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T H E O L D E ST C O L L E G E DA I LY · FO U N D E D 1 8 7 8

NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2012 · VOL. CXXXV, NO. 48 · yaledailynews.com

OBAMA REELECTED ‘The best is yet to come.’

MATT ROURKE/ASSOCIATED PRESS

BY MICHELLE HACKMAN AND DIANA LI STAFF REPORTERS CHICAGO, Ill. — Four years after an historic election victory, President Barack Obama clinched a second term on Tuesday, edging out former Massachusetts

Gov. Mitt Romney and securing another four years of holding the nation’s highest public office. At press time, Obama had won a total of 303 electoral votes compared to Romney’s 206. Major news networks called the race for Obama at approximately

11:15 p.m., before all states had finished reporting final polling results. The President’s victory was accompanied by a slew of other Democratic victories in tight races, with Democrats maintaining control of the Senate despite having more seats up

Yale responds to Obama win

for reelection. “Tonight, in this election, you, the American people, reminded us that while our road has been hard, while our journey has been long, we have picked ourselves up, we have fought our way back, and we know in our hearts that for

the United States of America the best is yet to come,” Obama said in his victory speech. Election buzz built throughout the day in Obama’s home city, where he started his political career with three terms in the Illinois state senate. The crowd

attending CNN’s public watch party at Chicago’s Thompson Center plaza steadily expanded as onlookers joined to to watch final results trickle in and hear the candidates’ speeches. SEE OBAMA VICTORY PAGE 5

Murphy takes Senate seat BY LORENZO LIGATO, MARGARET NEIL AND RISHABH BHANDARI STAFF REPORTER AND CONTRIBUTING REPORTERS In the culmination of one of the most closely-watched and controversial races in the country, Democratic Congressman Chris Murphy defeated Republican candidate Linda McMahon for Connecticut’s junior United States Senate seat in Tuesday’s national election. As of press time, Murphy was reported to have received 54 percent of the vote, compared to McMahon’s 45 percent. New Haven’s electorate strongly swung in Murphy’s favor, with

86 percent of voters casting their ballots for Murphy compared to 14 percent for McMahon. The race garnered media attention nationwide as one of a handful of senatorial contests that together would determine whether the Senate remains in Democratic hands. The outgoing incumbent, Senator Joseph Lieberman ’64 LAW ’67, was one of two independents in the Senate, leaving his vacated seat a potential prize for both parties. The race also drew attention for shattering former campaign financing records. McMahon, who already lost a bid for the Senate in 2010, heavily out-

spent her opponent and committed at least $43.9 million of her own personal net worth to her campaign, according to campaign finance reports. Combined with her failed bid in 2010, McMahon has spent close to $100 million of her own wealth — shattering the record for the largest personal sum a candidate has ever spent for a political seat. The previous record was held by former Ross Perot, who spent a total of $72 million running for president in 1992 and 1996. When Murphy took the stage around 10:20 p.m. in the ballroom of Hartford’s SEE CT SENATE PAGE 3

Romney concedes election BY MONICA DISARE AND CYNTHIA HUA STAFF REPORTERS EMILIE FOYER/SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER

After hearing news of Obama’s victory, seniors celebrated at Box 63. BY SOPHIE GOULD STAFF REPORTER At 11:25 p.m. on Tuesday, a pack of about 15 students, two of them shirtless and waving their T-shirts in the air, spilled out of Farnam Hall onto the lawn of Old Campus and began a victory lap.

INSIDE THE NEWS MORNING EVENING

CLOUDY RAINY

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“Obama!” they cheered. “Four more years!” The sound of Young Jeezy crooning “My President Is Black” emanated from a window of Durfee Hall, as occasional cheers echoed from the distance and the students finished SEE REACTIONS PAGE 6

BOSTON — The convention hall was silent and somber as each news station called Ohio, and then the President Barack Obama’s re-election. A man consoled his young son, who had burst into tears when he heard the news. Clusters of people stood silently, teary eyes fixated on the screens. The scene was a stark contrast to a few hours earlier, when former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s supporters watched campaign videos about change and discussed his chances of winning over wine and cheese. Early hopes of

the Romney campaign fighting against Democrats on blue territory in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania were quickly dashed when both states were called early for Obama. The night went on, the results grew grimmer, but the Romney headquarters in Boston held onto the hope that the remaining votes in Ohio, Virginia and Florida would swing in their favor. As Obama’s victory became increasingly real, Romney supporters listened quietly, many with tears in their eyes, to the Republican candidate’s concession speech. “I pray the President will be successful in guiding our nation,” Romney said.

IT’S OBAMA FROM OLD CAMPUS TO BOSTON AND CHICAGO, THE NEWS COVERS THE 2012 ELECTION ELECTION SUPPLEMENT

Romney, whose speech began around 12:55 a.m. and ended in fewer than five minutes, spoke about Americans’ need to look to pastors, preachers and job creators to help the United States in the future. The Republican candidate began with congratulations to the President and thanks to Romney’s wife, his running mate, Paul Ryan, and his children. Despite their loss, Romney said he and Ryan had campaigned to the best of their abilities, adding that he believes the campaign’s volunteers had put forth the Republican Party’s strongest effort in recent years. SEE ROMNEY CONCEDES PAGE 8

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YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2012 · yaledailynews.com

OPINION

.COMMENT “All these debates and campaign promotions drive me crazy after a yaledailynews.com/opinion

Remember the concession Y

esterday began frenetically. Students woke to find the campus grounds littered with posters and flyers pasted all over our hallways. Student political activists rose early and barely stopped for breath, knocking on doors in a desperate final attempt to “get out the vote.” It seemed everyone — faculty, students and staff — was proudly displaying an “I voted” sticker and encouraging others to do the same. But then the polls closed and the mood shifted. Anxiety seeped in. We knew there was nothing more to do, and so we paced powerlessly or sat nervously and chatted with friends. The world appeared to hang in the balance and we simply could not focus on other things. The TV networks realized this, and so hours before they had anything meaningful to report, they were already in full form, talking dramatically about nothing in particular. For a few hours, undirected angst and excitement got in the way of everything Yale. Mental space simply did not allow for problem sets or reading responses. The anxiety affected Democrats and Republicans alike. Perhaps Democrats waited hopefully and Republicans with a greater sense of dread, but despite Nate Silver’s oracular pronouncements, we all found our way to nervous uncertainty. But where the day began as a common experience, the evening was for partisans. A little after 11 p.m., the mood shifted again as the networks began announcing the election’s results. For the first time in this strange day, the mood among my friends began to divide. Most Yale students were thrilled, and the cheers were as loud as the relief was palatable. But for the Yale College Republicans watching in Silliflicks, there could only be disappointment in a country that signed itself up for an additional four years of mismanagement. Other Romney supporters, few and far between, outnumbered and low-profile, shook their heads at the willful blindness of their classmates, but resigned themselves to the inevitable. As I sat in my room writing this piece, I felt myself surrounded by this strange mixture of suddenly released and conflicting emotions. Out my window, I could hear the revelry of those elated by this evening’s results. But even as I heard those voices, I also watched as mournful emails trickled into my inbox. I am not sure how my address ended up on the Yale College Republicans' mailman list, but it allowed me to bear witness to a string of laments and consolation. As happy shouts overtook the area in front of Connecticut Hall, one lonely Republican student

emailed: “The worst possible night to be living on Old Campus.” That sudden mixture of disYISHAI appointSCHWARTZ ment and jubilation Dissentary felt strange. If not for a handful of friends and email-list happenstance, I would have no contact with the (apparent) majority of voters who are deeply saddened by last night’s results. At Yale, we live in a cocoon of political liberalism so tight that the Yale Political Union couldn’t find a conservative professor willing to debate professor David Bromwich on the resolution “Vote Obama.” In this deeply divided country, tonight is a deeply divisive moment. But on Yale’s campus, unless you look hard, you may never know. Four years ago was the first time I voted. I had just turned 18 and I was spending the year at a religious seminary in Israel. After casting my vote by absentee ballot, I spent Election Night with friends in an apartment in Jerusalem. Because of the time difference, final election returns and speeches did not occur until about 7 a.m. I remember the excitement of casting my first vote — but what stood out for me most was watching Senator John McCain’s concession speech in the early morning hours. I don’t remember the content, but I remember him quieting the crowd as they tried to jeer mention of the presidentelect. In defeat, amidst crushing disappointment, McCain did all could to heal the divisions that elections inevitably create. Again last night, Mitt Romney followed in that impossibly difficult tradition of concession. Amid crushing disappointment, this man who has given so much of his life to the single-minded pursuit of a failed goal prayed for the president’s success and the country’s unity. The classy concession is the bedrock of democracy, and we betray that democratic process if we turn a blind eye to the trauma of electoral loss. So even as you cheer, happy the country has chosen a path you prefer, search out those small pockets of Yale students who disagree. The grace of the defeated politician is the glue that allows the country to function even as half of our citizenry goes to bed despondent. This election was brutal, but now begins the truly difficult work: putting the jagged and broken pieces back together.

