Volume 37 - Issue 2

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Michael Addison

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Editor-in-Chief

"BEST SALON"

Managing Editor

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Sarah Laskow

1st Place NH Advocate

Designer

Flora Lichtman

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MiaoWang

Business Manager BrianWayda

Photography Editor Eve Fairbanks

Production Manager Adriane Quinlan

Research Director

Ask For Student Discounts

Romy Drucker

Circulation and Subscriptions Manager Lane Rick, David Zax

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Holding Down the Fort

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Connecticut soldiers and their families learn to survive on two fronts.

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by Coco Krumme

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Manifesting Destiny

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From missionaries to a global mission, why is Yale in China?

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Into the ·City

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How Yale graduates fuel New Haven,s political machine.

by Concha Mendoza

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Shots in the Dark: by Isaac Klausner

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Essay: The Lost Dogs by Megan O'Connor The Critical Angle: Tongue-Thaied by Flora Lichtman

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Endnote: A Yale Model by Adriane Quinlan

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The cw Journal is published five times during the academic year by The New Journal ar Yale, Inc., P.O. Box 3432 Yale Station, New Haven, Cf 06520. Office address: 29-45 Broadway. Phone: (203) 4321957. Email: tnj@yale.edu. All contenrs copyright 2003 by The New Journal at Yale, Inc. All Righrs Reserved. Reproduction either in whole or in part without wrinen permission of the publisher and editor in chief is prohibited. While this magazine is published by Yale College studenrs, Yale University is not responsible for irs contents. Seven thousand five hundred copies of each issue are distributed free to members of the Yale and New Haven community. Subscriptions are available to those ourside the area. Rates: One year, $18. Two years, $32. The New Journal is primed by Turley Publications, Palmer, rna; bookkeeping and billing services are provided by Colman Bookkeeping of New Haven. The New Journal encourages lcners to the editor and commenrs on Yale and New Haven issues. Write to Editorials, 3432 Yale Station, New Haven, cr 06520. All letters for publication must include address and signature. We reserve the right to edit all letters for publication.

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The Bookkeeper "I

HOPE THIS BITE'S NOT A SPIDER BITE, "

Patsy Recchia, the sole employee of · the Bryn Mawr Book Shop, worries aloud as she examines her inflamed thumb, adding, "90 percent of spiders in this state are . ,, pOisonous.

A yellow hand-lettered sandwich board advertising "Used arid Out-of-Print Books" marks the entrance of an alley between Kanavesky's Art Gallery and a vacant piano salesroom on Whitney Avenue. The intrigued passerby who ventures down this alley finds the bookshop's small but inviting storefront. An owl figurine perched on the window and a subdued dog, Zoe, complement the photograph-plastered door.

Within, a copious and quirky collection of timeworn tomes clutters the dusty shelves, and the antique atmosphere is well-matched by its conscientious bookseller.

Inside the store, a small wooden placard announces key dates in the store's history: " 19 52-First Bryn · Mawr Book Sale/Nov. 11, 1970 First New Haven Book Shop open/Jan. 19, 1972 Bryn Mawr Book Shop open at 56 Whitney Avenue" this address is rumored to have been previously occupied by a glue factory. T hough the factory is long-gone, there is still an abundance of old glue: that which binds the store's books. Among these lies The Bankrupt Bookseller, an obscure volume from 1947, by the charmingly pseudonymed Will Y. Darling, whose tale begins, "I am a bookseller. I am not a bookseller born and bred.

I am one who has come late to the craft but, if late, not less lovingly. Books are a transcript of life, they say, but to me they are more than the transcrip t. They are life itself '' This quote could have come from the mouth of Patsy Recchia, who has worked at the shop full-time for nine years.

Patsy, like the innumerable owl figurines that roost on every ledge in the shop's entrance, appears wizened and certainly '

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bookish. She has the alert and genial air of one deeply interested in stories, both of books and of people. Like the bankrupt bookseller, Patsy came late to the craft, after previously spending 18 years a8 a professional photographer. Wedding photos, from different periods, and Hollywood glamour shots, comprise many of the old . pho..: tographs on the walls and shelves. 1950s paperback covers and postcards from song-

. Patsy has befriended. One former customer, who graduated from Yale and moved from New Haven several years ago, recently returned to the shop to let Patsy know that he .was engaged. Another customer, an airline pilot and Gary Cooper look-alike, tells tales of dangerous distraction by female airplane passengers. A Long Wharf Theater actor gave Patsy free tickets to a Eugen~ O'Neill play. Still others are "eccentric and harmless," Patsy says. Developing relationships with "these people who are so incredibly interesting to me," she confides, is "the best part of the job." Yet Phillips covertly shares that Patsy "sometimes blasts CDs of German poetry. I think she relishes the complaints over that most of all."

Unlike the eponymous bookseller, Patsy is far from bankrupt: after financial difficulties in 2003, the Bryn Mawr Book Shop is recovered this year. Patsy mourns the passing of the shop's main competitors, the scholarly Foundry bookstore and the used bookstore, Arathusa, which David Zax both went out of business a couple of years ago. In addition to the loss of books celebrating mothers "She's a real competition, Patsy attributes the store's sucgood mother," proclaims one; "Don't leave cess to the high quality of literature as well your mother when her hair turns grey," cauas to her careful management. "Books don't tions another add to the store's ambiance. sell in boxes," she explains, so she meticuTwo comfortable yellow chairs (severely lously organizes them. Furthermore, Patsy worn by the dog, Zoe) occupy the corners asserts, "I have total recall of books," confiof the shop's main floor. More photographs dent she can point a customer to the precise and pictures decorate the walls of the stairs location of any volume. The books' quality just to the left" of the entrance, including a and variety depend on their previous owncollage of Edward Gorey illustrations. Alice ers, an eclectic group including Professor Phillips, a student who volunteers at the Charles Hill, George Plimpton's sister and . Book Shop once a week, explains a connecGeorge W. Bush's uncle. .... tion of these drawings to the shop: "To my The thousands of donated books are mind the Bryn Mawr Book Shop has a bit separated into categories: including literaof the same feeling about it: crumbling and ture, poetry, biography, art history, Yale literature, Everyman's Library, education and yet ethereal, fmely drawn if limited and unpredictable in subject matter, evocative rare books. But hidden within lie unexfor no particular pected finds, such as a signed book of reason. " poems by Eugene McCarthy, a. pamphlet of As fascinated as she is by these tranAlaskan folk -poetry, or what Phillips describes as · "the unfinished account of an scripts of life, Patsy is equally involved in her customers' narratives. Many of her regallegorical journey to an unmappable island, ulars are Yale graduate students, whom filed of all things under 'Mountain '

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Climbing,' on the sports shel£" The collection is extensive and fascinating, and deals can be struck, particularly by the poor and sympathetic college student.

New Haven's Bryn Mawr Book Shop shares its name with several stores that populate college towns and put the profits from the sales of donated books toward scholarships offered by Bryn Mawr College. These need-based scholarships fund college tuition as well as travel-fellowships and other educational endeavors. Until nine years ago, the New Haven store was run by several elderly volunteers. SiQ.ce then, under minimal management of owner Louise Carter, Patsy has worked full-time. Like the mascot of all Bryn Mawr Book Shops, the owl, the store keeps · unusual hours: Tuesday through Saturday, 11-4.

If "books are life itself," as Will Y. Darling posits, then the Bryn Mawr Book Shop, for all its dust and history, is not a tomb for tomes, but a greenhouse of lively stories, imaginative images, spirited people and the occasional spider.

--Emily Kopley •

Supermercado and hours of course work, it's hard for college students to find time to save the world. Mercado Glooal, a new Yale student-run organization, has devised a synergistic solution for the "I-would-be-but-I-have-no-time" activist: Mercado sells handcrafts for low prices and donates most of the profits to Guatemalan non-governmental organizations. McDonald's revolutionized hamburger sales by making them cheap and fast; Mercado Global, ironically, works on a similar model, minimizing costs and maximiz• tng returns.

Despite their charitable mission, ..

Mercado Global is a finely tuned business, whose purpose is to channel money from • America to Guatemala. In fact, the Yale Entrepreneurial Society (YES) honored Mercado with a fifty-thousand dollar prize for best Social Entrepreneurship business plan in last year's "Y50K" competition. The October 2004 WITH DIZZY'ING SCHEDULES

crux of Mercado's plan is its minimal overis invested in actually selling the products. head, which creates an abundance of cash to How? Because no self-respecting college stube sent to Guatemala. The best part of dent could say no to a new purse that also Mercado's work, according to former memcures social ills.

In fact, even this reporter could not ber Mattias Sparrow, "is that 80 percent of resist the allure of Mercado's product line. our profits go back to Guatemala."

The item was a frog keychain made entirely Beginning with the Y50K prize, the organiof shiny plastic beads. It measured about an zation has been on what Sparrow calls, "a inch and a half, and its purchase ran somewinning trajectory." They went on to win thing like this: an Echoing Green fellowship to promote "Hey that's cute. How much is social change in 2004, valued at $90,000. · this one?"

With these awards Mercado has created an "Six dollars," said the Mercado inventory fund and is now beginning a volunteer. national sales campaign. Volunteers are "Remind me, what percentage of that is being recruited at Brown, Columbia, NYU, going back to Guatemala?"

Harvard and potentially Princeton.

"Eighty."

Negotiations are underway with for-profit "Let me go get my wallet." · corporations, such as World of Good, a The power of Mercado's well-concompany that might be able to use Mercado's image to improve its own. structed business plan is clear from . this exchange. In fact, The model is a simple one. Ruth this reporter was Degolia, another so pleased with Mercado founder his "donation'' to and one of its conGuatemalan tacts in Guatemala, NGOs he did not arranges for a widelament the subsequent breaking of selection of prodthe frog minutes ucts to be bought from women's coafter its purchase.

Mercado ops and an AIDS offers the opporhospital. Laborers .

Ana Johnson tunity for student are paid for their Who could regret buying this? volunteers to be a goods according to part of a successful ~usiness model; for stua "fair trade" price. This price is set by the dent purchasers to save the world, and for Fair Trade Federation. A Guatemalan ship.;. everyone involved to still have time for that per agreed to assist Mercado by forwarding problem set. Meanwhile, Guatemalans not all goods purchased in Guatemala to the United States, free of charge. only get paid at a fair rate but also benefit from the profits ofUS sales. The 80 percent When goods reach the U.S., Mercado turns them over to college student volunMercado sends back to Guatemala helps run teers who are in charge of sales. They set up an AIDS hospital and send girls to school. tables, hold events, and contact stores.

