screen threatens any order in which literary value or human wisdom can be preferred to the steady flow of information. It may be an illusion to believe that the magical connection of solitary children to the best books can endure, but such a relationship does go so long a way back that it will not easily expire.

The selections in the book suggest a nostalgic Bloom dreaming of the young, patient, Edwardian reader of yesteryear. The very tide of the book, however, capitalizes on every Schoenstein parent's need for instant gratification.

The 500-page collection of pre-wwr poems and tales, by the likes of Kipling, Shakespeare, Dickens, Blake, Emerson, and Whitman, is a rich compilation of literature and a far cry from the interactive "Jump-Start Reading" co-ROMS discussed in Schoenstein's book. The anthology arranges the selections thematically by season. Opening with Keats's "The Human Seasons," the first section of the book, Spring, is fuJI of love, longing, and loneliness. Summer is rich with humor, color, and energy, inclu~g classics like Carroll's "Humpty Dumpty" and Kipling's "RikkiT'akki-Tavi," as well as more obscure, though equally pleasurable, stories like

SÂŁi>'rÂŁMBER

2002

"Uncle David's Nonsensical Story About Giants and Fairies" by Catherine Sinclair.

Not much of it is accessible to children, though. T he book is like an undergraduate English degree on the wall of a doctor's office: impressive but of no practical value.

Bloom anticipates this criticism by distancing himself from modern notions of "Children's Literature." According to Bloom, the very idea of C hildren's Literature "had some use and distinction a century ago, but now all too often is a mask for the dumbing-down that is destroying our literary culture. Most of what is now commercially offered as children's literature would be inadequate fare for any reader of any age at any time." H e urges the "authentic reader" of this book to take on the collection as an opportunity to discover his own potential as well as the potential of initially obscure or difficult pieces to open up and enterrain.

The MTV generation, the information age, the video game society: These tropes have been used ad nauseum, but like most cliches, there is some truth to them. Left to their own volition, most children today will turn on the TV or the computer; left to their parents', they are more likely to fall victim to one of the mothers parodied in Schoenstein's book- shuttled from Chinese tutoring to bassoon lessons to gymnastics practice. Schoenstein selfindulgently devotes a whole chapter to an all-American neighborhood stickball game starring himself as the new kid in town.

The chapter is a hardly bearable play-byplay of a heroic outfield catch, but at the root of his reminiscence lies a sad truth: Children today no longer seem to play.

Schoenstein writes, "A kid today, who has a curriculum instead of a childhood, who has never known the heady feeling of actually making his own plans, still often says, 'I'm bored."' .

For the few children who actually read the bulk of Bloom's anthology, a wealth of great literarure lies within. It may be true, as Bloom claims, that for children to find their way to Shakespeare, Chekhov, and Austen, they must start with Kipling, Stevenson, and Carroll, but Bloom's Ivy

Tower reality does not recognize that that is no longer where kids want to end up. If the ultimate objectives of Bloom and Schoenstein are to resuscitate a lost age of childhood whimsy, whether it be stickball or Arthur Conan Doyle, both offer a vision that is tragically narrow and sentim entally personalized.

While both authors take the opportunity to romanticize childhood of yesteryear, neither has any sense of contemporary American childhood. The books are aimed at neurotic parents full of high hopes for their kids. Even the average yuppie, however, will be alienated by the selections in Bloom's book and the Hunter, Dalton, Greenwich inside jokes that are dropped throughout Schoenstein's. As Schoenstein ridicules the ambitious, Ivy-~nclined parents of today, it becomes painfully obvious that he runs in the same circle. Though the book often aspires to real social criticism, Schoenstein is more interested in gabbing about his daughter's Little League team, his own days at Stuyvesant High School in New York, and his grandson's knack for geography. H e passes up chances for serious commentary, making trite and esoteric jokes instead. His ideal reader is one of the very parents he is criticizing: someone who will be in on the jokes and uncomfortable with any real criticism. Bloom's book, meanwhile, claims to encourage exploratory reading habits of days long forgotten.