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'YDN78' ON 'WE HAVE NO CLUE'

S TA F F I L L U S T R AT O R AU B E R E Y L E S C U R E

G U E S T C O L U M N I S T D AV I D C R O S S O N

Lessons from an independent International Dispatches

t goes without saying that Yale is a politically active campus, especially during an election season. But too often I have seen Yale students waste their breath in an attempt to convince those in the opposition that they are wrong. Sadly, regardless of how well-informed and eloquent the argument, odds are slim that your partisan opponents will change their mind. Instead, your target audience should be people like me: independents who are open to new ideas, even if we have established beliefs. In the future, if you strive to sway our hearts, it’s helpful to keep the following in mind. First, don’t call the opposition stupid, implicitly or explicitly. Everyone has reasons behind his beliefs. Comments like “I can’t understand who could think like that” make me question your intelligence, not your opposition’s. Similarly, the claim that you “don’t know a single person who supports this” only indicates that you seem to live in a bubble; I’m likely to take the rest of what you have to say with more than just a grain of salt. More importantly, don’t attack your opponent with a straw man argument. Too often, I’ve heard students justify their beliefs by presenting a bastardized and usually ridiculous version of the other guy’s argument. While I identify as pro-choice, I don’t like when Yale students paint the typical pro-life advocate as a close-minded Bible-thumper. Those people exist but it’s unfair to conflate such fringes with the more polished pro-life arguments I’ve heard, all of which start by first acknowledging the danger of an over-

reaching government and then explaining their dissent. In the end, it boils down to just giving your political opponent some credit when trying to convince people like me to join your side. Stop using the fallacy of the excluded middle: proving that your opponent is wrong does not make you any more right. This has been especially common this campaign season with much of the rhetoric concentrating on why the other guy is worse. It’s not particularly difficult to convince me that a Romney presidency would be destructive to gay rights. But that doesn’t actually compel me to vote for Obama. On the other side, even if I agree that Obama has handled the economy poorly, that doesn’t excuse the vagueness of Romney’s economic plan. Finally, appreciate the importance of context. Yes, Obama said “the private sector is doing just fine” and ”you didn’t build that,” but he made that point in context; a reasonable, well-informed person would understand the point he was making. Likewise, Romney’s comments on “binders full of women” or the 47 percent have different meanings than the sound bites themselves might imply. This rule also applies to actual statistics. Believe it or not, numbers can be deceptive; just ask any pollster how much framing matters. So when you claim you are giving me “just the facts,” as if they are the smoking gun, don’t be surprised if I remain unconvinced. As a student studying abroad during an election season, I’m disappointed to have

missed out on some of the most critical discourse regarding the direction of American governance. But by studying with a diverse group of international students here in Milan, Italy, I have also come to recognize that our American political ideologies are still well within the confines of a limited liberal democracy that ensures broad individual rights — as well as liberties not found in most other parts of the world. Yes, this sounds childishly simple until you live in a country — an industrialized, First World, European country — whose last president controlled nearly 90% of the media, where professionals often put the cost of bribes into their budgets and where friends tell stories of how their families lost their jobs and were pressured out of town for speaking up against corruption. As much as we perceive Western Europe as a very open and liberal society, many of their economic and public policies would never be tolerated by freedom-loving Americans on either side of the aisle. In short, when given the opportunity to step outside America’s political fray, you begin to realize that the supposedly irreconcilable differences that divide our country ultimately are not so great. Sadly, our discourse doesn’t usually reflect that: trust me when I say that for many of us independents, partisanship sounds the same regardless of whether it’s liberal or conservative. DAVID CROSSON is a junior in Branford College. Contact him at david.crosson@yale.edu.

G U E ST C O LU M N I ST NAT H A N I E L H U N D T

YISHAI SCHWARTZ is a senior in Branford College. Contact him at yishai.schwartz@yale.edu .

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while”

After four years

n this day four years ago, I let myself sleep in. The night before, I’d stood arms akimbo with an army of Obama volunteers in the ballroom of a downtown Colorado Springs hotel as the results of the 2008 election were called out. As the regional director for the campaign in El Paso County, I felt enormous pride for my role in building something — a volunteer apparatus that turned out more Democratic voters in this conservative bastion than any statewide campaign had in recent memory. Just 18 months before, I’d left the protective courtyards of Mother Yale for what I’d thought would be the last time, and signed up for the fledgling Obama campaign running third in the Iowa caucus polls. Remember John Edwards? We were behind him. My job search, as I recall, had been driven by a desire to not do what many of my friends were doing — pursuing lucrative careers paths that would begin on Wall Street. Instead, I wanted to escape my life’s bubble, learn about my country and with the election around the corner, be a part of something much bigger than myself. What I learned while campaigning in five states presaged the tragedy of the Great Recession. I witnessed poverty and division, crumbling, outdated infrastructure and an economy being robbed of its fundamental fairness. But what I saw also foreshadowed collective resolve. The citizens I met and the volunteers who marched into the offices I ran were unnervingly defiant,

bullish about their own futures and fired up about the election. Today, in the wake of Sandy, you don’t have to venture far down the Eastern Seaboard to encounter this same dichotomy. Over the last four years, titanic firms have been downsized and bankrupted, bonuses slashed, and conversions for entire recruiting classes eliminated. Some of my closest and most talented friends that had taken coveted Big Apple financial jobs became victims of the worst financial crisis any of us will experience in our professional lives. But demonstrating true Yalie resilience, my friends turned plight into opportunity and tried things they’d always wanted to do. One took his language and private equity skills to an emerging market in Vietnam. Another left a big bank to apply his knowledge of the energy sector to a startup that creates industry-specific news feeds. My own road, which included stops in the Obama Administration’s Interior Department and at two of Silicon Valley’s biggest companies, has led me back to Yale, where I am a student at our School of Management. Despite the fact that television analysts were predicting a rally on Wall Street if Gov. Romney won, I am thrilled with the results. The reason is that we have a president for the next four years that stands for equality. No, not socialism. Far from it. In time, President Obama’s first term will be seen as the Great Reset. Between 2008 and 2012, he restored our sanity in a dizzying number of

ways that Colbert and Stewart could not. In the president’s second term, I expect common-sense tax reform that asks everyone to pay their fair share and backs us off the fiscal cliff. I expect immigrants to be treated as equals, with respectful policies that reward hard work, while discouraging illegal activity. I expect clean energy to be given the same opportunities to power our nation as dirty energy providers have been handed. I expect entrepreneurs to be encouraged and monopolistic mergers to be mitigated. I expect a safer and more prosperous planet and a more relevant and responsible federal government that stays out of the bedroom while looking out for my lot in life. As crisis after crisis — both man-made and natural, from Lehman Brothers and BP to Hurricane Sandy — have shown, we need a public sector that keeps pace with innovation and complexity, anticipates disaster on the horizon, spares us devastation and is accountable as we recover. Most of all, I expect that I’ll have to pick up a torch and carry on the work that I believe in. I expect you to pick up a torch as well. After all, this has never been about one man or woman; it’s always been about the collective us. So with the 2012 election now behind us, we can all sleep in this morning. But just a little. It’s time to look forward. NATHANIEL HUNDT is a 2007 graduate of Davenport College and a student at the School of Management.

YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2012 · yaledailynews.com

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ELECTION 2012 ‘

GROVER CLEVELAND Officeholders are the agents of the people, not their masters.