"In one day we made enough to send 13 Public relations for Mercado is mostly girls to school for one year," remarked Dain through flyers and word of mouth. Yale's Lewis, a Mercado staff member at the end Mercado PR co-coordinator sports a of a Cross Campus sale. To clarify, he Guatemalan beaded necklace and speaks added, "That's a result of marking the prices about Mercado with a vibrancy equal to her up quite a bit."

Guatemalan textile headband: "My job is Therein lies the beauty of Mercado easy ... I made some flyers and that's pretty Global: it can cater simultaneously to both much it." Consequently, very little m.oney the consumer culture of US colleges, and •

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the altruism also endemic to any campus.

Mercado is an impressive material success that began with a focused business plan.

Lewis claims the next step is to expand the countries that contribute to and benefit from Mercado's sales. "Maybe Ecuador o r Peru," says Lewis. Soon, college students can look forward to an even wider array of goods guaranteed to save the world. '

--Gabriel D i a z

Excommmunicated of disciplining Yalies who violate th e Undergraduate Regulations, . the Yale College Executive Committee (ExComm), is surprisingly obscure. Most students k now next to nothing about the structure and procedure of this miniature judicial body, and few seem to care. The regulations handbook, dutifully distributed to freshmen during orientation, is usually tossed into recycling bins unread. Despite the University's reputation of upholding justice and executing the top law school in the nation, students seem apathetic to the application of justice in their everyday lives.

Unless, of course, you do get into trouble. Historically, trouble has meant anything from shooting a BB gun, to urinating on Yale property, to failing to cite sources in a paper. One mischevious · sophomore, Emmett*, learned the hard way that "throwing objects of any kind from windows," is, as stated in the Undergraduate Regulations handbook, a punishable offense.

Last November, sitting in his freshman dorm, Emmett and his roommate "got bored." To amuse themselves, they "set fire to objects" in their room and "dispatched them out the window," as he described itentertainment that, according to Emmett, he enjoyed all the time at home. Unlike at home, where Emmett's actions hardly raised an eyebrow, his little defenestrations d id not go unnoticed. The fire marshal arrived, followed by the police. When the college dean was alerted, the students knew they were in trouble. "She was not pleased in any shape or form," Emmett said. But his worries did

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not end there. Emmett got a letter from the ExComm, telling him that his alleged violation of undergraduate regulations had been submitted as a complaint and that he would have to testify before the ExCom~ boar,d.

Emmett was about to experience Yale's elusive justice system for the first time. And h e had no idea what to expect. "I had only . been in school for two months," he said, recounting the experience with some disbelief "I was very, freaked out."· The ExComm is made up of six faculty members, three undergraduates (usually upperclassmen) and a presiding judge the Yale College Dean. The student's college dean, present technically only for moral support an d as an "d a vocate, , o ft en represents the student in formal proceedings. In some more serious cases, witneS.ses can be asked to appear for questioning. There is also no immunity for witnesses who testify.

Dealing with a fair number of sticky cases each year, the ExComm has to do a lot of homework to prepare for a hearing. Paige Herwin '02, who served on the ExComm her senior year, said members would get a call from the Dean's secretary about the · complaint and receive a ·c onfidential packet of materials from the factfinder. This packet contains information that the factfinder puts together after talking to the victim, the dean of both students, their friends, and the "charged" student (a euphemism the ExComm prefers over "accused").

At the hearing, the charged student, his or her dean and sometimes the student's personal law}'er are present. The ExComrn questions the student and witnesses, listens to the dean's statement, and then asks the student and the dean to leave the room.

Each member in the ExComm, apart from the secretary, then casts an anonymous vote on whether the student has violated the Undergraduate Regulations. However, students usually don't dispute the charge, Herwin says. The question is not usually whether a violation actually occurred, but how to assign consequences to the violation.

In other words, ExComrn rarely tries students; more often it just doles out punishments.

· According to Dean Jill Cutler, who has served as secretary of the ExComm fo r six years, apart from the severity of the violation itself, the committee also takes into consideration the student's attitude towards what he or she has done, any past offenses, and the consequences of the offense when administering penalties. This may be the reason why cheating is often less severely punished than plagiarism cheating is regarded by ExComm as a panic reaction, alludes Dean Cutler, while plagiarism occurs after planning and reflection.

While there are no mandatory punishments for violations (penalties are given o n a case-by-case basis), some standards apply.

For instance, according to Dean Cutler, the typical penalty for plagiarism is two terms of suspension. Still, even these standards are subject to evolution. Assault offenders used · to only be "reprimanded," but with the rise of serious assault cases, the ExComm decided to step up the punishment for assault to a level "more closely comparable to penalties for academic dishonesty. " So where did these standards put Emmett, the dispatcher of burning objects?

Since Emmett did not dispute the charge and his offense was relatively minor, the process was straightforward. He merely had to appear before the Coordinating Group of the Executive Committee, which consists of the chairman, the factfinder, and the secretary.

And luckily for him and his roommate, the Coordinating Group was not too harsh.

No fines, no letter of apology. They were reprimanded, and allowed to go. "It was sweet once it was over. It felt like I got out of jail." ·

--Beatrice L iu

*This name bas been changed.

Horse Play '

CHARLIE,

A - JUNIOR

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Mississippi, opens the barn doors to let in two horses from the small dirt courtyard.

"It's an awesome opportunity," he says, The New Journal

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wheeling a sack of Blue Seal horse feed from Zephyr's stall to Oreo's. "Polo is an incredibly expensive sport. I certainly don't have the money to play anywhere other than Yale." One thing that might surprise you about equestrian sports at Yale besides the fact that it exists is that they have had an unpretentious history. .

The stables owe their existence to the Army.

In 1916, the War Department approved an ROTC training division at Yale. This impetus drove interested alumni to contribute money toward the construction of an equestrian center, according to Alexandra Redding '02, a veteran of the Polo Team. After the completion of the Armory, as the facility was called, the Army provided horses and equipment, so that a polo team could be maintained at "practically no expense to the student," wrote one contemporary. Similar ROTC programs sprung up across the country, opening polo to a wider demographic than ever before.

When the atom bomb demonstrated cavalry's obsolescence, the Army ended the ROTC program, and Yale polo alumni bought the horses and equipment. To the present day, donations from polo clubs across the country have kept Yale polo playing. In addition to direct financial donations, the club • actual receives horses, which can then be kept or sold. "Tommy Lee Jones gave us a pony. He was too tall though, so we sold him," says Charlie. The names of these donated horses often indicate their origins: Manzana and Sanchez's names reveal their Argentinian hedtage, where the best polo is played.

However, some donated horses arrive without names, and indicative of how equestrian spons have changed, the Polo Team recently named a horse, Yo Mama. "Just think about being able to say, 'I am riding Yo October 2004

Mama tonight,' or 'Yo Mama is lame,' or even 'I made Yo Mama sweat last night,"' explains Women's Polo captain Philippa Pavia.

Outside of college, many students would find equestrian sports cost-prohibitive, requiring "payment for a horse, boarding fees, vet bills, shoeing and lessons. Here you just pay for lessons," explains Liz Jordan, a junior in Berkeley and captain of the Yale Equestrian Team, started in 1985 as another club equestrian sport. The work of this team is showmanship: controlling the horse, jumping, and displaying finesse. Last year Jordan made it to nationals, a feat that a teammate describes as "a miracle" considering that the Equestrian Center, today's incarnation of the Armory, is inadequate for her team's work. All Equestrian Team members, except for beginners, pay for lessons at a private barn outside New Haven. The few horses owned by the Equestrian Team are not in good enough shape, and the footing in the practice arena is so hard that were the horses to jump, their legs would break. A few years ago the Equestrian Team began a campaign to get the University to renovate the Center, but after a private • renovation assessment yielded a figure close to ten million dollars, the Athletic.

Department has been unwilling to make the Equestrian David Zax Center a priority. Without a doubt, everyone would love to see a renovated barn. But the Equestrian Team has been more vocal than· the Polo Team. "You know, the thing about a barn," says one polo player, "is that it's never gonna be pristine." The Polo Team can fully function in the current center, which was after all made for polo, whereas the Equestrian Team cannot.

Because

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Equestrian Team members must get lessons off-campus and because they can only compete in tournaments away from Yale, the Equestrian Team ends up incurring more · expenses. Beginners come out each year not realizing the costs involved, and the captains are forced to break the news to students strapped for cash that they won't be able to. ride. .

Because equestrian sports have failed to attain the popularity of other once-elite sports, like golf and tennis, riding horses is still widely perceived as a sport for the wealthy. Jennifer Cummins, an Equestrian .Team member, points out that "the school is already battling the image" of a blueblooded elite.

To lavish funds . on a new Equestrian Center, it would seem, might not help eliminate such an image: But in failing to give the Equestrian Team more monetary support, Yale is ensuring that this equestrian sport, at least, remains elitist.

-DavidZax

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FLANKED BY VACANT STOREFRONTS, the upscale bohemian coffee house and bakery, Kafe?, is jarringly out of place. With its painted brick interior, and luxuriant leather couches, Kafe? seems like an annex of Koffee?, its Audubon counterpart. Only the scarcity of customers distinguishes the new coffee house from its bustling eleven-yearold cousin. Not even the endless flow of cars crossing the Grand Avenue bridge, which divides Fair Haven and Fair Haven Heights, brings life to Kafe?'s lonely sidewalk strip, shared only with Ziggy's Pizza. ..

Although Duncan Goodall owns both coffee houses and is negotiating the opening of a third, he seems calm standing behind Koffee?'s counter, handing change and mochas to a flowing line of caffeine-addicts.

His phone rings and he dashes out the door, mumbling something about needing to call Kafce .. ,~

These coffee houses are Goodall's "small screw in the wind" against the loss of community the past decade has seen: Years

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Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of the American Community and was deeply affected. He extracts the phrase, "a life of desperate isolation'' to describe what he sees as New Haven's starved and dispersed community, in which the workplace has failed to pull the neighborhood together; people are slipping of touch. Goodall, a strong proponent of new urbanism, hopes Kafe? will help join Fair Haven and Fair Haven Heights to create an intermingled community.