This stated purpose, however, is belied by the book's selling point: Srori~s and Tales for Extremely Intelligent Children is a quick-fix book for children and parents who don't have rime to explore. Both books, ultimately, are little more than household decor. Schoenstein's should sit stacked with his o ther books on top of a toilet as occasionally amusing bathroom reading while Bloom's should grace the color-coordinated Ethan Allen bookshelf above some Westchester baby's crib.

jessica Cohen, a senior in Timothy Dwight Colkge, is managing ediror for TNJ.

29

The Th n g s They Left Beh n d

by Matthew Underwood HE THINGS THEY LEFT BEHIND WERE

T largely disgusting,

a year's worth of accumulated refuse: dust bunnies the size of dinosaur eggs, emptied tins of potted meat, q-cips clean and soiled , and, in one room, enough body hair co have been shed by a Yeti. Some of the trash made for a laugh-a Bud Light sombrero, a faux-cigarette hash pipe-but most left me cursing Homo sapiens yalmsis, obviously the filthiest subspecies of humankind.

Yet scraps found here and there in the junk heap told perso nal stories. As. you move in, remember that when you 'move out, you don't do so anonymously. Some fellow students stick around at year's end working Custodial. We know who you are when we see what you leave, and we have co start drinking at lunch just to cope.

Like most of us, much of our trash is either dorky or dirty. There were dart guns, toy dinosaurs (I took those), rubber snakes. In one desk drawer, a pen with pink ink, a Backstreet Boys album, bubblegum, and nothing more. Under one couch, a cache of dildos. T here was anime porn (a friend took it before I could); halfempty cans of stale beer; and in a category halfway between childish and adult, an illicit handle of Smirnoff, rolled up in a rug.

T hen there are the things that only we can afford to throw away.

These include stereos and televisions, refrigerators, canvas camp chairs, torchiere lamps, futon frames, a discman, leather jackets,

printers, dress shoes on their shoe trees, and a hip Japanese rain jacket that folds up to become its own bag. Most of it is hoarded by student clean-up.crews, mad with finders-keepers frenzy. What can't be reused or resold on the September black market is tossed into ubiquitous blue dumpsters, where it is inevitably picked over again.

One day I swept up thirteen dollars in coins before ten AM, only to have a coworker boast that he'd once found s185 in change in a single jar. Old course books were as good as cash at the bookstore's buyback counter.

At times, the litter or lack of it composed biographical vignettes that made for stark comparisons. On the windowsill of one room littered with designer clothes and pricey personal electronics sat a plastic cup from Lehman Brothers brimming with golf tees, perhaps an extra signing bonus for some new banker. The next room over was swept absolutely bare, nothing left behind.

But no narrative was as encapsulating as the one contained in a forgotten cardboard box I cleared from an ov~rcrowded

storage room, its owner long since graduated. Among the tighry-whities, plastic bookends, pillowcases, and Dave Matthews cos was the turbulent story of a Yalie in love. There were prom pictures in a white cardboard frame, then farther down, snapshoes of a different girl, smiling and prettier chan the first. Among the old toothpaste and crusted deodorant sticks, a packet of birch control pills. Next co a book by John Gaddis, a copy of 1001 Sex Secrets Every Man Should Know Written by WOmen Who Already Know. Inside, proceeding methodically up to Secret #218, a rigorous system of checks and xs rated each of the suggested techniques. It remains unclear whether she wrote the annotations before she gave him the book or he compiled them as a collection of pose-coital notes-to-self.

Regardless, someone enjoys chan1pagne in bed, slow dancing in the nude, a show of vulnerability from her man, gentle use of the tongue, hair stroking, sensitivity, and sex where both parrners are "careful."

Deemed unacceptable are blindfolds, kinky motels, private polaroids, oral sex, peanut butter, lemon meringue anywhere outside of a pie, candle wax, sex coys, homemade pornos, bare-bottom spanking, and feathers. And last, at me bottom of the box, emblem of me worst sort of loneliness: shoved inside a sock and wrapped up in a button-down shire, a home testing kit for HIV-a relic of the lowest point, mat day spent trying to smile while thinking alone over and over: Oh please God no, nor me, not now, not this.

an

Matthew Underwood, a senior in Davenport Co!Jege, is managing editor for TNJ. 30

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