YALE SOUNDS OFF ELECTION RESULTS I think the results of the election point to a diverse political middle that is willing to fight back. Entire swaths of voters were turned off by the extreme positions Romney took during the primaries — just look at his losing margins among women and minorities. No candidate will ever win national office with 25 percent of the Hispanic vote; it's that simple. American politics are no longer dominated by white male voters. The political center has moved to the left, and the Republican party would be smart to follow suit. -ROD CUESTAS '15

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It always seems darkest just before the dawn. My parents told me that when Carter won, they thought we'd lose the Cold War to the Soviets — and then came Reagan. Maybe Romney's loss is just paving the way for the Reagan of the twenty-first century. I certainly pray so, at least. -ELIZABETH HENRY '14

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I am ecstatic for another term of sensible foreign policy, higher quality healthcare, improved educational goals and hopefully more bipartisan action. I am, however, disappointed about the negativity of this campaign; it is a reflection on the American political sphere, one that desperately needs positive change. -KELLY WU '16

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When President Obama assumed office, he broke down racial barriers. Four years later, he continues to inspire with both his rhetoric and his actions. We still have a ways to go, but for now, I celebrate. I just can’t wipe the childlike grin from my face, because today I know that our country will continue to move forward. -OMAR NJIE '13

To quote a friend from back home, last night was a "tough night for rape enthusiasts." Thankfully, yesterday evening was tough for many people in the country who were attempting to systematically strip people of their rights — be it the right to marry, the right to make choices about one's own body or even the right to vote. As an American, I'm happy to look forward to another four years of an Obama presidency. As a Missourian, I'm thrilled, though not surprised, that Claire trounced Todd Akin, allowing my state to retain some shred of dignity. For the first time ever, something that I voted for actually happened. -BECCA STEINBERG '15

Like many conservatives, I am more disappointed that President Obama won than that Mr. Romney lost. I only hope that the popular vote will be favorable for us, so that the President will know he was America's second choice. -EMILY POIRIER '15

G U E ST C O LU M N I ST M E I RY U M A L I

A different kind of apathy I

f I wake up today and I find out Obama hasn’t won, my biggest worry will not be what will happen to health care, or how taxation will change, or whether Romney will continue to find more women in binders to offend. Nope, my biggest worry will be that if Obama hasn’t won, my suitemates and roommate will have a collective aneurysm and internally combust, and I will have no one to room with next year. Lesser mortals come home and complain about their p-sets (me), but not my suitemates. They like to come home and complain about some idiot in Entryway X of College Y and his Romney-Ryan laptop sticker. Some people sit and calculate their GPA — my suitemates calculate the votes needed to make swing states, well, swing. I spent one evening just watching my suitemate throw popcorn at the TV screen every single time Romney opened his mouth to speak. When I wanted to grab the attention of my other suitemate, all I need to do was whisper “Paul Ryan tax cuts,” and she became as alert as any good Democrat could be. Meanwhile my roommate tacked not one, but two Obama-Biden posters in our room, including one in Spanish. “Estamos Unidos” is now the last thing I read before going to sleep. These are the girls I live with, and I am completely grateful for that. It’s com-

forting to know that at two in the morning, your suitemate will be jumping up and down because she single handedly registered 42 people to vote. There’s just one problem: I can’t vote. I’m not from this country. My passport is a different color. And so set in the apathy. This wasn’t the apathy that people have complained about: the why-did-more-of-us-showup-in-2008 variety. This was the peculiar, almost snobbish apathy of international kids who have no connection to this country at all — except, of course, for the fact that we’re at Yale. We didn’t skip class to campaign, and we didn’t tear Linda McMahon stickers off signposts (another thing my suitemates did in their spare time). And this apathy is beginning to irritate me. For some, this “I don’t care” attitude morphed into a “I don’t know” attitude, but the last thing anyone should remain uninformed about is a presidential election in one of the most, if not the most, important countries when it comes to foreign policy. And the election results will affect international students, too, right down to whether or not you can receive an I-20 student visa and how long it’s valid. One international kid told me: “Why should I care about American politics? It’s not like they care about politics in other

countries.” I’ll tell you why. Because I’m sorry if you’re from a little island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, or a random Middle Eastern country churning out oil or a South Asian country with nuclear arms — no matter how important a player your country is in their region, its foreign policy doesn’t count for anything. The decisions their Congress or Senate or Parliament make are incomparable to the kind of decisions that the U.S. Congress and president will make. That my suitemate’s vote — the same lovable p-set-enduring, lunchbuddy suitemate — potentially decided how much aid my country will receive in the coming years is almost surreal. But it’s true, and it happened right in front of me. For anyone to argue otherwise that international students really shouldn’t care is ridiculous. The election is over, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still be aware. Know your far-left liberals from your moderate Democrats, and your McMahons from your Murphys. Don’t be apathetic, even if you couldn’t vote. Because the people who did vote, on some distant level, voted for you, too. And that, more than anything, is the real worry. MEIRYUM ALI is a freshman in Pierson College. Contact her at meiryum.ali@yale.edu .

G U E ST C O LU M N I ST B I JA N A B O U T O R A B I

Leadership without virtue T

wo weeks ago, an alumnus of the Yale College Class of 2012, the field manager for his father’s congressional reelection team, was caught on film acquiescing to a sting investigator’s suggestion that he commit voter fraud. He has since resigned his position on the campaign. Over the summer, another 2012 graduate lost her internship at the Wall Street Journal after she mistook a quotidian piece about the reopening of a footbridge in Manhattan for a creative writing exercise, inventing fictional sources and attributing quotes to them. Though these stories may appear to be isolated, anecdotal events, they should worry us. The stakes are higher than one young man’s future in politics or one young woman’s career in journalism. Yale prides itself on educating the leaders of tomorrow, but if these stories are any indication, the leaders we are producing lack character, judgment and virtue. Unless Yale recovers its moral compass and relearns how to educate its students in the virtues required for leadership, the nation would do well to look elsewhere for its future leaders. Neither Yale’s academic excellence nor its social culture distinguishes its undergraduate program; both are similar enough to those of hundreds of other colleges and universities. What sets Yale and its peer institutions apart is that they consider themselves — and are considered — training grounds for future leaders par excellence. We undergraduates have the gospel of leadership preached to us from our first moments on campus; at Commencement, the president of the University admits us

to the “rights and responsibilities” (not “rights and privileges”) of Yale alumni, implying that we have a duty to take what we have learned at Yale and use it for the betterment of the world. Sometimes, it can be hard to tell whether this fixation on leadership is entirely healthy; in my opinion, it often has the savor of a smug complacency or an unseemly messiah complex. Either way, the fixation is undeniable. Ours is an education for leadership, and rarely are we allowed to forget it. It is therefore frightening how little concern Mother Yale evinces for the moral education of her charges. Fifty years ago, the philosopher Henry Veatch commented on the American university’s accelerating abdication of moral authority: “Even the professors of ethics nowadays … would not for a minute consider it their business to instruct students in such time-honored themes as ‘the difference between right and wrong,’ ‘the good life for man,’ or the obligation of being ‘For God, For Country, And For Yale.’” Admittedly, the Harvard-educated Veatch may have taken a more than philosophic pleasure in that jab at New England’s second-oldest college. But we cannot deny the substance of the charge. Do our classes impart any coherent system of ethics? Do our extracurriculars? Does the administration? During the Title IX controversy, many official statements pronounced that sexual assault was inimical to “Yale’s values.” And yet in my four years as a student here, I have yet to see that phrase — “Yale’s values” — applied to anything more concrete or less specific than the disapproval of rape,

which ought to be a presupposition of any meaningful moral education — not its first and only lesson. Nor is the faculty concerned with moral instruction. There are, undoubtedly, many teachers who see their job as the bettering of their students’ whole being, including the cultivation of virtue. For the most part, though, our professors are professionals, not mentors. They were hired for their specialized academic competencies, not because anyone thought they would add to the University’s ability to convert bright pupils into principled and profound leaders. Many, I am sure, will feel that this is proper, that it isn’t the university’s place to teach virtue, that the academy should confine itself to academics and leave the students to their own moral explanations. Yet if young men and women are to spend four years of their lives acutely conscious of their present and future privilege, they had better receive a sound moral education to prepare them for the use of that privilege. Yes, there is room for disagreement over the precise virtues Yale should be imparting. But when Yalies are willing to participate in voter fraud or fabricate journalistic sources, it is clear that their moral education has been so deficient that they have not even picked up the preliminary virtues of self-respect and integrity, without which no true leadership is possible. BIJAN ABOUTORABI is a senior in Trumbull College. Contact him at bijan.aboutorabi@yale.edu .