Goodall got into the coffee house business after he bought Koffee? his favorite college study place-from its original owners, Lee and Tracy Johnson (who now own KoffeeToo?). After graduating, he had no intention of going into this line of work.

He fled New Haven to work with a consulting company in Argentina. A few years later, he moved back with his wife, to settle down and run a business. Years later, he's expanding. "One of the pieces I enjoy doing in a coffee house like this is growing, building, expanding," Goodall explains. "The day-today stuff is not as exciting."

Koffee? feeds affluent East Rock residents their daily cookies and caffeine; KoffeeToo? sits safely within the confines of Yale, padded by studious coffee addicts who need a place to work and mingle with friends. Kafe? is on Grand Ave., directly across the river from Fair Haven proper and bordering Fair Haven Heights. Despite the fact that Fair Haven is economically depressed, Fair Haven Heights has become the newest upscale neighborhood, attracting young couples who cannot afford downtown property prices. "These are my people," Goodall notes. The 20-someihing Yale grads are just the type to gravitate towards an independent coffee shop for a daily latte and cranberry scone.

The predominantly working-class community in Fair Haven proper is perhaps not as likely to indulge in three-dollar cups ' of iced chai lattes. Goodall realizes this.

He's trying to bridge the gap by offering lower-cost items, specifically less expensive than Dunkin' Donuts, his competitor. Since The New Journal

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opening Kafe? in early September, Goodall has circulated elaborate pro-con flyers comparing Kafe? to Dunkin' Donuts. To keep up with the competition, Kafe? offers a breakfast sandwich and cheap cup of joe, while keeping the fancier coffees at the same steep price of any other trendy cafe.

He . admits that he really doesn't know if the advertising has worked and probably won't find out for a few more months. So far Kafe? has doubled its sales within three weeks of opening, and continues to grow.

Right now, Kafe? and Ziggy's Pizza are the only two ,businesses on this run-down, paint-chipped block. It's not very inviting.

But within the next year or so, Alex Schiavone (daughter of Joel Schiavone) will demolish the building, develop a new one and contract other businesses, including a high-end wine shop, a flower shop, a gourmet deli, an upscale restaurant and an Irish pub; Ziggy's may or may not stay. This will be a similar transformation to Joel Schiavone's work in downtown New Haven during the '80s when the Ninth Square was developed. The Fair Haven community seems to support the development.

Neighbors have poured in the doors of every community meeting about the revamping, which will create a commercial focal point for the Fair Haven Heights and Fair Haven Proper.

Right now, Goodall says he gets an equal number of customers from both sides of the river. "While Kafe? works to expand its Fair Haven customer base, Goodall has moved on to more growth and development; he hopes to be signing a lease this week for another coffee house -Moka? but won't reveal the potential location. He's clearly excited about Moka?, and if all goes as planned, he cia i ms Moka? should get even more business than Koffee?.

Before heading back to work, wliere customers have been streaming in all morning, Goodall adds, "It's a lot of fun." He pauses, "It's like a big game of lemonade stand but with a lot more varieties. I wouldn't want anything else."

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when her husband Dominick, a fueler in the 439m reserve unit, told her he was being sent to Iraq. "What do you mean you're going?" she exclaimed. "You have a desk job!"'

The 439m, a New Haven based unit, is part of the Connecticut Army Reserve, which has approximately 5,000 members, 1,100 of whom are currently active, mostly in Iraq and Mghanistan. The principal mandate of the state Army Reserve is to protect Connecticut's "life and property," but its units can be called upon to defend the interests of the United States. Many reservists join the Reserve for personal fulfillment, educational benefits, or as a source of extra income, never actually expecting to serve overseas. Yet what may have once been a remote prospect is now a near certainty: Kimberly Hoffman of the Connecticut National Guard Family Program a state-funded support network for Connecticut troops explains that the question for guardsmen today "is nC?t SO much if you'll be deployed, as when you'll be deployed."

After 18 months overseas, the 439m returned home in August.

The soldiers describe a mythical land, blanketed in ancient seashells, where 130-degree heat is commonplace and sandstorms cloud the earth from morning until night. These Connecticut troops were sent to Southern Iraq, far from the zones of intense combat on which the media focuses. Mark DiSpirito, a specialist in Derasmo's New Haven-based unit, recalls the way ice melted in seconds flat, or how the heat sucked the moisture out of the shaving cream on his face before he was finished shaving. Chris Beckwith, remembers the influx of televisions to the South after Saddarn Hussein's capture.

Most families in this region live in tents. To capitalize on the nighttime breeze, they lay carpets and sofas outside, rig lamps on wooden posts and watch their new televis\bns under the stars .. .But the soldiers also speak ofa darker side: of low morale, of the HARLENE DERASMO WAS SHOCKED •

unshakable desire to be anywhere else. "What kept me going," Beckwith says, "was the idea of coming home when it's all over." The stress of living in close quarters and spending most of the day doing physical labor builds up quickly. "Some reach a boiling point," .

DiSpirito says. Establishing a co-existence with Iraqis was another challenge: "You're actually living in someone's backyard," DiSpirito notes. Beckwith says he started to become suspicious of everyone.

His unit met one Iraqi who seemed hospitable to the troops but appeared the following week on CNN, gleefully burning an army humvee. ·once soldiers are called to duty, their experiences divorce them from the lives of their families in Connecticut. Brief weekly phone calls and occasional emails are the only things bridging the more than six thousand miles. Meanw hile the families of these soldiers must also, in these all-too-brief communications, try to portray a glimpse of their own changed lives. . · notice of deployment is often abrupt: a soldier learns his unit has been called up three to four weeks before he is slated to depart. In Connecticut, with only a few bases and a dispersed corps of reservists, the h arsh notice of departure can be especially surreal. One .Connecticut unit, the 248m Engineer Company

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with her husband when he was in Iraq. She is normally a chatty woman who talks not only of her difficulties but of more mundane topics (''I'm just putting in the socks now"), but Charlene did not want to worry Dominick with her own troubles: "I got hurt at work.

I collidn't tell him about it. He needed to know I was okay. It"was hard: we have such an open relationship, it made me sick to hold things back." fu she dealt with her mother's Alzheimer's and 's truggled to explain a father's absence to her ten~year-old son, she made sure to be that calm voice on the phone: "I never mentioned that I was stressing. There were times I thought I'd have a mental breakdown." · Some spouses have found that the media coverage of the Iraq ·conflict intensifies their anxiety. With a week or two between phone calls, images of explosions in Baghdad · can cause sleepless nights.

Although the unit of a spouse or a child may be stationed far from the regiol) of conflict, a family tends to assume "Oh, that's mine," J:-loffman of the Family Program explains. "The media likes to sensationalize, and embedded reporters send back clips out of context.

It's easy for a family to assume the worst." Mark DiSpirito describes it as "a game of telephone. They turn chicken soup into a steak sandwich."

Laurie claims that she limits her exposure to traditional media sources: "I only watch the local news once a day." Instead, she relies on the Connecticut state chain of command for updates on her husband's unit. Charlene Derasmo canceled her newspaper subscription and never turned on the radio while her husband was in Iraq. She was easily upset by coworkers who had seen television coverage of an explosion. "I told people at work not to ask," Derasmo says. "I would just say yes, my husband is okay." · Surrounded by co-workers and friends for whom military service is an abstract notion, many spouses of soldiers turn to the het• work offered by the Connecticut Army Reserve Family Program for support. The program provides workshops and counselors to help soldiers take advantage of the health and medical benefits of service and offers support to the families left behind. Twelve centers scattered throughout Connecticut can provide reliable information about the status of deployed units. The Connecticut Army Reserve Family Program has also worked with a newly created organiV~tion, "Yale College Students for Military Family Support," to put together such events as an Easter egg hunt o~; visits to local liomes to help families with yardwork and household chores. The program also gives members the opportunity to meet people facing similar circumstances; Families can speak comfortably without trite disclaimers

of Norwich, was called up on Valentine's Day. Although news of deployment can be abrupt, a soldier often greet the announcement with flat banality. fu DiSpirito, a specialist in the 439'h, puts it, "If I have to go, I have to go." Even if not initially stone-faced, in time, soldiers habituate themselves to the separation. Irman Webb, a 1998 Yale graduate currently serving in Mghanistan, explains in an email that "after the initial gut-wrenching reality of being separated from those whom I love the most, I got into my routine and time is ticking by."

When considering the vast consequences of war, the effect on soldiers rarely goes unmentioned. Less frequently discussed, however, are the effects of the battle abroad on families at home. The absence of a mother or father generates financial and physical burdens that exacerbate emotional ones. Spouses often take on second jobs to compensate for losses in income as deployed reservists transition from a day job to a monthly base pay of around $2,500. There are new costs as well: Beckwith racked up a $16,000 charge on a mobile phone he brought to Iraq to skirt the three-hour waits for public phones. Connecticut has fewer bases and a less-pronounced history of service than other states. Consequently, families often must confront the departure of a loved one without the support of those in similar situations. While DiSpirito was in Iraq, his wife Millie organized a support group of military families, while working two jobs.

Laurie, the wife of a recently-deployed Connecticut Guardsman, missed little unexpected things. She needed to remember on her own "to renew the registration on the car, or cover the air conditioner for the cold weather." She also cites the emotional obstacles, unquantifiable losses that hard work cannot remedy, such as her family being "apart for every major holiday, and all four of our birthdays, and possibly our anniversary depending on the length of this deployment." Webb, a Yale graduate, laments his deployment's effects on his relationship to his young sons: "1 am now a voice on the phone."

But these minutes spent on the phone with a family member are dear. Security is a consideration, so most of their conversations are limited to small talk, Laurie says. "We only talk about the weather and what our family is up to here and who he has gotten mail from, that sort of thing." With two hundred other soldiers waiting in line behind you to offer a few precious words to their families seven time zones away and with the realities of life in the Iraqi desert so different from life at home, it can be difficult to say anything at all.

Charlene Derasmo chose her words carefully while speaking

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Sometimes, families offer more 'than just support. When DiSpirito's unit had its deployment extended a third time, Millie DiSpirito knew she had to speak up. 'Tm from New York," she quips. "This mouth has no hair on it. " Millie organized a group of wives of soldiers in the 439<h, w\:lo promised to "do whatever it takes" to get the unit home. The group made a big enough stink to arouse the attention of Congresswoman Rosa D eLauro and, eventually, Senator Joe Lieberman. The Senator held a meeting for DiSpirito's group but offered only vague words of consolation. By chance or will, the unit was released a month ahead of schedule. Mark DiSpirito chalks up the success of the early homecoming to the persistence of his wife: "She was instrumental in getting us ' home."

Many challenges accompany the return of a loved one as a single-parent household or an empty nest reincorporates a member.

When a spouse returns, adjustment can be difficult on both sides. Soldiers must cast off the ' months spent in cramped quarters with their unit, while spouses • must adjust to a two-adult household in which both parents call the shots.

The Family Program tries to address what Hoffman dubs "the initial phase of shock'' that soldiers experience when they come home by staffing its centers with psychologists. But in daily activity; many soldiers find themselves feeling isolated. Neighbors offer help, but few can relate to postservice life. In Connecticut, where service is far from the norm, no network exists for those who have served. Hoffman notes there are few active duty officers here. Additionally, interest in joining the reserves is dwindling a new closure or realignm ent of bases occurs every year. The dispersal of military families m eans m ore and more are facing their individual difficulties in isolation. . · · But it could be worse. Although Connecticut leans left politically, military families say they have escaped the animosity that soldiers returning from Vietnam experienced. Millie DiSpirito remembers a friend who served in the Vietnam War being called "murderer"; today, she says, people see soldiers in uniform and thank them.

Soldiers and families think of military service apolitically, as an occuOctober 2004

pation, not a philosophy. And as such, wh ile reservists agree their overall function is "necessary," someone else, says Beckwith, could easily be doing the job. Charlene D erasmo likes Kc:rry's policies, while her husband leans toward Bush. Ideology, however, does not come up in their conversations about D ominick's time in Iraq. As lrman Webb puts it, soldiers are "not robots without political views or opinions. It is just unprofessional to discuss those views while in uniform.'' Parents of soldiers, Derasmo notes, tend to be slightly more political. Parents "just want their kid out," while spouses have to face the work as a reality of their marriage.

The absence of criticism, however, does not imply active support. Many families believe their neighbors and towns could do more to help. Laurie explains that her community in the Lower Naugatuck Valley is "supportive to a point. They remember the service m ember at the holiday time."

Charlene D erasmo feels the Same way about Waterbury; "without a personal involvement with the issue, you sort of go on with your life." W ebb is concerned that the public has become habituated to the deaths of Americans overseas: • at the onset of the war, Webb points o ut, a television report would display a photo of a soldier who was killed, followed by a brief silence. Today, the names merely scroll across the bottom of the screen. "The media has stopped giving our war dead the respect that they _c).eserve," Webb says.

T h e latest figures show that while the army is meeting its goals, recruitment and retention of troops remain the army's chief concerns. Most of Connecticut's reservists have faced or will soon have to face deployment, a reality that prospective guardsmen now have to weigh before enlisting.

Chris Beckwith describes how the initial optimism upon entering Iraq quickly gave way to a more complex reality: "When we first got there, they thought it was just like flipping a switch," bur found the task much more difficult. For many Con necticut households with a family member at war, a similar sentim en t holds. .

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An artisrs depiction of young Wing excelling early on during his studies in China. Provided by Beatrice Bartlett.

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Wing's story is the official carbon marker at which the history of Yale's interaction with China begins.

Yung Wing graduated from Yale in 1854 in a class of 98 students, becoming the first Asian to earn a degree (specifically a Bachelor of the Arts) from an American university. Rumor has it that he wore traditional Chinese robes and a coiffure of black braids to his first class. This was not the only way he made his mark. He survives as a symbol of Yale's storied history with China, a history that has recently taken on new urgency.

Yale first became involved with China two decades prior to Wing's matriculation, in the 1830s, when it sent missionaries to the country "with a spirit that is loyal to the institution," says History Professor Beatrice Bartlett. In 2004, this spirit has not faded but transformed from its original incarnation as an extension of the popular Christian gospel movement in the nineteenth century. Yale adopted this missionary spirit and made it its own setting sail with a broader purpose than proselytizing. To a uur.

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certain extent, this brand of "Yale spirit" dates back to Yale's founding in 1701. At . that time, the Yale spirit was simply a desire to do good works. It was a spirit of service.

But it was only in the 1830s, when New Haven and Yale began to work together productively, that the Yale spirit took on a broader purpose a desire to serve foreign nations, to bring them light and truth.

This spirit brought Yung Wing to Yale, changing Yale's trajectory towards diversification. In 1847, he sailed from Hong Kong with Reverend Samuel Robbins Brown, Yale College Class of 1829. Back in China, Wing had excelled at his studies, with a passion . and ambition that set him apart. Reverend Brown noted this and arranged to bring him to the United States. When Wing landed on American shores, he immediately enrolled in Monson Academy, a private school in Massachusetts not far from the Connecticut border that still exists today. He boarded with Brown's own mother. Three years later, in 1850, Wing enrolled as a freshman in Yale College: "How I got in. I do not know, as I had had only 15 months of Latin and 12 months of Greek, and ten months of

mathematics," he exclaimed in a typical Yale student's dubiously ironic tone. He not only excelled in his studies but was also creating a lasting legacy as the only Asian in his class.

In a speech entitled "Yellow in a White World," Harold Koh, Dean of the Yale Law School, lauded Wing as the "spiritual ancestor of every Asian that studies here today" and praised Wing's courage and academic fortitude, citing awards in English composition Wing won during his four years here.

"We learned his story during our childhood," said one Chinese visiting scholar of the China Law Center at the Yale Law School. · Yung Wing would impact many children during his lifetime directly and indirectly. In 1872, he founded the Chinese Educational Mission, which sent Chinese youths to study as a part of a program based in Hartford, Connecticut. Yung Wing, a corporeal embodiment of the essence of "Yu"-:a Chinese character that represents "the nurturing of the intellect and spirit: the education of the young mind and cultivation of moral character" was not only The New Journal

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America's first Asian graduate, but also Yale's first, unofficial Asian Admissions Offtcer. He became the missionary: The Yale spirit was a part of him, and he sought to spread it. "His American experience was so good he wanted other Chinese to have that experience," History Professor Beatrice Bartlett said, emphasizing the extent to which Wing's American experience was shaped by the personality of the University and state of Connecticut. "It was very much a Connecticut project. A lot of families up and down the Connecticut Valley were involved with helping Yung Wing." His program, which sent a group of 30 students of varying ages to study in America for a year, was revolutionary at the time, anticipating the course that international study would eventually take. By 1881, however, his mission dwindled due to conflict between Wing's vision of education and myopic Chinese administrators who expressed dissatisfaction with the Americanization of the young Chinese students who matriculated from the program.

Wing was forward-thinking: he had "consciously placed himself between cultures," says Dean Koh, alluding to the way in which Wing forever changed the Asian experience of being "yellow in a white world," a phrase that traces back to 1850 when he arrived on campus and changed America. Wing could not, however, change China.

Yung Wing's precocious plans anticipated today's link between scholarship and governmental reform. The collapse of hisproject is one chapter in a long history of tension between the Chinese government and Western scholarship. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the Yale spirit had evolved to reflect an emphasis on international education. This was one impetus for the founding of Yale-in-China (later the Yale-China Association) in 1901. During Yale's bicentennial anniversary, Yale-inChina, a non-profit not directly linked to the University, began to set a different precedent for cultural exchange. Yale owed its new ties to China to the legacy of Yung Wing. The nature of these ties, however, was at stake. As the organization took shape, it had to define both itself and how it would interact with Yale.

Terrill E. Lautz, Ph.D, Vice President and Program Director for Asia of the Henry Luce Foundation, which offered essential

fiscal support and manpower at the time · Yale-in-China was founded, articulates another driving force behind Yale-in-China: "Four generations of Luces have gone to Yale. Henry R. Luce was born in China and his father was a missionary there. The connections were personal and historical."

Lautz, who has his own personal history with the Yale-China Association, is an extension of the tradition that the Luces made possible. In the early 1980s, as a YaleChina teaching fellow, Lautz went to Hong Kong when China was "just opening up."

Today, in addition to his prominent role at the Luce Foundation, he is chairman of the Yale-China Association Board of Directors, on which Henry Luce III is an Honorary Trustee. Yale-China has now created a dynasty of its own. As a non-profit affiliate of Yale, its history is wrapped up in the .msntutlons. . . ' This lineage is only one aspect of the legendary relationship between Yale and China. When it was founded, it began to work aggressively to initiate medical and educational institutions in China including a mission based on "a facilitation of meaningful exchange." Here was an institutional manifestation of the munificent Yale spirit. Still, it faced serious setbacks, repeatedly coming up against . antagonistic Chinese political policy. The first Yale-inChina institution, Yali Middle School, named for the Chinese phonetic approximation of"Yale," was founded in 1901 as a centerpiece of the young association's mission. However, from 1920-1927, national unrest in China forced the evacuation and closure of several established ventures, including Yali Middle School. By the l930s, these organizations were flourishing again, only to be uprooted during World War II to temporary relief areas in western China.

Only in 1979 would the association resume normal programming.

Marking the beginning of the restoration of the Mainland institutions that it had been forced to abandon thirty years before, in 1975, Yale-in-China renamed itselfYaleChina. According to Christin Sandweiss, Director of Development at the Yale-China Assocation, the name was changed "to reflect that the organization was not [physically] present in China, as no American groups were. We had focused programming in Hong Kong until the return of diplomatic relations in 1979," when the impressive

modern history of the Association really begins.

In the sixty trips that Nancy Chapman, Ph.D., cq.rrent Director of the Yale-China Association, has made to China, she has seen vast, sweeping change.

"There is so much more common ground now than there was when I first started working with China," she says of her begin. nings almost thirty years ago as a YaleChina teaching fellow. The 1990s witnessed an enormous expansion of programming for Yale-China, including a fellowship program to encourage women in the public health sector, HIVIAIDS education, the English Teaching Fellowship Program, potent legal education programs, encouragement of a nascent non-profit sector through service internships and. of course, continued support of both new and wellestablished academic and medical institutions. Many of these programs are novel in a Communist nation where democratic websites are blocked, and NGOs are still perceived as fronts for subversive political · activity. "What we seek to do," says Ms. · Chapman, "is draw on the strengths of Yale's traditions and engage members of the Yale community with China. Our mission is shared with our Chinese colleagues." n the wall at the Yale-China Association at the corner of Temple and Trumbull hangs a bulldog-blue, felt pennant that reads "Yali" in the same blocky, confident typeface found on the "Yale" sweatshirts worn here on cold Connecticut days. Like the sweatshirts, the pennant is a symbol. For Ms. Chapman, it represents tradition "a Yale tradition which we think is a real strength.