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I am excited for Obama to put the election behind him and use his newfound freedom to make bolder, more liberal policies during his second term. And maybe to install President Levin as Treasury Secretary! -JONAH BADER '16

A new conversation W

henever election season rolls around, I can’t help but think of the TV show “The West Wing” (and it would appear that other YDN columnists feel the same). I inevitably compare all political candidates to Jed Bartlett, the idealistic, wildly intellectual president on the show, and his group of brilliant, irreverent aides. I don’t think of the show with longing during election season because it’s hilarious — though it is — or because it’s the equivalent of chicken soup for the tortured liberal soul. No, what makes the world of “The West Wing” so compelling during election season is the way the characters on the show talk. It’s not the way our politicians talk today, and it’s not the way they’ve been talking throughout this election as they vented partisan bitterness, called each other names and lied through their teeth. No, the characters on “The West Wing” weren’t perfect, and they didn’t always tell the full truth, but they were men and women of integrity, people that you believed had your best interests — and the best interests of the country — at heart. Yesterday our country voted, modeling for the world what sustainable, vital democracy looks like. And yet, I wonder how many people voted because they genuinely believed that the people they were voting for were fully invested in making a better world for them, their constituents. I say “fully” because I believe that many politicians — our current and now future president amongst them — do want to build a better world for Americans. But I also believe that we, and our president of the past four years, have come to realize that American politicians are often more interested in agendas other than building a better America: imposing their religious beliefs on people in the country who don’t share them, building up their own power bases and maintaining the status quo for their cronies in the private sector. While most of these politicians won’t own up to the biases that inform their behaviors and opinions, they are also all too ready to call others out for the very same tendencies. The hypocrisy and disingenuousness of politics has become wearying, and it’s largely boiled down — for me — to a single point: our politicians are afraid of disclosure. They are eager to avoid substantive discussion with each other in which they are forced to agree, disagree and compromise. Jed Bartlett ends one episode of “The West Wing” dreaming of a great conversation about American values and practices sweeping the country: in homes, in the media, in the White House and in Congress. I too dream of such a conversation, one beyond

the abovementioned partisan bickering and snarky asides. We as a nation deserve such a conversaZOE one that MERCER- tion, acknowledges GOLDEN what our country isn’t Meditations doing well and what we can do better, making room in the conversation for everyone’s voice. I imagine an election in four years in which the voice of a millionaire doesn’t mean more than the voice of a new-made citizen; where young people are listened to as much as the old; where minorities can advocate for the changes that must be made in order for them to have equal opportunities and full participation in American public life.

THE CONVERSATION WILL BEGIN WITH US Yes, it is the idealist in me imagining this conversation. But the realist in me is prepared for more of the same political dodging, ducking and road-blocking of avenues to honest, nuanced discourse. And so, as everyone wakes up this morning, I want to advocate for a little outrage. We stood in line. We voted. We don’t necessarily believe our vote will change the world or our lives for the better. And yet we continue to wait and hope that the country we live in and love will improve economically, socially and politically — that our children will have better lives than ours. Together, we’ve made a decision about who we want to lead us. We have four more years of President Obama. But it’s now our job to call the leaders of our many different branches of government to account, and remind them of their true responsibilities: our prosperity, our peace of mind. As a lover of “The West Wing” and a young voter that never wants to feel the mixture of outrage, apathy and disbelief that I experienced during this election, I want to put forward a statement that politicians don’t seem to want to acknowledge: they work, and should only work, for us. Let’s spend this term reminding our leaders of what they can be — and what they owe us. ZOE MERCER-GOLDEN is a senior in Davenport College. Contact her at zoe.mercer-golden@yale.edu .

PAGE 4

NEWS

YALE DAILY NEWS 路 WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2012 路 yaledailynews.com

YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2012 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 5

NEWS

“I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.” WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE SPOKEN BY KING RICHARD IN SHAKESPEARE’S PLAY “RICHARD II”

DRAMA

Theater adapts to new technology BY ANYA GRENIER STAFF REPORTER Thirty minutes after Undergraduate Production’s “Sound/ Projections Seminar” was scheduled to begin yesterday afternoon, its hosts were still waiting for a single student to show. But UP Technical Director Tom Delgado DRA ’09 and Nathan Roberts DRA ’10, production coordinator for the Theater Studies Department, attributed the lack of attendance to Election Day hassle and preparation for this week’s Dramat mainstage “The Drowsy Chaperone,” rather than to an absence of student interest. The use of new media and projections technology on the stage is a growing trend in the theater industry that is sparking excitement among the upcoming generation of theater students, Delgado said. Roberts and Delgado planned the production workshop to take place while the Whitney Humanities Center’s Whitney Theater is still equipped for the senior project “Richard 2012” to show students how the production is making use of live feed video and various media projections, and to introduce them to the the use of sound and projections programs Q-lab and Isadora. “Richard” is not the first theater studies project to make use of such technology, Delgado said. Senior projects “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” and “Hamlet” integrated projections into their shows last year, and Delgado said that he anticipates more senior projects, such as January’s “Breaking the Code,” will do the same next semester. Both the Theater Studies Department and Undergraduate Production have begun new initiatives this year to respond to student interest. Theater Studies Director of Undergraduate Studies Paige McGinley explained that her department is aware that using media projections is a growing trend in the field. For the first time this year, she has made it part of the curriculum both to keep up with developments in the field and to adequately prepare students entering the theater world after graduation.

“[New technology]’s constantly getting integrated into shows on Broadway,” Roberts said. “Students go to New York, and they come to us and ask, ‘How do we do that? How do we make that happen?’”

MIXING MEDIA

To better provide training in these technologies, Delgado, UP Technical Director Justin Deland and Senior Technical Director Rorie Fitzsimmons are all taking a projections engineering class at the Yale School of Drama this semester. While the professional school offers classes in technical mastery, undergraduates interested in theater’s technical side have historically had few academic outlets for increasing their knowledge. The UP workshops have tried to fill in any gaps students may have, Delgado said, citing a series of lighting workshops he held last year that catered to a variety of student needs and skill sets.

Theater has always been a mixed media form. ELISE MORRISON Postdoctoral associate, Interdisciplinary Performance Studies This semester the Theater Studies Department is also hoping to broaden students’ understanding of new technologies by hiring Elise Morrison as an Interdisciplinary Performance Studies postdoctoral associate. Morrison, who received her Ph.D. in Theatre and Performance Studies from Brown University in 2011, focuses her work around the use of video installations and surveillance technologies in theater. Next semester, Morrison will teach an undergraduate course on digital media in performance which will serve as a “laboratory” for students, exposing them both to the theoretical and technical side of the new techniques available to them, she said. “I think that the value of this kind of exploration in the theater is that it allows people to come together and consider what this

new media means for our lives,” Morrison explained. Morrison emphasized that while the use of digital media specifically is new, its incorporation is part of a long history of theatrical productions experimenting with developing technologies. Past examples have included everything from the use of perspectival painting to the incorporation of photography and film, she explained. “Theater has always been a mixed media form,” Morrison said. Morrison said that because video technologies “are so embedded in our daily lives” they are quickly becoming an important way of conveying the realities of modern life and communication on the stage. In “Richard 2012,” for instance, the use of projections helped to “make [it] a completely different kind of event,” creator Alex Kramer ’13 said. The show used live video feed of the actors and audience members, as well as video clips from the news media and political ad campaigns in projections around the stage. For “Richard,” the use of projections is necessary for conveying to audiences the show’s message about the media-saturated culture of the presidential election, Delgado said. Roberts said he hopes other students like those involved in “Richard” will use the projections technology available to them in ways that advance the artistic goals of their projects, and not simply because “it’s the hot new thing.”

THEATER’S DIGITAL AGE

To make new technology more readily available for student use, Delgado said UP recently purchased a MacBook Pro for the Whitney Humanities Center’s theater so that future shows can also benefit from computer-based lighting and sound mixing programs. One up-and-coming theater innovation is LED lighting technology, which allows lighting designers to far more easily create any color on the spectrum, including blended shades not possible with conventional light fixtures,

SARAH ECKINGER/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

The Whitney Humanities Center’s Whitney Theater is still equipped for the senior project “Richard 2012.” DeLand explained. He added that this semester’s “Spring Awakening” production made use of LED lights to great effect, and that spaces around campus including the Off Broadway Theater and the Morse-Stiles Crescent Underground Theater now have new light boards compatible with LED light fixtures. New computer software now gives sound designers a similar plethora of options, Roberts said. “I got into sound design when some people were still splicing together tape,” Roberts said. “Now there’s an infinite amount of sources available… it’s limited only by the computer’s memory.” Modern technologies make technical work in theater less labor intensive and more “user-friendly” than it has been in the past, Morrison said. DeLand explained

that the new LED-equipped light boards are “a lot more intuitive” to students who are used to working with computers. By allowing directors to more easily “dabble” in the technical aspects of shows, new technologies are inspiring more students to begin working on the technical design side of theater, Delgado said. UP Peer Advisor and sound designer Josh Stein ’13 said the undergraduate theater scene has historically suffered from a lack of students on the design and technical fields given the number of shows going up — lighting designers, for instance, have sometimes become “burnt out” due to the high demand for their skills. He said that it is necessary to recruit and retain students with technical skills by giving them more creative outlets.

Delgado said he has already witnessed the increased engagement of students with theater’s technical aspects after they are exposed to the mixed media elements now possible with new technology. He cited the example of Charlie Polinger ’13 as a student now interested in gaining experience as a sound designer after experimenting with recent developments in sound technology as the director of “Richard 2012.” “[New technologies in theater] force actors and directors to have a deeper understanding of the technical sides of production,” Morrison said, adding that her class next semester will blur the lines between various roles. Contact ANYA GRENIER at anna.grenier@yale.edu .