The spirit of service that from [YaleChina's] founding, and in the past 100 years especially, infuses Yale-China, infuses all of our work." Yale-China is following in the footsteps of Reverend Samuel Brown.

The Yale-China Association serves as a cable of energy, enthusiasm, and resources between Yale and China. "What is most enduring is its deep impact on people's lives how it transforms," says Ms. Chapman. "Our goal is to be true to the tradition." Ms. Chapman denies that YaleChina is at the vanguard of significant changes, on the horizon of an open China: "Our Chinese colleagues are at the forefront of change. My hope would be that

October 2004 19

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China can reconcile competing impulses."

It is important to note that while YaleChina has a hyphenated connection to Yale; it is very much separate from the University.

Though Yale-China is made possible by its prestigious affiliation, in stark contrast to the University, Yale-China seeks to act without any political agenda.

Yale has pursued China with the growing promise of a bright Chinese future. The Yale Office of International Affairs published a 39 page booklet the first half of which is in Chinese entitled "Summary of Yale University's Current Collaborations in China.'' This booklet outlines the involvement of Yale departments and schools in "advancing the frontiers of knowledge," President Richard Levin's introduction states. The projects, though diverse, share a spirit of possibility and reform. For one thing, China has given Yale an incomparable new pool of talent and cutting edge technology. China has enriched Yale's research programs, especially in the sciences .

Perhaps one of the most compelling studies, conducted by Dr. Zhinan Yin of the .

Rheumatology Department, examines the use of Chinese herbs in the treatment of cancers .

The investment Yale has made in China is reciprocal; yet, Yale will inevitably leave th_e nation changed. The China Law Center, founded at the Yale Law School in 1999, whose abstract in the Yale Office of International Affairs booklet highlights its cooperative mission, is headed towards legal reform. The center "has built strong working relationships with Chinese institutions and experts that are central to current legal reform efforts, including academic institutions, the legal profession and government entities." The center is undoubtedly on the front lines of a significant legal revolution.

"Chinese democratic websites may be blocked today, but they can't be blocked tomorrow," says Dean Koh, thrusting at the immediacy of this work. For the institution of Yale, as opposed to Yale-China, the Yale spirit has morphed again, into a type of geopolitical reform movement. When China opens up, Yale will have been a motor that both powered the changes and was also affected by them.

This explains why China was splashed across the front page of the Yale Dally News four times in September. Yale's interest in China is not new; but it is becoming The New Journal

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a priority. "It is the now that's interesting," says Jonathan Spence, Professor of History and author of The Search for Modern China. ,"Yale really thinks itself to be a top flight school. It has to have this internation- . al dimension." Beatrice Bartlett echoes this sentiment by identifying the evolving link between Yale and China with ironic clarity: "Globalization is the one word answer." In fact, words like globalization, mutualism, cross-cultural exchange, and universalism are not just part of an academic discourse; they have become policy words. The University has integrated this new vocabulary into its repertoire, a result of a thriving trend towards international education.

Globalization may be the new Yale spirit. "[This is] a new kind of melting pot, and I think Yale is correct to join it, even to be a spearhead," says Jonathan Spence. "China is a nation of consequence. Most of this seems to be not-for-profit, though it's hard to guess what that means," he says. It is undeniable that globa,l educition is essential; but, doe$ globfl} education imply globalization?

"The key goal for us here at Yale is to keep Y~e as one of the global universities," Koh said. "One of the core elements of my agenda as incoming dean is globalization." It is difficult to guess exactly what he means by that. . There is no clear-cut answer to the question of what globalization means to Yale. One gauge of the University the Yale search engine-returned 5,680 hits for "globalization" in .3 seconds. Other gauges · are the YaleGlobal, the magazine recently founded by the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, and the Yale Center for International and Area Studies which has risen to prominence in recent years. When former President Bill Clinton carne to speak here last year to welcome former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo's appointment as Executive Director of the Yale Globalization Center, Clinton delivered a "Public Address on Globalization," using words like "interdependence," "community," and "shared responsibilities," to explain how, because of technology, economy, and diplomacy, "we can not escape each other." This reaffumation of a "global social system" resonated strongly in the cavernous Woolsey Hall and needn't have echoed far to be understood.

As arguably one of the strongest bulwarks of thought in the United States, Yale has always, though perhaps not directly, October 2004

been a part of the global social system. Yet, .

Yale's relationship yvith China points to . a new politico-university policy that takes the national tenets of globalization and incorporates them into university action, though not without debate. Globalization seems simultaneously to legitimize and decry Yale's relationship with China. Dean Koh stated, "People can change institutions." ·Yale's link with China demonstrates that institutions can also change people.

"Although Yale's involvement with China dates back over a century, I don't think there is anything necessarily natural about Yale in China," remarks Professor Seth Fein. The purity of a global classroom is at odds with another political current deeply embedded in a Yale education. "We are living in a moment when people talk about globalization, when there is a convergence between geopolitics of the United States economy and diplomacy, a moment when Yale is following and also reproducing US foreign policy, as it did a century ago," Fein explained. This phenomenon ofYale as a mini-nation raises questions about its intentions. Fein does not question the benevolence of a cross-cultural academic exchange yet concedes that Yale is "asserting a new kind of regionalism. It is notable that Yale has accelerated exchanges with academic universities in these regions," namely China, but also Mexico. These contentious countries, which have been the focus of 19th and 20'h century expansionism, notes Professor Fein, have reasserted themselves in a post-Cold War US foreign policy. These countries are potential diplomatic sources of exported US power, hot spots that offer new production possibilities both polici~ and material. "It is also dear that just as American businesses see China as a labor market, it is true that Universities-not just Yale have followed these politics." Yale's politics suggests its stronghold in China is neither coincidental nor accidental. Yale's politics are, however, influential.

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years later, in 2000, he returned to China to visit his mother. Soon after he arrived, he says, "state security agents broke into my mother's apartment and arrested me. I had to be. detained for three days. My brother promptly made a call to our Department Chair at Yale. She immediately informed this emergency to President Levin who asked the State Department to release me."

That day, Su was released. He h~ not gone home since. This incident is only.one example of the power and presence of Yale in an international diplomatic dialogue.

Professor Su's new work, being translated into English by a Harvard Ph.D., translates to My Autobiography as a Reactionary Element. "China," says Su, "is a very complex problem. I cannot · explain it clearly to you. The Communist Party government just reformed to a market economy, but they never want to make political reforms. This is a serious problem."

He offers examples of death sentencing, beatings, detainments, and human rights violations to express his frustrations with China's difficulties reconciling irs status as a world power. In Chinese, he says, "the word 'Reactionary' is almost _equal to 'Counterrevolutionary."' His book promises to be one more current of change that can be traced to Yale. Has it also been imbued with a new Yale spirit?

Yale seems to think that the question of China opening up is not "if" but "'Yhen."

And when it does occur, Yale will assuredly play a prominent role in determining the gestalt of that new nation. The range of Yale's responsibilities in municipal, national, and now international spheres forces Yale to set an example, much like Yung Wing did.

One hundred fifty years ago, from his graduation forward, the educational opportunities for millions -of Asians would be changed. Right now, Yale is at a crossroads.

This is a critical moment in which Yale too can alter the lives of not millions, but 1.3 billion.

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rofessor Wei Su of the East Asian Languages and Literatures depart- · ment offers a personal story as evidence. In 1994, a revolutionary (in all senses of the word) Chinese scholar, who publishes feminist, gender and sexuality criticism of Chinese literature, came to Yale to teach with an H4 visa, his family in tow. Six

Romy Drucker, a sophomore in Davenport, is the Research Director for TNJ. Much of the historical research pertaining to Yung Wing's life was provided by Beatrice S. Bartlett during interviews or tb1vugb _ papers, "The Chinese Edllcation Mission to tbe US., 1872-JBBJ:Time Line.· •

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Joyce undergraduate that politics were the best Chen wanted to do something to way to involve herself in the community. curb violence in New Haven, but · Now she has taken on the role of den mothwhen six people were shot with a machine er for a network ofYale graduates who have gun just outside her block watch meeting, chosen to make their homes in the Elm Joyce began to act. "I started to talk to peoCity. Upon graduation, Wagner left New ple about the issue and ultimately I ended Haven but quickly decided to come back. up moving from Dwight Street. I realized As a Yale graduate working in New Haven, . that in order to really understand these she set up a list-serve to .provide a network issues and to have greater impact, I ought to for others in her position. Emails were sent, live in an area where I could be exposed to meetings were held and the list grew from the problems on a daily basis," she says. So two to 318 people. The electronic list Chen, who had graduated from Yale in May evolved intO a social forum, through which 2001, ran for Ward 2 Alderwoman the same not only wine-tastings and scavenger hunts fall, and was elected. She bought a home on were organized, but local business and polit"K Street," as she calls it, or Kensington ical issues affecting this community were Street, intending to live in New Haven perdiscussed. Over the past five years, Wagner manently. Today, with plans to further the claims there has been an increase in the cause of violence prevention, she is running number of Yalies who have permanently against Toni Walker for State Representative adopted New Haven. "We try to get other in the 9 3rd district. people excited about staying in New Haven.

Many Yalies hardly experience New . We invite some of the students who stay in Haven beyond Yale's blocks, but of those New Haven over the summer to show that who do find their way into the city, some New Haven is a cool, vibrant place to live as linger after graduation. Many who stay a young person." With this pitch, Wagner is work for non-profits. Other graduates look one ofNew Haven's greatest public relations to progressive Mayor John DeStefano, who advocates. opens his office to eager, young students.

Michael Montano, who graduated Indeed, many find their own New Haven in '93, grew interested in staying in the city niche to contribute to the economic and after he joined the effort to prevent Fair · social revitalization of the city.

Haven's English Station power plant from Janna Wagner, a New Haven native re-opening. The effort was already underand 1995 Yale graduate, realized as · an S AN

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way under the leadership of another Yalie, Julio Gonzalez, who was serving as the Ward 1 Alderman. Montafio enlisted in the effort to help protect the nearby residential areas from this asthma-inducing plant.

Chen also found herself motivated by local movements to improve the city, even before she became interested in going into New Haven politics. As undergraduates, she and her friend Duff Morton started an organization called Direct Outreach a group of students who went to the New Haven green to help the homeless camped there. "I started feeling more connected to New Haven when I started venturing out into the community: not being concerned about safety issues, seeing New Haven at odd hours of the night, and realizing that most people's fears are unnecessary, exaggerated."

It was only when Chen graduated that she understood the most effective way to help those in need: fight for them with a legitimate political voice. Even though other Yalies had moved swiftly from social work to city politics, Joyce avoided the beaten path working with the powerful New Haven Democratic Party and chose to run as a Green. "I investigated the Green Party right after I graduated. When I was thinking about running, I really felt like I didn't want to be tied ·into the machine. I felt like it would be difficult to be a Democrat and to be independent of that," Chen explains.

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Plus, the New Haven chapter of the Green Party surprised Chen. "The party wasn't the stereotypical tree-buggers, but people who were educated, cared about issues and were fighting against the machine."

Like Chen, Michael Montafio took his service experiences to heart and was driven to join New Haven's political system. He chose the Dems, a decision that should have afforded him greater political capital. After all, Gonzalez had offered to endorse his candidacy for Ward 1 Alderman. But even with the endorsement, Montafio faced a competitive race, and the long-touted invincibility of the Democratic support let him down.

Among his opponents was a new arrival, freshman Ben· Healey, who, with only limited experience, found himself with a seat in the aldermanic chamber at City Hill.

I" Ben Healey, who would rise to prominence during his four years as alderman, would not have entered the Democratic Party had it not been for his friend's older sister, Anika Singh, who told Healey, at an unremarkable Slifka dinner, "You should run." Healey, who comes from an extremely liberal background, was not necessarily the obvious choice. Yet Singh saw in him a motivated, idealistic freshman unsullied by political ambition. After several weeks of contemplating running for a position he knew little about, he made a decision that would shape his next four years at Yale. He decided to do it. After the ballots were counted, Healey found himself walking il!to City Hall, an 18-year-old college student with a day job, alongside thirty adults all working to run the city.

Healey admits that he was not prepared for the committee meetings, budget minutia and clashing personalities he found in his new job. So he tried to compensate for his inexperience. "It was a time of great defensiveness for me. I had to pretend I knew a lot more than I did, while still figuring out how to ask the right questions to learn all the things I needed to know." He also recognizes the sacrifices he has made. "I certainly gave up a great deal in terms of my college experiences, given the amount of time, energy, mental capacities I dedicated to New Haven," he said. "It's not like getting up on a soapbox and having people listen to you." Nevertheless, Healey says he doesn't regret becoming an alderman. "It means something different to read democra-

tic theory in class when you are actually · involved in it in New Haven." Despite the strength of Yale's curriculum, no classroom can compare to the education New Haven politics offer. .

But students do not have to win elected office to benefit from a hands-on city education. Currently six undergraduates intern in the Mayor's office, including Marlon Castillo, Beth France and Whitney Haring-Smith. Castillo says he was surprised by the amount of responsibility he has been given and the number of projects on which he has worked. France, who became interested in politics through Project Orange, a gay-rights advocacy group, found that working in the Mayor's public information office taught her. how dynamic the city really is. She has gained an insider appreciation for the nuances of city government.

For a growing minority of students, graduating from Yale does not mean graduating from New Haven. Robert Smuts, Kate McAdams, and Chrissy Bonano all graduated in 200 1 and now work together in the Mayor's office. Former Alderman Julio Gonzalez was the executive assistant to the Mayor until he stepped down this past August. Smuts was recently promoted to Deputy Chief of Staff. Several other Yalies who have stayed on, namely Karen DuboisWalton and Henry Fernandez, have attained important positions: Chief Administrative Officer and Economic Development Administrator of New Haven, respectively.

This is an exciting time for young Yalies involved in New Haven politics that is, if they are progressive.

Sophie Raseman, who graduated in 2004, said that in a largely democratic city, those who subscribe to a conservative ideology are less likely to stay because there is little opportunity to become involved in party politics. Even progressives may prefer to work in grassroots organizations, rather than in city politics. Raseman took a common route into New Haven politics when she started canvassing for Ben Healey, a _ frien.d of hers, when he ran for re-election.

As a freshman, the New York native remembered thinking, "This is a one-horse town.

I've got to get out of here. I should have gone to Columbia." She soon recognized New Haven as a potential springboard to greater political involvement. Her experi-

ence changed politics from something :: • abstract "something people do on : : CNN" to a tangible way to make a differ- : : • ence. Politics became such a huge force in ·:: her life that after graduation she chose to :: • make her home in the same city she was · • • once intent on leaving.

In the words of Janna Wagner, "People .•.

• our age are getting re-energized to the political process. People have gotten passionate."

• Maybe that's why Beth France remarked . ' that those who are most active in local politics have already begun to speculate about who will make up the next generation of . student politicians. There is always a steady stream of team-players to work at City Hall ~ · and non-profits, but the path to winning an · .

• alderman's seat is more demanding. Healey • .. has been thinking _about who to endorse and, like Gonzalez, he may step down early · · and invoke a committee vote to fill the : remainder of his term, due to end soon. In . • an era when New Haven is undergoing vast improvements, more students are considering staying. An aldermanic seat, more than · ever before, may seem like the ideal first step into city politics for Yale graduates. Healey hopes to choose a freshman, ·p erhaps as unsuspecting and unprepared as he was in January of2000. He admits it is a huge task for a freshman to take on, but he wants someone who can serve for at least as long as he has.

Cynthia Okechukwu, a current freshman, got her first taste of politics by canvassing for Chen's opponent, Toni Walker, after she was encouraged by Yale junior, Alyssa Rosenberg, current Ward 22 co-chair.

Okechekwu was not involved in politics before coming to Yale, but decided that since she will be turning 18 soon and will have the right to vot~, she wants to be more politically engaged. She chose Yale because she found it to be more integrated into the city than the other schools she had considered. Right now, she is just a freshman taking her first steps out ofYale's gates and into the city. But in four years, she could be packing up her Yale dorm room, only to move the boxes down the street.

TNJ

Concha Mendoza, a junion in Branford, is the web Editor for TNJ.

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by Megan O'Connor sign on th~ front lawn has been corroded by many years and many more gallons of dog pee.

A plastic bench • molded in the shape of a couch, like the kind you see in a kid's playhouse, ·sits in the front room. Everything in the building must pass the can-it-be-peed-on test. The New Haven Animal Shelter, a division of the New Haven Police Department, is the largest shelter in Connecticut, taking in approximately 2,000 dogs and cats each · year and finding owners for 75 percent ·of them. The shelter attracts over 3,200 visitors annually and can accommodate more_ ~han 60 animals at once. This may seem like a lot, but the dog runs are almost always full.

New Haven is a hard city. The few people dedicated to caring for New .Haven's dogs see plenty of ugliness. Everyone at the OGS ESCAPE shelter looks tired. Bob chain smokes whatfrom their ever brand is on sale at the supermarket and cages all the doesn't say much without being hounded, time at the New "The job's difficult," he finally told me.

Haven · Animal "The pay is low; we're always short on staff, Shelter. Some jump big on problems. It's difficult not to get over the eight-foot burnt out. We're always looking for voluncage door; others . teers who can get past orientation. A lot of make a run for it people look into an animal's eyes and realize while being fed or they can only do so much. They don't like collared for a walk. to stick around."

On my first day as a Bob is inundated with negligencalls. volunteer, however, I The complaints go to him when a dog is let not one dog spotted tied up in the snow or "hung," escape, but two. meaning the rope is too short for the dog to Before. I could lie down. "It happens a lot," Bob said. turn around, a lab "They tie them up and leave them outside, mix and a pit bull were at each other's feed them once in a while and that's it." In throats. "Bob!" I shouted. My new favorite high-crime areas like New Haven, dogs are kennel worker barged through the swinging often used as security devices. It is in cases doors and picked up both eighty-pound like these that abuse most often occurs. dogs by their scruffs, one in each hand, and One day last year, the shelter got a call returned them to their cages without a · about barking coming from an abandoned word. house. Bob found a white pit bull hung in Bob Bombace is like a four-man Special the basement. She had been there about a Forces unit. The police seek his help when week, ever since her owners were evicted. they see a stray, and citizens call him when The dog was so weak that the staff named they suspect their neighbors of holding dog her Skinny and kept her in their office, fights in their basements. When a coyote where she slept most of the day in someone's was found rooting through trash cans last lap. As Skinny put on weight, it became eviyear, Bob hopped in his van and brought it dent that she had been used to fight. The back to the shelter in a plastic dog kennel. moment anyone put a leash on her, she The shelter is located about two miles jumped and snapped at the air for several from campus on Dixwell Avenue. A blue minutes before eventually calming down. '

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The staff wasn't surprised. A common practice is to leash and bait a dog before a fight, eventually creating a Pavlovian response to leashes and violence. Similar neuroses emerged that rendered Skinny un-adoptable. She was put down.

New Haven is home to a fairly standardized ring of dog-fighting, using mostly pit bulls. Pit bulls are classically chosen as fight-dogs because they are strong and can be easily trained to fight. Anyone who has worked with pits, however, will attest to the fact that they are not naturally violent.

According to Richard Johnson, the President of the Connecticut Humane Society, "The real problem with pit bulls today comes from humans . . . . Since pit bulls are exceedingly loyal to their owners, an owner who wants a dog to be aggressive and reinforces this behavior can create an extremely aggressive dog." In fact, according to the American Canine Temperament .

Testing Association, 95 percent of the pits that took its temperament test passed, compared to a 77 percent average passing rate for all breeds. The pit bull ranks higher for temperment than cocker spaniels, german shepher~s, chow chows, and chihuahuas.

Everyone who works at the shelter is especially concerned about the pits. "A lot of people don't want a dog with a scary face, no matter how sweet he is," volunteer Tania Sapko said. "It becomes a desperate undertaking, finding a home for some of these , guys.

Despite the constant stream of interested adopters, finding homes for dogs is difficult. Taped on the inside of the office door, hidden from visitors, are eleven sheets of paper the "DO NOT ADOPT TO" list.