Association of Yale Alumni launches local council BY AMY WANG CONTRIBUTING REPORTER For the graduates of the Class of 2012 who chose to stay in Connecticut after Commencement last May, opportunities to reconnect with Yale may come sooner than their five-year reunion. The Association of Yale Alumni is creating the Young Alumni Council of Connecticut, an initiative that will invite alumni

in Connecticut who graduated from any Yale school since 2000 to monthly events, in an effort to bring together young alumni for networking and socializing. The initiative, which will target the roughly 4,800 young alumni who live in Connecticut, will officially kick off Nov. 30 with an event at Shake Shack on Chapel Street. It will host events similar to those already offered by the Yale Club of New Haven, which has around

400 members, but the new group will be an AYA organization and will not charge annual dues. “The AYA is very interested and innovative, I hope, in producing events that attract young alumni,” said Mark Dollhopf ’77, executive director of the AYA. Dollhopf added that the new initiative is one of “dozens of dozens” of initiatives in the AYA’s strategic plan to increase alumni involvement within their local

regions across the country. Johnson Flucker ’80, the AYA director in charge of New Haven alumni who is coordinating the initiative, said young alumni in Connecticut and New Haven represent “one of the largest untapped resources” for social activities and networking opportunities. According to AYA records, 3,300 of Connecticut’s young alumni are concentrated in New Haven. Flucker added that alumni who

attend the Shake Shack event will have the opportunity to provide suggestions for future events. Though feedback to the AYA has previously shown that young alumni are mostly interested in social events, he said, the AYA would also like to organize some service-oriented and cultural events for the new group.

Graduation happened really quickly, and it’s really hard to keep track of where all my friends are. CHRISTINE JUN ’12 New Haven resident Tahia Thaddeus Kamp ’98, president of the Yale Club of New Haven, said she does not see the new initiative as “detracting at all” from the Yale Club’s events. “It’s a wonderful way to bridge our influence with very recent graduates who are often busy setting out on careers and think something like a Yale Club or AYA event may not have a great deal to offer them — but actually it does, especially for networking and

career opportunities,” she said. All five local alumni interviewed said they would be interested in attending at least one of the new initiative’s events. “It seems like a good idea, so I’d definitely plan on going to whatever I can,” said Christine Jun ’12, a current resident of New Haven. “Graduation happened really quickly, and it’s really hard to keep track of where all my friends are — so to corral everyone in the area together and just do some sort of social event would be enough.” Another New Haven resident, Zachary Rotholz ’11, said he would enjoy meeting Yale graduates from other years, although he already has a group of alumni friends in Connecticut. He added that it would also be helpful to see the initiative bring in panels of older alumni who could give advice to recent graduates and talk about their experiences transitioning from college to their careers. Though the initiative officially focuses on students from the Class of 2000 to the Class of 2012, alumni from other graduation years are also eligible to attend its events. Contact AMY WANG at xiaotian.wang@yale.edu .

BY THE NUMBERS LOCAL ALUMNI 4,800 3,300 400 Alumni in Connecticut Alumni in New Haven

Yale Club of New Haven members

SARA STALLA/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

The Young Alumni Council of Connecticut will kick off in Shake Shack on Nov. 30, providing local Yale alumni with networking opportunities.

PAGE 6

YALE DAILY NEWS Âˇ WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2012 Âˇ yaledailynews.com

NEWS

â&#x20AC;&#x153;We cannot do everything in Africa, but doing nothing is not an option.â&#x20AC;? LEE H. HAMILTON FORMER MEMBER OF THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AND CURRENT MEMBER OF THE U.S. HOMELAND SECURITY ADVISORY COUNCIL

Grants to fund rare language research BY JOSEPH TISCH CONTRIBUTING REPORTER

students in the techniques of language documentation so that they can go and document their own languages and cultures,â&#x20AC;? Turin said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s far too much work to be done. I have the pleasure and privilege of supporting them.â&#x20AC;? The group hopes to assemble easily usable language surveys and field documentation kits to help students with their documentation, Turin said. Over the course of the two-year grant, Turin will travel twice to Pakistan and the Himalayas, and the principal researchers from KIU will travel twice either to New Haven or to the United Kingdom. Alexa Little â&#x20AC;&#x2122;15, who works as Turinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s student assistant, said Turinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s recently awarded grants will fund important and necessary linguistics research. Since these rare languages are in danger of disappearing forever, she said research should be conducted immediately to preserve language skills for future generations. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This is the critical time period to preserve these languages before they disappear,â&#x20AC;? she said. With the advent of technology, Turin said he has noticed a shift in the field of linguistics from documentation stuck in the libraries of â&#x20AC;&#x153;traditional ivory towersâ&#x20AC;? to more practical work that can be useful for native speakers. â&#x20AC;&#x153;No longer [is linguistics research] just terse grammatical descriptions that will sit in university libraries,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Increasingly we are writing in partnership with [native] people.â&#x20AC;? Turin said native people are often cited as full co-authors on published papers. Turin first came to Yale in August. Contact JOSEPH TISCH at joseph.tisch@yale.edu .

Send submissions to opinion@yaledailynews.com

OPINION.

Yale linguist and anthropologist Mark Turin plans to preserve some of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most endangered languages by enlisting the help of native speakers. Turin was recently awarded roughly $70,000 for two different projects which will document these rare languages. A $20,000 grant from the Google Earth Outreach program, which was awarded to him Oct. 31, will sponsor him and Language Landscape, a London-based team of programmers, in creating an online interface to map the geographical distribution of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s languages. Another grant from the British Council Transnational Education Partnership Programme, which will award him approximately $50,000 over two years, will aid fieldwork in the Himalayas so Turin can collaborate with students at Karakorum International University (KIU) in Gilgit, Pakistan to develop a linguistics curriculum for the university. With these two â&#x20AC;&#x153;quite smallâ&#x20AC;? grants, Turin said he hopes to show that a significant amount of money is not necessary to effect change in the humanities and social sciences. He said the prices of documentation technology, such as cameras and recorders, have fallen in recent years and emphasized the native speakersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; excitement for wireless and internet technologies â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a recent change in their lifestyle. While teaching at the University of Cambridge in January 2009, Turin founded the World Oral Literature Project (WOLP) to â&#x20AC;&#x153;collect, protect and connectâ&#x20AC;? the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s endangered languages by digitizing and cataloguing decades of linguistic research.

WOLPâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s data currently includes over 30 collections from 15 countries across five continents from the 1920s to the present, he said. The Google grant, formally awarded to the Turinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s WOLP and Language Landscape, will help cover the costs of programming a new online interface for the next year. Turin said the main programming challenge will be finding a sensitive way to represent the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s linguistic diversity in a way that currently is not possible with Google Maps interface, which uses points and polygons to represent data. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t yet know the outcome or how weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to do it, but we know weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to do something,â&#x20AC;? Turin said. Key to the interface will be the understanding that communities are often multilingual and different languages are used in different ways, he added. The new interface will take advantage of the data hosted by Turinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s WOLP, and will easily allow researchers and native speakers to input new data in the future to â&#x20AC;&#x153;show how and where their languages are spoken,â&#x20AC;? he added. Turinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s British Council grant, which will involve more typical field research, also puts an emphasis on giving native speakers the tools and technologies to document their own languages. He will work with scholars at KIU to document rare and endangered languages in the Himalayas, a region containing one-sixth of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s spoken languages. As part of the project, Turin will take advantage of KIUâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s many masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s students who come from the Himalaya region and are themselves native speakers of endangered languages. â&#x20AC;&#x153;[Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going] to train masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

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Africa week aims to inspire youth BY HAYLEY BYRNES CONTRIBUTING REPORTER Seun Adebiyi LAW â&#x20AC;&#x2122;09 answers to many titles â&#x20AC;&#x201D; among them, Yale Law School graduate, future Olympian and cancer survivor. Adebiyi spoke as part of the Yale African Student Associationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s annual Africa Week, which runs from Nov. 1 to Nov. 10 and was themed â&#x20AC;&#x153;Culture Shifters of the African Renaissance.â&#x20AC;? Along with speakers like Adebiyi, the weekâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lineup features seven events, such as film screenings and lectures from artists, public health officials and economists. YASA President Shamillah Bankiya â&#x20AC;&#x2122;14 said the weekâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s organizers made an effort to choose speakers who could relate to college students and inspire them to become involved with African development. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Having young people speak, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more relatable,â&#x20AC;? she said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You can make a difference however young you are â&#x20AC;Ś Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re inviting young people to make a difference.â&#x20AC;? The week began with a talk from George Ayittey â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a noted TED speaker and president of the Free Africa Foundation â&#x20AC;&#x201D; who said Africaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s problems come from widespread corruption, though the continent can improve its future with a new generation of African leaders. On Monday night, Adebiyi spoke to an audience of 12 students, most of whom were YASA members. His lecture, titled â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Challenges and Opportunities of Setting Up a Registry in Nigeria,â&#x20AC;? described his background at Yale Law School, where he first began to participate in skeleton, a sport that involves sledding on an ice track and one in which he will compete at the 2014 Olympics. After graduating from law school, he was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia and later started the first bone marrow registry in Nigeria. Adebiyi said it became clear that a â&#x20AC;&#x153;huge gapâ&#x20AC;? exists along racial lines for blood donors. Seventy percent of blood donors in America are white, he added, which means African-Americans face a harder time securing a genetic match â&#x20AC;&#x201D; only 13 percent are successful in finding donors. Adebiyi said he is hopeful for the registryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s future success, but he said he is frustrated at the pessimism of African leaders. â&#x20AC;&#x153;[There is] a mental paralysis within elites and experts â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a huge gap between what can be done and what people think can be done,â&#x20AC;? he said.

Bankiya said Africa Week is funded jointly by the Council of African Studies, Office of International Students and Scholars and the Traphagen Alumni Speakers Fund, and the events primarily rely on African Studies professors and Yale alumni to assemble speakers. She added that she hopes the events will provide more visibility for YASA and African students on campus. Ameze Belo-Osagie â&#x20AC;&#x2122;16, an international student from Nigeria who attended Ayitteyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s talk last week, said she agrees that youth hold the power to change Africa, but she thinks some value Africans who leave for education- or business-related reasons over those leaders who remain in Africa. Belo-Osagie, who also attended Adebiyiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lecture, said she found Adebiyiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s talk both relevant and accessible, and she appreciated that he spoke more broadly about succeeding in a challenging environment. Ajua Duker â&#x20AC;&#x2122;15, a YASA board member who attended Adebiyiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lecture, said she found the talk so inspiring that she is now considering moving to Africa after graduation. Africa Week will end this Saturday with a fashion show at the Afro-American Cultural Center. Contact HAYLEY BYRNES at hayley.byrnes@yale.edu .

BY THE NUMBERS BONE MARROW GAPS 70

Percent of cancer patients who will reside in developing countries by 2050

Percent of African Americans who cannot find a life-saving donor match

Percent of bone marrow donors in the United States who are white

YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2012 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 7

BULLETIN BOARD

TODAY’S FORECAST Rain, mainly after noon. High near 43, low of 32. Breezy, with gusts as high as 41 mph.

THURSDAY High of 44, low of 32.

FRIDAY High of 54, low of 34.

DOONESBURY BY GARRY TRUDEAU

ON CAMPUS WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 7 12:00 PM Lunchtime Chamber Music Chamber music ensembles will perform. Free admission and open to the general public. Sprague Memorial Hall (470 College St.), Morse Recital Hall. 8:00 PM Learn to Belly Dance A collaborative workshop with the Yale Arab Students’ Association. Free for undergrads with ID at the door, $5 all others. 8–9 pm: a tour of exciting cabaret, stage and theatrical styles of belly dance; learn some fun moves from each and explore some common belly dance props (veil, Isis wings, skirts, canes, swords). 9–10 pm: learn Shaabi style choreography (flirty, fun, and sassy) at the intermediate level. Morse College (304 York St.), Crescent Theater.

WATSON BY JIM HORWITZ

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8 4:00 PM “Philanthropy and Policy: The Modern Service Movement” A discussion with Shirley Sagawa, Dwight Hall’s 2012 Distinguished Mentor. Sagawa, co-founder of Sagawa/ Jospin Consulting Firm, was named a “Woman to Watch in the 21st Century” by Newsweek magazine and one of the “Most Influential Working Mothers in America” by Working Mother magazine. A national expert on children’s policy and philanthropy, she has been called “a founding mother of the modern service movement” in the United States. She is currently a fellow in the Center for American Progress. Dwight Hall (67 High St.), Chapel.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 9 8:30 PM Fall 2012 Japan Film Series — “Three Outlaw Samurai (Sanbiki no Samurai)” Directed by Hideo Gosha, this 1964 film is among the most beloved chanbara (sword-fighting) films. It is an origin-story offshoot of a Japanese television phenomenon of the same name, but it is also a classic in its own right. A wandering, seen-it-all ronin becomes entangled in the dangerous business of two other samurai, hired to execute a band of peasants who have kidnapped the daughter of a corrupt magistrate. 93 minutes. Whitney Humanities Center (53 Wall St.), Auditorium.

SCIENCE HILL BY SPENCER KATZ

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YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2012 · yaledailynews.com

AROUND THE IVIES

“We are tired of aristocratic explanations in Harvard words.” DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER 34TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND FIVE-STAR GENERAL IN THE UNITED STATES ARMY DURING WORLD WAR II

Candidates balance Harvard connections BY MATTHEW CLARIDA STAFF WRITER This past spring, Mitt Romney made an odd accusation of Barack Obama. “We have a president who I think is a nice guy, but he spent too much time at Harvard perhaps,” Romney told supporters at a rally. But so had Romney. Like the president, he graduated from Harvard with a law degree; in addition, he received an MBA

from the Business School. Nevertheless, Romney was expressing a skeptiHARVARD cism and disdain that is representative of much of the country’s opinion on degrees from elite institutions. While there are many proud graduates of Harvard running

OPINION. Send submissions to opinion@yaledailynews.com

for office, around the country some Harvard alums jockeying for a seat on Capitol Hill are doing their best to avoid “the H-word.” Sometimes an asset, sometimes a liability, a degree from Harvard has proved to be a touchy subject on the campaign trail.

THE H-BOMB

Joseph A. Selvaggi, the Republican challenging incumbent Stephen F. Lynch in Massachusetts’ 8th District, was

strolling the paths of Harvard Yard only a few months ago. Selvaggi graduated from the Kennedy School of Government this past spring and immediately entered the Republican primary. While Selvaggi acknowledged that “the ink might still be wet on my diploma,” he’s not exactly quick to reminisce about his Harvard days, at least not on the campaign trail. “I don’t lead with it,” Selvaggi said of his Masters in Public Policy. “I keep it, in a sense, close to

the vest.” Even when people ask directly about his time in Cambridge, Selvaggi says that he often deliberately refers to HKS as “the Kennedy School,” dropping the Harvard affiliation. “If you can avoid the H-word, and just say ‘the Kennedy School,’” he said, “that solves all your problems.” The negative associations with Harvard can come from both sides of the aisle, according to Selvaggi. “As a Republi-

can coming from the Kennedy School, some people are suspicious, like I’m a Manchurian candidate if I’ve even set foot in Cambridge,” he said. There is also a concern from Republican Party leaders that a candidate with a Harvard degree might not be conservative enough on certain issues. “[People worry] that you’re not willing to beat the drum of partisanship if you’ve spent enough time in Cambridge, [that it might] soften your perspective.”

YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2012 · yaledailynews.com

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WORLD

“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction … It must be fought for, protected and handed on for them to do the same.” RONALD REAGAN 40TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

China cracks down on activists BY GILLIAN WONG ASSOCIATED PRESS BEIJING — During her 30-hour train journey to Beijing, Wang Xiulan ducked into bathrooms whenever the conductors checked IDs. Later, as she lay low in the outskirts of the capital, unidentified men caught her in a nighttime raid and hauled her to a police station. She assumed a fake identity to get away, and is now in hiding again. Wang’s not a criminal. She’s a petitioner. She’s among many people attempting to bring local complaints directly to the central government in an age-old Chinese tradition that has continued during the Communist Party era. But police never make that easy, and this week, as an all-important leadership transition begins, a dragnet is aimed at keeping anyone perceived as a threat or a troublemaker out of Beijing. “There is no law in China, especially for us petitioners and ordinary folk,” Wang, 50, said in an interview with The Associated Press. “Even common gangsters and hoodlums get to leave after they serve time for crimes, but for us, if we get locked up, we

never know when we might be freed.” Authorities want no surprises as the handover of power begins in the capital Thursday. The transition already has been rocked by the party’s messiest scandal in decades, involving a former high-flying politician now accused of engaging in graft and obstructing the investigation into his wife’s murder of a British businessman. Rights groups say the wideranging crackdown on critics bodes poorly for those who hope the incoming generation of leaders will loosen restrictions on activism. “China’s top political leaders are very nervous, as they have since early this year been consumed by one of the most destabilizing and disharmonious power struggles in decades,” said Renee Xia, international director of the Chinese Human Rights Defenders. The group estimates that hundreds or thousands of people have come under some kind of restriction in preparation for the party congress. Lawyers have been held under illegal house arrest, dissidents sent back to their hometowns and activists questioned. Internet users report difficulties

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Thousands mourn Irish guard BY SHAWN POGATCHNIK ASSOCIATED PRESS

ALEXANDER F. YUAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Chinese paramilitary policemen guard the bridges leading to Tiananmen Gate in Beijing. accessing many websites and the failure of software meant to bypass Internet filters. Veteran activist Huang Qi, who runs a website on petitioners like Wang, said nearly 1,000 people have contacted him over the past few weeks to complain that authorities have hired thugs to harass and beat them. “I hope that the Chinese authorities will face up to the social problems,” Huang said in an interview. “Using violence will only escalate the resistance.” The crackdown reflects the leadership’s nervousness as

slowing economic growth exacerbates public outrage over corruption, social injustice, pollution and favoritism toward state-run agencies and the elite at the expense of ordinary people. Under normal circumstances, petitioners are relatively safe once they reach Beijing’s outskirts, though in their home provinces they are almost perpetually on the run from hostile local officials or thugs-for-hire who want to nab them before they can get an audience with central government agencies.