Signs are made to warn against the people who seem like decent pet-owners and might fool the newer volunteers. '!DO NOT ADOPTTO SUSAN MARGOLIS wants a chow for outdoor dog!" Another proclaims, "DO NOT ADOPT TO JIM CLARKSON has two cats and no vet."

The worst are the "DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT ALL AROUND BAD" signs, • scribbled tn permanent marker.

Another group of would-be adopters are barely let in the front door. These are the people who create the need for shelters in The New Journal

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the first place, who fight their dogs and throw them out when they start losing.

They come to the shelter looking for fresh blood, for fighters or bait-dogs. They ask for a pit, walk down the rows of cages, and point to the biggest, loudest dog who is throwing himself against the door, the one who has been in the shelter for months, the one that no one else will even look at. "I want that one," they say. They don't inquire about its history or ask to see how it walks on a leash. These people are asked to leave and not come back. And they don't, at least not during business hours.

Last year the shelter had a rash of breakins and pit thefts. The staff believes local teens hopped t}le barbed-wire fences surrounding the cages and somehow got the dogs back over with them.

Of the eight that were stolen, a few were found roaming the streets, and one even came back to the shelter on his own.

Life at the shelter is • not ideal, but for many dogs it's a drastic improvement. The volunteers take • on a range of duties, including walking, grooming, and coordinating adoption events. Staff and volunteers try to prep -dogs for potential adopters, training them to walk on leashes and sit quietly beside their walkers. If I'm out back with a dog when a car pulls up, we stand like two orphans watching a wealthy young couple walk through the door. "Sit down, Annie," I say. "No one will take you if you keep barking like that." The couple approaches and I smile. "This is Annie.

She's a three-year-old terrier mix" a euphemism for pit bull "who gets along well with children and other dogs." The woman smiles and edges behind her husband, away from Annie, who's straining at her ·leash and drooling. "She's just a little excited," I continue. "She's normally very calm." After the couple thanks -me and walks away, Annie stops pulling and sits down beside me, panting. "You blew it, girl," I say. "You better shape up; you don't have much time left."

A dog's chances for adoption diminish the longer it remains at the shelter. Dogs pass their days cooped up in cages surrounded by other dogs who are also going crazy. The barking will make anyone's ears ring. The more stir-crazy a dog is, the less likely anyone is to consider him.

The volunteers try to compensate for this by featuring the older dogs as "Pets of the Week." They post signs on their cages and on the shelter website, like this one for a small pit bull who lived at the shelter for six months: "My name is Hope. My previous owners were a bit neglectful of me and allowed my collar to become grown into my neck. So, if you come to see me you will notice right away that I have a boo-boo around my •

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as wide as he 'is tall, with one of the ugliest faces I've ever seen. This is why, a few weeks ago, I decided to take him for a walk.

I'm trying to work on my shelter image; I'm pretty sure the other volunteers purposely take out all the big dogs before I ge~ there, · leaving me the puppies and miniature poodle. So the other day I arrived early and went straight for Scooby's cage. The placard hanging on his door said, "Scooby may look tough, but he loves to give kisses and would make a great lap dog." I looked at him, drooling into a puddle between his front legs and denting _the wire mesh door with his shoulder, and prepared his choke-chain.

I crouched and positioned my body so I'd be blocking the opening of the cage. I unlatched the door but kept it closed with my knee, and held out the collar between my two • hands like a eat's cradle.

The moment I cracked open the door, Scooby shoved his head tl:trough the opening and was on his way • to freeing his shoulders. I grabbed him wherever I could (his eye, I think) and • tried to get his collar on.

Bob was out on a run, so I was on my own. I was having no luck with the collar, - and he was almost completely out of the cage. In a moment of panic, I grabbed him with both hands by the scruff of the neck and hurled him back in the cage. My heart was pounding, and I lo?ked down only to realize from the saliva running off my elbow that my forearm had been in his mouth during most of the five-minute scuffle, but there wasn't a single tooth-mark.

Scooby reveals a lot about the plight of a shelter dog. No one wants him because he's strong and scary-looking. He's a 100pound dog trapped in a five by fifteen-foot cage, and he grows more stir-crazy every day. But in a desperate moment when most would have defended themselves against the girl with her fmger in their eye, Scooby only drooled.

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neck. It is healing quickly, I don't even realize that it's there. It doesn't stop me, I'm energetic and bouncy. I love people, I love to jump on you and kiss you. Affectionate and very friendly. PLEASE HELP HER. SHE NEEDS TO GET OUT!" If the last line seems desperate, it's because it is. Shelter workers always fear a sudden influx of dogs who need cages that aren't available. If a dog has. been in the shelter for a long time and is becoming increasingly undesirable as a pet, he may be put down. "It's tough to keep them here too long, because their personalities change," said volunteer Darlene Koosa. "Scooby Doo, for example, he was here when I started training in May, and now there's definitely a change. He's more aggressive."

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found commonly in basset hounds, GDV occurs when consumables . . are consumed in excessive quantities, resulting in drastic bloating of the stomach: · ''As the stomach swells, it may rotate 90 to 360 degrees, twisting between its ·flXed attachments at the esophagus and at the duodenum. The. twisting stomach traps air, food, and water in the stomach. The bloated stomach obstructs veins in the abdomen, leading to low blood pressure, shock, and damage to internal organs. The combined effect can quickly kill a dog."i The presence or absence of signs or symptoms of GDV will be evaluated in the Results section.

On the Evaluation of Consumables from the Nation of Thailand at a Cross-section of Restaurants in New Haven, Connecticut, or •

UTongue-thaied.~~

By Flora Lichtman

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Introduction The presence of three restaurants containing the word "Thai" in their nomenclature, in a 42-foot radius, compels the average Thai food (TF) consumer to ask him/herself: at which venue shall I consume? Put another way, given that the distance from consumer X to a given restaurant Y is negligible, in which restaurant should consumer X consume? To this end, we have endeavored to identifY certain defining characteristics of each establishment, so that a discerning consumer could evaluate for him/herself, based on his/her preferences, which restaurant best suits his/her needs. We then proceed to analyze these properties and venture an overall recommendation.

The three establishments under observation are Thai Taste (TT), Pad Thai (PT) and Thai Pan Asian (TPA). They are located on Chapel Street, in the quadrangle formed · by the cross streets of York and Park in New Haven, Connecticut. These restaurants make up 50o/o (3 of 6) restaurants on that segment of Chapel Street.

Thaicumulation and Other Caveats: A Frank Discussion The concentrated consumption ofThai food resulted in thaicumulation, ·the dangerous and potentially fatal build-up of Thai food in the human digestive system {see Figures l.a. and l.b.). For the layperson, this phenomenon can be understood as something akin to

Figure 1.a.

This figure represents the presence of thaicu.mulation in the body after the fourth meal.

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Figure 1. b.

This figure represents "hot spots" areas in which dangerous levels of thai substances were found.

Methodology On Consuming Vast Quantities ofTF The data for this article is based on direct consumption of TF by the author. Gastrointestinal fortitude permitted the author to consume four Thai dinners in the course of a single week {week of October 1, 2004). The first meal occurred at Thai Pan Asian, the second at the Thai Taste "cart" located on the junction of York and Elm Streets, the third at Pad Thai, and the fourth at Thai Taste. At each meal, there were from two to thirteen tasters (including the aforementioned author, who was present at every tasting), and there were two stipulations: (1) two dishes ("Drunken Noodles" and "Tom Yum Goong Soup") were to be kept constant at each venue and (2) a (relatively) diverse selection was tested.

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overdose. The symptoms of thaicumulation most notably, a visceral repulsion to the possibility of consuming a single further drunken noodle or curry soaked bamboo shoot may have biased the results, especially for the fourth restaurant, TT. In addition to the quantitative over-consumption, the intervals between meals also varied and may have resulted in some outliers. Two meals (PT anc:t TT) were consumed on consecutive evenings (the evenings of October 4 and 5). This became a potential methodological design flaw evidenced at the TT dinner, where this taster not only showed psychosomatic signs of overdose but also demonstrated dramatic symptoms of food poisoning, including sweating, fever and intense abdominal pain.

Though food poisoning is most commonly caused by picnics, school ' cafeterias and mayonnaise-based dishes at large social functions, and not often associated with too much consump-

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Modus Operandi of Documentation Materials required: 1. Pencil and 2. Paper •

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TF consumption was accompanied by a thorough note-taking process documenting the experience, with special attention to (a) decor and presentation, (b) in-meal gastronomic pleasure, and (c) post-meal sensation. Symptoms of gastric dilatation-volvulus (GDV) were the primary criteria for judging post-meal sensation. A disease

tion of o·n e type of food, it should not be excluded as a

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possible explanation for this taster's severe reaction.

can be concluded that if one's appetite calls for shrimp or squid, quality of food should be the sole determining factor in restaurant choice as all the prices are eerily identical. For "Mixed Seafood," TT yields the best value-but staying in character, TT is certainly the worst value for "Vegetable/Tofu."

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Results Figure 1. Cross-Comparison of Fiscal Accessibility of Dinner Items

Decor and Presentation effectively refer to the Pnce comparison ambient qualities of the restaurant, an important factor conventional diners consider when dining-out.

Presentation refers to the manner in which the food is arranged by its arranger ranging from 05; 0 being roughly equivalent to e.g. pig slop, 5, to 1. Small Soup 2. Satav the molecular structure of ice. TT was especially 3.. D.ronken Noodles. effective in its presentation of comestibles there ~-P~dTh~fT:>. ilF ··-...,R· was meticulous attention paid to the correlation :>. · meappK:,. uas neu .1ee 6.. Cbicken c~ of serving dishes to different categories of food7.. Vegetable Curty type. While the elaborate decor of TT was ~=~~:.:!.:n.::.~~:icken) required to counteract the fact that the restaurant_ :Madness is located in a basement of a ratty hotel, the portO. C.ti~py Fcog traits of Thai people (their Thai heritage has not been proven. One guest remarked that they seem more likely Hawaiian, based on their bone struc- .

10· 1 2 ture) more than make up for the subterranean level.

TPA was favored for menu readability and Table2 This graph charts the prices of a cross-section of dinner items at the three restaurants sampled. Striking discrepancies are evident.