COOKSTOWN, Northern Ireland — Thousands of mourners lined the main street of a central Northern Ireland town Tuesday to bid farewell to a prison officer slain by Irish Republican Army militants, the first killing of a guard in nearly two decades — and a reminder that the British territory’s peace is not yet complete. David Black, 52, was shot several times from a passing car as he drove to work at Northern Ireland’s main prison. His car went off the road and landed in a ravine. No group claimed responsibility, but police and politicians have pinned it to an IRA splinter group based in the nearby town of Lurgan. That faction has been blamed for dozens of shootings and bombings since the 2007 formation of Northern Ireland’s unity government — the central achievement of a two-decade peace process. Although that coalition of British Protestants and Irish Catholics has thrived, North-

ern Ireland at grass-roots level remains a bitterly divided land. Black’s family asked politicians from the major Catholicbacked party, Sinn Fein, to stay away from Tuesday’s Protestant service. Sinn Fein for decades was the public face of the Provisional IRA, the major anti-British paramilitary group that killed nearly 1,800 people, many of them from the province’s Protestant majority, before renouncing violence and disarming in 2005. An honor guard of prison officers in dark-blue uniforms carried Black’s coffin down the broad main street of Cookstown. Family members then carried it into a small Presbyterian church, accompanied by a bagpiper’s lament. The casket was covered in a Union Jack flag and topped by Black’s service cap and a single white rose. Inside, his teenage children paid tribute to their father. His 17-year-old daughter Kyra offered a tearful poem, his 21-year-old son Kyle a personal tribute — and a message to his killers.

PAGE 10

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PAGE 11

SPORTS The show must go on COLUMN FROM PAGE 12 $340 million to the city, including many parts that are currently economically depressed. Some hotels and businesses consistently rely upon serving runners and spectators for their biggest days of the year. There are certainly arguments that the city could not, in good conscience, host the race. One such argument centered on misallocation of resources. Critics said that reassigning police officers to guard runners when those in Sandy’s wake still needed help in recovering was insensitive and unacceptable. But Mayor Bloomberg contested this point; he said that securing the marathon would require no resources to be diverted from the recovery effort.

HOLDING THE RACE WAS MADE IMPOSSIBLE BECAUSE OF PUBLIC PRESSURE Many others felt strange knowing that hotel rooms were being occupied by runners, while those who lost their homes were still struggling to find a place to stay. This attitude was epitomized by Staten Island hotel owner Richard Nicotra, who turned away marathoners from his Bloomfield Hilton with reservations made long ago so that storm refugees had a place to stay. Hurricane Sandy caused an acute disaster and everything should be done to aid those New Yorkers who have lost their homes or their ways of life. But it is worth noting that there are nearly identical longterm problems that would not, and have not, precluded this marathon from being run. New York currently has an all-time high number of homeless people, some 45,000. Unemployment in New York is hovering around 9 percent, and many people are struggling to find work. But it would not have been criticized as hypocritical or heinous to run the marathon through poor neighborhoods that contain many homeless or unemployed. The marathon’s being run this year would not have hurt or antagonized those in need, nor would it have hindered the city’s furious effort to relocate them and to provide them with power. It is possible to have an acute recovery effort while still attempting to proceed respectfully with life, including its major events. But holding the race was made impossible because of public pressure. There were silly and misguided actions from both supporters and opponents of running the marathon. Some marathon runners were reported as sobbing when news of the cancellation reached them. On the Internet, potential spectators threatened the physical safety of runners, should they participate in the race. And so it was a sensible decision to cancel the New York City Marathon, not because it would have been detrimental to the recovery effort, but because it was dividing public opinion. The race is meant to unite New Yorkers. Mayor Bloomberg and the New York Road Runners did the proper thing: They listened. I wish that my fellow New Yorkers would not have made it so difficult to hold the race. As the mayor said at a press conference, “You can grieve, you can cry and you can laugh, all at the same time. That’s what human beings are good at.” After six days of grieving and crying, people should have recognized that the city was ready to laugh for just one morning. Contact JOSEPH ROSENBERG at joseph.rosenberg@yale.edu .

“Wrestling is ballet with violence.”

JESSE VENTURA

FORMER GOVERNOR OF MINNESOTA AND FORMER PROFESSIONAL WRESTLER

Elis succeed in scrimmage The Elis will begin this season’s journey with their first meet this Saturday against Columbia. The Lions finished just ahead of the men’s team at third at the Ivies last year and just behind the women’s team in fourth, separated by only 18.5 points. Lazris said a tense rivalry has developed between the two schools over the past five years.

SWIMMING FROM PAGE 12 strong season last year, finishing fourth at the Ivies behind perennial powerhouses Harvard and Princeton. The team hopes to finish even stronger this year and potentially challenge one of the top two teams. “Our ultimate goal is to get third or above at the Ivy League Championship,” Mike Lazris ’15 said.

“Our meet against them is usually the most important of the year,” Lazris said. “This weekend will set a tone for the rest of the season.” Randolph said she expects the race to be close as the two teams are “pretty evenly matched.” Both the men’s and women’s teams bring impressive freshman groups into this season. The 2016 men’s recruiting class was ranked

No. 25 in the country, and three of the freshmen on the women’s team competed in last year’s U.S. Olympic Team Trials. The Yale women will face off against Columbia at home on Friday at 4 p.m., and the men will take to the pool the following day at 2 p.m. Contact DIONIS JAHJAGA at dionis.jahjaga@yale.edu .

Fencing team opens season A

fencing?

Fencers have to be quick. A single bout is three minutes long, so you have to be quick, but you also have to be quick-thinking. Coaches will describe fencing as physical chess. Half of it is physical but the other half is strategic and mental, being smart on the strip.

There are three weapons. The difference between the weapons is the target area, where you’re allowed to hit. Secondary to that, there are also differences in the rules. The weapon I fence is epee, where you can hit anywhere on the body. The other two weapons are foil, where the target area is the torso and the lower part of the neck, and saber, where the target area is just the upper body.

is a typical fencing QWhat practice like?

do fencers choose which QHow weapon they fence with?

What was it like being in a role where you were expected to lead seniors?

FENCING FROM PAGE 12 about what life would be like on a varsity athletic team. But ultimately I got in on my own. you give a brief overview QCan of the different weapons in

Sometimes it’s based on body type. If you’re tall or if you’re a little faster that might give you an advantage in one weapon or another. Sometimes it’s just based on the availability of coaches. I shouldn’t be an eppeist because I’m short. Epeeists are normally tall, but the only coach in my area was an epee coach, so that’s what I did.

What attributes make a good fencer?

We start off with warm-up and stretching just like any other team. We’ll do footwork and drilling, which is more technique-based, and then we’ll do competitive bouting where we split up into our weapons and fence a five-touch bout.

year you were named QLast team captain as a junior.

It was daunting at the beginning but everyone was incredibly supportive. The captains are elected by the team so I wouldn’t be there unless the team wanted me to be. The seniors were incredibly helpful, and we worked together to lead the rest of the team.

Overall, how would you describe your leadership style?

I’m very communicative. I probably send an email a day. I like to be involved, which may be a good thing or a bad thing. We’re a team that values academics above nearly anything else — my coach will tell you that — so I try to stay up-to-date on how everyone is doing academically.

do you think are realisQWhat tic expectations for the team this year?