Pre.w:ntation : Readability Enjoyment InSensation TPA charges 45 cents more for its soups and satays than both PT and · and Meal TT. In fact, the appetizers are over 50 cents more on average at TPA ; Selection. than at PT and TT. For noodles, TT is significantly more expensive: 95 $8.95 $6.95 all noodle dishes are $7.50, whereas at the other restaurants nearly all noodle dishes (barring those including duck and some types of .50 seafood) are $6.95. Specialty fried rice, including basil and pineapple varieties, varies dramatically from $6.50 at PT, to $6.95 at TPA, to $7.50 at TT. It is worth noting that the difference between the selecselection. TPA has a logical menu every dish is denoted with a lettion of chicken, vegetable and seafood (in relation to curries and ter-number system. A majuscule alpha ('~") corresponds to the entrees) is more pronounced at TPA and PT-ranging from $6.95 for group of appetizers while "F" corresponds to frog (a category which vegetable curry to $10.95 for seafood. See Table 1. favored TPA heavily in the breadth of selection comparison).

However, a conflict arose between salads and soups for the letter "S," Table I. Prices for Curries and Entrees Based on Substance and salads were arbitrarily assigned the letter "Y." (This logic gap s~ems largely unavoidable and was not counted as a point deduction, :---::---r--=:---:---;-Sq=--u--:ti--:d--:--:Mix::-::-:-.-ed--=----rlthough such a deduction was pondered, and eventually abandoned.)

Vegetable Tofu Beef Seafood potentially irreconcilable problem is that the group headings seem Pad .50 .95 redundant and confounding. For example, there exists a general Asi $6.95 $8.95 category but also a crab, salmon and fish category (the join$7.50 .95* .95 t--------..i......,......, ___._._______,_.-.,--.,_-:-__....._;..;;;;...._......;u ing of shellfish with their barely-related gill-fish cousins seemed arbi* Also includes duck or scallops as an option. trary at best-further, the separation of "salmon" from the other cate-: ** Also includes scallops as an option. This option should not gories of similar dorsal-finned fish was preponderous). This problem be chosen. was identified on every single menu, however, and as it was uniform, it did not render a deduction.

The most restrictive prices are highlighted for each category. It 27 October 2004

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In addition to clarity, figurative language was also judged when evaluating readability. We found TPA's menu to be a "page-turner" the use of imaginative names such as "Waterfall Beef," "Mary Land," and "Thai Pan Fish Delight" (note the double entendre) was especially appreciated. PT overused the word "sizzli-ng" and was lin.:. guistically inconsistent employing both English and Thai in single titles. The PT menu was wordy and obfuscatory. Take note: "Soft shell crabs spicedwith unique aromatic garlic seasoning fried to perfection and topped with crispy garlic."

In terms of selection, TPA is superior with the longest menu and a plethora of frog dishes not offered at any of the competing establishments.

Gastronomic enjoyment in-meal (GEI-M) is ranked from · 0 (lightheadedness and uncontrollable vomiting) to 5 (papillary ecstasy). Gastronomic sensation post-meal (GSP-M) is primarily analyzed based on the presence of symptoms of gastric dilatation-volvulus after the meal-referred heretofore as the GDV-Test. Results of thiSJ test follow the following rubric: the lower the calculated number, the stronger the presence of GDV symptoms, including stomachwrenching, sweating, lightheadedness and death in some species of . dog. The aftermath of the TT meal was the sensory equivalent to the aftermath ·following the consumption of a strong household cleanser heavily flavored with garlic.

Discussion the inner o ·f alarge

We will analyze the results based on three categories: dining pleasure, edibility and price. Dining pleasure, simply stated, is how much pleasure is accrued by a diner while eating. The presentation of the food on the plate, the ambient qualities of the restaurant, as well as the in-meal gastronomic feeling all affect dining pleasure.

This is a broader category than edibility, which hones in on the food itself and asks the question: is it edible? The edibility score, in this context, is calculated based on the capacity per person to consume and enjoy TF Z, from restaurant Y. This capacity includes in-meal gastronomic pleasure, as well as post-meal gastronomic sensation and any specific characteristics of the food that might affect its capacity to be consumed. Price is based on dollars and hundredths of dollars • spent per Item.

TT scored highest for the dining pleasure category. The restaurant was full, warm, and the presentation was highly stimulating.

Furthermore, the food tasted good in-meal. TPA was observably deficient in the decor and presentation category: there were two other patrons in the establishment.

Calculating edibility required taking the derivative of the following algorithm: _ · [2(GDV Score) + --J(In-Meal Pleasure)]/[(1/Grease Quotient * Spice) *Texture *21t(Taste)]

(>JI. cylinder·engine) TF mn-srunptioat

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TT was disadvantaged by its GDV-Test score of -9.9x10"23, putting it behind even PT. TPA was the inost successful restaurant in this category only losing points for its overwhelming spiciness.

A shot of epinephrine (to reverse anaphylactic shock) is recommended to aid in the consumption of any dish labeled "hot and spicy." PT was a close second because consumption did not result in severe bloating. However, the high abundance of grease in every dish left it wanting for first place. Even the soup slid down a little too quickly and left one's tongue coated with a slimy residue.

Additionally, although there were no signs of GDV in tasters, one diner referred to his post-meal sensation as that of a "chicken stabbing me, drawing intestinal blood, and then the peanut sauce cauterizing the wound." PT, however, did win the price category it is, on average, cheaper than the other two restaurants. To conclude, this author recommends Thai Pan Asian-because despite the fact that the average dish costs an additional 40 cents and the restaurant lacks pictures ofThai princesses, edibility is deemed the high• • est pnonty.

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Acknowledgements I would like to thank Lisena DeSantis, Sarah Laskow, Brendan Kearney, The New Haven Dice Club, Department of University Health, I .ane Rick, Lisa Bozman, Adriane Quinlan, TUMS and Michael Addison for providing research and digestive assistance for this report.

35 years of~~;ward-winning investigativ_e journalis:m,

soctal commentary, and creattve nonfictton

Citations

for

i "Bloat. Know the Symptoms!" The Daily Drqol, an Internet Mail List for Bassets and Their People. http://www.dailydrool.com/bloat.html ii "Food Poisoning," ENL Medical. Medical Dictionary. http://www.enlmedical.com/article/00 16 52.htm

Writers, -Edge Designers, 111 tlovative Photographers, ess ns, and Web Wizards .

T:\.' J •

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for Contact flora.lichtman({fyale.edu

Flora Lichtman, a senior in Davenport, is the Editorin-Chief of TNJ •

October 2004

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29

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'.[""U.,L..

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s ART GALLERY is passing off forged

paintings to New York socialites. And married Meredith McFee, a femme tat:ale who has lured Yale into an illicit affair, blackmails him for sexual favors when she uncovers the forgeries. Meanwhile, Justine DiPerro, Yale's shopaholic fiancee, waits quietly at home, unaware of any deceit. Of course, Yale can do nothing to end either relationship: Justine's mob-boss father has always gotten her "whatever she wanted, including Yale." Bur Justine is beginning to feel that she and Yale belong to different worlds. "She didn't know anything about art, she thought bitterly, and she didn't like eating arugula and capers, and she didn't wear retro clothes." IfYale had his way, he'd pursue a third prospect, Lexi, the ravishing lover of his murdered twin brother, who spends her nights dreaming of Yale's "gold, en mane.

Three women are bewitched by one· man, and the reason they want him is the reason we all want Yale: He is "exquisitely endowed."

But he has other selling points: Page 395: Yale is "rich, powerful, and used to taking what he wants."

Page 152: Yale has "sold his soul to the devil."

Page 92: Yale prizes ''expensive clothes · and impeccable grooming and articulate , speech.

Page 102: Yale acts "above the rest of civilization . . . in that unreachable netherworld."

Page 197: Yale is "competitive, ambitious, even ruthless when it comes to business."

Page 39: Yale "wore khaki shorts and a navy fisherman's knit sweater."

Page 129: Yale is "a snob who only drank bottled water."

Page 296: Yale is a "cold, uncaring sonof-a-bitch."

Page 231: Yale is "Mr. Wonderful." · "Everything about Yale said class-and WASP," writes Fabio Lanzoni, in his adult novel, Dangerous. Though I'm embarrassed to be seen reading a book written by Fabio (a man whose fame is as inexplicable as his silky gold mane, an author whose prose is as intractable as his recovery from "facial reconstruction surgery" after he killed a seagull mid-roller-coaster ride), I can't help mysel£ I am in love with every sugarcoated syllable.

Upon graduation (my well-thumbed copy of Dangerous hidden dangerously beneath my sweltering navy robe), I will imagine myself as Justine, who, unsatisfied and alone, shouts in a crowded bar, "To hell with Yale!" Or I will be Lexi, his deepest connection, and a woman mysterious enough to have won him over: "'I love you, Yale,' she said as he'd started the motor and pulled away."

Yale is always driving off, always pulling away. He is arrogant, beautiful, distant, charming. He is eve · g we Ca.me here

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for. But he lets us down. He is a criminal.

He takes advantage of women, only to cast them aside pages later. And most unloving of all, he cannot throw pebbles against my stained-glass window the night before finals, he cannot hold me· close on my common room futon: he is empty and cold and nonexistent. Yale Bradigan, despite his "seafoam eyes" and the way he "fills" his lovers with "molten pleasure," is nothing more than a copy of a copy of a copy. Though I pretend to know Yale, I know only a caricature, an amalgamation of my hidden lust for cobbled courtyards, round wooden tables, Masters' teas and Sunday morning brunches.

Justine DiPerro, Yale's jealous fiancee, captures it all when she despairs, "This was ridiculous, this fantasizing about Yale." And by page 200, she realizes, broken-hearted, facing the mirror and watching the mascara run down her pallid face, "Yale loved only himsel£" Accusations fly. Yale falls from his pedestal.

Peccadilloes with "arugula and capers" become fiery enough fodder for a Jerry Springer smack-down. Married Meredith screams at him from the tussled bed sheets, "You were using me, Yale ... for sex, because I was far more experienced than the college girls you were used to." Ah, le !igh, as I realize that I, myself, am only a college girl. But then again, if Yale's not using women for . '"Money, ' sex, there 's one o ther comp1atnt: she said, venom in her voice, 'that's all that ever mattered to you, isn't it, Yale?"' '"What are you laughing at?' Yale asked.

"N0 thing. " .

Adriane Quinlan, a sophomore in Calhouse, in Production Manager for

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