I think this year’s team is probably at a similar technical level as last year. We lost a few great seniors and we gained a few great freshmen. That being said, team spirit, energy and confidence in competition can boost us higher than our technical skill level in practice.

you were attacked on the QIfstreet and you had your epee, could you defend yourself?

I like to think I could scare someone off, but fencing has a very rigid set of rules. I move in one direction with very specific footwork so maybe if my attacker followed all those rules I’d have a good chance. Contact KEVIN KUCHARSKI at kevin.kucharski@yale.edu .

YDN

Robyn Shaffer ’13 earned a top 16 finish at the Garret Open at Penn State last weekend.

Historic course to host NCAA championships GOLF FROM PAGE 12 head coach Colin Sheehan ’97 said. “It really was one of the landmark courses from that golden age of design.” Pulaski described the opportunity to play host to the NCAA Regional as an honor, especially in light of the quality of the courses that could have hosted the event around the country. He added that hosting the tournament will consist in both preparing the golf course and making the weekend memorable for the elite field of golfers that will descend upon the course. “The regionals are an opportunity to be around some of the best college players in the country,” Pulaski said. “It’s a great event.” After the school received the gift from Tompkins, Macdonald, along with his protégé Seth Raynor and

Charles Banks, was selected to design and construct the course. Before becoming one of America’s leaders in golf course design, Macdonald began his architectural career examining the great golf courses of his native United Kingdom, men’s team captain Bradley Kushner ’13 said. When he carried his craft across the Atlantic to the United States, Macdonald incorporated the designs he studied in England into a unique style that distinguishes his courses from others in the United States. “You find holes and different hole features that are really unique to Yale and a few other courses around the country,” Kushner said. Kushner added that Macdonald’s desire to respect and revise the English and Scottish courses that he had studied made the Yale course unique. MacDonald even named some of the course’s holes after holes in the

United Kingdom in tribute — the fourth and 12th holes are named for the Road Hole at St. Andrews and the Alps Hole at Prestwick, respectively. He also added certain distinctive features to the greens of the Yale course, such as double-plateau greens and horseshoe greens. Sheehan and Kushner both noted the scale of the course as one of its defining characteristics. “It’s a marvel,” Sheehan said. “And it’s a behemoth.” Sheehan added that the greens are three times larger and the bunkers are three times deeper than those on a typical golf course. He recalled once having to use a ladder to climb into a particularly deep greenside bunker. One of the extraordinary characteristics of the course is its ability to withstand the technological developments and increased driving distances that have shrunk courses over

the past few decades. Sheehan said the course has stayed relatively true to Macdonald’s original creation. Because Yale owns the course, Kushner said that the men’s and women’s golf teams are the course’s first priority, which provides huge advantages for the teams in scheduling and use of the facilities. Women’s team head coach Chawwadee Rompothong ’00 echoed that sentiment. “Not only is it always consistently ranked the number one collegiate course in the country, it’s also very challenging,” Rompothong said. “The bonus for us as a golf team being able to practice on it day in and day out is that it always challenges us.” Contact ALEX EPPLER at alexander.eppler@yale.edu .

IF YOU MISSED IT SCORES

SOCCER(TIE) Real Madrid 2 Dortmund 2

SOCCER(TIE) Arsenal 2 Schalke 04 2

SPORTS QUICK HITS

SOCCER(TIE) AC Milan 1 Malaga 1

MOLLIE ROGERS ’15 ELI NAMED IVY PLAYER OF THE WEEK The sophomore outside hitter scored 30 kills while making only seven errors in the volleyball team’s title-clinching sweep of Penn and Princeton this weekend. Rogers had match-highs in both contests with 16 kills against Penn and 15 kills against Princeton.

WOMEN’S SQUASH RANKED NO. 2 IN THE COUNTRY The Dunlop Women’s College Squash Preseason Team Rankings place Yale behind only top-ranked Harvard. The Crimson took last year’s championship by defeating the Eli women 8–1 in the Howe Cup Championship match in Cambridge.

SOCCER(TIE) Man City 2 Ajax 2

SOCCER PSG 4 D Zagreb 0

FOR MORE SPORTS CONTENT, VISIT OUR WEB SITE yaledailynews.com/sports

“Coaches will describe fencing as physical chess. Half of it is physical but the other half is strategic and mental.” ROBYN SHAFFER ’13 FENCING YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2012 · yaledailynews.com

Elis down SCSU, look ahead to Lions

JOSEPH ROSENBERG

To run or not to run For the first time in its 43-year history, the annual New York City Marathon was canceled. But you might not have known it had you been in Central Park on Sunday morning, where several thousand marathoners — running for charities, causes, personal pride or the good of the city — took to the Park to run a makeshift 26.2 miles. Meanwhile, hundreds of others who had been registered for the race made their way to Staten Island to lend their time, bodies and resources to those still devastated by Hurricane Sandy, left homeless, cold and powerless. Even though the latter activity seems more humane in face

of the cancellation, both were important in moving the city forward from its recent devastation. In fact, might the city have been better off simply holding the marathon in the first place? It’s hard to say if the marathon should have been run this past Sunday, just six days after Hurricane Sandy covered parts of New York with a carpet of water. Until last Friday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg had insisted on hosting the race. One of the strongest reasons why was economic: The 40-something thousand runners, some 30,000 of them international, bring an estimated SEE COLUMN PAGE 11

BRIANNE BOWEN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

The Yale women’s swimming and diving team defeated Southern Connecticut State University 222–77 in a scrimmage this weekend. BY DIONIS JAHJAGA CONTRIBUTING REPORTER After successful tri-meet scrimmages against Lehigh and Colgate two weeks ago, the Yale men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams put forth dominant efforts in a scrimmage against Division II Southern Connecticut State University last Friday at SCSU in New Haven.

The men’s team won its meet 235–59 and the women’s team prevailed 222–77. Both teams placed a swimmer in the top two in each event, and Yale took multiple spots in most events. While the weekend’s results are encouraging, the meet was little more than a stepping stone in the Elis’ seasons. The Bulldogs were hardly underdogs going into this scrimmage against the second-tier Owls — and the

score reflected the disparities between the teams. The Elis approached the meet hoping to make progress on their individual races and ready themselves for the start of the season. “The team raced harder and smarter, and we showed progress,” Courtney Randolph ’14 said. “At this early stage of the season, improvement from week to week is indicative of our training.”

The women’s team finished third at the Ivy League Championships last year. Randolph said that the Bulldogs are going to have to see improvements from more than just their top swimmers to repeat that performance. “We will need girls scoring in the second through fifth positions,” Randolph added. The men’s team also had a SEE SWIMMING PAGE 11

Shaffer leads Bulldogs A

BY KEVIN KUCHARSKI STAFF REPORTER Robyn Shaffer ’13 is an epeeist on the women’s fencing team and is currently serving as the team’s captain for the second consecutive season. The Nashville, Tenn. native, who was originally a walk-on, placed 12th at the NCAA Northeast Regionals her sophomore year and was an Academic All-Ivy selection last season. The women’s fencing team opened its season last weekend at the Garret Open at Penn State, where Shaffer and two of her fellow Bulldogs earned top 16 finishes.

QWhen did you begin fencing?

The first time I picked up a blade was fourth grade. It was an after school program at my school, one of those programs that keeps kids until 4:00 so your parents can stay at work. I thought it was fun and I just never stopped.

did you realize you QWhen would have an opportunity to fence at the collegiate level?

It wasn’t until second semester junior year when I started really looking at colleges and I thought, “Oh, I can keep doing this.” I actually wasn’t a recruit — I’m a walk-on. I spoke with different coaches both in the spring of my junior year and over the summer and talked to them SEE FENCING PAGE 11

GOLF

The course at Yale stands tests of time BY ALEX EPPLER CONTRIBUTING REPORTER In 1923, the widow of former Bulldog football captain Ray Tompkins 1884 bestowed Yale with a sizable donation to be used for the University’s athletic programs. The University purchased a 700-acre swath of land close to Yale’s campus that golf course architect Charles Blair Macdonald once described as forest, rock and muck. Eighty-nine years later, one of the country’s premier college

golf courses occupies that area. Ranked by Golfweek as the No. 1 campus course for the past three years, the course at Yale will play host to an NCAA regional tournament for the fifth time in its history in 2015. Director of Golf Operations Peter Pulaski said the course stands as a prime example of early American golf architecture. “It remains a very relevant, challenging test of golf for college golfers,” men’s golf team SEE GOLF PAGE 11

STAT OF THE DAY 12

THE RANKING OF WOMEN’S FENCING TEAM CAPTAIN ROBYN SHAFFER ’13 AT THE NCAA NORTHEAST REGIONALS LAST YEAR. SHE ALSO WAS AWARDED ACADEMIC ALL-IVY HONORS LAST SEASON.